GIE 2005: A Conversation with Gregg Breningmeyer

The John Deere Worldwide Commercial & Consumer Division, Cary, N.C., announced the appointment of Gregg Breningmeyer to director, commercial segment marketing, effective Nov. 1.

Lawn & Landscape took the opportunity to sit down with Breningmeyer at the Green Industry Expo in Orlando, Fla., to discover his plans for driving growth and profitability in the commercial mowing and golf and turf businesses, as well as upcoming integrating sales and marketing activities for the entire John Deere commercial product line.

According to Breningmeyer, “the professional lawn care and landscape industry is still experiencing robust growth, and it could be that way for five or 10 more years,” he says. “There is a lot of competition out there in terms of mowers, but it shakes out to three to five major players who are getting 95 percent of the business. We are in that group, but we still think there are improvements we can make to further grow our brand.”

An example Breningmeyer gives is crossover marketing. “If a landscape contractor is doing a ton of business with our John Deere Landscapes division, then when he walks into a John Deere dealership, we need to know that he’s already a John Deere customer, and we should treat him in a special and different way. We need to instantly be able to recognize the fact that he’s already an important customer of John Deere.”

To figure out what it takes to set up a system of customer recognition and appreciation, John Deere is launching a pilot program, Breningmeyer says. “From here, we hope to reorganize the organization more around our customer segments instead of basing it on how much more product we can sell,” he explains, adding that in addition to landscape contractors, the commercial group includes government and golf professionals.

This pilot program has three parts, Breningmeyer points out. First, John Deere plans to invest more in market research to learn about its customers. Second, Ken Taylor, the division’s business segment manager, is going to spend the next six months figuring out some specific client recognition methods that can take place at the dealership. “Even if we have a very strong relationship with a customer in one market segment, we don’t feel as if that’s enough – we want to give them more,” Breningmeyer explains. “Ken is going to try different things and figure out how we can collect the right data in order to enable us to become unique partners with our customers.”

The company’s third focus is on continued product development. “We want to keep on improving,” adds Breningmeyer, who has served the Commercial and Consumer Equipment Division in many roles since joining John Deere in 1988, including territory manager, national account manager, regional sales manager, marketing manager for commercial mowing and director of sales and marketing for golf and sports turf products – his most recent assignment.

Because he realizes that the customer experience ultimately happens at the commercial dealer’s shop, Breningmeyer says John Deere will also continue to focus on making improvements in this area. “We have a Gold Star program where we have dealer standards in place and we audit their performance and motivate them to do better,” he says. “We will continue to use these methods to ensure that our customers have consistent experiences at all John Deere dealerships.”

Though Breningmeyer feels that John Deere customers are already extremely loyal, he says, “I want to go where no one else has gone before. We want to build a better alliance with our customers. We want a win – and a sustainable one at that.”

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