For the first 100 years of the automotive industry, the main thing you heard about at 20 group meetings, conventions and regional dealer gatherings, was customer satisfaction. With a decline in automotive dealerships and an increase in aftermarket se

Proper documentation has been a frequent theme of my articles. Dealerships face potential pitfalls if they fail to document all customer visits accurately. I have tried to offer readers explanations as to why each and every visit by a consumer should

Interacting with informed customers can be a challenge as dealers try to overcome their concerns throughout the shopping process. In this month’s article, I provide practical tools to help salespeople conquer this obstacle. Please keep in mind that

My dear friend “Jolly John” Pulsifer was greeted by St. Peter on February 19 of this year at the age of 74, with 50 of those years in the business he loved, surrounded by the people he loved. I’m sure the first words out of John’s mouth were

Dealership sales are growing once again and so too are the demands on the dealer’s time, their staff’s time and their financial resources. It seems like most manufacturers have some sort of required image program, requirements for facility upgrad

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami have rocked the automotive world.  Honda has reported, at the time of this writing, that it is still not able to manufacturer the Fit small car, the CR-V crossover and the Acura TSX sedan.  Toyota announced that

It’s complicated to be an Internet-savvy dealer. Pricing, dealer web site SEO, social media, Internet structure and staffing, lead management, there are many critical success factors, and just as many potential points of failure. If you’re a deal

Tom Restino gets it! Restino is general manager and vice president of operations for DePaula Chevrolet in Albany, New York. I had the privilege of meeting Restino a couple of months ago when I was in New York training a group of automotive profession

It’s interesting to me that in this day and time, as knowledgeable as we have become due to the advent of software, we still can’t seem to put a handle on who should price our used cars, how we should price our used cars, or what (software) shoul