Young ISMs: Love That People Hate You

It’s always pleasing to see young people like William in this industry using the Internet to offer new solutions and share ideas. And while the auto retail arena is fairly liberal on the concept of young employees making fast strides up the ladder, there still exists a large contingent of anti-Internet people out there in the biz who thumb their noses at ISMs with only a few years under their belts.

Well, that’s just fine by me.

Fact is, the Internet-savvy portion of the nation’s sales force is carving out a bigger slice of the pie every month, as more consumers turn to the Internet, and more owners wake from their collective marketing slumber. Compare this to the retail world that most managers know: you pay dues for years before getting considered for any kind of promotion, and even then, you’re tossed into another “keep your head down and get the job done” spot. You rarely get purchasing power, and you certainly don’t get to make changes to the business model. Hell, it might take you ten years before you get to sit in on a meeting with the Owner.

Considering that, it’s only natural that an ISM’s vertical moves are looked upon with jealousy and disdain. After decades of the same ol’ same ol’, stagnant Managers are now seeing twenty-somethings walk into a store and become the Owner’s right-hand-man within just a few years. It sure doesn’t seem fair… but then, those Managers on the sidelines are the same ones who have been yessing ownership to death for years when questions arose about what customers want out of a dealership, how marketing dollars should be spent, etc.

That brings us to another group who’d love to see you fired: your store’s ad agency. Newspaper, radio and direct mail worked well enough for decades, allowing the ad firms to rest on their laurels and watch the management fees roll in. Now you come in talking about ROI, pay-for-performance, and cost per sale… but instead of it waking your ad agency up, it just pisses them off because they no longer have a clue how to really make a dealership’s marketing dollars work efficiently. Can’t blame them for being upset. All you can do is continue to prove them wrong while they search desperately for a single study that proves newspaper ads work better than Internet marketing.

Twenty-somethings controlling the media buy? Putting together reports that monitor their superiors’ performance? Going to lunch with the owner? It’s happening, because the Internet envelops all aspects of a dealership in cutting-edge fashion, and dealerships now need more than a couple guys who “just move metal”. Don’t be discouraged by such role players… in fact, embrace their spite. Because chances are, the more lazy old timers you’re pissing off, the bigger the impact you’re having on your store.

Mitch Turck
E-Commerce Consultant
DealerDex CMO

Blog: http://dealers.dealerdex.com

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