They may be small, but watch them go

Ocala Industrial Supply, Inc. has cornered the market on cellular phone tower contractors in north central Florida. Up next? Expansion into an area of rapid retirement housing growth. -- Industrial Distribution, 4/1/2001

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By Bridget McCrea, Contributing Editor


The Ocala Industrial Supply staff, from left to right: Nicole Fort, Allen Goode, Sandi Whitaker, Greg Jones, Chris Dunning and Chris Goode.


Company snapshot
The price was right
It's about customization
New branch coming

To say Chris Goode is a man who seeks out pockets of opportunity would be quite an understatement.

As president of Ocala Industrial Supply, Inc., in Ocala, Fla., he’s looking to expand into an area of Florida where retirement houses are going up in record numbers. And, he’s already filled a previously-ignored niche of cellular telephone contractors who are scrambling to erect cell phone towers all over the state of Florida.

Jeff Schoeler, president of Elite Construction of Ocala, Inc., is one of them. Constantly pressed for time and always in need of supplies that industrial distributors don’t typically stock, he relies heavily on Ocala Industrial’s willingness to provide him with a “one-stop shop” atmosphere.

“Most of the stuff we need is odd-ball, and hard to find,” says Schoeler. “Other industrial supply houses don’t want to mess with it because they don’t want to put the resources into it. Ocala Industrial either stocks it for us or finds it, and always within a day or two.”

The use of “one-stop shopping” is common amongst Ocala Industrial customers, especially those who are taking advantage of the rapid expansion of Florida’s cellular phone tower base.

“It’s a very specialized industry,” says Goode, “and the first construction company to get the fiber optic cables hooked up gets the contract because there’s such a huge demand for them.”

And it’s not just local contractors who are cashing in on the boom, says Goode, it’s out of state companies too. “They’re coming in from all over the country, and we pretty much have every tool that’s specific to their industry,” he says. “Our goal is to make sure they have everything they need for the entire job site – all the way down to the toilet paper and the bleach.”

Goode says he stumbled on this particularly profitable niche after realizing that no one in his area carried the wire rope slings and special lifting devices that the erectors needed to get the job done safely. He called on a company in Tampa, Fla., that made such devices, and became one of its suppliers. Today, that company makes all of Ocala Industrial’s nylon and wire rope slings via a private label program, and also handles the rigging inspections and safety features for customers’ cranes, buckets and lifting materials.

“We keep everyone safe with this program, and at no charge to the customer,” says Goode, adding that he realizes there’s a risk involved with stocking specialty items, but says he avoids such problems by working on the “selling” side of the equation, and acting as more than just an order taker.

“We’ve been successful at maintaining relationships with our customers,” says Goode. “So as their needs change from job to job, we delete our inventories and change with them and keep informed about what’s going on.”

The price was right

Ocala Industrial has been keeping itself informed since 1995, when Goode founded the company with a partner whom – with the assistance of company CFO Frank Amatea – he bought out just one year later. Armed with both industrial and manufacturing sales experience, Goode says a longing to get off the “outside sales rep” road that he’d been on since the age of 18 led him down the entrepreneurial path.

After hearing that a Canadian company’s small satellite office in Ocala was up for sale, the pair jumped on the opportunity. “The inventory was great and the price was right,” says Goode. “So we bought it.” In exchange, they got a 1,500-sq.-ft. facility full of equipment and supplies targeted mainly for the construction market.

“We took the small customer base that already existed and then worked on building it up and adding to the inventory,” recalls Goode. “Then we added one line at a time to serve our growing customer base.”

It sounded simple enough in theory, but Ocala Industrial faced a monumental challenge when it came to signing up new vendors. With just two employees and a fairly small space in which to store goods, Goode says attracting the better lines for the first two years in business had to be done through large wholesalers. The more Ocala Industrial proved itself and gathered enough data to back up its success, the more vendors came knocking.

At least two vendors took a chance on the small distributor early on: Work Area Protection and Aervoe. “They both took a risk on us very early with two great product lines – that was wonderful,” he says. Just a few months after Goode opened the doors to his company another “wonderful” thing happened: a 50-year-old heavy industrial distributor shut its doors.

“That gave us a huge shot in the arm,” says Goode. “In fact, it’s why sales jumped 34 percent during our first year.” Things got even better for Ocala Industrial when the last locally-owned industrial distributor sold out to a competitor from the north in 1998, removing yet another competitor from Goode’s path.

With its early challenges behind it, Ocala Industrial now represents manufacturers like Gatorade, Stihl, Dixon Valve and the original two that helped the company get on its feet. Goode’s brother Allen joined the company in 1998 after putting in 24 years in the heavy industrial industry and that same year Ocala Industrial moved into a new 6,000-sq.-ft. location, which included a 1,500-sq.-ft. showroom.

“Our warehouse just kept getting narrower and higher until we couldn’t do it anymore,” Goode comments. Now, with seven employees and more space to work from, Ocala Industrial posted $1.2 million in sales last year selling tools, safety equipment and supplies, hose and fittings, janitorial supplies, paints and coatings to the construction, municipalities and manufacturing companies in north central Florida.

“We took the small customer base that already existed and then worked on building it up and adding to the inventory.”
– Chris Goode, Ocala Industrial Supply, Inc.

It’s about customization

Sometimes it’s the simplest products that need customization. Take traffic cones for example. Schoeler says his company was using them and losing them on a regular basis until Ocala Industrial came up with the perfect solution: emboss them with the company’s name, thus deterring theft of the orange roadside necessities.

“At $20 a piece, it adds up,” says Schoeler. “All cones look alike – but with our company name embossed on them, people can’t steal them.”
Steve Hayes is southeast regional sales manager for St. Charles, Ill.-based Work Area Protection Corp., the manufacturer that makes and embosses those cones for Ocala Industrial.

“When a customer moves to another job site, they keep more of their product and less of it ends up getting stolen,” says Hayes. “That’s a real value-added service that we provide in tandem with Ocala Industrial.”

Customers count

The “operating hours” card pasted inside Ocala Industrial’s front door may read “7am to 5pm,” but Goode says customers actually have 24-hour access when they need it.

Ray Yarbrough, president of J.W.J. Inc., an Ocala-based underground utility contractor, is one customer who certainly appreciates Ocala Industrial’s non-traditional business hours – and the extra service he gets as a result. “If there’s something we need, we just call them and have it the next day,” says Yarbrough.

In addition to its odd hours and willingness to search high and low for a specific product, Ocala Industrial also offers OSHA training to help customers deal with new industry regulations. “We’re OSHA outreach instructors, and we actually put on certified training classes for our customers,” says Goode. Ocala Industrial will go to a customer’s job site to teach the OSHA “10-hour” or “30-hour” course, then award competent worker cards to those who pass.

Introducing new products and solutions to customers is another area where Ocala Industrial stands out, says Davin Raymond, president of Melbourne Beach, Fla.-based LADD Associates, which represents 14 manufacturers including Aervoe. As an early vendor of Goode’s, Raymond says he’s joined the distributor in introducing about 25 new items to customers.

“Branching” out

In July of this year, Goode will get even more “hands on” with customers in a new market: the “Village Area” of Lake County in south central Florida, where retirement communities are coming out of the ground in droves. Located about 45 miles from Ocala, Goode plans to open a branch location in that area in hopes of being able to better serve his construction customers.

Looking ahead, Goode also plans to hire more outside sales reps, expand his company’s technological base and continually educate staff members and customers. “It’s about knowing what’s new and being the first ones to bring it to our customers,” says Goode. “That’s going to be the key for the future.”