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2011 Case Study: Bonfire Helps an Unlikely Industry Get Social
Company: Beaverton Auto Group
Campaign Length: Nine Months
Result: Facebook interactions increased 1,021%, Facebook fans increased 172%, and Facebook cost-per-fan decreased 38.2% (averages)
The Challenge
Beaverton Auto Group consists of three auto dealerships: Beaverton Nissan, Beaverton Hyundai, and Damerow Ford. A locally owned and operated company, Beaverton Auto Group was quick to realize and understand the dramatic shift to social media in an industry that has relied heavily on traditional mediums.
Each of the three brands at hand have experienced their own significant challenges during the recession and natural disasters in Japan, which caused difficulty in maintaining a consistent supply of inventory. Bonfire was appointed to launch the company into the social space to build brand awareness, increase web traffic, nurture their communities, and ultimately drive sales.
The Customer Experience
Auto dealerships aren’t exactly known for fantastic customer service, and many customers dread stepping onto the lot. So instead of simply telling everyone how great their customer service is, weshowed them by displaying photos of happy customers next to their brand new cars. Not only did this provide an avenue to build trust among potential customers, but it also helped us grow a relevant fan base—one filled with existing customers and not random visitors who want nothing to do with the product. The pictures quickly became a hit, with customers often asking for their pictures to be taken before the conclusion of the sale and showing gratitude in the comments.
We also provided exceptional customer service via social channels, further contributing to our highly interactive communities.
Incentives
One of the most significant shifts in social media in 2011 was the expectation of the consumer to be rewarded for connecting with brands online. Knowing this was a key to success, we wanted to do something fun to reward our fan base but also add value and generate business for our client.
We achieved this in several ways throughout the campaign, the first of which was exclusive service specials for Facebook fans. To make this process ultra-convenient for the customer, we enabled them to download and print the coupons right from Facebook vs. making them click through to another site. We also ran an iPad 2 Giveaway as part of our “fan giveaway” value proposition.
Facebook Advertising
Most auto dealerships use their Facebook pages exclusively to advertise. Not our clients.
We advertise where it was meant to be—using Facebook ads. They allowed us to extend our campaign reach significantly while allocating our budget only to our target demographics. Throughout the campaign, the ads were the highest generator of new fan growth than any other medium.
The Results
A well-executed strategy, optimized tactics, and a focus on valuable content yielded phenomenal results over our nine month period from February–October 2011. In fact, Beaverton Hyundai now has more Facebook fans than any Hyundai dealership in the nation.
Beaverton Nissan
Facebook Fans: +183.2%
Facebook Interactions: +668.4%
Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: -53.7%
Beaverton Hyundai
Facebook Fans: +260.5%
Facebook Interactions: +1,480.6%
Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: -62.4%
Damerow Ford
Facebook Fans: +73.4%
Facebook Interactions: +914.8%
Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: +1.4%
Source - http://bonfiresocialmedia.com/2011-case-study-bonfire-helps-an-unlikely-industry-get-social/
Can You Sell Cars Working 4 Hours A Week?
Can you imagine? Instead of working 60 plus hours per week, you show up at 9 AM on Monday and weekend is just four hours away! What would you do with all the free time? I would probably play enough golf to be on the PGA tour, lift weights and work out everyday, and then on Saturday, maybe go to Home Depot, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond, I don’t know.
For those of you who haven’t read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, you’ll be really disappointed to know that I am not starting a revolt to reduce dealership hours from 9AM-9PM Monday through Saturday to 1 4-hour workday. However, I am confident that I will save you a ton of time and be able to help you make more money.
Let’s get started..
Stop checking your email every five minutes!
Prior to reading the 4-hour workweek I was super guilty of this. By checking your email every minute you can’t get anything done. What happens is you start to work on something important like an email blast, website analytics, advertising, etc. Then you get an email from your factory rep with daily sales update, while checking this email you get a SPAM email that you have to unsubscribe from, and then you get a bill emailed to you that you print out to authorize payment for and before you know it it’s been a half an hour and you completely forgot about your email blast.
Instead of checking your email every 5 minutes, set 2 times per day that you check email say 12 PM and 5 PM. I’m sure it’s your habit to check their email the first thing you get into work each day, but you must break this habit! Henry Evans in the book The Hour a Day Entrepreneur uses a sports analogy, rather than start the day on the defensive responding to emails you want to start the day on the offensive. Making stuff happen, making profit happen.
It is a difficult habit to break, but you must keep Outlook closed and even turn off the email notifications on your iPhone. Some of you might have managers or the owners above you whose emails you feel obligated to quickly respond to, however if you explain to these individuals that you are only checking your emails at 12 PM and 5 PM each day in an effort to increase efficiency and for them to call you with anything urgent. You will find that responses to most of their emails can wait and that they will call you if they truly have something urgent.
Single tasking is the new multi-tasking!
Poker is a passionate hobby of mine and I play in the WSOP main event most summers, but the majority of my play used to be online before it got shut down in the US. When playing online poker I had 3 22” monitors set up playing 12 tables
simultaneously (there are people who play many more tables than this!). While it was fun and exciting to play so many tables, I found that my win rate was much lower than if I played only 3 or 4 tables. The reason… playing less tables I was able to focus more on maximizing as much profit from the hands I was ahead in and minimize loss in the hands I was behind in.
The same principles can be applied in the dealership. At one point, I would have my email, Facebook, Twitter, CRM, website editor, vAuto and instant messenger all open at the same time. Why? Because it was awesome and made me feel really important to have so many windows open. Naturally all of this leads to little focus and a lot of distraction. Now, I’ll try to keep only the things open I need, for the most part this is just one program. However, there are times where I’ll need multiple things open like if I’m desking deals for instance that I may need multiple things open.
In terms of getting things done. I set 12 month, 6 month, and 1 month goals and funnel each of these goals to specific daily to dos. I use Evernote the night before to prioritize the entire next day to do list. As I mentioned you want to head into work on the offensive making stuff happen. On a given day the priority might be a customer we are real close with closing, sometimes it’s working on the CRM action plan, writing a press release, sales training, etc. However, they are prioritized and align with my goals, instead of someone’s email.
Eliminate work other people can do
Prior to reading the 4-Hour Workweek there were countless things that I would do on a weekly basis and the entire time while doing them I would be thinking someone else really could be doing this for me. The reason I didn’t, I was too lazy to teach someone else how to do it. I am sure there are countless things that you could have someone else do as well. A few things that come to mind are reporting sales, sales logs, and dealer trades but I am sure there are countless other things that you can have someone else do for you as well.
Below is a great chart that is included in the 4-Hour Work Week on finding stuff to outsource to a personal assistant. I have found that there are enough people in the dealership to keep busy that a personal assistant isn’t necessary. Finance Managers are great people to utilize because they are detail oriented and while they aren’t selling products you might utilize their skills rather than have them checking Facebook while they are waiting for another deal. Other people that come to mind are secretaries or warranty administrators. I would recommend not having sales people doing stuff like this because there are a lot of sales people who will make these things a higher priority than selling cars.
Empowerment
Another thing that is mentioned in the 4-Hour Workweek that is a big time saver is empowering your employees. Now, truthfully I’ve yet to implement the majority of the stuff I am suggesting so these are merely ideas. However, Tim Ferriss shares about how he would get 200+ emails per day from the customer service side of his business about different customer complaints and how each should be handled. He would spend 9-5 replying to each email about how to handle the situation. Ultimately he empowered his customer service to fix any customer problem under $100 without contacting him and this instantly reduced his emails from 200 per day into fewer than 20 per week.
In the New Gold Standard is explained how the Ritz-Carlton empowers each employee up to $2,000 per day to take care of any customer issues and also to exceed their expectations. Naturally this empowerment must been managed, but both Tim’s company and the Ritz-Carlton note that such empowerment has had little to no effect on the bottom-line. Yet, the quick resolution of problems has undoubtedly increased customer happiness. Even if such empowerment does minimally affect the bottom-line, the freedom from constant interruption this provides you and your managers makes it well worth it.
Dealership specific example of how this could be effectively implemented would be to provide a structure for internet pricing for BDC or Internet Sales Reps so they don’t have to check with a Sales Manager for every price. Also for Service Advisors to take care of any problems and unhappiness on the service drive.
Time Vampires
In Dan Kennedy’s book No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs Dan talks about one of the of the biggest threats to your time and energy, time vampires. Time vampires can come in the form of coworkers, vendors, and even customers who have no regard for your productivity and are constantly interrupting you with meaningless questions, stories, or gossip. Some time vampires he talks about in the book are Mr. Have-You-Got-A-Minute, Mr. Trivia, and Mr. Soap Opera. These people need no description, you know who I’m talking about.
A couple of things to drive a stake into the time vampires is to end the open door policy! If you are working on something and can’t be interrupted put your phone on do not disturb and put a big sign outside your office to not come in for a set period of time. I tend to bounce around from dealership to dealership and therefore don’t have an office so when I sit down to get work done I put on headphones. When people see me banging on my keyboard and working diligently with my headphones on they know it better be good to interrupt me.
The last time vampire is Mr. Meeting.
Meetings
I have gone full circle on meetings. I used to be a Mr. Meeting. I thought that the old school car guys were crazy because they never seem to ever have meetings. However, after reading the 4-Hour Workweek and some of the other books I’ve mentioned I have realized that there can’t be anything less productive than a meeting. I used to take every meeting asked for by AutoTrader, Cars.com, CARFAX, and if you are vendor reading this and I forgot your company I apologize but the good news is I probably had a meeting with your company too.
So don’t let the vendors talk you into going over your account performance because this is simply an opportunity for them to upsell you on a higher version of their product or waste your time. Meetings should only be used to solve a pre- defined problem and must have a set agenda. So if you are having a problem or want to know about a higher version of the product, you set up the meeting with them.
Side note: one meeting I do recommend having is a morning meeting, most call it a save a deal meeting. I think it is so important that i will go over it in another blog post.
Questions:
Have you read the 4-Hour Workweek and if so what did you get from it?
Are you applying any 4 Hour Workweek rules at your dealership or to your personal process?
Source - http://www.dealerrefresh.com/hour-hour-work-week-dealership/#more-8007
Do You Want to Maximize Your Internet Leads? Automotive Internet Sales - CRM & BDC Data Mining is a HUGE way for your dealership to make a TON of revenue in both sales and fixed operations.
Is It Time To Reevaluate Your Opinion About TrueCar?
I have seen many issues polarize dealers, and at times energize them during my 30 years in the car business. Very few issues have rallied so many people in the auto industry to cry out than the advent of TrueCar’s advertising campaign in the Fall of 2011. In fact, since the creation of the two automotive professional networks I am involved with, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com and DealerELITE.net, there has been no other issue that has attracted even a tenth of the visitors to these sites, or engagement in the form of comments and subsequent posts… From October 2011 through January 2012 the most popular subject matter on many online sites catering to people working in the car business was the thorough vilifying of TrueCar.
Meanwhile, the outcry from dealers reached a crescendo of volume that was enough to get many State Dealer Associations and a handful of state regulators to “investigate” TrueCar for potential violation of everything from brokering without a license, to operating out of compliance with advertising regulations.
Amazingly enough, despite all the name calling and personal bashing that executives at TrueCar received, not a single “cease and desist” letter was sent, or lawsuit was filed by TrueCar against those of us who pushed our criticism of TrueCar beyond the boundaries of civilized and professional discussion or debate. In hindsight, I am very surprised that TrueCar took such a beating without resorting to legal measures against some of the worst name callers and accusers, including yours truly!
After receiving several phone calls and speaking with Scott Painter in December 2011 I put off visiting TrueCar’s headquarters at their invitation until just a few weeks ago. My first encounter with TrueCar executives on a face to face basis was in March 2012, at the Automotive Leadership Roundtable in Miami, FL. Bernie Brenner from TrueCar’s board came over to my table and asked me if I would sit with the TrueCar team during the lunch session and discuss changes they were making to their business model. Curiosity piqued, I accepted. Looking back on that lunch, I gave the TrueCar executive team a fairly strong rebuttal… I was polite, but explained my objections to their business model as inserting an unnecessary dealer expense. Mike Timmons, Bernie Brenner and a couple other TrueCar executives were polite, rational in their explanations and determined to convince me that they had seen many of the problems with their pricing models and were making changes so that TrueCar would make sense for dealers as a means of acquiring incremental business at about half of what the NADA average cost of advertising is Per Vehicle Retailed (PVR). At the time I remained resolute in my stated opinion that TrueCar was a bad deal for car dealers. However, I will admit that maintaining that opinion in the light of new information, changes TrueCar was making and the logic around their affinity model was already starting to erode the certainty I had in my position on TrueCar… Not that I was admitting any of that at the time!
The next time I saw any TrueCar executives was at Digital Dealer 12 in Orlando last April… Bernie Brenner approached me and asked me to bring any dealers who were avid TrueCar haters to him so he could meet them and listen to their grievances. Seemed like an odd request, but he was sincere and the entire TrueCar team was looking for people with negative perceptions of their company so they could show them all the aspects of their business model that had been changed, so that with new information these dealers might reevaluate their perception of the benefits of doing business with TrueCar.
What I have since learned is that from the beginning of January through May of 2012, TrueCar experienced a large number of dealers cancelling their TrueCar agreements and dropping out of the TrueCar program. This, combined with various state legislative issues is what prompted TrueCar to make so many dramatic changes to the way they do business. They simply had to change in order to move forward. Something that more people in the car business ought to consider!
When I accepted TrueCar’s invitation to visit their headquarters in Santa Monica, CA the timing was perfect… I arrived the day before a “all hands on deck” meeting where every TrueCar employee who works out of the headquarters was traveling in to attend. During my visit and tour I was able to spend more than an hour of quality time in detailed conversation with Scott Painter. Mike Timmons arrived a couple hours after I did and took me on a tour to meet various team leaders and department heads in the two building that TrueCar operates out of. I met many people and watched a team of TrueCar employees working directly with dealers all over the country, helping them to put deals together and sell cars. The people I met were intelligent, well spoken and knew what their part of the TrueCar mission was, and how it tied into selling cars. What I found was hardly a bastion of evil, nor were there any indicators that they were trying to eliminate car dealers or harm anyone working in a dealership. Like many companies I have visited, such as Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book, Dealix, AutoUSA, Cobalt, Reynolds, ADP and others, what I found at TrueCar was over 250 people who are educated and intelligent going about their specific duties and focused on generating more car sales for their participating dealers.
So, what about all these so called “changes” that TrueCar has made since the end of 2011? Let’s take a look at ten of them, why TrueCar made the changes and their intended impact.
10 Key TrueCar Changes – January to April 2012
In late 2011, TrueCar started receiving significant feedback – much of it critical – from the automotive retailing industry including dealers, dealer associations, manufacturers and industry consultants. In the first half of 2012, TrueCar made substantial changes to address industry concerns. By no means is TrueCar finished with implementing changes and revisions, but they do feel they have taken the necessary actions to ensure TrueCar is acting as a key auto industry partner. Listed below are 10 key recent changes:
1. Changed Website Experience Nationwide and Billing Model in Certain States to Address Regulatory Compliance Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Through trade publications, dealer association communications and social media sites, there was a lot of attention on whether TrueCar’s novel business model complied with the existing regulatory framework in certain states.
What TrueCar Did: Completely overhauled its website experience to address state-specific concerns related to advertising regulations. Among other changes, dealers no longer communicate price offers relative to invoice through the TrueCar website experience. Additionally, “bait and switch” concerns have been addressed through website features expressly clarifying that TrueCar users who use our website to explore the new car market are configuring “virtual vehicles” – not vehicles that are actually in inventory at our participating dealers. TrueCar has also implemented a subscription-based billing model in certain states. 30 of the 50 states continue with TrueCar’s pay for performance model, while 19 other states have variations designed to comply with that state’s laws. Lousiana remains a state not served by TrueCar.
2. Overhauled Display of Information on TrueCar Price Curves and Dealer Portal to Address Dealer Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Though not our intent, TrueCar heard loud and clear from dealers that the TrueCar price curves and Dealer Portal did not provide the most contextualized, relevant, and informative display of information to assist consumers and dealers.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar’s continued success depends on providing services that result in a better car buying experience for dealers and consumers. TrueCar changed the TrueCar price curves in January to provide more robust, comprehensive data that allows consumers to understand what constitutes a “fair” price in the current market. They also switched from providing “network-pricing” information in the Dealer Portal (which focused on the pricing of other TrueCar dealers) to providing “market-based” pricing information driven by recent transactions in the dealer’s local market area (not just transactions by TrueCar dealers).
3. Reduced DMS Data Received From Dealers
What We Heard: A small number of industry consultants used social media sites to spread misinformation that participating dealers’ sales matching data is used to create the TrueCar price curves and/or that TrueCar actively markets to customers found in the dealers’ DMS. To be clear, these are both myths.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar only requires dealers to provide customer contact information (name, address, phone, email for buyer and co-buyer) and basic vehicle information (VIN, make/model/trim, year, new/used, stock number, sale date) in order to perform the sales matching, billing (in states with performance-based billing models), dealer scoring and analytics and reporting aspects of their business. TrueCar does not directly access dealer DMS systems and we never have. All data extraction and compilation is handled by respected third-party vendors, Digital Motorworks (DMi) and Netlink. All dealers also have the option to “push” their sales matching data via FTP to TrueCar’s third-party vendors; the data received by TrueCar is the same whether the dealer chooses automated or manual sales data reporting. To address concerns that TrueCar was receiving extraneous data from its third-party vendors, TrueCar worked with both Digital Motorworks and Netlink in February to remove all unused fields from the data feeds sent to TrueCar, reducing the fields to just those listed above.
4. Rolled Out More “Dealer-Friendly” Dealer Agreement, Including Indemnification
What TrueCar Heard: Some dealers told TrueCar that the dealer agreement needed to be more fair.
What TrueCar Did: In February, they rolled out a new dealer agreement, the key aspects of which include: (i) dealers can cancel at any time for any or no reason; (ii) more clarity and control on how dealers provide sales reporting data to TrueCar; (iii) confirmation that the dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT used to create TrueCar price curves; and (iv) confirmation that dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT used to send marketing-related communications to customers. In April, we added a limited indemnification provision to the new dealer agreement. The decision to indemnify dealers is another manifestation of TrueCar’s commitment to their dealer partners and underscores that they are fully invested in standing behind the valuable services that TrueCar provides.
5. Launched TrueCar National Dealer Council
What TrueCar Heard: Many dealers, dealer associations and manufacturers expressed concern that TrueCar was making major product, process and policy changes without incorporating feedback from dealers.
What TrueCar Did: In April, 2012 TrueCar launched a National Dealer Council with 20 Members representing 24 states, 35 unique makes and 281 franchises. The purpose of the Council is to ensure TrueCar is actively listening to dealers, and the Council is chaired by Gary Marcotte (former SVP Marketing & Strategy at AutoNation). The inaugural full-day Council meeting in April was excellent, with great feedback from the Council Members. Going forward, the Council will meet periodically with TrueCar senior executives to provide guidance on how TrueCar can improve the services it provides to dealers.
6. Initiated Dealer Associations Outreach
What TrueCar Learned: TrueCar had not historically communicated with state and large metro dealer associations and paid a price for not directly engaging this important constituency.
What TrueCar Did: In March, TrueCar hired Pat Watson, VP of Industry Relations, to directly communicate and work collaboratively with dealer associations on how to help our mutual partners – dealers. Pat is the former CEO of the South Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, where he worked for 38 years.
7. Started Participating In Key Industry Conferences
What TrueCar Learned: Prior to 2012, TrueCar did not have an active presence at key industry conferences, which was perceived by some as an indication that TrueCar did not care to engage directly with the industry.
What TrueCar Did: In 2012, TrueCar has sponsored and actively participated at key industry conferences, including Automotive Leadership Roundtable in March and Digital Dealer 12 in April, and the upcoming AutoCon 2012 in September. TrueCar will continue to have an active presence at future conferences, including Digital Dealer 13, Driving Sales, J.D. Power Automotive Internet Roundtable, various 20 Groups, trade associations and dealer group events.
8. Improved TrueCar’s Social Media Response and Presence
What TrueCar Learned: Social media can be a powerful medium for individuals in the automotive retail industry to share opinions and shape stories.
What TrueCar Did: Mike Timmons, EVP of TrueCar and an auto retailing veteran (VP Operations AutoNation; independent auto dealer; new car sales and management) has taken ownership of monitoring and responding as appropriate to social media related to TrueCar and industry-related issues. Additionally, Mike has directly reached out to key TrueCar detractors to understand and address their concerns, as well as to correct any misinformation, and he will continue to do so. In the future, TrueCar will be taking a more proactive approach to leverage social media to showcase our product and company changes.
9. Increased Communication With Manufacturers
Before: Previously, TrueCar’s communication with manufacturers was sporadic and reactionary, sometimes leading to significant misconceptions.
What TrueCar Did: In the past four months, Larry Dominique, EVP Data Solutions, with over 27 years of OEM experience (former VP Advanced and Product Planning and Strategy, Nissan, plus stints at GM and Chrysler), has met with key decision makers from 20 manufacturers to listen to their concerns and inform them as to what TrueCar is all about. Going forward, TrueCar will continue to directly engage with manufacturers to discuss ways that TrueCar can improve the services it provides to dealers.
10. Added More Dealer Support
What TrueCar Heard: Dealers have told us they want more face time and support from TrueCar dealer-facing personnel.
What TrueCar Did: In the first four months of 2012, they added 13 new employees to the TrueCar Dealer Development Team, including Ken Potter (VP Dealer Development; former VP & GM of Internet Brands / CarsDirect; former GM of two dealerships), Amir Rizkalla (Director Account Management; formerly of Fisker Automotive and Toyota), two Area Sales Managers and four Account Managers. TrueCar is currently looking to hire 9 additional dealer-facing employees in the next 60 days, including six more Area Sales Managers (Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta, Seattle, Des Moines, and St. Louis) as well as two more Account Managers, to ensure that we continue to provide dealers with the support they want and need.
After traveling to TrueCar headquarters on a Monday in July and then visiting Southern California dealers, I returned home to Phoenix on Tuesday evening. Later that week I had an appointment with the owners and management team at Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix. This is the same Courtesy Chevrolet that I worked at from 2005 to 2007, and I have a close bond with the leadership team there… During my visit, which was to convince them to attend AutoCon 2012, I mentioned visiting TrueCar headquarters earlier in the week. The response I received from the owner and several managers was “we really like the TrueCar program, they have gotten a lot better about invoicing us and the business we get from them seems to be purely incremental… deals we would not otherwise have made.” These statements and the discussions I had with the team at Courtesy, as well as all the information I had witnessed firsthand during my meetings at TrueCar, and from the conversations I had with at least a dozen TrueCar employees lead me to a conclusion I feel very certain about. It would be foolish for any dealer to ignore the changes that TrueCar has made and not reevaluate whether to do business with TrueCar based on the new information available and the changes TrueCar has made to the way they do business.
Researched and written by Ralph Paglia
This is going to be a GREAT event... so if you can make it to Las Vegas in September, you should really check this event out-
http://www.alanvinesautomotive.com
Durran Cage went from a Chrysler OEM Rep to an Internet Sales Manager... He was delivering 25-27 units per month. They brought in Dealer Synergy and we helped them get to:
- 95 Units Per Month!
- 2.3 Million Dollars Gross Profit from Their Annual ONLINE SALES!
- Durran Cage, Internet Sales Director gets promoted to GSM of the Dealership!!
This is such an incredible success story and it couldn't have happened to a better person, a better department or a better dealership.
So, from everyone here at AIS... CONGRATULATIONS!!!
http://www.automotiveinternetsales.com
Automotive Dealer Principals & General Managers BEWARE of Internet Sales or BDC Department!
"automotive sales" "internet sales" bdc "phone sales" "call center" "dealership department" "dealer principal" "general manager" gm manager management beware "be careful" "car sales" "auto sales" prospects leads opportunities ups
Answering An Internet Sales Coordinator (Appointment Setter)'s Questions on How To Be Prepared For the Sales Call or Internet Lead...
Great Example of a Dealership's Customer Reviews / Testimonial 30 sec Commercial / Video Clip - Social Media - Automotive Internet Sales
Automotive Social Media - Automotive Digital Marketing - Car Dealerships Social Media - How To?
http://www.seanvbradley.com
http://www.dealersynergy.com
Master Your Craft
Do you want to be successful in Automotive Sales? Do you want to sell 30, 40+ units per month? Do you want to make $120,000 - $200,000+ selling cars? Well you can! All you have to do is MASTER YOUR CRAFT.
The key to being successful in this business is mastering your craft, being the absolute best you can possibly be. But why is it that EVERYONE wants to sell lots of cars and make lots of money and only a small percentage ever achieve that level? Same reason why there are so many people that want to be professional athletes and why there are only the few elite professional athletes making small fortunes while the rest of the population watches them on television or pretends to be them on Xbox 360.
Do you think Michael Jordan said to his coaches and managers “Uh, I am Michael Jordan… I don’t need to go to practice”! No way… he practiced harder than everyone else because he was Michael Jordan. That is why he has 6 NBA rings… and his own sneaker!
Tiger Woods says that he hits 1,000 practice balls for every 1 real shot in a live round. There is a difference between hitting a golf ball 144 yards versus 144 and a half yards. One puts you next to the hole and one puts you a foot and a half away from the hole. You want to be as accurate as possible, as close to perfection as you can possibly get.
Anderson Silva, Undefeated Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) constantly studies his own performance as well as his future opponents performance by dissecting video footage of past fights. Literally spending hours and hours reviewing video footage of angles, punches, kicks. Looking for patterns, opportunities, weakness etc…
Success is a few simple disciplines practiced everyday repeatedly. So if you would like to master your craft you must develop the following three disciplines: Dedication, Desire, and Diligence.
The definition of Dedication is the quality of being dedicated or committed, i.e. Devoting oneself, time, and/or efforts to a particular task or purpose; The definition of Desire is a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen; and The definition of Diligence is a carful and persistent work or effort.
So how does this all correlate to the subject at hand, Mastering Your Craft. Simply put, if you want to BE the best, then you have to BE the best. Will Durant, a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
Success is earned, not given people; No one is entitled to greatness; everyone in the past, everyone in the NOW, and everyone in the future will have or has had to have an outrageous amount of dedication in their specific field of expertise, an extraordinary burning desire to win, and must diligently execute their detailed plans toward their idea of success.
I want to give you some bullet points of things that you should focus on mastering if you want to truly be that absolute best automotive sales professional:
- Communication(s) – As a sales professional, you need to be an effective communicator. You need to be able to clearly articulate your message and you have to do so with passion and style.
How can you master this skill?
- I suggest mastering the “Science of Communication”… Knowing that 55% of communication is visual perception and body language, 38% is tone and inflection and only 7% is the actual words that you use. You can study this online, you can take a course, you can go to a “communication” workshop or seminar.
- You can join http://www.toastmasters.org which is an organization that is dedicated to helping develop communication and leadership skills for professionals. It is like a “gym” for speakers / communicators.
- Video Record (or audio) yourself with prospects in the showroom or on the phone or in the BDC. Record yourself engaging a prospect, working a deal, dealing with objections / rebuttals etc… Then REVIEW the Video / Audio footage. Study it, be critical of what you sound like, what your body language is, what your prospects sound like, what their body language is. Try to identify loss opportunity, identify areas that you can improve and or utilize a different strategy or approach in a particular situation.
- Product Knowledge–
- You should truly be a master of your product(s). At the very least you should be certified through your OEM as a sales consultant but… Most OEMs have advanced training and certification. I suggest you look into what curriculum, what training, what OEM resources you can utilize to enhance your product knowledge.
- Most OEMs have “Product Launches” or Special Seminars / Workshops on new or enhanced models within their line up. You should ask your management team to send you to any and all OEM opportunities that come along.
- Study, Study, Study your product. Take all vehicles on test drives, get familiar with them. Not just conceptually but literally know your vehicles inside an out.
- Competition Knowledge… Do NOT just study YOUR brand. You need to know EVERYTHING about your competition. For example if you are a Ford Sales Consultant and you sell a ton of Ford F-150s then you need to know EVERYHTHING about the Chevy Silverado and WHY your F-150 is BETTER than the Silverado etc…
- Mastering Objections and Rebuttals
- Stop playing checkers… Start playing Chess. Document all of the “expectations” and “objections” you come across on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
- Identify the TOP 10 objections and or expectations and then create at least 5 POWERFUL responses for them. If you need help, get with other sales consultants, your closers, your managers, the owner whoever!
- Go online and search for the best objections and rebuttals. There are free sites out there like www.automotiveinternetsales.com that offer a tremendous amount of free information, word tracks, scripts, objections / rebuttals etc… use them!
- Practice them everyday… role play with your co-workers, with a friend, your spouse.
- Record them (video and or audio). Upload them to your ipod or burn them to a cd. Play them on the way to work and the way home, at the gym at night, when you sleep.
- Self Education –
- Read as much as you can about EVERYTHING related to your career as you can. If you don’t like reading, then buy the audio CDs. Here are some suggestions:
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- The Secret
- From Good To Great
- The Purple Cow
- Who Moved My Cheese
- Execution
- Read Automotive Trade Magazines (Like AutoSuccess)
- Subscribe to FREE newsletters
- Subscribe to ALL your automotive vendors newsletters, blogs, email lists like:
- Autobytel
- AutoUSA
- Autotrader
- Cars.com
- Carsdirect
- Dealix
- Edmunds.com
- Your Dealership Website Providers
- Automotive Social Networking Communities like:
- Search Engines…
- You can and should be Googling or YouTubing Everything that is related to your profession.
- Read as much as you can about EVERYTHING related to your career as you can. If you don’t like reading, then buy the audio CDs. Here are some suggestions:
This is only a small list of things that you need to master to truly be the best at what you do. If you would like me to give you a more detailed list or some free strategies or ideas please feel free to email me or call me. It would be my pleasure to help you-
AutoUSA Introduces Payment ProSM Powered by DriveItNow®, Payment-Qualified Website Leads for Auto Dealers
Fort Lauderdale, FL – July 31st, 2012 – AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions (www.autousadealers.com) today introduced Payment ProSM powered by DriveItNow®, a payment-based conversion tool for auto dealer websites. Payment ProSM is a service that provides online shoppers with instant, real car loan payments based on individual credit and inventory eligibility, generating pre-qualified, first-party leads from dealer websites.
With Payment ProSM, consumers click on a button showing real payments on any vehicle listing on a dealer’s website. A form appears that the shopper fills out, but no social security number or birth date is required. Based on the individual’s entered criteria, the system determines their credit eligibility without impacting the consumer’s credit score, instantly displays personalized monthly payment options, and delivers the dealer a dramatically-enhanced lead.
“Payment ProSM is good for the dealer because it shifts the shopper’s focus from what the lowest price is to what they can afford every month,” said Phil DuPree, President of AutoUSA. “The leads generated from these inquiries open the door for immediate engagement and more seamless negotiations.”
Payment ProSM offers auto dealers the following benefits:
- Converts more traffic on dealer websites because consumers want to know monthly payment options based on their credit.
- Generates the industry’s first dealer-website lead that includes the customer’s credit eligibility and desired payment from dealers’ own websites, resulting in high-closing prospects.
- Eliminates wasted time showing customers vehicles they can’t afford, as well as time spent negotiating.
- Puts dealers in charge of setting their own prices and financing terms, unlike lead services that force dealers into price wars in order to deliver the lowest price for the consumer while lowering gross profit margins.
- Shifts consumer focus to monthly affordability, giving dealers more flexibility in pricing and negotiations.
Payment ProSM is a new service powered by DriveItNow’s patent-pending technology. “We chose to partner with AutoUSA because of their tremendous industry reputation of bringing best-in-class tools to the market to increase Internet sales for automotive dealers,” said Tarry Shebesta, President of DriveItNow. “The launch of Payment ProSM shows they understand the value of producing high quality leads and the need for payment quoting.
Payment ProSM is available immediately for auto dealer websites and mobile sites. To learn more, visit http://www.paymentprodemo.com or contact your AutoUSA sales representative at 1-800-243-9935.
About AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions
AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions brings the best-in-class tools to increase Internet sales and lower costs for automotive dealerships. Leading products include Payment ProSM, a payment-based pre-qualification tool for dealer websites; ShowProSM incentive program, proven to turn more leads into shows; Leads&ListingsSM, providing the highest quality, new and used car email and phone leads from 100+ sites; PowerListingsSM 2.0, helping dealers increase traffic to—and leads from—their social media sites; and AVA Virtual Sales Assistant, helping dealerships manage more leads at a reduced cost. AutoUSA products are currently benefiting thousands of active dealers all across the U.S.
For more information, visit AutoUSA’s web site, subscribe to our blog at http://blog.autousadealers.com, follow us on Twitter @AutoUSALeads and “Like” us on Facebook at /AutoUSADealers
About DriveItNow (http://www.DriveItNow.com)
DriveItNow is a patent pending payment marketing technology service of Automobile Consumer Services, Inc. (ACS). ACS leads the industry with innovative proprietary technology, superior customer service, and over twenty years of auto financing and leasing experience.
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