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Aftermarket The Market is Changing – Are You Adapting? The third edition of the Product Support Opportunities Handbook (PSOH) is coming this month. BY RON SLEE Every five years, AED conducts a survey among contractors and fleet managers – the survey data is now in, and the 2013 edition of the Product Support Opportunities Handbook (PSOH) report is ready to be released. The first of these reports was launched in 2002 and the second at the end of 2007. This is the first look we have had at the market since the financial disruption starting with the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008. We have some very telling information about our customers, their needs and wants from a product support perspective. It deals with the changing demographics of the customer base. What do the customers look like today? Are they larger or smaller? Do they own more or fewer machines per customer? Do they carry more parts inventory or less? Do they have more technicians on their payroll or fewer? These are all very significant points that we must take into consideration when we provide our products and service to them. You might remember The Balanced Scorecard – the business tool developed by Harvard Business School in the 1990s. The starting point on this scorecard, used in our Quest training programs, is to know and understand the needs and wants of our customers. Once we have these needs and wants, we know what we need to excel at to satisfy them. Satisfying these needs and wants is something that energizes our employees. They want to do a good job and they will work much harder to satisfy the customer than they will to satisfy management. The PSOH also deals with buying decisions that the customers make for labor and parts – who they buy from and why they decide to purchase from those sources. This also is a critical tool for AED members. Knowing where the customer chooses to purchase their maintenance or their cutting edges and why should help each and every one of you to consider changes in your "customer service delivery systems" when the customer gives you evidence that should precipitate action on your part. The PSOH is a wonderful business tool. It helps you understand where you need additional training or better processes and systems. It might provide some insight on your price points. It really is telling you what the customer wants in order for you to get more of their business. The PSOH also deals with market coverage. Many of you understand that you touch less than 50 percent of the machine owners in your territories. By "touch" I am referring to having a personal visit or a telephone call from an employee of your business to discuss products or services your dealership provides to the market, which a particular customer does not currently purchase from you. You touch the customer on a deliberate and planned basis, and the individual who communicates with the customer is skilled in what they do: the selling process, the features and benefits of the products or services you offer, the competitors in the trade area, how to overcome objections and much more. Once again in the PSOH, we discuss the market potential calculator. This allows you to determine what the market opportunity is for each customer and how successfully you have been able to capture that market from each customer. This allows you to determine where you need to pay more attention in the market. The PSOH helps you identify where you are losing and how to determine the underlying causes of these weaknesses. This also enables you to determine your "market capture rates" for the service programs you offer and the parts families available from your dealership. It is a powerful tool. We all know Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the world of education, I ask each class for some definitions. Insanity is one of them. But two others have revealed the enlightening distinction between ignorance and stupidity. The definition of ignorance: Not knowing what to do. The definition of stupidity: Knowing what to do but not doing it. The PSOH tells you in detail what the customer wants. It also tells you where they buy the goods. It looks like there are no good excuses left and no better way to begin improving except to study this report and act upon it. AED releases the PSOH in PDF format only at the end of this month, which means you can have it on your desktop within minutes by visiting aednet.org/products. The choice is yours. The time is now. RON SLEE (ron@rjslee.com) is the founder of R.J. Slee & Associates, Rancho Mirage, Calif., celebrating more than 30 years in business in the United States, a consulting firm that specializes in dealership operations. Ron also operates Quest Learning Centers, a company that provides training services specializing in product support, and Insight (M&R) Institute, a company that operates and facilitates "Dealer Twenty" Groups. Follow Ron on Twitter: @RonSlee; and read his blog at learningwithoutscars.com. November 2013 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 51