Maybe it’s the breezy reggae music pumping from the speakers, or the truck stocked floor-to-ceiling with tools jangling and swaying as we cruise the tree-lined streets of New Jersey. Independent distributor Nick Morello has a way of making mobile tool sales look … easy. But, of course, there’s more to the story than meets the eye. The ‘good vibes’ are simply evidence of years of hard, methodical work and a pioneering business sense.
Foot on the gas
“I always say, when I get to my truck in the morning and it starts, everything else is going to be fine,” says independent distributor Nick Morello. Morello owns Discount Jersey Tool Co. in Newark, New Jersey.
The engine’s a bit slow to warm up this morning. He pleads with it just a bit… even offers some words of encouragement, until finally the Freightliner finds its stride.
“It’s a great truck, but this morning I didn’t know if we were going to make it,” Morello says. “I put fresh fuel in it and it seems to be better. You never know what the day’s going to bring.”
He serves mom and pop repair facilities and truck shops throughout the city of Newark most of the week, and on Wednesdays makes the rounds to various small car shops in the towns of Nutley and Belleville.
The New Jersey native has been in the business about 33 years, since high school. His family owned a trucking company and he was familiar with the mobile tool dealers coming to call.
“I was always into tools … and I was always drawn to [the mobile tool industry],” Morello recalls.
Joining the family trucking business was Plan A, but after his family sold the company, then-18-year-old Morello had to find a new plan.
He remembers, “I said ‘I want to be a tool dealer,’ and they all said, ‘You’re too young.’” Even so, he began a Mac Tools route at 19 and stayed with the franchise for 18 years before going independent in 2003.
“I said, ‘I’ll give it a shot,’ ... My whole life changed when I went independent,” Morello says. “I started making a ton of business … and money.”
A tattoo on his arm marks the two best dates of Morello’s life: the day he met his wife, and the day he decided to strike out on his own.
The tool guy
Despite the morning’s sluggish start, the 26’ Freightliner is in fine form – stocked (and I do mean stocked) with inventory in every nook and cranny. The Freightliner is Morello’s fourth truck, and it was a hard-won investment.
"When I went independent, my truck was running out of room," he says. "I told [my wife] I need to buy a new truck, but I don’t like making payments. She said, 'If you can pay cash you can buy a new truck.' I paid cash. I’ve had this truck for 10, 12 years."
Morello built the truck from the ground up.
“A lot of blood and sweat and tears [went into it],” he says. “It took me a couple months to do the interior, and the outside.”
He built it big, he says, “because my guys were always standing right next to me [hence the divider near the workstation].” There’s also a private restroom onboard.
Inside the truck, tools are everywhere. At the moment, Morello’s top sellers are socket sets, 1/2” and 3/8” impacts and cordless drop lights.
“We try to move it around a little bit, mix it up a little bit,” Morello says. “I kind of keep my GEARWRENCH stuff in the back, but there’s really no rhyme or reason to it. You can’t have guys looking at the same stuff, so [I] try to keep it fresh.”
Competition and community
All morning long, Morello pulls up at a different repair shop, and in a matter of minutes he has one or even a handful of customers on the truck – checking out merchandise and reporting back on previous buys.
“I like Newark,” Morello says. “There’s a lot of money in Newark and a very diverse crowd. Eighty-five percent of my customers are mixed nationalities. I speak a little Portuguese, a little Spanish … enough to get my money.”
To Morello, selling tools is “the easiest job in the world.”
“I drive around, guys come to me, they hand me money, tell some jokes, I ask how they are and they leave,” Morello says.
The hardest job, he says, is collecting. When he was first starting out and growing his business, Morello took some chances – on new customers, new products – but he always had a limit. He’s still cautious in that sense. Morello has cultivated his now-established customer base to shop owners and technicians he knows and trusts.
He stresses it’s important to know who your customers are and sell accordingly. Morello talks to a lot of shop owners as these are the primary decision makers, especially for big buys. He keeps an Autel demo scan tool on the truck, for example, so shop owners can see the big-ticket item up-close.
Morello’s excellent rapport with his customers is obvious. They seem to trust him, they enjoy his company and they value his experience and expertise with tools and equipment. This is what comes from years of hitting the same stops and growing relationships.
There are also eight or nine competing trucks in the area. In his younger days, Morello admits he may have had a skirmish or two. But since then, he takes a practical approach to competition – or perceived competition – in the business.
“When I was younger I used to fight every Snap-on guy,” he says. “Then I became friends with a Snap-on dealer, and you start comparing notes, sharing ideas and purchasing tools together. [I realized] it’s easier for two guys to make money. It kind of changed my ways. I try to get along with people a little better. And … I’m a nice guy. My mother loves me.”
Always growing
Morello will be the first to tell you he has “very, very little free time.” In addition to his regular route, Morello and his family manage a social media page that caters to a vibrant community of tool fanatics. Frequent live video shorts where Morello shows off a new tool or initiates a flash sale are a hit with viewers.
The platform suits Morello’s energetic personality. But he readily admits it takes a lot of hard work – and time – to maintain an online community and presence to the extent he does. For the Morellos, it’s a family affair and everyone contributes.
“My kids are my everything; I’d do anything for my kids,” he says. “I’ve got a 23-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter. We sell a lot of tools. I bought my son a van … It’s me and my son mostly, my wife helps tremendously, but she has a full-time job. We have all the toys … but, you know, we work.”
For example, Morello says his basement is a currently a makeshift shipping facility. The younger Morello, Nick Morello III, runs a second helper truck that collects and delivers products to customers.
“My son’s been on this truck since he’s been in diapers,” Morello says. “Since he got his license he’s dropping off tools for customers and picking stuff up. It’s really a big help. I hope he stays with me forever.”
With more success comes greater demands on his time, and Morello reports he is continually evaluating whether – and how – to grow or modify the business. But first and foremost, he clearly enjoys the niche he has carved for himself.
“Let me tell you something – we have a big online presence,” Morello says. “We didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened. We’re shooting live video, all my guys are happy to see me, they’re smiling … I have fun doing this. I have fun doing my route.”
As we leave the small town of Nutley and continue on into another small New Jersey town – Belleville – we pull into another mom and pop outfit and a customer comes onto the truck. Morello asks about his recent purchase.
“How’s your puller set?” asks Morello.
“Good, but I need another one.”
Morello flashes a smile: “Do you really? That’s awesome. Why?” he begins. “No, no … who am I to ask?”
The big picture
“You can set your watch by me,” says Morello as he continues down shady summer streets.
For Nick Morello, it’s a sweet life – hard work, but enough handshakes and cigars to keep him behind the wheel. For now, anyways. The journey hasn’t always been easy, but it’s certainly been rewarding.
“I’m very money driven,” Morello says. “I know money’s not everything – you need your health your family – I have all that, thank God. I’ve been broke. I’ve had some bad years, and my wife’s stuck by my side through thick and thin.”
Through all the highs and lows, Morello is glad he stayed in. At one point, prior to going independent, Morello questioned whether his future was really in tool sales. He even considered other jobs.
“The only thing I had at that point in my life was me, and my guys loved me,” he says. “So I knew if I tried something different and turned this [business] around, that my guys would stick with me and I’d be okay. Thank God I did. Before the internet we were really successful; the truck was always full and we were always doing [well]. Then the internet took off and we made a few extra bucks. I never thought in a million years we’d [be where we are now]. They always say, ‘Don’t wish for something ... you might get it.’”
“There’s a lot of money to be made in this business, but it’s hard to figure out how to do it,” Morello says. “That’s the problem.”
For Morello, for now, business and life are good.
“I drive around. I’ve got a beautiful truck. I get to smoke a cigar in about an hour. I have a nice lunch, I get back in my truck, I finish my cigar, drive around and see some more guys and then go home. There are some hectic days, don’t get me wrong. But this beats digging a ditch.
“My mother always says, ‘You make it look easy,’” he continues. “But it’s a tough business. This is the only thing I’ve ever done in my life is sell tools. Yeah I’m good at it; but I’ve made every mistake ten times.”
I asked Morello what his plan was in five, maybe 10 years.
“Not this,” he laughs. Maybe a house in Florida on the beach, when the kids are out of school. Though it’s difficult to imagine Morello not at the wheel of the tool-filled truck blasting island tunes, swapping jokes with his customers.
“I think there’s more to do,” Morello says. “I’m trying a couple things. I would love to work less. The only problem is … everybody wants Nick. And they all want to talk.”
