GETTING MAINTENANCE BUSINESS'.
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Garage Proprietors Are Not Likely to Find Tradesmen Offering Maintenance Contracts—They Will Have to Work to Secure Them.
By Vim .”
IF MY PROPHECY—that the bulk of the business . to be done, by garages in repairing motor de livery vehicles will be carried out under contracts, in the time to come—is a correct one, tliere can be no question about the desirability, fro -the garage proprietor's point of view, of putting in fir this trade without delay. Although I have sought o show in a previous articie, that, probably, trade n will wish to have their vans and lorries maintai ed atifixed rates, I do not for a moment think that any of. them are aware of the fact. They have to be wakened to the consciousness of that wish ; and it wup to the enterprising motor trader to do the aw ening. Advertising is, of course, the alarmlock of the
desire to possess. Every individual i filled with wishes, and`the business man ies no"exce 'tion to the rule. Many of these wishes are mere g rms, which never eome to:anything, because the rig mediunein which they could increase is never su plied. Successful advertising furnishes that medium, and creates a powerful desire outeof the wish-germ. The advertiser who soonest detects ',the i presence of a , wish-germ and provides, not only the medium in which it can:grow. but also the means of satisfying It when grown, is the person who tells his friends that advertising pays. As I have said, in my opinion tradesmen who use motel itransport—as all of them will do later on'--do not really want to be bothered with looking after the running and upkeep of their vehicles, unless the number of cars they own is sufficient to justify their employing their own staff of mechanics, with the complementary supervisory staff. At present, theamajority'of owners of one or two vans are turning their hair grey with worry, Nil:licit, could better be oorne by outside motor firms,,,whose sole object in life is the management and maintenance of
motor vehicles. ,
Converting Those Q f Little Knowledge. . .
Unfortunately for them, a large proportion 'of these prematurely aged vehicie usLrs rather pride themselves on their knowledge of motors. Some have their own private cars, and not a few are blessed with sons who,, being gifted with a taste for adjusting electric bells, and an ability to take the family lawn mower to pieces without losing any of the bits, are regarded as inechanical.geniuses, fully, competent to look after little things like motor wagons. We are all acquainted with this class of user, although it is safe to wager that none of them will' recognize his classification frorh the description here given. It must be the garage proprietor's task to open such user's eyes gently and firmly, hut without offence. The operation must be skilfullyeconducte,d, or the cure may be worse than the disease. .
The first essential is to compile a list of all the business concerns within the garage proprietor's sphere of influence, to include firms already using motor transport, those using only.horsed vehicles, at the moment, and any tradesman whose trade seems to be developing to an extent that will eventually compel hint to institute some other form of transport than the hand-barrow How the requisite details for -this list are to beeebtained, is a matterifor individual motor traders to .settle. Actual observation of passing vehicles May. in some cases, be the only means available ; and, in this connection. it is remarkable how rapidly a list so compiled will grow in quite a short while. As far as possible, the makes and types of vehicles in service should be noted against the names on the list, but where this cair
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be done, notes of the trades carried on will prove a valuable guide to the type of motorvan or lorry most suited to the needeof each.. For purely rlocal advertising, it is difficult to beat well-written circular letters. One letter will' not do for every firm on the list, which should be divided up into "motor users," "horse users," and "messenger users," the appeals of the letters being couched accordingly. To the first, the suggestion should be made that the secret of absolute efficiency with motor vehicles in goods transport, lies in the size of the fleet under one control ; and the hint should be conveyed that the writer cart ease the recipient money and, simultaneously, relieve him of the whole of his transport worries, by undertaking the managemeat of his vans or lorries by contract. An interview should be requested; without placing the " prospect " under an obligation to go on with the matter. A following-up letter should be sebe in due course, extending the argument and giving a rough idea of the terms on winch a contract would be accepted, coupled with the direct challenge that, if the recipient has kept accurate.cost records, he must agree that, taking evorry into consideration, it would be to his distinct advantage to inquire further into the sender's scheme of maintenance, That " worry argument" should be worked for all it is worth—and it is worth a lot!
The Arguments for the Horse User.
The appeal to the " horse user" will have to be differently-. based. For example assumption might be made that he has not adopted motorvans for his business because the volume of his delivery work is not enough to keep one of these vehicles fully engaged, and it would, therefore, be a non-profitable investment—but is he prepared to entertain a proposal to have nis goods distribution carried out in the modern,wiy, if he has only to pay in proportion to the extentsto which he uses the van? It ought to be possible to combine the deliveries of two or three such part-time users, to each one's gain; but the garage proprietor would have to provide the capital to buy the van, fixing his charges to correspond. To persuade the " messenger user" to come up to scratch will, of course, be the hardest job of all ; but here, again, it should be practicable to combine 'deliveries' and to make one van serve the purposes of several tradesmen. It is not to be, supposed that two grocers oetwo drapers would care to have their stuff taken round in the same vehicle, but there could be no serious objection to pooling the deliveries of non-clashing goods. An attraction would be the benefit of having the names and stylesof themembers of the pool set forth on detachable boards affixed to the sides of the van, under some such wording as "Express -Parcels Delivery for —." This circularizing campaign—which I have only sketchily outlined, but to which I may return at a later date—may well be backed up by display advertisements in the local papers, especially if, as is generally, the case, the garage proprietor wants to keep his name before private motorists. Directly the ball has been started to roll, and two or three tradesmen have signed on, the rest will be comparatively easy. If the experimentalists are given truly satisfactory service, and the advertiser convinces them by facts that it does not pay a small user so well to run his own motor vehicles as to entrust their main-. tenance to a man whose whole attention is focused on looking after their welfare, it will not be long-before -raw:Imam is himself besieged with inquiries.