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The past few weeks I have been busy with “Alice from Marktplaats”. Alice is a service we launched a few years ago to take over the follow-up of Marktplaats leads for car dealerships, achieving better results.

Sure, there’s no definitive answer to that, what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for someone else. One thing is clear: if you don’t win online, it becomes very difficult to win offline. On the other hand, if you want to win online, you need to leave your gut feeling at home and rely on data. My feeling means nothing if it cannot be substantiated with numbers and data.

Last Monday, on Whit Monday, I got to run the store in Doesburg all by myself! Gerard was on a well-deserved week-long vacation and Duncan also had a day off… although Duncan was there for an hour to make all the price cards, because I can’t do that… but after that, it was me, myself, and I in Doesburg!

In the past few days, I was in Verona at the Automotive Dealer Days, where I had the opportunity to give a presentation about TikTok and the way we sell city cars at the Ligier Store Doesburg. It was a nice story, if I may say so myself, and the feedback was great! It was […]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve frequently discussed online leads at the Ligier Store and the Experience Store Doesburg with my managing director Gerard Franken. Occasionally, we miss a lead, and in a way that makes me think from a distance, it could have been better or different. To put it in the right perspective: we then didn’t call for the fourth or fifth time, instead of missing the first call attempt. But missing is missing!

Since we successfully launched the Calldrip Automotion Scoring, we have been receiving a lot of emails and calls from salespeople about their appointment rate! I’m happy about that because it indicates that salespeople are increasingly understanding that managing the conversion between the various steps with online leads is crucial to ultimately achieve better and higher conversion from leads to sales.

Our #DCDW Events took place last week, and they were very well attended! We scanned 72 participants in Antwerp and had 176 guests in Almere, not counting our team members. The #DCDW meetings are increasingly well attended, and from what I hear, it’s because the content resonates! Of course, networking is part of it, eating croquettes is part of it, but the focus is on the content.

In the past few days, it finally happened: the first #DCDW events of 2024, featuring keynote speaker Jasen Rice! Call me a bit autistic, but for our gatherings, I always follow the same schedule. On Monday, I pick up the guests from Schiphol or Amsterdam and take them to their hotel in my hometown, De Steeg. In the evening, my wife and I have dinner with our guests at the same hotel, and the next day we drive early to our first #DCDW event, this time in Antwerp.

In the past few days, I’ve been visiting the 19th Friends and Client Workshop by David Kain in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. The gathering is a stark contrast to NADA in Las Vegas, especially in terms of content; it’s a much better concept! In a small hotel, 100 dealers gather for three days to attend presentations by the CEOs and founders of various online automotive companies!

Some solutions in retail automotive are very obvious. I’ve been explaining for years that when it comes to lead follow-up, it’s best to call quickly instead of emailing. Is there a phone number available? Then call immediately after the request comes in (after a minute, that is). The approach is simple and obvious, yet for some, execution remains challenging.