Standing in line in front of the J.C. Penney store at the Cedar Hills Shopping Center in Jacksonville, FloridaŠwearing a Beatle haircutŠa genuine bleeding madras shirt with button-down collar and a hanger loop ŠWeejunsŠand London Fog jacket. It was February 1964Šand when the store opened, the new Beatles album, ³Meet the Beatles² was going to go on sale for the first time. June 1998Šcleaning out the basementŠrummaging through some old cardboard boxesŠchuckling at old high school memories and moldy baseball gloves. My old record collection was there still packed from two moves ago. Hard to believe that I ever owned a Monkees albumŠand the DoorsŠand CreamŠ and, yes, there it wasŠ³Meet the Beatles² in monaural on the Capital label. My first thought was to rush upstairs and pop it on the stereo. Then it hit meŠreally hardŠI don¹t own a turntable. The vinyl record industry didn¹t dieŠit never slowly faded away. In less than three or four years compact discs assassinated the technology that had endured since the turn of the century. People tell us that the retail automobile industry is changing. Of course most of these ³Waves of the Future² are unworkable fantasies created on the drawing boards of idealistic propeller heads with advanced education and little to no actual hands-on experience in the retail automobile industry. They usually give them some catchy nameŠlike ³Project 2000² for instance. Doomed to failure by flawed concepts, most of these Waves of the Future never make it to the beach With more than twenty-five years of in-the-trenches experience, I am currently working as sales, advertising and marketing consultant to some of the most successful dealers in the countryŠmore than thirty-five thousand managers and executives have attended my seminars. With that being said, maybe it might be a good idea to use this month¹s article to discuss some of those things that are actually working and generating additional profit for dealers. As a consultant, my mission is to increase the dealership¹s profitability through increased unit sales and profit per unit sold. The first thing I look at in any dealership is the quality of the sales force. Most dealerships do not require performance standards to remain employed and there is no management review with the sales people. In truth, most dealerships are hanging on to people who should be fired simply because they don¹t know how or where to get a quality individual to replace them. Sales people don¹t produce because no one in management holds them accountable. We¹re talking about the people that you put in front of the public. Sales people are the representatives of your company that your customers spend the majority of their time with. That is the most important priority. In short, get rid of bad peopleŠhave twice-a-month sales person evaluations with management. Review performance levels, sales skills, CSI, and monthly forecast based on unit sales and profitŠand make termination and advancement decisions based on these evaluations. Track your prospects as well as your existing customer base. It always amazes me that dealers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising for strangers to come into the dealership to buy a car when, at the same time, they have completely lost touch with their existing and past customers and prospects. Every dealership needs to generate a monthly newsletter with articles, photographs, specials and human-interest features. Part of your advertising budget should be dedicated to keeping a continued presence in front of your customer and your prospects. One of the best investments an automobile dealer can make is to create a Center focused on business development and customer-tracking. Not just another ³Phone Room²ŠI am talking about a professionally-managed center to handle all in-bound and out-bound telephone, customer tracking, CSI Engineering, as well as Internet Management. I have been an outspoken critic of the so-called internet buying services like Auto-By-Tel, It is a sad note when dealers advertise in such a way as to turn retail buyers into fleet customers. My experience is that these buyers are the demographic of customer that I would least like to show up in my showroomŠThey are the grindersŠ The ³Show me your invoice² type of buyer who will be a problem long after the deal is done. I feel these buyers double-cross the dealer and use the initial figure as the starting price. My recommendation is to cancel all of the outside internet buying services and bring it in-house, under control. The problem with most dealer¹s websites is that they are staleŠnot maintainedŠout-of-dateŠthe very look of the website implies ³cobwebs². Every dealership should look at their website as an expansion of their advertising messageŠnot as the message itself. The trick is not as much about building the site as how to get people to visit the websiteŠ and actually respond to it. This is why I am getting dealers I work with to hire an in-house website programmer who ³sweeps² the site every few hours and responds to leads promptly as well as changes the site on a daily basis. Be sure that all of the search engines have registered the words and flags that will direct the most people to the site. A website should have pages of advertising messages about the dealership and specials in sales and service. I view a website as the opportunity to have a dozen additional full-page ads for the customer to see. Every ad in the newspaper or on television or direct mail should feature the web address in large typeŠtwenty picas or moreŠbold print; ³For additional specials visit us on the internet at http://www.greatdealer.com.² It is incredible to see just how many dealers cannot quantify lost sales or missed businessŠmuch less how many dealers have an action plan to maximize opportunities to do business. It remains a fact that you can¹t control what you can¹t measureŠand most dealerships do not have an accurate handle on their traffic. My philosophy, as a professional manager and as a consultant, is centered around a concept that I call ³Hyper-Awareness². It occurs to me that most managers are not aware of exactly what is happening with their sales people and the customersŠHow long they¹ve been with themŠWhy they were leavingŠWhat could have been done to make business happen. If someone doesn¹t buy today for any reason, someone in management needs to recontact them within twelve working hours (not the salesperson). Does it not occur to some people that most salespeople hope the customer never comes back. Most sales people prefer a fresh up to a be-back who has already worked them into the ground on the first visit. Managers need to assume the responsibility of getting the customers back into the dealership. I have read all of the negative press concerning the secondary finance business. The facts still remain that perhaps as many as 53% of Americans do not qualify for conventional bank or manufacturer financing. With more than a million personal bankruptcies every year, mostly due to issues beyond the consumer¹s control, we have to continue to creatively find ways to sell in this arena. Even though this paper is very ³time intensive² and complicated, a dealership must have a ³Special Finance Department² and train their people how to deal with the complex requirements to move into this market. ³One-Price Selling² is a documented failureŠjust look at the lackluster performance of the so-called superstores who banked on ³No Haggle Selling². Your sales force needs to be trained and retrained on consumer-oriented negotiation processes and especially on the ³Word-tracks² that give the customers confidence and the impression of professionalism. A dealership without an organized and measurable selling system is a lost puppy on the interstate during rush hour. F&I Managers need to be elevated in respect and authority with the sales force. There are complicated disclosure issues currently under the microscopeŠsoon to intensify. State Attorney Generals are going to be looking closely at ³Payment Packing² (including F&I products into a payment to the customer). F&I is going to have to learn to offer the customer menus, packages and options instead of the traditional assumptive sale that we have always relied upon. Under the new interpretations of the law, if your salespeople are telling the customers interest rates and payments on the parking lot without management supervisionŠyou are going to wake up one day with a four-hundred thousand dollar fine from some baby-kissing Attorney General looking to carve a couple of more notches on their political guns. Of course the CarMaxs and the AutoNations of this world keep laying down asphalt and making noises in the wildernessŠThe factories are still doing extremely stupid thingsŠand somewhere, as I put these words to paper, J.D. Power is probably handing out another trophy following extensive alleged researchŠ butŠthe truth is the consumers really are dictating the market and they are not playing the no-haggle gameŠnot at those prices. There are many more issues and subtleties that I would like to have included in this article But, I am out of space and timeŠin this issue anyway. Sitting here on the back deck, I am watching Zachary kicking a soccer ball in the back yard while the Labrador is over in the corner creating fertilizer, Smoke pours from the grill and my little boy looks up and asks me if I have ever heard of a band called ³Smashmouth². I have to admit that I haven¹t heard of them although my wife says they¹re very popular with the kids. Zachary comes up the steps and says, ³You know dad, Smashmouth is really a great bandŠThey¹re sort of like the Beatles². Almost choking on my cognac, I look at my sonŠ.and say, ³I don¹t think so.²