Collette Convery, Managing Director
I had the privilege of attending the recent FTMTA conference held in the beautiful Heritage Hotel in Killenard. Apart from the spectacular venue, this was a very well attended conference with a riveting agenda.
The day started with a talk from the Minister for Agriculture followed by a brave Q&A session where dealers could pose some particularly tricky questions related to Brexit and ways to attract talent into the industry. The minister made several references to increased funding in the agriculture sector, specifically recent schemes for farmers to purchase mobile equipment.
This was followed by two very informative sessions from the industry consultancy firm VFM Associates. The first session was on the topic of financial strategies for departmental cost control and profitability, and the KPIs that should be used to monitor these, and the second session was about a new approach to selling that they are advocating based on the Challenger selling methodology.
In the afternoon, the first session focused on the importance of using social media to promote sales, citing that 86% of farmers engaged with social media every day. This was followed by a thought-provoking session by motivation speaker Jeff Sheridan who, following a life changing accident, has applied the techniques used during his hospital rehabilitation to his everyday life and career to achieve record-breaking accomplishments. Jeff did assert that we could all boost sales by inviting our customers to a party at our homes!
The event was concluded by a panel discussion with the speakers debating key issues for dealerships that included workplace fatality rates, government lobbying opportunities, the loss of on average 3 farmers per day from the sector, encouraging young people into the industry using dealership open days for school children and by posting dealership career profiles on TikTok.
This was an enormously enjoyable event that Ibcos will be happy to support in future years.
