Mark Core of Vermeer

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

Mark Core (00:00):

The toughest part about strategy is it's strategy. In its purest sense, developing strategy means probably doing some things different than you have been doing in the past. Or why would you go through the effort of understanding what matters to the customer and trying to take the next steps as an organization? I think for a lot of people it becomes very difficult because you could evolve into something that's riskier.

Kyler Mason (00:25):

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 (00:33):

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

Kyler Mason (00:38):

and I'm Kyler Mason and this is Why You Win, presented by Element Three.

John Gough (00:43):

Our guest today is Mark Core, the CMO of Vermeer. Mark's connection to Vermeer goes way back to when he was seven years old and his dad took him to a field north of their farm to go see a Vermeer baler in action. And though he's been a farmer for his entire life, he has had some really interesting roles both inside the Vermeer Corporation and out that taught him about dealer relationships and managing business units and ultimately to lead him to this CMO position where he leads brand strategy, where he leads both the lifecycle side of the business as well as the marketing side. He's got some really interesting takes on brand management and brand strategy as well as how to get the voice of the customer into product innovation. He's a great guest. You're really going to love this one. Mark, we're so glad to have you on the show.

(01:29):

Thanks for joining us.

Mark Core (01:31):

Yeah, thank you. I really looking forward to marketing is a strong passion of mine, so I'm looking forward to having a discussion about what we've got going on here at Vermeer. So appreciate the opportunity.

John Gough (01:42):

Well, we're always excited when we talk to leaders and organizations that have strong brands and Vermeer obviously is one of the great brand story, great family health company. And your story ties in pretty closely to the family story if I understand correctly.

Mark Core (01:59):

Yeah. My story to whatever extent is interesting. I grew up right here in this county and was on a small diversified farming operation. I would say that I'm a product of the 80s farm crisis. A lot of times we hear about how the Depression influenced people and by no means did I experience that. But I experienced a really difficult time in agriculture, but it never deterred my love of all things ag. And so grew up heavily involved in 4-H and FFA and showed a lot of livestock when we financially could and then went to Iowa State and at the time I was a state of an officer at the time and had a strong interest in that. So ag education is actually my major from Iowa State and I had a couple wonderful internships there. And when I got out, I went into the animal health business and had nine wonderful years for a company called Syntex.

(03:06):

And then there were some merger that went on and had an opportunity to move to Kansas City. And my wife and I really, really wanted to raise our kids on the farm that I grew up on. And my parents had both passed by then and then we'd been able to save the farm. And so we weren't moving. And I often say that to young people who really enjoy young talent and having those conversations that you can build the most perfect resume that you possibly can build and really do everything what you believe is right, but there is some luck or some timing or some God things involved in a career and in life. And when I was looking, I happened to walk into a Casey's in Pleasantville, Iowa, my hometown and I run into a guy that I knew that was... I didn't realize this.

(04:00):

He was selling sales training modules to Vermeer and he told me about this role 30 years ago this month. And so I say that if I don't have a coffee addiction and I don't walk into that Casey's, I'm probably not at Vermeer. And so it's a real blessing. I started here originally I was in charge of the training department for all dealer training and I managed a big department of one, me. We were much smaller then. I officed right next to our CEO, Mary, at the time, and we shared an assistant. And then over time I had the opportunity to take on additional sales and marketing roles and product management and eventually managed the ag business unit. And then today you stay around long enough, you get additional title and responsibilities. But today I'm responsible for two of our four business units. One would be the agricultural side of our business, what we call Forage Solutions.

(05:04):

Another would be lifecycle. So all those things that affect and influence a customer's experience after they purchase a piece of yellow iron and then chief marketing officer as well. So yeah, it's been a real blessing for my family and myself to have a global career within 25 miles of the home farm that continues to grow with my son-in-law's and daughter's influence right here in Marion County, Iowa.

Kyler Mason (05:35):

Do I recall and I think a story written about you that you had an impression or you were introduced to Vermeer in your childhood as well?

Mark Core (05:44):

Yeah, for sure. My father, one of the many things trying to kind of survive back then is he did a lot of small square bales, custom small square bales with his brother. And so that's what we knew. I remember he would set me in the front seat of an old Ford truck and put it in granny gear and keep it between the cornstalk rows. And he would in the back and he would dump out small square bales to feed the Hereford cows that registered Hereford herd at the time, but he come into the house and he said, "Hey, everybody get in the car. I got to show you this. " So we get in the old rusted out mercury and we head just north of where I live today, not a half mile and there was this yellow round baler. I didn't know what I was looking at the time.

(06:32):

I was probably seven maybe and behind probably by an old 706 or whatever and we're watching it in the window and it stopped and he said, "Now watch, it's going to lay an egg." And I remember that like it was yesterday

John Gough (06:47):

And

Mark Core (06:47):

The tailgate come up and the round bale come out and who would have thought that at some point in time of the 50 some years that we've been in the round baler business, I've been involved 30 years of that now and I'm involved in it during the week and then I spent all last weekend mowing hay and I'll go home tonight in bale hay as well on our cattle operations. So I might be a little too addicted to agriculture, but it's what we love and it's what we've loved with our family as well.

Kyler Mason (07:23):

So good. Talk about voice of customer.

Mark Core (07:26):

Yeah, good or bad. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt that at times my colleagues here fear if I've had a problem with a piece of equipment, we own several pieces of Vermeer equipment. There may be a few prototypes that find themselves at our farm as well. And so there's some value to that I fully believe, but I think there's always like, okay, Mark believes he knows everything because he had this one thought, but yeah, it's a passion for sure.

Kyler Mason (07:57):

That's awesome. If you can maybe brag about yourself a little bit, what do you think you'd credit to the success you've had in the Vermeer organization for so long and the different roles you've had and leadership positions, the whole gamut?

Mark Core (08:14):

Yeah, that's a good question, Kyler. Yesterday we were with interns. We have 60 some interns here for the summer if I have those numbers right. And it was a fun exchange with some of our executive team and the open forum. And of course there's a lot of those typical questions, right? Like what would you attribute success to? Or if you want to elevate at Vermeer, what are those things that are critical? The first thing that I said when I had a chance to speak was sponge-like curiosity, like just a desire to learn and not for elevation, just interest. And so that's critical and I do believe that I'm sure I'm not the most talented, most educated CMO in our industry, sure of that. I'm an ag education major from Iowa State University. None of that looks on a resume like a CMO of a company that is our size, but I have never tried to advance to the next position like that has never been a perspective of mine is that like whatever role I was in, I love to try to figure out how to do good things with that and how to do good things with a team of people and it just has naturally happened over time and certainly much smaller when some of this elevation started.

(09:43):

But I think if you would ask our CEO, which would be, I brought our founder along with me, Gary Vermeer is over, we're in the founder's conference room. So this is a mural at the back of this building. But his grandson, he would say that my creative ability and my strategic ability is two things that he admires. And I think of those two, I feel like strategic is probably the area that is of most interest and maybe attribute that's been hopefully valuable to the company, some sort of superpower. I hate to say it that way, but those are the two things. And then just a natural, even on the lifecycle side of our business, like when you're a consumer and you're broke down on Saturday night with a piece of equipment and you're trying to find a part or trying to get service, your desire to be able to provide great experience to our Vermeer customers ratchets up.

Kyler Mason (10:46):

This show, we talk about strategy a lot. I think John and I sometimes poke fun at how often that word is used. I'd love to hear what does strategy mean to you?

Mark Core (10:58):

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm sure you hear strategy and I'm sure you hear culture. I often say that the toughest part about strategy is it's strategy. In its purest sense, developing strategy means probably doing some things different than you have been doing in the past, or why would you go through the effort of understanding what matters to the customer and trying to take the next steps as an organization, either if it's internal process or if it's external value to the customer. And so again, I think for a lot of people it becomes very difficult because you could evolve into something that's riskier and I have the wonderful opportunity to work in a, as you mentioned earlier, a family held, multi-generation organization that has a desire to be privately held for deCATes to come and we're kind of managing that heritage, that Gary's heritage, the family's passion.

(12:00):

And so when the company is generally in great shape and it always has been, it's risky taking that next step. It's no different than a significant golfer that's winning everything decides to change their swing because they know that people are trying to catch up to them. And my son-in-law races cars and I love Sprint car racing and NASCAR racing. And if you listen to a lot of these teams, like at their top is when they're starting to change some things, but strategy, what I believe at the end of the day

(12:38):

Has made Vermeer successful to the point that it has is the perfect, and we're not always great at this, but it's identifying a problem that a customer has before the customer knows they have it. I mean, if you think about nobody was asking Gary Vermeer for a round baler, everybody wanted a faster horse when Mr. Ford invented a car, but we have multiples of those where we had good sharp people here, whether it was Gary originally or people after that, they could see the frustration or the time consumption or the difficulty of what a customer was trying to do their work, but a customer didn't understand that. I often think about Uber and we could look at it as this perfect strategy and perfect story. It's obvious now that none of us like to go to a phone book and find the number. None of us back way back then wanted to go find a payphone.

(13:44):

No, but none of us wanted to wait to know when the taxi was going to show up. We didn't realize we kind of like to know the name of the person that's driving us. We didn't realize that we were frustrated. We didn't know how long we were going to be until we were dropped off and all of us have experienced one leg out of a taxi trying to get a receipt and paying, right? But observation of that would've told us all of that if we could have seen and understood the frustration. So I often use that as an example of really understanding the marketplace and the customer pain points better than maybe they do at times. Strategy's more than that for sure. But in the innovation manufacturing side of our business, it starts with that. It starts with trying to be better than any of our competitors in the space of problem identification.

John Gough (14:40):

I remember I went to a user experience conference really early in my career and I was listening to the presenter describe all of the problems with the interface on their washing machine. They had a photo up and they were presenting about that. And my initial reaction to that was, "Man, this guy is such a whiner. It's a washing machine, get over it, spin the dial." But you have the kind of experiences that you're talking about or you listen a little bit closer and you realize that this person actually cares a lot about the customer, about the voice of the customer, about the problems that they have. And it's not a matter of like, can you get over it? Yeah, we can all get over it. We could all use the payphone, we can all call a taxi, we can all do all these things, but we don't have to.

(15:22):

And from the organization's perspective or a legacy perspective, the question is really like, how are we going to move it forward? And especially in these industries where what's new and what's next is often the question that you're going to get from the customer or the dealer, "What are you doing today that was different than what you did 30 years ago?" You have to care and you have to watch really closely, like you're saying, I love that description.

Mark Core (15:47):

Yeah. And there's also just the day-to-day, not everything is going to be a major invention. Vermeer has had certainly some products like the round baler was the big driver in the 70s after a launch until the kind of farm crisis of the 80s. The 90s was the horizontal directional drill and propelled us and we weren't first with that, but we were a very fast follower with high innovation. And I think I love the concept of value innovation curve within strategy and what do you elevate that competitors don't have that customers see high value? What do you reduce that they maybe don't see value in and what do you create that nobody else has? And then what do you eliminate that really isn't providing value even though it was a pet project of somebody like myself or an engineer or a product manager or whatever it may be, it's like, "Hey, they really don't see value in this.

(16:51):

" So the whole idea is to find the right value proposition in the middle where cost meets value. Those are hard but really fun discussions as well. None of this do I say that I'm perfect or Vermeer's perfect, but there are some things around that that we've done some good stuff with.

John Gough (17:09):

When you think about your tenure there and these roles that you've had around leading the product teams, leading the lifecycle teams and the marketing teams, is there a feature or a product that stands out to you where you just nailed innovation or one where you look back and you're like, "Well, that was my hobby horse and I was totally wrong."

Mark Core (17:29):

One of our most successful product launches ever, which is a long time ago now would've been in like 99, 2000 was not sure we'd use this name today, but we called it the Rebel Baler and it was a low cost as the lifestyler, the sundowner, the airline pilots were getting into acreages and so it wasn't high innovation from like a technology perspective. I would say it was high innovation that it found an easy to use price point that it was tough for anybody else to match. And we had a really fun run with that one. So that one was good. Self-propelled baler has been a lot of fun through our 4-H innovations group here to be able to take right here in the same facility that Gary Vermeer brought the round baler to the marketplace commercially for the first time is to also be the one of the self-propelled baler.

(18:31):

And so that one and not any of these necessarily was by any means was the only driver just happened to be part of good talent to be able to see these scenarios. We have an autonomous bale mover that is doing some really cool stuff that will eventually commercially launch and that's a part of that same group. And so those have been fun. But yeah, there's no doubt that I think about a couple options of balers that I thought were really critical that I thought I believe we would see significant adoption and we haven't. We're years into that now and we haven't. Gary Vermeer and there's T-shirts around here and he always said that if you're not failing half the time, you're not trying hard enough. And we definitely have that culture here. The reality is we get an advantage to not worry about reporting to the street on a quarterly basis and we get a chance to work for an organization that's so long-term in their thinking and so reasonable in their profit return expectations.

(19:42):

We have an environment that we can fail. And so I'm not sure we're great at celebrating the failures, but we're okay with the failures. And I've had plenty of those as hard as that is to admit, and not just in product innovation, but it could be different types of go-to-market strategies, different types of internal processes as well. So yeah, the longer you're around, the more you can list that. In our museum here, there's an area called the White Elephant Area and that was innovations that Gary had that failed. And that's actually, I think for a lot of our visitors, that's the most fun part of the museum. He had a product he called the Dinky Digger that was actually, it is, it was a mini excavator that failed, but he was just probably 10 years too early. And so there was a silo foundation digger and just a lot of different things.

(20:40):

So yeah, we all have them.

Kyler Mason (20:43):

Do you find with the culture of the organization and the heritage that you need to protect our challenges and balancing that with innovation or do you have a code or a method internally where you're able to push the envelop in a way that doesn't put pressure on the heritage?

Mark Core (21:01):

The reality is I am blessed to be a leader at an organization and I think about from a marketing perspective, a lot of the buzz lately is that the fact that all consumers are less trusting than maybe they've ever been. And of course it's social media and not AI and they don't know what to believe and they're skittish about trusting a brand. I get to market a brand that's built 78 years of trust, same ownership, doing things in a principled manner that's how people want to be treated is how the same as how we want to be treated as humans. So I get that extra advantage of marketing a brand that's built a long-term trust factor and it's been the same brand the whole time. I wouldn't say by any means that's fragile, but that's what I care about the most is that we don't do anything that would damage the value of a brand.

(22:08):

I remember when we did a branding study 11 or 12 years ago that when we rolled that out and the tagline is equipped to do more, but as we were learning about what branding is all about, I said to several groups of people that if you could have, we have a miles worth of buildings here. If somebody would give you all the buildings or the opportunity to use the brand name, which one would you use? And the brand name is an appreciable asset if managed properly, everything else around here depreciates. And so how we continue to appreciate that brand value over time. But I think back to like our family ownership and our board members and our leaders, they're very fine with innovation risk. Not fine with taking a product to the market that's not ready to the market, but to take risk and fail, that has not ever been a, "Hey, we need to preserve cash or we don't want to make any mistakes." I'd say it's actually more the opposite of that.

John Gough (23:21):

Yeah. It's really interesting to hear you describe innovation risk versus other kinds of risk because both of those could be perceived as brand risk. Bringing a product to the market that is not the right product is a very different experience for the customer than bringing a product to the market that is not ready for the market. And the way you protect the asset of your brand by saying, "Well, we're never going to release anything that is not of a particular quality or of a particular thoughtfulness might not be the right thing, but it's never going to be a bad thing." I think that's a special position to take and nuance in your strategy that's worth thinking about.

Mark Core (24:04):

The reality is we're a niche manufacturer and that brings a lot of fun and opportunity. There's some challenges with that as well, but a lot of these markets that we play it on the industrial side of our business and even Ag being solely focused on all things forage, we get a chance to enjoy and to be true experts in very defined markets. And so we think that's an advantage for us from a brand and a mass and a dealership network perspective, maybe there's some disadvantages of being as niche as we are as a specialist type organization. We talk about the fact that there is a balance between perfecting what you have to be bulletproof and as zero issues as possible versus pushing the envelope to try. In my mind, besides problem identification, we don't have one customer that has any extra time. They're all trying to reduce the time required to do their work and with labor constraints and scale and size and we're never going to quite get them there if we're not pushing the envelope to some degree.

John Gough (25:22):

Before we move on from innovation, I got to ask, which side of the business is harvesting Helium on the moon?

Mark Core (25:30):

Our CEO's side. No, that's been a really, really fun project. And the reason why I say our CEO, if you would listen to his story, he initially, he had a strong desire to be an astronaut when he got out of undergrad and then his master's and he worked for a part of the NASA organization and made a lot of connections from there. And he's just a big believer of if he would say it this way or not, but the moon economy, if you watch or paid attention to the recent venture to the moon, when they landed, there was a lot of discussion from experts about the moon economy. And so because of those connections, we got started in that project and it may or may not ever be something, but it has inspired us internally a lot. It's inspired a lot of external from a marketing, a brand.

(26:30):

When we throw those kinds of stories into social media or even stories about some of our innovations that are not even launched yet, that gets our biggest brand following. And so no, I can barely spell Helium, let alone all the components that they talk about within the regolith and everything else, but it's been for Vermeer, it's been a really interesting, fun project and I don't really don't think there's any doubt that some of that's going to happen at some point in time in the future

Kyler Mason (27:06):

With a Helium worth, what, 30 million per kilogram? I feel like the economics have got to work out at some point.

Mark Core (27:14):

Yeah. And obviously the shortage is what makes it worth that much and it's used in so many different things and there's so much private funding going into that. It'll be interesting, but if it's around building infrastructure on the moon or things around mining, an innovation niche company like this is the right partner for sure.

Kyler Mason (27:37):

How do you choose which dealership gets to carry the product?

Mark Core (27:42):

We were with some of our dealers and we have a very strong, very close relationship and we said, "Hey, it's open to any of you, but we're paying the same warranty travel to the moon as we are to anywhere in your territory. So it's your call."

John Gough (27:58):

For our listeners who may not be familiar with the whole inside joke that we just did, you all have a collaboration and we saw this at ConExpo. Kyler and I were there and saw the product and this incredible demonstration that you all had put on about a collaboration and equipment that is designed to mine Helium among other things from the moon and then transport it back. And it's at first glance certainly walking by, we were like, "Why are there moon rocks in the Vermeer booth?" But the story really is so cool.

Mark Core (28:31):

Yeah, it is. And yeah, I mean, it's at a separate side of the business. I think what's important is how that project works. It's not taking $1 out of our R&D and our innovation budgets for our current markets. So it's not redirecting who we're going to be. It's an additive factor that's been able to be experimented within our organization. So yeah, thanks for bringing it

Kyler Mason (28:58):

Up. That's so cool. I mean, innovation leading to brand building, that could be a better example. We were kind of briefly touching on dealers there a second. I'm curious, what challenges and opportunities are you seeing for your dealer base and how is Vermeer helping the dealer network take advantage of those or mitigate the challenges?

Mark Core (29:21):

Yeah, good question. It's interesting as a marketing leader and a business unit leader here is that we have two entirely different dealer networks. And so Gary Vermeer, his brother Harry, and then Bob and Mary as Gary, they did a phenomenal job building both dealer networks, but they're so different. The industrial side of the business, they are essentially pure in the North American market. They're pure to Vermeer. If you would drive around the country, you would see Vermeer Midwest or you would see Vermeer Allroads or Vermeer They're Heartland or they look like they're just an extension of Pella or other entities. And so with that, we get an unbelievable opportunity from a brand perspective. Again, if you would drive into Chesterfield, Missouri to that Vermeer Midwest, you didn't know if you drove into the Vermeer manufacturing company or you drove into a dealership. Not many have that.

(30:27):

If you think about the number of equipment brands, industrial or ag that are that pure, CAT obviously, but not many others are as pure besides us and CAD. And so from a marketing perspective, it's golden. But even though within though we are so many different markets, if you think about that we're marketing mini loaders and brush chippers and articulating loaders and multimillion dollar mining equipment and several hundred thousand dollar drills in the same dealer organization under the same brand. So there are still plenty of challenges about focus, how the brand is presented to those personas that can have some differences to them. So there's that side of the business. And then Gary Vermeer essentially at the invention of the round baler in 71, he started a farmer dealer network. So most of us would know that as how Pioneer went to market or DeKalb or any of the traditional ones.

(31:35):

A lot of us that were that or experienced that, that has evolved. We have very few of our several hundred dealers that would be considered farmer dealer, but the opportunity of Vermeer for a lot of our farmer dealers grew into a true equipment business. But there's no doubt that in that we fight for share, a share of mind because most all of them handle some additional products, sometimes competitive products, a lot of times just ancillary products that take time as well. And so how we market them, because I do believe for sure in agriculture, the influence of the dealer and as we talk about trust, what we can convince the marketplace from an OEM perspective is generally not even close to a dealer eye to eye in the agricultural space that says, "This is the product I believe in. They're the ones that are supporting me the best to allow me to support you as a customer." We've had great, like that voice is so critical.

(32:48):

So how we help our dealers be better marketers. I've said forever that a lot of smaller business in agriculture, whether you're talking about purebred and cattle operations or you're talking about mid-size local dealers, the problem with agricultural people is they're too humble and they work too hard. And generally marketing is not an interest of a small business owner, a midsize business owner or a big ranch, purebred ranch. They didn't get in the business to be marketers. Truthfully, we struggle a little bit here at this organization that the family's so humble that we probably don't get as bold with our story and what we believe in sometimes because of the humility that's involved. And so helping our dealers who love to get a baler back going a heck of a lot more than a social media post or a website design or whatever it may be, that's just a crazy interesting challenge to help them realize that all the blood, sweat, and tears should be great at supporting the marketplace.

(33:55):

They may not at times be getting the benefit of that because they're not willing to slow down and tell their story and tell our story at the same time. So that is definitely a unique challenge. Guys, we're an innovative company and we're a manufacturing company in niche markets. Marketing has never been like the number one priority of our organization. It was, hey, have the best, most innovative products out there, put distribution channels in that can take care of a customer and then we'll also tell our story. And so that's permeated some into our dealer organization as well. So as we ramp up all of our efforts to tell good stories, to create great content and tell good stories in a way that's very benefit driven is a journey for us.

John Gough (34:45):

Your roles through the company have had to inform that obviously in your first role there being dealer training. I'd love to hear about a dealer who taught you something about the business.

Mark Core (35:00):

So my first year here, I'll be honest with you, I was still missing the animal health business. I loved the people I worked with. I love to be chute side with cattle products. It fit my true love. And so trying to figure out this equipment thing and then let alone on the industrial side of the business. But I'd heard about this legend, Junior Cool. He was the owner of one of our larger dealers. He was one of the people that Gary Vermeer identified from working here that he felt like could go do really good things in a marketplace. So a video person from here and I drove over on a Friday afternoon and we were pulling a competitive piece of equipment that we'd acquired to do this video shoot on Saturday. And so we pull in to the dealership and I've got to run in and go to the bathroom.

(35:55):

And I come out and this is the owner and he's khaki pants and he's white Vermeer shirt. He had unloaded the drill, had chain rust all over his pants and he had pulled up his Suburban for us to take to the hotel. And I'm like, Junior, "We'll figure it out. We can unhook the trailer." He said, "Nope, I'll find a service truck to drive home. It's perfectly fine." And then a few years later as his next generation was taking over more of the business, we were at a meeting with them at their Goodfield store raining like heck out and we were over there and we had a rental car outside and we got ready to leave and Junior walks in and he's drenched and he had brought our rental car into a service bay and both of those times, because Junior has always been very clear if we're disappointing a customer, like he was always a strong, loud voice to make us better, but it's like, that's it.

(36:55):

That's the humility, that is the respect, that is like the brand values that has built the company Impella is what built that organization as well. And so I will never ever forget those two moments where respecting and other humans and people that you work with in a humble way, part of it is trying to sell more. I get that, but it's more than that. It's like it's creating space for people to do business together in a way that fits the values that built this organization.

John Gough (37:32):

You can't buy brand and you can't buy experience like that. You have to live that kind of thing over and over again and really understand and to attach yourself to it.

Mark Core (37:45):

Yeah. So we had several hundred customers here on what we call the Vermeer Mile and we know this. We know that there's not one thing in marketing that we do that is more valuable than bringing people here. And what I told the customers from the stage that this was not a product showcase, it was a people showcase. And the goal was is for them to better understand the brand that they're invested in and for us to better understand from them what their challenges are and if there's any way that we're not meeting their needs. And I'm often surprised by their... One of the fun things that happens every time we have this is that we're over at the founder's house in between the tool and Red Barns and a tent and our CEO stands up and makes a very, very, after he introduces other family members that their goal is to stay privately held essentially forever.

(38:42):

The customers start the applause organically and it's just every time that happens and then they just talk about like, "We can't believe our interaction with the people. " And maybe it's Iowa and Ice, maybe it's Midwestern nice, maybe it's that we're based in, I mean, right next to it's a hayfield and a cornfield no matter which side of the business that we're serving. But yeah, there's just something very, very special about our culture and how consumers see that. And if I was down to one line item left to do in this organization from a brand building and a market, all the dollars would be spent on bringing people to our facilities for sure.

Kyler Mason (39:29):

Cool brand experience. They got to feel the culture, the heritage. It probably makes them a lifer.

Mark Core (39:36):

Yeah, hopefully. Yeah.

John Gough (39:37):

And to your point about strategy, like what you just said is that's it. I'm going to make my bet there.

Kyler Mason (39:43):

With the dealers you were talking about earlier, I mean, we live in this world, so we call the industrial side, you're talking about like exclusive and then you have your mixed lot dealers and you said that their priority is not marketing. How do you help them? How do you help them with the tactics and the stuff that is time consuming and the learning curve is steep? What are you guys doing on that side to help?

Mark Core (40:07):

Yeah, good question. I think we've made a lot of advancements in the last three or four or five years. On the industrial side of the business, we had very few dealers had a defined marketing person. If we would have some sort of a marketing discussion and we might have a sales manager that was told to go to the marketing session or an assistant in the organization. So on the industrial side of the business, we started shared services where we were charging out and we would have a team of people here of marketers that would maybe have three of our dealers to start them to see how marketing could impact their business, both from a revenue and a margin perspective. And that has evolved now that I think all but one or two of our dealers now have full-time, if not one, but two marketing experts, marketing defined people in their organization.

(41:07):

And so that's been fun to watch and evolve. Then it's us understanding what their role is versus what the OEM's role is and be clear with that and to help support the things that they're trying to do. Would they say that they have unlimited budgets yet from the dealer owners or leaders and is marketing always a seat at the table? That's some opportunity yet, but the growth is there. On the ag side of our business, we've had a lot of success at what we call an opt-in program where these dealers, they get an opportunity to pick a level of marketing support from us and some of them are very natural at marketing and somebody, maybe a family member has a very good skillset at that and they're on their own and we're supporting them. But for many others, we've partnered with, "Hey, while you're out selling a baler or while you're trying to get a baler back going on a Saturday, let us tell your story." And so certainly we're always there with marketing training and the assets that we provide for them to utilize, but those are two areas that I've really seen a lot of movement in a fairly short timeframe.

Kyler Mason (42:19):

We have a lot of these conversations on that topic. What you do is rare. I don't know if you know that, but that's really unique and I'm sure a competitive advantage for you.

Mark Core (42:28):

For our dealers, we care about them being successful. No doubt we also care to be successful, but we really enjoy watching them tell their story better tomorrow than they did today and seeing the benefits of that. But thank you.

Kyler Mason (42:48):

That's cool. Yeah. It's a lot of like, here are your co-op dollars, stay on brand.

Mark Core (42:54):

Yeah. No, and we have a history of that as well. So I think about my 30 years when I started, we had a couple people that they managed the Yellow Pages program. So we helped pay for dealers to be in the Yellow Pages. You think about the advancement from that timeframe for sure. And then the co-op thing that was never very strategic and to the point that we are now, it's been nice progression for us for sure. Lots of improvement needed to happen yet, but it's been nice progression.

John Gough (43:29):

That's sweet.

Kyler Mason (43:30):

What's the hardest thing you're working on right now?

Mark Core (43:32):

As a quote marketing leader here, the thing that I continue to try to battle in my head and with my marketing leaders is the value and the measurement of brand level marketing. I don't think there's any doubt that the goal of any organization that sells something, you really want as many customers to make a decision at the brand level as you possibly can. And I always use the analysis that once you have to start comparing specs and features and options between competitors, you never really get comfortable with your decision once you've had to go that deep. And so the first time that that product disappoints you, it really disappoints you because you weren't sold at the brand level. And so understanding how to get as many people to fall through that funnel really quick because they're sold at the brand level and then how you influence brand level.

(44:32):

We spend most of our resources from a Marcom perspective at the product level. And I've always been a big believer that marketing and brand management is a multitude of things, right? How high quality and how well trained a sales rep is, what invoices look like, what vehicles your dealers are driving, how you show up in conversations. Sometimes we get so focused and even especially in today's world about where we're at with certain social media metrics and how we're doing drip campaigns and how we're studying that and connecting and we lose sight of the fact that brand management is so many things that affect the customer's image of the brand and some of those are like no cost, right? What's our voicemail and our phones sound like when we're representing a brand? I really get giddy. We call it Free 99, but what are those influences to the marketplace of our brand on just simple, simple things?

(45:39):

But back to your question, it's just understanding percentage of budget, percentage resources to market brand at the brand level and then how to measure that. I'm later career, but I got to get that figured out before I'm done to feel... I've watched some people in the ag space that I think have done a phenomenal job at that. And then I look at our success and like maybe we don't need to super invest based on unaided awareness and some of those kinds of things.

Kyler Mason (46:12):

If you figure it out, will you let us know?

Mark Core (46:14):

Yeah, for sure. Write a book.

Kyler Mason (46:17):

Yeah. I think a lot of it is a belief system and like tying your strategy to that.

Mark Core (46:24):

Yeah. No, I would agree. And I have zero data to support this, but I've said it for 30 some years. Half the reason you do true marketing activities is clarity and inspiration internally. The other half is trying to create inspiration externally and try to ignite excitement about who you are, but there's a big need to make sure everybody's on the same page about what your brand stands for and for them to be super pumped internally about what you stand for. That's

Kyler Mason (46:59):

Good stuff. What are we forgetting, John?

John Gough (47:02):

One of the things that sounds like you and the team around you are really good at is deciding what's important. That's a strategy choice, getting rid of the noise and then keeping that same thing the main thing for long enough that it just becomes the thing that has always been. I think for storied brands like Vermeer that persist over generations, one of the things that has to happen is they have to hit a point where it's just always been that way, where you have some sort of legacy or generational memory of why we choose Vermeer is it's always been that way. But what the picture behind you reminds us is that it actually hasn't and it hasn't been that long that way for that long. It requires people to show up and make a choice and then make it that same thing all the time so that it becomes obvious to everybody around them that that's going to be the thing to your point about clarity, which I just love.

Mark Core (48:04):

Yeah. I'd probably have to protect myself here. I think if you asked people internally, if I'm a details person, they would say no. They would say like on the Herrmann Brain spectrum, I'm as about as yellow as you can get. And so some of my challenges I'm an idea person and sometimes when they're trying to stay consistent with what we've said is going to make us different or whatever it may be, I'm over here with a million more ideas for sure. But yeah, there's the balance of staying true. The family here talks about their 4P philosophy and that everything is built around and that's principles in the middle and then it is people at the top of that and it's product and then it's profit. The family doesn't shy away from the fact that even though it's family held and very financially secure, that profit's important to reinvest back in the business.

(49:06):

And that really is what is the constant in this organization, particularly centered in principles in the middle. And then how we balance the constant with pushing the envelope to be the same on what matters and how we are built and who we can be and who we are with the challenge of reinventing ourselves at times to help the dealers in the marketplace.

John Gough (49:33):

I think we got to land it there. Mark, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us.

Mark Core (49:38):

Yeah,

Kyler Mason (49:38):

This is great. Thanks, man.

John Gough (49:39):

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:

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.