Nicholas Cardin

VP/General Manager - Puente Hills Toyota

Video Transcript
That veterans really admire what we call the power rotation. Where if a customer doesn't walk in for 45 minutes, the system rotates to the next person up, it keeps it going, keeps it moving.

So for us, it's a tool that we embrace as opposed to resist and say this is something that I'm not going to do it, it's a culture if a customer comes in.

Did they get a demonstration drive?

Were they introduced to a manager?

Did I sell the customer?

Did they get turned?

Were they an appointment?

This is vital information in keeping us abreast of, you know, how much we're spending on advertising from our traffic, what are they coming in looking for?

So this tells me everything.

If we have a customer who's a walk in customer today, everybody tells that the customers are shopping 1.2 dealerships now, as opposed to 10 years ago, they shopping 4.5 dealership.

So we know that I haven't been selected more than I haven't been unselected.

So how do I set myself aside as the dealership of choice making it impossible for them to get an experience equal to mine if they happen to stumble into another dealership, what I'm looking at is a variety of reports.

And the reporting I like is the opportunity report daily. But then I filter it by how many people got test driven, and the next filter is how many got test driven as well as received a manager's introduction.

Once I know that, then I know the true closing ratio of a customer who is properly handled, given a test drive introduced to a manager and ultimately closed. That tells me the true what I'm doing with customers.

What I don't want to do is see, you know, 100 customers came in over the weekend.

What do we do with them?

Where are we at?

Did they all get demoed?

Ultimately, I want everybody to have that new car smell if they came in and said, oh, I already drove the car. I don't need to drive it.

Wrong answer.

I want to, I still want to get him behind the wheel of a car. That's where the deals happen is when the customer physically falls in love with the car.

So me knowing how many people got test driven and how it extrapolates into a close is paramount.