The 12-part 2022 Farm Equipment Dealership of the Year video series features First Choice Farm Lawn and Riechmann Bros. First Choice Farm Lawn was selected as the Greater than $100 Million Dealership Winner while Riechmann Bros. was selected as the Less than $100 Million Dealership Winner.
Upon graduating from the Univ. Tennessee at Martin in 2009, Ron Parks got a job working for Danny Montgomery, who owned a Kubota dealership in Union City, Tenn. Starting off in the parts department, Ron quickly worked his way up into a sales and management role.
Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners CEO Ted Briscoe says the ownership groups worked together to identify all the core business processes and each shared how they did it, then they picked the processes that made the most sense, were the most scalable and would be most appropriate for the size of the merged business.
When it comes to continuing to grow the dealership group, CEO Ted Briscoe says “breakout opportunities” — or business diversification — is the cheapest way for Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners to grow and will have a greater ROI than say going out and buying a store that’s doing $35 million in revenue. Briscoe explains these “breakout opportunities” as ways to change the slope of the curve outside of SNP’s traditional, core Deere business. Two examples of this would be SNP’s Commercial Application Division (CAD) and its Compact Construction Division.
Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners CEO Ted Briscoe explains why the dealership has moved toward the “specialist” format as a way to elevate the precision knowledge of all the dealership’s staff. The dealership developed a program to run parallel to the mainstreaming process, through which the dealership can have a core group of precision experts with two key focuses: changing the narrative on precision over the next 3-5 years from focusing on pricing to the value the technology brings and consolidating product knowledge via “specialists” in certain categories of equipment.
To help keep a local feel to such a large organization, Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners has divided its 27 locations into 4 divisions — Missouri West, Missouri East, Metro and Illinois. Each division has about 7 stores and does around $150 million in business. Likewise, each division has a general manager and divisional staff who serve as the “face of SNP” in those local communities.
As Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners looks ahead in growing its business, it is looking to improve its aftermarket revenue to account for 30% of its revenue mix. CEO Briscoe says they will work to do this through centralized processes and through exploring creating its own technician training program to keep a steady stream of technicians coming into the business.
Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners opened SNP Express on April 15, 2021. The store has two salespeople and is only focused on retail sales of compact utility tractors and Gators. The store is open Tuesday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. – very different from the core ag locations. While customers can drop equipment off for service, it won’t be done at the Express store, explains CEO Ted Briscoe.
Bringing two strong family businesses together can be messy. Trying to unite two cultures and two ways of operating the business into one isn’t without its challenges. But, for Sydenstricker Nobbe Partners (formed in January 2020 through the merger of Sydenstricker Implement Co. and Wm. Nobbe & Co.), year one of the merger proved not only to be a success but the team got there with little to no drama.
Greg Petras, president of Kuhn North America, says despite the current market challenges the company is continuing to invest in its facilities, people and products.
Built on 90 years of expertise, Yetter Farm Equipment leads the agriculture industry in designing effective and innovative equipment for residue management, seedbed preparation, precision fertilizer placement, harvest attachments, strip-tillage, and more.
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