Troy Spring

Automotive Industry Veteran Arnold Tijerina Joins Dealer World as Director of Business Development

Lehighton, PA, April 14, 2021 — Dealer World, a full-service advertising agency for franchise and independent car dealers, today announced that well-known automotive industry veteran Arnold Tijerina is joining the company as Director of Business Development.

As Director of Business Development, Tijerina will oversee sales and assist in developing strategic partnerships.

Tijerina brings over 19 years of automotive industry experience to Dealer World, including holding just about every sales and management position at auto dealerships. He also served as a successful Internet Sales Director for two large dealer groups in Southern California that were selling more than 1,000 units per month each at the time of his tenure.

An active and respected member of the automotive community, Tijerina is known for his expertise in digital marketing and social media. He is a highly sought-after speaker for industry events and has been involved in over 50 conferences arranging agendas and consulting on speaker applications.

Tijerina is the founder/owner of Storytailer and for the last eight years has worked with many vendors in the automotive industry overseeing their content marketing and social media and has been responsible for the syndication of dozens of blogs in top industry publications. He is also the owner of DealerElite, an online community with almost 12,000 vetted automotive industry professionals.

Commenting on the addition of Tijerina to the team Troy Spring, Dealer World CEO stated,
“As we continue to grow at the pace we have been year after year, adding Arnold to the team just seemed natural. He brings years of sales experience to the table that matches our culture of not really selling anything. We think very much alike when it comes to simply finding dealers that need help and helping them. That has always been our core value. Because our values align so well, my growth projections were adjusted by another 20% the second Arnold agreed to join the Dealer World team.”

Dealer World offers a truly unique and winning experience and understands the car business because its employees have worked in or managed dealerships. All clients’ automotive advertising needs are under one roof, and each department is managed by an industry expert. From online media to offline media, there is no need for a dealership to outsource advertising to different vendors.

“I’m excited to join the Dealer World family and look forward to assisting in the company’s growth. I have a strong belief that Dealer World’s services bring value to dealers and am excited to have the opportunity to be a part of that growth.” Tijerina stated.

About Dealer World

Based in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, Dealer World is a flat-fee, full-service advertising and performance agency that provides franchise and independent dealerships with best-in-class digital marketing, social media, and traditional advertising solutions. Founded in 2009, Dealer World has a proven track record of providing exceptional customer service while helping dealers cut costs, drive more traffic and increase sales. For more information, contact us today or call Arnold Tijerina at (951) 490-8000 or email him at [email protected].

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

While waiting to board a plane to Austin, Texas for my first trip to a Google Campus, my colleague and I were standing next to a woman wearing a sweatshirt that said “New Hampshire” on it. Being from New Hampshire I said, “I grew up there – love the shirt,” to which she replied, nicely, “yeah, I just got it.”

Once we boarded the plane, it turned out that she was sitting in the third seat of our row. She continued our conversation by reiterating, “so you’re from New Hampshire?” I said, “yes I am, born and raised.” Because she’s a retired school principal, she travels quite extensively now, and she told me the story of when she visited the White Mountains and how beautiful she thought they were. She was headed to Austin to meet some former colleagues and attend a science and technology conference.

So how is this connected to marketing? I’m sitting on a four-hour ride to Google to learn more about the platform and how I can help businesses sell more of their product in an effective, cost-efficient manner, and my mind can’t stop wondering why she bought the shirt.

The simple answer is she liked it. But as a marketer that spends an extensive amount of time figuring out how to make people tick, take action, and hopefully end up parting with a few of their hard-earned dollars. I couldn’t leave it there. I came to the conclusion that I normally come to: it was because of the way it made her feel.

So, does that shirt from the gift shop connect her to that trip, to the memories with friends and family, and to the beauty she doesn’t get to see everyday where she lives? Why did she wear it today? Headed to Austin, did it make her feel, even subliminally, like a world traveler or make her want to advertise to her friends that she had been to New Hampshire recently?

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you sell a product valued at more than that $29.95 shirt, so let’s dig in! Say you sell new or used cars, which most of our clients do, how much thought are you putting into how a customer feels prior to shopping and how they feel during and after the process? Many businesses take the stance, “We sell, X. X is a good product and I have invested a lot into selling it. People should buy X, because it is a good product and I am here to sell it.” Ladies and gentlemen, meet “entitlement,” which is the enemy of building a brand.

Every brand in the world makes you feel a certain way. Ponder this scenario for me:

Wearing a Rolex makes a successful man feel a certain way. It says something about him. After all, there are many ways to tell the time these days without wearing a $16,000 watch. Now think forward a few years, when he has a few grand kids and has made some more money, and the feeling of that Rolex is old. At every conference he goes to, he sees the guys wearing the trophy of their hard work in different models and colors. He boards a plane home and sees an ad for a Patek Philippe that says “You never really own a Patek Philippe, you simply take care of it for the next generation.” He pulls out his phone and starts to research a new watch to make him feel a different way.

That same guy walks into Nordstrom’s for a few things with his wife. He heads over to buy a suit for work and she heads over to the shoe department. An hour later, he’s out $2,200 and has a smile on his face as they load up the trunk and head home. He could have bought six pretty nice suits and seven pairs of shoes for his wife at Macy’s for those two stacks, but his trunk has two suits and a pair of shoes. After all, a Ted Baker suit will make any man feel better about himself. And his wife, well, she’s never been out in a pair of shoes that make her feel the way the Valentino’s in the trunk do. She cannot wait to wear them to a wedding on Saturday and will inevitably feel better when she puts on the most beautiful shoes she has ever seen.

Brands resonate with us. They tug on our souls. The way the concierge treats you when you make a purchase like that makes you feel like a millionaire at the moment. It feels good. It validates their hard work, and for a fleeting moment in time when the $2,200 leaves his hands, it feels normal, like an equal exchange. Two Suits, a pair of shoes and some world class service, and ahhhh life is good. Macy’s wouldn’t have made him feel that way.

People buy all kinds of things to make them feel a certain way. Want to feel like a badass outdoorsman? Head on over to L.L. Bean or Patagonia. Want to feel frugal and save money? Shop on a sale day and feel like you beat the system. Want to feel faster? Buy the newest running shoe for whatever the asking price is. You may not even realize it, but think about it: you buy everything you own – down to your shampoo and deodorant – because it makes you feel a certain way.

So, why oh why do so many businesses have websites that confuse people, are hard to navigate, don’t offer a value equation, and make them feel nothing? Consumer behavior is changing fast – we want things to be fast, easy, informative, and we want to connect to the things we buy. We want to feel smart about the purchase, safe in the fact we did not pay too much, and we want it to be easy and delivered within 36 hours. Yes, Amazon, Google and the like have trained us that we can get what we want, when we want it, and it will be easy.

If you own or run a business and have a website, I implore you to look at how your website makes your prospective customer feel. Whether it’s a $29.95 New Hampshire shirt, or the cars most of our clients sell that range from under $5,000 to close to $1,000,000, know your audience and actively work your brand to connect with them. Make them feel that connection, because it’s good for the soul and it’s good for your bottom line.

A few examples in our industry that are winning the battle right now are CarMax and Carvana, and auto dealers all across the country have made it easy for them to do so. At Carvana you’ll be told “Car-buying shouldn’t suck” and at CarMax, it’s “car-buying the way it should be.”

The sites are fast, they’re easy to navigate and I’m already pre-sold because yeah, it shouldn’t suck and I’m glad I’m on a site shopping at a company that “does it the way it should be.” When that home page loaded, it made me feel a certain way. I can spend my $27,500 anywhere, because I’m going to buy a car and there are millions to pick from. I’m in the market and the money is all but spent, so why not spend it somewhere that doesn’t suck, does it the way it should be, and that makes me feel “good?”

Local businesses, car dealers included, can fight this battle against larger and better-funded companies that are focused on the brand experience. It’s really not that hard, you just need to focus on the experience too.

The only reason Carvana is winning and selling cars in the backyard of dealers who have the same products and who sell it for less most of the time is because of, you guessed it, how they made the customer feel. It was fast, it was easy, they’ll deliver it to my door – wow, that really didn’t suck! There’s not a dealer in the country that can’t do exactly the same thing, but we don’t. We stick with old website designs. We ask for required fields in old-style lead forms for every CTA there is on the site, and make the customer feel that we are going to call them every second until they buy from us or turn us in to the authorities for badgering them. That’s how most of us in the auto industry still do it. That’s how we make a customer feel. We’re behind. It’s a clunky, slow process, and we think we are entitled to their business because we sell X’s and, by gosh, I’m closest to you and shouldn’t that be enough?!

Adding insult to injury, we spend more and more money to get traffic to sites with Google, Facebook, a great SEO strategy, traditional media, etc. Then, we somehow expect the website to do some magic, even though we all know it isn’t set up very well. Our old-school mentality as an industry has us going back to the internet manager and the BDC to yell about leads being down, and why we don’t have 10 appointments for the day. But we didn’t open up the website and also check the competition’s site – you know, the one kicking your ass – to see what maybe they’re doing differently. Ahhhhhhh, there it is, that’s what they’re doing differently. “But that isn’t for us, that won’t work here.” That’s the sales managers’ sentiments on the subject.

Yes, I said it. There is someone in almost every store that will buck the system and keep saying we shouldn’t change things, we just need more traffic. News flash: you have more traffic, and if you don’t you have the wrong strategy. The traffic just doesn’t walk up every morning, grab the paper and head out on a 5 store visit tour on Saturday morning anymore. They spend all night Friday shopping on websites and hoping a dealer that has the car they want has good pictures, has a good website that informs them and, wait for it, makes them FEEL like that is the place they should go first thing in the morning to buy a car. Notice I didn’t say “look” at cars. They did that. Maybe they searched YouTube for how the engine sounds. I know I did that for the last car I bought, and heck, I felt like I had already driven the car before I even saw it.

So, I submit to you where you need to spend your efforts in the coming months. Work with someone who understands consumer behavior and trust them. Test changes to your website. I heard someone say recently it’s not your second showroom anymore, it’s your first. BOOM! That’s well-said and I agree. It’s no different from training the receptionist how important her tone, politeness and speed is, because they’re the first impression and contact for a phone call. Well, again I have news: it might be the first contact still, but it might not be. Your website was more than likely the customer’s first impression and their first contact might have been chat. So let’s all be as aggressive, intent and focused on that first impression as we were in 1989 while training our receptionist.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

Dealer World Ranks No. 2701 on the 2019 Inc. 5000 With Three-Year Revenue Growth of 243%

NEW YORK, August 14, 2019 – Inc. magazine today revealed that DEALER WORLD LLC is No. 2701 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment, its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

“For me, this award goes to the clients that trust us and value what we do. Without them, we have nothing. It’s also a representation of the talent and intensity of the hardworking team we have assembled here at Dealer World. We grow rather organically because of our high retention rate of clients. That is a direct result of the great work the team does and the care factor they do it with. That for me is the real win.” – Troy Spring, CEO

Not only have the companies on the 2019 Inc. 5000 (which are listed online at Inc.com, with the top 500 companies featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands August 20) been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists. The 2019 Inc. 5000 achieved an astounding three-year average growth of 454 percent, and a median rate of 157 percent. The Inc. 5000’s aggregate revenue was $237.7 billion in 2018, accounting for 1,216,308 jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

“The companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have followed so many different paths to success,” says Inc. editor in chief James Ledbetter. “There’s no single course you can follow or investment you can take that will guarantee this kind of spectacular growth. But what they have in common is persistence and seizing opportunities.”
The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held October 10 to 12, 2019, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Arizona. As always, speakers include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.
DEALER WORLD. BUILT BY A TRUE CAR GUY.

When you work with Dealer World, you are getting a truly unique and winning experience. We understand the car business because much of our Senior Management has worked in the automotive retail industry. All your automotive advertising needs are under one roof, and each department is managed by an industry expert. From online media to offline media, there is no need to outsource your advertising to different vendors. With our unique flat fee service, there are no surprises from month to month. We come up with winning, process-driven strategies every month to help you dominate your market.

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

The 2019 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2015 and 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2015. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2018. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2015 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.’s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures, Inc. is the only major brand dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, with the aim to deliver real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. Inc. took home the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in both 2014 and 2012. The total monthly audience reach for the brand has been growing significantly, from 2,000,000 in 2010 to more than 20,000,000 today. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

The Inc. 5000 is a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation. Started in 1982, this prestigious list has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success. The Inc. 5000 Conference & Awards Ceremony is an annual event that celebrates the remarkable achievements of these companies. The event also offers informative workshops, celebrated keynote speakers, and evening functions.
For more information on Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Conference, visit http://conference.inc.com/

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

Let’s face it: the auto business isn’t getting much easier. We’re faced with more and more challenges from nearly every angle. That being said, there are plenty of stores out there that are thriving, and I’m lucky to work with a bunch of them.

There’s a common denominator that I’ve picked up on that inspired me to write this blog. When I visit high-performing stores, they thank me for what we do for them as a company. My response is always to say that we’re lucky to be a part of what they’re doing. You see, high-performing stores are high-performing for a reason: the people in leadership positions making good decisions.

It’s no different from the concept laid out in the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. I can tell you that high-performing stores in our industry have one thing in common, and it’s not that their location is good, or their franchise is great. It’s not that they’re lucky, or have been in business for 100 years either. Typically it’s not even that the owner is smart, but more often than not, it’s because the owner hired great people who know how to get the job done, no matter the circumstances that stand in the way.

So, when they thank us and say it’s because we drive loads of traffic that helps them sell cars, I say, again, we’re one small part of that equation and then highlight the other 99 smart things they do.

In order to have a Turbo Charged store, you have to build it systematically, and it starts with leadership that knows the value of having a great team around them. No matter your feelings on Robert Craft, he’s a smart man to have surrounded himself with winning individuals who make the Patriots dominate the way they do.

So what’s some low-lying fruit that can change your business in an instant?

1. Hire the right people. Be sure they are capable of doing the job, they want to do the job, and are excited about doing it. If your management team and employee base doesn’t fit that mold, you will be beaten by a team that has those qualities.
2. Keep things very simple. We make it so hard some days, so let me simplify things. Assume you already have the right people in place per that last paragraph. Drive loads of traffic to the showroom floor and the service lane to keep that talented team busy. They’ll sell service and cars like crazy if you put the right people in front of them.
3. Have inventory to sell that’s priced right. Think about this: if your talented team has lots of people to talk to or follow up on because your lead strategy is strong, and they have properly priced and clean inventory to sell from, what else could you possibly need to succeed?

In “Turbo Charging your Business,” your job is easy. It’s a matter of people and products. Hire really great people – people who you want to be around and who your customers will love. People that understand work ethic, and care about your business. Then go out and stack your inventory with the right cars at the right prices. Last, pick an agency or advertise in-house if you can afford a team of 4-5 in marketing. Make sure to demand that your agency drives traffic and leads.

Once you hold yourself accountable for building a world class team and hold your managers and yourself accountable for stacking the inventory properly, all you have to do is make sure your marketing plan is dedicated to driving as many walk-ins and leads as you can to create a good ROI.

One mistake I see often is failing to keep the pedal down. When a dealer does this to a certain extent, they stop thriving. Sometimes I actually believe they don’t think that selling more is possible. To truly Turbo Charge your store, you must think big. You must do more of what’s working, less of what’s not, and make sure your entire team is on board with this mode of thinking.

In the end, it comes down to belief. You will fail if you think you can’t do better. Your team will be weak because they’re working for someone who doesn’t have confidence, so how can they? Your excuses of your franchise, your location, the economy, everything else, including “there’s no support from the factory” and “we have 50 dealers around us” creep into the fibers of every square inch of your organization and the Turbo Chargers can never get cooking.

So let’s recap: Hire awesome people, drive loads of traffic to them, give them good products and services to sell and a nice work environment. And most importantly, lead them from the front optimistically. If you believe, then they will believe. When that happens, you’ll sell more and you won’t be able to stop that team from finding more ways to succeed.

That is how you Turbo Charge a business. It’s not rocket science, but it’s hard work and it’s a mental game. I work with many dealers to help them put the Turbo Charged system in place, and I’d be glad to talk to any struggling dealer and help them identify the first steps to firing up the Turbo Chargers at their business.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

Last week, I asked Hunter Swift over the phone from 3000 miles away, to halt all proactive sales efforts for Dealer World. Hunter took that to social media, unbeknownst to me, and it gained a little traction and praise. Since the post, I fielded a few calls and discussed it with some friends and colleagues. I figured I would write this quick blog post that explains, in detail, why I did it, since it may make for good reading for some young and upcoming entrepreneurs.

As many know, I started this company in a very “pull myself up by my bootstraps” way. I had no capital, no clients, no software or platform, nothing really, except being good at what I do. I was lucky enough to find a dealer that gave me a chance to be their agency about 75 months ago and it has been one heck of a wild ride ever since. Dealer World was on its way!

One thing many people don’t know is that we could easily be twice the size we are now if not for my leadership. So, have I let down the company as its leader or have I succeeded? I ask myself this question often.

My son was 4 when I got divorced and started this company. I had been through it before with my daughters, working 75 hours a week and missing a good portion of them growing up to stay ahead of my bills. I respect every man and woman that works that hard and I have empathy for the sacrifices they make to give their families a good life.

When I got the chance to try it again back in 2009, I sold myself on the idea that I could build a company and raise my son as a very involved and active father all at the same time. So I set out to do so. In the meantime, my daughters were only 12 and 15, so I still had time to make up for some of what I had missed.

I feel so lucky to have pulled this off. I went into it with the attitude that I needed to make a difference in a few dealers’ lives, and that would allow me the flexibility to be home more and be an active and important part of my kids’ lives. Then, it just took off. I never really did much selling; we grew organically from reputation, a few speaking gigs and a lot of referrals. We grew so much that I think we will be named to Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies in America (we applied and I think we fit the bill). Fast forward to last week and another 25% growth, literally, in two weeks.

I have promised all our employees a great working environment and although it’s work, and some days it’s hard work, I think we have succeeded in our mission of personal and professional growth for all rather well. It’s important to me that our staff doesn’t get burned out because of massively rapid growth. We’re good at recruiting and filling our pipelines and have always hired early to be ahead of the game.

But last week, when we signed more business in 14 days than we ever had before, business that would have actually made for a solid 6 months or even a year, I freaked out. I freaked out because I care about our employees not getting burned out, and I care about our loyal customers, without whom I wouldn’t be writing this at all. I freaked out saying, “Okay, we got this, but my instincts tell me no more, not for a while.”

Money was not my first priority back in 2009, and I think it’s part of why I succeeded against all odds, being severely undercapitalized and with no staff. All I knew to do was to find dealers that needed help and help them with my heart and my mind. I think if money had been my motivator, I might have failed. I know I would not have the relationships I have now: the families of the dealerships, the trust of the owners who have been with us for years, the managers who thank me for our efforts. I think if money were the motivator, all those relationships would be different. The type of clients we attract became apparent a while back. Dealers transitioning to a new generation, or dealers who need help navigating this new world of business and advertising, seem to gravitate toward us. They can feel that we don’t operate just for the bottom line. They can feel and know we care.

So closing sales was a tough call for me as a leader, but an easy one for me as a human. Money is still not the motivator. The motivation is helping those who need help and to maintain the relationships that got us here as we strive to become a better company and agency everyday. Through it all, I also make sure our team feels that we care and that they are not just a number, because the number of employees is growing too.

So, as I stated, when I feel we have successfully on-boarded all our new clients, kept all our legacy clients happy, continue to offer new, relevant advice and ads that drive true leads and traffic, and the team at Dealer World tells me they are ready for more, then we will open up proactive sales efforts again. Until then, I have a lot of work to do.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

At Dealer World, part of our overall strategy is to help a dealer, or any business, SELL MORE NOW. In order to achieve this, we look at the business’ reviews and ratings. We often speak to businesses about their online presence and ratings and how they connect to the efficiency of all their advertising. It strikes me as funny that sometimes that connection does not really “click.”

In this day and age, if I am hungry for breakfast, I may turn to Google and search “restaurants near me.” Once I see the results, I guarantee you that if there is a 3.5 star restaurant really close to me, I will drive a mile past it to get to the place with a 4.8 star rating. Even if the business with 3.5 stars had an ad that was so good I could smell the bagel, I would still visit the store with 4.8 stars.

Here is the chain of events in this scenario:

• I Google what I want.
• I see an ad or a business listing.
• I read the reviews

If I am shown an ad that does not have reviews, I check the business for reviews prior to stepping into my car at all. If the rating starts with a 3 — a 3-point-anything — I will keep looking until I find a place that inspires me to get in my car and head that way, even if it is for a $4.00 breakfast bagel.

The fact that some major businesses think anything less than this is happening for their business is insane. Let’s say you are shopping for a car that costs $25,000 or more. Would you drive ten miles past a dealership to get to one with a rating that’s one whole star higher? If all other things were equal, and they normally are in franchised businesses such as the automotive business, where would you rather go: 3.5-star Charlie’s or 4.8-star Bob’s?

That said, if you show your customer an inspiring ad that makes them want to shop for the deal, the service, the personality of the store, and then serve them up 4.8 stars, that is where the magic happens.

Now let’s suppose you have gotten the customer’s attention with a great ad and they’re considering visiting your store. Before they do, however, they go into trust and verify mode. If they have to say to their spouse, “Ummm, well honey the deal sounds good, and I know Jack and Diane got a good deal there, but they only have 3.3-star rating and a bunch of 1 stars,” there is a great chance this customer moves on.

The moral of the story is this: great ads with great reviews go together like milk and Cheerios. If you want to get the best ROI from your ads, or if you think they are not working as well as they used to, maybe it is time to check your reviews before you just ditch the ads.

Take a look at all your reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook etc. and ask yourself the bagel question: If I sold bagels, would people eat here for $4.00 or drive past me? If they are shopping for a product that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, you can expect the same answer.

Reviews matter and affect the performance of your overall marketing strategy and spend. Let’s face it: they are not going away, so working on the quantity and quality of your reviews has to be a part of your business plan from now on.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

Statistically speaking, if a runner is on third base, they have a much better chance of scoring in a baseball game than if they are on first base. However, isn’t this concept a matter of common sense? No matter how many outs there are, if you are on third base, you don’t need a chart to tell you it’s more likely you will score than if you are on first, or even second base.

“Nothing worse than a guy who is standing on third base and thinks he is the one who hit the triple.” I broke down the bases into a simple analogy for automotive sales:

• First Base – building value with a walk around. Second Base – doing a demo of the product, which, in this case, is a demo drive. Third Base – showing the service department and talking warranties.

I have preached this over 1000 times in my life. “Just like a 12 year old kid who missed touching second base in a little league game, if you did not do the demo drive, your chances of scoring go way down. Period.”

In that little league game example, as you are rounding third and heading home to score, the umpire will tell you to run back and touch second base because you missed it. In most cases, you will be thrown out and not score at all. In sales, if you rounded third and tried to close a deal without doing a great demo, the customer will ask you to back track and actually do the demo. They want to understand and fall in love with the product a little more, so again, you will probably get thrown out. Skipping second base (the demo) is not the natural progression of a sale and going back to it gives the customer time to feel the pressure of you trying to steal home. Bottom line: your chances of scoring go down. This is indisputable.

As an agency that drives traffic and opportunities to businesses, we follow the rules of sales. We want you on third base with a customer. We do not want you on third base without first hitting the other bases. We want you in a position to score more easily and more often. How does this translate into advertising? First, we have to establish what third base is in this case. We have to determine which level of the advertising and sales funnel equates to being on third base with no outs in terms of raising your chances of scoring with a customer.

I will tell you how we gauge this. To us, a lead is third base. As a Google Certified partner and a full-service agency that handles both traditional and digital media, we do things a bit differently. It’s easy for many companies like us to get caught up in the metrics and analytics game. If your agency is talking to you about your web sessions, tell them to get off first base. If they move on to conversions and a low bounce rate, tell them to get off second base. You can’t sell a car to a guy who visited your website if you never had his name, number and email to follow up with. Your chances of scoring are horrific and worse than being on first. That’s like striking out and never even getting on base.

“LEADS ARE THE EQUIVALENT OF A TRIPLE IN BASEBALL!” Once you have a customer’s name and contact information, you can take control and set the score. No, you won’t score every time, but you will score more often, and that is the name of the game. At Dealer World, my team concentrates on putting our customers on third base as often as possible. We are the lead off hitter, if you will.

Here are the only ways to count leads that are the equivalent of third base:

• A walk in
• A phone call
• A lead form filled out and submitted
• A text lead
• A web platform chat

These are your only plays. These are where you can score from. Take the time to evaluate all your marketing—from your ads, both offline and online, to your website and whether or not it is set up to convert. Be sure that all of your efforts are centered around earning the right to be on third base, i.e., getting a lead. I promise, you will sell more, score more and make more money by being the best player on the field.

Just for fun, take a look and you will see it’s all about the percentages of scoring. Everything you do should be positioning to score.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.

As a full-service agency, one of the hardest things we do is explain why something is down, or, in other words, why there are red arrows in the analytics report. Working in the highly competitive automotive space, many of our clients simply do not want to see red arrows. Most of them are very busy and run non-stop to be an effective leader of a fast-paced business. This means they make quick judgements all day, every day.

Therefore, when they see a red arrow or a downturn in the analytics of any kind, flares go off in their minds and they think about cutting something out of the budget or even changing agencies. The reality of the situation is this: digital is always changing. It is nearly impossible to always have green arrows for everything you track in Adwords, Analytics and other media. If it were easy to get all the arrows to be green, businesses would live in a utopia (which is something we chase daily). Again, the reality is this: the online world is a deep, dark abyss of never-ending branches that make it impossible for metrics to always be in the green.

Inside our company, Dealer World, we chase truth, not color. I thought it worthwhile to write about this topic because of the sheer black and white nature that red and green have become. Sometimes red is good and sometimes green is bad, which, in the end, only makes the digital universe harder to understand. This is especially true when it comes to a client who just wants to see green and forward movement.

Let me illustrate this with a simple example. When it comes to bounce rate, the general rule of thumb is that you want it to be low. For clarity, bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your site and take no further action, e.g. clicking to another page. I have seen instances of websites that don’t put their phone number on the landing page and, instead, put it on a secondary page in order to force people to interact with the site. This lowers the bounce rate, but it also makes the landing page less relevant.

This practice is equivalent to putting the bread and milk in the back of the grocery store so people have to walk around more, even though they want to simply grab their groceries and “bounce” out. If you’ve noticed, the bread and milk is now front and center at many very successful stores, allowing you to “buy and bounce.” The bread and milk example is applicable to the online worlds’ user experience best practices. Google is all about relevance, and Facebook just announced that it will revise its algorithms to be more relevant in 2018. The concept of giving people what they want, thus allowing them to leave if they want, is catching on, both online and in brick and mortar stores.

Getting back to bounce rate, if we as an agency land a customer on a very relevant page that allows them to get the information they want quickly and easily, they are likely to get that information and bounce. Now on the agency’s report card, the bounce rate has gone up, i.e., there is a red arrow. I argue that customer satisfaction, trust, and the likelihood of a return visit has gone up too. I will speak very freely here and say that many agencies manipulate the platform so the arrow is green. They might land a customer a page away from what they’re looking for so the bounce rate, pages per session, and time on site all go up, yielding green arrows across the board on the analytics report.

So where is the lie? If we manipulated the truth to show green arrows to keep a client happy, that is a lie. If we truly believe that the landing page is relevant and will draw a customer in, then clicks to new pages, time on site, and all the other metrics we focus on will increase organically. That’s great digital marketing. Working the system to trick people is inefficient; they are smart and will see through it like the store that stocks their bread and milk in the back. Soon they’ll start doing all their shopping at the store they’re comfortable with, which is the store that gives them what they want up front.

Without going too deep into the lies green arrows can tell, I challenge you to look at the cause and effect of the red and green arrows when looking at your reports. Let me show you what I mean by that with an example. Let’s say your sessions are down because you did an email blast last month but didn’t do one this month. The email blast drove 4,000 hits to your website, leaving your web traffic with a positive, green arrow for that month. However, in that same month, the bounce rate climbed higher, and pages per session and time on site decreased. These were all red arrows. So which month was better? The month with 9000 visits that had a higher bounce rate and lower time on site and pages per session (red arrows), or the month with only 5000 visits but green arrows for bounce rate, time on site, and pages per session?

My answer is look at the most important metrics and let the truth come out: how many cars did you sell and what was your return on investment? These are the KPIs I write a lot about since volume of products sold and net profits are most important. The green and red arrows will always fluctuate and drive the uninformed manager/owner nuts. But if you keep units sold and net profits moving in the right direction, I think you won’t care about the lies green arrows can tell.

Troy Spring

Troy Spring is the owner of Dealer World, Agency 345, and co-founder of Dealer Funnel. His roots in advertising started while he managed four automotive dealerships and the large advertising budgets for the stores. The dealerships all grew under his watch. He credits much of that growth to the advertising decisions he made to drive more business to each location. He has spent the last decade perfecting what he calls the four pillars of advertising: reach, frequency, creative, and cost. He is a strong advocate of this formula. He spends much of his time sharing these concepts as a national speaker and occasional guest on podcasts.