Research – Plan – Execute
My clients know that on the business front I’m very conservative. I like to see dealers with money in the bank, good turns on inventory (unit and parts), efficient staffing levels, and solid expense control. Some 20 Group providers always
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Every day dealers contact me trying to figure out how they can “game” the forgiveness portion of the PPP loan. My response, “quit being an ass and stop being so greedy!”. The PPP loan program was designed to accomplish a
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Recently, we’ve seen lots of OEMs promoting home delivery, and while I don’t deny that it’s something that we need to confront, there’s a lot more to it than just hiring a delivery driver. – OEM Dealer Agreements – Many
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A good article with some tips on retailing during the current pandemic. https://www.fi-magazine.com/360779/guide-to-digital-retailing-during-a-pandemic#.XpcWEhWEcNg.linkedin I’ve seen some colorblind advertising from dealers. With people across the country dying from COVID, it’s easy to cross a line with your customers. When this is
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I understand the concept of absorption, but I’ve never believed in the philosophy. For those who don’t know, for dealerships, it’s a metric where you see how much of the total dealership expenses that the fixed ops department can cover
Read moreA great article from David Spader about the differences between leadership and management. During a crisis like the one we find ourselves currently mired in, both leadership and management are critical to the long term success of a business. It’s only 7
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In the early 90’s my first foray into the powersports industry was as a parts manager. I love working with data and managing parts is still one of my favorite positions in the dealership. The parts manager side of me
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Many OEMs have shuttered production during the pandemic. Even as the economy comes back online, assembly lines will still see bottlenecks related to a lack of key components from overseas suppliers. And with an uncertain future, dealers have also committed
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A good article discussing the results from a recent Gallup poll. As a whole, businesses are doing a poor job when it comes to communicating with their employees. Now more than ever, we need top level employees who can jump
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Market Distortion! During the last recession, as dealers (both small and large) started to fail we saw that poorly capitalized ones became increasingly desperate to delay the inevitable. Dumping used inventory, selling hot new product at low to negative margins,
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The COVID-19 pandemic has done a great job of highlighting the manufacturers who have a long term view and the ones who value their dealer partners more than shareholders. While we have seen some of the OEM’s who really stepped
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Not even sure why we are still having this debate. I have some contacts at Dominion who shared some user data with me. Definitions– Connections = click to dealer website, map views, and/or email to the dealer– Additional Engagements =
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Cool article from Tarz Thomas on why motocross has lost some of its shine, and what we can do to return the sport to its former glory. https://www.mx-collaborations.com/post/the-common-discussion-about-the-decline-of-the-popularity-of-motocross #motorcycle #powersports #motocross
Read moreThe second post in my COVID Survival Series focuses on preservation of (and generating additional) capital. Anyone who has been in the industry for more than a few weeks has heard the old adage “Cash is King”. Not many times
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Jared brings up some good points. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-ways-protect-dealerships-post-coronavirus-era-jared-burt/?trackingId=d6QNRfT9T%2FS6vFeCH0NUcA%3D%3D When this is all over and done with, the dealers who survived will be the ones who were willing to make changes. I’m not going to say that business will not return to
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I’ve spent most of the last week working on emergency plans for our own dealership, while also working with a multitude of other dealers on local and regional problems they are dealing with. One of the big questions is what
Read moreA good article from Spader Business Management‘s own Jim McCann on the difference between management and leadership. “Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal,” said McCann. That contrasts with leadership, which is more
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Last week I was talking to a dealer who had a rough go of things during the last 2 years (but now using our Spader Business Management guidelines he has gotten the business turned around and will net over a million $$
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The other day I was at my local Chevy dealer getting my truck serviced. I pay more, but they treat me well. As a student of the industry I was watching their sales staff. Mostly young kids (to me) but
Read moreThe other day I emailed one of my 20 Groups. All of the return emails from one dealer ended up in my spam folder, and that got me to looking for a reason. Turns out this one dealer uses the
Read moreSomeone shared this article about Shift Digital with me and it echos a lot of my concerns about them. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-shift-digital-we-dont-need-you-rico-olinger/?trackingId=O%2B0tjYvTQb2ZCL4adQIVcg%3D%3D Dealers should never– think cookie cutter programs will work for them– give up control of their domains– not own their
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Recently, more and more OEM’s have been promoting certified website programs and data sharing agreements to help with parts and accessory stocking levels. These agreements are technical and written using confusing legal terms but signing up for some of these
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Haven’t read part 1 and part 2, then do that first. Short term bonds mean that they’ll soon need to be redeemed for something new. When that happens, the money will need to be reinvested. As we go into a
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Read Part 1 if you haven’t yet. The stock market is nothing more than a prediction machine. It’s like Vegas but with exponentially more money on the line. People invest in stocks when the future of the economy is looking
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First, you have to understand how bond pricing works, and why the yield on them is inverse to the price. There are many types of bonds, but let’s just focus on a simple 2-year bond issued by the U.S. Government
Read moreIt was a close vote but the Sales Manager checklist came out on top. Here is a link to the crowdsourced document. It’s pretty sparse as I’m getting ready for a 20 Group meeting. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4bIb1ws0KnZsBSmEs95FbVbyB4quZ3A7vSzXvJdoVE/edit Feel free to get started
Read moreInteresting article discussing website sentiment. Everything I’ve been reading for the last year or so points to Google placing more emphasis on natural language patterns of text on websites, while also paying less attention to keyword packing. It’s a fast
Read moreSteve Shankin makes some great points about the powersports industry and the opportunities that exist for dealers who play in the UTV segment. This is not a short video, but it contains a lot of critical data. We’ve been selling Seizmik
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Over the last few months 3 dealers I work with have identified employees who were stealing from the dealership. Some of the mechanisms used to steal were quite unique (I won’t share them as they are easy to replicate) and
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The entire credit card processing system is intentionally opaque. While there are a lot of components, let me simplify how we are charged for the “privilege” of accepting cards. There are 4 primary fees that you pay when accepting credit
Read moreWhat type of person will be the most successful at sales, an introvert or an extrovert? The answer might surprise you. Something to think about when you make your next hire. #Management #Sales #Introverts #Extroverts #Motivation
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I work with over 100 dealers across the country so I see and hear a lot of things. Over the last year, on more than one occasion I’ve had a dealer stand up in front of a 20 Group and
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Twice in a week I’ve been presented contracts that contained Evergreen clauses in them. In one case the contract renewed for one year terms and in the other it renewed for additional 3 year terms. That’s crazy! Years ago we
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Key failures– Focus on shareholder value instead of instead of making decisions that build long term value and brand strength– Separating leadership from engineering and production– Managing the company with people who are not experienced in the industry– Outsourcing production
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After 25 years of doing annual parts inventories I’m always looking for ways to improve the process. After hours of counting, as employees get tired they tend to make mistakes, and I always felt like we made just as many
Read moreRecently I had started a crowdsourced project developing a checklist outlining certain tasks and reports that Parts Managers should be completing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. A few dealers who helped with that project asked me to create a Service Manager
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When most dealers learn how to really measure efficiency and productivity (many think they do, but most don’t), they are normally surprised at how poor they are currently performing. To fix this, the first thing that a GM will say
Read moreMany years ago, in a 20 Group far, far, away, we had a Daily Dozen checklist for each Department Manager. Nothing too complex, but just a reminder of things for the manager to do each day. That list is a
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Dealers are inundated with data. Website analytics, OEM sales reports, internal management reports, TPS reports, 20 Group reports, etc.. Working with dealers across the country, I see managers and staff who spend countless hours gathering data and printing reports that
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Most 20 Groups just compare the current year to the prior year, but over at Spader we spend more time comparing current performance against the dealer’s budget. Why? Because a budget is a plan for success and tracking your dealership’s
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I’ve been shopping powersports, marine and RV dealers for years and providing feedback on the experience. One of my peeves is vehicle listings that don’t show a price. When I bring it up with dealers, I get the same list
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For those who like to go back and analyze whether the decisions we made were right or wrong, it’s important to know that we have a built in bias towards looking for the data that confirms our choices, while ignoring
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I recently listened to a podcast detailing a study that involved Microsoft. They identified a large group of people who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After obtaining permission from those individuals, they analyzed the search history of these people
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At most 20 Group meetings there is usually one dealer who had a bad month and often times they blame it on an internet outage. Almost every major facet of our business happens over the internet. DMS, website, credit card
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The other day I was talking to one of the dealers I work with. Smaller store, single line, but very successful. He’s an extreme enthusiast when it comes to motorcycles, but he also came out of the restaurant industry. In
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OEM’s approach inventory management in different ways, but what is the “right” way? With the wholesale push method, dealers are loaded up with inventory and that creates pressure on the front lines for dealers to sell through it. With a
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The powersports industry has always been a tough business to make money in. It takes dedication, commitment, and a varied skill set to be successful in this industry. When looking at the industry data that Spader collects, I find that
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While this is an auto article, I feel it’s applicable to powersports dealers as well. Many owners seem unsure about the future of our industry, but I’m still long on our prospects. Prior to purchase, a majority of consumers want
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Recently I’ve received lots of questions from dealers asking the best way to determine which brands they should keep and which ones should go. There’s a lot that goes into this question as it’s not only the front-side profitability that
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Not a week goes by where a client doesn’t reach out to me with questions about building pay plans and asking for any sample plans I might have (I don’t have any – just a guide on how to build
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