07/29/2015
Your Business Grows As Your Customers Grow
Auto Biz Solutions recently spoke at the Automotive Distribution Network's national convention. We designed a seminar aimed at the service centers in attendance. The objective was for the installers to be able to take home concepts that they could implement quickly to grow their business.
Below is an article in the Network’s national magazine – from the comments in the article – mission accomplished.
We have an all day class for your installer customers that include many solutions and growth ideas that will expand their sales, and in turn, your sales.
Think about hosting a seminar like this that brings in the owners and service writers. It gives you the opportunity to discuss with your customer opportunities to grow together.
Contact us today to discuss putting on a service center based seminar aimed at expanding sales.
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Where Will Tomorrow’s Sales Come From?
Allen Markowitz advises service dealers at Network National Convention to focus on inspections to generate more work per vehicle
When Allen Markowitz started his career in the automotive aftermarket in 1968, he sold condensers, distributors and wheel cylinders. But as he explained during his seminar “Where Will Tomorrow’s Sales Come From?” at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, today’s parts quickly become passé.
“Back in the ’60s, nobody had this vision of what the automotive industry was going to look like today,” says Markowitz, a former principle owner of Markauto Parts, an ex-Parts Plus member based in Haverstraw, N.Y. “If you think back to the things I used to sell in the yesteryear of my career, you can easily see how much things have changed. Now think about the next 10 years and the amount of change that’s coming with technology continuing to develop at such a fast rate. Honestly, none of us have any idea what we’ll be selling in a decade...so where will tomorrow’s sales come from?”
Markowitz advised the service dealers in attendance to take the time to thoroughly inspect each vehicle that comes through their bays to maximize the amount of work per car. The key is selling more repairs per vehicle and reducing the number of cars that technicians work on during a day.
“The industry average of hours per repair order is 1.5 to 2 hours. So a brake job comes in, we get our two hours labor, and the customer pays his $300 or $400 and walks out the door. Now given this scenario, your technician has got to work on four, maybe five cars to get eight hours of work out of him. Wouldn’t it be better if you could get your tech to work on only three cars if you could get him the same amount of hours on the car?”
A former partner in his own service dealership, Markowitz acknowledges the challenges of properly inspecting each vehicle when shops have cars lined up in the parking lot. But he also warns against getting too busy with running your business that you fail to see the big picture: selling and maximizing each repair order.
“Let’s say a car comes in for an oil change, but your shop is full. So we either ask the customer to come back tomorrow or we squeeze the car into our schedule that day and perform the oil change without performing
a complete inspection. Either way, we’re not selling that customer anything.
“I don’t care how busy you get, never stop selling–never. You’ve got to be students at maximizing repair orders. Most of you
Salesman of Tomorrow: Allen Markowitz explains how service dealers can start planning today for future success.
likely have a full-blown inspection area with a check sheet. But maybe only half of you actually check every single car. That’s the problem. Maintenance service is a big part of your future–that’s where you’re gonna make your money.”
To illustrate how much repair work is being left on the table, Markowitz pointed to a recent survey from the Car Care Council regarding 100 properly inspected vehicles:
• 38 had low or dirty engine oil • 54 had low tire pressure
• 28 had inadequate cooling
• 19 needed new belts
• 16 had a dirty air filter
• 10 had contaminated brake fluid • 15 needed new wiper blades
While Fernando Benham of Michigan- based Sparta Tire Service has a designated area for inspections, the day-to-day grind prevents him inspecting every car.
“There’s not question we’re leaving dollars out there, but it’s very difficult to do,” he says. We get caught up in the ‘hurry up and get it done’ attitude. Allen’s right–we need to hire a service writer to make sure we schedule better and allow time for these inspections and also charge properly for the diagnostic time.”
The benefits of proper inspections are twofold, Markowitz explains. Not only will shops make more money, but they’ll also enhance customers’ peace of mind and ensure their vehicle doesn’t run into any problems after leaving the shop.
The car dealerships already see the value of selling maintenance and they
are aggressively going after it, according
to Markowitz. He shared a story what happened when the initial two-year/25,000- mile service warranty expired on his Toyota.
“Toyota gave me two free oil changes and two tire changes over those 24 months. When those 25,000 were up, they said, ‘Mr. Markowitz, let me show what we can do for you for the next 25,000 miles: another two years of maintenance and it’s only $269 if you prepay today.’ Whoa–the dealerships are so much better at this than they were 20 years ago.
“So we have to start understanding hours per repair order and do a better job of selling and charging for diagnostic time, and inspecting every vehicle so we can sell more repairs. Those are the keys to tomorrow’s sales.”
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Contact us today to find out how to host a Seminar that will
grow your business.
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