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ADVERTISING
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What types of marketing/advertising are the best value for a material handling dealership? We all tend to think like an end consumer; however, the market is very different. With so many options these days—Yellow Pages, cable television, radio, print ads, mailers, Internet, inserts, promotional items—and so many constraints on our budgets, how can we evaluate each medium for maximum value? |
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In light of today's economy, with sales down and profitability threatened, what percent of gross sales and gross profit do you budget for advertising? |
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| Methods |
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In today's world of electronic, paperless communication, what part does direct mail play, if any, in the overall marketing program? What and who are the targets—existing customer base or search for new customers—and what is the frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.)? What is considered a good response rate? |
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What kind of results have direct mail campaigns had in the material handling industry? Has one type of direct mail seen superior results? How can a company effectively maintain its mailing list? |
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Which of the following methods do you use and what percent of your advertising budget are they: coupon flyers, product announcements, corporate identity devices (lighters, hats, key chains, etc.), Yellow Pages advertising, meet the customer events such as an open house, trade shows and others? |
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We have experienced a reduction in co-op money available from our vendors. Consequently, we are paying more of the Yellow Pages advertising expense. Is there a reliable way to measure the effectiveness of Yellow Pages ads? Does anyone have an effective alternative to the Yellow Pages? |
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| FLEET MANAGEMENT |
| Forklift Rentals: Lease vs Purchase |
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We own a forklift rental fleet of 250 units. What are your thoughts on leasing your rental fleet versus owning your rental fleet? |
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| Fuel Costs |
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How are dealers with fleets of service vans and delivery trucks addressing soaring fuel costs? |
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| Service Van: Lease vs Purchase |
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As a fleet of road service vans approaches 40 vehicles, there are some who choose to lease these vwhicles as fleet leases. Is there any real big advantage to leasing vehicles as opposed to outright purchase / bank loan? If so, what are the advantages? |
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| MANUFACTURER SUPPORT |
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How can a distributor obtain factory support and how much support should a distributor expect? How can the distributor insure that the product line he is representing does not go direct, replace the distributor or add more distributors. |
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OPERATING COSTS
Cash Flow Management |
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The increase in customers requesting just-in-time delivery increases pressure on small distributors to stock inventory for same-day or next-day delivery in order to compete with larger houses with more buying power. What is the best way to manage cash flow in such an environment? |
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| Leasing vs. Buying Computers |
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What are your thoughts on leasing versus purchasing computers and servers used in our business environment? It seems that technology changes so quickly that a new computer is outdated as soon as I take it out of the box. Would it be better if our company leases the computers and servers or purchases them outright? |
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| Technology Expenditures |
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We are a general lines distributorship selling mainly storage & handling equipment. It seems that the cost just to maintain our technology infrastructure (server, network maintenance, software updates, EDI, etc.) has been escalating every year. Is there a budgetary percentage of total sales that you would expect to spend on technology each year? |
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PERSONNEL
Administrative Salaries |
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Is there a formula, ratio or percentage that is generally used to compare administrative salaries to revenue-producing salaries? We have established the administrative cost per dollar of revenue but would like to know if there is a formula that works to tell us if we are administratively top heavy or if we fall in the normal range. Also, how do most members allocate working owners' salaries? |
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| Compensating and Retaining Good Salespeople |
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How do you compensate and retain good salespeople in a climate of declining gross profits? Has anyone implemented an “out-of-the-norm” compensation plan in response to these trends? |
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| Employee Recognition Programs |
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With substantial pressure generated by shrinking margins and increasing costs, what recognition programs are dealers using to complement wage increases and retain solid employees? |
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| Finding Loyal Salespeople |
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Given the expense to which an employer must go to recruit, hire, train and develop a salesperson, where do you suggest we look to find the best candidates? What do you look for when trying to decide if a potential salesperson will be loyal? |
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| Incentives for Technicians and CSRs |
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What incentives have proven most effective in generating new equipment leads through technicians and customer service representatives? Would those corresponding incentives be based on submission of the lead, a subsequent formal quotation or an order? |
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| Inside : Outside Salesperson Ratio |
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We are an allied lines material handling distributor. Over the years, we have considered adding an inside salesperson to try to keep our salespeople in the field as much as possible. Is there any rule of thumb on how many outside salespeople it takes to support an inside salesperson? Should the inside salesperson support the outside people with quoting, order entry, order follow-up, etc? Or are these activities better handled by the outside people? |
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| Labor Shortages |
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The projections are for a skilled labor shortage of 10,000,000 workers by the year 2010. Some of this shortage will directly impact our ability to service customers in a professional manner. With competing industries also recruiting directly from our own companies, what is being done to market our industry as an attractive, stable, rewarding industry to work in? What is being done at the local level by anyone to market their own company as a rewarding career? What recruiting techniques have worked well, besides going after the competition's technicians? |
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| Recruiting Allied Salespeople |
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What have been your best sources for finding allied line salespeople? How long of a training period do you recommend? Is it better to have the salespeople salaried during the training period? |
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| Recruiting and Compensating Salespeople |
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We specialize in storage systems integration with some unit equipment sales, but no lift truck sales. What is the best method to recruit young talent into our sales force? Also, what is the best method of compensation for them in their first years when they are building a client base? |
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| Salary : Commision Ratio |
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We are a company that is primarily a project house / systems integrator, but also distributes general lines. We do not sell lift trucks. What have other companies found to be the best ration of salary to commission in order to motivate and retain salespeople? Have other companies tried different salary / commission ratios and programs within the same sales force with any success? |
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| Sales Personnel Titles |
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In this day and age, when companies have so many salespeople out in the field, what is the best title for them? Sales Representative? Account Executive? |
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| Technician Discipline |
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Good forklift service technicians are extremely hard to find. They are also hard to keep, as they are always being approached by our competition. We tend to put up with rogue behavior because they are so vital to our business, (i.e., not wearing full uniforms, not calling in, not taking care of company vehicles; in short, not maintaining the high standards we expect in the dealership). How can we build employee discipline, involvement and loyalty in an environment where the grass is always greener at the competition? |
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| Technician Wages |
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As a service crew matures and many of us have 10 to 15 year loyal employees, how do most dealerships address the wage rates? Do any MHEDA dealers have a ceiling on technician wages? |
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| The Role Of A Sales Manager |
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Should an equipment sales manager be focused on making calls with the salespeople, or should this position be proficient in all areas of the sales department (i.e., contact management system, quotation system, running reports, running bookings/delivery reports, etc.)? Should the manager perform simply as a coach or as an operationally rounded manager? |
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| Workers' Compensation Claims |
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What steps does your company take to protect itself from employees who claim they are injured on the job and involve you in a Worker's Compensation claim that goes on for an extended amount of time? |
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REGULATIONS
Building Codes |
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Depending on a job's location, permitting requirements for racking and building attachments vary. It can be done one way in one city, and the next town over requires something different. No matter what you submit, the building department comes back with questions. What can be done about this? Is there any sort of state or national permitting requirement in the works? |
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REVENUE ENHANCEMENT
Allied Product Sales |
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In our fifty-some-odd years of selling lift trucks, we have tried selling and servicing many different allied products (sweepers, racking, people movers, etc.) with limited success. Other than tires and batteries (which I consider more of an accessory than true allied line), what products do you see as the best fit for enhancing the revenue of a traditional lift truck dealer? |
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| Business Practices for a Down Economy |
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What are you doing to prepare and respond to the forecasted economic conditions? |
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| Charging for Services |
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We are a storage & handling distributor. Considering the unbundling of services by our customer base, how can our industry set the precedent to start charging the customer for engineering, drawings and services that we now provide for free? I realize that systems integrators have been successful charging for services. Does anyone have a model for the storage & handling distributor? |
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| Developing Consistent Revenue Streams |
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Automation Concepts designs and installs integrated material handling and control systems. Our sales cycle is very long and sometimes unpredictable. Because of this cycle, we experience peaks and valleys. Do you have any creative suggestions on products and services that will allow us to have a more consistent revenue stream? |
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| Growing Your Business with Small Margins |
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In today's market with small margins on new equipment, how does a dealer grow his business and make it profitable? |
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| Opening New Branches |
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Customers are frequently interested in the support and nearby resources available from their “local” branch. Indeed, we have won and lost orders due to our proximity to the customer, leading us to consider new branches in developing territories. Conversely, the ever-increasing pressure on margin would lead us to abandon that very expensive thought and make investments in better technology/coordination tools to support these territories. What factors should be considered in opening or closing branches? How significant is physical proximity of the branch to the purchasing decision of the customer? |
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| Overcoming Margin Pressure |
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In today's challenging marketplace, we continually find margins reduced on all profit centers to stay competitive. Additionally, customers with longstanding relationships are forced to change suppliers strictly on price in an effort to reduce their overhead. What suggestions could be made to help control the erosion of the bottom line? How do you protect longstanding relationships with customers when price—and price alone—becomes the issue? |
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| Targeting New Customers |
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Our company is a systems integrator and allied products distributor. Potential customers often open distribution centers in our area but purchase equipment prior to announcing their move and without contact with local suppliers. Local Chambers of Commerce and real estate developers maintain the secrecy of any projects until a formal announcement is made, usually after any equipment has been purchased. What strategies can be used to successfully identify and approach these potential customers early enough to have the opportunity to bid on, and hopefully win, a project? What marketing avenues can target potential customers that might move into our area? |
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| Web Site Sales and Profitability |
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Today, many companies are diverting to the Internet to purchase material handling equipment. As a growing distributorship, what is the best approach to developing a website that will secure our future customers? Are websites profitable in the material handling field? |
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SERVICE
Creating Value while Controlling Costs |
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We are a small service department consisting of eight people. Our organization primarily repairs dock leveling equipment, trailer restraints and dock seals. How can we best create value for our customers, control company costs and impact business growth? |
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| Drive-Time Charges to Rural Areas |
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We are a forklift dealership serving a very large but low populated area. We constantly evaluate how we charge for "drive time" for our techs. I have visited with other dealers, and it seems that everyone struggles with setting their rates. Our customers don't like being charged for "drive time," but there is a very real cost involved in getting to remote locations. How do you recommend charging for servicing rural areas? |
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SHIPPING
LTL Trucking |
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We are a national distributor of material handling equipment and services. In recent years, our Internet marketing efforts have led to a significant increase in the number of less-than-truckload (LTL) orders that we must send across the country. We have found that some suppliers prefer LTL trucking arrangements that work well, while many others do not. This often leads to situations where we must work with LTL trucking firms that are not reliable in ensuring on-time and damage-free delivery of products to our diverse customer profile. What are other distributors doing to meet the challenges posed by an LTL trucking industry that offers few guarantees without charging excessive premiums? |
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SOFTWARE
Dispatching Systems |
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Our dealership constantly strives to capture new aftermarket customers for our parts and service departments. As a result, our force of service technicians is expanding rapidly and we are approaching the limitations of our current dispatching system. While our software system provides rudimentary dispatching features that help to track open calls, we still use manual dispatching boards to assign technicians to specific jobs. Are there other tested and proven dispatching systems that are available to dealers with 40 or more technicians? What types of automation are available that might help the process? |
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| Supplier or Off-the-Shelf |
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In today's age of complex information technology, major manufacturers exert considerable pressures on their independent dealers to adopt costly accounting software systems to manage information in a more uniform format and to ensure that their software for managing sales, rentals, parts and service sales is sufficient. Many of the specialized niche software suppliers tend to be relatively small businesses with high turnover in personnel and poor or expensive local support. On the other hand, they offer a product designed with our business in mind.
Many larger suppliers offer superior local service; however, it is really up to the dealer to ensure the system is fine-tuned to process information the way the dealer wants it done. Do you believe that an independent dealer is better off choosing the software supplier being promoted by its major supplier, or going it alone with an off-the-shelf software solution from a major software developer? What are the critical factors in making this decision? |
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SHORT & LONG TERM RENTALS
Marketing Short-Term Rentals |
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Short-term rental business has been off in our area. Have you heard of any new or innovative ways to stimulate short-term rental business? We have been kicking around ideas such as using an hourly usage charge instead of a fixed rate and renting operators with forklifts. |
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What strategies have you found effective in marketing and growing the short-term rental business when your product offering is limited to straight-mast lift trucks and you're competing against the major rental yards? |
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| Replacement Policy |
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What is the evaluation policy you use for the replacement of short-term rental assets? Does your company have a policy where the customer participates in the guarantee of Long-Term Rentals (LTRs), in order to lessen your debt exposure? What percentages of your LTRs are supported this way? |
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| SUPPLIER-DISTRIBUTOR RELATIONSHIPS |
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The newly released book by Mike Marks, Tim Horan and Mike Emerson of Indian River Consulting Group, Working at Cross-Purposes: How Distributors and Manufacturers Can Manage Conflict Successfully, has the premise that “win-win” is dead or never existed between suppliers and distributors. What is your opinion? How do you see the supplier-distributor relationship evolving over the next five years compared to how it has evolved the last five years? |
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| TRAINING |
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The material handling business is one of the most diverse and “product-knowledge-intense” industries on the planet. Add to it the ever-increasing need for a lightning-fast, accurate, informative response to our customers, and you have a new employee training dilemma. What resources are available, other than vendor supplied training, that can address the generic product concepts, i.e., conveyor, shelving, rack, etc., and shorten the time between new hire and effective salesperson? |
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| WARRANTY CLAIMS |
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We are seeing a dramatic increase in manufacturers refusing warranty claims and customers using warranty as a reason not to pay invoices long after the warranty period is over. What can be done to reduce both of these problems? |
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