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A car that drives itself? For the past few years, Google has been working on an autonomous vehicle. In other words, a car that can drive itself. As you can see in the video, they perfected such an idea. One of the first volunteers for Google's self-driving car was a man by the name of Steve Mahan, who is visually impaired.
The Self-Driving Car took Mr. Mahan to pick up his dry cleaning, to Taco Bell for a quick bite and then back home! It's absolutely incredible what technology can do in today's world! Additionally, this past week, Google was approved by the state of Nevada to work on testing several different self-driving cars on the road. And, the rumor is that Self-Driving/Autonomous vehicles could become a reality by the year 2020.
While everyone agrees that it's still a work in progress, the license that Google was granted in Nevada to do testing is certainly a step in the right direction. During their tests, they'll be monitoring the car's capacity and ability to brake, acceleration, and steering. According to Google, the car uses "artificial intelligence software, a GPS, and an array of sensors to navigate its way through traffic."
So, what's your take? Would you want to own one? Or, would you feel more at ease if you had full control of the wheel?
Sean V. Bradley Explains The "Orange Tie" Phenomenon
Sean V. Bradley "On Top of The World" - Automotive Sales is an AMAZING Career... If you make it one!
Fire Your Internet Sales Manager
I know I am going to get a lot of heat on this article, but it has to be said. I have worked with thousands of dealerships over the years and there have been numerous reasons given for mediocrity, and even failure. In the beginning of automotive Internet sales in the late 1990s, it was a novelty and an incremental business, but most dealerships were not able to truly harness it and make it a major profit center. However, over the years and through evolution of the automotive sales industry, and the country as a whole, there has been a lot of change — change in how people are researching, shopping, making decisions and ultimately buying a vehicle. There has even been change inside our industry by dealer principals, GMs and sales consultants. It seems that dealers are getting it. They understand that Internet sales, business development, digital marketing, and social media are all important.
What I am seeing now is a scary pattern emerging. A lot of dealerships are not maximizing on opportunities right in front of them because they do not have the right person in place. The Internet sales manager or BDC director that they have in place is the wrong person for the position, and they are hurting the dealership! Here are some problems I’ve seen at dealerships:
• A computer geek in the position who is not an automotive professional. There is nothing wrong with being a geek. I have a problem if they have no idea how to sell a car, and don’t have the respect of their team and employees. They can’t motivate and drive the department to success.
• An IT professional is the head of an Internet sales department or business development center. Just because they are good at fixing computers or understanding technology does not necessarily make them the best choice to run a million-dollar sales department. “Internet sales” is still sales.
• Instead of terminating a sales consultant from the showroom floor, they are given a “second chance” running the Internet sales department. I don’t get this one at all. If someone can not be effective on the showroom floor, why would you have that person be the head of a department where 92 percent of Americans go before they ever step foot into your dealership?
• A sales consultant is promoted from the showroom to running the Internet department. Please understand just because someone can sell a car does not mean they can run a department, let alone an Internet sales or business development department. Just because they can sell cars does not mean they are capable of being a manager or a leader. There are a lot of successful sales consultants who sell 20 or 30 cars per month, but don’t work well with others. They have no concept of interdependence.
• There is no Internet sales manager/BDC director at all. That is just bad, and again, makes no sense whatsoever. When 92 percent of people are going online, there needs to be major attention to this area.
• A dealership’s manager also manages the Internet department. I have seen it all, my friends. The dealer principal or general manager takes on the Internet department as an “additional” responsibility instead of having a dedicated manager, or they dump the responsibility of the Internet department onto the GSM or sales manager. This is not a viable solution.
Remember Basic Math
The average dealership in the United States delivers fewer than 100 units per month. But the average dealership has:
• A GM or GSM
• One to two sales managers (new car/used car), or “closers”
• An F&I manager
• 10 Sales Consultants
If you want your Internet or business development department to deliver units, you are going to need the right Internet manager or BDC director.
Yes, you might need to fire your current Internet sales manager or BDC director. You might have been thinking about doing it for months now but weren’t sure. Let me make it easier for you.
Think of your current Internet sales manager or BDC director:
• Are they a family member or in a relationship with anyone else in the dealership?
• Do they have any automotive sales or management experience?
• Do they have an aversion to the phone?
• Do they have the ability to take a “TO” from their employees, sales consultants, appointment setters, etc?
• Do they have the ability or desire to proactively “TO”?
• Do they have the respect of their team (or the dealership for that matter)?
• Can they, or do they, lead by example?
• Do they train their team? Do they know how to train their team?
• Do they have “one on ones” with their team?
• Do they know how to project and forecast, and not merely guess and hope?
• Are they rude and or mean to their team or their customers?
• Do they have Standard Operating Procedures (S.O.P.s), or do they just “wing it”?
• Can they desk a deal?
If you are reading this and you are a dealer or GM, do this calculation before you open the showroom tomorrow:
Look at your electronic leads, phone leads and walk-in leads. Say your electronic and phone leads are 70 percent or greater of all leads. Now look at your manager running your Internet or business development department. Are you comfortable with them in charge of 70 percent of your opportunities? If not, make the change today. If you can’t promote that person as your nest general sales manager, you have the wrong person in place.
If you would like a free personalized analysis of your Internet Sales Manager, contact me at the email below with “ISM” as the subject line.
Sean V. Bradley is the founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy, a nationally recognized training and consulting company in the automotive industry. He can be contacted at 866.648.7400, or by e-mail at
sbradley@autosuccessonline.com.
Former National Automotive Sales Trainer & Recruiter for TK Worldwide, Mark Manning a NEW Internet Director shares some of his experience & Wisdom
The Coolest Car Dealership Commercial I have Seen in a Long Time!
CarWoo! is an online new-car buying service and marketplace. Buyers come to CarWoo!, state which car they are looking for and CarWoo!’s network of over 5000 dealers compete to sell the buyer the car.
Technically the product is an semi-anonymous (first name, last initial, zip code) engagement tool. The buyer’s personal contact information (address, phone number, email) are kept private until the buyer accepts an offer from the dealer they want to buy the car from. This helps the consumer avoid spam emails and unwanted phone calls that are common when people buy new cars using “Request a Quote” processes many other online sites use.
CarWoo! has two plans for car buyers. CarWoo! Basic, a $19 plan, offers buyers a search for a vehicle and guarantees 2-3 dealers will compete. CarWoo! Plus, a $49 plan, offers buyers a search for a vehicle and guarantees 5 dealers will compete, but is not capped and as many as 15 dealers have participated in many deals. Both plans offer the buyer privacy protection and CarWoo!’s 100% Happiness Guarantee.
For car dealers, CarWoo! offers the highest quality online car buyers to the dealer for no charge. Dealers are offered the opportunity to engage with car buyers in an online setting that is social and non-threatening to the car buyer. A dealer that uses CarWoo! has an online dashboard where they can engage with all car buyers near them, make them firm offers on cars they have for sale and see how their offer’s stack up competitively against dealer’s vying for the buyers business.
Lamborghini to unveil SUV
The Urus, billed as an 'everyday' Lamborghini supercar, is set to debut Sunday.
The idea of Lamborghini, known for extreme performance cars, making an SUV may seem off the wall. But don't be too shocked. This actually isn't Lamborghini's first SUV. The LM002, a much chunkier vehicle that looked as if it had been built out of shoeboxes, was available from 1985 to 1992. Only about 300 of those were ever built.
Lamborghini decided it's time to try again. For now, the new, sleeker-looking Urus SUV is just a concept vehicle. But it's clear that Lamborghini fully intends to produce this vehicle or something very much like it. In fact, it could produce as many as 3,000 per year, which would make it the largest-selling Lamborghini model by far.
The Urus, just unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show, is a 600 horsepower "crossover" with huge 24-inch wheels and a 600 horsepower engine. Like most of Lamborghini's cars, the Urus has full-time all-wheel-drive with a focus on on-road performance.
BY PETER VALDES-DAPENA
Source - http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/autos/1204/gallery.lamborghini-urus-suv/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Has a wonderful training session with LA Williams on Thursday. LA is a wonderful trainer and is always so helpful. LA gave me great feedback. I look forward to the next session with LA. Thanks again LA for all of your help.
Q & A About Starting a BRAND New Internet Department (From Scratch)
I had a great conversation with a NEW Internet Director. She was a "rep" but this is a whole NEW venture in becoming a NEW Manager etc...
Q - Where to start:
A - You want break it down to 4 main elements, Products, People, Process & the Promotions.
Products-
- Department will be inside the showroom, deeply tinted, blinds for privacy.
- 5 workstations PLUs to for future evolution (You are going to want to make sure that you INCLUDE an ISC in the mix).
- Computers... Do you have dual monitors, head sets, What are you going to do for Digital Media? I suggest a separate computer for videos, pictures, articles etc... Maybe an external hard drive.
- VAuto,
- ILM / CRM - Dominion... AVV Webcontrol. Mac Haik will be designing its own CRM (Microsoft CRM).
- Need Scripts, Templates, Voice Mail, Automation, Integration
- Reputation Management
- Social Media
- Video / Photos
(This is just 1 of the "4 Ps")
(The Intro Video is from Google describing the "Brand Active Initiative")
Making the Web Work for Brand Marketers
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 |
Learning from the past
In the 1950s, brands slowly moved to TV, just as they have started to move online today. In both instances, buying and selling systems improved; audiences and new content quickly moved to the new medium; and the creative possibilities inspired great ad campaigns.
However, a key moment for TV came in the 1950 with dramatic improvements in measurement—like ratings and quantitative market research. Once major brands could see who they were reaching and what impact their campaigns were having, they fully embraced the medium, creating a multi-billion dollar industry...and TV’s golden age began.
Making better decisions with actionable brand metrics
Unlike the early days of TV, digital advertising is already incredibly measurable. The only problem is a very old and well-known one: the standardized metrics today are largely clicks, user interaction rates and conversions.
But as brand advertisers - such as movie studios or consumer goods companies - know, it’s a challenge to measure changes in brand favorability of a movie or whether an online campaign is driving more consumers to the store. And it’s even harder to take quick action on any such insights.
That's why today, at the Ad Age Digital Conference I'll be introducing the Brand Activate Initiative, an ongoing Google effort to address these challenges and re-imagine online measurement for brand marketers. With this initIative we're partnering with the industry and supporting the IAB's Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) coalition. We believe that the industry’s significant investment in brand measurement efforts can substantially grow the online advertising pie, for all.
Is a particular ad in your campaign especially useful at improving brand recall in Illinois? You should be able to immediately increase your coverage throughout the Midwest. Is one ad slightly less effective at driving purchase intent and in-store sales? Tweak the creative, straight away.
The first Brand Activate solutions
We’re working to build truly useful brand metrics into the tools that advertisers already use to manage their campaigns, so they’ll be actionable within seconds, not months.
The first two Brand Activate solutions are rolling out today:
Active View: Advertisers have long looked for insight into whether consumers saw an ad on page 145 of a magazine, or switched the channel during a TV commercial break. It’s similar online, so we’re rolling out a technology, which will be submitted for Media Rating Council(MRC) accreditation, that can count “viewed” impressions (as defined by the IAB’s proposed standard, this is a display ad that is at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least one second).
Called Active View, this will first be available in coming weeks within Google Display Network Reserve. We’ll also be making this metric a universal currency, ultimately offering it within DoubleClick for Advertisers, as well as to our publisher partners. Active View data will be immediately actionable—advertisers will be able to pay only for for viewed impressions. Going forward, we’re working on viewed impression standards with the IAB, and our agency and publisher partners.
Active GRP: GRP, or a gross rating point, is at the heart of offline media measurement. For example, when a fashion brand wants their TV campaign to reach 2 million women with two ads each, they use GRP to measure that. We’re introducing a new version of this for the web: Active GRP. Active GRP has two key features:
- Built-in: Active GRP is built right into the ad serving tools that our publishers and marketers already use every day. Active GRP will enable real-time decision making, allowing advertisers to make adjustments to their campaigns at the speed of the web. We’ve kicked off a pilot program for DoubleClick for Advertisers clients as a first step, and will roll it out to other products, with brands able to specify a range of audience GRP segments.
- Robust methodology: Active GRP is calculated by a statistical model that combines aggregated panel data and anonymous user data (either inferred or user-provided), and will work in conjunction with Active View to measure viewed impressions. This approach overcomes problems of potential panel skewing and reliance on a single data source. This approach also has the advantage of never using personally identifiable information, not sharing user data with third parties, and enabling users, through Google’s Ads Preferences Manager, to opt-out. We will be submitting our methodology for MRC accreditation.
More to come
We look forward to bringing other measurement initiatives into our suite for brand marketers, including a brand impact survey pilot with Vizu, our brand lift measurement product (Campaign Insights) and various cross-media measurement research projects globally.
This is just the beginning of the Brand Activate Initiative, with much more to come for brands and publishers. We think that with brand new metrics comes a new brand moment - one that will encourage brands to invest in the web, help publishers show the value of their digital content, and stimulate digital media’s own golden age.
