i had a franchise dealer for over twenty years. He became a great friend, before going to the corporate side working as a industrial rep.
He has showed me the catalogs and has even brought by some of the industrial tool trucks that SO has. The trucks are aimed at industries such as airline, railroad, logging, mining, and I suppose a few more.
They certainly are not what he drives daily. He drives a Kia sportage around servicing his accounts.
The one thing he said was hard for him to transition to was they way product is sold. He was used to selling something in his truck that you could hand to the buyer. He was used to pricing an impact, set of wrenches or screwdrivers, a tool box, maybe a scan tool, along with many other things every week. Now he is asked about certain tools and usually in quantity.
He said in many ways it was like starting over. There was products that he never even knew SO sold or had had access to. Saw blades, shears, air tools made for installing only, torque wrenches that has interchangeable ends to meet torque specs for different applications so they never need a setting change. It was tools designed to make it easy for the user.
The other thing was pricing. The catalog did not seem very important other than for availability. Where he was used to selling sets of stuff before. Where he would price a set of sockets or screwdrivers before, he might be pricing fifty of one tool now, or twenty fully loaded tool boxes. Like any other business, quantity drives the price.
The biggest challenge for him was timing of the sales in most cases. As a dealer it was a year round deal, where now he is dealing many times with customers budgeting. Sometimes that was customers that needed to buy new and improved at the beginning of a fiscal year, or departments trying to use up one at the end of the year. Sort of a use it or lose it situation.
Most transactions he does now is nothing but the paperwork. Most are priced, delivered and paid for lump sum.
He has trade schools, and manufacturers and many things in between. Some of the largest accounts have a so to speak tool room, that are on a keep full status. They are manufacturers that an assembly line goes down, if there is not that tool there.
He says SO know what they are doing. They try to get schools to start students out on using their tools, to become customers for life. He also deals with manufacturers that are looking at quality and the longevity of a tool, rather than a price.
I would say that the OP is not the typical buyer for the industrial side. He maybe in a field that SO aims to service, and is getting some benefit of that.
