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| Past and Current Articles |
 3 keys to profitable parts management In recent articles, I have focused on changing various elements of a dealership to help them maximize profit during the busy season. In this article, I will shift my attention to the parts department. |
 Cultivate your business through rental sales As the OPE industry continues to evolve, I am seeing more and more dealers who are looking at adding a rental department to their business model. It makes great sense for most dealers because.. |
 Strive for obscene profits If you have attended any of my workshops, you know that I always try to impress upon the dealers in attendance that the goal is to make obscene amounts of money. |
 5 tips for surviving a sluggish economy When business is slow, we must become more creative in finding ways to improve our profitability. As owners, we all know that our existing customers are the best source of future growth. |
 9 ways to get the biggest bang for your advertising buck Let’s take a look at nine simple ways to hold down your marketing and advertising costs while maximizing your profits. |
 Budgeting strategies for breeding success Creating a budget for your dealership doesn't have to be complicated or time consuming. In reality, it's best to keep things simple. |
 Prime the marketing pump to continue cash flow As a dealer, you have to take a small amount of the money that you are hanging onto for dear life and invest it in priming your business for the upcoming season. |
 Improve your shop efficiency, increase your profits with GIE+EXPO 2009's new High-Performance Service DepartmentIn most OPE dealerships, certificates and awards line the walls as a testament to the time and money they have invested to make sure their customers are having their equipment serviced by technicians who are well trained by manufacturers to provide the best and most efficient service possible. |
 Transition Time: Start strategizing now for a successful switch to the slow seasonAs the season begins to wind down, it’s a great time to reflect on the year -- its ups and downs, as well as the good and bad relationships with your customers, vendors and employees -- and to start brainstorming about how you want to position your dealership for next year. |
 Balancing your business and your life With the season coming to its peak, many of you are discovering that you can finally find a little time to catch your breath and actually have lunch without being interrupted. It is a great time for you, as an owner, to spend a little time reflecting on your dealership and the impact it is having on your personal life. |
 Sizzling strategies to ignite retail sales With a lot of season still in front of you and the flow of business becoming routine, now is a great time to take a few hours and do some tweaking on the retail aspect of your dealership. |
 Take your shop to the next level As you know, your shop can go from having no business to completely swamped in 24 hours. Even though most of you are in the heat of the service battle, I want to encourage you, as I do all of my dealers, to take time to tune up your shop and maximize profits while business is red hot. |
 Taking the difficulty out of dealing with difficult customers Let’s face the facts: If you have been in business as long as I have, you will find that “difficult customers” fall into three categories: Psychos, Scammers, and Keepers. |
 Reducing waste to increase profitsWhen we first talk to dealers about reducing “waste,” they often think of “waste” being limited to “trash”. While all “trash” in a dealership can be considered “waste,” not all “waste” in a dealership is “trash.” |
 Right way to hire the right peopleWith the spring season just around the corner, many of you have positions that need to be filled within the next 30 days to prepare for the onslaught of business in your dealerships. This is a critical time for many of you because hiring the right people is arguably your biggest, most challenging decision. |
 Get back to basics to get ahead As we begin setting our sights toward the 2009 season, many of us as business owners enter it with nervous hope. With the economy struggling and consumers uncertain about the future, the 2009 season will be a roller coaster at best. As business owners, we should be asking ourselves, “Are we prepared for what is going to happen whether it is good or bad?” |
 Keep your shop busy, service techs employed by offering preseason specials Unless you are located in the snowbelt and fortunate enough to have gotten that first heavy snowfall that guarantees good snow thrower sales, most of the money you generate from now until next season will have to come out of your service department and preseason work. |
 Postseason analysis key to preseason planning and prosperity Now is the time of year that every dealer should invest a few hours evaluating their numbers for the 2008 season. By starting now, this will give your accountant time to estimate what your tax liability might be for the year and allow you to make good year-end financial decisions. |
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During the past 15 years, my team of dealer advisors and I have visited hundreds of service departments, ranging from outdoor power to Ag, power sports and boating. Each has been very different in size, location, number of techs, customer mix and products serviced. A few of those dealers had shops that were somewhat profitable, covering the base overhead and tech expense and pocketing a little after taxes. But most of those dealers were at best breaking even or at worst bleeding thousands of dollars a year. |
 Marketing Made Simple to Capture Commercial Business As an OPE dealer, you are always looking for the best way to continue to grow your business. To do this, you can attract any one, or a combination, of three basic types of customers: consumer, commercial and municipal. All three are very different in what they are looking for in an OPE dealer, and each has to be wooed to your dealership in a very unique way. In this article, I will focus specifically on the one that has the potential to do the largest amount of business with you, year after year: the commercial customer. |
 7 Keys to Flexing Your Merchandising Muscle While recently at an airport en route to working with one of our dealers, I heard an announcement that my flight was delayed. Being an avid reader and with some newly found time to burn, I headed to the airport bookstore to see what I could find. As I entered the store, there was a display with about a dozen books staring me in the face, when I noticed one that seemed to jump out at me. Its cover caught my attention and made me want to pick it up. |
 Dare to Diversify: Expanding Product and Service Mix Can Drive Additional Income Utility vehicles, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), quad runners, go-karts, motorcycles, barbeque grills, bird feeders, pecans, portable storage sheds, portable signs, trailers, golf carts, model airplanes, rental equipment and bicycles. This is a list of a few of the many products, in addition to outdoor power lines, that dealers across North America sell to generate extra income both in and out of season. |
 Selling Season is in High Gear: Seize Every Opportunity to Succeed “Your price is too high.” “That’s more than I can afford.” “I’ve never heard of that brand.” “How much will you give me for my old mower?” If you are hearing such things from the prospects that are either walking into your dealerships or calling you on the phone, you are knee-deep into the selling season. |
 5 Key Pieces to Solving the Service Profitability Puzzle If you surveyed 100 outdoor power equipment dealers and asked them, “What is your biggest headache?” 90 percent would respond by saying their service department. If you then asked them, “Why is it your biggest headache?” they would give you a wide variety of responses, but, in most cases, they would have to do with the following two reasons: lack of control and low level of profit. |
If you are like most outdoor power equipment dealers, marketing is like playing darts blindfolded. You close your eyes and let the dart fly, hoping you hit that all-important bull's eye that will bring customers flooding into your store. |
 Turn “Smart” irrigation into $mart moneyAs an irrigation contractor, you are right in the middle of a battle. If you are willing to take a little time out of your busy season to think about how you can leverage this great opportunity for the future of your business, then your margins will go up and your profits will soar! |
This year you will see, hear or read more than half a million advertising messages. All the tumult and excitement and yelling tries to capture your attention as each product screams out “Buy me!” This presents a problem for all of us who are selling, advertising and promoting. How do we get the customer to listen and hear us over the noise of the others? |
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a common phase heard in the business world. Yet anyone who has flown in an airplane is glad that engineers broke the Wright Brothers model for airplanes. |
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A profitable service department starts with a shop that is clean, organized with good flow. As a part of the service package, BCI partners with your dealership to make sure that all the right elements are in place to move your service department to a new level of profitability. |
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Call BCI for more information 1-800-480-0737 Bob Clements International, Inc. 6136 North Elmwood Kansas City, MO 64119 |