Finally after 30+ years in the car business, it looks like many of the dealers are finally figuring out they haven’t been on top of their business like they should. When general managers are hired generally speaking the dealer has a tendency to step back and essentially turn their business over to them for day to day operations. Most GMs learned from the old school ways which by the way in case you missed the message ARE DEAD! It’s surprising to find out how many managers in stores today still don’t understand or use technology. We encounter dealers every day that don’t even use email and don’t want it.

The vast majority of real car buyers these days are from a generation that embraces technology and it’s a routine part of their every day activities and actually comes as second nature to them. A great example of this is our new President Elect and how he used the Internet to have the most successful campaign finance in history. Dealers should take note of this because as the new generation is coming up, they aren’t going to buy a car that they don’t already know as much or more about it than you do. Especially when it comes to pricing. A word to the wise, if you plan to stay in the car business you better buy your own store name as a domain. If you are already too late then do a whois lookup and find out who has bought it and contact them to buy it back. I would offer any help if you need it in this regard as I own 5000+ domains that I have owned for years.

The smart dealers will embrace what the Internet has to offer and take full advantage of it. Even though you won’t be able to generate the volume of leads you need like some of our 500+ websites, where we promote auto loans, bad credit auto loans, car loans, bad credit car loans –  you can still generate quality leads that won’t cost you a dime. The truth of the matter is most owners don’t understand the Internet possibilities and probably have been taken advantage of by companies who profess to be able to get you #1 on any search engine. Since there’s no factory support for this it’s hard for the dealer to trust outside sources for their sites.

Egos will definitely reduce your bank account. If you aren’t truly measuring where you are spending your money, it may already be too late. If your managers can’t tell you exactly where your customers are coming from, you’ve got the wrong managers. Let’s be honest, how often does the desk manager actually interview the buyer? We all know again if we are being totally honest the typical sales person is going to tell the boss whatever will keep the boss off his ass. Whereas the owner needs to know the truth. If you think about it, how much traffic can you really count these days and know precisely where that customer came from?

There’s only a couple of sources where you absolutely know where they came from, how much they cost and how much profit you made. Those sources are new car leads and special finance leads. The problem with new car leads is these customers aren’t giving up any personal information so we know they average person completes almost 5 auto quote forms when they do submit one. If you aren’t doing special finance, what are you waiting on? A solid two thirds of the population has to go the subprime auto finance route now. Even though there’s limited lenders right now, you can still get deals done if you are willing to put in the effort. So unless you are that 1 dealer in the country who has more lot traffic than they can handle, you better find a way to get into special finance. Why wouldn’t you want to service 2 out of every 3 customers who actually do make it onto your lot?

Let us know if you need any help or questions on properly setting up your special finance department, don’t miss this opportunity.