Army of One

It is just NOT true! There is no Army of One. Even in the United States Army, that really isn’t true either. There are no Rambo’s in the Army. The Green Berets, Delta Force, Airborne Rangers All these units are parts of elite teams, not stand alone people. But, for whatever reason in Internet departments and BDC across the country ISMs and BDC Managers are made to be an ARMY of One or choose to be on their own, operating like Rambo, but without the firepower.

There are two situations that are epidemic in dealerships across the US. Either dealership’s still treat the Internet Department or BDC as a necessary evil and constantly make life for those in that department difficult; or Dealers expect the world from their Internet or BDC department but do not provide the proper resources, training, and support the team needs.

Most departments seem to be understaffed and under resourced but are often overworked. This simply does not make sense. Almost 90 percent of auto shopper go online before ever stepping foot into the dealership. So, it would make sense to me that dealers allocate proper resources to that department. 90 percent is not a chance or a hope; it is a reality and a certainty.

I have found myself in this situation when I was a BDC Director, and it drove me crazy. I had this huge responsibility and this huge opportunity ONLY to be limited in resources. Well, what was I going to do? Give up? Nope, I did a MacGyver as much as I could myself. I taught myself everything I needed by using the Internet and reading books. These steps will only take you so far. There is a point of diminishing return for your own efforts. So, let me set proper expectations for how much you can realistically take on for yourself.

One day I had an epiphany, and that was to leverage my vendors.  Yes my vendors, those wonderful people who come around or call me constantly trying to entice me to buy or use their products and services. I decided to NOT be an ARMY of One any longer and started to use the resources I had at my disposal. Here is a list of several vendors and how I use to utilized their services.

Website Developer
 I made sure that I had a clear understanding with them that anytime there was a new add-on on to their website or another one of their clients (I didn’t care in what part of the country) they would notify me. I made sure that they provided me all of the most recent data and stats related to Dealership websites. For example, they provided all of the JD Power and Associates data, R&L Polk data as well as Jupiter data. All of this data assisted me and my dealership in making strategic decisions. I also made sure that I was notified as to when there was a new design that was added to their template library. And finally I used their training! That’s right; I made sure that there was constant training and re-training. I made sure that me and my team knew our website inside and out to the point that we were able to use our website as a PowerPoint presentation.

3rd Party Lead Source Providers
I made sure that I had all of my lead source provider’s work for me. They actually came into the dealership (not at the same time) and trained our department on their website. For example CarsDirect came out to my dealership and in the conference room put on the projector and EXPLAINED their product to us. Since we were already clients, the presentation was different it wasn’t to close us (we were already closed) it was to educate us. CarsDirect went through all of their different sites; Carsdirect, Connect, Autos.com, Used Cars and Special Finance. They went through it with my desire to get my team to understand what exactly the prospect goes through, sees, thinks etc… It was great to get a perspective as to where a lead actually comes from. We did this with almost all of our lead source providers. The ones that did not want to participate in our education or continually made excuses as to why not they couldn’t show up were eventually cancelled. I also made sure that my vendor representatives kept in constant contact with me. They notified me when and if they felt my department was slipping a little bit.

Used Car Classified Listing Sites  
These were huge for me. We sold a lot of pre-owned cars from the Internet. I would constantly make sure that these reps would run reports telling me which vehicles were requested the most in our market. To be more specific, I would have my Autotrader and Cars.com reps run reports for me weekly that would tell me what were the hottest vehicles. I would work with the used car manager with this field intelligence and we would do all we could to secure the vehicles that the market wanted. These companies occasionally gave me tickets to various events. I have been given tickets to numerous sporting events as well as Broadway shows. Sometimes I took family and friends to these events and sometimes I used these tickets for contests that I created for the department.  I have to tell you if you can get your vendors to provide you with any tickets, gifts, or other resources then pass them onto your prospects and clients. These companies also offered regional training that I took part in all the time. If I was available, I tried to attend.

ILM / CRM Company  
I would constantly receive training and training and more training from My internet lead management company. I would call them and email them for suggestions on how to better customize these tools. Better email templates and other better processes.  

Google was my best friend.  You can find anything you like if you simply “Google It”. Stop trying to take on the world by yourself. Even if your dealership is small, has little budget, even if you have dissention on the floor and it is “us versus them” mentality, even if you are a one man or woman show.

Even if you are new to the industry, whatever your situation you always have options. Just don’t try to be an Army of One. You can and will see very quickly which vendors actually care. Good vendors are your true dealership partners. You want to create a coalition of vendors and allies of people that want you to be successful.

By Sean V. Bradley