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Ask Tory: Everyone is saying the economy is booming, but I’m not feeling that in my dealership… what should I do?

Tory Hornsby | 04/02/2018

 

 Whether you like President Trump or not, there is no arguing that the economy is booming. Unemployment rates are the lowest they’ve been in a decade, which, on a side note, has also led to food stamp assistance being at a 10 year low a well. Things are looking good and you can grab your portion of this good economy, but you gotta work for it. 

 

There are 2 types of dealers:

 

1. Market-Driven Dealers – Their success is strictly dependent upon the market, good weather, hot OEMs and a good economy.

 

2. Marketing-Driven Dealers – They create their own success through marketing to their buying base every single month (I’ll explain in more detail later).

 

Obviously, there’s no denying that a great economy, good weather and a hot OEM make a difference. The best combination, however, is to be a Marketing-Driven Dealer while the market’s hot. I’ll focus this article on how to implement a System for Predictable Growth and become a Marketing-Driven Dealer. 

 

It all starts with your buying base. These are the folks who live close to your dealership and fall into 3 buckets:

 

1. Active Customers – Customers who’ve done business with you within the last 12-months. 

 

2. Inactive Customers – Past customers who haven’t done business with you in the last 12-months.

 

3. Conquest Prospects – Riders in your market area who buy what you sell, but not from you. 

 

95+% of your sales across all departments over the next 12-months will come from these 3 groups. Less than 5% will be riders who move into your area, or first-time riders. 

 

I understand the need for brand new riders, and that’s what most of the OEMs are focused on right now. Your culture needs to celebrate new riders and make it easy for them to buy, but you can’t spend a disproportionate amount of your limited time and budget going after where less than 5% of your sales will come from. Leave that to the OEMs; there’s a much better way. 

 

Our Sharp Shooter program scientifically goes after the 95+% (Active Customers, Inactive Customers and Conquest Prospects) and gives them a reason to provide their name, email address, phone number and tell you what they’re most interested in purchasing right now. We send you this information in a spreadsheet on every campaign. This alone creates a positive ROI, but it gets even better. We also give your buying base a reason to visit your dealership... a fun event/party with your choice of food, drinks, door prizes, demo rides & more.   

 

The Sharp Shooter program’s success in creating leads (in both the lead list and traffic coming in to the store) is through a proven marketing system that targets the right people, reaching them with the best media, utilizing a specific message with perfect timing. Mess with any one of these components even a little and the campaign fails. 

 

Important Note: The Sharp Shooter program is not designed for a one-off event. While it will drive in lots of traffic and create a list of leads for you, that’s not its true purpose. This is where the Predictable Growth System I mentioned earlier comes in. Implementing a Sharp Shooter every single month will predictably grow:

 

• The number of Active Customers year-over-year. If more customers do business with you in 2018 than did in 2017, you’ve grown the dealership.

 

• The average value of each customer year-over-year. 

For easy math, let’s take a look at a $5,000,000 store with 2,000 Active Customers who have an average value of $2,500. 

 

With 10% growth in Active Customers (2,200) and their average value ($2,750), this same store does $6,050,000. That’s 21% growth, or over $1 million dollars.

 

The Sharp Shooter program is specifically designed to increase those 2 metrics, and nothing does a better job if you do it every month.

 

For more information call 1-877-242-4472 or visit

 www.powersportsmarketing.com/sharp-shooter

 

- Tory