In this week’s episode, I collected helpful tips from the speakers and experts at the recent Digital Dealer conference in Tampa, Florida. We’ve got some amazing tips that will help your business thrive and rock the competition – check them out!
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
All right. I’m not allowed to tell you who I am. But here’s my tip. Uh … Do your cont, like for content marketers out there who are doing a lot of content and trying to produce a lot of content. Right now what we’re finding is, we’re trying to keep everything 30 seconds or less. Like, video clips, audio clips. Anything that is engaging or interactive for your channels. Just keep it short. Long form stuff, it has its place. But if you’re out there every day and you’re laying a foundation of like, brand awareness, keep the content short.
Start using video. Now, I am a master on TikTok. I have about 3.8 billion views overall on my channel. With one video having at least 1.5 million. And how I started was just getting started. Um, I see so many dealers like, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know how to use TikTok. Open the app. Make a video, and just do it. You’re going to have so much fun. And you’re going to realize, kind of like car sales, okay, I’m actually getting the hang of this.
So my tip to you is, especially when it comes to TikTok and Instagram reels, you need to hop on those two avenues because my generation, Gen Z, is on that short attention span. And we’re not here for these five, ten minute walk around videos. We need quick, uh, informational videos. Funny videos. And that’s why I say go on TikTok. Go on these Instagram reels and just start creating. Even if it’s content that you don’t know what to shoot, just start and the juices will start flowing. So that is my tip to you.
@tgotyourkeys follow me on TikTok for any car advice and tips. And you can even follow my recipe, right? Just because somebody else maybe has done a video, you can do the same exact video because none times out of ten, you have a completely different audience than that person who shot that video. So replicate, duplicate and then create your own until you finally get your stance on how you want to do your videos. But my step, and tip to you is jus start.
Make sure that you’re using a trade-in tool that you can actually apply to your Google business profile. Meaning somewhere within offers, or in your Google business profile where you can drop a link so that you can take people, which there is a lot of them that happen to roll through your Google Business Profile, and make sure that they have that experience along with Cars for Sale, and all the other things that you need to optimize content there.
And a little bonus tip. Give more love to fixed ops. Whether its service merchandising, act like a customer and go through the experience of trying to schedule service with your own dealership. And then realize that your service department actually talks to more customers, is face to face with more customers and has way more to do with your gross profit every year than your very best sales people. So give your service department a lot of love.
My tip for you. Inspect what you expect. Check on your marketing outreach reports. Check with your vendors. And make sure it matches the KPIs and the goals you are trying to achieve.
Understand your data. Make sure you’re working with a company that has actually working with you to get to the next level. You’ve always got to have someone that’s going to work hard with you to get to the next level. You’ve got to understand your data and have a good team that you can communicate efficiently with. Do the right things for the right reasons.
All right, hey everybody. Coming to you live from Digital Dealer. Wanted to give you a tip today. If you’re not leveraging your first-party data to make your website customized to your customers, you’re missing out. If you’re not connecting your digital retailing to your website, you’re missing out. There are so many things that completely fall apart if you don’t deliver a perfect customer experience on your website. You’ve got to get these people into the showroom. So come talk to us. We’d love to talk to you more about what you can do with your first-party data.
So the big thing we’re seeing right now, uh, if you have the Meta Pixel Helper on your Chrome extensions. You go to your website. We’re seeing a lot of different websites where OEMs, or whatever it may be, are firing events into your pixel that you don’t want. So if you’re optimizing for conversions or actual events on your website, they’re sending events that are going to conflict with that and probably increase your cost per clicks and your cost per leads. So take a look at that Pixel Helper. See what’s being fired in there and clean it up.
So one of the most recent tips that I can share … Probably the best practice in terms of using the data in your Google search console, there’s a, there’s a treasure trove o-of gold in there. So here’s what it is, real quick. Take a look at your keywords that a-have increased in the most clicks. Or the last 90 days. Compare that to the prior period. And then go over and sort your highest impressions difference. And take a look at those keywords that are also getting a ton of impressions, but you’re not getting any clicks on it. And then compare that list to the keywords that you are getting clicks on. And that will give you a good roadmap to at least start to identify other opportunities on those pages, again, that are getting a lot of impressions, but aren’t getting clicks.
Hi, my tip for today is inspect your Google analytics events. We’re going to assume you already have your Google Analytics tracking code in place. We’re going to assume you’ve made sure data is flowing. But have you gone in the, into the … engagement reports in your Google Analytics and looked at your events and make sure they’re properly firing? And even once they’re firing, check them every few weeks. Because we find with some website providers, click to calls suddenly go from 50 a day to 2 a day, or something like that, right? So Google Analytics 4 is turning out to be a little bit fragile. Check your events. Make sure they’re firing. Compare it to Google Analytics 3 for reasonability. And keep checking until, uh, at least a few months have passed. Good luck.
My biggest tip to dealers today is in that buzzword CDP, Customer Data Platform. Take your time. Do your due diligence. This is a huge topic that’s going to be around for a while. So don’t rush into this decision. And be sure to research outside of automotive as well with the CDP providers.
First and foremost, CRM is one of the most degregated tools in a dealership. Approximately ninety percent of of all CRMs are not set up correctly. They have antiquated action plans, processes. They’re broken templates, yady-yady-yada. So obviously Forrest Gump tip, is make sure your CRM is set up correctly. But let’s say it is. I want to give you all a power tip with communication. Most dealers are emailing, phone calling or text messaging their prospects. That’s what everybody is doing. JD Power and NADA say that the average internet prospect is searching nine to eleven other dealerships or websites besides you.
That means there’s nine to eleven other people phone calling, emailing or text messaging. So here’s a super pro tip. Do additional things like social media DMs. Social media is number one form of communication on planet earth. But most automotive employees from sales to BDC management do not use Facebook messenger. LinkedIn messenger. TikTok messenger and WhatsApp. Now let me explain to you.
So if you have an internet purchase request in whatever CRM it is, uh, what you want to be able to do is if that person doesn’t answer the phone, to you don’t have text message capability, turn around, take the email address from the internet purchase request. And drop it right into Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etcetera. Now there are some CRM tools like VIN Solutions or DriveCentric that has passive integrations with these social communication channels. I’m telling you, you’re going to be shocked.
Now, one of the questions I get is oh, w… is that allowed? Let me tell you right now, it’s like the wild wild west. Unlike text messaging, there is no FCC, TCPA compliancy laws for safeguarding social media DMs. So until that law changes, exploit that opportunity. In other words, think about this. The average human being is not just phone call, email or texting. I mean, grandmas, little kids are using social media DMs. So why are we not as automotive professionals utilizing free technology, free communication mechanisms that the average human being is using.
Now super duper pro tip is this. If it’s the end of the month, and you’re trying to, you know, grind out, get some more appointments. I’ve never heard anybody else talk about this. Use Venmo or CashApp. What?! Yeah, check it out. Can you imagine if you’re trying to follow up with a prospect and they’ll never freaking answer? All you’ve got to do is take the email address from their internet purchase request. And then drop that into either Venmo or CashApp. Now. It’s not a hundred percent hit, but there’s a possibility that they have a Venmo account or a CashApp account. And I’m telling you right now, if you put free money, whether it’s ten bucks, twenty bucks, or whatever, into somebody’s account, you’re going to get their attention. And then you could follow it up with a text message, or email or a voicemail that says, “Hey, I just sent you money to your Venmo or CashApp account.”
I can’t tell you how many dealers that are doing this. They’re like, “Oh my God, I just got an extra ten appointments on Saturday because I just Venmo’d somebody $20.” Again, this is Sean V Bradley, Digital Dealer Tampa. And I’ll see you when I see you.
Ask questions to your vendors when you’re doing vetting. Especially when it comes to AI. Ask them questions in detail about how they’re training their models to respond on your behalf to make sure that it is adhering to what you want guests to get with an AI engagement.
There’s a buzz going around. When we buy cars, are we trying to outperform the market? Or underperform the market? What does that mean? Do we want to buy when the price it high? Or do we want to buy in order to give us more front-end profit? Well, of course we want to outperform the market when we buy the car. Hm. Do we want to outperform the market when we sell the car? Heck yeah we do. So, why when a car is priced at ninety eight percent of the market, and we see others pricing at ninety seven, ninety six, do we race to the bottom? There’s a better way.
Highest authentic value. Think about that. And how do you leverage data so that you can achieve highest authentic value in communicating to your customers in helping your car stand out? Well, you do it with build data. You do it with options, with features, with packages, with recondition. With dealer-exclusive items. Those are all things that play into the vehicle file. So that when you list that car and it goes out to the world, you attract the very best audience. Regardless of the scarcity of that vehicle. We use technology to power that. That way, you can outperform the market when you buy. And then outperform the market when you sell.
As dealers start moving their focus to online service marketing, you need to segment your strategies from tires, collision, accessories, service and parts. Doing that will help give a great customer experience on the website for your dealers.
Hey, what’s going on everyone? I’m going to tell you, I’ve got one quick tip. One quick rule just for you. Get in your staff and ask them one simple question. What is your sales process? And I’m going to tell you, most of them are going to sound a little confused or give you different answers. Get that, and expect that. And make sure that it’s done right. And make sure that they know what they sales process is in this uniform. It’ll change everything in your dealership and it’ll make the clients, the customer experience, way better. So get after that.
You’ve got to dig deeper. Right? See the challenge is you think you understand the reason that that customer is doing the thing that they are doing. But that’s not the reason. Because you’ve got to dig deeper. You’ve got to say things like,
“Well Greg, let me ask you, what, what made you say that?”
“Well Greg, let me ask you, t-tell me more about that.”
“Hey Greg, unpack that for me.”
That’s pretty deep. So you’ve got to be truly interested. Why? Because interested people are interested. Right? Interested people are interesting. This is the whole thing that most people don’t realize. You’ve got to ask a lot of questions. You’ve got to dig deeper with your customers. Truly understand th-the reason why they do what they do, and you will be so much of a bigger helper to your customers. And I know that’s what you want. Why? Because the more people, you know, you understand that money AR, certificates of servitude? The more money you make, it’s because you’ve been serving lots of people. So if you really want to make some money, understand why people want what they want and are doing what they’re doing. You’ll make a lot of money. Thank so much. Appreciate y’all listening to me on the Millionaire Car Salesman podcast. Y’all know who it is. L.A. Williams, the blind master. Appreciate y’all.
Head to the nicest restaurant you can possibly find in your city. Go in. Order a nice steak. Ask to meet the chef or the host. The like, top host. Find that host. Say hey, I want you to come into my store and do an hour and a half briefing on exactly how I can adjust my hospitality in my store to match the way the hospitality industry uh, associates with customers. That will change the way that your store approaches customers and the way that they come into the store.
Okay I was recently at a Ritz Carlton restaurant and they empower their servers to actually have a discretionary budget that they have to give out and use every day. And that server used their budget to get my wife and I free dessert because it was our anniversary. So if you’re in Fixed Ops, why don’t you give a few of your operators, a few of your advisors a discretionary budget that they can give out. That they have to give out every day. Free oil change, a discount on their bill. And just see if that can’t just make some consumer, customer experiences that people actually tell their friends about.
What’s going on Solutionaries? Excited to be able to share one tip for you. For those of you that really want to make sure that you’re getting the best out of your people, keep developing your people. Keep being intentionable … Intentional about taking your people to the next level as professionals, as individuals, as team members, as community members. Be very very intentional about making sure that they do the things that it takes to go to the next level in all aspect of their life. Especially when you’re introducing to them new ideas, new tools, new processes. Make sure that you have the anchor of knowing where it is that they’re motivated to be able to lean into that a little bit more as you get them to embrace some of the things that you try to do as you move forward in your industry.
When you can tie together their why with yours, well folks, then your brewing solutions. And that’s how we upshift and uplift an industry. I appreciate you all. Keep brewing solutions and forgive. Focus. Fly. So you can keep growing all the time. I’m out, talk to you later.
