For the last year and a half or so I have been chomping at the bit waiting for the arrival of the next generation of America's favorite Pony, the 2015 Ford Mustang! To commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Mustang Ford held a huge premier event here on the west coast at the world famous TLC Chinese Theater and I was incredibly lucky enough to get an invite and be there! There were hundreds of celebrities and members of the world auto press, and just like a famous star it is the new Mustang even left its 'foot print' in the wet cement out in front of the theater to be displayed next to stars like Steve McQueen! After starring in over 3,000 movies and TV shows the new Mustang had a LOT to live up to and it does NOT disappoint! From the outside its obvious that the new Mustang is breath taking and the performance is too! As I checked out each of the drawings, renderings and concepts that popped up online I found many features I liked about many of them and the magicians at Ford seem to have read my mind and pulled together the things I liked about many different versions of the new Pony into one simply stunning package. The new GT is powered by a freshened up Coyote 5.0l V8 that develops 420hp and will also be available with the Launch Control feature previously only available on the Shelby Cobra's! At the other end of the spectrum is an all new 4 cyl, DOHC Turbo Charged EcoBoost engine that makes 305hp while also returning class leading exceptional fuel mileage! Out back the rear suspension is all new and fully independent, which means the new Pony will change the way you feel about the letters IRS forever! Quite simply the only thing the designers kept from the current platform is the way they spell Mustang! The 2015 wasn't styled, it was engineered with an intent to stir the soul, provide an intense yet incredibly satisfying driving experience and be the center of attention wherever it goes for a long, long time! The first 1000 editions of this gorgeous new Mustang will be 2014.5 models to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first Mustangs and there is already much anticipation, contact us at Raceway Ford for more information on how to get your name on the waiting list and stay tuned here for more info on this amazing new addition to Ford's history of amazing cars!
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As many Internet Sales Professionals would agree, the new popularity of videos as follow up does not ensure car deals by themselves however as an integral step in a strong follow up process they can be highly effective. Above is a video message I made for my team as a 'Managers Message' and it it attached to an email that goes out on the third day after an Internet request has been received. Although the views don't reflect the real reach the response the email gets in reply's and in texts is great. Just like when working with a customer in the showroom sometimes having a Manager to speak to can be the assistance needed to assure the customer that they aren't making a mistake and doing business with the right folks. In the video I offer our guests the ability to reach out to me direct by calling, texting or replying to the email and it works, by allowing our customers the options that best work for their communication comfort we show that we are indeed here for them. Its not the best quality or produced but its gets the point across and was easy to make, as a manager could your process benefit from more of your direct involvement? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section, I look forward to your point of view!
These days it seems like every vender that sits in front of me has the same catch phrase; “content is king”. Now I’m sure this is a valid point but this is not about venders or even anything online, I wanted to talk about the other king today. Here at the dealership I have a similar saying that I have spoken many thousands of times over the years; “accountability is king” which is a para phrase of a saying I'm sure you have heard many times yourself, “inspect what you expect”. There's a difference though between repeating it and doing it! Many times we look only at the results of an employee and mistakenly assume the activities that led to them, both positively and negatively. Sometimes we may assume that our 20 car a month salesperson does a fairly good job of his daily work-plan, or that he in fact does have one! Conversely looking at a low performing staff member and making the assumption that he isn't working his daily plan. The real problem is an overwhelming lack of accountability that prevails in the car business. Now if your dealership has it figured out to a tee then forgive the implication however after 25 plus years in showrooms I do speak from real experience! We all get busy, believe me I know and I get busy too! Its all to easy to lose track of the day and simply nod as my sales people check out at the end of their shift with a casual, ‘good night boss’…. If this type of check out is left unchecked it suddenly is the last weekend of the month and the scramble is on to find those precious few more deals that we hope will make up for a slow month. The reality is simple. There are no slow months, there is only the lack or preparation followed up with implementation and inspected by management so as to hold our people accountable for their own production. Lets face it our people rely on us to keep them on track and earning their living so its our responsibility to make sure they; have clear and easily understood goals, they have reviewed their goals with us as managers and are being inspected daily to ensure they are working toward those goals. Before the end of a month the following months activities should be clearly planned out. For a retail person on the floor they should be able to project how many up, demos and write ups they will need to reach their goal and most importantly what they need to do to acquire those opportunities. Internet people have similar steps to manage with how many leads, phone call, appointments , demos, write ups etc. Its imperative to look through our CRM daily to see what our people are, and aren't doing and then consult with them to offer praise or guidance when needed. If wee look up at the sales board and see someone selling a bunch don’t assume he or she is doing a bang up job of follow up and leave it at that, look into it and if they are well then praise them however, if they aren't ask them how amazing their numbers would be if they were! If you have a low performer drill down and find out where the breakdown is, if a guy has taken a ton of ups but can't get to the demo work on that. If hes had a great demo ratio but isn't asking for the business there is your next training session etc. I’m not breaking any revolutionary new ground here, but it is advise that needs to be repeated often! Fire up your computer, log into that CRM and find more deals by holding your team to a higher level of accountability! Until next time, Sell Something! I am very excited to announce that I have joined the team at Raceway Ford, located at 5900 Sycamore Canyon Blvd. in Riverside, CA 92507! I will be working with the Internet Sales Team and also assisting with our digital marketing efforts and look forward to being a part of something absolutely amazing here! This energy of this store is electric and everything is set for this ship to take off, watch as we change the game, make many smiles and "Rebuild the Inland Empire one new Ford at a time"! Woo Hoo! :) A few weeks ago I was ranting about dealership senior management needing to be aware of who at their store is posting to social media on their behalf and know how to take it over should the employee leave. This concern goes along with an issue I made a comment about on Facebook some time ago about 3rd party postings. I know that the idea of having a ‘professional’ agency do all the social posting for your store seems like a simple fix on the surface. None of your employees will be wasting time on Facebook, Twitter and Google +, there will be consistency of posts and you can focus on what’s important like the next weekends newspaper ad! There seems to be no end to the number of companies offering their social media prowess and a couple are even working directly with OEM’s and get some leverage when offered in a bundle with other services the manufactures pressure us into ‘considering’! My rant about 3rd party postings stemmed from seeing the very same, generic and bland, post on 13 different Ford dealers Twitter feeds! Now I fully understand that the average car shopper my not be watching the feed of as many car dealers as I do but c’mon!!!......... With over 25 years in the retail auto biz, the last 15 being in senior level management, I consider myself somewhat of a knowledgeable person about this industry. As a Sales Manager one of my favorite parts of the job is training, I love sharing what I know to work with others and also love watching them take that knowledge and truly reach new levels of peak performance. Lately I have been thinking that my sights may have been a bit too narrow for quite a while, I mean why limit sharing what I know with only the few that I have working directly with me? I know as much about success in the car business as most of the big speakers and more than some; why not share my opinions, tips and techniques with as many as I can? The one thing I know about car sales for sure is that there is enough business for us all because not all of those in this business are improving themselves and are simply getting but so the room for true pros is unlimited. Rather than focus solely on my own staff I have wanted to be able to share with car pros all over the things I feel I have to offer, I have joined many forums and tried to participate in many threads in them and on Facebook etc however its impossible to stay on top of so many conversations while working full time for a dealership! Recently the awesome folks at Careers In Auto asked me if I would like to write a weekly column for their online magazine geared toward dealerships managers and I was honored and STOKED! Now I can offer some of my words of wisdom to folks on a reoccurring basis in one central place and not get finger cramps from logging into a gazillion forums and websites! We shall see where this goes, who knows if my weekly blog could turn into something bigger or not but for now I will keep sharing what I've seen work, the ideas I have for whats next and even a funny bit or two! Check out the site HERE, its a really great reference for dealerships managers at every level, even dealer principals can find cool stuff there. Let me know what you think about my newest venture too, I'm looking forward to some feedback! :) GM/Dealer Principals who aren't paying attention to their own dealerships Social Media efforts baffle me! I know they have a lot on their plate but at the very least they should be aware of who is posting on behalf of their store and from time to time take a moment to check out whats being posted. Often times they will have someone who demonstrates a decent level of Internet knowledge take on the duties of dealer postings, which may be fine however it is very important that more than one person know WHERE the dealer is being represented and HOW to access the profile/postings. There should always be a central location for the site address along with user names and passwords, perhaps a shared file even. Should the employee overseeing the social effort for the store leave and not share all the access with someone else its could result in quite a mess! I came across a dealer who apparently had someone pretty creative and motivated at one time working for them who had secured quite a few unique Twitter handles on behalf of the dealer however of the nine Twitter accounts created for the dealership eight have NOT been updated since Jan 8, the ninth one has been dormant since Feb and the last post was "we're back!".... I have forced our GM, with much effort(!), to at least watch as I showed him all of the listings/profiles/pages I have set up and manage for the store and showed him how to access the shared file with all the user names and passwords to them. If I ever leave there may not be a guarantee that he will know how to continue the work I have started for sure but at least the person they may hire will have a solid place to start! Just my $0.2: GM's ask your Social Media person to make sure you have access to all the places online that your dealer is represented! :) Over the past 25+ years of working in the retail auto business one thing my friends both in person and online have grown to know about me is that I have an incredible passion for this business. I love what I do and I know this to be an awesome career when approached from the right place, a place of service and a genuine desire to help folks. Over the years I have met and had the privilege of working with many amazing people both in the business directly and working with the business from outside and the one thing I try to share with everyone I meet is that I know this business can be a better place than we have allowed it to be over the years and I am committed to helping make it so. Recently my efforts in creating my brand got the attention of the folks at Careers in Auto and they asked me to sit for an interview about utilizing Social Media is car sales and I was honored to do so, it was a blast and the video has received some interesting attention since being posted. This past week the folks from Careers in Auto contacted me again and asked me to be a keynote speaker at their job fair! They would like me to speak about the car business as a legitimate career path and not just a 'job'! In my presentation they also would like me to speak to folks new in the industry or considering entering and explain how to leverage social media to create a revenue stream that is not dependent on their dealerships marketing and advertising. I thought it was pretty cool that they consider me an 'authority' in the auto industry and I am really stoked about this opportunity! Stay tuned because you KNOW I will be posting the video right here friends! Some time ago I wrote about how I had managed to sell a car from my activity on Instgram, I was fairly proud of myself and the post helped me land an interview with the folks at CareersInAuto.com. As cool as it was I will admit that I considered myself lucky and did not anticipate being able to sell more vehicles from simply posting my awesome pics on a phone app, and yes they are indeed awesome! None he less I continue to post my pics taken from around the lot here at work fairly regularly and last week I got a comment asking about the availability of a 4X4 F-150. I replied with my email address and we worked out the details of the truck she was looking for over the course of the next few days and, low and behold last night we delivered Danny the F-150 of his dreams... the one his wife Daisy reached out to me on Instagram looking for! Many thanks Danny and Daisy, I am thrilled that I was able to help you with your search for a new truck and even more excited that it was a result of our connecting on Instagram! Although my wife may not be be happy to hear it, this guy will be posting more awesome pics for a long, long time! While working hard on the three car deals I had in front of me I overheard those words spoken at the receptionist’s desk and my head shot up! I have been Mike theCarGuy online for just over a year now but no one, outside of my little circle, had ever used that name and I was instantly intrigued. I stood up and walked over to the guest with my hand extended and introduced myself, the young man said “hi, you just posted a really cool picture of my dad’s Saleen Mustang on Instagram and I just wanted to say thank you! Its awesome that you put our car on the Internet!” Let me back up just a bit here… A while back I began taking and posting pictures with Instagram, as do millions of others, and a sort of fancy myself having somewhat of a keen eye, as do millions of others! One day a really cool Ford pulled onto the lot driven by one of our customers and I realized that many of our customers also have some nice Fords so I began snapping pics of them and using the hashtag #OurCustomersHaveCoolCars . Along the way I have picked up a few Ford fans and followers including my new friend who just happened to find our pictures a few weeks prior to that days visit by searching the dealership name where his dad has his Mustang serviced. My staff helps me greatly with my hobby by letting me know when a nice Ford pulls in and I am always quick to run out and snap a shot, which is what I had just done a few minutes before. While sitting in the customer lounge, enjoying the free Wi-Fi, my ‘fan’ jumped onto his iTouch and when he opened Instagram his father’s gorgeous Mustang was the first picture in his feed. After showing his dad he ran up front and asked for me by my online name of Mike theCarGuy! This story would be cute if it ended with me meeting a young fan of my really cool pictures however; as I write this I am watching that young mans own uncle walk to our F&I office to complete the contracts on his new Ford purchase! My new friend has told his entire family how awesome our dealership is and a month after his family Saleen was highlighted his uncle decided to come to us for his car, thus my first car deal from Instagram! Now when my GM see’s me out on the lot lining up that perfect shot he may just hesitate a moment before screaming at me to ‘get the hell back to the sales desk and sell something’…… or not! |
Mike theCarGuy
Hey there, I'm Mike theCarGuy and here are some of my thoughts about cars, the car business and sales! Take a look around, maybe you will learn something or at the very least find your self smiling, and if you do... leave me a comment so I know I at least did something right! Thanks for stoppin by...
Need to reach me? Call or Text: (909) 206-4377 mikethecarguy@outlook.com Mike theCarGuy: 22400 Barton Rd Suite 21-451 Grand Terrace, CA 92313 Twitter: @MiketheCarGuy1 Instagram: MiketheCarGuy Follow Mike Correra on Quora
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March 2024
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