MOTO eMAG: Best Dealership Practices

PART 2 (November 8, 2018):

I'd like to thank you for your overwhelming response to Part 1 of the Best Dealership Practices that's about personalized rental trend that can be a whole new revenue generator for your dealership. As an FYI, I've updated the Part 1 with more info.

The Resiliency of Euro Bikes in the US Market
After the 2008 market meltdown, I was interviewed for a report by BMW global about the effect of that crash on the US motorcycle market. Since only a year later our market was reduced by 50%; from about 1.1m ('07) to 520k units ('09). What I said then is still valid today. The massive shrinkage had little impact on BMW bike sales. BMW in the US has been selling roughly around the 10K units for a very long time. Yes in 2005 and also in 2015 they hit 15K, but they basically maintain a steady volume. And this is true with other Euro brands as well.

Although Harley and the Japanese lost major volume and never regained, Euro brands have enjoyed a rather steady sales here. Is it time to break out the champagne? Certainly! The Euro brands and their dealers should be good for several years, however, the generational shift in the US will eventually hit them too. It's just going to come later and more gradual. This is why it's crucial for premium motorcycle brands and dealers to start embracing the Alternatives To Ownership economy and personalized rentals, as well as discovering new ways to reenergize their dealerships.

How to Reenergize Your Dealership
Many of you who run Euro bike dealerships have been at this for a long time. It's so easy to lose enthusiasm or perhaps just get bogged down by day-to-day activities of running a dealership. However, unlike a car dealership that's in the personal transportation business, you operate in the arena of high-octane enthusiasm, fanatical fan base and blood pumping passion.

Keeping the energy, enthusiasm and activities up at your Euro dealership is a must. The good news is all of that can be delegated if you're smart about your choices.

The 4 Key Rules of Upping the Game at your Dealership
Each one of the below cardinal rules is of equal importance, hence I won't rank them. Your goal should be to match all these points as you setup your action plan. It will not work even if 1 point is not met. Also f you're a GM, Sales or Parts manager you already have your hands full, so don't assume you need to take on yet another major responsibility. The motivation here is to achieve solid results and they do require all these 4 points. Read below for explanation.

Energy: No energy, no game. Energy can be hired. It doesn't really matter if you personally may not feel up to it (due to variety of reasons) but you can certainly find enthusiastic talented people to bring in the needed energy. This can be full or part time or on freelance basis. You want people who are marketing savvy, highly energetic, good with people and know their way around Social Media (especially Instagram). Being a rider is a plus but it's not necessary to help reenergize your dealership. Remember you already have plenty of riders working for you, but this mission requires more than just a rider.

You could also assign this mission to junior members of your team that you feel possess the right stuff to help with dealer/customer activities.

Creativity: Energy without creativity is a waste. If your candidate doesn't have imagination and if they need to be told every step of the way, frankly it's not going to work. You want a self-starter and someone that brings you the ideas and tells you how they're going to execute them--with your blessing of course. So, here creativity and imagination is not just a plus, it's a must have.

Budget: This part is obvious, however, does not need to cost much. There is no set amount for this boost; hence the budget is totally flexible. You do what you can and when you see positive results you could decide then if to expand the plan. I'll explain more in Part 3.

Know Thy Customers: You don't want to throw a vegan event in a town of hunters, ranchers and fishermen. In the same way you shouldn't focus only on sport riders if 90% of your customers are into Adv bikes. Success of this plan depends very directly on your location. Are you in coastal cities or in the Midwest? Are you near canyons and attract a lot of sport riders or most of your customers are into large GT/touring bikes or only into Adventure and Sport Adventure bikes. Perhaps, your shop is in the heart of a major metro area and you attract a lot of hipsters and urban riders who want standard bikes. Are you a single brand or multi? All of that affects how you attack this plan.

Alternatively, you may feel that you have plenty of GS and Multistrada buyers, but not enough sport, cruiser or touring, you could then focus a bit on expanding that particular segment. But chances are, you just want more of the type of customers you attract.

End of Part 2. In the next segment I'll provide key ideas, plus best practices and examples in how to up the game and boost revenue.

PART 3 November 20, 2018 (updated Nov 22, '18):

Thanks for your positive and popular response to the first 2 Parts of my latest segment that's all about the dealers. In Part 1, I covered the new Alternatives To Ownership trend that most premium car brands are jumping on; especially the personalized rental concept that can be handled by dealers. In Part 2, I shared 4 key rules for reenergizing your dealership.

In Part 3, I offer several ideas to turn your shop into rider central and the talk of your region, including a story about a Euro dealer that upped its annual from 50 to over 200 units in just about a year. I'll explain exactly how they did it.

Previously I encouraged you to find or assign someone to be responsible for bringing attention to your dealership and not just by promoting online or running ads, but also by creating reasons for riders to flock to your shop.

Whether you're a brand or a dealer posting pics on your social media is not going to make a real impact on sales. What will though is rider engagement. So the key task for your rider/dealer point person is to keep coming up with ideas to not only attract customers to your dealership but also establish your shop as a destination for Euro riders in your region.

Your Dealership Should Become Rider Central
Below are several proven ideas to transform your dealership into Euro rider central. I'll follow this with a great story about a dealer that used the 4 key rules and upped their game in just a year.

Never Underestimate the Power of Free Food
3 most important ideas for reenergizing, creating a buzz and making your dealership a destination are events, events and events. In the height of the riding season you should have events every week, some weeks 2 or 3. At the very least your dealership should have events on monthly basis. And if you're wondering how can you possibly have so many events, fear not, I'm providing a detailed list below.

The core reason you need a dedicated person to handle your rider community is because they must have time to focus on this task. As a GM, sales, service or parts manager you simply don't have the time to offer the kind of attention that this requires. Also your sales staff should be focused on selling anyway and your tech on service.

Dealership Event Ideas

Open Houses are Not for Spring Any More
Consider quarterly open houses with catered finger food, sliders or BBQ with beverage and entertainment of some type. Please also have a raw veggie plate (the carrot and celery type). A local band or DJ would be great or perhaps one of your staff is in a band or is specially talented--perfect excuse to give them exposure.

Vendors: You'd want to partner with vendors for your open houses (could save on event cost as well). It's boring to just get vendors to display their goods, riders can already see those at your shop. Instead have them offer a free upkeep, discounted service or raffle an item.

Helmet Refresh: Invite a helmet company that's popular in your shop. Have them professionally clean rider helmets of their own brand or perhaps all brands. Also they should have helmet parts and accessories on hand at special rates incase riders want to update their helmet liners, vents or visors.

Leather Fixes: Invite one of your popular leather gear suppliers to offer free service on their brand. If riders' leather gear needs attention such as zipper issues or other minor things it will get fixed right then. Riders will line up for this one.

Local Groups: Invite local Euro bike groups to your open houses and have their president say a few words to the crowd. That would motivate the group to show up even more.

The Enticement of Free Stuff: What follows the power of free food is the enticement of free stuff. Don't just do 1 raffle at the end of the day, instead do 4 through out the day. Keep the top item for the last event but make sure you have enough stuff through out the day to make your guests happy. Even a BMW or Ducati pen or cap would make a terrific 3rd or 4th tier giveaway.

Dry Wash Detailing: Set up innovative quick bike detailing for a fee. On my forums we coined the phrase "dry wash," meaning you use quick detailing spray cleaners to wipe your bike and never water. This works very well for sport bikes. Unless a bike is muddy or very dirty don't need to bother with water.

Visual Safety Inspection: Free visual safety inspection of Euro bikes. Any noticeable leaks? How are the tires? The guest's bike shows 7,500 miles but hasn't had the 6K service? Also offer them a discount if they decide to bring the bike in to service that issue.

Bike Judging: Do an impromptu bike show and judging. Forget technical points; just allow popular votes with simple paper poll. Once this gets traction you may choose to make it more official with a certificate or citation in future events.

SM Sharing: Encourage your guests to share pics of the event on their social media in real time, including video live stream. Depending on your budget you could set up a nice backdrop for Instagram selfies, otherwise pics with dream bikes are cool. You should be live sharing pics and vids too.

Dyno Test: Depending on the size of your events it maybe worthwhile for mobile dyno units to also participate.

The above are some great ideas to keep your open houses rocking and the talk of the riders' community.

More Dealership Event Ideas

Movie nights. I recently listed 13 top biker films. Many of them will make a great choice for your movie night. MOTO's entire archive is on our site at Moto-eMag.com.
Beginner, intermediate and advance riding technique seminars.
Women riders night.
Couples who ride together night.
Riding technique seminars for specific groups such as sport or Adv.
Tech seminars such as suspension or pro detailing.
Adventure stories by long distance or Adv riders.
Urban riding technique seminars. I list my Top 20 points here. You're welcome to use my points just credit MOTO eMAG.
Vendor clinics and more.

How a Dealership Totally Revamped Itself
Like many of you, I started riding bikes and driving cars at the age of 12. I've put about 115,000 very spirited miles on my own bikes and another 25K miles on variety of other bikes such as press, dealership or corporate bikes. Having said that I don't believe that it's about the miles in your ride, but the quality of ride in your miles. About 15 years ago I decided to get involved with premium motorcycles professionally. I was already writing for the MOA magazine at that time, but then I launched a BMW sport bike discussion forum that took off and also began to write for other print mags.

One of my first consulting jobs was as a brand expert, sales, marketing and advertising consultant to BMW of Manhattan Motorcycles. That dealership is part of a much larger BMW and Mini car dealership and is owned by the brand. The motorcycle division was initially not getting much attention due to its smaller footprint and perhaps lack of enthusiasm. They were pulling as low as 20 or 30 units a year. The moto dealership didn't have a GM since all the dept managers would report to the main GM of the entire complex.

Then they brought in a new sales manager who was dynamite. During my short couple of years with them, this very talented sales manager with the help of a competent sales team and my assistance took that dealership from under 50 to over 200 units a year.

The Power of Personality
The key to this sales managers success was he didn't look at people walking into the dealership as customers but friends. Almost all who bought bikes from him and his sales team became friends with him. They would routinely drop by just to say hi or invite him to events.

He followed all 4 rules, specially Know Thy Customers. He knew every one of his customers by name and made them all feel at home. He basically created a sense of an extended family.

Euro bikes are all about passion and high enthusiasm. People don't ride Euro bikes because they're looking for basic transport or just any old bike. It's extremely important that the attitude of staff at Euro dealers convey similar high level of excitement.

A Few Open Houses a Year
During the many open houses we had in the course of a year, the dealership not only had catered food, but live music, plus BBQ and vendors. We had tour companies raffling free trips or Vanson would show up with a special sewing machine and fix all minor issues on their brand's gear on the spot and for free (such as zippers, minor cuts or badges being loose).

Raffled Off a Beemer
One of our marketing & PR tactics that proved extremely successful was to raffle off a brand new BMW F 650 GS. The actual F650 that was to be raffled was taken to many events around the city and put on display with nice large posters explaining the raffle and where to participate.

Mobile Dealership
We also took the dealership on the road. We'd set up a tent with 1, 2 or 3 hot bikes (depending on the venue size) at various events around the city. These could be music, social or sporting events.

Insane Buzz
We had customers coming in from 200 miles away, because they had heard of our reputation for great customer service but more importantly lack of pretension, prejudice and typical snobbery that plagues many Euro vehicle retail outlets.

Within a year's time due to his leadership, his unique zest and a sense of community that we all had created for that dealership, the annual sales shot up to north of 200 units.

Coverage in BMW MOA Magazine
This was such an incredible achievement that I did a write up for the MOA magazine in an article titled "A Factory Dealership is Reborn." I have that article available online. Click here to view (then if viewed on desktop or laptop tap on the image to expand).

Summary
As a Euro dealer you are not in the transportation business, neither are you in basic motorcycle sales. You sell a unique lifestyle that's based on passion, skill set and high levels of enthusiasm. To become a success as a Euro dealer, your shop and all your staff must reflect that sense of excitement. If you do that and if you follow the 4 rules and some of the ideas above sky is the limit.

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