Forming new habits isn’t easy but it’s essential
As the French philosopher Voltaire once contemplated: “Common sense is not so common.”
This is why we gather for conferences, sit amongst our peers and listen to experts present insights that should be obvious to us, but aren’t.
After spending a day in Toronto and another in Ottawa at the Digital Dealer conference put on by the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association (TADA), I was struck by how much of the content presented by speakers was actually information that most of the people working in dealerships really ought to know.
After all, they live and breathe the automotive retail business every day, and shouldn’t need to be told that the Internet, digital marketing, and social media has forever changed their business.
But because there isn’t yet enough evidence that dealers are doing much about it, they do need to be told: again, and again, and again. That is, until they accept this new reality and act upon it until it becomes a regular habit.
So what are some of these habits that dealers and their staff need to instill to become more effective?
• Do some online research every day: Accept that most customers know more than you do, or at least more than you think they do. Google research shows that the average car buyer has consulted 18 sources before they purchase a vehicle. Are you allowing your salespeople time during their working day to match your customer’s research by consulting at least 18 good sources about each vehicle in your lineup? Are they studying the competition too? Research is not goofing off, it’s invaluable.
• Monitor your reputation and your competitors too: What are people saying about you? People pay lots of money to be on the first page of Google’s search results only to more quickly put terrible reviews in front
of car shoppers. It’s easy enough to do with Google alerts and other, similar free tools.
• Respond to your e-leads as promptly and excitedly as your next “up”: We constantly hear horror stories about how electronic leads are half-heartedly followed up, treated with contempt or ignored completely.
• Publish content that makes you credible: People buy from people they know, like and trust. One way to build trust is to provide useful information to buyers online about everything from winter tires and driving safety to product comparisons.
Since I started this note by quoting a philosopher, let’s wrap it up by considering this age old wisdom from yet another, this time the great Greek philosopher Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
