Anonymous Distributor
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of Outdoor Power Equipment (OPE), I have to take a minute to reflect about this magazine’s founder, Bill Quinn, a publisher, editor and writer extraordinaire, who never saw a topic he wouldn’t or couldn’t write about. His “Partly Personal” column in each monthly issue of OPE was required reading by everyone in the industry. And I do mean everyone.
He and I traded correspondence often (there was no e-mail service back then), and he was always willing to share what he knew with a young 20-something newbie to the industry. Eventually, he came to recognize me at sight, and I was always honored when he’d speak with me at a lot of the early industry shows in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He was a unique person with a unique style of writing. And while he wasn’t afraid to “ruffle a few feathers” from time to time, you couldn’t help but agree more times than not with his common-sense perspective.
If you liked Roger Stewart and The Southern Lawnmower Dealer’s Newsletter, you would love Bill Quinn. While there will be no one quite like him ever again, his legacy lives on in this magazine he loved. I’m glad that it’s survived and continues to thrive in these uncertain times under the able leadership of Steve Noe. Now if we could just get Steve to occasionally tell some really corny jokes like Bill Quinn did!
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Ed Lemco recently wrote that tough times require tough dealers. Many powersports dealers he knows are down more than 50 percent in gross revenue this year. And he said their survival won’t result from simply “working harder.”
He added, “Whatever the number of qualified buyers you are getting into your dealership, you cannot afford to waste any of them. This new type of buyer takes a whole lot more attention and energy from you than they did years ago. The first reaction you should have when times are tough is to increase sales effort, followed by cutting costs. Don’t wait on your OEMs or your government to solve your problems. Stay focused and determined while maximizing your sales efforts with each and every customer that walks in your front door.”
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I read all the call reports from our salespeople who call on our dealer and service center customers. Recently, a salesperson asked our controller to raise the credit limit for one of our dealer customers. In explaining why the customer deserved the credit limit increase, the salesperson also mentioned that the dealer had been “late in paying us at times.”
I do not get involved in making credit decisions. For good reason, I believe that credit and credit limit decisions should be left up to our people who get paid for doing that and who have the experience to make good decisions about customer credit — and that’s not me.
But this recent request got me thinking about what criteria we have and use to make credit limit decisions for a customer who has established credit with us. We most likely don’t know this customer as well as our salesperson does. What we do have is a payment record and a purchase history for this customer, as well as experienced accounting people who have made these decisions regularly and know historically what happens as a result.
Every time you make a transaction with a supplier, whether you buy something, return something, or pay for something, you are creating a transaction history for your business and yourself. And it’s that history of your interaction with your suppliers that they use to guide their relationship with you. It’s not my history, but your history that counts. And that history can make it easy or very difficult to increase your credit limit. It’s really that simple.
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On Sept. 10, 1945, Mike, a young Wyandotte chicken, was about to become the dinner of farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colo. With a sharp ax in hand, Mr. Olsen firmly held Mike, preparing to make the bird ready for his wife Clara’s cooking pot. Mr. Olsen swung the implement, thereby lopping off a great deal of poor Mike’s head. Mike shook off the event, then continued trying to peck for food, believe it or not, for the next year and a half.
Every year since that amazing day in 1945, the town celebrates Mike’s story with an annual Mike-the-Headless-Chicken Festival.
As part of the 2009 Chicken Festival, there was a 5K “Run-Like-a-Headless-Chicken” race, Chicken games, a Chicken dance contest, a car show, arts and crafts displays, and a lawnmower race. The famous “Good Egg” award was presented to a worthy Fruita citizen. And there was a “Chick Olympics,” which included an egg toss, a peep-eating contest and a wing-eating contest followed by a Chick Olympic awards ceremony.
Even today, Mike’s will to live remains an inspiration to the citizens of Fruita. As one citizen put it: “It’s a great comfort to know you can live a normal life, even after you’ve lost your mind!” I guess there’s hope for some of us after all.
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Contact the Anonymous Distributor at anonymous.distributor@gmail.com or read his blog at www.anonymousdistributor.blogspot.com.
