Mr Lifted Vehicles

For years I've been saying that the biggest problem with the New Lifted Truck market is the awareness problem.  Consumers are not aware that these products exist in the marketplace.  Now, I am going to show you the facts that support my position.  With Google being the number one search engine.  I am going to let them tell me what the numbers are.  Most people don't realize that Google will tell you exactly what the volume of searches are done per month over the course of a year for any word or phrase.  If consumers aren't searching Google for your company by name or product, they don't know you or your product exists!  I will add, it doesn't matter how long you've been in business! So lets see the numbers... Before we get into brands, lets just start with the lifted truck market as a whole.  Consumers do not differentiate between new or used lifted trucks.  That is due to the lack of awareness of there being new lifted trucks.  Co...

We are answering some of the questions consumers are asking about the new lifted truck market.  Before we get into the questions, there's a couple of terms that we will use.  Here's the terms, and the definition of them: Upfitter - A company that takes a new vehicle and mechanically/cosmetically alters it from it's original factory configuration.  The vehicles that they modify have not been titled, come from franchise dealers, or directly from the vehicle manufacturers production factory. Aftermarket Service Provider - A company that mechanically/cosmetically alters vehicles from their original factory configuration post titling/used. Bailment - A truck manufacture ships new vehicles directly from the factory to the upfitter.  This allows the upfitter to have ongoing physical inventory of trucks on hand for dealer orders. To the questions... What is a Rocky Ridge Package? Rocky Ridge is a vehicle upfitter that offers multiple product packages for new v...

New lifted trucks have been around for over 10 years.  The majority of them have been manufactured by authorized manufacture upfitters who for decades have been manufacturing conversion vans.  Due to the massive decline of the conversion van market, some of the established conversion van manufactures have switched focus to the conversion truck market. The Conversion Van Market Before I get into the new lifted truck market, lets briefly look at the conversion van market.  Again, all the current conversion truck upfitters started their companies focused on the conversion vans.  The conversion van market at one point had over 100 manufacturers producing conversion vans.  Now, there's less than 10 manufacturers in the market.  Which is pretty much consistent with the decline of the sales of conversion vans.  1993 was the last big year for conversion van sales with 192,000 sold that year.  Think about that number for a second, that's a lot of vans...

When we search online for something, the majority of the time we use the manufacture or product name, and then the generic term.  For example, Chevy Cars, Colgate Toothpaste, Duracell Batteries, Dell Computers, etc.  In the last year I've been focusing and following the conversion truck market.  One of the problems that I noticed working for a dealership that carried a conversion truck product line.  Was that, the vast majority of inquiries had never heard of the conversion company before.  It is what sparked my solution to the problem of building a platform where these products could be listed, and pushing it to the public.  For those who aren't aware, pretty much all of the main upfitters in the market are owned by families.  They don't have the billion dollar ad budgets that the large manufactures have, i.e. Ford, Chevy.  So they rely on their marketing efforts at shows, and their individual dealers marketing their products.  Most of these...

I see it all the time, especially in viewing dealers websites from when I first started my research to now.  The dealer used to carry a specialty vehicle line, or I've seen instances where they've switched products.  I spoke to an Internet Manager a couple weeks ago that told me that they weren't ordering anymore of the product they carried.  I asked if they were switching products, and he said no, they were just dropping it.  He was clearly bummed about it, and I asked if he knew why they decided to drop the line?  His answer was one that I clearly related to, "cause management said so".  I thought what a shame, here's a sales guy who obviously likes the product, and is bummed about dumping it.  What I didn't tell him was that I knew why they were dropping it.  The number one reason a dealer drops/switches a specialty product line is simple...They aren't selling them!  The question is why?  I've worked for dealers as an Internet Manager...

    I've worked for an RV dealership, boat dealership, and an auto dealership in sales and as an Internet Manager.  One of the biggest things that managers would drill into our heads, especially at those beloved sales meetings, was follow-up.  Always, always be following up with the customer, we would be told, follow up until they "buy or die!"  Not in a literal sense on the dieing part, however until you know that they are no longer in the market for whatever your trying to sell them.  Someone would always ask the Manager, "what happens if they say I'm bugging them? or harassing them?"  The managers response would be, "You let me know if they complain, and I'll personally talk to them, however you will never be in trouble if that happens.  It means that you're doing your job, it's sales 101!"       A few weeks ago I was taken a back by a response that I received from a company's President:  "You are driving us CRAZY! ...

I had my first sales job in 2003, working for a very large RV dealership.  During the first year, I was fortunate to have a mentor guide me in learning how to sell.  In 2004, I took over handling the Internet duties at our location.  That's where I discovered my passion for Internet Sales,  and I jumped feet first into my role!  I taught myself many techniques, and greatly improved my skills of closing over the phone.  What I knew from the start was that the Internet, is a whole different ballgame than traditional business practices.  You are literally competing with every single other dealer that sells your products, or your competitors products.  Dealers are competing on such a larger scale than every before, and it's not going away.  At one point, the main office location decided to change things, and have the main location handle all the Internet duties.  I was not happy about this, and I ended up in a meeting with the owner, and the...