Local Networking Opportunities seem to be lost on car dealerships and a lot of other businesses.

You can do a lot of business using these opportunities but your rules for sales people mess it up. There is a way to do it though. Most dealerships are Chamber of Commerce members just because they are "good citizens" and want the plaque. Yet the real opportunities to do business there are often lost.

For example, our local Chamber has "After Hours" events where business owners get together, have a few drinks and hor d'oeuvres sponsored by a local business at their location. They pay a few hundred dollars for the priviledge of hosting it, they bring in the food and a hundred or so business owners pay a fee to the Chamber to attend. A few Chamber announcements are made and then it's open chit chat. It's a great way to meet and greet business owners. As a member you can host one of your own if you like and it's a great way to bring buisness people to your front steps.

Here's the dealership roadblock: Prison Time

The salesman are the people who should attend these events and get to know people outside their sphere. Problem is that they are stuck holding the point or marooned at the dealership. Most managers will not allow them to leave early to attend these events because they might just miss an up or something. They also can get hung up with a delivery or a walk in and unexpectedly have to miss it. Most events start at 5pm and last until 7pm so you have to hit it right.

So, what's the solution? Sending someone that is even better than the salesman - send your marketing manager or someone with an impressive title and lots of charisma talking to people. They can hit the event, meet people and press some flesh with business owners, HR people and managers. They can get to know the Chamber leaders and gain favor with them as well.

Now should they discover people who might be customers instead of making an appointment, they say something like,

"hey, let me pull a few strings at our dealership for you and see what we can do to help you and your business. Can I give you a call tomorrow? I'll set you up with the right person there to help you bypass the usual drill. Can I call you in the morning?"

Now the person feels like he or she has a friend in upper management that will cut through the dealership sales goobledegook and hook them up. Even if they are not ready now, they'll palm the card and with a follow up letter or email the next day it could result in future sales.

On top of that, if the person gets back to the office the next day and hooks up with all his previous night's contacts on LinkedIn and Facebook, then he has a lasting relationship started that can blossom in the future. If he or she keeps doing this every month at every opporunity, they will be regularly bringing leads back to the salesmen who have a chance to handle a 'preferred' customer in VIP fashion.

Doing this, the salesman can remain in their prison nicely and you have a professional attending the meetings and bringing in leads. This same person can be the one making the videos and running the Social Networking end of the dealership, interweaving it all together.

Now let's go one step better!

If i tell you I'm great, you take it with a grain of salt. If you tell someone you have the best deals in town you can expect them to totally not believe you for a second. If someone else that they know and trust says that on your behalf then you have credibility.

Never let your representative go to a networking event alone. Let's say you are the representative. you have to have a date or two come along. Not a date in the normal sense, but a business acquaintance who will look for openings for you. In turn you do the same for them. You work the room together and when they find someone for the you, they make a point of getting them in front of you and recommending you as a person who can get them a special deal when they need their next car.

Now you have instant credibility. You keep this up for 5 or 6 months and you will have a database of potential customers that will start to contact you to play their perceived card. You had better deliver. When you do, encourage them to send in their friends to you so you can help them as well. As the Marketing Manager, you don't actually do the selling, you just pave the way for the sales person and really get them the deal that is a touch better than average. Over time you become the hero for getting cars at the events.

Even another step yet!

There are numerous networking opportunities around your community where people go to meet people who can help them or they can do business with. Join a local Business Network International group. It's a hard core lead exchange group and if you go as management that can pull strings you have an advantage over a salesman simply going. Salesmen sell. As connected to management you can do more and pass the leads.

This is where Social Networking can kick in.

I'l build on this in the next article but touching on it here, make your real life flesh contacts into a regular contact using Facebook and LinkedIn. It keeps you in contact with your new found friends, keeps you top of mind as you comment on their posts online and send them messages back.

Use Social Networking to reinforce your other networking efforts and you will allow very few leads to slip out of your hands.

Marketing has changed - has your dealership?

Why not hire a Marketing Manager that does more the create ad for newspaper and TV? Make sure they are well educated in Social Networking and are "people persons" who can press the flesh and work the crowds at designated events and leads groups. Get them out there as hunters and bust out of your four walls. Mass Media is slowing dying as they can no longer hold the masses anymore.

What do you think?

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John Clark has sold BMW, Honda, Dodge, Mercury, Lincoln, Suzuki and Mitsubishi lines of cars for many years. He has been the internet manager for two dealerships, Top New Car Salesman in volume and carried a 100% CSI for BMW before leaving the car business to start his internet consulting company, Wow Web Works.