When a customer visits a heavy equipment dealer, it’s often for one of a few reasons. Perhaps they need new equipment or a used machine to start or grow their equipment fleet. Maybe they may need to schedule service, purchase parts or request repairs. It may even be to simply ask some questions as they consider their different options.
It’s easy to understand these relationships between customers and the local dealer, but what about the relationship between the dealer and the manufacturer? At SANY, we’re committed to delivering More than Machines to our dealers, and we have worked hard – and continue to work – to support our dealers’ growth and development at every step.
We spoke recently with Josh Peddycord, north central regional sales manager at SANY America, to learn more about how the SANY relationship with dealers is truly a major benefit for not just dealers, but their customers.
What Makes the SANY Relationship Different for Dealers?
JP: Dealers that add SANY to their product lines will find that SANY offers a unique core structure. It’s a part of our culture and who we are. We pride ourselves on being easy to do business with. We’re not just any other manufacturer – we’re More than Machines. We’re a family and a community, here not just to support one another, but our dealers and our partners, from the corporate level down to our dealers.
It’s incredibly cool that SANY is this giant – the largest OEM manufacturer of excavators globally – but we have the ability to adjust and adapt to each dealer’s market needs. This agility is great for helping ensure dealers can get the equipment or parts or support they need without having to commit to more inventory than they need or sales goals that simply aren’t right for their markets.
How Does SANY Support Dealers?
JP: It’s all about building out our dealer relationships and taking that extra step to make sure that dealers have the necessary tools to be successful. We’ve built a system from the ground up to make sure that SANY can support our customers and our dealers from the corporate level, allowing us to manage customer cases and requests, creating an internal structure to view cases and identify issues, and handle overall management of any problems or questions. This helps ensure that customers are supported from end to end, whether they contact their dealer or SANY directly, allowing us to work fluidly together alongside our dealers to support every equipment owner.
How Does a Dealer Build a Relationship with an International Company?
JP: The way that we structure our organization at SANY, a dealer doesn’t contact some nameless or faceless representative at the corporate office – they work directly with an individual person in their area. At SANY it’s our regional sales managers and district sales managers like myself. These people are in the field every day, going to dealer locations, taking meetings with owners and their customers and making sure that things are going well.
Our managers are a dealer’s single point of contact, as well. A dealer can call their rep for anything they need, whether it’s help with locating parts or getting financing for a buyer – and we’re aggressively hiring more staff to make sure we can continue building these personal relationships with each and every one of our dealers.
What About Service Staff – How Does SANY Support Them?
JP: SANY offers a quarterly in-house service training at our headquarters in Peachtree City, Georgia. Service techs and managers from our dealerships across the U.S. and Canada are invited to attend, get technical information and receive training in both a shop and classroom setting. This is a great opportunity for our front-line representatives to see equipment up close at every step in the manufacturing process and learn more about all that SANY does, giving them first-hand knowledge of the best practices and procedures to diagnose, repair and maintain any SANY machinery.
Why Does a Dealer Choose to Sell SANY?
JP: In my experience, there’s a lot of reasons that dealers decide SANY is a good fit for their dealership. Years ago, SANY was perceived as “cheaper than anyone else” or a low-cost option for customers. Sure, that gets a foot in the door with some customers, but we want to provide more than just a cheap solution – we want to provide the best solution. That’s why SANY has worked to continue to develop and improve our machines so that now our customers can find an incredible combination of affordability, durability and reliability in SANY machines. Buying SANY equipment means the dealer can get their customers something they can trust and count on as a solid investment, delivering years of work with a lower total cost of ownership.
I keep saying it, but we’re much more than our machines, and we stand behind our products with the best warranty in the industry – five years or 5,000 hours. We also now have SANY Capital to help customers with 0 percent and low-rate financing options. Plus we offer an aggressive dealer floor plan for our dealers to help them tell the SANY story to customers who may have never heard of us before, and we work on our relationships with the dealers to make it easy for them to do business with us. There’s no hassle, no gimmicks – just people working hard to help other people get hard work done. Plus, with our Georgia facility, we can offer incredibly competitive production time cycles, meaning we can get equipment to customers as fast – and often faster – than many of our brand competitors.
What Would You Say to a Dealer Thinking About Adding SANY?
JP: Call me. Seriously. We can discuss everything that makes SANY a different experience and I can put you in touch with some of the latest dealers who have come aboard and joined the SANY family. That really is one of the most unique things about SANY – the family atmosphere. You never feel like you’re dealing with a giant corporation – it’s your local representative, and you can reach out any time and get support for anything you need.
We bring in dealers and work to analyze their market and their needs. We don’t want to force a dealer to buy $3 million in equipment when their market calls for half of that. We identify their market drivers, their projected growth ability and help them not just succeed, but thrive. Our relationships help nurture new SANY dealers and give them the tools to really succeed and help their customers see how they can find more uptime, a low cost of ownership and more reliability to help them make more money when they choose SANY.
Find a Dealer
New SANY dealers are coming all around the U.S. and Canada, and we likely have a dealer near you. Use our Find a Dealer locator to find your closest SANY dealer and discover how SANY delivers More than Machines. Want to learn more about becoming a dealer? Contact us today to request more information.