30: Building Trust and Loyalty in the Farming Industry - with Trent Guyer

a BROADcast for Manufacturers

Meet Trent Guyer:

He is the VP of Marketing and global digital strategy. He has experience working with the various departments that make Grasshopper unique in the industry as a family-owned company with in-house marketing, in-house manufacturing, final assembly, and post-sale parts inventory. Daily, he works with a team to expand upon Grasshopper's decades of performance as a dependable brand to continue sharing the company's story, promoting the dynamic product, and supporting authorized retailers throughout North America and international markets. Trent leads the company's e-commerce strategy for continued growth and to enforce its solid reputation for supporting its customer base of owners including large acreage, residential, commercial, and municipal users.

Kris: What do you think about analytics today?

Trent: As far as the turf equipment, you know, we're not there's no IoT yet. There, it's still relatively against us that the word analog, is a pretty simple concept, as far as that goes. And we've had, we've entered a lot of data over the years, but we've spent so much time entering it and a little less time analyzing it. And so we've flipped that a bit recently, where we're, you know, historically, we're making a lot of gut decisions because we were so and not because that's all we did, but we were so developing a company, we were so involved with our not only our retailers, our dealers but also our end users. So we really, it was like analytics without having numbers in front of you, I suppose. So we had a lot of good feelings from lots of conversations with people. As we've had to scale up over the years, just as our business has grown, that's a bit harder to have all those conversations. Sure. And so we've started relying a lot more on analytics. As far as e-commerce, we were getting ready to do a b2b. And then we'll phase into a b2b website for orders. But right now, we dipped our toes the last two and a half years into Amazon. And so we started there, the analytics that has provided has been incredible, you know, to be able to look at just yesterday, I was studying our fast moving parts, and it mirrors pretty close, like what we would suggest a dealer stock. But there's a few things that indicate otherwise, maybe, and that might tell you that, oh, this is a part that maybe Where's more than we acknowledged or thought of, or something. And so it's given us a lot of insight there. It's also told us where our customers are, and maybe where our dealers aren't, in some cases. You know, in Amazon, we found that the average drive time, to study this for the first quarter of all of our Amazon sales, and the average drive time, one way was like 45 minutes to get to a dealer. And so that's why they're buying on Amazon. Yes. And, and two-thirds of the of the orders came after hours, whether that was in the evening, or on the weekend that a dealer might not be open. So we learned a lot of things there that have helped us either adjust some things in our day-to-day business or proved that this was an important endeavor to follow.

Kris: Does that also propel you to have a new dealer strategy where you're going after additional dealers and strategic areas? Or do you think you'll maintain the relationships you have with your existing dealers and augment them with the digital piece?

Trent: I think more so the latter. And I think the reason we might have the drive time is so long is that you know when you've been manufacturing this equipment for about 50 years, we've been a manufacturer about 65, we did some grain equipment before that. And we've been doing the mowers for about 50. Plus, when you've had equipment out there that long, and it's up, it's instead of just a piece of equipment a resellable asset. So either in times of tough economy, people will maybe buy parts repair rather than to buy new, but also our equipment is built to I mean, that's one of our taglines first to finish built to last. And that's a true statement. I mean, these pieces of equipment, it's not unheard of that we'll have somebody who wants to buy parts for a 25 to a 35-year-old piece of equipment. So over those years, you know, your dealers may come and go in some of those areas. So there's some distance there. So that's showed us hey, we need to pay a sales rep. It needs to go target some areas and get some representation in there so we can support those customers.

Kris: So, is there something unique about you that nobody else knows that you could share with us?

Trent: Yeah, that's an interesting one. So I don't know, I'm big into the weather. So I'm a significant bit of a weather geek. So I've got a folder on my iPhone screen, and it's on my front screen. So it's easy to access weather apps. And it's, it's not maybe unheard of, to maybe spend $100 A year subscription for something because, around Kansas, things move through here pretty quick. And so we like to have the best radar and the outlooks and the and knowing the flow of everything, and so on my son's baseball team have become known as the local weatherman. And so they always consult me they, they think it's cloudy, and they say, oh, it's going to rain. And then they asked me and I said, No, no, it's fine. It should be good till the end of the game. So I don't know I kind of geek out over that stuff a bit. And I think that's just part of when you're living in Kansas. And you always feel like, often you're under the gun and especially this time of year in the spring when there might be a tornado. Yeah, you asked me this question. And it took it it was I was hard pressed to. I don't find some of this may be interesting, but I still share it. Anyway. I, I learned all the words too. We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel. And when I was probably a preteen. And maybe that was kind of dorky or whatever. And so I remember it. At my sister-in-law's wedding, that song came up and I started singing it and nobody else did. And I look around I thought I read I read fun. Everybody knew this song.

And so much more…

Connect with Trent!

Connect on LinkedIn

http://grasshoppermower.com/

http://grasshopperdiesel.com/

Connect with the broads!

Connect with Erin on LinkedIn and visit http://www.earthlinginteractive.com for web-based solutions to your complex business problems!

Connect with Lori on LinkedIn and visit www.keystoneclick.com for your strategic digital marketing needs!

Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and visit www.genalpha.com for OEM and aftermarket digital solutions!