The supermarket car park test: find the cars your garage should specialise in

The holy grail now is for everyone to be a German car specialist. It’s like no other makes exist.

A few years back I visited a garage up north that was a so-called Volkswagen and Audi specialist. I was there for half a day, a day. Various cars came through the door. One Golf.

This can’t be right, can it? So I took the owner to his local supermarket car park with a pad and pen. What we found there changed his business. I tell the story in three minutes here.

Why the supermarket car park tells you the truth

I asked him where his nearest supermarket was. Just under a mile away. “Come on. Get a pad and pen. Let’s get in the car.”

He’s looking at me thinking, what are we doing, picking oranges and apples and lemons? No. We parked up and went for a little walk round the car park, writing down the makes and the brands of everything parked there.

Why a supermarket? Because it’s local. Most people who shop at a local supermarket live locally. Those cars are the cars on your doorstep, and the people driving them are the people who could be booking in with you.

What the pad and pen showed us

A couple of hours later we were back at the garage, looking at what we’d written down. And guess what? The two most common brands in that car park weren’t Volkswagen or Audi. They were other brands.

So I asked him why. Why are we seeing these brands, and not the ones you think you specialise in? He knew straight away. There was a multi-franchise dealer right behind him, selling those brands.

There you are, Mr Garage Owner. There’s the gold right in front of you. And yet you’re going somewhere completely different.

Andy Savva

Don’t let social media pick your specialism

We get blinded by social media. We get blinded by the mythology that we have to become a German car specialist. So everyone’s a German car specialist.

Meanwhile there are other brands right in front of us that we could focus on. The gold is there, and we go outside to try and find it somewhere else.

What happened when he looked closer to home

Over the following weeks and months, we rebranded. We focused on the brands sold by the franchise round the corner. That’s your captive audience, right there.

It’s been an absolutely great success. He’s expanded, and everything’s lovely.

Do your own car park test

Sometimes the simplest thing is to have a look around you. Before you go chasing the wider market, check what’s already on your doorstep and in your own records.

• Look at your existing database first. Which makes come through your door most often already?
• Then take a pad and pen to your nearest supermarket car park and write down the makes you see.
• Note which franchise dealers are near you, and which brands they sell.
• Compare the three. If the cars on your doorstep aren’t the cars your sign says you specialise in, ask yourself why.

It costs you a couple of hours and a pad and pen. It might show you the gold you’ve been driving past every day.