May 2008 Nothing Runs Like a Deere Show John Deere’s biannual corporate event attracts 80 percent of its dealer audience and generates more than $235 million in sales of aftermarket products. By Nancy Mann Jackson
John Deere and Co. (www.johndeere.com) may be best known for selling tractors, but equipment sales are just part of the equation.
Deere’s aftermarket service and parts sales are as crucial to the profitability of the company as its original equipment sales, says Ken Sevigny, Manager, Parts and Service Marketing. That’s why the company produces its biannual John Deere Aftermarket Conference, where Deere dealers come together to view aftermarket products, to learn strategies for selling them and to place orders. During the preconference sale and on-site at the last show in 2006, dealers placed more than $235 million in orders for aftermarket products.
A leading worldwide provider of equipment for agriculture, forestry, construction and landscaping, Deere and Co. launched its Aftermarket Conference in 1989 “to give the dealer organization an opportunity to see the breadth and the depth of the service and maintenance items available to their customers,” says Tim Carstens, Manager of Marketing Services. “Today, our goal remains the same but our challenge to provide superior service has had to evolve and change as our customer base has changed. There’s a lot more competition; consumers have a lot of choices, so we have to stay focused on service. It’s a differentiator, a reason why customers buy John Deere: They want that aftermarket support.”
Formerly an annual show, Deere moved the show to every other December in 2002 in response to dealer surveys. This year, the company will host its 16th Aftermarket Conference — also known as the “Parts Expo” — in 20 years, attracting about 4,500 attendees, almost 80 percent of the potential audience. Produced in-house by Deere’s Aftermarket Marketing department, the show is packed with information and education to help dealers tailor their strategies and find success in the coming months — and organizers attribute the high participation rates to the conference’s focus on targeted education.
“The conference really has a lot of added value,” Carstens says. “It’s their time to really focus on what the strategies need to be for the next 14 months. We talk to them about the focus of the aftermarket business and the company’s current strategy. It’s critically important for them to attend the conference so they can stay on track with their business.”
Getting dealers to attend Aside from the expo, Deere dealers who want to learn more about aftermarket opportunities and strategies can travel to one of nine John Deere brick-and-mortar training centers across the country for parts and service seminars, or they can participate in distance learning modules available online without leaving their dealerships. “There’s a small portfolio of our own educational opportunities that we have to compete with,” Carstens says.
But the biannual event is the only place where the training is product-specific and tied to current company strategy, Sevigny says. “This is a big event for our aftermarket dealers. At the conference, they have opportunities to get in-depth knowledge about their products and the company, and to speak to suppliers and factory personnel that they wouldn’t have anywhere else.”
Deere markets the show by mailing a “save the date” promotion in the spring and a comprehensive enrollment kit with descriptions of each course in late summer. The company also utilizes its field staff to encourage dealers to attend. A territory manager is responsible for each of the company’s seven regions, and he or she calls on each dealer in the territory every month. “They have the opportunity to motivate the dealer if, for instance, there’s an order opportunity they aren’t taking advantage of,” Carstens says.
Focusing on company- and product-specific education Because everyone at the meeting has the same priorities — selling and servicing John Deere equipment — each educational session can be fine-tuned and focused on their shared goals. Most presenters at the conference come from within the company and already understand the audience. Planners work closely with those who are hired from outside the company to ensure they understand the audience and the organization’s goals; there are no canned speeches at this event.
For instance, the final day of the conference opens with a general session speaker who’s selected precisely for his or her ability to convey the theme of the conference. The meeting’s theme in 2006 was “Delivering the Experience,” and the general session speaker was a former Disney executive who “was all about the experience,” Carstens says. “The dealers loved it.”
In addition to the general session, the 2008 meeting will feature 24 workshop classes with the potential for each attendee to spend 12 hours in educational sessions, with options for various groups of personnel, such as parts technicians and salespeople. Most workshops are facilitated by John Deere personnel, and they’re equally well-prepped to ensure that the brand promise remains consistent across the event.
This year, for the first time, every conference attendee will automatically receive four educational credits just for showing up. While the conference is known for its high-quality, product-focused education, attendees have never before received credits for the training they receive there, even for individual workshops.
“The company encourages dealer personnel to go through 16 credit hours of training per year,” Sevigny says. “This year, for the first time ever, we’re going to offer educational credits to every attendee. They’ll receive four credits toward their requirements, so they’ll be able to get 25 percent of what they need just by coming to the show. In addition to the classes, a lot of learning and a lot of knowledge transfer happens on the show floor.”
This year’s expo theme is “Achieving Growth,” and a number of classes will discuss some of the company’s top strategies for achieving growth, such as technology and customer segmentation. Sevigny expects a lot of interest in a new class that will introduce and provide training on the company’s new barcode system available for use in dealerships.
While 18 educational sessions at this year’s meeting will be held in a traditional classroom setting, six will be held on the trade show floor, using John Deere factory booths as teaching tools. Each company factory — such as the tractor factory, the combine factory or the hay parts factory — budgets for and creates its own booth. “A few years ago we decided, since we’re using all this money to create these professional booths, why don’t we utilize the investments as training aids, as well,” Sevigny says. “So we’ve created a learning environment right on the floor. And the exhibits provide some incredible teaching tools.”
Blending exhibits As learning has become a crucial component of the show floor, Deere exhibits have become increasingly more robust and sophisticated. Since the show’s inception, Deere has worked with its official service contractor, The Freeman Cos., to build a professional show floor, and today’s exhibits are more robust than ever, says Mike Malzone, General Manager of Freeman’s Nashville office. For instance, a Tractor Optimization Class might show attendees how to use various add-ons for a tractor, and a Home and Workshop Products Class may demonstrate how to use pressure washers and other products — and on the show floor, attendees can actually gain hands-on experience, using cut-away tractors and other real-life props.
“The John Deere-owned companies have really evolved and become more seasoned with their exhibits,” Malzone says. “They might come up with a moving display to show how a combine picks up a piece of corn or how it would wrap a bale of cotton. They’ve really become advanced.”
Two-thirds of the exhibits on the show floor are owned by suppliers, such as the company that provides paint for Deere equipment and the company that makes stereos for John Deere tractors, and companies that sell John Deere-branded products. Another third of the show’s exhibitors consist of “factory booths,” Sevigny says, or those sponsored by Deereowned companies, such as the tractor factory, the combine factory or the hay parts factory. And the booths generate plenty of traffic — and orders. “We generate in excess of $235 million in orders during the show, and that doesn’t include orders for brand-licensed products,” Sevigny says.
In response to attendee surveys and in an effort to drive more traffic to the show floor, planners reorganized the show schedule in 2006. “We’ve been criticized for having too much going on at the same time, so people can’t get around to everything,” Carstens says. “Now we channel our audience where we want them to be.”
For example, on the show’s opening day, the exhibit hall is open, but only two classes are offered on popular topics, Sevigny says. On days two and three, mornings are devoted to educational sessions only, and nothing happens in the exhibit hall except classes, while afternoons are expo-only with no classes offered.
“This setup gives an individual the opportunity to go to 12 hours of classroom time and spend the same amount of time on the show floor,” Carstens says. “It’s a great value for these dealers.”
Nancy Mann Jackson, a freelance writer and editor, writes for a number of associations and corporations. She has worked on the editorial staff of Convene and is a college writing teacher and marketing communications consultant. Contact her at: nancy@writeshoponline.com. Show at-a-glance John Deere Aftermarket Conference Show Dates: Dec. 7-17, 2008 Location: George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston Frequency: Biannual Number of attendees: 4,500 Number of exhibitors: 125 in 2006 (One-third are “factory,” or in-house exhibitors; two-thirds are suppliers.) Net square feet of exhibit space: 200,000
International Flavor Along with all the other exhibits at the John Deere Aftermarket Conference are a number of booths targeted to international attendees, as the show attracts about 250 attendees from Latin America, Australia and Asia, and another 600 to 800 from Europe. To create a targeted experience for international attendees, the John Deere organizations in represented countries usually create their own booths “tailored to that segment, so they’re not just getting a North American experience,” says Ken Sevigny, Manager, Parts and Service Marketing. “Many of their own suppliers will have booths, as well.”
While international booths are interspersed with the North Americanbased booths, they’re easily identified with special signage and languages. In addition, most international attendees have specialized educational sessions available in their own language.
For the past four or five meetings, the European John Deere contingent has offered a number of seminars for its attendees on-site at the North American meeting, but for 2009, the organization plans to host its own Aftermarket Conference in Europe instead. “It’s so costly for European dealers to come to the United States, and they have to spend so many days away from their businesses,” says Tim Carstens, Manager of Marketing Services. “John Deere’s European office thinks they can do it more reasonably, so they’re just going to try having their own aftermarket event this year.”
The first-time event will be held in the Canary Islands in February 2009 and will be produced by the Aftermarket Department in the Deere and Co. European Office.
The Latin American group, which will attend the U.S. expo, will offer five to seven unique classes for Latin American attendees, Sevigny says. While most of the Asians who attend speak English, translators are available if needed.
Options for international attendees are much like those for everyone else: Regardless of where each attendee hails from, he or she can expect to receive a targeted, strategy-centered experience. It’s the hallmark of the John Deere Aftermarket Conference.
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