Digital Dealer - February 2018 - 31

who don't quite get that. In this
group, we live and breathe CRM. It
is the internet or BDC's manager's
responsibility to keep that CRM
data clean. So, they spend a little bit
of their time in the morning going
through what was entered in the
CRM the day before, to make sure it
was entered correctly.
Then, there's the act of cleaning it
up, in case something was entered
incorrectly, and then turn that into
a coaching or training experience.
And that's the thing I think most
dealerships don't get or don't want
to spend the time addressing. We
automatically just want to assume
some people just won't use the
CRM. I don't know if that's true. I
think the problem is we don't spend
enough time training them.
Again, we live and breathe by our
CRM, so the data has to be correct.
HOW DO YOU UTILIZE SOCIAL
MEDIA?

We use it organically and we do
campaigns as well. And we do that
both from a group perspective - we
have an NY Auto Giant account,
which we use to push out organic
content. We also have a page strategy and we will also have the dealers
do it at the dealership level. So, we
have organic and their own ad budget for their store, which is up to the
discretion of the general manager.
You hear a lot about search
engine marketing-and yes, there's
still a need for that-and you'll want
to spend money there, too. But that
cost is so astronomical for such a
little return. Whereas, if you do
Facebook page advertising correctly,
you're spending minimal, minimal,
minimal amounts of money and being able to hyper-target any group,
really. I'll give you a for instance. A
couple of weeks ago, Hyundai put
out an additional incentive for military. Okay, we could advertise that
on our website. But, again, are we
drilling down? Is everyone coming
to the site military? Is everyone
clicking on that piece military?

Probably not. So, on Facebook we're
able to say, okay, we want to send
this message to those speciﬁcally
who identify themselves as military.
Now, it's a smaller audience, yes,
but it's a more relevant audience
and the spend is signiﬁcantly less
than what you would spend trying
to advertise that oﬀer digitally or as
far as search engine marketing or
traditionally, whether it's a newspaper ad, a cable spot, a radio spot.
That's kind of the strategy we take.
We also use paid Facebook
marketing for a lot of our hiring and
recruiting. Again, because you're
able to change your ad and target
speciﬁcally. There's one kind of ad
you might want to show when hiring, say, a millennial versus the kind
of copy I might like when hiring
a veteran sales person. You have
the capability to do that and target
speciﬁcally on Facebook. I think it's
a great and cost-eﬀective way when
used correctly.
WHAT IS THE ONE PIECE
OF TECHNOLOGY IN YOUR
TOOL CHEST THAT'S
INDISPENSABLE?

Hands down, it's our CRM. I
don't think you could operate nearly
as eﬃciently without one. We use
DealerSocket as a CRM, across the
auto group, and we're very pleased
with how it's working.
LET'S SHIFT GEARS AWAY
FROM TECHNOLOGY AND TALK
ABOUT PEOPLE. WHAT DO YOU
LOOK FOR WHEN HIRING NEW
STAFF?

Well, for BDC management I generally do look for experience. We do
have our own way of doing certain
things, and, obviously, we'll show
them what our processes are. We
would deﬁnitely want someone who
would have automotive, BDC and
internet management experience.
Believe it or not, though, for reps
we look for the exact opposite. I
would prefer to hire reps that do not
have any internet or BDC experience. What I look for, generally,

is people who have worked with
people. Whether it is in the service
industry, such as a server or a hostess, or a bartender. People who have
worked in retail. People who have
worked in call centers and are used
to making a large amount of outbound calls, as well as taking a large
amount of inbound calls on a daily
basis. I look for those kinds of things,
because those are the skills that are
necessary to get the job done. I think
BDC things are teachable. But you
cannot teach being able to relate to
people, just being that people person.
Somebody has it or they don't. People who have had years of experience
in those ﬁelds I mentioned, generally
do.
I prefer to start fresh and train
them to do things the way we'd
like them to do them. I have about
ﬁve or six of my internet directors
who started out that way. I trained
them, and now, for the last couple of
years, they've been running internet
departments of their own.
I'D LIKE TO BRING OUR CONVERSATION TO A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL. YOU'RE A WORKING
MOTHER WITH TWO CHILDREN
AT HOME. WHAT CHALLENGES
HAVE YOU FACED JUGGLING
WORK AND HOME?

About two years ago, I mastered
the art of work-life balance. I've
always had very good, probably
above average, time management
skills. But that was a gift and a curse.
Having those time management
skills was why I was trying to get too
much done at work and at home all
in one day. So, I told myself I had to
use those time management skills to
get more balance.
Now, I set aside speciﬁc times
when I have to shut oﬀ. When I'm at
work, which is generally nine to ﬁve,
Monday through Friday, I'm at work.
That's it. Barring an emergency, I'm
working, that's what I'm doing. I
don't take my focus oﬀ of that.
My days are always planned out

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

Continued on pg. 32
FEBRUARY 2018

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