What is the biggest opportunity or trend you and your team see with respect to the economy, marketing and sales in automotive over the next few years?

In 2022, we’re seeing the beginning stages of a recession caused from the fallout of COVID. Every recession offers huge opportunities to gain market share because of predictable patterns/trends. Every previous recession most businesses scale back and do what they feel is necessary to keep things afloat and minimize the impact – that’s easy.

This opens the door for significant growth and gaining market share. Companies that go on offense before and during a recession will come out the other side big winners.

In 2008, there were clear winners and losers but what nobody talks about is the power of momentum. When the recession ends the big winners from the 2008 recession used their momentum and widened the gap even further.

When a recession hits, people pay closer attention to what they should pay attention to 24/7. Winners will take advantage of the downturn to outperform their peers with early cost restructuring, balance sheet discipline, aggressive growth strategies, and acquisitions before and during the recession.

Dealers who do not find ways to increase revenue through innovation and marketing pivots during a recession compared to their competitors will severely lose market share when things get better.

Gaining market share is difficult and recessions make it easier. Lost market share rarely comes bac to you when a recession ends.

During recessions, many people will postpone new car purchases. However, transportation is considered by most as necessary which opens the door with Fixed Ops. The lack of inventory will make this downturn unique because demand may still be higher than supply.

In all previous recessions, most of the companies that increased advertising spend captured market share from their conservative competitors. Why? Because their dollar goes farther. It costs less to reach more people than in normal market conditions. These companies are always rewarded by continued growth when the recession ends.

During a recession, the best way to be aggressive is to adapt to the needs of clients/prospects. Those needs usually shift during a downturn.

You can try to identify new trends before your competitors do by using Google Trends to monitor search behavior. Pay attention to the data – You’ll want to know where your customers are and how your industry is evolving, innovate your offers and services so you can maximize the opportunities. You will probably need to pivot/adjust your services and offers around them, reallocate your marketing channels (spend), and or brand messaging.

Sometimes it’s easier to explain what not to do in a recession. Losing companies have patterns/trends too. The companies that lose market share usually make the same common mistakes – for example:

They over cost-cut everything rather than being strategic with it and letting the data do the talking.

• They reduce marketing and ad spend. This is usually done universally. The marketplace is always smarter than you and I. The market votes with their time and money, so let the data do the decision making for you. With digital advertising you’re able to track, test and measure better than any previous recession in our lifetime. Take advantage of those insights and reallocate your funds where the ROI continues to produce.
• They lose focus on what their goals are. They waste time working on projects/tasks that don’t have a big impact or don’t move the needle closer to accomplishing their goal. They take on fads/trends too far outside their core business.
• They are reactive instead of proactive to economic changes. If you wait too long the opportunities pass you by.

What skills do you believe are in higher demand today and in the future as we see an ever increasing influence on our business from data, technology and digital marketing platforms?

There are several skills you will need moving forward.

• The ability to start a conversation or communicate online and turn it into strong relationships (online or transitioning to in person).
• Deeper understanding of digital marketing
• I believe dealers could learn to create better client experiences from outside the industry such as luxury hotels such as The Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons. The American Express Centurion team does an outstanding job with their client experience, and it is 100% online or by phone – never in person.

How important will collaborating and innovation with peer-to-peer platforms like masterminding be in light of the massive consolidation efforts of the publics and larger private dealer groups?

Regardless of consolidation efforts, mastermind and peer groups are always critical to breakthroughs and exponential growth. The world’s most successful businesspeople have always utilized mastermind groups. Some of the wealthiest people in our nation’s history created major breakthroughs without much knowledge on how to do it. They relied on others for specific knowledge gaps.

Henry Ford is a perfect example. Mr. Ford had less than a 6^th grade schooling and had no money.

I cannot explain the importance of a mastermind group better than Napoleon Hill did in his book “Think and Grow Rich”…

Mr. Carnegie’s Master Mind group consisted of a staff of approximately fifty men, with whom he surrounded himself, for the DEFINITE PURPOSE of manufacturing and marketing steel. He attributed his entire fortune to the POWER he accumulated through this “Master Mind.”

Analyze the record of any man who has accumulated a great fortune, and many of those who have accumulated modest fortunes, and you will find that they have either consciously, or unconsciously employed the “Master Mind” principle.

GREAT POWER CAN BE ACCUMULATED THROUGH NO OTHER PRINCIPLE!

It is a well-known fact that Henry Ford began his business career under the handicap of poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance. It is an equally well-known fact that, within the inconceivably short period of ten years, Mr. Ford mastered these three handicaps, and that within twenty-five years he made himself one of the richest men in America. Connect with this fact, the additional knowledge that Mr. Ford’s most rapid strides became noticeable, from the time he became a personal friend of Thomas A. Edison, and you will begin to understand what the influence of one mind upon another can accomplish.

Go a step farther and consider the fact that Mr. Ford’s most outstanding achievements began from the time that he formed the acquaintances of Harvey Firestone, John Burroughs, and Luther Burbank, (each a man of great brain capacity), and you will have further evidence that POWER may be produced through friendly alliance of minds.

There is little if any doubt that Henry Ford is one of the best-informed men in the business and industrial world. The question of his wealth needs no discussion. Analyze Mr. Ford’s intimate personal friends, some of whom have already been mentioned, and you will be prepared to understand the following statement:—

“Men take on the nature and the habits and the POWER OF THOUGHT of those with whom they associate in a spirit of sympathy and harmony.”

Henry Ford whipped poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance by allying himself with great minds, whose vibrations of thought he absorbed into his own mind. Through his association with Edison, Burbank, Burroughs, and Firestone, Mr. Ford added to his own brain power, the sum and substance of the intelligence, experience, knowledge, and spiritual forces of these four men. Moreover, he appropriated, and made use of the Master Mind principle...

Bottom line is Mastermind groups are the easiest and most effective way to create breakthroughs. Breakthroughs let you reinvent your dealership before the competition does it to you. Breakthroughs are what make people super wealthy.

BONUS QUESTION: What is the most exciting program/initiative happening at J&L Digital Marketing today and how will it impact your business operations in the next 18-24 months?

Our digital marketing has achieved record growth (over 250%). We’ve continued to grow in the automotive space with both OEM accounts, large dealer groups and individual dealers. What’s most exciting is the huge momentum and growth coming from business verticals outside of automotive such as home services, agriculture, insurance, food & beverage, and construction.

Growth impacts operations in such a positive way. Growth creates opportunities for team members to advance their skills and responsibilities. We continuously recruit for digital marketing analysts and sales positions. Growth puts stress on your processes. I love when our process gets stressed because it exposes opportunities to become more efficient and increase productivity. Without massive growth any process can look strong.

We’ve put a big priority on onboarding and training our teams. We focus all our energy on making people more effective at what they do. Of course, this can only be measured based on our client’s perception – it’s all that matters.