The Big Three...

...reasons why the American automotive industry is in dire straits - meaning lousy sales. We will analyze these over the next several weeks.

Here are my Big Three reasons:

1) Lack of passion
2) Lack of affordability
3) Lack of a quality sales experience

First, let's look at lack of a quality sales experience. Why number three first? In my opinion, it's the easiest to fix.

Just drive into a car dealership and you are liable to find the following sales person. Description: loud/obnoxious, thinks they are funny, doesn't listen, over-eager to sell you, lack of product knowledge, over-eager to sell you, doesn't listen.

Problem: It's not the 70s or 80s anymore. The American automotive industry must stop using old sales models for a modern and entirely different "car-scape".

Solution Premise: What consumers want is straight-forward, to-the-point, don't-waste-my-time experiences. They want sales people who are educated on products - not just focused on sales goals!

Support Experience: Living in Abilene, we recently visited the local Saturn dealership. The young sales person who "wanted to help me" ended up needing way more help...particularly in product knowledge. He told us the new Saturn Sky was like a baby-corvette. Notice, he didn't ask what we thought...he just told us. Next, he said the new four-door - yes, he said four-door - Corvette would hold more people than the Sky, but would be way more expensive. I almost laughed out loud. I walked away feeling cognitively assaulted having heard this man speak. As we drove off in the Sky (review coming soon) my son remarked, "Wow, that guy is selling cars? He doesn't know much about them!"

Solution: The American automotive industry needs to take a good hard look at WHO is selling their cars. You can build a great product, invest in snazzy advertising, but it really comes down to the person-to-person transaction...who's representing the product. That person blows it and you've lost the sale. Wretchedly greedy dealerships and slack sales people with a culture of fattening the profit margins with incredulous "dealer" profit tactics are killing off some great products coming out of Detroit.

Summary: Detroit, revitalize your sales force and dealership experience! There are plenty of talented, educated, and motivated people out there looking for work that is meaningful in nature. Go find them! Hire QUALITY people who want to be a part of the American car renaissance.

Then can all those washed up, worked at 9 dealerships in the last 8 months, unscrupulous sales people or manager hacks! Yep, you heard right - can 'em! (Surely some cut rate furniture store peddling lead-infested garbage from China has openings!)