CRA President’s Message October 2015

The people  that work so very hard to make it a success deserve many kudos, including CRA Manitoba President Kelly Dwyer, vice-president Denise Hiraoka and secretary-treasurer Stacey, as well as suppliers Tony Gudel from Hilti and Jason Enns from Multiquip. (If I missed someone deserving accolades, please forgive me.) These people, time and time again, overachieve at putting together a remarkable tournament and meal. Kudos to all and a bow to the staff and management of Southwood who always make us feel at home. It was also great to see the suppliers who made the trek from their home provinces to attend and show their support. We were blessed to have Nathalie McGregor, the CRA managing director, along with two long-time rental people who have just recently retired in Roland Campbell, formerly of United Rentals, and Wayne Becket of Flaman Rentals and Sales (formerly Wayne’s Rentals from Moosomin, Sask.).These people just added to the flavour of a great day. Both the golf and the weather were terrific.

One of the reasons I mention this tournament is that CRA local golf days are a absolutely ideal time to invite potential new members to come out, mix and mingle and generally enjoy themselves in a very relaxed atmosphere. With fall and winter fast approachin, we are all getting back to setting up regular board meetings and elections for a lot of the locals. Having potential new people out to golf tournaments or other informal social outings is a perfect prelude.

Fall is also a great time for review in many facets of your rental business. It’s a good time to grade yourself and your business. Think about how you did not only financially but also in many other facets of your business. Are you on track with your numbers? How about staff training? Are your personnel reviews complete? It is a good time to look at equipment needs for winter. Are your heater orders placed? Heading into the home stretch is always a good time to reflect, review and adjust where necessary to make sure you are on track for year-end. It is also a great time of year to get your customers along with suppliers out for a fall open house.

Inviting customers to an open house is a perfect time for an annual heater orientation. The start of the winter season never fails to generate a flood of heater service calls. Having a pre-season orientation and review tends to cure a lot of these service calls. Power supply and issues with the gas, regulator or fuel pressure seem to cause more issues than the actual unit. Orientation sessions also give suppliers a chance to obtain great feedback from your staff and service personnel, not to mention your customers. They appreciate the chance to learn about your products and you receive a great marketing opportunities for new products that they can tell their friends about.

By the time you read this, I will have attended the CRA/ARA inaugural summit meetings as well as the CRA board meetings in September. I certainly am looking very forward to both and know I will have some great information and feedback to pass along in the next issue.

Have a great last gasp at summer and let’s hope fall will be a classic. 

Dave Mintenko is senior branch manager of Hertz Equipment Rentals in Winnipeg and national president of the Canadian Rental Association. He has been in the rental business for 35 years.