By Walter J. McDonald Cash Flow is ranked as the number one issue of concern to Machinery Dealer Principals in a recent industry survey.  Everyone knows that “cash is king.”  But, how do you build the systems infrastructure to optimize dealer cash flow?   The amount of money flowing through a dealership makes cash control critical.… Continue reading Death by 10,000 Cuts Or, How to Improve Dealer Cash Flow

by Guest Contributor, Tim J. Murphy I attended a sales / product training meeting several years ago where customers using competitive equipment were part of a panel taking questions from our sales team.  One question posed was, “how often should a sales rep call on you?”  The response was classic and one that hit home.… Continue reading Participation Rate and Market Share

How Accounts View Dealerships By Walter J. McDonald In our previous article on A/B Account Contact Frequency* we discussed the importance of building relationships with those top accounts that provide 80% of your business. An insightful way to measure progress in building those relationships is to determine how these A/B (and some C accounts) view your… Continue reading Relationship Hierarchy

How to Successfully Service All Machinery Customers By Steve Ross and Walter McDonald Structuring the Account Development Team The machinery dealer’s end-user customer is their most valuable asset. Yet, there is often minimal company-wide attention/coordination to maintain and develop this incredibly important relationship. Traditionally, the sole responsibility fell to the territory sales rep. However, today,… Continue reading Contact Strategy: Optimizing Market Share

Part 2:  DEAL Closure Rate skills by Walter J. McDonaldIn this second of our two-part Newsletter on Selling Skills, we will examine Essential Closure Rate Skills and introduce our guest contributor, Tom Paul, CEO of Pop Art, Inc., and his article on mobile apps as selling tools. As a review, two sets of selling skills are… Continue reading Essential Machinery Selling Skills

By Tom Paul, CEO of Pop Art. Inc., Guest Contributor Introduction In today’s fast-paced business environment, staying ahead in the competitive landscape requires sales teams to be equipped with the right tools and knowledge. Sales enablement, a strategic approach to provide resources and support to sales professionals, plays a crucial role in enhancing their productivity… Continue reading Empowering Equipment Distributors with Mobile Apps

The sweet sixteen that will make you more profitable and expand your market share.By Walter J. McDonald Equipment Dealers want and need to know how to improve service labor sales and profitability. Some say nothing seems to work very well.  I recently completed four consulting projects for equipment dealers and a series of five dealer… Continue reading 16 Powerful Tools To Build Your Aftermarket Business

Part 1:  DEAL Visibility or Awareness skills by Walter J. McDonald In this two-part article we will discuss essential machinery selling skills. Part 1 focuses on the skill set required to participate in a large percentage of the deals or potential sales in a machinery sales territory. Part 2 examines the skill set needed to… Continue reading Essential Machinery Selling Skills

When it comes to identifying leads, turning those leads into customers, and retaining those customers over the long term, there are certain strategies or tools that every dealer needs to put in place. Those strategies are identifying website visitors, regularly sending out emails, and conducting customer satisfaction surveys to understand where you need to improve… Continue reading Three Essential Tools for Dealers

1. Review the fill rate for each whole goods model your dealership sells. Where are your support problems? As part of its product development process, each manufacturer creates a “mortality list” of parts that could fail during the early life of the product. By reviewing this list of recommended spares, you can stock more of… Continue reading How to Improve Off-Shelf Parts Fill Rate