Talking to a GM - Why Does Only One Approach Seem to Work?

[Prentice Parton]

Good Morning, all. I am going to post a bit of frustration, and I'm sure that I'll get logical explanation from the many dealers on this page.

My question is, How do I get the attention of dealer "decision-makers" about working with them on their digital marketing efforts and NOT be the guy on LinkedIn that pitches a (likely) bogus lead generation practice by starting a post with "What if I told you I can get you xx amount of leads at xx cost"?

First. Anyone can get any amount of leads they want by manipulating placement of conversion tracking codes, and making things appear to be better than that are. I know because I've seen people do it.

Second. How do I, as someone who has worked with the big agencies (and know their limitations), get the attention of a decision maker in a dealership when I don't have the cheesy, flashy sales pitch? I just do what I have done for years with brands like McDonalds, Chrysler, Hertz, Toyota, etc.

I'm not necessarily a sales guy, but I am a data geek.

 

[ryan.gerardi]

J Prentice I included your thread in today's DealerRefresh email to our most active subscribers. Hopefully it garners some response for you.

Curious, what is the one strategy that you refer to that you say is the "only" one that works?

 

[Steve Stauning]

First: Get a real success story to share at the dealership level.
Second: Share this success story with other dealerships.
Third: Be prepared to sell. Building a better mousetrap is mostly irrelevant to dealers. As much as they would probably argue with me, dealership managers don't "buy" anything; they are sold almost 100% of the time.

Need proof? Just look at the crap they're "buying" today from some of the best marketing companies out there. The ones who do actually buy, most often just "buy" what their fellow 20-grouper was sold.

You need to sell them.

 

[joe.pistell]

...I'm not necessarily a sales guy, but I am a data geek.

You sell data stories, Dealer's sell cars.
Your task is to talk 'cars & customers', and keep the data 'under the hood' until you've won their confidence.

 

[john.quinn]

You sell data stories, Dealer's sell cars.
Your task is to talk 'cars & customers', and keep the data 'under the hood' until you've won their confidence.

Yepper... gotta speak the language. Simple

 

[joe.pistell]

You sell data stories, Dealer's sell cars.
Your task is to talk 'cars & customers', and keep the data 'under the hood' until you've won their confidence.

Prentice,
you're not alone. Every data geek vendor has this 'disconnected discussion'. Data geeks look for dealers that 'get' their language. The challenge I present to our analytics teams is:

"if 99% of our customers speak Italian and we speak english, who's responsibility is it to learn the new language?"​

Then, I'll follow with:

"Dealers are not recreational data analysts, they sell cars. Chart, graphs, correlations, attribution models are useless to them. It's up to us to use data to drive a narrative that's all about cars and customers.
​

Prentice, the solution isn't easy. Done right, it requires empathy, domain authority & creativity.

 

[Alexander Lau]

I find that most dealers do not have enough qualified techies and digital advertisers (those that actually know what they are doing) and that makes this process even tougher. It's been mentioned, if there is a language barrier you're already dead in the water.