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In this age of transparency in our business, let's take some of our own medicine. It's time to practice what we preach. (I can't believe I've surpassed my quota on clichés this early in the article.) I want to take this opportunity to take a closer look at our job titles and descriptions. Let's look at the different positions at the standard, 'old school' dealership. Then let's have some fun and rename them based on what they really are in this traditional setting. Finally, let's figure our what they SHOULD be called if they really made the most out of their influence. I'll begin by saying that some of these are original and some are not. When you've been in the business as long as I have, you can't remember which ones are original, or who said it in the first place! (I wish I had a dollar for every 'original' idea I've heard in the last few years that I first heard in the 80's!)

BDC/Internet Manager
More Accurately: The Phone Nazi or if you ask the veteran salespeople. The Antichrist.
Usually wondering why they left the sales floor for less money. Got this position because they were pretty good on the phones and had a Facebook account.
Should be called: Handshake Procurement Specialist
They should be converting distant connections to personal appearances with honesty, integrity, and transparency.

General Manager
More accurately: Out-of-Touch Number Cruncher
Sometimes referred to as the "No it All", because all they do is say "No" to it all. Drives the cool demo, works bankers hours, and is really out of touch.
Should be called: Resource Provider or Head Servant
aka, Head Cheerleader. Their job is hands-on, and should be to provide the managers with everything they need to succeed.

Sales Manager
More Accurately: Wizard of Oz
Often too busy for their 'lazy' salespeople. Real cool until they're asked to actually put thier talents on display in front of a customer.
Should be called: Offensive Coordinator
They should be planning, teaching, tracking, encouraging, scouting, executing, recruiting, motivating.....Did I mention teaching?

Used Car Manager
More Accurately: Lowballer
Emphatically explains why your trade-in is suffering in current market conditions....err, oh you're selling it? "These are hard to get, bringing top dollar!"
Should be called: Asphalt Real Estate Investor
They should be investing the dealership's funds in the parking space rather than the vehicle. Fully understands return on inventory investment and quick turn.

F&I Manager
More Accurately: Clean-Up Hitter
One more swing for the fences....no matter how long it takes.
Should be called: Security Guard
Protection, period. Protecting the customer with viable products while securing financing. Protecting the dealer with accurate, compliant paperwork.

Receptionist
More Accurately: Traffic Cop
Perfected the rehearsed greeting, 1000 friends on Facebook (personal), and a legendary pointer.
Should be called: Director of First Impressions
Enough said.

Lot Porter
More Accurately: Stretch Armstrong
Pulled in many different directions. Does everything, just never when you really need it.
Should be called: Merchandising Director
Taking ownership and responsibility for the way your vehicles are merchandised for all to see.

Salesperson
More Accurately: Management Critic or Baby Bird
Doing the best they can with the traffic YOU provide, even though you're not advertising enough, you're stealing trades, and you're giving house deals to others, and the internet department is stealing all of their leads.
Should be called: Reputation Reversal Specialist or Experience Overhaul Director
Differentiating themselves and the dealership from what most people have come to expect from a typical salesperson. Just makes it fun to buy a car.

If anyone reading this article still refers to this group as salesMEN or salesMAN, please listen closely. The Cold War is over, gas went over $1 per gallon, we've landed on the moon, cell phones are no longer in bags, and we no longer refer to this, or any other group as anythingMAN. Give me a second.....OK, I'm better.

Office Manager
More Accurately: Culture Assassin
Tries unsuccessfully to contain their total disgust in the overwhelming incompetence of the human co-workers.
Should be called: Nutritionist
Making sure that the dealership stays financially healthy by ensuring profitability through cost controls and record-keeping.

Detail/Clean-Up
More Accurately: That New Clean Up Guy
It's hard to remember anyone's name in this department when the average length of employment is 14 days. This average depends on whether you pay once a week or twice a month.
Should be called: Delivery Set Director
Has the important job of setting the stage for a spotless and memorable delivery.

The truth is that all of these may look funny on a business card. But wouldn't it be cool if the essence of what we expect was represented in their job title.

Who's your Danny?

In the last several years, I have had a revelation about the art and science of sales. The answer to sales success is within all of us. The answer is simple but the key to unlock the answer is elusive.

If you were to go back to the late 1800s, the first formal sales training provided by the likes of J. Edward Douglas and others, you will find teaching geared toward techniques — tie-downs, inverted tie-downs, etc. For more than a century now, sales people have been trained with various forms of techniques, word tracks, closes and other sales processes. Do these things work? Is this what creates success for the best performing sales people? My own unscientific research says no.

For more than 25 years I have been involved in sales and sales training reaching the highest levels of success. I have read more than 250 books and listened to hundreds of CDs on sales. I am considered a world-class expert on sales, but I am just now tapping into a higher level of consciousness in the arena. My conclusion is that most of what you have been taught about sales and use on a daily basis is not what creates the highest levels of success.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Tipping Point,” Gladwell describes theory and various supporting research about human behavior and how people make decisions. The author uses the term “small slicing” to describe the idea that substantial and correct information can be obtained about a person and his or her future behavior based on small slices of their communication and current behavior. The information in this book supports theories and research that I have had for the last several years. However, the theories are hard to articulate and get others to model. The key to success is simple but hard to define.

The old phrases, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” and “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” are examples of simple truths. The magic answers to how do you make a great first impression and how do you say things correctly are what are much harder to define.

Sales techniques, sales processes and word tracks can all be helpful but are not the key to peak performance. If those things were the answer then everyone who ever had sales training or had modeled a successful sales person would become peak performers. That’s not the case.

Even the words “sales” and “selling” create a false direction for sales people. The proper mindset for a sales person is to think of very personal interaction with buyers. The mission of a sales person is to create an environment conducive to buying for the customer. TLC – think like a customer. Not just any customer — the particular customer you are with now. One-size-fits-all selling does not work.

The so-called road to a sale or sales process is only as good as the personal interaction of the sales person with the customer during the process. This is why training on just sales process without education in understanding interpersonal communication, behavior or the art and science of persuasion creates a sales environment of failure for sales people and frustration for customers.

Think more about the customer’s thoughts and emotions and how they are being expressed to you. To create a buying environment for the customer, you must take all your senses and intuition to a higher level. You must begin to see like a deaf person, hear like a blind person and understand the customer as if you were his or her deepest and most caring friend.

If you would like seven quick tips to start you on the road to higher sales success, email me at info@tewart.com with the phrase “7 quick tips” in the subject line.

Take a look at those familiar little icons in the top right corner of the screenshot above. Four of the primary social media sites’ logos adorn a prominent position on the homepage. It’s not an uncommon sight. Some put them at the top. Other put them at the bottom. Some make them large and prominent. Others make them small and subtle. One way or another, most dealerships put them somewhere. They do it for a reason.

The reason is presence. We’ve all heard about the potential of social media but few local businesses and car dealers in particular have found the level of success that they would like. Finding that success is not the topic of this particular article (important though it is). Instead, we’re going to gain an understanding of the importance of social media outside of the obvious.

We all know that Facebook, Twitter, and the other networks have the potential to drive business when done right. Some would say that the effort and cost are too high, that the spend of both time and/or money can better be allocated elsewhere. This may be true for some; finding demonstrable success and true ROI from social eludes the vast majority of dealers. There’s assumed benefits, but real ROI – that’s a whole series of other posts. For now, let’s assume that you’re cruising along with a social media strategy that is basically there for presence only. You have to be there because you have to be there, but the effort or investment are currently minimal. Perhaps you’ve tried it yourself or with a social media vendor and couldn’t justify the cost. For whatever reason, you’ve taken your eye off the social media ball.

It’s okay. Many have. There’s nothing wrong with it. However, it’s important to understand one thing, one spark of an idea that you should consider before abandoning it all together. Whether you’re paying attention to it or not, others are. Your customers are. Your employees are. Even if you’ve given up on the “social” aspect of social media, there are other reasons that make it to where you must pay at least a little attention to it.

If you’re already out there finding the type of success that I’ve seen in recent weeks (and there aren’t a ton of you from what I’ve seen), then this article isn’t for you. If you’re just not sure of the importance of social media, read on…

It’s Search.

People look for you by name. Take a look at your analytics and you’ll see that the majority of your traffic comes from people searching for a variation of your dealership by name. As with any search, there will be those who look at the search results page as a whole and click to more than one spot.

Thankfully, those who are doing their social media properly can have their social profiles easily found on searches for their name. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn all hold strong authority in the eyes of the search engine. This is the case for a reason. The search engines know that people like to click on the profiles. If they didn’t, the search engines would not present them so prominently. That’s one of the key factors in the search ranking algorithm – searcher activity.

When they click through from search, will they be pleased with what they see or will they be embarrassed for you over your social profiles? Will they see that you’re using social media as a communication tool or a place to put funny cat pictures? Will they see that people are commenting and you’re commenting right back at them?

If you want to give people a bad taste in their mouths before they even attempt to do business with you, have a dormant or mismanaged social profile for them to click through from search. That’ll do it very quickly. Remember, millions of Americans take their social media seriously. Studies show that 64% of social media users are much more inclined to do business with a company that is maintaining the profiles on their beloved social media sites. Is your profile up to par or better than your competitors when people click through from search?

It’s Reputation.

This is one of the most challenging concepts to communicate to clients. When we think of reputation and reviews, we think of review sites. While these are definitely important, they are best suited for defense. In other words, people look at your ratings on review sites when they’re already in the market. They do so just to make sure that you’re a dealership they’re willing to do business with, but there are challenges to that which I’ll explain below.

First, let me explain the difference in how social media reputation works. In the old days before the internet took over, asking a dealership about reputation made them think of “word of mouth”. Many made a living off of word of mouth – repeat and referral business normally led down an easier road to the sale as well as higher gross margins. That concept has been replaced in many ways to where the thought of reputation has been isolated to review sites.

The problem there is that word of mouth is not only still alive and well, it’s actually more prominent today than ever before. It’s social media. Reviews are “name defending” to allow those who would consider you to continue down that path. 4-stars, 25 point rating on Google, good on the easily visible comments – that’s a great defense. When people see that, they’ll continue looking at you.

Social media takes your reputation on the offensive. It’s not the review components on your social media page as those are rarely used and even more rarely seen by consumers. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m referring to proactive customer sentiment communicated through their wall posts, Tweets, etc. I’m talking about making sure that people are saying positive things about you through social media. When people leave a review on a review site, there’s no commitment. They’re not really voicing an opinion that will be seen by the right people. Yes, it’s helpful, and I hope that everyone understands the distinction here. It’s just that there’s no “skin in the game” the way there is on social media.

When they post something about you to their own social media profiles, they’re telling their portion of the world (much of which is in the local market) through a venue that means something to them, their friends, and their family. This is aggressive, proactive reputation marketing and it can only be done by the consumers themselves. If they say they had a good experience at your dealership on Yelp, there’s not a great chance that anyone who knows or trusts them will ever see the review. Yes, you get the stars, but that’s defensive.

Their Facebook wall, however, is sacred. It means something to them. Their friends and family will see what they said and it will register because they trust that person. It’s word of mouth on steroids. No, you don’t need robust social media profiles to have it happen to you, but it certainly helps. When they can tell that you’re active on social media, they are much more likely to interact with you as well as commend you publicly through these venues. This is the golden ticket that, with very little effort or investment, can translate into increased business. It’s not just about defending your reputation. It’s about advancing it. This cannot be done through review sites. Social media is the word of mouth for the digital age.

It’s Presence.

The last reason that social media is so important to dealers beyond the actual social aspects of it is presence. This is the easiest place for you to shine as a company. Community involvement, employee spotlights, customer highlights – all of these things express a positive sentiment about your dealership that can have an impact on your potential customers.

It’s through social media that you’re able to humanize the company. This is where the “big, bad, scary car dealer” can be shown to have a heart, to be active in the local area and charities, and to be another business just like the bakery down the block. It’s this presence component that makes abandoning or going through the motions on your social media profiles such a huge mistake. This is no longer a world that relies strictly on proximity and newspaper ads to help them buy vehicles. It’s a world that is open to the realities of entities such as businesses.

You have an opportunity through social media to show your potential customers that you’re truly better than the competition. In many ways, some dealers have decided that they’re not reaching people through social media because they don’t see the interactions. This is confusing because so many times as I talk to dealers they tell me just how active they are on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or the others, yet they somehow feel that their own presence on social media is invisible. If the strategy is wrong, they very well might be invisible. However, when the strategy is strong, the possibilities open up to turn social media into a true advertising medium.

* * *

These aren’t techniques to help you find success. These are simply reminders that social media is hot for a reason, that bad experiences in the past do not have to be repeated, and that there’s more to it than just getting likes and fans. Stay focused on improving your social media presence. Don’t let it slip. As the world becomes more and more social, you’ll want to maximize the potential benefits that can arise from this ever-changing and ever-growing medium.

Over the past several months, we’ve been doing a ton of research in the automotive industry about how dealers perceive social media marketing. It’s something that has both thrilled and alarmed us because the results have been greatly mixed. On one hand, many dealers are starting to realize that social media is more than just a fluffy form of marketing that has not demonstrable ROI, a perception that had been growing in 2011 and 2012. Those tides have turned. However, the one alarming piece of information we discovered is that many dealers are considering social media to be a “checkbox item” for reputation management. In other words, if their reputation management provider offers social media, they’re covered.

Unfortunately, this is a bad trend. There are some pretty strong reputation management services available today. They perform some of the right activities that can be performed on the dealership’s behalf when it comes to getting more positive reviews on sites like Google Local and Yelp. The problem is that most of the social components that we’ve seen in these products and services are lacking quality and true return on investment.

It’s much the same battle that we have fought when it comes to search engine optimization. Almost all web vendors offer SEO, but must are simply not that good at it. Again, SEO should not be a checkbox item for a website any more than an engine should be a checkbox item for a car. Nobody goes out and says, “I like the way the car looks and it has all of the seats that I need. Does it have an engine? Okay, good, I’ll take it!”

Back to social media. The automotive industry has, for some reason, lumped reputation management and social media marketing into the same budget, the same type of product. This is very far from the truth. It’s a little discouraging because the effort put into a proper social media marketing strategy and the campaigns associated with it are of utmost importance and having a social media presence that is not aggressive, that acts as a checkbox to be clicked just to say it’s present for the dealersthip, is a huge mistake. Social media is growing so rapidly in both mindshare and timeshare. More people are on it and thinking about it. They’re spending more time on it than ever before. To dismiss it is a problem.

Reputation management is important. It acts as a way that dealers can protect their potential when it comes to business. People who are actively considering doing business with a dealership can be turned off as a result of bad reviews. It’s not common, but it’s present and should be treated appropriately. If having a strong reputation management service can help to save one or two deals a month, it’s probably worth the investment.

Social media, on the other hand, is proactive. It’s intended to take people and get them into the dealership and/or onto the dealer’s website. Even when it fails to do that, the fallback benefit is in the branding, getting the name and logo of the dealership in front of as many local people as possible as many times as possible to make the dealership a top-of-mind consideration when it’s time to buy a car or have service done.

If anything, reputation management should be the checkbox item. Social media needs much more attention and bad social media marketing partners can do more harm than good. Vet them carefully.

Words are cheap. What matters is the true belief system behind your words and the actions you take because of those belief systems. Economies don’t improve, people improve. Waiting for something to happen is for losers. The most important economy is the one created between your ears.

During down markets you have to get creative to make things happen. Although you may not be able to push a new car market if it’s not there, you can niche market, create affiliations, utilize your customer base better and push a used car market. In other words, there are options for success. Standing and waiting for the world to create your economy is not a good option.

There is an old quote that says, “When you go to work on yourself and get better it’s amazing how much better your customer’s get.” The one activity that can always pay off during a down economy is individual and organizational development.

Everything boils down to the four P’s of business - people, process, product and positioning. Do you work daily on your personal development? Do you work daily to increase your knowledge and ability to sell your product? Do you work daily to increase the effectiveness of your process? Do you work daily to increase your positioning through better marketing? If you work on these things daily you will determine your sales success in good times or bad. Good times will now become the norm.

Thoreau said it best: “Things don’t change; people change.” Make a commitment to figure out why you want to do something. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. When you know why you want something, ideas of how will flow to you. Concentrate on the solution, not the problem. When you dwell on the idea of a prosperous market you create the reality of a prosperous market.

When you open the door to your belief system, you close the door of scarcity. When you are suffering from a lack of something it’s because you have a mental condition of lack. Everything apparent in your outside world of today is a direct reflection of your inside world from yesterday.

As you improve yourself you begin to think and act on another level of energy. Imagine the analogy of playing a video game and having to get a good enough score at one level to go to the next level. Once you improve enough you enter a whole other level that creates another opportunity for improvement.

Don't forget to follow me on Google

This is part 2 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

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We’ve all heard the cliches.

• “Build raving fans!”
• “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising!”
• “Delight your customers!”

These sayings would start to get really annoying if they weren’t 100% correct.

As I said in part 1 of this series, it isn’t what you’re saying about your brand on social media as much as it’s about what other people say. Unfortunately, many people only talk about a brand if they have something bad to say. To counter this from both a reputation perspective as well as an exposure perspective, brand ambassadors are the most important people in your public relations world as it pertains to social media.

Everyone already knows that you love your brand, that you believe in your product, and that you have the best of everything to offer your customers in your opinion. If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be in business, so most claims by a company are not believed. Not every brand can be the best, but every brand claims to be the best. As a result, people go to two forms of outside sources to confirm or deny claims. They go to experts in many opinions – Roger Ebert has made and broken many movies with his words over the decades. The other place they go thanks to the power of social media and review sites is to their peers. What are other people who have already tried your brand, product, or services saying about you?

The presence of brand ambassadors is not just a matter of encouraging happy customers to write reviews. Reviews are great and extremely important, but there’s no real “skin in the game” when they post to these sites. They’re one within a group. If a company has 100 Google Local reviews, what’s one more added to the mix, at least from a customer’s perspective. It’s not a personal thing when someone posts to review sites.

Social media, on the other hand, is a personal thing. Those who take their social media seriously are much less likely to say something good about a brand. When they do, it actually means something. Their friends and family who already have an opinion about the person will take their recommendations on social media more seriously. This isn’t even taking into account Facebook Graph Search which has the potential to amplify this even more (we’ll see). This is simply looking at the state of social media today. If someone’s willing to say that they love your brand, product, or service on social media in general and Facebook in particular, it’s the most powerful review anyone can give you.

It’s the “skin in the game” that isn’t present on review sites.

If your company is actively building brand ambassadors, you’re  already seeing the amazing results. You’re hearing from your customers either through social media itself (“You were right, Bob. ABC Motors took great care of me, too!) or at the store itself. If you aren’t hearing about people coming to your store because they heard about your from a friend, you’re not building brand ambassadors. I’m not trying to use circular reasoning here. Just stating a fact. If you build brand ambassadors regularly on social media, you will hear about it at the store. It’s that simple.

In the next story, we will go into detail about how to identify potential brand ambassadors. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to Soshable by Email to get the full scoop on how to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts.

This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

_______

Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador Factory covered. For those who don’t know, step one would be to make sure that your business is operating in a way that creates extremely happy customers and clients. There’s nothing I can say on this social media blog to help you there – run a good business and make people more than satisfied with the results you deliver. If you aren’t doing that, social media can’t fix it.

With the assumption that you’re running a good business out of the way, let’s move on to step two. You have to identify potential brand ambassadors. The initial requirement is easy – they have to like you. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. Liking your business isn’t enough to make a brand ambassador. You have to look for other qualities to go along with it.

This is where stereotypes have to be thrown out. A hip 20-something isn’t necessarily addicted to their smartphone and Facebook. A 65-year-old grandmother isn’t necessarily still handwriting postcards to her grandchildren. You can’t identify a potential social media user without asking them. Once you start asking, you’re going to be surprised at the results.

Before you ask, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are prepared for the initiative. It is an initiative. To downplay it as something that you’re “playing with” or to isolate social media activity to a single person is a mistake. It takes every customer-facing employee at a company to really get the most benefit out of this. Have a meeting and even have everyone read this blog post first. It’s important that they get it before trying to sell them on the concept.

Here are some characteristics you’ll want to look for when determining whether or not to approach someone about being a brand ambassador for your business:

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Social

This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as one might think. There are tons of shy people on social media. In fact, social media offers a venue for shy people to interact with their world from a safe distance which is part of its popularity. These shy people aren’t going to be brand ambassadors.

You want that person who can’t stop socializing. They are often talkative in person, sharing information without being asked. They will likely check their smartphone throughout a long transaction. If they grab it and take a peek every time it pings them with a new text message or Facebook update, they’re connected in all the right ways.

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Friendly

We’ve all known that ever-connected person who is a total snob. Their profile is probably loaded with cynical comments, which are only slightly less cynical than what they say about people in real life.

Friendly people are much more likely to be brand ambassadors. They are the ones who carry an extra smile with them in case yours runs out of juice. They like you the moment they meet you and many people like them as a result.

This is an extremely important trait of a brand ambassador because these are the type of people who are willing to help you out when you ask. At the end of the day, very few people become a brand ambassador without prompting, which means that you want to identify those people who are willing to put their name behind a good experience they’ve had with a company. Remember, brand ambassadors are giving personal endorsements. It’s not like asking someone to post a positive review on Yelp. Getting them to post on their social media is a true endorsement. Since it’s a reflection of themselves that reaches their friends and family, it actually means something. It’s “skin in the game” which is why it’s so much more powerful than a simple positive review.

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Extremely Satisfied

This is the moment of truth. Are they happy, and I mean really happy with your product or service? If they meet the first couple of criteria and they express extreme satisfaction with their transaction, you’ve found an ideal candidate to approach about being a brand ambassador.

You’ve done right by them and you could really use them to do right by you on social media. This is it. You’re about to get a real endorsement from a real person who is likely trusted by their friends and family.

* * *

In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the ways to approach a potential brand ambassador and put them to work for you.

I've shared this story before but it's worth mentioned again. I was speaking to a client about their social media presence. Well, it was actually their lack of a social media presence. They didn't have a Facebook page, they didn't realize that they had a Twitter account that had been set to Tweet AutoBlog via RSS, and they through that Google+ was a premium service that Google was selling. Don't laugh. This was one of the darkest days of my marketing career.

When I asked why they didn't have a Facebook page at the very least, he said that "they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook." After some explaining about how Facebook and social media in general worked, I got down to what was the real root of the problem. He said that he totally understood that they could post on their own Facebook profile without his permission or even knowledge, but if he had a Facebook page and he posted there then he would have to respond.

Exactly. You have to respond. You want to respond. Every customer challenge is an opportunity to shine.

Control the Feedback

Disney. Apple. Amazon. Johnson & Johnson. These are brands that regularly topped the "most loved" companies lists. They do what they can to try to make everyone happy. Despite being at the top of the list, they have haters. Many haters. Thousands, perhaps millions of people have a negative opinion of these loved brands.

Let's look at it locally. There's a Peruvian restaurant close to the office that we go to whenever we want to have a casual lunch. The food is amazing - the Lomo Saltado is the best way to fill up on $10. I took a friend there who loved Peruvian food and he hated it. He even said so on Yelp (granted, the service was uncannily awful that day, but the food didn't impress him either). You simply can't appeal to everyone.

Those who are going to complain about your business will find a way to complain no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The reality in today's uber-connected world is that you can't avoid it and you shouldn't even try. In fact, you should embrace it by allowing as many venues such as Facebook to be the place where you want to hear their complaints.

When people post negative reviews to many of the review sites or tell the story of their experiences on their social media profiles, you often have no recourse. Many of the review sites allow you to reply and you definitely should, but it still goes onto a permanent record. The complaint is logged and you can't take it down. In cases like those, it's extremely important to reply whenever possible with empathy, professionalism, a sincere desire to improve through their feedback, and (whenever applicable) a willingness to make things right for them. It's a best practice to reply to every review, good or bad, but that's another blog post.

Now, imagine if you used your social media, Facebook in particular, as a venue through which people could voice their opinions about your business. Some would say that it would get more exposure that way, particularly if they have a lot of friends, but there's a couple of reasons you'd want it here rather than on review sites. First, you definitely can and should reply to those comments. Using Facebook as a two-way communication tool allows you to shine through the dark moments and highlight the brighter ones.

The second reason is control. When they post a complaint to your Facebook page, you have the ability to control this portion of the conversation. If your reply is thoughtful and satisfactory to the user, awesome! If it starts to turn into an argument or the user becomes offensive, you have the ability to hide it. I do not recommend hiding complaints as a general practice. Take what you can from the feedback and improve your business. Stand behind your product and company and accept criticism with the professionalism and a desire to improve as I mentioned above. Hiding posts is a last resort and should only be used when the complaint turns offensive.

Thankfully, this post does not apply to many. Over the last couple of years there has been a wonderful shift towards the desire to be more open to feedback. It's a necessity with today's quick and easy methods of communication that are available to consumers. If you're still missing the point and choose to do what the image for this blog post implies, I'm not sure what else to say that can help.

Many dealerships today view online reputation management as a reactive job of monitoring social media and product reviews and then responding to them to make certain customers know that they care.  Proactive reputation building is where you want to be today.

The reputation of your dealer or your reputation as an expert is a precarious thing. Any negative press about your dealership or a new product or service can spread online like an STD, so it’s imperative to make the most of all the positive content you do have. It is also important to proactively protect not only the dealer reputation, but that of each vehicle brand or service repair or part you represent.

Get the Good Word OUT!

I suggest you first gather all the positive dealership content and about each product or service you offer.  Positive content could include but is not limited to:

•     testimonials / reviews
•     success stories
•     give back to the community stories
•     results of survey or trial
•     case studies
•     certifications and other marks of quality

Continually strive to get more positive content that can be maximized for the benefit of the dealers online reputation. You know it's critical to be proactive and build positive reviews that boost your local search score and ranking.

Publicizing Positive Content
What’s critical is syndicating your content online in as many places as possible so it shows up in the first page of search results. A great place to publish content with one click of a button to social networks is Dlvrit.com

Testimonials that are as Real as they Get!...on your website
For the most believable testimonials, create an image from your 3^rd party review sites, such as Yelp,
Google Local, etc. Meaning, take a screen shot of your customer reviews from 3^rd party review sites and place those on your website. Testimonials copied than pasted to your testimonial website page is much more believable to a visitor than testimonials published by the company who owns the website.  I’m shocked when companies only publish raving testimonials with all 5 stars. Is this really a trustworthy dealership when I see no negative feedback or interaction with unsatisfied customers? Also incorporate testimonials into your social media strategy with links to this page. Publish them in press releases, articles, and other online and offline materials.”

Next, set up a Press, Media, or News page
Got a big announcement? Toot your horn with a simple press release (success stories are the best) and publish it first on your corporate or business news website page. This way, all other online press releases will link back to the original content on the corporate website as the source of the information.

Most important! Success stories illustrate how your dealership has helped an individual struggling with a problem. If your dealership is married to the community and gives back then broadcast it all over your social networks. The pay it forward good deeds go viral so fast and build a dealers online reputation with the power of storytelling, while appealing to a different segment of your target audience.

Jerry Hart
President
eReputationBUILDER

“The opinions in this blog are mine alone and not the opinions of who I work for”

If that isn’t clear please click here.

Recently I spoke at an “event” in Portland, Oregon. The room was not at capacity, however those that attended were very engaged. One of my co-workers welcomed the small workshop attendees and dived into best practices for website optimization, SEO and SEM. His down to earth approach, humor and Subject Matter Expertise shone brightly that morning in the Washington room at The Red Lion. Using common sense approaches he brought what some would consider a very high level discussion to level that was easily digestible.

After lunch I took the stage. As there were a couple executives from my place of employment there I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. I said “amen” and dove into Reputation Management. There was great discussion from the crowd of best practices, things that worked and what to be careful not to do and who they would recommend their peers stay away from. I was then asked if I really thought if Reputation Management mattered at the end of the day. I took a different approach then I normally do this is what my response was…

One of the most influential speakers, authors and someone who changed my life, Gary Vaynerchuk has said legacy is more valuable than currency. Right now I don’t want you to think about money. Don’t think about selling a car, don’t think about servicing another truck. Think about your children and grandchildren. Think about what they will discover about you online. For the most part, what is put online will be there in some form forever. Think about what they will learn about who you were and the organization you worked for. Taking money out of the equation, what do you want your legacy to be?

I am happy to say this made some people in the room think about what their Reputation meant. What do you want to be known for?

Safe travels.


To see what makes a good review click here

To see the 2 most critical items in reputation management click here

Oh and pardon my errors…I stink at typing:)

Make the Owner or General Manager Aware of Risks

Pay Attention to Bad Experiences at Other Dealerships

Give Exceptional Service

Remember that today's consumers are connected, they do research, and they are very aware of their power over businesses. The company culture shines through each employee whether it's a positive one or a negative one. If you are constantly getting bad reviews (and thankfully there aren't a ton of dealers who fall into this category in 2013) than you should take a look at the things that people are saying online. We all know there are reviews that are bad because of misunderstandings or outright ignorance from the consumers, but there are more bad reviews that echo the truth than most are willing to acknowledge. If it's a growing problem, find out what the people are saying and do what you can to improve it.

www.theforgottenlaws1.info

There as been a major shift in digital marketing that has been building up for a couple of years now. Content was once a tool used for search engine optimization and social media marketing, but today and in the foreseeable future content will be the most important (and easiest) way to advance in search and social. We discussed it in detail on ADM last month.

One of the advantages of working for an automotive SEO company is that we get to play with the vast majority of content management systems and back end tools that dealers use today. Some are very good at allowing page creation and management, including Vin Solutions, Dealer.com, and, of course, KPA Connect. Others are awful. If you're using a platform that has limitations on content creation, it's time to consider a change.

This isn't a pitch for our website product. It doesn't matter as much to me that you have our product or another product that allows you to easily create and distribute content from your website. It only matters that you have the ability to build two or three pages a month with content that comes from the dealership itself. Where to find and who can create this content is another discussion, but for now, it's imperative to gain the understanding of where content stands in the present and future of digital marketing.

Unique, high-quality content is the source of your digital marketing. It's where the magic can happen. You have to think along the lines of offering resources and points of interest for your local customers. Your standard website content cannot accomplish this. It requires the creation of content that people can find. Remember, it's not just about getting in front of the people who are interested in buying a car today. It's also about building your base, exposing your brand, and being at the top of mind for those who may be interested in buying a car in six months.

This is why "new" marketing trends like retargeting and video pre-roll require codes on your website to make them work. Getting these codes onto your potential customers' computers requires content. To make it happen, you must have a website platform that makes it easier.

Build pages. If you are limited with your backend, make a change. You have the potential to get a dramatic advantage over your competitors, but you simply cannot if you don't have a flexible system to make it happen.

Content marketing is internet marketing. It has been for a while (which I'll discuss below) but in 2013 content management will emerge to become the "must have" component of automotive digital marketing strategy.

It was during a discussion on ADM where the venerable Ralph Paglia brought up a great point. In regards to an article about using your website as the content hub for both search and social, Paglia posted a comment pointing out that not all web platforms, particularly those in the automotive industry, give users the ability to post content as easily as they can on Wordpress, Tumblr, Ning, or any of the other platforms specifically designed as content management systems. Many automotive websites (and business websites in general) trap users with content restrictions. This has been an annoyance for years. Going into 2013, it will be a major drawback.

Content Has Been The Key Forever, But...

This isn't anything new. Content marketing has been a component of search engine optimization, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and just about every strategy that relies on driving traffic from one source to another. The difference now is that it's going beyond the status of being a "component" and becoming the heart and soul of these various types of marketing techniques.

SEO for years has been a function of appropriate keyword-rich content, keyword-rich title tags, and powerful inbound links with keyword-rich title tags. There was a time when you could have next to zero content on your website and still rank well for challenging terms. Those days are behind us. With the Penguin update in April and the Panda update last year, Google forced search marketers to shoot for quality, to draw in the links based upon organic prominence. For this reason, content truly has become "king" even though it was really just a queen or a jack in the recent past.

Social media marketing can always relied on content as the driving force, but one could easily center the content on the social sites and still benefit from it. This strategy is still in play, particularly for big brands, but smaller or localized businesses (such as car dealers) should rework their social strategies to include the content that appears on their website.

The reality of the trends is this: content marketing was a part of larger marketing strategies before. Now, those other marketing strategies are easier to manage if you make the content aspect the central activity that bleeds over into search and social. It's a paradigm shift in many ways and is the reason why changes should be coming for many websites in the coming year. Some would argue that they shouldn't even wait for 2013, that now is the time to act. I tend to agree.

Post It or Move Along

There's an episode of Seinfeld where Cosmo Kramer starts receiving phone calls at his home from people wanting to get movie times. He tries to become Movie Phone. Unfortunately, he runs into some roadblocks.

Embedding is disabled, but watch it anyway.

This is sort of what's happening for many business website providers, particularly in automotive. "Why don't you just tell me what content you want on your website?"

They (dealer website providers) don't offer the tools that allow users to log in, post a piece of content, and make it live immediately. For some, you have to send them the HTML itself. Others tell you to email them the words and pictures and they'll post it for you. Some let you build a page, but won't allow it to go live until you call them.

Call them? Really?

To be able to perform the basic marketing techniques required for success in 2013, you must be able to post your content how you want it and when you want it without constraints. You must have the ability to put the right social media buttons on your content; that doesn't mean a blue "F" in a small box that links to your Facebook page. You need true share buttons. Social signals are becoming the most important tool in both search and social marketing. If your website platform breaks the codes, you need to make a change.

If you are unable to post content easily without putting a ticket into tech support, you will fall behind your competitors. If you cannot make your websites socially engaging, you will fall behind your competitors. People are really starting to "get it" when it comes to content marketing. Some of these people want to succeed over you. Will you let that happen?

http://www.internetsales20group.com

Automotive Internet Sales 20 Group - Online Reputation Management - Reviews - Jerry Hart

Internet Sales 20 Group - Chicago - Department Staff & Human Resource Management - Ralph Paglia from Dealer Synergy on Vimeo.

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

Time is one of the most valuable natural resources we have. It is also one of the most misused. Time management is a vital key to success. Think of how much time is wasted daily on complaining about things that are out of our control, arguing about things that have no value, and worrying about things that may never happen. The next time you feel yourself falling into one of these traps, try reading something motivational to boost your morale, take a moment to look at the big picture and see things from another perspective, or focus on the things within your control that can make life run smoother for you and others. 

Http://www.seanvbradley.com 

Lets keep it as "real" as possible... We are in the car business for one reason... TO MAKE MONEY!!  If you want to hug trees and save the earth, you are in the wrong industry. Don't get me wrong, you can make a ton of money and DONATE it to those charities... but as far as anything deeper... a Car Dealership is not the place to "change the world". So, lets be honest with each other... PLEASE. 

Now, that we got that out of the way we can focus on the issue at hand here... MAKING MONEY. If you are NOT interested in making money, then please LOG OFF NOW. 

Let me start by introducing myself to those of you who do not know me... I am Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy and I am a Millionaire Car Salesman! There are numerous people in the Auto industry that are Millionaires but few who who have come from the places I have come and achieved what I have achieved. 

Let me give you a little background. I came from a HORRIBLE Child Hood, Psychotic Family, Terrible Abuse, Tortured both physically and mentally. Dead Beat Father... He was NEVER around. Everyone HATED me as a kid. I was sent to a boys home when I was 12 until I was 15... 3 years in an institution as a kid. 

I came home put myself in College. I put my self in the ARMY ROTC, I put myself in Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity... I worked for every cent I had. It was hard, but it was MINE.

(I had SOME TRULY SUREAL EXPERIENCES THAT I WILL OutLINE iN THE FUTURE) But... Long Story Short, I dropped out of college and got a "JOB" at a car dealership... mostly because they gave me a DEMO LOL!! 

I then went from being DEAD broke to being salesman of the month... salesman of the YEAR (Weisleder Lincoln Mercury Mazda). I was a REAL 30 Car GUY!! 

I went through EVERY training the dealership gave me, every training from the OEM, EVERY training from the  Internet Sale Companies... Hell, I studied EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I could! 

** I actually studied website design. I read books on HTML, Dynamic HTML, JAVA, Macromedia FLASH, Front Page, Dream Weaver etc...

I studied the VERY early Search Engine Optimization... utilizing software like "Web Position Gold". 

I went to workshop after workshop... I even got certified at the International Academy of Search Engine Optimization & Wordtracker...

I spent YEARS chasing and FINALLY getting the partnership with FranklinCovey... I spent another 3 years flying all over the United States getting CERTIFIED as a Facilitator and Instructor of the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" AND... "The 5 Choices Of Extraordinary Productivity". I even got the opportunity to meet Dr. Stephen Covey!! 

I even managed to get accepted into the National Speakers association (NSA). 

I went from a College degenerate, broke and desperate to... successful.

Because, I was gaining knowledge, I started gaining success.... because I was successful, I started to MAKE MONEY. 

***People, I left Cherry Hill Nissan in 2003 making approximately $170,000 as a BDC Director!! 

I had ONLY been in the car business 5 years... 5 friggen years!!! From BROKE to FLUSH... $170,000 at age 26 

I was 26 making almost $200,000 per year, driving a Lexus etc... And then I gave it all up to "roll the dice" and start a consulting company. 

You have NO idea how many people told me I was crazy giving up that Salary, that demo, that security, everything... 

I didn't care! I felt I was destined for something BIGGER... I felt I had it in me to do something even bigger. I had NO official business education or skills yet I decided to "roll the dice" and start a national company with NO MONEY... LOL! 

Well people it worked! I have generated OVER Ten Million Dollars. ($10,000,000+) Not Bad for a "Piece of Shit" "project kid"... 

I LOVE this industry. I really do... I BLEED Gasoline. I am a "Car Guy". I LOVE this industry, because you can EARN as MUCH as you want! 

Do you REALLY want to make money? Are you tired of the "carats"? Let me HELP YOU FOR FREE! 

Why should you listen to me...?

• Well for starters I am a Millionaire
• I have generated over 10 Million... actually $11,000,000+ for MYSELF! 
• I Own Millions of Dollars in Real Estate 
• I have Porsches, Mercedes, Motorcycles, ATVs and other Motor Sports 
• I have security... Millions in Life Insurance, 401Ks etc... 
• Hundreds of Thousands in Jewelry....
• Assets, Assets, Assets and MORE Assets... 
• Married to a BEAUTIFUL Woman with 3 AMAZING Kids and Boxer Puppy Named "7". 

*** I know how to make money

I have EVERYTHING that a Human Being can possibly want or NEED!

Everything I have is BECAUSE of the Car Industry... Everything I am, Everything I have is because of the Car Industry.

You have NO IDEA... I am FIRST GENERATION in this country. My family was and some are STILL VERY POOR. They live in the "Hood", They live in the projects of New York City and London... 

I have realized the American dream. I am able to give my children things I ONLY saw on TV... Things that I only fantasized about as a kid. These things are my everyday reality. 

How crazy is it that I own a whole national company with over 20 FULL time employees (not to mention part timers, interns and general contract agents...) that depend on Dealer Synergy to feed themselves and their families... It is surreal! It is an honor to have this responsibility and it is crazy that I went from destitute to BOSS... But it is all thanks to the CAR BUSINESS! 

I am tremendously grateful for being in the BEST INDUSTRY in the world. In an industry that can take a "piece of shit nobody and make him into a Millionaire BOSS that can change lives all over this country! 

Guess what... YOU CAN TOO! Seriously if I can do it... YOU CAN TOO! I have literally trained THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of people! I have seen fledglings become successful, I have been blessed to have mentored  countless entrepreneurs and Automotive Professionals...

Do you REALLY want to be successful...? Do you REALLy want to learn how to MASTER YOUR CRAFT and BECOME a Millionaire Car Sales Man?  

I can help You and I will help you... As a matter of fact, it is MY RESPONSIBILITY and DUTY to HELP YOU! 

I have been Blessed by having some AMAZING Mentors in my life that took the time to teach me, motivate me, inspire me... be PATIENT with me. And thank GOD they did... Look at me now! 

I want to help as many people as possible. All you have to do is EMBRACE ME and my philosophy.

You might ask "Why"... Why do you want to help me? 

Great question! 

Here is my Answer... Life is too short! We ONLY have 86,400 seconds in a day and when they are gone they are gone! 

A VERY dear friend of mine, an inspiration of mine, a friend of mine and a business associate of mine just DIED at age 42 years old. WTF?? He was a beautiful human being... hell, a BETTER person than ME and he is gone. As an Automotive Professional Would Say "It Is What It Is"! But I think of Karry EVERY DAY. I DO... I realize that life is TOO SHORT. I sincerely want to help people. I want to see people EVOLVE, I want to assist people with their "work / life balance". I have been blessed with more than I could have EVER hoped for. I want to GIVE BACK. 

If you are seriously interested in learning from me, if you are serious about evolving, if you are serious about SYNERGY ... let me know. It would be my pleasure to share in your success! 

http://www.dealersynergy.com 

I received an email from this dealership and was very excited when I saw that this dealership was using Digital Marketing Initiatives to try to recruit for their dealership!! 

I think this is AWESOME!! Dealers NEED to use:

* Facebook and other forms of Social Media

* Their website & micro sites

* Pay Per Click 

* Permission Based Email Campaigns as well as newsletters

If a dealership wants to hire or needs to hire additional members to their team... they need to think out of the box. 

I am always looking for ideas to help dealers be successful. If you have any additional ideas for HR / recruiting, please let us know! 

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

Man Bites Dog? A Way to Fight the Deleted Google Reviews Dilemma

No different than numerous dealers, a client of mine, 25-year dealer Mohammad Ahmed―president of Northend Motors in Canton, Mass., in the Boston area―had numerbous positive reviews, all collected legitimately through very satisfied customers, stripped from his Google Places listing. Before this action, his dealership rated a score of 28 out of 30, which by Google standards is defined as “Extraordinary to Perfection.”

Removing his 145 legitimate positive reviews is one thing, but Google chose to leave six negativereviews and three negative scores without reviews―he has collected one positive review since. His dealership score has fallen to a 5, which is defined as “Poor to Fair” by Google.

According to articles posted by industry experts online, 70 percent of customers are using online reviews as part of their consideration as to where to buy. The results of Google’s actions have had a devastating effect on Northend Motors, even though they have hundreds of other reviews posted on CitySearch, Dealer Rater, InsiderPages and Yahoo.

Mohammad is not alone! Many other dealers all over the country have noticed the same thing.

How can you possibly fight a company like Google―which is so big and all-encompassing―where you have no real customer service contact and their own sales and engineering sides do not even communicate on their changed algorithm issues? E-mails sure aren’t going to do any good.

My brainstorm today was for Mohammad to do what so many consumers seem to do when they have a problem with their car … contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. It may have worked. If you, too, have had a problem, I suggest you take similar action immediately!

The following is directly from Mohammad: 

“I called FTC, (877) 382-4357, and also used FTC.gov and IC3.gov (Internet company complaints). I have not filed a complaint in writing yet because the person I spoke to on the phone took the complaint over the phone. My complaint number is 39764404. After I explained in five minutes what Google had done throughout the country to good businesses, she was very receptive and (she) also said this doesn't help the consumer because they are only seeing the bad reviews. ‘They should see both, only then a consumer can make an educated decision.’ She recommended that we should have every business that we know and dealership that we know file a complaint and that will speed up this process because this is unfair to business and to consumers.”

Mohammad also reached out to his attorney general. He was less successful there since Massachusetts only takes complaints from individuals—not businesses. However, they thanked him and gave him a feeling that even though they don’t take complaints from businesses, if they received enough calls they would take their own action. Each state has its own position, so don’t rely solely on Massachusetts’ stance.

If you are a dealer or dealership employee, this is where you come in. Have you checked your Google reviews? If you haven’t, you should. Nearly every client I have has found their positive reviews have disappeared. A prominent dealer and client of mine in central Kansas had hundreds of reviews and ascore of 29 disappear, leaving but four negative reviews that averaged five-and-half-months old. They now have nine reviews (five new) and no score. Any doubt how that impacts a business?

I am not an attorney, but my opinion is what Google has done reeks of a deceptive trade practice (treble damages), and I think it could well cross the line of libel.

If you have the same problem, I urge you to call the FTC using the number Mohammad provided. He said you are welcome to reference his case number. I would also recommend you contact your state attorney general’s office.

Very few dealers, no matter their size, can have an immediate impact with a company the size of Google. The federal and state governments can. Google just paid a $22 million fine recently (I know, a drop in the bucket for them), and they will have to answer to the FTC.

It is their business, and they can cause changes like this at will, unless it materially misrepresents what your customers previously posted. Removing your positive reviews and leaving negative ones does just that. You may never get your positive reviews back, but just as the woman at the FTC said, leaving the old negative reviews just isn’t right. Hopefully, they will relent and repost the positive reviews; but if not, with enough of a voice against them, I would think they will quickly remove the old reviews as well.

Thanks for your ears today. Good selling, and for once, maybe the FTC can be viewed as a friend of the dealership as opposed to the bad guys. Go do your part!

Best regards,

GG

Greg Goebel, CEO

Auto Dealer Monthly, LLC

Source - http://www.autodealerpeople.com/profiles/blogs/man-bites-dog-a-way-to-fight-the-deleted-google-reviews-dilemma