Car Count Daily

Hey, shop owners. Welcome to another edition of Car Count Daily. My name’s Ron Ipach, but you can call me Captain Car Count, because that’s all I’ve done over the past 20 years is help auto repair shop owners just like you to get and then keep all the top-quality customers that your shop can handle.

​Today’s episode is aimed at all of those shop owners that I’ve spoken with over all of the years that absolutely refuse to offer any sort of discount on their services. Okay? Now, you’ve probably done things on sale before. The majority of people have, but this episode is really geared towards the people that absolutely refuse to offer any sort of a discount, or when you do come up with an offer to get somebody in the door, it’s just this teeny-tiny few dollars off an oil change or something like that. This video is specifically for you, okay?

​Now look, people are creatures of habit. They like to buy things on sale. I mean, the reason why the Sunday newspaper is the most popular day of the week for newspapers and why the day after Thanksgiving that newspaper is the most-purchased newspaper on Earth that day is because everybody wants to see what’s on sale. People like to get good value. They want to get a discount. They want to save money wherever they can. Before you say that, “No, that doesn’t apply to everybody,” let’s talk about you for an example. You may say, “Oh, no. I don’t care. I’ll pay full price for anything.”

​Let’s put you in the situation where you go into an appliance store and you want to buy a big screen TV. You’ve got, let’s say, three grand to spend on a television. You’ve got two of them right next to each other. Both of them look really nice. The one is a $4,500 television on sale for $3,300, okay, so it’s a sizable discount. The one right next to it is right in your price range. It’s $3,000. Now let me ask you a question. Are you more likely to buy the one that’s $3,000 or do you think maybe you’d spend a little bit more to save more money and get the supposedly better, more expensive television? Which one would you buy? I know, personally, and the way 99% of the people act, they’re going to go for the one that’s the better deal. You’re not going to pay full price. You’re not going to pay $3,000, which is the full price on the one television. You’ll even spend more than your budget allows to get a deal. Okay? That’s human nature.

​I’m not here to tell you to go and try to go against human nature. The better the deal, the more people are going to respond. That’s the purpose of advertising. That’s the purpose of marketing. That’s the purpose of getting your message out there is to incentivize somebody to take action and take action right now, because when they take action right now and they come into your shop, you have a chance to upsell them other services. See, I’ve always said you don’t make any money off of the cars that are driving past your shop, okay? They’re somebody else’s customer. If they’re not stopping in your shop today, they’re worthless to you, so you got to do whatever you can to get them to stop in your shop. Now just because you offer a discount on one service doesn’t mean that you discount everything you do. Understand the discount is just simply to catch their attention, to get them to stop into your shop so that you can have a chance to look at their car, do additional services, additional upsells, and create a long-lasting relationship with that brand-new customer that you’ve never had before. Okay?

​If you refuse to offer any sort of incentive to get somebody in there, it’s going to be a very, very difficult road for you, okay? Now understand, when you discount, it’s not off of everything. It’s off of the one thing that’s going to get them in the door, and you could charge full price for everything else, because once you’ve got them, you’ve got them, okay? They become your customer, and now you control the situation, but you don’t control the situation if they drive past your shop to somebody else’s shop that’s offering a better deal to get them in the door. Okay? That’s all I’m saying.

​Look, your prices have got to be able to absorb any sort of discounting that you do offer, okay, so you got to get that in line. I’m not saying you’re going to have low prices and then you’re going to discount off of that. I never suggest anything like that, but you have to have your pricing in order so that you can offer somebody a good deal on one item, okay, so that they stop in your shop so that you have a chance to do business with them. Okay? Really, get that out of your head that discounting is bad. Discounting is just simply going with human nature and allowing people to make an easy decision. Much easier for me to say it. What we’re trying to do is get people to make an easy decision to do business with you versus going to somebody else.

​That’ll do it for today’s episode. Let me know what you think. Go down below this video and write me a little note, and I’ll read it, and I’ll respond right back to you.