Lift Bed Manufacturer Business Plan

The overall sales strategy at Load Hog is to position ourselves at the top of the quality pyramid focusing additionally on our excellent technology and dedication to quality assurance and customer satisfaction. A main objective at Load Hog is to continue our research and development program focusing primarily on product improvement and secondarily on cost management. Because we enjoy a significant competitive edge, as a result of our lengthy technological lead, we will emphasize and feature the fact that Load Hog has created the market.

Load Hog has been featured editorially in more than forty publications including:

• Popular Mechanics
• Hot Rod
• Newsweek
• Sport Truck Accessory Digest
• Trailer and Body Builders
• Light and Medium Truck
• Farming
• Specialty Automotive
• Truck Accessory News
• Progressive Farmer.

Load Hog has been presented at more than 50 trade shows. These efforts to showcase the Load Hog Product have paid dividends in name recognition, which has blended well with the ongoing marketing and promotions implemented in house. Additional contracts are being negotiated for high-energy public relations and advertising to get the message out nationwide. Load Hog will also be featured on Sport Truck Connection, a syndicated television program and anchor program for TNN‘s weekend “Crank and Chrome” programming which will air in 258 markets nationwide.

Load Hog is is also building an Internet presence, www.loadhog.com, which adds an unknown, but very exciting, dimension to the sales effort. The analysis of our “hit ” count shows an average of more than 30,000 per month with no cross promotion. Load Hog is continuously reworking the site to improve eye appeal and ease navigability. Links to and from all distributors with websites have been initiated, and one distributor has even animated the Load Hog so that a customer can see it in action.

The Load Hog growth strategy is to enlarge the distributor base. There are essentially two profiles of distributor that have emerged from our sales efforts. The “small” distributor does not have the sales force to accomplish large territorial sweeps and will generally operate within a 25-mile trade radius. The advertising and promotional efforts done by this profile are generally home grown and linked to a corporate marketing effort. We anticipate three to four inventory turns in these stores if they are properly serviced by field representation. Our second profile of distributor is a much larger operator, with six to twenty sales personnel in the field and operating in a 100 to 200-mile trade radius. This distributor generally enjoys an excellent rapport with most of the new vehicle outlets and focuses on the wholesale and expediting customers in the area. With sophisticated advertising, extensive trade show presence, bailment operations, and consignment plans, these multi-location operators can deliver eight to ten inventory turns per year.

At this juncture, Load Hog is still operating with independent contract representatives. This particular breed does not always give a focused effort to a pioneer product. It is therefore of utmost importance that, as soon as economically possible, a switch to direct factory representation be made.

The recent committment by Ford Motor to include Load Hog in its Dealer Ordering Guide for the 2002 model year under its Vehicle Personalization option adds significant heft (3,000 units) to our plans going forward. Additionally, General Motors has been aggressively evaluating Liner Tongue for immediate inclusion in production. This could result in as many as 100,000 units per year. Although the OEM portion of our business was thought to be further down the road, we are going to be as aggressive as possible in expanding this opportunity going forward.

Load Hog is also entering into an agreement with American Media Group to promote Liner Tongue with an infomercial. This infomercial will air on a per inquiry (P.I.) basis with a sharing of profits after the absorption of wholesale costs.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Our technological lead gives us a substantial competitive edge over any possible competitor. Load Hog has established and defined the pneumatic truck lift market. However, if the market were to catch up, Load Hog also places the utmost importance on customer service and strict quality control. This provides another strong competitive advantage.

5.2 Sales Strategy

Our sales strategy revolves around enlarging our distributor base, gaining inclusion in catalog offerings (Stylin’ Concepts, J.C. Whitney, Reliable, Blacksmith, etc.) and our continuing efforts at OEM inclusion (Ford, GM, TORVEC, etc.), and our growing e-commerce effort.