No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it.-Ellen Glasgow

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves.-Carl G. Jung

A stiff attitude is one of the phenomena of rigor mortis.-Henry S. Haskins

No one can accuse the auto marketer's fleet groups of having a stiff attitude when it comes to incentives. Perhaps the exposure to all the retail funny-money incentives for the buyer off the street has inspired the manufacturers' fleet directors to add a dash of Tabasco and some exotic herbs to the 1989 fleet incentive programs. For some makers it was almost a status quo, with little change from several past years, while others have broken new ground with innovation.

Generally speaking, most fleet buyers sense a belt-tightening on deals at this early juncture of initial announcements. It's not unlike our LA Lakers who go in with a game plan but take a time out at the two-minute mark to assess the opponent's game plan and then make immediate adjustments. That is what you can count on this year; adjustments by the makers. They all want and need market share and insist they will be "competitive."

With the definition of "import" obscured by several domestic manufacturing facilities and liaisons with the old-line domestic makers plus new and stronger fleet incentives than ever before, well, the challenge to market share is more threatening to "Detroit" than at any time in history. Besides Toyota and Nissan, you can look to fleet incentives from Mazda, American Isuzu, Subaru, Yugo. Mitsubishi, and most likely Hyundai. Only Honda remains the avowed "retail only" marketer. You can bet the farm that the pressure on "Detroit" for fleet sales will be tougher than ever; and the strategic planning to maintain market share is going to be inevitably costlier.

If you happen to be a daily rental car buyer you are pretty likely to be a bit more patient and make certain that some attractive new incentives are not coming in revision form in a few weeks. Obviously the buybacks have been honed down. In spite of the known staggering costs to automakers on buyback plans, it may be necessary for some to increase the formula to remain "competitive." In 1987 the industry sold about 325,000 units (almost entirely rental cars) and in 1988 it should total about 572,000. The factories are admittedly taking it in the socks on these programs with the buyer and the auctions benefiting. It's a costly two-bladed sword for the marketers and most rental buyers believe that no one is going to want to be the first to cancel or diminish these programs because loss of market share would surely follow. It's our own Catch 22.

Corporate fleet buyers may well need to add an accountant or a financial analyst to understand some of the plans, or keep track of retail incentives tied into the fleet allowances, or fully determine which plan is best at the moment. Life does not appear to be any easier for the fleet buyer in new vehicle ordering. Remember the "good old days" when new car selection and ordering was the fun part of the business? Few would agree today with the complexities being introduced currently with incentives.