LINGsCARS

I wish more people would share what they are doing (marketing wise)... or is everyone doing NOTHING? And just waiting?

Hmmm, it's so hard to know if you are being serious? I'm selling cars/moving metal, with happy customers. isn't that what professional motor dealers are supposed to do? Or am I missing something? - Ling

Tell me if you are bored with this stuff, but I appreciate ideas/feedback. You'll note I stole the funny movie someone posted the other day. Useful. So... below. I decided to offer advice to my customers with cars on lease, about the virus. What if you are in financial difficulty, what if your car needs returning etc etc. So I got some info together from VWFS and Volvo finance and made a short guide. Added value, cost £nil. Sent 1,000 messages so far on my LINGO system, well received. No moans. Picked up a few renewals. Got to say to customers honestly it's a generic message, that's important IMHO, no lies. My LINGO system is like a message board, with everything transcribed, so I never have to pick up the phone.... customers love it. The customer below, calls himself BLUEBOY, he is the MD of an Interior company, with a Slough postcode. 65 Y/o, married you get the drift. He had a Jaaaag XF Estate nearly 2-years ago, 4-year term. He replied pretty fast. What's striking me are the comments he made (on the green post). My point being that I think we should not be afraid of referencing the virus and attacking it robustly, not bullsh1t PR language. It cements so much emotional goodwill. You'll also notice he saw my furlough letter in the press. This chap is a certainty for a renewal, and may well give me referrals. I'd love to see what some of you lot (car dealers) are doing, so maybe I can copy it, too. Why not share what works? The image is what the customer sees, I understand it's crapola/mentalist, it's supposed to be: I hope it's big enough to read

The bat references are idiotic. Several things (I do have a little edge on you lot here, hehe)... 1. Don't believe anything at all coming out of China, the Tractor Committee Production Quota Figures are always manipulated and lies. Journos seem to believe this stuff. For example, who believes only 3,000 people died of the Death Virus in (the whole of) China? Absolute joke figures but widely reported by the UK press, every day by the BBC. Who believes no-one (in China) died of the virus last Wednesday? It's pure fantasy propaganda, but again, it hardly gets questioned. So don't believe stuff just because it's from Reuters or someone reputable. 2. A lot (ALL in Wuhan city, 11 million, twice the size of London or Scotland) of people have been trapped in their flats 100% 24/7 for 3-months. And many other Tier 1, New tier 1 tier 2, and tier 3 cities have been locked down worse than the UK. Some of these high-tier cities have populations that exceed that of many countries and are world-class in every way. My own parents and sister have been stuck inside in Chengdu (also new tier 1 city like Wuhan) for 2 1/2 months. Inside means inside. Not this crap that goes on here, dog walking. No. Each residential building has a political cadre controlling it. You can't get out. You are spending nothing. You have a "family book" that controls ONE PERSON to leave once a week, for food. That's it. You break the rules, your family is collectively sanctioned. You really REALLY don't want to be sanctioned; loss of jobs, privileges, health cover, even lose your house. So you comply. Due to the nature of the communist party, a hell of a lot of jobs (majority) are in the Government public sector which has been receiving full Government pay (to avoid insurrection and buy population compliance). So, many people have built up large nest-eggs, which they may feel they need to spend on cars for various reasons: They don't want to use public transport (that's not strong enough, they fkng sh1t themselves to fkuc - sorry James - about using public transport which is CROWDED. It's a death sentence). Or taxis. Bicycles are banned in many modern Chinese cities for more than very local journeys. Walking is very crowded. Cars are deemed safe spaces in comparison. In large Chinese cities car registrations are restricted (to prevent road overcrowding/smog etc) and many people will want to get a car now, before the allocation of registrations runs out. Often they have to join a lottery scheme to register a car. It can take years sometimes, unless you can bribe. So, take advantage of the availability, suddenly. It may be a race to buy physical cars, as the production lines have been disrupted big style (as will happen here in the EU/UK) and cars may be slow to come through... so grab what you can, while you can... like toilet rolls. In most of China, there is a 1 or 2 property rule, and you are stopped from transferring money out of the country... so if you can't put your money into houses (and you only ever own a 60-year lease, never the freehold which is all Govt owned), and foreign holidays (a recent thing) are still impossible, and people have been restricted to one child (now 2) what the hell do you buy/spend your money on? How many handbags can you own? A car is the answer. It's more of a status symbol in China than the UK. Because people in China (middle class) are cash-rich, and the car finance sector is mostly immature in China, most car purchases will be (effectively) in cash. Buying a car is also an easy way to launder large amounts of money if you have accumulated dodgy money. Therefore the market won't be slowed by credit availability and proper credit scoring from nervous finance companies, which may be the case in the UK. Because the used car market is immature in China (and people in China value *NEW* things.over used things) people prefer new cars over used cars. You've just dodged a bullet (the virus), so you think "fcuk it" and bladder some cash. Treat yourself. So, not all of that stuff applies to the UK. So, I'd caution making too many parallels. Especially the credit situation. That will be a bigger squeeze in the UK than in China, I think. Hope this helps - Ling

Damn you all.

James, should I send him a mug?

Today was just fun. I had a dig at JR but it was funny. No one could possibly be upset and the stuff about Sturgeon was 100% true, not made up. The rest was nothing to do with him, I was just responding to comments. I kind of agree with James. But James knows I have been taking stick, away from this forum.

ok, no more snide comments, agreed

https://www.lingscars.com/images/facebook/holly_vid2.mp4 Holly when she's not drawing on mugs; Is everyone else as bored as I am?

VERIFIED! Jim Reid image has been verified by Umesh. You win a LINGsCARS WAH! mug. Holly will box it up as soon as she's back from furlough.

You mean the one with the ginger sideburns and the bagpipes?

Just to be clear, (pretty uniquely here I guess) I am bloody Blitish according to my passsport, but am not English, Scotch, N Irish or Welsh. So I don't have much skin in that internal UK identity game some Scots love to bang on about. My best pal Ya Jun did make me a lovely video celebrating the Scots for the failed referendum in 2014. See how many Scottish things you can spot in the video. I will award prizes if anyone notices Jim Reid.

Oh, was that racist? Are the Scottish a race? Or just a northern breakaway faction of British?

It's been reported in The Guardian that "Chinese in UK report 'shocking' levels of racism after coronavirus outbreak" Well, not reported by me. I was born in China (guess that makes me seem Chinese, but I'm bloody Blitish now). Apart from a couple of daft comments by thick car salesmen types which I'd struggle to call racist (more mis-placed xenophobia), I've had no issues. I decided a while ago to tackle the virus thing head on. I started with this front-page promo, by grasping the obvious Chinese Elephant in the Room thing head on... No customer complaints... ...but when attacked by a rabid Scottish used banger dealer who even re-tweeted it to Nicola Sturgeon in a pique of false "oootrage" (maybe the Buckfast and valium talking) - but clearly Nicola Sturgeon can f**k right off ... I decided to tone it down to a more politically acceptable version (below): Frankly, I think adult customers appreciate the Death Virus being confronted rather than tip-toed around with wish-washy nonsense PR statements. Finance props (at a rate of 3 a day lately) & after acceptance, car orders (at a rate of 1 a day - today's was for a pre-reg LR Evokki, yesterday's was a stock Mini, Monday's was a Golf R estate...that's still sat in Emden, DRAT) have still been trickling in, so it doesn't seem to have offended my customers. (Albeit this is 20% of the rate of pre-virus when on average I was doing 5 car orders a day - about 100/mth). It's a bleeding contest out there, and I think differentiation really helps. I'm really happy to be supporting struggling dealers by sending new car orders to them. I wish I could do more. - Ling

Probably not. I think most employee from home stuff is unsafe (as is most dealership stuff). It's a matter of crossing fingers, mainly. EG all my stuff is secured on servers and electronic, but I would guess 75% of dealers print my car proposals on paper and one-finger type it into some system rather than parsing it via xml or something safer. No dealer ever asks for secure data, yet they could have very secure access. Nor finance companies. At every stage there is a risk. Dealers and finance companies want everything emailed, there are few secure servers or anything. So GDPR is mainly a joke anyway... except the VERY IMPORTANT GDPR form which must be signed of course and if it missed everything must STOP. That piece of A4 is hellishly powerful. The condominium is a safer bet.

In the current climate, I think we have to be "sensible" with GDPR. Go back to protecting data the old fashioned way. With lots of people working from home, on Zoom etc, the data is all flowing via China, breaking GDPR (for example). Companies need to police it sensibly because if you apply strict GDPR like the clipboard mob want, you couldn't do anything from home... a lot of insecure connections, random laptops, plain email etc etc

Jamie Baguette asked me to re-write this web-bit, that was deleted as collateral damage the other day: === Here are some marketing ideas... (I have no idea about cars, but I'm OK at marketing, it's fun) Hmm, I don't spend a penny on marketing or adverts, apart from the odd £25 on a FB post that goes viral. £zilch. I rely on referrals to my website and word of mouth. I don't buy any Google adwords or take part on any websites like Autotrader or What car or Contracthireandleasing. They are all like vampires, sucking cash. You can get hooked on them like heroin. So, I was getting a bit panicky last week, as it seemed impossible to break through the wall of news on Covid19. The top 10 BBC items were all Covid. My Web traffic was dropping. No one was listening to posts about Citroen C3s and BMW Gran Coupes. WAH! In a bid to stir up some web traffic and car orders, I thought: ...let's use the bloody virus, then. So I wrote my 80% furlough letter to staff in a slightly bonkers way. (it's below) It started on the Sunderland footy forum where it seems every fan will have a car from me. that went to 9 pages. Link is here: https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/lings-cars-letter-to-staff.1512081/ One of the Mackems sent it to the Sun. ... then BOOM. So far, it's got Daily Mirror, The Sun, Newcastle Chronicle and some foreign newspapers too. To buy this much advertising would cost £thousands. Loads of positive comments and shares on the UK newspaper sites, hundreds. Loads of backlinks. It went mental on Twitter too when the newspapers went live, so many kind comments. My web traffic went through the roof and loads of proposals on Monday, the first finance acceptance (BMW finance still working) and order (for a MIni) today. more to come I hope. loads in the pot, it's getting the fin cos to process them that's hard. Dealer fleet people mainly doing these from home. GDPR is out of the window. All this stuff is great Google juice, the newspaper links are worth a fortune in SEO. Then, due to the American Spanish paper (biggest Spanish paper in the US), I got an invite to join in a Uni course in Florida State University, which is great for weblinks/google juice. If only I were as nice to my staff as people think I am... all i was doing was giving my (few) staff a tickle in the dark days; here are some pics of the stuff (below) boyz, for those of you who struggle to read I'm not trying to get "well done"s, just suggesting marketing opportunities still exist, even now. - Ling My staff furlough letter (above) Sunderland Footy forum (and me proving to the Mackems it we REALLY me) The Sun The Mirror The Chronicle A local internet paper La Opinion, LA Spanish newspaper (biggest in USA) Some Greet shit paper My Uni course booking

Got mine this morning:

The dealers don't seem to want to go in to bat for the staff...where's the backbone? Personally, I'd pay it, claim it and then have the HMRC fight afterwards.

But wait, just wait... someone will soon read this and explode.

"Stay in the Dealership", "Support the NHS", "Save Lives" is the mantra being chanted in secret locations up and down the country as "super-target" car salesmen entice gullible customers with crack cocaine and 0% finance offers, to buy illicit new cars in the dead of night. These are the franchised dealer operations the new-car industry doesn't want you to see. "Covid Conversions", in the slang of the trade. Raids by police have been few and far between, as the dealers have been branding the secretive events as "key-worker mobility evenings." In truth the real action starts around 2am, and continues until the bacon sandwiches arrive at 04.30. Key workers, my arse. Scalding cups of coffee are handed around in single-use polystyrene beakers as an attempt to force the hapless nervous customers to linger as they socially-crowd around the latest model. Under the showroom LEDs, a whimpering and sweating junior salesman with a new, glossy folded brochure pinned across his nose and mouth with elastic bands looped tight around his ears, demonstrates the latest version of parking sensors - which bleep aggressively when a human body heat is detected 2m away, or closer. "Keep back". Indeed. The more experienced salesmen stand well back behind the crowd, gripping thermometer guns like tazers, socially distancing but ready to pounce. The sales manager's office has faded "Danger Radiation" tape stuck across the floor and door at 2m intervals to forcibly space out the staff who claw at the venetian blinds on the partition windows. "Nock [sic] with ur ellbow" is sellotaped on the door. The salesmen begin to crowd around desperately like salivating zombies, trying to get a valuation or a monthly figure on the latest new model SUV with positive-pressure oxygeneted aircon pollen filters (PPAC) always ticked at the top of the enhanced option list. That means a mandatory Summer/Winter pack, which earns a nice £150 Brucey bonus. Single use biros are hurled into sharps bins like hypodermics in a legal shooting alley (the DP's office), after scribbling sweaty signatures on cooling-off-waiver forms. Cash is steam-cleaned by tattooed valeters before being counted, and banded in £thousands. On the ramps, two well-spaced out technicians are rushing through 5-minute PDIs, at 500% efficiency, so the workshop is working normally at full strength. The parts department is still asleep. At 5am, the last of the brand new cars have been plated and fuelled at arms length with 2.5 litres of petrol dribbled in, given a quick blast of dettol spray inside as reassurance that the valeters aren't Covid-positive. VRRRMM! The new motors are on their way to the front of the queue at the nearest IKEA C19 testing station, their new owners madly waving their fake NHS ID badges like old people wave blue disabled parking passes. "I'm a doctor, you fuck! Gis a test!" By morning, it's a ghost main-dealership again, the punters have vanished. The demos have disappeared. Only the litter of empty alcohol-handwash bottles on the showroom floor gives any clue to the action a few hours earlier. A solitary cleaner in a surgical mask and marigolds works slowly across the floor with her mop and Flash. "Kills 99% of Corona germs". The activity has completely died. Head office are none the wiser as they are all "busy" at home, and the salesmen are back to moaning how the 80% furlough salary is "below the fuckin' bread-line, so thank fuck for this top-up". Tomorrow night is a full moon! I was bored...

I agree... I'm so glad I don't sell any PCP deals. - Ling

A Baggott a day keeps the Virus away

What I'm *NOT* doing is going around begging for special case treatment. I thought we were all in this together?

*** MORE CAR DEALERS' BEGGING LETTERS *** I'm royally getting sick of this motor industry begging. Hot on the heels of the begging petition from the IMDA (Independent Motor Dealers' Association) last week to suck more money from the Government because the industry has archaic payment practices for staff and they have shot their staff in both feet... ... now, the NFDA (National Franchised Dealers' Association, often confused with the National Funeral Directors' Association) are begging to suck more money from the Government by asking the FCA to waive fees for motor dealers. MORE BEGGING! Two things wrong here: 1) What is ALWAYS so special about the Motor Dealer sector where it always seems to need special help from the Government? 2) The excuse is that gives Motor Dealers "additional breathing space to meet obligations to staff and creditors". Well, (a) creditors should be paid, simple. If you can't pay them you shouldn't be trading. And (b) staff can be furloughed AT NO COST TO THE BUSINESS and paid. The business is also refunded the statutory pension contributions and NI contributions, so this is a nett gain for the business. (Why not pass those funds back to staff?) Why would the franchised Motor Dealer need additional funds to "meet obligations to staff"? Most Motor Dealers are already paying staff ridiculously small amounts due to the archaic salary schemes they run. So why give the dealers more funds? They clearly won't pass them to staff. The staff have been stitched due to their tiny dark-age salary positions. Remember, these are the main dealers asking for this.... the ones whose senior managers are on six-figure salaries, driving the S-Class Mercs. When you next drive past the gin palace that is the multi £million BMW dealership, or the space-age ££££ Mercedes Benz dealership... or the Vorskspork Duck AUDI dealership (these make £zillions of profits normally) remember they are begging for release from a few quids of statutory fees. When so many people in the country (their own sales people included, now) are often in dire straits and can't survive week to week. If the main dealers need a few quid (pathetic), then sell off a few assets, FFS. Their coffee machines and reception area yucca plants probably cost more than the FCA fees. And on the FCA... (Financial Conduct Authority) this is the overseer of financial conduct for the Motor Trade. Oh, God, the FCA. Yes, the same FCA who's staff were criticised by the FCA boss last November for sh1tting all over the floors, p1ssing all over the toilets and filling the fanny bins with empty vodka bottles in their HIDEOUSLY EXPENSIVE Canary Wharf headquarters. As well as stealing the pot plants. You couldn't make it up. You just couldn't make this crap up, if you tried! FRANCHISED DEALERS - STOP BEGGING! The MOTOR TRADE - STOP BEGGING! You are *NOT* the worse off businesses in the country. Have a bit of a thought for other people who are *really* strugging (and dying) at the moment. GET A BACKBONE. AAAAAAGH! Ling