Two same-brand dealerships can sit in the same market, sell to the same buyers, and finish the year in completely different places. One gains share. One gives it up. When we study why, the answer almost never comes down to luck or the economy. It comes down to four factors, and how many of them the store is actively working.
Here they are, in the order most dealers should think about them.
Factor 1: Inventory Management
The vehicles on your lot set the ceiling for your sales. If your market is packed with Camry buyers, Camry is the number one vehicle in your geos, and you don’t have any on the ground, your sales will lag every competing Toyota store that does. Not because they out-advertised you or out-sold you. Because they had the metal.
The GMs who win here understand their market, not just their lot. They know where Tundras move and where Tacomas move, they watch what competitors are selling well, and they position inventory ahead of the next wave instead of reacting to the last one. Inventory management is the first lever of consistent sales growth, and it’s one most dealers already respect.
Factor 2: Sales Operations
Give two stores the same 100 leads. One closes at 20 percent, the other at 5 percent. The first store just quadrupled its output without spending another advertising dollar. That gap is sales operations.
A strong sales operation makes buying easy. It’s transparent. It follows up appropriately, does a real needs analysis, knows when to flip a customer and when not to force it, and acts more like a concierge for the buyer than a gatekeeper. This isn’t just our opinion. Cox Automotive’s most recent Car Buyer Journey Study found that dealers running a transparent, efficient buying process are driving record satisfaction scores, even with affordability pressure on buyers. Behind the scenes, it means training on a regular cadence, auditing sales conversations, reviewing wins and losses on the floor, paying appropriately, hiring the right people, and moving on from the wrong ones.
Most dealers are strong here too. It’s the world they grew up in.
Factor 3: Marketing and Advertising
Here’s the question that separates the top store in a market from the pack: what happens when inventory and sales operations are roughly equal across two competitors? How do you break through and take your unfair share of the pie?
The answer is marketing and advertising. It’s making sure your primary buyer knows you exist and that the vehicle they want is available at your store. It’s reaching the right person, at the right time, with the right message. Plenty of buyers make their decision before they ever know a second dealership was an option. Cox Automotive’s research shows the typical buyer only visits two dealerships during the entire shopping process. If you’re not in that consideration set before they get in the car, you never had a shot.
In our experience, this is also the factor where GMs have the least background. Their expertise lives in inventory and sales operations, so this is where the gaps hide, and it’s why the biggest untapped market share opportunity for most stores sits right here.
Underneath marketing and advertising are three outcomes we see in every dominant dealership: clarity (you know exactly what’s driving sales, not just what your sales board says), growth (you achieve consistent sales growth from advertising, anchored to a real cost per sold vehicle), and dominance (you’re recognized, remembered, and the number one choice for buyers in your market, not lost in a sea of template ads). Each has its own growth levers, and each deserves its own deep dive. For now, know that this is the factor most dealers underweight and the one with the most room to run.
Factor 4: The X Factor
The fourth factor is the one dealers have the least direct control over, which is exactly why I call it the X factor. It’s convenience: the store the buyer passes every day. It’s relationships: “I knew a guy over there.” It’s price, or more often perceived price, since plenty of buyers will tell you they don’t care about the price, only the payment.
Here’s what makes the X factor interesting. When you survey car buyers about why they bought, the X factor is the answer they give most. Nobody wants to admit they were influenced by advertising or by a sales process, especially on a nicer vehicle. So GMs read those surveys and feel helpless, like they’re at the whim of the market. They’re not.
You can’t always be the closest store to the buyer. But you can build a “why me” that buyers can’t get anywhere else: a lifetime warranty, free oil changes for life, extended coverage on used vehicles, home pickup and delivery, a love-it-or-leave-it return window, a fully online purchase. When a store offers something genuinely unique in its market, it’s pulling the X factor lever on purpose instead of hoping it breaks their way. The key is building that offer around your actual buyer, not the average buyer. And when we ask a dealer why a buyer should choose them over the competitor down the road, “best price” is a typical answer, but it’s the one that shrinks margins. A real X factor protects them.
One Lever Is Not Enough
Last year we studied a dealership that had a fantastic year, and we wanted to know which of the four factors drove it. The honest answer: mostly one. They hired two salespeople from a heavily populated area outside their assigned territory where a particular EV was hot. Those hires worked their social circles hard, the store stocked up on that EV, and the units flew.
Credit where it’s due: that’s sales operations executed well, with an assist from inventory. They even picked up a bit of X factor along the way as they became known as the EV store in that pocket of the market. But the study also showed how much they left on the table. There was real opportunity still sitting in that market that one lever couldn’t reach.
That’s the pattern we see over and over. Pull one lever and you can have an average year. Pull two and you’ll start to see growth. Pull three and you’ll start to feel how the whole equation changes. Pull all four and you maximize profitability and sales growth. The stores that work all four factors are the dominant stores in their markets. After almost half a century of doing this work, we’ve seen very few exceptions.
Take a Note from Tiger Woods
Tiger built his dominance on putting. He found the thing he was great at and practiced it relentlessly, then surrounded himself with coaches who helped him with the rest.
Most dealers are great at two of the four factors: inventory management and sales operations. So my advice is simple. Find your strength and lean into it. Then bring people into the fold who are great at the factors you’re not. A GSM who’s a killer on sales operations. A BDC team that never lets a lead go cold. An agency or consultant who lives in marketing and advertising, or who can help you build the X factor your market hasn’t seen yet.
You don’t have to be great at all four things yourself. You do have to make sure all four levers are being pulled. That’s how you start consistently winning your unfair share.
Chris Petrawski
President, Head of Ad Strategy at Bedford Advertising.
Over a career spanning retail, automotive, and higher education, Chris has managed more than $500 million in advertising spend. His campaigns have earned a Gold Medal in the Educational Advertising Awards, multiple ADDY Awards, and a Best in Show TELLY Award, and his work has been featured by Facebook, Instagram, and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).
Chris also volunteers with Genesis Women’s Shelter, where he manages their Google Ads grant — work that earned him 1st Place in the AAF National Public Service Awards. In 2018, Ad 2 Dallas named him to its 32 Under 32, recognizing the top marketing and advertising professionals in DFW.
Since becoming President of Bedford Advertising in 2022, Chris has led franchise dealerships across the country in maximizing sales growth and profitability.