Surviving a Seasonal Business During Tough Months

Hello again everyone.  Since my last blog we have made it through the time change.  It’s nice and bright here in the morning, but nearly dark when we all go home now.  Along with the time change comes a change in business for our industry as well in our area.  Winter is approaching and if anyone is familiar with Erie, PA you know the amount of snow we can encounter from the lake effect which means no more motorcycles on the roads.

The season change doesn’t necessarily mean a slow down for us, however.  The winter months are the perfect time for bike owners to take the opportunity to upgrade their build while riding season comes to an end.  We stay busy doing customer builds in house, selling our products, and even providing storage for customer’s bikes.  Of course we are thankful for all of our dealers in the warm states like California, Arizona, Texas, the Carolina’s, etc. who never worry about riding season coming to a halt.  They continue to place orders year round on all products.

Dyno tuning is a service we provide here at Horsepower.  We have an in ground 250i DynoJet dynamometer where we tune motorcycles, sport bikes, ATV’s and UTV’s.  For the most accurate reading, we only tune in temperatures of 60° or above consistently due to the fact that most motorcycles do not have closed loop tuning with wide band 02 censors like most automobiles.  Each customers will receive a print out of a before and after reading that show horsepower and torque gains.  Being Erie’s only certified DynoJet tuning center, we service several local customers, but have had customers come from a few hundred miles away to be tuned by us.  Usually we will schedule appointments from April through October (depending on weather) with June, July and August being our busiest months. 

These upcoming months are also used for new product development. We take the time to reflect on our current products and research ways to make them better. It’s important to stay on top of the latest and greatest ideas out there because you can bet your competitors are.  As the industry changes, we need to continue to offer the best products at affordable costs. We usually try to debut at least one new product or upgrade each year at our industries annual trade shows.  It’s the perfect time to get your products and new ideas out there with thousands of exhibitors and buyers attending. 

In closing, I would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.  Enjoy your time with family and good luck on all the shopping sales.  If you own a Harley-Davidson fuel injected bike, check out our upcoming sales on our website at www.horsepowerinc.net.