NextLevelNewsAug23-06

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Ford to Offer 0%, Up to 72 Months, Including Subprime

Ford Motor Company has stepped up incentives in hopes of stimulating sales between now and Labor Day. Ford will offer 0 percent financing for a long as 72 months for Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury customers. They are including customers with subprime credit ratings in these incentives. The program begins tomorrow.

Study Shows Hybrid Cars Worth the Price

DETROIT, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Some hybrid cars will pay for the premium added to their sticker prices because of high gas prices and tax credits from the U.S. government on the more fuel efficient vehicles, a study released on Tuesday shows.

Finally! Microsoft to Roll Out Auto Dealer Management System

The dealer management system, which is under development for Microsoft by Copenhagen-based Infonizer, will be built to the latest version of Microsoft's Dynamics AX ERP application, said John Reed, director of Microsoft's automotive retail solutions. Microsoft will market Infonizer's system under the name Dealer Management System for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The system will streamline the automotive retail and service business processes, cut operating costs and increase sales and business opportunities, according to Infonizer. The system will replace the costly, ineffective and often obsolete IT systems currently operating in automotive dealers and services, Reed said.

Infonizer's DMS for Microsoft primarily targets dealer groups and large automotive dealers and services, Reed said.

"Microsoft got into this because there was a large market opportunity, a big sea change in terms of expectations around distribution, and a need for Microsoft to have a footprint in that market in order to meet consumer demand," Reed said. "This is a cooperative effort – Infonizer develops the application and Microsoft can lend its strength of brand to help propel it into certain markets like the U.S. market."

Reed said the DMS will help dealerships operate most of their core business processes for sales, service and parts as well as their basic business management accounting.

"So it's the platform around which the business can operate," Reed said. "We're targeting a subset of dealers that would be initial pilot candidates and zeroing in on the types of businesses they operate and the brands they manage. The goal is to have a narrow set of dealers where we can make sure those customers are very satisfied before we would go more broadly into other dealer segments."

Reed said Microsoft initially wants to work with dealers who have a strong interest in innovating the business processes in their dealerships, including optimizing the sales or service processes.

"We expect to have pilot implementations beginning in the first half of calendar 2007," Reed said.

It makes sense for Microsoft to get into this market because of the size of the industry, said Mark Rush, president of Ron Rush Lincoln-Mercury in Columbus, Ohio, and a member of the National Automobile Dealers Association's IT Committee.

"This industry is an oligopoly, meaning that there are too few vendors," Rush said. "There are two predominant vendors, ADP Inc. and Reynolds and Reynolds, that control an estimated 75% to 80% of the market, and a lot of the legacy vendors who have been in business for awhile have legacy costs."

Rush said new delivery methods and new software tools combined with the advent of an organization called STAR, Standards for Technology in Automotive Retailing, have dramatically lowered the costs for new players in the market.

"I think the current state of affairs, the size of the prize – the size of the dealer business – and the ability to come to market quickly and at a lower cost than ever before - [Microsoft] thinks makes business sense," Rush said.

U.S. Trade Gap in Automotive Parts Grows

The U.S. trade deficit in automotive parts has been widening in the past five years with China emerging as one of the fastest-growing contributors to the gap. The U.S. trade deficit in automotive parts was $37 billion last year, up from $13 billion in 2000. Europe, Japan and Mexico remain the largest contributors to the deficit, but China chipped in a $4.8 billion trade gap last year, up from $3.2 billion in 2004, according to the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association in Raleigh.The U.S.-Mexico trade gap was $13.3 billion last year, the largest for any country. Imports from Mexico rose dramatically in the wake of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement.

For every $1 of automotive parts imported into the United States last year, U.S. operations sold 46 cents in automotive parts to Mexico and with China, every $1 in imports was offset by only 12 cents in U.S. exports to China.Imports from China have more than tripled since 2000. This year, they’re on track to top $5 billion, accounting for about 7 percent of U.S. imports.

South Carolina Drops 1000 Automotive Jobs

South Carolina lost nearly 1,000 jobs among automotive suppliers last year under mounting pressure for lower prices and cheaper labor abroad.Many had hoped the state's automotive industry could replace the thousands of jobs lost in South Carolina's once-dominant textile industry.But Patrick C. Hammett, a University of Michigan automotive researcher, said the car industry will be no more reliable than textiles. "The reality is China and India have significantly lower cost labor, and that's a huge threat," Hammett said. "The supplier industry is compressing fast." The latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show S.C. auto suppliers and tire makers employed about 27,100 workers in 2005. That represents the loss of about 1,400 jobs since 2000, and 950 jobs lost last year.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006:

Welcome!; We are back from our short vacation with a new issue. Our Weekly Newsletter is for Dealers, Dealership Management, Sales Professionals and Business Development Professionals. We are doing this for a reason, of course! We hope that you will love this newsletter and the resources available on our website. In return, when you need training or consulting, we hope you'll think of us. Also, please enroll your entire staff and forward this Newsletter to anyone you believe it will benefit.

Also, I want to ask for your help. We have a former employee that is under an extended Restraining Order because we have strong reason to believe that he has stolen trade secrets, is committing corporate sabotage, and many other unethical, civil, and criminal acts. Please let us know if this employee has contacted or if he contacts you. Here is a copy of the Restraining Order: Restraining Order-Jennings

Three Management Pitfalls that Cause Underperformance

When a dealership has underperforming salespeople, it can be for many reasons. Often it’s because the sales manager is too nice. He may confuse wanting to get along and building a team with getting results. You can actually do both simultaneously if you know how to avoid some of the common pitfalls that dealers and sales managers make.

Pitfall #1 – Not firing soon enough. Sales managers are often willing to give their employees too many opportunities in hopes that they will turn around a poor performer. While this can happen, the odds are stacked against it. In fact, most sales managers hire quickly and fire slowly. The results can have devastating effects on your dealership, employees and customers.

In a recent study, managers were asked how long it took before they knew if a new employee would work out. The answer was a week. While this was often a gut reaction, it was usually dead-on accurate. Yet it took, on average, 10 years to get rid of the employee. While this study was not specific to salespeople, the implication is the same. In a very short period of time after hiring a salesperson, you should know if you have a keeper.

Even with long term, loyal employees, if you see a problem either fix it immediately or let them go. I know this is tough, but for the sake of your business, do it. I want to use myself as an example- unfortunately. This past year I had a long term employee that I considered a good friend (a mistake), that I trusted completely (another mistake) and after spending the past six years build my business almost single handedly, I was ready to give someone a little authority- I wanted some I could trust to manage and maintain certain parts of my business while if focused on sales and diversity. I chose the guy mentioned because we have worked together for a better part of 20 years. This is a guy that I have always done my best to help. In the time we have worked together I can say that I have always looked out for his and his family’s best interest, made sure he had high paying jobs and security. Anytime he’s needed something, I’ve been there to help. A few months ago he broke one of our company rules. He left a clients business early. After warning him several times that if he broke that particular rule again I would doc him a days pay, he broke the rule and I charged him a days pay. He quit. I thought he quit out of anger of the days pay. Over the past couple of weeks I have found that for the past 6 or 7 months (we have good reason to believe) he has committed blatant acts of corporate espionage, piracy, sabotage, theft, and tortuous interference with many of our contracts. We discovered that he was secretly operating a competing business while still on our payroll, and even after he left my company he actually secretly hired my employees to use my data, leads, customer base, equipment and facilities to steal my trade secrets, customers and leads. He even recruited employees of one of my customers to secretly work for him, which caused two problems- a problem with my account and a problem for my customer. Again, much of this he did on my payroll- while he was still employed by me. After he left, he began contacting all of my current and prospective accounts, and on a couple of instances cut my pricing and had customers breach my contracts; and this is despite his knowledge that he has a non disclosure/confidentiality/non-compete contract with me, despite the fact that he is breaking criminal and civil laws, despite the fact that it is simply- from and integrity and moral standpoint- wrong. Again, this is a guy I considered one of my best and most trusted friends and a long term employee; a guy I thought had a tremendous amount of integrity. I was just devastated by his actions. Because I would never betray someone close to me in that way, I guess I wanted to believe that he would never do it to me. Big mistake. I’m sharing this story so that you will avoid the same mistake. This mistake cost my company over $100k per month in revenue, in addition to over $30k in legal fee’s so far- just for a restraining order and injunction hearing- so it’s just the tip of the iceburg. That’s a high cost to pay for hoping in vain that a person you care about will do the right thing. When someone in your organization gets off track, get them back on track immediately or eliminate the problem- for the good of your company and all of your employees. I hate to be the example, but I hope it helps you realize that even when the one’s you trust the most start going sideways- you must take action.

The longer you keep a poor-fit employee, the bigger the issues. You will do no one any favors, especially the employee, by letting him limp along. In fact, you will damage your credibility as a manager and risk losing your good employees if you put your head in the sand and hope things get better on their own.

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A Little Humor

A sales manager and a salesman went bear hunting. While the sales manager stayed in the cabin, the salesman went out looking for a bear.

He soon found a huge bear, shot at it but only wounded it. The enraged bear charged toward the salesman, who started running for the cabin as fast as he could. He ran pretty fast but the bear was just a little faster and gained on him with every step.

Just as he reached the open cabin door, he tripped and fell flat. Too close behind to stop, the bear jumped over him and went rolling into the cabin.

The salesman jumped up, closed the cabin door and yelled to his friend, the sales manager, inside, "You skin this one while I go and get another!"

Do or Do Not

Indecision and a lack of commitment will derail your success. That's not to say that you have to commit to everything that comes down the pike, quite the contrary. What it does mean, however, is that you have to determine what you need to accomplish and be 100% dedicated to do what you need to do to accomplish it. Forget the half-hearted attempts; the results will be disappointing at best.

In the film, "The Empire Strikes Back," there is a great scene between Yoda and Luke Skywalker. Yoda is in the early stages of mentoring Luke to see if he can become a great Jedi warrior. Luke is struggling with the mental toughness and focus he needs to move objects with the "powers of the force." Yoda instructs Luke to raise his sunken spacecraft from the murky swamp with his mental focus.

Skeptical of his ability, Luke says, "I'll give it a try." Without hesitation, Yoda snaps back, "No! Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

How often do you say, "I'll try" and what does that really mean? "Try" is a weasel-word like "maybe." It's what we say when we aren't willing to fully commit to a yes or no answer. It's actually ok to say "no." In fact, I would argue that it is far better than saying "I'll try" or "Let me think it over."

So before you utter "I'll try," think about what you really mean to say. Are you willing to commit or not? Are you willing to do what it takes or not? There is no try!

About RTG

Our Mission

To be the leader in automotive sales, management, and business development solutions by providing our customers with the best high-impact, result-driven training.

Company Profile

Result Technology Group, Inc. is a full-service automotive training and consulting company with innovative thinking that gets results. We provide training in your dealership, customized for you – no “cookie cutter” stuff like many other training companies. RTG provides solutions for virtually every part of your business. We deliver the most complete and result-oriented array of training and consulting services in the business.

VanCleave's RTG specializes in Sales Training, Management Training, Leadership Training, Business Development Training, Business Development Communication Centers, Telephone Training, F&I Training and CRM Software. We have divisions that focus on the Automotive Industry, Fortune 1000 Company Sales and Management Training, and Sales, Management, & Business Development Systems and Software for any industry.

At RTG, our team is made up of highly experienced top performers, all of which have worked in the retail automotive business, and have consulted and trained over 1000 dealerships and organizations worldwide. We have lived it, breathed it, and done it in the real world.

Our CEO, Darren VanCleave was formerly Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Training for Joe Verde. Prior to Verde, Darren served in many roles with Reynolds & Reynolds Transformation Services/Half-A-Car- Ford Motor Company Training Programs, including Global Sales Director for their training services, Regional Sales Coordinator, Regional Training Manager, College Instructor, and Trainer. He possesses over 23 years of success in our business and has experience in dealership as General Manager, GSM, F&I Director, and sales.

Darren believes training needs to be done hands-on, in-dealership, at a reasonable fee to allow his customers to become lifetime customers. He started Result Technology Group to do just that. Darren formed RTG in November 2000 to deliver in-dealership training that gets results. RTG is now recognized as the automotive industry leader in Business Development, Sales, and Management Process and Training.

Result Technology Group, LLC.

A VanCleave Company

Powerful, Practical Solutions

Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Monterrey, Santiago

(281)577-8080

www.rtgresults.com