This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain some errors.

Marisa Riley [00:00:00]:

Stepping into a role in commercial marketing. I think you need to really focus on where you’re putting the energy to win in the business. You can’t be in the weeds to be doing everything with your team. You have to make sure that you have good lieutenants in place. And then that you’re trusting them to execute.

 

Kyler Mason [00:00:20]:

Whether you’re going to market through dealers, distributors or some other partner channel. The mediated sale is complex. We call it B2B2X.

 

John Gough [00:00:28]:

But the leaders in the industry are the ones who are making it look simple. I’m John Gough.

 

Kyler Mason [00:00:33]:

And I’m Kyler Mason. And this is why you win. Presented by Element Three.

 

John Gough [00:00:37]:

Our guest today is Marisa Riley, the director of marketing for CNH North America. In our conversation, we talk about how she’s built her team around the needs and realities of the farmers that they serve and the dealers that they sell through. And how emerging technology is shifting the agriculture landscape. What really impressed me in our conversation was Marisa’s ability to understand all of the dimensions and complexities of the whole business. And then translate that into how marketing can have impact across the entire organization. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Marisa, we’re so excited to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.

 

Marisa Riley [00:01:11]:

Kyler. John, great to be with you guys. Thanks for the invite today.

 

John Gough [00:01:15]:

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Kyler Mason [00:01:17]:

So, Marisa Case is a giant organization. Could you start out with just telling us, like, what is your role? And what does that actually even mean inside of your organization?

 

Marisa Riley [00:01:28]:

Yes. Great question. So let’s just. Let’s take a quick step back and talk a tiny bit about the brand. And then we can go to the organization. Case Ih is a famous brand. It’s a one eight year old brand. In agriculture.

 

Marisa Riley [00:01:41]:

Many of you would know it as the right equipment that you see in the field. As you drive five farms out in the country with that, you know, the egg equipment business model. It’s very similar to the automotive industry. So you’re looking at that b, two b, two b. And all of our retail activity, whether that’s whole good sales, used equipment. The aftermarket activity that goes through our network of case ih dealers. So when we talk about Case Ih as a brand, we’re talking about the brand, the product. And then of course, our network of dealerships.

 

Marisa Riley [00:02:12]:

And case I H is a brand of CNH Industrial. CNH is going to be the parent company. And CNH is really the driving force behind iron and technology that is transforming agriculture and construction. They are all about off road. With that, CNH has a number of brands, case ih being one of them. Case construction, New Holland, and then some technology brands like Raven, for example. There are a number of other brands that you might know across the world. They’re short line manufacturers, other types of tractor companies and technology providers that may not be quite as familiar to those in North America.

 

Marisa Riley [00:02:51]:

Where I fit into Case ih is I’m the director of commercial marketing. So with that I have responsibility in North America and I have purview over pricing, programming and all of the marketing communication activities.

 

Kyler Mason [00:03:06]:

Awesome. Okay, so can you tell us like more about what, what that means for you day to day? Like how do you fit in the, what kind of team do you have? Talk us through that.

 

Marisa Riley [00:03:17]:

Yes. So with our organization, and we actually just recently went through a reorg, I think that’s pretty common right now with the current environment that we’re in as we’re really getting past Covid and finding what that new kind of normal environment is. So this is oddly timely for, for us to be talking about it. My team is comprised of about 25 people that again, are focused on pricing, programming, marketing, communications, channel marketing. And with that we have just a strong ecosystem of influence across both our dealer network and the organization. So we, as case I h, are working in partnership with the industrial product teams, industrial manufacturing, commercial services, our aftermarket group, our finance group, who we call capital, and a number of other teams. So it really is central to what we do to deliver on our go to market. For case I h how do you.

 

John Gough [00:04:20]:

Break down that team that you manage? Are there brand marketers and channel marketers? How do you structure that?

 

Marisa Riley [00:04:26]:

Yeah, the commercial marketing team is really set up into a couple divisions. One, we have our programs group, which is focus on delivering those retail programs and activity in the marketplace. And then we have our marketing communications. And that has two pillars within it. One pillar in the marketing communications is really going to be focused on that brand and product marketing. And then the other pillar is going to be focused on that channel marketing. In between there, we’re going to have some additional teammates focused on experiences that bring it all together. Some of those experiences are going to be more of our, our events and trade shows, what we are doing at our plants, because that is something that, that truly sells equipment and shows our customers and dealers what, what we’re doing on a day to day basis.

 

Marisa Riley [00:05:16]:

And of course, things like merchandising and licensing. With this famous and historical brand that we’re talking about, it is important for people to be able to touch, feel and be a part of that brand, what are programs?

 

Kyler Mason [00:05:29]:

Tell me more about that.

 

Marisa Riley [00:05:30]:

So I’m going to continue to make some comparisons throughout our discussion today back to the automotive industry, just because I think it’s something that people just inherently know and are familiar with. When we talk about programs, we’re going to be talking about finance offers, cash discounts, waivers where you won’t pay for your equipment, for example, until January 25, or other types of tactics and finance offers to really be able to incentivize that offer for activity.

 

Kyler Mason [00:06:01]:

It makes a lot of sense how you have, how you have lanes for some of these functions. How do you keep continuity between each of those pillars that you described to us?

 

Marisa Riley [00:06:11]:

The continuity between the pillars is really one due to really good leads. I have great lieutenants in charge of each of those pillars and to setting up high performing teams. It’s important that we’re not just working groups that are taking orders and working in a linear fashion, but making sure that we’re iterating the work that we’re doing. We’re creating a very highly collaborative environment. And with that we pressure test our work. So I make sure that solutions are brought to the table and then our team is able to pressure test that, not just between ourselves, but making sure we’re bringing in folks from operations, from product, from network development, because that knowledge base is really important. And so we really make sure that those ideas are pressure tested before we go to market.

 

John Gough [00:06:58]:

Marisa, you haven’t been on the manufacturing side for your entire career. For a long time. You were working for an agency. Are there things that you are carrying into your leadership role now that you think you’re doing differently because of where you’ve come from?

 

Marisa Riley [00:07:12]:

Yeah. Sheryl Sandberg, in her book Lean in, talked about careers being more of a jungle gym than a ladder. And that is something that I firmly believe and I think that I have really embodied because it has very much been a jungle gym. I started more on the advertising agency side, really coming up through public relations and expanding through different areas like account strategy, and then made the transition about two and a half years ago over to the corporate side. So with that, I came in without baggage. And I think that I’ve been able to take more of that fresh approach to what we’re doing. That comes from creating some new processes within our team, being able to effectively challenge the thinking and not really have the debt of what’s been done in the past. So where others may have experienced a no or a certain way, I’ve been able to help remove some of those barriers to execution, to be able to foster where we need to go in the future.

 

Marisa Riley [00:08:14]:

So I think part of it is just having that, that fresh view to the business, to be able to ask those questions that may at times seem naive, but really have a purpose to get back to basic scenarios.

 

John Gough [00:08:27]:

Love that. And case, being a historical brand, like you’ve mentioned, there has got to be a lot of the way we’ve always done it, the way that, who we are. That’s sort of baked into not just the brand, but also some mentality around the organization. Can you think of any experiences that you’ve had that you’ve been able to help people step through some of that pain or resistance and into new opportunities?

 

Marisa Riley [00:08:55]:

Case, I h. Like I said, is it’s a 180 year old brand. We have the benefit of that legacy, but we also have the challenge of being able to show that we’re an innovative company and that we really mean something to the next generation of farmers. I think that’s important because as we look at where farming is going, we see, it seems like we’re all kind of in the similar age bracket here. I’m looking at you guys on the call here. You know, we see a lot of these farms transitioning from kind of dad, grandma, grandpa that might be in that 60, 70, 80 year old type of space. And the next decision makers in that 30 to 40 year old space really come into play here. So that has really caused us to look at things differently.

 

Marisa Riley [00:09:41]:

So it’s given us a catalyst to do so and to question some of that status quo. If I think of the way things have always been done, it really is, you know, challenging that lift and shift. So I’m going to go to just something easy that everyone is a product launch. We’ve all been through product launches in our career, and it’s really easy to say, okay, here’s the messaging, here’s the press release, here’s the interview, here’s a quick, flashy commercial. Boom, boom, done. We’ve done it. And so really thinking about how we can bring in new ways to market that, thinking about how influencers can play into that, thinking about how we go into non agriculture spaces to do that, because farmers are people. They do things off the farm.

 

Marisa Riley [00:10:25]:

And that is really important to making sure that we’re meeting them where they are and not just repeating something that might be in the field or what they’ve always known.

 

Kyler Mason [00:10:35]:

How do you try, like, new and risky things inside an organization that has so much history and I’m sure, like, ways of doing things. How do you, how do you navigate that?

 

Marisa Riley [00:10:47]:

I think we need to take a step back and define risky because we may, we may not define that in the same way. And one of the things that I would make sure that goes into a risky idea, a ballsy idea, if you will, is making sure that we’re true to our brand values. And with case I h, I mean, we are a family focused, farmer focused, you know, humble company. And so you won’t see us doing some of the things that maybe an apple or, you know, a monster energy drink or something might do. So make sure that you’re keeping it true to the brand would be number one and first and foremost. And so as we think about doing those risky things, I always like to lead through our sphere of influence. Influence is one of those themes that you’ll, you’ll hear about today, because we may not always have the positional power, but we can think about how we are able to influence the people around us and influence our end customers. So something risky might be something just fresh and surprising, something like a sexier headline, something like a new person in the mix that has never tried farming.

 

Marisa Riley [00:11:52]:

That’s talking about a product that you’re like, holy cow, I’ve never thought about a country musician just jumping in a tractor, figuring out how to operate the tractor on their own, and it’s really easy to use. So again, those things that are risky, they’re risky because they might be new and it might be something that just works really well. That’s more of an aha moment. But it has to be true to.

 

Kyler Mason [00:12:13]:

Your brand values, like launching into a, like a risky or ballsy initiative that is aligned with your brand values without testing it. Like, is the first pass that it has to align and you’ll go for it? Or do you, do you have like a testing culture, too?

 

Marisa Riley [00:12:30]:

We do have a testing culture. I think one of the things that might be different within our company, that compared with some of the others, is that a lot of our employees are farmers. Built by farmers, is one of our major brand platforms. And so with that, I actually have the benefit of being able to pick up the phone to create a mini focus group of truly our field staff or some of our employees that may or may not work on the business, but within the broader c and h to be able to say, okay, how is this going to resonate or run this past your dad tonight at dinner? Come back to me tomorrow with feedback. What was their raw reaction? How are they questioning what we’re doing? What does it make them think, feel, and do after seeing that. So I think that is just one of the truly magical things about this corner of agriculture where we are is that we have the ability to test and do things differently. I mean, you guys are an, are an agency. You are always looking for creative ways to do this and think about some of the work that you’ve had to put into.

 

Marisa Riley [00:13:30]:

Maybe a new brand, an unknown brand in an industry, a really highly regulated brand, and that’s hard. But this being able to kick the tires, being able to have the audience essentially in our back pocket, we’re able to really test things on the fly and iterate quickly.

 

Kyler Mason [00:13:48]:

Yeah. To be able to leverage your internal resources as a part of your project process, that’s nice. That’s a competitive advantage.

 

John Gough [00:13:57]:

I also love the level of testing that you’re describing for a test or a pilot. Sometimes we think about spending a bunch of money. How are we going to allocate $150,000 and do this big research project? Or like, how about we call somebody and ask them to talk to somebody who uses the product? Why don’t we do that five times and get over the hurdle of the unknown? And now we have a little bit of feedback. We have our brand values that we’re aligned to. We can go and do it, take a next step that makes sense without having to go all the way and allocate different kinds of resources and time to do that.

 

Marisa Riley [00:14:36]:

It’s a luxury that I appreciate, and it’s something that we, you know, put to our advantage, because really, at case IH and the broader C and H, the customer is at the center of what we do. So if you take a step back, I’m talking about the commercial marketing inside of the business. But if you move over to the product side, especially very early on in the product development process, we use a strategy called customer driven product design. So whether it’s something like if you sat in a tractor before, your right hand is going to essentially be in an armrest with all sorts of controls. And those controls are going to feel incredibly ergonomic, because how they were designed is we sat a group of farmers down and gave them modeling clay and said, what’s the most comfortable way for your hand to sit on this? So whether it’s something like that or the infield testing, when we were testing a new combine about two years ago, instead of just rolling out a new product or doing a quick validation process, we actually put a dozen machines out into the field. And every single week at the end of the week, our team would interview them, get the feedback, iterate, launch new software, tweak things, and the next week they talk to them again. So, you know, it is something that we’re constantly doing. On the flip side, we talked about speed a little while ago.

 

Marisa Riley [00:15:56]:

Agriculture is a process throughout the given year. And so you plant once, you harvest once, or I should say most people, there are double cropping cycles and things depending on what you’re doing out in the field. But a lot of times it only happens once a year. So you have one chance to get that right. You’ve one chance to test it and go do it.

 

John Gough [00:16:15]:

Who owns those relationships? When you’re describing testing in the field or giving farmers modeling Clay, who in the organization is driving that kind of.

 

Marisa Riley [00:16:24]:

Innovation that really starts at the top of the manufacturing and the product development cycle. So I would call that really the manufactured in the industrial side of the organization, where I would consider myself more on the commercial side of the organization. So when we do it right, those two are married together. One thing that I have been focusing on is making sure that marketing is inserted much earlier in that product development process so that we can take those nuggets, we can drive what that might be. We can make sure that there’s data that comes out of it so that we can use that to market that right.

 

Kyler Mason [00:17:02]:

There is a desire of so many marketers. What is the playbook to doing that better?

 

Marisa Riley [00:17:07]:

The playbook is really looking at who you can contact in the organization and start to create those processes and those connections. So I know that sounds simple, but I go back again to that sphere of influence and making sure that you can say, who has the ability to bring me into these conversations? When you are in those conversations, making sure that you’re not quiet, that you’re proving what you can do with the information that they’re giving you, and that marketing can add value. I think at times, you know, marketing is thought of as like, plop this on their desk and they just do something with it, and it turns into magic at the end of the day. But to really do that, it has to start early in the process, and that’s asking smart questions, making those connections, and proving yourself over and over again.

 

John Gough [00:17:56]:

I think a lot of people think of marketing in an organization as just the group that has the megaphone. We’re going to broadcast these messages into these channels, and you’re describing an organization where marketing is an investigative journalist. They have a microphone inside and outside the organization, and they’re really careful listeners. I think that shift in perspective for the owners of marketing, but also for the organization. How do we use you? Well, in your role is a, it can be a game changer.

 

Marisa Riley [00:18:24]:

Absolutely. One of the things that I would separate is marketing and communications, because marketing really is what you’re talking about. And it can be that strategic, it should be that strategic arm, that microphone, those connection points through the organization, the ones that are naturally embedded from, from the top down, to be able to help drive where we’re going. I think it’s one of the reasons that they say that, that, that marketing director type of role is so nebulous sometimes because of that sphere of influence, being able to collect the information, being able to make sure that the tangible outputs which many times may come much, much later in the process, are delivered. And I separate marketing and communications because communications tends to be that, that more simple action that you were talking about, that, that microphone, the, you know, the final delivery vehicle, which albeit is very important. A lot of us, and we, I will admit that we don’t always get it right and many other companies get it very wrong, but that communications element is critical to be able to make the marketing work as well.

 

Kyler Mason [00:19:28]:

All right, shifting gears a little bit, um, you have a million priorities going on. I’m going to make you pick what’s, what is one major thing you’re working on, that if you crush it through the end of the year, um, you’ve had a great year.

 

Marisa Riley [00:19:41]:

Technology, and that is, that’s a big nugget. And why I bring technology up is because technology is going to refer to both what’s inside of our products, so how we’re going to market with technology inside our iron, and that’s created value for the customer. But also technology is an enabler to our business. So technology, or precision is we could use those interchangeably as we think about what is inside our product, and you can expand it to more of a digital ecosystem. This is going to be technology that’s on the machine, that’s going to be the computer or the brains inside of it. It’s the display that you’re interacting with, but it’s also off the machine. The tractors, the combines, the sprayers that we make, they are putting off a tidal wave of data, whether it’s where they’re located, their fuel levels, how much they’re applying in the field, or the planting rates. There’s tons and tons of data that’s coming off of these machines that a farmer, a farm manager or other, you know, type of audience might need to interact with.

 

Marisa Riley [00:20:48]:

And so as we think about that digital ecosystem, we need to make sure that we are conveying in a simple manner and that it’s easy to use for all, it’s innovative for all. And so that is something that is pivotal to what we do in our marketing to make sure that’s not just iron, iron, iron tractor, tractor, tractor. But how are we involving technology in that discussion in a meaningful way? I’m going to go into technologies, enabler and how we do business and that’s really directly related to our systems, our tools and our processes. We can’t sit still on this one because if we do, we’re going to be behind. And so I look at where we’re going with technology in our day to day and I’m not necessarily talking about AI, like, yes, that’s, that’s probably around us somewhere, but I’m really looking at some of the, again, the tools, the processes on how we get better. Those are things like focusing on customer experience. What are we doing to measure our np’s and how are we using that data? How are we alerting our field teams and our dealers where we have issues? How are we driving that back into how we develop products? So I know that may not seem like technology, but it really goes into the system tools, the platforms and the processes to how we unlock that potential because otherwise that data just sits there. Take sales process as another example.

 

Marisa Riley [00:22:14]:

We are continuing to build out what we call our journey center, which is powered by Salesforce, and looking at how we really enable both our field teams and dealers through that opportunity, the quote, the order and then being able to maintain the customer thereafter. So it’s not as simple as saying, you know, is your CRM in place? It is much, much more than that as we connect business systems to be able to deliver those types of opportunities and then something core to what we do in marketing would be our customer data strategy. So we’re always looking for those simplified processes and making sure that we have a good architecture in place. We are in a very complex market. In agriculture, we have world lifestyle ers that maybe have five acres and they just want something that’s larger than a lawnmower, that has a bucket on it to fix fence posts and move some dirt around. We have farmers in western Canada that have, you know, 50,000 acres that are working with fleets in the 40 and 50 mark that need to be able to, you know, understand how they’re rolling their fleet. They might have multiple buyers. So if you think about the, the range of those audiences were focused on things like our master data records.

 

Marisa Riley [00:23:30]:

How do we make sure that the account that might have ten farms underneath it, we might have John Farm, John’s farm, John Little’s farm, and they all have to roll up to the same one. And so that is something that is really focused on data cleanliness and simplifying what we’re doing for our customer data, our CDP. We are in process of rolling out a CDP, our customer data platform, that it started when we were looking at accelerating what we were doing from a marketing standpoint and with the threats of the cookie list world looming. But it’s really opened up a lot of other possibilities as we think about nurturing our audience and thinking about new ways of customer segmentation. So again, I go back to technology because whether it’s in the product or whether it’s an enabler to how we do business, it’s really going to change how we do it. And we have to focus on what simple looks like because it can just be way too complex out there.

 

John Gough [00:24:25]:

I love the breadth that you’re describing when you’re talking about these digital transformation exercises that go from the tractor or the combine or the equipment that the farmer’s riding in to the way that you see them, to the data that they share internally. It really is an entire ecosystem of change and it’s not a single project that has an endpoint. So Kyler may have asked you about what do you need to nail in the next six months? And your answer, I think, was really insightful because that thing is not going to be done in six months. It’s going to be part of who you are from now on. And I think that the way that you are thinking and describing the different organizations and stakeholders that are involved in both producing and consuming that data. Just incredibly insightful as you think about digital transformation in the organization and where marketing has an opportunity to push its value, how it can serve, let’s say specifically the dealers and the in consumers, the farmers. Are there things that you think that are just low hanging fruit, things that are just ripe to be picked right now?

 

Marisa Riley [00:25:35]:

Yes. I’m going to go with our dealers on this one channel marketing we mentioned earlier, and that’s really important and hit so close to home for me because we, like I said, I have about 650 dealer locations. And so with that there’s dealer complexes. So one dealer may have multiple locations, again, similar to the automotive world, but we have dealers that range from a single store location to publicly traded companies, that lowest common denominator. They don’t have a lot in common. So as I think about channel marketing, what we’re doing to really enable our dealers, whether that’s from the easy button or really customized solution for the bigger dealers, I have put in place our regional marketing managers. So we have four seasoned veteran marketers that are focused on enabling our dealers and helping them do business with that. They’ve really been able to pull back the onion to say what’s needed.

 

Marisa Riley [00:26:31]:

And instead of saying, you know, we need a campaign, they need this, they need that. They’re also going to the tool systems and processes. So right as I speak, it’s, you know, July right now, and we are rolling out a new co op vendor. So we had been with the same co op vendor for almost 20 years, and it just wasn’t really going to get us to where we were going to go to the next level. And so with that, we’re excited about being able to put in place some really foundational elements as we get into channel marketing, to be able to have better claims processing, to be able to have future platform capabilities around better and more agile templated storefronts, websites and more, which I know that sounds really simple, but again, if you go back to that lowest common denominator of dealer and what they need to, it helps lift the bottom and it helps enable the top, and the rising tide will lift all boats. And at the end of the day, when we think about our brand in the marketplace, if we’re not enabling our dealers to better market our brand, they’re, one, going to be a detriment to it, or two, they’re going to go market something else that’s not our brand. So it’s really making sure that we have that share of mind with dealers and make it easy for them to do business.

 

Kyler Mason [00:27:46]:

So in the world of co op and addressing the range of sophistication that you were talking about, how do you drive adoption with those dealer groups that are giant and sophisticated and have their own really well built marketing teams? How do you get them to take advantage of what you’re building?

 

Marisa Riley [00:28:05]:

When we think about those larger dealerships, it really comes back to the people, resources, and so that’s the regional marketing manager that they can help evaluate what they’re doing. They can bring new ideas, they can suggest new vendors, they can do something as simple as an audit for them and really expose where they have weaknesses. So those larger dealerships, you know, they’re doing a lot of things well. And when they are, we reinforce that by pointing it out and then making sure that we’re doing some mind sharing with other dealers. It makes them feel really good when they’re able to promote what they’re doing, not with a competitive dealer next door, just to be clear, but maybe someone across the country. And so, um, you know, we really try to reinforce that and we try to apply the people to it because everyone needs some of these customized solutions. So it’s not as simple as to say, here, go stay in this box, because that’s not a great way to work with them. If you tell them to stay in the box, they’re going to riot.

 

Kyler Mason [00:29:00]:

And are you expecting with the change you made in the co op partner to help you enable sort of the different levels of sophistication and needs? Is that a fair connection or is that not what you expect?

 

Marisa Riley [00:29:13]:

That’s a very fair connection. So it starts with that platform, and then from there we’ll be able to, if we want, you know, this is still in development. We’ll be able to segment dealership tiers, for example, or sophistication, pilot new programs, allow them to opt into different things. So it certainly unlocks a lot of different potential opportunities for where we can go next. We are seeing an important shift and one of the reasons that we are invested more in some of the co op program, especially from an SGNA standpoint, whether it’s the, you know, the, the funding for dealers to be able to market our brand or the platforms that they’re using, that’s powering them behind the scenes. You know, we have spent more dollars when the times were good. So look at that. You know, 2019 to 2022 time period, agriculture was at a peak.

 

Marisa Riley [00:30:06]:

Agriculture is cyclical. So you’re going to see every eight years that ebb and flow. Agriculture was really at its peak. And so when it’s at its peak, you get the luxury of doing brand building awareness activities. The bigger tactics, you know, taking some of those risks that we saw before, that might be more fun. And when things start to tighten up or constrict in the market, which is really where we are at right now, that is where we have to really button down the hatches and make sure that we are doing everything that’s provided value and that there is no excess. So I think as we look at the importance of channel marketing, were taking some of those dollars out of brand building, were shifting them into that channel marketing. And really that lower funnel activity, does.

 

Kyler Mason [00:30:47]:

That still sit in SG and A or is that cost of goods sold?

 

Marisa Riley [00:30:50]:

SG and a.

 

Kyler Mason [00:30:52]:

Okay, very cool. So it sounds like you’re doing some awesome stuff inside of channel. What demands or pushback are you getting from the more, let’s say higher leverage dealers and how are you addressing that?

 

Marisa Riley [00:31:07]:

Some of the demands and pushback that we’re getting from some of the higher level dealers are one flexibility for using funds, leveraging the program, things that I would just call off of the book or outside the guidelines, them coming up with new ways. And then I would say another one is being able to use those dollars for elsewhere in the business. When we think about channel marketing, you may think about true marketing communications, but there are a lot of other ways that our brands could come to life. So think about the outdoor signage, think about the trucks, the service trucks that might drive down the road and go to a farm. And so there’s a lot of other areas that, you know, might be more infrastructure related and not something that someone would consider more on the communication side that we’re looking at. You know, where is the brand promise coming to life and where is that brand meaningful? So we make exceptions. I mean, I think that is one of the best ways that we can be a partner. I don’t see the rigidness paying off when we think about the partnership.

 

Marisa Riley [00:32:11]:

Because the brand and dealers are interconnected, our success is dependent upon one another. And so it is important to take the constructive feedback and more of the listening model to make sure that we’re exploring all the avenues.

 

John Gough [00:32:25]:

That’s such a key understanding of the way you’re describing partnership. Sometimes we will talk to manufacturers and we get kind of an eye roll when we talk about the dealer relationship. Oh, those guys are always bugging me or poking me and sort of like a burr in the saddle moment. Instead of understanding that symbiotic relationship of we need them and they need us. And the way that we win is together. And I think that it’s kind of an old school mentality that is hopefully shifting away from I am the manufacturer and I have all the power in this relationship to a, we’re going to win when we, when we understand each other’s needs and we can connect and produce customer value.

 

Marisa Riley [00:33:07]:

It is all about the customer value. At the end of the day, if Amazon says that, you know, USP’s is their last mile, at times when, you know, they’re in some of the rural areas, our dealers are last mile. And there’s no way that we can get to the customer without our dealers. And so that is, that is absolutely critical. And I hope you see and feel that come through in a lot of our discussion and what you would experience with the KSIH brand out in the wild. As I think about what that partnership looks like, there are formal ways that we do it. For example, I sit on our dealer advisory board, which is comprised of twelve to 14 dealers throughout North America. And then I have specific committees across the pillars that we talked about earlier across programs as well as marketing communications.

 

Marisa Riley [00:33:51]:

So the people that are actually doing those jobs to dealership are giving us input on the strategy. And one thing that we really focus on in those types of, you know, formal groups is that the feedback can’t come from the individual dealership. It really has to think about the body. So don’t tell me your specific problem, Crowdsource what that problem statement is so that we can go solve it for the dealer body.

 

John Gough [00:34:17]:

One of the things you mentioned a few minutes ago that I’d like to know more about, you talked about regional marketing managers in the context of these dealer relationships. But you had described dealers as ranging from one store all the way to publicly traded companies. Do I understand it correctly that these regional marketing managers are split by geography and not by channel size?

 

Marisa Riley [00:34:42]:

Correct. They are split by geography. They are aligned to our four sales regions.

 

John Gough [00:34:48]:

And so I guess my next question is, is there a specialty that would benefit from having, like a small size dealer channel manager and a large dealer channel manager? Or are you seeing some other benefit from seeing the alignment to sales instead of going by that kind of segmentation?

 

Marisa Riley [00:35:07]:

The reason that we align them to geographical region instead of dealer size is partially because of the differences in agriculture practices across those regions. So go out to California. You were in Orchard Vineyard, vegetables go to the heart of the midwest, the I states, and you are in corn and soybean countries. So those differences are meaningful. And even though the size of the dealership may be different, a lot of times the customer that they’re working with, the types of campaigns that meant they might need to run the timeliness of what they’re doing is going to be more common by geography. So that is one of the reasons that we segment them that way. The other reason is because from a team standpoint, we implement what we call a Delta team. So you’ve heard a bit about our marketing communications team.

 

Marisa Riley [00:35:56]:

When we think about getting down to the field level and the group that’s servicing dealers, that’s what we called our Delta team. Our Delta team is going to be comprised of your territory sales manager. You’re going to have a parts manager, like a service manager, a finance manager. It’s a group of people that’s coming together to say, instead of knocking on your door five times this week, mister or misses dealer, we’re going to come together and have one meeting and talk about our business holistically. So that’s just another reason why we want to append marketing to that strategic group, that they’re just not out on an island.

 

John Gough [00:36:30]:

It sounds like the benefit that gets you, again is being so in customer focused. I say customer, and in this case, the customer of case ih, maybe the dealer, the dealer channel or it may be the end consumer who’s buying the real product. But in either case, you’re designing a system that is meant to serve, not be served. And I think that’s a great way of thinking about that.

 

Marisa Riley [00:36:55]:

Yeah, I mean, you hear a lot about servant leadership, and that’s certainly something that I personally focus on implementing. But if you think about serving our customers in the same way, to your point, whether that’s dealer or our end customer, the farmer, that is really, really important. When you put the customer at the center of what we do, it’s going to be right almost every time.

 

Kyler Mason [00:37:15]:

On the program side is the primary purpose of programs to move inventory.

 

Marisa Riley [00:37:21]:

It’s twofold. It’s going to be to drive wholesale orders, drive sold retail. So that’s going to be a name on the product before it leaves the factory and then to drive that inventory.

 

Kyler Mason [00:37:35]:

So your full spectrum across the buying cycle.

 

Marisa Riley [00:37:39]:

Exactly. Yes. And I would break down the market in two ways. You’re going to have what we call cash crop and livestock. Cash crop is going to be your biggest equipment and more of your larger farmers. Your livestock is going to be the animals, the hay production and more of that real lifestyle audience. That might be, you know, a single machine owner.

 

John Gough [00:38:00]:

All right, Marisa, you’ve given us gold all day on this. This is fantastic. What we want to know now is what would you share with somebody who is stepping into a role like yours? You’ve been here for now two years and learned a ton, obviously, and you knew a bunch before that. What does the next person need to know?

 

Marisa Riley [00:38:19]:

Stepping into a role in commercial marketing? I think you need to really focus on where you’re putting the energy to win in the business. You can’t be in the weeds to be doing everything with your team. You have to make sure that you have good lieutenants in place and then that you’re trusting them to execute with that. That will help you leave time for making sure that you’re in the right discussions with that broader group that you can influence. Asking the right questions, getting the right intel to pressure test the ideas.

 

Kyler Mason [00:38:50]:

Great stuff.

 

John Gough [00:38:51]:

Love that. I’m taking notes.

 

Marisa Riley [00:38:52]:

I have one more plug that you can incorporate as you see fit. But we talked a lot about agriculture. I personally did not come from agriculture. I do come from small businesses, and there’s a lot of parallels there. But I think what most people don’t know is how modern and innovative agriculture is. You know, they think of agriculture as a farmer with a belly that has a pair of overalls on, and it’s just simply not true. These are some of the smartest, most innovative people that are willing to try anything, that are willing to risk it for the business. And it’s really impressive what they’re doing.

 

Marisa Riley [00:39:26]:

And if you think that you’re not involved in agriculture, you are. Because if you eat a, you are involved in agriculture.

 

Kyler Mason [00:39:33]:

I have some experience, and I would describe the people I’ve interacted with as sharks. They are so sharp, and they are making big bets. They’re very good business people. So the way you’ve described it is spot on.

 

John Gough [00:39:48]:

Why you win is presented by Element Three, a marketing firm focused on modernizing go to market strategies for manufacturers that sell through complex distribution channels. We help leaders solve problems across demand generation, sales channel support, and brand development.

 

Kyler Mason [00:40:05]:

If you’d like more from myself or John, connect with us on LinkedIn. And for more from Element Three, visit ElementThree.com. That’s ElementThree.com.