If you've ever mowed your lawn, tilled your garden, or cleared snow from your driveway, odds are that you've probably used an MTD Product. An 80-year-old company based in Ohio, MTD is one of the world's leading manufacturers of outdoor power equipment, ranging from riding lawnmowers to tillers to log splitters. You see their brands in your local lawn and garden equipment dealer, home improvement, and hardware stores across the globe.

Their business has been historically driven by channel sales, relying on their vast dealer and distributor network to connect with their customers. The challenge was that they didn't really have a clear line of sight on who their end consumers were, or what MTD products they were already using. This resulted, many times, in acquiring the same customer over and over with each purchase they made - treating each transaction as a completely separate customer. What they lacked was a lifetime view of the engagement they had with consumers.

Then, they deployed the Salesforce Platform, which enabled MTD to compliment channel sales with a direct-to-consumer e-commerce model that empowered, rather than conflicted with, their valuable network of dealers and distributors. Senior Director of Customer Engagement, Jason Belsito explains it like this:

“Before Salesforce, we focused heavily on a brand message to drive consumers to our dealers and partners. Now, we have rich consumer interactions and the tools necessary to execute a direct-to-consumer model that incorporates our channels, eliminating conflict. Now, in addition to driving consumers to purchase through traditional channels, we can also take orders from consumers online. This is a completely different way of going to market for us, and Salesforce has been a big part of that transformation.”

Recognizing the power of their partner and distributor network, Belsito and the MTD team created an online selling model that leverages their dealers to fulfill orders directly from their Salesforce Platform. That means a better experience for consumers who want to shop online, and also cost savings for the business, reducing shipping and handling time and costs and driving more margin for both MTD and their dealers.

“The reason why MTD has been so successful and has accomplished what we have in such a short amount of time is that this initiative is being driven by the business and by business challenges,” Belsito says. “We've reimagined our business model in a way that empowers dealers and the end consumer.”

Today, MTD is using Sales Cloud and Community Cloud to unlock the value of their dealer community and Marketing Cloud to engage with consumers. This summer, they're launching Service Cloud as the next step in their transformation to bring their customers unparalleled support.

But this is just a part of how MTD is innovating with Salesforce. Want to hear more from Jason Belsito about how MTD Products uses Salesforce to grow their business and mow over the competition? Join us at the Salesforce Chicago World Tour on June 15th at McCormick Place. Registration is free at salesforce.com/events/worldtour/chicago/