Business Spotlight: Not Just Cycle Shops

The name of Mike McBroom’s Marionville motorcycle shop reflects his philosophy.

McBroom believes Destination Powersports LLC should be a desirable spot to visit for motorcycle enthusiasts and the community.

If people are comfortable in his store, they’ll be comfortable buying a motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle, generator or scooter, says McBroom, who also owns Neosho Powersports in Neosho.

The business philosophy has served McBroom well since he bought the stores, Neosho in 1996 and Marionville in 2007.

“It’s a destination,” McBroom says. “You look at the old motorcycle shops of 20 years ago, they were predominantly male-oriented, a whole lot like this store started out to be. We know now that 20 percent of our buyers are women and more than 20 percent make the decision. You have to give people an excuse to come to your facility, and it has to be nice enough for women to feel comfortable in.”

At his Neosho store, McBroom says, two women are in senior management positions.

“They know what trips the trigger for some of these women,” he says.

In Marionville, McBroom’s dealership is open to all kinds of groups who are fundraising.

“We (are) available to any charity group that wants to come out on any Saturday. We’ll provide them hot dogs and buns so they can sell them,” he says.

Sales sluggish but recovering
Although his dealerships have seen a sharp drop in sales – $10 million in 2009 compared to $20 million in 2007 – McBroom believes his company is poised to emerge stronger.

“We’ve had a challenging couple years,” says McBroom. “Sales stabilized this year and actually started to turn up just a little.”

Though he acknowledges serving a relatively small niche – about 7 percent of the U.S. population is interested in motorcycles, he says – McBroom says a key challenge is that many would-be buyers haven’t been able to get financing.

“We have found that our turndown rate on financing has gone from (a) normal 40 (percent) to 50 percent to 70 percent,” explains McBroom, a former certified public accountant.

The company is moving from traditional to Web-based advertising, McBroom says, noting that his Web sites fill a key role in the sales process.

“What we found is that people use Web for information gathering but you make the deal on the phone,” he says.

Though McBroom says the company’s target market is a 125-mile radius, both he and General Manager Perry DuBois acknowledge a fair number of customers from farther-out places such as St. Louis and Kansas City.

“We’ve found that people drive hundreds of miles to Marionville and it’s not Marionville that brings them here,” says DuBois, who already was serving as general manager in Marionville before McBroom bought the lot. DuBois also emphasizes the importance of maintaining the store’s role as a gathering place for riders and enthusiasts.

From trains to motorcycles
McBroom was riding home to Omaha, Neb., from a motorcycle rally 15 years ago where he heard about a dealership, then called Southwest Missouri Cycles, for sale in Neosho.

When he got home, he learned of job cuts coming from his employer, Union Pacific railroad.

He volunteered to take a job loss – and he already knew what he wanted to do next.

“We sold everything we owned and moved to Neosho,” he says.

McBroom bought Neosho Powersports in 1996, and then purchased the Marionville store, known as Surdyke Yamaha, in 2007.

“(The Marionville store) has a real strong reputation in the motorcycle and ATV arena, and it allowed us to broaden the breadth of our inventory but reduce the depth,” says McBroom.

The Marionville store brought the number of motorcycle lines to five, adding its flagship, Yamaha. Neosho Powersports’ flagship is Honda. Both stores offer Kawasaki, Polaris and Suzuki.

McBroom says the first five years were hard going and says recent years remind him of his early years as owner. But he says he still enjoys being in business for himself.

“I love it. You don’t owe anybody anything except the banker, and you either make it on your own or you don’t,” he says. “You develop yourself.”From the owner on down, most of the employees at Destination Powersports in Marionville and Neosho Powersports in Neosho are motorcycle riders themselves.

“We’re all enthusiasts here,” says Perry DuBois, general manager at Destination and a Honda Goldwing rider.

Owner Mike McBroom also rides the large touring Goldwing. “Once you’re hooked on a Goldwing, you’re there forever,” he says.

Gary Stevenson, who works in shipping and receiving and is 66 years old, renewed his love of riding about five years ago and rides a Honda. “I got a motorcycle about five years ago and I’ve put 32,000 miles on it,” he says.