Categories
Uncategorized

Taking a Holistic Approach

We’ve all heard the phrase, “take the holistic approach.” But, what does that mean from a dealer perspective? From the first point of contact, through the sales process, and throughout the life of the unit, your goal is to build a relationship that supports the whole customer journey. It’s as much a mindset as it is a functional way of running your business.

But what happens if you don’t take a holistic approach? Say for example, your parts and service departments are viewed as cost centers rather than profit centers. While you provide needed functions that are critical to the life of the powersports product, the departments are not viewed as a component of supporting the whole customer journey. Instead, those departments may be managed as an expense that is monitored and managed based on their impact to the dealership – not as a benefit to the customer. Or maybe inventories are kept as low as possible, employee training is written off as too expensive, and service employees are not encouraged to evaluate the entire customer experience with the unit.

What might happen if you changed your approach to one portion of your dealership? Let’s consider a scenario where you adopt a holistic approach to the service department.

Categories
Business Growth

2023 – Two Sides of the Coin

The challenges facing powersports dealers today are largely expected to continue in 2023, with slight changes. Economic uncertainty, evolving dealership sales models, fluctuating profitability targets, persistent staffing challenges, and continued shortages of powersports parts are just a few of the issues which will impact the coin toss governing dealership profitability.

There are some strategic plays for dealers to implement in their game plan. Let’s look at these areas to target for a winning 2023.

Focus on the end zone

On the powersports dealership team, everyone has a role to play. But the team is only successful if everyone works together to get in the end zone. Dealers who take a consumer-focused approach will find an easier path in a potentially tumultuous year. Implementing sales and customer service best practices across all teams, managing the sales from inquiry to delivery, and focusing on the ownership lifecycle in service are all approaches that will generate points on the field.

Categories
Recruiting

Hiring Decisions Impact Your Bottom Line

Over the last several months, it seemed like everywhere you looked, there were ‘”Help Wanted” signs and hiring fairs offering sizable referral and signing bonuses. According to the US Department of Labor, the economy added 263,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate declined to 3.5 percent as more people entered the labor market looking for work. 9.7 million jobs have been added since President Biden took office, including an average of 378,000 per month over the past three months. However, we’re already beginning to see hiring trends slow as companies prepare for a potential recession in 2023.

While powersports dealers have been setting record profits over the last few years, salespeople have shared in the bounty, raking in significant wage gains tied to their commissions. However, with a recession looming, and inventory on track to becoming right-sized within the next year, dealers are coming to the realization that the current sales-staff might be ill-equipped to adapt to the changing times ahead.

Rather than simply being order takers and counting the commission checks, salespeople will once again need to return to customer service and sales best practices. Those who manage that shift gracefully should do just fine. Those who lack the training, or the capacity to change, will most likely find employment elsewhere.