Carfax Advantage Dealer

[Dan Sayer]

Experiment: Modify the lead source name of your website leads to have third-party lead source names, and modify your third party lead source names to have website lead source names.

What would happen to your closing ratios? Lead source bias among salespeople is real, and often based on one negative experience ingrained in their memory. They are often trigger happy to prove their bias true by clicking lost or bad lead much more freely.

@Ryan Everson we are on the same page LOL. Here is a reminder post I made to all our Sales Guides and manager teams in our Office Teams Channel on the 24th of this month.

[8/24, 2:15 PM] Dan Sayer
'Those Leads Suck' and other self-fulfilling prophecies.
AAG Sales Guides - TrueCar, AutoHub Trade, EquityIQ, CarGurus and others typically get a bad rap because of their perceived Lead quality. Historically, leads such as these have performed their best when they were worked with a positive mindset vs an attitude of "those leads suck". If we have the attitude of a lead not being good based on its origin or even initial lead information it typically isn't worked with care and thoroughness. This then reduces the likelihood of it converting. Please treat each lead as a unique opportunity and a shopper with their hand up. More than half of our internet sales come from something other than our websites and that number has room to increase. Here are a couple tips to try.

TrueCar - AFL and MFL only. These shoppers leverage their buying programs and if the dealer acts like a partner, they do buy. Repeat the name of the TrueCar partner to affirm our alignment with their buying program.

AutoHub Trade (AKA "Kelley Blue Book" leads from the website and not ICO) - All stores. These shoppers used the KBB branded trade evaluation tools on our sites (never use the term 'AutoHub' with a customer) and simple excitement with the shopper works. Try, "were you looking to upgrade, sell, or just find out what your car is worth?"

EquityIQ - AFL, MFL, AFGI, ACDJ, AFSJ. These are previous customers so a soft-handed, "thanks for being a customer of Anderson. I see you may of had interest in exploring what your current car is worth and what your options would look like to replace. What questions do you have?" is a good place to start.

CarGurus - All Stores. We are on a 'free' level of leads with CarGurus which means we only get a customer name and proxy email. Letting the shopper know that, "CarGurus did not send any of your information other than your name and a proxy email to communicate through. Would you prefer a quick call vs an email to save time during your search?"

A famous Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right,” emphasizes how much attitude determines success or failure. This is true for most projects you take on and certainly for technology initiatives.

 

[MiriamGate]

Hello,
We are an independent dealer specializing in European Cars. We predominantly run classified ads to generate traffic to our store. We already have Cargurus, Autotrader, Edmunds, Carsforsale, Cars.com etc.

Now looking into Carfax.com as well. We were recently pitched with a $999/ Month for ADVANTAGE PLAN program with an additional $899/ Month for USED CAR LISTINGS as an Add-on.

Seems a little bit excessive for a 50-60 inventory store but would appreciate any feedbacks regarding the pricing on this.

Thanks in advance.
-PK

I think you can calculate the additional sales needed to cover the cost of Carfax programs. For example, if your average profit per car is $1,500, you would need to sell at least one more car per month to cover the cost.

 

[Dan Sayer]

I think you can calculate the additional sales needed to cover the cost of Carfax programs. For example, if your average profit per car is $1,500, you would need to sell at least one more car per month to cover the cost.

@MiriamGate If a dealer uses that math to measure ROI, their expenses would be completely out of wack. A better hard and fast rule would be the 5:1 that my good friend David Kain preaches. @PKStore Expect a $5 return on your $1 investment. If your gross profit average is $1,500 per on Used, then you'd need to sell 6+ CarFax leads or about $9,500 to figure your investment makes sense. BUT CarFax is also providing a service that customers expect as far as history reports so whether you count that $999 base as part of the total Classified cost or you expense it like a tool is up to you. Figure you need to cover $4,500 instead of $9,500 if you count reports as a tool. We expense the CarFax listings separate, in advertising, from the report fees.