Marketing & Advertising
The Dealership Profit Phoenix Has Risen
This year’s NADA was a great success! Reflecting on the 2014 convention, I could not help but think how far our industry has come since 2009, the last time NADA was in New Orleans. Back then, Lehman Brothers had just failed and General Motors and Chrysler were on the...
Repossessing a Vehicle? Are you prepared?
As counsel for franchised and independent dealers across the U.S., I regularly get calls from clients about a bank “kicking” a contract back to the dealer due to default or lack of insurance. The first question the dealer always asks is “Can I go repo it?” Without...
Leadership: For Better or Worse
Dr. Merlot, my sometimes brash alter ego, and I were finally having a long-awaited meeting with a client, Jim, about the future of his dealerships. Over the last three or four years, Jim had been dealing with a variety of distractions (challenges) including alcohol...
Two Traditional Management Practices That Undermine Used Vehicle Potential
I’ve long advocated that dealers need to recognize the primacy of the used vehicle department as an engine of growth for sales volumes and profitability across the entire dealership. As a dealer friend puts it, “the used vehicle department is the only department that...
Content is STILL King
Many years ago, I heard an influential digital marketing speaker tell his audience that the most important next hire in automotive dealerships should be a Content Manager. He was right then, and is still correct today. There is no substitute for great content. Great...
The Price is Right… Right?
How Credit Soft-Pulls Can Save No-Sales and Turn Applications Into Handshakes Bringing a real-time soft pull credit pre-screen into your sales process can not only double your online conversion and dramatically increase your gross profit margins. If implemented...
Beyond Friends – Learning to Love Facebook (And Use It As a Force For Real Marketing Goodness)
If you’re still stuck in “kill mode” -- blasting top-of-mind awareness ads on traditional media shotgun style, keeping up the barrage like you’re in an epic battle, it’s time to put down your weapon, soldier. Today’s marketing warrior is a lean, mean social machine,...
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Using Analytics to Make Your Advertising Better
I have a friend that does friends’ tax returns... for free. It’s like Sudoku or a big crossword puzzle for him. And while I’m good at Words With Friends, there are some things (like Sudoku, filing my taxes) that I’d rather leave to the experts. And so it is for many...
First Cars Pulled from Sinkhole at Corvette Museum
First cars pulled from sinkhole at Corvette museum, according to The Detroit News. The recovery of eight classic cars swallowed by a huge sinkhole has begun at the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky. The first two cars were pulled out of the giant hole Monday by a...
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