CED

August 2014

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August 2014 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 29 Product Support (continued on next page) part-time assignment for a young business intern. In the chart above, the dealer adjusted his consumption factors based on the type of units in each account. He worked through his customer base in batches of 50. The batch categories were roughly sorted by number of units. Once the spread sheet was completed, the dealer sorted customers by P&S $ Sales Opportunity, largest to smallest. The resulting ranking report of aftermarket customer sales opportunity is amazing because most likely no one in your service and parts operations ever considered a focused sales approach on those newly identified high- potential accounts. See Folkert Const., (above) for example. 2.) Plot Aftermarket Customers on a Wall Map Many dealers find it extremely useful and informative to create a large wall map of at least 24 x 30 inches, representing customer locations. Managers find it easier to visualize geographic clusters of opportunity on a map versus a columnar list of customers and prospects. See sample map below. Very inexpensive software and printing resources are now available to create informative and helpful tools to help plan sales and customer support campaigns. Customers and prospects can be indicated on the maps by a wide variety of symbols, sizes and colors. A reasonably priced map resource is www.MapBusinessOnline.com. This web-based mapping software is a very user-friendly program that supports both Windows and Macintosh web browsers. Busi- ness data can be easily imported from Excel spreadsheets or text files. The user can save maps as Jpeg, PNG, or PDF images. An annual subscription for a single user costs about $250 per year. Working from your PDF map file, an office supply store can print color images from 24 inches wide to up to 60 inches in length for just a few dollars each. Call first to make sure their printer person is available. Three of the most useful maps we helped one dealer develop included: Map A – All dealer equipment customers by zip code. Four current fleet size categories by symbol size. Yes/No PM Contract by symbol color. The dealer could immediately see which large machinery customers were under PM agreements or not. Map B – All current aftermarket customers by zip code. Four current customer fleet size categories in units by symbol color. Current P&S sales opportunity potential shown by symbol size. This dealer saw his large aftermarket sales opportunities were located. Map C – All parts direct customers by zip code. If you have numerous parts-only accounts that do their own maintenance, do one map for them using logic of Map B. The dealer easily determined where his large aftermarket parts direct sales opportunities were located. Some of these needed special order/receipt/ delivery arrangements or consignment inventory accommodations for their remote location. (E-mail me for my convenient consignment inventory control technique.) 3URÀOH

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