Carfolks Blog

Auto Retail Heroes

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:57:52 +0000

The auto retail industry certainly is a lightening rod for lots of consumer complaints. We’ve gotten a pretty bad reputation over the years for some shady practices. The only problem with this reputation is that a minority of the people working in this industry have caused the majority of these issues. After 25+ years of working in and around auto dealers, I have seen first hand how most of them are pretty good folks working hard to please their customers. The issues stems from a philosophy of “good news is no news.” Dealers doing things right all the time do not warrant a letter from the Attorney General or a consumer rights group.

But highlight a dealership that charged too much for a vehicle and they are on the six o’clock news for “scamming some little old lady.” I know that for every negative comment or video online there are a hundred or two hundred happy customers who were very pleased with how they were treated at the dealership. They just didn’t go out of their way to share their feelings.

Auto Retailing Heroes

After all my years in the industry I have nothing but the utmost respect for the hard working people in the automotive retail business.

In my mind, the heroes in our business are the technicians who get up at 5:30 in the morning show up at the dealership at 7AM, ready to fix Mom’s sedan so the brakes don’t fail when she takes the kids to school.

The heroes are the sales professionals that help a Dad and his teenage daughter buy a safe car to take to college and bring her home safely on weekends.

The heroes are the managers, accountants, office staff who show up early, stay late and put up with so much government regulation it would make your head explode. The hero is the dealer owner who puts up with the controlling behavior of the OEMs and their heavy handed and burdensome requirements.

The hero is the dealership that stands ready to support their community in a hundred different ways. These are the heroes that deserve better! And even though they face Herculean challenges every day they go out each morning and get the job done. These are the folks that have earned my undying respect.

Every time I see a negative review, or a video bashing a dealer I take it personally. I know we deserve better than that. I want people working in this industry to have the respect they truly deserve. But we can only get that respect when we respect ourselves, exude the right behavior and take care of our neighbors. Sleazy car sales people will always be a part of our business, but I want it to be a very, very small part of our business. Working together with a clear vision we can make that happen.

Until we are successful in rewarding dealers and their people for doing things right we will continue to be challenged in obtaining the professional status we so badly need.

Mark Dubis
Carfolks.com

How to Build a Winning Team

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:26:58 +0000

Each year at the start of football practice, Vince Lombardi, the coach of the Green Bay Packers started his season the same way. His opening statement to his players was, “This is a football.” Every year, John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins started his first practice of the season by demonstrating to his players how to properly put on their socks to prevent blisters. Pretty basic stuff, huh?

Notice the similarities between Wooden and Lombardi in the educational formats. Whether it’s athletics or business, you must start with the fundamentals first. Just as if you built a mansion on a weak foundation, a business built on a weak foundation will crumble. Bill Walton the former star basketball player for UCLA was interviewed about John Wooden and he recounted his first practice with Wooden and how the coach talked about putting on socks properly. Bill Walton remarked that he expected incredible wisdom to come from his legendary coach in the first practice and was disappointed that the practice started with how to put on his socks. When Bill Walton questioned Wooden about the first meeting, Wooden’s reply was simple. If he were to teach Mr. Walton everything he knew about basketball but he could not do any of those things because he was sitting on the bench unable to play because of blisters, then all those teachings would not matter.

How many times have you experienced or witnessed yourself, sales people, managers and owners looking for miracle cures without taking care of the fundamental basics? Massive advertising campaigns, computers, software, business development centers, new facilities or cure-all sales approaches won’t matter if you don’t have the right foundation in place. What are the components of a solid foundation? First, you must have the right team members. Everything starts with people. I encourage every manager or owner to raise your expectations and requirements for the team members you recruit. Concentrate most all of your efforts into getting the right people before you move on to anything else.

Make sure you have the talents of those people matched to their positions. Many baseball historians have reviewed the “Big Red Machine” of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 1970s and noted the improvement in the team that was made when Sparky Anderson, the Reds manager, moved Pete Rose from the outfield to third base to allow the insertion of George Foster to the outfield. At the time, the move was considered by many to be risky and even ridiculous. In retrospect, the move was genius because it allowed the right people to be in the right positions. In the book, “From Good to Great” by Jim Collins, Collins noted that great companies not only must have the right people on the bus, but that you must have them in the right seats as well. An example would be that great sales people don’t always make great managers and vice versa.

Next, make sure you give your team members the processes to use their skills. Talented team members going in different directions will still create bad results. The proper education of process should include what to do, how to do it, when to do it and, just as important, why. Talented and intelligent team members will also provide beneficial feedback to strengthen your process. It can even be argued that the process should come first. Talented and bright team members recruited into a bad process with limited flexibility to improve the process will just create heightened turnover problems. In other words, if your business model is bad, the better the recruit, the quicker he or she will leave.

When looking at a big task like creating a winning team with a winning strategy, it is natural for it to seem daunting. Remember that all big goals are accomplished one step at a time. Break down your strategy into small steps. Create a simple flow chart that utilizes a visual guideline for your goal. Put estimated timelines next to each stage to create urgency in creating your success. However, don’t be tempted to reduce your level of expectations to just say you made your deadline. Remember your end destination and take action every day, the time of achievement will take care of itself.

This article was written by and used with the permission of Mark Tewart, Professional Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. You can view his blog at http://marktewart.com/blog

Save the DATE! August 18 or August 19th If you are in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana or Kentucky area we encourage you to sign up for Mark Tewart’s Training Session in Columbus, OH.

You can order Mark’s book, How to Be a Sales Superstar at Overstock .com

How to Find a Recruiter

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:20:03 +0000

Today a dealer needs to have the best staff possible. Finding the right general managers, sales professionals and business managers is not always easy. Many dealerships engage a recruiting firm to assist them, and that is a good idea, but they need to be aware of the pitfalls. Carfolks has asked Kevin Bradberry, the President and CEO of TK Worldwide, one of the premier auto recruiting companies to give dealers advice on how to find and work with a recruiting company.

Here is Kevin’s advice:

An auto retailers’ number one priority is to protect the dealership from those who may do it harm, all the while maximizing profitability. Anytime that anyone including Managers, HR people, not to mention another “outside company” speaks to prospective employees on your behalf, you are taking a calculated risk and creating a window for potential problems. In today’s litigious society you must minimize those risks more now than ever. Here are five simple steps a dealership can take to minimize that risk and find a qualified recruiting company.

Ask for a reference list (local references are obviously preferred) of at least 30 other dealerships that this company has done business with. I know 30 may seem like a huge number, but this IS the most important question you will ask and the answer may surprise you. Any company can look impressive with a nice web site, but when you ask for 30 references and you will find out very quickly the rest of the story. If they DON’T have that many clients, can they be trusted to represent you? If they DO have that many, but are afraid to provide you with their contact information, can they be trusted to represent you? Have the recruiting company do the legwork and get you a reference list, then delegate the verification process to one of your subordinates. If they call the references and there are no horror stories, then you are on your way to step 2.
Speak to the owner of the company if possible and voice your concerns, reservations or ask him/her any questions you may have. Chances are, if they can’t make YOU, anautomotive management professional feel at ease, they are probably not qualified to handle your dealership’s recruiting needs. Also, it triggers good dialogue, builds the relationship and sends the message that you are engaged, and they need to keep you in the loop and focus on all the details including executing major advertising initiatives. Every detail counts!
Liability Insurance – Make sure your recruiting company has liability insurance and is willing to put you on their policy. This is very simple to do. Ask the recruiting company to fax you a certificate listing YOUR DEALERSHIP’S NAME on their policy as “additional insured” and it will help create an almost impenetrable barrier of protection for your dealership in the event that the recruiter says or does something that prompts litigation against your store(s).
Complete an Internet (Google) search using the company’s name(s) and the owner’s name as well. You will be shocked to see just how fast and easy making a decision (like which company NOT to use) can be with all the channels at your disposal today. Just remember that often web sites only tell half the story. It’s important for your recruiting company to have and maintain a good rating with credible third party companies. The rating company needs to have an arbitration process so that the recruiting company has a fair opportunity to resolve the issue, such as the BBB. (Better Business Bureau).
Flexibility in programs – Finally, make sure your recruiter is well rounded and can help you in most, if not all, areas of your dealership(s). The recruiter’s primary focus should be solving your staffing needs with quality candidates in a fast, easy and affordable way while protecting your community reputation. Their process should not interfere with your ability to operate your business in a safe and profitable fashion.

Solution based and customized programs that meet your individual needs are available out there and will make your recruiting challenges a thing of the past. All YOU have to do is find the right company.

Kevin Bradberry is the President and CEO of TK Worldwide, Inc. one of the auto industry’s top recruitment and training organizations. The company website is www.tkworldwide.com. The phone number is 813-571-2200.

Do You Use or Abuse Twitter?

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 13:58:18 +0000

As we have all seen, auto dealers are jumping in with both feet on social media channels. Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and now sales professionals and dealers are recognizing the value of Carfolks.com too. Twitter, initially developed so friends could keep in touch with a short message to update each other, has grown into a full blown, sometimes out-of-control media phenomenon. Twitter shared they have 105 million registered users and 180 million unique visitors a month to Twitter.com (doesn’t count all the other third party platforms that leverage or plug-into Twitter). That’s a lot of eyeballs and huge numbers any way you slice it. So naturally vendors in our industry want dealers to spend ridiculous amounts of money so they can push all sorts of junk out to the 38 followers that the vendors’ robots have brought to follow the dealership.

What about posting inventory on Twitter? If you set up your Twitter account to focus on inventory and Twitter users choose to follow you as they might be in the market for a vehicle, that is fine! Some dealers do that well ( http://twitter.com/alabamatoyota). They don’t put up a pretense of connecting at a level other than sharing inventory.

My issue is when you set up a dealership community page on Twitter to communicate with followers about what’s going on in your life or in your business, events with staff and other lifestyle items. Then all of a sudden you start shoving your inventory down your followers throats.

Many vendors are offering to push dealers inventory out to the Twitteratti, because we know in our hearts that most of those 180 million unique visitors are looking to buy a new car or truck (sarcastic tone)!

We love auto retailing and know dealers offer real value to their customers and the community, so why is it that some dealers still want to annoy and intrude on potential customers looking for a few interesting posts on Twitter or Facebook?

Dealers focused on short term goals push product; dealers focused on long term success push relationships!

Think about the annoying radio commercials where the narrator shouts about your “must have” special pricing. You think you have to YELL TO GET THEIR ATTENTION, because your driving listeners are busy texting and you have to do something to get them off their phones.

When you build long term relationships you whisper and people will listen. Remember the TV commericals where everyone stops what they are doing to hear what a person’s broker said because they worked for EF Hutton? It made the point, that if you have something worthwhile to say, people will hear it.

Stop shouting online, and start connecting. Promote your people, allow your happy customers to shout your praises online and gain social evidence that you care about relationships first and doing business second. Put all your sales and service personnel on Carfolks.com (remember it’s FREE) and let everyone know you really do provide the best buying experience in your market. And if you are pushing inventory to Twitter or Facebook, please stop. It’s hurting the rest of us in Auto Retailing that want to be good neighbors.

Click here to view page of what NOT TO DO on Twitter

If you are using the Carfolks Marketing program ask about our WebPush Program to get maximum inventory exposure.

What Not To Do on Facebook

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:24:20 +0000

Crass commercialization on Facebook shows your true colors. It say’s “I don’t care about the community, I just want to sell something to you slackers.” This is to be avoided at all costs. Behaviors that trigger this message can come in all forms. We’ll share some of these with you as we come across them on Facebook.

One that popped up in my email box today was from a Hyundai dealer. They are obviously part of a dealer group and wanted to boost the friend count for all their stores. Rather than a casual invitation for each store over a month or so, they blasted out the invites. So I check my email and find a truck load of these things (see photo).

Needless to say, I deleted this dealer from my friend list and ignored all their intrusive invitations.

Get Better at Working your Ups

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:42:23 +0000

Stop Trying to get More Prospects in the Door and Start Teaching Salespeople to deal better with the UPS
they have.

Isn’t it lovely, the cavalier way we spend so much money on advertising, where we try to get people in the door, yet we spend hardly any money at all on teaching, training and developing our salespeople on how to treat the UPS we already have. In most other big ticket industries, the training budget is the first and most important consideration in the salesperson’s hiring, development and retention. Of those three, the only comparison with the automobile business is … _ _ _ … hiring. And truth be known, most dealerships have no idea how to hire. “What, give an apptitude test for new hires? Are you crazy, we need someone now! You mean we have to screen our applicants? Who has time for that? I have to desk these deals.”

This scenario is not simply sad, as Daffy Duck would say, it is reprehenthible, it is dethpicable and it is dethtructive to dealerthips individually and to the automobile busineth in every thity in the country.

Our industry has no lack of creativity or vision, but we need to focus more on improving our dealership infrastructure. We need to re-engineer how we treat prospects and learn from other retail businesses.

For example, The jewelry business in almost every town in America has been in the same building, at the same location and in the same family in many cases, for 50 years or more. Funny thing, they will spend as much time with you if you are buying a $99 watch, or a $50,000 timepiece. And if you talk to most jewelry dealers, they wouldn’t know an UP from a delivery service. They don’t need to, because to them, every person walking in the door is an opportunity to provide the best customer service possible. And in doing that, customer loyalty is not even a question. Families shop for generations at the same store. One more time, for you all who have 30 years experience in the car business, or shall I say, one year experience 30 times: Families shop for generations at the same store.

There are multitudes of industries where the same effect takes place. They don’t count UPS. They don’t drive demos. They don’t turn their salespeople over every three months. They don’t ever offer their products at invoice. They aren’t open seven days a week, because “we might lose a sale to the competition.” They NEVER hire a salesperson, give them a days “training” and then let them “learn on the job.”

The really odd thing about all this is, every customer in every one of these industries also buys cars, trucks and SUV’s. Your average pizza customer knows exactly how she/he wants to be treated when they order and pick up a pizza. Your average diner at any restaurant knows exactly how they want to be treated when they go out to eat. Your average grocery shopper knows exactly how they want to be treated when they buy groceries, usually at the same store their parents bought their groceries.

What would happen if you went into a pizza parlor, restaurant or grocery store and they used high pressure sales tactics, double closes, buy or die phone calls, or other questionable behavior to get you to buy their product? Would you feel good about shopping there?

Selling cars is no different than selling any other retail product. Why do we think we are so unique that we require a whole different set of rules? The reality is, we do not need rules that are different from any other retailer. Treat the customer with respect, fill their transportation needs, communicate clearly and sell the entire value of everything you and your dealership have to offer. That process will insure you have plenty of UPS to work.

This article was contributed to the Carfolks Blog by Coach, Mentor and Trainer: John Brentlinger. John is the author of The Little Blue Book of Selling, a great handbook for anyone in the sales profession. John can be reached at 419-604-0368

Image of Daffy Duck is property and trademark of © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and © Hanna-Barbera.

The Best Sales Professionals

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:53:09 +0000

Auto shoppers want to deal with professionals who provide a great buying experience. With over 200,000 sales people working at new car dealerships in the U.S. competition can really heat up. Sales people need a way to differentiate themselves from the “run of the mill” car sales guy. Carfolks.com offers auto retail sales professionals a way to build their personal brand and allows them to maintain a great reputation as long as they remain in the business, no matter what dealership they work at.

The process is simple, just click the join button on Carfolks.com, search for your dealership and then complete the simple form with your information. After you submit the form we will send you a confirmation to the email you provided. Just click the confirmation (oh yeh, check your spam or junk filter, as your mail system may not recognize us as an approved sender) then just logon with the user id and password you set up and start building your page. It’s pretty simple.

The critical part is getting reviews from your past customers. Here is where you send a friendly email note or make a phone call and ask them to “share the experience you provided” with their neighbors online at Carfolks “on your personal page.”

There are no “friend” commitments and since they are a customer of your dealership we do not sell their information for any third party mailings. Read our terms and usage page to get all the details on our policies. Basically we are a dealer advocate site designed to show customers who the customer focused dealers and sales people are, and to encourage them to patronize your dealership.

The only better deal than this was “Cash for Clunkers.” so sign up for Carfolks today.

Your Social Media Policy?

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:17:45 +0000

What’s the best way to develop a social media policy for employees without sounding like “big brother?”

Every dealership needs to have a clear and simple policy regarding social networks like Facebook or MySpace. The first step should be to call a meeting specifically to discuss the process and policy of the company in regard to social media. I advise making this meeting mandatory so that everyone clearly understands the process, policy and the consequences for breaking the rules.

In anticipation of the meeting, I find that it is best to do a bit of research online. Find a few examples of social network content, both positive and negative. Be ready to share it with the team to show them the potential damage this could cause for them personally and for the dealership.

Start off on a positive note, make it fun, consider having lunch brought in, and ask team members what they are doing now on these sites. Keep them involved. Moderate the discussion and lead the theme towards some of the potential dangers. Now you can bring out the negative posts you found and distribute copies to the attendees.

This will let them understand the two edge sword of social media and the need for a dealership policy. Ask them for suggestions of what should be in the policy. People usually live better by the rules they help create. They also tend to monitor it better themselves if you give them the pride of ownership.

I also suggest a few monthly follow up meetings to monitor progress. Also make sure every new employee understands the program and ask them for ideas they may have too. Be sure to include the company e-commerce and social marketing review policy in your new-hire package. A business is not a democracy but if you give people the responsibility and authority to be engaged in the process you will have a committed and loyal team.

Kim Clouse is on the Executive Team of Carfolks and an industry trainer, consultant and mentor to some of the top performing dealerships in the South. He can be reached at 205-300-8246. This article originally appeared in the December 2009 AutoUSA Monthly Newsletter in their Ask The Expert Column.

It’s a Buyers World Out There

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:01:48 +0000

Consumers are taking control online. This is nothing new to most of us in auto retailing. Over the last 12 years the average consumer can glean extensive information, reviews, pricing, availability and ownership history on just about any product you can think of. Since autos are a major purchase item we have gotten extensive scrutiny about our sales process.

We have also seen a boom in social media and product review sites. If you do any traveling at all you are probably familiar with www.TripAdvisor.com. Pick a destination or airline and you can view lots of brutally candid remarks about local hotels, restaurants and other travel related items. I recently attended the NIADA Convention in Orlando and went looking for inexpensive (cheap) lodging on TripAdvisor. I found lots of hotel rooms under $60 rooms but after reading reviews like, “better than sleeping at the bus station, but not by much . . .” I decided to move up a bit and avoid the bargain basement hotels.

The point is we can find information on any or everything including how a car dealer takes care of, or doesn’t take care of their customers. After ten plus years on the Internet most auto shopping consumers know that any dealer can meet or beat any legitimate price. So now we are seeing online auto shoppers look for ways to identify which dealers will give them a great buying experience, before, during and after the sale. The new term you will be hearing about more and more is SERM. This stands for Search Engine Reputation Management. Dealers need to have a strategy to not only give customers a place to voice their grievances but to post their praise for the dealership too.

The question is not whether you like or dislike reviews of your dealership, the question is now, what you are going to do to build, enhance and protect your reputation online. If you think this isn’t an issue go to google.com and enter the term “Vincent Volkswagen” in the search box. In the top five organic results you will see one or two negative sites about this dealership. In talking to a few marketing experts in the field, they conservatively estimate those listings are costing the dealership 5 lost sales a month. At an average gross of $2000 per sale, the dealership is losing $120,000 a year in sales, not to mention lost service business too. This is a good dealership, but they had an unhappy customer who felt their situation wasn’t handled properly and they voiced their frustration and complaint in a very visible fashion.

You need to have a strategy that makes it easy for customers to say nice things about your sales and service team members. Help them build their personal reputations, and identify customers that have issues you need to address and correct. Explore participating in ratings and review sites and monitor what is being said about you online. Quickly address issues, fix the problems and highlight all the good things you do at your store.

Your Reputation Matters

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:05:00 +0000

More consumers are looking online to find quality products and services. With the advent of reviews on just about every site, with product comparisons and with search engines posting user generated content, online shoppers have a wealth of insights and information at their fingertips.

If a customer called you today, and said, “I want to buy a car from the best dealer in the area. Are you the best? And if you tell me you are, where can I go on the Internet other than your own website or the OEMs website to see proof that you out perform the competition?”

The typical responses I got when I asked that question on my mystery shopping calls were . . .

We have won the Presidents Award,
Earned the Mark of Excellence,
We are an Elite Dealer
We post testimonials right here on our website
You can view videos of our happy customer on our “Testimonials” page

98% of the time the dealer had no “objective” third party evidence that they really “walked the talk.” When I asked where I could see what criteria they met to earn their OEM recognition they had no customer friendly answer. Just some mumbo jumbo about superior performance.

If the consumer can’t validate and measure accolades from the Factory, then it doesn’t count. And if you think a Presidents Award makes you special, just Google, “dealership presidents award” and you will see there are about 350,000 results. Nothing unique here.

Think about any product you bought or researched online within the last two years. Before you made the purchase did you check out reviews of the product, service or the vendor offering the product? Betcha the answer is yes.

AFTER 10+ YEARS OF ONLINE AUTO SHOPPING, AUTO BUYERS KNOW ANY DEALER CAN MEET OR BEAT ANY LEGITIMATE PRICE.

So if that is the case, what will determine where the consumer will shop and buy the product? Most likely the influencing factors will be, location, inventory and reputation.

Which of those is easiest to influence and help you stand apart from the competition? Your dealership needs to be proactive and have a process that insures every customer leaves happy or at the least satisfied with the experience at your dealership. Provide a feedback mechanism where it is easy for your customers to praise or pound you. And if you get pounded contact the customer and find a way to resolve the issue.

We would also like to invite you to check out www.carfolks.com and see how we are helping to improve the professionalism of sales people in our industry and present a more accurate picture of how dealerships treat their customers.