Jim Rucker - How often do you search Google and the other search engines for your dealership name? Weekly? Monthly? Rarely? You should be doing it often. Your potential customers do. It's actually the most important ...
Read More →Greg Goebel - It only seems appropriate that this month’s column focus on the auto finance companies that are serving the special finance market. Without a doubt, it has been a tumultuous year, but contrary to the perspective of many dealers, finance companies are still issuing loans. One of the most often-asked questions I used to receive was, “Who is hot?” Nowadays, it has become, “Who is in the market?” The good news is that there are still options ...
Read More →Many dealers dig into reports that spell out how many units each salesperson sold, how many ROs the service department has written and how many ancillary products the F&I office has sold. As informative as the data in those reports are, they are all history reports and don’t do much to drive more traffic or sales. Today, many dealers are digging through their ...
Read More →For the three Dagenais brothers, one of the biggest challenges they faced while negotiating to buy out the local Ford store in Escanaba, Mich., involved keeping their pledge of strict confidentiality. In a Midwestern town like Escanaba, that commitment required ...
Read More →Mark O'Neil - ...think about the most successful retailers across the country, operators such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot or Best Buy. One thing they have in common is they don’t leave much ...
Read More →Jason Ezell - Although OEM sites are still the most visited by online shoppers, third-party sites are no longer the second most visited sites. For the first time, dealership Web sites are the second most visited Web sites by online car shoppers! A reported 60 percent of these shoppers went to the ...
Read More →Unlike traditional financing, where a dealer earns his profit at the time of sale, BHPH dealers earn their profits over long periods of time. This business model, on more than a very small-scale operation, can quickly drive a dealer out of cash and business. The solution for many BHPH dealers is ...
Read More →Jim Rucker - The scope of the automotive industry has changed over the last several months. Web sites are becoming more functional, offering the quality that consumers demand when trying to research vehicles online. They're not all perfect, but for the most part, they offer inventory, credit applications and other ...
Read More →Greg Goebel - Suddenly it became crystal clear. Well, maybe not crystal, but for the first time in a long time, I really get it. I understand the special finance landscape from many of the finance companies’ perspectives, which also gives me a leg up on trying to help give dealers better ...
Read More →No doubt, many finance offices feel like they’ve been on a bit of a roller coaster ride over the past 11 months, with finance companies tightening their belts, exiting the subprime sector, exiting leasing, dropping dealers or ...
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