My New Adventure - Al West Nissan

[joe.pistell]

A Nissan Kicks has massaging seats?!

Ooooo... You know your cars! mad respect from one car guy to another.

 

[Matthew Davis]

Really enjoying following along here...love the updates. Keep 'em coming.

 

[BillVaughnKMC]

Yesterday we started the process of eliminating all vendors. No, seriously. EVERYTHING. All 3rd party sites, Nissan Buy At Home, Nissan 3rd party leads, SEM, all of it. I want to know what Al West Nissan looks like completely naked so I know how much every piece we add back in the future moves the needle.

 

[Richard_Lloyd]

Ooooo... You know your cars! mad respect from one car guy to another.

Yesterday we started the process of eliminating all vendors. No, seriously. EVERYTHING. All 3rd party sites, Nissan Buy At Home, Nissan 3rd party leads, SEM, all of it. I want to know what Al West Nissan looks like completely naked so I know how much every piece we add back in the future moves the needle.

Strong move for sure, will be a great case study. My coworker said you got the nerds there in Rolla at S&T-- any local/community initiatives or has effort already been made there?

 

[BillVaughnKMC]

Strong move for sure, will be a great case study. My coworker said you got the nerds there in Rolla at S&T-- any local/community initiatives or has effort already been made there?

We definitely will have to spend some energy on some more organic marketing such as this. I agree!

 

[Niki.E]

I am following closely!

 

[Rob]

Yesterday we started the process of eliminating all vendors. No, seriously. EVERYTHING. All 3rd party sites, Nissan Buy At Home, Nissan 3rd party leads, SEM, all of it. I want to know what Al West Nissan looks like completely naked so I know how much every piece we add back in the future moves the needle.

This is completely insane and I absolutely love it.

 

[BillVaughnKMC]

This is completely insane and I absolutely love it.

Gotta cut costs and then we have to figure out what moves the needle and what doesn't.

 

[BillVaughnKMC]

Pricing issues... pricing issues everywhere!

3rd party sites and the website don't have prices that agree with one another. We have to be ensuring pricing accuracy regularly. Why do dealers just hope the pricing is accurate! Verify!

We have now done a complete retraining and both internet leads and phone up. Now time for the follow up training. I don't believe in training. I believe in training in the classroom, then training on the job, then following up on the training, and then holding people accountable to said training. Make sure they have the training, the tools they need to be successful, they know the expectation, and then hold them accountable to that expectation.

I'm taking a look at commissions earned previously and my expectations of them going forward. With the losses the dealership is taking, I don't believe salespeople are making anything off of what they are selling. With where we're at, I'm thinking we are going to need thin margins for a period to move metal, so I don't see it getting any better. I'm thinking this might be a good time to move to a non-commissioned sales staff and use it as an organic selling point.

Thoughts?

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Bill,

Have you had a chance to look at avg. used car recon cost (Purchase Units to Trade-ins), look to book stats, used car appraisals and cost to market data (are they loading up in trades or are they getting trades at a good cost to market only to be buried in them by service)? What does your used car inventory mix look like (Percentage of Purchase units to Trade-ins)? How much water are you carrying with your used inventory? Are you looking at desk managers deal structures (are you holding on trades, getting $$$ down, avg. number of pencils given, are they boxing the F&I manager in with no room to move). How strong is your F&I manager?