There is something about the month of April. It's the beginning of spring, the start of longer days and warm balmy evenings. For baseball fans like myself, it means the first trip out to the ballpark, the smell of the fresh-cut grass in the stadium, the eternal springtime hope that this will be the year your team makes it to the big show in October. It's a time of optimism and new beginnings.
In the rental business, the thaw tends to bring more business in much of the country as cold weather no longer impedes jobs, and people get started on those long-delayed home- or business-improvement projects.
I recall asking one rental company owner if he did anything differently in the spring. He said every spring he makes it a point to get out and personally visit 50 clients. I asked him why and he said to remind them that he's there.
This particular owner has several branches and outside sales reps that visit customers. But every spring he made it a point to remind people that his company has hands-on, local ownership that cares about the customer's business. He hands out business cards with his mobile phone and even his home phone on them and tells customers there is no problem too minor to call him about.
He tells them, “If you have a complaint, if you have a question about equipment, if you want to talk about how to achieve a certain project, call me directly. If you like your service, give me a call. If you don't like it, give me a call and tell me why. And if you have an idea of how we can serve you better, I want to hear it directly.” When I asked if his direct involvement undercut the authority of his sales staff, he said not at all and they would often get a boost in business after his visits.
I also wondered how he found the time, given that as companies get bigger, higher executives have less time to directly interact with customers. His answer was that springtime was a time of renewal and that everything else he had to do was secondary to renewing his relationship with customers, because if he lost that, he would lose everything.
This owner hasn't “lost everything” yet. He's still visiting 50 customers every spring and with the number of good customers increasing, it's getting harder to narrow it down. Sounds like a good problem every business owner would like to have.
He also called his visits “downturn insurance.” He said it is easy to do good business when the economy is booming, but it never booms forever and a downturn is always around the corner at some point. He said sometimes when those customers he visits are real busy, they will just go wherever they can get the equipment quickest. But when business slows down, they will always remember the guy who came to visit.
Which brings to mind a point made by JLG CEO Bill Lasky in this month's UpFront interview starting on page 20. Lasky also makes reference to the cyclical nature of the economy and the construction business. When Lasky took over as president of JLG in late 1999, he recognized the company had gone through a long growth cycle and, examining overall industry conditions, he saw a downturn coming. He asked his key managers to prepare downturn plans.
Lasky explained it simply: If you're expecting $1 million in sales, but business slows down and you only get $900,000, what are you going to do? It's not being negative, it is simply recognizing market realities and being prepared for them. What will you cut? How will you adjust? Many of the companies that are doing best now are those that made the necessary preparations before the last downturn hit.
Like you, I'm hoping the next downcycle is years away. But I endorse Lasky's suggestion that every year you have a downturn plan in place, just in case.
The smartest people I've known in my life are those who ask a lot of questions. Knowing what you don't know is the best way to improve. No matter how much we know, there is always something we don't know.
With that thought in mind, RER's Web site — www.rermag.com — recently inaugurated a feature called “Ask the Experts.” Experts in various equipment categories are featured on the Web site. You just need to click on and ask the expert about the featured category. Give it a try. Unless, of course, you already know everything!
