What Makes Employees Successful At Converting Dealership Leads?

By Cristian Rivera

Quality employees—just like quality leads—help make sales possible and help grow your auto business. While dealership leads are certainly an important aspect of any auto dealer business, the importance of human employees sometimes goes overlooked when the majority of focus is on the bottom line.

Whether you source your own leads or use a third-party provider obtain leads, employees are always going to be the most important part of every sale. Auto dealers are wise to create an environment where employees can thrive and drive sales. This is accomplished by making sure you are being selective in the kind of employees you add to your team.

Here are are just some of the qualities you should look for when hiring employees in order to maximize your dealership leads:

Honesty & Precision

When it comes to making sales at a dealership, customers need to be able to trust who they are talking to. They are more likely to inquire about an automobile with someone they believe is honest.

Precision is vital to driving sales and converting dealership leads. Having the ability to search and find the best leads to pursue guarantees that your employees will being using their time in an efficient manner.  

Communication

Communication is key not only in personal relationships, but in business relationships as well. Employees who exhibit strong communication skills are more likely to connect with customers in a meaningful way. Customers will appreciate someone who is clear and concise.

Patience

Converting dealership leads into sales takes time and perseverance. Responding to leads in a timely manner is crucial to getting customers on the dealer lot. However, the last thing customers want to feel is pressured. If they get a sense that buying or lease a car will be a stressful endeavor, they will be less likely to patronize your auto dealership. Should you be persistent? Yes – just remember to have patience and avoid jumping the gun.

Don’t forget – CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

The Future of Quality New Car Leads and New Car Sales

By Cristian Rivera

The days of having a new car lead result in a customer physically showing up at a dealership and purchasing a brand new car might be numbered. It might sound alarmist—and it mostly is—but auto dealers should expect that in the future, more potential car buyers will research and purchase a new car entirely online.

Where does this leave auto dealers?

Driving off a dealer lot in a brand-new car has long been considered a life milestone in the United States. It’s possible that in the near future a significant percentage of car sales will be done without going to a dealership and instead completely online.

While the majority of dealerships already offer car delivery, odds are more consumers will opt to advantage of this service. Take for instance the retail industry, which needed to adapt to consumers’ expectations in order to thrive. Companies like Amazon and Ebay delivering everyday items from tech, clothes, and home appliances shifted the landscape for major traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. The grocery industry is seeing a similar trend that is growing in prominence with the addition of grocery and food delivery services. The auto industry could very well see that same shift in the United States.       

How will this affect new car leads?

Certainly, there will always be consumers who prefer to physically see and test drive a car before purchasing one. However, leaving the dealership lot with keys in hand to a brand new car could happen less and less. It is at that point where auto dealers will have to shift their business strategy to meet and exceed the needs of consumers. More time and more money should be invested in new car leads and lead gen that is effective and will thrive in a potential industry shift like car delivery.

CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

Why Ford Leads Are Still Primed For Sales Success

By Cristian Rivera

In the month of October 2018, many auto brands saw a drop in U.S. sales when compared to a year ago. Although this might seem like bad news for auto dealers looking to convert Ford leads, Toyota leads, and other popular auto brand leads in the U.S. into sales, there’s significant insight about consumers trends to gain from October’s sales numbers.

What does all this mean for Ford leads?

Today we’ll look specifically at Ford. While overall sales were down in October for Ford—along with many other automakers—the brand still sold almost 185,000 units during the month, indicating there is still strong demand for Ford vehicles, and therefore, strong value in Ford leads. And Ford SUV sales were up, according to Ford’s website.

Ford’s numbers show that the Ford Expedition saw it’s best month in 14 years and the Lincoln Navigator sales were up by almost 200 percent.

As the consumer market rapidly shifts toward trucks, SUVs and crossovers in the auto industry, auto dealers must adapt in order to make sales. Ford leads are among the more valuable lead types as their lineup of SUV models continues to perform extremely well.

Don’t forget that CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

Are You Using Social Media to Generate Car Sales Leads?

By Cristian Rivera

These days, most people spend much of their free time on social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become a necessity for many, and these social networks have become integrated in everyday life.

All this is great news if you’re a car dealer in search of car sales leads. Having a social media presence is vital in today’s world for businesses, as it helps builds your brand’s reputation and—most importantly— can lead directly to sales.

If you’re an auto dealer and still wary about using social media, here are three reasons why you should consider adding social media to your car sales leads efforts:

A 21st century solution for 21st century consumers

According to a survey of U.S. adults by the Pew Research Center, 74% of Facebook users say they visit the site daily and over half of them do so several times a day. Additionally, the same survey found that 46% of Twitter users visit the site about once a day. In the case of car sales leads, social media provides a unique opportunity to capture an already attentive and curious audience. If so many of your potential customers are on social media every day, doesn’t it make sense to use that to your advantage? The answer is yes!

Acquire car sales leads effortlessly through social media

If used efficiently, social media is a cost effective approach to pursuing car sales leads. Through Facebook lead-generation ads, for example, you and your buyer can be connected effortlessly. People interested in buying a car can simply, in a single tap, send all their information which is automatically filled-in by Facebook. This streamlined experience puts car dealers on the fast-track to getting more car sales leads.

Use it or lose it

If you’re not using social media to create car sales leads, the odds are your competition already does. Don’t lose out on customers to your competition by not having an online presence. The internet has made it much easier to for dealers to get leads without having to do too much legwork.

Facebook and other social media platforms are amazing resources to gain more car sales leads. But don’t forget that CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

Sales Pro Tip: Get More Subprime Approvals With These Lender Hacks

Remember 2009? There were tight pocketbooks and even tighter lending guidelines. Strong and efficient lender relationships were a requirement for success in the special finance market.

Much has changed since those dark days. But as much as things change, many of the key components of successful lender relationships that applied in 2009 are still very much valid for subprime success today.  Among them:

• Send applications only to lenders who have a chance of approving them. Some dealers think they’ll have a better chance of getting a subprime customer approved by taking the shotgun approach. They send an app out to as many lenders as possible, hoping that at least one will buy the deal. But the truth is that you will have more success if you are able to strategically match customers with specific lenders. Try to get it down to the lenders that will be truly interested.
• Keep on top of your book-to-look ratio. If you send a ton of apps that don’t turn into deals to a particular lender, it’s safe to say that they may start to think twice about doing business with you, and may even shut you down. It’s good practice to give your best lenders a fair shot at the workable deals. Be a student of what lenders like and what they don’t like.  Ask your lender rep; they will be happy to share that information.
• Follow the lender’s check-sheet. Every lender has a unique check-sheet that is ordered in a specific way. They’re used when reviewing applicant documents to verify that the paperwork is complete. Following each lender’s check-sheet will enable you to present documents in the lender’s preferred order so that they will be easier to review. The cleaner the lending package the faster you will get funded.  Make the lender’s job easy to fund your deals.
• Proactively track the funding. When you are waiting for a deal to be funded, you can’t just ship it and forget it. Be proactive in following up on funding status, this will unearth issues quickly and improve the speed your deals get funded.. Proactive dealers get deals funded more quickly.
• Be ready to rehash a deal. If you feel that an app has been unfairly denied or if your customer needs better terms, you should call up the lender and be able to intelligently rehash the deal. You’ve spoken with the customer face to face, and you know details that may not be on the loan application. Make sure you are able to simply and clearly articulate the consumer’s situation and why the lender should consider different terms or conditions.  And if you have a good relationship with the lender’s underwriter, you will probably have a better shot at pleading your case.

The rules of lending have changed since 2009, but the rules of successful relationships have not. How are you doing on your end? Remember, relationships are a two way street.

You can make sure that you’re working with the best lenders by finding out which ones have the highest rankings in your area. The team at CarsDirect and Auto Credit Express can get you the most up-to-date rankings for both local and national lenders. Please feel free to give us a ring at 888-535-CARS (2277), or click here to connect with a sales consultant for a personalized market-analysis report for your dealership.

And don’t forget – CarsDirect and Auto Credit Express can help you sell to all types of customers in addition to special finance buyers. Explore our full suite of products designed to help dealers sell more cars, including New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, and innovative Display Advertising solutions.