Articles: Marketing & Sales

Get serious. Take charge of your top sales person.

Dave LaLonde is Senior Vice President and Search Engine Optimizer for Auto Credit Express. The ACE Group is a special finance total solutions firm offering their dealership partners entry level and advanced sub prime training, an easy to use online software, and an expert auto sales lead system.

The best sales person I ever met never actually closed a deal. She only worked referrals, but boy did she get a lot of them. She had a way of building trust and getting most everyone in the buying mood. As soon as they got that warm fuzzy feeling, she would TO them to a closer. She was the only one I've ever met that could work countless referrals at the same time while giving each of them her undivided personal attention. She made everyone feel special. She never got tired. This lady could work referrals from sun-up to sun-up fifty two weeks a year.

Her skills became legendary; soon every dealer in the area wanted her to work for them. She was a loyal employee and stood by her store. Since they could not hire her, every store in the area tried to duplicate her talents. A few succeeded, most failed. That was back in the 1990's. Since then, stores across the county have spent millions with hired guns; all in hopes of recreating the legend. A trust worthy woman that they can refer all of their business to, a woman that can read all the buying signs, that will work 24 hours a day, including holidays, never take a day off. She is still around today. Yes, what I've just described is not a real woman; it is your competitor's website.

Stores are getting serious

At the NADA conference last month in Vegas, nearly 5% of the exhibitors offered internet services such as web design, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing. Based on their significant presence, I have to conclude that dealers and their managers are becoming more serious about taking charge and succeeding in this arena. To further support this theory, a score of dealers and managers stopped by our booth to ask my opinion of their store's website, and what they could do to improve their search placement and traffic conversion.

I was flattered that these folks solicited my opinion, since our firm does not offer these services to dealers. Our focus is teaching dealers how to sell cars to people with bad credit and providing leads to established sub prime departments. Search engine optimization, and search engine marketing, however, is one of my passions. I enjoy exchanging ideas on this subject with dealers, their personnel, or anyone else, including competitors.

Most of the stores that stopped by to converse on this subject fell into two categories. The first category were stores not happy with the results they were seeing from their "Website in a Box" firm, the second were stores that have "Their Guy" do it all in-house. Sometime it was "The Parts Guy", other times it was the "The Network Guy" or "The Internet Sales Guy" that developed and managed their website.



Category One

Not happy with your "Website in a Box" firm
If you were serious enough to hire a "Website in a Box" firm to develop your website, chances are you are a medium to large store, or dealer group that has a good looking site that does an okay job at converting the traffic it receives. Most of the folks I spoke with in this category, however, were unhappy with their organic search engine placement and their hired firm's lack of flexibility and response time when it came to taking advantage of local happenings such as extreme weather, road construction, specials events, holidays, or other custom requests. In other words, they were not in charge of their top sales person. Their site has the same form and content day to day, month to month, and year to year, regardless of what was going on in their local community.

My advice for larger stores and dealer groups is to hire a pro. Not an outside firm. You could start by placing a job listing such as:


After you've selected a few candidates that you want to interview, set appointments to get them in. During the interview give them your computer and let them demo their portfolio, their previous accomplishments will still be online. They should be extremely excited to show you what they have done. In addition, their navigational and keyboard skills should be phenomenal. They should blow your mind. If there are numerous candidates that qualify, choose the one that you feel will best fit the culture of your organization.



Category Two

Stores that have "A Guy"
If your store has "A Guy" in charge of your website, I hope you are an independent or a small to medium franchised store. Your site was probably developed in FrontPage or some other easy to use software and your site most likely looks horrible. You are not yet serious about developing your top sales person.

Trust me on this one. I was, in fact, one of "Those Guys" for two years; developing and maintaining our company's websites after hours. After two years, my boss decided to take charge and get serious about this Internet Thing. As a result he dedicated all of my time to this new endeavor. I was no longer selling cars in a show room; I was selling a service in cyberspace. I was able to get plenty of people to visit our sites, but the fact is, until I hired a graphic designer in September, 2004 my sites, like yours, looked horrible.

If you have "A Guy" at your store that you think is good at this Internet Thing then move them off the floor and give them the tools they need to compete, and win online. While "Your Guy" is developing his skills, hire a professional web design company to supplement his efforts and quickly transform your site. You wouldn't send a salesman out on the floor in cutoffs and a tank top and expect him to succeed, would you? Once your site is dressed properly, "Your Guy" should be able to take charge of your SEO and SEM initiatives. If not you may have the "Wrong Guy".

Published in World of Special Finance Magazine
March Issue 2007