Sleeping giant

Georgia-based independent distributor Myron Colley puts his trust in people. He follows the mantra of “doing business on a handshake,” and maintains his small-town routes to establish lasting relationships.

“I’m used to business on a handshake. I do business with you the way I want to be treated.”

Colley got started in the franchise business just out of college, after deciding not to pursue a law degree. He wanted to go into business for himself, and first looked into fast food options like KFC and McDonald’s.

He ended up in the automotive business when he finally bought a Meineke muffler shop franchise, eventually starting his own automotive repair franchise with locations throughout the southeastern U.S. But after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, business abruptly stopped.

“After 9/11, it really affected the economy,” explains Colley. “We had stores that were doing $3,000 a day, now doing $100. No business.”

The business went bankrupt and Colley moved back to his hometown of Metter, Ga., where he took on his true passion: raising and selling cattle. Colley still runs the fourth-generation family farm today, in addition to his tool business.

Getting to know the business

Colley established Goliath Tools & Equipment in October 2014, and in just two short years he has created and maintained two successful mobile routes, and a storefront location for inventory overflow and additional sales.

Distributor Donald Heath runs his Augusta route and distributor Nicholas Kapp runs his Savannah route, while Colley’s wife, Lisa, assists with day-to-day operations at the storefront location in Metter.

If Colley isn’t at the storefront or one of the tool trucks, he’s in his “home office,” a 2012 Ford Super Duty pickup truck, where he says he spends 75 percent of his time on the road between routes, the storefront and his farming operation.

When Colley first got started with his own routes, he didn’t understand fully how the distribution channel worked with mobile tool sales.

He attended the AAPEX Show and SEMA Show in Las Vegas to learn about different tool manufacturers, and started out buying direct – but he ran into trouble with warranties and timely responses from some of the companies.

“I didn’t know about the warehouse distributors. I knew ISN existed, but not to the point where all tool truck guys bought from warehouse distributors. I went out there on a fact-finding mission,” he says of his trip to Vegas in 2014.

While Michigan Industrial Tools is one of the manufacturers he went through direct, he still works with that company today, selling the company’s Tekton line. “We still sell a lot of Tekton stuff. Good tools, and quality is good. They have the easiest warranty there is.” For the bulk of Colley’s other tool purchases, he works with ISN.

While Colley purchases larger equipment from ISN, including Monster toolboxes, he also sells large equipment such as frame racks, tire changers and balancers through Tuxedo Distributors, and recently became a Ranger distributor.

Running multiple routes

On a daily basis, Colley could be in any of the three cities his business services, to provide support in closing sales for shop equipment, dropping off inventory or checking in on his route drivers.

With having employees that are the face of the business, communication is key. “Most of our business is logistics,” explains Heath.

To build a customer base, it’s important to get in front of the customer. Heath and Kapp both make it a point to go into every shop, and to speak to as many technicians as possible.

While Heath has a more established route with customers who come out to the truck when he arrives, he will still do this to acknowledge all current and potential customers.

“My thing is, you can’t get a customer if you’re not willing to go talk to him. Go say something to him. Majority of the guys, they’re not going to come out to the truck if you’re not going to say anything to them. I go out and go into the shops and talk to the people,” says Heath.

Both drivers are responsible for tracking their own inventory, and letting Colley know what products they may need.

Colley will also readily contact both distributors for pricing questions and suggestions on what to order to restock the truck.

Each route driver has Wi-Fi on the truck, and utilizes a tablet which links wirelessly to a printer to print itemized receipts that show all purchases and payments.

“This right here, it’s more compact, you don’t have to worry about lugging around a laptop,” explains Heath of the iPad mini he uses.

Colley provides each driver with a base salary, and an additional commission for the percentage of collected sales on the truck. He provides a separate additional bonus on a per-sale basis for big-ticket items.

Emphasis on big-ticket items

While the everyday sales help to sustain business operations, Colley says profits come from toolbox sales and heavy equipment sales.

“That’s what really got me interested in doing this, is the larger equipment,” Colley says, of starting Goliath Tools & Equipment.

Another benefit to selling big-ticket items is the security of the customer base purchasing larger equipment, which is primarily shop owners versus technicians.

Colley utilizes his route drivers to find leads in order to close sales.

“That’s the beautiful thing,” Heath says of Colley, “When he’s close by, we can knock deals out like that and get it done. And it works.

“I do a lot of the smaller sales, the day-to-day sales. When it comes to equipment and stuff, I set it up and he’ll go in and close the deal. That’s been a perfect combination.”

This process also helps Heath stay on task with his route, while Colley can manage additional details of the sale such as trade-ins, financing and equipment drop-off.

“Me and Myron, we’re like a one-two punch. I set the deal up, he comes in and closes the deal. That’s the biggest thing about me and Myron in this company. That accounts for having great communication too,” says Heath.

With selling large equipment, Colley also takes a number of items on trade deals. While he’s able to sell some of these toolboxes and other equipment to customers on the routes or at the storefront, he also lists some of the items on eBay.

Percentage wise, sales are split evenly with about half held as truck account purchases, and half financed through a local lending business.

Other business operations

Colley has a number of tasks he must handle on a regular basis, with the help of his wife, Lisa.

“We never intended on opening up a free-standing tool store,” says Colley. “It just turned into being a thing where people would come in there and say, ‘I see your tool trucks parked here every so often.’”

Colley’s storefront used to be a gas station in Metter, where his father pumped gas as a teenager when it was in operation. To expand the storage, Colley extended the original awning on the front of the building, and uses the original building as offices. The garage is now used for equipment storage.

Some challenges he has faced include finding the right employees to help his business succeed. While Heath established himself early on as a steadfast and reliable employee, Colley had some trouble finding the right fit for a mobile tool truck driver for the Savannah route.

For other aspects of the operation, Colley must be on-hand to collect special orders and warranties – or have the route driver stop by the storefront location.

To place special orders, each driver uses an invoice book with three copies - for his truck, the office and customer copies. He places these orders in a zippered envelope and submits the orders two or three times per week. The envelope is either picked up by Colley on the route, or dropped off by the driver at the storefront, to place the orders. Colley will place his orders two or three times per week as well.

Colley emphasizes the importance of having a system in place for organizing these special orders, and has yet to find a software program to meet his needs.

“The way I run my business, I need a real-time, on-time system. I can’t have a system that’s on his truck; he’s an hour and a half away from me. I need to be able to get into his system and see what he’s doing,” says Colley.

“I don’t know nothing about operating systems, and how that stuff works, but I know what I need. And it’s not out there in the tool business.”

For inventory already on the truck, Colley makes sure to include pricing.

“I believe as a consumer, I don’t want to come on your truck and say ‘How much is this?’ First off, I don’t want to answer it 20 times a day, anyway. Right or wrong,” says Colley.

He continues that there can be additional concerns verbally confirming price without having it on the product can lead to customers hearing different prices for the same item. “I don’t want one customer to feel like he’s getting one price, and another man gets another price. I want everybody on the same playing field.”

He also will create unique sets of hand tools for Heath and Kapp to sell on special.

One main focus at the storefront is handling warranties. Colley’s wife, Lisa, has worked to organize this operation through a series of color-coded service writer envelopes used by each truck: black for the Augusta route warranties, and red for the Savannah route warranties.

Once a new tool arrives for warranty replacement, she’ll take the old tool out of the envelope, replace it with the new tool, and send the envelope back to the corresponding truck.

“We don’t ship the new tool back to the manufacturers until we’ve got the new tool in place, in case we ever have to give the old tool back,” explains Colley.

Colley says handling warranties could be a full-time job for any distributor, on top of the other business operations they must maintain.

“If somebody in this industry would start a service for these independent tool operators – I see how much time she (Lisa) puts into it. If there was a service you could pay to have that done, independent owners would do it,” says Colley.

He relates to the concerns of warranties being so time-consuming for current distributors, with all of the other tasks necessary to run a successful business.

“They probably got up at 6 o’clock that morning, running until 6 o’clock at night, then they’ve got to balance up the money. They’ve got to make deposits sometime during the day. And sometimes, they’ve got to talk to ISN for inventory. When are they going to have time to sit down and box that inventory to ship back? On the weekends?

“My wife has done it, plus another employee, and we’re not getting it all.”

Long-term goals

Colley would eventually like to open his business up to have three or four routes, total. This will, of course, mean hiring more people to help.

Colley previously managed a number of employees with his franchise business, and would prefer to not manage more than a few with his current business.

“I don’t see us growing more than four trucks. Maybe five. And that’s the biggest I see us being, and I’m going to tell you why. I don’t like to manage employees. I know how many headaches come with that,” says Colley. “The third truck’s ready, it’s just not running yet.”