Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/86182
From the Chairman President & CEO TOBY MACK Associated Equipment Distributors Oak Brook, Ill. Executive Vice President & COO ROBERT HENDERSON Associated Equipment Distributors Oak Brook, Ill. OFFICERS Chairman LAWRENCE F. GLYNN CMW Equipment, St. Louis, Mo. Vice Chairman MIKE QUIRK Wagner Equipment Co., Aurora, Colo. Sr. Vice President TIMOTHY J. WATTERS Hoffman Equipment Co., Piscataway, N.J. Vice President GARRY FRELICK Douglas Lake Equipment, Langley, BC Vice President DON SHILLING General Equipment & Supplies, Inc. Fargo, N.D. Vice President of Finance MICHAEL D. BRENNAN Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co., Louisville, Ky. Past Chairman DENNIS E. KRUEPKE McCann Industries, Inc., Addison, Ill. AT-LARGE DIRECTORS PAULA BENARD C.N. Wood Co., Inc. Woburn, Mass. RICK DAHL Metrolift, Inc. Sugar Grove, Ill. GREGG R. ERB Erb Equipment Company, Inc. Fenton, Mo. DENNIS J. HELLER Stephenson Equipment Inc. Harrisburg, Pa. MIKE ROONEY Thompson Tractor Co., Inc. Tarrant, Ala. MICHAEL J. SAVASTIO Groff Tractor & Equipment, Inc. Mechanicsburg, Pa. REGIONAL DIRECTORS BRUCE A. BOWMAN, Upper Midwest Reg. Star Equipment, Ltd Des Moines, Iowa RICK VAN EXAN, Eastern Canada Reg. Toromont Industries Ltd. Concord, ON PATRICK MCCONNELL, West Reg. Clyde/West, Inc. Portland, Ore. MARK ROMER, Southeast Reg. James River Equipment, Inc. Ashland, Va. JEFFREY SCOTT, Rocky Mountain Reg. Intermountain Bobcat Salt Lake City, Utah GERALD W. TRACEY, Northeast Reg. Tracey Road Equipment Inc. East Syracuse, N.J. GARY D. VAUGHN, South Central Reg. OCT Equipment, Inc. Oklahoma City, Okla. BY LARRY GLYNN In 1977, when I was hired by Cummings, McGowan & West (we now do business as CMW Equipment) as a field salesman, the sales manager handed me a phone card and told me he expected me to find a public phone and call in at 10, 2 and 4 every day. When you showed up at the office, the secretary would hand you a pile of phone messages on pink slips. The customers or manufacturers expected a return call some- time within the next day or two. Some time in the late 1980s, I got my first car-mounted mobile phone with the little antenna you had to take off every time you went through the car wash. In the mid 1990s, I got my first laptop, carried it around with me on all my travels but never really used it because the content and interface with others wasn't there yet. Then came the truly mobile phones for every salesperson with the costs coming down year after year. And now we have evolved into a whole new world. We have iPhones, Blackberries, laptops, and tablets. The question now becomes, How do we control all of this instant communication and the new level of expectation? At least now you can pretty well figure out where you stand with your customers. If you are lucky enough to have their mobile numbers, do they answer your calls? Respond to your texts? How long does it take before they call you back, or do they call or text you back at all? When customers or manufacturers want to contact you, the response time they expect is sometimes unreasonable. The customer doesn't get the equipment from you on a rental because you didn't get back to him or her within the hour? The younger the person you are dealing with the more unreason- able the response time expectation might be. Unfortunately, it may take some time in the business for them to learn that doing things right is better than doing things fast. That goes for salesmen, too – I have had younger reps who believed that they were doing their job by spending most of their time reading or sending e-mails or electronic quotes. They are no longer employees of CMW. The manufacturers and other service suppliers have gone way overboard sending out notices and correspondence to their dealers. There is no way I can read all the e-mails I get every week, nor do I believe many of my cohorts who are successful spend that valuable selling time looking at the screen. I emphasize with our sales force the only time that really matters in the winning sales process is the time spent in front of the customers or on their jobs. I try to spend time with at least one customer every work day that I can. Let's not forget the liability of reading e-mails and texting while driving between sales calls – all in the name of trying to make those important calls and keep up with the electronic communications. We have all done it. We instructed everyone not to do it, but it goes on. I pray no one has an accident or gets hurt because of these temptations of the gizmos. And thank goodness for rumble strips along the shoulders of the highways! What about the content, and what are your employees really doing with all this technology? Personal phone calls, personal e-mails, jokes, dirty pictures, not to mention fantasy teams or March Madness. How can management possibly control content of all the company-supplied electronics? The world is changing and we have to keep up. I don't claim to have all the answers to these questions but I have to admit, the best thing about the Blackberries and iPhones is being able to text and read e-mail during boring meet- ings. The next meeting you attend, see what the attendees think of the program by which way their faces are looking – out or down. Electronic Gizmos Have Taken Over Sure they have benefits, but tech tools do have a way of controlling us rather than the other way around. LARRY GLYNN (larryg@cmw-equip.com) is President of CMW Equipment in St. Louis, Mo. October 2012 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 5