Trade and fleet
Represent the range in your market
You hold the customer relationship and the local knowledge. We hold the specification, the approval route and the build. A dealer arrangement is a division of exactly those two things, and it works or fails on where the line sits.
The failure to design out is this: the dealer sells a unit the factory cannot build to the rules of the country it was sold into, and the argument about whose problem that is happens after a deposit has been taken.
So the line here is drawn before anything is sold. The approval route for your market is established and published before you quote a customer, and if it cannot be established you are told before you quote.
What is ours
And stays ours
The specification and the drawing
Yours to sell from, ours to own and to keep consistent. A customer configuring in your market gets the same unit a customer in ours does.
The approval route, established before you quote
Named authority, named instruments, and what has to exist at manufacture rather than afterwards. Each country's route is published, so you can read it before you commit to anything.
The build and the inspection
Placed against the published standard, with inspection and quality-control arrangements confirmed in the written order.
One point of contact
One person for the whole account rather than a different one for the specification, the shipment and the problem.
What is yours
And stays yours
The customer, and the relationship
You quote, you close, you handle the customer through the build. We do not go around you to somebody you introduced.
Local knowledge we do not have
What sells in your market, what it is used for, what the local authority actually asks for on the day. That is the half we cannot buy.
Handover and first line support
You are in the country and we are not. Anything that needs somebody standing next to the unit is yours.
Your own name on the invoice
You are a dealer, not an agent. You buy the unit and you sell it.
What we will not do
Said before it matters
- Sell into your territory behind you once an arrangement is agreed, or quote a customer you introduced.
- Ask you to hold stock against a forecast neither of us has committed to in writing.
- Ask for exclusivity in the other direction. Your other suppliers are your business.
- Ask you to carry a rejection that came from our drawing rather than from your sale.
- Publish a discount schedule on a website.
No prices here
They belong in a contract
Discounts, minimum quantities, margins and payment percentages belong in a contract with a named counterparty. A number published to everybody is a number negotiated with nobody, and it would be wrong for most of the people reading it.
What is set out instead is the shape of the arrangement, which is what you need before you spend an afternoon on it. Supplier terms follow the same rule.
Questions
Asked before an arrangement, not after
Is the territory exclusive?
That is a conversation rather than a policy. Exclusivity is worth something to you and costs us something, so it is priced and it is written down, with what has to be true for it to continue.
Who holds the approval?
It depends on the market and it is established before you quote. In several countries the importer may hold it in their own right, which can be you or can be us, and that decision changes who carries what afterwards.
What happens when a unit is wrong?
A rejection names the requirement and the evidence. If it came from our drawing or our inspection it is ours. If it came from a change agreed locally without a variation in writing it is not, which is the reason variations are in writing.
Can we brand the units?
Yes, and it is a separate arrangement with its own terms. It is on the white label page.
Tell us the market and the volume
Which country, how many units a year, and what you sell now. That is enough for a first conversation and it is enough for us to say no quickly if it is not a fit.