In the book “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen Covey, Dr. Covey discusses the concept of the circle of concern vs. the circle of influence. The circle of concern being things that we have little or no no control over; like the economy or what the dealership in the next town is doing this weekend. The circle of influence covers the things that are within our control, and when focused on can expand that circle over time. Over the last five years I have had the opportunity to discussed technology related products and Internet marketing with hundreds of dealers. In that time it has always been obvious that the average dealer principle or GM has had little or no interest in learning and understanding. This of course has changed over night with dealers now caught in a position of having no choice but to embrace the Internet and digital marketing just to survive. A couple days ago there was a response to a post from a dealer that was expressing sincere frustration about being put into this position. When Ia
In speaking to dealers about technology related products. Then reading a post the other day from a dealer expressing frustration about having to learn technology. Starting with what you decide to learn, and the actions that you take based on the knowledge that you gain. We are in the Information Age after all, and how you decide to grasp technology and the information available to you is something well within your influence.
So where do you start? Just the fact that you are reading this blog post on a networking site designed for the automotive retail business means that you already have. Everyone is at a different level when it comes to their knowledge of technology. Most of the dealers that I speak to are familiar with SEO and SEM, but don’t know the tools to track them. They know what an iPhone is but not the iStore, or have heard of youtube but not a youtube channel. If you are just starting out in the world of online marketing, all of this can be very overwhelming. My intent with this post is to give you some basic tools to build on and then work up from there.
First of all there are tools that I use on a daily basis that help to organize my efforts.
iGoogle as a home page to organize
You have probably heard of an iGoogle page before and figured it is something that you don’t need. I would agree, you don’t need it, but if you want to learn how to use the tools that the pro’s use it is a great dashboard and learning tool. You will be able to keep an eye on your Google Alerts emails or rss feeds, information from your Youtube channel, dealership schedule with Google Calendar, spreadsheets, documents, and a multitude of other things all in one spot. The how to video is how to set up a Gmail account and iGoogle page with a few widgets that we will add onto later.
A Youtube channel to manage your online videos and create video SEO
Of course we all know the value of video as it relates to selling cars on the Internet. This video is a how to set up your own Youtube channel. Having a Youtube channel will allow you to organize and network your videos to your clients.
Google Chrome to make a one click work space to save time
I am using Google Chrome as an example here on how to use a browser as a work space for your Internet marketing work. You can use Fire Fox or even Internet Explore for this if you want to. I have chosen Chrome because it is designed for using webs
Here are a couple videos that I put up on the site a few days ago; I hope you find them useful