vAuto Provision-6 Steps to Develop a Daily Routine

In this post, I will share how, vAuto Provision – 6 steps to develop a daily routine, will lead you down a path to success in managing your daily task.

You just got your vauto login and you login for the first time. Where the hell do I start?

Yep, I remember that feeling back in 2008 when I first started using vAuto Provision. It’s a daunting task when I first began. Don’t worry there’s help on the way. After the initial install, your vAuto performance manager will set a time for your first online training session. He or She, will walk you through the steps of managing your inventory. Unless you record each session, I suggest you do, you will only retain a third of what you covered. So follow this outline, modify to meet your needs, and your on the path to success for vAuto Provision.

vAuto Provision: The Needs Attention Box

The “Need Attention” box is like your virtual assistant. It tells you everything you need to manage in your inventory on a daily basis. Items in this box will change throughout the day. So you always need to keep your eye on the box.

Your goal by the end of the day, is to have as few items as possible showing in this box.

Pro Tip! You will never complete every task. If you do, give me a call. I want to meet you!

Step 1: No Price and No Pending

No Price and No Pending are the cars that have just hit your inventory for the first time. This is your very first morning task and I’ll explain why.

You want your car descriptions, ads and pricing completed ASAP when cars first hit your inventory. vAuto sweeps your DMS every few hours to find changes in your inventory and push it out to all the third party sites like Autotrader, Cargurus and Cars.com

What you want to elevate, are cars getting published on these sites with wrong prices and descriptions.

I’ve made this mistake myself and seen several others make the same mistake. I’m sure it’s happened to you as well. A car gets pushed out to the world wide web over night with the wrong price and you get hundreds of leads because the car was priced 3k too low.

Here’s one of my vAuto hacks to help with this problem. Change your backend disposition settings to wholesale on appraisals. All fresh inventory will end up in your wholesale inventory instead of your retail inventory. That gives you time to complete all your task on fresh inventory, then change the status back to retail and v’hala! your good to go.

Pro Tip! Change your default settings for appraisals to default to wholesale instead of retail. See image below

Step 2: Write Great Descriptions

There’s 3 things that will kill a car and keep it from selling.

Priced too high
Bad pictures
An inaccurate description

Writing a great description can make or break even the most desirable cars. Cars are so option specific these days, customers drill down into your description to determine if your car meets their very specific needs.

It’s very important to keep these descriptions short with all of the “High Value” options listed first in the description and in order by highest impacts.

Take a look at this ad. It doesn’t list options or features, so the customer has no idea if this car fits his or her needs. They will move on to the next car on the list. You just lost a sale.

Now look at this ad. See the difference. Specific, high value options are listed in order and in bold type. This should include much more than I have written here, but you get the idea.

Pro Tip! The drop down box above is a view of how your ad will appear on Autotrader. You only have 140 characters just like my twitter account. Follow me on Twitter.

Having the wrong color combo or options can cost you a deal. It’s easy to find all the correct info for your brand. What do you do about off brands in your inventory?

Here’s a few tips.

If you’re with a multi franchise dealer. Have a go to contact at your other brands that can email you a copy of the MSRP or build sheet
Chrysler Jeep Dodge! Thats Easy, there’s a link on Carfax to view the Original MSRP
Not a multi franchise dealer. Send out emails to your competitors in your area and ask them to share this information in a group so everyone can benefit from this process.

Pro Tip! Get AutoiPacket, they replace negotiation with documentation and has access to most manufacture window stickers. (sorry no exotics or Tesla)<<< very tough to deal with but you should try sourcing Tesla’s at auction. Money Makers!

Step 3: Meet with Your Internal Recon Team(Trade Walk)

Trade Walk! This is really important. Set a specific time every day or even twice a day, so you catch both shifts of the sales department, to do a trade walk with sales and your Internal Service advisor. I also suggest you have your lead tech involved.

This allows everyone to see all the fresh trades, evaluate the incoming workflow and address specific issues with new trade-ins.

Step 4: No Price Change in 7 Days

Step 4 of vAuto Provision – 6 steps to develop a daily routine, is a no options gotta do it everyday kind of thing. This is one of the most important factors to increasing your turn and controlling your aging cars.

This is a really simple step and it only takes a few minutes. Click on the link in the Needs attention box and all these cars will populate quickly. Don’t just open up each car and lower your price by an arbitrary amount. There’s a key to making this work to your advantage.

The 3 pieces of data your need to pay special attention to are.

Days Supply
VDP’s and SRP’s
Price to Market

Verify you are inline with all these key metrics. When cars aren’t selling, it’s usually one, or a combination of any of these factors that are the issue.

When customers search on Autotrader, Cargurus and Cars.com, they have the options to create a saved list. If there is any change in price, description or other items in your ad change, your potential customer will get an email or text alert.

You only need to lower the price by 1% to trigger the text or email alert!

Don’t chop by hundreds or thousands of dollars. This will convey to potential customers you have tons of negotiating room.

Pro Tip! If your feeling a real lull in the market and need to generate traffic for the weekend, Wednesday is the best day to lower prices.

Step 5: Inspect Your Inventory Daily

Ok, it’s been a hectic day, you’ve been grinding all morning at your computer and putting out fires. Use this step as a break away from the grind. Get up, stretch out your legs and inspect your inventory.

There’s always things you will find on a lot walk that will stand out like a sore thumb to your potential customers. We tend not to see these items because we’re here every day just taking a quick look at your cars. Take your time, do some real inspection. Check for scuffed wheels, cracked windshields, paint chips, broken moulding and trim and so on.

You will be amazed at what you will find if you take it nice and slow. Around a 30-45 minute routine.

Pro Tip! Make sure you include detail and internal service in this lot walk. This gives you time to check up on your recon process.

It’s time for the vAuto Provision – 6 steps to develop a daily routine final step! And it’s my favorite time of the day.

Step 6: vAuto Stockwave Auction Sourcing

I know you’ve heard the old adage, “You Make Money When You buy, Not When you Sell. ”

It’s still true and never more important in today’s topsy turvy market. I’m not going to get into fine details of this subject in this post, because Stockwave Auction Sourcing deserves special attention and this post would go on another 20 minutes.

One of the big keys to success in auction sourcing is to do your homework 1-2 days before each sale day. This allows you to deep dive into the CR’s, Carfax reports and other details that you need to inspect for potential auction sourced inventory.

As my logo states, If You’re not Ahead of the Curve, Your behind it.

Here is the order in which I search for cars that I need based on my Provision Strategy Page to fill the gaps in my inventory.

Lease Returns (Dealer direct, MBonDemand, Audi Direct etc)
Factory Sales for CPO cars
CPO cars from Independent sellers(careful here, there’s a reason they have these cars)
Off Brand inventory

Pro Tip! This isn’t a part time job. You will have to spend time, getting ahead of the curve, working on the weekends.

Armed with this list, you can customize and create your very own version of the vAuto Provision – 6 steps to develop a daily routine. Once you have it dialed in, follow your 6 steps religiously everyday to create a consistent Profitable Pre-Owned selling machine.