While last month’s column focused on some of the ups and downs that afflicted the agricultural equipment industry over the past 40 years, this column will take a look at what one can expect over the next several years. But first, it should be apparent after reading the previous column, that one of the primary drivers for the demise of manufacturers during the aforementioned time period was their feckless hiring of top management that were either devoid of pertinent and relevant experience, or their background was from the financial side of the business. Concerning the latter, when that is the case, management will generally save themselves into bankruptcy rather than marketing themselves into prosperity.

Nearly 40 years ago, I was hired by a consulting firm whose major client was International Harvester, the once venerable leader in agricultural equipment sales. This consulting firm had designed the XL program for IH that recognized and rewarded their dealer organization for implementing a series of sensible, yet stringent, operational and financial standards.

After a succession of years where equipment sales continued to increase, not because of dealership marketing efforts or sales force contacts, but rather because of increasing commodity prices and end-user ebullience, many dealership sales forces now find themselves in a sales funk.

Two of the most important responsibilities of an equipment salesperson are to maintain relationships with existing customers while simultaneously securing new customers. One of the primary responsibilities of the dealer/sales manager, therefore, is to see that those responsibilities are done efficiently and effectively.

While previous articles have addressed dominating a market, initiating a strategy and executing with speed, all using the precepts of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” this column will use the same source to identify the leadership attributes necessary to win a protracted war of attrition.

While my last two columns focused on “Dominating the Market” and “Initiating a Winning Strategy” by utilizing the principles of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” this column will address similar precepts necessary to execute a strategy with the alacrity necessary to be victorious.

As Sun Tzu wrote over 2,000 years ago, “Now an army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness.” Dealers interested in capturing a market would be wise to heed those words and to attack a competitor’s weaknesses by capitalizing on their own strengths while simultaneously overcoming their own weaknesses.

A year ago I wrote a column entitled Gathering Storm Clouds. That was followed up by last month’s column articulating the nine steps that should be undertaken during the turbulent times that lie ahead for equipment dealers. While some may be too timid to call a war a war, make no mistake about it, what equipment dealers will experience over the next 5 years will be a “war of attrition.”

As of this writing, dairy prices are at record levels and livestock prices are rebounding, but grain prices are trading at 50-60% below their record levels of a few years ago. As a result, farmer income is now expected to be down 14% this year.

Written on tablets of corn, wheat, beans, rice and cotton, and delivered by a peripatetic sojourner dressed in jeans and wearing a cap with an indistinguishable equipment machinery logo and with dairy cows in tow, the following Commandments were unexpectedly received with gratitude.