Everyone wants to be heard. Yet the person you’re speaking to isn’t always listening. Customers seek someone to understand their goals, deliver a solution, and facilitate a purchase experience. To do this well, though, requires being skilled in active listening. Do your salespeople understand that listening is a skillset?



Whether it be on the phone or in-person, every good salesperson must pay undivided attention…

A message to all in our automotive industry.

All of our businesses are hurting right now. No one is exempt. You are not alone.

Many don’t realize how important dealerships and the businesses that serve them are to our society. Between the countless people our industry employs, to the taxes and philanthropic involvement our communities receive, we are…

What used car shoppers are looking for most of all is peace of mind. As a dealer, you should be educating your staff, and marketing your vehicles, to deliver that peace of mind. The fact that you spend internal dollars reconditioning trade-ins and from-the-auction inventory should not be withheld from today’s consumers. If anything, sharing this information with them can help improve both your merchandising efforts and customer confidence in their purchase…

TrueCar has had a rollercoaster ride in the automotive retail industry over the past few years. However, it appears things may be taking a turn for the worse (both for TrueCar as well as its participating dealer clients). Read on, as I reveal their new policy changes that will have a negative impact on dealers, as well as my in-depth interview with a top eCommerce Directors about this change.



Cliff…

Buy-in. Utilization. Execution. Process. Training. Accountability. Management. These are all things that dealerships require to function in today’s competitive marketplace. And yet, on far too many dealership lots, those being tasked to execute their job’s duties are turning a blind eye to them. Your dealership needs a Hans Gruber.



It is commonplace for salespeople to push back or simply choose …

If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you as well? Is that what your mother always asked you growing up? When caught making a mistake or doing wrong, children will always look to point the finger elsewhere. They’ll blame it on a friend, a neighbor, a bully, or an instigator. They were just following someone else’s lead… even if they knew it was wrong. That’s their excuse.…

Who owns the customers?  Where do your employees work?  Are prospects even being called back?  Some dealers don’t know.  All because we allow some of our sales team members to do it their way.  You’re feeding into their problem. 

I’m asking you to ‘Just Say No’ to…

1)   Letting salespeople use their own personal email addresses when responding back to customers.

2)   Allowing salespeople to make all of their (so-called) follow-up calls to happen from their…

What is for the good of the store is sometimes an unpopular choice for the employees. It requires them to do more than what they are currently doing.  It asks them to solve problems, take initiative, and complete more tasks.  It is very common that salespeople will care more about what is “in it for them” than what is in the best interest of the dealership.  At no point should a salesperson’s unwillingness to execute tasks supersede what is in the best interest of…

Disclaimer: I must preface this by saying it not intended to make any enemies or friends. This is not meant to hurt anyone’s business, call out how they perform for their clients, highlight weaknesses or put stock in one product over another. This was nothing more than a simple experiment.

I was out to dinner with my wife recently when I ran into an old college acquaintance. Very quickly I discovered that she works in our industry for a startup website provider. I tell her…

If Support…

• Responded with a call instead of silence
• Gave you immediate attention instead of a support ticket number
• Answered the phone immediately instead of a queue
• Has a queue, then you know something is desperately wrong
• Responded with action instead of a timeline
• Categorically ranked your need based on how much it is their fault and handled those first.
• Wasn’t overseas
• Is handled with grace and humility instead…

If you haven’t heard, there is a bit of political campaigning going on right now.  Candidates are using every medium of communication to engage potential voters.  They are using the social mediums, but, shockingly, that isn’t all they are using.  They are out stumping.  They are shaking hands and kissing babies.  They are standing behind podiums in public.  Are you campaigning for customers in the same way?  Not sleazy, like a politician, but publicly in the community?

It is…

Sometimes it is not the skills of your people that cause your store’s numbers to flatline.  Sometimes your BDC is fledgling, not because their phone scripts are poor or that the technology is weak, but for the fact that they just don’t see the full impact  their role plays in the organization.

When I train a dealership on-site, the first thing I do is impress upon their BDC and Internet Managers that their daily duties are greater than the tasks built out for them in the…

Once again, another dealership ruins it for the rest of us.  Recently, a customer in Anchorage Alaska was the winner of a 2009 Nissan GT-R on eBay Motors with a bid of $55,100.  Now, the dealer (Honda of San Marcos) is refusing to sell the vehicle to them.  The bugaboo:  It was a No-Reserve Auction.

This is another shining example of how a dealership participates in a platform without knowledge, training, or guidance, and gives our industry a black-eye.  The dealership is…

Before you begin recruiting, interviewing, or hiring for the position of Internet Manager/BDC/Internet Director, there are three crucial things you must do first.

1)  Determine the hierarchy of the store.  Who will this person, in a new department, be reporting to?  Often anyone from sales managers to salespeople believe they can delegate work to someone in the Internet department while the top stores usually have a director or GM as the only entity that presides over the…

I popped open my DealerKnows email this morning and saw that Google Analytics sent out a Benchmark Newsletter.  (See below).  If you recall, when signing up for your Google Analytics account, you were offered to "opt-in" to anonymous data-sharing with Google.  Well they've consolidated the data and are making some modifications to their standard benchmarking report.  The information is revealing, but how does the…

While speaking to a 20 Group last month, I was asked if transferring leads to the sales floor is the best way to manage online opportunities.  Simply put, I prefer an Internet department still to this day. I understand many are saying "disperse leads to the sales floor because all customers are internet shoppers anyway and they should be able to assist them". Here is the flaw... constructing well-worded replies without spelling errors and well-thought out responses with grammatically correct…

Baseball season is back in full swing. (See what I did there?  Yes, very cheesy, I know). And spring training for the teams is coming to an end.  They’ve spent well over a month preparing themselves and their minds for the day-to-day responsibilities that go along with a season of baseball.  Trainers, managers, and coaches get together to evaluate their personnel and to get them ready for action.  Several dealers do the very same when they seek out training for their team.



Dealers…