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By Terry Greenhut
In my 25 years of automotive shop
ownership I’ve lived through at least
three recessions or economic downturns
if that’s what you’d like to call them.
They have some factors in common of
which we should all be aware, the
primary one being that eventually they
come to an end. So there’s your silver
lining; knowing that at some point the
economy will normalize itself. The trick
is to still be there to take advantage
of the good times that will no doubt
return.
First a couple of definitions –
Recession – When your
neighbor loses his job.
Depression – When you
lose yours.
Recessions scare people, and when they
are in fear of losing their income or a
sizeable portion of it they cut way back
on their spending. They try not to sign
up for long term commitments like buying
new houses or cars. They try to make do
with what they have and of course,
that’s where we come in.
Most people don’t lose their jobs during
this period, only a small percentage of
them do. After awhile Joe Average
figures out that his job is safe. While
he was worrying and not buying anything
an interesting phenomenon was taking
place. He was paying down a considerable
portion of his debt, mostly credit card.
Now when he begins to once again feel
secure he starts to spend money again as
if he had it. When enough people do that
the recession ends.
That’s the cycle. How does it affect
you?
In the beginning stages, when Joe stops
spending, he really stops. He doesn’t
even want to part with the money to
maintain what he has. So he will only
want to come in to have a specific
problem fixed and that will no doubt be
one that is really bothering him.
This is when you need to turn into
super-salesperson. You have to seize
every opportunity for business from that
customer and as many of his friends,
neighbors and relatives as you can. You
do this by conducting a complete bumper
to bumper and top to bottom inspection
of every vehicle that comes through the
door. Then you not only make the
necessary service recommendations but
you show the customer in black and white
dollars and cents how having you perform
these services will save him money
either in the short or long term.
You can’t be casual about making these
sales. They are important both to the
customer who wants the car to last at
least till the recession ends and to you
who needs to do business today. In other
words, you need to become more
aggressive in closing these sales. That
doesn’t mean that you back people into a
corner or tell them that if they don’t
let you service the car it will break
down on some lonely road at three
o’clock in the morning. It means that
you take the time to explain the down
and the up sides of having the service
performed.
Follow up to that initial inspection is
critical. You can’t make a bunch of
service recommendations, have the
customer say he’ll think about them and
then sit and hope that he’ll take it
upon himself to come in. Part of your
aggressive strategy is to start making
follow up phone calls to offer
appointments to people whose cars you’ve
already diagnosed.
Following up with customers is probably
the most difficult discipline. There may
not be any instant gratification and you
may have to make many calls before
people respond well to you, but it’s
something you have to do. We can’t
afford the luxury of leaving it to
chance.
So if you want to survive this recession
and prosper once it’s over, here’s what
you’ll probably want to do:
Keep advertising, but be careful with
your money. Interview each customer to
find out exactly how they heard about
you. Then adjust your spending to focus
dollars on what works. Try coupons for
loss leaders that will get vehicles up
on your lifts to give you the
opportunity for the full inspections you
want to perform. Now is not so much the
time for institutional advertising. It’s
a time to be specific. Make offers that
will actually bring a response.
Advertise to your existing customers and
accounts. There’s no reason not to send
coupons and make special offers to your
existing customers. Too many shop owners
think they need to extend these specials
only to new customers while they give no
breaks to existing clientele.
Don’t discount repairs. They are your
bread and butter, but do discount
services that will bring in new
customers and bring back existing ones.
Launch an outside sales campaign.
Nothing makes you feel better during
times like these than getting out and
doing something about it. Go knock on
company doors. Every company owns
vehicles and has employees who own
vehicles. If you aren’t fixing them
someone else is. Many times they aren’t
happy with their service provider but
keep using him because they don’t
realize there is another choice. Be the
other choice. Get out and make them
aware that you exist and can help them.
Find out what the competition does for
them and offer to do more, do it better,
and faster.
When the recession ends keep on doing
these things that helped you through it.
Now you can make the profits you really
deserve.
by Terry Greenhut,
Service Sales
Concepts Inc.
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