Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/217512
30 • December 2, 2013 • Powersports Business www.PowersportsBusiness.com SOLUTIONS POINT – COUNTERPOINT Get more traffic, or do more with your current buyers? Editor's note: In a typical edition of Powersports Business, columnists Neil Pascale and Sam Dantzler are displayed on opposite pages, each tackling a different challenge dealerships face in today's trying economy. Each brings his different, unique perspective to these pages, although it's not uncommon for them to trek on similar paths to make their respective points. Yet beneath these similar viewpoints brews a rising (albeit friendly) competition for the sought-after "left hand" spot of the PSB Solutions section. The left-hand column is high-profile territory. It's the Ferrari of automobiles. The Louvre of art museums. And Dantzler, the PSB newcomer columnist, has aspirations to unseat the incumbent, Pascale. The PSB editors' solution? A point-counterpart faceoff featuring the following subject: Should dealers focus their time on drawing more store traffic, or doing more with the traffic they have? PASCALE: First off, let's be "Yes, we need dealership training. But we also need to understand a fundamental truth: You can only go back to the well so many times before it dries up. We're drying up! Our consumer base is aging." Neil Pascale Having stated the obvious, let's get to the subject at hand here: our retail partners' focus, and where it should lie. And we can only answer that question by first asking ourselves a question: Is the volume of interest in what we sell large enough or growing fast enough that we should place "marketing" somewhere in the depths of our to-do lists next to "call your mother-in-law back?" Clearly, we are in no such shape with the industry, which is still enjoyed only by a single-digit percentage of U.S. consumers. honest, shall we? Sam, you don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that left side. You need me on that left side. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of NEIL PASCALE readership that I provide. P30x31-PSB15-Solutions.indd 30 DANTZLER: And yet here in just the last Powersports Business issue, who's on the left? One would think the former editor of the magazine would have a bit more pull. Two can play at that game, Pascale. I'm your Huckleberry. Relative to the question posed, Neil would have you throw cash and payroll at many facets that drive business to your store. My first question is, "Have you earned the right?" Are you maximizing what's going on inside the four walls to justify driving in more footfall? PASCALE: But Sam, there's just not much traffic within those four walls today. How could there be? When the forever-infamous year of 2009 finally concluded, our industry had taken a huge black eye in terms of new unit sales. Sales shrunk by approxi- mately 50 percent, and even more so in more categories. So how did we react? We shrank marketing budgets. Big time! And where did the remnants of that marketing budget go? To our already-established customer base. Dealers en masse decided they were going to spend money on events and promotions for their current customers. You spend money on us, we'll spend money on you. That was our logic, and it wasn't a bad one. At least for the short term. But it's almost five years later. Five years! Our customer base isn't getting any younger. Their hairline is receding almost as fast as yours, Sam … DANTZLER: If I hear again about "how there's not enough traffic as there used to be," I may vomit. The national average for number of door swings to traffic logs is 6 percent. That means 6 percent of the people coming in the door ever are given a chance to buy a motorcycle. Yeah, that's the answer … bring more people to the store. That way, 94 percent of them can be given the same, crappy experience and not asked to buy. Sounds like some Minnesota logic there, Neil. PASCALE: No, no, Sam. SAM DANTZLER See, Minnesota logic works the opposite way. Minnesota 11/25/13 11:38 AM ww log me tio toe hu and in we nig an up bil bad tha wh Plu of o wit the ma pro DA yo rea did on GI an ar CA a fr cu Le Mi rea An fol the In po