It’s early autumn in Sacramento, California, so the morning is cool as we start off on Mac Tools distributor Chris Nelson’s route. We’re on the city’s industrial north side, hopping from shop to shop on one street, then another. Most of Nelson’s route is heavy duty equipment with some auto repair, autobody, and even a stop at an airport mixed in.
“I do a lot of big truck shops,” Nelson says. “One of the biggest shops is Caterpillar – it’s their earth moving division, so they [work on] tractors that are bigger than a building. I do Kenworth and I have Freightliner – those are the dealerships, and then I have some small independent shops who either repair their own fleet or [other fleets’] trucks.”
Nelson also stops at shops that work on lesser-used vehicles such as uniform trucks, shredder trucks, septic trucks, and tool trucks.
Before I joined him at 9 AM, Nelson had already sold upwards of $3,000 of product, and it’s easy to see why. At some shops, customers are lined up outside the door before the tool truck even comes to a stop. At others, it can take a little longer, but there is always plenty of business. Once the initial rush dies down, Nelson will sometimes hop off the truck and take a walk inside the shop to see who is around that hasn’t visited the truck today.
At one stop, Nelson walks into the shop and starts chatting with a technician who is working on a bulldozer with a broken axle. The technician doesn’t seem to be having much luck with the repair, and after a few minutes of back and forth Nelson figures out exactly what tool could be used to help. The two walk directly back to the tool truck, and a sale is made.
“I was watching him use the tool, and it was broken,” Nelson explains. “Sometimes you get guys to tell you what they want by just [asking], ‘Oh, do you need something? What are you trying to do there?’ You can play dumb and not know everything, and let them teach you something that turns into a sale.”
It’s difficult not to get along with Nelson; his jovial, friendly attitude goes a long way in the mobile tool industry. As Nelson’s customers greet him like an old friend, it’s easy to see how he became so successful so quickly.
“My niche, essentially, is that people tend to like me and gravitate towards me, I think,” he says.
Learning from the best
There is more to Nelson’s success than being a friendly guy, however. Before becoming a distributor, Nelson owned and ran a landscaping company for about 15 years, and he credits that experience for some of his current success. Prior to that, he worked at some of his father’s businesses and says he gained much of his business knowledge from him.
Nelson’s father was a corporate marketing director for a large wholesale food and tobacco company when Nelson was young, complete with an oceanfront window office in Oyster Point in San Francisco. His father was successful, and eventually became the largest buyer and seller of tobacco in the world for that company. Nelson adds that when his father left that position, he opened some other businesses such as mailbox stores, video stores, and coffee shops.
“I only know anything about business because my dad is probably the sharpest business guy I’ve ever been around,” he says. “When I was a kid I’d work for him at his retail stores. That’s how I figured out what I know now. Just working for him at his stores ... I [didn’t] think he was teaching me anything, but then I look back in life and go, ‘Oh.’”
Around the time Nelson began running his landscaping business, his father was retiring from his own ventures. The landscaping business grew quickly and became too much for one person to handle, so Nelson’s father helped him manage it for a few years.
Nelson notes that by comparison, the landscaping business was much less complicated than being a mobile tool distributor. Having a background in business, both from his father’s teachings and his own experience, made all the difference.
“When I see [new distributors] trying to get out on the truck that haven’t worked for themselves, there’s a big learning curve there that I take for granted, because I’ve been taught that since I was a kid,” Nelson says. “They can learn it and pick it up, and a lot of these guys are really sharp, but it just takes time to figure it out. I had an advantage getting into this business having prior business experience. I got it from someone that I respect who knows more about business in general than most people I know.”
Nelson’s father still helps him out with his tool business, handling pickups and deliveries, building toolboxes, and the like.
“My wife will help, too, but she’s got a full-time job, and we’ve got two little kids, a three-year-old and a seven-year-old,” Nelson says. “We’ve got our hands full with the kids and her with her job, so having him around to help makes our lives a lot easier.”
A quick start
That extra insight into the business portion of the job has paid off. Nelson started selling tools for Mac just six years ago – a relatively short amount of time in the tool business – and has already earned multiple top seller awards.
“Every full year I’ve been in business since [I started], I’ve been a diamond distributor for Mac Tools and in the President’s Club,” he says. “I’ve been second or third every year I’ve been in business as far as the top distributor in my [western United States] region, and then last year I got the top distributor Eagle Award.”
The key to a good start, according to Nelson, is pretty basic: Get customers on the truck. But this can be trickier than it sounds.
“You’ve got to get guys to the truck, and when you first start out that’s hard to do because everybody is standoffish, they don’t necessarily know that they want to deal with you,” he says. “Just finding your little quirk or niche to at least get guys to give you a shot – that’s kind of hard.”
He recommends getting on the good side of one person at each stop. It can be the shop owner, a manager, or a technician that the others look up to. Whatever the case, it pays to get on their good side early on.
“It’s important to have a good rapport with the shop owners,” Nelson says. “If they’ve got your back, they’re going to point their guys when they’re new [toward purchasing from you]. And it’s not always only the shop owners. If you find a respected guy in a big shop, they’re your mouthpiece; they’re your guy that’s telling [other technicians] ‘The Mac guy’s the guy.’ You can develop that yourself without, but those guys help a lot. If everybody looks up to – Bob, or whoever, [he’s] going to send them your way.”
Being on good terms with a shop owner or manager at stops can also help when it comes to skips and thefts. Nelson recounts multiple instances in which a shop manager has helped him recover goods stolen from his truck by a customer. In one case, a shop manager came to him. In another, he reached out asking about the missing tool.
“I had a guy at a shop that took a set of sockets off my truck on a Monday during a flyer sale,” he says. “I had them all laid out perfectly, so I knew something was missing. I called the [shop’s manager], and in 15 minutes he sent me a picture back [and asked], ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ And I said, ‘Yep.’ Those guys will help you out. If they don’t like you, they’re not going to spend their time or risk [angering] a fellow co-worker to help a guy they don’t really care about.”
Whether it’s getting a foot in the door starting out or recovering product from a sticky-handed customer, it’s well worth it for a tool dealer to put in the time to build a relationship with shop owners and managers. Of course, that will also extend to customers, since they’re the ones spending money on the truck. Mobile tool sales has a lot to do with forming positive relationships.
Old truck, new truck
As the day heats up, so does the truck’s interior. Nelson starts the 2014 Ford F-59 step van’s generator to get the A/C unit going.
“I have one roof A/C … I wish I would have put two up there because it’s hot here,” he says. “Probably the only two places worse than here are Arizona and maybe Las Vegas. We [have] dry heat, but it’s hot. And the trucks are kind of like a toaster oven, they get hot quick.”
As the generator starts on the third try, Nelson starts talking about the problems he’s had with his truck. He bought the 18’ step van new when he started with Mac, but after years of carrying too much weight for the engine, a recent traffic accident began triggering some engine problems, and Nelson has decided it’s time to move on.
“About two months ago, the truck got wrecked,” he says. “I had two cars crash in front of me, and the second one bounced back into the front of my truck. That put my truck down for like three weeks. I told them to just bend the hood back out, I had to get back to work – you can’t be down that long.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t out of the woods just yet. Once the hood was bent back into place and patched up, Nelson says there was an electrical issue with the motor that took another couple of days to fix. After that, he noticed a tick in the motor that eventually turned into a major engine problem which “took the top of the motor out.” When he got the truck back after that repair, he noticed a tick on the other side of the motor and decided he’d had enough.
“Then I got mad and ordered a new truck,” he says. “They’re building it for a display truck at the [2020 Mac Tools] show, and then I’ll pick it up after.”
It’s easy to see Nelson is excited about the new truck he has ordered. It’s a 2020 Peterbilt 337 with a 24’ box, and it’s sure to be outfitted with the latest and greatest in mobile tool selling equipment.
“I’m getting the bigger truck with a bigger chassis that will handle the weight,” Nelson says. “It’s kind of a big investment … I went all out. The new one will be a cab chassis with a 24’ box. It’ll have a cab like this where I can turn and go into the back, and it will also have a side entrance door so the guys won’t have to crawl through here.”
Wrapping up
After Nelson finishes up at his last stop for the day, he heads for home in the nearby suburbs, reflecting on his week’s work and what remains to be done.
“I usually save Saturdays for cleaning the truck, things like that, doing toolbox deliveries and any kind of pickups and deliveries that I’ve got to do,” he says. “Occasionally, I’ll get a Sunday where I’ll have to work to get the truck organized. It’s not a ton of time, but it’s still time you’ve got to be on the truck. My son is seven, he comes out and helps me a little bit. I pay him in candy,” Nelson laughs.
As excited as he is about the future of his business and the new truck he has on order, Nelson seems content with what he has now: A career he loves, a busy route with loyal customers, a successful business that continues to grow, and a family that supports him. All in all, it’s not a bad day’s work.
