Back in 2006 commonly held wisdom was that short term promotion fixes were never the answer for a car dealer (or any advertising).  Ongong focused product positioning has always been the key to success -  the only way to effective advertising.

That was then. However in 2009, the goal is to stay open for a couple more months.

Last week I had a wonderful experience; lunch with, what I'm calling  A New Economy Auto Dealer. (A great guy.) He showed up with a legal pad and announced his goal was to voraciously suck up Ideas. We talked about ideas for spots, remotes, events, web - everything - especially copy - the element that comes through the speakers of a radio. I don't recall rates being discussed.

Focus. We wrote down goals - all discussion had to fit these two.

1. We all decided to focus on one copy leader only; Test Drives. He knows that if he can get them in for a test drive, he can covert a good percentage. A test drive is the surest way to a car sale.
2. In order to produce the maximum amount of traffic, the copy focused only on their Best Selling car; the one that IS selling - not what ISN'T.

We also noted that a test drive needn't occur only AT the dealership. In another market my stations did an Adult Education Fair. (Florida, outdoors.) We had booths for the sponsoring schools, including universities and trade schools.

We sold a co-sponsorship to a dealer, who brought ten cars to the remote along with salespeople, and a credit manager.  They figured that the attendees (a) were trying to improve themselves and (b) drove their in a car - a potential trade it.

Sold eight. Dealer Woo Hah Happy.

If they qualify or have a good trade in, good friend Doug Harris - www.creativeanimal.com  - has dealers giving $100 Wal-Mart or toy store gift cards for a test drive.

See how easy this can be? All you need is one dealer to buy this. Then another idea for another dealer. By the way, the better the idea - the better the billing.  When a dealer gets excited and has confidence in the idea - they'll throw bountiful amounts of money at it.

Regarding our current economic situation; a metaphor for your consideration, two scenes from the 1962 movie The Longest Day. It's, the story of the parallel experiences had by many soldiers D-Day, June 6, 1944, the day the allies began the invasion of Europe. (For those of you not familiar with it, trust me, it was a very big deal.)  Here are two scenes with messages that should be of interest to us. 

In one Robert Mitchum is a division commander landing on Utah Beach. When they get ashore - everything - but everything - went wrong. The German gun emplacements and defenders were supposed to have been bombed but they weren't; all those guns were firing at them. They figured out they were put ashore miles from the planned spot. That was bad enough, but compounded by the fact that all the backup equipment, artillery, tanks, supplies were going ashore at the correct place miles away - so they couldn't get to them.

So looking both forward and backward, what was supposed to be there - wasn't. Instead of their tanks coming ashore - all they saw was water. Looking forward all they saw was Germans who weren't supposed to be there - shooting at them. The odds were stacked against them. They thought of signaling the ships to come pick them up. 

Another scene, John Wayne is leading an airborne regiment landing in France the night before D-Day, behind German lines.  Same thing happened. They discovered they were parachuted miles from the intended drop zone - miles away from other units and their supplies - and surrounded by bad guys 3:1. What did they do?

Against overwhelming, life and death odds they both had the same response . . .
We'll start the war from right here. They decided to attack, not retreat.

I'm sure they said it in different ways, but the story is true. The decisions were the correct ones. It turned out that forces they faced weren't as formidable as they had estimated. This is a great example for us.

These were, at the time, irrational decisions that contributed to a great, historical victory. You can make decisions just like those. Consider using the two examples above. Spend no time even thinking about all the current crazy problems - instead occupy your brain only with potential solutions.  Close your eyes (literally) and imagine clients saying Let's do this! or What a Great Idea! or When can we get this on the air? Create those scenes in your mind and repeat them over and over all day. Then your attack. This might sound funny, but l . . .

• Look around your cubicle (Utah Beach).
• Look outside your cubicle (cancellations, cutbacks, cheap competitors, clients with no money (the tanks and ammo they didn't have).
• Briefly review the sales declines of the past month (Germans everywhere).
• Then, stop, consider the situation and say . . .
• This is BS - MY War starts right here, right now! 

SUCCESS IS A DECISION.