Next Generation of Dealer Services Scams – Social Media Training
Social media is a very hot topic and now it appears that every wannabe trainer and even a few well respected ones are jumping on the band wagon to teach dealers social networking and social media. It is an indisputable fact that social media marketing and social networking provides ways to help dealers or any business for that fact to increase brand loyalty and increase the number of inbound leads. I like to think that if it were not for those avenues my business would not be where it is today. My business has been built exclusively on social networking, content and referrals since leaving a dealership setting, we do ZERO outbound marketing.
Just today I received an email from a company that is competing with our upcoming social media and seo bootcamp prior to NADA and decided to do a little research. Other than the email not being can spam compliant a few other points drew my attention in the bad pitch.
“How to use Twitter to find local people to add to your network.”
I found the persons twitter account whose name was on the spam email that was sent out. They have 122 121 followers as of this post.
“The real ROI of social media and how to calculate it.”
How do you measure ROI on your phone line? Your really can’t and I am not trying to start a tracking number debate, tracking numbers measure ROI of ad sources not the communication vessel. Social media is a form of communication that has some quantifiable metrics that can be measured but other than traffic or direct inquiries can’t be measured on a ROI level.
“How to use LinkedIn to connect with the influencers in your market.”
91 Connections on Linkedin 4 Recomendations. Of the thousands of car people on linkedin you would think a linked in pro would be connected with a more than 100 people? Which also leads us to:
“How to get your customers to give you glowing testimonials that everybody in their OWN networks will see.”
Those 4 recommendations will surely sell out their workshop..
Just those four points in their pitch caused me really second guess what they could really deliver.
Due Diligence in Social Media Training
If a company or individual that you are considering hiring does not do the things well that they are going to teach you, how valuable is the training? Sounds like a cash grab to me.
Before you consider hiring a company or trainer that has the “Magic Bullet” check out their cred, and it is real easy to do when it comes to social media. Use Google to search for names and see how many entries there are in the search engines for their name and/or company name.
One thing that I have to remind my employees is everybody is watching us. Now that I have brought my next generation, my son, into my dealer services company I remind him it’s not what we say we can do it is what we deliver. Build your street cred and people will seek you out then you don’t have to rely on email spam to promote yourself.
Subscribe to My Feed
Paul
I guess its the week of newbies selling themselves as PRO’s. I wrote an article this past week on DrivingSales.com about another company that was pitching themselves as experts in SEO and Social Media and their online credability was zero.
Read Post
For me, when I Google’d “NextGenDealer” I was not impressed with Google page one results. There was no Twitter, Facebook or external blog posts showing on Page one or two for the exact match name. They must be using invisible SEO.
It seems they bought a website called “thenacsp.com” which looks like crap in the hopes to make it a place where people buy cars. Read Press Release
They write about SEO on their blog but they have dozens of pages with duplicate META description tags that read “Advanced Dealership Technologies for the Next Generation of Car Dealer.”
According to Yahoo their own website has 2 inbound links. WOW..that’s just awful.
Looks like you found another snake oil salesman.
This company should practice what they preach before running teaching seminars. It looks like the shoemaker’s kids have holes in their shoes.
Just incredible…
The positive side of this is the speed at which items like this are discovered and shared within the community; it’s unfortunate newcomers to this arena don’t realize the power of the channels they’re trying to promote.
What do you expect? Every time I turn around there is another company offering some shallow social media program or training. 9 times out of 10, you start digging around (as Paul has done) and you quickly find they themselves are clueless to the medium. Dealers always getting sold BS.
Well, thank you for the mention in your blog and I agree with you totally. On thing makes up different though; we are all car guys. All three of my partners have spent over ten years each working in dealerships and have sold cars on a dealership floor and know what a dealer goes through on a day to day basis. Nothing ticks off a car guy more than someone who hasn’t done the job trying to tell guys who do it everyday how to do it.
I am not the one handling the training so you may want to get your information right. My expertise is in special finance and BHPH. I spent almost 17 years working in dealerships finance departments.
David Johnson will be handling the training seminars. If you would like information on him or references, you will see that he is more than qualified. The information we are providing in the seminars started off as a manual and has turned into a book.
Next Generation provides several tools that help dealers increase their profitability in sales, aftermarket warranty sales, service, accessory departments and body shops.
@rob
Your email did not indicate that, your name was the one on the email.
The one handling the training has about the same “social media” cred as highlighted above.
I started in the car business January of 1990 right out of the US Army. That was almost 20 years ago. I was away from he business for awhile in the late 90’s to the mid 00’s
Good luck with your endeavor, before you send another email blast I suggest you read this:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm
As I said to you on the phone Paul, I have nothing bad to say to you and really am not sure why you feel the need to bash us in anyway. I will be happy to provide a long list of dealers that are very happy with our services and that means a lot more to me than your opinion. Best of luck to you on your endeavors and I will take my team of partners over anyone else out there in the business.
@Rob You are probably the greatest at what you do in the Special Finance arena, and there is no way to verify that other than what dealers say about your services.
When you step up to be the answer for social media training for dealers your resume is wide open for the world to see. I find it real hard that a company goes from being a SI FI training company to a social media training provider overnight it makes me look around to see what you have done in that arena.
Quite frankly neither you or your “training partner” are very well rounded in the social media arenas that I follow.
You will also notice in the original article I did not name you or your company directly. Sure there was a play on words that would cause the atypical thin skinned, ego maniacal automotive dinosaur to take umbrage.
Welcome to REAL Social Media training, hope you are taking notes..
btw… Social media is not my thing, I have partners in that arena that smoke that vertical. I just use the platforms as a form of communication.
I am the Social Marketing director at my Nissan dealership. I must be a pro too, but the truth of the matter is that being on social networking sites is a lot different from conventional marketing – you are not there to sell anything, just expose yourself, and offer some tasty treats once in a while. It’s also a way to S-L-O-W-L-Y grow a new or larger audience. It costs a dealership $0.00 to set up a facebook account, a myspace account, a twitter account and a youtube account. These are the sweet layers on your already well made pie, called your dealership. There is someone in Buffalo advertising Social Marketing seminars for around $100. With 20 people in attendance once a week, it’s a great income stream for the host, but anyone with 1/2 a clue can easily become a pro – just like me.
@Chris-in-Buffalo
I guess we all have standards for the term “pro”. For me, part of being a “social media pro” is someone that has tested their skills in many situations, locations and industries.
Someone can get very good at social media in one place of business but there are so many things that compromise social media that would not be learned staying at one dealership.
Paul’s point is well taken. Someone who is out “teaching’ social media should have a wide searchable paper trail on the Internet. Someone running SM at a dealership would not necessarily have that direct link.
Social Media is nothing new, not really. It’s all about building relationships, its what us good car guys have been doing for years. The only difference now is that we have technology to help us along.
So many car dealers are unsure about the idea because it has something to do with computers, the internet and something called Social Media but if we take all of that away it’s still networking except now we are connected to even more people and we are in a virtual space.
I say all that because somebody that is a PRO at building real relationships has a jumpstart at being a PRO using social media. As with all sales the car business is about people and it always will be.
Paul last time I checked your blog it was out of date. Looks like you are re-kindling the fire.
@Rob this is typical Paul Rushing style blogging, exposing the nonsense that is out there. It’s a hard pill to swallow. If something crosses his screen you best hope the message is accurate and clear, otherwise this is what you get, which I think has been good for the auto industry as more and more automotive professionals pick up on the new mediums of communication on the Web. It keeps us all honest.
@Dave I really appreciate your comment tying together social media relationship building with real relationship building. In my experience I have found it difficult to establish new relationships via Social Media but the ones that were established this way tend to be pretty strong. Most of the people working for me today I met initially on the Web. Ironically, establishing dealership customers via Social Media has not been fruitful. Those relationships have required telephone and face-to-face appearances, which I think is an indication of the comfort zones with auto dealers.
@dave – Since you are the one doing this “Training?” I need to ask do you consider spamming social media sites as an effective way for dealers to utilize the medium?
If not – Why does your company utilize methods of promotion such as email spam? (btw: Which is probably illegal)
@Ryan – Not as many updates here as I would like, working on a redesign now and having others from all over the country contribute content. Let’s catch up I am not hard to find..
Spamming? Not at all. By the way great blog, you have some great info on here!
Paul,
I respect your opinion and you have the credentials to back your success, but I see LITTLE profitability in the future of Social Marketing as it stands right now. What we (DEALERS) need is a provable path to emulate as to find the right message to send to out clients, and future customers. I see more HYPE than substance. I would appreciate your input!
@Chris – I could not agree with you more about Hype vs Substance. That was really the whole purpose of the original post. There is a lot of hype being thrown at dealers.
Participating in the social web is not a dealership activity, it is an activity people at the dealership need to participate in to build their business, including the dealer..
No different than working a room, just venue has changed.
Your points in your previous comment were right on. It’s creating connections, interacting with them and becoming a trusted resource.
The devils in the details.
We all have our on ideas and opinions of how it should be accomplished. I know what has worked for me in the past when I was in a store and what has worked for me to build my business.
Could I write a playbook? Maybe, but I don’t consider myself a pro and I doubt many would listen…
As a sales manager, one of the main rules I live by and emphasize in my team (and my Network) is that “trashing the competition” merely to try and look good yourself is a bad idea because it can come back to haunt you. Unless you’ve had personal business dealings with the people you attacked, the terms “SCAM” and “CASH GRAB” are likely misplaced – indeed, it makes you appear petty and mean-spirited. You would have done better for your own image by simply highlighting your own knowledge, experience, and results, and stating why you hold an advantage over your competition, period. Of course, your own results probably indicate that you are not the biggest, baddest dog in the yard and have some ways to go before you can make claims of being better than everybody else. You’re going to be wasting your life if you intend to make a flaming blog post about every human being who wants to break into your industry. Remember – never jump in to the mud if you want to be the bright and shining example. You’ve got to have stronger character and a larger vision for your business than that.
@Terral – Sorry you cannot see that I did not name the company or people personally who sent the spam email out.
I was not going to publish your reply because you did not identify yourself but with a little research I was able to gain your true identity and understand your scathing attitude.
Your social media interactions in the past have always been antagonistic.
Your business model as a wannabe Tony Robbins is laudable but it is your chosen field – Good luck with that.
You have a direct tie with this misguided attempt. Even in emails you sent me you used the term “aspiring” social media trainers.
I have never claimed my specialty as social media “expert”. I am just a user of the medium.
“Biggest baddest dog in the yard” – Never want to be nor feel that I am. The things my company does for dealers, we are at the top of the game, but we don’t want to work with thousands or even hundreds of dealers. Around 100 is the tipping point.
If you don’t wish to identify yourself when you disagree with others and want to attack their credibility it’s probably best that you just remain silent or grow a pair and use your name.
Leave your response!
Automotive SEO »
Automotive SEO – Facts and Fiction
Dealers are being forced to compete not only with each other online but also lead generation sites, affiliate sites, Tier II Regional Marketing and Tier I OEM marketing. This creates a virtual battle field for them to navigate especially when they are forced to make decisions about things they do not understand such as search engine optimization.
Archive
Blogroll
Tag Cloud
advertising automotive automotive blogging automotive digital marketing automotive marketing Automotive SEO automotive seo automotive social networking blog car car dealer blogs car dealer seo car dealer social networks Cars crm csi customer customers dealer magazine DealerRefresh Dealers digital dealer drivingsales.com email ilm Internet ISM lead leads market Marketing Needless networking online PPC product search engine optimization selling SERPS Sites social media social networking So I squidoo vendorsMost Commented