The Untold Secrets of a Dallas Car Wife

New Car gross profit lies in the hands of the hourly-waged

BDC Representatives and no one wants to admit it.

Within seven years, the millennial population will make up 75% of the American workforce. Yet, we are seeing a slow and resistant automotive industry in terms of how we are structuring our business models to attract and employ Milleninals in the work place. All the while, the industry is changing we are left scrambling with lower profit margins and vendors who dictate just about everything in our marketplace these days.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this as I’ve been spending time talking to many different automotive dealer General Managers who just can’t seem to make the BDC thing work. We are caught in an industry where we still have Internet Departments and sales people with the title of E-Commerce. I can’t believe I even have to say this, guys, it’s all e-commerce now. And, because we have bifurcated our sales floor between sales and Internet, and allowed our sales people to stay “one-trick ponies” we still have to dip into the payroll pool and pay BDC representatives just to give the sales floor appointments. It shouldn’t have to be this way and I dare to say it won’t be this way ten years from now. But, today is today, and we are still a little bit backwards in our thinking so we have to have a plan if we really want immediate results.

Here is the thing, if we want to make a lick of gross, especially on a new car; we have to have a BDC. It’s cheaper than any advertising we could do, it drives an appointment with a customer who has likely already done business with us, it puts them in the marketplace without them having price shopped everyone in the tri-state area, (or in Dallas we say the METROPLEX), we get to take in a likely CPO on trade where we didn’t have to buy it at the auction and for goodness sakes it gives the “salesperson” a chance to make their mini (or maybe even a little better). Despite all of this, we have the damndest time getting the BDC’s to work. WHY NOT?We don’t have someone assigned to truly LEAD the BDC on equity and data mining, design scripts and follow up, follow up, follow up. We don’t understand Millennialism. But, if we learn to use their strengths for our benefit, we could all win at the BDC game....(And with the consumers now knowing more about the vehicles than we do, what good are those pesky salesmen really?) It's all about ROI.

Traits of Millennialism that are TOTALLY COMMENSURATE with our current model. (AKA, hire a SPECIALIST such as myself and deploy the following tactics)

1. PAY THEM WELL - Millennials will work really hard if they really believe in something. (Sounds like an entrepreneur) In fact, they are industrious. 35% of Millennials have actually started their own businesses and have done pretty well at them. Just like that of older generations, Millennials do value income as their number one priority when looking for a job. Income is followed second by Security, Paid Holidays, People, and Work Flexibility.

2. GIVE THEM FULL TIME HOURS - Millennials are actually workaholics. In fact, they clock more hours than any generation before. In the US, Millennials average 45 hours per week and in other countries it’s even better.

3. GIVE THEM A ROCK SOLID JOB DESCRIPTION Millennials want to get their job done. They aren’t necessarily interested in the concept of “if you complete your tasks, look for something else to do.” In fact, they don’t understand why we say things like that. They, generally, aren’t looking for what they can do to get ahead. Rather, they are really stuck on giving their 100% best effort to what their job is. They will likely be really good at their own job description and completely disinterested in anything else.

So, you’ve hired your Millennials, bought into some type of equity mining tool and now your work is done right? WRONG!

Ask any representative for any vendor and what will they tell you? Your products and services are only as good as the people utilizing them. Training, infrastructure, scripts, follow up and processes are what will make even the crappiest Data Mining or CRM succeed.

NEED HELP DEVELOPING YOUR PROCESS? CONTACT ME.