Mac Tool Distributor Mark McWayne, has been serving the south side of Chicago for nearly 16 years. One of the things he likes about his career is that the tools are constantly evolving. “Tool-wise, every month there is something new, which makes it exciting,” he says.
Over the past 16 years, he has seen a lot of change in the functionality and design of scan tools; however, the selling strategy has remained the same.
McWayne carries a full selection of powered-up scan tools on his truck. He sells about one $3,000 price-range scan tool and between five and six $200 to $500 price-range scan tools every month. When customers come on the truck, the powered-up scan tools are the first thing they notice. He says, “It starts the ‘Hey, what’s that?’ conversation right away.”
McWayne advises fellow distributors, “Have them (scan tools) powered-up on your truck and ready to put in the customer’s hands when they want to see it. If you don’t have it on the truck, they’re not going to be interested.” He attributes 10 out of 12 scan tool sales to this method.
Another method that McWayne uses is that he totes and promotes scan tools into the shop. “After 16 years, I still carry tools every day to put them in the customer’s hands.”
Of the scan tools McWayne sells on his truck, he carries one of each model into a shop, and the shop has the option to test out the scan tool for a week can take home to try for a week. After that week, he follows up with the shop to answer any questions they may have. “Probably half of the customers who try, buy,” he says. “But, if I didn’t have the scan tool for them to try, that is half I would never get.”
One of the most popular scan tools for McWayne is the Mac Tools Mentor Touch Scout, a mid-range priced scan tool. The Scout falls into the price range for the individual technician, compared to the $4,000 to $5,000 scan tool, which is more for the shop. According to McWayne, this mid-range priced scan tool has most of the bells and whistles that the big ones do.
“I have a Cadillac dealer that I service, and at the beginning of the year, three techs bought the scan tool from me. One tech used it, passed it around, and the other two bought it. Word of mouth really helps,” says McWayne.
In addition to his hands-on approach, McWayne also attributes the successful rate of his scan tool sales to Denis White, Mac Tools District Business Manager, and Mike Schoenbeck, Bosch Product Management. "Without specialized support for scan tool knowledge and customer training, I would not sell very many," he says. He calls on these two for product knowledge, sales advice, help troubleshooting, customer training and support.
