Garage door industry magazine for garage door dealers, garage door manufacturers, garage door distributors, garage door installers, loading docks, garage door operators and openers, gates, and tools for the door industry.
Issue link: https://idoi.epubxp.com/i/117695
SALES&MARKETING; Are you a door dealer or a door store? by Dan Apple by Dan Apple Dan Apple a ple The Apple Group, LC The Apple Grou LLC The Apple Group LLC h ple up I f you���re a garage door dealer and are still waiting for new home construction to come back to 2006 levels don���t read any further. Just turn the page and keep moving through this magazine because this article isn���t for you. However, if you understand that those days are long gone but are looking for a new direction for your dealership, there���s good news so keep reading. There���s plenty of money out there that can be spent with your company. You just have to go get it. As Carly Simon���s hit song reminds us, ���These are the good old days.��� Moving from ���door dealer��� to ���door store��� may be the answer. Gone are the days of hitching your company���s wagon to new home construction. Yes, your business life may have been easier in terms of volume, albeit at often low margins. The builder was king and you were constantly being pressured to drop your price and kiss his ring. How about showing up on the job as requested only to ���nd that the door opening was nowhere near being ready for the garage door installation? Another false start and wasted time and money. For extra fun, once the door was installed and billed you had to wait, and wait, and wait some more for your money. Basically you were the bank, helping to ���nance the builder���s job. All of this and at low pro���t margins to boot. Now that I���ve reminded you of these ���bene���ts��� of builder work, perhaps the good old days weren���t always so good after all. Now don���t get me wrong, not all new construction 42 International Door & Operator Industry��� sales were bad. In fact, in the proper mix of sales they were vital to the business��� growth. Many sales to custom builders were terri���cally rewarding and added much to the bottom line. But since housing cratered during The Great Recession, garage door dealers have been hard pressed to shift gears for survival. I would maintain that making such a shift could cause you to thrive not just survive. So, if selling tons of garage doors to builders is no longer where the action is, where and how can you replace these sales? In other words, taking a line from the movie Jerry McGuire, show me the money! Well say hello to the ���Silver Tsunami.��� Those 78 million Baby Boomers born in the U.S. after WWII from 1946-1964. That���s where you���ll ���nd the money. And they have plenty of it. Let���s look at some facts. Baby Boomers have more cash than any other generation in U.S. They have earned more, inherited more and in general came along as America realized its most prosperous time in its history. They grew up believing that they would be different than any other generation... and they were. Boomers knew they would make a difference in the world...and they have. Continued on page 45