“I talk to my customers like I would like to be talked to,” says Cornwell Tools dealer Tim Barker. “I don't try to candy-coat it. I'm not trying to sell something to everybody. I'm brutally honest with them.”
To Barker, honesty is what makes a successful tool distributor. Putting yourself in the shoes of the technicians you’re selling to in order to understand what they need, doing the research to find the right products, and helping the technicians get the best deals on their tools is how Barker runs his truck.
“When you're in sales, there [are] a lot of times that someone will just sell you something regardless [of] if you need it or not,” Barker notes. “I'm not that guy. I want to make sure that [the technicians are] getting exactly what they want.”
