All ADM Blog Posts Tagged 'auto' (558)

Think of how much selling vehicles has changed in the last several years. Now think of what is being taught in most dealerships regarding the road to the sale. Considering the education and interaction that occurs before the customer ever gets to the dealership, most sales training is outdated. One key difference maker can be the customer’s trade-in.

I am not referring to the trade value in monetary terms, but in informational and relational terms. Let’s examine a few facts.…

Traffic is better, sales are up, profits are high, dealers are buying at NADA and the whole world is rosy. Don’t drink the water. I am not saying you should not be optimistic, and I am certainly not an economic forecaster coming with claims of doom and gloom. However, I am saying that your fortunes in the future will have a whole lot less to do with the economy than what business practices you put into place.

There is an over exuberance in dealer-land right now,…

Many years ago, I wrote an article titled “The Road To A Sale Is Broken.” Well, it’s not only still broken, it’s fractured beyond recognition.

Attention dealers: Take the time this week to review and rethink from scratch every step in your routing procedures. Review these steps from beginning to end, and review all team members involved both on the front line and behind the scenes. Review all the technologies you have and determine what is the most effective use and…

ActivEngage, the most trusted brand in automotive live chat brings the top ten blogs and news stories right to you! We monitor industry trends, current events, and the auto dealer community every week to bring you the top ten blogs and stories from around the globe. In this weekly edition -- Durango sales skyrocket, FB…

Don’t you hate to hear your customer say “no”? You spend a lot of time and energy with a customer and when you get to the final stage of the sales process, the customer says the dreaded “no” word. You were all excited and hoping for a sale and then poof, the air goes out of your sails. The good news is that you can change from getting “no” answers to “yes” answers.

First, you must recognize that getting a “no” answer isn’t accidental or bad luck. When a customer gives you a…

 “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This quote can be an accurate reflection of most industries. With all the massive changes underway in the automotive industry, the majority of the industry operates in much the same way as it did 50 years ago.

One small part of an industry begins to change and reaches what Malcolm Gladwell termed in his book the “tipping point.” That tipping point allows the change to gain momentum and become norm for an industry. This…

Everyday managers walk into their dealerships in the morning and start their day with tasks or TO-Do list items. Unfortunately, those items rarely involve direct interaction with their sales team. The ultimate place for managers to be is in front of customers and salespeople.

Salespeople need interaction and input. If a manager allows a salesperson to direct their own day by their own design without input and coaching, the results will often be lackluster and will lead to…

The average dealership hires a salesperson and, after a brief introduction of paperwork, allows the salesperson to begin talking to and selling to their customers. Some dealerships may send the salesperson to a meeting room to watch a series of perfunctory training videos and then cut them loose on the showroom floor to sell. Either way, the day of unleashing an untrained salesperson on a well-trained customer is dead.

The days of counting on a steady stream of traffic and…

Every year at the NADA Convention, the exhibit hall is full of CRM and BDC companies displaying their wares. Dealers spend massive amounts of money in a frenzy to buy the “magic button” CRM or BDC solution for many reasons. Unfortunately most of those reasons aren’t valid. Putting great tools in the hands of below-average people with below-average processes and little-to-no accountability equals a waste of money.

Let’s look at some of the underlying reasons why dealers buy…

The traditional dealership is dead, but some have not had their funeral yet. It seems as though as much as some things change in the

auto industry, as many things stay the same. Every week our trainers observe things in dealerships that look and feel like holdovers from the 1960s.

Let’s take a look at some things still commonly observed in dealerships that are outdated and should be changed.

1. Manager Towers

High towers built for managers where…

Based on the Black Book reports, data collected and phone calls this past week Black Book expects there are a good many auction managers and personnel tuning in to see if the overall market mirrored their individual auctions in relation to activity, sales conversions and price retention. To keep the suspense down, don’t think it was anything you personally did or didn’t do to get the results you got. I guess if there is one exception it might be from a sale out on the west coast. The Brasher…

Every salesperson is really in two businesses: the people business and the marketing business. If you are great with people but don’t have any customers to demonstrate this quality to, you’re in trouble. Marketing must become the No. 1 function of any business, including sales. Marketing precedes sales.

Begin to think in terms of leads, not sales. You need marketing that will generate leads. Most salespeople think only in terms of advertising. Salespeople either wait…

“Big doors swing on small hinges.”

Small things can make a big difference in your sales process. There has been a lot written recently about what I term the “moment of truth” in the sales process. I don’t believe that a…

ActivEngage, the most trusted brand in automotive live chat brings the top ten blogs and news stories right to you! We monitor industry trends, current events, and the auto dealer community every week to bring you the top ten blogs and stories from around the…

“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken” – Samuel Johnson

If you were to follow around the most successful salesperson you know for a week and then follow a failing salesperson for the same amount of time, the differences would be glaring. It boils down to successful habits. What you do habitually in small incremental actions adds up to huge differences in results by the end of just one…

What's the common image of a salesperson? The big bad wolf.

The big bad wolf seeks and destroys. It's a predator who pounces on its prey, eats the weak and leaves a bloody mess behind. This image makes the job of salespeople a lot harder than it should be. The good news is that this creates an opportunity to kill the wolf and turn the negative into a positive.

If you were to ask 10 customers what they hate about salespeople and the buying…

When last week started I was thinking what the activity and market would be like for the entire week. I was looking at gas price trends, the fact that used inventory continues to increase and even thinking about the time of the year. While spending time with some key, leading auto lenders from captives to national banks to some regional players, the effort is sure being made to make it easy for the dealers to complete the sale of both new and used inventory.



Fortunately the budget…

Michael Jackson and Billy Mays passed away in the same week. The passing of Billy Mays made the news but Michael Jackson dominated it. The underlying message sent from the media is that entertaining is good and somehow noble, but selling and marketing is bad. My question for you is the following: Do you allow this flawed thinking to keep you from being successful in your sales and marketing?

The news coverage of Michael Jackson life was largely reverential and fit for king,…

No, I am not crazy and yes I am talking about the well known shock jock known for his outrageous radio show. Howard Stern is a genius for many reasons and they all apply to how you can succeed as a salesperson, manager and entrepreneur.

Let’s examine several of the reasons and the lessons that can be learned. First of all, lesson number one in business is to never be boring. Although, you may not agree with Howard Stern’s humor or persona, he certainly isn’t boring and that…

Contrary: opposed, opposite in nature, altogether different.

Several Indian tribes had warrior societies called Contraries or Contrary Warriors. The contraries were different in nature as well as actions, and were thought to be wise men. While being in the automobile business my whole adult life, I have observed and been a student of some of the more successful dealers in the business and have found that a lot of those dealers take a contrarian approach to their…