If your sales team doesn’t know what goals it’s working toward, you’re setting them up for failure. In this strategy-focused dealer-to-dealer panel, 3 dealership leaders share how they’ve created clear-cut processes for their sales team to get out and meet with customers and close the sale.

Don Van Houweling, Van Wall Equipment, Perry, Iowa (2016 Dealership of the Year) — With over 40 years in the farm equipment business, Van Houweling fills a head coaching role for Van Wall’s sales team and uses key metrics to set up the sales. With his guidance, the John Deere dealership achieved $380 million in sales in 2018. “The keys are definition, accountability and execution,” he says. “It starts with a quality account CRM tool with definition. Then it moves to creating a plan and strategy for each account via engaged planned repetitive communication. From there it requires quoting of investment solutions and finally the creation of the values that drive a sales transaction.”

Ron Ritchie, President, Ritchie Implement, Cobb, Wis. (2015 Dealership of the Year) — For Ritchie Implement, selling is about solutions, not products. A solutions-based sales approach has helped Ritchie and his team bring in revenues of more than $100 million for the Case IH dealership. “Today’s market hands our customers a lot of problems. We must be solution sellers to ensure our customers’ needs are met and not just their iron needs, but their whole operation needs,” he says. “If you aren’t solution selling, then you are an order taker…