Wish I’d said that…
Web 2.0 guru Jared Hamilton makes the complex seem obvious As a magazine editor, I sit through a lot of speeches and presentations. Because it’s my job to be there, I always try to listen intently. My natural curiosity usually …
Category: Columns
Let the good times roll
The outlook brightens, but forecast remains cloudy With a nod to the pop band The Cars with their 1979 hit, is there a case to be made today for “letting the good times roll” in the Canadian automotive industry? According …
Leaders make all the difference
There are great managers and great leaders. Which are you? Over my 25 years as an observer and advisor to the automotive retail industry, the partnership between automotive vehicle brand owners (VBO) and their independent dealers has amazed me. From …
Jim Bell’s 5 Must Have Forms
These are a series of aids developed by Jim Bell, of Global Automotive Consultants, which will provide you with the tools to assess your operation of your service department. Their ease-of-use format was designed specifically for dealers and should, if …
Avoid deceptive tricks to build online reputation
Regulators and consumers are exposing fake reviews When I searched the phone number of a used goods store where I shop for guitars and musical gear, I read the shop’s only online review posted in Google. It was negative, and …
Electric vehicles are coming, but are you ready?
When I started on the bench as an apprentice back in 1959, my favourite vehicle to work on was a Jaguar XK 150 with a D type head and three SU carburetors. Its top speed was about 135 miles per …
Crunch the numbers
Do some simple math and figure out how well you are performing This is the sixth in a series of aids developed by Jim Bell, of Global Automotive Consultants, which we provide periodically to help you assess the operation of …
Let’s check the first quarter scorecard
The numbers are looking good, but inventory is a challenge We are well into 2011 now and some of what we expected to see in the wholesale market has, indeed, trans- pired in the first few months of the year. …
Are your affairs in order?
There’s never a bad time to work on succession planning Over my many years of practice I have witnessed many different ways that dealers plan for the road ahead. One thing is true — when ahead becomes now, very few …
The weakest link
Chaos in Japan underlies fragility of global supply chain As I write this article, about one month after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the northeastern coast of Japan, the extent to which the Japa- nese, and indeed …
Does your pay plan measure up?
As salaries diminish keeping good staff has become challenging Some dealerships still have a good market share and strong bottom lines, but they appear to be getting fewer in number and there are others that could be running in the …
NADA: More questions than answers
But social networking was clearly the overriding attraction I have just returned from attending NADA 2011 in San Francisco, which was a better conference than those of the last two years. Surprisingly, a little of the wild, wild, west seems …
