Business

Here’s where a lot of shops get into trouble. They’ll tell themselves that their businesses are doing well, and all they want to do is “fine-tune” their operations rather than grow.

When your service advisors recommend additional services that are outside of the customer’s original concern, and the customer initially declines those additional services, in most cases, your advisors should call the customer back at the appropriate time to re-offer the services.

We all know that people love choices, especially when they are making a purchasing decision. But when selling diagnostic services, you need to use an “assumptive close.” This means you just assume that the customer is going to authorize your recommendation.

For decades, shop owners have had the luxury of being able to rely on a short list of traditional media to bring in new customers. They’ve primarily utilized directory ads, print media, radio and TV, and, to some extent, local grassroots marketing programs.

We know that women are the majority purchasers of all automotive items in North America today, so if you’re looking to step up your sales figures, you’re going to need to reach women. And in doing so, you’ll gain favor with all customers.

What is mobile marketing and why do you need to know about it? That’s a question I have been asked a lot lately. In this column, I want to give you an introduction to the world of mobile marketing.

Owners of closely held businesses, including family owned and other small businesses, can now pass assets to heirs with minimal taxation thanks to a recent tax court ruling (Wandry v. Commissioner, U.S. Tax Court, March 26, 2012).

Although most shops have sales goals, very few have car count goals. In all of our service advisor training courses, one of the things we teach the advisors is to establish daily car count goals that are based on sales goals.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to interview Hal Janke. He is recognized by the top business brokers in America as an auto industry expert, he has owned and operated auto repair businesses, he has spoken at many conventions, and in selling over two hundred shops; he has sold more auto repair facilities than any other broker in the country.

As with any compensation program, the first thing you’ll need to do is conclude what you want to accomplish with any change in employee behavior. Where most shop owners get into trouble is they’ll immediately say they want to see higher sales when it comes to their service advisors. So they’ll put their advisors on a commission program that’s based on sales, and as you can imagine, their sales typically go up. Unfortunately, so do their expenses and customer complaints.

Ever wonder why a customer does not see the value in what you are recommending and declines the service or repair? Our sales approach, at times, assumes that the customer fully understands the reason for or benefits of a particular service or repair, when in reality, they may have no idea what we are speaking about.

A customer calls to tell you they discovered that they could have bought a part you sold them for less somewhere else. You can reduce those calls by doing a great car delivery that includes going over the repair order in detail, but when that call inevitably comes in, consider saying something like this …