The president of Shelton Machinery, Jim Shelton, doesn't recite a litany of selling techniques featuring bells and whistles. He is confident in his people's skills and his company's strengths—and emphasizes them in customer dealings.

“Our basic philosophy is that we're a solution provider. We do not make anything,” he says. “We sell equipment to make a living, but we don't make that equipment. But we supply solutions to our customers. So our theory is to stay close to the customer, discover their needs and give them a solution.”

Mazak Corp. is among the major machine tool manufacturers the company works with, especially in selling newer machine tools that can handle several tasks at once. Shelton Machinery also sells used or reconditioned machinery—mainly, items it's taken in trade from customers who've purchased new equipment.

“Depending on the age and quality of it, we'll recondition it, clean it up and market it from here, or we'll sell it to a used equipment house that has a wider Internet market base than we do,” Shelton explains. “You don't get rich off of that one sale. But you can work to make a profit off of everything and build it from there.”

Shelton Machinery's markets are primarily in Kentucky and Indiana, he says. Industries to which Shelton sells include energy, medical, aerospace and job shops. As a sign of the times, there are currently few automotive firms among the company's lists of customers, Shelton admits.

“We do very little [automotive]. I've been in this too many years. There's no money to be made in automotive [now],” he says.

Medical has been a strong market in northern Indiana recently, he explains, and has especially grown in the past few years. Shelton Machinery is literally positioned to take advantage of this, being headquartered in Fishers, Ind., an Indianapolis suburb near several medical-related companies as well as research centers at Indiana and Purdue universities.

“It's always been a strong market here in northern Indiana,” Shelton says, referring to companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Zimmer Corp. that either have their headquarters or large facilities there.

Like most veteran distributors, Shelton says he has concerns about the business landscape. He has worked in the machine tools industry since 1972, he says, and has lived through various economic ups and downs.

“There will be downs, but knowing that, you learn to manage [company] funds to live through the downtime. So far we're having a good year [in 2007],” he says. “For a time I thought things were going to fall off, but they haven't. And it looks like the rest of the year will be good.”

With that in mind, Shelton admits that he has a feeling that the medical industry may slow down.

“The world has become very competitive,” he says. “The concerns [are] about China, India and Pakistan or wherever....In 1972, I worried about what was happening in Illinois and Ohio. Today I worry about the rest of the world.”