SACRAMENTO, Calif., Nov. 20, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- Will I survive the coming crash in car sales?
That's the question automotive retailers across the country are asking themselves as they gird for a downturn in 2002 unlike anything they've experienced since the early '90s. From an 18-million car/truck sales year in 2001, experts predict 2002 could see a dip to 15 million units.
Surviving the slide, according to the Jilbrit AutomotiveTraining Institute, a Sacramento firm with a back-to-the-future approach to the education and training of automotive retailers, depends greatly on the dealer.
Jilbrit president, Dan Dillon, puts it bluntly: "If you're content with business-as-usual. If you're just riding the wave, if you're coasting, if you're only paying lip service to professionalism, to education and training, to the expansion of your profit centers, to the power of the Internet -- and you can't or won't change -- you're toast."
Dillon and Jilbrit co-founder Rob Beasley, both veteran auto dealer sales/service educators, have developed In-Touch Response, a sales and service system incorporating unique Internet features designed to help dealers find the silver lining in tomorrow's very cloudy future for automotive retailing. The system's newest installation is at Senator Imports (www.senatorimports.com), Sacramento Calif.
"What really sets the Jilbrit system apart is its staying power," Beasley said. "Anybody can stop by for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, energize your sales people, rip your business apart, and walk out leaving everybody scratching their heads and asking themselves what's next.
"That's not the Jilbrit way. We evaluate a situation before we agree to come in. If the dealer is not committed, we don't take the assignment. If we do, we don't just hold his hand. Our system demands the dealer's personal participation. We put our proprietary sales and Internet tools to work improving the business on every front. We review weekly progress reports. We won't permit the kind of backsliding that often occurs after the training is done. We're around for the long haul."
The Jilbrit system assumes tomorrow's successful car dealer will learn to live with three realities: 1) That there's no such thing as an uninformed customer; 2) That the Internet really can be more than a marketing tool, and 3) That downgrading the sales person to clerk status is a recipe for disaster.
"There's not a car dealer in this country who would disagree with that," said Dillon. "But it's been easy the last few years for some of them to lose sight of their values and beliefs. And their profit expectations, too. Mediocrity is a nasty disease. It kills enthusiasm. It frustrates your best employees to the point that they go elsewhere.
"And it blinds you to opportunities. There's not a car dealer anywhere who isn't aware that the information revolution is passing him by. But what is he doing about it? That's the question."
The secret to Jilbrit's In-Touch Response system is its interactive communications capability. The fast and easy back-and-forth flow of information builds trust and leads to the ultimate goal: To gain and keep customers.
The system is proving very cost-effective, said Beasley. "Dealers know the price-tag for sales training and for Internet expertise. For a fraction of those costs, our In-Touch Response system delivers intense schooling in all phases of automotive retailing followed by four months of reinforcement."
Signing up with Jilbrit starts a preliminary evaluation activity, followed by a 10-day workshop, followed by the full-time assignment to the dealership of a Jilbrit expert to provide reinforcement and to help integrate the unique Internet component.
Mindful of the failures of the Net, Beasley, Dillon and T.L. "Swift" Bevins, Jilbrit's chief Internet officer, have utilized state-of-the art 360-degree imaging, fast-loading, high intensity "flash" technology and their years of experience in the field to develop proprietary software which entertains, informs and invites customer interaction.
The Senator Imports installation has produced four times as many Internet-initiated sales of Mazda, Subaru and Hyundai models in the last 60 days than in all of the last 12 months combined. Total sales are also up. And customers are using In-Touch Response to schedule service and maintenance as well.
In today's atmosphere of disdain for the impact of the Net on automotive retailing, the Jilbrit system may be one of the industry's few success stories.
Folded seamlessly into the total In-Touch Response system, the Internet element is the bonding agent for a teamwork approach to a selling, financing, service and parts process that will make a dealer more competitive in the tough times ahead.
Jilbrit Corp. is a California corporation with offices in Sacramento. Check out www.Jilbrit.com or call (916) 921-6117.