It doesn't seem like TrueCar is going to have such a Merry Christmas this year.

Since Jeff wrote about TrueCar and some of their tatics back in June - Edmunds TMV vs TrueCar – Dealers, wake up! , others are helping to bring this situation to the fore front. It's great to see our industry come together and express our concerns and opinions around this TrueCar debacle. I can't recall another time where dealers and industry goo-roos have reached and leverage so many channels of online news and social to not only express their opinions but also help amplify the message.

The automotive industry has been energized and polarized surrounding the TrueCar business model.  Since dealers are for and against the model, it is very important to follow the legal implications of the TrueCar process.

As promised, I told you that various State regulators and Dealer Associations were drafting letters to their constituents and members warning of potential legal concerns.

The Colorado Department of Revenue issued this letter on December 15, 2011 and I expect more similar letters to follow.   The TrueCar discussion is now moving into a legal discussion with dealers facing potential fines for participating on a model that regulators may deem as violating State laws.

Take a peek at this letter and share your thoughts.  I’ll have a few more letters to share in the coming weeks as they are drafted and published.



For a larger version of the letter view it on the Colorado Government site.

Addition by Jeff Kershner...

Another TrueCar UPDATE: Group 1, the nation's fourth-largest auto retailer, last week ordered all participating stores to cut ties with TrueCar.com - Click here to read the article. I had heard about this last friday and sent out a tweet that received several responses (follow @dealerrefresh on twitter). This apparently was brought to light during a meeting with their local Honda Representatives.

The year is 1932 and you’re working at the Hawthorne Factory, a dusty, smelly factory just outside Chicago. You’ve worked the same assembly line for 20 years and have lived through countless lame brain ideas from management to squeeze out more productivity: hire more workers, buy new machinery, work longer hours….yeah yeah yeah, big deal. Are the Cubbies playing today?

One day, just when you think you’ve heard them all, Bossman strolls onto the factory floor (cigar in mouth, no doubt) with a new plan to push productivity up a notch. He says he’s simply going to crank up the lights in the factory and by doing so, productivity should increase. So, he does just that but for the first time ever, he actually hires a gentleman to measure this whimsical experiment. This stiff looking guy stands there taking notes and when the results steam in, it was your best day ever. Bossman thinks he’s figured it out…crank the lights!!

When his findings are published, a couple of brainiacs step back and look through a different lens. They come to your factory and ask to take a different approach. They dim the lights, nearly dark. Again, the stiff looking guy takes notes about the lighting experiment and again, your factory has a banner day. So, what does Bossman have to say about that! Dimming lights also leads to productivity…dim the lights!!

What happened here?

Did we learn anything?

Remember the factory name? “Hawthorne Works”…Well, from this experiment, every organizational management course in colleges across the country has at least a couple days worth of curriculum: textbooks call this “The Hawthorne Effect.” So what does it mean?


The Hawthorne Effect says “the simple act of measuring something will affect performance.” At the Hawtorne Factory, lighting had nothing to do with the productivity increases. It was the stiff guy with the notepad! The mere fact that worker performance was being measured and monitored by this guy caused workers to work harder. So why do you care? While I certainly hope your dealership isn’t dusty OR smelly, the Hawthorne Factory is just like your dealership. Measuring and monitoring performance will positively affect the productivity of your dealership.

Vendors often get caught up in a pitch of 38 different features that will improve your life. Heck, it’s easy for any dealership to get caught up in those 38 features and we certainly recommend taking advantage of everything. But we also shouldn’t forget the basics: Are you listening to your sales team’s phone calls? Service calls? I don't have to tell you that improved phone skills translates to improved sales.

Measuring and monitoring that phone performance is as simple as using a tracking number and recording your dealership’s calls. You can then listen to your inbound and outbound phone calls (yes, I said outbound too). When they know you’re reviewing phone calls, you’ll be shocked at how much they improve. It’s not about “big brother” though and it should never be framed as such. It’s about investing time in your people and helping them improve.

How about taking a great phone session, hitting “Share this call,” and sending it to your sales team with notes as an example of a rock star job? Highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly and the Hawthorne Effect will rear it’s beautiful head.

How are you leveraging your call tracking and recording at the dealership to improve productivity and performance?

Credit cards are a necessary evil.

Yes, that’s right. I’m calling credit cards evil.

It’s trendy in this day and age to be angry at banks, Wall Street, and people that make money, but in this case, the anger is well-placed. Credit card companies are doing everything possible to take as much money as possible out of your business as they can, and they do a great job of it. With so many people paying with credit cards, not accepting them is not an option. So how can you help your dealership maximize profit and minimize card processing fees?

Simple. You need a guy on the inside who can point you in the right direction. As a former Five-Star Dodge Dealership service advisor, mechanic, and business-to-business dealership CRM sales rep turned credit-card processing salesman, I’m here to help. What follows are some insider tips on dealing with your credit card processing account.

Understanding the Vocabulary is Key

Credit card companies want you to stay confused, pay your bill, and not ask questions. As a result, statements are vastly different between processers and terminology is varied. Here are a few basic terms that you will need to understand before you can really understand the hustle.

1. Per-item fees: Charges that the processing company assigns to every transaction swiped. Usually a dollar amount, ex. $0.10 per item. Basis Points: The percentage amount the processing company charges as a fee. There are one hundred basis points in one percent. 10 basis points = 0.010 percent.
   
2. Downgrade: A card transaction that is higher risk, qualifying for a surcharge.
   
3. Surcharge: The extra amount credit card processers charge for higher-risk transactions, such as card not present, key entered, address verification not matching, etc.
   
4. Assessments: A flat fee paid to Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express as a percent of each transaction.
   
5. Interchange: A percentage of each transaction paid to the card issuing bank (MBNA, PNC, Bank of America, Citibank, etc.)
   
6. Discount Rate: It’s not a discount at all – this is the amount of money per transaction that you are paying to the credit card processing company

Nobody Gets the Qualified Rate

The qualified rate is the rate that you pay on the lowest-risk card transactions -- card present, card swiped. Many companies will offer you a low “qualified” rate, because most merchants think that the qualified rate is the rate they will pay on all transactions.

“Well, if I swipe all my transactions, I qualify, right?” WRONG. 90% of credit card transactions downgrade automatically. So, no matter how low, you’re almost never getting that “qualified” rate.

Why? Here are just a few reasons:

1. Rewards cards automatically downgrade (95% of cards are rewards cards)
   
2. Transactions aren’t settled daily (cashier forgets to batch out)
   
3. Corporate cards downgrade to the highest possible surcharge rate.

Don’t fall prey to the sales pitch of “flat” rate, either. There’s no such thing. The credit card companies control downgrades, the processing companies do not. Visa and Mastercard have lists, updated regularly, that show the various types of downgrades and the surcharges that they require. The only thing the credit card processing company can control is their own surcharges on downgraded transactions – which brings us to the only way to eliminate surcharges altogether.

Interchange and Assessments Pricing – The Holdback of the Credit Card World

The best possible rate you can get from a credit card processing company is the one they are least likely to offer you – Interchange and Assessments pricing. I&A pricing (also known as Pass-Through pricing) means that you are charged the actual percentage rate paid to the issuing banks and the credit card companies, plus a small percentage and per item fee to the processer. In I&A pricing, your rate is usually expressed as a number of Basis points plus a number of cents (the per item fee). With I&A Pricing, the processing company is giving up the opportunity to make money on you with surcharges for downgraded transactions. It’s the best possible price you can get. Here’s how it works.

Conventional pricing: Your friend asks you to buy them a candy bar on your way back from lunch. You know that the candy bar costs $1.00, plus 6% tax. You ask your co-worker for two dollars. This covers the candy bar, the sales tax, and 94 cents, which is your “spread,” or the profit you make. This is great if you are doing this once or twice a month, and your friend doesn’t notice or care.

Interchange and Assessments: Your friend asks you to pick him up a candy bar on your way back from lunch – every day. If you charge him $2 every time, he’ll realize how much extra he’s paying and do it himself. You know that the candy bar costs $1.00, plus 6% tax, so you ask him for $1.11 – covering the cost of the candy bar, the tax, and a small spread of five cents. You’ll only make $1.00 doing that every business day for a month. But it’s better than making nothing at all.

Interchange and Assessments pricing is usually reserved for VIP customers or very high-volume accounts. Most car dealerships fall under the “high-volume account” range. Despite that fact, most credit card processers will only give I&A pricing as a last resort. You’re going to have to ask for it.

This is Just the Beginning

What I’ve given you here is just a sharpened stick to help you through the wilderness of credit card processing. Just like the automotive industry, the credit card industry is huge and multi-layered, with its own intricacies, tricks, and traps. If you have more questions, feel free to email me, and I’ll try to help you through them. As automotive professionals (or in my case, former automotive professionals) we have to look out for each other, right?

CarWoo! Fuels Continued Growth With $6M In New Funding

December 14, 2011 – Burlingame, Calif. – CarWoo! announces the closing of a $6M funding round, bringing total funding to over $12M. With the funding, CarWoo! is adding industry veterans Rudi Thun, formerly General Manager of AOL Autos, and Phil Yeh, previously from Dealix.

CarWoo! finalized the additional funding from investors InterWest Partners, Comcast Ventures, Blumberg Capital, Raymond Tonsing and others. Having more than quadrupled its dealer network over the past year to over 11,000 dealers, CarWoo! intends to use this round of funding to continue that level of growth with their consumers, to launch new products, to further develop the team and to cultivate strategic partnerships.

Michael Yang, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures, says, “We are excited to be part of such a fast growing company. The trajectory that CarWoo! is on with regard to engaging car shoppers, dealers, and automotive manufacturers has accelerated over the last year. CarWoo! has positioned themselves as the win-win solution in the industry.”

The addition of Thun as Chief Operating Officer and Yeh as Vice President of Marketing brings additional industry specific expertise and discipline to the existing CarWoo! team.

Thun comes to CarWoo! after over nine years at AOL, where he was responsible for the strategy, product, marketing, editorial, design, and development of AOL Autos and Autoblog.com. During the past several years Thun doubled AOL’s automotive web traffic to over 10M unique visitors per month while also doubling revenue. Thun is a graduate of Cornell University and earned an MBA from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

“CarWoo! is the most innovative online automotive company I have seen in a long time,” says Thun. “When the opportunity came to join the CarWoo! team, I was eager to jump on board. I truly believe that CarWoo! will permanently change the way cars are bought and sold and I really look forward to being a part of the change.”

Click to expand...

Yeh joins CarWoo! from SpeedDate.com where he was also Vice President of Marketing. Previously, he spent four years at Dealix, the largest lead provider to auto dealers nationwide, where he was Director of Marketing and ran consumer marketing for automotive portals including UsedCars.com. Yeh holds a degree in Business Administration and attended Santa Clara University School of Law.

“Having Rudi and Phil join our team, closing this round of funding, and demonstrating the strong progress to date are all great endorsements of what we are doing,” says Tommy McClung, CEO of CarWoo!. “We have gained significant traction throughout the industry. CarWoo! is supporting over 11,000 dealers, and with our new initiatives in 2012, we are poised to become the foremost online destination for car buyers and sellers alike.”

Click to expand...

About CarWoo!
CarWoo! provides the online MarketPlace where buyers get great deals with no games and dealers are able sell cars online using their own unique approaches with a full understanding of the buyers through the CarWoo! transparent MarketPlace. Buyers remain anonymous, get great market prices, save a ton of time and dealers are ensured buyers who purchase within 3.5 days 80% of the time. As seen on The Today Show, CNN Money and other leading national media outlets, CarWoo! is the only true online MarketPlace for car buyers and sellers. CarWoo! was founded in 2008 by serial entrepreneurs, Tommy McClung, Erik Landerholm and Michael Young. With early funding by Y Combinator, CarWoo! is based in Burlingame, CA and is now funded by Blumberg Capital, Comcast Ventures and InterWest Partners, and others. Find us on Facebook at Carwoo and on Twitter at twitter.com/carwoo.

What's going over there at Dominion Dealer Solutions?


So many solutions under one umbrella...

• @utoRevenue (email marketing and online service scheduler - I'm a big fan of this service, personally)
  
• AVV Web Control (one of  our industries robust ILM services)
  
• Autobase CRM (been around forever)
  
• Dealerskins and XIGroup (merged earlier this year)
  
• Prime Response (reputation management software)
  
• DataOne Software (VIN and Automarket Data)
  
• SelectQu (DMS data extraction)
  
• CrossSell (vehicle sales data and reporting)
  
• Dealer Specialties (window sticker, photo service and inventory management)
  
• GetAuto.com (3rd party inventory listing site like Cars.com and AutoTrader)

...that's a long list of product offerings to dealers. What I find in my conversations and travels, is that many dealers are not aware that Dominion is the owner of all these services. As you review the services, it starts to mirror some of the other big players out there...

For several years now they have been under a non-compete with AutoTrader.com with some of their services like GetAuto.com. These non-competes are now coming to an end.

What's the future holding for Dominion Dealer Solutions??

The press release is after the jump..

December 13, 2011 – Dominion Dealer Solutions, an industry leader in automotive technology and services and a division of Dominion Enterprises, announced today the reorganization and unification of its businesses and products. These changes, as reported by Robert Berndt, president of Dominion Dealer Solutions, reflect the company’s objective to deliver a single and complete set of solutions for customer, inventory and marketing technology to their automotive dealer customers.

Promoted throughout 2011 as Dominion CRM, Inventory and Websites, the individual businesses of Dominion Dealer Solutions have aligned their products and services to more quickly meet dealer needs. Dealerskins and XIGroup merged early in 2011 to provide higher quality custom websites for auto dealers. @utoRevenue, AVV Web Control and Autobase combined under the Autobase brand in early summer 2011 as a unified CRM and marketing services provider. Dealer Specialties has provided inventory data, analytics and reports to dealers for over 20 years and is collaborating more closely with Cross-Sell market research in the new Dominion Inventory division. In addition to these business transitions, the leadership of Dominion Dealer Solutions has been realigned in order to provide higher quality products and services to both dealer and OEM customers.

Rich Crawford, formerly vice president in charge of CRM and direct marketing, is now vice president of product management for Dominion Dealer Solutions. Rich has been working in the automotive industry since joining Dominion in 2004, initially in a business development/acquisition role, then as the force behind Dominion’s CRM strategy. The leadership of Rich’s team consists of automotive veterans: Bryan Anderson, Brice Englert, Ed Braunbeck, Sean Conley and Alan Andreu, who together have built the largest single CRM business in the automotive industry. According to Berndt, “This new organization empowers Dominion’s expertise as first-movers in inventory, digital marketing and sales solutions. In 2012, our seamless product suite will be the smartest choice to drive automotive business results.”

George Nenni, formerly vice president of Dominion Dealer Services, has taken on the role of vice president of operations for Dominion Dealer Solutions. George will be in charge of implementation, training, call centers and customer support for Dominion Dealer Solutions. George began his work in the automotive industry with Dealer Specialties in 1993. He has been instrumental in the creation of the Dominion Dealer Solutions brand. His history in the automotive industry, combined with his keen eye for understanding customer needs, will be a significant asset in this new role. George was a panelist at AutoRemarketing’s CPO conference last month, and contributes a monthly column to Dealer Communication’s magazine. George added, “This organizational alignment supports our technology integration. By bringing together the best operational talent within our company, we will be able to more effectively onboard, train and support our customers."

Adam Dennis, most recently a consultant for Dominion Dealer Solutions, has joined the company as vice president of product development. Previously, Adam was the owner and general manager of XIGroup, which Dominion Dealer Solutions purchased from him in 2005. Using both U.S. and foreign resources, Adam is responsible for delivering products quickly and efficiently, integrating usability standards throughout the development process, and oversee the technology development department of Dominion Dealer Solutions. As Dominion Dealer Solutions seeks to deliver not only strong products independently, but also as a single solution, Adam’s team will work to ensure that adequate resources and development work are well coordinated with excellent project management for both dealers and OEMs.

Bill Leek, formerly vice president of sales for Autobase, is now the vice president of sales for Dominion Dealer Solutions. Bill oversees a newly unified sales team, including nationwide field representatives for both the CRM and Digital Marketing divisions of Dominion Dealer Solutions. Bill Leek has more than 22 years of experience in the automotive industry. Fourteen of those years were spent in the dealership retail setting in various sales and sales management positions. He has extensive automotive industry knowledge and a deep understanding of today’s current technologies. This combination enables Bill to identify appropriate solutions for dealers to maximize their sales and performance results. His prior experience in management and sales in the automotive CRM & DMS industry includes ADP and Newgen Results.

”With the advent of 2012, Dominion Dealer Solutions is moving forward stronger and faster than ever,” noted Robert Berndt, president of Dominion Dealer Solutions. “This is an exciting time for employees, dealers and OEMs to be involved with us. 2011 has been a year marked by continuing introductions of innovations such as our reputation management and equity products. Solutions scheduled for delivery in 2012 will make it our largest innovation year yet. Our new organizational structure allows us to deliver excellent products to our customers more quickly. ”

About Dominion Dealer Solutions
Dominion Dealer Solutions helps car dealers attract, retain, and service customers for life. Dominion Dealer Solutions' marketing performance system includes: lead generation, mobile apps, reputation management solutions, web-based customer relationship and lead management tools; custom digital marketing tools including websites, SEO, SEM, digital advertising, specialized data aggregation; and inventory management analytics including market reports. Every OEM and more than 60 percent of auto dealers nationwide utilize Dominion Dealer Solutions' technologies to solve their marketing challenges.

Dominion Dealer Solutions is a division of Dominion Enterprises, a leading marketing services and publishing company serving the automotive, recreational and commercial vehicle, real estate, apartment rental, employment, parenting, travel, and daily deals industries. The company’s businesses provide a comprehensive suite of technology-based marketing solutions including Internet advertising, lead generation, CRM, website design and hosting, and data management services. The company has more than 60 market-leading websites reaching more than 20.9 million unique visitors monthly, and more than 280 magazines with a weekly circulation of 2.4 million. Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the company has 3,300 employees in more than 186 offices in the United States, Canada, England and Italy.

CarChat24 will provide hosted Free Advanced Auto Dealer Chat Software for (“All Car Dealer’s NEW or Used”) after final Beta testing. Expected release in late January to early February. Hosted Advanced Chat software designed for Car Dealers FREE!

Anyone interested in this always free version should go to the appropriate URL below to register. Once we launch we will send a link to all the registered Always Free users. It’s that simple, sign up now, and as soon as it released, you will get the set up link in your email. From that moment on, you will have ALWAYS FREE AUTO DEALER CHAT SOFTWARE. CarChat24 reserves the right to end this Free offering in the future, but will always provide the free version for anyone who registers while the free version is being offered. So register now and lock in this opportunity. This offer is limited to one registration per dealership/business. New Car Dealer Groups can have one registration per dealership brand. Used Car Dealers can only have one registrant per business name. NOTE: If a dealer group has 5 brands, and wants to register each dealership, they will need to have an individual from each dealership register with the URL and their info (5 Registrations).

Dealers in the U.S. http://carchat24.com/contact.html

Dealers in Canada and other countries http://carchat24.ca/contact.html

Select:  (Always Free Software) from the drop down menu, and feel free to ask us any questions. We cannot reveal some of our unique features and benefits until we officially launch (We have some positive surprises), but we can confidently say it will be better than any other Auto Dealer Chat software currently available. It is proactive and offers several ways to engage visitors, and it will offer Real Time advanced analytics with GEO IP data beyond anything currently offered. It can be used in most any language (advanced automated language translation). It will use the current ADF/XML for your CRM, Also Email your leads, be easy to use, and help you sell more cars .

CarChat24 is getting ready to launch its New Automotive Specific Dealer Chat Software!

In December of 2010 we decided to upgrade, and started building our new dealer chat software based on Today’s Technology.  With over 40 years combined experience in the Car business, and three plus years as a Top Rated 24/7 Dealer Live Chat Support provider, we have built what we believe will Change the way Dealers communicate with their dealership website visitors.

We are very happy we can make this available in a free version, and are looking forward to adding even more exciting features including a Developers API that will allow subscribers the ability to build on top of our advanced framework.

About CarChat24
We provide 24/7 hosted Live Chat Support & Chat Software for new and used car dealership websites.

CarChat24 helps dealers sell more vehicles by converting a higher percentage of their website visitors into quality leads. Our well trained friendly staff, using our state-of-the-art live chat software and our proven proactive chat process, creates a positive experience for dealership website visitors. Since June of 2006, CarChat24 has been helping car dealers improve their sales and customer service on the Internet.

CarChat24 has three offerings:  Auto Dealer Chat Software, 24/7 Staffed Back Up service, and a 24/7 Fully Staffed Complete Support service.

Our mission is to empower car dealers with cutting edge live chat technology, and provide the professional staff and superior processes needed to obtain the best possible results. We are committed to helping our clients get the best return on investment from their websites. We strive to make our support service the very best and are always looking for innovative ways to give our dealers the edge over their competition.

URL: CarChat24

When was the last time you used a phone book to find ANYTHING?

Do you even know where your phone book is?  I don’t!

The Internet is the most important entrance to your dealership. If your phone rings 100 times a week, the internet was involved in 95 of them.



For a moment, take off your car guy hat, go to Google and go car shopping. Are you visible?  Look at your competitors, are they visible?  Every one of your competitors is gunning for that same spot on page one and competition is fierce. How do you win in this game?  Back in the News Print and Yellow Pages days, all you had to do is spend more to get more.

You need brain power to beat your competitors! Having your 2nd cousin do it for you may have worked in 2007, but not anymore, those simple days are gone.

Today, we get to chat with Dev Basu, president of Powered by Search, 1 of only 4 global agencies chosen to participate in the prestigious SEOMoz Search Engine Ranking Factors and David Mihm Local Search Ranking Factors study.

[Moz Ranking Factors] Ranking Factors Home

How to Rank in Google • Local Search Ranking Factors — David Mihm

B2B Marketing Agency | Powered by Search

Dev is one of the most brilliant minds in search in North America.  When Dev is not helping our members in the DealerRefresh forums he is working with automotive tier 2 and tier 3 clients including GM, Honda, Chevrolet, KIA, Nissan, Mazda, Suzuki, and Lincoln delivering unparalleled results via Organic SEO, Local SEO, and Online Reputation Management services.

Having been consistently ranked as a TopSEOs Best in Local Search company with press coverage in traditional media such as The Globe and Mail (Canada), CTV News, and ITBusiness Canada as well as SEO industry publications ranging from SEOmoz to SEOBook, combined with frequent speaking on the topics of SEO, Local Search, and Social Media at conferences such as Search Engine Strategies and Search Marketing Expo, Powered by Search is considered to be a thought leader in the Local Search space.

Dev has always been a straight shooter and I wanted to take a moment and interview him. Let's get started..

Joe - Dev, you have quite a pedigree!  If a Dealer commits to finding a person (or an agency) that can help them conquer Google and Yahoo, (I can see that you’d want a specialist, but,) where does a dealer start? 

Dev - I firmly believe it is important for my clients to understand at least the basics– people should know what they are paying for. Here’s an article where I discuss 15 Questions You Should Be Asking Your SEO Agency

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2009/01/fifteen-things-to-ask-your-seo-agency.html

Joe - Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very competitive and Car dealers are heavily dependent on Local results. 

From a dealer/manager’s perspective, let’s ask direct business questions like, “Why I should care?”, “Will it sell more cars?”, “Is this complex?”, “Compare DIY vs Pro”, If I go Pro, will I see ROI?”   And “will I beat my competitors?”

Let’s hit these one at a time:
1. Why I should care?

Dev - Local customers prefer dealing with local businesses, and auto dealers are no exception. Google and other search engines are the local search of this day and age, having replaced print publications and the Yellow Pages. The bottom line is this: If your dealership cannot be found on major search engines for a local search such as "honda dealer tampa", you're effectively invisible.

50% of new vehicle buyers and 58% of used vehicle buyers said the web was the most influential information source in their purchase decision (PolkView, Feb 2011).

"Search engines are commonly used, with Google cited as a primary mechanism for getting car buyers to the dealership website from which they purchased their vehicle. About half of buyers who visited a dealer website arrived at that site via search," (Survey Finds 70% Of Car Buyers Search Web For Info, Few Use Social Media – Search Engine Watch)
2. Will it sell more cars?

Dev - There is a very strong correlation between obtaining incremental search traffic to your dealership website and the number of contacts and subsequent sales that happen as a result of this traffic. While this can be measured succinctly using web analytics and call tracking platforms, much of the intuitiveness behind this is in the 'consumer intent' of the search term.

The more specific the query being searched, the higher the chances of you as a dealer getting a highly qualified prospect. The type of search can separate a window-shopper from a buyer, and here are a few examples that illustrate this:

Informational:

• 2012 honda civic
  
• 2011 honda civic vs 2011 mazda 3
  
• 2011 honda civic review

Buying queries:

• 2011 honda civic michigan city
  
• best price for 2011 honda civic in michigan city
  
• honda civic dealers in michigan city

3. Is this complex?

Dev - Local search optimization can be incredibly complex to execute, measure, maintain, and iterate, but at its core it relies on 3 things (google specific)

1. Having a properly optimized Google places listing.
   
2. Having consistent dealer Name, Address, and Phone # information throughout the web (3rd party sites, micro-sites, blogs, yellow pages publishers, directories, etc).
   
3. Having many of these references to your business N.A.P (name, address, phone number) throughout the web. The number of reviews your dealership has both on Google places and elsewhere on the web (edmunds, dealerrater, insider pages) is important. We wrote about the 20 most important places to obtain these references (known as citations in the Local SEO industry) at 30 Local SEO Citation Sources for the United States

Joe - DIY vs a Pro?
1.  If I DIY, can you sell me a road map or a manual?

Dev - Though this is not specific to dealers, I wrote a 5 part guide to a Local SEO road-map over at Web Marketing Today and at Business.com

http://www.business.com/guides/learning-local-seo-and-local-search-optimization-48309/

http://www.wilsonweb.com/local/basu-local-seo-intro.htm
 2.   We’re busy selling cars, if I DIY, how long does it take?   Is this something a receptionist can execute (or mess up?)

Dev - A well-executed local seo strategy can take anywhere between 1-2 months to get setup, and then may take a bank of hours every month to continue to market and promote. Note that I did not say 'maintain'. You can maintain a website's hosting or code, but Local SEO is squarely a sub-set of internet marketing.

If you DIY, take the time to assign your dealership's marketing manager or web marketing manager to all your Local SEO activities. Your receptionist will in all likelihood not understand the nuances of local search optimization. Poorly done local SEO can be very detrimental to your business, and even so-called 'qualified' professional in the SEM, Yellow Pages, and Call Tracking industries frequently get it wrong.
3.  If I go pro…   Is this expensive?

Dev - The SEO industry is not regulated and pricing can range wildly from $49 per month to $5000 or more month. How's a dealer to separate the snake oil from the professionals who know the industry best?  Look for the following:

1. The best in the industry are in high-demand and do very little outbound marketing. Good SEO companies are not likely to cold call you repeatedly.
   
2. Is the agency or consultant transparent about what they will be doing to optimize and promote your site?  If they offer a black box approach to marketing, then run for the hills.
   
3. Do they have previous case studies to showcase results with other clients?  Ask for references and ask tough questions.

Pricing models can range from the traditional hourly model, to performance and value based pricing. Powered by Search prices campaigns based on keyword competition and attaches a monthly retainer to our managed campaigns.
5.  Is there ROI?

Dev - Simply saying 'yes' would be an understatement. Next to email marketing, there's no better medium to generate high ROI results. Most of our clients receive an ROI between 500$ - 2500% in their first six months of working with us.

However, most dealerships are terrible at CRM and full funnel conversion tracking. There is a disconnect between the attributed marketing channel that attracted a lead, the cost of that lead, and the final conversion (sale) value. Agencies like ourselves try to bride part of that gap by implementing proper online conversion tracking, call tracking, and CRM integration for larger clients, but to date I have not seen dealers execute an end to end ROI tracking strategy that breaks down by a specific marketing channel.

Joe - Selling cars is a competitive field, if I hire a PRO (like yourself) 
1. Will I get better results than I am seeing now?

Dev - Yes. Setting expectations is paramount, because SEO is not an over-night recipe to higher revenues. That said, the average local business (including all our dealer clients) see tangible and positive results within 90 to 180 days of starting to work with us. This time span differs from agency to agency, but the industry standard is usually within the first 6-9 months unless you're trying to rank for something extremely competitive or generic.
2.  Will I out rank my competitor(s)

Dev - Modern SEO's tend to focus less on achieving rankings and more on attracting qualified traffic. For example, let's say a 1000 people are looking for 'honda dealer nyc'. While a good SEO company or consultant can certainly help you outrank your competition, they will also investigate permutations and combinations of this keyword to create 'key-phrase' rankings that attract more overall traffic. For example:

• honda dealers nyc
  
• honder dealer new york
  
• honda dealers in new york
  
• most reliable honda dealer in new york
  
• new york honda dealer ... and so on.

The idea is to mine your web analytics to see your highest converting keywords and if those are not ranking #1, to make that happen.

Joe - Dev, In your opinion, looking at the Dealer’s internet battle front now, here are the battle fronts I see:

• PPC
  
• Social Media
  
• Local SEO
  
• Organic SEO

 From your vantage point, please rank them in your team’s ability to generate ROI

Dev - Local SEO - We package this as part of Organic SEO month to month full service retainers because of the blended algorithm being more heavily skewed to organic ranking factors. Local SEO has the HIGHEST ROI ( starting at 500% average for our clients, and as high as 3500%)

Organic SEO - We do this as a standalone w/o Places optimization or citation building involved but don't advise this package in markets where mixed results are displayed. Organic SERPs are the bread and butter of Search but have less ROI than blended local or map only results because they stand out less. The ROI on long tail searches are obviously higher.

PPC - We charge a base rate of $500/month for PPC accounts which scales up based on the complexity and number of hours involved. When we do both PPC and SEO we help clients ramp up on PPC in the beginning and scale down as their SEO grows stronger. Then, the PPC is restricted to a few head terms that have decent conversion rates, and it larges focuses on long tail traffic to ensure the highest conversion rate at the lowest cost per conversion.

Social Media - We only provide consulting and channel setup and optimization. Eg: Setting up Facebook Fan Pages, Branded Twitter Channels, Listening Programs, Scheduled posts, connecting inventory updates to post to all your social networks, auto-response programs to people that mention your brand or mention specific keywords in their tweets etc.

To summarize the order of ROI -> Local SEO, Organic SEO, PPC, Social Media. This is specific to qualified lead gen and not to other elements such as branding. One thing that PROVES all of this is Google's new multi channel attribution reports. In almost all of our clients we see SEO as a whole being responsible for the lion's share of the conversions.

Joe - Let’s end with some insight into how you came to become a Search Marketing authority and what you like to do “off the clock”.

Dev - I fell into the world of search marketing quite by accident while working for Microsoft as a channel marketer. Our resellers were complaining that they couldn't find a reseller portal site on microsoft.com even if they used the company's search engine at the time, msn.ca. This piqued my interest and the rest is history. In the last 5 years I've worked in the search marketing industry as a consultant, in-house, agency side, and now as an agency founder at Powered by Search. I live in Toronto, Ontario and have clients throughout North America, many of whom are Tier 2 and Tier 3 automotive clients.

Powered by Search is best known for its industry leading expertise in local search optimization and search engine optimization. We're frequently speak at search marketing conferences like SES and SMX, and have been quoted in the press by the likes of online publications like SEOMoz, SEOBook, Search Engine Land, and offline newspapers and news channels such as the Globe and Mail and CTV News.

When I’m not working, I like spending time with my girlfriend, family and friends, watch movies and tinker around with my iPhone. I’m also an avid food buff, and I love trying food from different parts of the world.

-- Thanks for your time Dev, it's been  a real pleasure.