We’ve become so used to marketers lying to us that we’ve simply grown immune to it. Just look around and you will find examples of this all around you – on the billboards you read, TV shows you watch and the radio spots you listen to. Is Bounty really the “quicker picker upper” or Coke the “Real Thing”. I can’t pronounce half of the “real” ingredients in a Diet Coke.

Have a mortgage on your home? Yeah me too and the junk mail that comes from solicitors trying to sell me a new loan seems relentless. The envelope is usually stamped with something like “Important Mortgage Information” on the front and the return address will read “Mortgage Processing Center”. Most homeowners have figured out that the letter is not from their mortgage company. But if something is so obviously deceptive, why do marketers still do it? They do it because people will still open it. People are more likely to throw away a blatant but honest solicitation, so marketers con homeowners into opening faux come-ons. Here’s the fundamental question: Why start off a business relationship from a position of mistrust?

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Santa is not the only one “making a list and checking it twice” this time of year.  A lot of our customers are getting ready to do an annual or semi-annual inventory count in their parts departments.  From count preparations like assigning proper bin locations, to proper setup and use of your marine management system or RV dealership software, make sure your checklist is complete for an accurate and efficient count.

Now is a great time to step back and take a good hard look at your parts inventory as a whole.  Do you have the right amount of inventory to support your regular sales?  How much is all of that inventory really worth?  Here are some tips to help you make some critical decisions when it comes to one of the largest assets on your balance sheet.

RV and marine businesses all over the country operate with a “seasonal trend” in sales and revenue.  Some dealerships see as much as 80% of their sales occurring within a 4 or 5 month season.  Managing the incoming cash and budgeting for 12 months worth of expenses is a delicate balance most of our customers face.

So, how can you stretch out your season and keep customers buying into the off-season months?  Here are some tips on keeping cash coming in, even after the weather has turned:

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Last week I attended the Launch Pad conference in Mt. View, CA. On hand were some of the best app developers on the planet showing off their latest tablet (mostly iPad) apps. The conference began with a presentation by Ryan Block from gdgt who showed an image of Moses in reference to the evolution of the tablet and mobile computing.

My evolution as an iPad newbie to feeling comfortable with the platform was a bit rocky. But now it has become an important business tool for me. Think the iPad is just a fad? Apple has reported sales of over 40M units to date at a base price of $495. I think the better question is whether the iPad can truly become a business platform. Read More

We all want happy customers. If customers aren’t happy it doesn’t only affect your company’s bank account, but it saps the morale of you and your team. Who wants to come to work to be yelled at by yet another unhappy customer? If a customer is upset or dissatisfied with your product or service are you empowered to help them? Empowerment often leads to work that is interesting, allows us to be creative and can give us a sense that what we do matters. Read More

There is a lot of buzz today about entrepreneurs and start-ups. The twenty something programmers who are trying to create the next Facebook while living off of Ramen noodles and Red Bull are getting plenty of press. Successful entrepreneurs are willing to work long hours and are incredibly focused. Business owners and managers have been talking about trying to recreate that culture within their companies for some time now. Is it possible? Or more importantly is it desirable?

I was compelled to look at this issue within my own company when I began to get the sense that some of our people were simply coming in, doing their job and leaving. For some, a sense of passion seemed to be lacking. More importantly it forced me to look within and evaluate how I was communicating with the team and how the team communicated amongst themselves. Then someone on my team handed me a document showing “What employers think employees want” and “What employees really want”. Read More

A common pitfall that RV and Marine Dealerships often fall into when servicing their customers is the silo effect.  Many different departments responsible for providing different services to the same customer can trip up most organizations.  Without the proper tools and processes in place, the customer is left feeling like they are dealing with an entirely different business each time they do business with a different department.

When dealing with the corporate world we deal with this lack of interdepartmental communication regularly.  Just because you have a checking account at a major national bank, doesn’t mean that the teller can help you with your mortgage. “I’m sorry that’s a different department”, is the frustrating response we often hear.  The same is true when a customer arrives at your service counter but you have no record of his unit inventory purchase or his stay at your Marina last summer with all of his information.  How can your business better address not only the strain on customer satisfaction this type of disorganization provides but also the amount of associated lost revenue?

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RV and Marine businesses usually invest in a wide variety of advertising channels.  The key is to track the performance of each of those channels and the value of the investment in them.  Before planning your annual budget or implementing a new marketing plan, make sure you have a process in place to measure the results of your marketing efforts.   Each person that contacts your business found out about you somehow. The important piece is finding out how, and figuring out how much it cost you to get that lead.

What brings more traffic into your store, online marketing or offline advertising?  What is the quality of that traffic?  How effective are your sales people at converting that traffic into a sale?  These are a few metrics that help determine the return on investment of any advertising budget.  Configure your Dealer Management System and your Customer Relationship Management System to report and easily track data that you need to accurately measure the results of your advertising efforts.

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I woke up one morning and realized things weren’t right with my blog. A blog is like a living organism that evolves and grows if fed, or withers and dies if starved. Furthermore, if no one is providing guidance, a blog can lose focus and spin out of control quickly.

This is precisely what happened here. I needed to find my focus and my purpose for this blog. Learn from my mistakes so you can avoid this problem in your own business or personal blog.

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