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Over the past two months I have been watching the ratings and review counts on DrivingSales.com for their 2010 Vendor Awards. Each year car dealers have the opportunity to voice their opinion on the best vendors that serve the automotive industry.

The Driving Sales Vendor Awards have become a benchmark for peer review.  All votes are carefully validated to ensure that the person voting is actually a dealership employee.

This year my company was listed in the categories for which we offer products and services and each year we make sure that we ask our customers to take a minute and posted their rating for our services. We make these requests on the phone and also via email.

We have friendly “battles” with our industry competitors but it’s all good for keep the competitive spirit alive.  Now that the voting for the 2010 Driving Sales Vendor Awards is closed, I wanted to share an observation.

The Review Process

I’m sure you know that getting YOUR customers to post reviews on Google Places is hard.  After someone purchases their car and gets home, it is hard to motivate them to take action remotely and post a review from their home IP address.

What is even harder is to get OUR car dealer clients to rate their vendors (us) on the DrivingSales Vendor Awards. Our automotive clients put off the task just like your car buyers…its ironic.

For example, for Internet Trainer, I have trained hundreds of car dealership employees at conference, workshops, and through webinars. Many of these automotive professionals have joined one of the PCG managed online communities or they are in our email database. Only a small percentage have taken the time to read my email advising them of the voting process and visited DrivingSales to vote.

In another category, only clients of PCG can vote in the Automotive SEO Vendor category.  What is ironic is that we help hundreds of rooftops with their SEO and most indicate that they are satisfied when we ask them (Does this sound familiar?) Most all have committed to voting online. (Does this sound familiar?) Yet the review counts are very low! (Does this sound familiar?)

I’m not complaining.  Many of our great supporters voted this year but it did not come without a tremendous investment in time and resources.  Verbal phone commitments produce low online voting results.

We Need a Better Approach

So this process has really educated me that we need to think of new ways to motivate our customers to take the time to click and post a review online once they leave the dealership. If car dealers are coming to realize that Internet Reputation Management is important, what call to action could I have created to make our car dealer clients vote?

The answers are there….automotive retailers who are part of this community just have to ask why they didn’t take time to vote for their favorite vendors?  If you did vote, what motivated you to take time to vote?  We need to start discussing the psychology behind voting online.

For the record, I understand that everyone is busy. I also understand that the dealer/vendor relationship can be strong or weak. But if car dealers are to move the needle with their own Online Reputation Management program in 2011 and increase their Google “Star Counts” on Google Places, we need to discuss what is working best.

Car dealers who are having great success getting their clients to post directly on Google Places, please speak up.  I have some ideas to share but that will be in a follow-up article this month.

What ways can car dealers increase the success rate of getting their customers to vote on Google Places, DealerRater, PrestoReviews, Yelp, etc. from home?

I was sad at the closing ceremony for the DrivingSales Executive Summit.

I can’t recall feeling this way at the end of an automotive conference; this event was special.

One of those reasons was that 15 members of the PCG Automotive SEO Study attended. It was great to meet SEO Study members who I have just known through our webinars and emails.

The event attracted great leaders and speakers of the automotive industry as well as heavyweights from social media and digital marketing.  Chip Perry, John Holt, Dale Pollak, Dan Zarrella,  Grant Cardone, Ralph Paglia,  JD Rucker,  Allan Cooper, Jeremiah Owyang, and Scott Monty just to name a few. The general sessions were powerful, engaging, and provided a Q&A opportunity for attendees to interact with the presenters.

Live Streaming Keynote Speeches

I was blessed with the opportunity to present one of the keynote addresses as well as conduct a workshop on Automotive SEO.   I would love to get some feedback on my speech from anyone who attended so that I can continue to improve my speaking skills as well as tailoring the subject matter to reach my audience.

My presentation was live streamed on the Internet so hundreds of additional people were able to see the keynote speakers.  That was groundbreaking and future DrivingSales events will continue to stream broadcast to reach more automotive professionals that seek to grow.  A number of clients emailed me that they were watching and cheering me on; that was very encouraging.

After my keynote, it was encouraging meeting so many dealers who are now engaging and implementing SEO as part of their marketing strategies.  A few years ago this would not have been the case so the awareness is growing as well as adoption.

DrivingSales Innovation Cup

One of the most unique elements of the Summit was the DrivingSales Innovation Cup awards, which had two categories; dealers and vendors.  In the dealer category, five dealer finalists had 5 minutes to present their innovation in front of their entire conference.  The same held for vendors who also had 5 minutes to make the case why their innovation was the best of their peers.

When the judging was completed, Marc McGurren from the Jerry Durant Group in Weatherford Texas won the dealer innovation prize for his after hours website marketing strategy.  For the vendor Innovation Cup, eCarList won top honors for their mobile application.  The competitive spirit and passion that each finalist demonstrated was inspiring.

I’m a big fan of creating a positive competitive spirit in our industry and this was a great element of the DrivingSales Executive Summit.

The Atmosphere Was Electric

There was something else about the Summit that is hard to describe but it was felt by all that I asked.  There was a sense of intimacy and engagement that I have not experienced at other conferences.

Some of that was due to the size of the conference but there was more that established a feeling that this event was valuable.  It will be important to ensure that this spirit is preserved as the show grows in attendance.  Next year there are already plans in place to create more small group engagement.

Another element of the conference that impacted me was the quality of the accommodations at the Encore.  The Winn/Encore properties are just amazing and the Winn Buffet was off the charts.   The hotel air was clean and not smoky and the service attitude for the hotel employees really enhanced the Summit.  Jared picked a first class hotel to hold this first class Summit.

Looking Forward to 2011

I predict that the 2011 DrivingSales Executive Summit will double in size next year and that may be conservative.   The number of top quality speakers, market experts, and trainers that have committed to support this conference each year is staggering.

Jared Hamilton and his team created tremendous value for all that attended and that will be rewarded with strong word of mouth recommendations at future 20 Groups.    If you enjoyed the 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit, I encourage you to send Jared Hamilton an email and express your thanks and feedback to make next year an even greater success.

Look forward to a number on announcements in coming weeks about additional educational opportunities for car dealers throughout the year organized by DrivingSales.  2011 will be a very exciting year for automotive education and best practice networking.

The Automotive News wires and social media circles were buzzing early this morning.

A press release was published announcing that WardsAuto.com, an industry leader in Automotive News and Data Analysis, has partnered with DrivingSales.com to promote the upcoming 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit.

The annual automotive summit will be held at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas from October 18-20th.  Car dealers now have two important “must attend” conference in October with the other being the 9th Digital Dealer Conference.  The two conferences are very different in format and target audience but members of your dealership should be attending both events.

The addition of Wards Auto as a automotive advertising and marketing engine behind the 2010 Driving Sales Executive Summit will greatly increase the visibability and awareness of the event.  Wards will be handling sponsorships for the event as well as advertising the event via banner ads on WardsAuto.,com and their email list.

The finalized speaker agenda for the 2010 Driving Sales Executive Summit will be posted on the event website located at www.drivingsalesexecutivesummit.com.  Some of the topics that will be covered at the 2010 DSES are listed below in the attached press release but I would check with the offcial website over the coming weeks to .

I recommend that dealer principals and General Managers consider adding the summit to their October calendar and register early.  You can get a glimpse at the 2010 agenda by reading the official press release below. You can also see last year’s agenda on my blog: 2009 Driving Sales Executive Summit. 

The 2010 event is two days instead of just one and will have more breakout sessions and industry experts and keynote speakers.

Wards Auto Official Press Release

WardsAuto.com is partnering with an automotive conference that has quickly established itself as a premier event for innovative dealer principals and managers. 

The DrivingSales Executive Summit presented with WardsAuto.com will be held Oct. 18-20 at the Encore luxury resort in Las Vegas. 

Attendees of the second annual event will include the nation’s most successful and forward-thinking dealer operators. The summit provides a setting for that advanced group to learn about and discuss new strategies for driving dealership sales.

The summit starts with a “30,000-ft. view” of the latest trends touching the auto industry, then drops down to a “15,000-ft. view” of how leading dealership innovators are using intelligence from these trends to develop new ways of doing business.

Completing the event are roundtable sessions at which participants discuss implementing specific aspects of cutting-edge plans to enhance their operations.

Registered attendees are welcome to submit some of the summit’s topics of discussion. Topics are voted on up to a few weeks before the summit to ensure relevance and timeliness.

Established conference topics include:

• Price compression. How are progressive dealers handling online pricing and still maintaining vehicle gross profits?
• Social Media. Despite the hype, what is the return on investment? The conference will look at real-life practices at dealerships, not just social-media marketing theories.
• The Evolving Finance Office. Top dealers will discuss and debate what they are doing to stay ahead of the curve in this profit center.
• Location-Based Media Applications. New technology allows users to share their location along with a real-time stream of data. How can dealers use this as a marketing opportunity?
• Fixed Operations and the Internet. Online marketing for fixed operations is one of the largest opportunities for dealers since the advent of their websites. The conference will explore this next frontier in digital marketing.

For more information and to register, go to http://WardsAuto.com/DrivingSales.

Source: http://wardsauto.com/ar/partners_drivingsales_100726/