Thompson Tractor's sales and successes in the past two years.
Eric Hutcheson, a salesman at Thompson Tractor in Alabama recently started representing the Green Climbers for Thompson Tractor. As a CAT Dealership, Green Climbers were able to fit into their established innovatory. Their dealership already offered large size mulchers, brush cutters, and remote-control skid steers, yet they were missing specialized slope equipment.
"I started looking around and I found Green Climber online,” said Eric. “Green Climber has bigger machines than just a little, small mower, and it went more in tune with what we do. Fortunately, Marty [Green Climber President] was looking for a dealership for Alabama and the panhandle of Florida.”
Over the course of two years, Eric and his team have sold six Green Climbers to contractors and with multiple units going to the Alabama Power Company.
“Alabama Power had these slope mowers for their dams,” said Eric. “These were specialty rubber tire type mowers that have like triple wheels on the back so they could go up these slopes. Now they don't make them anymore, these machines were made overseas, and you can't import them because of tier four issues. Alabama Power was looking for a solution to replace those and I found Green Climber. I contacted Marty, since then, we've introduced them to Alabama Power, and we ended up selling machines.” With this rapid sale, Eric feels confident in the Green Climber’s capabilities as a successful machine and a profitable piece of equipment.
“We went out and did two or three demos, at two or three different dams across the state. And then, we just we got like, four or five orders out of that demo run.”
Owning such advanced and technically complex machines usually leads to problems and breakdowns, especially after prolonged hours of use, yet Eric was surprised when the Green Climber units have not been sent back for any major repairs yet.
“We brought in four or five new machines, delivered all these specialty attachments,” said Eric. “We haven't even had a hydraulic leak. I'm a CAT Dealer, I deal with machines every day, I've had all kinds of problems. When you make something with that much hydraulics and electronics on it and be able to, sell as many as we have and not even an issue, is a pretty good deal.”
Yet with all this progress, once the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country, Eric and his team felt a slowdown in sales and demos as everyone tried to adjust to the new pace of life forced upon them.
“We probably would have already sold more, but once COVID hit, the power company has been very restrictive on their visitations, demo, and budget dollars. At least they are starting to go back to normal. I used to just call somebody and two days later, there we’d be doing a demo with 20 people. Now that's almost impossible.”
Eric has hope for the future as the Green Climbers he has sold have been running reliably and the customer interest in the machines has continued to increase.
"I expect before the end of the year, we'll probably sell three more,” said Eric. “There's several more dams without mowers. Once you introduce something like that to Alabama Power, they'll start ordering them regularly. The size of these dams is so steep, nothing else would be able to sit up there and cut this grass. Green Climber’s of the low center of gravity, the way you can let the tracks expand on the machines makes them the best fit.”
Comments