COVER STORY By Bob Clements
GENERATING
ow that the season is finally under way and your dealer- ship is getting into the flow of handling the demands of customers, it’s a good time to begin thinking about how
to position yourself to grow your share of the marketplace. With the economy still in a slump, and with more and more people seeking ways to generate income, many dealers are seeing an in- crease in the number of new people who are looking at starting a commercial-cutting business. While this does not bode well for the existing commercial market as prices are being driven down, it opens up new opportunities for outdoor power equipment dealers to attract those new customers and win them over with the value of doing business with your dealership. Not all of these new customers will succeed in the business; as a matter of fact, most will fail. However, some will survive and grow into the future big commercial cutters you currently have in your marketplace.
new commercial business N
Don’t make assumptions My son Brian finished his schooling last fall and began job hunt-
ing. With the job market being in the condition it has been, he was finding little hope of landing a job. Having worked mowing and landscaping jobs while he was going through school, he decided to start his own business. He didn’t have a lot of money to get started but began visiting with some of the dealers in our market and would tell me how frustrating it was to be blown off by the sales- people who thought he was just a young guy wasting their time.
The question we have to ask ourselves in business is how do we find and identify this new potential growth opportunity.
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OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT www.outdoorpowerequipment.com
Illustration ©istockphoto.com/Bobboz
