Auto Retail News

About 10 years ago I wrote my first article in Dealer magazine on the concept of “spiral integration.” The objective is to utilize each advertising medium’s greatest strengths to complement and enhance the effectiveness of other mediums and pro

At the recent 7th Digital Dealer Conference in Nashville, I got to spend quite a bit of time visiting the booths in the Expo Hall. Compared to NADA, where it is hard to spend time with the exhibitors, the Digital Dealer conference has booths and refr

Recently, I wrote an article, “Back to Basics,” about the need for salespeople to refocus attention on their phone interactions with customers. After listening to actual calls, mostly inbound, it was apparent that this important part of the sales

When shoppers visit your web site, are they greeted with an experience that is tailor-made to them? You already know that in order to be successful, you need to arm yourself with dynamic web site design, strong search engine optimization campaigns an

The manufacturers failed with the retail dealer invasion, but are they attempting to use colonization as a means of controlling the dealer and should this be a concern for retailers? The relationship between the manufacturer and the dealer has always

There seems to be a growing divide in this country between the big and the small. Big banks are getting bigger (see Chart 1), while regional and small banks are closing (120-plus at last count). Corporate bond issuances hit record levels in 2009, whi

Why this matters to Honda dealers We have received reports from our Honda dealer clients that Honda has altered its system for assigning planning volume goals to its dealers. Historically, Honda issued planning volume objective(s) to its dealers on a

Two tips to shield your dealership from prying eyes I love to dissect, analyze and perpetually disagree with the airheads who claim to be college and pro football experts. Listen to any of the sports networks, log onto any of the many web sites, read

While developing The Garage workshop for auto dealers, I constructed an interesting Excel worksheet, designed to drive the point that the current service and parts department models must change now. The results startled me. Continuing to survive from