Jeff Cotton's ADM Blog (25)

Every year about this time, kids’ minds turn to images of ghosts, skeletons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To accommodate their imaginations merchants everywhere fill their shelves with Halloween costumes, candy and related stuff. 

Thinking about Halloween at the end of the month brought to mind another frightening event – the typical dealership’s…

If one trend frames this decade it’s how mobile technology puts valuable and often quite necessary yet rather common tools at our fingertips. 

It seems there’s very little that cannot be accomplished today by accessing resources and applications at our fingertips on these small electronic devices we call mobile, whether a smartphone, phablet or tablet. 

What…

In the kids’ books, “Where’s Waldo,” children are challenged to find the main character, Waldo, hidden within large groups of other people or other situations where finding him is often a challenge – and always a delight. 

We have our own Waldo here, though he goes by the name of Jim Kristoff, and when customers find him, they too are delighted. Jim has a unique way of getting car dealers excited about selling more cars than they…

How does your dealership acquire its most desirable pre-owned inventory? Aren’t the vehicles you previously sold your best candidates…aren’t they the vehicles your market wants most and that hold their gross best? 

Sure they are. Trouble is, given the increasing buy cycle gap, most dealers aren’t seeing the trade opportunities for such models as they’d like. …

If you’re up on your Spanish, you know the headline is an exciting invitation. It says, in English, There’s gold in your database. In fact, there’s lots of gold there, given recent research into Hispanic automobile shoppers. 

According to U.S. Census data compiled by Univision Communications, the Hispanic population…

Whether we like to acknowledge it or not, we all answer to someone. Ideally, we see this connection as an opportunity to serve others. Serving others may seem old-fashioned but to the contrary, commitment to serving others is the route to true personal and business fulfillment.

My guess is our serve-others intention increases as we walk toward the new up. Yet to what extent do we actively serve those who have purchased from us already? The customer database is rich with existing…

Direct mail response rates depend on a combination of strategic targeting, credibility of message, impactful offers, timeliness of delivery and personalization. 

Yet even the best targeting capabilities and the best-of-breed direct mail strategies cannot deliver the results and return on investment that highly personalized, micro-targeted, direct mail marketing can achieve. 

What advertising or marketing…

According to AutoMD.com, more than three-quarters of respondents to a 2012 car-buying attitude survey found that “78% now say that 10+ years (or until it dies) is the appropriate vehicle lifespan. Most telling is that over half say that a better economy would not change their habit of holding onto their vehicle longer.” 

You may feel shackled by this reality, but in fact you have much control over how the buy cycle influences your dealership. I can make such a statement because this…

Believe me, please, when I confess that I understand the psychology and emotions that drive the highs and lows of showroom sales.  Your soul hangs in a valley on slow days yet soars into heaven the moment a fresh up drives onto the lot.

I’ve been there. I’ve lived that, and after all these years I still breathe car sales.

Since those days, however, I’ve learned a few new ideas about selling cars. One of the best tips I can pass along is this: Focus on the hot 40 if you want to…

Finding the right individuals to succeed in car sales remains a challenge for the industry. Too many green peas wash out early and NADA reported in February 2013 that there is a 40% sales turnover rate in the USA. Sometimes they fail because they lack the fortitude and energy it takes to sell the volume of cars required to earn a livable income, which is $59,340 annually at dealerships. All too often green peas quit prematurely because most everyone fails to adequately train…

In case you missed the article, “Mining for Advantage at NADA,” in the December issue of Dealer Marketing Magazine, it reminds us that much of what auto industry attendees will experience at NADA in New Orleans is outside the…

If a sales presentation hits a customer’s most compelling need, chances are the vehicle’s sold and frequently with a stronger gross profit than a typical sale. When the sales associate can find the prospect’s hot button and works the deal to meet that need, shoppers turn into profitable buyers. 

A case in point is Draper Chevrolet and Draper Toyota, both of Saginaw, MI.  These stores use of database analysis tools helps to identify existing customers whose situations present unique…

Like you, I still go to my home’s mailbox every day to retrieve whatever has been delivered there. Like you, I shuffle through it and end up dropping much of it into the nearest round file. 

What I really want when I go to the mailbox is answers to the question I think we all have: is anyone thinking about me? Now I know such a question can sound selfish, but isn’t it natural? I mean, as we go to the mailbox don’t we hope a friend or family member has dropped us a note or card – or…

In this era of tweets, texts and Likes, the wise sales associate still recognizes and practices good phone.

Good phone means knowing how to engage others using the telephone. For sales associates, good phone means having learned how to sell by phone, practiced those skills and worked to overcome it unfamiliarity.

Most any sales associate who makes up their mind to excel at using the phone to drive business can be a success.

Yet for many, the…

It took a ripe apple dropping on Sir Isaac Newton’s head for gravity to shoot to stardom. Sales to existing customers are waiting to drop on your head, if you’ll simply look up, maybe propelling you to stardom yourself. 

In every dealer’s existing customer database are bushels of ripe apples ready for picking, if you can present them with the right offer at the right time.  Will you pick them -- or will they fall under another dealer’s tree? 

I want them to fall under…

How’s your attitude towards shoppers who walk without buying? 

• Snarky?
• Ambivalent?
• Opportunistic? 

The right first response should be, with curiosity: Why didn’t the customer buy? A range of reasons might answer the question – from wrong inventory and price to poor presentation or dislike of the sales associate. 

For whatever reason a shopper leaves the showroom without buying, the productive attitude is one that focuses on opportunity.…

As a technology provider, AutoAlert has the weighty obligation to deliver great service and support to its customers, North America’s franchised automobile retailers. 

As a dealer, do you entertain great service expectations from the vendors with which you do business? If not, you should – and you should hold them accountable for meeting those expectations.

This is an important issue. Because a recent article in…

Stop what you’re thinking – I am not casting a slur at the new green pea.

Rather, I’m talking about a selling strategy that leverages the left hemisphere or analytical side of the brain to improve the monthly sales tally.

The right side of the brain just doesn’t get it. Right-brained selling goes into panic at month end. It furiously telephones every potential be-back and lost sale from the prior 29 days. By this time, the sales desk has penciled so sharply there’s little left…

Remember your first days in a dealership and the fundamentals the sales manager drilled into your head. That was good advice. We tend to forget a lot of it over time and as experience adds up. 

Yet neglect of the fundamentals can cost sales. This is especially true when working certain opportunity categories. Consider these challenging ones: 

• You’ve spent time to bring that unsold prospect back to the dealership and they’re coming in shortly. 

• You’ve…

Throw your CRM away. A CRM often becomes too much like a multitasking Swiss Army knife, when what you need to really sell more cars is something simple and powerful. 

As CRM vendors bolt on different applications, the proverbial Swiss Army Knife philosophy emerges. Is it practical for cutting a steak? Or is it a 12-in-one  tool with pliers, toothpicks, tweezers, and multiple blades – something complicated and bulky and not as simple as a serrated steak knife? 

Another…