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CEO of Dealer Synergy Sean Bradley hosts "Make Money Mondays" on Average Compensation Per Copy (ACPC) in car sales.

CEO of Dealer Synergy Sean Bradley does a Make Money Mondays segment every Monday providing excellent tips for people in the automotive industry to make money. Each week is a different topic. This week he discusses average compensation per copy (ACPC), or the amount of money a car salesperson makes on average on each car they sell. Sean offers a strategy for calculating ACPC, comparing your ACPC to the ACPC of the best and worst salespeople at your dealership, and how to prioritize your car sales strategy to maximize ACPC. He also advises that managers calculate ACPC for their dealership and establish minimum standards for ACPC performance.

Get more motivation and personal improvement tips on the Make Money Mondays site: http://www.makemoneymondays.net/

Attend the automotive industry's most popular workshop in Boston September 22nd-24th for more information on these topics. Sign up today: http://internetsales20group.com/

Are you interested in automotive services from Dealer Synergy? It is located in Audobon, New Jersey but serves clients all over the U.S: http://ow.ly/xrSUg

I really don't know who I'm going to offend on this one. We've been researching so many vendors over the last couple of months that work with chat, lead-gen widgets, and website platforms themselves that we haven't taken the time to explore PPC vendors. Maybe that's why I was blindsided to find out that there are at least two vendors out there charging 20% and one that we found who is charging 25%.

Is it me or is this insane? We'll put aside the 25% vendor for now. I'm hopeful that it's some sort of accounting mistake or something. Focusing on the 20% charge, it really bugs me that this may be more common than I ever knew. I've always hung around the organic side of search, so PPC hasn't been a focus. With that said, I've managed dozens of PPC campaigns over the years and I could never imagine charging anything other than a flat fee.

To me (and again, I might be on the wrong side of this argument and would be very open to some education on this one), if a dealership is spending $10,000 per month on their PPC, $2,000 of it going to management seems high. If the software is driving the bidding and the feeds are generating the dynamic ads, wouldn't it seem that very little manual effort and development costs are going into the service on a monthly basis?

I've always been a fan of flat fee PPC management because of transparency. I want to be able to recommend to a dealer that they raise their budget without them wondering if I'm just trying to make more money and I want to be able to recommend that they reduce their budget without reducing my service fee. To me, adjusting a budget is a matter of changing a number or two in the backend and I cannot justify charging hundreds of dollars more per month for clicking a few buttons.

Here's the math:

• 20% service fee
• $10,000 per month initial budget
• Dealer wants to raise to a $12,000 per month budget
• Vendor clicks a few buttons, adjust some daily budgets
• Additional monthly cost for clicking those buttons: $400/month
• Yes, that's $4,800 a year for 5-10 minutes of effort

I'll say it again. I'm willing to hear why I'm wrong. I'd love to see the additional monthly effort that goes into a bigger budget. If that's not the case, I'm open to hearing why the cost is justified. If there are vendors out there charging a lower percentage or a flat fee that dealers (or vendors) are willing to recommend, I'd love to hear about those as well.

Someone, please set me straight on this issue. It's bugging me.

Automotive Internet Sales Coordinator / BDC Rep

 / Appointment Setter PAY PLAN!

*** This is a SALES POSITION!!! NOT Customer Service!!

They are SELLING THE APPOINTMENT!

• “Road to the Appointment” process… (Outbound / inbound phone call process)
• How Qualify a prospect
• Identify a prospect’s wants, wishes, needs and expectations!
• They will have 25-35 (Minimum) word tracks in their arsenal… “Objections & Rebuttals as well as “What Ifs…”
• A complete time management and organization strategy
• A complete FORECASTING strategy… “3 Minute Book”.
• They will NEED to have a thorough understanding of 3^rd party providers, information sites like:
  • Edmunds.com
  • Kbb.com
  • Autobytel.com
  • Carsdirect.com
  • Dealix.com
  • They need to have THOROUGH knowledge of their products… they do not NEED to memorize everything, but they need to know where to access the information.
  • Knowledge of the dealership’s website(s)
  • EXTREME KNOWLEDGE of the Dealership’s CRM… this is one of the MOST important aspects to their job!!

$3,000

????

Simple J

$400 week salary X 4 weeks = $1,600 per month

What do I STILL need to earn in commissions to meet my $3,000 GOAL?

$1,400…  The questions is HOW am I going to earn it???

Before you can really answer this… you need to know what your commission plan is…???

$1 for an appointment

$15 for an appointment that shows

$25 for a sold appointment

For a TOTAL possible commission earnings of $41…

100 – 50 – 25

$100 - $750 - $625 = $1,475

$1,475 + $1,600 = $3,075…

100 appointments = $3,000  per month

100 / 4 weeks = 25 appointments per week…

/ 5 working days = 5 appointments per day…

They NEED to make or take 120 calls per day…

Why…? B/C you will ONLY connect with about 11-14% on the phones.

So, 120 calls per day will result in 11-14% connections which = 4-6 appointments per day (5).

Mercedes-Benz Dealership Drives 200+ Website Leads Per Month With PPC

A Mercedes-Benz dealership, who is part of a large auto group in North Carolina, invested in online Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising with ReachLocal in November 2010. Their goal was to reach potential car buyers in their metro region, and to win business that might otherwise buy a vehicle from a competitive Mercedes-Benz dealership, or buy another Make of vehicle altogether.

The dealership worked closely with their Internet Marketing Consultant to build out a comprehensive list of keywords that a car buyer might use in searching the web for a vehicle. This list included every model of new and used vehicle they sell, as well as competitive keywords that might attract other buyers online. Their final keyword list was comprised of hundreds of keywords, both stand alone, and those paired with the major city names their customers likely come from.

Text ads were created to describe the dealership’s strengths and to create a compelling “call to action”. Effective text ads work by attracting the right searchers, and deterring the wrong ones. These ads were then mapped to the appropriate pages within the dealership’s website so that the searchers experience was seamless.

Once all of the elements of the PPC program were created, ReachLocal implemented them across 98% of where people search, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL and Ask. Tracking was set in place to identify any phone call lead that came in through the campaign, as well as any email or request for more information.

The program ran for 12 months, averaging 157 inbound leads per month for the dealership. After the first 12 months, they were so pleased with the performance that they increased their budget. After the budget increase, they experienced an average of 220 inbound leads per month. This averaged out to be an $11 - $12 cost per lead. Not only was the volume of leads impressive, but they were also highly qualified leads. People searching online for a vehicle are doing their research and have a better idea of what they want when they do make contact. So the leads that came in through their PPC program were better quality than those they were receiving from offline forms of advertising.

The Mercedes-Benz dealership not only grew their own PPC program, they also expanded to create similar programs for the other dealerships within their automotive group. Currently their entire group is advertising online with ReachLocal to generate qualified, inbound auto leads.

To learn more about how you can implement a successful online PPC program for your dealership, Respond to this post-

http://www.dealersynergy.com

http://www.internetsales20group.com

http://www.dealersynergy.com

http://www.internetsales20group.com