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Dragon's Den

Thursday, 15 February 2007

Everyone else is talking about it so here's my take.

The Lings Cars pitch intrigued me. The site does too.

Lings Cars

At first glance, it is the most ugliest site in the world. It is messy and disjointed. However, when you look deeper, you notice a few things we can all learn from.
 
A bit of background first. Ling Valentine, 33, has a MSc degree in Environmental Quality. She started Lings Cars five years ago. It rents brand new cars over several years to everyone and anyone via contract hire.

She had 50,000 unique visitors in October 2006 as she states on her website and she sells an awful lot of cars - £10,815,849 in 2005!

The big twist is, it is a glorified affiliate site by Ling's own admission on Dragon's Den. She just advertises new cars. But best of all, she makes around £100K to £125K clear profit per year!

By any means, Ling is an inspiration. But how is she doing it?

The key is her style. She explains on her website how a website is simply an extension of the person selling:

"Website is like an extension of you, person behind business. Are you alive? Then website should be alive. Do you change, have emotion, get angry, get happy? Then website should do all these things. " [Ling Valentine, Lings Cars]

I'm not sure about you but I build website that fulfil a purpose and often forget who will actually be visiting. Perhaps that's what I need to do.

She only has one focus too. Just one website where the orders come through. No showroom. No stock. Just one website. Interesting.

Ling also states:

"Don't let 1 day go by without changing or feeding or petting website, even tiny thing. If you don't feed website it will die. Like pet. This is all emotion, not fact. You think I'm wrong? Look at your website, look at my website. When last time you even visit, never mind change? In real life you tell jokes, eat, drink, shout etc; do all this on website! Wah, this is so simple but most people consume in "professionalism". Visitor just want website to work well for them." [Ling Valentine, Lings Cars]

She's hit the nail on the head. We are too busy hiding behind a website. We don't get out there. We always talk about "we" and "us", never "I" and "me".

I urge you to at least look at Ling's site and try to understand what she is doing and why it is working. This Biz/ed article may help.

It turns everything I believe about affiliate marketing on it's head!

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Comments10 Comments

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Ling Valentine

Ho, ho, ho. David Fiske.

Thanks so much for the write-up! I simply do my best, I am not a guru. However in this world where more and more websites are standard "faq", "contact us", "about" across the top... all of which is glorified nonsense; and bing, bang, bosh down the side, one boring pic per page and a load of corporate waffle, I'm glad I have broken the mould. Who wants to be bored in sterile websites, designed by committee and approved by the board?

To me, most websites are like those Travel Inn rooms. I prefer mine to be like staying with a friend where you can slob about in your bare feet and poke in the fridge and steal their sanitary towels.

I do sell (or rent) lots of new cars, thanks. You missed a lot on my site (no way have you visited it all :)... how about my customer poetry, my 450 customer letters (80% internet users in the UK now broadband, thank God, that's a 500kb page) and my sister's ChopGear roadtests :), or my rocket truck stuck in the mud movie? I have a secret car porn page here /carpron.htm. Had to hide that from Google. Also sponsor the UK Rallycross Championship which is worth a mention for my Chinese Cheeky girls, Lina and Lulu. There are two racing driver-embarrassing movies. How do I fit this all in?

I wrote a full web-thing article for the NE Business Directory here, if you wanna read: http://www.lingscars.com/no...

My customers enjoy themselves. A new car is a damn big decision and how to persuade people to trust a mental Chinese bird rather than a franchised dealer? Bloody difficult, eh? Luckily it is an emotional decision, so ta-daaa like the brilliant idiot I am, I decided to aim for that target.

Have you noticed I do not take advertising, despite 50k unique a month? Maybe this will change, but I resist - in admiration of Google's homepage resistance to this website acne. Like the BBC, I am advert free.

I must say, why more people don't do this and have fun at the same time... I am amazed! Can I copyright it?

- Ling

Written on Saturday 24 February 2007 at 22:48:47 GMT (Permalink)

Ling Valentine

Hey! What's this "glorified affiliate site"? I put these deals together, rip out every possible overhead (thanks to Michael O'Leary influence) then source the new cars from friendly/cash starved/desperate UK dealers. I deal directly with major finance houses like Bank of Scotland, Lex, Lombard and a host of others. These are my deals. Some are via dealer's finance houses, like BMW Finance. Where is the affiliate bit?

- Ling

Written on Saturday 24 February 2007 at 22:52:45 GMT (Permalink)

David

Affiliate in the sense that you don't sell from your own stock, you sell from other people's stock.

Written on Sunday 25 February 2007 at 10:42:28 GMT (Permalink)

Ling Valentine

David, this is a strange definition. I thought I had it right, and I went to the Oxford English Dictionary - and I do...

There is only one definition I can find there for affiliate and it is: "officially attach or connect to an organization".

That's not me. I think you have made the word fit your own purposes to suit your needs. So I checked in an e-commerce environment;

Wikipedia says : "Affiliate marketing typically refers to this Electronic commerce version of the traditional agent/referral fee sales channel concept. An e-commerce affiliate is a website which links back to an e-commerce site such as Amazon.com. When the readers of the website click on the link, they are connected to the e-tailer and if they purchase a product or service from the said site the affiliate receives a small payment (depending upon the e-commerce site policies), usually a percentage of the money the customer spends."

I certainly don't link anywhere. I do the whole transaction myself from start to finish including arranging delivery of the car, same as a franchised motor dealer would use existing finance systems or banks. Of course I order the car from a dealer, but I really don't think this makes me an affiliate of anyone. I have a free choice where I put my business. My point being, I am not beholden to any other business.

Sorry to be annoying, but your description of me make me sound like a simple referrer to some other business, and I'm not. I do the full monty, as the English like to say :)

- Ling

Written on Sunday 25 February 2007 at 18:27:28 GMT (Permalink)

David

"I think you have made the word fit your own purposes to suit your needs"

No.

Affiliate marketing is as Wikipedia state "Electronic commerce version of the traditional agent/referral fee sales channel concept".

You are the agent. You make a sale your end and receive commission from each sale.

From Dragon's Den, I was under the impression that you make the sale, pass this onto the finance company and they arrange delivery of the car. Is this not correct?

Is the contract between Ling's Cars and the customer or Finance Company X and the customer?

There lies the answer of whether this is a traditional car dealership or an affiliate style business.

Written on Monday 26 February 2007 at 09:05:24 GMT (Permalink)

Ling Valentine

David,

But I arrange everything, deal, finance, order the car, supply, delivery. I use other companies to take care of this stuff, like finance companies to arrange the finance, car dealers to arrange supply, and I touch the end user throughout.

Of course I use finance companies to provide the means to pay for the cars.

That means that under your definition, everything... including traditional dealer sales (where finance is used) to Currys (where a fridge is bought on finance) or DFS (when someone gets a bed on credit)... anything where a finance company owns the goods and "hires" (as in hire-purchase or contract hire in my case) is affiliate marketing. In the above examples, the contract is between the finance company and the customer, too, just like mine.

I don't think this is affiliate marketing. These companies often don't own the stock, and draw down from suppliers (wholesalers). The finance company often pays their supplier, and they earn commission.

An affiliate in my book is like when someone signs up with Amazon to simply refer people to Amazon and distances themselves from the sale. I think your definition is simply too broad in order to be more inclusive.

Maybe we just have to disagree on this.

- Ling

Written on Monday 26 February 2007 at 20:39:44 GMT (Permalink)

David

I'll agree to disagree!

Regardless of everything above, I think your business model is spot on and when I need a new car, you will be the first person I see.

:-)

Written on Monday 26 February 2007 at 20:44:41 GMT (Permalink)

Ash Arnold

Well I have been ispired by Lings performance and attitude in business, I must take my hat off to her.

I have started campaigning my website as a DJ music store for the North East. We are the only pre-release retailer in the North and we believe in the personal touch.

Our website needs heavy traffic to live but we always look for advice and help.

Regards

Ash Arnold

ash[at]oxygenmusic.co[dot]uk

Written on Wednesday 23 January 2008 at 15:19:23 GMT (Permalink)

Bumblebeeman

What is so wrong with being an affiliate anyways. A lot of succesful companies are simply affiliates. I think david lost that argument! No offense david agree to disagree with Ling. Agree you were wrong please!
Would appreciate your help though David in website marketing. You have a lot of experience and have written some very informative articles.

Written on Friday 20 June 2008 at 23:19:08 GMT (Permalink)

David

@Bumblebeeman - I agreed to disagree in a past comment :-)

If you want a chat, send an email via http://www.davidfiske.com/c...

Cheers!

Written on Saturday 21 June 2008 at 16:39:31 GMT (Permalink)











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