Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

They say that imitation is the finest form of flattery.

Well, if that’s the case then INSIGHT has much to be proud of these days.

First, Cleveland’s lone daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, spends the beginning of the month tracking down this writer’s sources on the price-fixing story that appeared in INSIGHT’s July edition. Why find your own lawyers and quote-meisters when you can piggyback off someone else’s, huh?

Then we have this little tid bit: Some outfit calling itself the Nationwide News Service is hounding this publication’s subscriber shops with an oh-so-confusing fax that appears to be offering them an award from INSIGHT (see p. 16). In a veiled effort to alleviate any confusion, the fax does disclaim affiliation with INSIGHT, albeit in conveniently-fine print. All this in an effort to garner sales of a $109 plaque.

Boy, INSIGHT has really hit the big time now!

Rather than wasting more than $100 on a plaque, subscriber shops would be better off spending their time perusing this month’s feature story on the turnover of tech jobs in our industry. In that story you’ll find invaluable information on attracting and keeping the more than 12,000 techs who left their jobs for greener pastures last year. Can our industry afford to continue to allow an exodus of 6-percent of its tech workforce each year? I imagine some of those 12,000 men and women could no doubt bring great value to some shop, somewhere. It would behoove us to figure out how to keep them in the fold.

Moving from the topic of fixing cars to the topic of selling cars, the word from Ford is that they’re pulling out of the dealership business.

Ford, in an effort to appease dealers upset about competing against the auto giant, recently announced it is selling seven auto dealerships in Oklahoma and plans to pull out of the U.S. dealer business altogether. After several years of an intense consolidation effort, the Big 3 appear to be backing off their effort to control the U.S. dealership business; a development that should make a lot of independent dealers happy, as well as improve competition throughout the industry.