For many dealerships, times are hard. The leads have slowed down, the obstacles of financing ought to qualify as an Olympic sport and advertising simply doesn’t work like it used to.
And the fact is that several dealers are going under. There’s going to be a lot of victims after this one….your store included.
OR perhaps not.
This present economic ‘crisis’ might actually be your best blessing as a small business owner.
Sounds crazy, but here’s the deal.
Many dealers are going out of business. No doubt. It’s already happening. Your job is to be sure it’s someone else’s business going under… not yours. And there are terribly real ways to do this, if you’re really serious about being among the 20% of dealers who can outlive the storm.
I’m going to give you some cold, hard statistics and methods to assist you in just an instant, however let me begin by saying that if you don’t have the right systems or processes in place, work them out now. If you have character conflicts, deal with them today. If you don’t have a system for staying in touch with past customers and unconverted leads, get one.
If you don’t have a crystal clear answer to the query, “Why should someone select me over different dealers?” figure it out this weekend. If you don’t have a predictable method to get new prospects into the door, at will, now is the time to do something about it. If you have floor plan issues or problems with your lenders, it’s better to sort it out this month than next.
Why?
It all comes back to the eternal 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle.
If you’re not acquainted with the Pareto Principle, this rule dictates that 20% of dealerships naturally get 80% of the business. In other words, the 20% of dealers who will outlive this current economic storm will do so because they make 16 times as much as those in the 80%.
And because of this capability to earn additional capital, when the market will come back (which it always will), they’ll be larger and higher than ever, readily positioned to eat up new shares of the auto market.
Which may mean more dealers go out of business again-but it won’t have an effect on you if you’re among the 20%.
So what can you do to confirm your dealership rapidly and easily ends up among the 20% if you’re already in, or teetering towards the 80% category?