![\"\"](\"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SalesTrends.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSo here\u2019s the deal: In 2008, with the advent of the Great Recession, motorcycle sales in the US fell to half of what they had been (and up to that time, they had been steadily climbing).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s rough…a drop to 50% of prior sales is a major hit, but hey, these things happen and it\u2019s logical to assume that sales would gradually rebound and the uptick would continue.<\/p>\n
Except they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Post recession sales tanked to 50% of their prior levels and they never recovered. Oh, they came back a little bit, but not anywhere near where they had been. Based on this, it\u2019s been sort of a national pastime in the two-wheeled world to put forth reasons why this happened (presumably, so the reasons could be addressed and we could get back to the good old days of taking second mortgages to buy overweight, oversized, and overpriced driveway jewelry). \u00a0Here\u2019s the problem with all of the explanations:\u00a0 With essentially no exceptions, they all came from motorcycle industry insiders. Motorcycle importers, motorcycle journalists, motorcycle dealers, and such. Wouldn\u2019t these be the people to provide the big reveal?<\/p>\n
In a word: No.\u00a0 Especially with motojournalists, who seem to pontificate a lot on this issue.\u00a0 Hell, these folks couldn’t even keep their magazines afloat.\u00a0 But it’s also the case for the manufacturers, the importers, and the dealers.\u00a0 They’re the ones who got us here.\u00a0 If they had the answers, they would have fixed things already.<\/p>\n
I’ve been a consultant for more than 30 years helping companies with delinquent deliveries, poor quality, and behind-schedule performance, and when I was hired by any of my clients, it would always be by the chief executive (I quickly learned not to waste my time marketing to underlings).\u00a0 I\u2019d always tell the chief execs during my first meeting that improving performance would involve replacing at least some of their key staff members.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re the folks who got you here,\u201d I\u2019d say, \u201cand expecting them to be the ones to fix the problems is not the answer.\u201d\u00a0 I think it’s the same situation when addressing the US motorcycle sales slump. The folks who called the shots (cabals of industry execs and motojournalists) prior to, during, and after the recession don\u2019t have the answers.\u00a0 Repeatedly having meetings to discuss the issue with these same folks fits the classic definition of insanity: Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.<\/p>\n
So who has the answer?<\/p>\n
You do.\u00a0 You are the folks who actually buy motorcycles. You\u2019re the ones who created that heady rampup prior to the recession, and you’re the ones keeping your wallets closed now.\u00a0 We need your help.\u00a0 Tell us.\u00a0 Why? What\u2019s holding you back?\u00a0 Please, leave your comments.\u00a0 We want to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So here\u2019s the deal: In 2008, with the advent of the Great Recession, motorcycle sales in the US fell to half of what they had been (and up to that time, they had been steadily climbing). Okay, that\u2019s rough…a drop to 50% of prior sales is a major hit, but hey, these things happen and … Continue reading “Help Wanted”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[96],"tags":[990,991],"class_list":["post-7028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","tag-motorcycle-sales","tag-us-motorcycle-sales-trends"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7028"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7034,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7028\/revisions\/7034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}