Document KRx6mZbEvVREGXvVq0NyrGgaN

Tom Vester, who has operated his Mar athon station for one year now, was pleased at the opportunity to tie into a nationally-advertised promotion. "Any thing people see on television, they want to be a part of," he says. (continued from page 9) While planning their meetings, these jobbers found that it wasn't uncommon to have a dealer plan ning to attend the meeting who had been on a former NAPA trip (either the CAR program or Acapulco), or who had participated in the NAPA Shocks travel program. Then, later on in the meeting, the jobber would come back to these dealers and ask them to describe the trip. Many felt that such a presentation -- dealers hearing about a suc cessful program from their own peers -- carried greater credibility than it would have had hearing it from the jobber who's trying to sell the program. Larry Geddes, who manages five B&M Auto Parts Stores serviced by the NAPA Columbus Distribution Center, tried a different approach at his dealer meetings to encour age his customer to sign up for the travel program; he offered to pay one of the $50 enrollment fees per traveling couple. And this entice ment worked well; of the 21 cou ples attending at his first dealer meeting, seven signed up for the program that very night. SPRING CAR CARE DAYS When Howard Dayringer pre sented NAPA's 1982 program to his dealer customers, he was somewhat surprised to find that several were happier with the Spring and Fall Car Care Days than with the trip program. "It's been very well-received," he says. "In fact, probably the most enthusiastic account we have is Although in the past many oil company stations shied away from displaying similar promotional banners, Charlie Morris had good luck getting dealer sign kits up, "especially with the more aggressive stations." SPR NG SUCCESS STORIES "I think what it's done is tied us even closer to dealers that we do business with . . .they feel more a part of the NAPA program." just a little general garage. It's only a two-man operation, but they're good mechanics -- they're always busy. This customer was so en thused about the fact that we were going to hang out banners and ad vertise his business that he asked me for paint chips so that he could clean up his garage and paint it the NAPA colors before the Spring Car Care Days national advertising started!" Howard ordered $7000 in mer chandise and 30 dealer Spring Car Care Days point-of-purchase kits in anticipation of the program. Then, just prior to the beginning of the national advertising, he sched uled factory representatives and his own outside salespeople to ac tively promote merchandise from the Spring Car Care Days book and hang the dealer P.O.P. kits at his customers' places of business. He decided not to charge the dealers for the price of these kits; instead, he would ask them to participate in Howard Dayringer, pictured with NAPA Miami sales manager Greg Robert, found that today's dreary economy made his customers "much more recep tive to hearing that we're going to direct them some business, that we 're going to advertise for them. " local Spring Car Care Days adver tising to run concurrent with the national advertising. "I heard a story once," explains Howard, "about a little kid who was dragging a great big chain down the street. A fellow who had been watching him for a while fin ally walked up to him and asked, `Why are you dragging that big chain?' And the kid answered, `Have you ever tried to push one?' And that's basically the kind of Spring Car Care Days program I wanted to put together for our dealer customers. Using the P.O.P. materials and local advertising, we're trying to pull customers into the dealer's place of business, which will in turn pull the parts off of our shelves. "We've been very successful getting the P.O.P. kits up. A few years ago, for a similar program, most of the dealers in the oil com pany stations would say that they couldn't put up an NAPA sign because they felt the oil company would frown upon such a practice. But we didn't find this to be true this year. As a matter of fact, we only encountered one or two deal ers who even voiced this concern, and even they agreed to hang the signs in their service bays instead of out on the islands." Sanders Automotive's Charlie Morris shared equally good suc cess with the dealer sign kits. Al though he said the Shell stations in his area weren't allowed to hang the signs up, he continued: "We've (continued on page 14) 11