As the winter season begins to fade, RV dealership owners across the US are gearing up for one of the busiest selling seasons of the year: spring. No matter whether you’re considering the sale of your dealership soon or down the line, maximizing each quarter is crucial to its overall value.
That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate guide with dealership advisor tips to enhance your dealership’s worth and market position. So, keep reading for seven areas you can support to capitalize on this spring in sales and increase your dealership’s overall value for an eventual sale.
7 Essential Steps to Prepare for Spring Selling Season
Maximizing your RV dealership’s value should be a goal year-round. However, just before your biggest season is a great time to prepare, especially during the slower winter months. So, without further ado, here are the top seven steps to take to maximize your business’ value in light of the spring sales surge.
Optimize Your Inventory
First things first: optimize the inventory to drive sales and increase your bottom line. Here, analyzing past sales data and reviewing trends from prior spring seasons is a good place to start for the best-selling models to stock. As always, and especially during times of financial stress, it’s ideal to balance new and pre-owned units, to cater to various budgets.
More innovative ways to optimize your inventory include considering new trade-in strategies to refresh your stock of used models by offering competitive values. On the same note, it’s an ideal time to check in and further secure your manufacturer and supplier relationships. Do so by checking in to confirm deliveries and addressing supply chain concerns that could affect sales early.
Refresh Your Showroom & Lot
Speaking of “refresh,” it’s not just your stock or inventory that could use extra attention this winter before spring. Another way to prepare for a surge of sales and maximize the value of your dealership is to revamp your dealership’s showroom and lot. A little work will go a long way in creating an inviting atmosphere by simply cleaning, staging, and organizing inventory to make the lot more appealing to buyers.
The simplest ways to enhance visual appeal and increase traffic include:
- Exterior banners, signs, or promotions.
- Improving customer navigation, especially in high-traffic areas.
- Increasing or adjusting lighting.
- Positioning best-selling RVs front and center.
Strengthen Your Digital Presence
Of course, we’d be remiss without mentioning how to strengthen your digital presence prior to sale and prior to the spring sales surge. Improving your website can make the difference of going with one dealership over the other, so it’s an investment that often pays off. To start, ensure all the inventory is appropriately listed, with detailed descriptions, pricing, and high-quality images.
To further your support, consider hiring an SEO or content strategy specialist to help you publish blogs that drive traffic to your site and produce videos or content that attracts buyers. Remember, timing is crucial when leveraging social media and ads to target buyers searching for “where to buy an RV” or similar phrases.
Lastly, ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as smartphones accounted for over 75% of retail site visits and generated roughly two-thirds of online shopping orders.
Fine-Tune Your Sales & Customer Service Strategy
There’s never a wrong time to review your sales and customer service strategy and fine-tune the details that affect its success. But the first quarter is especially helpful for retraining your sales team, including refreshing their product knowledge, reviewing finance options, and providing education on sales tactics and strategies.
This could also include reviewing your current CRM and refreshing its ability to track leads, follow-ups, and customer preferences. In addition to working on new sales and incentives to offer new or returning customers, that can be handed off to your new social team for promotions.
Enhance Service & Maintenance Departments
In light of promotions, don’t forget about your service and maintenance departments to increase your dealership’s value and potential sales. Pre-season maintenance packages effectively get customers through the door by encouraging RV owners to prepare their vehicles for travel. Repeated annually, this can help attract future dealership buyers as a bonus funnel to the service department in addition to sales.
For now, and future stability and success, consider streamlining the scheduling of service appointments to improve customer loyalty and retention with ease of schedule and quick turnaround times.
Plan Engaging Events & Community Outreach
The sun is shining, and the landscape is blooming, meaning people are more apt to visit your showroom than in the cold winter months. Use the pep in their step to your advantage and consider using your time this winter to plan an open house or demo day this spring. These events offer live walkthroughs and promote test drives.
To garner attention and exposure, consider partnering with local clubs or travel influencers to leverage the relationships for a broader audience reach. Another cost-effective way to further your position in the community (driving your value even more!) and potentially gain new customers is by sponsoring local events or entities.
Review & Strengthen Your Marketing Strategy
Finally, as a part of improving your CRM, you should have a healthy database of past and potential buyers you can tap into. During the winter, plan targeted email campaigns or marketing strategies to reach these groups and inform them of the upcoming deals, promotions, and events you’ve spent your time compiling.
Now, more than ever, video marketing is crucial for enhancing sales and your RV dealership’s value. Consider adding virtual tours to your sales site or customer testimonials throughout your content strategy. Lastly, use analytics to your advantage by running robust Google Ads or social media campaigns that offer targeted insights into local audiences.
The Final Word: Maximizing Your RV Dealership’s Value
All in all, making every season the best season in sales and reputation building will go a long way when you decide to sell your dealership. That’s because potential buyers will look beyond just financial statements—they want to see a well-rounded operation with strong systems, loyal customers, and growth potential.
Fortunately, these seven steps will put your dealership on the right path to success. By taking these steps now, you’ll not only improve your dealership’s current operations but also build lasting value that will benefit you whether you choose to sell or continue operating your business.
Another pro tip? As soon as you begin to consider the eventual sale of your dealership, get in touch with RV advisors you can trust—like the team at RVBS. RVBS is the leading buy-sell advisory group to RV dealers, whether selling or purchasing. Use our decades of combined experience in the industry to your advantage in getting the most value at sale.
Get in touch with the RVBS team now to explore the potential value of your dealership and current opportunities.
Roger L. Nuttall served as President of Camping World, Inc. from January 2011. Prior to that, he was the Chief Operating Officer of FreedomRoads, LLC from January 2009 to January 2011, and the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of FreedomRoads, LLC from November 2003 to December 2015. From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Nuttall was a partner at McKay, Nuttall, and Reid, an accounting and consulting firm. Before that, he held various staff and management positions at Grant Thornton LLP from 1974 to 1981. From 1983 to 2003, Mr. Nuttall served as Chief Financial Officer and board member of Blaine Jensen & Sons, Inc., a multi-dealership RV company. He received a B.A. from Weber State University.
Mike has almost 30 years’ experience in the Recreational Vehicle (RV) Industry and provides advisory and consulting services to clients within that industry.
Scott Degnan is the Partner and Co-founder of RV Business Solutions and President of Degnan Management Group, Inc., a consulting firm.
Dom Bookman is the Chief Operating Officer and Investor Relations lead at RV Business Solutions. With 12 years of experience in the tech industry, Dom is a serial entrepreneur specializing in business development, marketing, and growth strategies for leading brands. He has successfully piloted startups and facilitated multiple exits for early-stage companies.