February 2020

Dealership Minds

The fifth installment of Farm Equipment’s Dealership Minds series, 9 staff members traveled to Kentucky to experience first-hand how a successful dealership — H&R Agri-Power — headquartered in the No. 1 ag county in Kentucky operates.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

To the Point: The Deal You Aren’t Making

By Mike Lessiter posted on February 3, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Precision Ag Sales & Service

I just returned from our 2 national events in St. Louis, including the 5th Annual Precision Farming Dealer Summit. More top-level dealer attendance at the event this year confirms that precision remains both a challenge and opportunity to be figured out.
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Dealership Minds 2020 Overview: H&R Agri-Power

By Farm Equipment Staff Report posted on February 3, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices

For the fifth installment of Farm Equipment’s Dealership Minds series, 9 staff members traveled to Kentucky to experience first-hand how a successful dealership — H&R Agri-Power — headquartered in the No. 1 ag county in Kentucky operates.
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Dealership Minds

Leading the Charge

Wayne Hunt’s vision for H&R Agri-Power’s continued growth stems from follow through and laser focus on improvement.

By Kim Schmidt posted on February 3, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

Upon first meeting Wayne Hunt, it’s clear he has a story to tell and wisdom to share, yet he describes himself as “just plain Wayne.” What isn’t as immediately obvious, though, is his drive and competitive nature that has spearheaded H&R Agri-Power’s incredible growth over the last 2 decades.
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Dealership Minds

Sage Wisdom from A Dealership Lifer

By Mike Lessiter posted on February 6, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

Ross Morgan, a farm equipment dealership lifer, is a face you’ll still see at many industry events, including dealer association meetings and the Dealership Minds Summits.
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Dealership Minds

Building H&R Agri-Power’s Culture, Profitability

VP and COO Steve Hunt views his role as preserving H&R Agri-Power’s heritage along with building the effectiveness of its daily operations.

By Lynn Marcinkowski Woolf posted on February 4, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

Steve Hunt holds a unique position at H&R Agri-Power of Hopkinsville, Ky., a 17-location employee-owned dealership. He’s vice president, chief operating officer, owner, son of the founder, father of a salesperson and a farmer. That vantage point helps him to be keeper of H&R’s culture and guardian of its profitability.
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Dealership Minds

CFO: ‘Conducting’ the Orchestra

By Mike Lessiter posted on February 4, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

To be honest, I couldn’t tell you if Chief Financial Officer Ronnie Barnett can play or read a single note of music (although there are photos of Barnett, the Hunts and other H&R staff in a Lynyrd Skynyrd lip sync performance at a United Way event). But after observing Barnett and the role he plays within H&R Agri-Power, one could draw a conclusion that he could do well with a baton in his hand.
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Dealership Minds

Measuring Sales Success Through Customer Satisfaction

By Kevin Reitz posted on February 7, 2020

“This is the only job I’ve ever had.” Jeff Morgan is no stranger to the agriculture industry. As the third generation at H&R Agri-Power, Morgan’s position in the business feels like destiny to him.
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Dealership Minds

Creating a Reputation that Sells Equipment

By Ben Thorpe posted on February 4, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Used Equipment Remarketing

As the Wholesale Division Manager of H&R Agri-Power, Dave Gibson is the resident expert on used equipment. He divides his time between appraising trade-ins from the sales team, shopping for wholesale buyers and keeping a general eye on the used equipment market, searching for any trends or spikes in interest that could give the dealership an edge.
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Dealership Minds

Connecting On-Farm Experience with Customer Engagement

A generational drive to innovate through experimentation fuels Brandon Hunt’s progressive focus managing the family’s 11,000 acre farm operation.

By Jack Zemlicka posted on February 8, 2020

As a fourth generation farmer, but the first to solely focus entirely on managing the family’s 11,000-acre operation near Herndon, Ky., Brandon Hunt appreciates how innovation is born out of experimentation.
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Dealership Minds

Managing the Measurables of a Precision Business

A mix of technology mentoring and business vision shape the professional principles of Nick Rust, precision ag coordinator with H&R Agri-Power.

By Jack Zemlicka posted on February 7, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Precision Ag Sales & Service

Nick Rust has an idea. Actually, he has a lot of them. But inspiration is an expectation for the longest tenured member of H&R Agri-Power’s precision farming team.
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Dealership Minds

Financing Solutions to Keep Sales Selling

With 75% of customers financing their wholegoods purchases, H&R Agri-Power’s Finance & Insurance Manager Josh Arnall focuses on structuring plans that work for the farmer and the dealership.

By Kim Schmidt posted on February 5, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

Josh Arnall is a numbers guy who likes planning and solving problems. As the finance and insurance manager for H&R Agri-Power, his day-to-day is full of managing the numbers and solving problems, but his planning usually is sacrificed to what he calls “the tyranny of the urgent.”
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Dealership Minds

Coaching the Sales Team to Dealership-Wide Success

As a territory manager for H&R Agri-Power, Ryan Polete focuses on analyzing numbers and preparing the sales team to provide top-notch customer service.

By Kevin Reitz posted on February 5, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Operations & Finance

Growth doesn’t come easy for a farm equipment dealership. Without strategic planning, interpersonal management and hard work, growth doesn’t come at all.
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Dealership Minds

Maintaining High Standards of Service

By Sarah Hill posted on February 5, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Department Management

High standards are the key to success in any industry. But perhaps in the agriculture industry, those high standards are even more important for service providers, because there are so few customers to go around, and the pool gets smaller each year.
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Dealership Minds

Following the Data & Managing Relationships to Order Equipment Properly

With a new equipment inventory turn goal of 2.75, Jon Darby focuses on diminishing H&R Agri-Power’s aged new units.

February 6, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Department Management

It might seem unusual to equate the titles “New Inventory Manager” and “Relationship Manager,” but in many ways they’re interchangeable in Jon Darby’s day-to-day work for H&R Agri-Power.
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Dealership Minds

Leading by Example in the Parts Department

By Ben Thorpe posted on February 6, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Department Management

Cindy Gough’s leadership of H&R Agri-Power’s parts departments is based on relationships. It’s evident as soon as she steps behind the counter: heads turn and smile at her as she greets everyone, usually coupled with some gentle teasing.
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Dealership Minds

People Do Business with People

When customers build strong relationships at the dealer level, it is a long-term investment in future business, says Stephanie McQueen, H&R Agri-Power Marketing Manager.

By Sarah Hill posted on February 7, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices, Dealership Marketing

Building relationships is the key to making sales, as any Business 101 class will teach you. In a time when fewer and fewer farmers are making purchasing decisions, those relationships have never been more important.
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Leadership Lessons: Good to Great Dealership Flywheel, Leveraging the New to Used Cascade

February 7, 2020

What is the New to Used Cascade and why is it important as the first spoke to describe in the Good to Great Dealership Flywheel?
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Ahead of the Curve: Aluminum Stars in New Battery Technology

A year ago we told you of University of Texas research exploring the use of a solid-state sodium-based battery that boasts an energy density of roughly three times that of currently-popular lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries that power most electric vehicles and millions of hand-held smart phones.

By Dan Crummett posted on February 3, 2020

British researcher reports progress in improving aluminum/air battery technology that could boost energy density of automotive and heavy equipment EV battery packs.
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Ask the Expert: Looking Back on the Used Equipment Market in 2019 – The Year That Wouldn’t Die

By Casey Seymour posted on January 24, 2020 | Posted in Used Equipment Remarketing

I talked to many people in 2019. All of them had a similar story to tell about the year: it wasn’t terrific. It was either too wet or too dry; planting was hot and dry or cold and wet.
Read More
Featured Articles

Featured Articles

Dealership Minds 2020 Overview: H&R Agri-Power

By Farm Equipment Staff Report posted on February 3, 2020 | Posted in Best Practices

For the fifth installment of Farm Equipment’s Dealership Minds series, 9 staff members traveled to Kentucky to experience first-hand how a successful dealership — H&R Agri-Power — headquartered in the No. 1 ag county in Kentucky operates.
Read More

Leadership Lessons: Good to Great Dealership Flywheel, Leveraging the New to Used Cascade

February 7, 2020

What is the New to Used Cascade and why is it important as the first spoke to describe in the Good to Great Dealership Flywheel?
Read More

Ask the Expert: Looking Back on the Used Equipment Market in 2019 – The Year That Wouldn’t Die

By Casey Seymour posted on January 24, 2020 | Posted in Used Equipment Remarketing

I talked to many people in 2019. All of them had a similar story to tell about the year: it wasn’t terrific. It was either too wet or too dry; planting was hot and dry or cold and wet.
Read More
Online Extras
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Online Extras: February 2020 Issue

February 6, 2020

Web-exclusive content for this issue includes:

Additional coverage of Dealership Minds

AE50 2020 Coverage

Submit your nomination for the 2020 Dealership of the Year

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February 2020

Dealership Minds

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