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Salesperson with a budget, you keep all the leads... What do you do?

Grace Wilkins

Lot Lizard
May 12, 2014
8
6
First Name
Grace
Hello everyone. I've been reading this for a few months but decided to sign up to ask for some guidance. I'm currently working primarily as a salesperson but I also do a number of jobs that somehow fall under my responsibility. The dealership has recently changed from franchised to independent, and the main store has downsized, with a few other locations planned in the near future. The moral of the story here is that standing by the door isn't going to give me the opportunity to sell the number of cars I want. I've been given a little money to play with and the stipulation that the leads I generate are mine (Theoretically, I think I'll at least keep 50-75% of them when the rubber hits the road). Thus far, I've been doing facebook specials and listing used cars on craigslist. The majority of our customers are subprime credit, but we were really underwhelmed by the Auto Credit Express leads and thus I'm hesitant to go that direction again. If you were a salesperson in this position, which direction would you want to go? Third party leads seem to be the most appealing because it's easy for me to track as opposed to calls or website leads coming in where the customer could end up with another salesperson. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or would like any details! -Grace
 
Wow! Grace Wilkins! I didn't know you were selling cars now. That is killer! Hope you're still keeping up with my cousin Ben and I'm glad to see you on DealerRefresh :thumbup:

Knowing your marketplace I would highly advice looking into lead providers that specialize in the military. The MILES program would be excellent to look at, and there is always Zag (although I had some criminal experiences with them during my Checkered Flag days). Keep up Craigslist if you have the inventory for it.
 
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I'm not really sure about craigslist with our inventory, but I've been putting payments in the titles and at least have been getting some calls. I know we do a few MILES deals a month, and I can do enough of the F&I that if I went that direction, I don't think I'd get slaughtered for inviting in that much extra paperwork. Do they offer leads? I know my CAC rep is pushing his leads right now, I'll have to ask the MILES rep next time he's here.

Your cousin is a tough guy to keep track of, and neither of our bosses are too fond of setting us loose for any kind of decent lunch break. I'll gave to see if I can grab him for dinner sometime!
 
Despite what any vendor sells you (hopefully Yago stays out of this thread) Craigslist is a tough animal to work. But there are some gems on it as long as you're mentally prepared to handle the crap you have to sift through to find those gems. Admittedly, I'm not a super huge help when it comes to the secondary credit market. I never had a need to push into it too deep.
 
Craigslist really depends on the market, but I'll concede that Alex obviously knows your market better. Out in Montana people love Craigslist and their free car flier every weekend.

I would actually suggest investing in a camera with a decent wireless mic, and recording videos targeting potential keyword phrases. Post it once to Youtube with the optimized text, and once onto your own blog using Vimeo or similar program that allows for microdata formats. Just make sure to have different file names and titles for each. This will give you a chance to have your video rank twice in the search results. You could also use One Load to upload your videos to a bunch of sites at once, but I usually recommend just Vimeo and Youtube.

I would create these videos:
Used Cars "City"
- Create a Used Car video for each of the markets you are targeting. Explain your unique selling propositions, and tell them why they should buy from you.

Auto Loans "City"
- This one isn't searched as consistently, but it sounds like it might be in your wheel house. Again, explain why people should work with you on their auto loans.

Bad Credit Auto Loans "City"
- Same as the other auto loan video, but target bad credit, bankruptcy and other messy histories.

Used Brand City
- Create videos like Used Honda Norfolk to target new buyers that you could possibly switch over.


You could also create a series of videos talking about different service related items. If you have a shop at your store you could just talk to the service manager to see what's going on that day, and then coordinate recording some for a video. I was lucky enough to work with very marketing oriented service managers, so they usually let me do my thing.

I kind of mentioned this in the video part, but I'd also start a blog. You can get a wordpress website up for under $100 / year. You could also add your inventory with a plugin like DealerTrend, but I think they are about $300 month. Anyway, a basic wordpress website is easy to set up, and would give you your own brand presence to help sell cars. You could then drive all social actions to that blog.
 
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You know, videos are one of the projects that got thrown my way and quickly forgotten because I was too busy trying to sell cars. I know it's good for SEO, which we're already pretty strong in to my knowledge, but it seems like it would be hard for it to translate to concrete leads and thus my getting paid for the work since I'm straight commission. This is not to say I won't do it, just that if anyone has a good idea for pitching a way to keep the traffic I generate versus it all being funneled to the internet people (who also sell cars, not just schedule appointments) Hope I'm making sense here. As the dealer's kid, it's easy for me to get involved doing a million jobs I don't get paid for because I want the place to be its best, and then I'm wasting sales hours decorating the service lounge for free or something. Fine line! As for the camera, would you recommend the GoPro? I know I was toying around with doing videos about commonly declined repairs it seemed to be the front runner.
 
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Phase 1.) Build your Website to convert visitors at optimum levels.
Phase 2.) Seek out additional visitors via SEO and SEM tactics.
Phase 3.) Profit.

If you wanted to work on a bad ass Workflow for responses that might not be a bad idea either. GOOD LUCK

PS I really hope someone pics up on my South Park reference above.
 
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I know it's good for SEO, which we're already pretty strong in to my knowledge, but it seems like it would be hard for it to translate to concrete leads and thus my getting paid for the work since I'm straight commission.

I just pulled a SEMRush.com report to get a quick glimpse at your SEO, and your main website is missing out on some potential keywords:

Car Dealerships Norfolk VA - Est. 50 Searches / Month - Rank 13
used car dealers in Norfolk va - Est. 50 Searches / Month - Rank 20

I think with a few tweaks someone could get this site up higher into the rankings pretty quickly. Whoever does your current SEO should sign up for Moz, and make some of the adjustments they suggest in their reports. Also, ask anyone that you donate to if they would link back to your website.

As for your videos, I'd suggest sending them to your own website. You could also push referrals back to your own website, just to make sure you take full advantage of them. GoPro wouldn't be ideal for this application because of it's limitations with recording sound. From what I saw when I googled it appears that you need an adapter to attach a corded mic. You will want something wireless with some noise cancellation for better sound quality. When I looked into it a couple years ago we found a solution for under $300. It's probably even cheaper now.

Daniel, I thought step two was unknown? I think everyone's mantra should be like the gnomes:

Phase 1) Get visitors to your website
Phase 2) ?
Phase 3) Profit
 
Grace,


I don't know your area for CraigsList but look into other towns or posting areas that may be close to you that are not your primary posting town.

Because you do the CL ads independently from one area to the next, I think that you could add one image to the photo sequence with an offer like Hooklogic and see if that entices people to drive to see you from afar.
 
SEO at times gets tough given the changes Google keeps making and the presence of review sites and OEMs competing even at the local level - but grab that Google Places listing and see if there are any local communities in Google Plus. Craigslist works, have even seen people come through eBay