Improving Gross Profit Part 3

The final in a 3 Part Series.

1. Think in terms of improving gross in small increments. Try paying the managers a bonus for achieving nominal increases each month. Start by improving gross by $50 a unit. Do that over the next year and you will see a slow and effective way to increase your gross. You can only eat the elephant one bite at a time.

2. How could I talk about your grosses without mentioning “Life Cycle Management?” Life Cycle Management is designed to help you create a sense of urgency on those cars that are most likely to kill your grosses. The faster they go away the better your gross will become.

3. Track GAP and ROI. When you do, grosses go up. How much are you giving up once the customer shows up at your store with a price from the Internet? If you don’t know then you can’t fix it.

4. Are you stocking the wrong stuff? If the data tells you there are a lot of Impalas being sold in the market then it stands to reason that there must be are a lot of them for sale? And wouldn’t it be logical to assume that it will be hard to make money on those units since there is a high day’s supply? When it comes to making gross, the law of supply and demand is certainly in place. You don’t have to be an economics major to understand this fundamental principle.

5. Shoot the moon on the right stuff. Since the beginning of the car business, higher grosses are driven by some home run cars. You have to understand which ones are home runs, singles, doubles and triples.

Fix what you can fix. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs