Rental Equipment Register

Writing obituaries is a necessary part of the profession of journalism, and not a particularly fun one, especially when it involves someone you knew. I started to write the word “know,” rather than “knew” since it’s hard to think of someone who recently died in the past tense. But, one might say, death is part of life and the best way to remember someone is to celebrate who they were. more…

Sumitomo Corp. has acquired a minority ownership in Phoenix-based Sunstate Equipment. This news will be up shortly on RER’s website at www.rermag.com. The investment is a significant investment in the United States rental industry at a time when capital is hard to come by for most rental companies. more…

Over the past few years, the American Rental Association has inducted quite a few worthy people into its rental Hall of Fame. Industry pioneers such as Leonard Hawk and Sam Greenberg, Bill Grasse and John Doran, manufacturers such as Ed Mahlzahn and Irv Levine, and many others who have contributed to the development of the rental industry. more…

After a second round of third-quarter 2009 financial results were released last week, the RER Reports Stock Block reported declines by all but two of the companies it reports Friday-ending results for each week. The two companies whose stocks were up over the previous week at the close of the market on Friday were Gorman-Rupp Co., which the previous week reported a 23.9-percent decline in sales over its third-quarter 2008 sales, but last week declared a quarterly cash dividend of 10.5 cents per share on the common stock — its 239th consecutive dividend paid to shareholders — and Qualcomm, which closed 1.5-percent higher than the previous week at $41.33. Qualcomm began its fiscal 2010 first quarter on Sept. 28. more…

The report that came out last week from IHI Global Insights (see more detail at http://rermag.com/trends_analysis/headlinenews/construction-job-loss-study-100209) was fascinating in considering the depth of the recession in the construction equipment industry, which has suffered 8 percent of the job losses during the recession in the United States. That’s an amazing number, and it’s far more than have been lost in the automobile manufacturing industry, which has gotten an immense amount of media attention. I don’t know how many commentaries I’ve read about the potential for catastrophe should one of the Big Three go out of business and how the government bailing it out is almost a matter of national survival (bringing back the old saying ‘what’s good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A.). And how many have pointed out the potential number of vendors to the car manufacturers that would suffer, the number of people that would go out of work, and on and on. more…

When the phone isn’t ringing at a business, the company can increase its sales efforts to try to make it ring more by chasing business aggressively. In the current economic environment, as many rental companies will attest, there still isn’t enough business to be found when customers finish jobs and have no new jobs to replace the recently completed ones. Business in such circumstances need to try to adapt to changing times by enhancing their portfolio of services or at least re-package them in different ways. more…

I highly recommend you check out the AED Executive Forum in Chicago, Sept. 10-11. I’ve gone almost every year since the forums started about a decade ago and every year I learn something. It certainly will make you think and most of the people I talk to that attend the forum get some valuable ideas they can apply to their businesses or at least think about their businesses in a new way. more…

For those of you who are CEOs or owners of your companies, let me ask one question: Are you the smartest person in your company? Some of you probably are and that’s how you got to be CEO, but for those who answer that question with a “no”, I think you’re on the right track. As one rental company owner once said to me, “I sure as hell hope I’m not the smartest one here, because then we’d be in a world of trouble.” more…

One of my “bucket list” items is to visit every one of the 50 states and to really get a feel for the culture and the people that live in each state. I had the privilege recently to visit a state that was new to me, but definitely not new to the people who work for Bobcat. The company invited me to travel to Bismarck, N.D., for a media event filled with product introductions as well as some of the local flare. The new Bobcat products, which include the M-Series loaders and excavators and the E60 and E80 excavators, and will be featured in the July issue of RER, did not disappoint, and neither did the state of North Dakota. more…

I’ve been vocal about the importance of the sales staff of rental companies continuing to market the services of your company and getting in front of customers as much as ever during this downturn, if not more. In my opinion, the worst thing a company can do is get into a “nobody’s doing business so why should I waste my time and money marketing” type of mentality. All studies have shown that’s the worst thing a company can do in any kind of business. Now more than ever is the time to be beating the pavement, getting out in front of customers and making sure that your customer knows that you are out there, vital and confident and going forward. more…