Hi Jordan,
Been a while since I've hopped on Dealer Refresh, but I saw your post this evening and couldn't resist.
Reason being, I also broke into Management with the opportunity to run a tiny underperforming store in a large dealer group. Our used car department was a separate location as well. It was slightly larger than what you're describing, averaging in the low- mid teens per month. Long story short, we broke into the 40's and 50's on a regular basis in less than 2 years. No matter how daunting the task may feel, hang in there, it's worth it!
Fair warning, what I'm about to suggest is going to be terribly oversimplified or else I'd have to type a novel. They're in no particular order and can be placed into 2 categories.
1. Digital.
*Youtube Capture. Do short walk around videos of your new car inventory in advance and upload them on you own Mitsu youtube channel. When an e-lead comes in, send the link to the one (or the closest match) they're interested in. Create a virtual tour of your dealership, your service drive and most importantly, you. Anything and everything your customers are wondering about can be addressed using this simple tool. More examples of this are mentioned below.
*Be the first to respond 24/7. Shut off all your auto responses and templates. Why have an auto response saying you're closed at 3:00am when most people are aware of this. Instead, try sending a short email from your cell when you wake up. Make a joke about it "You caught me sleeping last night, but I'll be back to the dealership shortly" Whatever it is, you're unique, show them. For example, when a lead comes in during normal business hours, send them an immediate "I just received your request for xyz price, availability, information etc. and am gathering that info now. I'm also going to take a short walk around video so you can get a better look. You should see everything in your inbox in about 15 minutes, but I'll give you a call to make sure it went though" Do Not say things like "If you need anything, please else let me know" because you'll be the blue guy in the corner holding your breath 99% of the time. Plus you're placing the burden of follow up on your customer.
*Be interesting. Have a picture of yourself and a video link introducing yourself in your email signature for new leads. Have a video of you explaining your why buy message on your website. Why should anyone care? Why should they buy from you? What are some points of pain in the Mitsu world you can solve for people? Concierge test drives? Express delivery options? Service advantages? Everyone is the biggest, the best, the cheapest, family owned, so spare your customers the white noise and DO NOT USE SALESY LANGUAGE!!!
*Add real value. Post actual comments in your new car descriptions instead of just vin decoded nonsense. No one reads that garbage. Some people make the mistake of thinking that adding real comments only helps with used cars, but its great for new cars too. List the packages, features, anything that makes that car hot. Include an example lease/finance option for that exact car. Since you don't do used cars, have a "good, better, best" price range for that model perhaps.
To sum up Digital in a sentence, "Learn to love custom video content"
2. Owner base
*You mentioned that you saw an award for 25 years of service. That means you're in a unique position to now have 100% of 25 years worth of orphaned owners! Create a mailer to introduce yourself as their go to guy for anything Mitsu. At the very least create an email blast with a youtube video to send previous owners.
*See if your other stores are using any equity mining tools and work the crap out of it. Work with your pre-owned managers to create soft offers for service customers to simply purchase their vehicle. It's a great way to meet your current owner base without trying to sell them anything if done correctly. Get up early and hang out in the service drive. Sucks getting up early, but the rewards are amazing.
If you've been keeping track of how much all of these ideas cost, you'll notice a trend. They don't cost anything other than your time and commitment to really own your place in the market. When people think Mitsubishi within 100 miles of your store, you're face needs to pop into their head like a light bulb. I'm sure you could try to hire or pay someone to do the things mentioned and before long it may make more sense to do so. In my case, our 1 sales person soon became 2, then 3, then 4 sales, then we even got our own dedicated finance manager (thank the lord).
You have an awesome opportunity and I'll be pulling for you. The fact that you're already on here looking for advice means you're headed in the right direction. Good luck!
