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FOCUS PSB Power 50 www.PowersportsBusiness.com Powersports Business • March 17, 2014 • 17 MVP's one-time purchase of $89.95 has rewards at St. Paul Harley-Davidson BY DAVE McMAHON EDITOR IN CHIEF As the founding dealership of the Motorcycle Value Program (MVP), St. Paul Harley-David- son takes a keen approach to ensuring that its customers receive the best motorcycling expe- rience possible. And that's only the start. General manager Kurt Harder developed the program after discovering in 2000 that there were no similar offerings available to dealerships. So he and his team at St. Paul H-D collaborated on the program, and launched MVP at the dealership in August 2001. In 2004, it began to franchise the loyalty and business solution concept to select dealer- ships in the U.S. Now with 22 locations, more than 100,000 MVP members globally enjoy the benefits of MVP, including more than 18,000 that are members of St. Paul MVP and Wild Prairie MVP, its sister store located in Eden Prairie, Minn. Harder continues to oversee and manage MVP, Inc., where he selects franchisees and provides initial training at MVP stores. At St. Paul Harley, which has a 54,000 square-foot operation alongside Interstate 94, sales are dramatic. In fact, the store ranked first among Harley dealers in its district in new motorcycle sales, and last year it received Power 50 honors from Powersports Business. MVP, however, gives St. Paul Harley the edge it had sought since owner Tom Giannetti bought the store in 1999. "When Tom became the owner he quickly realized that he had a HOG chapter that was growing by leaps and bounds and had over 2,000 members," Harder told Powersports Business. "He also realized a lot of the members were simply members because the dealership had offered them a 10 percent discount on in- stock parts, accessories and general merchan- dise. But that doesn't necessarily truly bring you loyalty." In addition to keeping its existing custom- ers, the staff wanted to find ways to attract new buyers. "We talked about all kinds of different ways to create loyalty. We decided that it was such an important endeavor that we not only create loyalty, but most importantly, differentiate our- selves from every other dealer in our market," Harder said. "When you think about what we do, we get all of our products from all the same places at all the same prices. We buy the motor- cycles from the Motor Company. All dealers buy from the same places. It's not like any of us truly have a wholesale pricing advantage. OK, now what it boils down to is: The consumer just needs to make the decision on which deal- ership to spend their hard-earned cash. And they're going to make that the decision based on the value that they feel they're getting for their hard-earned dollars. If all dealers are the same, they're singing the same tune and doing nothing really differently from each other and the consumer thinks 'I'm going to get the same mediocre experience at all these dealerships, so whoever is the cheapest price, I'm in.' A com- pany can't thrive for years and years and years with that philosophy. But they can thrive if they treat the customer with dignity and respect, and differentiate themselves from all the rest of those dealerships. So we combined the dif- ferentiation of the experience at St. Paul Harley into a loyalty program where we truly reward our customer for enjoying the sport of motor- cycling. Because we honestly believed when we Customer loyalty a game-changer 16 • March 17, 2014 • Powersports Business www.PowersportsBusiness.com This issue: Power 50 Next issue: V-twin See MVP, Page 19 St. Paul Harley-Davidson now has Motorcycle Value Program (MVP) franchisees at 20 different locations. P16x25-PSB4-Focus.indd 17 3/5/14 11:43 AM