25 Hot Dealership Ideas for the Cool Holiday Season

1. Come up with a “Countdown to Christmas” – Sale of the Day
2. Create a Men’s shopping night with free gift wrapping. (This would make me buy instantly)
3. Women’s shopping night with free child care
4. Children’s Open House/shopping night to help them shop for their parents with free gift wrapping
5. Have a table by the register “Great gifts under $20” with items pre-wrapped. Tell them what’s in it or make it a surprise
6. Use a holiday gift registry – give customers who register a small gift, and your business cards for them to hand out to their friends
7. Have gift ideas organized and displayed by price range $25, $50 and $100. Enables quick shopping
8. Free photos with Santa and a Harley (alright or Santa’s helpers)
9. Have a contest to see which customer looks the most like Santa
10. Send out weekly e-mail coupons during the month of December
11. Have “present surprise” sales on Saturdays – don’t tell anyone outside the dealership in advance to drive up floor traffic.  Each area has one category on sale
12. Have a Polar Bear ride – double the temperature that day and have customers ride that many miles ending at the dealership for a cup of hot chocolate. (In Wisconsin dealers in December this will be around the block)
13. Have a weekly rack of holiday specials – change it up every week on the slowest day of the week
14. Holiday movie night – show fun holiday classics on the wall of the dealership (No. Easy Rider is not a Christmas classic)
15. Develop “the 12 days of Christmas specials” highlight a different item every day.
16. Christmas Toy Run for your favorite local charity or hospital.
17. Hire a seamstress to work in the dealership on Saturdays to sew on new patches for customers
18. Let Santa Show You - have each department demo a gift item
19. Make sure the local hotel concierge has your dealership’s brochures for out of town guests who need to shop
20. Put a Santa Hat on your customers and snap a “Santa Snapshot” of a customer on a bike or in a jacket that they are thinking about buying, e-mail it to them
21. Write hand written holiday thank you notes to customers with big purchases (This will set you apart from the crowd.)
22. Rent a mall kiosk for the holiday shopping season
23. Host an after-hours shopping event/gathering for your employees and their friends/relatives. (We’re our own best customers!)
24. Have a “make me an offer” table to get rid of odds and ends
25. Be Like Mike … Schwartz of Mike’s Famous: Stimulate traffic and bike sales with timed gift cards with different dollar amount for motorcycle purchases. E.g. Buy between 8-10:00 a.m. Get a $500 Gift Card, 10 – 12:00 $250 and so on.

If you were to implement just a few of these ideas think about the additional sales you could earn! Without action however, these are just good ideas.

Do something!

If you are it could be worth big bucks!

Peak Dealership Performance^® and Motorcycle Product News Magazine want to reward your sales and customer service excellence … with CASH! … And yes ego enhancing publicity!

Participate in this contest and you might be a big winner!

• First prize: $500
• Next five runners up: $100 each
• Winners will be featured in Motorcycle Product News Magazine!
• Contest starts December 12, 2007.
• The contest ends on January 25, 2008.
• Winners will be announced 11:00 a.m. CST February 8, 2008  at  www.PeakDealershipPerformance.com
• All dealership store personnel are eligible.
• Must have dealership owner’s permission to participate.

Here’s a quick overview:

• Participants will submit 500 words (approximately) describing a sales or customer service situation they feel would categorize them as a Dealership Superstar™.
• Have you ever used an interesting approach to garner a sale?
• Have you ever gone to extraordinary measures to take care of a customer?
• Have you ever had an extraordinary sales day?
• That’s what we are looking for in this Dealership Superstar™ Contest.
• So write it up and send it in!
• In addition to the 500 word submission participants will also include a close up, in-store photo of themselves.
• E-mail entries to Mark@PeakDealershipPerformance.com
• Entries will be judged on the following, admittedly subjective, criteria.
• Demonstrates exceptional integrity.
• Demonstrates exceptional innovation and creativity.
• Shows extraordinary effort on behalf of sales and/or customer service professional.
• Efforts produced a positive business result.

Participation is simple. Think of your greatest sales or customer service moment, click on the link below, follow the guides and submit your entry.

It’s that easy and you may just win $500 in cash!

Abbreviated Rules:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.  The “Are You a Dealership Superstar™?” Contest is open to individuals who are legal residents of the United States or Canada (except in the province of Quebec), age 18 or older as of 12/12/07.  Contest begins on 12/12/07 and ends on 1/25/08.  To view the complete Official Rules which govern the Contest, visit www.PeakDealershipPerformance.com.  Void where prohibited. Sponsor: Peak Performance Business Group, 2090 S. Cherrywood Court, New Berlin, WI  53151

Click Here for the Dealership Superstar Contest

Our nephew Jack is a teenager now and starting to think about getting a part time job. I’m trying to talk him out of it. Not because I don’t believe in hard work or dedication or learning the value of a dollar but because you’re only a kid once. So we started ‘running the numbers’ and I did some quick mental calculations.

“Well,” the perfect beginning to any profound avuncular advice, “If minimum wage is $5.85 an hour and if we round that up to 6 bucks to make the math easy, with 4 hours worth of work you would only earn about $24.00 before taxes.

Take out taxes and you’re talking a take home check of about 18 bucks or so. And man, you could be learning a new song on your guitar or reading a book or going fishing with your dad. That would be way better at this point than getting a job that pays minimum wage.”

We drove along in silence as he considered my comments.

“Uncle Mark,” He asked innocently, “What’s maximum wage?"

“Great question,” I winked. “I’ll let you know when I find out.”

Attorney General Marc Dann filed a settlement agreement with Ackers, Inc., a Lancaster, Ohio based company that does business as ASK Powersports. The settlement resolved all outstanding consumer complaints on file with the Attorney General’s Office and opened the door for others that may have been subject to bad business practices by ASK.

In May of 2006 the Attorney General’s office sued motorcycle and ATV dealer ASK Powersports for routinely slipping “freight” and “dealer” charges – sometimes totaling more than $600 – into sales contracts with its customers, in violation of Ohio consumer protection laws.

The lawsuit was filed against the dealer, accusing it of numerous violations of the state’s Consumer Sales Practices Act and Ohio’s Advertisement and Sale of Motor Vehicles Rule. Per the Advertisement and Sale of Motor Vehicles Rule, a motor vehicle dealer may not "advertise any price for a motor vehicle unless such price includes all costs to the consumer except tax, title and registration fees, and a documentary service charge.” ASK was advertising motorcycles and ATVs for sale at specific prices and then failing to make those vehicles available at the advertised prices due to the addition of freight, assembly, and/or dealer service charges.

Any consumer who was wrongfully charged freight, assembly, and/or dealer service charges within 2 years of the November 15, 2007 settlement and who files a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office within 30 days after the filing, will be given a full refund of those charges. ASK also agrees to continue to negotiate, in good faith, any additional consumer complaints that are filed with the Attorney General’s Office after that initial 30-day period that involve the wrongful assessment of those charges.

In addition to the consumer restitution orders provided in the settlement, ASK was assessed $70,000 in costs and civil penalties, with $45,000 suspended upon full compliance with the settlement. The settlement also provides that ASK will now include all freight, assembly, and/or dealer service charges in its advertised prices for all motorcycles and ATVs sold by the dealership and will provide an itemized list of those charges to consumers.

Take-away: Openly and honestly disclose all charges!

Wondering what to give your co-workers for gifts this year?

1. 25 Hot Dealership Sales Ideas for the Cool Holiday Season!
2. Are You a Dealership Superstar™? You could win $500!
3. Teenagers Say the Darnedest Things.
4. Bad practices, big fines. Powersports dealer fined $70,000 plus refunds.
5. What gift should you give your co-workers?

If you are a Harley-Davidson Dealer, be sure to visit www.Compliance Coach.com for dealership tools to help you manage Regulatory and Compliance issues.