Auto Retail News

It is amazing to me that the vast majority of dealerships continue to pay sales consultants on gross profits.  Straight commissions comp plans no longer make sense.  Don’t dealers who pay sales people on the gross realize that there is this littl

As with nearly every New Year, I am looking forward to the challenges, successes and even failures that will come my way in 2011. These collective experiences are what define us both personally and professionally, and I welcome each of these with ope

Don’t Fall For the Bluff Car manufacturers have made a habit in recent years of using the expiration of a dealer’s sales and service agreement as a threat to non-renew the agreement unless the dealer agrees to certain things. Those “things” h

The first suggestion I have is to mystery shop your competition. Most will start with “what’s your name and number in case we get disconnected?” Would you take that seriously? How many times have they heard that? Listen and learn, then compare

People (pee-puhl) noun 1)    Human beings 2) The followers or subordinates of a leader or manager   Processes (pros-es-iz) noun 1) A systematic series of actions and operations directed to an end 2) a series of changes  taking place in a def

The National Football League is fining players up to $50,000 for helmet to helmet hits. The government recently fined Barclay’s Bank to the tune of $176 million for violating the OFAC requirements. Some dealers have a fine system in place in which

In today’s high-performing dealership, the web is the strategic center. What does it mean to be web-centric? It means that everything is built around web-based systems. These web-based systems help to: • attract customers • ensure rapid, high-q

In a recent article, I presented the need for dealers to take a proactive approach to dealership reputation management. The premise of the article was that dealers who are in tune with the way customers prefer to do business should find ways to extol

Our clients are always looking for ways to minimize legal fees and reduce the number of lawsuits. There are many steps dealers can take to try to prevent litigation, which we frequently explore in these articles. One way to reduce litigation expenses