Archives for October 2010
Digital Dealer’s Hidden Learning Opportunity
As we get ready to attend the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas, I wanted to talk about a hidden learning opportunity.
Over the past weeks, I’ve seen plenty of blog posts and articles from people with advice on how to get ready for and efficiently attend the conference. All of these articles offered great advice such mapping out your sessions and bringing proper supplies. I agree with all of them.
One thing I haven’t heard, however, is one of the most beneficial things I used to take advantage of at the conferences and that is the ability to check out all the new technology and services available within our industry that could help me sell more cars.
I was an internet director working for large automotive groups for a long time. I was constantly bombarded – as I’m sure you are – by calls from vendors. Some days it seemed like I appeared on every vendors “to-do” list and, at times, I just stopped taking their calls. We’re all busy and we’re all focused on selling cars. Nobody wants to be “sold” something when you’d rather be doing the selling.
One of the most attractive things for me, at the conference, was the opportunity to visit with all the vendors in the exhibit hall if only to check out what solutions and technology are available. Whether you are in the market for a new solution or not, the knowledge of what’s out there is invaluable because the one thing in our business that is constant is change.
When your dealer principal, GM, GSM or whomever comes to you with a problem and asks you to fix it, would you rather know what solutions exist and be able to make some suggestions RIGHT THEN, or have to start hunting from scratch. I guarantee you it will waste more of your time hunting for a new vendor for whatever your needs are if you don’t already know what’s out there.
This also gives you the opportunity to ask other DEALERS about their vendors. Every vendor is going to tell you that their product rocks, that they are the best at it, and that they will help you sell a ton more cars than you already are (if you use it properly, of course). So how do you weed out the good companies from the GREAT companies? How do you find the “diamonds in the rough”, so to speak?
Look, we all know that post-conference sales pitches, phone calls, and e-mails only INCREASE – as they should. You can’t blame the vendors. Say you sold Fords and you went to an auto show. At that auto show everyone was educated on the benefits of driving a Ford Explorer. Everyone left with some level of knowledge that maybe I should be driving a Ford Explorer. Now, say the conference decided to give you a list of all of those people who were interested in a Ford Explorer. Would you call them? If you are any type of salesperson you would.
Just like you get irritated when you call someone that you got an internet lead on because they’re irritated that you called them, so do the vendors. If you took the time to educate yourself about the technology products and services that are available WHILE YOU”RE AT THE CONFERENCE, you would be able to tell the vendors when they call you post-conference that you took the opportunity to check out their service already.
I’m not saying you have to spend your time watching everybody’s demo. Just set aside a block of time to make a quick trip around the exhibit hall to check out what new services and technology products are being offered by companies – both new and old.
I guarantee you’ll discover something that you didn’t know existed.
You have all the notable vendors within our industry in the same place at the same time. Use that to your advantage. Learning what is available to help you sell more cars is just as important as learning new techniques and processes to do that via the seminars. The vendors are an intrinsic part of what makes the Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition POSSIBLE. They’re at the conference because they want the opportunity to meet you and talk to you.
Be the go-to-guy (or gal) at your dealership with the solutions and you’ll make yourself that much more invaluable.
…and pick up some free swag and enter their contests for prizes while you’re at it. We all like free stuff and they like to give it out.
Here is the list of vendors that helped make the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition possible.
I hope to meet everyone at the show.
The New Facebook ‘Groups’ and Why You Should Care
I don’t want to make this a long “what-it-is” sort of article because there are an amazing number of those available. Here’s a link to the best one, in my opinion – The New Facebook Groups: All You Need To Know (Watch the little 2-minute video on that page for an easy introduction.)
Now before I get into the reasons WHY you should participate, go NOW and secure the vanity e-mail address for your company name, group, club, whatever.. some people cannot get there via the normal path as it’s not completely rolled-out to everyone BUT there is a direct link that will allow you to get there. – Facebook Groups
Go create your group, then, once you’ve created it, in the top right corner, click “Edit Group”. Kind of in the middle of the box, there will be an option to create a group e-mail address. Get yours. Just trust me on this. I’ll get around to explaining what it means and why you want it.
Alright, to the meat and potatoes…
In the beginning, Facebook was created and it was good. (Uh, not that far back)
Think of Facebook like your living room. In its origins and/or in its origins for YOU, you invited people into your living room. When you talked, they could listen and vice versa.
The problem is that Facebook has grown so exponentially that many users have invited too many people into their living rooms. So now you have all these people, all talking at the same time and nobody hears anyone else.
Facebook’s FIRST attempt at solving this problem was trying to filter out the people in your living room who you listen and respond to the most by filtering your news feed into “Top Stories” and deciding who amonsgst the people in your living room deserves a spot within your news feed at all (EDGE score). Remember I said that FACEBOOK DECIDES who you hear…. not you.
Now we have the new Facebook Groups.
Facebook Groups is designed to allow you to segment your social circles and communicate only with those that you wish to at any point in time. Do you want to post those drunken party pictures? Make a group of your party friends. All of those business content shares would be shared with your business connections.
This functionality in Facebook already existed in the form of “Lists” but they were unwieldy and difficult for people to use and setup so they weren’t used.
With the new ‘Groups’, it is much easier to do this and share the content you want to with ONLY the people you want to without creating and managing lists and tweaking privacy settings.
There can be an infinite number of groups with the same name – ie. Family, Friends, Business, etc. BUT only one of those groups can have the vanity GROUP E-MAIL ADDRESS (ie. family@groups.facebook.com )
What does the group e-mail address do? It allows any member of your group to email content to that e-mail address and share it with the group. In marketing terms and strategies, it’s important to understand that, to get people to interact, the easier you make it the better so you’ll want to acquire the vanity email address that is simple for you. Instead of having to tell your group members to e-mail family@groups.facebook.com, you’ll be forced to find some creative new e-mail address.. but c’mon, wouldn’t it be easier to have your company name or keyword email address?
The new Facebook ‘Groups” are like social networks within the social network. You can group chat, share and edit documents, links, video, etc. The beauty of groups is that they are group-managed. Anyone within the group can invite anyone else to join. No admin permission required (unless they have no connection and/or weren’t added by any member of the group). So ‘Groups’ lets you interact with any member of the group WITHOUT them having to be your “friend” so while you can interact and share freely within the group, you can rest assured that your Facebook profile and wall are still secure. (Caveat: An Admin CAN remove people from the group. If it’s your group and someone you invited into it invites someone in that you do not want there and/or they are disrupting the group, you do have the power to boot them from the group IF you are an Admin. Want a group of employees? When someone leaves your company, you can remove them from the group.)
Facebook got too “noisy” for some people. This is the way you’ll be able to reduce that noise by kicking people out of the living room so you can hear and interact with only those you want to at that moment BUT not kick them out of the house (ie. un-friend them). You have your family in the living room, your business associates in the kitchen, your friends in the game room, etc. and YOU move from room to room as you choose which group you want to share and interact with.
The internet is transforming AWAY from a destination place and TOWARDS a means of travel. What do I mean? People are using social networks and apps more and more every day. They’re getting the news from Facebook and Twitter and then sharing it with their friends. In the future, people won’t go to PLACES (ie. websites) on the internet… they’ll go to a PLACE (ie. Facebook). They’ll use the internet as only a means to get there.
People spend more time on Facebook RIGHT NOW than on Google Search and all of Google’s properties combined. This trend is only going to continue.
Groups will transform Facebook, I guarantee it. They have big plans to keep adding new group functionality.
Don’t wait and find this out later. Just go grab your group vanity email address now… if you want to wait after that, feel free.
Yesterday was like the big domain name land-grabs of the past but it’s happening RIGHT NOW. Don’t be scrambling to grab your “real estate” later.
If you do, you’ll be sorry.
Google Search Is About To Make You Re-think Your Website
According to this article , Google is testing out full-page website previews within search. This will have HUGE ramifications for dealer’s website traffic when considering non-branded search traffic.
Why?
Well, right now, a consumer has to click on your organic link and go to your website to see if what they are actually looking for is there. These clicks obviously represent traffic on your website.
If and when this full-page preview function of Google search goes live, the consumer will no longer have to actually go onto your website to see if the content they are looking for is present.
Here’s an example screenshot:
That’s huge. What would a consumer see if they could preview your website before actually visiting it?
Would what they see actually make them want to visit your website?
How will flash-based items and/or videos appear?
I don’t think it will effect GoogleAds. My guess is they will NOT have this preview function. Why? Because it will reduce the number of ‘clicks’ an ad would get therefore cutting into Google’s wallet. Bad move on their part.
Dealers REALLY need to stay up on this and KNOW what people are seeing within this preview of their home page. Dealers with inventory hosting that has inventory specific URLs with dealerships name, make, model, year, etc could have an edge in the sense that if their vehicle shows up on a Google Search and the ‘preview’ shows an actual vehicle (vs just your home page or general inventory search page), a visitor/customer would probably be more likely to click on it.
This is definitely a must-watch feature and could have huge ramifications on your website and its traffic.
Here’s another image:
Stay tuned!
Carpe Diem
“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first” – Frederick Wilcox
People like comfort and fear change. In today’s economy, people are afraid to take risks whether in business or in their personal lives. In our industry, change is continuous yet nobody wants to do it.
A new sales manager comes in and forgets the fact that his predecessor was probably terminated because he/she did not perform yet they are afraid to do something new to change that cycle. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Since dealership turnover of sales personnel is considered a normal part of the retail sales department in a dealership, new managers feel that the solution is changing personnel. Why? Because that is a change that conforms to expectations.
Whether the change involves processes or vendors, I guarantee that success doesn’t come without risk. If you, whether in your personal or professional life, are unwilling to take risks to achieve different results, you will fail just as the person before you did.
Our country was built on change. Most successful people in business made a change, whether that was by doing things differently or thinking outside the box.
If you’re not achieving the results you need and/or are being demanded of you, the worst thing you could do is maintain the status quo.
Be open to change. Embrace it. Think outside the box.
If you don’t know what to do, learn. If something isn’t working for you, change.
If you live in fear, you will never achieve success. Whether that is increasing sales, employee morale, or getting better results from vendors.
Do what you want to be doing, not what you are being forced to do because you are living in fear.
Carpe Diem.
