According to Glassdoor; 5 of the worse places to work are..

1. DHL Express (USA)
2. United Airlines
3. Reynolds and Reynolds
4. Farmers Group
5. Gibson Guitar

What’s happening over there at Reynolds and Reynolds?

The report also shows that CEO Bob Brockman received a whopping 8% approval rate (according to glassdoor).

To see who’s on the rest of the list, view the complete article “Who’s the Lowest of them All? Glassdoor Reports Companies with Lowest Overall Ratings” on the glassdoor blog.

If you have never been on glassdoor.com, be sure to check it out.

What is Glassdoor.com?

Glassdoor.com is a career and workplace community where anyone can find and anonymously share real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs for specific employers — all for free. What sets us apart is that all our information comes from the people who know these companies best — employees. In the spirit of community, we ask our users to share with each other. That is, before you can access all of the information shared by others in the Glassdoor community, we first ask that you post an anonymous review or salary of your own. By working together to offer an inside look at companies, we can open access and bring greater transparency to information in one of the most important parts of our lives — our work.

Great Management and Great Leadership

This coming year will be a sad year for many car dealerships, so I’m writing this article to offer hope and encouragement, and maybe it will help save at least one from despair. But before I continue, let it be known that I am a very optimistic, positive, “glass is half-full” kind of guy. To me, adversity is nothing more than an opportunity for growth, and without challenges no one would develop perseverance. Now, I’m not saying that I like adversity or being challenged all the time, but lately it seems the world I’m living in serves up more and more of it everyday.

Managing The Dealership

Every dealership needs to start by looking at the way they are managed. Thousands of dealers have operated with blinders on for too many years. This mentality avoids true management of people and their processes, and has no chance against the Godzilla-sized problems facing every dealer in the country right now.

First, ask yourself, “Whose hands are on the wheel?” I’ve been in far too many dealerships that have a really great Salesman working as a Manager. NEWS FLASH: An excellent Sales Person does not equal an excellent Manager! The best Manager might not be able to sell their way out of a wet paper bag and that’s ok! Maybe this challenges your way of thinking about management, but that’s ok too…you reserve the right to change your mind when given new ideas.

Consider this. Right now, as you read this article, Managers are making big decisions. Hiring and firing decisions, vendor decisions (who to keep, who to cut, who to add), advertising and marketing decisions, decisions on what to buy at auctions and pricing used inventory, decisions on how to process incoming internet leads, website decisions, decisions on training and education initiatives and so on and so on.

Poor Managers make the above BIG decisions based on instinct alone, which is a display of ignorance. Ignorance is not only unacceptable, it represents a coffin nail that every dealer should avoid at all cost. A bad Manager has no idea what his or her employees are truly capable of and how to motivate them. When a Manager only evaluates sales people based how many vehicles they sell, they fail to identify the reasons why they sold that number of vehicles. If you don’t know why Johnny-Sales-Guy only sold five cars this month, you are a bad Manager.

Bad Managers don’t recognize, or even see the need, for tools that track sales efforts; they don’t know how to determine the value of their vendors; they don’t understand what advertising and marketing choices return the best results; they don’t know what their ratio is between their showroom traffic and their internet traffic; they don’t know what makes a good website (or even know why their website exists); they don’t know when they need training; and they don’t know how to hold trained employees accountable. Managers such as these have no right to be managing in today’s dealership.

Great Managers, of course, do all of the above well because their experience, knowledge, abilities and talents match the needs of the position. They know the strengths and weaknesses of those he or she manages and they will position their employees to play to their strengths, NOT their weaknesses. A great Manager knows what days showroom traffic is at its peak and cross-trains sales people for traditional showroom sales as well as internet sales. A great Manager tracks sales people’s response times, follow-up discipline, appointment setting ratio, closing ratio and uses metrics to help the dealership thrive not just survive.

Again, good management is a dilemma for many dealerships because so many stores are being managed by people whose greatest strength is not managing.

Helpful Hints and Encouragement

• Choosing to keep an employee should be based on the fact that their abilities, strengths and talents match your needs and that they are well utilized to make your business successful. Establish an employee rating scale (i.e. “Outstanding,” “Exceeds Expectations,” “Meets Expectations” and “Needs Improvement”), then MANAGE your staff toward success or out of your dealership.

• Keep and/or add vendors that increase sales conversion. Now more than ever, vendor choices need to be based on ROI. A good vendor will stand behind their product or service by not forcing long term contracts. Having the best tools available is useless if there is no proven process for them.

• Make cuts in places like newspaper, television and radio. If you spend more than $5k a month in any of these areas, separately or combined, sharpen your axe and start swinging it!

• Manage your processes or you will make bad decisions. If you don’t know how to effectively communicate with your customers (especially online), you will not be able to identify good leads vs. bad leads. You won’t know why one CRM tool fits your business needs vs. another. Solid processes give you critical management tools like visibility, accountability and responsibility.

• If you are the Dealer/Owner/DP, do some self-examination related to your leadership skills and abilities. If you aren’t the one casting the vision for how the business moves forward, who is? A leader must exist. Here’s a video that includes 13 great leadership rules.

Properly managing your people and processes is one of the biggest keys to your dealership’s success. Just signing-up for the latest and greatest product or service will do nothing to help you if the wrong people work for you or if you have the right people in the wrong roles. There will be amazing success stories in 2009, but they will all have two things in common, great management and great leadership.

Wow, what a year!! No doubt a roller coaster ride for our industry. We hear about “the dealer down the road” closing their door just about every other day. While the strong dealers are surviving, too many dealers are just now figuring out that internet marketing needs to be the dominating percentage of their marketing mix.

What will your dealers Marketing Mix be for 2009?? (humm, sounds like a post to me)

Thanks to everyone that has help contribute this year to DealerRefresh. From guest posters, to commenter’s to our paid sponsors. The traffic and readership doubles each year, making this another record year for DR. While there have been several other industry related blogs and social networks come out of 2008, we keep doing what we do; finding the right balance of engaging articles while hopefully writing and commenting about what matters most to a dealers internet marketing and sales efforts.

2008 was exciting here for me as we said good bye to the old DealerRefresh design and hello an all new DealerRefresh 3.0.

So as I do every year, digging back into the archives, here are some of the top/engaging posts of 2008.

• To Micro-site or not to Micro-site? - Do Micro-sites really make sense!

• Five Rock-Star Ways to Brand Your Dealer’s Internet Sales Department - One of my personal favorites..somehow it became a little viral

• Here only the strong survive! - I’m still not sure who actually wrote that but that to Todd Smith for sharing it with DealerRefresh.

• Online Dealer Reviews - Are They Ready For Prime Time? - A guest posting by Amit Aggarwal about Online Consumer-generated Dealer Reviews

• How do I grow and evolve my Internet Sales Department? - A post in the Ask/Answer category

• The death of the Internet Director - Has the time come to promote the Internet Director into a much larger role?

• Car Dealers Embrace Online Video - Automotive Online Video Marketing Trends - Does Online Video Marketing Drive Sales?

• Hiring a Full-Time SEO and Internet Marketing Manager for your Dealership - Is it time for dealer to hire a full time inhouse SEO / Internet marketing manager?

• What Car Dealers Can Learn from Obama’s Campaign - 5 strategies dealers (any business) can lean from Obama’s presidential campaign.

• Web 2.0 Essential for Dealers to Survive Economic Crisis - These days, the most believable voices come from individuals, not what your dealers says about itself.

• Search Engine Marketing has reached Stage 3 - Search Engine Marketing has been around since the early 2000s and has quickly become a billion dollar advertising system for eCommerce…

• Don’t fall for this junk! - BZ Results gets exposed.

Alright..I’m going to draw the line here. Every year I do this I usually find myself spending hours reviewing some of the older articles and this post takes me way longer than anticipated.

It’s always exciting to go back and review all the posts from the previous year.  Some of the conversations are timeless and engaging.

I’m not one for predictions because I think anything can happen and shit changes too fast. However I believe 2009 will be a huge year for our industry. Hopefully the economic status will start to favor on the positive side.

Social sites and social networking will of course continue to grow and dealers will eventually have to find their spot within this growing segment. Marketing of the future will be PR. Video will be web “3.0″ and dealers will struggle to really grasp this medium.

Twitter will go mainstream; some will figure out how to use this medium to help build transparency.

Speaking of transparency (a word that has been beaten to death on 2008), dealers will be forced more than ever to become transparent. Dealer rating sites like DealerRater and Insiderpages will continue to be even more influential on consumer buying decisions. As this happens dealer reputation management will NEED TO BE at top of mind awareness for car dealers.

I’d like to say 2009 will be the year dealers really take hold and understand the importance of SEO but I’m not holding my breath.

THANKS TO EVERYONE for reading DealerRefresh and for your support and participation in 2008. We have a great community here and some of the best talent in the industry participating, reading and commenting. 2009 is going to be a fun ride! See you next year.

-Jeff

If there is anything 2008 taught me, it is that America’s memory has shortened even further than it was before.  It is amazing how fast people switched their car-buying habits based on gas prices going up and coming back down.  I can’t get over the speed at which truck sales died and came back.  Do people really believe we’ll never see an increase in gas prices again?  Did the environment take a back seat in our Hummers once again?

The housing market died and interest rates are at their lowest, but even with housing still in the toilet people flocked to new purchases enough to have every mortgage broker and Real Estate agent I know working through Christmas.  All indications show the housing market is going to continue to drop, so why invest now?

Never try to catch a falling knife.

Wall Street is a bloody mess, but I hear more and more people are throwing money at it thinking a big return is going to happen next week.

Wait for the knife to hit the floor first.

Don’t get me wrong, I am super happy to hear people are spending money - we need it to happen more!  I’m ecstatic some faith is being restored to the system.  I’m just intrigued by the month-to-month mentality we seem to have in this country now.  One of my degrees is in History and maybe it is that dorky academic side of me that finds this whole mess fascinating.

One thing these consumer trends are showing me is that we can either get away with more experimental advertising or have to get more long-term with our campaigns.  It is obvious people are not going to remember when you made a mistake.  Sure, a few folks will, but the masses won’t.  At the same time, maybe it means we need to start thinking about spreading our messages farther and longer.  Maybe it means we have to beat people over the head until they say stop.  Maybe we have to get extremely targeted…more-so than before.  Maybe we should concentrate on branding more than ever.  Maybe we should do more guerrilla marketing.

Whatever the marketing tactic is for 2009 it is going to be an interesting year to say the least.  No matter what, it will be tougher and require better strategizing than ever before.  I think it will be a good year for online and anything that is free to consumers (non-subscription based medias).

As most of you know, I am part of the third generation of Snyder’s at the Checkered Flag Automotive Group. My grandfather founded the company in 1964 after he himself was part of another third generation of Snyder’s at a department store we used to own in Downtown Norfolk since the late 1800’s (closed in 1969).  He is the wisest man I know. He was born before the Great Depression and only has the kind of memories one can have of that time when you’re not even a teenager. He has lived through a few recessions and has had to make some tough business decisions in all of them. He has been the top operator, in both businesses, most of his life. Many of our recent conversations have revolved around the current economic issues and just how unpredictable things are.

Checkered Flag has made some serious moves toward the lean side in efforts of survivability. My grandfather says it is too hard to envision what the next month may bring. The turmoil in the market, changing gas prices, mass lay-offs and consumer fears have turned any future strategizing on its heels.  He said he has never witnessed anything like this before.  This is a frightening statement from a man who is so grounded and experienced.

I know Virginia is only a small microcosm of what is happening across the United States. The VADA (Virginia Automobile Dealers Association) recently met with Southern Virginia dealers to discuss what they should do should a manufacturer declare bankruptcy. It was the first non-pep-rally meeting from the VADA. I heard it sent the Chrysler dealers out with a lot more gray hair.

I bring these examples up to let you know that we are also in the same boat a lot of you are in.

I just don’t know, and I don’t think anyone does.

I speak to a lot of people around the nation on a daily basis. Lately I’ve been receiving at least 2 emails a day from various Internet Managers, or vendors, asking how to get a dealer principle to not cut such and such product.  I have been asking that same question myself. So, I want to put it out in the open: Where do we draw the line on what to cut and what not to cut? Bring your comments!

If you’re worth your salt at all, you probably leaned your Internet budgets out before things in the market ever got bad - this is just something any good operator would constantly be working on.  I’m sure most of you have a threshold for a quarterly performance closing ratio that you hold all your lead vendors to.  You gauge your SEM spending based on the number of clicks you get based on past trends.  You look at your people based on their closing ratio and have numerous measuring tools for your own website.

I’d like to see this turn into a thread of comments that can help all of us find some direction in this crazy market.  Let’s talk about:

• Reporting - using it to show value before just saying “kill it”
• Statistics - where are you falling off?  Maybe we can help show why.
• Conversion - is a different consumer attitude killing your conversion ratios?
• Branding - what is a performance-based ad and where do you continue to brand?
• Consumerism - it has changed.  We are dealing with a totally different buyer now.
  
  Anything else you want to discuss

Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone!

I had to post this. It’s makes you sick to watch, but you have to see it.

A D.C. family is saying there is a good reason why their vandalized car shouldn’t have been towed.

Could you imagine?

Mazda changes direction with their third party leads and Search Engine Marketing efforts.

An email from Mazda Dealer Online:

——————————————-

Over the last few months we have been working with dealers, conducting surveys, and obtaining input from Mazda Action Teams regarding the evolution of our Mazda Dealer Online (MDOL) program. As a result of this process we have jointly developed a strategy to improve our overall lead quality, reduce the impact of lead duplication for dealers with direct contracts, and allow dealers to be more efficient with their monthly lead expenses.  Additionally, we expect this will free up valuable time needed to successfully work those internet leads that have a better chance of closing.

The strategic changes below have been a direct result of dealer collaboration that has also received full support from CD MAT, Tech MAT, and NDAC and will begin to take effect on January 1, 2009 for all dealers participating in the MDOL program.

• Eliminate poor performing third party lead sources
• Cobalt/Dealix and Jumpstart will be removed by December 31, 2008
• AutoByTel will be removed by January 31, 2009
• Increase MazdaUSA.com lead costs from $5 to $10 beginning January 1, 2009

Additional funds will be reinvested in Search Engine Marketing efforts to generate more high quality MazdaUSA.com leads

* KBB and Edmunds leads will remain in the MDOL program with no changes

This new direction should improve overall lead quality and volume through MazdaUSA.com while maintaining our best third party lead sources. It will also allow us to increase our Search Engine Marketing activities to drive more in-market shoppers and leads through our site that will help to off-set the overall lead volume decrease from eliminating poor performing lead sources.

As you can see over the first ten month’s of this calendar year close rates from ABT (4.4%), Cobalt (5.2%) and Jumpstart (4.0%) have been performing over 50% below MazdaUSA.com (11.0%), KBB.com (10.2%), and Edmunds.com (11.2%) which was a significant factor in our decision making process.

Improving quality as well as speed of response is critical in today’s competitive environment and is necessary in meeting our demanding consumer expectations. This change will contribute to our collective online digital efforts and will strengthen the MDOL program as we move into the New Year.

Zoom-Zoom.  Forever!

Does anyone have any comments on the effectiveness of online trade-in value tools?

As far as I know, there are only really 2 available.

Black Book Online (Activator)

vs

KBB Lead Driver

I’m sure at one point or another, almost every Internet sales manager has used one or even both of these online trade evaluation tools for your dealers website. I have read a few studies that show adding the an online trade appraisal tool to your dealers website could increase conversion rates another 1-2%.

We just started with one of the above trade tools, but it was a tough decision on which one to go with.

Kelly Blue Book has such a reputable name on the consumers eye BUT I always fear that the consumer has already been there. According to KBB and several other studies, it’s one of the most consumer visited websites. If the customer has already been there, than does my chances of converting lessen? OR since I have the KBB Trade-in value logo on my site, does that give our dealer more validity?

What about the actual car values? There are many times a large difference between the two companies values.

Are there other trade-in tools that I’m not aware of?

What has been your experience?

Stephanie Hudmeyer
Internet Sales Manager

Grant Cardone pushes for a tax credit for dealers and the consumer.