RVBusiness May/June 2025
Uncertainty.
Every question about the current business environment comes back to this essential truth: the short- and medium-term macroeconomic situation is essentially unknowable and unpredictable. Tariffs? Equities markets? Inflation? Interest rates? Consumer confidence? For every imaginable scenario, the opposite is seemingly equally possible. Following the news every day is an exercise in mental whiplash, trying to make decisions based on current events is purely an exercise in frustration.
Not that it isn’t all important, or to argue that tariffs (or any number of economic forces in play) won’t have a material impact on our businesses, but at the end of the day becoming consumed by factors external to your business at the expense of your own operation will inevitably result in underperformance or even business failure. None of us knows what might happen in the political or economic world, but there are a few things we can be very certain about: the phone at your dealership is probably ringing right now, there are likely dozens of customers interacting with your service department, and your sales department will have multiple opportunities with customers today either online or in-person at your facility.
No matter how unpredictable the stock market or news cycle is, how good of a job are you doing with these interactions? How focused are you and your team on the opportunities at your business right now? For sure our customers care about all the economic and political factors too but when they are calling your service department, visiting your website, or walking through your door, they have made the decision that something else is more important to them at this moment – namely, doing business or thinking about doing business with you.
“How’s business?”
It’s probably the most common question dealers ask each other. Often when forecasts aren’t being reached, dealers will say that business is tough, that customers seem a little scared to buy, that the floor traffic just isn’t what it used to be, or any number of other convenient reasons why we are off budget. All those things might be true, but what if it’s also true that only half our leads are being logged into CRM, that salespeople are shortcutting the sales process continually, no one’s doing regular sales training, our salespeople don’t have daily activity plans, and the inventory isn’t displayed properly? What does any of that have to do with tariffs or interest rates. Nothing, of course.
Resist letting the news cycle become a rationale for underperformance for your employees or for you. If your team is executing your processes with enthusiasm and you still aren’t getting the results you want there may be an argument to be made that the market conditions are the root cause. (Or, more likely, that maybe your systems and process can be adapted to be more effective!) If, however, an honest look at your operation reveals that you aren’t really executing the best practices consistently, look internally before automatically blaming outside conditions.
In our workshops we talk about the competitors keeping your business from being as successful as it can be. Following discussion, the result of this exercise is always the same: it’s the attitudes of owners, general managers, and employees that most frequently inhibit a dealer’s success. It’s almost never other dealers or external market conditions that drive underperformance. In this uncertain market, make sure that your primary energy is focused inside your business. Those political or economic factors in the broader economy will get along just fine without you: your business won’t.