- Buy here Pay here,
- financing
- warrantees
- certified
- specialization
- quantity over quality
- cheep
- trucks
So I was thinking about a specialization to service a specific demographic. Like late model BMWs. BMW has a huge cult following and a great internet network. These cars are basically worshiped. I'm thinking about picking one brand, car and generation and becoming a specialist of that specific car. Then marketing my services to the internet gurus as a car finding service.
This would work great for a number of different cars; Mini's, RX 7-8, Mercedes, Jeeps etc...
I don't want to deal with buy her pay here... I just don't want to deal with the hasle. Besides it seems like these guys all get a pretty bad reputaiton. Which is understandable because you end up repo-ing a lot of cars... It's just not my style. Though I'm sure that they make a ton of money!
I don't think that I want to deal with financing either. I know that there's a lot of money there
too but I want to focus on the debt free niche.
I'm all about warrantees! I thought a lot about it and the only difference between a "certified" used car and an non-certified car is the warrantee. I think that I could package this just like the big car dealers. Add the price of the warrantee into the sale price of the car.
Now this would have to be
some pretty aggressive pricing and I may just price my commission into the deal so I don't make any money on the warrantee and just make my money on the car... It's a great sales tool.
I have to start out cheep because I don't have a ton of money to put into this. But eventually I'd like to go more mid priced used cars. $5-10k. We'll see as these would have to be financed by someone and I'd have to look for financeable cars, late model and clean title etc...
I have this firm belief that to be successful you have to differentiate yourself from the competition. I think that specializing can really help you differentiate. But I want to go a step further then that. I want to use transparency of the transaction to be completely up front with my customers. I don't want anyone to feel like they're being ripped off. I'm thinking about outlining everything that I have in the car. Showing the customer the my profit and where I make the money. This is a tactic that no-one is using and probably for good reason.
I want to show everything,
- My cost of the vehicle at auction/ private party
- My cost to recondition the vehicle
- Transporting the vehicle
- Dealer overhead
- Advertising
- Sale price
- My profit.
Now the risk in doing this is that I would tell people how much money I'm making on the deal and tell them exactly how much they can negotiate. I don't really want to deal with negotiation so I'll be just fine walking away if I need to but I'd like to just set the price, show that it isn't my desire to make a killing on a car but to just get a little for my troubles. If I can get my price right this should be a huge selling point. Who else in the marketplace does this? NO ONE! How refreshing would it be to buy a car from someone like this where you know that you aren't being raked over the coals!!!
I'll do two or three things to "specialize" and "differentiate", I believe that this is not only the way to be successful but it's also the only way be make it in this tough market.
Speaking of the market I'm really bummed out with the comments made by Warren Buffet today in his annual shareholder letter. He didn't sound very confident in the next couple of years. I was surprised with his comments about the government interaction and how he thinks that it will make the situation worse and lead to huge inflation. Maybe inflation will help the car markets but I doubt it.
Oh and I don't think that I'll be selling anything from the Big 3....
Phil
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