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Finally got the job.. Now I need help!

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Joe Johnson

Joe Johnson

Full Sticker
Mar 18, 2014
17
4
First Name
Joe
#1
Hello Everyone!

I am a long time lurker here, and let me start by saying that this forum has been the single most important resource in my career. Thank you all so much for the wealth of information you have shared.

I started selling cars in 2012 because I wanted to improve my financial situation. I have always loved cars, but I didn't really have a background in sales or marketing. Fast forward to now.. I am working on my 2nd year in the business and I have landed a job as an "internet sales manager" for a small Volvo dealership that is part of a 5 store dealer group. I know Volvo is not the strongest brand out there, but I think they are very nice cars. Anyway my problem is this: I took this position because I saw an opportunity to really learn what it means to build an Internet department. Now that I am here I really don't which direction to go in order to have the most impact.

About our store:

We are kind of like the red headed step child of the dealer group in some ways. The other stores all share a single BDC and most of the other processes are done across the board. They get a lot more traffic and have a lot more inventory. As the new ISM here I have free reign evaluate and make suggestions but ultimately everything will be decided by the higher ups. The phones ring freely to the sales floor and all e leads come straight to me. We are not doing a very good job of tracking and sourcing the phone calls and walkins but we have very few lead sources anyway. Almost all of our advertising budget is spent on our website with a little PPC and social media. Last month the store generated around 55 e-leads with 39 contacted and 3 sold. I don't want to post all of the statistics but as you can see those are very low numbers for a franchised dealer with 40+ years of history. May will be my first month in the position.

I am looking for ideas to really boost the lead count without spending a ton of money. If I can boost the numbers I believe I can free up a couple of thousand to spend on digital marketing. I am working to improve our processes in the showroom and get everyone on board with CRM. I am supposed to sell accessories to every customer as well so I am going to use that time to do a survey and improve sourcing. Right now I just have so much to work on with the website/inventory plus trying to sell cars from start to finish. My pay plan is a monthly salary plus the same compensation the other sales guys receive.

Sorry if I am a little all over the place. I am a bit tired and posting from my cell phone. Please forgive punctuation and spelling errors! I will post a few more detailed questions later, but right now I am just looking for some ideas.

Thanks so much,

Joe
 
#2
Welcome, Joe, and congrats!

First and foremost, I would recommend establishing a time frame with the GM/dealer. Determine what their expectations are of you as far as moving the needle because that makes a big difference in how you proceed. They will, of course, say that they want results now, but you'll want to show them that there are things you can do to have an immediate impact but that will have less of an effect long term (3-6 months) than other activities.

Once you can establish if you're under the gun immediately or if you have some time to ramp up appropriately, it will be much easier to answer your question. Regardless of which way they want you to go, you'll need to do an analysis. Where is money being spent? Where are efforts being made? What effects are they all having on your bottom line?

It sounds as if you're being graded on sales that come in through digital leads rather than the store's overall sales or anything that comes in on the phone. If that's the case, then you're correct in looking for more leads. I could write a pretty long blog post about how an internet manager should be graded on overall store sales, but that's not for here.

Someone is sure to chime in about process and that's important in my books as well, but given your lead volume I couldn't imagine that you're not able to follow up in a timely manner with everyone. Still, an aggressive yet helpful approach is in order here. You don't have the lead volume to waste any of them.

Back to the leads. If you need an instant boost, buying leads (as much as I'm against it) may be your best option. Also, Jeff didn't plant me here to mention it but Hook Logic (and for the sake of fairness, Showroom Magnet and Intice) can help to increase your leads. They give your website visitors a valid reason to fill out a lead form. With so many people either calling or coming in without contacting the dealership, these services will turn them from being logged as a walk-in or drive-by and get them onto your lead sheet.

Again, congrats and I hope you'll get a time frame from your dealer. This will help to get a more thorough answer from me and the rest of the community.
 
#3
Hi Joe, and congrats on your new gig!

Before I can make any recommendations I would need to know a little more about your location, your website and how many new and used cars in stock.
May I take a look at it please?
Post a link.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
#6
Thanks for the replies guys! I am actually with Hunter Automotive Group out of Asheville. I dont mind anyone taking a look at our site, but please do not solicit the company with any products or offers (sorry had to disclaimer). We are at Volvo Dealer | Asheville | Hendersonville | North Carolina . I am looking at reports for the month, and so far I think things are going good. We ended up with about the same amount of leads this month and I was able to sell 6 cars in the 11 days that I have been on the floor. 42L 10Appts 6sold. Those seem like great numbers, but mostly because the sample is so small. I am going to try to do a full month of tracking and making sure all of the leads get counted to see where we land. I talked to my boss and basically told him that after I get comfortable and set up my own processes that I want to look at other ways to boost traffic and get more people in the door. New cars seem to be a weakness here, and I am assuming that a lot of that has to do with the brand. I don't actually program the website, but I can make changes to it if anyone has any good suggestions. I mentioned the HookLogic program to my boss and we spoke with the dealer group's web consultant about it. He said that he had tried using it in several other dealerships and that it wasn't a good idea. I have read a lot of good things about it here, and I still think I might push for us to give it a try in the near future. I really don't want to implement anything expensive until I am able to fully track its ROI and prove that it was a good investment. It is a little tough to measure things at this point because we don't consider phone ups to be internet leads unless they are routed directly from their source, and 99% of everything that comes through the door is counted as a walk-in. That leaves me with just E-leads and previous customers. I would like to see more email leads for sure, but honestly I am more focused on the big picture (even though that doesn't affect my pay). Lastly, our advertising is decided by upper management in the dealer group, but I think it may be worth it to ask for a $200 per month craigslist budget or something similar. If I do, I would be soley responsible for posting cars and keeping ads in place. Do you guys think that would be effective in such a small low traffic store with low inventory count?
 
#7
Congrats!

I am so excited to see you say how much DR has helped you. Love hearing that.

Keep us posted and keep the questions coming.

P.S. Don't forget to focus some energy on your site's mobile presence. I was on your site on my phone and.....eek!
 
#8
Thanks Jessica! I have a laundry list of things I would like to do, but so far I am taking baby steps. At some point I'd like to redo the VDPs and change the pricing strategy a little as well. The mobile site is definitely on my radar! We have an outside person who posts on our Facebook I think? I will get access to that when I feel like I have enough time to maintain it. Id like to do videos and other things there. This week I haven't had time to do much of anything except set appointments and sell. I'm afraid it's going to turn into one of those situations where I am trying to be a full time internet sales guy and handle the web stuff to. I really like it here so far though. I feel like I can dive in as deep as I want to and I am learning a lot. It's a nice change to have manager access to everything and really feel like i can really make an impact on the store. The people are great here to! By the way, we are using vinsolutions as a CRM and Firstlook. Keep the ideas and suggestions coming in!
 
#9
Thank you Joe we will take a look at it:)

I did find your youtube channel and feel it needs to be branded and optimized with links back to your Dealer.com site, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. This is something you can do yourself.

Also get some fresh video content uploaded and social bookmark them on all your dealers social sites.
 
#10
While you have the hurdle of differentiating source of leads you need to start with a baseline - look at the numbers by month for the past couple of years and then you can see the growth month over month and asign a good portion of that to your efforts if you are maintaining the spends used previously.

If you have dropped some advertising you should note that and what leads it brought in - there will be seasonal shifts like late winter that may skew results but having a baseline is needed.

Creating separate phone numbers is key and using Google's Click to Call can help track part of that.
 
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