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Question: o
to move products out the door and main- tain sales volume. During that time, I have noted a few
How do you plan to improve your business this year?
ur parts & service department has several ideas in motion to improve our business for 2011. We enhanced
our preferred customer plans in 2010, and will strive to sell a plan with at least 40-50 percent of equipment sales in 2011. Also, we have hired a “service coordinator” and we are implementing some “shop equip- ment flow” processes that should speed up the turnaround times in the shop and in- crease efficiencies by 10-15 percent!! The service coordinator’s sole purpose here will be to make sure a technician is ALWAYS
turning wrenches!! He will be in charge of looking up their parts, pulling all of their parts, staging work 2-3 units ahead, etc. We’re extremely excited about 2011, and believe it’ll be a great year! Now, we just need to figure out how to turn the rain on/off, and we’ll have it made! — Jason Hicks, parts & service manager West Chester Lawn & Garden Liberty Township, Ohio
For the last two years, we have been cutting our profit margins in an attempt
things. Our attempt to keep retail prices low in
order to attract buyers has been, for the most part, a unilateral undertaking. Our suppliers have not participated by lower- ing their prices to us. Our numbers have sagged, in spite
of the razor-thin profit margins, reaffirm- ing what an old fisherman once told me: “If the fish aren’t biting, they aren’t biting no matter what bait you use.” And last, the experts with all the grand ideas as to how I should manage my busi- ness…are not in my business. So, I’ve decided to make a shift in strat- egy for the upcoming season.
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OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT MARCH 2011 21
