Digital Dealer - July 2018 - 30

C O V E R S TORY ( Continued from pg. 29)

hour car buying experience. That is a
fail.
We must adapt to modern day
customers' expectations, which is a
quicker delivery and a more convenient
buying process. And I have good news.
When you look at other industries,
convenience is sold for a profit. So, this
is a great way for dealers to raise their
profitability.
QUESTION: What part does
inventory management play in your
digital marketing efforts?
ANSWER: It is a huge part of our
efforts and a huge part of any modernday dealership efforts. This is also
part of the biggest change from over
ten years ago. To be successful today,
you have to have an optimal mix of
inventory and digital marketing to
get the most profitable retail turn.
Economics 101 says you grow through
efficiency to raise your profitability.
Inventory management is the fuel
behind that engine.
QUESTION: How can online
marketers bring more value into the
dealership?
ANSWER: I always say the simplest
way to describe online eCommerce
is that if a car is not seen, a car is not
sold. As dealers, our inventory and our
message need to be seen. If you have
hundreds or thousands of cars on your
site, what use is it to us if our messages
and inventory are never seen? That is
how online marketers bring value to us.
QUESTION: In your opinion, do
car dealers still need third-party lead
providers?
ANSWER: I've spoken on the
national stage about this. AutoTrader,
Edmunds, Cars.com, Cargurus and
others, all of these and more can still
play a valuable role in getting eyes
on a dealer's inventory. However, the
decision on whether to use them is
driven by the size of the dealership's
budget and how they perform. I believe
in prioritizing digital spend based on
these two factors. Marketing solutions
and tools that drive traffic directly to
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your dealership website are going to
drive the best quality leads with the
highest closing rate and the lowest
cost per lead and lowest cost per sale.
So, those would be your first priority.
Your OEM and Tier 2 solutions would
be the next best. You would then use
third-party solutions to round out your
mix based upon your budget and your
greatest needs.
Many large stores can afford two
inventory aggregators while smaller
dealerships might only be able to
afford one. You have to look closely at
performance. That goes back to what I
was saying before: if the car is not seen,
the car is not sold. That aggregator is
useless to me if my vehicle is not being
seen.
Now, I would offer a challenge to
dealers-and I don't believe many
dealers are thinking about this. But it
is very relevant in today's market and
that is this: With many dealers today
that are achieving used car turn rates
of 12-times or better, this often leads
to even more difficulties at acquiring
more used inventory at a good price
to feed that engine. If you, as a dealer,
are struggling with this and you keep
spending more and more money on
third-party solutions to increase your
turn, you're only exasperating the
problem of acquiring more inventory at
a favorable cost. At the end of the day,
it's about profitability. There's a ton of
dealers who don't heed this message.
They keep trying to raise the turn and
raise the turn and spend more, while
they can't get more cars to put into
the cycle; they start paying more and
paying more and making less money,
it's a dangerous cycle.
QUESTION: In what ways does the
Jeff Wyler Automotive Family use
technology to improve its operating
efficiency?
ANSWER: We're a very progressive
organization that's constantly testing
new technology and solutions. The key
value for us in improving our operating
efficiency is having standardized tools

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

and solutions in place, which enable
us to not only drive economies of scale
and lower cost, but, more importantly,
greater efficiencies in the use of
the tool, training on that tool and
managing the performance of its usage.
QUESTION: What steps have you
implemented to improve ROI?
ANSWER: I can tell you, that
process never stops, especially in this
market with compressing margins.
I am a big believer in focusing on
performance. There's a lot of great
data you can gather from your CRM,
Google Analytics, vendor reports, and
more. We get a tremendous amount
of value by meeting with our team
leaders every quarter to review what
is working and what is not. When you
talk to the people on the front lines of
that battleground, that is where you
are going to get your best input. I take
notes every month while reviewing
monthly ROI and year-to-date ROI.
Each quarter we'll sit down and
literally review each provider and their
performance and make decisions on
whether to expand or reduce.
QUESTION: If you could create your
own CRM package, what would it look
like?
ANSWER: In the years past,
dealerships always centralized around
the DMS. Today, the CRM is the focal
point of the dealership. If I could create
a CRM that combined the functions
of both the DMS and the CRM into
one seamless solution, I think dealers
would be thrilled. Current solutions do
really well at integrating many of these
different modules. But you would have
to almost build it from the ground up
for everything to work seamlessly.
I used to share an analogy from
when I flew in Desert Storm. I flew in
a 35-million-dollar plane, over 200
combat hours, and I can tell you that
90% of the time, the computer was
down. We were literally dropping iron
bombs left over from the Vietnam War
using bombsights that were Korean
War-vintage. The reason why is that
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - July 2018
