Adding Value the Old-Fashioned Way—Through Hard Work
At
a time when selling lift trucks is a challenge for any distributor, Wisconsin
Lift Truck handles a dozen lines and more — successfully.
by Clyde E.
Witt, executive
editor
Each year the
editors of Material Handling Management solicit names of Material Handling
Equipment Distributors Association (MHEDA) members who demonstrate exceptional
skill and enterprise in adding value to clients’ businesses. We review
the list of candidates and select one company we feel best exemplifies the term
value-added. This year’s winner is Wisconsin Lift Truck of Brookfield,
Wisconsin.
It might seem hard
to believe that a person can start a business in a rental garage and, in 40
short years, grow that business to more than $100 million in annual revenues.
That’s precisely what Otto Wolter, president and CEO, Wisconsin Lift
Truck, has done.
Wolter’s
formula for success is a simple one: work hard, start young, work hard, follow
your beliefs, work hard and don’t look back. He’s also quick to
add, hire the right people — and work hard.
Now that he has
achieved more than a modicum of success, Wolter, with a sparkle in his eye,
says he’s cutting back on the hard-work regimen so he has to come to the
office only six days a week instead of seven.
Wisconsin Lift
Truck (WLT) has consistently been recognized as one of the state’s
leading companies. In the past two years, its expansion has included a new
corporate headquarters building in Brookfield (expanded to include a branch of
the distributorship), new buildings in other regions of Wisconsin and Illinois,
and several start-up companies, acquisitions and consolidations. All this
activity has elevated the company to 49th on the list of Largest Wisconsin Area
Private Companies.
Asked why he has
stuck with lift trucks at a time when other distributors are divesting
themselves of lift truck lines, Wolter is quick to respond, “It’s
the only thing I know!”
On a more serious
note, Wolter says he’s been taking a long, hard look at the lift truck
business. Selling trucks is becoming more of a commodity-type transaction.
“Trucks do take a lot more energy to sell,” he adds, “with a
lot more expenses and dwindling margins.” Today’s market has been
price-sensitive for seven or eight years, he notes, bucking the usual economic
cycles of shorter, rather than longer periods.
What this type of
economy has done, says Wolter, is force people to continuously find ways to be
more efficient if they want to survive. “We look at our business almost
on a weekly basis to find those opportunities,” he says.
Jerry Weidmann,
COO, has been with the company for 10 years. He’s charged with getting
the company onto the cutting edge of technology and applying that knowledge to
the lift truck business. “Any piece of material handling equipment can
become a commodity,” explains Weidmann, “but what adds value in
being a distributor is the ability to examine the flow of the customer’s
products and use that information, with your knowledge, to select the right
equipment.”
He adds that WLT
now makes an initial study that includes (what he terms) initial resource
assessments as well as safety factors. “We look at all the resources
available to move material,” he says. “It might be the lift truck
fleet, conveyors, storage systems or other non-wheel-oriented methods.”
The survey his people complete identifies the objectives of the customer and
compares those objectives with best-of-class operations.
Weidmann has
launched an initiative to restructure the company’s branches, as well as
the corporate headquarters, to support the resource program. He adds that
typically, when they do a fleet assessment for a client, they find that fewer
pieces of material handling equipment (than the client is currently using) are
required. “We find alternative methods of storage and conveyance.
Re-slotting the warehouse, for example, might help the client decide not to
invest in a new building,” says Weidmann.
Weidmann adds that
while assisting the client to shrink or shift the amount or kinds of equipment
required, value to the distributor can be added by shifting the client’s
source of equipment. If you can provide the solutions for the client, you can
acquire the client’s loyalty and business, he says. “The objective
is not to just sell more of what you offer, but the right mix of what you offer
for the client’s material handling needs.”
Another area WLT
has found profitable is information-for-the-customer gathering. Every time the
distributor’s technicians do a service job, the hours and points of abuse
on equipment are noted. This information is then given back to the
client’s supervisors. That information can, in turn, be used by WLT to
assist its sales staff in gaining knowledge and making recommendations.
This might seem
like a simple, even obvious thing to do, but Weidmann says it has required a
complete redesign of WLT’s parts and service program. Because the company
handles many lift truck lines, its parts department is staggering in size. The
computerized inventory is valued at more than $2.5 million and accounts for an
estimated 60 percent of the company’s profits. WLT carries OEM parts for
all the lines of trucks it handles, plus parts for virtually all other major
lift truck brands.
It currently has a
fleet of more than 130 service vans on the road, and more than 50 of its 500
employees take pride in the fact that they have 20 or more years of service
with the company. To ensure customers that parts will always be available,
particularly in times of greatest need, the company has its own power
generators for back-up if public power is not available.
Material handling in the information age
WLT’s
customer assessment program has been in operation for about four years. While
any client is naturally sensitive to how it does business, key to success of
the program has been personal contact with the client. The program’s
greatest asset is the fact that WLT sees what the customer is doing and applies
that knowledge to what it knows to be the norm. That’s where the value
can be added.
“Quite
often,” explains Weidmann, “the eventual strategy the client
employs is a combination of our assessment, coupled with what the client knows
about its own operation.”
Changing with the times
Wolter says the
biggest change he has seen since his start in the industry is how customers
have cut budgets to the point where the things WLT does are things the client
no longer has staff to do. “It used to be,” he says, “every
company I dealt with had a material handling engineer and an assist staff. Now,
those positions are gone, and the customer has no idea of the cost-per-hour to
run a lift truck, for example.”
Wolter suggests
that distributorships like his have become specialists. And while he might not
know how to make castings in a foundry, for example, he does know how to
assess, recommend and maintain lift trucks for an estimated 95 percent of the
companies WLT visits.
WLT has come a long
way since Otto Wolter began his career behind the parts counter of a Clark
distributorship at age 16. Is there still a future for small- to mid-size
distributors? Wolter thinks so — if they are run efficiently.
“The small
distributor can still compete on lift truck sales,” says Wolter,
“even though base-pricing might be different. When you get into big
deals, price is not always a factor. It depends on the talent they [the small
distributors] have and how hard they work.”
He adds, the lines
they handle are also critical. There will always be entrepreneurs who leave a
big company to start on their own. “We’ve grown primarily through
gains in market share or remaining steady in declining economies,” says
Wolter.
WLT has long
advertised — and it reflects Wolter’s business philosophy —
that WLT is “The Source.” He says this means having the products an
account needs, when he needs them. This includes niche products as well, which
might require you to take on other lines to round out your company’s
product portfolio. Adding product lines brings more value to the customer. That
value might be in the form of less maintenance or selling features on a piece
of equipment other manufacturers don’t offer.
Currently, the
heart of WLT’s business is lift truck leasing, fleet management and parts
sales. Customers are interested in getting out of the lift truck business
because they don’t have the staff to maintain vehicles or stock parts.
“They have peaks and valleys in their business,” says Wolter,
“and they’d like to be flexible. It’s a matter of putting
together what the client needs with what we offer to come to an
agreement.”
Weidmann says one
of the things the company is focusing on in 2002 is better use of its
assessment strategy and the meetings customer service reps have with accounts.
Those meetings will more often be an assessment of customer needs than a
follow-up on a specific sale.
“If our reps
have a broader knowledge of the products available,” says Weidmann,
“and a broader awareness of customer needs, the products and services
they bring to the customer will have more value.” He says the approach is
to take what has been thought of as the traditional sales process and turn it
into a consultative sales process.
Keeping pace with technology
How can a
distributor keep pace with changing technology? Weidmann and Wolter agree, a
big investment has to be made if you want to be efficient and profitable. WLT
has four full-time programmers to automate manual processes so it can increase
business without adding staff.
Wolter says
distributing material handling equipment might seem like a commodity business
with lots of technology, but it’s still humans who do the buying.
“It’s still about how you present your program and whether the
client likes you.” He adds that there’s always a way to do
something better. It’s a matter of constantly analyzing what you’re
doing.
Asked if Web sites
are of value to a distributor, Wolter says currently Web sites are more
valuable for identification of the business than anything else.
The Web has proven
valuable for WLT’s lift truck operator training program. The company has
led the country in driver training programs. It was the first distributorship
to offer a national program. Weidmann says the company has trained more than
40,000 operators and 4,000 trainers since it established its Corporate Training
Division in 1990.
Taking on the
challenges of the lift truck business is what has given WLT its strength.
Wolter explains that if you are a large distributor and have one major supplier
affiliation, you could possibly be headed for trouble. In his experience,
Wolter has represented manufacturers that have had labor disputes, for example,
and he was left with no product to sell.
There are always
changes in management of manufacturers, and their business philosophies, Wolter
says. “If the manufacturers can’t deliver trucks or parts on time
— for whatever the reason — the result is lost orders.”
What he seeks is
the perfect
distributorship/manufacturer partnership that features on-time delivery
of trucks and parts, coupled with field representation and innovation on the
part of the manufacturer. The end result would be no lost orders.
That would be a big
order, but it’s the thing that has given WLT strength, and in the
process, enables it to add value to its customers for 40 years. MHM
For More Information
Wisconsin Lift
Truck represents a full line of material handling equipment — more than
40 companies. Some of its major lines are:
Cascade Corp.,
cascorp.com;
Caterpillar Inc.,
cat-lift.com;
Drexel Industries
LLC, drexeltrucks.com;
Eagle Picher,
eaglepicherindustries.com;
E-Z Go, ezgo.textron.com;
Genie Industries,
genielift.com;
Komatsu Forklift
(USA) Inc. komatsuforkliftusa.com;
Linde,
lindelifttruck.com;
Minuteman
Powerboss, minutemanintl.com;
Mitsubishi Forklift
Trucks, mit-lift.com;
Nissan Forklift
Corp., nissanforklift.com;
Riggers
Manufacturing, riggers.com;
Royal,
royaltractor.com;
Schaeff Inc.,
schaeff.com;
Taylor Machine; taylorbigred.com;
Trackmobile Inc.,
trackmobile.com
UpRight Inc.,
upright.com.
