Here, prime riding season is probably six to eight months guaranteed steady riding, with the rest of it being chancy, to say the least – and it’s probably more like five good months of winter. Given the foregoing, were I a motorcycle dealership, I’d be giving her all I could for that six months and pray for at least another two months of sunshine.

I wouldn’t close for lunch and put a sign on the door saying, “Back in a hour.” Back in an hour from when? Now? Fifteen minutes ago? Forty-five minutes ago? Is there some reason that out of all the employees on the payroll, one or two can’t keep the doors open to satisfy the people who come by at lunchtime?

I’d try to get my customers their parts in a timely fashion. I wouldn’t make them wait six months for an order that had been prepaid. (See the first paragraph, above.)

When a customer buys a brand-new motorcycle with a promise that accessories purchased within 30 days are guaranteed a discount, only to have that customer find out that what he wants to buy isn’t available, I wouldn’t be telling the customer, “We’ll talk about the discount on unavailable parts when the parts become available.” We all know what that means.

Being in business isn’t easy. Being in a multi-million dollar business is even more difficult. However, if one wants to survive in that multi-million dollar business, one had better strive to satisfy their customers and keep them coming back, one at a time. Finding new customers is much more difficult than keeping the ones you have.

There’s always somewhere else to go, whether it’s OEM or aftermarket.

Is that so hard to understand?