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Consumers Want Video Walk-Arounds. Here’s Proof!

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In my days with HomeNet Automotive, a new feature was released that allowed our customers to upload live video into their inventory for distribution to the third-party websites that would allow it.

Being in sales, I wanted to have a real video in which I could show potential clients the possibilities and an actual example of what one would look like so I enlisted help from a friend of mine who’s a GM at a nearby dealer group to allow me to video one of his employees doing a walk-around.
After filming it, I used it here and there when showing a demo of IOL Pro, HomeNet’s core inventory management software. After I left HomeNet Automotive, I promptly forgot about it.
Recently, I came across it in my YouTube video list and was ASTONISHED to see that it had almost 12,000 views in about 21 months! That’s an average of 570 views per month! This is without ANY exposure or publicity whatsoever. It was not on a blog post or anywhere. I can only guess that these 12,000 people came across this video via keyword searches either within YouTube or via a Google search. I did a quick keyword search and was astonished to see that my non-distributed or promoted video ranked 2nd in Google organic search results!
venza

Imagine if this video had actually been a part of that dealer’s actual inventory on their website as well as all the third-party sites. Given that this was a new vehicle, it could have been added to all of the listings for this model and year vehicle in their inventory. They could DOMINATE Google searches for their brands.

The proof is in the pudding. I highly doubt the people watching these videos decided randomly to watch a video walk-around of a Toyota Venza. It’s more likely that these were consumer’s interested in that vehicle.

This is advertising GOLD and cost them absolutely nothing.

If you want to watch it, here’s the video:

Why The First Car Dealership Groupon Failed

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In a first, a dealership in Michigan partnered up with Groupon to offer Groupon’s first car buying groupon. The deal offered was $500 off the purchase of a vehicle for $199. Keep in mind that Groupon typically takes 50% of the price of the offer (in this case about $100) if the Groupon is successful (ie. meets the minimum purchase requirements). So in the event that the minimum of 10 deals were sold, this promotion would have cost the dealer $1,000. Not bad.. IF 10 cars were sold.

The deal failed. Why?

In my opinion, there are several reasons.

First, any kind of “deal” needs to have value to a consumer. This deal didn’t have that because consumers “expect” to negotiate with the dealer and $500 off the purchase of something that could cost $10,000-$40,000+ is just not “enough.” The deal itself cost $199 so, in reality, the consumer is only receiving a $301 discount.

Second, the offer needed a minimum of 10 people buying it for any of the 4 people that DID buy it to be able to use it. Since only 4 people bought it, those 4 people were never charged the $199 and the offer was never “live” for them to use. Obviously, if someone is willing to commit to spend $199 to get $301 off the price of a car, they are not only planning on buying one, but they are planning on buying it from THAT dealership. Seeing as the deal quantity wasn’t satisfied, you now have at least 4 people who think that either A) the deal isn’t a good one; B) something is wrong with the dealership; or C) all of the above. I highly doubt Groupon would provide the dealer with the names & contact information of those 4 people as that would circumvent Groupon getting any of the money.

Third, this Groupon, being the first of its kind, got some great press yet, when contacted, the General Sales Manager didn’t respond to inquiries. Those would have been golden opportunities for some exposure they wouldn’t have been able to buy. Rather than “seize the moment,” if you will, and take advantage of those opportunities, the General Sales Manager chose to engage potential buyers of this deal straight on Groupon in ways that, I feel, would have DETRACTED from the perceived value and may have actually discouraged customers from participating. Here are some of the comments he left:

VALUE GUARANTEE OFFER!!!!
In the unlikely event that we are unable to come to an agreement on a vehicle purchase/lease, for whatever reason, I will honor your voucher toward $199.00 in our service, parts or body shop departments. Purchase accessories, have routine maintenance done or have those annoying dings, dents and scratches repaired. 

So, now the General Sales Manager is saying pay $199 for the coupon and, even if you don’t buy a car, I’ll honor the coupon in our parts, service or body shop… in the amount of $199. Where’s the value there for a customer? That’s just pre-paying for things. Give me $199 and you can have $199 worth of “stuff.”.

William P visited our store yesterday. He selected and test drove the vehicle he was interested in. He worked out all of the pricing details with our sales staff until he was satisfied with the pricing. He THEN AND ONLY THEN explained he had purchased the Groupon voucher but needed a vehicle immediately. We reduced his amount due by $500.00 and honored the voucher in order to accommodate a customer. He took delivery today. We’re still confident that the sales requirement will be met.

This comment was left BEFORE the Groupon was satisfied (ie. 10 deals were sold) which further reinforced the fact that customers really didn’t need to purchase the Groupon to get the $500 discount since the above referenced customer, who may have “committed” to purchasing the Groupon, ultimately was never charged anything for the Groupon since the minimum quantity sold wasn’t met, making the Groupons invalid.

So, while customers are bantering within the comments of the deal over the true value of the Groupon, the General Sales Manager chose to try and convince everyone it was a really good deal and that they should buy it by making statements that detracted from the value of the offer and, at the same time, failed to take advantage of the free exposure. There were almost 50 articles written about this offer. All of which could have been turned into golden PR and marketing opportunities for the dealer – if the dealer had responded.

This is a perfect example of why you should carefully analyze any deals/social media offered on such a large scale. Many dealers have website pop-up coupons that have the same offer “$500 off a car.” In fact, this particular dealer has a STILL LIVE “special offer” pop-up which features the Groupon offer (even though it’s now expired), even further detracting from the value of the Groupon.

I’m not surprised that this offer failed. Groupon is ultimately in the business of making money. Since the deal r
equirements weren’t met (meaning nothing was sold), Groupon didn’t make any money further reducing the chance that they will participate in any future similar Groupon offers by dealers.

If you’re considering trying to run a deal via social media or bulk offer sites (ie. Groupon, Living Social, etc.), you need to make sure that the deal is truly a good value for the consumer and only offered via that promotion. The dealer could have leveraged this deal in many ways even if they didn’t sell any cars from it. As you can see, while this deal is not available to buy anymore, it still exists in internet-land both on their website and via search engines and it’s even on the first page of a Google search for “Lafontaine Auto”. This is almost as bad as having a negative review because it plants the seed to a prospective buyer that $500 off a car at your dealership isn’t worth $199, which, by extension implies that a $301 discount isn’t valuable.

Don’t jump into social media unless you know what you’re doing. If you do, your promotion can backfire, just as this one did.

Your Virtual Lot Needs Attention, Too!

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[This post is also a reprint of an article written for an industry publication in May 2008 saved here for future reference. That doesn’t make it any less true. In fact, I would say it is even more important now than it was 2 years ago.]

In this digital marketing age with more and more consumers choosing to utilize the Internet to assist in making their automobile purchasing decisions, it is increasingly important to monitor the activity within your Internet departments.

Judging the effectiveness of your Internet traffic cannot be done solely by valuating its production. Whether you are using third-party lead providers or driving traffic to your own website or a combination of the two, you need to be aware of what’s going on with the leads. Just like you look at how your ups are being worked by your salespeople, closers, or sales managers; you should know what’s going on with your Internet ups.

What most dealers forget to include in evaluating their Internet departments and/or where the budget is being spent to provide leads are the most basic factors imaginable:

1. Are my Internet managers working the leads properly?

2. Do I have a process in place that I can use to hold them accountable?

It’s important to have processes just like any sales force has. Would you expect your salespeople to take a customer on a test drive before writing them up? Of course you would.

Internet leads are ups in the same way as someone that walked onto your lot. In fact, you may get more ups through your virtual lot than you do on your physical one. There are many dealerships that have Internet departments that account for 30-40 percent (or more) of their business but this is the department that is typically the most neglected and least monitored of all departments by sales managers. Dealers pay a lot of money for these ups yet fail to work them as hard as they would any customer that had walked on the lot because they don’t see the potential of turning these ups into sales today. The mentality that exists, and has existed, is that this is a today business.

While we would all prefer to sell a car today (anybody waiting for the be-back bus?),I think everyone would agree that selling a car eventually is better than  never.

Through my experience and observations, I’ve noticed that unsuccessful Internet departments tend to have Internet Managers that don’t continually work a lead. Maybe they call a few times over a week or so but then they just give up and restart the process on fresh leads. This circular pattern neglects the customer that’s not ready to buy today, but is a buyer. With most Internet customers being seven weeks out from initial contact to sale, no wonder you are losing business. I understand how frustrating it is for an Internet manager to call someone 18 times and never get a hold of anyone and never have any calls returned. That doesn’t mean these aren’t buyers, only that they’re not ready to buy or not enough of an impression has been made to earn their response. Just like any salesperson knows, you can give a customer every way to contact you imaginable: the dealership’s phone number, your home and cell phone numbers,your work and personal e-mails, etc., build great rapport and ask the customer in every way possible to call you when they want to come in and that you will be there to assist them and, despite all of this, the customer will still show up when they are ready to purchase without calling the salespeople. Knowing this, why is it hard to believe that a customer who nobody at your dealership has ever even met in person would do the same thing?

I’m a firm advocate of utilizing a business development center (BDC) to followup with your customers whether they are prospects or previous customers rather than entrusting your customers to salespeople who may or may not follow up with them. At least with a BDC, you can create a consistent process with dedicated people that follow up with your customers and prospect for your dealership.This simple addition to your business will increase your sales immediately and create greater customer satisfaction and a great first impression. Have you ever heard a customer say that nobody ever contacted after requesting information? How about feedback from a customer saying a salesperson never called them back after promising to?

By paying more attention to your Internet departments, Internet Managers and leads, you will be able to increase your sales within that department immediately, without any additional expense to you.

If your salesperson were burning ups, you’d stop the behavior. Why allow your Internet managers to do the same thing?

If you don’t pay attention, you only have yourself to blame.

E-Mail Strategies in Internet Sales (Revised)

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[Note: My original intent on posting this blog post was to preserve this article. It was originally published in June of 2008 in an industry publication. They restructured their website so that the URL to this article no longer works so I wanted to have an easy place to find it. While reading it again, keeping in mind that this article is 2 years old, the only piece of advice contained within this article that should be changed is that providing a quote to the customer is imperative. I’ve edited the article in bold with updates.]

Every Internet sales department involves e-mails either to the customer or from the customer. Having a strategy in place for the e-mails you send to customers is necessary. Many of your customers will be receiving automated e-mails from your CRM but do you have a strategy in place to maximize the results from those e-mails? You cannot sell a car without establishing a dialogue with the customer first, whether through a phone contact or an e-mail response. Reality is that you’ll have many customers who choose not to respond to you and/or respond at their leisure. The lack of response and inability to get a hold of customers is frustrating to many Internet managers and many choose to stop following up with these leads. A well thought out e-mail strategy can increase your responses, thus creating more dialogue with customers, which will translate into more sales.

Many Internet CRMs come with “canned” auto-responders and e-mail templates that most Internet departments alter with bare minimum changes (typically the addition of the customer’s name and contact information). You should scrutinize these e-mails and tailor them to your dealership’s Internet sales strategies whether you are focusing on price or value. These are really the only two things you have to sell at this point. You can sell customers on the fact that they should buy from you because you have the lowest price. Or you can sell customers on why they should do business with your dealership (value) avoiding price as much as possible. If you can get customers into your dealership without quoting them a price, you will increase your grosses in your Internet department. There are conflicting mindsets towards the best sales strategy to use with an Internet customer – quoting versus not quoting – and the research shows that neither method works better than another. Of course, this is a generalized statement and depending on what your competition is doing, you maybe forced to use one strategy over the other.

[In today’s market, providing a quote to your customer is mandatory. If you’re not providing quotes, you are losing business. The information available to consumers today is such that they can get pretty much any information they want, if they look. By not “helping” them, you are only alienating them from your dealership. They will get the information. Do you want to be the dealership they remember as “helpful” or the one they remember as “typical”?]

Most Internet managers are concentrating on selling a car way too early in the process. You cannot sell a car to someone you have no dialogue with. What Internet managers need to realize is that your first goal in your process should be to sell the customer on an appointment, not a car. Without contact with the customer and/or getting the customer to come into your store, you’ll be hard pressed to sell them anything.

Internet customers tend to be more educated and less spontaneous. Some of them go on the Internet because they are intimidated by the typical sales process and/or have had a bad experience in the past. Some simply don’t have the time to shop several dealers looking for the best deal. Internet customers should be treated with a soft approach at first. Once contact is established, you can tailor future follow-up and/or your approach on an individual basis, but until you figure out why your customer went on the Internet in the first place, why do anything that would hurt your prospects of establishing contact?

An effective e-mail strategy will include some, if not all, of the following elements:

• Always be polite and courteous in your e-mail’s tone.

• Make sure your e-mails look professional and do not have grammar or structural errors.

• Always give more to the customer than they’ve asked for. If you’re a quoting store,give them quotes on more than just the vehicle they’ve asked for a quote on. Show them a model up and, perhaps, a similar pre-owned vehicle with low mileage.

• Ask how you can be of service in every e-mail. Always over-deliver. You need to stand out from your competition.

• Never be aggressive in your e-mails! You’ll turn off your customers, reinforce that you are no different than any other salesperson and you’ll only hurt your chances of getting a response from an uncontacted customer.

• Do not bombard your customers with e-mails. The more and more frequently you send e-mails, the more likely your e-mails will end up in trash folders unread and/or get tagged as spam.

• Use standard e-mail etiquette in all your emails (no all caps, etc.).

In my opinion, an effective e-mail campaign strategy should look like this:

1. You should have an auto-responder acknowledging your receipt of their information request that promises only what you can deliver. If you can respond within five minutes consistently, then tell the customer that. If you cannot, do not promise them that, as you’ll only accomplish instilling a first impression that you cannot deliver on your promises.

2. Your second e-mail to a customer should be personalized and sell your Internet department and why they should do business with you. Why should the customer come and see you and/or the Internet department versus the normal sales department. You should be selling an experience at this point and be telling the customers how doing business with the Internet department will make their buying experience hassle-free and convenient.

3. Your third e-mail should be selling the customer on why they should do business with your dealership. What benefit would the customer get from buying from your dealership rather then your competition?

4. The preceding three e-mails should be within the first 48 hours of the receipt of the lead. After that, you should have different e-mails being sent on days four and six, with follow-up e-mails twice on week two and once per week every week thereafter.

Keep in mind – your dealership can tailor the messages in each of these e-mails. Just like you have a consistent sales process for your salespeople (meet, greet, needs/wants, etc), you should have a consistent process within your Internet departments.

Keep in mind that I’m mainly talking about uncontacted leads although I feel that the elements I mentioned above should always be used. These e-mails are the only impression an uncontacted customer has of your dealership. You wouldn’t want a dirty car on your showroom floor so why have a “dirty” e-mail?

Perception is reality. What perception are you giving your customers?

The Right Stuff (Identifying Great Internet Sales Managers)

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What skill set makes a great Internet Sales Manager?

It’s not as easy of a question to answer as you may think regardless of where in your organization’s hierarchy you have this position. I’ve seen so many types of people in the Internet Sales Manager position and many that have failed. I’ve seen excellent salespeople “promoted” to the ISM position just to see them fall on their face and have that confidence and cockiness they had shattered and I’ve seen that person who couldn’t“close” a door, succeed beyond everyone’s expectations.

So, how exactly do you decide who the “right” person is to make your department successful?

Some dealerships choose their top salesperson with the thought that he/she can pump out even more units given more people.Some will actually put the person who’s NOT selling cars in there with the hopes of a turn-around. Some go the “experienced fleet manager”route. Some put their new (or green-pea) salesperson in there. For the most part, NONE of these are the “right” person for the job.

Am I a mystical guru that can foresee the future? No, of course not and my forthcoming opinions will certainly have exceptions. (Keep in mind that the ability to communicate and use a computer is assumed.)

The top five personality traits of successful Internet Sales Managers are as follows:

  • Excellent phone skills
  • Persistent
  • Customer-Service Oriented
  • Aggressive
  • Organized

You notice I didn’t include “good sales talent”. There’s a reason for that. In this industry, everyone’s used to looking for that person who has sales talent – whether it’s as a liner or a closer. When looking for a good Internet Sales Manager, sales talent is certainly important but it’s not in my top 5.

Why?

What qualities does it take to get a person from an e-mail or phone call into your store?

Phone skills are a MUST. If they cannot talk on the phone, they should not be in your Internet Department. I would consider this to be THE most important attribute that an excellent ISM can have. If you have any call-monitoring services, you know who those people are. They’re the ones you are consistently letting your OTHER salespeople listen to as examples of how to properly make/receive a phone call.

You need someone who’s persistent and doesn’t give up on that lead that they’ve called 6 times and emailed 4 times who’s never responded. This happens way too much. Persistent is definitely a key to success. Do you have someone who always makes their phone calls and follow-up to the point that customers are calling you asking you to please have “Joe”stop calling me? That would be someone to start looking at.

You need a customer-service oriented person. You can’t stick your closer in there and label it as a promotion because they inevitably try to“close” the person over the phone and that will only alienate the customer. Remember,many customers have chosen to shop for a vehicle and/or gather information via the internet because they are intimidated by the retail sales process. By mimicking the retail sales process within your internet sales department, you will reinforce the experience that the customer is trying to avoid in the first place. You need someone with a pleasant phone voice that can transmit through phone lines sincerity and genuineness.

Of course you need an aggressive person. One of my “strategies” if you will (and I’m sure many salespeople also do this)is that I start making calls until I get that person whom I get a feeling I can sell a car to“soon”. I liken this to the fish nibbling at the bait. Once I get that nibble, I’ll work all day to “reel” in the fish,focusing on that one nibble to create a sense of urgency (“Hey fish, I have more worms in the boat.”). The “aggressiveness” that I am talking about here is the ability to know when there is genuine interest and being able to identify and cultivate a sense of urgency within a particular customer, not the ability to be pushy.

You definitely need someone organized, as they need to keep up with every lead and know what’s going on as they juggle replies and phone calls. It doesn’t matter how good your CRM is (assuming you have one), if your Internet Sales Manager cannot sound like they know that EXACT customer’s needs and wants when they do make contact, it will be that much harder to build rapport.

Sales skills are secondary to all of this because getting the customer into your store is their primary job.

Once the customer is in your store, you have a whole sales staff that can make sure they leave in a vehicle if your Internet Sales Manager cannot accomplish that. 

Sales skills and processes can be trained, personality traits cannot.

Find that “eagle” with the above abilities and you have the makings of an excellent Internet Sales Manager.

Sometimes, The Solution Isn’t Change

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Many dealerships attempt to solve poor sales by either replacing people or by replacing services. It’s my opinion that, in most cases, neither of these will necessarily solve your problems. People may just need training and/or supervision. Services may only need to be properly utilized.

Case in point: Internet Departments.

An Internet Manager sits down with a GSM or GM to look at why the department didn’t sell as many cars as management (or the owner) would have liked. They look at the cost per sale and the ROI of their internet services (sometimes). From this they determine that X service isn’t working for them and decide to cancel and replace it with this magical new service that will fix everything.

Here’s what they usually don’t look at:

  1. Are we implementing the service (and its processes) as they were designed to be?
  2. Are we properly working the program?
  3. Is there accountability for it’s implementation and use?
  4. Are we doing the work?

Say we’re talking about internet leads. You can’t solely base decisions on whether you’re selling cars from them if you haven’t determined that whatever process you have in place to work those leads… works.

If your employees aren’t calling the leads, I guarantee that you won’t sell any cars from them. Does that make them bad leads? Of course not!

There are two parts to any service… the tool and the work. If you haven’t analyzed both, you could be canceling the best service you have and the one which would provide you with the most ROI… if it were being used properly.

The internet departments of dealerships are the least monitored departments in most dealerships with the highest income potential.

You see, any service you subscribe to takes work. I have yet to run across any service that will magically sell cars for you without any work on your part. If it’s an internet lead, you have to make the phone calls. If it’s a video product, you have to take the videos. If it’s a consultant, you have to listen to them.

You get the idea.

Do you replace the driver if the car isn’t working properly?

Do you replace the car if the driver doesn’t know how to drive?

In the first scenario, fixing the car is the solution. In the second, you teach the driver how to drive. It could also be both.

You have to know what the problem is before you can solve it.

The next time you consider canceling a service (or replacing an employee), make sure to know what the problem is before you try to fix it.

If you don’t, you could be trading in a Ferrari.

Don’t Get Kicked Out! (Building Relationships vs. Selling Cars on Facebook)

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The second dealership I worked at was a brand-new dealership. I mean it literally had no cars on the lot when I first started. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. There weren’t previous customers to follow-up with. We worked from an “up” list so there were many moments of down-time where you didn’t have much to do. We could go the whole day and only see 1 customer at that time. At this time, I wasn’t in the Internet Department. I was just a salesperson “on-the-line”.

I took that time to look at message boards that were geared towards enthusiasts of my manufacturer. I found one that was particularly active and started participating. They welcomed dealer/salesperson participation with one simple caveat – they did not want you to try and sell them anything. The salespeople that did anyways, got kicked off the boards. I participated vigorously answering any and all questions people asked with complete transparency. If I didn’t know the answer, I found it. If it involved a different department, I got them involved. After doing this for awhile, I truly became a “member” of that community. People appreciated the interaction and that I didn’t try to sell them anything. They knew I sold cars and that, ultimately, I wanted to sell them a car, but I didn’t try.

By behaving in this way, I was rewarded by many of the forum members buying vehicles from me. Customers were flying to me to buy cars. I was shipping cars all over the country. People were referring other people to me. If someone went onto this forum asking other members where they should buy a car, I didn’t have to say anything. The other members did it for me.

I wasn’t giving the cars away either, I was selling them at MSRP! People were flying in to buy FROM ME at STICKER PRICE (and no, I wasn’t paying for their transportation either). Here’s the forum and a sample thread:

Fresh Alloy forum: Arnold Tijerina at Riverside Infiniti is THE MAN !

(There are more posts like this. Feel free to search around the forum.)

The point of this story is that I took the time to build relationships with these consumers online without trying to sell them anything, was still being profitable for the dealership and making money for myself.

Dealers have many other avenues in which to continue their traditional advertising and capture business – print ads, 3rd party leads, websites, direct mail, email campaigns, and more.

Social media is presenting dealers with an opportunity that either didn’t exist or I didn’t know about back then. (This was in 2003). Dealers have the ability to interact with consumers in a forum THEY control. The message board I was dealing with wasn’t under my control, I was a passive participant until a question was asked.

I’ve seen many dealers start to create Fan Pages. Some I think are doing it right. These dealers seek engagement and to put a personality to the dealership. A great example, in my opinion, is the Walser Automotive Group. Here’s their Fan Page. They’re trying to build relationships on Facebook.

I’ve also seen dealers on the other end of the spectrum who are basically mimicking their traditional online and print ads on their Facebook Fan Pages as much as possible. They’re trying to sell cars on Facebook.

You can take this opportunity to create relationships with the knowledge that the business will come in the future from the evangelists you created…..

or you can try to sell some cars and get kicked off the message boards.

You decide.

You’ve Got Mail! (Two Easy Ways to Give Your E-Mail Auto-Responder An Edge)

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Almost all dealerships get e-mail leads in some fashion, whether it’s through a 3rd party lead aggregator, OEM or through their own website. Many of the same leads your dealership gets, your competitor gets also.

Every dealer I’ve ever known has an auto-responder attached to their CRM or ILM that goes out to the customers upon receipt of the leads. Many of them are generic and very similar.

Something to this effect:

“Hi Bill,

Thank you for your inquiry on a [insert year, make, model]. We appreciate the opportunity to earn your business and want you to know that we look forward to assisting you with the purchase of your new [insert year, make, model].

Someone from our internet staff will be in contact with you as soon as possible. In the meantime, feel free to give us a call at 888-555-1212 if you’d like to contact us faster.

Best New Cars has been in business for 25 years and you can have confidence that we’ll give you the personal attention you deserve.

Thanks, Internet Manager”

Usually this e-mail is in a nice-HTML rich template with the dealership’s banner, some pretty pictures, links, etc. Sometimes they include an initial quote, many times, they don’t.

The problem with this is:

  1. Every dealership is sending the customer the same thing so it is quite impersonal and the customers know its an auto-responder.
  2. These e-mails are hard to read on mobile devices like Blackberries, etc.

 Here are two easy tweaks that can give you an edge.

Tweak #1: Change your auto-responder to a short message, ideally 1-2 sentences in a non-HTML email with an important twist in your signature.

Example:

“Bill,

Thanks for the inquiry. I apologize that I can’t call you immediately but I promise to get in touch with you as soon as possible.

Thanks, Internet Manager
Sent from my Blackberry”

This accomplishes a few things. It makes your auto-responder different than your competitors, is easy to read no matter how they’re accessing their e-mail and they believe it was sent by you personally from your cell phone rather than recognizing that the e-mail they got was computer-generated. The customer will get the impression that you stopped what you were doing and acknowledged their inquiry while they are getting obvious e-mail templates from your competitors.

Tweak #2: Change the timing on your auto-responder. Most e-mail readers default from “newest” to “oldest” in the order in which the emails are displayed. Most dealership’s have their auto-responders set-up to email the customer immediately upon receipt of the lead. If you delay the sending of your auto-responder by 5 minutes, now where is your e-mail in their in-box? At the top and likely to be the first one that the customer reads. 

In automotive internet sales, we’re always looking for an edge over our competition. Anything you can do to set yourself apart from your competition and make you more memorable will increase your chances of success.

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

(Note: I learned this technique from Joe Webb at one of his sessions at a Digital Dealer Conference awhile back. Joe is a good friend of mine and is a very knowledgeable, progressive thinker and strategist. At the time, he was on the retail side of the business but now he is the President of DealerKnows where he consults with dealerships on internet marketing tactics and best practices. If you need some help, I definitely recommend him and his services. Also, if you’ve never been to a Digital Dealer Conference, you’re missing out on a wealth of information.)

How Do You Sell Your Bottled Water?

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It’s easy to sell your bottled water if you have the only
bottled water stand in the middle of the desert.

What do you do when there is a bottled water stand every
mile? What about every 100 yards? Now, what if every bottled water stand in the
world were 2 feet in front of you, all in the same place?

Well, the strategy a lot of people take is one of price
competition.

“Buy from me because my bottled water costs less than that
guy’s!”

Another strategy is one using the quality argument.

“Buy from me because my bottled water is better than
everyone else’s!”

You could also use the branding method.

“Buy from me because you can trust that my company stands
behind its bottled water!”

Now take off the sales hat, and put on the consumer hat.

Who do you buy the bottled water from? Why did you make that
choice? What factors contributed to that choice?

Most of the time, we are told how consumers would choose our
bottled water over the “other guy’s”. Someone, somewhere, sat down with a lot
of analytics, focus groups, case studies, market research and a lot of other
people and decided that this way was the best (or at least most successful) way
to sell our bottled water.

They handed you a script and said, “Do this.”

If it doesn’t work, it’s easy to blame “those people”.

You did what “those people” said and it didn’t work.

Do you have a strategy? Do you have something that “works”?
Could your “something” work better than what “those people” handed to you?

Don’t be afraid to be different. The people that are the
most successful in this world did things differently. They tried new ideas.
They probably failed more then they succeeded. That’s how they became
successful.

In my automotive sales career, I did things differently. My sales managers hated that I did what I wanted. At the end of the day, however, it worked. I don’t know whether they were bothered more by the fact that I wasn’t doing what they told me to or by the fact that what I was doing was actually working.

How do you sell your water?

You better figure that out because every bottled water stand
in the world is, right now, 2 feet in front of the consumer’s face… and they’re
all only a mouse click away.

The Death of the Internet Sales Department

By

Internet Sales Departments will become extinct.

        Yes, I said it. That’s my
prediction.

        The reasoning
behind that prediction is an extrapolation of industry trends and
consumer shopping habits. We’ve all seen the trends.

        A) As time passes, more and
more consumers will start (and maybe even complete) their vehicle
purchases online. The natural result of that increase in behavior is
that a higher and higher percentage of any dealership’s sales will be
generated through their internet departments.

        B) Right now, “good”
internet departments account for anywhere from 30-40% of a dealerships
business. “Great” internet departments can easily generate half (or
more) of the sales within a retail sales department.

        If the current level of
consumer internet shopping generates 30-50% of dealerships sales, the
logical conclusion is that as (A) increases, so will (B).

So,
how do these factors support my prediction?

We all know that
people in retail automotive positions work hard. Crazy hard. They work
long hours and, generally, make good money. Of course, there are
exceptions to this rule but chances are that at some point in their
career – they worked a lot. Why do they work a lot? In general,
customers are not loyal to a salesperson. You can give them every
different way possible to contact you and do your best to reinforce that
you will be there whenever they are ready to buy and build great
rapport with them and they will still come in and buy a car from someone
else.

How many of you have experienced this? You come back from
your day(s) off just to find that your customer bought a vehicle. Isn’t
that frustrating? What does that make you do? Work harder.

Now,
every dealership has “normal” salespeople. What I mean by that is that
they work the “floor” and do not handle any internet leads. Typically,
the “retail” sales departments have antagonistic relationships with the
“internet” sales departments. They are run separately and, in most
dealerships, there is a clear divide between the two departments. Not in
all cases, mind you, just in general. They’re fighting over customers.
They’re fighting over deals. The sales managers tend to protect the
“floor”. The internet department is viewed as giving cars away and on,
and on. Animosity exists between the two groups.

So, now we have
two groups of people. Both groups are in sales. Both groups work hard.
Both groups make decent money.

As this increase in consumer
buying habits continues to shift towards the internet and the percentage
of sales within a dealership shift to the internet departments, this,
by necessity, decreases the sales within the “retail” sales department.
Dealerships are continually expanding their internet departments to
accommodate this shift. They have been shifting their advertising
dollars to capture these shoppers. Traditional advertising is declining.
We all preach this. We all tell dealers this is the future. Some
listen. Some don’t.

So, now we still have two groups of people.
Both groups are in sales. Both groups work hard. Both groups make decent
money. The dealership is shifting its advertising money to internet
sources. This, in turn, drives more traffic to their internet
departments creating the need for expansion, which, in turn, prompts the
dealership to spend more money to generate more traffic to its internet
departments.

Where does this leave the “retail” group?

As
this shift continues, and a higher and higher percentage of the total
sales volume is funneling through internet departments, the logical
conclusion is that less sales are being generated by the “retail” sales
departments. So now, the members of this second group, who are still in
sales and work hard, don’t make as “decent” of money. The reward for
that hard work diminishes.  This will contribute to a
higher turnover of “retail” or floor salespeople.

However, there
is an absolute need for retail salespeople. Customers still like to
shop in person. They still like to touch and feel the cars. They still
need to test drive vehicles. They still need to actually go into the
dealerships to do this regardless of how they originally started their
car shopping.

So, now we have a dilemma. How do we accommodate
the consumer when our second group whose sole purpose is to accommodate
these consumers, is diminishing because they are working hard and being
rewarded less.

The end result, out of necessity, will be a
merging of the two groups. You need people who can handle the internet
customer and you need people who are physically at your dealership ready
to meet and greet, find needs and wants, land them on a vehicle and
take them for a test drive. The dealership of the future will not have
“internet” sales departments, they will just have sales departments.
Every sales person will be responsible for not only handling floor
traffic, but also handling internet customers. This means, of course,
that every salesperson will have to be trained and have the skill set to
do this.

This merging creates one group of people. All of them
are in sales. All of them work hard. All of them make decent money.
Consumers continue to shift towards the internet but 100% of the sales
are In your “retail” sales departments. Just as in the past, everyone
has an equal opportunity to make a sale. Your eagles will still soar and
your dead weight will still sink but your dealership will be whole. No
longer will there be two groups of people. No longer will your sales
managers resent your internet departments. No longer will your
salespeople fight over customers (or deals).

Most retail sales
departments spend more time with each other than they do their families.
Their co-workers become their extended families. Is yours
dysfunctional?

With a single change of mentality and some
training, your dealership can become whole.

It’s going to happen.
It’s already happening.

Is your dealership ready?

Contact Me