“If you’ve been thinking about adding a new dozer to your inventory or trying out the boom lift market, now is the time to do it.” This advice comes from Tom Butts, owner of Nor-Cal Equipment Rentals in Sacramento, CA.
In business since 2004, Butts has seen his share of ups and downs, from the 2008 Great Recession that put a damper on business to last year’s Oroville Dam break and this year’s wild fires that have stoked rental sales, especially in light towers and generators.
His current optimism, though, stems less from emergency sales and more from a longer-term trend that has his company experiencing growing pains. “We rent to large companies, all size contractors, and homeowners,” said Butts. “Probably 60 percent of our rental sales go to what I call large customers and the rest to smaller contractors and homeowners who aren’t supported by the bigger, national rental stores.”
His operation is a bit different. Even though it employs 11 people and has a long-standing relationship with large suppliers like Caterpillar and Ditch Witch, Butts says the store does business the old-fashioned way, with a handshake. He calls it “a throwback to the gas monkey garage way of doing business,” focusing on the customer and neither spending a lot of money on advertising nor relying on an outside sales person to generate business.
“We’ve come a long way from the days when I would make the sales calls and deliver the equipment,” said Butts. Today, we’ve outgrown our yard and can barely handle demand.
A good time to grow? Yes, he reemphasized, but it’s never a good time to overextend resources or forget the lessons 2008 taught. There will always be competition, too, from all size stores and the cost of doing business will always be going up. As Butts pointed out, the rising cost of steel has already raised the price of skid-steer loaders a couple thousand dollars.
Yes, there’s no time like now to do something you’ve always wanted to, like buy that new piece of equipment or add a new line to your inventory, but do so, advised Butts, with an air of caution in mind.
