For regular readers of Branding Strategy Insider, you know that every month BrandingWire members come together to tackle real-world business problems. This month we are reaching out to auto dealers.

We have touched on this subject before here, here, and here. We’re taking a different approach this time. I’ve asked Bill, a friend who consults as a manufacturer-dealer liaison to join me in a candid conversation of the top problems facing auto dealers today. My thoughts follow the problems Bill describes.

Problem Number 1.  Traditional Mentality – Get the iron over the curb, leverage the buyer into a car today.

Bill, this is definitely at the heart of the issue. More than one hundred years in the making, the auto dealer culture has created one of the most vicious sales processes in business, resulting in a low reputation and or perception that impacts even the best of dealers. How can this cycle be broken?

Begin with the obvious – flush out traditional mentality. It’s obsolete. Remember what Charles Darwin said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

What has changed? The consumer. They won’t be pushed. They are armed with more product knowledge than the sales force. They are numb to high-decibel advertising and keen on fine print.

Now dealers have to adopt new thinking or change personnel with those that possess new thinking. Which leads us to the second problem Bill points out…

Problem Number 2. Professionalism – the industry does not attract competent people.