Danoneil thank you! This is exactly where I've started and just the stuff I need reminders on! Keep them coming please.
Here is where I am at so far: On Friday I had my 3rd meeting with the new owner, his wife, the new general manager, and the old owner. They decided to hire me and they are going to pay me $2000/month for 90 days. After that I am going to get $2,000 plus commission. Commission will be based on the gross profit of the marketing tools I am using.
My responsibilities will include all advertising, internet department start-up (responding to leads will be someone else) and pictures. I feel my pay is low for the first 3 months but it is in line with the market.
I have shopped my competition- they are sending out full prices including doc and freight but they are not selling them for invoice nor do they follow up. In fact the first internet lead I sent took 38 hours to hear a response. After that there was no follow up at all.
In regards to selling to Canada I found out that Canadians do not get the Ford rebate that is offered in the US but we can sell it for invoice or lower plus they will still get their awesome exchange rate! Because we live so deep in the woods my owner has a private plane and has offered to pick up any customer and bring them to us. HOW NEAT IS THAT? What a great thing to market but how do I go about it? Help please! (This will be extremely helpful to my Canadian customers who do not want to bring a trade across the border. What a pain!
Another question I would like help on is my competiton is not using Autotrader at all. The closest dealer is about 100 miles away. Should I use it? I say yes because I think our reach will be further and I have an aggressive dealer that wants to compete in that market but is it worth the money? Is there a way to get them to travel the distance if I have new Fords I can whore out but I still need to make decent gross on my used vehicles.
I really need to introduce the town to the convenience and "better price" I can offer them... this is going to be very tricky. I am going to need to use print ads to point them toward the internet. This should be easy to start from the groud up but I really think I have my work cut out for me!
