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Renovation gives Sam’s Powersports Garage a boost

Consultant hears positive feedback on training tool

Sam’s Powersports Garage may be less than one year old, but the online training website has already gone through two revisions, and its in the process of a third upgrade.

The site, launched by powersports consultant and 20 Group moderator Sam Dantzler, started as simply a library of content that members could access, but Dantzler discovered that wasn’t enough.

“We realized it needed to be self-guided,” he said. “The first revamp was to correct that.”

That remodel made it easier for a dealership employee to login and find all the content available to aid in his or her position. But Dantzler also wanted to make students more accountable for their training.

“We’ve added a huge testing component to it, so you test out of one of three levels, depending on your position in the dealership,” he explained.

Sam’s Powersports Garage includes more than 150 videos, 80 articles and 50 forms.

The content, which includes videos, articles, forms and tutorials for the forms, is available for nearly every employee in a dealership.

“It’s every department, every position, so everything is on there, except service techs,” Dantzler said.

Each student has 20-40 pieces of content to view before testing out of each level. The tests were designed by a third-party provider, which had its staff view the content and base the tests on the training.

“You have to get a 90 percent on the test to pass, which is tough,” Dantzler explained.

A third revision in the site, which is set to launch soon, includes a user-friendly landing page, which will better inform non-members of exactly what they’ll get with a dealership’s $499 per month membership, which covers access for all employees in the store. All dealers have access to the Garage’s e-newsletter and Facebook page, but only members can access the training components.

Since launching Sam’s Powersports Garage in March, Dantzler has received positive feedback from a variety dealers. Ten dealership representatives and a few OEM insiders have submitted video testimonials for the site.

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“We’ve got over 1,000 students online right now — Harley, metric and Euro — across the board,” Dantzler said.

Content on the site is updated monthly, with new videos loaded every other month and articles added in the gap months. Because of the frequency of new content, Dantzler is able to quickly add topics by request.

“If someone sends a suggestion about a topic they want to see and learn more about, we can put it in action, and within 60 days, we have content up on the website,” Dantzler said.

The fresh videos and articles also make Sam’s Powersports Garage a tool that employees can continue using to maintain their education.

Sam’s Powersports Garage, an online training site released by consultant Sam Dantzler, has undergone three revisions since its March launch.

“Yes, it’s designed to get your employees up to speed, but it’s also really designed for maintaining their continued attention. NFL players are the best of the best in the world, but they practice five times a week to play one,” Dantzler said. “The idea is they can go back on and re-watch and re-learn.”

The dealers who have gotten the most out of the training are those who require managers to sit down with employees after tests are complete and discuss the results. Some dealerships even gather their staff to watch the videos together. The videos average seven minutes in length.

The biggest benefit dealers report getting from the training is a consistent message across all departments.

“Everyone talks the same language; everyone understands what the customer’s about,” Dantzler explained.

Though he has added a number of features since the site was first launched, the Garage is still evolving. Soon Dantzler will add a dashboard for members to more easily access their employees’ test scores.

 

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