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Sales: not just about trucks
Page 55
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• Truck salesmen are increasingly promoting the dealership's entire portfolio of services— everything from new vehicles and finance to what the workshop and parts department have to offer.
"That's why we're very much involved in developing a 'sales leaders' programme, with sales people selling our aftersales facilities as well as trucks," says Geoff Haspell, dealer principal at Stoke-on-Trent Daf and LH dealership Lox Commercials. This approach should help fill the workshop as well as keep registrations buoyant. Not that they're in the doldrums: "Truck sales are going exceptionally well," he says.
The dealership is currently averaging sales of 250 new Bats a year from Stoke and its outlet at Rhostyllen, just outside Wrexham. It also sells about 60 used trucks a year.
If you're going to attract business for the workshop you need enough fitters to handle the work. "We're continually running recruitment ads, but technicians aren't easy to come by," he says, "It's a legacy of the industry's failure to invest enough money in training back in the eighties.
"We've got six apprentices, but I'm afraid that working in a truck workshop isn't seen as being glamorous. However, the fact that we offer a decent pension scheme, ongoing training, and good career prospects because we're part of a big group like Lex, makes us more appealing."