free ebook

Car Dealerships were asking me on a regular basis “How do I use Twitter?”.  I figured the best way was to write a 10 page guide that would be a free download for Car Dealerships.  It is in PDF format for easy viewing.  Feel free to download it and pass it around to friends and clients.

Free Ebook - Intro To Twitter For Car Dealers Download

Mb Motorsports in New Jersey was featured on The Dealer Geek as a FaceBook Superdealer.  This independant used car lot has over 5000 fans and does a weekly video draw.

Check out the full interview:  Facebook SuperDealer – MB Motorsports

“Samson killed a thousand men with the jaw bone of an ass. That many sales are killed every day with the same weapon.” – Anonymous

One simple response from the sales person to the potential buyer is all it takes to lose a sale and waste an opportunity. And in this economy every opportunity has to count! Business has been so good for the past five years that many companies have fell away from the daily commitment to sales effectiveness skills. It is critical that sales people and management get back to the basics of working on basic communication skills in order to not waste opportunities.

A poorly trained (weak salesperson) stammering with poorly thought-out responses is too costly to the company in an economy where the company is dependent upon every sale and opportunities are not as abundant as they used to be. The company must set the stage for a different experience with the sales people setting themselves apart by how they communicate creating a positive experience whereby they sell value not price. Value is quite subjective and much more important than price! When the salesperson spends too much time talking price he will not spend time building value. That is not to say you avoid price but handle it sufficiently and get back to building value!

Price is a myth and this can be substantiated through your own experiences as you watch a prospect tell you that your product is too much money and then go to your competitor and buy a more expensive product. What your prospect was saying was “too much” for that product and the experience you were providing. After the last ten years of marketing gimmicks designed to drive traffic sales people and management have become price sellers rather than value sellers.

Untrained sales people believe price is the deciding factor, but this is not true. Price is a myth and this can be proven when a true sales person builds value, desire, trust and urgency to own the product through his communication and presentation skills. It is impossible to get to the presentation if you are an ineffective communicator. Selling is communication and to the degree you can successfully communicate you can sell! Thin margins and ineffective sales people that believe price is the only solution have put more companies out of business than any other single factor. If your company elects to be the the low-price provider, you had better have every expense category cut to the bone, including sales commissions, and better be able to make up the differences with large volumes, which is highly suspect in this environment, or you will perish in short order! I can give you an almost endless list of companies that have failed using this strategy.

Credible communication, non confronational-information assisted and fully prepared sales people is what will make the difference in how effective you are as a sales person. In the 30 years that I have been involved with sales there has never been a time when it is more important to make your people effective communicators so that they can effectively sell products and not waste opportunities.

Grant Cardone – NY Times Best Selling author and Sales Training Expert. www.grantcardone.com

The Sheriff even reported a customer coming into the service department with a detailing coupon printed right off their fan page (compliments of DealerFire).  I still believe that 2011 will be the official year of coupons being cool again.  Throwing up a button on the Ernie Dean website that announced the movement saw some immediate results.

These Facebook fan page promos have been going on for a while now and I will admit the $1 to charity hook was inspired by the team at Mills GMC in Oshawa.  The key to success with these type of promotions is to get your local community social influencers involved.  Sticking a Facebook button on your website will do NOTHING!.

Numbers as of Tuesday November, 23: “Like” Ernie Dean Chevrolet

The biggest addition to this challenge was donated by Dealer Fire, located in Oshkosh Wisconsin.  They caught wind of this promo through popular social media channels Facebook and Twitter.  Dealer Fire is allowing Ernie Dean Chevrolet test their popular coupon app for Facebook.  This nifty little coupon is fully printable and easy to track conversion from a Fan Page.

Sam “the sheriff” will have to rally the troops in order to get over the 300 hump this week. Stay tuned, stay social.

Dealer Fire Facebook Coupon:

Dealer Fire Facebook Coupon

The easiest way to pick up fans fast is the “Suggest to friends” feature on the fan page.  However, as many dealers have realized this can be a tedious process going through the entire friend list and clicking each individual person.  Nightclub promoters have mastered this ages ago with getting social influencers to invite their entire list.  Who is and “influencer” for your dealership???

• Your entire staff
• Current customers that are happy with your store

There is an easy way to have your staff and customers spread the word about your dealership.  Below is a video that was created by Tim Linden.

Find the code here!! 

Imagine doing this with just 30 people connected to your dealership!!!!!

By: Ryan Thompson

Ernie Dean Chevrolet started today with 35 fans.  I am going to work along side Sam “the sheriff” Williams to try and generate 1000 Facebook fans by 2011.   I will keep the automotive marketing nation updated on the progress.  Today we went from 35 to a whopping 60.

DealerRater Dealer page

Just last month my girlfriend and I made a last minute decision to drive to Manhattan for the weekend.  Without months to plan the trip we needed to book a hotel quickly.  After spending only one night scouring Hotels.com, Trip Advisor, Travelocity, and another dozen sites, we settled on a destination.  The hotel turned out to be great and the user review sites really helped us make the right decision in choosing our crash pad for the 3-day excursion.

Enter the car dealership.  When I was on the sales floor I quickly understood that referrals and word of mouth were a big part of our business.  Dealers should realize that it is just as important to be aware of what potential customers are reading and writing about their dealership.  If you want to do a quick test, try typing “Toronto Toyota” in a Google search and make note of the dealers that appear beside the map (7 pack in geek terms).  You will see that beside the phone number, the reviews of these dealerships are showcased.  Such powerful reviews are just one click away from your potential customers.  Ratings can be posted directly on your Google Place page or extracted from various review sites such as DealerRater.  Want to see a dealer that has hit it right out of the Rogers Center on to Front Street?  Try typing “Toyota dealer MA”.  The last time I checked this dealer, Acton Toyota, it had 1,019 reviews associated with their dealership listing, with the vast majority of reviews coming directly fromDealerRater.  Since Google Maps is so visible, it is critical for a dealership to have their page loaded with positive reviews from their customer base.

What the heck is DealerRater? –

 Founded in 2002, DealerRater® established the first car dealer review website worldwide. As a social network and user review website, DealerRater.com features more than 30,000 US and International car dealers, 190,000 user reviews and over 1,000,000 classified ads.  The site attracts more than 3 million consumers every year who visit the site to search for car dealerships, read current reviews, write their own descriptive reviews, and find car deals – all for free.  Car dealers are rated on the criteria of customer service, quality of work, friendliness, price and overall experience.  In addition, both consumers and car dealerships may post free auto classified ads.  DealerRater’s users may request vehicle quotes and the company’s Certified Dealers receive free vehicle leads. 

Source – DealerRater.com

How do I make DealerRater work for me?

With more than 250,000 people joining the DealerRater user community each month, DealerRater is quickly becoming an important online resource for anyone seeking third-party information on car dealerships.   The site is equally important to today’s car dealers for a number of reasons.    DealerRater helps Dealers stay in touch with customer feedback and also gives Dealers access to an ever expanding market of potential customers.   In addition, the content on DealerRater’s site is jam-packed with customer reviews and classified ads, all of which appear in organic Google Search results.  As a result, as a dealer you are able to expand your online presence and achieve higher search engine ranking across the Web with the help of DealerRater’s user-generated site content.

But what about negative customer reviews that may pop up from time to time?  Through DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program, DealerRater offers qualified dealers the opportunity to actively monitor and respond to customer reviews and save relationships.  Certified Dealers can take advantage of a two-week reconciliation period to communicate with unsatisfied customers through a privatewebsite panel before negative reviews are publicly posted.  Given this key feature of DealerRater’s Certified Dealer Program, as a Certified Dealer you can actively manage your online reputation and address customer feedback, enabling you to retain more customers and generate increased business.

Dealer Panel

Another interesting feature DealerRater offers its Certified Dealers involves complete integration with the popular social networking site, Facebook.   This recent addition offered by DealerRater allows a Dealer’s most recent positive user reviews to automatically feed to a custom tab on the Dealer’s Facebook Page, which is updated real time.  A Dealer’s classified ads also can feed to a custom tab on the Dealer’s Facebook Page, and are updated daily.  As a result, as a Certified Dealer, you can draw leads directly from your Facebook fan page.Additional Program Highlights

• Positive Review Testimonial Feed – As a Certified Dealer, your most recent 10 positive reviews feed to your website and automatically update as new reviews are added, enabling you to gain instant website client testimonials that are labeled “Powered By DealerRater.com”.
• Unlimited Vehicle Leads - Certified Dealers receive instant email alerts for all leads generated for their brand in their state.  Leads can be fed directly into a CRM system.
• Employee Review Pages - Certified Dealers have “MyReviews Pages” for your employees to showcase their respective reviews. 
• Unlimited Auto Classified Ads -As a Certified Dealer, you can place an unlimited number of auto classified ads on DealerRater’s website.  Ads also appear on AutoSpies.com and in organic Google search results.  DealerRater provides inventory upload management from your Dealer Management System to the DealerRater database.  Dealers can list vehicles with multiple photos and Dealer notes to generate leads on specific vehicles in your inventory.

There are a number of user- based review sites all over the Web that dealerships can utilize.  DealerRater has created a model that works for both the buyer and the seller.  Stop storing those thank you cards on your desk and start getting those positive reviews in front of potential customers.

By: Ryan Thompson

“Ryan is an active on-line marketer, blogger, and Canadian Account Manager for Car Chat 24”