Quarter 1 in any year represents around 40% of your full year expectation - so what do you do when it's over?

Quarter 2 - It's not quarter 1 and it sure ain't quarter 3

The market size and quality is formed by now - too late if you missed quarter 1 because c40% of your years profit potential is now behind you. It's fair to say that we can have a good stab at what to expect in quarter 2 of any year - less of what we got in quarter 1 but how much less is up to you. Why? Because quarter 2 is always worse than quarter 1, second only to quarter 4 trading (not to be confused with results which include non-trading elements in quarter 4 such as year end bonus, holdback etc) – why is that? Generally, quarter 1 is psychologically a boost because it’s a new year; it’s also helped along by a bow wave of used car orders from between Christmas and New year which are delivered in the first week of January and it’s also where the smart money (fleet) places it’s new car business i.e. January, for a full year of use before the first years depreciation has to be applied. Quarter 1 also holds the spring plate change of course so March is the biggest month for retail registrations. So what’s left for us to enjoy in quarter 2? Used cars have been in increasingly short supply since last October (it's always the case) and for the first three months of the year used vehicles don't appreciably depreciate. Quarter 2 is all about used cars and aftersales revenues - it's a long time to September for another plate change but the forecourt should be well stocked with good part exchanges after March and Spring heralds the traditional time for the private motorist to check out his private transport before the summer season. The ability of used vehicle volumes to increase and cover any new unit shortfall is a serious opportunity. For some years now, our showrooms have had to close on Easter Sunday and yet traditionally, Sundays, especially Bank Holidays, have been great for business. Easter is the first real retail foray of the year - ask any B+Q manager – time to think of and plan some attractions around the days when you don’t have to close and maybe consider a “viewings only” day on Easter Sunday if the law permits? Quarter 2 hosts 2 more bank holidays – still plenty of time to organise some promotional events around those weekends. Aftersales opportunities in the 3yr+ parc are ripe at this time of year. Many motorists are gearing up for the biggest journeys of the year – often over bank holidays and therefore are optimal prospects for health check, service and preventative maintenance offers. The 3yr + parc is the most lucrative for proper health check and general upsell processes so now is the perfect time to dust off your approach and finesse the technique. Gone are the days when you had to mailshot or, heaven forbid, prospect for such aftersales business; enlightened operators now have substantial numbers of email addresses (free to contact) and mobile phone numbers (tariffs as cheap as £4 a month for 10,000 texts) – so the expensive 50 pence a pop dumb mailer is almost redundant. New and intuitive software now exists to transmit voice on high quality messages direct to land line numbers and smart enough to leave an entirely different recorded message if a message system is encountered. Such voice messaging is very economical and intuitive, being easily capable of delivering messages in a series of interactive sound bites so as to limit customer negativity in receipt of such messages. These systems also allow the prospect to interact, control their degree and depth of involvement, register interest or request contact termination. All for virtually free. So, unless you’ve got any better ideas, quarter 2 is all about generating aftersales opportunities and upsell + maximising used car sales most likely through targeted and refined data base interrogation. Good hunting