What’s on your mind? What keeps you up at night? What is right or wrong with the rural equipment industry? In this new series, “Dealers Sound Off,” dealers bring up issues related to those questions and our goal is to generate ideas from other dealers who may be facing the same issues.

Rural equipment dealers forecast another good year for overall and aftermarket sales, according to Rural Lifestyle Dealer’s 2017 Dealer Business Trends & Outlook survey, the magazine’s 9th annual. Despite the economic and social turbulence of an election year, these optimistic forecasts follow a very strong year for growth in 2016. Eighty-four percent of dealers think 2017 will be as good as or better than 2016 for total revenue and more than 90% think aftermarket revenue will also be as good as or better than last year. This compares with last year’s survey in which more than 88% of dealers expected 2016 to be as good as or better than 2015 for total revenue and more than 90% expected aftermarket revenue to be as good as or better than 2015.

The adapter converts loaders for the McCormick 125C, Branson SL 100, Kioti KL2510 and LS LL 201 models that use pin-on buckets to the “universal” skid steer standard.