Learn From Other Businesses
by Vance Breese
Looking Outside The Motorcycle Industry??
Fortunately most customers aren’t like me. I’m cheap, I know what I want, and what I want is weird. The shops I liked the best were the ones who had all the parts that nobody wanted except me. I didn’t need knowledgeable sales people, and I didn’t care if the place was clean or well-organized. I liked the shops that would let me look through the parts books and wander around in their parts departments. I was always looking for the racer discount.
Supermarkets know how to face the shelves so that it looks like they have more inventory, and why the milk is always at the back of the store
Suddenly, without proper training or a true evaluation of what I was letting myself in for, I found myself the owner of a Harley-Davidson agency in a small town where I didn’t understand the culture of the locals. I knew that to make a living I needed to increase sales by at least 20 percent. Harley-Davidson spent a couple of days trying to teach me how to run a store, but this was 1987, and its approach seemed aimed at spending all of my money on parts. I didn’t have the money to make that work.
I didn’t have time to go to school to learn to be a motorcycle dealer because I needed to know what to do now.
Whom To Ask?
The first people I asked were my customers. They did a lot of different things for a living, and they had to be good or they couldn’t afford such expensive toys. They also understood the local culture in a way that I still don’t.
The first person to help me was the manager of a grocery store. You think we have short margins? You should see what they’re working with. They have elevated self-serve to an amazing level. The grocer taught me how to face the shelves so that it looks like you have more inventory, and he explained why the milk is always at the back of the store.
Then there was the auto-parts store owner across the street. He had to service so many different types of automobiles that his inventory had to work. His parts people had to know their stuff and push a lot of parts across the counter. My own experience with foreign auto parts helped me understand what he was trying to tell me about inventory control.
In my opinion, women know more about shopping than men. It’s an avocation for them, and they know what they like and don’t like. They helped me with the apparel ordering and the merchandising of the store. At first I was afraid to ask because I thought I would be imposing. I discovered that many women have a desire to create the ultimate shopping experience. Each woman is a wealth of knowledge and seems to know how it should be done. They took me to Nordstrom’s where I learned the meaning of true customer service.
Auto parts have to service so many different types of automobiles that their inventory has to work. The parts people have to know their stuff and push a lot of parts across the counter (Photo courtesy of Reinertsen Motors Inc.)
Service is something that continued to puzzle me throughout my retail motorcycle experience. Why do we have mechanics trying to sell service? How much do I charge an hour for my shop rate? What do I charge for? How much help do I have in the service department? I found the answers and more at the local automobile dealers. They seemed willing to share what they had learned. A word of caution here: I feel that doing things the automobile dealer way won’t work in many areas of our business. We have to build a relationship with the customer and teach him how to enjoy his toy. Nobody needs a motorcycle, so it’s our job to keep him interested. This is a concept that is lost on most automobile dealers. On the other hand, the people at some of the enthusiast automobile dealerships can teach us a lot about customer follow-up.
Then there are the other motorcycle shops. This is a tough business and to stay in it they have to be good at something. When I would go on cross-country trips, I’d stop in at every motorcycle shop I could find and try to learn from each one. When I returned, I’d try to evaluate my shop in the same way.
Sometimes I would learn what not to do. For instance, I learned to keep angry service customers from the new bike customers by watching what happened at a shop in Nevada during a big rally. A new bike sale was well on its way to closing and several angry service customers were talking loudly in the showroom about all the trouble they were having with an aftermarket chopper — but they were calling it a Harley. The potential customer got into his BMW and drove off into the sunset. Then two other people in the showroom asked about the reliability of the new Harleys. It was an awkward moment that could have been avoided by having the service customers in the service department instead of the showroom.
Anytime there’s a rally, there are problems with batteries and charging systems because there are people there who only ride their motorcycles at rallies and don’t ride them often enough to keep the ?battery charged.
Marketing, Promotions, And Advertising
Everywhere I look there are signs. Which signs work, and which ones do I forget and why? This was all a new world for me, and another new learning experience.
?Advertising brought up the same questions. I could never tell if advertising worked. I could see that the people who advertised had more business. In my heart, I felt that they advertised because they could afford it, and it didn’t really help. In my head I knew I needed to advertise. I always wanted to quantify how it worked. This is silly. I know that if I didn’t advertise that the business wouldn’t work as well. A local radio station had classes on advertising. They were aimed at selling radio time. There was still a lot to be learned there.
The local dirt track gave me a lot of ideas about how to promote events. The track management has an active e-mail list that they must keep pared down to work. This is computer stuff, but it has made me a lot of money. They understood what it cost to fill a seat.
And then there are the trade publications. I learned a lot from this source, and I still try to read them all. Knowledge is power and no knowledge ?is wasted.
We are all challenged by the same things, and I learned that solutions that work for others are likely to work for me.
I don’t have the money to have every part anyone could want, and I don’t have money to throw away on advertising that doesn’t work. I don’t have a desire to build a monument store. I just want to be in the motorcycle business and have fun. Learning from others is one way I have found to do that.
Tags: Counterman Pro, marketing, motorcycle inventory software, motorcycle shop rate, New Business idea, Point of Sale Software, PowerSports Dealer