BEI Pros PROS ELITE 100 Dealers Surpass $800 million in Total Revenues The PROs Elite 100 Dealer Network and its selection of the first 40 markets have resulted in a group of dealers that have combined total revenues of over $800 million.  There’s an overwhelming response from dealers to become a part of PROs Elite 100 program, which benchmarks the best service organizations in the United States and then turns that dealer’s service excellence into the ultimate differentiator in their marketplace to drive equipment sales. Jerry Newberry “The return on investment a dealer receives, from our initial on-site assessment of their service organization, is enough to make a dealer an Elite customer for life,” says Jerry Newberry, President of BEI Pros and the Managing Partner of the PROs Elite 100 executive team.  “Once we finish the on-site assessment, we have identified massive productivity and profitability opportunities in 100% of the cases. We then develop custom designed action plans and execution oversight to insure the dealers realize the opportunities we identify.  Upon a dealer achieving the PROs Elite 100 certification, they receive the benefit of having exclusivity as the only PROs Elite dealership in their market. In addition, the PROs executive team will then develop a powerful national and local marketing campaign outlining the commitment this dealer has made to ensure they provide a level of service that is unmatched by any other competitors within their market.”                                                                                                                        Jeff Kelly “Our virtual sales call, where we participate in the sales presentation to our dealers’ sales prospects accounted for over $2,000,000 in equipment sales for our first group of certified Elite 100 dealers in the first 2 months”, says Steve Rolla, a partner in the PROs Elite executive team.  “This is the most significant activity I have ever been a part of in my 40 year career.  We are positioning 100 dealers in North America to have the competitive advantage over mega-dealers and direct organizations.” International Reach “The PROs Elite 100 program has extended into the international arena as well with dealers in Australia and Canada, with ongoing conversations with other dealers in those regions and even Europe,” says Jeff Kelly, a partner in the PROs Executive team.  “Utilizing Service as the ultimate differentiator in a selling environment is more important than ever in this challenging economic environment.” Steve Rolla Selection Process “We slowed the selection process to catch up with the demand for certification from the first 40 dealers we selected,” says Newberry. “Recently, we have made tremendous investments in developing a designated website for our Elite 100 dealers to drive their customers to. The sole purpose of this web site is to provide a resource in which PROs Elite dealers can have their current and potential customers understand the commitments the dealership has made to achieve this prestigious status and the benefits a PROs Elite 100 customer will receive.  We also brought in a Service/Operations and IT expert to drive our PIVOT (Performance Improvement Virtual Operations Tool) software, which helps us audit our Elite 100 dealers’ service performance on an ongoing basis.  Dealers like how we become their ongoing conscience and coach and not their critic. When we see a slip in execution we quickly go into a coaching mode with the dealer and bring their performance back to the PROs benchmarks.   Rolla says the selection process for the remaining markets will begin again in August. “Several candidates with varying size in total revenue or the product they sell in the market have been recommended to us by manufacturers, other PROs Elite 100 dealers, and other suppliers.  We have dealers with sales of $2 million and as large as $50 million in the first group of dealers we selected,” says Rolla. “All credible dealers will be considered with a process that begins with a very low-key conference call where we explain the process for certification. We then ask the dealer to consider the commitments they will have to make to become a part of this Elite group and we begin our due diligence of the dealer.  After the discovery and evaluation process with the candidate, we then choose either to move forward or go our separate ways. Dealerships are selected based on specific criteria and performance thresholds; it’s that simple. We then translate these service improvements into a vehicle that will utilize service as the ultimate differentiator in the market and as a source for increased revenues and overall improvements in GP.  How It Began In February of 2009, hard work and preparation came together for Jerry Newberry and Jeff Kelly, the partners of BEI PROS as they set out to enhance the value they offered their service consulting and training clients. “We have a combined experience of performing assessments and designing custom action plans for over 250 Dealerships,” said Kelly. “Each of them had similar issues with managing productivity, critical expenses and setting expectations. After completing the first few On Site assessments, Jerry and I realized that all of these issues stem from a lack of training available to service management and we began the development of the three day Advanced Service Management Training Program to elevate Service Manager skill sets. To date, over 300 Service Managers, VPs of Service and Presidents from over 200 dealerships have attended the training. The demand for our training became so overwhelming that Jerry and I began a search for an additional resource to help us meet the ever-growing requests for training slots.” “I had heard that Steve Rolla had left Global Imaging Systems in January and Jeff and I started to recruit him immediately,” said Newberry. “Steve was one of the most successful Presidents during my time at Global. His organization won the coveted Chairman’s award and his company was the perennial profit leader at 20% bottom line. Most importantly, Steve’s background was service. Steve led the nation’s largest independent dealer (A-Copy) for over 10 years setting the standard for other companies to follow. In 1992, Steve and Tom Johnson co-authored a manual on Service Operations that became known as the Service benchmarking model that all dealers strive to achieve today. During one of our recruiting visits with him, we asked Steve to review the results our consulting practice had on our dealer clients. I have to admit we were surprised by his comments.” “I told Jerry and Jeff that they had done an exceptional job of working with their dealer clients to achieve some of the best level of service, productivity, and profitability results I had ever seen,” said Rolla. “I then told them that they had only fixed half of a dealer’s concerns when in fact they had the whole fix available in my opinion. They had contributed millions of dollars to their dealer clients’ bottom lines but had not translated their dealer’s newfound service excellence into market growth dominance. They had in essence assisted in the development of the best service organizations anywhere and to my way of thinking it was being kept a secret. “ “Back in March of 2009, Steve built a process whereby we could use our expertise to identify the top 100 independent dealers’ service organizations in the United States,” said Newberry. “We would also offer exclusivity by restricting the certification process to the single dealership we select in each market. Local ownership, local decision making authority, local warehousing, dispatch and administration were bare minimum criteria for selection. The most important criteria for achieving PROs ELITE 100 certification is the on-site or remote assessment, the development of a customized action plan focused on putting the processes, accountability and measurement systems in place that we know will result in the achievement of PROs benchmark standards, the completion of sales and service training components and utilizing PROs proprietary Performance Improvement Virtual Operations Tool (PIVOT) to drive operational performance and profits to an elite level,” continued Newberry. “No one in the industry has our experience of going in and out of over 200 companies, over the past 12 years, and driving operational performance and profits to benchmark performance or better. This gives our PROs Elite 100 program a level of substance and proven systems that is unmatched in the industry and brings great value to our Elite 100 Certification,” said Newberry. Once a dealer achieves certification, we publish their accomplishment in National Industry Resources to draw out the nationwide significance of their achievement. We will also assist in local marketing efforts with sales collaterals that speak to the dealer’s commitment to achieve PROs ELITE 100 Status. Other collaterals will spell out for a customer just how important doing business with a PROs ELITE 100 organization can be for them. On the day of certification, the dealer receives an extravagant award for display in their showroom and their employee organization is trained, on site, in elite customer skills. In addition the sales organization will be trained in the selling tactics utilized to sell this ultimate differentiator. Dealer principals of these Elite 100 will participate in best practice seminars conducted throughout the country and have unlimited access to the PROs team for guidance on all aspects of a dealer’s operation. “Our team of experts has a skill set that is unique to the industry,” said Newberry. “There is not another organization of individuals that has the track record of success and the experience level of maximizing operational performance and profitability in service. Global Imaging Systems was the most profitable consolidator in the industry and my primary responsibility was to go into all acquired companies and work with the management team to drive back end improvements which was a key contributor to Global’s success.” The program received copyright approval in September 2009, assuring content protection from pretenders to the process and the concept was announced at the CDA meeting in Cabo San Lucas on October 30th. PROs Elite 100 is not only the first certification program, it is the only certification program developed solely to turn Dealer Service Excellence into the ultimate differentiator in the market and increase equipment sales. “We were pleasantly surprised by the reach of the initial announcement. We had 57 applications for selection in the first three weeks of November. In December, we selected 17 of these dealers to be part of the first wave of certified Dealers. We are proud of the fact that the selection process for the initial group of dealers had in it two International candidates further expanding the significance of this group,” said Kelly. The recognition of the value of the program continued in December when Kyocera Mita USA agreed to allow their dealers to utilize MDF programs to take advantage of the training programs in the PROs ELITE 100 certification process. “With current economic conditions and the negative impact it is having on sales, the stiff competition provided by the mega dealers and others in the marketplace, we feel it is necessary to prepare an Elite group of these Independents to fight them off using service as the ultimate differentiator, and make that offering exclusive to them in their market,” said Newberry. “In every case, our consulting results has more than paid for the Certification process, and still leaves enough behind for a fancy European sports car,” said Newberry. However, Rolla was quick to add, “Any dealer that could not take the massive advantage of being recognized as one of the Top 100 dealers in the United States, and be the only dealer in that market eligible to be selected for that award and turn that into one additional equipment Sales a month should not even think about achieving PROs ELITE 100 status. This is unquestionably a Service Program that will result in equipment Sales.” Any Dealer Interested in learning more about the Selection Process may contact: Steve Rolla at Steve.Rolla@beipros.com  Jerry Newberry at Jerry.newberry@beipros.com  Jeff Kelly at jeff.kelly@beipros.com or visit webiste www.BEIPROS.com