How Two CNH Dealers Rebuilt Their Sales Process Around Quoting

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On this episode of Beyond the Hood, host Andy Campbell sits down with two equipment dealers who know each other well (Kathryn Hesebeck of Johnson Tractor and Pat McCrabb of J.J. Nichting) to dig into a part of the sale that's easy to shortcut and expensive to get wrong: The quote. 

Their dealerships sit in similar geographies on opposite sides of the Driftless region, but they’re in agreement that the quote is the actual deal.

Why "the quote is the deal"? 

The relationship and the verbal conversation still matter, but it's the quote that cements the agreement. It documents the parameters, removes questions from the table, and cuts down the "telephone game" that happens when more than one person is deciding. 

As Kathryn points out, it's rarely one person anymore; there's almost always a spouse, a child, a parent, or a hired hand in the background. A clear quote lets the customer take the deal home and get their answers without the salesperson in the room. Pat's version: Communicate with "duct tape on your mouth. That is, give people enough up front that they don't have to call. If they're calling constantly, the quote wasn't done right.

Skipping the quote just moves the pain downstream.

Salespeople love to skip the quote to save time, and the front-end deal can still feel fine on the verbal handshake. The trouble shows up when the deal reaches service, parts, and accounting, including missing attachments, equipment delivered "not as promised," and a lot of awkward back-end conversations. Complexity makes it worse: as Pat puts it, a magnum isn't just a magnum anymore, with far more codes and options than the days when "a 1086 was a 1086."

Start with the appraisal, not the spec sheet. 

Both dealerships flipped the order of operations: Deals now begin with a trade appraisal, move to a qualifying step (Pat calls it the DAQ), and only then become a quote, so the team isn't building quotes it doesn't need. Kathryn's favorite report in Anvil Pro, titled "Appraisals Without Quotes," is a built-in checkpoint. Because, if you took the time to appraise a machine, why isn't it quoted? 

Anvil Pro's integration with their business system pulls in stock units, costing, and specs so data isn't entered twice, and one-click service and trucking requests keep PDIs, orientations, and setup costs from getting forgotten and eating margin.

Consistency and visibility across multiple rooftops. 

Running 13 stores, Kathryn's team leaned on consistent, branded quotes to keep one salesperson from underselling another by $5,000 on the same unit, and to keep the dealership from becoming its own worst competition. Both dealers stress that visibility isn't just "big brother" for managers; it's just as valuable to the salesperson, who can pull up a past quote or check activity on a unit in seconds instead of hunting through folders.

Getting to adoption: Build a tool, not a weapon. 

Getting a team to actually use the system is the perennial hurdle. The answer of these dealers is part carrot, part stick. Identifying a sale is a hard requirement, and contests drive the practice that builds comfort. Johnson Tractor's March Madness–style quoting bracket ended with the winner increasing sales 30% that month, simply from quoting more.

Advice for dealers thinking about a change

Kathryn's advice is to rip the band-aid off and start somewhere, because it will never be perfect and the real value is tailoring the system to your dealership. Pat's is to dream the end state first; his team flowcharted the entire sales process, then made the system serve it. Tellingly, both dealers run the exact same product in completely different ways.

Recorded in late summer 2026, the conversation closes on where large ag is headed. They discuss the trend towards customers consolidating into fewer, bigger, more tech-savvy operations that expect fast, expert support, as well as business-to-business relationships becoming as important as the personal one, because buyers now shop coast to coast if a problem can't be solved locally. Both are optimistic, and both are trying to stay a step ahead.

About our guests

Kathryn Hesebeck, Johnson Tractor 

Kathryn is a third-generation leader at Johnson Tractor, a family-owned dealership that has grown from a one-to-two-store operation into 13 locations across central and southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The dealership represents Case IH, New Holland, Kubota, and Kinze, along with several short lines gained through acquisitions, and serves both cash-crop and consumer markets. With roughly 250 employees (about 40 on the sales team),  Kathryn wears a lot of hats, but spends most of her time leading the retail business, working day-to-day with the sales team, and managing Johnson Tractor's OEM relationships.

Pat McCrabb, J.J. Nichting 

Pat is the general manager of J.J. Nichting, a family-owned dealership founded in 1920 with five stores across eastern Iowa. Focused almost entirely on Case IH and New Holland large-ag equipment, J.J. Nichting serves a rural, cash-crop customer base. Pat has spent more than 30 years in the dealership world; he started as a technician and worked his way up through mergers and acquisitions before joining J.J. Nichting in 2015.