Why are we, the dealers, so scared of offering add-on products? Is it the scaremongering sales processes? Or the mountains of paperwork that follow? Could it be the ever-lingering fear of that unsuccessful claim for that particularly ‘thorough’ customer? Maybe, it’s that you believe the customer has “maxed out on budget”?
I have found, more often than not, that it’s just the good old-fashioned fear of rejection and I wonder, if we might just be making a mountain out of the whole add-on product mole hill.
With the technical revolution in full swing, paperwork is on its way out, claims procedures are simplified and the ease of doing business is at an all-time high. So why do we continue to sit and moan about the inconvenience of offering add on products?
Do we need to stop, reset our mindset and remember that add-on products are optional! Optional meaning that they are ‘available to be chosen but not obligatory.’ It is your duty of care to offer your customers these products which are designed as ‘stress relievers’ during the period of ownership. Who do we think we are making assumptions about the customers requirements? After all, that is exactly what we do when we fail to even mention what is available.
A business with a successful finance & add-on sales process at its core, will revolutionise its results. Fact. Not only will your customers be treated fairly, returning for aftercare and be left feeling thoroughly satisfied and well looked after, but your bottom lines will have full bellies too. With an industry average of £600* chassis profit per unit you could be doubling that and then some, with just a few little tweaks and some old-fashioned consistency.
First things first, if you don’t offer add-ons, start! A product with easy implementation and non-regulated policies should do the trick. Take paint protection for example, this will cost you, the dealers, approximately £50 to purchase, apply and then guarantee (as well as providing a nicely packaged care-kit for your customers) but you can sell it for £500, depending on your clientele and/or stock. That’s an 1000% profit margin, yes 1000%, that’s not a typo! Even if you were to sell it at half price, that’s a 500% profit margin, get it?
This product is simply applied by your own valeting teams (with a bit of training from the paint protection company of choice) and is nonregulated, which means anybody can offer it. Most paint protections have a simple online form which is submitted to instantly ‘go live’ the guarantee. I know, I know, if its such a no brainer why aren’t so many dealers offering it? But unfortunately, that’s a question that I don’t have the answer to.
If you do already sell add-ons, and there are a few available, can you honestly say you are offering them to every single enquiry? Laws of consistency state that if you offer it every time you will have better success (more yes’s!) Initially, you won’t even need to better your offering to enhance your results, just having the discipline of offering your add-ons in any shape or form will work.
Trial it, set yourself or your teams the challenge. Just mention it, offer it, include it, hand out a leaflet or email a product video every time for a weeks’ worth of enquiries, irrelevant of what stage in the sales process they are, and watch the results heighten. As Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” and the habit alone is enough to ensure performance.
Of course, there are plenty of tools and behaviours to ensure you are maximising your finance & add on opportunities, with a process and offering bespoke to your businesses and that is something I spend a lot of time working on with our clients to ensure they achieve maximum gain.
But there is always a brilliance in the basics and that is all you need to get started!