I'd like to welcome the folks out of Canada. It's been a while since I've been up there. I shouldn't say that. It hadn't been that long, about a month ago, back up in the Montreal area and in the Brampton area. And so welcome, you guys. Looking forward to this day because parts and service is an area that I really like to talk about and work with. And so as being a part of MAC, which is Machinery Advisors Consortium, I've worked with a couple of the other guys, and we've put together this program for you. What we're going to talk about today is building your product support marketing plan. Rebecca was kind enough to send me the list of people that are involved in this program, and I looked at that list, and we have a wide variety of people and products that are put together here. Some of them are very specialty markets, from cranes to hydraulic mowers, and then some are very large products, you know, the big cranes and the excavators. And then we've also got some people that are in the forklift market, Hyster, Yale, those types. And then we've got some folks that are in the rental business that handle not only the small products. When I say small, that would be the four-cycle chainsaws, cutting concrete or cement cutters, utility-type equipment. And then it looks like you stretch up into a little bit of the mid-size excavators. So with that being said, this presentation is going to be more of a basic presentation, but I will address some of the things that happen when you're dealing with specialty markets and then when you're dealing with the more open-type market out there. So with that, let's get started. And our agenda for today is we're going to look at these six key areas. First thing is, you know, who's responsible for the marketing of service and parts or aftermarket products? A lot of people like to sit up and say, well, that's going to be the service department. But, you know, we need to look at that real closely. It also depends on whether you do or do not have a marketing department and do they even offer any chance to market into that area. Most dealerships are so sales-focused, or when I say sales-focused, I'm talking about whole goods, that a lot of times they don't look at the parts and service markets. So, you know, we need to look at that and see about that because what we're finding and what people are noticing is that there's a lot of money to be made in the parts and service market. And if you look at what most of the manufacturers are doing out there, they're trying to get their dealers to focus on this, especially in some of the areas where the economy has gone down, considering the oil and gas play in the construction industry. Here in Texas, up in North Dakota, some of you guys out in Canada around, well, many of you are from the Fort McMurray area, but that area we're starting to see some issues come about from the economy. Other areas we're seeing it booming. But, you know, we're going to look at who's responsible. And then we're also going to look at, you know, a key thing, which is how much do we spend on this program. That's a budget. Management's going to want to know from you, if you want me to go out here, you want to go do this marketing program, how much is it going to cost me? And then they're going to come back and say, well, if it's going to cost me this much, what is my return on that investment going to be? And that's something from a parts and service management standpoint that you're going to have to be able to come back and do. So we'll get into the budget and talk about that a little bit. Then you've got to figure out who is the target audience. Now, for some of you, as we talked about being a specialty market, it's going to be one certain group. For others, it may be much wider. Then we need to look at what are we marketing? Good question. Are we marketing services? Are we marketing contracts? Are we marketing parts? You know, what do we do in our area and how do we come up with that? Then we need to look at the next one, which is how do we spread the word? How are you going to communicate that marketing plan to your target audience? And we'll have several ways of doing that. And then the last one, which is timing. It's kind of a calendar of events. And in looking at the way this marketing program and what we're looking at here, we've taken this from the standpoint of being a smaller type dealership where the marketing responsibilities in this whole program is going to be handled by probably parts manager or service manager instead of a marketing person, like in some of the larger dealerships. So those are the six key items that we're going to go into and look at as we go forward. So with that, let's get started. Who is responsible? If you'll notice, we've got them listed there, service manager, parts manager, sales department, others, CSR and techs. And let's get into the service manager and parts manager. And I'm going to look at these two guys or these two groups of people together because they're very integral when it comes to what happens to their dealerships and their departments. Whether you like it or not, you're tied at the hip. And I understand that in some dealerships over the years we've developed silos between departments, but we really need, in order for us to go forward and market, we need to break those silos down. One of the other reasons that I have sat down and put together the fact that parts and service managers are together is the fact that for every dollar of service sold, there is approximately a dollar's worth of parts, possibly 75 cents that goes along with it. Now, when you look at a dollar service and a dollar parts, then that gets the parts manager's attention, and you have to be there. Because if the parts aren't available, then service management is losing money. And in order, when we put together a marketing plan and we're going to go out and sell service, we're going to have to have the parts on board. We also have to have them at a price that may be enticing to our customers. So we look at these two together. And when you look at them, we're really looking at these two as being kind of like the coaches of a baseball team because when you look at it, it's going to take everybody in the dealership to work this plan once you get it together. So now what you've got is service manager and parts manager are basically co-coaches, and they have to answer back up to management as to what's going to happen. I've included sales department. Some of you might say, sales department? Why would you put sales department in there? Well, when you think about it, sales department should understand what the machine population is out there. They should understand who the customers are and what's going on. And they would be a good reference point for you whenever you come back and start asking about, okay, what are we going to put together and who's going to do it? Their people will also be responsible, and maybe it's a small responsibility, but some responsibility needs to be on them to help you market whatever your program is that you put out there. All right? Then we go down and we've got the CSR, or some people call them PSSRs. Those are the customer service reps or parts and service sales reps. To me, these are key people to provide you input and some direction as to which way to go and what might be the best thing to do and to bounce ideas off of as you go through the plan. And then we don't want to disregard the techs nor the parts counter people because sometimes these guys are around it all the time. And they're out there in the field, they're around the customers, and they can, if given the opportunity, provide suggestions of, you know, what if we do this and this would allow us to do something else, and we could do this. So these are key items or key people in the role when you start looking at who's responsible. They are also very important when it goes out to selling the product. Okay? Now, any questions so far, if you would, just type them in and we will address those. Or when you see something, type it in and Rebecca can jump in and tell me, hey, we've got a question. All right? So, from who's responsible, now let's go to dollars and cents. You know, when we start talking about dollars and cents, the main thing, before we get into who's involved, the main reason you're going to do that is because management, any time they're going to do something, they're going to have a few questions. As you well know, the first question is going to be, what's it going to cost me? And rightly so. Is it going to be a $10,000 deal or is this going to be a $30,000 program? What's it going to cost me to do this? As a service manager and parts manager, because you are the key people involved in it, you need to be able to explain that to them. How much are we going to make? What is our revenue going to be on this? In some instances, there may not be any revenue. In some instances, there may be revenue. But what they're really going to ask for is bottom line. If I have spent $10,000 on this marketing plan over this last year, you told me in this budget that I'm going to make $20,000, so I can expect that I'm going to have basically $10,000 worth of gross margin or gross profit. They would probably go for that. But if you went back and said, well, we're going to spend $10,000, but we may come in at $8,000, they're going to question, well, why are we doing this? So from a parts and service management standpoint, you need to know the numbers. As you well know, as business has gone on, and we've seen it a lot more in the construction industry than we have the ag industry, construction has always been more money and business oriented than the ag industry. So these are just common questions that happen out there. So when we start talking about who all is going to be involved, well, service manager for sure. Parts manager, yep. Service manager because you're going to have to know what is it going to cost for a tech to go out and do whatever he's going to do. Maybe it's a maintenance, maybe it's an inspection program, maybe it's some sort of special that you put together. Parts, you're going to have to know exactly what your cost is on parts so that you can maintain margins. If you do a blitz on something, then will your vendors be able to offer you some discounts in order to do that? Branch managers, they need to know what you're doing. And then there's also the corporate office that's going to be involved also. Branch manager and corporate officers or corporate office, when I say corporate office, it may be the bookkeeper accountant, it may be the complex parts manager. Whomever it may be in the corporate office, that would be an upward link to you as parts and service to provide you the direction that you need to go and sign off on the projects. All of these can provide you not only guidance, but they might also be able to provide you numbers or look at your calculations and give you ways to go forward and make it a profitable venture. How do we figure the cost? Well, we're going to need from the service manager, we're going to need projected cost. So what you're going to look at there is whatever the product is that you want to sell. For instance, if you wanted to do an inspection program, then you're going to need to know if I go out and do an inspection program per equipment, how long is it going to take me? Is it going to take me 15 minutes? If it's going to take me 30 minutes, that's a text time. What about the travel time out there? What expenses go along with that? Then you've got the travel time back. How do you cover that? Are there ways that you can get an inspection becomes a part of a job that's out there to where you can cover those costs? If you're going to try to do that and put that in a marketing plan, then that needs to show how that works. Are there any external costs that are going to be associated with that? Any extra fees that may be associated with it? Maybe there's toll ways. Whatever it may be, those need to be calculated into the cost so that you can get it down so that you know exactly what it's going to cost on the service side for whatever pieces that you want to market. Same thing on the parts side. You're going to need to provide for the service department, if they're going to do a maintenance program, here's what my filters are going to cost, here's what your lubricants are going to cost. If you're going to do this and you're going to put together a large program, then you're going to want to go back to the vendor and say, okay, what discounts are available if we do this program? Now, the thing about it, when you do that, vendors are going to come to you and say, well, are you going to guarantee me so much business or whatever? We'll get into that later. But you're going to have to be able to calculate those costs for the service department so that y'all can go forward and meld this cost thing together when you do the joint piece. Now, the other side of that is that if you're marketing service, you might as well market some parts also. So there may be you put together a maintenance kit or something like that that you would offer the customer. Or maybe it's a battery blitz or cutting edge blitz, whatever it may be. But you've got to come up with a cost so that you'll know exactly where you're at. And then you're going to have to come up with a projected revenue. And that will be for both parts of service. And when we look at projected revenue, this is one of those deals where you're going to have to try to do an educated guess as best you can. You're going to look back at history and see kind of where I've been and what I've been doing, what would I like to do in the future, and kind of give yourself a goal. But also look realistically at how many maintenance programs am I going to do, how much do I need to make on each maintenance program, and if I can do those per month, what is it going to do for me, and come up with some revenues. The other thing that will come out of this, and I put collateral opportunities, whole goods sales and rental income, you will get into, and we've seen this before, you will get into situations where you go out to a customer and maybe you do an inspection or maybe you're doing maintenance on an old piece of equipment, and out of the inspection you're able to put together a quote and quote, say, $20,000, and maybe the equipment's not worth the 15. That's when you go to the sales group and say, hey, look, we've got a situation here that it may be a better deal to just go ahead and sell him up. He didn't want to spend the money to upgrade it or to fix it, so now we move him over into a piece of whole goods. We take the whole goods, and at that time the dealership has two options. They can either run it through your shop, fix it up, and make some money for the shop on it and move it back out, or they can wholesale it out. You may also get into a situation where the guy says, you know, it's not worth fixing, then just rent me a piece of equipment. You know, you've all seen that, but you've got to be proactive in doing what you're trying to do. Okay, so that's developing a budget, and you're going to have to report that budget back up to the people involved above you to get sign-off that, hey, this is a deal worth doing or it's not worth doing. I can tell you that a marketing plan is a necessary thing that you've got to have, so you've got to figure out how am I going to make money with what you're doing. So just think about that as we go forward. Then you want to look at who's the target. Current customers. Now, that's an interesting concept when I say current customers, because when you look at a lot of dealerships, because we've lived in silos, sometimes people say, well, these parts customers are mine. Service guy says, well, now you're the service customer of mine. And holy cow, salesmen, all of them are customers of his. So the problem is is that those current customers are current customers of the dealership, and everybody needs to know who the current customers are, and you need to know what they are. You should have some sort of recording, and maybe it's a spreadsheet. Maybe it's a customer list. Maybe you have a program that keeps up with all your customers and all the equipment, the whole nine yards. That should be available to you, readily available to you. So you should be targeting your current customers. Depending on what your situation is and what your program is, some of you may not have a problem with your programs, because it will be much simpler for you guys that are in the specialty markets where the only thing you handle is one or two different products, and your customer base is this group of people. You don't have the other groups that may have different types of equipment. And then you've got the guys that are more along the lines of the utility, what I call utility dealers, which are in the rental business. They have everything from that cement saw, the steel cement saw that we talked about before, to packers, the portable packers on up through skid steers and the mini excavators. Well, when you start looking at that group and you start defining who your current customers are, they could be huge. And so then depending on what you're going to do with that, you're going to segment out your customers as to, am I going to go after these guys who may all work in the concrete industry, or am I going to go after these guys who may work in the housing industry? You kind of have to segment and figure out where you're going to go and what you're going to do. So know your current customers. Now, some dealerships, when you come up and say competitive customers, some dealerships, they shy away from it. Well, my favorite has always been a situation where a customer comes in or calls in and says, hey, do you have a part for this John Deere tractor or John Deere backhoe? And me being a case dealer, they say, you'll have to go to John Deere. We don't have that. We don't handle that. To me, that has always been the wrong thing. Tell me what you got. Bring it in. And so competitive is where you're going to grow your business. And the thing about it, and one reason why I really like parts and service is when you start talking about customer satisfaction and repeat business, the way you get to the customers and the way you improve customer satisfaction is not through whole goods sales. It's through parts and service. And it's been notated. Research has been done. Repeat business, once you can get that competitive customer, that repeat business is worth tons of money. And we can do calculations to show you that. It's going to cost you six or seven times to go out and bring another customer back in if you lose a good customer. But the competitive customers, that's where you can grow your business. Now, the next area that we're talking about is governmental agencies. I put this on here because this has become very interesting. When you look at our business nowadays with all of the environmental issues, licensing, the technology that's in our equipment, a lot of the governmental agencies have the old mechanics still back in the back shop back there that take care of this equipment. And you bring a new one of these wheel loaders or skid steers or something like that in there and ask them to work on it, they scratch their head and go, what? So you have an opportunity with these governmental agencies to become their preferred provider of parts and service, or at least on the service side. Now, normally that's going to be a bid type situation. And the thing about bid business is if you're going to do bid business, and I firmly believe that's something that you need to do, you need to make sure you have all your basis covers. And you have to be, if you're going to win the bid, you're going to have to be the person or the dealership that has somebody sitting in that office helping them write the bid. And I'm not saying write it so that you exclude everybody else, but our business is based upon relationship. And I don't care, you know, we do live in a world of technology and the Internet and stuff like that. But when you get down to it, it's built on relationships. And for me, those personal relationships that you build, especially in these governmental situations, are definitely the way to go. When we talk about the other opportunities there that we've got, what I'm looking at there is if you're in a downturn economy, okay, where do you go to get that business? The thing about it, your shop back here has technicians that can work on a lot of things. They can work on diesel engines, they can work on hydraulics, they can work on multiple things. And so there becomes times that when you put together a marketing plan and you're trying to figure out how do I keep my shop full so that I can make money and keep my employees employed and keep paying them, you've got to look outside the box. And so look at your operation and think about who out there can I go out and try to solicit business from in order to bring them in. And maybe it is, you know, something that's not necessarily in your venue, but you have technicians that can work on those things. That's something to think about. And how do you expand and become diversified versus being just a vertical operation. With that said, let's move on. Okay. What are we marketing? Now, this is kind of an interesting one because it's whatever your specialty is. It's whatever you can come up that you can put together a plan and there's something out there that somebody is willing to pay for. I put down prior season of use. Normally what most people do or should do is try to get people to bring their equipment in prior to the season starting. Now, I put down winter downtime. I should have put down summer downtime because for you guys up north that work in the snow removal area, the winter downtime is right in the middle of whenever you guys, your customers are running the snow removal stuff. So when you look at the downtimes, it depends on where you're at and what market you've got. I can tell you that here in Texas where I'm at, we don't have a lot of downtime. And so the winter, depending on if it's wet or not, they may be down a little bit. But like up north, you guys have some downtime. So during that downtime, you may offer winter specials to get them to bring it down. And maybe you do an engine overhaul or maybe you do the ground engaging tools because the piece of equipment is sitting there and it's not going to be doing anything, so why not put those bucket teeth or those cutting edges on? Why not repack the cylinders or do rousers on dozers or track equipment? Do those in the downtime, and then that way whenever season comes back up, they're ready and going. Just like the snow removal prep, you go to those guys during that particular season, during the summer, before they start that and say, hey, look, you need to make sure that your snow plows, you need your blades redone, or maybe you need some hydraulics reworked or whatever that may be for the snow removal. Sorry, I can't help you a whole lot there. We don't have a whole lot of snow down here on the coast, although I can send you a picture where we had 18 inches one year. But those are some of the key areas that you can look at. Now, shop specials. When I say shop specials, maybe you're in a situation where you've got some time and you've got some guys that are really good on working on cylinders, and so you repack cylinders. For you guys that are in the smaller utility market, maybe you bring in some of those landscapers and say, hey, look, bring your mowers in in the off season and we'll tune them up, we'll put new blades, we'll make sure, you know, pull all that. Think about what's some little niche that you could market out there that people would use. And depending on the area and depending on what you're doing and what you have going on in that area, it could be a lot of different things. Now, the next one there has to do with maintenance. And maintenance and inspection are basically probably the two most hot topics that are out there right now. Most dealerships, or I shouldn't say most, but a lot of dealerships are following the car and truck industry and putting together maintenance programs whenever you leave the dealership. You know, sell a new piece of equipment and you've got a maintenance contract and a service contract. You've got companies that have come in and said, you know, with the telematics that are available, in order for you to get warranty on your piece of equipment, guess what you're going to have to have? You're going to have to have a maintenance contract. The beauty of telematics is it allows you to sit there and see all the machines that are working in your area and how many hours it's got on it, does it have some issues, can you notice anything from there so that if you do see issues, you can say, hey, look, you know, maintenance is coming up and I've got a technician here and, by the way, you're showing some fault codes. Why don't I just send him out? Not only does he do his maintenance, but he also does this, which is a proactive way of going out and saying, hey, I'm going to sell you some service. Great job. One of the things I want you to think about when we start talking about inspections as well as maintenance, and in fact, whenever they're out there doing maintenance on one, inspections should be included in that somehow. Doesn't normally take 15, 20 minutes for a good tech to figure out how to do that. But think about doing the maintenance or the inspection, maybe it's after hours, or maybe it's before hours, because the thing about it, your guys that are running, your companies that are running this equipment, they're in a situation where if they're down, they're losing money. So how do you do it and give them the opportunity to keep themselves running? And so by looking at possibly doing it after hours, for instance, maybe instead of having that particular person that runs maintenance for you, maybe instead of coming in at 7.30, 8 o'clock in the morning, maybe he comes in at 3. And then he runs maintenance from 4 o'clock till maybe 8 or 9 o'clock at night and comes in. Now, the thing about it, number one, he's going to have to have a truck available to him to do that. And if you're going to put these maintenance programs together, you're going to have to have a truck that has the fluids on it, has the filters. If it needs air, you're going to have to have an air tank on it also. So you've got to have to have a specialized truck to do maintenance in most instances. But bringing this person in, you're going to charge probably less than what your normal labor rate is to do that. You may or may not. Some dealers do, some dealers don't. But you've got that person and he works those hours and that's how he does it. What that offers the customer is the fact that, hey, we're coming in after the fact, taking care of your equipment. You don't have to have that truck. You don't have to have that person there. We've got trained people that can come in and do this. When I say trained people, here's one of the things I want to throw in here on the service side. I'm a very big proponent of, number one, your people need to be trained. They need to be looked at as being professionals. Not only do they need to have the training of professionals, but they need to look professional. I use this in all my classes. Can you imagine sitting out there and you're sitting there watching a guy, you just bought this $350,000 piece of equipment. It's sitting out there and you see this guy roll up in a pickup truck, step out and he's got an ACDC t-shirt on and you're a cat dealer. Well, not cat, but let's say you're a Komatsu dealer and he's got a cat cap on. That doesn't look very professional, but we see this quite often from some dealerships. And so, in order to command the prices and command loyalty and credibility in the industry, which we do need, we've got to have that. So enough, what we're going to do from the service side, there's some things that we can market. Now, let's move over to the parts side. From the parts side, we need to go back and look at prior use to downtime. So, basically the same thing, prior to the season of use. Very key, and we've been doing this for years in parts in both the construction industry and the ag industry. Pre-sale for upcoming jobs, a guy knows or maybe services has told you, hey, look, we're going to bring this tractor in or we're going to bring this excavator in or we're going to bring this skid steer in and we're going to do this job, okay? Well, what about all these other things that needs to go in there? Well, you've got it in here, go ahead and change filters, go ahead and change lubricants, maybe there's some hydraulic lines, whatever, pre-sale for the upcoming job. Then we talk about value-added. Now, that's a term that's been thrown around a lot, but what it is when you talk about value-added is instead of selling somebody that, okay, we've got the basic, cutting edge here, or we can give you this hardened, it wears longer, does this, basically we're selling up, okay, but there's value installed in it. Then the upsell items is, you know, if you're going to do like on a trencher, bring a trencher in and we're going to rework the boom, well, if we're going to put the bearings in it and put a new chain on it, why not upsell the boom? Why not upsell and say, well, let's go ahead and we'll change the oil. We're going to change the filters. We're going to, here's some grease that goes along with that, upsell type items. And this is parts department, parts people can do this. And then putting together maintenance kits and maintenance kits could be on a lot of different things. When I say maintenance kits, this could be a situation where you're selling an oil change and you've got all the filters and fuel filters, lube filters, hydraulic filters, everything that goes with it. And you package it and say, okay, here's a maintenance kit. Now, the beauty of that is if you sell the maintenance kit and then service can either sell the maintenance product from the service side, or you can just give the maintenance kit to the customer from the parts side, that maintenance kit doesn't only have to be lubricants and filters. It could be a maintenance kit on pins and bushings, whether it's a backhoe or an excavator or whatever. It could be a maintenance kit for the cylinders on certain pieces of equipment. For you guys that are in the crane industry, there should be some way to do a maintenance kit, whether we're talking about the cables, the pins, tracks, whatever it is, you can put together small kits that instead of them coming in and buying one or two pieces, you're able to sell them 10 pieces and get the whole thing. A good parts department could also offer the fact that, hey, if you're buying this maintenance kit, let me get you over here with service. They've got a maintenance program right now and they can take this kit and install it for you, or they can take this kit, put it on for you, and save you some money possibly. So that's the parts side of the marketing. Any questions so far? We did have one question. What do you suggest is the best way to collect competitive customers slash government agencies information to target them? And that goes back to your customer, your marketing, who you're marketing to, slide. For me, the best way has always been having a person on the ground, a good PSSR or CSR. One of his goals is to stop in to competitive places and visit with them and just tell them at first that he's stopping in, hey, I'm coming by to check on you and just tell you that I'm in the area and if I can ever help you, let me know. And then the next one, he starts trying to get in the door and seeing what's there. The thing about it, with competitive customers as well as our customers, if they see somebody such as a PSSR or a CSR or somebody from parts or service show up, they don't look at it as being a threat, but you let a salesman show up there and they see it as being a threat. And so I've always worked it from the standpoint when I was in the dealership of, in fact, I was in sales and the way I got into the competitive user was selling parts and service. And then once I got in there, then I was able to sell some whole goods. So that's the best way to do it. And you have to understand, I'm a soft sale type person. I'm not a go pound on you and that doesn't work for me because I want my relationship with that customer over a long period of time. The governmental agencies, very similar. You're going to have to spend time down at the precincts, at the cities, trying to find out, you're going to have to run the gambit of, okay, who's over this shop or who's over this precinct or county or whatever that jurisdiction is and who handles your maintenance? And you're going to need to get to know some of those county officials. And what I, you're going to, it's networking is what you're going to be doing and trying to get into those guys. And from a, to be honest with you, from a parts and service grant management background, a lot of times we spend time in the dealership when we need to be out networking with some of these guys. Maybe going to a Lions Club meeting or going to joining Rotary or something like that. And once you realize that the world revolves around relationships, it's amazing how these things come about. Now, I am not, understand, I am not talking about P-Loan and bribery to these officials to get in there. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about going in and establishing a relationship and finding out, okay, who's running that shop and then who does he answer to? And if you, it's like in our area, we've got a county commissioner. And if I'm friends with a county commissioner and I meet the guy that's in the shop and I explain to him, you know, hey, the judge told me to come by here and talk with you and that kind of helps you get a leg up on getting in the door and getting the credibility. The bad part is, is that if you, anytime you promise something to those folks and you don't deliver, it can come back to bite you as far as your reputation and credibility. And not only will it hurt you in that one precinct, but it'll also hurt you in several others around. So those are the key things there. But understand about the bid business and the governmental. Make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's and you know exactly what your costs are before you walk in there. We've seen situations where people get bids and they go out, get the bid for parts for a year or whatever and guarantee them that we'll have the part within two days or whatever and not read it close enough to notice that if they come in and say they needed it next day and the part's back ordered and it has to be air freighted in that in the contract it says we don't pay air freight or freight, that can get you real quick. So I hope that answers. Okay, let's go forward. Okay, how are we gonna get the word out? The first item and we just talked about it was the CSR, PSSR. Some people, some people have them, some people don't. Some people like them or some dealerships like them, some don't. My experience with a CSR and PSSRs, both having worked with them, having them under me and then working with dealerships that have them, if it's done properly, they are a profit generator. Not only do they generate profit but they also increase customer satisfaction and customer surveys, customer satisfaction and customer retention. These guys for the parts and service department are your eyes and ears in the field. Sometimes customers won't come in and tell you exactly what they think and then other times they tell you a whole lot more about yourself than what you'd like to know but these guys, if they're done right, they're not looked at as a threat, they're here to help me and if I'm a customer, they're not a threat, they're here to help me and they really do a great job. They also become the person that's out there in the field that they normally come up with a lot of leads for whole goods and so when you're taking that message out, which is what we're talking about right here, what better way than having a person to develop that relationship with a customer, stop in to somebody that they've already got a relationship, hey, we're doing this new program and we're gonna start and I know you've got three extender hose out there and we're gonna do a program on, maybe we're redoing cylinders. You've got a couple of those that are leaking right now and tell you what, if it's okay with you, I'll sign you up under that program and we can get those done and we'll do it after hours so that you don't have to stop working, you can keep this piece of equipment running and bring that forward and that relationship that they've built, a lot of times customers go, yeah, George, that's not a problem, you can do that and I've had guys that worked under me that were able to do that and so it's a great way. The next way is using flyers. Now these flyers can be designed, if you've got a marketing department, they can put together a professional flyer and that flyer would have both whatever your service portion is and then also something dealing with parts and the flyers, they need to be on the counters, techs need to have them, parts counter people need to have them, sales people need to have them and then you can also stuff them in the envelopes for when you send the bills out. The problem with that is that a lot of times the bills going to these contractors go to the main office and never get to the people that we need to talk to. In fact, all of this, what we're talking about here, needs to go to the person that's going to make the decision. We've all been in that situation where a guy comes, well, some of you may not have, but I personally witnessed a situation where my wife was looking for something and this guy comes up and he's sitting here talking to me about all the technical stuff and telling me how great it is and the whole nine yards and ignores her and she's the one that's going to make the decision on it. And that doesn't help you. We didn't buy from them. And the same thing happens at your dealership time and time again. The pertinent information of what you're selling doesn't get to the person that's going to make the decision. So you've got that person, you've got to identify them. It may not be the person that owns the company. And then it may not be the operator that's coming in to pick up a bucket of oil. Sometimes that operator may get that information to them, may not. Emails are a good way to do it. The key to emails is make sure that you're able to get past their spam filter and again, you're getting it to the right person. Telephone, excellent. When you use a telephone, you've got to be specific and have a script. You have to identify who you are and what dealership you're with and why you're calling. And you need to be able to get a hold of that correct person again. Social media, in our industry, I'm not as big on it. Now in some other industries, it works pretty good. Especially where you get sole proprietorships and maybe it's an eatery or something like that. But I don't know how much, right now, social media really does for us in the equipment industry. There's some people that are saying, hey, this is where we need to go. And then there's some that are saying, no. There are some apps, speaking of social media, there are some apps out there that work very well. I know some manufacturers have these apps that customers can send you information, text back and forth, send you pictures, and it works very well. Those type of social media, they'll have a problem with it. Facebook and some of those, I'm not big on that. Now, the mass media, when we're talking about parts and service marketing, I think it's a waste of money. Mass media, and what I'm talking about here is television, radio, newspaper. If you're trying to improve your image, works great. If you're trying to sell bucket teeth and cutting edges and overhauls, I mean, that's a shotgun approach and who's gonna really look at that? Most people aren't. So I think it's a work, from what I've seen, it's, from our perspective of parts and service or support management, from a marketing standpoint, it's not worth your money to do that, okay? Now, we've gotten the word out, so now we need to look at developing a timeline. And here's the thing about it. When we're talking about this, we wanna develop a 12-month calendar and we want it to be written. However, it's not written in stone because as you start getting through here, what you may realize is that, hey, we need to extend this program or we need to add something to this next program so that you have some fluidity to it. When you set things in stone and say, no, we're not gonna do that, things change in the economy. So you have to be careful where that's going. So it does have to be written, it does have to be fluid. And it's not something that you do overnight. If you want a good plan, you're gonna have to spend some time with it. You're gonna have to start two to three months ahead of time, at least, in order to start this. Pardon me. So, when we look at this, what we wanna do is we really wanna, I'd rather base this on quarters instead of months. And the reason I say that is because parts managers and service managers, you have enough on your plate as it is right now. And if you're trying to keep up with this on a monthly basis, what you're doing is you're gonna have to send out the flyer, you're gonna have to send out the notification at least two to three weeks in advance. So you send it out, you've already got one out there, and you've got people that are sitting there going, well, wait a minute, you're selling this this month and then this next, and you're having to keep up with that. That's pretty difficult, and it can be very confusing. And so my suggestion is base it on quarters. So however you wanna do the timeline, I mean, first quarter, second quarter, seasons, however you wanna do it, in three to four month intervals. And so by doing that, what you've done is it's gonna run for a period of time, everybody understands it, takes out the confusion, and then right at the end of it, then you can start sending out the flyers for the next one. What we've noted, or what's been noted from a marketing perspective is that it takes about three times of touching these people before they actually buy sometimes. So you have to think about that when you do this. From a service department sales, the timing, what we're looking at is like we talked about before, slow times prior to season of use, and then during season of use, those two time periods. And that's both for parts and service. Prior to, one of the big things we normally do is we sit down and we use discounts. We'll say, hey, we'll give you 10% discount if you'll come in and do this. When you do a discount, what you're doing is you're training the customers that wait for the discount. We've done that in retail quite well. The problem is is there's usually not enough margin in most of our parts, excuse me. There's usually not enough margin in most of our parts to do these big discounts. And if we get 30% margin, if we give them a 10% discount, we have to sell roughly 66% more of that product to gain that margin dollar back. So instead of giving discounts, why not give something like 90 days sales cash, 120 days something of this sort. Or do something where there's an in-store credit. So you have to think about those things. The biggest problem that I see a lot of times is people come up and during the season of use, which is the time that these guys really need it, they'll give a discount. Well, why would you do that? Why would you try to pull sales forward? That's not the time to do it. When things are slow for you, that's when you wanna pull people in. If you're gonna give a discount, give it on the out of the season of use when they're not using that piece of equipment. That's what I would do. But set it up on quarters. And here's some examples of what we would do. For instance, in January through March, usually this is kind of a dead time of the year for most dealerships, brand it. Maybe you title it getting ready for work or prepping for the ball game. Some people are sports fans and they like that. Three-point savings. However you wanna coin it so that they actually look at that piece of paper. And then think about the products and services you're gonna offer. Is it gonna be service contracts? Is it gonna be equipment maintenance? Is it gonna be equipment and attachment rework or modifications? Or maybe some sales of attachments? And so, depends. Could be inspections. Whatever you're gonna do, you're gonna have a branding and then you're gonna have a product and it's gonna be over that time period. And think about what's going on in that time period in your area. Like we said, on the branding, that could be whatever's unique to your area. Maybe it's the fall festival and the turning of its leaves, whatever. For April and June, time is of the absence. I mean, this time you should be working. Baseball's starting up. So, double play days. We'll do an inspection and a maintenance for this. Now, most of you guys aren't from North Carolina or South Carolina, so pit stop savings may not help you or let us be your pit crew. But I can tell you that talking NASCOR down in that area would probably get some interest. Products, same thing. Now we pick up and start putting maintenance kits in. Because this in the middle, the heat of the run, middle of the season, we're starting in the season, maybe they didn't get their winter done and they've got 200 hours on the machine and need to have maintenance done. Inspections. Now, one of the key things about inspections is that tie that inspection to warranty. People are having a lot of success by contacting these customers and saying, hey, look, your piece of equipment's fixing to go out of warranty. Let us do an inspection and that inspection will tell us if there's anything that needs to be corrected under warranty. That way you possibly could get it back in or you possibly could do the warranty work out there, get you some more work for your shop, as well as if they've torn something else up that's not warrantable. But most customers, when you say your warranty's running out in about 10 hours and we need to look at it and see if there's anything else we can put under warranty, being proactive like that, most are gonna say, you're looking to save me money. So it increases your credibility when you do this. July and August, I was gonna say dog days of summer, but that's not a good thing. How about ballpark savings, heat of the battle? Final pit stop. Prepping for the season. Now, prepping for the season, that would go for the guys on the snow side. And so products and services, as you see, you've got service contracts. Snow removal, maintenance, and inspections. And then September, time out for the next season for you guys at Hunt, that's there. And then I know I'm running over, but here's the last one in retrospect. Proper planning provides the dealership the map of where to go. What we really need is a plan which provides us a map. Communication is a key among the stakeholders and to the customers. Without communication, we don't get the whole group working together. And we've got to have the whole dealership selling it. Right products and right services at the right price is a win-win situation for both customer and dealership. You don't wanna get yourself into a situation where it's a win-lose situation for the dealership or it's a win-lose situation for the customer. And then last but not least, carpe diem. If you've watched Robin Williams, seize the day, seize the moment. You've got to do that. Every day is a new day and you've got to seize the day. With that, I'd like to finish with this quote from a gentleman that I had a chance to meet and work with. His name was Rayel Atchia. Time is the most precious thing that can be received or offered. And with that said, thank you for your time. If you have any questions, let me know. I have one additional question. How do you track your marketing success? Good question. There's a lot of different ways to do it that I've seen. I've seen where the service manager would track how many of these maintenance programs he put together or he would have a special code whenever he did a service work order. He would code it separately so that at the end of the time, he could go in and say, this is what I did. These are how many I did. And I'm glad they asked the question because that's the other side. We have to measure that. And I apologize that I forgot, but we have to measure what we're doing so that we can show back to management, hey, look, this was a success. We can also show to ourselves. On the parts side, what you're gonna do is you're actually gonna look at those parts and those part numbers and look at year-to-date, prior year-to-date, and prior to that and see did we really jump because what we want to see is a trend. And the thing about this is putting a marketing plan in place, don't expect overnight success. It doesn't happen. In some instances, you may see something spike, but some people think that, okay, we're gonna run in here and we're gonna market this and I'm gonna do 200 of these. Well, if you didn't do but 10 last year, I would say if you could do 10 or 12 more this year than what you did last year, that would help you. Or maybe 30. But you're not gonna be able to do 200. And so be realistic with those numbers when you start setting yourself these goals and be able to measure it. Larry, that was the only question that I had out there right now. So I just wanna thank you for a great presentation and certainly if anyone has any additional questions that you can send those to me and I'll make sure Larry gets them or you can contact Larry directly. In the meantime, I just wanna thank everyone for participating and hope they have a great day. Thank you.

parts and service marketing

dealerships

product support marketing plan

target audience

establish relationships

marketing options

maintenance contracts

equipment inspections

spreading the word

measuring marketing success