October 19, 2011
The keys to up-selling
Are you leaving profits on the table?
By: Doug Trenary
Incorporating SalesMind principles in your dealership will allow you to take advantage of opportunities to increase tire and service sales.
What an amazing month it’s been! I have been out in the field with a whole array of independent tire dealers looking at their businesses, meeting and training their store staffs, calling on customers (wholesale to retail), visiting commercial and truck shops while talking to real technicians about their challenges and opportunities, and having executive meetings with leadership teams. It would take the whole magazine for me to share with you, the owner or manager, the wealth of experiences I’ve taken away from these trips.
So let’s shift a gear and do this in pieces. I believe that if we have a format to walk through a problem, focus on a solution to it, and then ground that solution in proven ‘SalesMind’ principles, you can take away nuggets that will immediately help your dealer team sell more, generate more productivity, and lead at a higher level. Here’s the approach for the column for the foreseeable future:
• In each article, I will take one specific problem/challenge (I’m going to call it a “challenge”), which may occur in any part of the channel (retail, wholesale, commercial, supplier) and define what I’m seeing and gleaning from real tire and service professionals in the field.
• We’ll then grind out some common sense, applicable solutions to those challenges.
• For each solution, I’ll offer some SalesMinded principles that you and your team can rely on to attack these similar circumstances so that the solution can apply to any part of your business. Here we go.
Challenge: Missing huge opportunities to up-sell tires and additional products and services.
I can’t believe how many retail tire and service dealers are leaving money on the table when they have control of a vehicle in the bay. The dealer is busy, customers are waiting, the phone is ringing, and the service techs want to move the vehicles in and out. In doing so, the needed brake job or set of tires is missed because the customer only came in for an oil change. Oil changed, out the door, money left on the table.
Solution: Creating and using a maintenance checklist for every vehicle.
Sit down with your tech team and develop a 21-point inspection list for every vehicle that comes in the door. Make it mandatory to complete and have the specific tech initial its completion for tracking.
Slow down a little. Your techs will find things; worn tires, bad shocks, misalignments, worn brake pads — money on the table.
Now, every customer has been hustled by oversells. They come in to spend $75, and now they are faced with spending $700. The best way I saw a dealer handle this was to list and present the needed repairs in order of priority (safety, security, urgency).
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