Leonard put on his reading glasses.
For forty minutes, he read.
Tom barely spoke.
Leonard liked that.
He calculated average lead times himself.
Critical field-stopping components averaged slightly over four days when not already stocked.
Several arrived overnight.
Some took two or three days.
The longest delay in the two-year sample involved an uncommon component for a combine header.
Eleven days.
Leonard tapped that line.
“What happened to the farmer?”
“Loaner header.”
“When?”
“Day four.”
“Cost?”
“None.”
“You had that written?”
“No.”
“Then it depended on you.”
“Yes.”
Leonard looked up.
“That bothers me.”
Tom nodded.
“It should.”
Good answer.
Leonard turned another page.
“If I buy six machines from you and one stops during planting, you don’t have the part, regional doesn’t have the part, what happens?”
Tom answered immediately.
“Seventy-two hours.”
“What happens?”
“I get you running.”
“How?”
“Part.”
“And if there is no part?”
“Donor component from a floor machine if technically appropriate.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“Loaner.”
“Equivalent?”
“Equivalent enough to perform the required job.”
“Who pays transport?”
“We do.”
“Put it in writing.”
Tom nodded.
“I will.”
Leonard looked at him.
“You didn’t hesitate.”
“I’ve already done versions of it.”
“Why isn’t it standard in your contracts?”
Tom smiled.
“Because most people negotiate purchase price harder than service exposure.”
Leonard sat back.
“That’s stupid.”
“Sometimes.”
Tom drank coffee.
“Dealerships also don’t love legally binding themselves to a clock.”
“You do?”
“I will if I know the operation before I sign it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want machine list, acreage, primary implements, seasonal windows, and realistic service expectations. I’m not promising to rebuild a transmission in seventy-two hours with magic.”
“Good.”
“I am promising you do not sit without a workable tractor because I failed to support what I sold.”
Leonard wrote the sentence down.
Tom smiled slightly.
“You always write everything?”
“Yes.”
“That makes me nervous.”
“It should.”
Tom left the file.
No pressure.
No trade offer.
No deadline.
Leonard spent the next fourteen days trying to prove Tom wrong.
That was how he conducted major decisions.
He called three Fendt owners.
Not names Tom had selected at first.
Leonard found one through a seed dealer.
Another through the grain cooperative.
Tom provided the third only after Leonard requested a long-term customer.
First was Wade Hensley outside Medicine Lodge.
Forty-two hundred acres.
“Fuel?”
“Better than my old power-shifts.”
“How much better?”
“Depends on work.”
“I want numbers.”
Wade laughed.
“You really are Bower.”
Wade pulled records.
Heavy tillage reduction approximately twelve to fifteen percent.
Transport better.
Light work variable.
Second farmer, Maria Kincaid, ran a mixed operation with wheat, sorghum, and cattle.
Leonard asked about electronics.
“Any nuisance failures?”
“Yes.”
That answer pleased him more than “none.”
“What?”
“Cab display froze twice year one.”
“Downtime?”
“First time thirty minutes. Second time software update.”
“Dealer?”
“Same day.”
“Anything field-stopping?”
“Hydraulic sensor.”
“How long?”
“Six hours.”
“Part in stock?”