John Deere Dealer Interview

Nick – Fisher Farm and Lawn – McMinnville, OR – Sales Rep
Phone interview with Joe Bingold

1. Please describe your relationship with manufacturers:
a. How do you decide what equipment you will carry?
i. What the farmer will need is dependent on who can supply that to us competitively for what you are getting. Classic supply/demand
ii. Will order lots of implements on an as needed basis – too much variability and one-offs to keep in stock.
iii. Some suppliers will loan demos – this is huge for sales.
iv. Other dealers can see what folks have in stock and work together in the dealer network.

b. What kind of margins do you get on the equipment?
i. 25% is an average amount.

c. Do manufacturers offer you other discounts or incentives?
i. John Deere will offer certain incentives at some point – but most discounts are getting a cut on the dealer’s own margin.

d. Do you have buy-back agreements with the manufacturers?
i. Not that he has seen.

e. Do you have exclusivity arrangements?
i. Tractor wise – John Deere is all that they sell. Have quite a few companies that they deal with on the implementation side.


2. Please describe your relationship with farmers:
a. How do you get an understanding for what equipment farmers want?
i. Seeing the farmers quite often. In various manners. Service, sales, parts, delivery, etc.

b. Do you host demonstrations?
i. Yes. People don’t want to spend the money ahead of time. Supplier will let you have a demo machine. And they will bring it to their farm.
ii. More and more demos are being used to sell the product.

c. Do you attend agricultural shows?
i. Yes, reps from the wider dealer network.

d. Do you provide service/maintenance for equipment?
i. Most important part is service. Supplier has to be able to supply parts and get questions answered quickly. This is HUGE! They wouldn’t sell a product that doesn’t have that kind of service.

3. What is your advice on how a new company producing an innovative product can sell equipment to farmers?
a. Get the machine out there and in the field to demo. Want a customer who has some tolerance to hiccups.
b. Go to some dealers and see if they would be willing to keep one around to demo.