The difference between CRM, DMS, & PPM

If you’re familiar with equity mining, PPM is essentially that—but on a broader scale. PPM tools help dealers find, manage, and convert local sellers.

Yes, sellers. Not buyers.

A lot of dealers are starting to look at generating profit not just from the number of cars they sell, but from a first-principles approach: focusing on buying the right inventory.

It sounds obvious on paper—if you buy the car right, everything else tends to fall into place: service, sales, customer experience, and ultimately, retention. But how do you buy the right cars, right? In other words, how do you find the vehicles that perform well in your market and acquire them at a good price (relative to wholesale)?

Many dealers we talk to—and it’s the overall sentiment in the market right now—are sick and tired of going through middlemen (the auction) for their used car inventory. Not only is the auction profiting off you, but you’re paying close to $1,000 per car just to run it through your shop, eroding your margins even further.

Dealers are getting aggressive and going straight to the source: customer driveways (local private party sellers).

But obviously, it’s hard to first find the cars and then stand out from all the other people (dealers and private buyers) flooding sellers with messages.

That’s where PPM comes in. 

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‍CRM: Focuses on managing customer interactions (warm customers/leads—aka car buyers).

DMS: Handles the daily operations of the dealership, including inventory, finance, and back-office tasks.

PPM: Manages and streamlines acquiring cars from local sellers (past, current, or future customers).

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Why Database Hygiene Is Critical

A major issue we see is that folks use CRMs for everything, including importing cold contacts (local sellers) into a CRM that’s meant to manage their warm customer base.

Likely, these sellers are being manually entered or imported daily or weekly. Since they aren't all imported in one fell swoop, this means trying to delete them after the fact is almost impossible without deleting actual leads. 

Problems with Mixing Seller Data into Your CRM

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1. Wasted Resources: Salespeople see a new “lead” and call, text, or email them, only to find out it was someone trying to sell a car. That leads to friction, wasted time, and a worse experience for everyone.
2. Reporting: open/click rates and conversion metrics are affected by marketing efforts 
3. Automations and follow-ups get weird: Cold sellers getting sales sequences that make no sense, like a “Hey, ready to test drive?” email. Not a good look.
4. Domain Health Risk: Importing cold contacts into your CRM kills deliverability. These folks never opted in, so future campaigns get flagged as spam, hurting open rates, or worse, blacklisting your domain. There’s a reason cold emailers use burner domains.
   
   

The Case for PPM Tools

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Bottom line: CRMs weren’t built to buy cars. Warm customers/leads and cold sellers need to be separated. 

That’s the core issue. Sellers get dumped in, buried, and forgotten, because the system wasn’t designed to treat them like real leads. Sellers are being pushed through a pipeline designed for selling cars to prospective buyers. And when follow-up breaks down, conversion tanks.

We’ve studied thousands of private party purchases, and the average time on market before a car is bought is 12.65 days. If you’re not following up fast and consistently, you’re missing the window.

That’s why PPM tools exist. They’re built from the ground up to help your buyers stay on top of every opportunity, without clogging your CRM or confusing your sales team. It’s like using Excel instead of Word for accounting. Right tool = better results.

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