Eric Nichols of Apple Honda Gives Dealer eTraining and Stan Sher a Testimonial

Eric and Apple Honda are a proud Dealer eTraining client.

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Eric Nichols, Internet Sales Manager for Apple Honda put out this video on SocialCam.  I had to share this because it makes me appreciate what I do for a living even more.  I love working with automotive dealers and helping them become successful.  I was able to help Apple Honda achieve improvements the same exact way that I have done it for myself in past.  When I work with a client I give them my best and I do things exactly how I would do them if I was working for them.  Eric also thanked TrueCar for sponsoring his trip to Las Vegas for AutoCon 2012.  I had to share this video here with everyone.

 

Automotive BDC Internet Retention - Guest Relations

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Stan Sher of Dealer eTraining discusses how the business development and/or internet sales department needs to be viewed as the guest relations department. Guests come to stay and remain with the dealership while customers come and go. Start viewing customers as guests and the dealership will increase levels of professionalism as well as revenue.

Scott Painter (CEO of TrueCar) speaks to Stan Sher (President of Dealer eTraining)

It was Monday December 12, 2011 and I had decided to take a nap at 4:00 PM as I had just spent an average of 14 hours per day working from my home office.  I actually spent all weekend working on projects and creating more curriculums.

My nap was rather long and I slept until 8:00 PM.  I woke up and looked at my cell phone only to find a voice message from a random phone number in California.  I listened to the message and saw that it was one of Scott Painter's people trying to contact me because Scott Painter wanted to have a conversation with me. 

 

My initial thought was, "WOW, the multi billionaire guru with a Wikipedia page wants to talk to me.  I feel special."

 

I called the gentleman back and set the call up.  I later learned that he was also speaking to Jim Ziegler.  As far as I knew we were the only two people that Scott Painter was talking to.  I had prepared my list of questions and was excited to talk to this person just to see what he has to say.

 

Fast forward to the next day.  I started to think a few things.  I was thinking that maybe I made Painter so angry that he was trying to get his attorney on the phone with a cease and desist message.  On the other hand, I do think great things of myself and I know that I am a very abstract thinker so I was thinking that maybe Painter would be looking for my help to make his product better and stop hurting dealers.  I had spoken to Jim Ziegler and knew that he had a call at 1:30 PM so I was anxious to find out what happened.  So at 5:30 PM (30 minutes before my call I called Jim again).  I learned from Jim that it was a regular Q&A session and that he was offered a trip to California to explore the TrueCar operations.  Jim had spoken well of Scott Painter as he Scott was very professional and seemed to be an easy going person to talk to.

 

Moving on...

 

It is now 6:00 PM and we get on the call.  It was a 55 minute call.  We started the call and Scott had informed me that he might have to get off sooner because his wife was about to have a baby any minute now.  "Congratulations Scott and family!”  I had congratulated Scott.  I also started the conversation by giving him my respect.  I too am a college dropout and I too have visions of doing huge things in the future.  I started the conversation with an upfront from the heart compliment.  Anyone that knows me knows that I have a huge heart.  If I am against what you represent it I will let you know that too.  However, if you are brilliant enough to come up with a huge idea and get to the level that Scott has I have to give credit to where it is due.

 

I continued to explain who I was and what my background was.  I had explained to him how I got in to the automotive industry and my experience in retail.  In addition, I talked about my roles in dealerships and how I started Dealer eTraining.  From there I moved onto explaining to him why I am completely against his product (TrueCar) and I gave him at least three real scenarios from when I worked in dealerships as a sales person and a manager.

 

He understood where I was coming from.  Scott was also very professional and knowledgeable with his answers.  He seemed to give me legitimate responses.  I told him about my theory of how I believe he is pricing cars out of the market and how he is hurting the business.  I even compared him to Edmunds where I said, "at least when Edmunds is advertising True Market Value (TMV), the vehicle is priced a few hundred over invoice".  I added to that by saying, "if we were selling cars a few hundred over invoice and you had your pricing fairly structured like that no one would be hurt."

 

When asking him about where pricing data comes in he started to tell me about how when a car gets sold the data is available to multiple sources and how many of them are partners are TrueCar.  When I asked him where he gets these ridiculous low prices to put on the bell curve under "Best Deal" he told that consumers actually provide them with pdf files of their purchase.  This is where I am still puzzled after everything he said to me.  Something here did not seem to sound right.  Why would a consumer give you a copy of their retail agreement?  It is one thing when you survey the customer and they tell you what they paid for the car (which cannot be a fact sometimes).  It is another to have someone takes the time to send you this information.  I had not asked more questions on this because this was the one thing that made me actually want to go and see the TrueCar operations for myself.  

 

The majority of the discussion was exactly like the one that Jerry Thibeau had with Scott.  The only difference is that I literally have 30 ideas that can turnaround TrueCar for the better if in fact this beast cannot be defeated.  I had mentioned two ideas right off the bat.  Here they are:

 

1. Ok if you are going to advertise on the bell curve, "Best Deal".  Can you at least have the decency to omit the sales prices from customers that stole the vehicle?  I mean there comes a moment when a sales manager makes a mistake and we roll a car and lose $2,000 on it and the customer makes out like a lucky bandit.  This is where I assume these figures are coming from.  So I said, "I know Honda does not allow advertising under invoice so why not keep the sales figure legitimate and have some profit in it to keep all things fair".  

 

-Scott told me that his AutoNation people have brought a similar idea to them.

 

2. I had mentioned that if they incorporated reviews and partnered up with a review site.  Take the reviews and incorporate them underneath the prices in the bell curve that they can now offer a lot more than just pricing.  I am talking about value added benefits.  Now the customer has a choice if they want to pay more for a better experience or pay less for a worse experience.  Now that is real transparency in my opinion.

 

-Scott told me that his brother in law is a GM of a Mazda dealer and he was mentioning something similar.

 

What are my thoughts?  

 

My thoughts are that Scott has opened up as much as he is willing to open up.  I still disagree with what is being done with TrueCar and why TrueCar is partnered with some of the current partners.  I also believe that there are a lot of ways that the TrueCar model needs to be reworked.  TrueCar has a lot invested and the commercials are there like AutoTrader.  If they are going to grow and advertise to the public they need to fix the problems that they are creating.  TrueCar needs to follow all state regulations and all OEM regulations.  They should also make it so that whatever is being advertised allows for dealers to remain profitable and actually makes automotive dealers look good instead of bad.  If they want to make innovations to the industry they need to help get consumers respecting dealers instead of plotting against them.  I believe that incorporating other transparent strategies and not basing things solely on price can make a difference.

 

Now the reality is that these things are probably not going to happen if Scott's intentions are really what he made public when he did the videos and presentations.  Perhaps Scott was looking for a way to win me over because I have a lot of influence.  Perhaps Scott did not think before he spoke when he was quoted in the past.  No one will ever really know the truth.  One thing that I do know is that Scott handled the call with me professionally and very humbly and he was great to speak with.  Scott invited me to visit their operations so that he can show me what they do and how they do it.  I know other people have declined.  I am going to accept it.  The reason why I am going to accept it is because I want to see it for myself.  It is an educational experience and it will allow for me to bring back even more thoughts to the industry.

 

Look we all want to see this fail (including myself).  We need to consider how big it has become.  I mean over 5,000 dealers need to cancel.  If we can get them all to cancel then great.  Otherwise, there is a chance this will continue to grow since the marketing tactics and investments have pushed for the massive growth to happen.  If we cannot defeat this gorilla then we need to help create ways to make this gorilla work for dealers without hurting them.  I am proposing to have an open mind here and have a strategy for what happens is we defeat this as well as a strategy for what happens if we have to live with it.  If we have to live with it let's at least consider the options of making TrueCar make changes that benefit the dealers.

 

I am not going soft on your guys.  The negative experiences that I had with them at the dealer level will never change what I think of them.  But it is my mission as a member of the industry to give back to the industry that has provided me with skills, opportunity, knowledge, and training to be a better human being.  This is what Dealer eTraining (my company stands for).  Go to my website www.dealeretraining.com and look on the home page.  I have a section there where the last sentence states, "Dealer eTraining is about the dealership’s success first and foremost.”  This is my signature motto.  Anyone that has worked with me, been trained by me, or has met me knows that I mean well.

 

I welcome thoughts and comments.  When you respond I want you to do it with an open mind.  I have done everything with an open mind and you should too.  Thank you.

 

Stan Sher

The Reality of Zag.com/TrueCar

Friends,

I send this message as a true friend in the automotive industry.  As
some of you already know it is my mission to help dealers be
profitable and grow their results.

I wanted to reach out to you and send you this message to inform you
of what has been going on with Zag.com/TrueCar and the current
discussion.

I know that a lot of dealers are using Zag.com because they are sold
on the fact that they never pay for a lead and only pay $300 for when
the car gets sold.  The problem is that we give out access to our data.  Zag and TrueCar
pull all of our data including front end gross, trade value, and back
end gross.  Since they go into the database they pull information for
every deal that you did that month.

Now let's think.  Let's hypothetically say that you had an issue with
a deal.  I am talking about an issue where a customer was misquoted
severely to the point where you had one deal that you literally lost
$2,000 on.  This happens at some point or another.  Well now you let
Zag know of that information.  They take that low price and post it on
TrueCars.com as the best price out there.  Now you have customers
expecting to go into dealerships (including yours) to pay that
unrealistic low price.  This takes competition to a whole new level.

So I ask.  Why do we want to let a vendor take our data and use it
against us.  Let's face it, Scott Painter (CEO of TrueCar) has never
worked in a dealership or experienced the pain that we all had selling
cars and dealing with struggles.  He actually has been quoted saying
that he envisions this industry eliminating sales people with this
process.  Here is a man that is out to give consumers transparency
while hurting out business.  I believe in being fair, honest, and
showing transparency.  I do not believe in auto dealers getting hurt
to do it.  We should be playing on even field.  If Zag/TrueCar were
posting realistic figures allowing dealers to make a profit we would
not have any problems.

Check out this Automotive News Article: http://bit.ly/vbMAim

Also, Jim Ziegler has created a discussion on this topic right here
and you all need to read through this because it affect your business:
http://bit.ly/smOaRJ

Here are some more important resources for you to look at: http://bit.ly/jNtK8M

http://bit.ly/bIt4WP

The bottom line.  The automotive business has been great to me.  I
created a solid career out of it.  I learned skills in this business
that I would never learn anywhere (including college).  I have made a
decent living at it.  I started Dealer eTraining to give back to the
industry and help better our industry by providing training solutions.
 When I see a company get started that hurts our industry I care and I
want to see it go away.

As the saying goes, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".  If you
are using Zag because you like the fact that leads are free and you only pay
for the lead when the car gets sold you need to consider the damage
that you are doing by losing money on these deals and letting Zag use
your data to make you look bad in front of your customers as well as
create more tension between competing dealers.  Let's put an end to
this madness.  I propose that whoever is using Zag/TrueCar stop using
them and pass that on to everyone including your competitors.

But wait, this gets better.  Did you know that DealerTrack has stake in this?  Yes, DealerTrack and ALG are involved (http://bit.ly/vKu1VU).  That is right, a company that is supposed to be a dealer partner got involved.  I wonder how much more date is getting leaked in to TrueCar to hurt our business.

 

If you look at the facts you will see that you need to stop using Zag/TrueCar.  I have been saying this for a few years but now I am really speaking out loud about this.

--
Stan Sher
President
Dealer eTraining
Website: www.dealeretraining.com
Direct:             (732)925-8362      
Email: Stan@dealeretraining.com

View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter
View my facebook profile

 

Like Dealer eTraining on Facebook

The Reality of Zag.com/TrueCar

Friends,

I send this message as a true friend in the automotive industry.  As
some of you already know it is my mission to help dealers be
profitable and grow their results.

I wanted to reach out to you and send you this message to inform you
of what has been going on with Zag.com/TrueCar and the current
discussion.

I know that a lot of dealers are using Zag.com because they are sold
on the fact that they never pay for a lead and only pay $300 for when
the car gets sold.  The problem is that we give out access to our data.  Zag and TrueCar
pull all of our data including front end gross, trade value, and back
end gross.  Since they go into the database they pull information for
every deal that you did that month.

Now let's think.  Let's hypothetically say that you had an issue with
a deal.  I am talking about an issue where a customer was misquoted
severely to the point where you had one deal that you literally lost
$2,000 on.  This happens at some point or another.  Well now you let
Zag know of that information.  They take that low price and post it on
TrueCars.com as the best price out there.  Now you have customers
expecting to go into dealerships (including yours) to pay that
unrealistic low price.  This takes competition to a whole new level.

So I ask.  Why do we want to let a vendor take our data and use it
against us.  Let's face it, Scott Painter (CEO of TrueCar) has never
worked in a dealership or experienced the pain that we all had selling
cars and dealing with struggles.  He actually has been quoted saying
that he envisions this industry eliminating sales people with this
process.  Here is a man that is out to give consumers transparency
while hurting out business.  I believe in being fair, honest, and
showing transparency.  I do not believe in auto dealers getting hurt
to do it.  We should be playing on even field.  If Zag/TrueCar were
posting realistic figures allowing dealers to make a profit we would
not have any problems.

Check out this Automotive News Article: http://bit.ly/vbMAim

Also, Jim Ziegler has created a discussion on this topic right here
and you all need to read through this because it affect your business:
http://bit.ly/smOaRJ

Here are some more important resources for you to look at: http://bit.ly/jNtK8M

http://bit.ly/bIt4WP

The bottom line.  The automotive business has been great to me.  I
created a solid career out of it.  I learned skills in this business
that I would never learn anywhere (including college).  I have made a
decent living at it.  I started Dealer eTraining to give back to the
industry and help better our industry by providing training solutions.
 When I see a company get started that hurts our industry I care and I
want to see it go away.

As the saying goes, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".  If you
are using Zag because you like the fact that leads are free and you only pay
for the lead when the car gets sold you need to consider the damage
that you are doing by losing money on these deals and letting Zag use
your data to make you look bad in front of your customers as well as
create more tension between competing dealers.  Let's put an end to
this madness.  I propose that whoever is using Zag/TrueCar stop using
them and pass that on to everyone including your competitors.

But wait, this gets better.  Did you know that DealerTrack has stake in this?  Yes, DealerTrack and ALG are involved (http://bit.ly/vKu1VU).  That is right, a company that is supposed to be a dealer partner got involved.  I wonder how much more date is getting leaked in to TrueCar to hurt our business.

 

If you look at the facts you will see that you need to stop using Zag/TrueCar.  I have been saying this for a few years but now I am really speaking out loud about this.

--
Stan Sher
President
Dealer eTraining
Website: www.dealeretraining.com
Direct:             (732)925-8362      
Email: Stan@dealeretraining.com

View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter
View my facebook profile

 

Like Dealer eTraining on Facebook

Another Dealer eTraining Testimonial - Automotive Internet Sales Training

 

http://www.dealeretraining.com
http://www.facebook.com/dealeretraining

Stan Sher of Dealer eTraining spent one week working with a dealer group in Wisconsin. The week was spent training management on cost effective digital marketing strategies as well as training the BDC department on effective lead handling procedures and phone processes. After an intense 4 days of training, they were ready to take it to the next level. Here is their testimonial.

Auto Dealer Target Roundtable

 

http://dealeretraining.com/

http://automotiveinternetsales.tumblr.com/

http://autodealertarget.com/roundtable/

 

I was a part of this event http://autodealertarget.com/roundtable/ and if you are a dealer or vendor you need to check this out. 

 

Auto Dealer Target Roundtable

http://dealeretraining.com/

http://automotiveinternetsales.tumblr.com/

http://autodealertarget.com/roundtable/

 

I was a part of this event http://autodealertarget.com/roundtable/ and if you are a dealer or vendor you need to check this out. 

Sales and BDC, Not Sales vs. BDC

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http://twitter.com/stansher

 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stansher83

 

As I work with various dealerships all over the nation, I am still amazed at the kind of attitude that I find sales departments showing towards their BDC.  As a matter of fact, it is interesting to see how aggressive sales people embrace it while everyone else has a negative vibe towards it.  It is interesting to see the lack of appreciation that sales professionals have towards the support that is being given to them.  This is an ongoing that hurts many dealerships every single day.

                A Business Development Center (BDC) is usually setup as a call center where a coordinator is solely responsible answer internet email leads and phone ups to generate appointments.  This has become a more typical approach to maintaining an internet department over the last few years.   The benefit of it is that it allows support for the sales department to work with appointments instead of rely on the door for fresh ups.  The goal is to generate as many appointments as possible. The more appointments that come in the more cars the store will sell.  Sounds like a great idea right?  So, why do sales professionals still fight the idea of having a BDC?

The problem is that sales people are not trained in the new ways of handling customers.  They are not trained to work their customer relationship management (CRM) tool properly and ask the right questions that come along with it.  They get a customer that comes in as an appointment and start a new process instead of continuing a current process which creates a bad experience for the customer.  This happens because there is little or no communication between management and the BDC.  There is also no communication between the sales and BDC departments.  They should work together like a well oiled machine.  It is becoming evident that the focus is more on training how to handle an email lead or a phone up.  Dealerships need to start thinking about training their sales staff and management to adjust to handling their customers better and working as one solid team.

Here is what I propose.  Keep sales people on the floor but have them rotate shifts working in the BDC.  It is really very simple.  Each hour a different sales consultant comes in and helps the BDC.  Make it a requirement and sales people will start to destroy bad habits and build buy in for having a BDC.  Here are some of the benefits:

1. They will learn the importance of why they have a BDC in the dealership. 
2. They will be available to help with product knowledge TOs on calls. 
3. They will help make phone calls and prospect for business.
4. They can sometimes help a sell a car over the phone with customers that want to start the transaction process over the phone. 
5. They can help handle over flow of leads.  If they make an appointment in that hour, it is their appointment.
6. If they talk to a customer on the phone it is their deal.

 

 

The bottom line is that sales people need to learn what is being said and how it is being said on the phone.  They also need to understand why certain things happen the way that they do in a BDC.  A sales professional needs to look into the CRM and read the notes so that they can continue where the BDC left off.  The sales department needs to be thankful for the support staff that they have and help pitch in when they can.  Lastly, sales professionals need to learn what current technology is available to increase their own follow up and customer engagement.  These practices will show improved morale in the dealership and better results.

 

 

About the Author

Stan Sher is an Automotive Industry consultant and president of Dealer eTraining where he specializes in training automotive dealerships with their digital sales and marketing efforts. 

Create The Be-Back

http://www.dealeretraining.com/

 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stansher83

 

http://twitter.com/stansher

 

http://www.facebook.com/dealeretraining

 

 

Picture this...you are a sales consultant working at a dealership.  You have gone through all of the steps and you are going through the negotiation process.  After all is said and done the customer decides that it is time to leave and a deal cannot be made.  It got down to the customer not being satisfied with the trade or the deal that is being offered to them.

 

Does this sound familiar?  It should.  This is what we deal with the most in our business if we are not making deals.  There are many reasons why customers end up not making a deal on the spot.  In some cases, sales consultants or BDC reps end up trying to get the customer to come back.  In other cases, the customer leaves and never gets contacted again.  This all depends on how the dealership is structured with process, CRM, and management styles.  

 

I remember as a sales person I would have a manager sit down with me just to make sure that I am pounding the phones.  I believe that this can be extreme in some cases.  A sales person needs to be dedicated and care enough about their career as well as their livelihood.  Successful sales professionals still use the telephone and innovative methods of communication to follow up.  A few months ago, I wrote an article about the number one sales person in the country for Hyundai.  The man sells 60 units per month consistently and makes twice what his sales manager makes.  He is dedicated.

 

Now comes the interesting aspect of this article.  How do we follow up with these customers that did not buy?  How do we create a process to ensure 100% follow all of the time?

 

I recently had a dealer client ask me to create some processes for different objections for why people did not buy.  After evaluating their dealership, their product, and how their staff operates I was able to create a custom process for various objections.  It adds a few more calls per day to the BDC but will create more be-backs.  My thinking is that every action needs a reaction.  If they do heavy follow up, make a lot of calls, send properly crafted emails, engage in social media follow up, you will create a big enough buzz to get these customers to come back and make that deal. 

 

It is all about process, process, process, process, and you guessed it PROCESS!!!  Along with process comes the training on handling these opportunities.  Along with the process and handling these opportunities comes effective communication between sales and BDC departments in order to have effective follow up.

 

Now let's think about this for a second.  What do we do when we get a fresh internet lead?  We follow up with a solid phone call, email, and social media engagement process for a set amount of days, right?  If we are serious about initiating contact with the prospect, why are we not serious about getting a bigger interest out of them after we have engaged them and had a chance to build rapport face to face?  Why not create a similar type of strategy for someone who already has your attention?  Shouldn't it be easier to sell them a vehicle at this point?

 

It might be a great idea for dealerships to consider having a process for handling customers that did not buy with a solid, mandatory follow up plan.  Since it is a numbers game dealers will see tremendous results and a better be-back ratio.  This can be done for customers that do not buy due to trade issues or pricing issues.  If the OEM makes positive program enhancements, it might make sense to create a process to engage those prospects that left and did not buy.  Dealers and managers need to remember that persistence pays off big dividends.  Think about it.

 

Stan Sher is the founder and president of Dealer eTraining, a premier automotive internet sales and digital marketing consulting company. For more information, please feel free to call 732-925-8362 or email stan@dealeretraining.com .