It has been said that the arrival of a lead is the “moment of truth”. At that moment, the customer has put you on trial. The lead has been sent to you, but it’s also been sent to two to three other dealerships. Which dealer will respond first?

How it happened so quickly I don’t know, but it’s time again to reflect and make necessary changes to ensure a more profitable year. As I began the self assessment, I examined the obvious areas where change is warranted and completely necessary.

How many times have you wished you had an extra hour or two in a day to accomplish everything that you’ve scheduled? The old adage “Time is money” cannot be understated. For a car dealership, a typical day may include a sales meeting, walking t

The first word or attribute that comes to mind with “follow up” is tenacity, because to be successful in today’s market, more is needed beyond picking the low hanging fruit. I have developed and adopted my own practical application, helped thou

Russell Blackstone, a former political consultant, enjoyed helping friends and family members with their car purchases so much he decided to go work for a dealership. Research led him to a small group owned by Don Hewlett in the Austin, TX market. It

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

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

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