FORD MOTOR COMPANY CEO ALAN MULALLY MOVES METAL IN "STATE VISIT" TO DEARBORN DEALERSHIP.

Ripping a page from the suggestion book of Speedzzter and others, Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally took a quick turn at hawking Fords on a dealership sales floor. Automotive News reports in a story by Amy Wilson that Mulally moved "Four cars (almost) in 40 minutes" on March 19, 2007, at Village Ford in FoMoCo's hometown of Dearborn, Michigan.

No word on what sales consultant training system Mulally used . . . .

"I'd say 'Hi, I'm Alan. I'm from Ford. I'm just helping out here today,'" Mulally told the Automotive News. Mulally's state visit made good on a promise he'd made at the annual NADA convention "that he would take a turn in their shoes."

At an average of a sale every ten minutes, there are thousands of Ford dealers who'd like some of that "help."

Mulally's sales pitch involved asking customers about what vehicle size would fit their families, comparing Fusions with Camrys and "getting close" to at least one customer. All in less than one hour!

According to Village Ford honcho Jim Seavitt, Mulally pushed two Fusions and an Escape, with a third Fusion pending a trade in deal. Mulally reportedly then celebrated his frenetic forty-minute sales blitz with a couple of dealers over hamburgers at Miller's in Dearborn.

Getting out of the Glass House and into the field for some unfiltered "real world" feedback is simply common sense. Yet surprisingly, scores of cyberspace FoMoCo "experts" decry just such "close to the customer" moves as being beneath a CEO. They say that the top dogs have to keep their heads in the clouds of memos and reports churned out by the bureaucracy, instead of wasting time developing personal sense impressions. Yet had earlier Ford Motor Company senior executives traveled outside of the sycophantic "bubble" a little more often, perhaps a number of Ford miscues could have been avoided.

But Mulally's incredible sales blitz suggests that either he's a legendary natural salesperson, or perhaps a little public relations maneuver was at work. Either way, it's a start.

Now if Mulally could just move some Mustangs and Shelby GT500s . . . .