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Have you made the commitment that automotive sales is your career choice? Unless you commit, it’s impossible that you will take the necessary steps to create the business you desire. Long-term thinking in addition to short-term goals are keys to continued success.

When you first enter into a sales position, 80 percent of your time is spent acquiring customers and 20 percent of your time is spent maintaining those customers. Eventually, with the right efforts, that model should be reversed. Eighty percent of your time should be spent maintaining your customers and 20 percent to acquire new customers.

You face a paradox of time management in building your business. The paradox is that you must work in the business and also work on the business. When you are face-to-face with customers you are working in the business but no matter how busy you are, you must find time each day to work on the business, as well. Working on the business includes marketing, prospecting, follow-up, networking, delegating, automating etc.

Insurance sales people, real estate sales people and sales people from many industries continually think and act on building their business. However, in the auto industry the majority of sales people seem addicted walk-in traffic. Eliminating this addiction is the key to long-term success.

Lead Generation = Dollar Creation. Begin to build multiple streams of leads by building a marketing web. List every way you presently acquire leads such as walk-ins, phone prospects, be-backs, referrals, repeat customers. Then begin to list new ways you could begin to acquire leads and how you can strengthen or add to your existing methods of generating leads.

Do you presently have a software program for following and managing your leads? Not the dealerships program, your program? Don’t trust anybody or anything to manage your most important resource – your customers.

Secondly, do you have a set follow up strategy? How often will you follow up? How will you follow up. What rewards will you give, and what special offers will you provide to bring them in for service? That creates the Law of Familiarity and Obligation leading to repeats and referrals.

E-mail follow-up and marketing is essential. Automate your follow-up using technology. E-mail, Autoresponder e-mail and Sequential Autoresponder e-mail are all ways to follow-up and add value that can be done while you sleep or on vacation. Video e-mail and personalization are keys to making a connection, removing the impersonal nature of e-mail and adding the wow factor.

All sales people need their own personal Web site. The site should include sign-up forms that collect e-mail addresses. The site should be personalized with your picture, family picture, your own personal story, rewards for visiting the site and helpful information for the customer. Your Web site should include an audio introduction link.

Do your business cards look like 99 percent of others sales people’s business cards? Don’t use a picture of a car, use your picture or caricature. Business cards also need the sales person’s Web site, e-mail address and slogan. Put a call to action on your cards for the customer to come see you, call you or visit your Web site.

Maximize traffic by creating a be-back CD. Create a CD that you give each customer who does not buy and invite them to play it on the way home. The CD should include information about you, your dealership and product that would benefit the customer. Include testimonials and a reward for the customer if they come see you.

Create coupon swaps with businesses around you. Visit a local restaurant and offer to build their business on their worst traffic day of the week for free. You can build their business by creating a coupon with an offer they approve and then pass these coupons out at work from the cashier, receptionist, and all departments to every customer who enters your dealership. In return ask that the restaurant pass out coupons from you approved by the dealership with a special offer to come see you.

Once you start the marketing web it will grow and take on a life of its own. Building a business first requires long-term thinking and a commitment to the industry as a career. When you commit, you have already created a business, only its shape is unfinished.

Hi, my name is Johnny Dealer.  I spend my mornings listening to incoming sales calls from the previous day.  I then, go into a deep depression.  I guess I am like most dealers, but today, I'm going to do something about it.  I am going to create a system that will eliminate missing all of these opportunities.  I am about to create a Lean, Mean, Lead-Handling Machine.

Here is how I'm going to do it.

First, I'm going to TOTALLY commit to my new lead department.  I am going to commit finances, facilities, training, equipment, and most importantly, PEOPLE.  I am going to hire a real-life Manager to run this department and I'm going to pay this person just like the rest of my managers.  After all, this department is every bit as important as the others in my dealership.  I know that the future of this department is wholly dependant on MY buy in.  I AM IN!

What am I going to call this department.  BDC?  Internet Department?  I think I am going to call it the Appointment Department.  That is the most accurate name I can think of, plus, calling it the Internet Department only makes me feel more techno-ignorant.  I want these employees to know that the appointment is the objective.  We'll hand them of to specialists when they get here.

I want to make this Lean, Mean, Lead-Handling Machine to run smoothly and most importantly, be reliable.  I can't have it breaking down at inopportune times.  I think I'll begin with my people.  I'm going to take my time and only hire the best and pay them well.  Training?  Of course.  I think I'll do this in two stages.  First, I'll get my hands on the best phone scripts and email templates in the industry.  We will train them relentlessly until they can recite them in their sleep.  After that, I will teach them our incoming lead concepts.  1. We got what you want. 2. You got what we want. 3. You're special, we're special. (see my article, "Incoming Calls are as Easy as 1,2,3.)  I want my people to not only memorize the word tracks, but I want them to UNDERSTAND the content and CONVEY the motivation to the customer.

This machine is beginning to take shape.

Now, I must set up a process that works for everyone.  Everyone in my store needs to know this process, inside and out.  When a lead comes in, who takes it?  At what time do they turn it to a Manager?  Can they discuss price?  If not, who then?  How about follow up?  When and how often do they get back with a customer?  Do they do it by phone, email, video, or in person?  When do they stop trying?  I will make sure that ALL of these questions are answered in my process.....my WRITTEN process.  How can I expect my people to perform if they are not clear on my vision.

I spend a fortune on tools in my service department.  Every time I turn around, my manufacturer has generously shipped and billed a new piece of equipment that is now needed to work on the new models.  In my new Appointment Department, I'm not going to cut corners on their tools.  They are going to need their own area, with fast computers, great phones with headsets, and a great CRM.  The equipment and resources they have are a reflection on my commitment to this department.

How can I make this machine consistent?  If I dump a specific number of leads into my machine, how can I be sure of exactly how many car deals will come out the other side?  This will boil down to tracking and expectations.  I have learned over the last 30 years, that if you want to see numbers increase, simply track them.  What are my expectations?  I guess I will leave that to the experts.  I want to set appointments with 60% of my fresh leads and 40% of my leads that are a week old or more. 50% of them will show.  I want to sell 45% of the appointments that show up.  I know everyone has different numbers that work for them, but these work for me.....for now.  That leads me to "expectations".  I know that my people will perform to their expectations.  It is MY job to not just manage people, but manage their expectations.  I promise make my expectations so clear that they become their expectations.

When my machine is built and running effectively, I vow to soup it up.  You know, like a turbocharger.  I can start getting innovative with video appointment confirmations, fancy .pdf proposals, bringing in trainers, hiring phone coaches, data mining, lead screening, video search optimization, email marketing, social media promotions, and the like.  Heck, my new machine will even be able to handle service leads!

If is a big two-letter word.  But...

• IF I manage this department with the same vigor that I manage my Finance Department, Sales Department, or Service and Parts Departments, it will succeed.
• IF I dump 300 fresh leads into my new Lean, Mean, Lead-Handling Machine, then, it will produce 180 appointments, 90 of them will show up, and 40 of them will buy.  This does not even include re-hashing my lost opportunities from the last several months!
• IF I continue to commit to my new department, every time I dump 100 new leads into my machine, I will get 13 more sales.

My mission is simple now......Find more leads to feed the machine!

Who's Your Danny?

PS - My apologies if your name is, in fact, Johnny Dealer.  Any negative references to this name is strictly coincidental, especially if you actually live on 123 Elm Street, Anytown, USA. or work at ABC Motors.

If there is one thing that you could do to increase your opportunities and profits, what would it be? What if this one thing was free and already available to you? That's this week on Think Tank Tuesday .

The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire an exceptional receptionist? Do you have a formalized training process and performance based pay? Often the receptionist is the lowest paid person in the dealership but is often the person who influences the customer first. Why not pay the receptionist a bonus based upon various criteria such as average time to answer a call, average hold time for a customer etc.

The sales people also need training on the understanding of the importance of both inbound and outbound sales calls and how this can affect their incomes. A sales person can sit around all day waiting for someone to come in, but they can take incoming sales calls and treat them like they are not important. The average dealership will spend a fortune on advertising to get people to call and come in but not pay attention to what is happening when the customers call or come in. Call a competitor or call your own dealership and mystery shop a few times and ask yourself if you are impressed with the results.

Let’s talk about a few things to improve the importance of sales performance in utilizing the phone. First of all, the dealership needs a formal call tracking process. Many dealerships know their floor traffic but not their phone traffic. Why? This sends the wrong message. You must quantify to qualify, meaning you must know where you are at to understand where you would like to go. Have the receptionist use a call tracking sheet that they are trained to use. Example: On an incoming sales call, the receptionist should positively remark that they will be happy to get a sales representative for the customer and then acquire the customers name by asking “and your name is?” The receptionist can then list the customers name on the log with the date and time received and page for a sales representative. Now the receptionist can write their name on the tracking sheet as well. The sales representative is responsible for putting remarks of the results on the log after the sale. The above process can be altered according to the technology you have established in your dealership. Managers can now include a review of the phone traffic in their daily one on one coaching sessions.

Sales people must have a formal tracking sheet they use when taking calls to assist them in remembering the right steps and collecting the information necessary. The first step in changing the view of a sales person towards the phone is to show them how easy it is to pick up several units each month just by having better phone skills. The Internet has increased the number of sale calls and the quality of customer calling.

Sales people must be taught new techniques that match the marketplace of today. Sales people have been taught the importance of getting name and number so much so that they are jeopardizing the appointment and scaring customers away. Gone are the days of telling the customer you are out in service and not at your desk so you would like to get their name and number and call them back or that the customer just needs to come on down so you can show them in person. Customers are looking for ways to dismiss you as an option and outdated phone skills will make that happen quickly.

Review the telephone operations in your dealership and take steps to increase the skills of everyone using the phone. Better phone process and skills uncover hidden wealth.

What is hidden wealth? Hidden wealth is an unused, dormant or under utilized part of your business that contains great value. All businesses have at least one hidden wealth. Even the best businesses in the world contain hidden wealth. The key is to determine your hidden wealth and begin to mine the potential gold that lies therein. All businesses are different. Each business should require their leaders to conduct a concerted effort of introspection and egoless honesty to determine what their hidden wealth may be. One way to begin is to ask deeper and better questions about your business than you ever have before. What is the story of your dealership? How is that unique and more importantly, how does that benefit the customer?

Begin a journey to determine what your business does best. What does your business do better than anyone else? Then ask yourself these questions about that one thing, “How”, “Why” and how can I prove it to my customers in a way that benefits and motivates them? Once you determine the one thing that you do better than anyone else, then ask your customers why they think you do it best? See if what you feel and they feel are the same. If your business does something great but your customers don’t know, it won’t matter. If you customers don’t hold the same value in what you think you do great, it won’t matter. Better questions lead to better answers and better businesses. Ask yourself, what do you have that others don’t have? What do you have that is better than what others may have? Is your sales staff better? Is your service better? Is your location better? Is your inventory better? Is your pricing structure better? Is your process quicker? Is your facility better? When you determine what you have that’s better, you must ask yourself, why is that true?

You must also ask yourself, how can I explain what we do and how it’s better in very specific terms that the customer cares about? You can’t say you have a large inventory. It doesn’t mean anything. But you can say you have 500 vehicles worth ten million dollars in inventory and that no one comes close to your selection and because of that it takes the hassle out of shopping. What ever you decide is your strong point, ask yourself this question, “Who cares?” If you can’t tell your customer in a way that benefits them, they won’t care.

Some dealerships have a large database of untapped business. Some dealerships have a great location with many possible synergies with other local businesses that could be explored. Many dealerships have community relationships that could be utilized. Many dealerships have talented but untrained people. Many dealerships are either sending the wrong or mixed message to the market or sending a good message to the wrong market or utilizing either the wrong medium or not enough mediums to reach their market.

Each dealership has assets that contain vast riches if they can be explored and tapped.

The only way to become better is to practice. It never hurts to practice the most obvious and the things we know until they become perfected. Dennis explains which words to use and how to use them to increase sales from your website. Check out this week's Hard Facts about selling with text. 

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Internet Director / Internet Sales Manager Responsibilities Part 4 - Automotive Sales - Car Sales

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Internet Director - Internet Sales Manager - Responsibilities Part 2 - Automotive Internet Sales

You are who you decide to be at any given moment. It does not take money, a degree, a certain age, a certain appearance, tons of experience, knowing the right people, past success or any other qualifying factor that you may be currently using as a subconscious roadblock to your desired success. Your belief system creates your results both past and present. If your current belief system is not what it should be to support your success, you must fake it, till you make it.

If you currently don’t appear to be on the path that will create the level of success in the form you desire, you must begin to identify the mental programming that is limiting your success before you can change your resulting limiting actions.

You must pay close attention to your inner dialogue when you write goals or have thoughts about anything you desire. When thinking of your goals, if you repeatedly think of the specific reasons of how and why your goal may be hard to obtain, you are creating the “When-Then Syndrome.” Your subconscious identifies your current programming that tells you that for X to occur you must first have Y. If that is the case, your current mental programming is limited and will not allow you to break through your current barriers to further success.

Write down the first twenty mental images or messages you heard or were taught about money. When closely examined, most of the images and messages remembered will be limited, negative, and fear based. Those negative messages and images have taken a life of their own and have been accepted in your subconscious as absolute truths. To increase money, you must identify your current limiting messages and rewrite the messages to create accepted new truths.

Every person you come into contact with tries to define you based upon his/her own thoughts and beliefs. Your workplace is full of people with their own limiting mental programming that want to define you in a way that makes them feel better about themselves. People will create images such as “you are just lucky” or “the favorite of the boss” or “a weak sales person”. So often you act in your work environment in a role based upon the images and messages accepted by your subconscious. Unfortunately, your subconscious accepts all images and messages without filtering. However, you can overwhelm the negative messages with your own positive messages. Your conscious mind will choose and react to the strongest messages being given to it. Don’t allow others to create your destiny based upon their own limited beliefs.

Your subconscious can act as an automatic responder in a positive form just as it can negatively. You must bombard your mind with positive and repetitive images for your conscious mind to react with positive messages. Read and listen to the material that will support you in creating the images you desire, while reducing and eliminating the negative influences you encounter from relatives, co-workers, and the news. You create your own reality. It’s your responsibility to choose the right sources of information to saturate your brain.

To start manifesting your desires, you must become clear on your goals. Write what you want in present tense using vivid details of your emotions and thoughts at the time of obtaining those goals. The repetitive conditioning of your subconscious with the imagery you have created will begin to grow just as your muscles grow by the repetitive action of lifting weights. Soon your positive imagery will be so strong that your belief system will accept this as reality before it has ever transpired as reality. There will be no difference between your chosen reality and your current state. Your belief system will accept each step and each day as a part of your path to success. Dare today to choose what you desire and the actions that support those desires.

Thoreau once said, “Things don’t change, people do.” If things are to happen, you must make them happen. Good people and businesses always make things happen. Let’s look at the essential rules of making things happen.

Rule 1 – Always have a CEO attitude – You must start by taking responsibility for all things both good and bad. Accept that your company signs your check and you fill in the numbers. Your own personal philosophy, which is determined strictly by choice and your own free will, determines your first step in success or failure.

Rule 2 – Every business operates two businesses: People and Marketing. If you are great with people but don’t have people to speak to, you fail. Marketing has become essential to all sales people.

Rule 3 – Lead generation equals dollar creation – The more leads you generate the more money you earn. How do you create leads? Develop a marketing web – Draw a small circle on a piece of paper and put the name of your company in the middle. (Your company, not the one that signs your check). Now draw lines in different directions that look like spokes coming out of the circle. Label each spoke as a source of leads. (Example: walk-ins, incoming sales calls, referrals, repeats, be-backs, service, networking, prospecting etc.) Notice that each spoke can have multiple spokes that sprout from it.

Rule 4 – Add value first – The perception of price is always in relation to the value perceived. Perception is reality for your customers. What do they perceive to be the value in your offer, product, you, or the business? To create value you must TLC—think like a customer--and then take action.

Rule 5 – Give HFG - hope for gain. People always want something better than what they have. It’s human nature. Hope for Gain follows the pleasure versus pain rule of life. People act to either find pleasure or avoid pain. Hope for gain moves people toward pleasure.

Rule 6 – Offer risk reversal - Take away your customers’ risk and it creates urgency in the eyes of the customer. You must lower the barriers of entry that discourage customer traffic. Risk reversal allows your customer to avoid pain.

Rule 7 – Provide leverage – Hope for gain and risk reversal provide leverage for people to take action. You must always be thinking of ways that your customers can get excited about contacting you now. Urgency, emotions, social proof, incentives and testimonials all provide leverage.

Rule 8 – Facts tell; stories sell- Stories add the most important element of sales and marketing. People think in pictures. People relate to stories that they can see themselves in the staring role. Make them the star. People will avoid advertising and marketing on purpose, but they will react to a good story.

Rule 9 – Utilize the law of obligation and reciprocation – In sales or marketing, you must be willing to add the wow factor. You must be willing to give people extra service, extra offers, extra emotion, extra humor, extra enthusiasm... extra everything, until the customer feels an overwhelming obligation to give you a chance.

Now let me give you some examples to create leads using these rules.

1. – Record a two to five minute be-back CD that you give to each customer who doesn’t buy a car and ask them to play it on the way home. On the CD, thank the customer for the opportunity, tell them your SDP--specific defining proposition- to get them excited about doing business with you and purchase your product.

2. Nice trade call – Every time you take a nice trade-in, call at least 20 of your sold customers and let them in on a secret. Let them know about the beautiful vehicle you now have and how it hasn’t been put all the way though service and clean-up yet. Let them know you’re calling a few of your preferred customers about the newly acquired vehicle. If they don’t want it, ask them who might be.

3. Create affiliations – Who does business with whom you want to do business? Always think of how you can add value to them first. What can you do to help their business? Offer coupon swaps. Offer to create a coupon for a two for one special at their restaurant. In return, ask that they distribute a coupon from your business.

4. Offer a free program – Offer a thirty minute program to some of the varying associations on how to buy a vehicle. Take brochures with coupons offering value that would make them take action to receive something of value from you. Create a lead first.

5. Postcards – Postcards are cheap. You can send to targeted markets, with a targeted message, such as, “Employee Purchase Program – Buy a vehicle for what I would pay!”

6. Val-Packs – Postcard advertising made even cheaper.

7. Orphan Owners - Call every orphan owner and offer them something of value. If you offer all the clients who’ve not been contacted the chance to do business with you, a large percentage will consider doing more business with you in the future.

8. FSBO call – Call everyone selling your brand of vehicle and ask them about their trade. Offer to get an appraisal and to help them purchase their new vehicle.

9. Create a Free Special Report – “How to buy a vehicle” – You could combine your postcards with this message and once you’ve created a lead through their response by fax, phone or email, you can follow up after sending your special report.

10. Create your own web site – Put your web site address on all your business cards, mailing, materials etc. Put your picture, biography, special offers, recipe of the month, etc. Make people go to your site for a special offer.

John Wooden said, “Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.” You can’t change economies, but you can work daily to change your actions. A little extra effort put forth everyday will help build a successful business. Make it happen!

Do your sales people know how to fish? They should. I ask you, when was the last time that you wished there was something you could "personally" do to increase your selling opportunities? Have you every thought "just if we could spend more money on radio or TV advertising to increase walk in customers?" Watch this week's Think Tank Tuesday to see where you should be fishing to get more sales than you could ever handle!

Sales people provide life for all companies. If everything starts with sales people, it only makes sense to make sure that you are recruiting the best potential sales people

Tip 1: Recruit from want, not need. Make recruiting an everyday activity, don’t wait until you need it.

Tip 2: Have a strategy to recruit people all the time. To orchestrate a successful ongoing recruiting program you must first have a game-plan. Plan and develop a flow chart of your desired results. Write down the obvious. You must know why you are looking to create a recruiting strategy. “When the why gets strong, the how gets easy.”

Tip 3: Know who is in charge of recruiting and his/her qualifications. People must be educated on creating and orchestrating a strategy that works. Don’t leave the who and how to chance.

Tip 4: Newspaper ads – the Sunday paper is full of ads for sales people. If you plan on using help wanted ads as part of your recruiting, you must write the ad with the mindset of the good sales person you are looking to recruit. Use two age-old formulas: WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?” and AIDA – “Attention, interest, desire and action” when creating your ads.

Tip 5: Try using several avenues to recruit such as full color newspaper inserts, business journal classifieds, a banner ad on your web site, local colleges, Internet job postings, radio ads, military bases, job fairs and employee referral program. Never leave the vitality of your company to just one avenue of marketing. You must build a marketing web that has many marketing branches to attract good people.

Tip 6: Have an “ideal employee” profile. Know who you are looking for before you find them. When you’ve developed a precise guideline of what the perfect recruit looks like, you can begin your process with that in mind and then remove the emotions involved in interviewing.

Tip 7: Payment plans satisfy base-level needs of the potential recruit. Pay all recruits during training and guarantee them a living wage during their learning curve. Many potentially good sales people are not given the chance to ever enter the business. Lower the barriers of entry in order to find the best people.

Tip 8: Have at least 50 written interview questions. Don’t you show a sales person how to profile customers? Preparation is key to a good interview. Be ready with sub questions to the interviewee’s answers that allow him or her to elaborate and communicate in detail. A good interview will follow the 80/20-rule and allow the recruit to speak 80% of the time.

Tip 9: Test and profile a potential sales person. Anyone who has interviewed people has come across a great interview, horrible employee. A good recruiting strategy must utilize many tools to reduce the emotion and help to make a more logical and quantitative selection. There are many tools today that can be used to gauge the personality, sales aptitude, emotional IQ, intelligence and just about anything else you want to know about a possible future employee

Tip 10: Don’t hire people based only upon resumes. If you want to hire good sales people, recruit and hire based on talent and attitude and teach them the necessary skills.

Recruiting and hiring effectively is a continuous process that is both part science and being creative. Having a consistent plan will make your recruiting a success.

Many times people say they don’t like to negotiate; yet, they still shop around and never pay full MSRP. Most people act in their own best interest. And most people who say they don’t like negotiating, actually still want to.

There are three things you should always listen to in this business:

1. What people say.

2. What people are trying to say.

3. What they really mean.

Often, what people are saying is they ‘hate’ to negotiate. What people are trying to say is they could do without the way auto dealers negotiate and what they really mean is they don’t want to make a mistake.

When people say they don’t like to negotiate, they are trying to say they don’t like the feelings of manipulation that occur when auto dealers overuse the ‘higher authority principle’ of negotiating. In other words, they dislike an improperly used desk system. You can still use a desk system, but you can decrease the back and forth, and keep the customer from feeling manipulated.

The first step is to have a written process that everyone understands. The second step is to make the process the same for each manager and each deal every time. The third step is to train your sales people how to negotiate, handle objections and assist the buyer to finalize a buying decision.

A written, detailed negotiating process that all sales people and managers understand is essential. Many dealerships seem to operate by the seat of their pants when dealing with the negotiating process. All proposals should be started in the same fashion. Although each deal can vary differently as you begin to negotiate, they should all start the same way to eliminate emotional, bad decisions. Having a precise, written and clearly understood process can eliminate different managers from working proposals in completely different directions that confuse sales people. Sales people should know how to handle any and all objections, verbally and written, without having to think or blink.

Sales people often give a proposal and when a customer objects, their first reply is, “Mr. Customer, what figures where you thinking?” Unfortunately, it may be the worst thing that could be said to a customer. Asking a customer what they are thinking without verifying and validating why you asked for what you proposed, will bring an uneasy feeling to the buyer and usually result in one of two answers, both of which aren’t good. The buyer will usually respond with a low-ball offer or say, “You’re the sales person, you tell me.” In this example, a sales person has violated simple rules of negotiating by asking the customer to set the bottom parameter of the negotiations. This usually will create a shopper from a potential buyer, because they can no longer have confidence that they have reached their best and lowest possible deal. Confidence creates the feeling of ‘hope for gain’ and eliminates the emotional fear of making a mistake.

When a customer asks for a lower price, the sales person must validate the MSRP by explaining the value pricing policy. “Mr. Customer, the vehicles are value priced today, which means they have a much smaller and more reasonable markup than in the past, to eliminate the back and forth and bring a more realistic pricing value to the customer.” If the customer persists for discounts, you can offer the potential of an additional percentage discount on the optional equipment of the vehicle. This validates your MSRP proposal and allows the customer to have feelings of victory by gaining a concession while establishing the bottom parameter of negotiations.

All customers are looking to satisfy certain emotions. Knowing how to professionally negotiate can satisfy all the emotions a customer desires and eliminate the negative feelings of manipulation that are prevalent when many customers leave a dealership after a negotiating process.

“Social Media” is without question the most talked about thing in online marketing right now. But how does it apply to your current marketing strategy, and why should you get involved? Social Media is an incredibly powerful way of speaking to your customers. When you enter their Social Network you are entering a circle of trust – these customers want to hear from you.

One of the most time-consuming tasks within social media is finding, reviewing, editing and posting relevant content your fans/followers will deem valuable. Taking the time to consistently post quality content frequently each day is an important factor to building followers and relationships. If I could take a moment of your time and ask if you would “Imagine This”…..

Here at Bleecker Automotive Group we manage the complete development of our pages, applications and functionality of our links, a real-time virtual community of our customers from our DMS, employees, neighbors and friends all collaborating and interacting online in real-time, sharing ideals, photos, comments and more!…..sounds a lot like Facebook, LinkedIn or even Twitter?….Well It’s not, It’s Facebook & Beyond!!

We currently utilize team management solutions, which reduces the time required for this function by implementing content syndication and automatically pulling our tweets, blogs, news streams, Google alerts search term and any RSS feed content directly into a database with headings, links and descriptions. The Bleecker content can be reviewed, edited, grouped and appended to date/time posting schedules that can be exported and immediately uploaded into our social media management system for syndicated posting…..Change The Way You Increase Business, When You Change The Way You Do Business

Not From the Good Doctor

There are two basic types of advertising: branding and traffic now. Each has its own objectives and potential pitfalls. How can you avoid common mistakes made in each form?

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Mid Week Motivation With Joe Cala, GM of Dealer Synergy "Make Lemonade"

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The Evolution and Natural Selection of Automotive Sales - WEBINAR - Advanced Showroom Sales

Advanced Showroom Sales / Car Sales Training - How To Sell 30+ Units Per Month

Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy just conducted a POWERFUL 1 hour webinar on "How To Sell More Cars"

There is a big debate about SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization." Is it worth the time and financial investment? The recent Google Hummingbird update has confused the debate even further.  Watch this week's video and then tell me what you think.

It may not come as a surprise, but paying extra bucks to “go green” in a hybrid car may pay off in self-esteem and image for older drivers, as well as give a healthy boost to the environment, according to a Baylor University study.

This may help fuel cynics' view that people are far from green when they park a hybrid in front of their 3,000-5,000 square-foot home with an Olympic pool and Lexus SUV in the garage. But at least the trend has money moving through the economy...

PRESS RELEASE:

Newswise — Paying extra bucks to “go green” in a hybrid car may pay off in self-esteem and image for older drivers, as well as give a healthy boost to the environment, according to a Baylor University study.

The finding is significant because some segments of the older-consumer population control a considerable share of the discretionary income in the United States, and the population size of the “mature market” is growing rapidly, researchers said.

The study is published in the journal Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing and Service Industries.

“If I want to pay $5 for a ‘green’ detergent or sponge, I’ll know that I’m helping the environment. But those things aren’t highly visible. Other people aren’t going to notice,” said Jay Yoo, Ph.D., an assistant professor of family and consumer sciences in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences.

Researchers analyzed a national cross-sectional survey of 314 consumers age 60 and older who had bought hybrid cars. The study showed that their satisfaction was influenced by social values — including pride and prestige — as well as quality and price, not only in vehicle purchase but in future savings on gasoline expenses.

Those three variables — social value, price and quality — are significant in building senior citizens’ customer loyalty as shown by repurchase intention and positive word-of-mouth, Yoo said.

Emotional values — such as excitement – did not significantly influence their purchase intention or satisfaction, according to the study.

“The findings suggest that elderly consumers are concerned about how they appear to others when driving a hybrid car,” the researchers wrote. “They believe that driving a hybrid car builds a positive self-image of the people who drive them.”

“This knowledge can help as a marketing tool,” Yoo said. “Hybrid cars have increased in visibility because of their environmental consciousness. So people may be willing to pay an extra $5,000 or so in order to think, ‘I’m great, and this is good for the environment.’” Previous research has shown that older consumers are more inclined to behave in a pro-environment way than younger people are, he said.

Other researchers were Won-Moo Hur of the School of Business Administration in Pukyong National University in Busan, South Korea; and Jin Hur of the Yonsei School of Business, Yonsei University, in Seoul, South Korea.

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Tom LaPointe CarChat24  Interactive Media Manager / Industry Analyst

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Tom has an MBA in Marketing and is an automotive writer and author with more than 15 years experience in virtually every aspect of the retail auto industry. He has been a performance leader in everything from sales and service, to web development and viral marketing.