I was working in a dealership’s conference room recently when a sales manager brought three “greenpeas” in for special training. His first question was: “How many cars do you have to sell a month to stick around here?” All three mumbled “

It appears that all the push back from dealers has paid off. At the time I write this article, General Motors is issuing two-year extensions to the deadline for dealers to complete their Essential Brand Elements facility upgrades. It is not yet clear

It has been said many times that “offense wins games, but defense wins championships.” Following the football analogy within the business context, we could equate offense to the generation of sales revenues and the defensive component of business

Sometimes it’s easier for people to understand something if you can relate it to a game or activity that is commonly known or played; in this case I like to compare our customer service business to the game of baseball since there are so many simil

The average dealership parts and service department brought in more annual revenue than the previous year, and yet took less money to the bank. According to NADA DATA 2011, the average dealership saw their year over year parts and labor sales grow by

Last month I visited a dealer-client to conduct a full-day, deep-dive into their digital marketing and Internet sales processes. The store had been reporting erratic results (up a little one month, down a lot the next), which is usually indicative of

It’s no mystery why many dealerships can’t effectively move the sales needle in their used vehicle departments. The fact is, it’s harder than ever to find used units that are “right” for a store’s market area and profit goals, let alone f

The “successful” pricing of labor and parts is as mysterious as the reasoning behind the stupid jacked-up buttons on the ineptly named “Smart” key, which keeps opening the trunk and windows from the pocket every time a driver sits down in a n

Can watching a 30-minute television program about “saving failing restaurants” make a difference at your dealership?  I’m betting it can. Let me take my “advertising” hat off for a few minutes and don my ‘marketing’ cape to share some