SUCCEEDING AT SEASONALITY: YOUR PLAN FOR OFFSEASON PROFIT
The sun has been shining lately on your dealership and the boating industry as a whole, despite some recent marketplace hiccups with increased consumer hesitancy related to inflation and fears of a recession, and industry delays for inventory and parts.
Now is the perfect time to prepare for the offseason you know lies ahead. In the upcoming months, as both summer and the recreational boating season wind down (specifically in the snow belt), your team will make its annual shift to your fall (and winter) planning.
These hot-button topics typically draw most of your team’s energy and attention in the “offseason”:
| • Winterization | • Shrink wrapping | • Boosting your accessory sales |
| • Boat storage | • Upselling your service department | • Determining your labor force |
We understand that this is one of your busiest times of the year, preparing for another change in the seasons. You have to juggle communicating with all your customers, ready your storage team, spaces and processes, along with managing your employees and your marketing. It’s no wonder why many dealers can often feel burned out and want a break in December, especially after enduring another full year of business capped by seasonality; from pre-season prep to the mad-dash summer schedule to the wind down of fall to the winter offseason. And right when you feel as though you can let off the throttle, you have to start readying your team for 2023! We get it.
That’s why it’s important to install the proper plans and processes to give your team the best chance at success this fall and into winter. While your dealership’s physical roof may not need repairs, it’s wise to reassess your current offseason approach, patch any “holes,” and make the necessary preparations in order to contribute to your offseason profitability.
The MRAA Spotlight for August centers around seasonality and installing the best procedures to help you master customer communications and follow-up, retain your employees and build revenue with upselling and service stacking. You are encouraged to bookmark this page, and check in regularly for blogs, vlogs, resources, courses and more.
USE DISCIPLINE TO OVERCOME DISRUPTION & BUILD A BETTER DEALERSHIP
7 Methods to Help Your Team Maximize Its Use of Time to Improve Profits
MRAA Partner Blog By Dixie Morrow, Lightspeed Client Training Manager
Sharks and Minnows: A child’s game of pursuit reminds your dealership to just keep swimming to avoid time robbers in the name of boosting your profits, especially when adjusting to the seasonality of your business.
The Answer to Disruption is Discipline
By Matt Gruhn, Trade Only Today column
How MRAA’s Dealer Week 2022 can make a difference for the future of your dealership.
“Whether there are specific issues holding your dealership back or other, general challenges, there are time-tested, proven fundamentals of running a boat dealership that you’ve been lured away from with all the disruption of the past two years.”
— Matt Gruhn, MRAA President
Dealer Week presents you with an opportunity to:
| • Instill the fundamentals of proven dealership operations. | • Build efficiency by working on your business model. |
| • Connect with other dealers to learn how their businesses are adapting to the changing marketplace. | • Explore the industry’s leading products, services and vendors. |
| • Listen, learn and grow your dealership through interactions and takeaways from marine industry leaders. | • Create more success using the key educational offerings and tools provided to your team. |
Service Menu Updates
MRAA Partner Blog By David Parker, Parker Business Management
A Service Menu is a great tool to send out with annual maintenance or winter storage agreements in order to streamline the check-in process and increase winter work.
There is a template on the MRAA site that offers you a great starting point to creating your own. The skeleton already exists, you just have to adjust it for your products, area of the country and current pricing.
It is laid out in three columns on pages one and two.
MRAA Ask the Expert WEBINAR: Propel Your Pro Shop Beyond the Season
With Eddy Paoletta, Garage Composites
For many of you, the boating season tide is starting to change, and you’re finally able to breathe again now that the rush of June and July has subsided. This is the perfect time for you to tune up your processes and utilize your departments to keep revenue coming in through the low tides of your offseason.
Paoletta, an MRAA Dealer Week 2022 speaker, will share strategies and ideas to prepare for and optimize the offseason for your Pro Shop:
● What’s the difference between off-season and on-season inventory?
● How do we keep seasonal staff?
● How do we engage our customers in the off-season?
Time: 11 a.m. CDT / 12 p.m. EDT
Date: August 24
TNT: Ease the Pain of Seasonality Through Better Processes
• Strategies to maximize business during your seasonal slowdown
Speaker David Foco shares methods with you to implement better processes and the steps to train your staff on them, while helping you also determine which employees should be involved in the procedures, and the communication needed between departments and to your customers to carry out these processes.
This course on offseason preparation will help you with:
| • Appointments | • Write-ups | • Customer follow-up |
| • Creating an active delivery processes to build a better customer experience | • Boosting off-season revenue | • Retaining your workforce |
| • Determine their role in procedures& designate them to certain procedures at your dealership | • Develop clear internal communication (employees) | • Improving customer communications |
Drive Success In Your Pre-Owned Boat Business
The thing is, the pre-owned boat business is one of the most significant opportunities to fuel your bottom line. But in order to it effectively, you need a solid system in place that will help your team secure, service, market and sell pre-owned inventory. If and when you do that, you can boost your dealership’s revenue and profitability while also creating more stability for your team and your business.
THE MRAA Certified Pre-Owned Boat Program
The MRAA Certified Pre-Owned Boat program has been designed to deliver you and your customers the confidence you deserve in buying (and selling) pre-owned boats. It provides a proven process, quality third-party inspections and analysis, and direct pathway for you to both differentiate your inventory AND make a sizable margin.
www.CPOBoats.com
Discover Boating Dealer Finder Tool
The Discover Boating (powered by NMMA & MRAA) Dealer Finder allow site visitors to find your dealership among 3,600 new boat dealers across the country. The easy search and mapping functionality quickly locates dealers through zip code or city search, as well as a one-touch option to visit a dealer’s website or call the dealer directly.
Dealer Week 2022 Registration
MRAA’s Dealer Week 2022, to be held Dec. 5-8 in Austin, Texas, has everything you need to prepare yourself, your team and your business for whatever lies ahead. The marine industry’s only dealer-focused conference and expo, Dealer Week provides dealerships like yours with the ideas, insights and inspiration to make the business decisions necessary to succeed in the market place of today and tomorrow.
Featuring more than 20 education and training sessions for dealership managers and their teams, Dealer Week also highlights the marine industry’s leading manufacturers, suppliers and service providers through an enormous expo hall and several networking events. Register today to save big!
MRAA Members save up to $900 per Dealer Week registrant and gain access to a host of member benefits.
Dealer Week Subject Matter Expert Tips: Paula Crosbie
Paula Crosbie, one of our subject matter expert speakers within the Service & Parts Pathway at Dealer Week 2022, shares quick tips with you in her 3-minute vlog. Dealers can catch her full presentation Wednesday, Dec. 7, at Dealer Week 2022 in Austin Texas.
DISCOVER BOATING RESOURCES TO PROVIDE YOUR CUSTOMERS
With all the first-time boat owners and new market entries the last couple of years, it’s wise to provide them and all your newer customers with an easy-to-digest overview of winterization and boat storage.
