The Dealership Fixit Podcast

If you work in the F&I side of a powersports business, you'll want to listen to this episode. I got a few minutes of Tony Tarell's time to chat about his wizard-like products he provides to dealers to sell thru their F&I departments. I'm told it's a very profitable product for the Finance and Insurance staff to sell as well as a new product named Little Brother is also pretty trick for using in ho...

Have you ever gone to a merchant and left, feeling underwhelmed? Yeah, I bet you have. Most likely today or within the last 24 hours you have had that experience. I just wanted to have a quick episode as a reminder that you, fellow Dealership fiXit, are empowered to be sure you are the Hugger! I like to imagine that each interaction with a fellow human being is an opportunity to embrace them (figu...

I read and discuss the blog post from Cycle Trader's Cycle Dealer Insider blog, which is directed at you the powersports dealership. My hopes are that I can get some dealers thinking about what they are and are not doing in regards to content marketing.  Wait, what is content marketing?  ;-) Listen and see... Link to the dealer facing blog post here: http://cycledealerinsider.blogspot.co...

Motorcycle sharing is rentals. Why would normal powersports dealerships be interested in understanding motorcycle "sharing" when they want to sell more motorcycles? I think they should learn about it as, like most other tools available to you - they are also available to your competitors. This is why I asked Austin to speak with me about what he is doing, so powersports dealerships can understand...

With an actual weekday off, this 5th of July, I took this time to chat with my buddy Joe Johnson about the motorcycle business. I love talking about ideas with folks looking to serve powersports folks and find new ways to do that. Joe and I get down a rabbit hole or two about our thoughts on serving powersports dealerships and how these dealerships can get more accomplished with less wasteful ener...

PG&A folks - check this out! Today we got to have a great pod-versation with Phil Ammendolia, President & CEO of LS2 Helmets U.S. If you don't know this line, you owe it to your bottom line to check them out. Seeing as it's been many years since I have been working INSIDE a powersports parts department, I'm sure Phil will forgive me for not knowing anything about his brand, but as the old...

Jay Bernard of Triumph Motorcycles is a regional manager who was kind enough to jump on a session of Dealership fiXit with me and chat about many things Triumph, here in his part of the United States. What's the deal with Adventure bikes and why are they so popular right now? What is Triumph doing differently than the competitors to earn consumer's money? As it turns out, it's a lot! Technology is...

Mike Murray, the VP of Sales for National Powersport Auctions (NPA) is my guest in this episode.  He and his team have been a big part of keeping an impressive dealer-first service culture while growing their team, in recent years.  Having worked with and for Mike in the past, I'm a big fan of his passion as well as and NPA.  If you have not been to the experience that is the larges...

Scott Wright of IMS Products is no stranger to dealerships. Sure, he has been manufacturing and selling powersports products to distributors, dealers and customers for the last 25 years. But, did you know that he worked at a dealership? It's been a few years but he has a great grasp on dealership life and he has some ideas of how any dealer can better control their own destiny by stocking more of...

John Slater from SRP, maker of Slater Skins and Slater Shields joined me tonight for a talk about branding opportunities.  He's been doing this a long time and has had some great history of getting outside sponsors to step up and brand up motocross and freestyle mx riders machines with his products that add much needed volume to the available space of these motocross bikes. If you haven't see...

Brooke Farquhar owns a shop named Motoworks in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  It's different from any shop I've been a part of in that it's a membership only shop where Brooke can invest all of this time and energy into being the exact level of advocate that each and every customer needs to stay engaged in this activity we love so much - motorcycling. Motoworks Facebook page is here: https://www.faceb...

I just read and wanted to share the article plus my thoughts on the Powersports Business article entitled, "Harley-Davidson Dealerships are number 1 at Replying to Website Customers" study, in which they include a Pied Piper PSI study (article link included below as well).   Imagine, you are a regular consumer, ready to move forward in the purchase of a new widget, product X that costs severa...

I've heard for many years that powersports dealerships are many years behind automotive dealerships in regards to their advertising, branding and data utilization around those investments. I found Michael Annable on Linkedin this year and started following him since he shares a lot of insights there, on where dealerships in the automotive vertical are making mistakes and possibly wasting money. I...

Are you doing the right things for digital growth? "Stop wasting your time posting to Facebook!" Wow.  Yes - Joe Iribarren got my attention with that statement too!  Thankfully, he was ready to back it up with real world insights. I'll start out by saying that this episode will only be an initial insight into this topic but you'll want to hear what Joe Iribarren has to say on how you are...

I welcome Derek Sanders of DS1 Consulting back for another visit, this time about the F&I department of your powersports dealership.  Do you have an F&I dept in your dealership? Since I haven't spent any time in that role, I had Derek come chat about how every dealer can be a better, more profitable finance and insurance department plus better satisfy your customers at the same time....

James Myers of Valley Cycle Center in Winchester, Virginia has been involved with the family powersports business that his father started 50 years ago. James has been involved for over 20 years. I was curious how they make that work when I see so many multi-generation business struggle. He also gives me some insights on how dealers can and should get involved with state dealer groups so they can h...

If you’ve been around the powersports business for any length of time you have most likely perused, used or hired “MIJ” for your job or employee acquisition needs. Alex talks with me some the recent struggles the motorcycle biz is having with finding qualified mechanics and other positions. Please check out MIJ at www.motorcycleindustryjobs.com if you are an employer looking for top talent or you’...

Michael Jones Sr, a 30 year service department veteran and master technician joins me tonight to look for ways you can take your dealership to another level - if you are willing to make some changes that he says are crucial to help us keep the new-with-old service customer engaged with us and you need passion to to do it. Listen to see what he is talking about. Thank you for checking out Dealershi...

Special guest Craig Martin joined me to discuss ... nearly all of the things! Thankfully he was willing to spend so much time with me sharing insights from so many years as a distributor rep, shop owner, race team manager and so on. I’d be willing to gamble and say that whatever area is your part of the dealership, tonight’s podcast has some gold nuggets for you. As always, please share this episo...

Ryan McPherson aka @skippy168 on Instagram and #salesbyskippy & #askforskippy everywhere joins us from Denton, Texas where he works at Cycle Center of Denton in parts and accessory sales. He shares some insights on how he does things differently than his competitors to better engage with eager consumers. He also sheds some light on how a dealership owner can find and hire guys like him. He’s my #d...

What is your personal expectation on merchandising at your retail dealership? Specifically, online... If you haven't thought about exactly where you set the bar for yourself and your staff on merchandising each and every area of your operation, you're losing. Consumers expect you to be the tip of the spear. Heck, they're supposed to hand you money for the product, right? As always, feel free to gi...

Quick monologue about co-op. Want to get a decent podcast conversation lined up with someone at/from a dealership about your role being in charge of co-op ... good/bad etc. Co-op should be a tool you utilize to minimize your out of pocket spend on advertising to get your dealership more exposure. Are you doing it? Are you using all of it?? Let's chat soon on a longer version of this episode. deale...

Brian Fullerton is our guest and we discuss his path from socal lot kid at Alba Yamaha to point guy at Acerbis in the US. He also found time to be a fireman for 9 years at the same time.

Who knows how to get rabid grassroots support and can also tell a dealership what areas they need improvement in about 30 seconds? Jim Boschen is our guest - Episode 10

#1 mistake dealerships make? Derek Sanders special guest - Episode 9