As I wrote last month, we all something we’re good at. Perhaps by now, you’ve figured out after all these years I’m not a very good writer (blame the editor) but I’m pretty good at taking the questions I hear most from dealers and helping the

I was consulting in a mid-sized GM dealership one evening. The service manager and I were looking through carefully prepared pre-write packets (menu, history, pre-write, recalls, MPI, and notes), to determine how well the service advisors had pre-loa

The past two years have been the roughest time in the history of the automotive business. The number of car dealerships in the United States has been declining for decades. Roughly 200 dealers close their doors every year. Last year, however, 2,000 d

We are a time-hungry society. We need and demand more – period. As consumers, we are no different than our customers. We demand convenience in what we do, as well. We have developed a dependence on it everywhere we turn. It never ceases to amaze me

My first GSM told me that customers would tell me how to sell them – I just had to listen.  I’ve carried that belief with me throughout my career and continue to find that customers – both sold and unsold – are the absolute best source of in

In October, I unveiled an updated ACES (Automotive Continuum of E-commerce Success) chart at the well-attended 9th Digital Dealer Conference in Las Vegas. With the 2011 edition of this popular chart, we asked dealers to focus on thirty core activitie

Whether training recruits or re-training “old school” folks, we always warn them of who to avoid, including the waiters!  I mean that in two ways: The sales rep out front waiting on a deal with incomplete tasks on multiple fronts in your CRM rig

When our Chrysler dealer clients first heard that Fiat was not going to provide them with rebadged vehicles but instead offer those vehicles through a separate Fiat franchise, they rightfully felt betrayed. The Auto Task Force attempted to persuade u

 Organizations will spend millions of dollars this year and next for the purchase of supplies and services to support their organization. These “indirect purchases” are typically delegated to staff within the organization to source, negotiate, i