Some years ago in this column I addressed the two major types of people that we are employing in the job of Product Support Sales; "Huggers" and the "Hunters". We really need to rethink our position regarding the role of a "salesman."

Are you satisfied with your share of the parts and labor business compared to your potential opportunity? If 25% of the parts opportunity or 10% of the labor opportunity is acceptable then I suppose that you are satisfied. However, many of you will disagree with me on the 25% or the 10%. In the Product Support Opportunities Handbook we found out that 44% of our customers are using labor from some other source rather than the OEM dealer over the last five years. We have lost nearly 50% of the available labor business just over that period of time. Our performance in the maintenance side of the labor business is even more distressing. So think carefully when you consider your satisfaction at the level of the parts and service business that you are realizing in your trading area. Perhaps we have too many "Huggers."

If you determine that you can do better, even in this time of a good machine market, then you must reexamine the position of the Product Support Salesman. It no longer good enough, if it ever was, for the employee to be a disciplined, well meaning, conscientious individual and follow a "milk run" market coverage approach only. We must expect more form these talented people. We must start expecting them to sell.

This starts from assigning territories that they can in fact cover. The territory must be limited to the number of customers and machines that a salesman can in fact look after properly. We then must determine the potential business of each customer in each salesman's territory. This requires and complete and accurate machine population. Then we must set goals for each of the customers as to the volume of their available business that we expect the salesman to generate. Three simple steps yet many of you have yet to complete them. This is where the problem begins. We must establish the Product Support Sales Force as being of equal significance to the dealership as the Prime Product Sales Force.

• The market opportunity is greater
• The profit opportunity is greater
• The customer satisfaction with their equipment will be greatly increased
• That means more repeat equipment sales

Sometimes it is difficult to understand why there has not been a greater amount of attention paid to this critical job function within the dealership. Yet I believe it has everything to do with our expectations for the Product Support Sales Force.

We have been talking about the significance of the Parts and Service departments to the overall health of the dealerships for many, many years now. Some dealerships have made an incredible amount of progress. Yet there is still much to do.

Do your market segmentation as has been outlined in previous columns and articles written in this magazine of the past several years. Check out our web site at www.rjslee.com for another source of this material. Determine the number of your customers for parts and service that it would take to cover at least 80% of the parts and service business and divide that number by 150 to see how many salesmen you need to have in the field to cover them. How do you stack up?

Obtain compete and accurate machine populations for your largest customers and determine what the potential parts and service business truly is and calculate how much of that business you have currently. How do you stack up?

This is very serious business. There are many people who make good livings from the parts and service generated by the equipment we work so hard to sell to our customers. I don't mean to say that I want to have all of each customers business, but as I say to them "let me tell you when to stop buying from the dealer." I don't mean to hurt other people working in our Industry but I will be darned if I will give up the parts and service business without a fight. I want to look after my customers. I want to ensure that the customers' machine works to its maximum potential. I want to prove that we deserve the business. We should be the most responsive group of people with the customer's best interests at heart. We should be the best trained, the best equipped, the best parts supply. We should act that way and we should be that way. How do you stack up?

That is why I want "Hunters." I need to have skilled, knowledgeable, and aggressive sales people covering the market both for the health of the dealership and the health of our customers business. The marketplace will accept no less. Will you?

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