After delving into the aspects of Leveraged Buyouts I haven't revisited to learn more about since reading about the extraordinary business accomplishments of Reginald Lewis, I wondered again what I have wondered often since the Chinese company's deal for HUMMER division of GM fell through.

Why didn't anyone do a deal to acquire the HUMMER and/or Saturn divisions of GM?

Although I am not sentimental about these brands, per se, I do know they both addressed distinctive niches for automotive consumer audiences.  I know that HUMMER was an icon for the Super Luxury SUV segment, and that even today that segment is yielding some of the highest gross per vehicle sold numbers throughout the entire industry.  Saturn, though it had a major redirection transition to complete, had finally become a tasteful brand moniker by launching beautiful full-sized sedans like the Aura and 7-passenger cross utilities like the Outlook - and, both got very competitive fuel economy for their respective segments.

Altogether, the auto industry is in a restructuring mode.  A new sales delivery channel is on the horizon as traditional dealering models are being forced into a consolidation pattern.  Margins on variable sides of these operations are down 400% or more, and the Internet just doesn't promote the type of stand alone retail that made margins great before.  All around, vacant structures which once housed massive dealer businesses are eyesores and liabilities - socially, and economically.

All this said, the timing is PERFECT to take on an automotive nameplate as a manufacturer partner to any of the Big Three. 

In the instance of HUMMER, an almost immediate effect of the financial downturn of 2008 would have been reduced production.  As the production has gone down across the entire Luxury SUV segment, the margins have gone up.  There is absolutely no reason to believe this case would not have been the same for the storied brand which had one of the longest-standing traditions of utility (after all, it HUMMER was originally designed via request of the US Army to support over ground tactical outfits and required to cover any terrain at 30 MPH while carrying at least 4 soldiers and 2,000 pounds of cargo).  And, after decades of supporting men fighting the wars that have protected our freedoms as Americans, these humongous mobiles morphed into celebrations of excess.  Driven by practical moms as provisions from dad, and as extravagant examples of richness by any number of superstar personalities, I say the HUMMER was an iconic brand undeserving of its premature death.

Saturn is another story of that same song.  Are Leveraged Buy Outs dead?  Are the days of true capitalism which entails risk taking and chutzpah gone?

Nowadays, I guess every one of us is comfortable living off the valor of some other persons in some other era.  It defies the ideals that founded our great country for men to become so complacent as to watch the traditions of their childhoods be weaned away by nothing more than challenging economies, challenging times. 

Or, maybe I am not that smart - an affirmation I use often when speaking with PE/VC audiences because I aim not to be taken as a 'know it all' - and maybe, there is really good reason why there was no buyer for HUMMER or Saturn.  If this be the case, then please do inform me.  Thank you champions!

At the last Weekly Wednesday Webinar, The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network received valuable insights on the future of new car listing technologies from Khoi Diep, CEO of CarEvo.com.

CarEvo.com is a New Car Listing Portal which helps dealership professionals address the need to quickly sell aged new car inventories.  "As most online buying services are websites that promote pre-owned inventories, CarEvo.com has a special niche" says Diep.

At the onset of 2011, Auto Buyer Consultants and CarEvo.com partnered to deliver the service to professionals within The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network.  And, as an added bonus to attendees of last week's webinar, the CarEvo.com listing platform was made available for trial at no expense to these professionals.  "The greatest aspect of a partnership with CarEvo.com..." says D. Rawls of Auto Buyer Consultants, "...is, the ability to list is easy (all that is needed is a VIN) and our member consultants can help drive the overall value of the portal by listing their inventory specials on a daily basis."

As Khoi Diep and D. Rawls worked together in Atlanta and created one of the strongest local marketing teams for the HUMMER brand in Auto Retail Past, it is very likely you will want to keep an eye on their plans for Auto Retail Future.  Together, Auto Buyer Consultants and CarEvo.com are offering a great value proposition for dealer professionals and consumers alike!

To learn more about how to try out the CarEvo.com New Car Listing Portal for aged inventory, click below.

http://www.carevo.com/user/signup.aspx

Also, tune in for our Weekly Wednesday Webinars by following the link below.  Each week you will gain valuable industry insights and perspectives from the leading voices in auto retail.

Weekly Wednesday Webinar brought to you by The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network:

http://www.anymeeting.com/autobuyers  

Automotive Internet Marketing guru, Cory Mosley joined The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network Weekly Wednesday Webinar to present the 4 C's of Selling last week.

As a pioneer of Internet Phone Skills Training and high conversion Internet Sales Management deployments, Mosley is a familiar face of Auto Retail Present.  After hailing out of Eastern Seaboard Lexus dealerships and working with nameplates such as Chrysler, Ford, VW and a bevy of others, Cory is adamant about being the 'absolute best consulting professional possible'.  His work preparing dealers, OEMS, and students from all walks of Auto Retail Future has earned him the title,  "...hardest working man in the automotive consulting/training business".

Advice he offered some of the nation's top professionals on the webinar focused on aligning sales practices with production objectives by leveraging "The 4 C's".  Mosley says the key to addressing consumer need revolves around: Confidence, Competence, Credibility, and Congruence.  "Auto sales is not for the meek or weak" - it involves a top performing capacity each day!  Absent of Confidence, there will be no control because the deal will lack rapport.  A high Competency is where sales becomes 'consultative', and Credibility is a result of the consumer understanding he/she is dealing with a professional with both of the first two C's.  And, the threshold of accomplishment is crossed once a consultant gets a consumer on the same page and 'the handshake' commences.  All-stars understand this as Congruence.  After being named 'Top Among Consumers', Cars.com executive exclaimed about this presentation, "I Love It!"

About The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network Weekly Wednesday Webinar series, Cory Mosley says, "...anytime A.I.M. professionals are brought together to discuss mastering their craft, a valuable dynamic is created.  I am excited about The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network, and look forward to working with them all!"

Learn more about Cory Mosley and his upcoming event, Control Your Sales Destiny by clicking the link (http://www.controlyoursalesdestiny.com/leader.php).  His articles and commentaries are by far some of the sharpest in the industry.  Also, look forward to Cory's upcoming appearances on The Auto Buyer Consultants Membership Network's Weekly Wednesday Webinar series each Wednesday beginning at 1:15p EST.

How many auto dealers are spending thousands on comprehensive marketing campaigns and/or agencies to implement them?  What benefit might these dealers gain from strategic approaches to more hands-on strategies for marketing their businesses that can be carried out by their teams of Professional Sales Consultants?  Although sales people are not typically dubbed the best marketing arsenal at the disposal of auto dealers, there are valuable aspects of marketing sales teams can use to create more commissions for themselves and profit for their dealers.

            At brick and mortar dealerships throughout this country, auto retail is experiencing an evolution – a paradigm shift.  Compared to the assets of Auto Retail Past, Auto Retail Future will become a mostly virtual figment of the ‘brick and mortar’, ‘rubber meets the road’, ‘slinging metal’ references to antiquity.  Although a physical transaction is still preeminent, the ability to create the physical transaction will hinge upon virtual relationships established between consultants and consumers across Internet spaces.

            Auto Buyer Consultants recognizes this, and has thereby identified ‘the handshake’ as the industry’s next most crucial asset.  Harnessing the relationship necessary to carry a conversation with a potential consumer through to ‘the handshake’ with a Professional Sales Consultant is the “what” of this commentary.

            Answers to the questions at the opening are ones which offer benefit when constructively addressed.  For instance, one Atlanta dealer recently advised that their ‘agency’ would be handling any marketing objectives for his dealerships.  He offered me a business card I could use to reach out to them.  On the card, I immediately advised of a critical misspelling – Marketing was spelled, “maketing”.

            Attention to details like these are not so important as the inability any ‘agency’ has to truly feel the pulse of the particular consumer who might buy a car from a particular Professional Sales Consultant on this dealer’s team.  It is only an example of why the best representative of any dealer’s marketing objectives is his/her team.  Assuming the dealer acknowledged spent $4,000 or more (and, we all know it was definitely more) on this ‘agency’ engagement, I offer the following exploration.

Based upon a team of eight Franchise Dealership Professional Sales Consultants:

            As this in-house marketing strategy is applied as a part of a bigger overall strategy or as a simple trial, a dealer is likely to find his sales funnel becomes more optimized. 

An illustration of how your sales funnel looks before and after can be found below.

            Now, this exploration subscribes to the idea that a dealer aspires to Add Value to his business through more transactions when he/she embarks upon any marketing relationship.  At the present moment (I call it, Auto Retail Present) almost all dealers are experiencing substantial decreases in margin on variable side.  As a result, commissions are down, dealer profits are down, and enthusiasm for the industry is correspondingly low.  In concert, these things demand change.  And, the leverage for objectively-thinking dealers will be found in the resources at their ready command.  The answer to marketing a dealership business successfully and optimizing each transaction is investment in the Professional Sales Consultants responsible for managing each deal or transaction.

            As we explore how this approach may be implemented, an observation which offers tremendous credence is as follows:

“Over the course of the last 5 years, the number of freestanding ‘brick and mortar’ dealership operations has dwindled drastically, while auto retail transactions overall have moved steadily upward in conjunction with the overall recovery of the industry”

D. Rawls, President Auto Buyer Consultants, LLC

            This means auto retail is evolving beyond the traditional approach that sustained the industry for 120 years, to an approach situated around a different set of circumstances.  Auto Retail Past was a proposition by OEM’s, Dealers and Marketing Agencies to get consumers engaged in a sales cycle that led definitively and specifically to ‘brick and mortar’ showrooms.  Among the conversations used to support this approach, most prevalent were the ones about ‘discounting’, ‘incentives’ or ‘pricing’.  This approach took for granted that all consumers bought based upon the same universal impulse of either a hefty discount or a drastically reduced selling price.  Auto Retail Present has proven this ‘consumer in a capsule’ approach dysfunctional for doing business in an Information Age.

            Because there is only so much value to be created around an arbitrary discussion about hefty discount or drastically reduced selling prices, the conversation of Auto Retail Past has proven a costly one for OEM’s, Dealers and Marketing Agencies in Auto Retail Present.  Think about how often you have seen any Proctor & Gamble commercials that instruct one to go to the nearest supermarket and demand Tide™ at a substantially discounted selling price.  Ask yourselves when you last went for a fill-up on fuel and walked inside to demand the fuel station operator show you his invoice.  After all, since you just bought a tank full of his gas, don’t you deserve to know the difference in his cost vs. the selling price? 

A conversation that is less dysfunctional leverages the exact value proposition being sought by a particular consumer with the specific Professional Sales Consultant who is able to offer it and honor it!

LIFE IS A CHARITY
A Dedication to Mothers...

Although giving is not only for mothers, it may sometimes seem so
Just think of the many, many gifts have mothers given, though

A kind smiling face, tender heart, warm embrace
And, a trusted 'Best Friend Forever' no matter time nor place

Affirming words of guidance that serve as life's warning
Living tribute, graceful mentor, never shy of scorning...

Little baseball parks' loudest cheerer
"Life Ain't Been No Crystal Stair" made that much clearer

AND SINCE WHAT YOU GIVE CAN NO ONE ELSE,
LIFE IS A CHARITY FROM JUST BENEATH MOMMA'S BELT.



 This dedication to Mothers on their day May 7, 2011 is penned by a young man who grew up in a mostly single-mother townhome community in Kansas City, MO helping his mother take care of his two siblings as she attended school for nursing and worked various full-time and part-time jobs to make ends meet.

To begin without acknowledging the trailblazers who made Internet sales a reality in our industry, would be a gesture of sheer remiss.

Among the competent professionals that have voiced their various positions about approaches to Internet marketing, there are a few of note.  This is an abbreviated list, but sometimes the quality is in selectiveness.

Charlie Vogelheim of JD Power & Associates is a powerful mind within in this arena, with veteran tours at companies such as Kelley Blue Book and JD Power under his belt.  Especially of note is this guru's list of visionary accomplishments - because they were performed in the midst of retail automotive bureaucracy, in an era prior to widespread acceptance of the Internet marketing domain.  Hear this dynamic industry icon speak at every available opportunity, and be certain to bring along a vigorous note taker.

Chad Mallory of Nexteppe Solutions was training for an Olympic career in biking when he ventured into retail automotive domains for additional cash.  After excelling in the sales categories at a leading area Jaguar franchise, Mallory began development of one of the industry's first dynamic websites.  It was his knack for getting the right message across to the Internet buyer in the early days of web marketing which led to his successful founding of arguably the best dedicated website services provider in the regions of Long Island, NY and down the Eastern Seaboard.  His talents, joined alongside efforts from two or three guys who migrated from Dealer Specialties almost five years ago, have proven most efficient in the development of web presences for dealers in the online automotive retail space.  Odds of catching this icon on a public platform are skinny, but if ever afforded the opportunity - be ready.

Bill Wittenmeyer of eLead CRM is by far the most progressive professional responsible for making cutting-edge products available to dealer communities for indisputable online success.  And, his method of implementation - working the nation as a satellite powerhouse for Valdosta, GA-based Fresh Beginnings/ eLead CRM, is nothing short of sensational.  By showing mega increases in ROI for online and CRM integrated marketing campaigns conducted from a call center manned by a few hundred well trained and hungry script readers, Wittenmeyer has helped land deals with all the majors, including Sonic Automotive, Gulf States Toyota, American Honda, Ford Direct, and the list goes on.  Indeed, this company has the most fertile land to till.  Combining the scope and breadth of online marketing with effective and systematic CRM is true Internet optimization.  And, this leadership has it down!  Don't blink when you see this champion.  Web 3.0, and web 4.0, and web 5.0 are all this dynasty's for the taking...

Jeff Kershner of Dealer Refresh gained renown as a top performing Mercedes-Benz Internet Sales Pro who launched a blog before any other industry personality had a clue as to what it was.  For years, now, this hard-nosed sales superstar and devout family man has boasted one of the most effective online destinations for pertinent industry information and reviews.  His entries are usually raw with essential knowledge, and his perspective is always timely since he is indeed retailing automobiles and using online marketing approaches and tools each day.  Practical advice has no better launching pad, and if you have not made your way to the Dealer Refresh blog before, then scurry as soon as time permits.  You have already missed far too many of the most candid opinions in the industry - and the last thing any effective Automotive Internet Marketing PROFESSIONAL can afford to be is old news!

Corey Mosley of Mosley Automotive Group signifies the true essence of what the emergence of Internet as a viable marketing category in automotive retail has meant for diverse opportunity.  Not only has this Web Age crumbled the architecture of domestic sector bureaucracies in Detroit, but it has also opened up doors for young, vibrant visionaries such as Mosley.  Youthful only because his baby face is the perfect compliment to a jovial personality, do not be fooled by this tenacious trainer and creator of direction in the automotive Internet marketing arena.  His seminars are hearty helpings of meat and potatoes for budding industry leaders, and there are few who are armed with as poised a delivery as Mosley.  He wields a team of car guys who span several generations, and they are all serious about maximizing profit opportunities online.  Catch up with Mosley and his squad when they come to your town.  He will enrich your organization, and ignite your spirit for the future of this industry.

Steve Schwalb of Digital Eel is a peripheral advisor to industry lovers of SEO and SEM.  Based out of beautiful St. Petersburg Beach, FL (a rock's toss from Clearwater Beach - where I spent the most enjoyable moment of my pro baseball days), Digital Eel is making Search worthwhile for the Automotive Internet Marketing PROFESSIONAL.  When time permits, pay a visit or give a call to this outfit.  There is nothing in the automotive sector which hasn't been done online in some other sector, and these guys are genius at figuring out what approach will work best for the unique set of variables which make up your dealership marketing angle.  And, it never would hurt to have reason to visit Indian Shores Beach when October is right around the corner and most dealers are about to lose the content of their stomachs - and their pockets.

Please, feel free to respond - two cents at a time, only.  AIM Professional is all about you, and the environment of marketing and sales which makes up the career we have chosen.  Remember to entertain the ideas you have for making this industry better at the hands of online tools, for the category is still very young and in need of maturity.  Plenty of prosperity to all... 

The notion of retail automotive success in the absence of quality professionals can absolutely be dispelled!  In fact, through the regular maintenance of this site - and via the bustling industry presence which AIM Professional shall soon become home to, the epitomy of retail will take fold here as it pertains to the future of the automotive market place.

I hope you have taken your place alongside the professionals.  I hope you have tendered your picks, and that you have chosen your team.  Inside the lines, you too will hope that your team - your operation will be clicking on all cylinders.  At the sake of synergy - or lack thereof, you will either triumph or miserably fail in this most competitive contemporary automotive retail space.

So, welcome - and good competing!  May you find excellence as your company, and stay inside the lines until the final point has been won.