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Yesterday, I found myself utterly mortified. I caught a Pinterest page that my team was managing uploading images to Pinterest. After several deep breaths, I talked to my teammate and corrected this for the future.

Pinterest has an image upload feature. I wish they didn’t. There’s absolutely no reason to pin an image directly to Pinterest. I won’t even use the mobile app for this reason.

As a traffic-driving social force, Pinterest is close to the top. As a social signal for search engines, it’s an important component. When you upload an image directly to Pinterest, you lose both opportunities. It’s not like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or Tumblr where direct uploads have benefits over linked posts. There’s zero difference between uploading directly to Pinterest or pinning an image from another site other than the loss of the two benefits the social network offers.

If you have an image that you want to Pin, put it somewhere else first. Post it to your blog. Put it on Tumblr, Upload it to Google+. Do something, anything other than uploading it to Pinterest itself. It’s an extra few seconds of work but yields an actual benefit other than simple exposure of that great image of the Ferrari you saw at dinner last night. When you pin from a different source, you’re getting the full value from Pinterest.

BEWARE of YOUR Internet Or

Business Development Department Infrastructure

For more than nine years, I have traveled the country conducting consulting and training for approximately 500 dealerships, and before that I worked on the front lines for five and half years. I have tracked trends, patterns, common situations that effect dealership’s success, and what is crystal clear is that region, franchise or demographics don’t matter. I want to share some revelations I have identified that will help you sell more cars, more often and more profitably.

Dealerships are not staffing their Internet or business development department the right way.  I see the same thing over and over at dealership after dealership. For example, dealers will have 500 leads in their CRM and have one or two appointment setters working those leads — or worse, they have no appointment setters. They just rely on showroom consultants to handle all of those leads.

Let me just dive into my concerns in this scenario, beginning with having too few appointment setters. This doesn’t work because there are far too many leads to be handled for only one to two appointment setters. Understand that you only have an 11 to 14 percent connection ratio from phone call attempts. I train clients to make 120 calls per day, no exceptions. However, we find that the average dealership’s appointment setters are making only 50 to 75 calls per day.

Let me break this data down for you:

• On average, 50 call attempts will only convert to five to seven conversations. Does that sound productive for an eight-hour day? Of course not. With two appointment setters each making 50 calls, they will have 10 to 14 conversations for the entire day. Remember that is only 10 to 14 conversations out of 500 leads. Leads mean opportunities to do business. These prospects are in the market but we do not engage them?

• Even if your people were making 75 calls each. One rep’s connections would be seven to 10 conversations and two rep’s connections would be 14 to 20 connections. That’s still inadequate compared to the lead volume.

Now, let’s discuss the scenario of having no appointment setters and just utilizing your showroom sales consultants. The average dealership has approximately 10 sales consultants, and they have lots of responsibilities as well as ways for them to sell an automobile. Let’s look at the eight different ways a showroom sales consultant can sell an automobile:

1. Walk-Ins

2. Be-Backs

3. Phone-Ups

4. Internet

5. Referrals

6. Prior Customers

7. Service

8. Prospecting

Lets be honest: I believe the vast majority of automotive sales consultants do not engage the full eight ways to sell an automobile and even if they do, the majority do not do it consistently. But, let’s pretend for a second that they do. How can the average sales consultant handle their full sales responsibilities plus handle the 50, 75 or 100 fresh Internet leads they receive per month? If an appointment setter — who does not have to do a product presentation, demo drive or a delivery — only makes 50 to 75 calls per day and converts only five to seven conversations per day, how many phone call attempts do you really think your sales people are making?

Exactly.

Let’s add another crazy, but important, variable called the residual flow factor. That means the “carry over leads.” Remember that the average Internet prospect is approximately 45 to 90 days. So, if you receive 400 leads in the month of June and you sell 40 units, it doesn’t end there. Just because you close your month doesn’t mean that all of those 370 other leads that didn’t buy are garbage. On the contrary, those are actual working (“cooking”) opportunities. So, let’s say that out of the 370 remaining leads, 200 are still active and viable opportunities. You will start July 1 with 200 “carry over” leads, plus you will receive an additional 400 “fresh” leads for a total working lead opportunity of 600 leads. This is known as your residual flow factor.

Now, let me give you the “secret formula” to success. I have numerous nationally recognized client success stories. Clients using this formula have graced the cover of every major automotive magazine, including AutoSuccess (The most recent would be Alan Vines Automotive, in the September 2012 issue).

Alan Vines Automotive has five appointment setters:

• Five coordinators X 120 calls per day = 600 calls per day

• 600 calls per day X five working days = 3,000 calls per week

• 3,000 calls per week X 4.3 weeks in a month = 12,900 calls

• 12,900 calls X 12 percent connection ratio = 1,548 connections with prospects

• 1,548 connections X 25 percent appointment made ratio = 387 appointments

• 387 appointments X 60 percent appointment show ratio = 232 appointment shows

• 232 appointment shows X 42 percent close ratio = 97 units delivered.

• 97 units delivered (as documented in the cover story)

Alan Vines Automotive receives 600 to 700 fresh leads per month and has a residual flow factor of 800 to 900 working leads.

My final point is that your Internet sales appointment setters should not be doing anything other than dealing with fresh and carry over Internet sales leads. The only exception is if you have them take incoming phone-ups. That is perfectly in alignment with the system. Do not, however, have them working on:

• Unsold showroom traffic

• Service

• CSI

• Data Mining

• Credit

• Getting lunch, coffee, etc.

• Taking pictures

• Greeting

If you think your one or two appointment setters (if you even have them) can work 300 to 500 fresh Internet leads plus do any or all of these things, you are wrong. If your dealership has these efforts tasked to the Internet appointment setter, I suggest that you delegate to someone else, hire BDC appointment setters or accept mediocrity.

If you have any questions or comment about this article, or if you would like me to personally review your Internet or BDC infrastructure with you, please feel free to e-mail or call me.

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.

This is the first (and most likely last) time that I will use a Hillary Clinton book title as the concept for a blog post. I didn't read the book, but the concept is definitely applicable in social media.

I was speaking to a potential client yesterday who was telling me some of their challenges with social media. The main challenge they were having was in coming up with interesting content to post that was associated with business. As a car dealer, they had plenty of pictures of cars to post, but they weren't very active in the local community and the person in charge of social media didn't consider herself to be creative.

"Does anyone at the dealership do anything interesting?" It was a simple question that sparked a 2 minute conversation that turned into an hour-long brainstorming session. At the end, we came to the conclusion that she worked at the most interesting dealership in the world and didn't know it.

The parts manage was in a country band that played at the local steak house saloon on Saturday nights. They had a customer that came in 5-days a week to get what he considered to be the best coffee in town with their fancy cappuccino machine in the service waiting area. A sales person was a little league baseball coach that recruited the top talent in town to take to tournaments across the country.

Last night, she did some further research and found even more interesting things. The land on which the dealership was built turned out to have a rich and somewhat controversial history. One of the secretaries had a son who was likely going to he starting for the state university basketball team the following year. Another sales person had a photography business on the side where people posed in or around classic cars.

Everyone gets into a rut. We try our best to be creative and to come up with interesting things to post to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+, but sometimes it seems that you're posting the same things over and over again. Finding images is easy. Unfortunately, social media needs to be richer, more robust. It's not just about pieces of content. It's about stories that affect the local area and the people that make up your business, customer base, and community.

You don't have to live on social media island. There are people around you who can inspire you, spark an idea, or become the subject of content that can all be tied back to the business itself. The difference between being isolated on social media and having a flood of potential content is often about getting up from your desk and talking to people. In essence, the key to successful social media is often as simple as being social in the real world and applying it to your business presence.

I need your help!  There is strength in numbers. 

My name is Jeff and I work for a Buick / GMC Dealership in the Texas Panhandle and our dealership has used Cobalt for a number of years for our website management tool.  I noticed that when you go onto our web page, ( www.greglair.com ) click on the used vehicle detail page, and scroll down below the vehicle pictures and info, there is an accessories section with new accessories you may purchase separately. To my amazement, I scrolled below this and found three separate vehicles in my inventory made available to the customer under the tab "Similar Vehicles Available". Great idea in my opinion to give this option to the consumer as it keeps them actively looking at YOUR inventory and no one else's. The problem I had with this was that it is virtually hidden underneath the Accessories page. 

I just think that the three comparable vehicles should be directly under my vehicle details....not lost at the bottom of the page beneath the accessories. (In a lot of cases the customer is looking at an 04 Camry, and I'm pretty sure they dont want a Sierra Bed Mat for it!)

If you'll take a minute and send this email, I'm sure the fine folks at Cobalt will oblige.

cut and paste if you wish

Send the email to:   cobaltsupport@cobalt.com

Dear Cobalt,

Please move the comparable vehicles from underneath the accessories to ABOVE them and DIRECTLY below the vehicle details on our Cobalt website Vehicle Details Page.

Please add this email to the "Enhancement Request"

Thank you for being such a flexible and dealer-friendly website provider,

(Your name and dealership)

The support guy looked at this and agreed and said many others had brought this to their attention but that they were unable / unwilling to change it for me. He said he would add my feelings to an "Enhancement request" and hopefully enough people would bring about change. I feel they should do what's best for the dealerships interest and feel that simply moving the Accessories below the links is not a crazy request.

We are now looking at all sorts of options and so I'd like those who are way smarter than me to provide your feedback, thoughts, theorems, and postulates on the matter.

Jeff Sherrill

Greg Lair Buick / GMC

Are you the CEO of your company? If you’re a sales person, and you answered no to this question, think again. To be successful you must have a CEO mentality. All successful sales people view themselves as a business within a business. Never forget that the company you work for writes and signs your check, but you fill in the numbers. Always take responsibility for everything. You are the CEO.

What does a CEO do?

First of all, a CEO designs a marketing strategy. How do you get your business? Walk-ins, in-bound phone calls, repeats, prospecting, networking, referrals, bebacks, affiliate marketing programs, database mining, database swapping, niche marketing, seminars, websites, email responses with auto responders and sequential auto responders. Do you have at least one strategy for utilizing each one of these? Many people may not even know what many of these items are. The bad news is that you are way behind the top businesses in the world, but you can catch up and even pass the most productive sales people with dedicated strategy and smart actions.

Top sales people gain and maintain their results through many avenues beyond walk-in traffic. When you are new, you spend 80 percent of your time gaining new customers and 20 percent maintaining them. As each month goes by, your goal will be to reverse the time used to 80 percent maintaining current customers and 20 percent gaining new ones. To do this, you must develop a marketing web with multiple streams of lead generation. Lead generation = dollar creation.

If floor traffic dries up, you will have an excuse not to sell vehicles. From now on, excuses are not allowed. What is your strategy for walk-ins? Do you have a process? Does anyone besides you follow up with unsold customers? If you TO in person why not TO on the phone? Are you utilizing monthly planners or productivity software that allows you to automate your follow-up of sold and unsold customers by phone, mail and email? Do you have a monthly newsletter or, better yet, an email newsletter that reaches your customers unobtrusively and at zero-cost? There are companies that will set up auto responders with pre-set messages to be sent at certain intervals to your email list. This automates some of your follow-up to the point that it is being done while you sleep or are on vacation.

Have you set up affiliate programs with other businesses to share customers and provide an introduction to one another? Example, “Who does business with whom I want to do business with?” Ask that question first to think of businesses that you can set up reciprocal agreements with to provide a value proposition to their customers with enough leverage so they will want to call, fax or email you to get what you sell.

Most businesses utilize one-stage marketing. This requires running an ad and asking someone to buy. For many sales people, this is expensive and not effective. A better strategy is to form two or three stage marketing techniques. You are asking a customer to respond that they are interested and want more information. Here are some examples: Give a be-back cd to every customer who does not buy and ask them to play it on the way home. The cd should have two to five minutes of information that thanks them for the opportunity and provides them with specific reasons why they should buy your product from you, at your dealership. Give the customer an incentive to call you back. Arrange with a local restaurant that you will provide a coupon to every customer who shops or services with your dealership, an offer for two-for-one at the restaurant. In return, ask the restaurant to also reward their customers by giving each customer a coupon with their bill that provides a special offer from you, with enough leverage for the customer to respond for more information. Provide seminars for local groups on the subject of, “How to buy a vehicle and not get ripped off.” Do you know where the last 10 customers who have bought from you work and how you can set up automobile buying programs with their employer? If you let your mind expand, your wallet will follow.

You have two choices, you can use excuses like, “My managers won’t let me do anything,” “I don’t have the time,” “I have to make money right now,” or a million other excuses. Or, you can think of your business as a business and become the CEO with a long-term, committed strategy to grow expeditiously.

Don't forget to follow me on Google

When it comes to social media advice, the majority of the common catch phrases are there for a reason. Tips like “be engaging” and “communicate, don’t broadcast” are sound pieces of advice despite the annoying frequency that they’re used by gurus. There’s one common tip that is more than just annoying. In many ways, it’s actually wrong.

“Know your audience” is a mantra, a driving force behind many blog posts and help videos. For those building blogs or social networks for the sake of having a nice hobby or making money through traffic-based advertising, it’s good advice. For businesses using a blog and social networks to increase sales of their products or services, it’s the type of advice that can send people in the wrong direction. Unless you’re making money directly from your blog, you shouldn’t attempt to know your audience.

Instead, you need to know your customers and potential customers. The current audience is irrelevant.

Catering content to fit in with the current audience will appease them. It will make them more likely to share your content. It will get more interactions and engagement. These are all good things. However, catering content to fit in with them does not help grow your business. Sure, some of the people in your audience might be current or future customers, but unless they’re the majority, the opinions of your audience don’t really matter.

This all stems from a conversation I had yesterday with a client. She has an automotive blog that has accumulated a nice following because of the content that she was posting. It was fun content that included memes of people parking like idiots, stunts, and beautiful pictures of hot rods. The audience loved it. The problem is that the audience wasn’t buying cars from her. They were spread across the world. There was nothing local and only an occasional post about the brand itself.

If you’re blogging for SEO reasons only, then this isn’t a bad idea. The problem is that having one domain linking to your single website isn’t going to give you much SEO juice. The effort is wasted. Your company blog should not be used for SEO reasons to drive links to your website because if you only have one website and one blog linking to it constantly, the effects are minimal.

Your blog should be geared towards building amazing content that your customers and potential customers can enjoy. It should be relevant to them and them alone. It’s nice to reach thousands of people with your general interest blog posts, but it doesn’t drive business. You should be focusing on getting content up that 100 local potential customers will find interesting rather than 10,000 people spread across the world. That general content might draw more overall traffic, but it’s not driving business-relevant traffic. More importantly, it’s not making an impact on the locals that actually are visiting your blog, at least not as much as if you were posting content that they could associate with because of the local nature of it.

Having a large audience is a blessing, but having a good localized audience can help your brand and increase business. That should be your focus.

http://www.dealersynergy.com

Dealer Synergy Is Hiring - Automotive Sales - Internet Sales - BDC - New Jersey / Philadelphia

Stop the madness! I, unfortunately, might be part of the cause of the recent trends happening on dealer Twitter profiles and for that, I am truly sorry.

For years, I've been harping on the concept that Twitter is something that no dealer should avoid because of how quick and easy it is. There's no huge investment of time required to have a strong Twitter presence. This advice and the advice of others has been turned into something that it should not have been, namely a willingness to completely automate Twitter. Please stop.

Twitter doesn't take much time, but it should take some time. Rather that go over the long list of things that you should and shouldn't do on Twitter in an extended format, here's the bullet points. Rather than try to convince anyone, I'm just going to state what I believe and let questions come in if there's need for further clarification. Just trust that I makes these statements with reasons in mind. They're not just spewing out of my mouth (or any other area) randomly.

• Don't feed from Facebook. It's all too common nowadays to take automatically post whatever you put on Facebook directly onto Twitter. This is a bad idea.
• Minimize the other feeds on Twitter. In an ideal world, there would be no feeds populating your Twitter account, especially your own blog, because it just doesn't save a ton of time and it limits the effectiveness. With feeds, you can't craft hashtags, you can't personalize the statements, and you aren't truly vetting the links.
• Post more than just links. Sadly, links get much lower engagement than purely text posts. Express an opinion. Give an interesting piece of information. Tell a little story. Ask questions. The posts with no links get much more attention than those that do have links.
• Don't use Hootsuite to post images. Hootsuite does not post images through Twitter directly and therefore they're not inline. They're just a link to the image itself hosted on Hootsuite. Your images should be through Twitter itself or through a tool that uploads the files to the native Twitter feed such as Bufferapp.
• Include @replies to people. It's very easy to see if a Twitter account sucks or is automated because they aren't talking to others.
• Retweet, but not too often. It's good to have other faces on your page, which means a direct retweet. This can be done through some tools such as Hootsuite or Bufferapp. Make sure it's a true retweet rather than one which is a mention.

Twitter is definitely the easiest of the social networks to manage and monitor. Done right, it should take less than 5 minutes a day. That doesn't mean that it's easy to skip days. That, my friends, is something you absolutely shouldn't do.

* * *

This post originally appeared on Automotive Social Media.

What was yours like?

I started selling cars in the summer of 1974 at a single point Plymouth Dealership in Canton Ohio, Canton Plymouth. We advertised as the “World’s Largest Exclusive Plymouth Dealership”,which probably was true due to the fact there were at that time only about 40 other dealerships in the country that just sold Plymouths without the Chrysler line up as well.

My “training” pretty much consisted of trying to listen in to guys that were about 90 years old talking to customers,watching an 8 millimeter film by Vince Lombardi called “Make That Second Effort” and reading a book by Frank Bettger called “How I raised myself from a failure to a success in selling”.I was shown where the cars were,the keys and jumper cables.I also was told to “Close early,Close often,Can I help ya, would ya take,are you buying today and low ball them if they weren’t.

My first actual sale took place after making about 500 very cold phone calls out of the local phone book with a “pitch” that went like this ” Hello is this Mrs. Abbot? She says yes, I say “Your new Fury is ready for delivery is tomorrow morning or afternoon better for you to stop in and pick it up?” she would say,”I didn’t buy a Fury”…My reply “Oh,I’m sorry,well as long as I have you on the phone……..etc. Guess my manager wanted me to get over the fear of making phone calls,I was the youngest salesman on the floor by about 25 years it seemed.

I totally messed up the next 10-12 customers by saying or doing something stupid until…..Reverend Right[Not real name] walked in one morning.

The good Reverend Right was holding two things a Bible and some information on the 1974 Plymouth Valiant.At this point in both my selling life and personal life I was pretty much useless with anyone over the age of 40 and that mixed in with a man of God really had me trembling.

Reverend Right picked up on the fact that I was new to selling cars,mostly due to that also being part of my training,tell every customer you’re new for a couple of years,so he tried his very best to make this easy and clam me down.This transaction started at about maybe 10 in the morning as I recall,and just 7 short hours later the Reverend was driving home in his brand new 1974 Valiant.

I was pretty pumped up,I went into the sales office looking at the sales board,located my name at the very bottom and took the chalk into my hand and put up my first 1 next to my name.I didn’t really even care that the deal was a “mini” and my commission was $20 bucks,I was now officially a Professional Car Salesmen!

I know this blog is titled My First Sale and the First time in anything is pretty cool and memorable,probably shouldn’t go any further with that line of thinking ,but there is one other deal of the nearly 2000 cars I sold in my 5 years on the floor that I want to share with you all.

January 1979,my wife was pregnant with our second child [Erica] and by this time I had become a pretty good salesperson,sold a lot of cars and trucks and made a few dollars.As I recall is was early in the morning and I was always either on the phone,in service,on the lot or at the door.This morning I was walking the lot when a car pulled in and …… Nurse Hatchet[not real name] got out of her car,now I know if you have sold cars for any amount of time at all you come across a “difficult” client from time to time,I will put Nurse Hatchet up against any that you ever had,again a 7-8 hour ordeal,that got to the point of her and I just seeing who could be more nasty to one another.I would be “winning” for 30-45 minutes amazing her with my brilliant salesmanship[ total lies and baloney] but then she would make a comeback and take the lead for the next hour or so with what crooks sleazy car salesmen are and how could I sleep at night etc.

This literally went on for hours,she wouldn’t leave and even though my manager told me to kindly ask her to take her business elsewhere I was for sure going to SELL Nurse Hatchet a car.Car picked out,price settled on[another mini] she pulls out a check,pays for the car,I get it cleaned and as I hand her the keys she says’ You know young man you didn’t SELL me this car I bought it” I felt my face get red and said back to her “Well it was my pleasure and happy depreciation” and she left……..end of story?….ummmm no!

Let’s go back to my wife being full term with our second child,she goes into labor,I leave work,take her to the hospital we are in the delivery room and guess who walks in……yep! Nurse Hatchet,I nearly fell to my knees and babbled something like please this is my wife and my baby,I’m just a regular guy I sell cars to provide for my family and if I offended you ,I’m sorry and on and on….she was very cool,very calm,told me not to worry she was a PROFESSIONAL.

The delivery went fine mom and baby all good and the good Nurse upon leaving reminded me that now not only did she buy the car from me,I didn’t sell it to her I also didn’t delivery my child,she did!

Those are mine,if it was your first sale or a very unique one….keep it clean….please share it I’d love to hear them…memories are pretty cool in our business,let’s share some.

There are many dealers who have strong criticisms regarding Edmunds.com, but regardless of whether you consider Edmunds an asset or a liability to the retail auto industry there is little debate about their unique position within the vehicle buying process for many millions of automotive consumers...

The stark reality for car dealers seeking greater understanding of how car buyers shop online in 2013 is that Edmunds.com has the ability to paint a vivid portrait of today’s online car shopper... Which includes 9 out of 10 new and used vehicle buyers!

About 18 million visitors use the Edmunds.com site every month to shop for their next new or used car, and this gives the Edmunds team an unparalleled insight into the car buyer's research and shopping process.  For as many years as I can remember, Edmunds has used the online automotive consumer activity to generate extensive research data and analysis to drive the sort of car buying insights that would establish itself as one of the more valuable resources for car companies and dealers to better understand car shopping and the way buyers use automotive information.  Historically, Edmunds has made the analysis and insights available to their business partners and to the public through academic inquiries and media requests.  However, Edmunds has not previously assembled together the complete volume of current time period data and the analysis and insights gleaned in one coherent piece.

By publishing and making available the 2013 Edmunds.com Car Shopping Trends Report, they have provided the auto industry and especially dealers and automotive marketers with a true gem of a document.  The report which ADM Professional Community members can download using the link at the bottom of this blog post, shows the results of extensive data mining within the Edmunds.com’s extensive database to reveal the most relevant car shopping and purchasing trends in America today.  These trends offer direct clues toward ways that the automotive industry can move forward by empowering a more engaging car shopping experience.

 
Throughout the 2013 Edmunds.com Car Shopping Trends Report, you’ll also find references to a 2011 survey conducted by "Added Value" on behalf of Edmunds.com that asked 2,476 online car shoppers representing the U.S. car shopper population to describe their expectations for their next car purchase.  Edmunds correlated these responses to real-world buying data to see if shopper expectations match reality. In preparing their analysis and conclusions, the Edmunds market research team found many striking consistencies between the two sets of market research data. These surprisingly strong correlations between the two reports suggest that car shoppers have a strong sense of the automotive marketplace and that they know how to set reasonable expectations around price, availability and product performance.

By evaluating this wealth of data provided by the Edmunds team, you will find a story about car shoppers that is often surprising and counter-intuitive to many dealers and automotive professionals.  While at other times, the Edmunds data reinforces critical theories held by car dealers, automotive sales professionals and throughout the auto industry. Some of the key findings in the 2013 Edmunds.com Car Shopping Trends Report include:

• Two out of every three car shoppers consider themselves highly engaged in the car shopping process, and they turn to a variety of information to help them decide on a new or used car. Time spent on Edmunds.com is up 2 percent from 2011 to 2012. And the most-viewed elements by new car shoppers on Edmunds.com are reviews, pricing information and photos. 
   
• Mobile access is becoming a powerful tool for car buyers. Traffic to Edmunds.com’s mobile site spikes on the weekends – and especially on Saturdays – when the bulk of car buying takes place. 
   
• Shoppers are very good at anticipating how much they’ll pay for a new car. New car shoppers told us in 2011 that they plan to spend $30,500, on average, for their next vehicle. In fact the average transaction price for a new car the following year was $30,803.
   
• The average age of a new car buyer is about four years older than the average age of a used car buyer.  
  
  
• Shoppers are turning to leases now more than ever. And the difference between the average monthly lease payment ($433) and the average monthly finance payment ($468) is greater than at any time since Edmunds.com started keeping records.  
  
  
• About 44 percent of all trade-in vehicles last year went toward a new car by the same brand, which is consistent with our 2011 survey that found that 49 percent of shoppers say they “plan to stick with a brand that has worked in the past.” 
   
• Luxury car owners and shoppers are buying and considering more nonluxury cars. The trend speaks to the improved quality of non-luxury vehicles.  
  
  
• Many shoppers say they want just the basics in a new car, but emotions can drive buyers to add options. New car buyers are willing to spend an average of $2,200 – or about seven percent – above base model and trim prices to add more options on their cars. 

The Edmunds.com’s 2013 Car Shopping Trends Report is intended to be a free resource for ADM Professional Community members who are interested in creating a better car buying experience. This is just the first in a series of reports that the Edmunds Research team hopes will shed more light on car shopping behavior.  The team intends these findings to open up a dialogue which will contribute to the ongoing improvements within the automotive retail industry. They also want to encourage ADM Professional Community members to contact Edmunds at any time to discuss more ways that Edmunds.com can help you better understand today’s car shopper.

Here is a link to download a PDF version of the Edmunds.com’s 2013 Car Shopping Trends Report: http://static.ed.edmunds-media.com/unversioned/img/industry-center/... 

Edmunds Points of Contact

For Dealer Inquiries: 855-EDMUNDS
For Press Inquiries: 310-309-4900

Source: http://www.edmunds.com/industry-center/car-shopping-trends/ 

Edmunds Annual New Vehicle Sales Forecast for 2013 and Historical Actual Sales:

SOURCE : http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A484715&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley - Interns For Your Dealership 

There is a revelation that is shocking and, quite frankly, scary. A dangerous and potentially fatal mistake is being made everyday in businesses. The mistake is the confusion between strategy and tactics. Strategy is your overall goal for your business and your overall marketing philosophy to achieve those goals. Tactics are executable actions you take to achieve those options. The good news is that once you have clarity about your strategy, and then apply emotional direct response marketing methods, you can create a continual stream of customers to your business. The scary part is that it is as easy as flipping on a light switch, and yet very few people know and understand the simple secrets to make this happen.

Your business is actually comprised of two businesses: the people business and the marketing business. You can be great with your people skills and handling of customers, but if you don’t have the customers to be great with, it won’t matter. Lead generation equals dollar creation. You live and die by the success or failure of your marketing efforts to create new customers and retain existing ones.

There are three simple things you can do immediately to make a dramatic impact on your customer flow and sales: Market, Message and Media

Step One – Define who your market is.

If you were asked who your average customer is, do you really know? Do you know where they live, what they do for a living and what their hopes, dreams and fears are? Have you begun to break down every element of what makes up your best potential market of customers? Many dealerships open the doors every day and spend tons of money to drive customers through the door without ever giving extensive thought to who their market really is. Successful businesses don’t try to do business with everybody. If you believe your market is everyone, you are wasting tons of money. You must match your message to your market. The more accurately you define your message while also narrowing your market and niche, the more success you have. You also greatly increase your return on investment.

Step Two - Define an effective message.

Remember that you are not in the car business. You are in the emotions business. Your customers don’t buy cars. What they are doing is seeking to emotionally solve their perceived problems. If you believe you are in the car business, you have just grouped yourself into a fishbowl with every car dealership and every sales person in the world. You can immediately differentiate yourself by creating an SDP (Specific Defining Proposition) built upon emotional pull.

In other words, what does your business do better, more of or more originally than any other business in the world? Begin to tell your story. Facts tell; stories sell. You may not have spent enough time figuring out what your story is that positions and sells you. If you don’t believe you or your business is better or unique, I would argue that you are wrong, and you should do more work on figuring it out. If, after careful consideration, you still don’t believe you are better or unique in any way, the good news is that it probably doesn’t even matter. Since most people or businesses never tell their story, you will automatically differentiate yourself and stand out if you do. There are three legs that must be established to create a winning marketing approach to your business: Message, Market and Media. You have now created the second of three legs that builds your business – the message.

Make sure that all of your marketing messages contain the following: an emotional story, a specific and incredible offer, a strong sense of urgency with a specific call to action, multiple ways to respond and, if possible, a specific deadline that creates a real or perceived fear of loss for a lack of action by that date.

Step Three – Define your media strategy.

Be forewarned, advertising agencies are usually nothing more than commissioned based media sales agents. The focus of the majority of advertising agents is to place the largest amount of money possible in media. This is a recipe for waste and lackluster results. Although there are technically no bad media selections, you must define which medium is best for your market and message. If you can’t dominate a medium, can you dominate the way you use the medium (for example, infomercial versus regular TV)?

A huge mistake would be to believe that the medium itself is what gets you the results. A good example of this is a dealership that chooses a particular medium, such as radio or TV, as their favorite and then places tons of ads that are strictly brand-based messages. For dealerships, branding should always be of secondary importance to the actual direct response offer. The best way for a dealership to build a brand is to sell a bunch of vehicles. Unless you are Budweiser, Coca-Cola or some other huge brand with tons of money, spending money on brand-based advertising is like pouring money down the drain. You are in the business of creating customers and profit, not in the ego-inflation business.

When you get very clear about your strategy and tactics and use emotional direct-response marketing to achieve your goals, you will have flipped on the switch to a continual flow of customers and sales.

If someone asked me for a single piece of advice about blogging, it wouldn’t be a standard answer like “post regularly” or “know your audience”. It wouldn’t be to “find a niche” or “add keywords to your title”. These are all good pieces of advice and are almost always in the mix in “X Top Tips for Blogging” posts that pop up every couple of weeks across the internet.

My one piece of advice: write something that will get responses. Be controversial. Make content that some people will love and some people will hate. Be willing to ruffle some feathers, to piss some people off, and to make others cheer loudly.

It’s not done enough by the majority of bloggers. We try to be too mainstream sometimes. We attempt to be universally liked for our writing. This is simply the wrong approach, at least for those who want to find big time success. If you’re looking to keep a small audience happy, keep your posts safe. If you want to get your blog posts seen by the masses, you have to be willing to make people upset.

That’s not to say that getting people upset is the goal. The goal is to make people love what you’re saying, but to do that it’s almost impossible to avoid making other people hate what you’re saying. It’s the nature of the medium. If you’re not getting people fired up and complaining about how wrong you are, you’re also not getting many people saying how right you are.

The last post I put up was mildly controversial. It wasn’t so far off that a lot of people complained, but some did. Some objected. Some emailed me and told me that they thought I was wrong.

Others loved it. They agreed. The commented. They shared it. The story was discussed and the traffic that came to it was strong.

People will like your posts if they’re universally acceptable. Few will dislike them. However, if your posts are not universally acceptable, people won’t just like it. They’ll love it. Others won’t just dislike it. They’ll hate it. That’s the nature of the beast. You have to be willing to polarize the audience, to take criticism and adoration as they come.

There’s a caveat – don’t try to make people upset. Speak your mind. Make your case. Accept the critics. Don’t push it too far. Whenever I see a blog that posts non-stop controversial topics, it reminds me of balloon boy. There was a dysfunctional team of parents that got addicted to the spotlight so they took it even further.

Blogging can be beneficial to your business, fun to do, and has the potential to have a positive impact on the blogger’s life. To reach the top echelon, you can’t be mild. You can’t shy away from criticism. You can’t try to make everyone happy. Being liked is the safe approach. Being loved takes ruffling a few feathers.

The National Do Not Call Rules (DNC) have been around for quite a while but I find that a surprising number of dealership employees think that the rules don’t apply to them. I often hear statements like “Hey, we’re not telemarketers, we’re just doing follow-up”. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. So I thought it was time for a refresher on the rules and some suggestions on how to avoid potential legal pitfalls.

The DNC rules state that it’s against the law to call, for selling purposes, any number on the National Do Not Call registry, but there are some exceptions.  For instance, under the “existing business relationship” exception, a dealership may call a consumer with whom it has an established business relationship for a limited time after the consumer's last purchase, delivery, or payment - even if the consumer's number is on the National Do Not Call Registry.  Also, dealership staff may call a consumer for a shorter period of time after the consumer makes an inquiry or submits a lead to the company. 

One caveat: if a consumer asks you not to call, the staff may not call, even if there is an established business relationship. In that case, the dealership must honor the request not to call and loses the right to call the consumer, regardless of whether the consumer continues to do business with the dealership. As a result, in addition to the National Do Not Call List, dealerships must maintain an internal Do Not Call list of any consumers who specifically request that the dealership not call them. This is the tricky part at many dealerships.

What type of calls do the DNC rules cover? Covered calls are those made for “commercial” or “selling” purposes that offer to provide or arrange to provide goods or services to consumers. It’s pretty simple, if you’re calling to try to sell something – anything – the rules apply. If you’re calling for any other reason, you’re probably OK.

So what constitutes an “existing business relationship”?  There are two types of established business relationships, both of which are time-limited:

1) A dealership may call a consumer if that consumer has purchased, rented, or leased the business’s goods or services, or if a financial transaction has taken place. The time limitation on this relationship is 18 months after that sale or transaction.

2) If a consumer hasn’t purchased from you, you can call them only if they have made an inquiry or submitted an application to your company, such as a request for a quote. In these cases you can only call up to three months after the original inquiry. This exception applies when a consumer visits the dealership and inquires about purchasing, calls for information, or submits an internet lead. The test for whether there's been an inquiry (and thus there could be an established business relationship even where a purchase or transaction hasn't been completed) is that an inquiry has been made of a nature to create an expectation on the part of the consumer that a particular company will call them. So, if a consumer merely called to inquire about business hours or location, that wouldn't do the trick, but asking about a company's products or services, or submitting an application or lead, would.

Another exception is if a consumer has given the dealership express written permission to call, you may call even if the consumer's number is on the National DNC Registry. The consumer must give express agreement in writing to receive calls placed by the seller, including the number to which calls may be made, and the consumer’s signature. The signature may be a valid electronic signature, if the agreement is reached online. The consumer can revoke this permission at any time by asking to be placed on your internal DNC list.

Even permissible calls have restrictions on time of day. They can't be made before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time at the called party's location. Sellers are also prohibited from blocking the transmission of caller ID information.

There's a safe harbor for sellers that have made a good faith effort to comply with the national DNC rules and a dealership would not be liable for violations that result from an error if the company has made a good faith effort to provide consumers with an opportunity to exercise their do-not-call rights. To fall within the safe harbor, the dealership must demonstrate that, as part of its routine business practice:

So, how do you stay on top of these regulations? The good news is that many CRM programs do much of the heavy lifting in terms of flagging consumers on the National DNC list. The not-so-good news is that your CRM can only do so much. Often, decisions must be made at the dealership level as to the validity and timing of established business relationships and consumer placement on the dealership’s internal DNC list. Following are suggestions for staying compliant with DNC rules (for dealers who have a CRM system that automatically accesses the National DNC Registry): 

• All dealership employees should be trained on DNC rules and on how to identify customers flagged as “Do Not Call” in your CRM. Your CRM provider should be asked to provide comprehensive training to ensure that there are no misunderstandings about the system’s capabilities. 
• The dealership should appoint a single point-of-contact who is well-versed in the DNC regulations to administer the program (Compliance Coordinator).
• The DNC Compliance Coordinator should develop and maintain an internal company DNC list.
• All consumer requests to be added to the dealership’s internal DNC list should be routed to the Compliance Coordinator. He or she will be responsible for maintaining the list and flagging the consumers in the CRM. All dealership employees must report any customer Do Not Call request (written or verbal) to the Compliance Coordinator.
• All dealership employees should be instructed that any consumer request not to be contacted (even casual requests) must be immediately reported to the Compliance Coordinator. This includes requests to receptionists and customers telling salespeople “hey, don’t call me anymore”.
• All decisions as to whether or not a consumer falls into the “established business relationship” exception or “express permission to call” exception should be made by the Compliance Coordinator. In other words, no one flagged as “Do Not Call” in the CRM should be called without permission from the Compliance Coordinator.
• These directives should be made a part of the company’s Human Resources process, included in the employee handbook and new-hire orientation, and strictly enforced. Employees should be informed in writing that knowingly calling a person on the Do Not Call list without permission from the Compliance Coordinator is a serious breach of company rules and can lead to disciplinary action. This is vital to ensure safe harbor protection for the dealership in the case of errors.

If the dealership doesn’t have a CRM system that tracks the DNC list, they are required to search the National DNC Registry every 31 days. If new numbers have been added to the registry they are required to drop them from their call lists. The Federal Trade Commission has set up a specific website that businesses can use to access the registry: https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/profile/create.aspx. When a business accesses the site for the first time a profile will need to be created by including identifiable information about the business. Organizations that subscribe to more than five area codes will be required to pay a fee to access data on the registry. 

So there you have it. The rules are not very complicated but compliance can be tricky and is vitally important. Violators of these rules can be fined up to $16,000 per incident and consumers can bring private actions. In this age of greatly enhanced enforcement actions and lawsuits against dealers, it makes sense to pay attention.

This isn’t going to be a long post (I know a lot of mine have been too long, lately) but that doesn’t make it any less important. It’s short because the concept is simple. Unfortunately, many are missing out on this easy technique.

There are plenty of types of content that you can post on Facebook, but they invariably fall into one of two categories – conversation and conversion. You’re either posting to help spark conversations that are on topic with your industry or you’re posting content designed to drive conversions of some sort to increase business. In some cases, a post can fall under both categories, those these types of posts are normally not as effective at achieving either goal.

The point of conversational posts is simply to earn the right to post conversion content. You have to earn this right from two different entities. The first is Facebook itself. The EdgeRank algorithm is very fickle. Because people are less likely to interact with content that is pushing the big sale this weekend than if they’re seeing an image of a concept Hyundai crossover, too many conversion posts can hurt you in the algorithm. Facebook knows the activities that happen on their site including a lack of activity. In other words, it’s not just those unavoidable occasions when people will hide or report your content. Your EdgeRank is hurt when people simply do nothing, when it appears in their news feed but they scroll right passed it without engaging.

The second entity for which you have to earn the right to post conversion content is the user base itself. People get fatigued. If they see post after post of “sale-sale-sale” appear on their news feed, they will eventually block you. They are much less likely to do that when the conversion posts are spread out, when there’s real conversational posts hitting their news feed and drawing their attention. Then, when they see the conversion posts, they’re less inclined to offer negative feedback because they get it. That’s one of the toughest things for businesses and marketers to accept. People get it. They know that you’re running a business and they’re accepting of the occasional conversion post as long as they hold a good sentiment towards your company and social media presence because you’ve earned their trust through strong conversational posts.

The conversion posts are the easiest to grasp but are much harder to deliver properly. It isn’t about advertising the big sale or the oil change or the individual vehicle that you just took in on trade. It’s about presenting the big sale, the oil change, or the unique vehicle you just took in on trade in a way that is engaging to them.

The example above is not ideal. It’s not a super rare find or a killer manager’s special. It’s just a car, but there’s personality in the way that it was presented. That’s one of the keys. The second key is that the conversation that ensued as a result of the post included very responsive action. Someone in the local area inquired further about it. That’s good. It’s better that the response came with instructions on how to proceed.

These types of posts would not work if that’s all that ever got posted by the dealership. Most people passed this post up because they weren’t in the market at that particular moment for a used Honda Pilot. Even those who aren’t buying today will eventually need something, but more importantly you’ll want to get engagement from those people because of EdgeRank. Someone might not be in the market, but one of their friends might be. When the person not in the market likes, shares, or comments on your posts, there’s an increased likelihood that their friend who is in the market will now see the proper posts as a result.

Mix it up. There’s no magic formula. If I were cornered with a knife to my throat and forced to answer the question about the proper mix of content I would say something like 6:1 – six conversational posts for every conversion post, but I’d be guessing and generalizing. The reality is that it’s different for every page, every market, every demographic. Some can get away with 3:1. Some can only muster 10:1. Whatever is right for your page and your business is the way to go. It’s not a copout response. We spend a lot of time determining the personality and limitations of each individual client and the ratios listed above are real-world ranges that we’ve seen and applied. The key is finding what works best for you.

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?

"Second place is a set of steak knives."

When Alec Baldwin's character lectured the sales team in Glengarry Glen Ross, he made it clear that the winner was the one on top, that everyone else was lucky to have a job, and that if they continued to perform the way they did they wouldn't have a job for much longer. The same holds true in social media. If you're not winning, you're losing, and all too often the strategies used in social media marketing are designed to lose.

I'm referring to branding. It's become too apparent over the last couple of years that many businesses and the social media companies that support them have turned branding into the ultimate goal of social media efforts. They believe that sales cannot be attained, that leads cannot be generated, and that trying to define the benefits is best left with something intangible like increased exposure of the brand. While this isn't completely wrong, it's selling the industry short. Social media can do so much more than branding.

In the automotive industry, for example, the goals of social media marketing should be first to drive foot traffic to the dealership. The 2nd place prize of every effort would be to drive website visitors. When all else fails, branding is the tertiary goal, the consolation prize. When that perspective is taken and an understanding is had that so much more can and should be done, the branding actually has the opportunity to flourish even more as a result.

Focus on business. Do the right things. Hire the right agencies, the ones that can demonstrate tangible ROI from their efforts rather than falling for the pitch that exposure is the best thing you can hope for. When branding becomes the top level goal, it's possible for one to be convinced that they should be posting funny cat pictures in order to get the exposure they need on social media. That couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, the goal is to get tangible benefit. Cat pictures won't do that.

Here's a video I did that highlights this myth and demonstrates why it's possible to have a proper hierarchy of goals to achieve the fullest level of success.