If you’re selling scooters and power chairs, you have to be in the lift business,” says Mark Farmer, owner of Southwest Mobility Inc in Mesa, Ariz. The two go hand in hand, he says.

The marriage never happens automatically, however. It takes strategies, techniques, and marketing savvy to make this part of a company flourish. Farmer says he got the message when he first opened his business and realized almost immediately that the lift is a natural add-on sale to the scooter or power chair.

“When I started in 1989, before I had a storefront, I had a van with a lift on the back,” he says. “I would deliver a product, putting it on the lift, and people would get the idea that maybe a lift would be a good thing.”

Today his business covers the metropolitan Phoenix area as well as other parts of the state. The company operates two vans with lifts capable of carrying four to six demos at one time.

Within a 4,000-sq-ft store, Southwest Mobility keeps a display of lifts along a back wall. Representing a number of manufacturers, the five different types on display include inside lifts, power chair lifts, and a scooter lift, set up as if they were in a vehicle. Manufacturers have furnished the company with lift stands so the devices function as they would in place. When hooked to a battery, they are operational.

This helps customers make decisions, such as whether they need a lift that is electric up and down but swings in and out manually, or if they would do better with a lift that is as fully operational as possible. Fully operational devices often are the most appropriate for customers who are not ambulatory, have no upper body strength, or have a balance problem. Farmer has discovered that this kind of decision is difficult to make from a brochure. “If the product is not there for the customer to see, it is going to be tough to sell it,” he says.

At retail, scooter lifts installed can range from $1,200 to $2,700 and make up 10% to 15% of Farmer’s overall yearly sales.

Service Is Key
Service is a huge part of Farmer’s lift business, especially considering his largely geriatric, often nondriving customer base. “We’ve been in the store for about 3 years so the first 9 years I did all sales and service in customers’ homes,” he says. “That was a good thing, because during that time I built a solid reputation for the company. If a customer had a problem at a mall or at a store, I would go there to fix it.”

Lift installations become a vital component in providing top-notch service. Southwest Mobility does some right at the store, and some are contracted out. The company works with a number of local hitch dealers, dropping the lift off at the dealer’s shop so he or she can perform the entire installation process. These dealers put on the hitch, do the wiring from the car battery back, then mount and set the lift.

The system works well, Farmer says, because his employees are so busy with other services that if an outside source has the resources and expertise to do the complete job, it is cost-efficient for Southwest Mobility to let them do it.

Farmer’s company does, however, retain responsibility for quality service during the lift installation process. If there are problems or issues, either the customer comes to the store for service, or one of Southwest’s six employees will go to the customer’s home.

One free service Farmer is particularly proud off is the pickup, install, and deliver practice. “We pick up the customer’s vehicle in the morning, take it to the hitch dealer, and when they are done, we pick it up and bring it back to the customer’s home,” he says. “The customers never have to leave their homes, and it is all done on the same day.”

Of enormous help to Farmer in providing efficient customer service is the fact that there are a number of lift manufacturers headquartered in Phoenix. When Farmer’s company orders a lift, there are no shipping charges, and delivery is fast, efficient, and right to the door. This means little or no waiting time for customers who order lifts.

Marketing Strategies
Identifying potential customers is an essential component of smart marketing. Farmer believes that his scooter customers are about evenly split between those who no longer drive and have no need for a lift, and those that do. “There are a lot of people with active social lives who buy a scooter to go to the grocery store, the zoo, or their church, and they still drive,” he says.

To catch the customer who may initially buy a scooter or power chair but not a lift, Farmer suggests doing a mailing within the first 6 months after the purchase. Manufacturers will provide the literature, so by offering information and perhaps a lift discount price to a current customer base, it is often possible to secure a sale.

Farmer says some customers will try to disassemble the chair or scooter in order to transport it, but quickly discover that disassembly is difficult and impractical for someone who is older or disabled.

“People also realize, after they have had a power chair or scooter for awhile, that they could go to a lot more places if they had a lift,” Farmer says. “So they come back after the sale to look into something easy, like an automatic lift, to perform that duty for them.”

Medicare will not reimburse for lifts, and private insurance rarely pays, which means that most lift sales are cash sales. But another good avenue to explore for expanding a lift business can be the Department of Veterans Affairs. Although Farmer does not receive many orders through the VA in Arizona, he knows of dealers in other states who sell huge numbers through VA hospitals. Contact the prosthetic department of a local Veterans Affairs office to get on its bid list, so that when a potential contract is let, you can be among the bidders.

A market Farmer actively pursues is the workers’ compensation and vocational rehabilitation programs run by the state of Arizona. The state purchases a number of lifts each year from Southwest Mobility, usually for low-income people with a chair obtained through Medicare.

Vocational rehabilitation agencies also order a number of lifts a month, often for younger scooter or power chair owners who are still able to work but have no way to get their wheelchairs or scooters back and forth to their place of employment.

Farmer and his employees make it a point to get acquainted with vocational rehabilitation counselors who are in a position to refer business. In a situation similar to that at the VA, a company can get on an agency’s bid list, and once the bid is won, payment usually comes from the state of Arizona within 30 days.

Finally, good marketing means assessing all the possibilities in your area. The mobility issue is especially intense in Phoenix, where the public transportation system is spotty. While all public busses have lifts, a 20-minute trip by car may take 2 hours by bus, making it impractical for wheelchair and scooter owners commuting to a job.

Never quite satisfied with the status quo despite obvious success, Farmer is looking at expanding his store and making it better. The Phoenix area is a competitive market. “But there’s a lot of business out there, enough for everyone,” he says. “Friendly competition is the best incentive, and Phoenix has a lot of that.”

Judy Wade is a contributing writer for Dealer/Provider. For more information on Southwest Mobility Inc, visit its Web site at www.southwestmobility.com.