We're just about coming down here at Service Dealer Towers, following on from last week's Conference & Awards!
There's now plenty of wrap-up work going on behind the scenes to bring you further coverage of what was a truly memorable day and night in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
There will be plenty of video footage cropping up across our social media channels, a raft of professional photography to enjoy on our website and a comprehensive account of the entire event featured in the January/February '26 edition of the magazine. All of which are being meticulously worked on as we speak. So keep 'em peeled for more!
I always believe that taking place at this time of the year, the Conference & Awards has a sort of 'end of term' feel about it. It's a celebration of a season of incredibly hard work for everyone and (almost) the start of a winding down period, heading towards that well-earned Christmas break.
I suspect that as dealers are inching towards that much-deserved period of (hopefully) relaxation, there will first be some taking stock and looking back across the year to consider what worked for the business and what might want to be re-thought when the new year rolls around. It may also be a time when, like at the Conference last week, hearing someone else's fresh perspective on matters, might offer some valuable inspiration as to how you may look to change things up where required.
As such, I'd like to point you in the direction of a blog published this week by our great friend and columnist for our magazine, Sara Hey from dealer training specialists, BCI in the States (you can also catch up with Sara in a series of podcast-style discussion videos on our recently published Equip Digital Special Report).
In her latest post Sara addresses for her American dealer clients, what she believes is The Year End Check Up Every Dealer Should Do.
In her piece Sara lays out a series of simple yet probing questions that she believes dealerships should be asking themselves at this time of year. Although she’s writing with American dealers in mind, it seems to me that much of what she discusses feels entirely relevant to our readers here in the UK.
One of her central themes is the idea of balance within the dealership. She talks about the importance of understanding how your revenue breaks down across whole goods, parts and service - not because there’s a single “right” distribution for every business, but because imbalance often reveals where attention is needed. It’s an approach that encourages business owners to look beyond headline sales figures and consider how each department is pulling its weight. For UK dealers facing rising costs and shifting customer expectations, that kind of knowledge about the business is surely invaluable?
Another point she raises is about the true cost of leads - not just what you spent to generate them, but how well they were followed up. Sara is clear that leads are only worth something if your team is acting on them quickly and consistently. It’s a sentiment that rings just as true on this side of the Atlantic. Whether your enquiries arrive via your manufacturer partners, social media or people simply walking through the door, the speed and quality of follow-up can presumably make or break a sale?
Sara also talks about importance of understanding your parts availability, as well as on the service side measuring what she terms as the service recovery rate - the proportion of technician time that actually translates into billed work. I think both of these areas our UK & Ireland dealers will directly relate to.
Finally, Sara poses a deceptively simple question: did you achieve the profit you intended to make this year, or did you just end up with whatever was left? It’s a brilliant challenge because it forces you to confront whether your profit was genuinely planned for or simply a by-product of how the year unfolded. Given the financial pressures our dealer readers continue to navigate, intentional planning rather than hopeful forecasting feels more important than ever.
There’s nothing in Sara’s blog that feels exclusive to US dealerships to me. If anything, it’s a useful checklist of themes that any dealership should be thinking about as we close out the year. I’d encourage you to give it a read today, and consider which of her questions might be worth asking within your own business.
