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themselves?
Seymour: They all pass it on.
Jay: So if I go to a General Motors dealer when my GM car doesn t work, they make me, the owner, pay the $45
towing fee. They don t cover that if my repair bill s $500 or something like that.
Seymour: That s correct. That s an add-on. That s an outside service added to their repair bill.
Jay: Those two commercial categories require you to remit back a percentage of the gross depending on volume.
Seymour: Right.
Jay: Okay. What other commercial categories are there?
Seymour: Well, you ve got dealerships and plain repair garages.
Jay: Let s talk about dealerships. Of 100% of the dealerships in your marketing area, how many do you have
contracts with? And are your contracts exclusive or are they shared?
Seymour: Okay. First of all, I don t have contracts with any of them as such.
Jay: Because?
Seymour: Because it s always been done on a handshake and, Here s what we offer, and we tend to hold each
account because we give them such good service. We ll do a lot of internal personal favors too. If they need a
car moved, or a car goes out of their shop and breaks down right away, we ll go pick it up and bring it back to the
shop for nothing. Lots of private favors done.
Jay: And they all know that?
Seymour: Yes. Most of the dealers in our area do. We probably tow exclusively for 60% of them.
Jay: And the other 40%?
Seymour: We re either in the door sporadically or they re exclusively with somebody else.
Jay: Okay. And you got those 60% because you did what?
Seymour: Because I went out and sold initially, and then just plain serviced them kept giving them good
service.
Jay: Do you, in fact, still go out frequently, or do you stay back in the office?
Seymour: Almost every day, I m out at least two or three hours, or I take one of my driver-owners and we make
calls.
Jay: And when you make calls, are they to existing clients, new clients, or both?
Seymour: I usually make calls to the new accounts. I go with the drivers to get them into the habit of doing it.
Jay: What s your approach to the existing accounts?
Seymour: I m on the phone a couple of hours in the morning and several hours at night, so I usually have a lot of
phone contact with the existing ones. Also, I personally drop in on them and talk just to see what s happening.
But the driver-owners do a lot of that, too, because each one has his own little given area, and they re pretty
jealous about them, they guard them well. In fact, one of the reasons I went to driver-owners is because they take
a strong vested interest in keeping business good.
Jay: So they re very covetous about it, and they take it very possessively.
Seymour: You bet! We have a very, very good rapport with all of our exclusive customers almost a
friendship basis. If something goes wrong they tend to call us up and say, Hey, I don t like this, or This
happened, or What can you do? or I need a favor.
Jay: And the driver-owners have a high degree of stability with you? They don t say they re going to take that
client themselves and make twice the money?
Seymour: No. Because of their contracts with us. It s a very open, up-front, and solid contract.
Jay: So they can t take your clients.
Seymour: That s correct.
Jay: Let me ask another question. Right now, what is your utilization rate relative to the operators you have?
Seymour: Almost 100%. In other words, if I add more business, I m going to have to add another truck.
Jay: Let me ask you another question. There are several competitors. How are they doing?
Seymour: There are four others that I consider solid competitors.
Jay: Do you think they re making money?
Seymour: Yes, they are.
Jay: Are they making good money?
Seymour: I honestly couldn t answer that.
Jay: One of the things I suggest to a lot of people, and it may seem funny, is that they go to their competitors and
offer to buy their business and integrate it in and pay them forever a variable rate, whereby they can do nothing
and still get paid. You can add 40% more business and get both the clients and the operators.
Seymour: I follow what you re saying. As a matter of fact, that s essentially what I ve done over the years.
Jay: But a lot of people, even though it works, they stop doing it. People don t understand. In a competitive
environment, most people like yourself are working hard to make $70,000 or $80,000 or whatever you re making.
Let s say your competitor down the way is not quite as adroit an operator and is working equally hard but only
making $50,000. You could take over his business, integrate it in, bring it up to $75,000, and pay him forever
variably $55,000 for doing nothing because you re still adding incrementally $20,000 more to your bottom line.
Seymour: A very good thought.
Jay: Sometimes I ve told people this, and they re shocked when it works. Draft an overture letter to somebody
don t even call them. Just say, I know this is going to shock you, but I have an idea. This is a tough,
competitive business. I ve decided I m entrenched for the long haul. Instead of fighting each other, I ve got an
idea how I can make you more money for doing nothing and also reward you for the past effort you ve made. My
deal is that I ll take over your clients. As long as they stay active with me, I ll pay you 15% of the gross forever.
I ll pay you every month, or I ll pay you every week. I ll take all your good operators and give them jobs. In
another letter, you state it differently, How d you like to make more money than you re making now for doing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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