Sam Griswold
Source: About
Here are the 5 key areas I believe every DMM should focus on (in no particular order):
1. Digital vendor selection + management: Understand the language they speak, set clear goals + objectives, and make sure all vendors are working together for best results.
2. Content Marketing: Creation and upkeep of online assets, develop content strategy, developing new content via blogs, video, downloads and more.
3. Local: Optimize for local seo, manage social platforms, manage online review collection + sharing.
4. Sales enablement: Work with BDC + Sales manager to develop email templates, drip programs, and provide sales with the tools they need to move leads down the funnel.
5. ROI Driven Reporting: Put systems in place to monitor performance, show how digital affects bottom line, alignment with monthly sales goals and objectives. Both granular reporting (direct manager) and high level (GM).
CSI is Dead! Long Live Customer Loyalty!: Using Customer Satisfaction Surveys as a metric for improvement has long since died, especially when manufacturers started linking bonuses to scores. As increasing competition has driven many sales professionals into retirement or other lines of work, manufacturers used CSI bonuses to retain talent. As their expenses for these bonuses mounted, they raised the bar ever higher, to the point where a significant portion of a salesperson’s pay is linked to impossibly high CSI targets. Add to this the hyperbolic verbiage associated with “top box” scores like “truly exceptional” and “outstanding” and unless coached most people will never attain the necessary scores. As the coup de grace for an already wheezing system, retailers in America have trained the consumer to “complain for gain,” as every time they report an other than stellar performance we call and offer them free oil changes and other perks for their behavior. Customer Satisfaction as an effective metric is a pipe dream of those who stand on carpet, and is acknowledged as a joke by anyone who stands on tile. Ask any married person if their spouse is ‘truly exceptional” and ask the same person if they would remain married to their spouse. I’m thinking you’ll get two very diverse results. Let’s stop measuring Customer Satisfaction, and start measuring Customer Loyalty. I suggest three simple questions: 1. Did your sales representative address your needs and satisfactorily perform their duties? 2. Would you consider purchasing another vehicle from your sales person? 3. Would you consider recommending your salesperson to a family member, coworker or friend? Let’s stop chasing this mutual delusion of CSI, that forces us to beg and our customers to lie to achieve a goal that, as a diagnostic tool, is worthless. CSI is Dead! Customer retention and loyalty rules!
Connecting with others, making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure the impact lasts are at the heart of leadership.
But the problem is that leaders tend not to have a lot of free time on their hands. So how can you engage in meaningful and memorable leadership with zero hours in the day to spare?
That’s where the 30-second challenge comes in. It turns out, there’s a lot you can do with a tiny sliver of time.
1. Give 30 Seconds of Encouragement
Your encouragement may be the catalyst that unleashes someone’s greatness. Let employees know you believe in them, and watch them step up.
2. Give 30 Seconds of Feeling Valued
Emphasize the connection between an employee’s role and the mission and goals of the organization. When people sense they are valued, they become more engaged and more productive.
3. Give 30 Seconds of Acknowledgement
It’s the fuel that great teams run on. When you acknowledge an employee, you are letting the person know that he or she is making a difference.
4. Give 30 Seconds of Gratitude
The root of great leadership is in the expression of sincere gratitude. Nothing goes further in building good relationships.
5. Give 30 Seconds of Praise
Keep it personal, specific, and meaningful so it doesn’t veer off into flattery.
6. Give 30 Seconds of Knowing Each Employee Matters
Let all of your employees know that no matter what they do, no matter what’s in their past, they can always become the best version of themselves.
There is a deep desire within everyone to make a difference. When leaders are able to recognize the need for validation and feeling value, leadership becomes memorable and impactful.
The results are profound. And all it takes is 30 seconds.
Online Reputation Management
Posted: November 7, 2014 in Automotive Management, UncategorizedTags: Reputation management
The Best Online Reputation Management Process for Auto Dealers
“Who’s the best reputation management company out there?”
There are many companies who are offering “Reputation Management” services and software tools to auto dealers. It would be a mistake to hire ANY company or purchase ANY review management software tool without the dealership’s management team’s full commitment behind the investment.
The dealership’s management team must clearly understand the influence that online reviews have on the the auto shopper’s journey and their bottom line. I’m not going to rehash third-party research regarding the influence of online reviews, and I am sure many dealers reading this post have already seen enough PowerPoint slides on this topic.
Online Reviews Are Your Most Visible Online Asset
I want to take a different approach on justifying a renewed commitment to online reviews. I want to speak to dealers from my practical experience. Most auto dealers I speak with underestimate the number of times a month their online reviews are displayed to consumers who are shopping for a local auto dealer.
Type in any franchise brand and the word “dealer” or “dealership,” and you will see a listing of Google “My Business” listings, as shown below:
Nissan-dealership
The reviews shown on this page are displayed to in-market shoppers tens of thousands of times a month! If you don’t believe me, click on the Google+ page link for Nissan Auto Center of Bellevue to see how many times their page was included in a search result.
Their Google+ Business page, since it was created, was viewed or included in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) over one million times. Dealers can log into their My Business dashboard to see how many times a month their Google reviews are being displayed.
Google+ reviews are the BIGGEST opportunity for dealers to make a positive first impression online. In fact, the dealership’s Google My Business listing is the #1 free source of online advertising. I bring this example to your attention for one simple reason.
The shear number of impressions that Google+, Yelp, DealerRater, Cars.com, Edmunds, BBB, and other review websites have each month in search results dwarfs ANY investment for online marketing visibility that a dealer makes each month.
Online reputation management is not just about Google reviews. Take any dealership name and conduct a search by adding the word “reviews” on the end.
Review website listings are displayed THOUSANDS of times a month in Google search results. Consumers search every month for reviews of movies, hotels, restaurants, and goods that they purchase online. Consumer who plan to spend thousands of dollars on a new or used vehicle are investigating dealership reviews.
Does your culture in the dealership reflect that reality? If you have under 50 Google reviews, my opinion is that your dealership lacks the right culture and processes to connect with today’s online shoppers.
The strong influence of these review websites on local auto shoppers and service customers is without question the BIGGEST opportunity or FAILURE for auto dealers today. Their Web Presence Management strategy has to include a realistic process for collecting and inspecting online reviews.
Reputation Management Automation Blunders
If your dealership has fully embraced the power of online reviews, then the best manager of your online reputation is yourself.
I know that seems too simple, but 100% outsourcing your online review strategy is a mistake. The dealership must be engaged with the process to define how complaints will be escalated to the management team so that the dealership can improve their customer experience. Dealers also should be thanking customers who post positive reviews, just like a great hotel does on TripAdvisor.com.
One area that must be inspected in your online reputation management strategy is how your dealership asks for reviews and/or how the dealership surveys customers. If your survey process asks consumers to post reviews on Yelp or Google+ without FIRST qualifying whether they use these review platforms, you will be triggering review spam filters on these websites. Your review solicitation strategy should include a question similar to this:
“In the past six months, have you used Google or Yelp to review a local business?”
If the customer does not have an existing track record posting reviews on Google or Yelp, your dealership’s automated survey system should not be asking them to post a review or presenting a link for them to click. Consumers who don’t use Google or Yelp can be directed to other websites like DealerRater.com, Cars.com, or even your Facebook page. If consumers are active on Google or Yelp, only these persons should be presented with a link to the dealership’s Google and Yelp pages.
With your review solicitation process clarified, there are a few online reputation management platforms that should be evaluated, depending on your website platform. For example, Dealer.com has a very nice online review management platform, part of their comprehensive Loyalty Package, but you will need to have one of their websites to use their automation. Cobalt, now called CDK Global, has an integrated online reputation management services for owners of CDK Global websites.
If you want to use a universal reputation management tools I would check out Dominion’s Prime Response platform which also integrates social media management functions as well. Their platform can be co-managed to achieve optimal results and it is extremely powerful in all that it can do for your web presence management strategy. DealerRater.com also has an online review management software product as part of the 360 Certified Program.
Which ever platform you decide to use, your Google reviews must be increasing each month. Your strategy must connect with active Yelp users. If your Google and Yelp reviews are basically flat over the last 3-6 months, your strategy is not working.
More than ever, dealers need to distinguish their business online. Reviews tell local auto shoppers how they can expect to be treated when they arrive. Take a minute to read your reviews on the 5-10 websites that appear in search results for your dealership’s name.
What kind of message is being sent to thousands of consumers a month?
If you need help kicking off a new culture in your dealership regarding the importance of reviews, ask for help. Dealers can’t afford to wait any longer to get a serious online review strategy in place. It is time to leverage the MOST frequently displayed marketing asset that a dealership has for online shoppers; their reviews!
This is always an enjoyable topic for me to discuss, since the reaction from the audience is usually that of shock, then enthusiasm, and then action! My opinion is that, of all of the opportunities in the dealers’ digital marketing arena, Reputation Management is clearly a situation where “the dealership is on fire”. For many dealers who are ignoring their online reviews, they literally have everything to lose, but also everything to gain.
In 2011, we saw Reputation Management take on an entirely new level of importance for car dealers; with consumers posting more reviews, and Google emphasizing these reviews on the Places pages and on SERPs.
What changes will we see in 2012?
I’m taking a stab at offering five (5) of my top recommendations for Reputation Management strategies.
1. Get committed to Reputation Management.
Any recommendations begin and end with the dealership (at the highest level) committing to managing their online reputation. Dealers who have operated in small, local communities like my own here in Gainesville, FL may be the most inclined to understand the importance of this.
What was the impact of a detractor 50 years ago? A customer who had a bad experience with a dealership in a small community would share their story at church, at bingo, at the corner grocery, etc….. If a dealer was to survive in any small community, they needed to limit (or eliminate) detractors, and encourage more promoters. Today, the Internet makes large markets behave like small communities, since opinions are both easily shared and easily found. Online Reviews are part of the DNA of every dealership in 2012.
While the importance of online reputation reinforces the importance of taking great care of customers, there is also much we can learn from the feedback received. Areas for process improvement, problem employees, and new product/service opportunities can all be learned from reading and digesting the content of online reviews. This feedback should be considered in making both tactical and strategic decisions at the dealership.
2. Monitor your reputation regularly.
If you are doing this manually, setup Google Alerts, Twitter searches, and regularly check the online review sites (Google, Yelp, etc.) There are also some good monitoring systems out there that can automate this for you.
If you use these systems, regularly monitor your dashboards and spring into action quickly, because each day negative reviews from detractors live online, your valuable brand and good name deteriorates. I’ve heard a fair number of dealers complaining about potential “review fraud” occurrences, where disgruntled employees, competitors, or others post negative reviews for the dealer.
Some industries have moved more toward sales-driven-reviews, where only recent customers have the ability to post a review. This is definitely the year for review verification. We’ll see how this finds its way into Google’s world.
3. Respond very quickly to negative reviews.
To the online shopper, no response from the dealer means, “the review is the truth”. If the dealer responds quickly, then the consumer will consider both sides to the story. If you find a negative review don’t immediately jump in and type your response. Take a few minutes to cool down, digest everything, and think about how to professionally respond.
Taking a defensive or aggressive approach with your response will only escalate the problem, adding fuel to the fire. Instead, show your concern, apologize for the problem and let them know you want to handle it right away. Ask anyone posting negative reviews of your business to contact you directly and thank them for their feedback.
Be very brief, take it quickly offline, and whatever you do, don’t get into an online debate for everyone to see (forever).
4. Promote positive reviews.
This is also referred to as Review Suppression Plans. This method will be far more effective than trying to control or simply responding to negative reviews, and while the initiative can be a tough one, it is the only way to truly separate yourself from your competitors.
My former General Manager and myself implemented and executed his process very effectively. We were at a Buick GMC store, if it can be done there with quick effective results, I am confident it can be used at your store.
Even if you do an incredible job taking care of customers, don’t expect positive reviews to “just happen” without your involvement. You must create a strong internal process to gain these reviews from your customers. When most people have a positive experience, they simply smile and drive down the road. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell a few people. In rare instances, these customers may actually go online without prompting and write you a positive review, but don’t count on it.
Since you can’t get rid of negative reviews (you can only respond to them, and improve processes at your store), you must get committed to bombarding the few negative reviews with an onslaught of positive reviews.
How can you do this?
There are many techniques, including postcards in the store, iPads in the F&I office, email campaigns, and personal outreach. (All of which we utilized) I personally think that an online approach; either during the purchase process or afterwards with an easy click-thru survey will yield the best results. But remember, in general, people will not give you positive reviews without you prompting them to do so.
5. Balance your Reputation Management work across multiple review sites and mobile.
It sure would be nice and easy if all online reviews were housed in a single location, but that is not the case. Google, Yelp, DealerRater and many more exist, and you need to balance your approach. Start with measuring which of these sites is driving the most traffic to your website. A simple “Top Referrers” report in your website analytics tool should do the trick.
How much traffic comes from your Google Places page? From Yelp? From DealerRater? Your initial Reputation Management strategy should focus on where the most eyeballs are, prior to visiting your site. If you find that several review sites are delivering decent traffic to your site, then balance the strategies across the various sites.
Which sites are driving your mobile reviews? I’m a big user of both Google and Yelp, and have both posted and read many business reviews on the mobile versions of these tools. What I’ve noticed is that these mobile reviews are much shorter and to the point. I also find myself more willing to read through them since they are small and easy to digest. Dealers need to pay attention to these short reviews, which often appear in the form of “tips”.
It seems like the world is a bigger place than it has ever been, while in reality, the Internet has made it a much smaller one. Dealers need to manage their reputations just like they did before the digital age, or perhaps even do a better job. Never before has it been so easy for consumers to quickly find out what other people think of your store. If you have “2 stars”, and plenty of negative reviews, trust me…your store is on fire, and any goodwill you think you have will be ashes in the future.
Consumers have choices, and they will choose products and people who are more highly rated than their competitors…….You have a choice too.
Take action today, and don’t be left behind with your online reputation.
Future of Dealership Websites??
When I first joined the auto industry, I was shocked to learn that some dealers had yet to solidify their web presence with a full-featured web site. After all, the Internet is the most utilized research tool in the vehicle purchase process and the easiest way to garner attention toward your vehicles from those who are in the market. Fast forward a few years and we’re now at a point where the vast majority of dealers use a third party website provider to manage their web presence. It was a slowly adopted change that was necessary for the advancement of the industry, but now that all dealers have their own website, what’s the next step?
What will it take to adopt the latest trends and break free from the pack of like-minded web properties?
One Sided Experience
As it stands, the function of the “dealer website” that we’ve all come to know so well is highly one sided. The experience of the vehicle shopper is similar to that of a classified site whereby the content is dominated by specials, promotions, and inventory that the dealer thinks the user will appreciate. We’re guilty of this as well. We tag vehicles as specials that we believe will attract attention in the hopes of generating quality leads, but do users really care what the dealer thinks is important?
Innovation From Netflix
Netflix has an amazing website that tailors the experience to the interests and browsing patterns of each visitor. They do all of this with the help of some fairly robust infrastructure & engineering teams, but the principles remain relevant — give users what they want so they’ll spend more time on your site& come back more frequently to utilize your tool.
Every visit to the Netflix website is different, providing a sense of identity for an individual user that is unmatched on other platforms. Furthermore, Netflix makes use of prediction models to suggest content on the site that will be relevant to an individual user. The more accurate the prediction model, the easier it is for users to find what they’re looking for and the higher the likelihood that they will return in the future.
Application on Dealer Sites
Modern dealer sites are a great tool for taking a selection of inventory and filtering down options to ultimately reach a match that suits the user’s tastes. From a macro perspective though, this process requires a fair amount of work on the user’s behalf before any tangible decision can be made and there is no tool available to bypass this process during a return visit. We can start utilizing modern web technologies to create a new breed of dealer sites – sites that function as more of a smart web app than a standalone classified tool.
Prediction Models
The average dealer does not have the resources available to implement complex prediction algorithms in the same fashion as Netflix. Luckily, there are third party tools and APIs available for developers to utilize these functions without having to invest in the entire infrastructure necessary to predict content. As time goes on, these tools will become increasingly accessible to the forward-thinking dealers – the question is whether or not this is of any priority to website vendors (or dealers for that matter) in the industry and who will make the first move in adopting the technology.
Once implemented, the experience on a dealer site quickly turns toward a user-centered shopping experience similar to that of Amazon where the site is not only a listing of all available inventory, but also a tool for helping the user find what they’re looking for based upon their unique interests.
Favorites
For the first 4 months of 2012, 30% of dealer web traffic consisted of returning visitors. Many of these visitors will have undoubtedly viewed inventory and gone through the process of filtering vehicles multiple times before eventually moving elsewhere. Is it in our best interests to force them through this same monotonous process each time they visit?
User favorites are a current trend being under-utilized in the auto industry. I recently noticed Edmunds.com added a tool for saving vehicles (without requiring registration), but I have yet to see a widespread adoption of this idea across individual dealer sites. When users save vehicles, they have an increased incentive to return to your dealership’s website because they have already shown interest in something and they’ve made it easy to locate. Smart websites like Amazon use this data to offer increased incentives for returning visitors to convert online and increase revenue. With so many dealers being involved in a single shopper’s buying decision, every additional tool counts.
Browsing Activity
Prediction models make use of browsing activity in their algorithms, but when I refer to browsing activity, I’m talking exclusively about tracking the pages that users view via cookies. Keep in mind this doesn’t mean that some webmaster is sitting in a room looking at every single page that you’ve viewed on your computer at 2am. This is merely a method of tracking browsing history in order to create a tool for users to access information that they’ve already seen on your site.
We’re aiming to make the experience on a dealer site as easy and painless as possible, so if I have to go back to a search page and repeatedly input filters to find vehicles, then we’re doing it wrong. Giving users access to vehicles they’ve already viewed is a great way to easily get them back to that vehicle details page to convert and start working with your sales team.
What do you think? Are these features important enough to your dealership/group to implement?
What challenges do we need to overcome as an industry to make it happen?
1. Their most urgent and constant goal is to keep their job, not to perform their job.
2. They feel a need to be smarter than those around them. Whether they are or not isn’t really relevant; it’s their obvious need that alienates and demoralizes others.
3, Their own insecurities prevent them from openly acknowledging others’ successes and good ideas.
4. They are attentive and responsive ‘up’ the chain of command but not down.
5. They have a large library of management knowledge and a vast vocabulary of management words and ideas which they substitute for intuition, common sense, and a gracious manner.
6. They change course abruptly and with the urgency of a crisis, just to ride a business fashion du jour or to impress someone with organizational prestige.
7. They can’t grasp the idea that alternative approaches to a task or problem can spawn better more innovative outcomes.
8. They routinely find culprits for their own mistakes… their own employees, other departments, confusing directives, events beyond their own control.
9. They lie, misdirect, obfuscate when it’s expedient to do so. Preserving their image and position is their primary objective.
10. They peg as trouble makers exasperated or aggrieved employees who speak up and they campaign to demean, reassign or fire them.
11. They refuse any offer of assistance, viewing it as a sign of weakness.
12. Their staffs spend lots of time rolling their eyes and wishing someone with power would remove them.
13. They are not happy nor are those who report to them.
14. They last far too long, doing damage everywhere, especially in organizations where hearts are larger, tolerance is greater or oversight is negligent.
Pre-Owned Vehicle Retail Marketing
Posted: June 21, 2014 in UncategorizedTags: dealership, dealerships, sales manager
Sam G. “A Unique Blend of Used Car and Internet Proficiency”
In today’s technology driven world your computer can help you make great management decisions and help take your department to another level, but not without doing the basics right. Pre-owned is not a department where doing it by the seat of your pants works any longer. This is the department that controls your new car sales and F&I, helps increase parts and service income, and most of all, helps your cash flow. Your used car manager handles your used car department portfolio, which can often reach into the millions of your dollars. If he were your stockbroker or a commodities broker, wouldn’t you be interested in his ability to acquire and trade those commodities at maximum profit? Some dealerships assume that the computer software will solve their problems. It may, (may being the optimum word) as long as your manager uses it. We have entered a new era in the automotive industry, if your dealership does not have a used car manager that can balance technology with basic used car management skills you can easily find yourself in an enormous negative equity situation. With the volatility of the automotive dealership of this day and age this one person can single handedly bankrupt an otherwise healthy dealership. This is one of the most crucial positions within the organization. Find and retain the right person and your dealership will flourish.
If 90% of customers shop online, why advertise anywhere else? A shift in the traditional mindset will be necessary to achieve results. To survive in today’s automotive marketplace a dealership MUST operate more efficiently than their competitors in order to gain valuable market share. There is no other medium that is trackable or offers the same level of R.O.I. as Internet Advertising!
Today’s automotive market place will no longer reward the dealers who still use draconian methods to sell their inventory. Simply adding a few thousand dollars profit on top of the cost and putting it on the lot for sale hoping to get lucky. Depending on the source 84-93% of all vehicles sales now originate online. If you are not competitive in today’s technology driven buying world, your days in this business will be short lived.
Having a solid grasp on all aspects of front-end operations will be essential. A multi-dimensional manager will be the foundation of any successful automobile dealership. Technology has propelled the evolution of the car buying process to a completely new dimension. Dealerships holding on to the “Old School” mentality and processes will be forced to either play catch-up or to eventually close the doors. Understanding how to implement a successful Internet marketing strategy will be the key component in the success of all auto retail stores of the present as well as the future.
Rapid inventory turn and high volume with a focus on customer retention will replace the dated theories of yesteryear car guys, while significantly boosting profits and increasing the dealerships customer database. Every statistic available goes to further prove the fact that dealerships are evolving and thatfixed-ops departments are where the profits lie (Fixed should not be relying on UCD to support it’s bottom line). Front-end departments will build solid lasting customer relations and the fixed-ops departments will be responsible for the retention and longer-term profits, maximizing annual bottom line profits.
I.e…. 5 cars on an average of 17 day turn @ 800/700 front profit equals $7500 front gross as opposed to 2 cars on 45 day turn @ 2000/700 equaling 5400 front gross, not only are you 2100 ahead in gross BUT you also have added an additional 3 customers to your database!!
Dealerships who still operate under the old school mentality of “Gross is King” are the ones struggling to keep their used car departments afloat. Why is “Water” in the used car department such a chronic problem across the country? It is the lack of intelligent, forward thinking managers. Until this industry purges itself of the guys who have no desire to grasp and understand the tools that will become the mainstay of this business it will not get better. I am referring to the guys that think “I am the best car guy in the business, there are no books or computers that can tell me how to do my job better, I know everything about used cars.” A “gut feeling” is all they go on for appraisals, stocking and pricing of their used car departments. Neither market data nor any other analytical factors play a part in these crucial decisions. Once these root issues are addressed by the dealerships of today, they will then position themselves in a place that enables a market share shift within their respective region. Steal market share from your competitors and sell cars, how much better can it get than that?!
New/Used vehicle success requires a new way of thinking. Traditional mediums of the past are falling to the wayside at an unbelievably fast rate. Everything is shifting to the internet for ease and thoroughness of information available. A more intelligent shopper requires more intelligent dealership personnel. Online advertising, tools and staff will be the key factors in a dealerships success.
Over the next couple of years we will see the “Internet Sales Manager” and “Sales Manager” positions meld into 1 position. A sales manager who can not effectively oversee the Internet driven traffic and sales will no longer exist. This merging of the 2 positions into 1 will bring forth the best people with the most knowledge and the foresight to implement and execute a successful plan to keep dealership sales bolstering. Superior managers utilizing the best technology available will be a requirement for any dealership who wants to remain & thrive in the automotive retail industry.
Managers who spearhead the sales department’s tactics will no longer rely on the antiquated methods of yesteryear.
Communication, comprehensive understanding of implementation & execution of technology, personal skills and a willingness to evolve with the industry will be essential management requirements.
I feel I have been with the Morgan Auto Group long enough to make an accurate assessment of the Used Car Operations. I feel there are fundamental issues. Until these issues are addressed and rectified, Sales, Net Profit & Moral will continue to suffer.
The Used Car Department has long been the cornerstone of Wade Raulerson BPG, not having a dedicated and knowledgeable manger overseeing the day to day operations will only perpetuate the results that are currently being generated.
- Equity Position
- Pricing Policies
- Expense Control
- Holding Cost
- Turn (Goal of 12x per Yr.)
- Recon/Service
- Days from Acquisition to Retail Sale
- Acquisition To Online 72hrs MAX
- Every Single RO on Every Single UC should be signed off by a UCM
Prior to commencement of the repair
- Inspection & Approval of all services to be performed prior to retail sale (Done within 24hrs)(72 hrs to Retail)
- Sourcing/Stock (Day supply) Risk Factoring
- Merchandizing
- From On the lot Appearance to Online Presence
7. Online Exposure & Branding
The used car manager should be a dedicated manager that has a very detailed view of every vehicle within the department, the equity position and the services rendered & recommended. Without a comprehensive knowledge of your portfolio you cannot effectively manage your investment and expect an optimal and sustained R.O.I.
I feel there is a very solid Management foundation in this dealership. We as a team have the ability to build something progressive and successful. Every resource & each person must be utilized to their full potential. Each profit center within the dealership acts as an independent entity, we must come together as 1 team with 1 goal; To Sell Cars. Without sales there are no cars to service, no body damage to repair nor anything that needs to be detailed. Just my 2 cents.
Sam G.
I have been removed from the oversight of our dealerships website/internet department for the past 16 months, unfortunately during this hiatus (into the world of Finance & Insurance), we as a dealership have severely regressed in our online presence. Well, I now find myself in the unique position of front-end operations manager. I have oversight of Sales, Internet and the finance department. I am very excited about this opportunity and can envision a new direction. Our dealerships online presence is my priority, we will not only gain back lost presence, but set a new standard for online shopping. Our customers will have an experience like no other. I feel I will be able to apply my progressive management foresight and theories to take us in a new direction. We will set the standard for others to follow. My goal is to grow our market share to new heights, not only offsetting the down-market but showing growth for 2009. The tumultuous times are only going to affect the ones who allow it to bring them down. This will be a time for the right people to persevere.
Sam Griswold
www.gainesvillenissan.com
Sam Griswold 