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

As we head into the holiday season, this is the perfect time to get focused on creating a more effective advertising message and media plan. I’d like to suggest a two-pronged program that will help you define both: focus groups and message manageme

Being in the industry for 26 years, I’ve had the privilege of talking to, working alongside with and managing some of the best sales people in country. Through the years, I’ve compiled a list of the common characteristics of this elite class of p

With so much focus on generating leads for your dealership, it’s important to recognize that success isn’t measured by the number of leads generated. As always, the bottom line literally is the bottom line; the number of cars sold and total profi

As some of you may know, I served in the United States Marine Corps back in the 1980s. I was lucky, and was allowed to spend most of my time in the service sitting on the tropical island of Guam. While I enjoyed serving with nearly everyone I met in

The arrival of a lead is the moment of truth. Best practice is to execute a multi-vehicle price quote right away every time, followed by a phone call in 10 minutes. The dealer who consistently delivers his customer a 10-minute call in response to an

‘Tiny’ wrote me a great letter recently on the ABCs of common sense advertising. ‘Tiny’ is a lawyer-turned-car dealer who married into an ‘automotive’ family in 1985. His real name is Pete but most of the world knows him as ‘Tiny’ fro

Today’s progressive auto dealer faces three difficult challenges: limited scale, broad span and significant marketplace shift. How he responds to these three challenges will determine how successful his dealership will be. First there’s the issue

So, you’ve been assigned the responsibility to write the vehicle comments on behalf of your store. While this may be Internet Sales 101, it is more than apparent that dealers can use a refresher course now and again. As I research dealership after