Motor Show Syndrome

Here’s an interesting point picked up from a customer of mine that suffers every four years.  The problem is that there’s a huge show in Germany every leap year.  This heralds every major player’s new products.  It’s big ticket capital equipment, and customers in that industry tend not to buy anything in the year leading up to the big event, preferring to wait and see what wonderful new kit is launched.

The issues for reps are that orders can dry up, creating an unhappily barren few months, as buyers put off decisions.

They way they grapple with this focuses on exposing a business case that shows:

• we’ve looked at what you want, and the new features shows there’s not much change in that area
• if you wait, the price will inevitably go up, and there’ll be the usual longer lead-times than now
• you can take a system now and we can work out a trade-in for say 18 months time when you’ll have made money back already
• what we have now works for you and your plans now too