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you get zero downtime,â he says, âItâs part of the package being sold.â For homeowners it varies with the time of year, trying to keep it at under a week. âWith our new system, we look at stuff the day it comes in, so we can get parts on order and try to stay in front of it. Thatâs really decreased our lead times,â he says. The techs still see a lot of ethanol related issues coming into the shop, even though E-15 is not available in Virginia, so while they have the OPEI Look Before You Pump tags, the main focus is educating people on keeping fresh gas or using an alternative. Winstead says, âWe try to educate our customers, run it out of gas, treat it with TruFuel or Stihlâs MotoMix as the last tank, so over the winter itâs sitting without ethanol in the gas.â âItâs gotten a little bit better, but we still see a lot of ethanol issues. Itâs only going to get worse. When ethanol first got really bad, and we had a ton of people coming in, we didnât like it. People thought we enjoyed the increased workload, but the ethanol issues were just as frustrating for us as the customers! We donât want to just continually replace carburetors. Nobody wins when weâre doing that.â
on selling lawnmowers and tractors,â he says simply with conviction. Itâs that attitude that helps Winstead stay focused on whatâs important: selling equipment and servicing customers. âWe try to add value in everything we do, both for the homeowner and the commercial guys,â Winstead says. He enjoys not only working for himself, but watching the family business grow. âWorking for yourself is very rewarding. Making money is hard or else everybody would do it. I think everyone
in this industry is either growing or going away. Weâve grown a lot in the last five years and we are only going to continue to grow. Right now we are trying to internally refine our processes, get more profitable and get our systems totally in check,â he says, not ruling out a seventh location in the future. Adding, âItâs rewarding to work with the commercial guys and be a partner. We sell them the mowers, but also fix them, give them loaners, to do their jobs better. We help keep them going.â PET
Daily Operations The brothers take care of sales and store operations. Each store has managers, but Winstead doubles as Sales Manager and keeps up with inventory and equipment sales. A corporate Operations Manager keeps up with personnel and day to day stuff across all locations. With six locations, during the busiest time of the year, Land & Coates has about 60 employees, but will shrink back to less than 50 during the winter. âHaving that many employees is a challenge. We hired an operations manager from within a couple years ago to help with just all the stuff,â Winstead admits. An outside PR firm that helps with all legal paperwork regarding employees and the hiring processes assists the operations manager. Winstead doesnât believe that the dealership has enough need to a full-time dedicated HR person, so using the outside firm helps relieve some stress without the added personnel. âThe HR firm started out just helping with little projects, like revamping the handbook, and it has morphed into more. They help us with things we donât have time for. We need to focus POWER EQUIPMENT TRADE
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