Crusty Old Sales Leads

[Steve Stauning]

Last month I wrote a post for DealerRefresh on how dealers that want to be successful in a flat-to-down market need to focus more on some of the "old school" stuff like processes, phones, measuring ROI, and (especially) those crusty old sales leads.

While most of the feedback has been aligned with my points, I have received a few notes about how "new school" metrics like "engagement" and "multi-touch attribution" are vastly more important to today's dealer. Additionally, I had two contacts tell me that "millennials don't submit sales leads."

That last bit of info was shock to me and to the thousands of dealership salespeople and BDC agents who handled a sales lead from a millennial THIS WEEK.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject...

...

To read the original post: https://www.dealerrefresh.com/market-time-little-old-school-automotive/

As a follow-up to that post, we'll be discussing those crusty old sales leads on the upcoming episode of Refresh Fridays (September 15, 2017). To register for that or any Refresh Friday webcast follow this link: http://dlrfr.sh/refreshfridays

 

[Chris Leslie]

Today I learned that if you dont have cars.com and submit a lead on a new car General Motors will take that lead and Re-sell it back to you unter the GM Third Part Lead Program. That seems pretty sleazy on both Gm and Cars.com parts. Further proof that cars.com is not here to help dealers. They are here to pander to the OEM's.

 

[john.quinn]

We're at 20ish years of the digital strategery invasion into automotive.

Without a doubt, some of the new products, strategies and process have been winners: making us more efficient in the store, enabling better communications and relationships with our customers.

But, as is the nature of software products to continually make improvements and "innovate," (is innovate considered a bad word yet?? soooooo overused), are we just adding stuff and making stuff up to stay relevant? We keep adding and adding... solutions are getting more and more intricate and complicated... we keep inventing new ways to attempt to prove ROI.... hard to keep up, no? Exactly what new problems are we solving? (Are we making-up those problems too??)

Matthew Stafford (Detroit Lions QB), just signed the richest contract in the history of the NFL. What was Mr. Stafford working on the 1st day of practice?

Was he re-inventing the forward pass? Was he innovating a new quadruple-look read?

No.

He worked with his center on a smooth exchange: the snap. He worked on his first step after the snap, and the hitting the mesh points with his backs. Every player in the NFL, every year, returns to the basics.

In other words -- the basics. You MUST master the basics to be successful, and you can never ignore or forget the basics.

Simple, YES! Effective? Ask Mr. Stafford and his 26-million reasons per year to work on the basics.

What's this mean for when the dealership gets slow?

Search for the new glitzy whizzbang shiny toy that will solve all our problems with the stroke of a check? (Boy, we do that a lot, don't we?? I mean really, c'mon -- is there really anything more you can do or measure that's going to sell you more cars??

Or better idea to start training camp with the basics: Advertising: fish where the fish are, and be seen/found easily. Sales: Take care of the customers; answer their questions, be responsive and forthright. Service: Be convenient; Get 'em in and out, and fixed the 1st time.

Service... hmmmm... now there's some opportunity over there. We've all been so occupied re-inventing how we're going to sell cars and making Sales soooo intricately difficult that we haven't given much love to the Lane. Probably time to start making things intricately difficult over there.... LOL

 

[Alexander Lau]

 

[Devorah Wolf]

@Stauning when you said crusty old sales leads, at first I thought you meant old leads sitting in your CRM that were never contacted for some reason, or customers that were actually sold to, but that you lost touch with. That's also where your phone tips can come in handy- making a call that's really targeted and responds to any questions the customer had or past purchases or interests can re-engage that person and hopefully bring them back. Looking forward to the webcast.

 

[Steve Stauning]

@Stauning when you said crusty old sales leads, at first I thought you meant old leads sitting in your CRM that were never contacted for some reason, or customers that were actually sold to, but that you lost touch with.

Yeah, the title of the forum post (which was pulled directly from the article) was a bit misleading. It made more sense in its original context.