- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
The buzz of NADA
- Thread starter mattwatson81
- Start date
- Apr 28, 2009
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- Jerry
The difference between us is that I am open to constructive criticism. I have solicited advice in regards to my website on many occasions. I'll gladly take any advice you have to offer. Could my website use some improvements, sure it could. However, I am not talking about websites, I am talking about one-on-one presentation delivery. I saw your presentation, you did not see mine.
There's no doubt you came to market with a wonderful product. You were the first to deliver a facebook product to dealers. I really like what you have accomplished. Of course I was expecting a lot more at your booth when I stopped in for a presentation. The gentlemen I spoke with was not capable of delivering a very good presentation. He gave me a pricing sheet and I almost fell out of my chair when I saw your monthly fees.
It's only a matter of time before a company like Dealer.com or a CRM vendor have a competing product at a much lower price.
That's the one bad thing about being the little guy at NADA. The big fish come by your booth to pillage information so they can map out how they are going to squash you like a bug.
@Jerry Thibeau — Thanks for your input on our product. And you're right, it's a difficult and competitive space, idea poaching is to be expected. When we launched our product at Digital Dealer in Nashville, we were the only company pushing a Social Media platform, NADA was still quiet on the offering front from the big players, but I'm well aware of the meetings behind closed doors, and the watchful eyes on our platform.
If you go to BOALT - Interactive Business Agency - Internet Marketing Company, you'll see that Adam Boalt has a long and proven track record in web technologies and development in other verticals along with automotive.
Regards,
Sichon Domrongchai
Vice President & Creative Director
GOSO.com
If you go to BOALT - Interactive Business Agency - Internet Marketing Company, you'll see that Adam Boalt has a long and proven track record in web technologies and development in other verticals along with automotive.
Regards,
Sichon Domrongchai
Vice President & Creative Director
GOSO.com
- Apr 10, 2009
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- Matt
- Jan 4, 2010
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- Jesse
I love the idea of sales reps having their own pages but it won't work. Real Estate agents are their own companies (in most cases). Sales people are employees with a base salary and a bonus plan. Dealerships spend money to promote the dealership not the sales person. As you mention in your post "When calculated with the turn over in sales reps in my market it could get expensive." As a dealership would you spend money to promote a sales person who will then take all of your customers to his next job?
I've been in the business 14 years and the sales person micro sites have been tried by the best. To anyone doing it now; accept this as a word of caution. I wish you the best of luck.
God Bless
--Jesse Biter
HomeNet, Inc.
- Apr 28, 2009
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- Jerry
Jesse,
I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. Auto salespeople are their own little business within a business. Those who treat it that way are very successful. Most of the people I know do not get paid unless they sell something. If I can teach a guy how to sell 20 cars a month and build a nice book of business, there would be no reason for that person to jump ship. Happy productive salespeople tend to stay put.
Now is everyone going to take the time to manager their own content, probably not, but why would I hurt the guy/gal that might do it and make a better life for himself/herself? Personally I would make it a part of ones daily job expectations. Every customer gets a delivery picture or video and the salesperson would be expected to use that in their testimonials page on their own website. They would also be expected to load stuff like this on their page when responding to Internet leads: Personal message for Jesse That took me ten minutes to make.
There's so much more we can all be doing, those who settle for just getting by will be nothing more than average.
I am going to have to disagree with you on this one. Auto salespeople are their own little business within a business. Those who treat it that way are very successful. Most of the people I know do not get paid unless they sell something. If I can teach a guy how to sell 20 cars a month and build a nice book of business, there would be no reason for that person to jump ship. Happy productive salespeople tend to stay put.
Now is everyone going to take the time to manager their own content, probably not, but why would I hurt the guy/gal that might do it and make a better life for himself/herself? Personally I would make it a part of ones daily job expectations. Every customer gets a delivery picture or video and the salesperson would be expected to use that in their testimonials page on their own website. They would also be expected to load stuff like this on their page when responding to Internet leads: Personal message for Jesse That took me ten minutes to make.
There's so much more we can all be doing, those who settle for just getting by will be nothing more than average.
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Jerry,
It ain't gonna work, no way. There is NO connection between the skills and disciplines of selling cars and real estate (people skills aside).
EXAMPLE: Real Estate Rep vs Car Sales Rep
Real Estate Industry produces reps that are masters of self expression and product promotion, so much so it's easy to take what they do for granted. Jerry, I challenge you to a test. In your travels, ask 100 Car Sales reps to write a simple classified ad for a used car. You haven't, I have and it's... pathetic. Next, draw a teaching road map all the way to your video demo. hahaha....
C'mon Jerry, look at your phone training biz!! It takes WEEKS to train Car Guy reps to stop being a door mat and take control of an INCOMING phone calls!! Weeks is wrong.. it's MONTHS of training.
- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
You are probably right when looking at the majority of sales agents, but I have seen some major changes in this area since the economy turned. The ones that are left at Checkered Flag are eager to learn, more apt to follow CRM procedures, and more professional.
When I visit stores, the number one question I get always has to do with CRM, but the second question I get is "Alex, what can I do to better connect with my customers beyond just calling and emailing them?"
facebook has been a great way for some of our agents to connect with customers, but a lot of our agents enjoy a very vivid social life and like to show that off on facebook, so they are less eager to put themselves out on that site for every customer. With a "blog-like" webpage off of the dealership's website, they can accomplish this a little better.
The key is that the dealership's domain has to be used and the sales person needs to opt-in. There can't be any empty pages. And with the URL being something like checkeredflag.com/alex-snyder then the sales agent can't take the page with him when he moves to another competitor. The dealership retains all the content that sales agent created while he was with us, and continues to score in searches for that sales agent's name. Something like this also helps with sales person loyalty/retention and is another (small) incentive for a new employee to come to work at our dealership.
Yeah, there may only be a handful of sales agents opting-in to do this, but that's a handful more of SEO-generators and advertisers working on my campaigns!
Sign me up!
- Apr 28, 2009
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- Jerry
So why can't we do a better job of hiring these types of people, or training the people we hire to be more like that? Every dealership I've been to I see salespeople relaxing and being unproductive. I bet most salespeople spend at least 50% of the day doing absolutely nothing productive. Why do you think that happens? It's because managers allow them to get away with this behavior. Managers just strap themselves in and wait for the reps to bring them offers. Then when nobody is coming to the dealership they yell at them to get on the phones and make some appointments. This is reactive and not proactive. When's the last time you saw a manager sit down with a rep and show them how to do something or even observe them in action?
If a dealer gives me 50 potential prospects monthly, I should be bringing 50 prospects of my own to the dealership monthly.
There's not many places to work where a person without a college education can make six figures. If done properly, one could easily make six figures in this business. If they are not, then it's one of two reasons; either they don't know how, or they don't want to.
I believe the biggest issue in our industry is that most managers just settle for hiring anyone who seems halfway decent. Throw them on the floor and hope they survive.
This is going to inspire me to write an article on hiring salespeople. I'll try and find some time to do that this week or next.
- Sep 26, 2009
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- Jeff
Real Estate and the car biz certainly are two different ball games, with different players even. I was just making a comparison to the relationship of agents and their brokers with the DealerMouth product.
The SEO value with a "page" would be great, a separate url or an actual microsite w/ inventory would be even better but I can see issues with content editing/updating, cost, proper lead tracking and like Jesse said salesmen taking their customers to their next job. I wouldn't want to be the guinea pig, I would have to see it implemented and working efficiently before I spent any money on it or in my case offered it to a client.
The SEO value with a "page" would be great, a separate url or an actual microsite w/ inventory would be even better but I can see issues with content editing/updating, cost, proper lead tracking and like Jesse said salesmen taking their customers to their next job. I wouldn't want to be the guinea pig, I would have to see it implemented and working efficiently before I spent any money on it or in my case offered it to a client.