Now Is The Time To Begin Planning For The FUTURE Of Your Dealership
This “Succession Planning in Farm Equipment Dealerships: Transitioning to the Next Generation” eGuide shares how 8 dealers approached succession, their challenges and how they overcame them, and it’s FREE!
Dear Manager,
Every dealer principal knows they can’t be in this business forever, but planning for and initiating the next phase is often as appealing as a root canal. The questions and possibilities can seem endless and with OEMs controlling mainline contracts, the subject is clouded in uncertainty, on both sides of the succession plan.
In a business where the owner often IS the business, no foolproof formula exists for transitioning a dealership to the next generation of leadership. Most don’t know what they’ve done wrong until they’ve gone through it. And the incoming generation’s voices need to be heard as well.
The time to prepare for the future of your dealership is now. Farm Equipment met with 8 diverse dealers (including 3 Dealership of the Year recipients) to detail their succession stories, challenges and triumphs through the rarely-covered vantage point of the successor generation. Get a leg up on this critical process by learning from those who already faced your identical challenges.
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Detailed accounts of succession planning do’s and don’ts, compiled by the most trusted name in farm equipment
This award-winning eGuide tells the story of 8 varied farm equipment dealers of all sizes and colors who organized and executed their succession plans, as well as the challenges and triumphs they met along the way. This collection of interviews, told through the successor generation’s own words, was recognized by Folio Magazine’s 2015 Eddie Awards with the first place prize — the best in business journalism — for the Business-to-Business Series of Articles — Agriculture. It’s an eGuide you will turn to again and again as you set the course for the future of your dealership.
Succession Planning in Farm Equipment Dealerships: Transitioning to the Next Generation is a detailed account of 8 dealers’ triumphs and tribulations and a necessary read for those in all stages of planning for their own succession, especially those who haven’t started yet. This eGuide, will help you ...
- Understand the succession planning process from the perspective of 8 next-generation leaders (all under the age of 42).
- Discover the paths other dealers have taken to ensure the future of their dealerships and the pros and cons of each solution.
- Learn what other dealers wish they’d known at the beginning of the process and the steps they took to keep their dealerships successful today, tomorrow and in the future.
- Gain confidence that your dealership will secure its own destiny by knowing what has helped others successfully transfer ownership through the generations.
- Start your dealership on the path to longevity and triumphantly navigate the course to a successful next generation of leadership.
Of course, we know you’re very busy. But we both know the risks of not planning as well, and you and your employees deserve the best. Creating and pursuing a plan to raise up the next generation of leadership at a farm equipment dealership is compulsory to survival. Consider this:
- Unlike other industries, appointing an heir isn’t assured, not with OEMs controlling the mainline contract. You need to start putting plans in place now to ensure the future of the dealership.
- Many dealers are looking at transitioning to their family’s third-generation, where statistics show a falloff often occurs and many of the younger generation have grown up in a much different world than their boot-strapping parents. Owners and managers need to start talking early to learn their intentions and prepare to find alternative routes for succession.
We know time is money. But if you did nothing more than scan a single story of the 8 included in this FREE eGuide, you’d be significantly ahead.
Farm Equipment is dedicated entirely to helping dealers understand how to improve their businesses, providing successful strategies for dealers to implement today, tomorrow and for years to come. Editors make it their job to research and collect actionable and proven best practices to help dealers improve their operations. Strategies you can implement today include...
10 Tips from the Next Generation
Getting the next generation of leadership on board with succession is only the first step. Every action current and future leaders take going forward affects the future culture and success of the dealership. Here are just a few of the actionable tips the next generation shared through their stories.
- Get outside experience before taking a role in the dealership.
- Discuss succession early and often.
- You won’t deserve employees’ respect until you earn it.
- Current leadership will need to step back to let future leaders step up.
- Be an eager student; everyone has something they can teach you.
- Don’t be afraid to look outside the family for leadership.
- Succession is an ever-evolving and on-going process.
- Build lasting relationships with store staff.
- Don’t be afraid to bring new ideas to the table.
- Have confidence without being arrogant.
To understand these tips and how to leverage them for your business’s succession plan, read our FREE eGuide, Succession Planning in Farm Equipment Dealerships: Transitioning to the Next Generation.
First-hand accounts from the successor generation
This eGuide includes 8 first-hand accounts of succession in farm equipment dealerships of a variety of sizes and brands — told in their own words. Their stories range from those whose planning started as children, to the employee-successor to family members joining the dealership for the first time. Each faced unique challenges and share what worked in their situation, and what didn’t. Keep this eGuide handy for your succession discussions.
That’s the kind of actionable information you get throughout this FREE eGuide —
8 accounts of prosperous successions from the next generation’s perspective, written in their own words.
But you also get more than just tips and tricks; you’ll gain insight into succession planning from the next generation’s perspective and how to address some of the challenges to transitioning a dealership’s leadership. You’ll find advice in these vital areas:
- Learning to lead
- Helping employees embrace change in leadership
- Finding your niche in the dealership
- Earning employees’ respect
For each of these aspects you and your team consider, you’ll find a way to exponentially increase your effectiveness, while better preparing your dealership to begin down a profitable next phase.
Takeaways to successfully transition your dealership’s leadership
In addition to the wealth of anecdotal accounts this in-depth eGuide delivers, it also provides actionable takeaways that you and your team can use today:
- These dealers’ stories affirm that continual conversations about succession are imperative to a smooth transition.
- Leadership transitions can be as confusing to employees as they are for management and the next generation needs to have an authoritative presence to ease any turmoil.
- For dealers unsure of family members’ interests and skill sets, look to employees with passion and dedication to the dealership as possible future leaders.
These are just some of the takeaways you’ll find by downloading this free eGuide and reviewing it with your cup of morning coffee.
Here’s a few more...
- Poor succession planning can create tension both at the dealership and at home and puts stress on the business and family relationships. To avoid this, outgoing dealers need to be flexible and incoming leaders need to understand when gradual change is appropriate.
- Starting outside the dealership before assuming a leadership position allows the next generation to learn best practices to incorporate back at the dealership later and helps reaffirm a successor’s desire to return to the dealership.
- New leaders need to acknowledge that others have greater experience in some areas than they do. “Giving the impression I know all the answers and don’t have anything left to learn would be anyone’s undoing,” one dealer says.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Put some of the advice from this eGuide through the lens of your company and situation and you’ll be energized by the possibilities.
By now I’m sure you see the value of this carefully-prepared eGuide and what tuning in to this knowledge can do for your business. No one who wants their company to be a leader should overlook it! And because you’ve taken the time to read this, you’re clearly a person who values how to protect, and grow, the stake you’ve already claimed in the farm equipment business.
That means you’re exactly the kind of person we hope to reach with Succession Planning in Farm Equipment Dealerships: Transitioning to the Next Generation. The kind of “in-the-know” person your team expects out of a leader, today and in the future.
If you’re a dealer principal today, you know how valuable the experience of those who’ve gone before you can be. If you’re still developing as a dealer leader, you’re eager for the foundation and new ideas to increase your success. Either way, what better way to move forward than with this comprehensive, authoritative – FREE – eGuide?
Do you want to be one step ahead in preparing for the future of your dealership?
Are you prepared with a refined approach to transitioning to the next generation of leadership?
Do you know how to navigate and manage succession tensions before they arise?
Then download this free eGuide right now, and get started. The minute you do, you start the momentum toward a more secure future for your dealership.
Get this eGuide for Free with a Free Account!
New members, click "Sign Up" for free account. Or, regular members click "Go In".
Yours for a better farm equipment industry,
Dave Kanicki, Executive Editor
Dave is the Executive Editor of Farm Equipment, and the Editor/Publisher of Ag Equipment Intelligence and related properties.
PS: What is the one thing you can do today to prepare your dealership for the next 20 years? Planning to transition leadership to the next generation. Find out how to do it by downloading Succession Planning in Farm Equipment Dealerships: Transitioning to the Next Generation right now.
PSS: There are many ways to build a successful dealership. You can start you and your team on the path toward a sustainable future by reading this free eGuide now.
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