Inetselling.com - Internet Sales Training

Day 22

2008-04-23T10:21:00.003-04:00

You mean to tell me you don't have those damn emails done yet? Which I'm sure is what you're saying. But it takes a little more time than you think. Once I've created them, then I had to get with Cobalt to show me how to upload the pictures onto their server, since you don't want to embed them in the email and have the email size larger. Then you have to link the pictures in your email with the picures on the server. I copy/pasted the code into Autobase, where I proceed to add merge codes for their name, and type of vehicle they were interested in. So, I have the autoresponder and the first 7 emails completed. Now I need to create one for when the appointment is set, a confirmation and reminder will automatically go out, and if the appointment is a no-show, and email will go out. So there's still some work to do.

I was supposed to attend a General Motors meeting today with my Fleet Manager, but I decided to send our new Government Bid salesperson instead.

The Autobase upgrade has put us another week behind. The integration between Autobase and OneSource was supposed to be complete, but my rep didn't send in the correct paperwork, so it won't be completed until Monday. By integration I mean that all the GM OneSource leads will go directly into Autobase so we only have to use one CRM program. So because we're still working in OneSource, the GM wasn't seeing any activity in Autobase and wanted Beth to manually input all the information. Well, that was taking all her call time away to do secretarial work, so I'm having her just make calls and set appointments, and Autobase will just have to wait.

We're looking for more salespeople, so I had to create another post in Careerbuilder.com.

Talk to you later.

Day 21

2008-04-21T20:44:00.002-04:00

Beth's presentation is coming along very nicely. Her customers have an easy time talking with her. She set one appointment today. Once the integration between Autobase and OneSource takes places, she'll put out a lot more calls.

Took a picture of Beth to put in all the emails. It will give them that personal touch and put a face to a name.

Listened to several hours of Who's Calling and worked with several salespeople on their phone presentations.

Met with the General Manager, Finance and Special Finance Managers to talk about how we can increase sales of our Loyalty Card, which is discounts on parts and service, along with two free oil changes if they send in their CSI surveys. The Finance Managers are trying to upgrade them to the Premium Loyal Card which will give them more oil changes and other special features.

We started getting calls from pull-ahead customers which call my department, where we set appointments for the salespeople to take them out of their leases and put them into another lease.

It's a late night and I'm getting tired, so I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Day 20

2008-04-21T20:12:00.002-04:00

It's Friday, and I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

I started out the day working with my Appointment Coordinator on how to call the leads. She has a real friendly voice, and I can see that the prospects take to her very quickly. Though she has to leave a lot of messages, the ones she talks to are very accepting of her time. I'm a big fan of getting to the appointment stage as quickly as possible. That's Plan A. If she can't get the appointment because they're looking for more information first, she transfers them over to the Internet Manager and he strives for the appointment after providing whatever information is necessary.

Since phone-up training is one of my priorities, I try to listen to all the calls on Who's Calling to see what individual training needs to take place. Trying to be nice to salespeople by just asking them to answer the calls more productively doesn't always work. You sometimes need to let them know that the phone-up business is not a game and needs to be taken seriously. And even after you approach it that way, they still seem to do answer the call the way they want. It can be a frustrating business sometimes.

I got my weekly report from Used Cars for the week - 9 leads, 3 appointments, 3 sales. 100% closing ratio on appointments to sales, and 33% closing ratio on leads to sales. Still not bad. Now, if I can just increase the number of Used Car leads, which should happen once Autotrader gets on board next week, I should be able to increase those numbers dramatically.

A lot of time was spent on the phone with my Autobase rep. Since the major upgrade will take place over the weekend, which includes the new internet module, we had to plan on what stages (folders) we wanted to have to it can be setup before the upgrade. The stages we setup were:

New - the lead comes in
First Response - the call is made with no contact
Communicating - contact was made but no appointment set
Quoting - customer requests email quote
Unresponsive - continuous calls are made and emails sent with no response
Appointment Set - duh
Appointment Set/No Show - duh
Appointment Showed/No Sale - prices were given but couldn't get financed, etc.
No Purchase Decision - prices were given, but no decision was made yet

The weekend looks sunny and warm. It will be nice to get outside finally and enjoy the warm weather. Have a great weekend.

Day 19

2008-04-18T10:01:00.002-04:00

This week is basically getting ready for next week. That will be the beginning of our Internet Department with a full-fledged Appointment Coordinator in place. I probably would have started it a week earlier, but because of the big upgrade with Autobase which includes the new Internet module, there was no sense rushing it.

Beth spent the day completing her courses and I spent the day prepping the emails. It was a slow day, but things will pick up next week.

I need to start developing a checklist for how we want to start the Business Development Center (BDC). Though the General Manager would like me to handle the whole development process by myself, I feel strongly that getting input from all the Managers, and hearing their ideas of how the BDC can become successful, is more advantageous. So I'll setup a meeting for sometime next week.

Later.

Day 18

2008-04-17T15:10:00.002-04:00

Ok, things are moving along. My Internet Coordinator started today and I have great hopes for her success. She has that perky, rapport building, appointment setting way about her that will definitely benefit this department.

Her entire day was spent doing Autobase training. So she went through all the sales, management and internet modules, since I'll be giving her management status. I took her around and introduced her to everyone, and sat down with the new and used Internet Managers to lay down some groundwork. I'm sure she'll be able to handle both of them just fine. They like her and since she's responsible to make them money, I know they'll work together as a team to get the job done.

To show you how valuable the Appointment Coordinator position can be, I already mentioned that last month at the last dealership I setup, the Appointment Coordinator had 200 leads, set 122 appointments (61% closing ratio) and sold 40 vehicles (33% closing ratio). Not bad for a one person operation utilizing the sales staff.

Now, let me tell you the weeks numbers I got back for last week from my New Vehicle Internet Manager - 60 lead, 20 phone calls (30%), 3 appointments (.05% closing ratio) and 1 sold (.01% closing ratio). Based on this comparison, no one will be able to tell me that if you don't want to develop a full-blown Internet Department, the Appointment Coordinator process is the way to go.

I then helped our General Manager interview for Service Advisors for the afternoon. We found a good one that will start next week.

Still suffering through some residual effects of my illness, but feeling lot better. Hope you're feeling well also.

Day 17

2008-04-16T12:15:00.002-04:00

Phewwwww! I came to work this morning and there was a message from my Appointment Coordinator. The reason she didn't return my calls over the weekend is she was out of town for her birthday. She'll be starting tomorrow. That's a load off my mind.

We lost our Service Director and we are in need of a new Service Advisor, so today was spent calling the resumes from Careerbuilder.com and setting up appointments for the General Manager to interview tomorrow.

I worked on the emails and autoresponders we'll use once the new Internet module is installed in Autobase. The new Autobase upgrade has an automatic email program where once a lead comes in, an autoresponder is sent out. The the Appointment Coordinator will attempt to contact the lead. If the lead is contacted, the appointment is set. But if the lead is not contacted, it is put in another folder and the automatic emails will begin, and continue at specified intervals until the contact is made. Then by placing that contacted lead in the appointment sent folder, the emails will automatically stop. It's a great time saver that I used when I installed WebControl into dealerships.

I'm starting to concentrate on developing more phone-up business. I know this is separate from the Internet Department, but my actual title is Director of Marketing which actually means, figuring out ways to develop or "market" more business. So aside from Internet, phone-ups and lease renewals are at the top of my list. So my first task is to monitor all phone-ups coming into the dealership, and making sure the Sales Manager knows who they are and which salesperson handled them. So I developed a two-part phone-up worksheet for all the salespeople. When they take a phone-up, they are responsible to fill out this worksheet. One part stays with them and one part goes to the Sales Manager. This will give him a way to monitor them, and put more deals together. It also makes the salespeople more accountable with every phone-up they take. I'll be able to track them by going into Autobase, and also by listening to Who's Calling every morning and matching them to the worksheets. I'll do this until I'm sure that salespeople are being accountable for every phone-up they take.

I'm also feeling much better today, thank you for asking. See you tomorrow.

Day 16

2008-04-14T10:23:00.002-04:00

Still sick at home, but I thought I'd post anyways.

I tried to call my new hire over the weekend to let her know that I was sick, and wanted to know when she'd be showing up for work. I left my home phone number for her to call me, but she never did, and still hasn't. I've done enough hiring to know that that's not good. It usually means she decided not to take the position, and isn't planning on calling me to let me know. This will be a real setback.

If she doesn't show up, which by the way may be tomorrow from what I remember, and she's out of town for the weekend, I'll have to go back into my top 13 and start bringing them in for second interviews. I haven't had this problem of hiring before. I guess it was destined to happen eventually.

I did check Careerbuilder.com for the Service Advisor position and we got 10 resumes over the weekend. Looks like several good ones too.

Hope I get better soon.

Day 15

2008-04-12T08:37:00.001-04:00

Full blown sick, won't last the whole day.

Before I left, I put an ad in Careerbuilder.com for a Service Advisor.

Have a great weekend. Mine won't be so good.

Day 14

2008-04-11T10:09:00.002-04:00

I'm sure this is nothing you need to read about, but my cold has gotten worse, so I'm really draggin' today. But I'm still at work doing my job like a good little boy.

I was reading through my posts and I realized that sometimes it sounds like I may not do a lot of work throughout an entire day. But I actually do. All the things I write about in this blog are of the major variety. All the other things like meetings, phone calls, the variety of vendors I see, meeting individually with the salespeople, etc. I usually don't post.

Today was a slow day for me. I'm waiting for my Appointment Coordinator to come onboard, which will be next week. Once she's here, and I can get her through Autobase training, things will start rocking. Between the leads we get from General Motors, Cars.com, Autotrader.com and now Sam's Club, the Internet Department should be rocking in no time. Then I can begin working on the Business Development Center.

One of my areas of responsibility is to increase our phone-up calls-to- appointment-to-sales ratio. I need to train the salespeople to become more accountable to strive to set appointments on every phone-up, as compared to just giving information. More importantly, I need to be able to track the number of calls that come in, and who's taking them. Autobase can do this, depending on whether the salespeople inputs their information, so I'm not confident that would be accurate. The other way would be to listen to all incoming calls on Who's Calling, which would be very time consuming. So I introduced a two-part phone-up card to the General Manager and he thought that might do the trick. When a salesperson takes a phone-up, he/she records the information on this card, and one-part stays with him/her, and the other part goes into the Sales Managers basket. This way the Sales Manager can follow-up every morning on the previous days business. The Sales Manager liked the concept also, but he wanted a letter size worksheet with more information so he can actually do the deal right on that sheet. So I need to redo it for him.

We had to make a rule with the receptionist today that no vendor gets to see me or the General Manager without an appointment. We've become to bombarded each day by people trying to sell us something, and it's taking a lot of our productive time away from us. That rule's fine with me.

Hope I feel better tomorrow.

Day 13

2008-04-09T17:18:00.002-04:00

I have a really bad cold today, so I'm dragging. But work still goes on.

Today started with an interview with a new vehicle salesperson. This will likely be the last one for the week.

I signed our dealership up to be the exclusive dealership for Pontiac, Buick and GMC's to all the Sam's Club members in our area. That accounts for about 240,000 members in the tri-county area. For only $550.00 per month, I'm thinking this will be a really good deal. Just the exposure alone will be well worth the investment. Along with the new vehicles, we'll also have our entire used vehicle inventory exhibited on the Sam's Club website. From what the Director of Sam's Club Auto is saying, he's already to begin sending leads to us.

The afternoon was spent creating the graphic emails that will be sent to the internet leads. They'll be 8 in all, including the autoresponder. Within the new Autobase internet module, we'll be able to automate the process to send each email at a pre-determined interval once we place the lead in the "tried to contact by phone with no success" folder. Then once the lead has been contacted, the emails automatically stop once you put them into the "already contacted" folder. It sure saves a lot of time.

Had a meeting with the Reynolds and Reynolds form rep today. He asked me how I like the DMS, and I told him I really didn't want anything to do with it. I'm a windows-based kind of guy and don't enjoy working with dos-based systems. Even in the past, I had no trouble getting into the program, but could never seem to get out of it. But with my responsibilities, I really won't be using it. Frustrating!!

My new Internet Appointment Coordinator will be starting next week. I'm excited. I have installed an Appointment Coordinator in every internet department I have setup, and it's worked great. For those dealerships that don't wish to develop a full-fledged, dedicated internet department, this is the way to go. In the last store I developed, they sold 40 internet sales on 122 appointments last month, which is a closing ratio of 33%. And with one Coordinator, they've been consistenly doing those numbers. Not bad!

I'm going home to get some rest. Take care.

Day 12

2008-04-09T09:27:00.002-04:00

Disappointment!! My top two candidates for the Internet Appointment Coordinator position fell through. My #1 candidate emailed me that her fiance was infomed over the weekend that he will be transferred outside the area, so she will be going with him. My #2 candidate never showed up for her interview, so I felt like after two weeks, I'd be starting over. So I called my #3 candidate back in for an interview, and she was absolutely perfect. So she'll be starting next week. Yippeeee!!

I interviewed five candidates for New Vehicle sales today. There's lots of people out there with strong credentials looking for auto sales jobs.

Met with the Yellow Pages rep to discuss our new listing. Since we've built a new store in another city, the listing needs to be updated.

The Masonic Temple called asking for several free oil changes to raffle off to help one of their members who just went through a kidney transplant and spends $1000 per month on remission drugs. Not much thought needed here.

Since the interviews took up much of my day, didn't have much opportunity to do anything else.

Until tomorrow.

Day 11

2008-04-09T08:49:00.002-04:00

I have my top two appointment coordinator applicants coming in today for a second interview. They are both really good and I'm having a hard time making a decision on which one to offer the position to. I'm almost certain I'll be offering the position to my first choice. She has a great personality and a strong command on the phone. I'm sure she'll be able to charm the prospect into liking her, and yet close the prospect on an appointment. Things are starting to move closer to completion of the Internet Department, but we're still a week away from the appointment setting mode. The Appointment Coordinator will have to go through some of the Autobase training and become GM Certified. So she'll be concentrating on that for the first week.

The Autotrader.com rep came in today with his proposal and I had him present to the General Manager and the Used Vehicle Manager. I'm sure it went well since it's a great program and will definitely increase used vehicle sales, as well as add to our visibility in the used vehicle market.

I put an ad in Careerbuilder.com for new vehicle salespeople and started getting some resumes. I'm going to be setting up interviews for tomorrow. I also put an ad in for a Parts drivers and have already had some inquiries. I just pass those resumes off to the Parts Manager. The Service Director also needs someone, but I haven't received any information from him.

I tried to complete some OneSource online training, but every time I get through half of it, the program freezes up on me. So i've have to restart the same module several times, and still haven't completed it. Frustrating. I tried to call tech support for Cobalt, but couldn't understand the person on the other end. I still don't know why companies put individuals on the phone you can't understand, especially in customer support positions.

With all the other work I've had to due, I haven't kept up with actual internet sales. We have one person in new and one in used who have been responsible for them, so I need to have them communicate with me on what's happening. If was just responsible for the Internet Department it would be easier. But I'm also responsible for training, vendor screening, sales development, and BDC development. My title of Director of Marketing basically means I'm responsible to market more sales for the dealership.

This dealership sends out a lot of mail to their customers. So today, the GM and Special Finance Manager sat down to see which letters we may be able to eliminate without slighting our customers. We found three so far and will continue to see how we can get the most bang for our buck.

See you tomorrow.

Day 10

2008-04-07T14:34:00.002-04:00

Met with our Autobase rep for about two hours today going over the major upgrade that will take place, along with an explanation on how the new internet module will fit into our plans.

Narrowed my selection for the Internet Appointment Coordinator down to 2 and couldn't make up my mind. So I invited each back for an interview on Monday and I'll make my decision then.

Trained the rest of the salespeople on phone-ups. They were pretty receptive also. After the training, I met with the new and used vehicle Internet Managers to discuss my plans for the department. They also realize that everything I'm attempting to do has a direct result to their income. So I think I have them on my side.

Worked on the website to make some changes. We have a templated website from Cobalt, so there's not many changes I can make. GM has had some problems with their servers lately, so the certified logos on the used vehicles weren't showing up. They must have fixed the problem because I can see them now. If we want to capture a lot of leads from our site, we may have to have another one created, although we'd need to keep this one since GM would not send us any free leads without it.

Hopefully I'll get some good resumes from the new vehicles salesperson ad I placed in Careerbuilder.com. We need to add another three salespeople, and I'm responsible to do all the interviewing.

Have a great weekend.

Day 9

2008-04-03T22:04:00.003-04:00

One of the areas I'll be concentrating on to develop more business will be phone-ups. Traditionally, salespeople do not handle phone-ups very well. They'll give excellent information, but they seldom strive to set an appointment. In my estimation, phone-ups are one of the biggest profit losers in most dealerships.

So I started the day by taking half the salespeople and putting them through phone-up training for about an hour. I'll take the other half tomorrow. I need to teach them how to ask for the appointment, and let them know that taking phone-ups is a privilidge, not a right. I also explained how you should treat phone-ups as a business, separate from showrooom customers. Which means they should have goals and a plan of attack for converting phone-ups to appointments and appointments to sales.

I had two more interviews to complete today. They were pretty good also.

The whole afternoon was spent meeting with our Autobase rep. We brainstormed on how to setup the Autobase program for the Appointment Coordinator. He's coming back tomorrow afternoon to continue the process. He wants me to complete three more Autobase training modules for the internet salesperson and manager.

I also completed two modules of OneSource training, which is General Motors CRM program. You can get into it unless you are a Certified Internet Salesperson or Manager. I haven't been through this much training in a long time.

See you tomorrow.

Day 8

2008-04-03T21:55:00.002-04:00

Out of 154 resumes, I had 50 people read the script on my voice mail. Out of the 50, I chose 13 of the best and setup appointments with them which lasted the whole day.

If you've never hired a phone candidate by having them read a script on your voice mail, you should try it. It's the best way to hear what your customers will be hearing. It's a totally different experience than interviewing them by having them sit across from you.

The interviews went well. They truly were the best candidates. I've picked three that I really like, and will have to choose one for the Appointment Coordinator position by tomorrow. But since I have two more that I really like, I may just start developing the Business Development Center. Since I want to start it slowly, I may have them begin with something easy like Lease Renewals, calling unsold customers, CSI calls, etc. You hate to turn quality candidates away.

That's all I did every half hour. See you tomorrow.

Day 7

2008-04-02T09:33:00.002-04:00

Today was all about listening to the voice mail scripts. reading resumes and calling the good ones to set appointments for tomorrow. So far out of 150 resumes, I have 12 appointments set for those who really had that great phone presence.

If I should happen to find more individuals that would fit the profile I'm looking for, I may just get with the management staff and see if we want to slowly start the BDC with a couple of reps doing some easy follow-up calling - Lease Renewal Reminders, Unsold Prospect Follow-Up, etc. i was supposed to be meeting with management to discuss this today, but since they're finishing up on deals for the end of month, I postponed it for the end of the week.

I'm still waiting for the Autotrader rep to bring a proposal for installing the lead program. That should really jumpstart sales for the spring.

We're soon to go through a major upgrade with Autobase. The rep won't be in till next week, which puts a wrench in my system for getting the current leads that go into OneSouce to filter into Autobase. But, all in good time I guess.

Tomorrow's a full day of interviews for the Internet Appointment Coordinator position - 12 scheduled so far with a big glass of wine afterwards. Yummm.

Day 6

2008-04-02T07:15:00.002-04:00

After a relaxing weekend, it's time to push on.

I started with a sales meeting to talk to the salespeople about the surveys the manufacturers send out within two weeks of taking delivery. In the past, the person who was in my office went out during the delivery to explain the survey to the customer. But this just made the customer listen to one more person in an already long delivery process. So they'll be performing this process. I also informed them we'll be doing some phone-up training later in the week.

Today was another day of Autobase training. It may seem like it takes a long time to train for this program, but I'm going through four different modules - salesperson, manager, internet and BDC. So I'm taking several modules per day. It will be easier once my Autobase rep sits with me and goes through several of the important parts in person. Hopefully it will be sometime next week.

I spent several hours this morning with the GMAC rep going through several of their programs. One of them is GMAC Opportunities which shows lease and retail contracts that are coming to fruition so we can contact them to purchase again. This information can also be obtained from Autobase.

I now have over 150 resumes for the Internet Appointment Coordinator position. I've sent all of them an email with Pre-Interview Instructions to call my voice mail and read a four line script so I can hear what they sound like before I bring them in for a personal interview. Here is the script:

"Hi Mike, this is Mary calling from Fresard Pontiac Buick GMC, how are you today? Mike, I'm calling regarding an Internet inquiry I received regarding your interest in a new Pontiac Grand Prix. I'd like to setup an appoinment for you to come in and pick out your new vehicle. What would be good for you, mornings or afternoons?"

I'm anxious to hear them.

Listened to about 30 minutes of Who's Calling. We really need some help in the way Service Advisors answer the phone with customer questions. I'll meet with the Service Director to discuss this later.

I still need to complete training for the GM OneSource program which is General Motors Internet CRM. I can't get in to see the leads unless I complete the training and become Internet Certified. Hmmmm. Eventually I'll have all of those leads come directly into Autobase, so we can avoid that program.

I began creating an outline for developing the BDC. I'll talk more about this in future posts.

Day 5

2008-03-29T08:16:00.002-04:00

More Autobase training today. I think I'm just about done with it for now. I have a fairly good grasp of the concept. I just need to concentrate on the things the strictly relate to the Internet and BDC. I'll be meeting with the Special Finance Manager on Monday to discuss those tasks I need to be doing right now.

The individual who used to do the CRM (Customer Relationship Managment) portion of this job was fired before she had a chance to sit down with me and go through all her current tasks. Unfortunately, there was no written process to pass along, and the management allowed her to create the process on her own. So they don't know where everything is, or how to get to it. So we'll have to spend time figuring it out.

I met with the Who's Calling rep. For those unfamiliar with this, Who's Calling monitors all the incoming calls to the dealership. It's a nice program when it's used to train those individuals who do not answer the calls properly. From what I've seen, most dealerships don't handle incoming sales and service calls properly. A lot of money is lost in dealerships just in this area. And many dealerships who have Who's Calling installed don't take the time to monitor the calls on a daily basis, so the program becomes another waste of money. I'll be monitoring the calls from now on since I'm going to be responsible for helping to increase phone-up sales.

I now have over 100 resumes for the Appointment Coordinator position. Next week I'll email all the applicants to leave a voice mail message based on a small script and choose those whose telephone demeanor meets my standards. Then I'll setup the personal interviews for next week.

One of the tasks the past CRM person did was to explain the CSI survey to all the deliveries. It was determined by Management that this was just one more person the customer had to see in an already long sales and delivery process, so we're going to let the salespeople complete this task. I'm going to hold a sales meeting on Monday to do some training for how we want it done.

I also started preparing for the Managers meeting on Tuesday to begin discussions on how we want the BDC to begin. It's a ways down the road yet, but we should start thinking about it so in case I find some people in this current hiring process, we may be able to start it now on a small scale. The BDC is nothing you want to start big right from the start. Build slow and small, and you'll have a better chance of making it work.

Well, I'm off for the weekend, which is a welcome thought. See you next week.

Day 4

2008-03-27T21:41:00.000-04:00

Today I completed more Autobase training. There are a lot of modules to go through, especially to understand the management and BDC part of the program. I'm getting a pretty good handle on it.

The Careerbuilder.com ad went in this morning, and I already have 84 resumes, which isn't unusual. There are a lot of people looking for work that will take just about anything. I'm starting the Appointment Coordinator at $10 per hour for the first 90 days, then I'll review how well he/she is doing to warrant an increase.

I met with the Autotrader rep again to continue our discussion on the program he's putting together for us. I should get a full proposal by Tuesday of next week.

Tom Stuker's organization called me to see about setting up our BDC. I didn't tell her that I'm experienced at it, and was hired to do it. I told her to give me a call back next week to talk further.

One of the areas I need to improve on is the number of phone-ups to appointment ratio on the showroom floor. The salespeople don't do very well, which is typical in most dealerships. I was going to do some training this week, but since it's the end of the month, I thought I would wait till next month.

The Manager's and I will be having a meeting next Tuesday to discuss how we want to start the BDC. I don't want to jump in head first since that's the easiest way for it to fail. You need to start slow and grow as you go. I'm thinking to start with following-up on sold and unsold customers, and lease turn-ins. Then we'll work up to taking phone-ups, setting service appointments, etc.

Over the weekend, I'll send out a bulk email to all the applicants I've received resumes from giving them a small script to study. Something like this:

"Hi Mr. Jones, this is Mike calling from Fresard Pontiac, how are you? I'm calling regarding an internet lead we received from you regarding a new Pontiac G6. What I'd like to do is set an appointment for you to come in to pick out your new G6. What would be a good time for you, mornings or afternoons?"

Then I'll have them call my direct line and send them right to voice mail to leave a message using this script. This will give me a chance to hear them on the phone, and call back the ones I want to work with.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 3

2008-03-26T16:33:00.000-04:00

Well, the network tech got me back online today, so I took the opportunity to complete some Autobase training. I completed a total of five courses and should tackle another three tomorrow.

Normally when I setup an internet department, I install AVV Webcontrol as the CRM program. It is the easiest to use with the nicest interface, and as compared to Autobase which is a total showroom system, Webcontrol is strictly for the Internet department.

I learned that Autobase has some new internet features that may compare to Webcontrol, so I want to learn as much about it as I can. Plus as a trainer, I may need to help our salespeople use the program more effectively. So my training will take several more days.

One of the many things I liked about Webcontrol is you could setup a bunch of emails in advance that went out a scheduled intervals. As long as you didn't contact the lead, he/she would keep getting emails to keep your name in front of them. They would stop once they got contacted. I hear Autobase now has that same feature.

I put an ad into Careerbuilder.com for an Appointment Coordinator today, so the resumes will be flooding in over the next two weeks. According to past experience, I'll probably get at least 100 resumes to choose from. Online classifieds is the best way to hire someone, since many job shoppers will use their computers to find a job more than they will the newspaper. I'll be able to do some interviewing the first of next week.

Things are moving along well. I've accomplished a lot over the past three days. But the road is still long, and will probably get winding along the way. Mangement is very supportive, which makes my job a whole lot easier.

See you tomorrow.

Day 2

2008-03-26T12:55:00.000-04:00

The day started by meeting with the General Manager to talk about what our next steps would be. The main reason I was hired was because the dealership felt they were losing sales, and in a down market needed to take steps to recapture them. So the areas we wanted to concentrate on were:

Internet leads for new and used vehicles
Phone-ups
Lease renewals
Website

During the initial stages, we want to develop the internet department, and continue in the planning stages for the BDC. How big the BDC becomes will be determined by what we want it to accomplish. And I feel the BDC is a much bigger job. So we'll take one step at a time so we can do things right.

All the dealership salespeople have computers on their desks logged into Autobase. But they are not allowed to use the internet. The dealership is worried that they'll abuse the system, so they've eliminated it completely. The only ones who have direct and unlimited access to the internet are myself and the General Manager.

Well, today my firewall kicked in so I couldn't access the internet. I need to wait till tomorrow for the networking guy to come in and fix it.

So I spent time visiting with the current New and Used Vehicle Internet Sales Managers, updating them on my plans and gathering information on what they were currently doing with the leads. I'll get more indept in gathering realistic facts and figures probably the beginning of next week. There's no sense making any plans without current data.

I also met with the Autotrader rep to put together a package for the dealership. He'll probably have that ready by the beginning of next week.

I need to put an ad in Careerbuilder.com to hire an Appointment Coordinator. I have had great success setting up Internet Departments by starting like this. I realize that the only way to make sure every lead is handled properly is by putting someone totally in charge of them. Salespeople hate using the phone and usually cherry-pick the leads. Plus they don't do a really good job of following-up. So by setting the appointments for the salespeople, they can concentrate on what they do best - close deals. My department can handle all the rest of the work.

Tomorrow I'll need to start learning the Autobase system. They have a really good University online, so I'll spend most, if not all of the day studying.

Until tomorrow.

Day 1

2008-03-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

Well, the first day was a long one. After getting myself settled in my office, learning how to use the phone system, setting up my email accounts, I decided to jump in head first by researching what is currently taking place in the Internet Department.

I started by meeting with the current BDC Manager, who over the weekend decided to quit this position and sell cars. So I talked with her for about two hours so she could explain what she actually did. This left the BDC department with no one in charge, which is ok since it really wasn't being run like a professional BDC. It will actually allow me to start with a fresh business plan.

After this meeting, I met the with current Internet Sales Manager, who was handling all the internet leads, but really wasn't running it like a business either. This dealership uses Autobase and OneSource as their CRM programs, which I'm not so familiar with since I usually install WebControl in all the dealerships I've developed. So once I get setup with my login information, I'll go through and see how the leads are handled. I hear that Autobase has a new internet module available for it, so that will be one of my calls tomorrow.

As I interviewed the current Internet Sales Manager, it looks like 75% of his leads are being emailed information instead of calling. This is the reason that his grosses are so low. His philosophy is if someone asks to be responded to by email, which most of them do, you should honor their wishes. But anytime you do it that way, it takes longer to make the sale, and the price you're going to send him will be low. So this is why I'm a big believer that if there's a phone number attached to the lead, the contact is made by phone within 5 minutes of that lead coming into the CRM program.

The dealership is currently selling 45 used vehicles per month. I'm sure I can double that by getting them into AutoTrader. I'll contact them for an appointment tomorrow.

They are using a search engine marketing program which runs $3500 per month. We're already at the top of all the search engines, and really don't get many leads from the website. I may just cancel that program and use the money to develop a small BDC to start.

They're also signed up with Who's Calling which runs about $700 per month. It's a great program if it's used as a training tool, but I don't think most dealerships actually listen to the calls and train from them. I'll think a little more later on whether we can use this program effectively. No sense spending money on something that won't be used productively (profit-generatingly).

It's been a long day, so I'll sign off for now. See you tomorrow.

Building an Internet Department

2008-03-23T12:05:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I'll be starting as Director of Internet Operations at a dealership in Detroit, Michigan. This will be a great opportunity to take a dealership that is currently selling approximately 8 sales a month and building it to become a profit center. There is also talk about building a BDC, but that will be determined once we get going.

For the next several months, I'll be posting a day-to-day diary of my progress. I hope you enjoy the journey with me.