The CDG Daily Dealer Live show has video fever this week, and luckily, Nino Sita, general manager of Lindsay Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Manassas, Virginia, does, too. Sita shared his strategy behind using videos and FaceTime in different departments and how he helps shepherd the reluctant.
Driving results: Sita says no videos, no leads. His group sent out about 1,000 videos to 1,000 leads last month, Sita told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D’Arc and Uli De’ Martino.
Everybody gets a video: phone leads, internet leads, appointment confirmations and so on. “If we can shoot a video, we do it,” Sita said. “And it’s impactful.”
The dealership closed 36% of its phone leads and 14.8% of its internet leads last month.
Seeing others succeed helped inspire hesitant sales folks to buy in, Sita said, adding “it is kinda like steering the Titanic to a certain degree, but as soon as they start seeing the other guys closing more and selling more cars and making more money...”
Live with F&I: Lindsay CDJR uses technology to boost F&I sales for offsite deliveries. For that, his team usually uses a FaceTime call with customers to walk through the available options. “You'll be surprised at the products you can sell,” Sita said. “Even on a cash deal that's going across the country, as long as you show value and fair pricing.”
OUTSMART THE CAR MARKET IN 5 MINUTES A WEEK
Get insights trusted by 55,000+ car dealers. Free, fast, and built for automotive leaders.
Inspiring service techs: Sita acknowledged that getting service tech to use video can be challenging.
They’re at about 30 percent in that department and he aims to push it to 100 percent by year’s end.
Sita doesn’t worry if a tech doesn’t wanna be on camera. “The car is the star,” he said. Starting small with an evergreen MPI can help, he said, one that shows if a car needs brakes or some other service.
The group’s service director started a weekly contest where the best video may win a free lunch or similar, to get them “excited and engaged.”
Feel it, don’t fight it: Sita echoed similar thoughts we’ve heard this week on the importance of using this technology to simplify the sales process and offer transparency. He says to have fun with it. “Don’t be perfect,” he said. “We’re human, we make mistakes.”
A quick word from our partner
ChatGPT can write emails, plan trips, even tell jokes…
But it can’t tell you which VINs are at risk of sitting too long, how your dealer performs against your competition, or how to improve your VDPs.
That’s where LotGPT comes in. It's the only chatbot built exclusively for car dealers. It knows your market, dealership and inventory.
Fueled by Lotlinx’s decades of VIN and Shopper data, plus your live inventory, Google Analytics and CRM, it delivers relevant answers and guidance to help you sell cars faster and more profitably.
LotGPT is free for dealers, but invite-only.
