Ok, let’s get ominous…

True Car – is going to eat us all. Oh, they are coming alright, they look nice enough but they are already RICH with profits that dealers refused to earn  themselves. I intercepted some emails from TrueCar (*not true) and these are some facts – They are stealing your dealership's numbers… all of them. Up counts, Passwords, the number code for Snickers in your vending machine(C6), that last beacon score you submitted(632), how many kids your Finance Manager has(2) , the receptionist’s cell phone number(?), your CSI score, EVERYTHING – they want it all! They are the Cookie Monsters of information.

The worst part isn’t that they have our precious numbers, they also have our customers. They are luring them in with some very effective "tricks", building value in their sales process, giving the customer some expectation of what the process will be like, and influencing them with clean crisp video and clever audio tracks. With video they lend the impression that “...hey! Everyone is doing it this way now”. In short, they are doing what we should be doing.

…It gets worse. Once True Car has all our numbers, and ALL our customers they won’t need us. I heard from a knowledgeable source that Scott Painter hates you. After this is all over he is going to build a brand new Internet Price site to help colleges charge as much as possible for tuition. Can you believe that?... he wants to make sure you can’t send your kids to a good school folks! He is starting a movement against white picket fences and would like to make apple pie illegal. He is going to have a team of kids in every market that are going to start stealing tailgates, and breaking windows on the lot. Once dealers’ are on their last leg he will make them trade their first born sons and likely heirs of the family business for HOT leads on fresh new deals. It’s scary out there folks. We are up against a beast and it's feeding itself off our leftovers, scary!

The greatest industry in America isn’t going out business – it’s going ONLINE!

When you camp, if you leave too much meat on the ground the bears will come to clean up and claim what’s left. That is what is happening here,  it’s NOT too late.

Let’s talk about “survival situations”,  I think most dealers in the marketplace right now are in such a position and have been for many years. Yesterday I was watching a survival show and heard this, “…in a real survival situation you reach a point where you only have so much energy left. You have to use this energy to find the right food, and not waste it searching – or you will die.  Obviously, if you stay where you are and do not go after food, you will eventually die”.

In tough times many dealerships look to save money...

“A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” – Henry Ford

Here is a fact:

Wives save money, retired people save money, banks save money – Businesses MAKE money.

  Dealerships need to wake up and realize the industry that surrounds the cars on their lot is moving the point of sale online. The value that they have worked for years to provide on the lot, and in the store won’t matter (or affect the price point) if they don’t move that same presentation and value online. If you don’t go where the customers are and build value in yourself there, someone else will. For years dealers have waited for that someone to be a local competitor, and it never came. So dealers never addressed this as a weakness. But think about it. Huge websites PACKED with opportunities, vehicles only being compared by prices and dealers not putting messages alongside their vehicles. The bad news is: the industry is getting exactly what it deserves out of the True Car situation. You ate a few bites of the turkey leg, left it by the fire… and now the bears are all here!

After a customer buys a car and is asked to rank the things that were most important about their purchase, (AFTER) they often rank “price” out of the top 5. Obviously price is always #1 if asked BEFORE the sale. So what are dealers doing to change that response during the deal/process? Whatever the answer is: we are not also doing that online, and we should be. That is what car dealers have to offer the marketplace, that service!  If someone sells your product, absent of your service… You get True Car.

True Car could never take over the car business, never replace dealerships fully. The fact is that owning a dealership isn't something you can outsource, or the factories would do it. In fact most factories have experimented with starting their own retail locations, factory run dealerships - They ALL failed.  It takes passion, conviction, and innovation to keep a dealership alive...If the factories couldn't take over the car business without dealer principles at the reigns, than neither will True Car. The problem is that they allow for the destruction of our process by teaching our customers NOT TO EXPECT VALUE from their buying experience. THIS is the threat of True Car.

Ever since the beginning days of the Auto Industry, the principles have been the same… Value includes many things. Price should be on the list, but it has never been the MOST important thing before, and the only reason that is has become that way online now, is dealers STOPPED building value where the customers are. The Industry will move online, there will be shoppers who end up with True Car…and there will also be customers that will always pursue the buying experience and consider a better customer experience the most valuable thing offered when buying a newer vehicle. They will just expect to find that value online, as well as in the store.

So now imagine that you are that person in a survival situation stuck in cave. You are cold, hungry, and have very little energy left. You can use that last bit of energy to get involved, and fight for deals, fight for gross, fight for market share with it. Or you can lay in the cave and complain, and let True Car eat your babies.

Join the fight at www.whatsnext.pro

"the quality of your videos reflect the quality of your brand or business."

Andrew Myers

206.478.8721

EDIT:   Since I posted this I noticed an article from a True Car Rep. here:     

In this article he says:

“Likewise, ask any dealer consultant or vendor if you can pay them AFTER their consultation/seminar/training/visit IF AND ONLY IF the dealership actually improves as a direct result.  A vast majority won't largely because they A) aren't that good, and/or B) aren't confident they will actually help the dealer move the needle”.

check out my response here: 

PROMOTE!