Don’t you feel like the Internet disrupted a perfectly good way of doing business?

If not, you’re one of the lucky ones. There are so many dealerships that are struggling to find the best approach to building their business online and dominating the market.

On top of that, the internet appears to have caused everyone to suffer from attention deficit. When online users want something, they want it fast and concise. They don’t want to search a million and one different sources to find the information that they’re looking for.

But amidst the clutter, there is a simple business principle that has stood the test of time and transferred online. In fact, the dealerships that utilize this business principle are enjoying incredible success doing business on the web.

The principle is perfectly described in the acronym B.R.T.

Any ideas?

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS OF TRUST

Doing things that will help facilitate the building of trusting relationships between you and your audience has always made the difference in any type of business. When you consider that marketing is about conveying the right message, to the right audience at the right time and in the right tone, the whole objective is to build a relationship of trust - a relationship that lasts.

Taking steps to BRT online will compel your online visitors to take action and visit you in person or pick up the phone and call you.

So what are some things you can do to BRT online?

1. You will never go wrong with content

Automotive consumers are thirsting for information. Everyday there are millions of them that go online to research your products and services. Google has indicated that 70% of people that research vehicles online involve heavy cross-shopping.

Alas, most dealer websites do not include enough content to help shape the consumers purchase decision. BUT taking the time to build a content strategy for you dealership including the topics that your consumers are interested in is a surefire way to earn their loyalty and trust.

2. Behind the scenes video

Video provides a massive opportunity to show your audience the aspects of your business that they wouldn’t normally get to see. Most of the time when we talk about video in the industry, it usually has to do with showing off the inventory, but imagine how powerful a virtual tour video of your dealership could be in helping your online visitors break the ice and feel comfortable with your dealership before they even come to visit in person.

Another great video to create would be on your staff page. Wouldn’t it be cool for your entire team to create a short 30 second to 1 minute video introducing themselves and inviting you to visit the dealership with a smile? When your visitors feel familiar with the faces that they will see inside the dealership, it helps alleviate any pressure that they may feel walking onto the lot.

3. Make sure your vehicle information is complete

It’s surprising just how many dealer websites I visit to this day that still have missing or incomplete vehicle information. If you want to build trust with your online visitors, provide them the information about your vehicles that they came to see. Make sure each vehicle has the right pricing and incentive information. Make sure there are enough photos and videos.

Certainly there are many more things that you can do to BRT online, but these three are simple solutions that you can start doing right now. If you checked out Subi’s last post, you’ll notice that she emphasizes the importance of application. You’re going to hear about this topic as well on an upcoming episode of The Dealer Playbook podcast, because it’s so true. Start BRT-ing online by applying the principles that I’ve mentioned in this article.

You’re turn. What are you doing online that has helped build relationships of trust? Chime in using the comments below.

Okay, check it out.

In my last article I wrote about how most dealerships come across a little conceited online, but say that they are a customer-centric organization.

I mentioned that it's alright to talk about yourself, but ONLY in a way that demonstrates maximum benefit to your customers.

Well now I'm going to reveal how to kick your website up a notch and dominate the web, (and your market).

Like I was saying, people don't care about you nearly as much as they care about themselves.

That means that the name of the game is presenting information on your website that people care about.

But how can you produce content and information that EVERYONE will find interesting?

It's more simple than you think.

Unlike traditional media, your website has the power to cover a wide array of topics that address the needs and wants of different customer segments AT THE SAME TIME.

How do you get started? Fhugetaboudit, it's easy peasy. 

1.) Look at your current customer portfolio and identify the variety of customer segments that you already serve.

These could include Seniors, Young Families, Bachelors, Bachelorettes, College Students, Union Workers, Military/Veterans etc.

2.) Create a list of topics that those various segments would find interest. Use logic and common sense. 

What I mean by that is this:

If you want to create content topics geared toward Seniors, think about the things that they are interested in. 

a.) Vehicles that are easy to get in and out of (maybe just had a knee surgery or something)

b.) Vehicles that can tow a travel trailer

c.) Vehicles with a little more luxury (they're done raising children and have a little more money to keep for themselves etc.)

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Once you've identified the topics for each segment do this:

3.) Identify the objectives for each piece of content that you want to create.

If it's a video, figure out what the call-to-action will be so that you can track the effectiveness of it.

If it's a blog, think of the path you want that customer segment to take and what action you want them to complete.

Here's why this is important:

Everyday, millions of automotive shoppers around the globe go online to find information that addresses their concerns or answers their questions.

Right now, there aren't really any dealer websites that provide the content that automotive consumers are looking for.

You're giving the OEMs and other third party websites the power to scoop up qualified vehicle shoppers and distribute them how they please. Most of the time, to your competitors.

By segmenting your content, you're empowered to reach various people with the topics that they care most about. 

In my next article, I'm going to reveal why this strategy works so extremely well and why you HAVE to start doing it.

Want help identifying your customer segments? Send me a friend request and we can set up a time to get connected.

This photo cracks me up because it looks as if the guy wants to make sure that you've noticed how good he looks in the reflection of the car!

What a stupid, selfish, conceited sounding question, right? "What do you think about me?"...

Yet this is what I see on the majority of dealership websites that I visit. 

A whole lot of "We're so awesome" and "Look at how pretty we are" or "We are the best"...

Okay, so you aren't using those words exactly, but you're using words that nobody cares about like these:

"We're a family-owned and operated facility with 35 years of experience" OR

"We have the best team of professional sales people ready to work with you..." OR

"Come visit our state-of-the-art facility to find out why we're the best choice for new and used cars in [location]"

Man oh man, I'm cringing just writing those phrases.

But why are they so bad?

BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS. 

And then after all of that crap, you have the nerve to put a "Rate us" page or link on your site.

"But enough about me, let's talk about you. What do YOU think about me?" 

Sounds more stupid the longer you think about it right? So let's talk about how to turn things around so that you can kick you dealership website up a notch.

First things first.

You MUST understand that every individual on the planet has a favorite word and letter. Their name and the letter 'i'. 

Why? Because nobody cares about you as much as they care about themselves. 

Now I'm not saying it's entirely bad to talk about yourself, but you need to focus on presenting yourself in a way that demonstrates maximum benefit to your customers. 

"Great, you are an award winning dealership. What does that mean for me?"

"Fantastic, you have the best leasing specialist in the entire state - that benefits me HOW?"

"Wonderful, you have a state-of-the-art facitility - how does that have a positive impact on me?"

The information you present on your website needs to be carefully thought out for maximum market penetration and benefit to your customers.

Think about the message you are conveying about your dealership to the largest traffic source you have. 

Are you presenting yourself as a truly customer-centric dealership, or are you like the rest of the pack?

In my next article, I'm going to talk about how you can take this concept and really ramp up your game. 

It's all about setting yourself apart from what others are doing, and I'm going to show you how to do that through your dealership website. 

Stay tuned...

Actually, scratch that. 

This isn't just going to be about Bounce rate, but all of your dealer website's metrics in general. 

Starting with Bounce Rate.

First, you MUST understand what bounce rate is exactly.

Bounce rate is measured by the number of people that visit your website (or a specific page on your site) and leave without a second interaction.

An interaction is measured by how deep a visitor travels through your site. A click-through from a call-to-action button on one page to another is considered an interaction. So, if your site visitors are clicking from link to link on your site and viewing a lot of pages, your bounce rate will be LOW.

BUT, there are so many people out there trying to teach you how to lower websites bounce rate, arguing that doing so will somehow help you see an increase in leads, but I'm here to prove them wrong.

While I will agree that getting deep within a site provides more opportunity for the site visitor to complete an action, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will complete an action. Catch my drift?

If you really want to get your website producing quality traffic and leads, you need to consider two things.

1.) What's the overall objective of the site as a whole, and

2.) What's the objective of each individual page on the website

Without those two things clearly defined, it doesn't matter what your bounce rate, click-through-rate, behavior flow, time on site, visitors vs. unique visitors and the butt load of other metrics are. Your website will never perform the way you want it to.

Why? Because you won't even know for yourself what the definition of performance is.

So, do me a favor right now. Take some time to identify what the objectives of your website are.

Now back to bounce rate.

There are hundreds of high-traffic blogs out there that have near 100% bounce rates. 

Any idea why?

Because, even though they didn't create a second interaction, the page or blog post that the visitor landed on had the primary objective on the same page.

In other words, they completed the desired action on the first page that they landed on.

It might've been a lead submission form to download a free whitepaper or ebook, it might even just be a sign up form to stay connected via a newsletter.

What you MUST understand is that your website's bounce rate is directly proportionate to your objectives and the path you desire the visitor to take to get to those objectives. 

Understand that if your objective (the desired action) happens on the same page that the visitor lands on, your bounce rate will be higher. 

If you want the customer to click through a funnel of links before they get to the final desired action on your site, your bounce rate will be lower.

There's a reason that some website providers refuse to place your dealership's phone number on the homepage of your website. Because they are trying to force the user to create a second interaction to find it, causing them to click deeper into your website...

If your bounce rate is low, your provider get's to boast how effective they made your website perform, and so far, a ton of you are buying into it. 

STOP!

Here's the problem. Your website isn't performing the way it should or you wouldn't even be reading this.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

Before you worry about bounce rate and the plethora of other metrics to track on your website, focus on what the objective of your website is in the first place.

Identify what path you want the customer to follow that will lead them to your desired end result.

That path may be going deep on your site from page to page, or it may be on the same page they land on.

Once you know what you want the customer to accomplish, understand what normal bounce rates look like in those scenarios.

Have questions about tracking bounce rates properly? Hit me up in the comments below. 

Success is a fascinating thing because every individual on the planet has their own definition of the word.

The dictionary defines success as a “favorable or desired outcome”

This is SO genius because it means that, not only can everyone have their own definition, but that THERE IS ENOUGH SUCCESS TO GO AROUND!

For some people, success is having the necessities…

For others, it’s making loads upon loads of money…

BUT, no matter what your definition of the word is, there is something that so many people miss out on when pursuing success.

Any idea what it is?

Have you ever heard that saying, “Success Breeds Success”? 

Believe it or not, there is something so powerful about rubbing shoulders with highly successful people.

How do you know who's truly successful though? The best way for you to know if they’re successful is to ask yourself two simple questions:

1.) Are they the type of person that you hope to be (character traits, qualities etc.) and, 

2.) Do they have the things that you want to have? (Could be material objects, status, expertise etc.)

When you find someone that you can answer ‘yes’ to those two questions, do whatever you can to be apart of their circle.

You see, when you rub shoulders with successful people (the people that are who you aim to become), there are natural born opportunities that arise from your mere association with them.

One of the best ways that I know of to be in the presence of successful people is to attend as many workshops and conferences as you can. Where else do you get the opportunity to be in the same room with these successful people, have lunch with them and ask them questions?

There are approximately 17,000+ dealerships in the United States today. Including every employee, how many people work in the retail car business? LOTS! …

Yet, there are very few who attend conferences. 

There is no question that these conferences come with a price tag, but you absolutely, 100% CANNOT let the price of success, cost you your success.

Listen, I am not involved with any particular conference for financial gain. I have just come to learn that if you want to be successful, you need to get connected with other like-minded, successful individuals and I don’t know any other better place than at the plethora of workshops and conferences going around. 

One of the next ones you can see me at will be the Internet Sales 20 Group in Boston this coming September.

Supercharge the achievement of your personal definition of success. Start rubbing shoulders with successful people. 

Have questions? Hook me up in the comments below.

There is something going on with dealership websites that needs to stop ASAP!

It’s something that should be pretty obvious, but clearly isn’t.

Know what I’m talking about?

Most websites for car dealers look, feel and flow the same way as each other.

They all have the same messaging, calls-to-action, design concepts and lack the site traffic needed to make a big impact on gross or net profits.

The problem is that automotive consumers are much more web-savvy than they’ve ever been.

They have been conditioned to use the internet in a specific way based on the sites they visit on a regular basis.

Sites like Amazon, eBay, Facebook and other ecommerce and social sites.

Most dealer websites are not providing the experience that online users are already used to. They are playing catchup.

I think most dealers would agree that the objective of their website is to get more leads from their website. After all, more leads = more sales opportunities, right?

Well here’s a secret that will get your website converting traffic like a machine.

I must warn you, that this secret will require...WORK.

Nonetheless, it’s a tried and tested strategy that will separate your dealership from the vast majority of other dealers and help you dominate your market online.

If you look at the other websites out there that your consumers are visiting on a regular basis, what do they all have in common?

Information in the form of content.

You see, every day MILLIONS of automotive consumers are going online to research your products and services. You know what they’re finding? Your competitors.

Why? Because your competitors are providing more information on their websites than you are.

Why is it that I can go online and find more information about a $20 cell phone case than most consumers can about the second largest investment of their life?

Think about it!

You need to get more content on your website that covers a variety of topics.

Blog about the latest vehicles on your lot. Do video test drives. Talk about your products and services in a way that provides REAL value to your customers. Leave the pitch out.

Just focus on value, value, value and more value.

The cool thing about providing value in the form of content is that you’ll attract the right type of customers to your site.

All you need to do is identify the type of customer you wish to attract and then create content that speaks to them.

When you know who you’re speaking to, it gets that much easier to know what to ask them as well. All you have to do is line up the call-to-action with the content that you’ve created.

This strategy will give you an immediate increase in leads because you’ll be able to leverage your existing site traffic.

So here’s the breakdown on how to get started:

1.) Figure out what type of customer you want to speak to (vehicle sales, parts, services, finance etc.)

2.) Create content in the form of a blog, videos, images etc that speak to them about what they’re interested in

3.) Keep the pitch out of your content - just focus on providing REAL value to the customer

4.) Include a call-to-action that’s relevant to your content

Doing so will allow you to:

1.) Leverage your existing site traffic

2.) Attract new Qualified site traffic

3.) Increase leads from your website

Have fun with this, and feel free to comment with your questions if you’d like some help getting started.

The next time you turn on your television, do me a favor! Watch the commercials and see if you can identify what target audience the advertisements are intended for, and what calls to action are included to entice that audience to buy.

Once you’ve had a chance to complete this little exercise, take a look at the advertising and marketing materials produced by your dealership. Can you identify the target audience and call to action?

If you take a look back over the articles I’ve written over the past year or so, you’ll recognize a consistent theme. I tend to focus my articles on the importance of creating customer segments and ways that you can reach out to them more effectively.

While I won’t get into it too much in this article, I wanted to show you a cool Audi Australia commercial that I found online that features famous Beatboxer Tom Thum. Take a look at the video and let me know in the comments what audience Audi Australia intended this commercial for and what action they hope is accomplished.

What do you think? Comment below!

Okay, you got me! This article has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you.

On a daily basis I analyze dealer websites which I’m convinced had the same content writer. Have you ever seen websites with sentences that read like this, “Our team of automotive professionals have the knowledge you need to buy the right car...”? or “We understand that everyone has different financial situations, that’s why we’re proud to offer auto loans for every credit situation...”? or my favorite, “We are an award winning ________ dealer here to serve you!”...

OH SHOOT; that’s your website?!? Don’t worry, I’ll look away while you quickly delete those portions of your site content.

If you’re familiar with dealership website content that reads like a conceited teenaged football jockey wrote it, then read on! I’d like to dispel a myth and offer a content creation suggestion that you can take to the bank.

The Myth: Talking about yourself and your achievements makes you look more professional

Wrong! It makes you sound like the kind of person who stares at himself/herself anywhere a reflection can be seen. Nobody cares about you. They don’t care about your stupid awards. Why? Because they are your awards, not theirs.

You see, everyone has a favorite letter of the alphabet. Can you guess what it is?  Yup, the letter ‘I’. Instead of spending so much time talking about yourself and calling it a day, try refocusing your content on how being an award winner will help the consumer move closer to what they’d like to achieve or obtain.

This leads me to...

A Suggestion: Make Your Site Content All About The Consumer!

There are several ways that this can easily be done, but here’s the suggestion I’ll make here.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Write out a list of things that automotive consumers would want/need to know to help shape their purchase decision. This list could include topics like:

• Buying vs. Leasing

• Used car buying 101

• Private seller vs. Certified Dealership

• Financing options

• Credit rebuilding program

• Graduate student program

• Senior discounts

• Military discounts

• Affinity programs

• Used car specials

• New car specials

• ...and the list could go on and on

Once you’ve compiled the list, think about your customer. Make every sentence you write a benefit to them. Show them how they can get what they want by working with your dealership. If you truly aim to help others achieve what they want, you will get everything you want (If you know who said that, write it in the comments below).  

Last thoughts

We could go in a million directions from here, but doing so would end us right back to where we are now. Confused about what makes good content, and discouraged not know how to get started. To summarize; stop talking so much about yourself, start talking about your customers.

How have you used content to drive more sales?

A few months ago I wrote a post titled, "How Important Is Price Really?" in which I discuss how there is too much emphasis on price when it comes to vehicle/dealership advertising. If you haven't already done so, I would suggest you take a minute to read through that post as this one will really be a continuation of the topic.

This article will touch on a simple marketing strategy that you can start implementing today in order to drive more qualified traffic to your business and start selling more vehicles, service and F&I. It's one of the most vital and fundamental marketing practices that, from my observation, is grossly overlooked. 

Take a look at this dealership ad that I pulled from an AutoTrader style magazine. Look familiar?

What about this one from the newspaper? Is it similar to what you're current advertising looks like?

If so, are you able to identify what's wrong with these ads? If you guessed that they haven't identified a specific demographic, you win the prize. Picture/price, picture/price, picture/price does not drive qualified traffic. In fact, when all of your advertising revolves around price, you are only speaking to between 2-5% percent of in-market consumers which is just not large enough of a power base to grow your profits the way you'd like to see them grow. If you and every dealership in your area are advertising with nothing but picture and price, you are waging an intense battle in an effort to conquer a very small percentage of people. 

So what can you start doing today that will increase your dealership show rate through advertising?

A friend of mine once said (in speaking of firearms), "Nobody ever sees where you aim, they only see what you hit!" To take that a step further, if you don't even set your targets, how will you know where to you can improve your shooting?

Step 1: Set Your Targets

Take a moment to look back over your previous customer list in order to identify a common theme among them. It could be age, gender, most common vehicle purchased etc. This data can play a vital role in setting your targets because it can tell you about the demographics that you cater your products and services to.

Step 2: Use the trash can

If you're in the process of assembling an ad to hand to your local newspaper or niche magazine and it's going to be another one of those picture and price ads, crumple it up and throw it in the recycling! You're better off to do that now before what you actually throw in the garbage are your advertising dollars.

Step 3: Speak to your Target Demographic

Based on the data that you have acquired from looking at your past customer portfolio, take a moment to determine what the common interests and concerns are (generally speaking) for that demographic. Once you have that figured out, start assembling your ad with special offers, promotions and vehicles that they would be interested in.

For example, if you find that the majority of your sales over the passed few months (or year) have been to retired couples, start promoting seniors discounts or military vet discounts. 

In the other hand, if you identify that majority of your customers are young families or single mothers, start advertising vehicles that have excellent safety ratings, low finance rates and promotions that reward people that have children. 

The point is that you must get creative with your advertising, and you must start a dialogue between you and your target customers through your advertising.

Food for thought

Take a moment to think about all of the various promotions that your dealership offers. Do you have any for Veterans, Seniors, Students or other groups of people? If so, pat yourself on the back - lay off the picture/price and start advertising your promotions to those people.

If you don't have any of those promotions or special programs, start putting them together. Determine what you will offer to the various groups of people so that you can start having "dialed-in" conversations with the market.

In this way, you will drive more qualified traffic to your dealership without have to participate in the in-effective picture/price battle with which you are currently engaged.

What do you think? Kindly leave your comments, questions, or feedback below.

If you've watched my other video's, we have discussed the following:

→ What role gratitude plays in your success
→ What is the definition of success
→ Developing a 99.9% WHY statement

Now we move on to the recipe. With so many people wondering how to be successful, I suggest that success comes from following a process. It's no different than baking a chocolate cake. If you want to end up with the proven result of chocolate cake, you'd better follow the proven recipe that will get you there.

In my career, I've had the privalege of being mentored by many very successful people and you know what? They all say the same thing. When asked, "How did you become so successful?", the response is, "By doing what other successful people do".

That validates what is written in such books as Dale Carnegies, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" or Napoleon Hills, "Think and Grow Rich".

If you'd like to achieve your own personal definition of success and you want to know how to become successful in life, you MUST follow the recipe.

Stay tuned for my next video where I'll introduce you to the 1st ingredient in the recipe for success.

Your success starts here.

This past week, I made the risky move of upgrading to the newly released Windows 8 operating system; Microsoft’s bold attempt at upgrading their OS which has kept the same fundamental functionality for more than a decade. While slightly hesitant to upgrade before a service pack was available, I ultimately chose to take advantage of Microsoft’s limited time $39.99 upgrade offer. Talk about utilizing the "urgency" close right?

As I’ve played around with the new OS for the past few days, I’ve made some observations that may turn out to be a prediction of a new technological frontier for dealers who are looking to kick things into high gear... or I may just be out to lunch. Whatever your opinion may be, just go with me on this for a minute.

New Windows 8 Features

The most noticeable of all the new features for Windows 8, is the shiny new start screen which really acts as a dashboard to your most visited apps. Though some critics complain that Windows 8 is optimized for tablets, I haven’t had any problems finding my way around with a mouse.

Microsoft has redesigned the UI for many of their apps and have included some new apps, all of which come with a very streamlined and integrated experience. Among my favorites are the new music player app which comes loaded with the ability to stream full length music and a new “smart dj” tool that automatically creates a playlist based on an artist genre of your choosing.

How Dealers Could Benefit From Windows 8

Thanks for listening to me ‘nerd out’ for a second. Let me get to how car dealers could actually use Windows 8 to leverage new business and reach larger groups of car shoppers in their own home.

What got me me thinking was the newly added “Store” app which allows users to browse from a variety of both paid and free applications. Simply select the category of app you wish to download and you have the ability to select from hundreds if not thousands of apps to have installed on your PC. If you know your way around the app store or play market, this will be quite easy for you.

Imagine what would happen if you created a Windows 8 app that was compatible on both desktop PCs and Windows tablets? There has been a lot of talk around whether or not Dealers should develop iPhone and Android apps vs. keeping with dealership mobile websites, but think about the doors you could unlock by tapping into an even larger traffic source!

Let’s talk numbers. By 2008 (according to Forrester), there were 1,000,000,000 (Billion) PCs in use with a forecast of 2 billion in use by the end of 2015. It took 27 years to reach the 1 billion mark and will only take 7 years (from 2008) to reach 2 billion. If that’s not simply incredible to you consider that the average number of PCs needing to be sold year after year since 2008 is 142,857,142 in order to reach the forecasted target by 2015.

Now, have you purchased a new PC lately? Don’t they come pre-loaded with a Windows operating system? According to Amazon, every new PC sold between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013 will receive a special upgrade offer of only $14.99, thus placing Windows 8 well within the reach of hundreds of millions of people.

Just To Get The Juices Flowing

Consider how many of the 142,857,142 PC buyers this year are also in the market to purchase a vehicle or are at least conducting some level of vehicle research. I’ll tell you what - that new Microsoft ‘Store App’ is pretty fun to navigate and somehow sucks you in just like Apple’s famed App store and Android’s Play Market, so imagine what competitive advantage you’d have by placing your dealership and your brand in front of the masses.

I envision a personalized shopping experience filled with user reviews, dealership videos, blogs and news. Since the app is installed on the personal computer, (and I’m just thinking out loud here), imagine if there was a way to have your app send notifications to your potential customer's calendar, email, social networks and more. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and if done strategically, dealers could tap into a massive market of vehicle shoppers.

To take it one step further, though Windows 7 and 8 tablets don’t contribute much to tablet sales as of current, Windows 8 tablets are forecasted to help tablet sales increase by 4% according to Gartner. Apple still remains king of the mobile arena with roughly 60% market share, however,with an estimated 117,000,000 tablet shipments in 2012 alone, 4% works out to 4,680,000 (4.68 million) Windows 8 Tablet shipments and that is more than enough users to inject your dealership with some serious prospects.

In closing, let me say that there are many, many avenues to help drum up new business. I had the pleasure of attending Lon Safko’s keynote at AutoCon in which he enlightened us on the various social media marketing opportunities from Facebook to Second Life. I swear - by the end of his presentation there were multiple silent explosions in people’s heads, followed by smoke trailing out of their ears.

The point is that there are sooooo many ways to prospect for new business and technology, whether revamped or emerging provides you with more ways to reach out to potential buyers than ever before. Windows 8 is just another example of something you could use to leverage new business for your dealership.

What do you think? Kindly leave your comments below. Happy developing.

In the city I live in, there is a run down, nasty looking house taking up some prime commercial real-estate that I'm pretty sure every Realtor in town has taken a crack at trying to sell. Seriously! Every couple of months there is a new sign out front from some poor real-estate professional who gives the property a try. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure this property has been on the market for quite a few years. 

Last night, my wife and I were driving past the house and I couldn't help but think that it was the appearance of the property that was causing the lack of interest. Think about it, even though the for sale sign mentions the great "Commercial Property" potential, there has been no movement on it whatsoever.

The solution I came up with is simple. Tear the sucker down. Pull out the grass and weeds and promote the empty dirt lot. Right now, the house is causing a major distraction in the minds of potential buyers because they can't see their business operating in such a disgusting place. Tear the building down and clean up the property and I think you'd be surprised at how fast this thing will sell. 

So How Does This Relate To Automotive Sales?

It actually relates well to any form of sales, but since this is an automotive and RV community, let's talk vehicle sales. You see, there are a couple of fundamentals about appearance that every sales person looking to improve their game should be mindful of. Let's take a few minutes to break a couple of them down. 

Dress For Success

I'm sure you've heard this one before right? According to an article on usatoday.com; Gladys Edmunds shares an experience she had at a major mortgage firm where everyone from the receptionist to the executives had too casual of an appearance. 

If you're interested in boosting your sales, take some time to consider whether or not your appearance at work is too casual and what effect it has on your demeanor. I'm not suggesting that you need to wear an expensive three piece suit to work (unless that's you're thing), but what I will say is that dressing for success has a positive impact on how you conduct yourself and how others deal with you. I'd encourage you to test it out and see if you notice any positive impact on sales and personal productivity. 

We talk about this all the time. Vehicles are often the second largest investment that people will make in their life, so think about what kind of experience you are offering if your appearance is too casual. What kind of experience and professional would you want to deal with if you were expected to fork out thousands of your hard earned dollars?

Eliminate Distractions

The whole idea here is to eliminate anything and everything that will shift the focus of your customer away from the vehicle. I'm not going to waste any time beating around the bush, so I will just come out and say it. Do you stink? Let's face it, we've all been in a situation where we've had to talk to someone that smells foul. It's pretty awful isn't it? 

I was in a dealership not too long ago and had a conversation with one of the sales consultants who was A.) Wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt and B.) Had the worst body odor I've come across in a long time. Oh, where's your compassion Mike?!? This article is my compassion. If you or anyone you know has an issue with smelling like a dumpster fire, you pass along this article for them to read.

Think about it though, how can your customer possibly stay focuses on your presentation if throughout the entire visit, they are trying to discreetly hold their noses, hold their breath or fan the air around their face? They're distracted and don't want to be around you anymore.

On the flip side, and in defense of smelly people everywhere; this can also be said of sales people who take a shower in cologne or perfume.

Think about the house again for a second. The reason I'm sure that property hasn't sold is because nobody can envision what their building will look like there because every time they do, they see this nasty looking house that get's in their way. 

I think you get where I'm going with this - let's just say if you create distractions for your customers, they aren't able to fully focus on what you are presenting.

Conclusion

Your appearance definitely has an impact on your sales. Of course there are a variety of other things that may impact sales performance, but how you present yourself is the easiest to change because you can do it as early as your next shift. Give it a try and see what happens.

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Question: Have you had an experience where appearance (either yours or someone else's) has impacted you positively or negatively? Share your experience in the comments below!

Having looked back over nearly two decades of automotive advertising from newspapers to niche auto and RV magazines, I find it interesting that nothing has changed. The methodology and strategy has had no improvements which begs to ask: are the results getting any better or are they continuing to diminish?

One of the reasons I believe the strategy used for traditional advertising isn't performing as well as it used to is because, for the most part, ads haven't changed or evolved to meet modern consumer demands and expectations. Consumer expectations are continually evolving and it's vital for any dealership to take some time to figure out with laser accuracy what group of people each ad is meant to target and work to unveil their emotional needs.

An example would be to say that week one's ad will focus on attracting single mothers with small children or young families. In this instance, plastering a hundred different vehicles on a page doesn't really speak to these groups of people. Running an ad, however, that focuses on a common vehicle that these consumers would purchase (a mini-van or compact SUV), as well as the safety features of that vehicle pulls on the heart strings of the consumer and attracts them into coming up with reasons to purchase.

Picture, price, picture, price, picture, price just doesn't work any more - and let's face it, when it did; those ads were only targeting a measly 2 - 5% of in-market consumers. 

By focusing on consumer expectations, determining what target market you will try and reach with each ad, and determining the best way to uncover the consumers emotional needs, you'll pump some life back into your traditional marketing efforts and start tracking a positive return on your advertising investment.

What say you?

I know what you're thinking – who does this guy think he is? How does he know what my “thing” is. Good – I have your attention.

I find it absolutely fascinating just how many dealerships I've walked into over the past couple of months and found, you ready for this? Silence. No customers on the lot, sales people hanging out around reception, flirting, cracking jokes, texting and the list goes on. Everything opposite of what should be happening is happening.

I spent a few minutes with a client at a major franchise dealership just last week talking about this exact topic. He is at his whits end with how things are looking at his dealership but just doesn't know how to turn things around and foster a productive change at his store.

Are you, or someone you know feeling the same way? Let's bring things back to basics for a few minutes and look at a couple of ways to turn things around. Success is hanging in the balance.

Do You Dream?

Sounds cheesy I know. One of my kids favorite movies is Disney's “Tangled”. The story of Rapunzel who has been locked up in a tower her whole life and has a dream to check out the annual lantern festival on her 18^th birthday. Haven't seen it yet? Sorry for the spoiler.

There's one scene in the movie where in Disney fashion, the characters break out into song about Having a dream. The essence of it is that each character had a dream at one point and for whatever reason it was taken from them. Now, back to you and I.

Do you have a dreams? Have they been taken from you due to the economy, dream stealers or a plethora of other excuses? Do you still know what you want for your dealership?

If you'd like to create positive, productive and profitable changes within your business, here are the first two steps.

1. Define (or re-define) your dream

2. Gain a burning desire for its achievement.

Moving on...

Willingness to Learn / Willingness to Take Action

Have you ever read any self-help “be successful” types of articles? They all seem to offer the “fail proof” way to achieve greater success. They always seems to start with putting the pen to paper and writing down goals. Goals are great, don't get me wrong. I just don't agree that they are a sustainable driving force to helping you accomplish the success you are seeking.

Don't believe me? How many people do you know that actually stick to their New Year resolutions? If setting goals gave us enough sustainable power to act, there would be no more New Year Resolutions – the world would be a better place filled with extremely thin, successful, wealthy, patient, traveling, money-saving people.

Let me submit that before putting pen to paper, one must determine the level of their willingness to learn and willingness to take action. Think about this for a second. You've clearly defined your dream and now have a burning desire. If your dream is to have a more successful dealership by selling more vehicles, take a moment to rate your willingness to learn and willingness to take action in order to make that dream happen.

If I asked you to give yourself a “Willingness” score, what would it be?

Take a minute, pull out a piece of paper and give yourself a “willingness to learn” score between 1 and 10 (1 being none, and 10 being high). What did you come up with? Now do the same for your “willingness to take action”. What? Two 10's? Really? That's amazing! Now where would your score go if I told you the only way to make this happen is to abstain from drinking coffee for one full month? Why the sudden decrease?

Here's why goal-setting isn't the first step to success. All of us have goals, most of us haven't really determined whether or not we have the willingness to make them happen. Often the only thing that stands in the way of achieving dreams is our willingness to learn new ways of doing things and our willingness to take necessary action. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make your dreams a reality or would you prefer to just keep going as you are?

Conclusion:

Stop with the shenanigans! Continuing to do business the same way with no willingness to learn or take action will just give you more of the same depressing results. If you aren't picking up what I'm putting down right now, then selling cars and being profitable just isn't your thing.

Now - Stop blaming the economy and other lame excuses for your lack of success. Achieving your definition of success is in your capable hands. Define your dream, determine your level of willingness, and enjoy the results. You deserve it.

Michael Cirillo is the Executive VP at AutoVelocity™ and works with dealerships to help them achieve greater success through their marketing efforts.

www.autovelocity.ca

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For those of you who know a little bit about me, you know that I  worked in the print media and advertising industry for nearly a decade and grew up around the industry my entire life. I want to spend a couple of minutes discussing some concepts that I am more than confident will help your dealership in attracting new and returning customers so that you can start seeing more (and better) results for your dealership immediately. That's right - I just said "IMMEDIATELY".

A little bit of background first:

Over the years, you've probably noticed that the ads you see in the newspaper or in magazines haven't really changed much. They consist of a bunch of pictures of vehicles and the prices associated with those vehicles; Starbursts with low finance rates, or bold letters promoting the BIGGEST SALE EVENT OF THE YEAR! Everything always seems to revolve around price.

There's no doubt that price is an important topic, but maybe not as important as you might think - especially if your aiming to get a fresh influx of new customers walking onto your lot.

To demonstrate, let me encourage you to drive down any auto mile wherever you are, and take a look at the signage that dealers are placing near the roadway with hopes that it will capture new business. What do you see? 

• Employee Pricing Event

• Red Tag Sale

• Really Big Sale

• Year End Clearance

• Inventory Blowout - unbeatable pricing!

Everything revolves around price!

Not even in the market!

Have you ever considered what percentage of people in your area are even in the market to purchase a vehicle? Think about it. What good is busting your chops over showing people how low your finance rates are, or how low your prices are when majority of people aren't even in the market to buy? Don't believe me? Consider this example.

Have you ever found yourself thumbing through a consumer electronics flyer from the weekly paper? If you're like me, you do it all the time. I'm sort of a gadget geek. But what happens when you get to the appliance section of the flyer? You slam the thing shut or throw it away? Why do you think that is? 

Vehicles are much like appliances. When you have appliances that are working, purchasing new ones are the last thing on the totem pole of priorities aren't they? So it is with vehicles. When people have a vehicle that is working, they aren't really in the market. All the best pricing and finance rates in the world won't do a hill of beans for your efforts in attracting new business.

Plenty of Fish in the Sea...Just Not Where You're Looking

Have you ever heard that saying before? It's absolutely true. There are plenty of fish in the sea. The problem is that by focusing primarily on price, you and all of your competitors are fighting over a very small portion of in-market consumers. Have you ever wondered why your print ads aren't getting you the results you want? Have you considered why your website isn't producing the leads that you want it to? 

When you really take a look at it, Dealers that enter the arena prepared to battle over price may not realize that they are fighting over around 2-5% of the entire population. That's really the percentage of people that are in the market to buy a vehicle today. So much effort for so little potential! It's kind of depressing isn't it?

Let's use the odds in your favor. In order to start seeing immediate (measurable and duplicate-able) results for your marketing efforts, you may be required to change the way you think a little, and perhaps; change some of your current process to meet consumer expectation. All in the name of profitability.

What Drives Consumers to Buy?

If only 2-5% of consumers are in the market to purchase a vehicle today, have you considered how you could tap into the other 95-98% of the market that perhaps would be willing to purchase a vehicle but may not necessarily be in the smaller percentage that cares about price?

It's absolutely vital for every dealer that wants to start selling more vehicles, products and services to understand what drives consumer purchase decisions in order to offer something really unique and actually tap into a never ending pool of customers. Let's take a look at a couple of examples of what drive consumers to purchase.

1. Emotional needs / wants: We all have them and because of that,advertising how your products and services can fill an emotional need will actually help you penetrate a larger market and get your business in front of more interested people.

I'm a perfect example of this. A couple of years ago, when my wife and I received news that she was expecting our second son, one of the first things we discussed is how our small sedan would no longer fill our transportation needs (Emotional need #1 - necessity). Could you imagine two car seats, potentially two strollers not to mention half the house that you have to pack up when you have kids, all crammed into the back of a small sedan? We went from not being in the market to being in the market in a matter of days.

The more we thought about what we would need, other issues came up. Safety (emotional need #2), Comfort (emotional need #3), Room (emotional need #3), Vehicle features (emotional need #4) and so on. Price wasn't even on our mind yet because we were too busy formulating our list of needs.

Then came the emotional wants. Status (emotional want #1), luxury (emotional want #2), add-ons (emotional want #3)...you get the picture.

You see, not everyone is in the market to purchase another vehicle. Everyone however, is in the market of fulfilling their emotional needs and wants. While all of your competitors are engaged in the price battle over a small percentage of the market, you could be addressing the demand of a larger market and funneling those consumers into your dealership. You will never run into a short supply by focusing your energy on the things that everyone wants fulfilled – Their emotional needs.

When you have your approach set up correctly, you've strategically provided the right information and uncovered the emotions of your customers, the results will be like magic.

2. Reciprocity: Have you ever heard of the law of reciprocity? This is something that successful marketers have been using for decades and let me tell you, it works extremely well! Most cultures have this law hard-wired into the back of their minds. To simply define it, let me sum it up as I give you something and as a result, you give something in return.

Often I find dealers practicing this law, but in reverse. Customers often have to make a purchase before they can get the value added offer, when really it should be flipped the other way around. Give something of value to the customer first, build the relationship and they will reciprocate by making a purchase from you.

Conclusion:

Whether you want to believe it or not, it doesn't really matter. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. If you truly want to increase the profitability of your dealership, stop focusing so much energy on pricing. Remove yourself from that never-ending uphill battle and re-target your efforts into fulfilling the emotional needs/wants of consumers. Provide value by offering the right information first and let the law of reciprocity take you all the way to the sale. 

Your success starts here.