It is this time of year we all reflect a little on the past and begin preparing for the future. I do not know if it is the leaves changing color or the Holiday lights at Halloween or first day of hunting season but every year I find myself identifying things that went well over the last twelve months and how I could have improved some of those that did not.
One of the most recent triumphs this year for JTZ Enterprise just took place. We are proud to announce www.JTZEnterprise.com received a complete makeover. They say a mechanic’s car is sometimes the most neglected when it comes to service and I am embarrassed to say the same was true about this web designer’s website! At the beginning of the year we began getting business from dealers outside of Virginia. They found us by searching on the web and it became apparent we needed to improve our online image. You can now go to this site for tutorials on how to manage inventory listings on your website and at VIADA’s website. Those clients that have websites with us can also get easy to follow links to web e-mail control panels, eight different counters and a whole lot more. We also expanded our Online Store section for our retail sales clients.
This completes a total redesign of all three websites important to VIADA members. In March my designers began work on the new image now seen at www.VIADA.org and in July we finished the redesign of www.VirginiaUsedCarDealers.com (VUCD). We are also happy to report the amount of traffic coming to both of these sites continues to grow every month. The staff at VIADA headquarters has really put a lot of effort into updating the members website and we have more participating members and vehicle listings than ever before at VUCD. We have already set goals for 2007 and begun taking steps to achieve them for both of VIADA’s websites.
JTZ Enterprise has grown a little in 2006 due to two very important groups of people; our clients and our employees. Not only have we been blessed with a high rate of repeat customers, we have also attracted a lot of new clients. At the same time we have added a couple of services other than website design and hosting. We have been designated as the exclusive reseller of IDI’s Window Sticker software program for Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolina’s. This software decodes a VIN like you have never seen and prints all of that information on a new car lot quality sticker that seals to the glass on all four sides. The information about each vehicle is easy to edit and includes fuel mileage and Reviews for each vehicle from any of a dozen or more major publications. This can all be done from your computer in a matter of minutes and at less than $2.80, including a Buyers Guide, it has really become quite popular.
The other new service introduced in ’06 is our datafeed service. JTZ Enterprise has worked to make the Internet as easy for our clients to capitalize on as possible. JTZ Enterprise has worked with several F&I software suppliers and data inventory management companies like Carbiz, Dealer Specialties and many others so that we can now get your inventory data and photos from them. Dealers can still enter the data on their own. Regardless of how we get your vehicle information and photos, we can now send that data to any and all other companies you may be advertising with including Cars.com, Trader and many, many others. Now a car dealer can update their listings in dozens of places, including some free sites, all in one place and in one step. This makes Internet advertising easier to manage for the car dealer.
We thank all our clients, new and long time, and look forward to serving you into 2007. We welcome the rest of you and look forward to meeting with you. We have a referral program to encourage our clients not to keep us a secret. The owners of www.DavisAutoCenter.com introduced us to the owners of www.ChesapeakeOutdoors.com. The latter is a billboard advertising company on the Eastern Shore and many of their clients have become our clients. A special thanks goes out to this client as well as the owners of www.AtoZSports.com, www.CountryAutoSales.net and www.SuperiorMotorsInc.com for all the referrals and we want to encourage more of that in the years to come!
A special thanks also goes out to my supporting staff. Carl, Ron, Vinod, Linda and Chris, keep those website designs coming! JTZ Enterprise prides itself on not cookie cutting our designs and each of these designers add a different flavor. They work tirelessly at times not only creating new sites but also managing the ongoing update requests from our clients. We added two new representatives in ’06. Debbi Impervento has made a lot of friends in the Tidewater area and we warmly welcome Chuck Robertson. We know you are going to well in the Charlottesville/Harrisonburg area. We hope to bring aboard one or two more representatives in 2007. I am forever indebted to Kelly and Tiffany. These are the two ladies you speak with when you call our office and they do so much for me. I just can not thank you enough.
Overall, it has been a good year, but we are all looking forward to seeing what the New Year brings. I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy the holidays, and more important, enjoy your loved ones. We wish all of you a successful Tax season that will follow making the holidays seem like the calm before the storm, we all hope!
I better get out there now to clean those gutters and get those lights up…