The last day of the business year is one that often feels like it’s in limbo and it's as if there’s no clear path on what to do or what matters most. That’s okay: I have your back! Here are some easy ways to positively impact your business on this oddly slow yet relevant day.
Get Your Mind Right
Everyone feels mixed bursts of inspiration and motivation moving into a new year. It doesn’t matter if you’re a resolutioner or not: mindset matters.
Moving into a new year and new quarter is still significant in this industry. It’s a fresh start on sales, a fresh start on a new model year, and a new opportunity to make a change. Here are a few ways to set your mind on the right track:
- Listen to a podcast that helps you foster growth: The Dealer Playbook is a great place to start!
- Read a book or engage with nonfiction articles online that get your mind moving: Harvard Business Review’s Strategy Book and Online Strategy Section are my personal favourites.
- Exercise: I know for me, nothing helps my head like moving my body and it doesn’t matter if it’s lifting weights or running!
- Meditate or practice gratitude: I’m sure you’ve seen a burst of self-help experts speak to the powers of meditation and gratitude, and for good reason - they work! Take a few moments to appreciate and self-reflect on this final day of 2021.
Update Your Google My Business
Your GMB is your second digital home (after your website). This is one of the first places people look when considering if they should visit a brick-and-mortar business location. Why? To check the address or hours.
Make sure that your hours for today, tomorrow, and the rest of next week are correct. Be one of the businesses with accurate hours and don’t cause your customers frustration.
Better yet, be one of the businesses without the “hours might be different” badges on your profile because Google knows that you updated it!
To take it to the next level, create a Google My Business Post:
We suggest using Google My Business posts to share blogs, share inventory, news, offers, and almost any content that has value to the end-user. This is an opportunity to share: a last-minute offer, news about what’s to come in the first week of 2022, or highlights of 2021!
Achieve Inbox Zero: Reply to All of Your Leads
Most people are either still on holiday vacation or working and perhaps being a little bit lazy. Today is actually a great day to bring your business back to the top of their inbox and mind.
In addition to your typical lead-handling, which should be lightning-fast for best performance, today is an opportunity to go the extra mile and really reply to all of your leads. Here are some examples of how you can do so:
- If they provided an additional method of contact that hasn’t been used, try that! Text them a quick update or question to move the process along.
- If a video reply isn’t part of your normal arsenal: try that. Answer all of the questions they have in a personalized selfie-style video and send ‘er!
- Look back through recent leads for those that gave you a positive gut feeling but didn’t come to fruition. Give them a second or third chance: you have the time!
- Close that one: you know, the one that was there for a really long time, maybe it was a couple and they couldn’t agree, maybe they’re the type that still rolls from location to location doing comparisons. Often, they’re the ones that just need a simple personal touch. Send them Timbits (or TimBiebs, if you’re hip), send them lunch, give them a no-pressure offer to come back and visit you such as “Hey, I have a gift card for XYZ that I want to ensure you get it; if you’re in the area just let me know!” Small acts of kindness can go a long way!
Catch Up On Merchandising
As we discussed on our most-recent FlexDealer office hours call with Ray Gill from SpinCar, vehicle merchandising can often be neglected.
Whether you’re using 360 tools, a fancy DSLR, or even your smartphone, there are easy ways that you can upgrade your merchandising in the extra moments of slow days like December 31!
- Take photos for new inventory that has arrived - inventory shouldn’t sit, and should even be addressed before you physically have it on the lot. If there’s a vehicle on your lot that doesn’t have photos: take them!
- Remove “old weather” - if you have pictures of vehicles from the summer but there has been snow for two months, that’s a sign you need new photos. Buyers are psychologically more likely to like objects that appear new and untouched (think of those folks constantly folding clothes at clothing stores); make your inventory look like it’s waiting just for them!
- Fix the stragglers - sometimes, low-bar photos slip through. You’re in a hurry, I get it. Today is the day that you get that matching, centred, clean, sexy ¾ panel shot for that Ford Escape that’s been bugging you all month.
Create: Publish a Blog Post or Send an Email Newsletter
It’s interesting that as an agency, we can often focus too much on the content of our client websites compared to our own. We get it! But, it’s important to make your business’s content a priority all year long, and a slow day with a coffee and a keyboard is the perfect day to catch up and prepare!
Whether you intend to publish/send today, or you’re getting ahead of the first-week rush of things to do that we know is coming, today is the day when you can create with minimal disruption.
Get ahead: prepare a new blog post, your upcoming email newsletter, or schedule posts and time to handle these tasks.
If creating content isn’t your jam: we built our company on content marketing and we can help!
Update Your Social Media
Love it or hate it, many local businesses, especially car dealerships, still use Facebook to communicate with their buyers and audience. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to TikTok, make sure you’re keeping your lightspeed market updated.
Ensure that:
- Your social media feed is filled with light-hearted wishes for the new year
- Your audience knows that you might be closed tomorrow (and what fun you’ll be up to!)
- Your hours are updated on Facebook and other applicable mediums
- Housekeeping is complete - you have a current profile + cover photo, your service listings are correct, your name, address, phone number (or tracking numbers + URLs) are correct and functioning properly
- You’re still authentic!
What are your end-of-year housekeeping items that are little but still matter? Let us know! We’re always excited to see how different businesses handle turning points!
