NADA 2008 Review

[Ashley Antonio]

I am a strong believer in VAuto and their pricing tool. I have used it for the past year and a half and my dealership has been the #1 Selling Certified Honda Dealership in the nation for over a year now. Dale is a dynamic guy and I am definately drinking the VAuto Koolaid (spiked with a lil Grey Goose!)

As for NADA this year I have to agree that there wasn't anything truly groundbreaking. I didn't find that next thing we are all searching for to revolutionize the industry. I did find all of my great friends, great parties, and generous vendors willing to wine and dine.The NADA Women's Dealer Breakfast had a great speaker/comic and the Honda party at City Hall was breathtaking. Cobalt had a nice party as usual and the Bel Air Partners Elite Dealer Dinner was an amazing event. Blue Flame 6 put on a fun bash too and I have to say the most innovative concept at NADA this year may have been the concept of the "threesome" party.

Great seeing you Jeff!

 

[Ryan Vaughn]

Good God I'm sick of Lightnup.

 

[Jennifer Schrader (blog)]

Jeff

That is what I heard, the Nada in San Fran was not a good location compared to the others in the past! I heard there were more Vendors than dealers out there. The turn out was not very HOT!

I like what you mentioned "I overheard several discussions where dealers are searching for quality SEO vendors. Does this mean dealers are catching on to the snake oil SEO vendors in the past and are now fed up with it?" It is true the dealers out there are starting to learn the logics of SEO! I am not bashing any competition out there as being a vendor myself, but at TK Carsites we educate the Dealers on what SEO is all about and we stand for what we do.

The hispanic marketeers! This is huge! But remember to check into them fully first. There are so many different dialects of spanish throughout the United States that you got to make sure they are targeting that certain area for their dialect may be different. LA spanish to Miami Spanish community and so on can have a difference in the spanish dialects. If switching your site to be a spanish site and not knowing, the spanish community in your area would not understand it. Just a little heads up.

But again, thanks for the great info on the NADA~ Sounds like you had a lot of Fun!

 

[Jennifer Schrader (blog)]

Ryan

Who in the world is lightnup in the first place?

 

[Joe Pistell]

We've out grown our in-house site and we went to san fran looking for a custom web site.

I've got 30,000 uniques a month that are my "captive audience". Of that number, 1-2% buy from us. My market is the 98% that went somewhere else.

I'll summarize my findings.

Don't ask for a CMS (Content Management System) to keep your site fresh. "Fresh? What do you mean fresh?" Would you run the same ad in the newspaper ad every week and just swap out the cars? Is this PRESIDENTS DAY? Do we sell a sh*t load of iron today? I’ve got 1,000 uniques a day. Do we want to create a sense that today is a special day to buy that car (on your d*mn day off?) Does our site look different? No! Hello CSS web design people! Is anyone awake out there?

Don't ask for email harvesting ideas if they haven't already thought of it. You can get all the custom features you need as long as it sits in one of their templates. Oh, and if any of your custom features make sense (and they don't offer it) we must realize that we can't have it because they know better because they run all these tests and we all are so... LOST!

I was amazed at how "rigid" these web providers are. Every single dealer wants to "accessorize" their site; a few (intellectual leaders) want a custom site. The current solution is to fit the dealers into their platform, rather than engineer a platform that lets the dealer walk his way up the upgrade ladder. Someone shoot me, am I an idiot?

Dealer.com has this Vermont aura around it and I was convinced that they had it all figured out. I expected a flexible platform that would accommodate dealers of all intellects. To my amazement, Dealer.com was the most rigid (or should I say "least flexible") of my 1st tier picks. The rep saw my custom check list and broomed us! It was a nice broom! hahaha...

In all sincerity, before I entered the San Fran arena, BZ is the company that I cared for the least, one week later; they're still working hard to engineer in all of our ideas. Kudos’ to the BZ team for at least trying.

There are others that I won't name.. Nope, I have to mention eBizautos.com. This is a lesson in how to kill business.

eBiz is rippin up the SERPs and I would have enjoyed the chance to talk to the team roaming the floor (they had no booth). I don't need a booth, just a cup of joe, a laptop and 60 minutes with an intelligent soul is all that's needed. I called eBiz's office and spoke to a not so friendly phone rep (name withheld) and she couldn't understand why I needed to speak to someone in person. After 30+ minutes of giving lip service to my ideas, I could tell I was loosing her and I re-asked to get in touch with one of the reps at San Fran. and have them call me. No call. Too bad. Next.

I haven't included all of my experiences, just the ones that p***ed me off. Gotta love the net!

Joe

 

[Jennifer Schrader (blog)]

Great info Joe! I would love to speak with you if you had a few moments of your time. Not trying to sell you anything but to show you a few things.

Let me know!

 

[andwrig]

Jeff:

I love the site. Good recap of NADA. I didn't go and I never have been. Frankly, NADA seems to have to turned into a big technology expo which can all be discovered and explored on the net. San Fran may be a nice city but it is a long way to go for us East Coasters. Whenever I go to manufacturer meetings it is always nice when they have them in Chicago (good central location and a great town).

vAuto is pretty awesome. We have been using it for about six months and have seen an incremental improvement.

The one thing I have yet to find that you have eluded to in other posts that may have justified a trip to this years show is a good CRM (including ILM) system. There just doesn't seem to be an easy to use all in one package that can operate efficiently. By that I mean integrate with my DMS without creating a bunch of duplicate names, redundant, concurrent processes, etc. I also need enterprise level functionality. I have four franchises in three locations with three store numbers in R&R, yet I have a centralized BDC that handles all electronic communications. I am working with R&R to consolidate my name file. However there just doesn't seem to be anything remotely close to "seemless" integration. Even R&R's ERA doesn't seemlessly integrate with Contact Management. The Daily Work Plan scheduling process is really complicated. Bells and whistles are nice. Plain looking systems are fine too. I just want a system that my less than tech savy associates can use effectively and easily. In addition, we want to implement an automated plan for continuous communication that is based on logical, easy to put together client collections. In a nutshell, I want a system that can "seemlessly' execute our processes. There always seems to be obstacles in the way. We need a system that we can easily tailor to do exactly what we want. If anyone saw anything good with regard to CRM's, please let me know.

 

[Edward Brown]

@Joe: no, you my friend are not an idiot. Agree completely that you should be able to expect more from the website vendors. Been in your shoes before doing IT at a dealership and finally couldn't take it anymore... started my own software company. But not to solve the website problem...

Jeff, nice post. I love SF too, but agree it's not the best venue for NADA. Having to hoof it all the way to Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for the keynotes is a bit much. Although Jay Leno made it worth the hike!

Also agree that once again there was not much new. It was my sixth straight NADA. CRM, inventory control, ancient DMSs on terminal-emulating PCs. Hmm.

Next year at New Orleans, however, there will be something new... something that could be the next big thing. It will help dealers manage what some believe is their most important asset... their people. Can't say more than that for a few months yet, but keep an eye out for DealerFlow.

Keep up the good work, Jeff. Love your blog.

 

[Eric Miltsch (blog)]

Jeff -

Great 30-second rewind...wish I could have made it.

Thumbs up to the Hispanic awareness, vAuto & seeking out quality web development professionals.

(Post more pics!)

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Andrew Wright - I feel your frustration. I was at NADA for the single purpose of exploring the various offerings. You've influenced my next posting on Dealer Refresh: The 2008 CRM Wish List - where we can all list what we want.

I am also from a multi-store, single-BDC dealer group on the East Coast. My needs may vary from yours a little, but I'd be more than happy to talk to you off of Dealer Refresh. My email address is axsnyder [at] checkeredflag [dot] [com].

If anyone else wants to help me with the wishlist, please shoot me an email.