Storytailer

STORYTAILER LLC
CHAPEL HILL

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.

How To Add Inventory or Web Sites To Your Facebook Fan Page for Free

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So, you  have a Facebook Fan Page.

How do I “showcase” my cars to my customers without spamming their news feed?

Why not add your inventory to your fan page in a tab? (BTW, the methods I’m about to teach can be used to add ANY web page right within Facebook so, add your inventory.. add your credit application, etc)

The following instructions assume you already have a Facebook page. If you don’t, you can find directions here.

Step 1: In the search box, search for an application called “Static FBML”

Step 2: Go to their page. In the top left corner (under the logo), click on “Add to my Page”. A pop up box will ask you which page you want to add it to. Select that page.

Step 3: Go back to your news feed. Within the left menu will be an application called “Ads and Pages”. If not, click on “Applications” and search for it.

Step 4: That will take you to a page titled “Pages You Admin”. Find the page you added Static FBML to and click on “edit page”

Step 5: Scroll down the page until you see the Static FBML app under Applications. Click on “Edit”

Step 6: A pop up box will open. In the “Box Title” field, enter the text that you want the tab on your Facebook page’s wall to read.

Step 7: Cut and paste the below code into the lower box eliminating the BEGIN CODE and END CODE parts. Now edit it accordingly (Ive added an image illustrating the parts you need to edit)

BEGIN CODE
<script type=”text/javascript” charset=”utf-8″>
function disp1(var1) {
if (var1==’link_1′)
outside_location.setInnerFBML(link_1);
else if (var1==’link_2′)
outside_location.setInnerFBML(link_2);
}
</script>
<form>
<select id=”gowhere” onchange=”disp1(document.getElementById(‘gowhere’).getValue())”>
<option>-Select below-
<option value=”link_1″>View Our Inventory
<option value=”link_2″>Visit Our Website
</select>
</form>
<div id=”outside_location”></div>
<fb:js-string var=”link_1″><fb:iframe width=”760″ height=”1280″ frameborder=’0′ src=’http://backwebs.homenetinc.com/SalesDemo-ATijerina/browse/view_detailed/type_both/’ /></fb:js-string>
<fb:js-string var=”link_2″><fb:iframe width=”760″ height=”1280″ frameborder=’0′ src=’http://www.homenetsalesdemo5.com/site/’ /></fb:js-string>
<script type=”text/javascript” charset=”utf-8″>
var outside_location = document.getElementById(‘outside_location’);
</script>
END CODE

Note: The highlighted areas are the areas you will need to edit. Don’t edit anything else.

Step 8: In the first area (starting with <option value=”link_1″>) The text should be what you want the FIRST choice in your drop down box to say. Change that to describe where they would be going. In this example, the text reads – View Our Inventory

Step 9: Repeat Step 8 for the second link.

Step 10: The third highlighted area above is the URL you want to take them to. Notice each line of code corresponds with the number of the link you established in Steps 8 and 9. So, in this example, the first URL corresponds to the first link you created in Step 8.

Step 11: The fourth highlighted area is the second URL.

Step 12: Click “Save Changes”

Step 13: Back to the “Edit Page” page you were on in Step 4. Scroll down again and find the Static FBML application. Click on “Application Settings”. Make sure it reads “Box: Available” and “Tab: Added” under the little “profile” tab in the little pop up box.

Now you’re finished!

[Note: The Page Administrator cannot see the results after selecting from the drop-down (for some odd reason) but if you log-out, you can see it. Everyone but the Page Administrator(s) can see it, however.)

You can do this to infinity and beyond, by following the instructions in the addendum below (although I wouldn’t put a link to every page in your website).

This code creates a tab. Within that tab is a drop down box. Within that drop down box are your link titles. When someone selects a link, the page opens up WITHIN Facebook, right on that page.

Here’s an example of what the finished product looks like. LINK (Click on the “My Inventory” tab)

Of course, there are alternative ways to get your inventory onto your Facebook page. Gumiyo has a new application titled “MyShowroom”. If you do a search in Facebook, you can find it within the applications search results.

(You can see it on my example page linked above by clicking on the “MyShowroom” tab)

To use Gumiyo’s “MyShowroom” app, you need a way to feed your inventory to Gumiyo either through the company that handles your inventory feeds (I know a great company if you’re in need!), or directly with Gumiyo through a product that you have.

This is for the budget-minded and costs absolutely nothing! (assuming you have web pages to link to but chances are, if you’re a car dealership (or any other business), you at least have that.)

Now what?

You don’t want to get too intrusive with your Facebook Fan Page. Remember, the whole point of Social Media Marketing is to engage your customers, not irritate them.  If you irritate them, they will either “un-fan” you or “hide” you in their news feed. Either one of these actions will make you invisible to your fans. This, of course, is contradictory to what you’re trying to accomplish.

The second thing you have to keep in mind is that the number of fans you have is absolutely irrelevant. You’d rather have 100 fans that are actually your customers (or potential customers) then have 1000 fans who will never buy anything from you. Personally, I’d start by recruiting the people who already do business with your dealership, your service customers. Create a half-page flyer and stick it in every service customer’s vehicle prior to giving them their car back asking them to “fan” you on Facebook.

(Caveat: To get a customized URL for your Facebook Fan Page, you will need 25 fans. Get your employees to fan your page so you can get an easy URL for your customers.)

Keep your page interactive and throw a bone to your fans every once in awhile (ie. service coupon, etc.). Announce your sales. Keep relevant news about your dealership posted. If your dealership is participating in the community (ie sponsoring a little league baseball team, organizing a recycling campaign, etc.) Post information about your vehicles or new models. You have a never-ending supply of free content to add by just utilizing content from your OEM site. Take pictures of your sold customers with their new cars and post them within your photo album. Take photos of your staff. Be creative.

You want to humanize your dealership, NOT make a sales pitch.

Be helpful. Answer any questions you get. Respond to any complaints. Be pro-active. Do these things and, I promise, sales will come. This will only take you about 15-20 minutes a day (if that). Seeing as Facebook pages are now indexed by Google, this has some SEO value as well.

This is a cheap and easy way to interact with the people that truly matter….. your customers.

Hope this helped!

Addendum:

You can add more links to more pages simply by adding lines of code. To add a third line, you would copy and paste this line:

<option value=”link_2″>Visit Our Website

and change it to this:

<option value=”link_3″>The name of your new link

Make sure to paste it right after the first line you copied. In other words, keep them in order.

Then copy this line:

<fb:js-string var=”link_1″><fb:iframe width=”760″ height=”1280″ frameborder=’0′ src=’http://backwebs.homenetinc.com/SalesDemo-ATijerina/browse/view_detailed/type_both/’ /></fb:js-string>

and 1) change the “link_1” part to the new number (ie. “link_3), then 2) change the URL to the new web page corresponding with the title you gave link 3. IMPORTANT: make sure you keep the URL surrounded by the single parenthesis.. ‘desiredurl.com’

Keep repeating this process until you have all the links you want. They will all open within Facebook. (although only one at a time can be viewed.)



It Takes All Of the Pieces To Finish the Puzzle

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Recently, I got the opportunity to spend an entire day at a dealership analyzing their processes and marketing efforts.

There are many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that any dealership has to put together to end up with a “finished”puzzle that is an online marketing strategy. The particular vendor I work for offers a lot of services (puzzle pieces). It’s difficult to effectively outline all the pieces of the puzzle we have to offer in brief, to a dealer, on the phone. So, it was a nice treat to really let my creative juices flow and assist a dealer with their desire for success, in person and with their full attention, after being able to analyze what they’re currently doing.

Some of the services we offer require a little work on the dealers’ end. More often then not, when I present a “plan” and parts of it require work, people tend to start losing interest. You have concerns from the owner who doesn’t have confidence in his people to actually DO the work. You have management who passes the buck and says “We’ll get Bob to do it!” and then you have Bob who, typically, doesn’t really want to do it. He wants to stand outside, smoke cigarettes and wait for the next customer.

It was very refreshing to be able to analyze a dealership’s online marketing, to look at the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle I can provide and,from that, develop an aggressive online marketing strategy. Then have the opportunity to explain the entire strategy and how all of the “pieces” fit together and why this particular puzzle will work for them… in person and with everyone’s full attention.

Watching a room filled with the owner, all the managers and key salespeople follow along with each “piece” and really “get it” is priceless. They saw the puzzle I had created, saw the value and need for each piece of that puzzle and understood that putting the puzzle together takes work but, in the end, you have art.

I swear I saw light bulbs coming on over everyone’s heads. People were excited, engaged and motivated. There was complete buy-in from everyone.

Too often, the owner (or the decision-maker at the dealership) likes the ideas and strategies but decides to only implement some of them, rather than all of them. On this day, he, and his team, decided to start putting the puzzle together… with all of the pieces.

The confidence and trust given to me by everyone and the knowledge that I truly helped this dealership to grow as a company was priceless.

On this day, art was created and I rocked. (link)

Opportunities Aren’t On The Be-Back Bus

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Opportunity is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a favorable juncture of circumstances”. The second definition of the word is “a good chance for advancement or progress.”

A study I heard of awhile back said that 80% of people who went to a dealership left their house with the intention of buying a vehicle that day.

The customer walking onto your lot, sending you an e-mail or calling you on the phone is a combination of many things: the advertising your dealership does, a vehicle you have in your inventory, or the desire (or need) of the customer for a new vehicle. In other words, the stars and planets have aligned and all the right things happened that led to that particular customer calling your dealership at that exact time. For the customer, that moment in time was the perfect time. That’s why they called (or emailed or came to your dealership) when they did.

At that moment of interaction, you have a favorable set of circumstances leading to a good chance for advancement or progress.

Make sure you have the skills necessary to take advantage of that opportunity. You are in control of your own knowledge. If the dealership doesn’t have a training program in place or material for you to use, get them yourself. Stop making excuses.

Once, while working as a closer, my team and I were standing on the point awaiting the elusive “up”. The next thing we knew, a big yellow school bus pulled up on the street and parked. The driver came out and proceeded to look at some cars. Of course we all got a laugh out of that saying that the be-back bus had finally came back. She told my salesperson that she (and her husband) were looking for a vehicle and she saw a vehicle we had that caught her eye. Needless to say, the woman said she needed to bring her husband back.

The be-back bus became a be-back.

Make the most of each opportunity. You might not get it again. Carpe Diem.

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