Don't fall for this junk!

[Paul Rushing]

@jl

Someone that does not give a site or a real name does not justify a response, however I will entertain your remarks.

Yes I have had some funny vendor experiences not quite like was described here but none the less pretty much with this same type of ploy.

Many of the vendors use smoke and mirrors like presented here and use tactics that would not survive if the dealers were educated. Maybe I should of said most vendors I have come in contact with. With that being said it is not all..

In the future though USE YOUR REAL NAME and identify your affiliation to the industry before being caustic. If you don't like my views that is fine I don't have a problem with that, just do it as transparent as I give them.

Paul

 

[Eric Miltsch (blog)]

My guess is that these sales guys are just trying to be as creative as possible.

It may be better if vendors don't know the arsenal of information assembled just within this site alone...

Joe put it nicely by describing the DR crowd; there are those that will make the effort to arm themselves with the knowledge to move ahead & those that think the 'Interweb' is a passing fad.

 

[Mitch]

Like Joe and Eric, I'd be more than happy to know my competitors were signing up with BZ marketing and overpaying for snake oil (what's the going rate on snake oil anyway... did it go up like regular oil?).

However, the difference is that Joe and Eric work for dealerships, and I'm a service provider. So in truth, the idea that a dealer might buy into this BZ pitch rather than my services simply because BZ is more well-known is quite infuriating.

Maybe all of us on DR should have a contest to see who can create the most preposterous marketing promo chart for this industry. Might be fun to see if anyone can top BZ's debacle.

 

[CS]

"It may be better if vendors don't know the arsenal of information assembled just within this site alone"

yeah, you wouldn't want them to notice the compete.com link on the left sidebar under "WEB Tools"

 

[Joe Pistell]

I had a thread a while back that pointed out the "real" movers and shakers in our industry: www.dealerrefresh.com/my_weblog/2007/10/the-winds-of-ch.html Dealers trying to break the cookie cutter mold.

My Examples are:
Auction Direct USA
www.auctiondirectusa.com/ (hi Eric!)

City Auto
www.cityauto.com/

Lithia Motors
www.L2.com/

And now... Checkered Flag
www.CheckeredFlag.com/
By far, the biggest commitment to internally generated content, coupled with a totally new site design optimized around this concept.

Alex's experiment is all about "high quality, LOCAL content placed onto an optimized site leads to traffic, and traffic leads to sales". Talk about replacing the sunday newspaper!! Alex has so much effort into this he could resell his content to the local paper!!! Hmmm....

Maybe we should have our own TOP10?
Joe

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Thanks Joe - your endorsement is seriously appreciated!

As for BZ, I have to give my good buddy John McAdams props for staffing such an aggressive sales team. Using Compete in this way is very innovative. However, it is a bit of a slimy sales tactic in my opinion. CS mentioned Alexa, and he is right - I don't know which is worse, Alexa or Compete for this kind of thing. I do think Google Page Rank is a viable resource because it is based on an overall relevance. It does not rely on people installing a toolbar or any of the other methods used. It is also a much simpler thing to understand: you're rated somewhere between a 1 or a 10. Customers use Google, and better Google rankings = more hits.

 

[Dave Rudey]

Plus isn't BZ like 8-12k per month!!! The water cooler talk is a dealership in WI used them and ended up filling suit to get out of a ridiculous 3 yrs "Bally's Gym" type agreement.

Dave
312-601-5614

 

[Wayne Anderson]

In this day an age of cheap talk and little action, I've learned that the best way to handle any vendor pitch is to ask for some references of customers having success with the product or service and then go call them. You'll really know who you're dealing with then.

Now for something off-topic but constructive:

I used a service called PRWeb.com and had some success with it. I issued my first PR on Monday through PRWeb.com and it's already link #8 on Google for my main keyword. I figure 15-20 PRs and I'll have the first two pages of Google results blanketed with positive news for my primary keywords. This also serves as a hedge against negative links creeping up the search results.

I also noticed that a link to our DealerRater.com page has been climbing our search results too. We're just now starting to push that hard.

 

[Andy Warner]

Wayne,

I agree with your approach in asking vendors for references.

However, I think you (and everyone else) can take the vendor evaluation process a bit further.

The thing that has helped us the most evaluate potential vendors is a simple "questionnaire" we give our vendors. It consists of 20 questions we ask vendors ranging from their basic business contact information to requesting references to asking them knowledge of their competition.

The questionnaire really helps us not only understand price (as we know, it's not always about price), but most importantly, truly gauge our vendor's validity.

Keep in mind, this is not fail safe, but it has helped us narrow the scope of what we need from a vendor and how to incorporate their tools into our process.

Andy Warner

 

[Mitch]

Actually I disagree with both of the previous posters who would ask other dealers about a vendor's performance. There are four reasons why another dealer would tell you something works great, and the reason you'd be looking for is unlikely to be the motive behind it... here's the top four reasons why dealers give positive testimonials:

1. They don't know what they're talking about. They had total crap before, and now they have something less crappy and think they found a gem.
2. They got paid or incentivized to say it.
3. They actually do know what they're talking about and the product is legitimately good.
4. They think the product sucks and they want you to suck as well. After all, if you're another dealer, you're the competition.

Let's also keep in mind that the number of testimonials you can dig up from your client base is proportional to how many clients you have. Would you see more value in a company with 20 written testimonials on a 5,000 client base, or a company with 5 written testimonials on a 10 client base?

Fact is I couldn't possibly care less about dealer testimonials.