Thank you to Laurie Foster for joining us at the Digital Dealer 27 in Las Vegas! Laurie has worked in the automotive industry for 21 years and now owns a business, Foster Growth Strategies, that serves dealers and vendors alike. Laurie speaks further on how her company bridges the gap between the two, the growth in comfort towards social media within the industry, and where she thinks automotive and fixed ops is headed in the future.
“Vendors right now are facing some of the challenges dealers have had… it’s tough to get a hold of the decision-maker, it’s harder to make money, hard to hold people into contracts… we have figured out that a lot of it is due to the relationships that they have or don’t have.”
Laurie explains how vendors train people to talk to dealers about their products, not all about automotive and what is happening in the industry. She believes that helping both sides to better understand each other would build respect, communication, and grow for both the vendors and the dealers.
“That’s what my company does, we help people navigate. Change will always be happening but it’s not coming to an event like this and having an epiphany that you think will work, you need someone like what we do to come in and help you implement, execute and get you the results you thought were attainable.”
Laurie leaves us with her thoughts on the future growth of the industry, particularly how data will lead to the dealers and vendors communicating better. She mentions that the data is not meant to be scary nor meant to deliver what you are doing wrong.
“I think we are going to see some dealers that resisted change moving to embrace it… vendors are simultaneously going to get better at their craft of giving dealers every bit of value that they can.”
“Dealers are listening, and eager, for what fixed ops is bringing to the table.”
