Editor's Note
Editorial Staff Executive Editor and Director of Programs Kim Phelan kphelan@aednet.org Art Director heather jarmusz hjarmusz@aednet.org Marketing/Advertising Coordinator jaclyn Bovio jbovio@aednet.org Contributing Editors joanne costin Costin Custom Creations Garry BartecKi BDO Seidman and AED Vice President of Finance christian Klein AED Vice President of Government Affairs and Washington Counsel eli lustGarten ESL Consultants Bill & chris sitter Jordan-Sitter Associates ron slee R.J. Slee & Associates Sales Representatives Vice PresidentSales/ Publisher DaviD W. GorDon 800-388-0650 ext. 334 dgordon@aednet.org Advertising Sales Manager alBert j. ramirez 800-388-0650 ext. 311 aramirez@aednet.org 615 W. 22nd St. Oak Brook, IL 60523 630-574-0650 fax 630-574-0132 www.aednet.org December 2009 Construction Equipment Distribution www.cedmag.com 7 Editor's Note i've been wondering about a change that has occurred with regards to how this industry's suppliers of equipment, products and services all utilize the annual AED con-vention (now the AED Summit) to interact with their dealer partners. I'm told that well more than a decade ago, all business representatives of the equipment industry fully maximized this major distributor event, holding dealer meetings in conjunction with the AED meeting and capitalizing on every opportunity to connect both in private conferences and social networking events. Now, I'm the kind of person who hates making multiple trips. I'll load myself down like a pack-mule to save making extra trips from the car to the kitchen after gro-cery shopping. My parents should have called me Maxine, because if something is worth the doing, I want to maximize the efficiency of its execution. If there are multiple tasks that can be compressed or coordinated into fewer without com-promising the effectiveness, I'm for it. That's why the AED convention makes sense. As a supplier, I would appoint well-trained representatives to very methodically invite and schedule one-on-one meetings with all my dealer partners over three days and if that weren't enough time, I'd add a day on the front or back end of the conven-tion: After all, one more night's stay is far more efficient than a bunch of extra flights throughout the year. We'd form several golf foursomes for the kick-off golf out-ing Wednesday, listen and take notes at all the seminars, and meet face to face with dozens if not scores of our dealer clients. If I were a dealer, I would appoint a well-organized management team to serve as my delegates at AED, deployed across the convention like agents on a mission be-cause they are. Mike and Jim, you're cover-ing Managers Conference seminars; Tom and Kathy, you're on new product discovery in CONDEX I want a summary of every enterprise software on that show floor; Bob, you're with me on hospitality suite meet-ings with our six main suppliers, plus I want you to find out everything about what the credit/capital opportunities look like. And I'll see you all at the evening parties go easy on the drinking, and I expect you guys to mingle and talk to other dealers. Alright people, now let's work this thing. Unfortunately, there's been a break down over time in how companies use the AED event, probably slowly, and probably for reasons that made sense at the time. But today, I hear senior-level distributor execu-tives plainly saying they would gladly stay extra days in the AED convention town if it meant they could knock out their main OEM-dealer meetings, as well as all the additional contacts they want to see, versus separate, and sometimes multiple other dealer meetings a few months later. Manufacturers maintain that they would come to AED in greater droves if only more dealers would come. Ugh now how did that vicious circle every get spin-ning? And the North American chairman of one of the world's largest HE manu-facturers recently stated that combining his company's large dealer meeting with AED became too difficult to schedule because all his dealers want individual meetings with the OEM personnel, too. None of these things really strikes me as insurmountable. My hope is that dealers and all suppliers of products and services will rethink the logic of the AED Summit, review the significant changes and new features on the 2010 convention agenda, and pick up the phone and start planning for their one-on-one discussions. There will be plenty of business programming and increased (continued on page 65) By Kim Phelan If you organize properly, you can pack all your industry meeting, planning, learning, and even socializing into one productive and powerful trip. Just Call Me Max for Short