All ADM Blog Posts Tagged 'cars' (262)

Welcome to 2014! This is the first of twelve editions of the monthly …

Do you want to be more successful? You can achieve greater success if you begin to follow certain secrets that blow open the doors that are closed for you now. I am comfortable in saying that all people have some closed doors that limit their achievement. What are the doors that I am talking about and how can you open them?

The doors are a metaphor for the gateways to successful achievement. The keys are the secrets that unlock them and allow you move forward faster and with…

Following is the Used Car Market Report this week from the editors of Black Book. It is hard to believe another year has come and gone. It is exciting to think about what’s ahead within the used market as volumes continue to…

When you read the title to this article, did it make you wince? Did it make you a little angry? For most of you, you have already let your resolutions go to the wayside with empty promises. The good news is that you can achieve most, if not all, of your resolutions.

First of all, words are cheap. You must truly decide. You are who you decide to be at any given moment. When you truly decide to achieve something, you begin to walk, talk and act more like that person who…

In my 30 years in the business, I have never seen such a lack of civility, leadership and professionalism in the automotive industry. You can find managers anywhere, but developing leaders is a much more challenging task. Managers are integral, but leaders are essential. It does not take character, guts or vision to manage things, but it takes all three to lead people.

Here are common characteristics I see quite often from managers in dealerships…

The last quarter of the year rolls around and you begin to hear some common refrains:

• "We are waiting until the first of the year"
• "Starting in January I am going to..."
• "We have to wait until spring when business picks up"
• "The first of the year I am really going to get into it."

Here's the reality for most people who make these statements: The calendar is the only thing that changes.

If you are waiting for the calendar to change…

There is a startling way for most dealers to double their business – fire their advertising agencies. Dealerships spend an enormous amount of money on advertising for new customers. Unfortunately, often that money is wasted. The money is wasted because the agencies are strictly placing ad dollars in media and doing production. Often, the ad dollars are spent without any knowledge and use of direct response marketing, and the game plan that will be used towards keeping those…

In the last several years, I have had a revelation about the art and science of sales. The answer to sales success is within all of us. The answer is simple but the key to unlock the answer is elusive.

If you were to go back to the late 1800s, the first formal sales training provided by the likes of J. Edward Douglas and others, you will find teaching geared toward techniques — tie-downs, inverted tie-downs, etc. For more than a century now, sales people have been trained…

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Beggs on the Used Car Market. I’m Ricky Beggs, Editorial Director at Black Book. We have completed the final full week of auction and market activity for 2013 as the final two weeks on the…

Great managers view themselves as coaches more than managers. There is an old adage: “Lead people and manage things.” There is a fine line between creating and utilizing systems and processes and micromanaging details without emphasizing the power of personal interaction.

Good systems and processes should allow employees to raise their performance by giving them confidence in their direction and lessening the burden of the manager and coach from having to constantly inform…

A new online marketplace at www.WantALease.com has launched with the promise of helping car dealers connect and engage with car lease shoppers online. Dealers currently offer lease deals through a variety of platforms, but WantAlease.com is the first online marketplace to help them sell new leases to customers locally and in other parts of the U.S.



With WantALease.com, car shoppers throughout the country can…

The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire…

There is a plague spreading among car dealerships. I call this affliction “deal’itis.” In the last month, I have been in many dealerships working side by side with managers and salespeople. I began to quickly notice the results of this sickness. Those results are things such as lower sales, low closing ratios, low gross profits and low customer satisfaction.

Just like a good doctor should do, I began to look for the symptoms of this sickness and what could be causing this…

Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest car lease marketplace, reports lease credit approvals were down slightly in November compared with October levels. The year-to-date approvals for customer credit finished November at 72.6%, compared with October levels of 72.8%.



Over the last three months, the lease credit approval rating has slipped to 67.9%, and under the 70% healthy level on the…

When you strip away your bricks and mortar, Website, CRM systems, inventory and everything else, what really matters? It’s your people. The bottom line is, people make a business successful or unsuccessful.

If you are a dealer or a leader of a dealership, what are you doing to recruit, hire, train, motivate, educate and retain good and even great people? If you truly want to see what is most important to you, then all you have to do is review where you spent your time…

In business, compounding interest is often referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” In business, and especially sales, I compare the compounding effect of interest to the compounding effect that occurs with current customers who can become repeat customers and referral machines.

You may have seen examples of how someone can start an Individual Retirement Account when they are 25, invest $2,000 a year and by retirement age they will have a significant seven-figure…

There are 24 hours and a total of 1,440 in every day. Successful people just seem to get a lot more done in a day than unsuccessful people. The main reason is successful people keep the main thing the main thing. Success is not an accident.

First, you must be honest about your strengths and your weaknesses. Spend your time in what you are strong at and delegate what you are not. A sales person reading this article may immediately think they don’t have anyone to delegate to.…

Words are cheap. What matters is the true belief system behind your words and the actions you take because of those belief systems. Economies don’t improve, people improve. Waiting for something to happen is for losers. The most important economy is the one created between your ears.

During down markets you have to get creative to make things happen. Although you may not be able to push a new car market if it’s not there, you can niche market, create affiliations, utilize…

Customers don’t buy vehicles, and sales people don’t sell vehicles. Customers buy solutions to problems they can feel emotionally. Sales people are the conduit that helps customers discover those emotional solutions.

People buy from people. Customers generally do business with people they like and trust. Your customers don’t walk out of your dealership telling you that they bought from you because you are a jerk. Customers can get vehicles anywhere. Most of you are not…

Many of today’s luxury car brands are promoting their December holiday campaigns. But which luxury car drivers see the current month as a December to forget campaign for their car?



Swapalease.com analyzed all listings of its recent Black Friday holiday promotion, which offered deep discounts to people looking to escape their car lease through transfer. Of all popular luxury brands, Mercedes-Benz saw the largest population looking to escape at 21.6% of total listings. BMW drivers…