GM accessories

[scott2112]

I just had a powwow with new car sales manager, my area FixedOps rep, ADI rep, and GM Accessories zone manager. I get the feeling that accessory purchases will soon be factored into SFE. The managers here were basically called onto GMs carpet and lambasted for our lack of sales and told our system is broken. For some reason, GM looks at the PM as the roadblock. I had numerous things to bring to their attention.

1) LPOs--you took the parts department out of the occasion a few years ago. let service and sales wallow in the logistics muck
2) Price--I cant sell your rebranded crap. When I quote a customer almost 900.00 for a step package (L14K) with install, they laugh.
3) Warranty--why do I have to call a third party to get warranty help on acrylic accessories? The ADI rep and GM rep had no clue this disclaimer was in the catalog. why is your crap 3/36 or 12/12 and
Westin and Lund are 5 year or Lifetime at half the price?

The meeting was very heated. They wanted the New Car Manager to preload vehicles and for everyone to share the profit. They asked if I had a problem with that and I said yes. We are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. You are asking me if its ok to take a tech off a job where I am getting close to 100% markup on part and have him do a job where I may make 13%. Are you guys nuts? We are already pissing our customers off...we have work hanging from the rafters and not enough techs to get the work done quickly enough.

The last straw was when they demanded a meeting later this week to discuss our new strategy to shill their crap. I walked out and said I will just sell to the new car department at cost, so they can almost be competitive with aftermarket. I need to be back at my department ripping off heads and making my GM happy.

After I left, the sales managers were told the lack of sales is something that will need to change. Their feeling is next year, accessory sales will be a metric that will influence SFE.

Don't know if anyone else had their meeting yet with their area reps. Would love to hear from some that have.

Love that GM feeling.

[Denise Trimble]

Not yet, but well done!