David Keller - Now the Cash for Clunkers promotion is over, you can breathe a little. Wrong! You’d better get going and decide what to do now that customers are not walking rapidly into your store ready to sign contracts without expending a lot of sales effort or advertising on your part.
Kimberly Long - While most businesses have acknowledged the influence of the Internet on modern-day commerce and have embraced it as a powerful advertising medium, it’s still difficult for some auto dealers to imagine not keeping more conventional methods of television, radio and print as part of their advertising and marketing strategies.
David Keller - The most important, and very disturbing, thing I see happening in the automotive industry right now is the lack of lenders willing and or able to loan funds to dealers to capitalize their operations, finance a dealership purchase or new equipment, or just loan money on existing collateral.
Scott Dreisbach - The importance of precise vehicle inventory management has never been more clearly defined than it is today. It is well known that precise vehicle inventory management can be the difference in whether or not we operate our stores at a profit or loss.
David Keller - Here we are and our automotive world has changed so much we hardly recognize it anymore. Who would have thought a few short years ago we’d be in this spot today?
Thomas B. Hudson - “No. Why should we pay ABC Forms Company 58 cents a form for those things? My brother-in-law says he knows a printer who’ll run them off for us for 12 cents each. Give me a copy of one of the ones you have left, and I’ll get us a bunch made.”
David Keller - What a month it has been! For the past three to four weeks, we have been busy assisting our GM dealers who received a “non-renewal agreement” letter to effectively close their new GM franchises down by October 2010 ...
Jennifer Murphy - While some dealers have had a Web presence for years, CarSmart in Kansas City, Mo., didn’t have one until April 2009. Co-Owner Ted Heater, Jr. said, “We were in business for 11 years and didn’t have … any kind of Internet presence … Business was always so good by our direct mail, TV and radio campaigns, nobody would have had time to do a Web site. Now, [with] a 40 to 50 percent decrease in business, well, I have a lot of time now.” ...
Thomas B. Hudson - I was conducting an on-site dealership compliance audit of a buy here pay here store, looking over the dealership’s sales and F&I process from A to Z in an effort to decrease the dealership’s potential liability for violations of state and federal law. It’s a good thing that it was only lil’ ole me probing this dealership’s operation. If, instead, an FTC SWAT team had descended on the car lot, the dealer would be out of business ...
Kimberly Long - It’s no secret, with so many woes in the world of new car sales, dealers are focusing even more energy on areas like fixed ops and used vehicle sales. In many cases, with the loss of franchises, used vehicle sales have become matter of life and death for their dealerships ...
Tom Herald - Have you ever noticed the differences between really good companies that stand out among the competition and those others that just seem out of step? How about sports teams? Why did the Bruins dominate the Canadians during the first round of the Stanley Cup? Why do Roger Penske and Rick Hendrick routinely field championship racing teams? And, why is Richard Branson so successful? The one common difference that all successful businesses, sports teams or organizations share is r
Harlene Doane - Technology is giving today’s buyer the same information dealers have, creating what some people say is an efficient market. This efficient market is causing dealers to change the way they inventory and market their used vehicles. For years, dealers have been working towards a 60-day turn policy, some even had a 30-day policy for used vehicles, but in today’s inventory market, those policies might be outdated ...
David Keller - This past year, most dealers struggled to make a profit or attempted to keep losses at a minimum, conserve cash and basically just stay alive. They were hit with some strange tax consequences generated by the headlines noted earlier in this article. Used vehicle wholesale prices, in most instances, were drastically reduced at December 2008 versus December 2007 due to diminished demand from customers. This resulted in LIFO income, rather than normal LIFO expense ...
Thomas B. Hudson - A friend who is a consultant to auto dealers regularly supplies me with examples of direct mail advertisements from his dealer clients. Almost always, the ads he forwards to me are ...
Jonathan Ord - Jack Maxton Chevrolet in Columbus, Ohio, and Allen Cadillac GMC Hyundai in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Both of these dealers have gotten creative in their use of a BDC, call center or combination of both. Hopefully, their method of success will give you some insights into how you can improve ...
