By Mike Lessiter | Posted in Best Practices, Dealer-to-Dealer Resources
I recently ran into a friend at a funeral who was a colleague on the Media Growth Executive Peer Group with me for many years. Several years my senior, Tim Fixmer is among the leaders I most admire in business-to-business (B2B) marketing. He runs a successful business in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, named CCI Media LLC. Incidentally, he “cut his teeth” on Farm Equipment (1975-1978), that is now part of Lessiter Media’s portfolio.
As we discussed the many changes in capital equipment marketing over the last 3 decades, he reminded me of the “considered purchase” concept, and the role of the B2B magazine in impacting decision-making units (DMUs).
While a lot of things have changed in the makeup of both of the industries we cover (number of players, sizes of players, manufacturing systems and technology to name a few), Fixmer maintains that it’s the process that matters nowadays. “What hasn’t changed,” he says, “is the complexity of the sales environment for machinery, software, systems, and support to these customers and prospects.”
At that funeral luncheon, we traded notes which eventually led to another look a concept that equipment buyers are again “buying into,” including a story from one who “learned a hard lesson.” Here is a recap of that discussion, mostly in Fixmer’s own words.