Seven to twelve dealers, one hour a month, numbers on the table.
Dealer Success Groups is a peer group for equipment dealership owners, run online by Jeff Blackton. You bring your service and parts numbers. So does everyone else.
Outdoor power, ag, powersports, trailer Online. No travel. Close to forty years with dealers
What you put on the board.
Five numbers, read out loud, every month, by every owner in the group. Most dealers have never said them in front of another dealer. That is the part that changes things.
| The number | What it actually measures | Yours |
|---|---|---|
| Service recovery rate | Hours you billed a customer, divided by the hours you paid a technician for. | |
| Absorption | How much of your fixed expense parts and service cover before you sell a single unit. | |
| Technician productivity | Hours a tech was on a work order, divided by the hours he was on the clock. | |
| Parts fill rate | Lines you filled off your own shelf, the first time a customer asked for them. | |
| Aged parts | What share of the shelf has not moved in twelve months. |
Not sure what your recovery rate is? That is the usual answer. Run it in ten minutes with the calculator.
01 / The hour
An hour a month, and it runs on a clock.
It is not a webinar. Nobody presents at you. Here is how the hour goes.
00:00
Jeff opens
Who is on, and what everybody said they would do last month. Started or not started.
00:05
The board
Every owner reads their five numbers. No commentary, no explaining them away. Fifteen minutes for the whole room.
00:20
One dealer takes the chair
One member brings a real problem from their store. A tech who quit, a parts manager who will not order to a min-max, a line the manufacturer is pulling. The room works it. Everyone else has already had it.
00:45
Commitments
Each owner names one thing that will be done before the next meeting. It goes on the list Jeff reads at 00:00.
00:55
Close
You are back on the floor by the top of the hour.
02 / The other 719 hours
What happens the rest of the month.
Thirty minutes with Jeff, every month
One on one, your dealership only, nobody else on the line. This is where the number you would not read out in front of the group gets dealt with, and where the commitment for next month gets set.
- Your store, your lines, your people, by name
- Jeff Blackton runs the groups and takes these calls
A workshop a month, and your managers are in it
One department, one topic, live. Your service manager and your parts manager attend it, not just you. Hiring and retention, cash flow, setting baselines, pricing, aged inventory, succession.
The Toolbox and the hiring program, included
Over two hundred templates a dealership actually uses: triage sheets, cut-and-dry job descriptions, rental and consignment agreements, parts pricing matrices. Plus seventy-five on-demand modules, and the hiring program that placed 157 parts people and technicians for member dealers last year.
03 / The room
Who is on the call.
Owners of equipment dealerships, roughly your size, carrying roughly your kind of lines. Not a manufacturer rep, not a vendor, not a room of consultants.
- Seven to twelve dealers in a group. Small enough that everybody has to speak.
- Online, one hour. No flights, no hotel, no shutting the store for two days.
- Bring a manager. Owners can pull their service or parts manager into the workshops.
- The group keeps talking between meetings in a private group, and meets in person once a year.
- Some manufacturers sponsor a group for their dealers. Over 93% of dealers in a manufacturer-sponsored group are on the call every month. Ask yours before you pay for a seat yourself.
Watch
Dealer Success Groups, explained.
Published by Bob Clements International. Watch it on YouTube
04 / Dealers who did it
What moved, in their words.
“Bob and his team have really helped us through some of the most unstable times there's ever been for a farm dealership. He has the experience with his team to give us feedback on decisions that could make it or break it for our family owned shop. We really appreciate all the guidance and knowledge Bob has shared with us over the last few years.”
65% to 123% “Your system works as promised. We went from a 65% recovery rate to 123%.”
“Bob helped us reorganize our service department and take it from losing money to making money. He didn't just tell us what to do, but helped us do it with practical tools and one-on-one coaching.”
05 / What it costs
$839 a month, per location.
Month to month. Two locations is two seats, and so on up to six. Every line below is included at that price, which is worth doing the arithmetic on.
One technician billing one more hour a day at a $135 shop rate returns about $2,800 a month. At that rate the seat is paid for in six working days, and the other numbers on the board have not moved yet.
- Dealer Toolbox, sold on its own $99 / mo
- Hiring program, sold on its own $498 / mo
- The group, the workshop, and Jeff's half hour $242 / mo
- Dealer Success Groups $839 / mo
Hiring is billed at $1,495 a quarter on its own. Shown monthly here so the columns add up.
06 / Apply
Groups are matched, not filled.
Tell us what you carry and how big you are, and we will put you in a group of dealers you can actually compare yourself against. Jeff reads every one of these.
Would you rather ask questions first? Book thirty minutes
That is with Jeff
He calls applicants himself, usually inside two business days, and always from a Kansas City number. If you would rather pick the time, book thirty minutes at pages.bobclements.com. Nothing is charged until you have talked to him and seen which group you would be in.
07 / Before you decide anything
How much money are you walking over?
Work out your recovery rate first. It takes about ten minutes and a month of work orders, and it is the number the whole program moves. Most dealers find out they are billing for a good deal less than they are paying for.
Download the calculator