IDEAL New Systems Sales Manager Clint Sanders breaks down how his company can best help dealerships and where he sees the outdoor power equipment market heading.

What does your company do best?

Sanders: Our company provides the best solution for an all-in-one management system when it comes to managing an outdoor power equipment dealership. We work with manufacturers regularly to ensure that we are meeting the expectations from their dealers, but also to make sure the dealers have all the tools and resources necessary to be able to provide the best product and services for their customers as well.

What problems does your company help dealers solve?

One of the things we want to try and streamline is all of the efficiencies and processes within the dealership, whether that is inventory shortages, being able to track purchases, being able to manage our cash flow, but also being able to make sure that our customers are constantly communicated with, during either the course of a purchase, or service on the unit they are looking for. But making sure that customer is always being communicated with as to the status of their unit and as to the status of a purchase that they're trying to make. We want to try to bring all of those tools and resources together into one place. So, obviously, we want to provide the best buying experience for the customer, but also we want to make the dealership more profitable by utilizing the tools and resources that we have.

Looking at the rural lifestyle industry, what do you forecast will be one of the most important product innovations over the next 10 years?

I'm going to say improving the ease with which customers have access to our products, whether that is E-commerce or being able to have constant communication through texting, through emails, and also being able to truly analyze, again, the efficiencies of our dealerships to make sure that we're making the necessary changes. 

Source: Constellation Software

We're just not shooting in the dark, we’re trying to have real-time data so that we can make the best decisions for our dealerships, for our customers, and we can really look at the analytics of our dealership. So, as we're looking at those analytics now we can drive deep into the dollars and cents of our business, again, to make sure that we're going to be there, that we're going to be available, and that we're going to be able to survive any of those changes.

We're constantly working with manufacturers in battery-operated equipment and making sure that, ‘All right does — in our service module and in the work order module, do we have the tools necessary to manage the battery-operated side?’ To make sure that we are staying on the cutting edge of technology, we invest a great deal percentage of every dollar into our research and development to make sure that, again, we're staying on the cutting edge. 

What do you see as the key factors in the rural lifestyle market currently driving customer buying habits?

I think what we're seeing is a major push in the sector with more people leaving the urban lifestyle and wanting to move out and have their 5-10 acre farm. And I think we're seeing a tremendous amount of that if there was any benefit to folks who are wanting to get outside and get outside more. And I think with the pandemic, it brought folks around to see that's an enjoyable lifestyle and with that comes a need for power equipment tools, tractors, zero turns, any type of outdoor power equipment that you could possibly think of to manage your own little piece of paradise. And I think a lot of that is the driving factor for a lot of folks in the increases that we have seen over the last few years, it's just folks wanting to get outside.

As a result of that, we were able to meet the demands. Obviously, we had product shortages for some time, but I think a lot of that was because we weren't expecting that. That was not the expectation coming out post-pandemic, but we've also been able to sustain it. We haven't seen a large decrease either in that. I think a lot of it is just the products are continuously innovating. Engineers, developers are constantly innovating new products, being able to make sure that we're staying on the cutting edge of that technology and what the customers are looking for in outdoor power equipment.

What is your outlook for the outdoor power equipment industry for 2023?

I think the outlook is strong. I think we would be somewhat naive to say that we're going to continue to see the increases that we saw in the industry in the last 3-4 years. But I do think that although growth has slowed some, I think it is very sustainable now that we can continue sustaining that growth, again, with people wanting to move outside. The urban sprawl has slowed a bit in some areas, some areas of the country not so much. But I think in more of the rural areas we're starting to see people, again, we're seeing those things now being more sustainable. But I still think the outlook is strong for 2023 even into the next 2-3 years.

Obviously, a lot of that depends on the current economic culture and climate of our country and North America. I think it's pretty strong that the market has had a nice rebound since the beginning of this year. And again, I think it is a key factor in where do we see the industry going, what are the interest rates going to do? And as they are stabilizing some, I think the industry is going to continue to grow, it's going to continue to thrive. 

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