Power Profiles

Perry Performance Group – Dania Beach, Fla. – Nov. 2, 2009

BUSINESS PROFILE
If there’s any dealer who can say he eats, sleeps and breathes PWC, it’s Glen Perry, owner of Perry Performance Group. The staff is all enthusiasts as well, having more than 100 years of combined experience. The dealership also has more than 100 years in racing experience from off- and on-road to PWC racing. Perry has been racing since he was 9. His parents owned a dealership, which they sold when Perry was in high school. His enthusiasm led him to open his own dealership in 1997. Located in South Florida, they’ve been in the same location since it opened, and they carry Sea-Doo and Can-Am vehicles.

GREATEST CONCERN
“The ability for some of the riders to be able to come in and buy a 70-mph watercraft,” Perry said. “The way that the industry is heading with the size, cost and complexity of the new machines is making it hard for first-time buyers. A lot of that has to be there because of emissions, I do understand that, but they’re getting too costly.”

WHAT’S HOT
“We’re a hot rod shop,” Perry said. “The RXT models are the hottest sellers for us. Those and the competition units.”

CUSTOMER BUYING TRENDS
“The financing companies don’t want to finance anyone it seems,” Perry said, adding most people buying are paying cash. “Basically they walk in with a check or cash or a wire transfer to pay for a unit.”

PARTS AND SERVICE
One of the reasons Perry Performance Group is Platinum Level-certified BRP/Sea-Doo dealer is due to the amount of training Perry has invested in his staff. “One of the problems in this industry is the lack of trained technicians and that’s across the board. The motorcycle industry suffers from it, ATV, all of it,” Perry said, adding that he’s come up with ways to keep his trained staff on board. “When you train them, hold onto them. Create positive ways to hold on to them once you have them. We have a program where we’ll give very expensive toolboxes to most of the technicians. For my guys, I’ll buy them a toolbox. After five years, half of it’s theirs. After 10 years, it’s all theirs. I learned it from a Cadillac dealership in Jacksonville in the ’80s. Everybody had matching toolboxes all up and down, and it worked. They finally quit losing people after they were trained. It was a clever idea.”

PROMOTIONAL HOME RUNS
While the dealership has its Web site, it attracts a lot of its customers through word of mouth. The reason word of mouth spreads like wild fire for Perry Performance is because they take leaps and bounds for their customers, including detailing their powersports vehicles as well as their cars and trucks. “We kill them with unexpected service,” Perry said. “About 25 percent of the machines in here right now are probably from more than 1,000 miles away, if not 30 percent. People who come from far away and they want to leave their car or trailer, we have their car detailed. We’ve had things fixed for them (on their cars) like taillights. We fixed someone’s AC. The guy spent a fortune. Doing things people would never expect — above and beyond to say the least.”

WORDS OF ADVICE
“Train your techs. The stuff I see on a daily basis makes the hair on my arms stand up,” Perry said. “Anything you pay a good man is never enough, and anything you pay a bad man is too much. Through all my years of experience, your service department and parts department should both be excellent sales tools for your sales department. Everyone on my staff, every technician, every parts personnel, everyone can sell a new unit. They typically don’t have time and have to pass it off, but they do have the know how. Educate your staff,” Perry added. “Good luck to those who are hanging in there and hanging tough.”
— Karin Gelschus

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