The following are TESTIMONIALS from McDonald Group Clients who invited Walter McDonald to present his “Master’s Program in Dealer Management Workshop” for their organizations.

Client: Six-Location Southeastern Equipment Dealer.

Project: Approximately 45 managers plus the owners participated in the dealer management workshop presented by Walter McDonald. Their primary issue was Absorption Rate with a company-wide score of about 86%. With a fully focused management effort over five years they were able to increase their overall Absorption Rate to 131% and enjoyed the most profitable year in their history.

Client: International Heavy Equipment Manufacturer

Project: Approximately 86 dealer management teams attended dealer management workshop sessions presented by Walter McDonald in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Each dealer team had unique challenges however, the overall seminar focus was improving dealer market share, profitability, cash flow and customer retention. Over a five year period, the average improvement for dealers who actively completed the Action Plans they designed for themselves was about 33 – 35% increase in Operating Profit.

Client: West Coast Equipment Dealer

Project: 14 company managers and ownership participated in Walter McDonald’s dealer management workshop. These are the comments from the Dealer Principal.

“We are doing quite well with what we have learned to this point from you, our accountant is busy constantly doing statistical comparisons and conducting our metrics program, in fact we continue to unearth many smaller benefits weekly, but the best part is that we have a much larger and clearer window into our business… We are looking at things much differently today and that has brought us to a new perspective.”

“Walter, we are controlling our labor hours much tighter, we now see where productivity and efficiency improvements can be made, profits are trending upwards, better inventory control and an overall higher degree of comfort in running our business. We have gotten the majority of our employees to buy into what we are doing and that is additionally rewarding. Thanks for everything Walter as we are a much better company now.”

Client: International Manufacturer of Heavy Equipment

Project: Walt did a super job developing dealers with the following custom programs:

• All of the dealers in our network went through programs focused on maximizing their ROI in the critical areas of each of the dealerships. We developed a customer program based on Walt’s book and dealers raved about how it opened their eyes to many opportunities to increase efficiencies, productivity and profits.
• Walt also worked with the dealer sales staff to help them better manage their territories through time management, proper prospecting, customer development and value selling. The sales people were grateful and energized after the programs because it will help them earn more as well.

Client: Mid-Size Kansas City Area Equipment Dealer

Project: Walt, here are some bullet points for your client:

• Walt is well organized and has a tried-and-true curriculum
• The workshop location away from the office was efficient and effective
• Our managers were prepared, focused and energized by the workshop
• Each department developed its own roadmap to sales profitability
• We became aware of mistakes and inefficiencies that hurt profitability
• The end results were eye-opening, leading to new sales and operational goals
• The post workshop follow-up was critical in preventing old habits returning
• Walt was fun to be with, engaging in the classroom, proficient and has a good sense of humor
• We highly recommend Walt’s workshop and expertise to improve every aspect of your industrial equipment distribution operations

Client: International GPS CE Machine Control Manufacturer

Project: Conducted 15 Dealer Management Workshops in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Here’s some comments from the OEM Executive regarding success stories:

• One of the most important is that after 5-10 years the distributors are still using the workshop materials, it has a great shelf life and is still relevant.
• The workshop helped the distributor principals to understand the importance of running a profitable service workshop.
• Creating a management dashboard to measure the company’s KPI’s is used by many.
• Insight into how to manage a successful sales team, incentive programs, quota setting recruitment was most helpful.
• Providing the framework to build a strategic plan helped with the longer term planning, moved the principals away from and beyond “If I have sufficient cash in the bank at the end of each month then I’m doing ok.”