Food and fuel.

In a nutshell, that's where a large percentage of power transmission sales are found these days, as far as Precision Industries and its vice president of bearings and power transmission products, John Hughes, are concerned.

Precision is headquartered in Omaha, Neb., in the heart of farm country, Hughes explains.

“The majority of our power transmission business is in the food industry. And that's pretty constant,” he says. “We're located here in an agricultural part of the country and that business generally stays pretty steady [despite] a few ups and downs.”

Food processing companies, specifically, are among the leading buyers of Precision's power transmission items, especially engines and gearboxes, Hughes says.

Many of the farm communities in Nebraska are also shipping their crops, especially corn, to bio-fuel outlets and ethanol plants in the Midwest.

“We do a respectable amount of business with those folks,” Hughes says, referring to the ethanol and bio-fuel industries. “[Corn] is something we can grow right here. We don't have to have troops in Lincoln, Nebraska, to protect people while we're growing our corn. I think it's a good thing for the country and for all of us.”

Precision still sells a great deal of power transmission products to companies engaged in the more traditional methods of energy exploration, such as oil drilling, Hughes adds. Virtually all industries are trying to be as energy-efficient as possible these days and that's driven many technological developments in power transmission in recent years, Hughes explains. Energy efficient motors and engines are in great demand.

“Everybody is looking to save energy,” he says. “There are a lot of advances that we try to keep our customers aware of and have them take advantage.”

Energy efficient motors have been around for a long time, Hughes adds. But Precision's salespeople emphasize to power transmission customers that looking inside that energy-efficient motor, to power transmission-related items such as gear boxes, can make that motor all the more efficient. Today's advanced, energy-efficient gear boxes can be driven by a smaller motor, making a customer's energy savings all the greater.

“If that gear box is more efficient, you can put a smaller motor on there and do the same work,” he explains. “It's all a matter of efficiencies.”

Precision Industries was at one time a bearings and power transmission specialist, Hughes explains. But while it has diversified its product offering quite a bit over the years, Precision still places a lot of its focus on power transmission. That hasn't changed, he emphasizes.

“While power transmission is a portion of what we do now, rather than being the main part,” Hughes says, “it's still important and we still have the people and expertise.”

Beyond that, there are no sales tricks he can recommend. He talks of having a conversation with a colleague and, when the question of new sales techniques or “tricks” came up, the colleague just shrugged and said, “Provide good service.”

“Whoever said that knew what he was doing,” Hughes laughs.