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Posts with CRM tag.
What Innovation Matters Most Right Now?

Are you excited by the latest technology in the newest model arriving at your showroom? Were you going crazy waiting for FedEx/UPS/USPS last week for your latest iPhone? Can't believe that your newest CRM ties your site, third party leads, phone calls, mail automation, showroom visits and more together? Didn't have to break traffic laws a week ago since you Tivo'd the first 10 minutes of the NBA finals knowing that you'd work late? All that is absolutely fantastic, but it's not the innovation that matters most.

Nothing that technology delivers, nothing that (supposedly) makes our lives better, nothing that is guaranteed to make our businesses run like clockwork matters until someone understands it, knows what to do with it and ultimately figures out how in hell to apply it, will mean anything…until there is a reason to use it in the first place.

In other words, why use Tivo (as good as it and DVRs are!) if you don't watch, let alone care about, anything on television?

What you care about getting done, so that you move closer to your dreams, goals and ambitions, should be the driver in using technology. The greatest innovations we can use best centers around communication. SImple. Period. Communication!

If you don't have anyone to communicate with and nothing to communicate about, technology means nearly nothing. As passionate as you can be about the latest $400-$4,000,000 items that center around innovation and technology aren't worth the patents they're built from until there is a real reason behind them.

If you're in business and plan to stay in business, use the latest and greatest but please have a purpose first. And make sure the purpose dovetails with process. Are you one of the stores that works on one CRM for 'the floor' and one for 'the Internet'? Why, why, why, why, why? Oh, I see…you like keeping other companies in business more than you want to save your own…ok. Got it!

One race matters and it's not to the sales title. It's the human one. Nobody will care about you until you show that you care about them first. Then you build a relationship (read: listen). Then use technology until the cows come home to communicate, track, follow up, excite, invite, connect, compel, validate, reward, incent, share, promote and so on and so on. And never make the technology more important than the relationship or the message. People ignore MASSIVE amounts of otherwise compelling content. We call it advertising (and most of it sucks people…especially in the auto industry).

For now, stick with the best innovation you have no matter what: your brain. Use it wisely, use it well, use it regularly…

And see you at the finish line!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

June 20, 2009 by Gary May 0
How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers – Free Marketing Webinar

Hubspot_logo

Businesses now have the power to leverage the Internet — search
engines, blogs, social media — to reach customers more effectively.
This includes connecting with customers where they hang out online and
engaging in conversations about the topics most important to them.
Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is all about joining the
ongoing conversations our customers and prospects are already having
and not trying to control them. It's realizing that people like doing
business with people they like and love doing business with people they
trust. 

This free webinar will cover:
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  • How to use social media to connect with customers online
  • Creating content to attract more customers to your business
  • Tools to help you manage and measure your social media efforts

Date: Tues. April 14, 2009

Time: 2PM ET (GMT -5)

Duration: 1 Hour

Who should attend?

Marketing professionals and business owners. No technical experience required.

Speaker:

Special guest presenter: Brent Leary, co-founder and Partner of CRM Essentials and recognized expert in the field of social CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Enroll_Now

April 9, 2009 by Gary May 0
If Opposites Attract, Why Didn’t I Sell 30 Cars Last Month?

Let's face it, if the simple fact was that opposites attract, every dealership would sell out of cars…every month. Actually, that's not quite true. Opposites do attract, but we're talking about much more serious issues than simply attraction. Why in the world would someone want to buy from you?

First, there's the typical stuff: Are you prepared? Do you have the same opening and closing process that you use every day? Do you know/walk your inventory daily? Do you know your ad cars? Are you qualifying your customer correctly?

Now, and possibly more important, there's the newer stuff: Do you know your website? Do you know your competition's? How many leads can you handle correctly (and not just call or email once)? How often do you network (and not just online)? How is your follow up, really? Does management have your back or are you just off the back?

When you look at things realistically, you've never sold a car in your life. Not trying for semantics here, just a honest look under the hood. Ever had a green pea outsell you? Of course! Today it's much more about everything but the sale. Don't pull the wool over your own eyes.

When recommending new technology, companies or services to dealer clients, I continue to hear the same excuse as to why they won't use/buy/check out something that will be a complete benefit: "my people are just here to sell!" And there's the problem folks (or at least the biggest after credit and flooring/financing issues).

The more you act like you did when the gravy poured, the more you'll struggle. The more you treat customers like suckers, the more your showroom will chirp with the sound of crickets. However, the more you do things the you've ignored, the more you understand how to use technology, the more you keep up-to-date and trained, the more you listen to your prospects and clients, the more success you will experience.

The world's most expensive, luxurious, technological, streamlined, incredibly fast vehicle can't do crap if it's out of gas. The most beautiful facility with gleaming service bays, hi-tech lounge, ready-to-go espresso machine and great looking receptionist can't generate a dime without the right resources.

By the same token, quit expecting better results without doing the things that have to be done: having the right associates, educating them, using technology correctly, having the best vendors and support and 'filling up the tank to full'.

Start attracting business and maintaining it instead of…the opposite.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Power Results

April 2, 2009 by Gary May 1
How Are Your Numbers? It Is A Numbers Game Alright So Change Things!

Anyone with a background in sales has heard, read and/or said the following: "it's a numbers game". And it's amazingly true no matter what your industry or product. The best in any field contact, communicate and retain better based on the fact that they've got to get to more people. So what is your excuse?

Let's face it, sales are not only down (some estimates last week put February's number at well under 700,000 units) but they're expected to be so for quite a while. If you're 'expecting' a turn-around in the next year or two (many are) and you're waiting…you're dead. Einstein was credited with saying "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". Do you fall into that description? If so, there are a few categories you can slide into going forward:

1D: If you view things one dimensionally, keep talking to people. Only talk to more people. Again, it's a numbers game. Let's say your "nut" is $6,000 per month. How can you do that if traffic is down 50%? You've got to stretch your mind and get out there and talk with more people. Heck, you may have to actually give your business card out at lunch, dinner, baseball games and chamber of commerce meetings.

2D: You are used to doing more but two dimensional people just do more of the same type of activities. You've built a referral network on top of your walk-ins and repeats but it's just not delivering. Start doing new activities including taking copious notes about your clients and get your database to start working for you.

3D: Yes, you are among the people that make things happen: showroom, network, database, online, social media, email, text messaging and even, yes, live chat. While you have the greatest opportunity, don't get complacent. Since you have more people to contact from, it should be the easiest for you to move ahead!

If you don't like your numbers, do something about it. And don't do the same thing you did last time. Really do something new, creative, different, innovative. Your greatest obstacle is not your inventory or customers or location or facility…it's you. Suggest things, move things, try things, change things.

Your challenge is to work the numbers. Don't stop short under any circumstance. Plan your work and work your plan. Make sure the numbers make sense which means one thing: there's more of them.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

March 1, 2009 by Gary May 0
What Are You Doing About What Your Competition Is Not?

Everyone's worried about their bottom line, revenues, expenses, marketing,future and what's going to happen next. Worrying so much they have forgotten how to think forward and act intuitively. Better yet, they're not even paying attention to what is not being done by competitors (in and out-of-brand) that can easily be capitalized on.

Two years we were talking about 'an edge'. Now most every dealership is talking about falling off of it. Nothing has changed…nothing! Now, you may have to be more selective and conscience. But you have to market, you have to connect, you must communicate and you absolutely need to build.

Here's a little secret about what 80-90% of dealerships in your market are not doing (or doing effectively at all):

  • Online marketing: SEO, SEM (paid search/PPC, banner ads, etc)
    • Google Analytics (please!)
  • Customer Relationship Management: email, events, incentives
  • Social networking: Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, etc for increase engagement
    • And drives first two bullets!
  • Reputation management: DealerRater, CarFolks, MyDealerReport, Yelp, etc
    • And drives first three bullets!
  • Capitalize on resources for education
    • Automotive Digest, Digital Dealer, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing, Driving Sales
  • Capitalize on resources for training
    • Consultants, brand events, networking (chamber, local businesses, etc)

More often than not, 10% or less of the 'things that must get done' are and even when they do get done, they're not maintained. Some of the MOST fundamental activities are just not being done and for what?

  • The road to hell is paved with good intention
  • The road to debt is paved with discounts
  • The reason that 90% of people fail is the inability to deal with people
  • Nobody ever earned a dollar without spending one

These are the times when (as a good friend of mine in the industry put it) you can get a larger piece of a smaller pie or you can save yourself to death. Most everything listed here can be done for free to hundred of dollars per month.

One of IM@CS' clients has reduced their marketing expense by nearly 85%, increased their brand exposure, delivered more cars in the past month than they did over the past six, is driving over 25% more web traffic and nearly doubling their own website leads over the past three quarters. They're doing all of the above.

It's completely up to you. So what are you doing about what your competition is not? Someone has to wake up first and get going. It might as well be you!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

February 19, 2009 by Gary May 0
OK, It’s Time To Get It…Follow Up Is The Key!

It doesn't matter who you are, what you sell or where you sell. Further, it doesn't matter if you're actively selling or making sales happen away from the front lines. There are a number of things that make business tick:

  1. Passion about what you're doing and/or representing
  2. Solid fundamentals; especially process
  3. Understanding and belief in your business' mission and/or goals

Some still count on their manufacturer's brand or their 'book of business' to bring in customers.  If you can still enjoy that luxury today, count yourself as extremely fortunate. For most businesses, that's not the case. But, it's not as difficult as many make it.

A few things are paramount and undeniable:

  1. People want to know what's in it for them
  2. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care
  3. People want to understand value, advantage or benefit

Simply put, consumers want a reason to connect. The number one active failure is follow up, bar none. When you tell someone that you'll call them back in 30 minutes, keep your word. When you say that a customer will be taken care of, it's your job to ensure that (and be careful because their understanding of what that means may be dramatically different than yours!). If a person understands that something will be replaced, delivered or set aside, do it!

More and more, I find that follow up is atrocious. You'd figure with fewer sales, dramatically less people visiting businesses and more time to do the proper things, we'd be getting it right. It comes down to driving effective results, which comes from setting expectations and delivering! If you don't have good follow up you're dead. And not just an alert in your CRM…really do it!

Many time, follow up is the job of a customer service department or a BDC. No matter what, whoever handles follow up represents the whole company. I've heard it many times that a salesperson will excuse a customer's opinion or experience because "customer service did the follow up, not me". News flash: you're deaf, dumb and blind if you believe that.

Yes, first impressions are lasting ones. But the last impressions may be all for many consumers today and that could severely impact your business. If you don't leverage software or other technology, have reminders and build a plan (and cushion) into your day every day, you are in for a rude awakening.

Think about these things:

  • Time effectiveness = results / time
  • The principal of stewardship is taking responsibility over what you have
  • Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile dream or goal
  • Change is made when you:
    1. Decide to make business happen
    2. Make a commitment to follow up
    3. Put action into decision and commitment

Make follow up a critical part of your business plan and do it right. It's not someone else's responsibility, it's yours. Or else it's someone else's business! And have a purpose to succeed.

No purpose –> No goals        Know purpose –> Know goals

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

February 15, 2009 by Gary May 0
What Do You Think It Will Take To Change? Hello?

Sometimes it helps being a cynic and a pessimist, or at least devil's advocate but at the end of the day you're either your own worst enemy or best ding-dang advocate.  It is always beneficial to see things with a different perspective but critically important to maintain your identity and job jump in the pool for the sake of it, no matter how fun the party.

Recently I've read two good articles. One by Joe Webb (President of Dealer Knows) in Digital Dealer Magazine. The other a blog post by Matt Watson (VIN Solutions) on AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com. Both deal with perception versus reality, pitch versus practice and simply understanding what you have and need before you're had.  Two common carriers of bias at the dealership level: a rep and an excited, overzealous  employee. Both are doing their job but if you to change anything you've got to address everything.

While results typically flow bottom up, change is managed top down. Changing your online results will not come from some videos on YouTube and some 'vSEO' on your website. Update all of your touch-points, become contextually relevant and timely, make sure your brand connects and apply process consistently. Changing how your employees act will not come from a new company policy solely either.

SEO and SEM are hot topics…and should be managed in tandem with your website and CRM. Having a bunch of disparate systems and efforts out there is like fishing with two poles…3,000 miles apart from each other. It just doesn't make sense!

Search engine optimization is an ongoing task with great opportunity, not a "got it with my website two years ago" item. When was the last time you looked closely at your analytics or, better yet, looked at your site with an overlay so you can see real numbers and statistics against what you think your consumers see. That's always an interesting meeting with my clients.

Change is never done. If you don't continue to change because you need to, because your competition is or because you can and make the right changes…you lose. The change everyone has been talking about for months is cutting everything and everywhere with very little regard. You see, that's not a change from troubled times in the past, especially for dealers and OEMs.

Our greatest changes are still in front of us. Are you ready? And what do you think it will take to change? Think about it and do it.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

February 9, 2009 by Gary May 0
Waiting For The Opportunity That Already Passed? Try To Process That!

No knock to hear. No call to answer. No door to open. No question to respond to. The customer was never yours. It happens more than not and it's aggravating as hell to deal with…if you do at all. Today you have two choices:

1. Wait for the next 'up' and work in the same manner as before
2. Create, extend and perpetuate a brand and destination where people want to interact with you

The result will be massively different but the actions required are not so disparate. What are you providing clients with that they'll remember you by? Are you qualifying and inviting before you try to sell (yes, that includes the appointment). It's been estimated over the past few years that nearly three quarters of vehicle buyers online have ended up buying from a store other than the first contacted, sometimes the third or fourth.

No matter what it is you actually do, stay relevant. Which models are people looking at most on your site? Which specials have the most hits? Which emails you send aren't getting opened? When is the last time you tailored your home page to traffic trends?' What are you doing to create opportunities?

IM@CS spends a lot of time on process and branding. Without process, the best online marketing, CRM, emails, websites and more will not deliver the results you want. By the same token, all process and lousy brand, marketing and reach won't win you fans either.

Some day soon, you'll have to get out of comfortable and get with now. Leave what worked behind and start creating what's next. Use what happened yesterday to do it better tomorrow. You can't process (or make a process for) something that is not identified, understood and actionable. Remember the definition of insanity: doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.

What is it going to take to change perspectives from loss to gain? From hiding to opportunity? And from losing to winning? Just turning off the television won't do it. Those who are doing everything possible to not only brand and promote but connect with consumers will win, period.  It's a mindset and will take work.

Make sure the next chance is the one that didn't get away. People are begging for reasons to trust rather than fear. Guess what, you only have to worry about your customers! I'm not talking about the fact that Edmunds, KBB, Cars and Trader traffic is up 20%+. Do what it takes to attract every opportunity and capitalize on it "in your neck of the woods" as Al Rocker would say.

Stop waiting. Start acting. Start creating. Start adjusting, Start relating, Start understanding. Start executing. Start right now. I can guarantee you you'll get more opportunities. Remember that it's a numbers game and you have to start to win.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

February 5, 2009 by Gary May 0
Week At IM@CS: Chats With The Industry

Information: Admit it, even when you're 'on top' of your DMS, know your monthly P/L and even memorize 2,000 customers' names…you still struggle. We live and die by information. When do you act on it? How do you act on it? Is it
relevant? How is it stored? Do you use it to learn? Do you seek it with the determination of an honors student with a 4.3GPA or the person who slides to the back of the classroom? Doesn't matter: your world is ruled by it. Here are some ideas
about what you can do with your information and some great places for more:

Visible Customer:
Have an ILM? Pay for a CRM? If it's not strong enough or your staff can't use it effectively, it's no better than MICKEY MOUSE. Still need to build one-to-one relationships
with your customers? Sean Stapleton and the team at Visible seem to
understand what dealers need to a degree that very few vendors do today
from an execution perspective. The product line is inline with today's needs and their background happens to be solid enough to rest an entire football team on (in case you were wondering). http://www.visiblecustomer.com

Dealer Refresh: A few weeks ago a couple newer automotive "community" sites were mentioned that IM@CS reads and participates in. When it comes to industry blogs (including this one) there is a recognized leader through the observations and words of Jeff Kershner at http://www.dealerrefresh.com Check it out if it's been a while or if you've never laid your eyes on the content from one of Mile One's and the industry's finest.

Arkona: Every once in a while, one of our clients completes their 218-year contract with their existing DMS supplier. Having been around and watching Richard Holland's company for the past four plus years (and acknowledging DealerTrack's great acquisition as well), Arkona seems to do that little bit more, a little bit faster, a little bit easier for a little bit less with a little more focus on you (yes, that's being a little nice to the 'other' guys). Check out their product: http://www.arkona.com

Survey Monkey: "I can't trust my staff to get the data", "No customer is going answer my questions, they don't even answer our surveys" and "it's not my job to follow up with the customer, our CSR does that" are just a few excuses heard typically in the halls, showrooms and back offices of dealerships daily. There is a free way to get your client opinions and comments with a little bit of set up work. If you need to ask more than 10 questions, you'll pay a little but it's worth every penny. What you do with the data is up to you, but get it! http://www.surveymonkey.com

There are many more ways to accrue, store, work with and ultimately monetize your data, but hopefully the above serve as one to a few more than you had before. We'll try to keep these updates weekly and ultimately have an area where you can get in touch with the vendors.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 14, 2009 by Gary May 0
One Thing At A Time Online…All At Once

When it comes to the 'new age' of Internet existence for your business, it is important that you appear as good as possible when people find you online. When it comes to reputation, shoppers want to know what your customers say rather than what you say. They want to have transparency in inventory, see the actual cars and features. Online visitors want to know what you'll do for them, to understand how you work, dealership history, who makes up the team, what specials they can get and so much more.

So hop to it…get your blog entries published, inventory fixed, Twitter your specials, text your new inventory, moderate the discussion for your local enthusiast group's site, shoot videos of your CPO vehicles and stream them on your site and push them onto YouTube, get all of your clients to write online testimonials and refresh your website's content monthly and SEO every quarter (if not monthly). Done! Oops…not yet…sell 50 cars a month via the web while you're at it.

Stop the press! We've only be gathering email addresses regularly for a year? We haven't gotten our customers' cell phone numbers and carriers to message them? Nobody has been putting the most valuable client information in the CRM? How do 50% of our leads fall through the cracks, how do you truly track them? And why does the factory blind shop us 10 times a month? Hold on…how do you ask a customer to write an online recommendation? Where do I even send them?

OK, that may be a little tongue and cheek but it's not too far off for many dealers today. So how do you start from zero and get up to 75 immediately on the information superhighway? The best recommendation I can provide here is…act like a customer! What do your customers talk about more and ask from you daily? Consider that one of, if not the greatest influence on consumers is search.

Fact is that you have no choice but to trust more people with your dealership than ever before: vendors, customers and employees. Things are changing at breakneck speed with technology, social media and engagement. One bad customer experience written online may not ruin you overnight but it will affect people's opinion and become pervasive if not offset by more positive assertions.

Make it a goal in January to spread the online responsibilities among all of your front-end staff. Get your people comfortable with your online existence and build your brand, reach and reputation. Become a truly trusted brand with the best advocates out there. Your option is having someone else beat you to it.

It starts with one thing at a time, just do it all at once.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 8, 2009 by Gary May 0