Launching A Dealership – Jon McMahon

You’ve been in pursuit of a specific dealership or auto group for quite some time, and you finally get to demonstrate what NuVinAir can do. The service manager brings you to a customer’s car that isn’t detailed and smells like cigarettes, and has fast food trash in the back from 2019. “Will it work on this?” Fast forward through the grotesque details, and the service manager agrees he wants to start selling NuVinAir. Now what?

“Launching a dealership,” as we like to call it, is an intricate process. There are many moving parts and a significant amount of people to get on board with the new product: 25+ service techs, 6+ service advisors, and all the managers from parts to service. The key is to run the show! The dealership is not going to do it for you. We got duped far too many times early on by thinking we could drop treatments and cyclones off and show back up a month later to another order of 100. You need to take the reins and ensure that each meticulous step is understood, followed, and ultimately retained by continuing to follow up weekly.

Our dealership launch consists of about six full workdays. The first is our entire team of four on-site from 9 am-5 pm. Launch Day is about getting everyone, and I mean EVERYONE hyped about the new product they just brought in. From GM to the admin folks, everyone is offered a free treatment on their personal vehicles and one-on-one explanations. This shows good faith as you begin a new business relationship, and the managers will notice the new guys in green going above and beyond to ensure they see success. 

After launch day, one of our reps will continue to follow up at the same time on the same day for the next 5-6 weeks. This builds trust that we will show up when we say we are, and these follow-up visits allow you to train the staff that was off that day, answer any questions, and check up on sales. These visits are meant to instill confidence and squash any objections that NuVinAir will not be successful. You must be on site for this part. Nobody is going to call you to ask for help. They are just going to go back to what they were used to doing. We do monthly visits after that to continue to implement and tweak the system. 

Keys to success

• MPI (multi-point inspection) integration – I believe this is the key to everything service drive. Find out what company they use for DMS and get “NuVinAir” or “HVAC treatment” on it. Allows the tech to flag the car to the customer, indicating a NuVinAir should be performed on your vehicle. It will enable you to compare NuVinAir recommendations from the techs to cabin air filters and see the difference.
• RO code – This must be built ahead of launch day. Allows for tracking each month. Includes flag hours for tech, price to customer, parts markup, service markup, and shop charges. Compare NuVinAir ROs to cabin air filter ROs at the end of the month.
• SPIFF – sales performance incentive fund. It’s imperative that the dealership builds one of these into their model. NuVinAir needs to be the most attractive product on the menu to the service advisor! Not the customer. If an SA can get $10 to swap tires but only $5 for a NuVinAir, they are going to push tires as the upsell. You only get 1-2 products that you can feasibly upsell a customer on. Make sure it’s NuVinAir, and don’t forget about incentivizing the service techs. They are typically overlooked and appreciate even a dollar a treatment. We’ve given cash SPIFFs and numerous sales contests for air pods