This article will be providing you with a car dealership business model to follow for your new business idea.
With a great business model in place, you’re able to attract investment while recruiting talent and motivating your staff and management.
Modeling A Car Dealership Startup
Before launching your car dealership business, you’ll need to have the business model in place.
This is a plan that describes how your business makes money with a focus on revenue sources, the targeted customer base, the products you sell as well as the financing details.
Car Dealership Business Model Vs Business Plan
One of the common mistakes made by entrepreneurs is thinking their business model doubles as their business plan.
To make things clear, your business model is mainly focused on strategies for profit generation while the plan is the document that sets forth a car dealership’s expected financial performance over some time.
Basic Components of A Car Dealership Business Model
When writing a car dealership business model, certain sections are considered vital and can’t be avoided. They include identifying your target market as well as setting business processes in place.
What more? Strong value proposition and a record of key business resources are other sections to include.
Other elements of the car dealership business model should include identifying key business partners, creation of a demand generation strategy, and also encouraging innovative potentials.
These will make little sense without further discussions of each element. As such, let’s get into the nitty-gritty.
i. Identifying Your Target Market
A car dealership caters to all kinds of customers. There are high-end and low-end car dealerships each meeting the specific needs of customers within a certain economic bracket.
There are also mid-range car dealerships that focus on a particular target market.
Now, to which category do you belong? In other words, what types of clients do you wish to target or cater to? You’ll need to narrow down your audience to a specific economic bracket.
In other words, if you wish to sell high-end cars, then your focus should be on clients within the top economic brackets.
This can be further broken down into the car models or brands you wish to sell.
You’ll need to figure out what buyers within your particular niche or demographics want and what solutions your car dealership provides in terms of product types and services.
ii. Setting Business Processes in Place
Based on your contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary, you’ll be involved in selling cars at the retail level to your target customers.
Now, you’ll need to have the knowledge (at the basic level) of how things will pan out.
How will sales be made? What marketing strategies are in place to help you reach your target audience? Will your products be shipped to clients? Are there any additional value-added services you wish to include?
All these are key considerations for this section of your car dealership business model.
iii. Strong Value Proposition
The value proposition of the section highlights the competitiveness of your car dealership business. Here, you’re looking at distinguishing your business from those of your competition.
To be competitive enough, you’ll need to consider the quality of service.
A great deal of innovation goes into finding or working out specific service offerings your clients will find beneficial. Here, you’ll need to fully establish clear reasons why your car dealership is unique from those of competitors.
You may even want to go further by connecting such value propositions to specific products or after-sales services. Overall, the aim is to stand your business out from the pack by making it attractive to customers.
Also, a strong value proposition helps your car dealership remain profitable for a long time to come
iv. Record of Key Business Resources
For a car dealership business to thrive and achieve sustained growth, there has to be a record of key business resources. Simply put, these are actions that contribute to the daily success of your business.
They enable you to find new clients, promote customer loyalty through exceptional service delivery and sustained growth.
In order not to sound vague, we’ve identified some of these business resources to include education and training for auto dealers, running capital, customer database, and the likes.
Identifying these helps streamline your business actions towards maximizing sales and profitability.
v. Identifying Key Business Partners
For any meaningful progress to be made, a clear identification of key business partners is essential. Your car dealership business thrives on partnership.
You’ll need to have partnership or dealership agreements with auto manufacturers or their subsidiaries.
Your level of engagement with a car manufacturer largely depends on the scale of your operations. Also critical to the growth of your car dealership is the need to partner with auto websites and magazines.
It has been found that before actually visiting a car dealership, most buyers spend a great deal of time surfing various websites. So, when they finally visit, they’re either making a purchase or planning to.
As such, consider entering into partnerships with multiple consumer websites and blogs.
vi. Creation of a Demand Generation Strategy
First off, you want to create as much awareness about your car dealership as possible.
Your location shouldn’t be hidden but very visible. Plus, you’ll need to create a strong brand through the provision of quality in both pre-sales and after-sales services.
This section of your car dealership business model highlights actions that promote brand loyalty. With the level of service provided, clients should be able to inform or tell about your business to others.
vii. Encouraging Innovative Potentials
Having room for future innovations is the bedrock of business growth.
Your car dealership operations will always need improvement as time goes on. Here, marketing strategies will need to be reviewed from time to time to capture the realities of the market.
Any improvement in the way business is done goes a long way to guarantee sustained growth for your car dealership business.
These key segments make up a car dealership business model. They focus on different aspects of the operation that improve sales and profitability.
You’ll need to include all the key information that is unique to your car dealership business.