Auto Retail News

Don T. is a second generation import dealer who regularly sends me e-mail updates on success milestones at his family’s dealership. “We’re ahead of last year for the past 3 months,” says Don, “and we’re looking for the best August ever!�

Every time I do a 20 group, dealer state association meeting or anything where a group of dealers are gathered without their managers, I start hearing what used car managers will not do or adhere to, or what they want as policy. I have some recommend

Changing DMS or CRM providers is hard enough. Your employees don’t like change and it seems like you never get all your data from your old system into the new system. Two things that you might not have expected during the change is a loss of archiv

In past articles I’ve shared my belief that the best way to immediately improve sales is simply getting better at what you do with existing leads, particularly interacting with customers. Statistics show that well executed communications with the c

What is the impact of word choice on sales? In a word, dramatic. When a customer submits a lead to a dealership, it is best practice to execute a multi-vehicle price quote within 10 minutes. It is also best practice to follow with a phone call in 10

  Polston_Fixed Operations August10   The following is a true story. I took delivery of my new vehicle in January 2009. It was a smooth process and overall a pleasant buying experience. The salesman thanked me for my business and then he stuck his

While there has been much written about every business’s need to dive head first into social media – and even a few articles recently that attempted to put a dollar value on a Facebook fan – nearly all of these discussions miss the mark for

I remember my first Consumer Reports customer. He came into the dealership looking for a used car, carrying a copy of the magazine and consulting it frequently. If a car didn’t measure up to the editors’ standards, my customer wouldn’t look at

BDC is one of the most incorrectly overused terms in the automotive retail environment. Far too often, the roles and responsibilities of the employees working in these “business development centers” are doing no developing at all. They are simply