How do I grow and evolve my Internet Sales Department?

[Jeff Kershner]

How do I grow and evolve my dealers Internet sales department from 10-15 trackable sales a month to 20, 30 and more?

I know people are going to the site and looking, then just coming to the dealership and not asking for me. I am still paid based on the cars I sell vs a salary job, which I'm OK with but if I'm doing this amount of work I need people to understand and use me vs other salespeople.

I'm wondering what suggestions you may have for me as well as anyone else, on what I can do to get this thing jump started.

Reis Hauser
Internet Sales Manager
Dubuque Autoplaza

This is a question many dealers and Internet Sales Managers have. If anyone has some great advise to offer Reis, let's not hold back.

 

[Dorothy Hamil]

Find another job. You'll be skated on deals forever. I'm serious. Owners need to realize where the customers are coming from and compensate ISM's for their contributions to the bottom line, of course this would mean realistic sales track sourcing which will never happen.

 

[Joe Pistell]

I'm with Ms Hamil,
ISM's hard work are plus business over and above the site's traffic generation (shoppers perfer to shop stealth!)

Lord knows I'm a marketing guy, but I've been saying it for years, Auto dealer sites are more a marketing tool than a sales machine. SMART dealers realze this and ATTACK their market by out efforting their competitors (see Dr. Evil's world domination site: CheckeredFlag.com for a peak into the future).

Here's my metric that drives me nuts.
We sell and deliver ONLY 1.6% of the unique visitors we get each month. Whereinthehell do the other 98.4% go? Are they in the market? Did they buy this month from a competitor? Can I figure out a way to get a 1/2% out of this traffic?

Sorry I wasn't much help Reis,
Joe
(hahaha. Dorothy Hamil... a great skating name)

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Joe - you crack me up! I'm going to shave my head bald and get a hairless cat now. By the way, did I see your site hit a PR of 6 the other day?

I agree with Dorothy too. There are some things you can do better for tracking, but it will give you a headache too and you won't catch it all. Like Joe said, consumers prefer to remain anonymous until they're ready to make a purchase. I don't blame them for that because I'm the same way. I don't want my phone and email blowing-up with follow-up things from various dealerships while I'm just trying to make a decision....on my own.

Another thing that always bothered me, up and beyond what Joe said about less than 2% of your unique visitors buying cars each month, is in our exit surveys. We survey most customers who purchase a car from us while they're waiting on their tags to be issued. One of those questions has to do with whether the customer visited Checkered Flag.com before coming in, and even that number doesn't jive with our own numbers....it'll fry your brain every time you try to figure it out. I like to think consumers are being as honest as their memory is at that point, but they make our other numbers look too high. There are some other questions in that survey that compare and relate various ad campaigns across the medias and Internet absolutely murders everything else (except TV - only about a 10% beating), so all the things we're doing are still well justified. By the way, what our customers are telling us, are the same things they're telling you and all the other survey companies.

On another note, nobody is ever going to make you successful. You have to do that yourself. Don't wait, do. If the road you're on isn't taking you where you want to go, make a new road. In this Wild West of Internet, we are in charge and it will be what we make it.

Good luck with things and never stop pushing.

 

[Ryan]

I didn't catch the "skating" reference...maybe Tony Hawk would have hit my demographic?

Reis,

This one isn't perfect, but it's a good launching point and timely. Cars.com is hosting a webinar this Friday titled The New ISM Survival Guide: Top Tips for Top Performance.

Here is some info:

Internet business accounts for a growing percentage of dealership sales, creating intense pressure for new internet sales managers to hit the ground running. In this workshop aimed at new Internet Sales Managers and those looking to improve their game, you’ll learn from successful ISMs about the proven tactics they use to produce results for their stores.

Panelists include leading internet sales expert, Cory L. Mosley, of Mosley Automotive Group, and internet sales managers D. Rawls, of Saturn-HUMMER of Union City, GA, and Ed Goldstein, of Wigder Chevrolet of Livingston, NJ.

In this session, you'll learn how to:

Put email templates and phone scripts into action to boost performance
Manage time to help you get more out of your day
Implement new practices and refine existing sales processes to close more deals
Set realistic goals and manage internal expectations
Drive results that get you noticed

Here is a link to follow if this is of interest to you, you do need to register ahead of time. I know the panelists take questions during the discussion, it might be a good chance to get a few of your specific ones answered.

Digital Strategy For Dealerships | Cars Commerce

Check out strategy guides, platform updates, how-to's, industry insights, and more to inspire your dealership's digital strategy.

dealers.cars.com

 

[Reis]

I don't think skated is the word I would use. I think a better way to rephrase would be.....How's the best way to educate customers to ask for the internet guy rather than finding a car on a website and then just coming in if they think it's the car for them. I get paid well, I have flat for every internet customer sold whether I sell them or not but if I sell them then I get comm. plus the flat. But from a greed standpoint I want to sell the car and get the bonus.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Reis! I got something for ya!

Get YOURSELF a blog. If management won't stop the skating (hahaha... did I even say that?) then build yourself a web site that sells YOU.

Here's a post I made on DR a few weeks ago:

"Building Your 1st Blog".

>>>Hire yourself a local fellow that can throw up a WordPress Blog for you. Cost: $300 to $600. You'll need it hosted: $200 p/yr, you'll need to be trained on how to post inventory to it (offer your geek pal $100 to be avail to you by phone at any time you need it).

OK, now your almost ready to fly, Do your homework on what vehicles are HOT on the net and look thru your inventory for matches. Start posting inventory into your blog like a mad man and make it personal. EXAMPLE: http://usedcarqueen.com/ (my wifes blog).

While you're waiting for your blog to fill and the search engines to index you, Spend money on PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising on Google and Yahoo. Keep the PPC budget low and ask your Geek to help you with tracking.

Now, your burning with NitroMethane! (aka: kik'n a**)
Joe
p.s. Have your rent-a-geek train you on how to post inventoy to Craigs list. Also ask him for a WordPress mod to allow you to easily post inventory to Craigs list.

 

[Brian in Etown]

This ad on craigslist has the nitromethane effect for our store.

http://louisville.craigslist.org/car/742120086.html

 

[Ike]

I agree with everything that has been said. Of course, you are always going to have people that come in and don't ask for you. That is true for Internet Sales and regular sales guys. What would you tell a regular sales guy that has this problem? I would tell him he should do a better job building a relationship with his customers so they feel compelled to ask for him when they arrive. Build trust and value in yourself. Obviously, the best way to do this with an Internet customer is over the phone. Be inquisitive about the customer's needs and really listen to what the customer has to say. Do not limit the conversation to the vehicle of interest. Ask them about thier daily lives to spark conversation and establish a bond. Of course, you will not get 100% of the people on the phone. There are several things that I have done in the past that have worked well for me. The first thing I did was create my own personal web site. I personally own the site so I can post anything I like without the dealer being responsible. I put a lot of my own personal views here. It gives the customer a chance to "meet" me before they visit the dealership. I put links in all of my emails to predetermined pages on my site. It isn't anything fancy, and since I now assign leads to other salespeople, I don't keep it up as much as I should, but it might be perfect for what you are trying to accomplish. Here is the page I normally link to http://www.ikewinebarger.com/page2.html. You will see that there is also a page for why a customer should ask for me. I even post pictures of my certifications.

A quick note. Your Craigslist page looks good, but what's the phone number?

 

[Brian in Etown]

I built that ad to send traffic to my site. That is why I used that pic so they would have to visit my website to get an idea of what it looks like. I have followed the clickthrus from the url and the traffic to that one car has increased 42% don't really care if they buy that car just want them to visit my website/showroom.....kinda like a free watch giveaway back in the day.