How Dealerships Can Use Social Media to Sell Vehicles | Car Dealership Guy

Tell us a little bit about how you got into social media, how you started promoting your vehicles and bring in for sale online via social media. Just give us a little insight. I got into social media completely by accident. We realized that we had these amazing cars in a warehouse in Munak, New Jersey that nobody knew existed essentially. So how could we get the word out there about them?

告诉我们一下你是如何进入社交媒体的，还有你是如何开始在社交媒体上推广和销售你的车辆的。给我们一点点见解。 我完全是偶然进入社交媒体的。我们发现我们在新泽西州的穆纳克有一些非常棒的车，但基本上没人知道它们的存在。那么我们该如何让更多人知道这些车呢？

So one day a car came in off of a trailer and I was like, you know what? I'm going to take a video of this right now and post it. The car was dirty, it was not a professional video. It was just me being who I am, being authentic, which I think is contributed significantly to our success online. But I post this video of a 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra convertible. It still was in the plastic with 12 miles on it. I posted it and next thing I knew, I'm getting these notifications on my phone. Your real has 20,000 views, 50,000 views, 100,000 views, 500,000 views, million views. I'm like, oh my God.

有一天，一辆车从拖车上被卸下来，我当时就想：你知道吗？我现在就拍个视频并上传。这辆车很脏，视频也不是专业制作的，就只是我做我自己，真实展现。我认为这对我们在网上的成功有很大帮助。我拍摄并上传了一辆1995年的福特野马眼镜蛇敞篷车。这车还包在塑料薄膜里，只跑了12英里。上传后很快，我的手机开始收到各种通知，说我的视频有两万个观看数、五万个、十万个、五十万、一百万。我简直不敢相信。

Overnight went from 3,000 followers to 50,000 followers. A few days later, my brother-in-law who runs ourselves says to me, he wouldn't believe it. We're going to sell this Mustang that you posted on Instagram. I was like, who are you selling me to? It's like Gabriel and Glasius assistant just called and wants to buy the car. And I was like, that is the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. Let's do it. I wonder if this is actually real. So sure enough, it was real.

一夜之间，我的关注者从3000猛增到了50000。几天后，我那负责我们生意的小舅子对我说，你不会相信的。我们要卖掉你在Instagram上发布的那辆野马车。我当时是这样的，什么？你要把那辆车卖给谁？他说，Gabriel Iglesias的助手刚才打电话过来，想要买这辆车。我心想，这简直是我听过的最疯狂的事了，干吧。我想知道这到底是不是真的。结果确实是真的。

Gabe bought the car and that was the beginning of a great relationship to Gabe and I have. He's bought, I think, six cars from me in the past six or eight months. Yeah, he's a really awesome, awesome guy. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to start putting myself out there. I never wanted to. I was afraid to, I guess, you know, people don't want to see me. They want to see the car. I'm like, you know what? They don't have to see me. Let's just show them the car. So that's what I did. I began just posting these real, showing people the cars and the cars are the stars.

Gabe买了这辆车，从那时起，我们的关系变得非常好。过去的六到八个月里，他大概从我这里买了六辆车。他真的非常了不起。于是我想，为什么不在社交平台上展示自己呢？我一直不愿这么做，可能是因为害怕吧。我觉得人们不想看我，他们想看的是车。后来我想，既然这样，那就只给他们看车吧。所以我开始发布一些真实的视频，让人们看到这些车，而车才是真正的明星。

And they were when you are a car enthusiast and you want to see a 04 Tacoma with 10,000 miles or 03 Dodge Dakota RT with eight miles on it. People are going to watch. And that's just what I kept doing. I kept sharing inventory that we have. Nothing special, no lighting, no effects. I do not do retakes. I just am myself. I record them from mid or mid and a half and post them. And that's been really successful.

当你是个汽车爱好者，想看到一辆有1万英里的2004年款Tacoma，或者只有8英里的2003年款Dodge Dakota RT时，人们都会看。而我正是这样做的：不断分享我们的库存。没有什么特别的，没有灯光，没有特效。我也不重拍。我只是做我自己。我录制的视频大约一分钟或者半分钟，然后就发布出去。而这种方式非常成功。

So what does that drive for you? Does it mostly drive demand for vehicles they already have or how does it work just into your business? As of right now, it's working in getting people to buy cars from us. You've sold a bunch of cars off Instagram and now we're starting to buy cars off of Instagram, which I'll admit, I'm not great at because there's just so much follow ups or now hiring for that position just for, you know, somebody to respond to all these messages.

那么，这对你产生了什么影响？这主要是增加对现有车辆的需求，还是对你的业务有其他影响？目前，它主要带动了客户从我们这里购车的意愿。我们通过Instagram卖出了不少汽车，现在我们也开始在Instagram上买车。坦白说，我不太擅长这件事情，因为需要跟进的信息太多了。所以我们正在招聘一个人专门负责回复所有这些消息。

And it's been a huge, huge, huge driver of traffic to our websites. The number one driver of traffic to our site, the links in our bio that I post to listing the car and by a huge margin, you know, it outperforms car grooves. We're spending 8,500 a month cars.com where we spend 3,000 a month auto trader, car facts by a large multiple. And you do all the social yourself. I do everything and I'm extremely protective of it. It was funny.

这对我们网站的流量起到了巨大作用。我们的流量主要来源于我在个人简介中发布的汽车链接，它大幅度超过了其他渠道。我们每月在cars.com花费8500美元，在auto trader上花费3000美元，而这些根本比不上。从社交媒体到实际操作，都是我一个人负责。我对这方面非常看重。这件事很有趣。

When I spoke to Gabe on the phone for the first time, those people know was fluffy. I'm on the phone with them and I'm like, this is crazy. Like this is Gabriel and Grace. He's like, oh, we're too close yet. And I'm on the phone with Andrew, the Instagram voice. I'm like, oh my God. You actually record out here from the voice. So how else do you make money? Do you sell you sell classic cars? You said you sold 1400 cars in a couple of years on bring a trailer, right? What other profit centers do you have?

当我第一次和盖布在电话里交谈时，我感觉那些人很亲切。我在和他们通话时心想，这太疯狂了。这是盖布和格蕾丝。盖布说，我们还不太熟。然后我和安德鲁通话，Instagram的那个声音。我心里想，天哪，你真的在外面录音。那你还怎么赚钱？你卖经典老爷车？你说你在几年内在Bring a Trailer上卖了1400辆车，对吧？你还有其他的盈利渠道吗？

It's a dealership. We do the things that most dealerships do. We sell warranties. We do ceramic coating things of that nature. I'm a big believer in that I will not endorse a product or sell a product that I myself don't believe in. I don't sell window edge. I don't sell any of these, but I call like honestly BS products. I know that they can be big revenue drivers or dealerships, but it's also the thing that a lot of people leave regret buying.

这是一家汽车经销店。我们会做大多数经销店做的事情，比如销售保修、做陶瓷涂层之类的服务。我坚信，不会推荐或销售自己不相信的产品。我不卖车窗边缘保护膜，也不卖那些我认为是骗人的产品。我知道这些产品能给经销店带来不少收入，但很多人买了之后会后悔。

So I'll only sell them something I myself. I'm into so ceramic and warranties, but we all entire insurance also, which around here, you really do need. And then in 2000 and 20, I embark on this journey of restoring and customizing Mercedes G wagons and Land Rover defenders. I really did so because I was passionate about these cars. Like I couldn't understand why they were all $200,000. There's got to be a better way to do this. So I was like, all right, if we've already got our bills paid, this can only be gravy on top.

所以，我只会卖我自己喜欢的东西。我对陶瓷和保修服务感兴趣，但我们还提供全方位的保险，在这里，你确实需要这些东西。在2020年，我开始了修复和定制奔驰G级越野车和路虎卫士的旅程。我真的是因为对这些车充满热情才这么做的。我不明白为什么这些车都要卖到20万美元。我觉得应该有更好的方式来做这件事。所以我想，好吧，既然我们已经把账单都付清了，这样做就只是锦上添花。

Other companies doing it rely on funding their entire business just by selling these restored cars. So I began going to Europe really often and partnering with some people in Poland and Spain and Lithuania, where we do these bills. Clients come to us. They can pick out everything about the car, the color, the interior motor transmission. And we do a complete not involved restoration. By the way, embarking on that journey was very risky, has been extremely stressful. And the end has not been a money maker, at least not yet because of the lack of control you have over people in other countries. But now we finally, I think, ironed out the Kingston will be profitable unless stressful. But it has been an interesting experience for me and it will continue, I believe, to grow into a profitable profit center.

其他公司通过出售这些翻新的汽车来资助整个业务。所以我开始频繁去欧洲，并与波兰、西班牙和立陶宛的一些人合作，我们在那里进行这些项目。客户会找我们，他们可以选择汽车的一切，包括颜色、内饰、发动机和变速器。我们进行全方位的、无缝的修复。顺便说一下，开始这段旅程非常冒险，也极其紧张。而且目前还没有赚钱，至少现在还没有，因为你对其他国家的人员缺乏控制。不过现在我认为我们终于解决了这些问题，并将实现盈利，减少压力。这对我来说是一次有趣的经历，而且我相信它将继续发展成为一个盈利的业务中心。

And what's the economics on that? Like, when you restore these vehicles, what are you really making on this? How much time is this take? These cars, the amount of time it took of me to deal with the people overseas, flying there was tremendous. If we were selling a car for, say, 140,000, they were making 40,000 a car. But the amount of time it took was just wild and stress and sleepless nights and parts missing and things of that nature. Now, at this point, we really have the process dialed in. Our target profit per unit is from 20 to 60,000 per unit. And that just depends on how much work we're doing. Are we doing a full body of frame restoration? Are we doing completely custom interior with Aston Martin? Leather? No. What are we building? That's really how we come up with what we're able to make on it.

而且这件事的经济效益如何？比如，当你修复这些车辆时，你实际能赚多少钱？这需要花多少时间？处理国外的人员、飞过去的费用这些，都耗费了我大量的时间。如果我们卖一辆车，比如卖14万美元，他们可以赚到4万美元。然而，投入的时间实在是惊人，再加上压力、失眠之夜和零件丢失等问题。现在，我们已经把这个流程调整得非常顺畅。我们每辆车的目标利润在2万到6万美元之间，这取决于我们做了多少工作。我们是要进行整车底盘修复吗？还是要用阿斯顿·马丁的皮革做一个完全定制的内饰？我们要造什么车？这才是决定我们能赚多少钱的真正原因。

And in terms of quality, our competitors are charging north of 200,000 for a defender that we're charging 154. And I believe our quality is actually superior, which is really because of my obsession with being involved, and being so enzyme and insisting that anything we put out there is of the vantage quality that I want it to be. You know, that's what I was going to say. I think one thing I've just realized with you, you're talking while I'm scrolling through your Instagram page and just thinking. And it's clear that you are just really passionate about the vehicles. Like, I could never do what you do because I'm just too desensitized to the cars. I wouldn't have an attachment to it. I would take the video for Instagram and I wouldn't really be that excited. I'd be like, get this thing off my lap. Like, let's sell this thing already.

从质量上讲，我们的竞争对手对防护车的定价超过20万，而我们的定价是15.4万。我认为我们的质量实际上更好，这主要因为我对每一个细节的执着参与以及确保我们推出的任何产品都达到我想要的顶尖质量。这就是我想说的。我刚意识到一个问题，你在讲的时候我正在浏览你的Instagram页面，并且在思考。显然，你对车辆真的很有热情。我做不到你做的事情，因为我对汽车没有那么敏感，没有那种情感上的连接。我可能会为Instagram拍视频，但是不会真的那么兴奋，可能会想着赶紧处理掉，就想着赶紧卖掉它。

To me, you know, I come from a high volume off-least vehicle play. And so that's, I actually admire that. And you how you really care about the cars, it's like your babies, each one, it seems like. Right. And that's why I'm transitioning the wholesale stuff. I could not care less about a 2021 Explorer. We sell 10 of them a week. When I see these cars, I'm like, my God, in 99 S320, a 30,000 miles, people think I'm nuts. But these, to me, are like amazing cars that bring back so many memories, to me, I'm passionate about them. I lose sleep being excited about the cars that are coming in the next day.

对我来说，你知道，我来自一个高销量的租赁汽车销售背景。所以我真的很欣赏这一点。而且你真的很关心这些车，就像它们是你的宝贝一样，每一辆都是，对吧。这也是我为什么要转向批发业务的原因。我对一辆2021年的探险者毫不在意——我们每周卖出10辆这种车。但是当我看到这些老车时，比如一辆行驶了3万英里的99年款奔驰S320，我会觉得，这真是了不起的车啊，给我带来了很多回忆，我对它们充满热情。我会因为第二天即将到来的这些车而兴奋得睡不着觉。