Try It To Buy It

UP FRONT

TRY IT TO BUY IT

Allan Girdler

Busily maintaining my reputation as a man who says the wrong thing at the perfect time, I took advantage of a lull in the conversation at a motorcycle business meeting to announce "I know how to double sales overnight."

All within earshot leaned forward, expectant as the people on television when The Broker is about to talk.

“Offer demonstration rides,” 1 said. From the shocked silence, you would have thought The Broker had advised buying a souvenir store in Iran. Then they all spoke at once, saying that I was talking Through my hat, didn’t understand the problems, perhaps was making a poor joke.

No. I was serious. I spoke out of turn but my impoliteness masked my anger. We, that is, we bike owners, riders and buyers, are in a buyer’s market and we get -treated as if we’re asking for favors.

Credit for noticing this goes elsewhere, to scores of riders who are new to the sport. For as long as I can remember we all just sort of assumed that we could look, and perhaps sit on the bike on the showroom floor, but we couldn’t turn the key until we’d signed the contract. I once drove 50 mi. to look at a bike advertised in The big city paper and was told sure, I could run the engine. And ride it . . . provided I didn’t leave the parking lot.

At the same time I’ve always assumed I could drive any car I might buy. It was almost mandatory. Last time I bought a new car, in 1972 which probably means something, I went into the agency knowing the body style, engine, transmission and options I wanted. No selling required. But the salesman insisted on a spin around the block before he’d even talk trade-in, before he even sent somebody to hide my old car.

I didn’t put this paradox together until I began hearing from people who’d never dealt with motorcycle dealers before. These guys get interested, they read the magazines and talk with pals and learn to ride and make some preliminary choices. First warm Saturday of the year, they visit the dealer. They ask to try the 500 and the salesman acts as if they’d asked to borrow a wife or daughter or worse.

The objections to letting potential buyers ride before they buy are obvious. They’re objections we’ve all heard.

Insurance. Regulations prohibit. We can’t afford to spend the money on demo machines. What if something terrible happened?

In order, insurance is one of the better excuses. Insurance men just love to say no. But I’ve noticed the rules are a matter of coverage; you can get all you’ll pay for. Also, I know people who were in the widget business but got out, and they say it was because of insurance. Other people are still making widgets, high premiums or not. If you want to be in the widget business, you are. If you don’t, it’s the fault of the insurance.

Same with regulations. Where these rules come from, I don’t know, but I suspect insurance is at back, plus not wanting to take the trouble. Sure, demo bikes would cost. So does a good building and the shop equipment and the light bill, telephone, coffee for the mechanics, advertising and so forth.

Terrible things could happen. I’m assuming a certain common sense here. Motorcycles are different. Not everybody knows how to ride one, so offering demonstration rides wouldn’t be as easy as tossing the keys to the 1000 to everybody who asked wot she’ll do. If I was a Honda dealer and three guys rode up on two bikes, say a Kawasaki 750 and Suzuki 750 and they were all wearing Barry Sheene replica leathers and the man without a bike asked if he could take the 750F for a short run, I’d say no, you guys want to run races, join the AMA. And buy the bike first.

We’ll leave out crazies. We’ll also skip over another problem, the novices who aren’t given the help they deserve. My subject here is riders who deserve to be treated as the good customers they are. A typical story, which I think is true, involves a man who two years ago bought a 400. He went back to the dealer and asked to try the 650 and was refused.

The man knows how to ride. Can he take care of his bike? His 400 looks good. Is he a good credit risk? He’s already paid for one bike. He’s a repeat customer, he’s entitled to know what he’s about to buy. We’re talking anywhere from $1000 to $6000, maybe more. That’s a big chunk of change and before we spend that kind of money we should get more than five minutes with feet on the showroom floor.

Why don’t we get it? I’ve been asking that question. Along with all the excuses I finally got a straight answer. If I can sell a bike to a man who doesn’t insist on a ride, this dealer said, there’s no point on my spending money on a man who does.

Habit, is what we have here. The car people got into the demo habit when they first had more cars to sell than people who> didn’t have cars. They needed to sell. No words, no four-color brochure has half the impact of that untouched machine. That purring engine, those technical breakthroughs you suddenly don’t know how you lived without, are all it takes. Get off the new and back on the old and innocent ticks from the gearbox become teeth just waiting to fall off. The dents magnify, that slightly bent turn signal stalk becomes an eyesore and the words “How much per month” spring instantly to your lips.

But we don’t get to do that, not in most shops in model year 1981. The dealers don’t need to treat us like customers, not yet, anyway.

Having defined the problem, I can’t offer an instant solution. No point in proposing a boycott. If we all insisted on try first, buy next, most of us would not get a new bike at all, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. And demos aren’t everything. At this writing—and for many months to come—I’m saving toward two more bikes; a Harley XR750 and a Hesketh 1000. I haven’t ridden either one and probably won’t until I sign the checks but I’ve seen them and read all about them and listened to the engines and I gotta have one of each, bad enough to justify a steady diet of Big Macs.

But free demonstrations are on the way.

Here’s another true story. There are motorcycle stores that offer demo rides. They’re good places to shop, and they usually do well by doing good.

My favorites have this down to an art. Man comes in on a 400 and he wants to try the 750. This shop is on the edge of a smallish town, convenient to an open stretch of highway. The 750? says the salesman, sure. We even know a good place for you to see how the bike runs. One of the guys will go along, to show you the way.

The prospect climbs on the 750 and the helper rolls out the 1000. Off they go. They get into the hills and the prospect rolls on that incredible power. So does the helper.

Back they come. The prospect parks the 750. His eyes are bright. His mind is made up. “How much a month?” he asks, “for the 1000.”

Maybe when I said they could double their sales I was being too pessimistic.

J.M. Maxwell