I notice that Lotus has announced that it is to create more than 100 new jobs.
The firm will recruit 45 specialist engineers and 40 manufacturing operatives, along with 18 graduates. That is all very exciting. Mark Pym, group head of human resources at Lotus, said: “Lotus’s successes have always been built on our talented and dedicated workforce, and as we embark on a period of strengthening it’s crucial that we grow our workforce to support this.”
So Lotus may be getting clever clogs graduates to move to Norfolk but what is really missing is one profession that is always overlooked and underated. Sales. Not marketing, not PR, not new media-engagement hipsters, but people who can actually go out there and flog some cars.
Lotus only makes 2000 units a year and it claims to export 85 per cent of them, but really you need to crack the home market and the rest will follow. Now I know in 2011 the company sold just 329 cars, and that fell to 137 in 2012. It is risible really. Product placement in Reds 2 is really not going to work either, although the firm is also making a big thing of that.
It is great that investment is being made at the world’s best-known plastic car company, but what it really needs is people who can sell its cars. If that means a clear out at dealer level then perhaps that is what Lotus needs. Maybe a completely new system, where owners are loaned replacement Lotuses whilst theirs are all taken back to Norfolk to be serviced might be an answer.
I’d spend some money on boutique mini Lotus showrooms, or even mobile pop-up ones. Get Lotuses on the streets again. Get sales people going to where the customers are and proving what great cars they sell.
Lotus needs fresh thinking to take on Porsche, but most of all it needs better sales teams. Then those graduates can make even more impressive cars for them to sell, and then it will get easier for the Hethel firm.
That’s how I would put a rocket up Lotus. What would you do?
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Selling Lotus cars
Great engineering but surely its not beyond Lotus to give us an interior look and feel that says, 'not a kit car'. I look at the range and think 'want one'. I sit in one (Evora recently) and think 'want anything but this'. I took my wallet elsewhere. Years ago I had an Esprit, I still recall the smell of glue and feel of a mismatch of various manufacturers part bins that made up the switches, door handles, aerial that was seen once then never came up again etc. Car looked great, ran on rails but the tacky bits still make me cringe. If I am in the market for a £60K car, I want a £60K finish on a vehicle that is going to hold up on resale.
It's a brand...
... So Lotus need to protect it but also profit from it. Like a Lotus Focus - anyone remember the Lotus Cortina or Carlton? The Mini JCW does OK. Needs to be useful whatever it is though...
@the pits
@the pits - the size of those sills are due to 2 huge aluminium spars designed mainly for torsional rigidity, crash protection is a secondary part, or else you'd be climbing over a sill that big to get into every car on sale. As for the "very easy to get out when you take the roof off" - that proves it really, the majority of humanity isn't willing to accept that compromise in a car. It fails as a car that can be used as primary everyday reliable transportation - can you take your wife / mother out easily in the passenger seat when you need to go to the shops, or go visit a friend 2 hours away on the motorway, and will she be comfortable when she gets there, can she get out easily? (without having to remove the roof!) is there room for a few bags of shopping / a small suitcase for the weekend?
Caymans, Boxsters, TTs, SLKs can all be used as a first car and are therefore considered by the masses who have no interest in track days but want something that looks good and can be fun to drive on the road, but do the daily grind capably and without compromise, the Elise only by the hardcore track few as a secondary toy, and toys only get bought as frivalous items by those with spare cash, which few other have nowadays, and there's a lot of very good competition for toys and what to do with spare cash in general.
I have driven plenty of Elises and enjoy them, the issue here isn't liking the product, it's that if it wants to sell in any volumes it needs to fit into peoples lives as a method of daily transport, or accept its place as a toy (albeit a lovely one) and the assosciated small no of sales.
Regardless of what you're selling, if you can't convince the majority of your current customers and strongest advocates to buy another one of your product then there's something wrong with the product, not the salesmen.