The salesperson sells the first machine, aftermarket sells the next ones

We’ve all heard this saying many times and generally it’s true, but there is a lot more that happens behind the scenes that makes this a true statement.

From the Sales Manager's perspective, the primary objective of a machinery dealership is to increase market share, profitability, and customer service. However, achieving these objectives can be frustrated by continuous conflict between sales and aftermarket.

When you objectively examine these situations, you often find mutual interdepartmental frustrations, hard feelings and adversarial relationships. Under these circumstances, customers are not being served well. They are often keenly aware of these conflicts at the dealership. And you can be sure they are probably looking at alternative suppliers. They have many options.

Conversely, thriving, profitable machinery dealers have a high level of interdepartmental collaboration and camaraderie from top to bottom, from salespeople to parts counter and field service technicians. These winning teams have figured out how sales and product support can best work together, for the benefit of the customer and the overall success of the business.

These organizations always have senior leadership that values placing the customer first and then, building a highly cooperative team that mutually supports each area of the dealership for the benefit of the end-user customer. Many times, I've seen the senior dealer management executive that fields the best team, almost always wins.