28 Jan 2026 · 4 min
Jeff Watson and Luke discuss why dealerships lose leads and how to fix it. They recommend responding within 15 minutes across phone, text, and email, and stress that conversion usually fails because of how you work leads, not where they come from. A BDC process matters more than the lead source.
Chapters
Hey, guys, what's going on? Happy Monday. Hope everyone is geared up for an awesome week. Tax time, money's flowing, we got all sorts of interest. People are sending us inquiries left and right. Luke, what's going on at your place?
About the same, Jeff, We've been great. January, February, started off pretty well, I tell you that. The amount of leads that came in in the last two days are just incredible. I love to see that. That excitement in our customer base.
So let me tell you one thing. We added a choke page to our inventory. Right. Kind of a little different. We're buy here, pay here. And it's. It's been great. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it's turned anybody off, but all the inquiries, you know, the information, like 1 out of 20 is maybe completely inaccurate, but what it's doing is it's creating a ton of leads that are building up in my CRM. And. And I know my guy Adrian's gonna listen to this, and he. We probably are going to talk about it when he gets into the office. They're backed up. I got a ton of leads sitting in my CRM that aren't being touched.
Is it BDC time?
Oh, man. Well, what's going on, man? How do we not mishandle leads?
So, you know, we hear it so much and we see it so much. On the Facebook page, people are talking about how this lead source doesn't work or that lead source doesn't work or whatever. And could that be the case, Jeff? Yeah. You know, sometimes you get crummy leads. But let me tell you this. If you have an issue where you're getting a ton of leads and you're not converting those leads, I'm gonna give everybody a really quick secret. And this. You gotta write this down. It's not the leads. It's the people working the leads. Okay? So if you're having the issue with a lot of leads coming in and you're not getting them worked or they're not responding, you're not responding to them properly. You're not giving them what they need to respond back to you. So make sure that. That you're working your leads property. Have a. Have a fine process for your SalesPeople or your BDC people to follow to get those leads to respond. And that might include video, it might include certain word tracks. But not all leads are junk leads that don't respond back to you. So just remember that. Sure.
Take it all with a grain of salt, because we all know, right? All all lead sources are not created equal. My. My free car gurus leads. Yeah. You know, our Facebook leads. Sure. We're going to get 50 and we're going to convert one, you know, as opposed to someone giving a specific, like, VDP inquiry on my website because they researched every single F150 in the area and they like mine. Sure. Some of those leads are going to convert at different ratios, but like you said, Luke, if you're not giving them some specific tools and fine tuning the way that they respond to those leads, and how are you ever going to get better?
That's right. And people today, they expect you to respond pretty quickly. So if you're getting a free Cargurus lead in and you're not responding to it for three days, it's very possible that person's bought somewhere. So make sure that you have a process of trying to get back to those people within 15 minutes or if it's overnight, to make sure the first thing you do is touch those leads with phone call, a text message, and an email. Don't. Don't just respond to them with the email because, you know, sometimes people don't check their email as much as. As we do.
Yep. And inspect what you expect.
That's right, buddy. That's right.
You know, jump in that CRM and spot check a couple. Look at the notes, you know, look at your loss for the. For the past week and sit down with the salesman and say, hey, man, you know, you marked 50 people lost. I'm gonna just poke it a couple of these. Let's see. Which. What happened here? What happened here? You know, and that is so important.
Jeff, and that's something we all need to do. And that kind of. All this kind of foreshadows what we got coming out Thursday. Right?
Awesome. Yes, yes, yes. Sarah Hoagie speaks with us. Awesome, awesome information on setting up your own bdc, you know, when, where, how, why, she covers it all.
Yes, sir.
All right, we'll talk to you guys on Thursday.