Using free and available assets to reach your customers with content that addresses their needs, questions and concerns.

Marty Marketingguy and Mary O’Marketing are both striving to get better at their position for their respective dealerships. Marty is the marketing manager of a multi-location dealer and marina operator called Big Bigger Biggest Boats. Mary manages the marketing team at Pawn & Pontoon, a single-location family-owned shop, with boat rentals and fishing guide services, started by her mother and father years ago.

While these two marketing managers are unique, have different teams and abilities, they both can take advantage of free or paid marketing resources to aid them in reaching their customers where they want to be reached — mostly online these days. These available marketing assets come with strategic messages and appropriate call-to-action steps and are customizable to help dealers support their current customers and promote retention this year.

Both businesses are willing to embrace content marketing and answering their customers’ question with honest and expert advice on ownership, operation, safety, maintenance tips and more. Both Marty and Mary and their respective teams, no matter how big or small, have chosen to commit to changing their culture and views on content marketing. But, even with this newfound devotion to their customers, how can they achieve new heights and take the necessary steps if they’re essentially starting at the ground floor?

One important thing you need to do immediately is listen intently to your customers and keep a record of their pain points, struggles and questions. Next, you need to address them. You can do this by offering sound and transparent (not salesy) advice, acting as their guide or teacher. Here are a few ways you can do this:

1.     Blogs. Your dealership may strive to produce one blog a month to start off or bi-weekly informative blogs. Or, better yet, you could strive to produce two blogs a week from various teammates if you have a larger and more creative and productive team. And remember, blogging is a nice way to get acquainted with your voice if you prefer to start slow.

2.     Videos. You could start off with walk-around videos of boats. You could do a video explaining a boat rental program. If motivated, you could do weekly Facebook Live videos that address boat ownership or provide how-to answers to your customers’ questions. Video is king!

3.     Resources. Whether borrowed and customized, hired out to freelance experts or industry consultants or created in-house, resources in the form of guides or white papers on essential topics introduced by customers is another strong content option.

4.     Social media. This can include a mix of shares in the form of memes, quotes, top-10 lists, actual customer testimonials shared to your company’s social feeds. One example may be images of your customer’s first-ever boat purchase. Another could be sharing details on current used boats or even news about expansion or virtual events that promote customer appreciation. Find ways to boost social media engagement in 5 easy steps..   

5.     Virtual. With COVID-19 still lingering, you may decide to go beyond appointment-only showroom visits by creating an inviting and welcoming virtual boat shows online or do live walkarounds for customers. With much of their buying decision already done prior to shopping at your dealership, your event and any special attention you’ve given to them just may help them make a final call on the boat they want for their family.  

6.     Newsletter. A monthly newsletter lets your customers opt-in for more information and provide your sales and marketing teams with more leads. They also give you the ability to share your created content, or links to it, in another manner that customers may appreciate. You can crank up the frequency if your team has enough content to share and the ability to produce a weekly or bi-monthly effort.

7.     Text. Texting isn’t just for teens and sharing quirky emojis with friends. And we must avoid seeing the age of customers as a deterrent. A customer is a customer and even parents and grandparents know how to text. It’s a bona fide method of communication. Provided you have the abilities (and the permission from your customers), the correct messages and shareables, texting can be another avenue for you to share non-sales content.    

Again, every dealership is different and some excel at content marketing because, like you, they have the staff and internal resources to start it and keep it going. And for those of you seeking to enhance your content marketing game, but lack the necessary resources (skills, staff, etc.), creativity or marketing budget to make an all-out effort, outside resources and supportive businesses exist to help you take the next steps. In another blog called Dealer Resources, I’ve highlighted a few that can inspire you, at the very least, and help you attain your first-month, six-month and longer goals.

I’ll leave you with this from Dealer Week speaker, author and content marketing genius, Marcus Sheridan.

“There’s never been a greater year to invest in your company and its long-term improvement than 2021. This is the year to finally put resources into marketing. Know that the marketing side has 80 percent influence on the actually sell. You will not regret doing this, as all of this is a long-term decision with long-term benefits.”

For many boat dealerships, it’s hiring season.

As a seasonal business, you want to be sure you have enough of the right team members in the right seats to take care of your customers in the front of the house – and support your team in the back of the house – during the busy season ahead.

Sounds straight-forward enough, but we know it’s rarely easy.

So, how do you know if you’re ready? Here are some questions to ask yourself, as well as some tips and resources that may help you answer them:

How many people do you need to hire and in which roles?

With the changes in consumer shopping behavior and expectations, the limited availability of new boat inventory, and the potential for a surge in service business related to the boats you sold last year, consider how 2021 may place different demands on your team than 2020 or 2019.

Do you have job descriptions for each of those roles?

If not, we have samples that can help. MRAA Members, check out the nearly 50 sample job descriptions in our database.

Do you have a compensation range in mind for each of those roles that is competitive in today’s market?

If you’re not sure, look at job ads for similar positions in your local area. You also can review the results of MRAA’s 2017 Compensation Study, available here.

Have the job descriptions been updated for changes in your dealership?
That might include changes in your organizational chart, changes in your processes or changes in the results you expect this person to deliver. Learn about including key result areas (KRAs) in your job descriptions and other ways to improve them in our free guide, Job Descriptions that Amp Up Productivity. Download it here.

Have you created an advertisement to promote the job opening?
Experts in recruitment often encourage companies to stay away from copying the job description and using it as their job advertisement. Rather, they recommend telling a story about the opportunity to work for your dealership.

Is the ad written to appeal to the candidate you aim to hire?
When you advertise a job, you’re trying to sell your ideal candidate on coming to work for your dealership. Imagine who that candidate is and what they may be seeking. In your ad, be honest and sincere about the key benefits of the job and your culture – and about the qualities and experience you’re looking for in an employee.

Where do you plan to post the ad?
Be sure to share it internally and externally. Your employees will often know people with similar interests and values. In fact, some dealerships even encourage those referrals with a cash reward if they’re hired and stay for a certain amount of time.

What interview questions will you ask candidates?
At MRAA, we develop a hiring team for each position, each of whom uses a different group of questions during the interview process. Many of those questions were influenced by books like: “Topgrading,” “Up Your Business,” and “The Ideal Team Player” and then customized for the position.

How will you make a final decision about who to hire?
In the MRAA course, “Attract and Retain Techs,” by Valerie Ziebron, she recommends you know the answers you want to hear from the interview questions you ask. That way, you’ll be more likely to make decisions based on the candidate’s fit with dealership goals and expectations for the position rather than the candidate’s interview skills. The best candidates aren’t always the best at being interviewed. MRAA Silver and Gold Members can access this course — part of the recently launched Training ‘N’ Tactics (TNT) Series — and its resource-packed workbook for free when they log into MRAATraining.com.

What will you do if you don’t find a qualified candidate for the role?
One alternative to filling an open position through a traditional job posting is apprenticeship. It is a strategy with proven results for many dealers and their apprentices. To learn more about success with this strategy, check out our free Guide to Apprenticeship here.

If you do find a qualified candidate who accepts your offer, how will you prepare them for success?
Some dealerships have onboarding schedules that last several months, others only the first day or week. Regardless of where your business falls on that spectrum, a few fundamentals you may want to put into place include:

• An Employee Handbook: If you don’t have one or want to improve yours, MRAA Members can check out our sample handbook for ideas, which includes more than 100 dealership policy templates. Learn more here. 
• An Onboarding Plan: During a Dealer Case Study at Dealer Week 2020, Alpin Haus shared several workforce best practices, including a handout with a Sample Boat Product Specialist Hiring Process, Training Process and Schedule. MRAA Silver and Gold Members can access the course by logging into MRAATraining.com.

o A Training Plan and Template: For ideas on how to develop your team, including onboarding tips and a training template, download our free Guide to Dealership Improvement.

Ultimately, one of the most important elements in a dealership’s hiring process – or any of its human resources policies and practices – is consistency.

“In most cases, when a good employee quits or an HR issue turns into a legal issue, it happens because of inconsistency,” wrote Valerie Ziebron in her workbook. “Having solid HR practices in place, that you run by your local legal counsel, keep files on and document, will help to keep smiling, customer-focused employees on staff and pulling for our dealership’s goals.”

5 Resources to Help Dealers Combat Bad Habits

It’s often been said in business that good habits are created during the tough times and bad habits emerge during the good times. What happens, though, when the good times are so good that we grow comfortable or unwittingly lazy? 

In today’s boating marketplace, there are very few repercussions for bad habits like mismanaging leads, skipping steps in the sales process, short-changing the pre-delivery inspection, failing to follow up with customers or botching the service cycle. 

These shortcuts often feel necessitated and are even sometimes rewarded in a high-demand environment, especially when the outcome means capturing business now vs. prolonging an inevitable sale. The reality, though, is today’s bad habits cause tomorrow’s problems— leads are lost, mistakes are made, unnecessary expenses creep into our P&Ls, the customer experience suffers, CSI scores drop, and repeat and referral business dry up quickly. What’s worse: Those bad habits become an accepted part of our culture.

While it’s safe to assume the incredible demand of 2020 will continue through this boating season, and possibly longer, it WILL come to an end. Unchecked, these lazy habits will lead to a rude awakening once the pandemic is over. Dealership leaders should be thinking about what that reality would mean for their business, and start preparing for it now.

Here are five ways MRAA can help dealers combat those bad habits and strengthen their business for the post-pandemic market.

1. Tried-and-true methods of running a dealership have been crafted over many decades and work well in most any market place. Dealers can tap into many of those opportunities, by way of how-to guides and useable tools such as job descriptions, marketing assets, and budgeting templates in the MRAA Resource Center. This free compilation offers the lowest hanging fruit for someone who wants to go grab a resource and shore up something that’s not working in their business.
2. Strong, adaptable dealers need a deeper understanding of the most critical challenges and opportunities, along with the solutions that can help attack them head-on. That’s where Dealer Week, MRAA’s annual conference and expo, comes into play. By way of 30-plus educational sessions on the day’s most important topics, this in-person and online event offers dealerships the insights and inspiration and tactics to stay on top of their game and adjust their business for current realities. It also keeps them on their toes for whatever tomorrow may throw at them.
3. Dealers face challenges and opportunities in all market conditions and at all times of the year, so MRAA created MRAATraining.com to offer dealerships on-demand access to the leading solutions on the topics that most impact their success. Featuring the top courses from the last seven years of MRAA’s annual conference, the platform also offers a turnkey, monthly solution for training and strengthening dealership teams: MRAA’s Training and Tactics, featuring expert-recommended courses.
4. The root of most bad habits in business stem from the lack of sound processes. MRAA compiles the best resources and training opportunities together into one efficient program to help dealers establish systems and processes that lead to consistency, team unity and customer loyalty — Dealership Certification. Through this program, dealers gain access to templates, best practices, consultants, exclusive continuing education, employee satisfaction surveys and more, all of which work together via a proven template and roadmap for running a world-class operation.
5. Having entered the pandemic understaffed, the truth is some dealers just didn’t have the choice but to cut corners. The opportunities above are all designed to help with the realities of running a small business. MRAA also recognized that dealers were dropping the ball with the No. 1 most critical need in the customer experience cycle — post-sale follow-up. So, we created the MRAA Virtual Business Development Center, a resource where MRAA and its partner Customer Service Intelligence will take the follow-up load off of dealers’ plates and do it for them, complete with great reporting and immediate transfer for hot issues.

In the midst of this high-demand environment, it’s easy to view sales, profits and other results through rose-colored glasses. But there’s a negative impact lurking in the shadows, and it amounts to the bad habits we’ve created while business has boomed. 

2021 should be the year that we focus on fixing those bad habits and developing the strengths necessary to help us capture repeat business once demand subsides. We better start preparing for that now.