Imagine you’re a dealership selling 50-150 units per month and you don’t have the time or resources to connect marketing and sales the way you’d like. You are certain there is MORE out there, you’re just not getting the opportunity. Or, when you get it, you’re not sure why it’s walking out the door.
Then, you get all your data organized and you start REALLY capitalizing on opportunity. 19% reduction in marketing spend, 40% more leads while closing at a higher percentage and you better believe you’re selling 42% more cars with less time wasted!
That’s what Bill Macdonald did at Macdonald Motors and he (and we) are glad we partnered up.
In this article I’m going to share the story of where Bill was and where he is going now… with the hope that you see the value in whether we work together or not.
Where the dealership was:
For Macdonald Motors, Bill is the GM and also the owner, the sales manager acts as an additional sales person, and the rest of his sales staff are locals he has known for years.
We have found most dealerships of this size to be in similar, or relatable situations.
Dealerships selling 30-150 units per month are the most underserved dealers in the country. Normally, they are located in smaller towns with a lean(er) operation and weaker talent pool. That’s just the facts.
I’ve worked with dealerships as large as 800 units per month and our smallest does less than 30. Big dealerships have more resources allowing them to hold people accountable in ways the small town guys don’t. It’s a luxury most of the smaller dealers do not have, and the reason we partner with guys like Bill.
Marketing and advertising is one area these dealerships are taken advantage of. I’m not here pretending to be the liberator of the small town dealers association but I am telling you the services dealers are getting sold ARE NOT what they paid for.
Marketing conglomerates are experts at creating features which treat symptoms.
We call this process the Analytics Edge. We act as your dealership’s “Moneyball” team. Our dealers love it, and we absolutely LOVE it just as much. (Yes, just like the movie.)
On average, Dealerships who partner with Fountain Forward save $50,000 – $160,000 in advertising expenses. On top of that, our average dealer increases sales by 38% in their first 60 days.
The reason these stats are 100% real is because we don’t work with dealers we can’t improve. When you sign up for your strategy call, I will personally give you the cell phone numbers of our dealers so you can hear it yourself.
Below is the exact process Bill went through
- Bill saw one of our ads on Facebook and scheduled a free strategy call.
- Fountain Forward and Bill invested an hour together and Bill shared the necessary information so we could complete our audit of his dealership.
- We get together with Bill to share what we think he should do regardless if he wants to do it with us, or not.
- Bill calls our references and says, “Hell yeah lets rock!”
- We cut OTT, third party leads with low to negative ROI, helped change up sales processes, upgraded tracking, and other kinds of fun stuff. Now, Bill gets to sit back and do what he does best. SELL CARS!
- After about four months of earning Bill’s trust, he still has a few areas we’ve left alone due to co-op and other circumstances. One of those being his Search Engine Marketing, something we do quite well. Let’s call this company “Stealer dot com” because we don’t want to call them out. We dug into their account and to put it lightly, it was essentially taking $100 bills and lighting them on fire to keep warm. It was unsettling.
- Bill now has our entire Automotive Edge program running at Macdonald.
- In the first month running Macdonald Motors Google Ads (while we were also running Facebook Ads), the dealership
- Increased total leads by 14% month over month and 40% year over year.
- Increased sales increased by 42% month over month (23 units) and 10% year over year
- Sold a record number of vehicles from appointments.
If this article resonates with you, please fill out the form below, uncover the weak points, and take market share.
Good luck out there,
Stephen Jurgella
