An old Idea with a New (Cyber) Twist

[tbrowder]

Greg,

By the way, I talked to Dennis Rushing this morning. My problem is finding the time and the one year committment. Might still do it, though.

Tom.com

[machado]

Thank you for the kind remarks

No Fuzzy Math here, all of those numbers are straight up, unlike the bookkeeping of several notorious Fortune 500 Companies.

Right now I am number 2 in my store. I guess I need to Try Harder.

The Number one guy has lived in this community his whole life and is on an Up Mission. You know the type of fellow, if he doesnt have an UP, no one has an UP. Of course, you cant begrudge him he works hard for his Money selling 27.9 cars a month on a steady diet of 200 to 250 ups monthly, and God only know how many phone pops. His annual Run-out is 334.3 not bad by anyones standard.

I do not take any ups, and over the last year with vary few exceptions have I ever taken a phone pop. I think I have gone in on; four or five turns in the last year for technical assistance for a green pea.

100% of my business comes from the internet. I started here in August of last year and we had nothing in fact I worked off my laptop until December and built our website between assisting customers and helping the sales staff with Inventory Locates and Dealer Trades. Since I had lots of Chrysler Experience I was volunteered for assisting with certification for our staff and some of the other operations STUFF.

From time to time, I do feel a bit unappreciated but my paycheck makes up for most of that. If we had no growth in our online sales between now and the end of the year {HA!} my run out would be 220.3. Nevertheless, you mustnt forget I have to split nearly 30% of my deals which would account for much more production than the 220.3 that I would be credited for.

Who knowsBy next year, I might even be able to catch and even pass that "selling machine" and then perhaps then I might get that ride to work.

My biggest regret is that my GM and Dealer Principal are both off site of our facility and have nothing to measure my success to, and since Im being out performed by someone else I dont really shine.YET.

Truthfully, Im not even sure that my executive management even knows that I am not augmenting my sales with other traffic. You see we have two other facilities one is Ford store and the other is Dodge/Chrysler point, and both of our other ISMs also do Fleet/Fleet-tail business. Moreover, both of them get about three times the number of leads I do but there retail sales numbers are about equal with mineFOR NOW.

I didnt mean to sound like Im spilling my guts. Truthfully, Im enjoying this experience because it is giving me the opportunity to prove to myself and the rest of the world that the theories that Ive been developing over the past few years really do work.

Its not rocket-since, nothing about selling cars online is difficult all it takes is the work and the willingness to learn. Learn from your mistakes and from each other. The future has arrived; learn to use the technology to make yourself more productive with less overhead or be overpowered by the people who have.

[Dealer Cat]

Greg,
Thank you for your kind words concerning my Cyber 10 Groups. Before I started this type of training, a lot of thought went into the make up and reasoning behind this training. Here are the reasons why the Cyber 10 training has been developed and what the Cyber 10 training accomplishes to meet the needs of the entire automotive Internet community:
1. Currently there is no low cost solution to acquire quality training for ISMs from anyone who has actually sold cars on the Internet and been successful at it.
Solution. The Cyber 10 Groups meet that need and requirement. The cost for the Cyber 10 Groups is only $300 per month. Dealerships will spend that much on pizza for their sales staff on "sale Saturdays".

2. The Cyber 10 training is Internet based and allows the members to attend without incurring the expensive cost of travel, hotels, and especially valuable sales time.

3. The entire group will stay together for at least one year. This facilitates comraderie and insures consistency when we do stats comparision and interaction between the ISMs of the group.

4. The training sessions only last for about 2 hours and is conducted only once a month. This allows each ISM to still attend the training and not interfer with their valuable sales time. Too often it cost us to attend training. When we finally return from a day that still did not teach us how to really sell cars on the Internet, we have lost sales due to the fact that we could not reply to our customers within a critical time frame.

5. The Cyber 10 group requires a committment of 12 months. This has been established to keep the group cohesive and shows that the dealership is truly committed to the training process. This insures all members of the group will maximize their interaction in knowing they will stay together for one year. There is nothing worse than being a part of something like this only to have to explain to new members what you have already covered or knowing that each member will not participate fully due to non-committment.

If you have any further questions, contact Dennis Rushing at drushing@dealercat.com or visit my website at www.dealercat.com. YOu may also call me at 407-532-8835.

Thank you,
Dennis Rushing

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Dennis Rushing
President/CEO
Dealer Cat Inc.
www.dealercat.com
drushing@dealercat.com

[machado]

Finally the big 30!!!

We did it, we finally crossed that elusive 30 unit number. (But, this time we did it twice)

Our budget has not grown (yet), although, we are looking into adding http://www.cars.com to our arsenal of lead sources. Our plan is to also use them to create mass-emailing campaigns in other nearby markets so we can gain more exposure in places our conventional advertising is not reaching.

Here is how the numbers broke down for last month on our meager E-commerce budget at our Jeep Store.

Our Web site http://www.bbjeep.com = 51 leads for 10 deliveries 20%
Cobalt, Jeep.com, 5 Star site = 48 leads for 10 deliveries 21%
Electronic Customer referral = 9 leads for 5 deliveries 56%
Autobytel.com = 22 leads for 3 deliveries 14%
Personal email = 8 leads for 5 deliveries 63%
Repeat Customer (past 9 months) = 7 for 4 deliveries 57%

That makes 37 E-commerce deals with only 145 leads that were produced on a budget of less than $1,400.00. This is a closing ratio of 26%. Of course, I still credit the bulk of our sales success as being produced by the ongoing weekly email to our electronic address database of prospects. In fact I had one Saturday last month where I was able to time everything perfectly and I was able to personally deliver 7 cars, 5 New Jeeps and two pre-owned. (That will probably never happen again)

I know what youre thinkingYeah; but did they make any money? the answer is YES! And; just so you know the Internet Department had the Highest Gross Average in the store AGAIN.

Alas, my only complaint is that I had to split 10 deals last month, which brought my personal production to 32 causing me to place second in the store. At our Dodge Store they had similar results selling 34 with 12 split deals and he finished 3rd.

It can be doneI guess that old saying is true The harder we work the luckier we get


------------------
Greg Machado
E-Commerce Director &
Independant Consultant
gMACgroup.com
machado@gmacgroup.com
210.383.4734

[This message has been edited by machado (edited 09-18-2002).]

[Slingsby]

Hi All,
Machado, thanks for posting your results. It is that type of record-keeping that will help raise the level of interest of GM's and Dealers in the Internet Marketing departments of many dealerships.

In Chicago, Drivechicago.com hosts an "Internet 20 Group" that gets together every other month. We share information and statistics just as Greg has done here.

Keep up the good work.

------------------
Ed Slingsby
Senior Automotive Consultant
Drivechicago.com
eds@sellcars.com

[machado]

Thanks Ed,

Nice to hear from you

I dont think you and I have visited since that WDNS conference back on Orlando I hope things are going well for you.

Records are key If Ive said it once Ive said it 10,000 times. Without real detail records how can, you truly measure your success or Lack of Success???

I know that the truth can be painful and hurt our incredibly sensitive and over inflated egos. Nevertheless, Ive tried to pay my Mortgage and my grocery bill with my ego and all the bank will accept is the commissions that come from RESULTS. No one I know is more sensitive to criticism than I but Ive decided to make criticism my ally and learn from my mistakes.

By tracking my failures and working harder at finding out why I missed a deal rather than interviewing customers that we sold; has given me many clues into building a better mousetrap.

Records are critical so if you are not collecting and reviewing the data often you will not be able to do any type real analysis.

My adviceSpend more time finding out why and where you missed the mark and less time giving each other High 5s in the sales office.

As a sales manager one of my more Famous Quotes was always: "If we fail to sell a customer a car and he or she walks it is never their faultIt is our fault, for failing to convince them that there was real value to this purchase Where did we go wrong what could we have done better? Only that data will tell us.


------------------
Greg Machado
E-Commerce Director &
Independant Consultant
gMACgroup.com
machado@gmacgroup.com
210.383.4734

[This message has been edited by machado (edited 09-20-2002).]