F&I and Showroom, October 2013

On the Point many There is no end in sight I am continually booked up for speeches conferences and onsite training and consulting in dealerships With more than 100000 friends and followers actively involved with me on social media Jim Ziegler is more plugged into whats happening in our industry at the grassroots level than anyone I know Moving On I have been writing for F I and Showroom since 2011 There isnt a more wonderful group of people to work with on the planet But the magazine already has a super talented editor Greg Arroyo and a lineup of process and sales experts like Marv Eleazer and Cory Mosley Even though I have a great deal of expertise in the sales and F I process I always felt redundant writing alongside other great talent A few months back I asked about the possibility of moving my monthly column to our sister publication Auto Dealer Monthly My writings have always focused on industry commentary and exposé type articles Thats what made me famous and brought me to the dance So beginning with the November issue I will become a regularly featured columnist in Auto Dealer Monthly Im looking forward to the challenge and preparing to continue to do some of my best work I promise to continue to write about relevant issues without regard to political correctness I will call out and expose the rogue players in our industry even when it is not always in my best personal interest I am one of the very few nationally recognized trainers and consultants who still works in dealerships regularly I will never lose touch as many have TrueCar Revisited Two years ago TrueCar was the talk of the industry It began when the companys CEO Scott Painter announced he was going to make the current dealership model obsolete For me and many dealers a challenge had been issued By January 2012 16 F I and Showroom October 2013 Scott Painter founder and CEO didnt make many friends when he claimed his TrueCar site would make the current dealership model obsolete Ziegler says Painter has since changed his message to the industry and consumers there were hundreds of blogs discussions speeches media articles and industry debates I was right in the middle of it if not leading the charge My blogs on ADMCommunity com and DealerElite net generated thousands of comments by hundreds of industry people and garnered hundreds of thousands of pageviews The blogs I posted were among dozens of others that sprung up on every media outlet and generated round theclock activity and commentary Even so the two main blogs I created had more commentary and activity than most of the other blogs combined The blogs penned by both dealership employees and vendors read like open discussions about TrueCar and related issues And those who read and commented on the blogs were not decision makers in their companies at least from what I could tell Most of us were protesting TrueCars extraction of customer data from its clients dealership management systems its defaming of auto dealers in commercials and derogatory websites Scott Painters relentless media appearances in which he continued