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How Training Turns Marketing Into Revenue with Eric Mercado · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] All right, we're here at the CDT Fair Pricing and Compliance Summit. Thanks to our friends at Force Marketing, who helped all of our coverage happen and be a reality today.
• 0:08
  I'm here with Eric Mercado, uh, Chief Revenue Officer and Partner at Force Marketing. Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me. Okay, so, um, I said, "What, what role are you really in the company?"
• 0:19
  You said missionary. [laughs] What, what do you mean by that? Yeah. Well, that was an off-camera sound- Yeah. [laughs]... soundbite, but, uh, no, uh- Making believers.
• 0:27
  So, so my primary role is to identify market fit for our business- Mm-hmm... um, go to market strategies. It's constantly evolving, right? I mean, you've been in the auto- For sure it has been...
• 0:37
  marketing vertical for a very long time. Oh, yeah.
• 0:39
  Um, even things like this, they change the way that we, you know, structure our account management, and they change the way, um, in some cases, how we price our services- True...
• 0:48
  um, both to help our clients, but also to make sure our business is obviously healthy as well. Yeah, without a doubt. Um, so it's, it's, uh, at a top level, it's, it's much more about retention- Mm-hmm...
• 1:00
  um, and, and go to market fit than anything. Yeah. Um, but it really kind of covers a lot of different gamuts of our business. So I focus on, um, employee retention. I focus on training.
• 1:11
  Uh- Well, look, I'm gonna stop you right there- Yeah... because we haven't heard a lot of conversation about employee retention, so- Yeah... let's take that angle.
• 1:18
  Tell me about what you do to help people with employee retention. Um- 'Cause I don't think people think Force Marketing and think like, "Oh, let's get that employee retention dialed up." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:27
  Well, so, uh, training is a big part of it, right? So, um, a lot of marketing companies don't train their clients, um, and they don't help their clients understand the strategy- If I didn't have time to go run...
• 1:41
  understand the, um, the, the outcomes that, the goals of the campaigns. Um, and it becomes much more transactional than transformational, right?
• 1:51
  So you can execute the world's best, you know, branding, full multi-channel, full funnel program. You can target all the right audiences. Um, and it can be, you know, killed on the first call- Yeah...
• 2:04
  because they don't understand the outcome that they're trying to deliver- Right... or what the goal was of the campaign or the investment.
• 2:09
  So we're big on making sure that everybody who's the stakeholder in the business, who's gonna touch a consumer, uh, on an inbound or, or at the first touch point of the consumer walking in the showroom, understands, like, where they came in from and what the message is that we put out there for them.
• 2:24
  Some of that's as simple as just demand capture with, like, search and social and all that's pretty easy. Mm-hmm.
• 2:28
  Um, but when it starts coming to, like, you know, seasonal pushes or product launches or anniversaries- Mm-hmm...
• 2:34
  and all these things that in every business, they kind of go through these cycles, we wanna make sure there's a really good understanding of, like, what's the unique value proposition if you're a business.
• 2:43
  Is it- So how does that, but how does that transiti- how does that translate into employee retention? Is it because people don't feel so overwhelmed, right? Because they- 'Cause, does it cause burnout?
• 2:51
  They're more successful. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And, um, and they hit their goals more. Right. Right? And, and that's when you feel like you're winning- Yeah... and you're good at what you do, and you're learning. Yeah.
• 2:59
  You're not burning out. Yeah. You're not waking up on Monday morning being like, "Oh man, another, another week of getting whipped." Yeah, of course. Right?
• 3:06
  So I talk to clients, like, a lot of times, you know, marketing and sales should be hand in hand, right? Mm-hmm. Agree. And in most cases, um, marketing is looked at as an expense and sales is looked at as an investment.
• 3:18
  That's right. Right? And what we try to do is say, "All right. Let's connect your sales operations to what we're putting out to market." So when I talk about training, part of that is understanding the problem.
• 3:29
  Um, so identifying, "Hey, listen, you have 25, 30 salespeople, um, and collectively, your contact rate is, you know, 84%," meaning you're getting really good leads, right? Mm-hmm. They're qualified.
• 3:41
  You're touching a lot of these consumers. "But your, your appointment setting percentage is sub 50 or sub 45, and then here are the areas of opportunity within your sales staff to get that up," right?
• 3:52
  And we can lean in, help them say, "Hey, let's train these people specifically," right? Because we wanna get them up. Now, when those people do better, they get better accolades. They make more money. They stay longer.
• 4:02
  The worst thing you can do is drop a bomb on somebody and, and, and drive a tremendous amount of traffic, and they don't understand what's going on. [laughs] And that happens. That happens from time to time.
• 4:13
  Um, so, um, it actually came from a lot of our clients asking us to do it, right, proactively.
• 4:17
  And we said, "Well, actually, when we do it, we're more successful for doing it," so- So we have a client and, and they ask you to do that, or they have somebody that you're working with.
• 4:24
  What does that actually look like? Pretty straightforward, right? So, um, we, we plan a lot of times well in advance, right? We plan, and then we li- optimize on the fly.
• 4:33
  So we're normally 90 days out in our planning, creative concepts, you know, go to market. Um, uh, all the branding elements are typically pretty evergreen from initial launch. Mm-hmm.
• 4:42
  So, um, we can plan, we can train 90 days out, right? We can say, "This is what the next 90 days looks like." And that might change periodically depending on what the OEM pushes out.
• 4:52
  But for the most part, it doesn't have to. Mm-hmm. Um, so we can train on that, on that 90-day plan.
• 4:57
  And all the investments by channel, by all that, none of that matters to the people who have to answer the phones or have to deal with the customers, shake hands- Mm-hmm... take in the, the marketing campaigns.
• 5:05
  Um, they just care about, like, how do we communicate the value of what you're putting out to the consumer, where they feel the connection of, "I got this. This is real." Yes. Right?
• 5:14
  Um, so I think that for us, getting ahead then going and training them on, "This is what the next 90 days looks like.
• 5:21
  Here's how you can best manage this from an inbound perspective," or when you're talking to your consumers with the merchandising in the showroom, right?
• 5:28
  Banner stands, balloons, hang tags, posters, all, all the, all the aspects of it, so they really get a feel for it. And they buy into it, right? And once you get consumer buy-in, right?
• 5:37
  I, I love this conversation because, uh, it, it really does substantiate something that I believe about industry partners and our role. Yeah. Our role is to support the dealer and support everything else that they touch.
• 5:49
  Yeah. Whether that's advocacy at this level, we're talking about compliance, or advocacy on their front lines, helping bring their people along- For sure...
• 5:56
  and trying to take some of that management burden off them- Yeah... as we can. I think it's a, a way that really does build the spirit of, like, what we like to call collaboration. Yeah. Right?
• 6:06
  Like, the word vendor is what it is, 'cause that's what the industry is. Yeah. Right? But collaborator, like, what you're doing just truly feels like the spirit of collaboration. Well, we try, right? Yeah.
• 6:14
  So, you know, as great as this business is, and as successful as some of these people are, they're also knuckleheads and hardheaded, and we all know that, right?
• 6:21
  I mean, that's what happens when you have hard-charging entrepreneurs. Yeah. Right? [laughs] So when they, you know, sometimes it, it's, they gate that control to say, like, "We don't really... You're a vendor."
• 6:30
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? "We want you to kind of be in the vendor space and-" But for the ones that don't- "... we'll do this." Right.
• 6:33
  But for the ones that don't, they see the upside in that, and it truly becomes a partnership, right?
• 6:37
  And I would say for the lion's share of what we do, we have more partners than, you know, partnerships than we have- You have more... where we're just vendors.
• 6:43
  And, and where we're just vendors, we're happy to serve at whatever capacity we can. Sure.
• 6:46
  But, um, but for the most part, our bigger, you know, our enterprise accounts, you know, they appreciate that kind of stuff, right?
• 6:52
  They appreciate the very high touch, very involved, understanding more than surface level what the, what's going on in your business- Yeah...
• 7:00
  and being able to assimilate, like, what we're doing to the success or to the opportunities you have in your business.
• 7:06
  Um, and that's a big part of, like, what I train our team for, and then what our train- teams go out and train our clients on and, and execute on. And, um, it's been a big part of our success, I think.
• 7:16
  I know a lot of- Well, uh, there's, there's, uh, no question in my mind that that is a key part of the success- Sure... of the way you serve people. Eric, thank you so much for giving us a few minutes. Yeah, for sure.
• 7:24
  Thanks for having me. And, uh, serving the industry the way you do. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate that. That was awesome. Appreciate you.