Keep Your Eye on the Ball
Posted May 15, 2012 by Brad CannonAs I sit down to write this month’s article, I’m a little excited. Tonight is opening night for my softball league. We’re a pretty competitive group at heart, but we’re really just a bunch of old guys trying to prove the other team is older. I just hope I can walk tomorrow. At the beginning of every season I always start thinking about the basics of softball – running, catching throwing, hitting. The fundamentals, things you have to be able to do on the field at least passably well in order to be successful. That got me thinking about the … Read More »
Stop Giving Away Your Margin
Posted May 8, 2012 by Tory HornsbyQUESTION: My sales guys seem to give up our margin even though they’re not responsible for handling price… any tips on how to handle this? ANSWER: Believe it or not, discounts are actually invited by your Salespeople and negotiations begin far before they ever sit down & write up a customer. Most Salespeople have incredibly weak negotiation skills and have no idea how to bypass them. It isn’t taught in most dealerships, and the problem is that learning through the school of hard-knocks takes a long time and costs a small fortune. And it’s not just affecting your gross profit, … Read More »
Online Advertising – Impressions, Clicks and Conversions.
Posted May 1, 2012 by Tory HornsbyQuestion: Regarding online advertising, what is the difference between impressions, clicks, and conversions, and how are they tracked? Answer: That’s a great question. So let’s say that we do a Google Ad Words campaign for your Harley-Davidson dealership. We’ll bid on ‘keywords’ that are most likely to be searched regarding your products and services. (Side note- we have over 1000 proven and tested keywords per OEM). Then anytime someone searches one of those keywords and your ‘sponsored listing’ appears on the page, it’s an “impression”. Although the more impressions you get the better, what you really want to happen is … Read More »
How do I get my Salesperson to write-up more customers?
Posted April 23, 2012 by Tory HornsbyANSWER: Considering the closing ratio for a write-up averages 40-50%, training your salespeople to get more write-ups is a great idea, to say the least. There are two primary ways to get your salespeople to write-up more customers: executing all the steps of the sales process and improving their technique. Before you say, “I’m already doing that!” let me explain. I’m not referring to putting a label on what your salespeople were already doing and calling it a sales process. That isn’t changing anything, it’s just a label. Executing a sales process means your salespeople are focused on following prescribed … Read More »
