Jonathan Ord - Imagine that your dealership was sectioned off into little rooms. When a customer approached your dealership ... they would be escorted to one of the rooms based on something arbitrary, for example, hair color ... Each room would have assigned salespeople ... would have a computer with customer information separate from every other computer. None of the rooms would interact or
Dave Keller - You, your accounting personnel or your accountant can access your data from any Internet connection using communication software such as PC Anywhere, VPN, VNC and terminal services connections. This enables real-time analysis of your dealership data with your accounting personnel. The Internet also lets you download the data to other software or third-party vendors you have authorized to receive your data ...
Thomas B. Hudson - "Dolly" saw a 2006 Nissan Murano advertised on the Internet. When she contacted the dealer about the car, a dealer representative quoted the purchase price as $15,500. When Dolly drove to the dealership to pick up the car, a second representative told her the purchase price was actually $21,500. “Molly,” Dolly's sister, agreed to act as a co-signer so that Dolly ...
Tom Herald - Every high-performing sales organization is led by a manager who has the answers to 10 common performance questions that separate the strong from the weak. Your answers to these questions will be your compass for action and execution. They are your roadmap for improving sales ...
Michael Rees - So, Jessica was put in the unenviable position of having to find a replacement vehicle. The insurance company wrote her a check for just under $6,000 for her truck. Jessica started her mission to buy a used vehicle for $6,000. She started as most buyers do nowadays, by surfing the Internet ...
Every person in the car industry, at one time or another, has had the need to transport a vehicle from point A to point B. The scary fact facing many dealers is that they have absolutely no idea if their so-called reputable transport provider is
Thomas B. Hudson - The bailout mentality seems to be everywhere. Here’s an example. Customers borrow money from a bank to finance their car purchases. They default on their loans, and the bank undertakes court actions to recover the vehicles. The consumers discover that the loan officer they dealt with had pled guilty to defrauding the bank. The consumers decided that was reason enough to let them keep their cars ...
Dave Keller -Chrysler and GM have yet to prove how eliminating dealers is going to save them to a profit. They should let the economics of business weed out the dealers who are not profitable. Sooner or later, the non-profitable and under-capitalized dealers won’t be able to ...
Tom Herald - When it comes to the car business, 2009 is not much different than 1980. The details, circumstances and causes for the recession were different but the end effect on the car dealer was basically the same. Credit was very limited if not non-existent. Thirty years ago Chrysler, led by Lee Iacocca, was pleading in front of Congress for some sort of financial relief. Unemployment was ...
Ron Smith - If, for whatever reason, you have decided that the time has come for you to exit the industry as a franchised new car dealer, the following is a very brief synopsis of things to consider. The following is a checklist I have given to some clients considering exiting...
Dave Keller - ... dealers use many third-party vendors which have DMS access for downloading information to their software to furnish dealers with add-on products and/or reports. Maybe it is time to inventory all these programs to find out if you are still utilizing them and if ...
Thomas B. Hudson - So, your dealership’s employee dummies-up a credit application with bogus income information in order to get the bank to buy the deal, enabling the employee to earn his commission. No one else at the dealership is aware of the fraud. Then, the employee’s acts are discovered ...
Mark O'Neil - ...think about the most successful retailers across the country, operators such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Best Buy. One thing they have in common is they don’t leave much ...
We’ve all heard the statement before. You have to walk the talk. It’s not enough to say you will do something; you have to do it. It’s time for dealers to manage their inventory better. Dealers are talking about inventory management in record numbers, but ...
David Keller - I have talked to many banks in the past few months, and guess what? They don’t seem to be in the business of loaning money anymore. Seems strange, as they should have a hard time making a profit if they pay depositors and...
