Volume 9 Issue 2
TOP TEN IN THE US! BRANDON HONDA JOINS THE TOP NET PROFIT HONDA DEALERS
THE “BIG THREE” WHEN HIRING – DAVE ANDERSON
RECOGNIZING SOCIAL OPPORTUNITY IN YOUR DEALERSHIP – LAURA MADISON
THE SERVICE LANE TRIPLE PLAY
– PATRICK & COURTNEY HENNESSEY
John Marazzi
– Brandon Honda
Database Equity Leads Equity Letters & Email Blasts Service Drive Equity Leads In-House B.D.C. Conquest Marketing Dealership & Departmental Analytics New & Used Inventory Control Live Financial Statement Daily
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Inside this issue: ■ The “Big Three” When Hiring...................................................................... 6 & 7 ■ Q & A With John Marazzi.............................................................................. 8 & 9 ■ The Service Lane Triple Play...............................................................................11 ■ Five Steps to Inspiring Customers With a Custom Mobile Strategy..........13 ■ Are You Realizing Your "Internet Sales and Marketing Potential?”............ 14 ■ The Ten-Step Plan To Increasing Your Personal Income....................... 16 & 17 ■ Rosenfield and Company Continues to Grow............................................... 20 ■ What 2008 Taught Us That We Already Forgot............................................... 21 ■ Recognizing Social Opportunity in Your Dealership...........................24 & 25 ■ How To Reverse the Bad Sales Stigma................................................... 28 & 29 Publisher Michael Oquendo Editor-In-Chief David Villa Creative Director Kim Burrell Advertising Director Chris Fritcher Editor Josh Fontaine
For Advertising Information Call: 813.463.4009 or 844.415.1052 For E-mail Inquiries: editor@dealersolutions.info Published by:
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The ” Big Three ” When Hiring W
By Dave Anderson
hen you hire the right person, put them in a strong culture, and provide the structure for them to develop their skills and talents, your life as a leader gets better in a hurry. However, when you hire recklessly and bring on warm-bodied-mirrorfoggers so you can claim to have “coverage,” you sentence your dealership to a costly misadventure of misery on the installment plan. While I don’t have space in this column to share everything of importance to evaluate when assessing a job candidate during an interview, I will provide an outline of three critical success factors that are often overlooked as amateur interviewers become distracted by—and enamored with—a prospective employee’s stellar appearance or years of experience.
1. What have they done?
What are their past accomplishments? Make them be specific as to what they are and how they achieved them. What’s the most significant thing they’ve achieved in past jobs, and how well does the level of that accomplishment suit them for the level of performance you’ll require? Frankly, there is scarcely a better predictor of future performance than past performance. It’s not a guarantee—there are no guarantees—but the most telling indicator of what you can expect someone to do is what they’ve done. After all, success leaves clues, and so does failure. So it’s not just about what they have: a nice appearance, a well-spoken manner, a college degree, ten years of experience, and the like. What’s more relevant is what they’ve done with those attributes. Determining specifically what someone has accomplished, overcome, stuck with, and persisted through—and how they did it—will require that you upgrade your interview skills beyond the pathetic “tell me about your strengths” nonsense to a highly analytical, unemotional deep dive into their life. After all, an effective interview is not supposed to be a casual conversation or a good ‘ole boy get acquainted session; it’s to be a fact-finding expedition where you ask the right questions, dig deeply into the answers, and look for the right traits: talent, drive, character, attitude, energy, and passion for starters.
2. What’s their “why?”
One’s “why” is his or her goals, aspirations, purpose, and reason for doing what they do. Without a bold and compelling why— strong personal reasons for succeeding—people are prone to go through the motions and only occasionally exert extra effort; they fail to persist in the face of difficulties, and have normally developed a track record of quitting hobbies, jobs, relationships and more once things get tough. On the other hand, a person with a powerful why won’t require as much external motivation because he or she has a fire already burning within them. The why-driven employee, is more often a fighter—internally motivated to succeed—and is far more focused and resilient than their less ambitious counterpart who’s more likely to do just enough to get by, just enough to get paid, and just enough to not get fired.
3. What is the content of their character?
Character can be defined as “a combination of moral and ethical qualities that comprise the individual nature of a person.” While a person can begin making decisions and choosing behaviors to strengthen his or her character, you can’t change someone’s character from the outside-in. Let me repeat: you can certainly try to influence another human being’s character, but forget about changing it. It’s tough enough to improve your own character flaws, much less believe you have the ability to change the individual nature of someone else. All this is to say that since you can’t put into someone what they don’t have, it’s important that you hire someone who brings the right basic character traits to the table. While there’s not a foolproof way to assess someone’s character within the confines of an interview, you can use an in-depth assessment (like the Anderson Automotive Profile) and ask questions that, when answered, offer insights into the quality of a candidate’s moral and ethical qualities. In some of my leadership workshops and books I list a series of character traits (like: truthfulness, keeping commitments, honesty in words and deeds, persisting in the face of difficulties, right motives, strong work ethic, accepting responsibility and more) and then offer accompanying interview questions to ask that offer insight into how strong an applicant is in those. By making a list of character traits important to you and to the position, you can do something similar and then devise questions to ask that will reveal glimpses into the job candidate’s individual nature. 6 For example, when I ask an “acceptance of responsibility question” like: “You seem to have accomplished quite a bit over the
“The why-driven employee is far more focused and resilient than their less ambitious counterpart” course of your career. Could you name for me three factors that have held you back from being even further along than you are?” and the person responds with conditions beyond their control: “My last boss didn’t like me,” “The last three places I worked didn’t have good training,” and “I felt like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with that job,” you may be uncovering someone who doesn’t own their results and will tend to blame other people and things for their lack of success. Answers you’d get more excited about would be along the lines of: “I wasn’t as disciplined early on as I should have been,” “It took me three years after college to appreciate the importance of personal growth and continuing to work on myself,” “I had a lot of personal issues I needed to resolve that distracted me from working with as much focus as I should have.” I’ve become convinced over decades of hiring, teaching on hiring, and consulting with others on how to hire, that the number one cause of poor performance is hiring the wrong person to begin with. And even if you do hire a great candidate their talent can go to waste in a weak culture, under poor leadership, or without a structured environment that prioritizes training and accountability. However, by focusing on the Three “What’s” (“What have they done?”, “What’s their why?” and “What’s the content of their character?”) you stack the deck high in your favor that you’ll bring on board a teammate who gives you essential tools to work with as you develop him or her. 7
Q & A With John Marazzi
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e had the pleasure of asking John Marazzi, Owner of Brandon Honda, to come to our “Principal’s Office” for a one-on-one question/ answer session. It was an absolute pleasure and fascinating journey into the life of one of the most successful auto dealership owners in the Southeast!
that I have become pretty successful in this industry. DS: Awesome. Well, speaking of successful, why do you think you have been so successful in this industry?
JM: I have a tremendous determination to succeed. When I put my mind to something, I find a way to accomplish that goal. You know I look at the car Dealer Solutions: I wanted to start this with my business as we are not really in the car business, first question: how did you get started in the car were in the business world. And in any business, business? the people that can develop the best strategy, do the best. And part two to strategy is execution. John Marazzi: I started washing cars at 12 years You know, many corporations and many great old. Became a lot man at 15 and at 17 years old, against my fathers advice, he did not want me to sell CEOs can develop a great strategy but they can’t get it executed. God gave me the talent and the cars, but he was in the car business, I went behind ability to do both. I can figure out ways to out his back and got a job at a Dodge dealership that smart and outmaneuver my competition, but more was 2 minutes from my house because I didn’t own a car. I didn’t own a shirt and tie. I grew up very poor. importantly, I know how to make it actually happen and get it to the place to actu-ally do those great For that interview, I actually borrowed a buddy’s ideas. I am not afraid to fail. So if I come up with this shirt, tie & pants, went in and interviewed. The guy great idea and we implement it, if it works, we keep wouldn’t hire me because I was too young and doing what is working. If it doesn’t work, we adjust had no experience. I then went to the recep-tionist and restrategize. and said, who is the owner? She pointed down the hallway. And I actually went down there, knocked DS: What is your philosophy for a successful on his door, sat in there and convinced the owner dealership? to give me a shot. They hired me and I started that Monday. JM: With us, it’s teamwork. It’s leadership. It’s attitude. It’s effort. It’s a commitment to giving our DS: WOW! True rags to riches story! customers a perfect customer experience. And it’s employee satisfaction. I want to hire and keep the JM: Part Two to that story is the guy that didn’t want to hire me, the GSM, put a target on my back. best people. I want to treat them right, pay them fair At thirty days, he found a way to fire me. And as & inspire them. I want to have like minded people. I was leaving, he said to me “kid, let me give you They have to be intelligent, have a strong work ethic, some advice. You need to get out of the car business a burning desire to succeed & a competitive, strong because you are never going to make it in this backbone. When I find these like minded people, we business.” True Story. treat them right. We pay them right. We give them job security. All of my management does corrections DS: (Laughing) Is that guy still around? behind closed doors. Recognition is done in front of everybody. When you get that type of atmosphere, JM: Ummm. I’m not sure. He did end up finding out and those teammates on board, you can start 8
executing the rest of the strategy which is smart marketing, being super aggressive in the mar-ket, taking market share, having management involved early on a deal, having the systems policies and procedures in place. In the game of the car business, it not who sells the most, it’s who spills the least. That is true if you are spending $200,000 a month on advertising or $20,000 a month on advertising. What your really are trying to do is get the most eyeballs to your site, in the door or on the phone, and then doing the best job all the way across the board on all of each one of those opportunities. I am a little manic about that. We track every phone call, we listen to them, and we look at every opportunity. We have a 10 foot rule. We get our mangers involved with our customers early. We do tenacious follow-up on every deal. We care.
guarantee you that the guy at the top is not on his game. He is worried more about playing golf than running his business and cultivating his people DS: You mentioned technology. What do you think is the one piece of technology that has made the greatest impact on car sales in the industry?
JM: Obviously the internet. Eight out of ten people in my metro market start their search for a car on Google. They go to Google, they type in “Used Honda Accord”, they type in “New Honda Civic Tampa” and that is where it starts. Where that search leads is really the defining moment. Do you pop up? Are you coming up on the organic search? Are you doing a good job building your site and building your pages to get that free organic? And if you are not, are you spending money and investing the capital to be on page search? And DS: What is the 10 foot rule? when they find you on page search, what does it JM: The 10 foot rule is if anyone sees a customer say? What is your headline? What is your copy on walking by themselves, and you come within 10 feet your page search ad? When you click on it, what of them, you simply say, “are you folks being assisted happens? Where does it go, what part of your today?” website? When they get to your website, assuming it goes to the right spot, is everything ready to go? DS: What is the number one reason you think a Do you have your photos on there? Do you have dealership fails? a great description? Do have the availabil-ity of your phone number everywhere on your site so JM: They are not paying attention. The guy at people can simply pick up the phone and call you the top is not paying attention and they are not without searching around. Once they call you, how cultivating their people. They are not stressing does that receptionist handle the call? How long leadership. With all these ideas and in-novations, does it take to get to someone who can get them I look at what I knew 10 years ago, what I knew an answer? When they get to somebody, do they 5 years ago, and what I know now as far as in handle that call properly? As good as we are, we how to adapt or die in the business world, it is day hire The Phone Ninjas to train our guys on how to and night. As I said on your ra-dio show before, handle sales calls. It is not that I don’t know how to if somebody is pitching me a product, I want to train a sales call but I want to hire the best people hear. I am going to listen to it and if I don’t like it, because that is what they do. We want our people I will cut them off and say I don’t like it, thank you to know that we are recording their calls. We are for your time. If I do like it, I am going to explore it listening to them. We are giving them constructive because the technology, the internet, the availability criticism on how they handled that call. Then we are of information a consumer can get now is just giving them the tools to do better on the next call. incredible. It’s getting more complex and more John Marazzi is the Dealer Principal of Brandon informative for the consumer. We have to be able Honda, in Tampa Florida and can be contacted to be right there and understand it and use it and have a strategy to combat it and be congruent with at jmarazzi@dealersolutions.info or toll free (855) 635-9322. it. That’s it. Any dealership that is not doing well, I 9
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The
SERVICE LANE TRIPLE PLAY BY PAT AND COURTNEY HENNESSEY
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t’s Monday morning. You just arrived at the dealership and are walking into the building from the parking lot. Your bag is slung over your shoulder. You are carrying an empty coffee mug because you polished off your first cup on the drive to work. You think about the day ahead. You have customer appointments, phone calls to make, documents to prepare, email to answer and countless ideas swimming through your head. You can practically taste your second cup of coffee, and you are in a hurry to refill your mug. If you enter the dealership each morning and head straight to the coffee pot without stopping in the service department and the customer waiting room you are missing out on a major league opportunity. The service department is overflowing with opportunities that salespeople often overlook. There are three valuable resources in the service lane ready and waiting for you to tap into every single day. I like to call these three resources the, “Service Lane Triple Play.” By spending an hour in the service department a few days a week, you will grow your customer base.
HERE IS THE “SERVICE LANE TRIPLE PLAY,” GAME PLAN:
an opportunity to discuss who prime trade-in candidates are. By building relationships, you create advocates and a referral system straight out of the service lane. When it is time for service to turn over (T.O.) a customer to sales, they will trust that you will take care of their customer, rather than the salesperson who walks past them every day with their head down and earbuds in.
PLAY 2 - CUSTOMER PROSPECTS AND REFERRALS 2. Guess who hangs out in the service department? Customers who are having maintenance done or those having vehicle trouble. These customers are a captive audience, sitting at the dealership waiting for news on their vehicle. Get to know service customers who are waiting in the lobby or checking in. Strike up a conversation. Share your referral program with them, add them to your opportunity list, and maybe even offer them a test drive. Make a good impression so even if they aren’t in the market for a new car now, they will know familiar face when they are ready.
PLAY 3 - CONTENT CURATION
PLAY 1 - BUILD SERVICE ADVISOR RELATIONSHIPS
3. If you struggle to find relevant or valuable content to share with your customers or prospective customers on social media, look no further than the service department. Tap into conversations you have with customers and service advisors. Find out what questions are being asked and answered in the service lane. If there’s a topic or trend being discussed in the service department, you can bet people are on the web searching for the answer. So, why not write about what you’re hearing and share it with your network? Become an expert on your brand and a trusted resource to your social network.
1. Building relationships with your service advisors or other service team members, opens the lines of communication between the sales and service department. It also gives you
Starting tomorrow morning, leave the earbuds in the car, postpone the second cup of coffee and stop off in the service department to make a “Service Lane Triple Play.”
Start by getting to know your service advisors. Follow that by chatting with customers who are checking in or waiting for their service to be completed. Finally, curate content from the conversations you are having. It is as easy as 1, 2, 3.
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Five Steps to Inspiring Customers With a Custom Mobile Strategy
By Sophorn Chhay
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hese days, mobile marketing strategies are widespread. Fortunately, a plethora of options exist to reinvigorate old approaches. Modern consumers love their smartphones, and they’re more connected than ever. 2016 is here, and with it arrives a slew of new avenues business impactors should be looking at. A BIA/Kelsey study reveals 63 percent of actions concluding a mobile search occur within the hour. Similarly, 55 percent of decision-based purchases follow mobile searches. The “always connected” consumer relies on smartphone access, and a custom mobile marketing strategy can go a long way. Below are the best ways to redefine your mobile strategy to offer custom 2016 solutions.
Step One: Prioritize Long-Term Relationships with Email Lists
Sure, email marketing may seem outdated, but it’s entirely conducive to modern marketing. Mobile marketing strategies should offer unparalleled products and services. It should develop great customer relationships around flexible strategies. Email marketing is being reimagined. Approximately 31 percent of mobile users admit to checking their email in bed every morning. Meanwhile, 63 percent of consumers prefer email-based marketing approaches. An effective email marketing strategy, when partnered with mobile technology’s astounding resourcefulness, can drive consumers in new directions, foster direct connection and inspire future purchases.
Step Two: Use QR Codes
While every mobile marketing strategy, ideally, increases product and service value, QR codes remain one of the industry’s finest enhancement resources. They offer mobile integration to offline marketing. They offer otherwise unavailable benefits. They also invigorate and direct mobile traffic to customized landing pages. Optimization and conversion, while not at the heart of a QR strategy, are still
benefited from consumers utilizing WR-based features. Unfortunately, QR codes are often mishandled. If you’re going to incorporate a QR code strategy, you should imbue it with a call to action, accompanying postcards and scan resources.
Step Three: Don’t Let Go of Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics, too, are receiving a makeover. In the past two years, IT jobs seeking predictive analytics skills have jumped over 241 percent. The modern mobile world—and the business world—engage predictive analytics on an unprecedented scale. The amount of newly established permanent IT jobs reflects the industry’s push to customization, too.
Companies able to push mobile-based analytical marketing are winning—and they should be. Custom offers dominate the business world, and businesses able to garner buyer-specific solutions from analytical marketing have an edge in professional environments. If you want customization, you need information. Many tools exist, too, each with the high resource values needed to make a splash. While you’re at it, check out ROKO App’s YouTube video on upcoming mobile marketing trends.
Step Four: Go Responsive
Responsive design has become the go-to solution for businesses seeking optimization, customization and longlasting campaigns. A responsive mobile campaign enters the world of fullfledged consumer influence. Website offers, e-commerce benefits and SMS platforms all benefit from responsive design, and buyers are preferring reactive platforms to otherwise “regular” realms. 33 percent of consumers begin mobile searches with a branded website. Furthermore, they make decisions quickly based upon ease-of-access and
path-to-purchase barriers. Make sure your website contains videos, visuals and product features—but always prioritize optimization. Website traffic can bog down resources, reducing overall spread and access.
Step Five: Enhance Your Strategy with Desktop
Your desktop presence should be strong, too. In fact, a close-to-equal ratio of mobile-to-desktop traffic is preferred by most modern marketers. Analytic software capabilities aside, a strong “desktop game” will outfit your marketing strategies with cross-platform options, great offers and informationbased services. The modern marketing world is contingent upon information gathering, and your brand can harness incredibly effective tools. Annual technology trends repeatedly point back to desktop, and the world’s current consumer revolves around a desktop-to-mobile mode of processing. Social media, too, plays a role, as tablet and smartphone users commonly save, share and post social media content while linking back to branded portals. Sure, smartphones may dominate the social media realm, but desktop users still constitute a huge slice of the pie. As your mobile marketing strategy develops, be keen to appreciate leads. While bulk SMS strategies do contain a degree of customization offers, market segmentation remains one of the best ways to prescribe the world’s best strategies. Your marketing efforts, in essence, exist to serve the consumer. Products and services alike deserve customization, as do the strategies responsible for ushering in the new age of mobile-based marketing and innovation.
Sophorn is an inbound marketer specializing in attracting targeted visitors and generating sales qualified leads. Through Trumpia’s mass text messaging automation solution he helps businesses 13and organizations communicate effectively with their customers or members. Watch Trumpia’s 5-Minute Demo on how to execute an effective mobile marketing strategy on trumpia.com/5-min-demo.php.
Are You Realizing Your Internet Sales and Marketing Potential?
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mazing... Jim and Debbie Ziegler have done it again… ... They’re bringing this wildly successful seminar for Automobile Dealerships to Houston. You need to find out what hundreds of dealerships are saying about what they got out of this powerful event. Call Jim anytime (770) 921-4440
20 SPEAKERS and Moderators on stage delivering great content; Jim’s vision is a reality. We wanted to produce a twoday event that would add a lot of value to our dealers and their management. It’s NOT the same old gang that speaks at all of the other events. All of our presenters are A-Team Players with documented track records, some still working in the business. Real nuts-and-bolts, how-to-do-it; we’re showing in depth with detail exactly how to implement these techniques and processes in your dealership.
Internet Battle Plan XIX comes roaring back to Houston in March! Phone skills, BDC, SEO/SEM, Video Response, Website Maximization, Appointment Setting, Google Adwords, Online Advertising, Text Marketing, much more; each presenter brings a unique Dealership Internet skill set to the event. Jim makes sure that the speakers complement each other with specific
topics that encompass every piece to the dealership Internet Puzzle. www.InternetBattlePlan.com If your dealership is underperforming in technology sales and Internet marketing OR, if you already one of the topperforming Internet Dealerships looking for still a higher level of sales and results: regardless of where you are, this is the event that will deliver immediate results beyond your expectations. Battle Plan Graduates have given us raving testimonials about profit increases and market share increases through technology-enabled sales and marketing tips they picked up from the powerful team of experts Ziegler assembled here. There are virtually hundreds of testimonials from Internet Battle Plan attendees, dealership managers, dealer principals and industry executives. There will be no infomercials from the stage. Ziegler’s vision is that the presenters must deliver value to the audience with techniques and processes that you can replicate immediately when you return to the dealership, whether you buy anyone’s services or not. No sales pitches from the stage like what you might experience with some of the bigger conferences. As always, Dealer Principals and General Managers attend FREE whether they bring paid attendees with them or not…
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The Ten Step Plan
To Increasing Your Personal Income by 10% or More in 2016!
H
appy New Year everyone! For the NFL fans out there whose team did not make the Super Bowl, the heartache is over, the healing begins, and we can now set our sights on September and Super Bowl 2017. Whether or not your team played in this year’s Super Bowl, one thing is for certain, every team is now hard at work mapping out their future. The teams that played in the Super Bowl are making their game plan to produce a repeat performance to take them back glory land in 2017. The teams that did not play in the Super Bowl are especially hard at work figuring out what went wrong and what they need to fix to produce perfection in 2017. Make no mistake about it, all the teams are diligently hard at work today and will be every day of the coming year so that they can be as successful as humanly possible in next year’s run for the title. In short, they leave nothing to chance – and neither should you. If you do not already have an idea about how to make 2016 your best year yet, the following ten- step plan will absolutely help get you there. As a matter of fact, I have shared this plan with many service advisors over the years and the ones who work it, report that they have increased their personal income by at least 10%. Many have reported even higher increases. As I share this very simple ten-step plan with you, be
forewarned. It will initially add one hour to your day. The more you work it, the easier it will get, and ultimately, the less time it will take to execute. So here it is: 1. The early bird gets the worm! Rise and shine an hour earlier than you do now. Use this time to get prepared for the day and catch up on the latest news and hot topics that your customers will be talking about. This hour will prove invaluable for sharpening your senses and getting your head in the game so that you can hit the ground running. 2. Watch what you eat. You will be amazed at how a controlled, healthy diet will boost your energy level, clear your thought processes, make problem solving easier, and eliminate the fatigue you typically experience at the end of each day. It is also a confidence booster when you like the reflection in the mirror. 3. Make the time to manage and prepare for the day’s business. This will be a significant step to commit to, if you truly wish to increase your income. Arrive at work at least 45 minutes early. Examine all preprinted repair orders and review customer notes. This will help you determine exactly how many hours are possible to sell. You can measure your success. You will prepare a game plan in advance, to address the issues of the day’s customers. This will increase your efficiency and productivity.
4. At the half way point in your day, make adjustments where needed. These adjustments can be minor or major, and are likely to be varied. There is a reason for a halftime period in football games – and it is not to rest! 5. At the end of each day, review what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong. This gives you the ability to identify the things you should replicate or eliminate. This is a must! You have to look at what your projections were at the beginning the day and see whether or not you met them, exceeded them, or missed them completely. And then, you have to ask why? Identify successes and failures. Keep what works and fix what does not.
the Super Bowl will have gotten there because they left nothing to chance. They had a plan and they executed that plan. When that game is played, twelve months from now, where will you be in your business? During that time you will have either increased, maintained, or lost income. Where you land in these three categories will be determined by the plan you create and follow. If you have any questions about The Ten-Step Plan, call me or write me an e-mail. Call 1-800-248-2931 or 949-713-4469 or email info@jcowansprotalk.com with your feedback. I look forward to helping you in any way I can. Let’s make 2016 a banner year, one step a time. – Jeff Cowan
6. Add “five more” to your communication practices. Send “five more” thank-you notes, “five more” texts, “five more” e-mails, and make “five more” phone calls. Within 30 days, this step will produce significant results. Your communication with customers will center mostly on expressing gratitude for their business. However, it is imperative that you include follow-up communication to disgruntled customers. Also, do not miss the opportunity to acknowledge important visits, such as a first visit or a visit where a significant amount of work was done, or a visit by a simply great customer. Think “five more” and you will capitalize on creating relationships that will secure your future. 7. Continue your education. Sign-up for training. I know you are forced to attend a lot of training throughout the year, but search out more. Whether it be training for professional or personal growth, seek it out, sign up for it and go. I highly recommend general business and marketing classes. 8. Surround yourself with winners. This is likely to be the hardest step, since you may have to sever some longtime relationships. Those around you are either helping to build you up or they are contributing to bringing you down. Surround yourself with competent, talented people who provide a positive influence in your life. 9. Work your job like it is your own business. I know that when you work at a dealership you are on the dealership team, your department team and your advisor or management team. Of course you should do everything in your power to assure the success of those teams. But, at the end of the day, no one cares more about your kids, your spouse, your car payment, your mortgage, or your general lifestyle, than you. You will be a much more successful team player, if your individual game is on point. I have often wondered what would happen if the service desk was run like a styling salon, where each person rents booth space? 10. Work each day like it is the last day of the month. Why rush around at the end of the month looking for deals and business to achieve your goals? There will be no need for the end-of-month drama that ensues when you are scrambling to hit your numbers. If you simply work each day of the month like it is the last day of the month, you will exceed your expectations and you will experience a whole lot less stress. There you have it- the simplest and easiest steps to increasing your income by at least 10% over the next 12 months. In 2017, two teams will play in the Super Bowl. Each team that makes it to
At the end of each day, review what you’ve done right and what you’ve done wrong. This gives you the ability to identify the things you should replicate or eliminate. This is a must! You have to look at what your projections were at the beginning the day and see whether or not you met them, exceeded them, or missed them completely. And then, you have to ask why? Identify successes and failures. Keep what works and fix what does not. 17
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Rosenfield and Company Continues To Grow
Firm expands their NYC office in 14 Penn Plaza
New York, NY, January 5, 2016– Accounting firm Rosenfield and Company, PLLC is continuing to grow their client and staff base. To accommodate such growth they have struck a deal on a fresh new space for their New York office at 14 Penn Plaza at 225 West 34th Street, just North of Penn Station. They will occupy a 1915 square foot space in Suite 2210 on the 22nd floor. This tech trendy, modernized office space will provide an ideal working environment for the staff at this savvy, forward thinking firm as well as a unique meeting place for its clients in the tristate area. “We are extremely excited to become tenants of 14 Penn Plaza. Thank you to the dream team of Scott Vinett and Simon Landmann of Jones Lang LaSalle and Jay Futersak and Karen Close Clarke of Circle Realty for making this become a reality for our team. It almost seems with the addition of new staff in our New York office these past two weeks that we will already be to capacity the day the doors open!” – Ken Rosenfield, CPA, Founder and Managing Partner, Rosenfield and Company, PLLC. Rosenfield and Company, PLLC has seen an upswing in growth this past quarter, adding eight staff members throughout their three offices in Orlando, Florida, Florham Park, NJ and New York City respectively. Construction on the space is set to begin this month with the Rosenfield team officially taking over the space in April. They join the ranks of close to 100 tenants that 14 Penn Plaza currently hosts.
“We are thrilled to have Rosenfield and Company join our tenant roster. They have been a pleasure to work with as they grow their firm’s presence in New York City” - Jay Futersak, Circle Realty Group (Jay Futersak and Karen Close Clarke represented ownership of 14 Penn Plaza in the transaction). Since 1996 Rosenfield & Company, PLLC (one of the first accounting firms to specialize in the automotive industry), has continually strengthened its skill set in several niche accounting industries. Their unique expertise and deep bench strength sets them apart from other CPA firms, making them one of the leading CPA firms serving Automobile Dealerships, Manufacturers and Distributors, Publishing Companies, Broker/Dealers, Cruise Lines and other businesses and high net worth individuals. In addition, they have staff certified in Business Valuations and in assisting in Complex Litigation and Bank Workout matters. They take pride in providing precise and efficient work to clients while still offering access to the same resources provided by large international firms. Their dedication and expert abilities keep them agile and attuned to meeting your company’s business needs. As a CPA firm, their services are offered globally to clients, with offices located in Orlando, Florida, New York City, and Florham Park, New Jersey.
If you would like more information, please contact Tara Nesseralla at 407-985-2597 or email at tara@rosenfieldandco.com. Website: www.rosenfieldandco.com
What 2008 Taught Us That We Already Forgot By Don O’Neil
In one word: sustainability. Or in our case, the lack there of. If you believe we can indefinitely sustain these trends, you may be related to the designer of the Titanic. He believed it never needed a life boat either.
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ost people don’t realize that it is impossible for the human brain to remember pain. Call it a bit of mother natures self preservation, our minds cannot recall the sensation of pain, for good reason. It protects the body from the possibility of continued and ongoing trauma. So, we may think we remember what that broken leg felt like, but all we really remember is that it did hurt, but not the level or intensity of the sensation. So how does that tie into Automotive? Well, it is simple really. Our Automotive minds have already forgotten the pain we felt in 2008, and 2009. That emotional and physical pain that washed out the weak, and left only the strong to survive, and survive we did. But have you noticed the euphoria in the business lately. It’s seems like more people in our industry believe the parties are going to go on forever, and the music will not stop playing again. Well my friends, there is some writing on the wall, and it isn’t a love note. Lease penetration at all time highs, loan terms have never been longer, balances never higher, and interest rates remain low. So what’s the problem?
Our Automotive minds have already forgotten the pain we felt in 2008, and 2009. That emotional and physical pain that washed out the weak, and left only the strong to survive, and survive we did. So how, or what can we do at this point to prepare? Well, start by remembering. Remember how hard it was to grind out a month. The feeling of worry, concern that this may be it. Remember that drive, that determination to survive and come out stronger. A good friend of mine, the guy who trained me in this business, was sitting next to me at the tower one day, and said “there’s a lot of waiters out there with suits in the closet.” His name is Paul Lokey, one helluva good operator in Georgia, a true car guy. He was right. The last recession washed a whole lot of weak fish out of the pond. But what we need to do is remember. That memory will keep us continuing to refresh our processes, to add new technology, and widen that gap from those who are refusing to remember. In one way or the other, there is another cleansing coming to our industry. The question you have to ask yourself is are you a weak fish, 21 or is the pond yours? Time will tell.
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Recognizing Social Opportunity in Your Dealership By Laura Madison of Alan Ram’s Proactive Training Solutions It took years of trial and error for me to learn how to create a social media presence that helped make me my dealership’s top salesperson. Strong social media pages are the cornerstone to an effective online presence that converts,
Focus on Features Focus on Features
Eye the Service Drive Eye the Service Drive
but many dealerships get hung up on what it is they should be sharing with their connections. Here are five tangible, actionable ideas of what to share on social to get moving with a fierce social media presence:
Using video, zoom in and highlight specific features of different models rather than sharing “walkarounds” on social media. The features you share should be things that customers get excited about like techy wireless Include Special charging, blind spot monitoringBe functions, or a sleek infotainment system. More Human Guest-Stars The features that help the in-person selling of the vehicle can also translate excitement to prospective buyers online. Include Special
Guest-Stars
Be More Human
On platforms like Facebook or Instagram feature a service drive superstar, Capture Local aHappenings classic or older model that will capture both the feeling of longevity in these vehicles and also a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the
Capture past. ThereLocal are tons of opportunities at a dealership to pull at peoples’ Happenings make them feel warm, fuzzy nostalgia—and social media heartstrings—to is the perfect place to serve it up. The occasional cream puff trade-in can work perfectly for this mission as well.
Include Special Guest-Stars
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Although you don’t want to flood social feeds with redundant pictures of new customers standing awkwardly with their vehicle out front of your dealership, you will want to feature some occasional smiling faces to keep things personable and fun. I warn though that this post should be lessMore frequent than the others—again we don’t want your social profiles Be Human to only show photos of strangers awkwardly standing beside their newly purchased vehicle (often looking a bit exasperated and hungry.) Keep these photos interesting, like you see in this example and remember: you’re trying to capture a feeling with these special guest-stars.
Strong social media pages are the cornerstone to an effective Include Special Be More Human Guest-Stars online presence that converts
Capture Local Happenings
Events happening locally can be great opportunities to capitalize on and create local visibility to your social media pages. Fundraisers, art walks, college happenings, and sports events are just some ideas for great, locally relevant affairs to feature on social. Bonus points if you can capture an automotive-related local happening, like a car show! Also, many community events have unique hashtags so using that hashtag with your uploads can bring extra visibility to your page.
Be More Human
In order to build relationships with prospective and past clients you’ll want to also highlight the people behind the posts, so be sure to include some personal shots on your page. These photos can feature employees, behind the scenes happenings, or every day action at the dealership. Feel free to add some humor and personality to these captions so that your audience gets a flavor for who you are.
I hope this allows you to begin understand what you can post on social media to grow a presence that attracts and converts. Just as Alan Ram had helped scores of salespeople become successful with his phone and internet conversion training, I want to help my colleagues become successful through converting off social media. That is why Alan Ram
and I created our Social Selling course to help dealerships and salespeople convert more customers using these, and many other, strategies. Find out more at www.ScialSellingVT.com!
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A New Way to View Automotive! Live Now!
autotainmentnetwork.com
The AutoTainment Network (ATN) is for Dealer Principals, Executive Management, GM’s, GSM’s, Sales, Front end, Service, Back End, Vendors, and ALL things AUTOMOTIVE! ATN is for everyone who wants to control where they get their automotive news and solutions. This Network is for those that refuse to be spectators and demand to be in control of the content they receive, understanding that the outcomes we receive are based largely on what we do and do not consume. On ATN you will find a HUB of the best in AUTOMOTIVE talent coming together with original shows covering the hottest automotive related topics and interviewing the nation’s strongest automotive leaders. There is something on the AutoTainment Network for everyone…advertising, branding, digital, sales, compliance, training, fix ops, best practices, career, education, and more. Today’s automotive professional wants to consume what they want when they want it. Where do the people in our great industry get their information from today? And what kind of information is it? ATN exists to provide the platform that you the automotive community not only want but need! If you can’t make it to the national conferences let ATN bring the conference to you! At your convenience at the click of the mouse you have access to weekly new programming, as well as hundreds of archived shows all created for the purpose of helping equip today’s automotive professional. Open Automotive news sources online and you will see and hear the reasons why you shouldn’t and might not make it and how failure looms, however log onto ATN and enter the world
of programming designed to encourage, uplift, educate, and entertain. We want to provide the automotive community with the content they want when they want it and provide them with solutions—not just problems.
The AutoTainment Network is for those that want to grow. A place where simple answers are given to the challenges we all face in the world of automotive. I hope you will join me as we continue to grow this new network. We are always looking to expand our list of experts and contributors for AutoTainment Network. If you know someone that is a proven resource in the automotive community, have them visit our contributor page and if they would like to advertise with us visit our media page. Get in the NOW and subscribe for free today and get what you need when you need it on ATN.
If You Don’t Start Today, You Won’t Start Tomorrow!
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How To Reverse the Bad Sales Stigma
By Diana Eidson
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here is no question about the stigma that is associated with salespeople and the fact that it seems irreversible. What if I told you it can be reversed? What if I told you it’s all about your attitude and your mindset? It’s that time of month again! You have been waiting weeks for this day and it has finally arrived! You jump out of bed with extraordinary pep in your step. You brush your teeth with an odd sense of excitement. You groom yourself fantastically and even spray a little cologne to give that extra touch. You are happily preparing for the “end of month.” Makes you wonder what happened with the previous weeks doesn’t it. Is this your typical routine? Are you that sales person? You have to admit we have all been there before. What better time to rake in the big bucks than the end of the month? Your customers confidently stroll through those dealership doors looking for the best deal, ready to buy. They surely know you are trying to reach your “quota” and they definitely got a leg up on you when it comes to that, so, let the games begin! Hey this is how it’s always been and why change it now, right?
Wrong. Let me tell you WHY.
Month end is a joke, if your dealership is focused only on monthly goals. No doubt customers have been involved in this cycle for decades and they truly believe prices change at the end of every month. Almost like any other retail industry, they believe you just SLASH your prices to move inventory every month, every season and even every day! Makes you wonder where they got that idea. Although, the motivation and excitement you bring at this time of month is great, you’re actually setting yourself up for long-term headaches and spiraling down a slippery slope of disappointment. Think about it; How many customers have you lost due to misinformation that could have been prevented? Example: A walk-in at the beginning of the month simply comes in for as much information as possible, (after all the research they did online of course) they test drive and even let you pull their credit only to purchase from the dealer down the street a couple weeks later. Why? Was it the lack of the tacky flashing ad you left off your website that week? Perhaps the misconception of a “great deal” was left out of the sales pitch? Ok, we can’t deny that sometimes we look back and think “what did I do wrong, and what could I have done differently”? We know as human beings we all make mistakes and even forget the simple things at times. Maybe we even get a little arrogant and somehow convince ourselves that we are just that GREAT. So, maybe we skip a step or two in our sales process. There is also the chance that this particular customer deliberately walked in solely for the PRICES needed to purchase from the next dealership. Do we really need to leave that to chance? Your modern day car buyer depends more on media, online content and their own research rather than your expertise as a product specialist. Sadly, it’s true and that’s all they FOCUS on. The days where people trusted
Your modern day car buyer depends more on media, online content and their own research rather than your expertise as a product specialist. Sadly, it’s true and that’s all they FOCUS on. The days where people trusted salesmen and relied on their knowledge and assistance to buy, is long gone. We are now battling with the new technology of today and even the highly advanced millennial who is more than qualified and oh so capable of educating even you ON that shiny new car they plan on purchasing in the next few weeks.
salesmen and relied on their knowledge and assistance to buy, is long gone. We are now battling with the new technology of today and even the highly advanced millennial who is more than qualified and oh so capable of educating even you ON that shiny new car they plan on purchasing in the next few weeks. We assume consumers don’t know what they are talking about and are not familiar with our industry or process for some reason. There is no denying that now days anyone can obtain information they need off the internet. The one thing they cannot obtain off the internet, is…… THE EXPERIENCE. Think about that for a moment. Today’s consumer is educated enough to make a well informed decision to buy any product without anyone’s assistance. So, what do you bring to the table? And why do you only bring it at the “end of month”? Bring it every day throughout the month and you will create pre-sold referrals purely based on experience! The great thing is you don’t have to be an expert to execute this behavior, you just have to be a good human being. Learning about your customer’s wants, needs and desires is the easiest and most effective way of creating a world class experience. Now that’s something to be excited about every day and pretty darn simple too, isn’t it? I hope this article helped you see all the endless possibilities associated with a great experience. It’s time for a change and it starts with you! 29
Second Wind
Your customers deserve a second chance! So we send out a letter extending the pre-approval offer of credit for customer that initially responded, but did not make an appointment.
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We Know Exactly How to Handle the Customers We Bring In
• Initial up training for your campaign • Live new hire training • Personalized CRM walkthrough and campaign details • Available upon request for any assistance with your campaign
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Check the health of your campaign whenever you want with personalized access.
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1 week before your mail drops we begin working to generate leads digitally.appointment.
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2-3 Days before your mail drops we use our Real Call process to give your customers top of mind awareness.
We engage customers prior to their appointment at your dealership to finalize their credit approval. We provide your dealership with prescreened approval structure.
BDC/Response Methods
Once your customers begin responding, you can rest assured that we will handle getting them through your door.
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