Car dealership contracts

[David Rogers]

Depends what type you intend trying for.

If it’s the ‘£6995 0% Finance’ blah, blah on the sides / bonnet they won’t pay much for that (in general) – I know guys doing it for £25 a CAR!

On the other hand, getting them to pass you corporate contracts & liveries is MUCH better. I do that for one dealership (and in throws of getting a second) – give them a £40 ‘credit’ against their branding up of the ‘hire from’ & sponsored vehicles that they put out – ie. I get a £200 van livery – they get £10 worth of vinyl stuck to a van for every one that comes my way.

It’s worth going for to make some money, but don’t get suckered into doing the crap for no money!

Granted, they do get a highly preferential rate on anything I do (keeps ’em sweet).

And I always insist ALL liveries are applied at my premises – so far it’s not been an issue.

Dave

[John Childs]

I’ve done work for car dealerships, but never had a contract with any of them.

My experience is that they want to pay ridiculously low prices, which I have always regarded as a bit of a joke when I consider their own labour rates.

So, the question is not "do you need to drop retail rates" but how low are you prepared to go to get their work.

Personally, I’m not worried. Most of their work is bitty stuff. There are exceptions of course but don’t forget that, in the main, their juicy window graphics are free issue from their manufacturer.

If they come to me and want to pay proper prices then I’ll do it, but it’s not a market I would chase.

[Paul Franklin]

I do regular work for a car dealership that has three separate large showrooms.

Apart from their finance deal cars, I do all their courtesy cars, parts delivery vans, showroom windows, rear window stickers, banners and many other items like the bottom panels accross the bottom of a squash court that they advertised on. They also actively offer their commercial clients signwriting on their vans as part of the sale price or lease agreement which I’ll either do through them or quite often I get the work from whoever has purchased / leased the van.

They used to make up about 25% of my turnover, but it is now less as we’ve grown and got new contracts.

Had no bother with getting regular payments from them by BACS.

However I think I’ve either been lucky or they are so pleased with the service we provide them, as I’ve heard the stories about people doing similar work at other places for a lot less, but in my opinion it is worth looking into, but don’t lower your prices.

[Mark Pack]

I just wondered if it was an area worth getting involved in. I’ve had enquiries with regards to producing estate agent boards, and I’ve stopped them in their tracks and told them that I’m not prepared to go out fitting them.

I’ve just been racking my brains on how to produce more work. I get enough to keep me afloat, but there’s things that I want to start looking forward to. (i.e. paying myself a wage that I haven’t had for 5 months now)
and paying for equipment that will be an initial large payout but will save me a fortune in the long run.

I know that it’s hard to get involved with the local authority and dealerships. I know of a manager at a dealership and he can’t even get me a lookin.

I’ve done the usual handing business cards out and that but it doesn’t seem to working very well.

Any views on other methods to get big contract work in? or are they like rockin horse s!>t?

[John Childs]

Just to add to Paul’s comments…..

The culture amongst car dealers is payment by the 20th of the month following, and they are very fastidious and forceful in enforcing this on their own customers. The by-product of this is that they see it as the norm and tend to pay their own suppliers to the same terms.

On that score, they would be good customers.

[Karl Williams]

I did all the sign work for a large dealer in Derby. I only ever did courtesy cars on the cheap as they normally had about 5 done at once.
The last job I quoted for they accepted the price and asked us to do the artwork to see what it will look like. No problem. Delivered the artwork, waited for the the ok. Bang! I have driven past today and some other monkey has done the job using my artwork. This really p****s me off.
Turns out the other firm undercut by around a poxy £15 per window.
They could do this. They aint spent the entire weekend doing the artwork.
That said the air has been turned blue today!

[Dave Harrison]

I used to work in the motor trade for a large ford dealership, it was hard enough to get my bloody overtime paid, and I was on the payroll !

My advice would be to forget making signs and liveries for these guys, let the other sign companies fight over them.

I think your efforts would be better spent trying to find smaller companies with small fleets of vans. I have a nice little customer with 12 vw T5’s. . nice to do 12 van all the same, even better that his drivers are nutters. So far I’ve had calls from the bodyshop to repair 9 of them ! all in the space of 6 months ! 😀 😀

[autosign]

quote KARL WILLIAMS:

The last job I quoted for they accepted the price and asked us to do the artwork to see what it will look like. No problem. Delivered the artwork, waited for the the ok. Bang! I have driven past today and some other monkey has done the job using my artwork. This really p****s me off.
Turns out the other firm undercut by around a poxy £15 per window.
They could do this. They aint spent the entire weekend doing the artwork.
That said the air has been turned blue today!

Give them a bill for your artwork, which you own the copyright on.

[autosign]

Dealers can be a nightmare but they do have regular work. We’ve invoiced over £3000 this week to dealers and they also have van salesman. The trick is to deal with the sales managers and build up a relationship with them as they constantly move around.

You may have a lot of work from one place and then all of a sudden nothing as the guy you dealt with has moved on.

[Brian Little]

Mark this is, and can only be MY OPINION dont bother mate!! ….a total waste of time unless they can as near as dam promise you several vans a week … the 0% stuff is a waste of time …i know im talking from experience i done it for years .Plus the fact they think of you as a 24hour call out facility willing to drop good jobs for them …and the fact they need a 2 changed to a four !!…nah mate id leave it well alone

[mike o dwyer]

Listen to Dave
Follow the small van livery.they are willing to pay as long a you can provide a service.dealerships have no loyalty.i was dealing with a local land rover dealership giving them a decent quote and arrived on their forecourt last week to find they were getting a quote from another lets say under qualified sign franchise. loyalty forget it. if i was you go after the little jobs and get paid on the spot.

[Martin Pearson]

Mark, sorry if you don’t mind me asking, what sort of equipment are you using at the moment, what sort of work are you doing, how do you get most of your work and how do you live if you are not paying yourself?

As far as dealerships go it seems to be dependent on where you live, there have been a few people posting to say they have been paid good money and others to say that the dealerships want everything for nothing. Personally round here they pay very little for most of the work that is done and they don’t have any loyalty as someone has already said. I have been asked on numerous occasions how much I would charge to put some graphics on a window or put a price on a car when I have been at a dealership doing a van for one of my customers and I bet every other signmaker who goes in there gets asked the same question. I wouldn’t bother myself now as I did a bit of work for a while hoping for more profitable work to follow and it never happened so I was really working for nothing but if you do decide to give it a try I would start with those dealerships that also sell vans as you may be able to get then to recommend you to some of their business customers if you can get friendly with them.