“PEP” in your step!

I am pleased when my peers say my motor may be wound a little too tight, because goals are best reached when moving forward with a purpose. As my grandfather used to say, “He’s got some ‘pep’ in his step!” So the swift transition to automotive: PEP is Price-Events-Planning, and now is the time to move the market by giving them more reasons to step into your dealership.

Price speaks for itself – the number of dealers we have who are moving the needle with price promotions on specially-equipped vehicles is very satisfying. Events are also proving their worth in terms of a traffic uptick when it is a store-wide promotion of new, certified and used. We have seen success with weekend events as well as short term one and two-day events. Now for planning, well, that is the key to making sure your message gets out to the public as well as to everyone in the dealership. For an upcoming weekend event that involves several of our dealerships, sales meetings are planned complete with a ‘pump ‘em up video detailing everything from media to point-of-purchase. And all this is being done days before the event begins!

Nothing improves the attitude of a dealership like traffic; nothing solves more problems than traffic. If you want to put a little ‘PEP’ in the step of your store, take a look at the calendar and plan to jump the competition for Memorial Day, take advantage of five weekends in June (remember how March closed, the last five weekend month?), think about how you can turn a Wednesday 4th of July to your advantage that first weekend, August’s mid-month payday is a Thursday leading into a weekend that certainly qualifies for Early Closeout. Get your team together and challenge them to identify the opportunities of price-point and big events, and do it sooner rather than later – you knew I would say that.