RUNNING THE BUSINESS
Year Out & Year In
Now is the time to get your ducks in a row for 2027.
By mel selway
Choat - stock.adobe.com
Yes, 2026 is almost in the history books — or maybe that’s an outdated term since many of our documents are now in digital format, right?
What preparations have you initiated to efficiently close out 2026 and properly welcome in 2027?
In the event that you have not begun these preparations, it may be worth a few minutes of your time to read this column and ensure that many, if not all, of the processes related to year-end are on your to-do list.
Year Out
Due to space limitations, it is not possible to list all of the many functions related to closing the current year so we will limit our Year-End To-Do List review to those aspects that might be most critical.
Your Digital Business
How many of your business’ documents are generated by the dealership management system (DMS)? What procedures are in place (or should be in place) to ensure that the year’s data are processed as stipulated by your DMS vendor? Are there any special reports that must be generated to collate the data for each of your operating departments and for the business in total?
Does your DMS require that specific procedures be followed to differentiate prior year data from current year data? Who of your associates is scheduled to perform these procedures and on what date? Are there detailed written procedures (DWP) in place so that an alternate person could perform these processes in the event that the primary is unavailable?
Is it necessary that these year-end processes be performed at a time when no one is accessing any other functions within the DMS? If so, when and how was this communicated to all employees? This is important now that many DMS provide remote access. Just because the business is closed does not preclude the possibility of an associate accessing the DMS from an off-site location.
If you changed your DMS during 2026 (upgraded the current vendor’s system, switched to a different vendor’s DMS or went digital for the first time), I suggest that you contact your DMS vendor’s technical support department and inquire as to the year-end procedures that are required to be processed. Many DMS vendors have a year-end checklist that contains the programs to be processed and the suggested (or required) sequence in which they are to be performed.
After processing your digital year-end, please make certain to schedule a data backup so there is an additional record of the updates from these special processes.
How Did We Do?
During my career as a parts manager/director, I used daily to-do lists as a tool for maintaining the efficiency and the image of my parts departments. During the period between the Christmas and New Year holidays, our business occasionally slowed. I used this time to review the to-do lists from the year that was ending and picked out some projects that were accomplished and which enhanced the parts department operations. I also made certain to include projects/tasks that involved each of the parts associates so that no one was left out.
During our weekly staff meeting in that period between the holidays, I reviewed these department-enhancing projects with my parts associates and reminded them of the progress we had made during the year. This was done to thank them for their participation and to remind them of the changes we had made to enhance their department. It was also a reminder that we should not rest on our accomplishments and should look for additional opportunities for improvement.
You might consider convening a storewide meeting with all of your personnel to review the year, their successes, to thank them for their participation and to invite their suggestions for further enhancements.
Your Customers
Perhaps you could include a thank-you to your customers as part of your year-end processes. How would you decide who those customers might be? Most likely, your DMS provides a report generator function that you could use to create lists of your customers by department. Comparing these lists — which can be done relatively quickly if you export your reports to Excel and use the Excel comparable data function — you could determine which customers who have purchased RVs are also having those RVs serviced at your business and who are purchasing supplies and accessories as well.
Sometimes, the departments within a dealership don’t communicate as well as they should. This departmental customer analysis could be used as a tool for you to educate your associates on the importance of interdepartmental communication and cooperation especially as it impacts customer service.
Performance to Goals
Year-end is also a great time to review the goals that had been established for individuals, departments and for the business, and to evaluate the level of achievement for each of those goals. A review of the goals might also be included to determine if they were realistic or were merely created because it was a 20 Group idea that seemed like a good thing at the time.
This performance-to-goal review is a good segue to the other topic of this column — Year-In — because year-end is a good time to look ahead to next year.
Year-In
Since we transitioned from Year-Out and the performance-to-goal review, we could look at our vision for the new year, starting with setting budgets and objectives for the business.
The Financials
What plans do you and your management team have for the business and for their departments in 2027? Is it your intent to increase, decrease or remain in place? When is your budget meeting scheduled and who will be attending? What information will each participant be required to provide, and who has issued the agenda for that meeting?
Will a review of the operating expenses for the business and for each department be included in that meeting agenda? What guidelines will be used to determine the allowable expense limits for each of the three primary expense types, which are personnel, semi-fixed and fixed. Where could you obtain those guidelines if you don’t currently have them? What methods are available to improve the control of those expenses?
As for the income portion of the financial equation, what talking points should be included in this topic? You could consider items such as:
- Gross profit percentage goals for each type of product/service
- Analysis of the income generated each hour of each weekday to determine if the business’ operating hours and days should be changed; and to decide if staffing is aligned with the volume of business during these days/hours
- Inventory levels necessary to support the volume of business projected for each type of product/service
Also included in this budget meeting could be a discussion of the reports necessary to obtain the performance data in order to determine the achievement to goal for each metric that you decide to use in evaluating the operations. Who will generate each of these reports and when should also be decided. A DWP should be created for each of these report generation processes to cover absences and to guarantee consistent data reporting.
Your Marketing Plan
How will you ensure that customers and prospects will consider your business for the purchase of an RV? ... or for the service and repair of their RV? ... and for the supplies and accessories to maintain and enhance their RV?
What marketing plans are in place or will be developed to make people aware of your dealership/business? What theme will be consistently contained in each advertisement or promotion?
What kind of image do you want to project? Price/value, customer service, product selection and friendly staff are a few of the theme and image messages that could be considered for inclusion in your marketing plan.
What media will be most effective in getting your marketing message(s) out to your customers and prospects? How will you know if the message was received? ... and via which media instrument?
For each aspect of your marketing plan, you should:
- determine the objectives
- estimate and track the expenses
- evaluate the performance
These factors are important so that you can determine if your marketing efforts are achieving the goals that you have established for the business and to determine if a specific promotion or event has justified the expense.
Who should be involved in these marketing plan discussions? What metrics could be used to evaluate the performance of each marketing event? How will these metrics be obtained?
“even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” —will rogers
Out With the Old, In With the New
In planning for 2027, what changes to your operations have you planned — or at least considered? Any changes should not be limited to the physical location. You should also consider process improvement opportunities that exist for your business.
When did you most recently walk through each room/area of your business and record notes of your observations as to the appearance of and the condition of each room/area? This walk-through could be eye-opening, especially if you apply a quote from Yogi Berra, baseball Hall of Fame catcher of the New York Yankees: “You can observe a lot just by watching.”
Open each closet and drawer. Look in each room. Watch your associates as they perform their duties. You might be surprised at what you find and observe. I suggest that you might also record your discoveries with a camera. This allows you to review your tour and to develop questions for which you should obtain answers.
Some of the questions I frequently ask when I tour client operations are:
- Why do you have cartons of prior model year vehicle brochures? And how much did they cost?
- Why is that beverage container sitting on a shelf in the parts storeroom?
- Why is that customer walking around looking for help when two of your associates are having a personal conversation at their workstation?
- What could you do to make each entrance to the dealership more welcoming and attractive?
- What is in each of those bottles/cans on each of the technician’s workbenches? And why are these containers there?
- Why are there empty slat-wall hooks and shelves? And have replacement goods been ordered to fill those hooks?
- What message do I hear when I call the dealership? And how difficult is it to get connected to the person/department that could best assist me?
- How current is the information in your website?
These are but a few of the types of operational issues that you could add to your list of possible improvement opportunities at your RV business.
Yes, I know what you are possibly thinking: Here’s more work that Selway is making for me. Yet if you don’t continually review and improve your operations, you might not have to do that work because you could be put out of business by a competitor who has made the effort.
To quote Will Rogers, the cowboy philosopher, “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
So my suggestion is to get moving along that track and make it a habit, Year Out and Year In.
Mel Selway is the president of P.A.R.T.S. Inc., a Sahuarita, Arizona-based firm providing business management analysis and training to retailers. He can be reached at 520-336-8606 or melselway@aol.com.
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