Over the last few years of trying to manage my own business, I have learned a lot. Most of that has to do with the online day and age, because when it comes to making money the online world seems to be more profitable than the real world. My mother used to go to conventions and hit the pavement, generating sales the outdated college way, however COVID put a stop to that a couple of years ago. More than ever before, having an online presence to leverage into sales is the most clear asset a dealer can have. I easily got in touch with an outdated high school friend of mine who became a freelance SEO and digital marketing consultant. He gave me a free advice session, and made a pretty strong pitch as to why I should hire him to handle all our internet marketing. Much to our surprise, he didn’t promise me a clear boost in sales, and instead said he wanted to use SEO to build an organic customer base. In other words, he wasn’t going to dump cash into pay per click ads, not at first, he wanted to enhance the website so it would have better search engine optimization. I didn’t get it at first, however then he gave me an example of SEO in action. If a guy more than 3 miles away types in “car mechanic” he won’t see our website, because our SEO is no good. I am on page 4 of results, behind a series of sizable companies, most of whom just sell used cars, because they have better SEO on their sites.