As a Car Dealership Owner, Service Manager, or General Manager, you know that running a successful dealership in today's challenging economic climate takes innovation and creativity. Rising costs, fluctuating sales, and intense competition can quickly drain your dealership's bottom line. One of the most effective ways to address these revenue challenges is by reducing operating costs in several key areas.
By implementing cost-saving measures, car dealerships can stay in the black, attract new customers, and achieve long-term success. Some possible strategies for reducing expenses include reviewing and minimizing overhead costs and understanding the various fees associated with owning a car dealership in your state.
Too often, dealership owners are blindsided by hidden costs and fees, such as taxes, permits, and licenses. To truly succeed in the car business, however, it's crucial to understand these expenses and take steps to minimize them. With the right approach, you can decrease operating costs, enhance productivity, and improve your dealership's bottom line, all while delivering top-quality customer service.
This article will discuss key strategies that Service and General Managers can use to decrease expenses and increase profits.
Start Scrutinizing Your Car Dealership's Fixed & Variable Costs
Owning a car dealership is lucrative, but it also has many financial responsibilities. As a dealer, understanding the car business and the ability to manage car dealership fees can directly impact your bottom line. The cost of running a dealership can quickly add up, and one way to keep expenses in check is to review and scrutinize costs regularly.
Variable expenses are costs that change in proportion to sales and profits, and understanding these expenses is essential to managing your dealership's finances. Examples of variable expenses include floor plan interest, demo expenses, delivery expenses, advertising, personnel, benefits, and absentee wages. Fixed expenses, on the other hand, are consistent and include supplies, credit card interest, postage, maintenance and repairs, insurance, and utilities.
To get started on reviewing and scrutinizing your car dealership costs, pull a list of every vendor and categorize expenses accordingly. From there, review all transactions from the last six to 12 months. By taking the time to review each transaction carefully, you can identify expense categories tied to sales, such as units, services, and parts, and evaluate each process to determine if you're wasting time and resources.
Car dealership fees by state can also impact your expenses, and it's crucial to stay informed about any changes or updates. By managing and analyzing your dealership costs regularly, however, you can find areas of payments to cut down on without affecting your business too much and increasing your profits.
Evaluate Your Marketing Spend
For car dealership owners struggling to bolster sales, it is essential to have an effective advertising strategy to drive up sales and establish your brand in a crowded marketplace. However, measuring the Return on Investment (ROI) and ensuring that your advertising spend is justifiable is equally important. To reduce costs, evaluate your marketing budget and eliminate ineffective strategies with your in-house marketing team.
If you have engaged an outside agency for your marketing work, you should review your current agency's costs and compare them to other agencies in the marketplace. If the costs seem too high, consider reaching out to other agencies that can offer cheaper rates while still providing quality marketing services.
Reduce Car Dealership Turnover
Car dealerships spend a substantial amount of money on hiring and training employees, and replacing a departing worker costs, on average, $45,000. High turnover rates can lead to lower employee morale, difficulties with scheduling, and major disruptions. Abrupt departures can intensify these problems.
However, by prioritizing a reduction in turnover rates, car dealerships can significantly reduce operating costs. A lowered need for recruiting, onboarding, and training creates a more productive work environment. Lower turnover rates will also increase job satisfaction and employee retention.
Invest in Training & Development For Employees
Providing comprehensive training and professional development opportunities can lead to more efficient and effective employees, resulting in fewer mistakes, better customer service, and increased employee loyalty. This translates to higher job satisfaction and lower employee turnover, ultimately reducing the costs associated with recruiting and training new hires. Additionally, providing your employees with industry-standard training increases their value and can increase revenue by attracting and retaining loyal customers.
Save Energy Costs Where You Can at Your Dealership
Energy costs can add up significantly over time, so owners and General Managers must explore new ways to remain sustainable and avoid growing monthly energy costs. Fortunately, there are several ways car dealership owners can do this.
Many car dealership owners choose to save on electricity costs by using automatic timers for lighting fixtures. Installing these devices ensures no energy is wasted when your dealership is closed. As a result, you can decrease energy consumption without having to rely on employees to remember to turn lights off manually. Another way to save on energy costs includes upgrading to LED lights. Compared to traditional light bulbs, LED lights consume less energy and have a longer lifespan.
Other ways to reduce energy costs include improving insulation at your dealership building to reduce cooling and heating costs and harnessing renewable energy for a sustainable energy solution. Regardless of which avenue you choose, implementing energy-efficient solutions can go a long way in reducing operating costs for car dealership owners.
Streamline Your Dealership's Business Systems
Streamlining business systems is essential for dealerships seeking to reduce their overhead costs and remain competitive in an increasingly digital space. By leveraging cloud-based services like SalesForce, businesses can access powerful CRM tools and applications that enable better-interconnected systems and sales processes.
Moreover, digitizing your dealership can save your sales team valuable time and increase customer retention through efficient, streamlined systems and processes. However, monitoring employee accountability and ensuring the proper use of new systems is also an essential task here.
Disparate systems at your dealership can come at a high cost, so it's critical to understand the car business and the importance of interconnected systems. Disconnected systems and processes can lead to a frustrating buyer's journey, causing customers to abandon the sales process entirely. Streamlining your systems can ensure a seamless customer experience that leads to better customer retention rates.