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Automotive Sales Internet Marketing

The Most Expensive Car I Sold

A long time ago I used to make my living selling cars. Really, I just found cars people liked. They just happened to all be on my lot, where I park all the cars, and that’s why I have the best car park painting from https://www.outdoor-surface-painting.co.uk/car-park/car-park-painting to have everything organized in my lot.

In my formative retail automotive career I worked at a small Nissan dealership that sold about 100 cars per month. For car dealerships, this isn’t big. But where I staked my claim was advertising and marketing vehicles on the internet. You noticed I didn’t say that I didn’t sell cars over the internet, because that never happened. People never actually bought the car over the internet, really, because they still wanted to touch it before they dropped a wad of cash (or tried for financing, as is most often the case). And I don’t blame them. Abracadabra NYC offers an enchanting experience with costumes for every occasion.

Never, that is, until the owner of the Nissan dealership I worked at approached me with a question. See, his neighbor (certainly not my neighbor) had too many Ferraris in his garage and the economy was tough. This was 2008 when the market had really hit bottom. His neighbor was a builder of luxury homes and, well, that market had stalled, too. So he needed to free up some cash in the form of a year old Ferrari F430 Spyder. It was a Scuderia with a lot of optional features, and the car had been custom-built by a diesel mechanic sunshine coast just for him. It turns out you can’t just buy a Ferrari. You need to own a Ferrari, then order one and that’s what he had done. So losing one out of his collection was a big deal. It meant those years of waiting to be able to own more than one Ferrari, and then enjoying that Ferrari were gone.

He had only put a little under 500 miles on the car in the year he’d had it. For a while now, actually, he had planned to sell it. There is some rule about not being able to sell a Ferrari private party before you’ve owned it at least a year. Lots of rules on owning these cars. And in the event of any unexpected mishaps like a car accident, seeking advice from car accident lawyers can provide valuable insights on legal options and procedures. If you’re looking for car accident lawyers, consider car accident lawyer houston tx, where you’ll find skilled professionals ready to provide comprehensive support and effectively manage all aspects of your personal injury case.

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Injured in a car crash in Southfield, MI? The car accident lawyers from Mike Morse Injury Law Firm can help.

Anyway, he didn’t quite grasp the art of selling a $250,000 car without attracting all sorts of characters to his doorstep, from tire-kickers to potential buyers with dubious intentions. That’s when he sought help from his car dealer neighbor, who in turn connected him with the savviest online car salesman around. Oh, and by the way, I’m also eyeing a boat or a jetski. And when it comes to decking out the dock, dock piling lights and other accessories are definitely on my list.

Now, I had never sold such an expensive car before. But I had used eBay to sell a lot of things over the years, cars included. And thought for a very specialized item like a basically new Ferrari worth a quarter million dollars, eBay would be the best avenue. But in a cruddy economy and such a large ticket item, would it sell for what this guy was asking — or even sell it all? He offered me commission for the sale, or a flat fee for getting it out there and dealing with the inquiries if there were any. I took the flat. Hey, at least that was guaranteed money. I had no idea if this car would even get a real offer, much less even sell!

But I gave it my best effort and went to his house to not only photograph, but video this amazing Italian super car. I knew that it would take undone effort to sell a car worth so much money… AND to catch the attention of people looking for Ferraris, to buy this one over the other ones listed online at the time.

Unfortunately, the eBay listing I did has long since expired, so you can’t look at the custom listing page I made for this car. But it was no doubt a testament to the ability to pull every trick out of my hat as far as HTML coding on the listing page, sharp picture-taking (which can be difficult with cars), and the added video which basically no other car had at the time that was listed online. Looking back on the video seven years later I definitely know that I could do an even better job today. Then, high-definition cameras and the ability to upload HD video to YouTube was very limited. However, I evidently hit the nail on the head with the listing because the car sold for the seller’s asking price within 7 days. I did not have to relist or try other methods, one post to eBay was all it took!

That’s probably one of the more exciting aspects of selling this car. Was knowing that I could sell a quarter of a million dollar car online, on eBay, in the worst economy, and do so on the first try. Plus, I got to ride in a REALLY cool car! For Additional information about your car, check out this article such as how to bypass starter solenoid with screwdriver, for you to know much about ignition.

Cheers!

Categories
Automotive Sales Internet Marketing Podcast

Aaaaahhhh!!! BIG DATA in the Automotive Sales & Service Industry – Podcast 3

Big Data in the automotive sales and service industry — the two digital automotive podcasters are back at it again, serving up a dish of data discussion and how it’s affecting the automotive sales and service industry. We talk about where it all is, what it all is, and break it down into edible pieces. There are some good take-aways here that you can serve back to your place of business and hopefully implement to better improve how you use your data to sell more cars and service more vehicles.

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Links for discussion:

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Automotive Sales Internet Marketing Podcast

How To Get Banned From Social Media… And More! Two Car Guys Podcast Episode 2

In this our second episode of the still un-named podcast (we’re sticking with two digital car guys podcast at this point), we discuss how technology affects the automotive sales process, and how to do social media marketing WRONG. Andy uncovers a perfect example of how a dealer can get sold a can of hot air for their Facebook marketing… this will get you banned on social media sites! Learn how to be careful, and hear a funny story along the way. Enjoy!

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Automotive Sales Internet Marketing Podcast

Two Digital Car Guys Podcast – Episode 1

This is our first and pilot episode, and I think you’ll really enjoy it! William Bryant and Andy Warner are two digital car guys who have long talked advanced automotive selling, marketing, and process techniques between each other through the years. In this episode they discuss online reviews, and mobile websites. Listen in for the intriguing discussion.

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Automotive Sales Internet Marketing William Stuff

RANT: Third Party Leads

So I pretty much went on a total rant the other day when I got asked this question:

All;
 
I’m working a deal with a Ford store in XX,XX who’s asked if we have any recommendations for a 3rd party lead provider who’s hot right now.
 
Anyone know of any you’d suggest they look into?
 
Thanks,

We are a marketing company, and we’re pretty darn good at it, too. My response, in short, is below… Agree? Disagree? Have anything to add? Comment below.

The game of chasing the next “hot” 3rd party lead provider is never ending, and rarely fruitful. I, like you and many of the rest of us, have spent tens of thousand of dollars for low-performing next-greatest-thing 3rd party leads, when the real ROI was very low. The highest ROI comes by marketing to his own database (via GoldDigger; also the eDigital team puts together some amazing email marketing; and I’ve heard great things about our direct mail campaigns). Then, home grown 1st party leads have super-high ROI and, again, our eDigital team puts together some great on/off-site SEO, profitable microsites, PPC campaigns; and if he still has just the default Ford dealer website he could probably double his leads quickly just by changing that. Or at the very least, optimizing the site he currently has (most I see are terrible). He’ll get the best bang-for-his-buck here. There’s really enough leads to be gotten from 1st party web leads he shouldn’t have time to look at anything 3rd party.

Then, there’s the question of– what is he doing with the leads he’s got? Is he at a 15% + closing ratio on internet leads? What’s his process? If they aren’t handling the leads he has now properly, how will his money be wisely spent throwing it at lower-quality 3rd party leads? Why spend more money for a lower ROI, when you can invest a little in training that will help him spend the same for a higher ROI?

Sorry, I know you know all this, but it’s a peeve of mine that I keep hearing so many dealers ask about 3rd party leads when there’s a harvest of better 1st party leads at their feet and they just won’t bend down to pick them up!

— to answer your question, I’ve not seen any 3rd party provider that more than just 1 store was happy with.

William Bryant | National Trainer

Categories
Automotive Sales William Stuff

Process Best Practices For Your Automotive CRM Tool

Wrote this for a client, and I’m sharing it with your for free… This make it easier to search, like https://www.promo-seo.co.uk/link-building-gurus/. can’t beat free… not even with a stick!

By the way the picture of the guy above has nothing to do with anything — enjoy!

My advice is as follows:

Showroom customer:

Every customer is different as we all know but if they are unsold, there should be a day of eBrochure sent out with an email thanking the customer for the opportunity. This is akin to the old-school method of leaving a VM on the customer’s home phone so it would be there by the time they got back home from the dealership. Except the eBrochure is track-able, and way more potent!

Next, a manager followup should be made the next day. This is preferable to be the manager who desked the deal since he’s familiar with it. Make the customer feel important.

Since we know the 72-hr hot window for a customer is true now more than ever, the salesman should make at least one attempt the morning and afternoon after. Make that next day phone call perpetual “buy or die” and stick another email/letter task in the third day. And let the call center hit them with our 8 attempts to cover all the bases.

In a workflow in the tool, it would look like this:

Showroom UP -> Day 1 eBrochure task / Day 2 salesman call / Day 2 MGR Call / Day 3 salesman email / perpetual phone call

Phone-up Customer:

We need the appointment, first and foremost. A manager TO is just as important but we don’t want to crowd the customer as they haven’t visited the store yet, so my best stores do something like the following:

Phone ups come in, receptionist logs the call and has sales call the receptionist to receive the phone up. She notes who took the call and if the phone up doesn’t get logged soon, she logs it under source “receptionist.” The (other) stores currently do this to ensure all ups get logged. Log more, sell more!

After the up is logged, schedule the salesman a perpetual phone call with a manager T.O. on the 3rd day so a manager can make sure the salesman has done their job, and to jump in and give authority to get an appointment. Manager must ask for the appointment with authority!

The workflow would look like this in the tool:

Phone UP -> Day 1 salesman phone call / Day 3 manager T.O. phone call

Appointments:

The bottom line to this is confirming the appointments, all the appointments, by a manager. We get 100% T.O.s, 100% confirmed appointments, and we sell more cars. Confirm the appointment by clicking the checkbox next to the appointment on the desklog every morning. Do it in the morning for the day of. My best stores do it without fail and would have it no other way.

 

William Bryant | National Trainer