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Could Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption) actually have been a car dealer? Everyone is holding their breath right now. Get busy living instead of waiting!!  Waiting is the same as dying.  Waiting for customers to return? Waiting for the bailout?  Waiting for consumer confidence to go up? What is it going to take to have retailers wake up?

There are great resources out there: DealerRefresh, DrivingSales and Automotive Digital Marketing, AskPatty, Automotive Dealers Network and more!  These are people putting it all out there and on the line every day.  Their knowledge, reputation, ideas and networks.  Every consultant, contractor and adviser would rather get paid.  If we can't help dealers do a better job, there's not going to be any business to go around.

It is not a question of if dealers can afford to get help or not.  The more waiting, the faster the inevitable death. It is time to make the investment in your staff, future, process and profits.

Dealers, get an outside opinion about your:

1. Online presence (go online and get off of the traditional marketing see-saw)
2. Lead process
3. Accountability
4. Oversight/Management
5. Appointment setting
6. Delivery process
7. CRM/Follow-up…
…and then stick with it.  Paying for something and then not doing it is a guarantee for failure.

OEMs, it is past the time to make a change from the same companies/individuals you've been using for years with the same or incremental lift in results.  Don't have a true eCommerce platform in your ongoing education and dealer training?  Do it.  And not part of hours or days of other sales, financing or fixed-op classes or training.  Focus on the one and only thing that is going to bring in the overwhelming majority of your dealers' sale traffic.

In the end, Andy created a plan, executed on it and made it to that beach, working on his boat.  When are you going to make your plan work?  Get busy living or get busy dying!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

One of the things that typically drives the auto world is new cars, major redesigns and other aesthetic updates that shout "I've got the newest one" to family, friends, coworkers and the world.  This week the LA Auto Show hits and hopefully the traffic will too.

If SEMA and LAAS are strong indicators of what's to come, hopefully it's a good sign.  SEMA attendance and exhibitor counts were down but it was still extremely busy and took me 15 minutes to cross from the end of the North Hall to the far end of the South Hall for a meeting with Tiegen Fryberger at Geckobyte.

LA Auto Show has emerged as a player on the world stage over the past couple of years (considering it's the home of bling) and with this year's list of new models, looks to maintain a strong position.  Will the consumers show up? With the Mustang, Volt, Touareg TDI, Mini E and many more, the foot traffic should be a good indicator of what may translate to retail later in 2009.

With less (apparent) media build-up to the show than prior and nearly no dealers talking about it, how are we doing as an industry to build up demand even considering the financial uncertainty?  It would be great to have seen a number of dealers in the area (like Sullivan, Sage, Rydell, Rusnak, etc) get together, split the bill, and have an event that gets promoted on the web, have current customers at a catered event adjascent to the show and then everyone hits the floor and checks out the cars.

Even though it's been said before, we have to think and act differently if we expect different results. Don't have a major show in your city?  Start your own 'show' or other conecpt and brings your customers and their friends in for no-pressure test drives, 'ask-the-expert' sessions or other ideas that you know more about that I do.

In the end, it's your business. What do you want out of it? New product will always bring in new customes but you can't rest your business on it. We have in the past. This year I've heard that battle cry from so many dealers: "next year we'll have the new blah-blah-blah and that will get customers running through the door" or "the buzz on next year's neezer-nazzer is awesome, so nobody wants this year's model".

Do what you can to excel, not wait. Success comes to those to plan, study and execute, then do it again and again. Remember that you're better off looking into the future in stead of staying in the past. Isn't it great how well we've all done in the past? What are you going to say two years from now?

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

More than ever dealers are realizing that retaining clients and giving them reasons to come back is important, if not their lifeline.  Building your business around 'the next up' is fine, as long as you are guaranteed to have a constant stream of people.  Challenges currently being faced at retail have shown most car dealers the holes in their business plan and more.

So you have a DMS, CRM, newsletters, coffee and an area for customers to sit down comfortably, and a staff.  None of those assets can bring in a guest except for the staff.  Salespeople can use all of those assets to more effectively bring in someone but don't fool yourself into thinking that because you have a CRM that has somehow magically data that doesn't get entered can turn into gold.  Or that you're using a eNewsletter (that almost all of your competition uses, in-brand and other brands) that differentiates you by chance.

When your customer that bought their car 1,000 miles ago comes in for that first (free) check-up, are you meeting them? Every time? Do you even know they're scheduled in tomorrow at 3:15? Are you sitting down with them and talking about their experience? Have you kept every follow-up commitment that you made? Overwhelmingly the simple 'bring them back' activities seem to be slipping…even in light of less traffic and fewer leads.

What type of events does your store promote and invite owners to? New owner or performance check events? Meet the management and service team? Learn about the technology in your car? What would bring you back to a retailer? Start thinking like the consumer or, if you can't, ask every customer. Invite your factory rep, or a designer, or a vendor for a product that your customers order plenty of and have a special reason for your guests to return, hopefully with a guest of their own and grow your business.

With one of the OEM's IM@CS has worked with this year, an endorsement of one of the prominent newsletter companies was made (by someone at the brand, not IM@CS or the vendor).  Through mystery shops and other activities, it has been easy to see that over 70% of the stores took that recommendation.  Now, if a shopper happens to submit leads to 2 or 3 stores in almost any area, they're bound to get the same exact (maybe one article is different) online newsletter from the stores including the ones they didn't buy from (which now-days could be all of them).

What are you saying?  What are you promoting?  It's not that you can trick a consumer into thinking that they're buying a car from a high-end department store rather than a dealership (although some of you do have a Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue approach which is fantastic!), but you have to think about what sets you apart from the usual "what will it take….?".

What in your process sets you apart? What will people remember you by? That is why people come back time and again (and bring or refer friends), even if they have a change in their purchase plans. How professional is every aspect of what you do? Everyone that markets thinks their ideas are great until (1) someone says they're not, (2) their competition takes their customers or (3) they change it after they realize that it's stale.

Evaluate your website, your newsletters, your greeting process, your closing process, your email process (which should actually have a call in there before they get 4 or 5 emails) and everything else that a customer touches regularly. And hold your vendors and suppliers accountable, always! And remember why you're in business and how much fun it is to sell.  And bring 'em back!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

This is an agnostic question. You can be a dealership employee, a manager, a senior manager, general manager or dealer. The question is the same for everyone because it's important for accountability.  Everyone has had to cut lately and it has hurt, likely a hell of a lot. Nobody in their right mind should tell you to do otherwise in any context.

Now, are you cutting too much? History will be able to tell you rather than you hearing it from me, your ad agency, another consultant, your brand's district sales manager or vendors. No matter what, there is a point that you can cut too much. Your marketing, your expenses, your store upkeep, your maintenance, your presence are all likely recipients of the cut, cut, cut mentality.  You might be able to get away with a lot of that and not hear from more than 1% of your clients that they can tell you've cut back somehow.

If you want to hear from the other 99%, let them know you are still selling, deals are great, financing is available, service is better than ever, selection is not as important as the one car they'll leave in and, the most important part, that you're still here for your clients.

Are you leaving it up to the media to tell your customers what to do? Please tell me you're not. Right now, today, tomorrow or as soon as you can, you can contact everyone that has come into your store (via the web, service drive, parts counter, and -ahem- the sales floor) and tell them that you're in business and ready to help them and here's the great part…you can tell them for free.

Since we know your staff has already stored every email address and every cell phone number (and service provider), your sales team has the time to email or text every guest that now is the right time to buy.

In talking with a lender recently (OK, if you must know it was CUDL) as well as a number of dealers in reference to their financing options, you know what we found?  Our less-than-scientific survey revealed that every single dealer spoken with still has the ability to put a 'butt in a seat' with just a handful of fewer options than 90 days ago.

The constraints today may truly be greater than any time in recent history. Don't go rush to bury your head in the sand though friends! Challenging times always produce winners. Tough times call for tough measures. If the business is not the same, don't act the same.  The dealers that market smarter right now will win, period.

Will fewer cars be sold? Maybe for some time to come and nobody wants that. But completely stopping what fundamentally makes us operate is insanity. Be solution oriented, understand all of your marketing options including free or low-cost ones, try something new (yes it is the time do to that), ask your customers more questions and keep your brand in front of people.

Dealers, the overwhelming majority of you are not exercising your options anywhere close to what you need to be doing. This is not an insult or a challenge. It is a reminder that you're the marketer. Not the brand. Not your agency. Not your district or regional association. It is your brand, your store, your inventory, your staff, your overhead.  It's also your opportunity.

Live by solutions, on solutions, for solutions, with solutions and via solutions. Recognize issues and resolve them with solutions. Don't own problems, they are guaranteed to stop your dead in your tracks.  If you don't believe that your current team (vendors, contractors, salespeople, management) can do it, then you have some decisions to make.

If you've still not decided to really go with web marketing, now is the time. Take any amount of ad dollars, even your last ones this month, and get with a knowledgeable, reputable consultant and/or company that has a track record (that you can check on) and don't look back. And quit listening to the people who don't know and will tell you otherwise.

It's time to pick yourselves up by the bootstraps and 'Get 'R Done'! Give people a place they want to come to, people they want to deal with, an experience that have been looking for and you ARE the solution. And be great!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

Mix your favorite drink or prepare your favorite meal and just before you are able to enjoy it, stop.  Or miss one of the critical ingredients in that favorite food.  Better yet, invite someone over for a lavish meal and forget to make anything. When you miss part of the process, the results are not what you want, period.

Think about this equation for a little while:

Success = Thought x Action + Time

Thought: Positive attitude governs everything you do; perpetuated through focus, philosophy and goals
Action: The state or process of acting or doing; reinforcement of what you know and learn
Time: Consistent and compounding, time is either your friend or your enemy

Retail can no longer be dependent on customers walking in for the sake of it. It does still happen, but it is not the driver of business (and in reality has not been for years).  Everything you do either brings you closer to a goal, dream or need or it drives you further away.  When you have a process that works, refinement is critical.  However, acting separate, or dramatically changing what you do will most likely have dire consequences.  Constantly reinforce your positive results with repetition.  In the event that you don't understand how a specific deal went so well, don't blow it off or explain it away to luck.  Repeat it until it becomes habit.

"Experience is something you get right after you need it" – Benjamin Franklin

We all realize the constraints that exist in today's market ranging from credit to inventory to budgets to marketing to the media and ultimately your customers.  Don't make excuses for them or yourself!  You have to choose whether you're on the cause or the effect side.

"You can make excuses or you can make money, but you can't make them both at the same time" – Anonymous

Learn great things, plan great things, expect great things…and then repeat great things.  Process is one of the best tools you have outside of your own memory.  Take something that works and make it your own.  Two things are critical to success in process: one is to remember and the second is to better.

If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done. Go out there any be great.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

It is time to remember once again who holds the cards at dealerships.  If you have forgotten, go to a retailer of choice at lunch or after work today and watch carefully how your interaction and transaction develops with the salesperson.  This is not to say that consumers are in the same state of mind going out to buy a new flat-screen TV as they are for a vehicle purchase.  By the same token, shouldn't one of the larger investments people ever make be met by a solid professional who knows how to assist and guide?  Why would you invest with a broker or choose a dentist to do work on you that was not a leader?

So, are your customers Doubtful On Arrival?  Hope you didn't think I was saying they're dead on arrival.  No, that would refer to dealership sales staffs (and if you don't believe me, visit nearly any other dealership in your area).  Your customers are doubtful because of so many factors today.  So let's not give them any more excuses to believe that they (1) can control you because you're selling fewer cars, or (2) that they can't have an outstanding experience. 

As retailers, you can never relinquish control of your engagement with the customer.  You can absolutely have them believe they're in control by answering their questions, validating them, being relevant, maintaining eye contact and mirroring and other proven methods (that you're already using every time, right?).  Pass control over to the customer and you're done.  And they'll know it the moment you do.  As a matter of a fact, that practice has been going on for years!  Remember this top-10 hit: "Hold on…I'll have to talk this over with my manager…please let me grab a (fill in the beverage of choice here) for you because this might be a while".  Or how about this perennial favorite: "Wow, you really drive a hard bargain.  Gosh, I don't know…well…OK.  Let's do the deal!".

We have given auto retail customers so much garbage to deal with, having a great experience with a knowledgeable salesperson that talks about benefits for that specific person and truly delivers on their promises is such an unbelievable occurrence (read: you have to talk about benefits in the customers eyes, not ramble off a list of specifications that they can read on the brand site or Edmunds.com).

Here are a few thoughts from a great person I listen to regularly that may change your current perspective or actions (hopefully):

Take consistent action
Leadership is influence not manipulation
Small things done well lead to big things that were once impossible
You have to achieve your goals no matter what happens
Action needs to be driven by decision not emotion (but please do keep your customers emotional as their purchase needs to matter more to them than to you).

While you can't guarantee that your customers won't come into your store DOA, you surely can positively influence them, stay in control, demonstrate integrity and have a great impact on them.  And by doing that you can also turn them into the best advocates you can ever have, which is precisely what your job is no matter if you're selling new cars, used cars, service, parts, accessories or finance.

You're always selling you…don't forget who's in control of you.  Be great!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

If there has ever been a time to stop just going through the motions and giving lip service to 'going digital' and 'jumping online', it's now.  If you are a dealer principal and/or general manager, the time is now to drop your offline and go online (some of you with a vengeance).

When's the last time you watched a TV commercial (not counting sporting events that you may wait for a funny spot or something your buddies told you to watch) or went from satellite radio to conventional to hear the ads or even stared at the black and white (or better yet full color) insertions in your local paper?  Unless it's your ad, a competitor's ad or something that glitters or goes fast, you haven't!  Quit lying to yourself and everyone else.

You (and everyone around you) is going online, on their PDAs, their wireless cards, their iTunes account and any other method that avoids advertisements.  Nobody is saying it's easy.  Your advertising agency will likely not be happy.  Your newspaper sales rep will be red-faced.  The lovely account executive from your favorite radio station won't be taking you out to lunch soon.  Fine, you'll actually get more traffic and sell more cars and service.  All while saving money, tracking your spend nearly 100% and getting near complete transparency.  Last time I checked, none of that was bad.

"I don't understand how that works".  "You can't guarantee me the same results I get from the paper".  "I don't go online that much and neither do my friends".  "My brand tried that and it didn't work even though all of the region/area dealers pitched in so it can't work for me".  The list of tried-but-false excuses don't cut the mustard anymore.  Why are you fighting change, supported data and what customers want so badly?

So here's the challenge:

1. Three months minimum exclusive online advertising (if you're exclusively working with your factory-supported site, stop here and talk with a good consultant as you may be limited in this area)
2. If possible, manage and get all of your leads through a wholesaler (likely a great route if you have a real third part website company that can effectively manage your SEO and SEM as well)
3. Track everything (read: EVERYTHING) in your CRM/DMS: sourcing, every conversation, appointments, unwinds, etc.
4. Get up to speed on your Google Analytics (if you don't have that with your existing website company, get them to do it or replace them).
5. Talk with your DSM or marketing folks at headquarters about how consumers search for your brand in your area (relevancy is key).
6. Develop an online marketing strategy that is set at least a month at a time
7. Get your sales staff to support your efforts without question (this is a huge challenge at most dealers)
8. Back your digital efforts everywhere you possibly can around the dealership (sales floor, service, parts, cashier, etc)

In order to effectively market online, you must do no less.  You can do more, much more, if you're committed.  There are plenty of companies and people doing this strategy and more right now, today.  It's not a secret, it's not in code.  Start thinking like consumers instead of like car dealers and everything will start falling into place, as soon as you start telling everyone you've been keeping in business for years one simple thing: "No thank you, I've gone online".

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com

The Big "O" in sales…objections.  Do you look forward to them as opportunities or fear them out of sure failure?  One of the largest determining factors of sales success (or lack of) is the ability to not just overcome objections, but to revel in them.

Quite simply, objections are a way to actually get to know your client better, develop strategies, determine where the conversation is going and set yourself up to win.  One of the best tools that is largely underused today is role playing.  With your sales team or management, regularly play out scenarios until you're comfortable with the areas that currently frustrate you.  It could be product oriented, you may have difficulty in the qualifying process, your close is not strong or you don't seem to ask enough questions.  No matter what if you don't improve through practice, you will likely get the same results you are today.

Objections are beautiful things.  Challenge your customer.  Typically the first thing that comes out of someone's mouth is not their actual objection.  The number one objection dealers hear: "I'm just looking".  Don't be afraid of it…have two or three comments/questions at the ready every time.  If one doesn't seem to be working, change it.  Also, change your approach.  Don't ask "can I have your email address?". Instead ask "Do you prefer communication via email or text?  Most people really like the flexibility of text messaging!".

Just remember that objections are opportunities about 95% of the time, especially if the person is in front of you.  Act as if you expected the objection they tell you.  "I'm glad you brought that up…here at Blah Blah Dealership, we go out of our way in regards to (objection)".  There are so many ways to positively address (or attack) objections.

As a good 'mate' of mine (Larry Pinci of Sell the Feeling) says "are you on the cause side of the equation or the effect side?".  You can't adequately deal with objections unless you are firmly on the cause side, know your convictions and expect to use objections to thrive.  If you fear objections, either practice until you're comfortable or see if the action is more to your liking in the business office (it just may be).

Now go out there and be great.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gary May

www.imacsweb.com