Jan. 21, 2008 – Join the club…and watch your revenue dwindle

Welcome, and as we have a lot of things to gripe about this week, please quickly take your seat. The Powersports Curmudgeon Club is now in session.
As president of this esteemed and growing branch of the industry, I would like to first welcome any new members. Although now that you’re seated, I see our attendance is a little light this session. That’s unfortunate, but hardly surprising. A few dumpings of snow here and there and those Northerners forget the inherent truisms of the Curmudgeon Club Creed. For those of you new to these proceedings, please take scrupulous notes as we, the members of The Club, recite those principles:
1) View anything remotely optimistic with an eye on the more likely negative outcome;
2) Treat any type of new thinking like a sudden bout of leprosy;
3) Scorn anybody who believes there’s a rainbow at the end of every storm, believes the glass is half full when we know it’s half empty and never, I repeat, never look for the silver lining.
Now, let’s get down to the order of our griping. First off, as founder of this esteemed club I have taken it upon myself to identify members of the industry that are acting against the Creed. They have willfully scorned all significant and meaningful signs that the U.S. economy is going to the birds by attempting to grow their business. We, members of the Club, view this as a supreme waste of time and therefore are doing our best as members of the industry to point this out in hopes that they will see their wrongs.
Before we pen letters to these wayward souls, let’s first identify each of them and their wrongdoings.
First off, there’s Scott Younggren, who is in charge of the metric inventory for Cycle Barn of Lynnwood, Wash. Members of the Club witnessed the following: Younggren overheard the beginning of a discussion between a grandmother and her grandson, the latter of which was fawning over a dirt bike. Said grandmother was especially unhappy at this, noting the inherent safety risks of such a vehicle. Younggren spotted this and then approached the grandmother, “You don’t allow him to have a bed in his room, do you Grandma?’” he said. “Because I can prove to you more people die in beds than on motorcycles. Statistically speaking, beds are way more dangerous than bikes are.” The grandmother then was spotted laughing and even said in return, “Oh my God, you must be one of those salesman who can sell ice cream to Eskimos.”
Members of the Club, this is an obvious transgression of the Creed. Please pen a letter to Mr. Younggren noting he has violated Creed No. 3 and please call special attention to the fact that we saw the grandson walk out of the store without a new bike. And no, do not mention the fact that one good retail experience usually leads to another, nor shall we focus on the fact that Younggren made a negative situation into a positive one. That would be in violation of Creed No. 1.
On to the next wayward soul.
That would be John Resciniti III, the vice president of the Motorcycle Mall in Belleville, N.J.
Mr. Resciniti’s dealership has a “Barbie” motorcycle near the entrance of his store. No sirs, that was not a mistake. I did indeed say Barbie, as in the fashion doll. Said motorcycle is covered in pink, down to its very wheel rim tips. To make matters worse, he has a mannequin on the Barbie bike that also is draped in pink, including an Icon helmet. Clearly, this is in violation of Creed No. 2, and Mr. Resciniti should be alerted of his wrongdoing.
Members of the club have secretly discovered that Mr. Resciniti has been able to significantly increase his new bike sales to women through this Barbie bike showcase and other nontraditional marketing steps. We, however, view this as highly unlikely — not to mention in violation of Creed No. 1 — and dismiss this entire line of discussion, as it would hardly lead to any significant major unit volume increases over a short period of time.
Please pen a note to Mr. Resciniti and remind him the industry has grown at quite a tremendous rate during the past decade without Barbie bikes on our showroom floors, and that any such thinking is just a waste of time. The economy is in the pits, and it’s just going to get worse, with or without distasteful pink-colored bikes.
Now then, the last order of business: the club’s treasury. Seems we have a noticeable lack of funds …
Forgive the sarcasm and attempt at bringing humor to an age-old problem:?embracing new thinking, like that shown by Younggren and Resciniti. In my view, 2008 comes down to this: Keep the Creed and lose potentially a whole slew of customers and possible sales. Or, lose the Creed and keep the potential slew of customers and possible sales.
Note to dealers
We’ve been asked by many dealers about how we selected which dealerships to highlight in our first ever dealer directory, which was published in December. Ironically, it was the dealers themselves that did most of the selecting. Let me explain: Working with a marketing research company, we faxed, e-mailed and phoned dealerships that were also subscribers. We then asked those dealerships to provide updated information to us. That updated information was then placed into the dealer directory.
Dealerships that did not fill out the e-mailed or faxed forms were not placed in the directory.
We will again go through this process next year. But this time, we’ll make sure and alert you of the process so you can alert your staff to send back the necessary information. psb

Neil Pascale is editor-in-chief of Powersports Business. He can be reached at npascale@ehlertpublishing.com.