Culture of Value

When you build trust with your teams, you have teams focused on delivering the best experience to the customer. That leads to both short-term and long-term profits for your dealership. Listen to Brian Kramer, GM at Germain Toyota of Naples, talk about how he works with his teams in sales, finance, and service to achieve success.

In this episode of Culture of Value, Drew Delaware, CMO at Gubagoo, talks with us about digital marketing vs. digital retailing. We discuss how the two are not synonymous but can work together to provide a frictionless customer experience if implemented properly.

Through more than 40,000 assessments and hundreds of interviews, John Eades and his team at LearnLoft have discovered the most important job a leader has today is to elevate others. That's exactly what we talk about in this episode. Leadership is more than having a C-level or management title. For any entity or group to succeed, there must be a leader who truly believes in servant leadership, elevating each member of the team to be their absolute best. So, if you're struggling in your leadership role, not getting your team to "do what you want them to do," listen to what John has to say and take it to heart. You'll be amazed at the results.

"Great Leaders Ask Questions," "Now That's a Great Question," and "339 Questions Jesus Asked" are fantastic books authored by our guest, Bob Tiede, Director of Global Operations Leadership Development for Cru. Bob reminds us that "Leadership is not as much about knowing all the answers as asking the right questions." Just listen to some of the simple questions great leaders have asked that have given insights to improve teams, cut costs, improve efficiencies, reduce turnover, and change cultures. Is it worth your time to listen? We'll let you be the judge of that.

Sabrina Erskine, Digital Sales & Service Director at Napleton Auto Group, shares with us the importance for dealership leaders to keep track of all the moving parts involved in digital marketing. She points out that dealer principals and general managers need a better working knowledge of digital marketing as a whole as well as getting the entire dealership team involved in the digital marketing strategy. Sabrina highlights the fact that digital marketing impacts every department in the dealership and how breaking down department silos will help everyone better contribute to success throughout the customer journey.

Doing things the way you've always done them is not a great strategy when change is constant. Dennis Ephlin, Automotive Partner with IBM, shares a number of the changes he sees coming in the automotive industry and how customer experience will become your dealership's unique value proposition. Dennis talks about how every process, engagement, and guest experience needs to be a dealership's North Star.

The complexity of marketing strategy & execution should not be left to "whoever has some extra time" to keep an eye on it. Today, Glenn Pasch, CEO at PCG Digital, shares why having (or hiring) a marketing director is so important. Successful marketing is not a set it and forget it program. Someone must understand the goals and KPIs that need to be measured, and not just once a month. Managing the relationship with outside agencies is critical. And having a single point of contact to maintain consistency while focusing on a changing business landscape is a must. Many ask if there is enough work to justify a marketing director in a dealership. We ask if there is enough marketing director to effectively handle all of the work.

Generations Digital Founder, George Nenni, stops by to share insights on the importance of local search, Google My Business, and what strategies and tactics dealerships need to employ to make the most of local search. We talk through a number of the topics in his books, “A Car Dealer's Guide to Google My Business” and “A Car Dealer's Guide to Digital Marketing”. George also shares ideas on how to achieve the best results from your digital agency and how to eliminate ad waste to maximize your dealership's marketing dollars.

Dane Saville, with Reunion Marketing and host of the KPI Cafe, stops by to discuss some of the ways in which local dealerships and businesses can rank above 3rd party sites in organic search. Understand, there is no one silver bullet, and it will take strategic thinking and work. Just take a listen, though. Dane has some great ideas to share.

Joe Overby, Senior Editor at Automotive Remarketing, talks with us about what he's seeing with new car and pre-owned sales as the auto industry deals with chip shortages. We talk about some of the strategies and tactics dealerships can implement to continue to grow revenues on the front-end, back-end, and in service.

This week we talk with Ilana Shabtay, Director of Marketing at AutoLeadStar, about some things that are many times overlooked or taken for granted that are costing dealerships revenue in the short-term and long-term. Siloed marketing efforts, poor communications, hard sales tactics, and making assumptions about customers are costing dealerships. We talk about what can be done to solve the problems these issues create and how solving these problems leads to long-term growth.

Are you a Customer-Centric business? Are you sure? Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, stops by to talk with Culture of Value to share insights on how you can truly know your business is a customer-centric business. Laura shares how you can measure your company's response to customers during "Moments of Truth" to determine whether or not you're truly Customer-Centric. She offers real-world examples of companies who are and those who only think they are. So, where do you stand? Are you a Customer-Centric business?

Melanie Borden, Vice President of Marketing at LotLinx, stops by the Culture of Value podcast to share her experience with building brand trust for dealerships by having dealer principals and general managers build a social media plan. She shares how everyone in a dealership can be vital in building that trust relationship with customers and how those relationships positively impact the dealership's bottom line.

Christine Mitchell (aka The Car Lady) shares her insight on how auto dealerships can develop a focused process for educating and empowering customers to keep them coming back to the service drive and showroom floor. Christine shares how dealerships can get a “second chance at a first impression” – to build long-term and loyal relationships with your customers. Because loyal customers are repeat customers. She shares how you can truly introduce your customers to the dealership and its departments in a relaxed and comfortable setting. This “second delivery” allows you to set the expectation of vehicle maintenance and service being performed by your dealership experts. These are some great ideas and results you'll want to hear.

Quantum5 President/CEO, David O'Brien, shares the importance of focusing on the "I", the Individual, when implementing an omnichannel marketing initiative. David talks about making sure everyone understands their individual role in creating and living a positive customer experience at every touchpoint a dealership has with its customers. Omnichannel marketing provides the perfect opportunity for leaders to bring their teams together around the common purpose of delivering the best possible customer experience, which ultimately drives increased customer lifetime value and return on marketing investment.

Colin Carrasquillo, Digital Marketing Manager for Nielsen Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram and Host of the Experimarketing podcast, joins us to help clarify the differences between multichannel and omnichannel. We discuss how putting the processes in place to implement omnichannel properly can provide a significant boost in sales, more importantly, a significant boost in the lifetime value of a customer. We also talk about how implementing in a silo can do more harm than good.

Want to learn how to make sure you're achieving both revenue generation and revenue preservation? Max Zanan shares insights on the key processes for making both happen as well as driving optimal performance in your Sales, F&I, and Services Departments to help you achieve customer satisfaction that becomes your key dealership brand differentiator.

Strategic Training Partners CEO, Frank Gustafson, talks from both the customer and sales training professional perspective on the right way for sales professionals to guide sales from the first interaction to repeat business of lifetime customers. He shares stories of the auto sales professionals that guided him to buy a new vehicle even when he wasn't in the market to buy.

Brisa Renteria, CEO at Improve Growth, talks about the process for attracting sales rockstars, weeding out sucky salespeople, and getting you out of the endless hiring and firing cycle. A great listen for dealer principals, GMs, and sales team leaders in general.

An extremely insightful conversation with Laurie Foster with Foster Strategies Elevating Automotive Partnerships+...​ - If you're in the auto retail industry, you don't want to miss this. You'll want to learn more about "Transforming Automotive Partnerships and Performance." Laurie Foster, president at Foster Strategies Group, talks with our host, Troy Scheer, about her company's focus on 'Transforming Automotive Partnerships and Performance'. This is done by incorporating all aspects of Automotive Retail: dealerships, service providers, and vendors plus manufacturers. They discuss moving away from legacy thinking, combining what's best from before, what's best from the current landscape, and how all of that will affect business tomorrow.

In this episode of the Culture of Value, we speak with David Adcock, Executive Vice President of Binary Automotive Solutions. David and I discuss the importance of establishing a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and how business owners can use their UVP to cut through the clutter and establish themselves as the top brand in their market. Join us!