Working Inside the Box (Truck)

   Still, you may not be presenting a first-class look to your clients. Or, worse, you may be making it harder for those installers to do their jobs as quickly and professionally as possible.
   However, solving those problems may be as easy as opening a box – a box truck, that is. While the pickup and flatbed are industry staples, some shop owners believe a better set of wheels gets them more bang for their transportation dollar.
   Those who use them say the bigger trucks provide a more-professional image for their businesses, jobs get where they’re going in better shape, and the trucks pack the necessities for a little on-the-spot fabrication if there is a problem.
   Even better, they say, a box truck provides additional advertising that can’t be beat.
  
BIG COMPLAINTS
   It’s probably not surprising that many shops with box trucks are those sending out fleets of vehicles from larger production facilities every day. However, that doesn’t mean a box truck won’t work for a smaller shop.
   Lloyd Pickart, owner of Milwaukee-based Keystone Marble and Granite Inc., employs 13 people and doesn’t consider his operation to be a large one. But, when it came time to replace the shop’s main truck in 2000, he opted for his first box truck.
   Pickart enjoys traveling around the country visiting other stone shops, and he says early in his career just about all he ever saw people use to transport stone to jobsites was pickup trucks. That’s why he started with a pickup, and even why he bought a second one later.
   “Now, I wonder where my head was at when I went out and bought a second pickup truck when I wasn’t happy with the first one,” he says. “What was I thinking?”
   His biggest complaint: what travel did to the pieces of a job when it braved the roadway of a Wisconsin winter.
   “When we would get the product to the customer’s home, it was full of road salt and grime,” he says. “We deal with a lot of sloppy weather and a lot of real cold weather. When we’d do a kitchen, the pieces of stone might be at 10°F, and our epoxies don’t work real well at those temperatures.”
   Although winters aren’t quite as harsh in North Carolina, the weather was also a factor in the thinking of Len Malave, owner of Greensboro, N.C.-based Granite and Marble by Malave, when he opted to replace his pickups about the same time as Pickart.
   “When you’re working in the environment with the rain and snow, it becomes very difficult to keep your tools in good shape,” he says. “You also lose tools, and when you’re carrying around a kitchen on an A-frame, you don’t have a lot of room.”
   Pickart agrees that he was put off by that same crowded image his pickups presented.
   “Here we’ve got the most-impressive part of somebody’s home and we’re delivering it in a pickup loaded to the gills,” he says. “We’ve got a vacuum cleaner hanging off the side and it looks like we’re delivering junk. You simply can’t fit everything you need to do the job into a pickup truck.”
   Bryan Caton, owner of Independence, Mo.-based Midland Marble and Granite, needed no such epiphany. He began his stone career as an installer, and one of the companies he worked for utilized box trucks. When he went into the fabrication end of the business for himself, he didn’t think twice about what he wanted.
   “I liked them, and the fact that we could lock up our tools in them and the stone could get loaded the night before,” Caton says. “With pickups you constantly have to load and unload your vehicle, and everything is out in the open.”
  
THE RIGHT STUFF
   As with every other tool, what works for one person – or company – isn’t necessarily the best idea for everyone else. However, when it comes to box trucks, there are a few features that seem to hold universal appeal.
   For Pickart, his box truck is a work-in-progress. Probably the greatest evolution has come in the way he transports stone within the truck.
   Initially, he went with racks fabricated in-shop but, “We found out after awhile that it didn’t work well. We were strapping the material down and had a strap let go and jeopardize a kitchen.”
   For the truck he purchased in late 2006, Pickart opted instead to spend almost $3,000 for half-A-frame F. Barkow stone racks mounted to the walls.
   The second important addition to Pickart’s new truck is an aluminum ramp. It’s an item that both Malave and Caton say is a must, and a second one loaded in the truck offers more convenience.
   “We can literally back up to the front door,” says Caton. “We have a cart to roll the granite on, and we can roll it right into the house. We also use the ramps to go over dirt and steps.”
   “We only have to pick the granite up from the drywall cart and set it on the cabinet in most cases,” says Pickart. “Any time you can avoid lifting granite, you’re avoiding back injuries. It makes a lot of sense to me.”
   What else goes in the truck, and whether it can – or should – replace the fabrication shop is more a matter of individual taste.
   Pickart says – from trial-and-error – he’s found that including a large amount of water in his box truck just didn’t work.
   “For the truck I bought in 2000, I had a 50-gallon water tank,” he says. “However, we’ve found that if it’s going to take more than a spray bottle or a five-gallon container, it’s better to send it back to the shop and have the work done there.”
   Malave feels that five-gallon amount is a good limit.
   “We normally carry water in five-gallon containers, but we don’t need a whole lot of water on a jobsite,” Malave says. “If they have to polish an edge it doesn’t need a lot of water, and we also use a lot of dry diamonds at jobsites.”
   However, Caton says his crews have the option of rolling barrels of water – with tappers – into their trucks if they’re going to be going to sites without water. The same holds true for portable generators, he adds.
   Along with those features, the box trucks offer plenty of space for cabinets to store a large range of hand tools – in an orderly way. Caton, for instance, says his trucks carry enough tools that they can handle just about any problem that shows up, right up to doing cabinet repairs if necessary.
   “Everything has an assigned position in it,” says Pickart. “Because we’re sending out different guys on different days, all the equipment has to be put back in the same place so the next guy knows where it is. That was a big problem with the pickup; the organization was terrible.”
   As for having the ability to do in-truck fabrication, though, opinions vary. Pickart’s new 18’ box has fluorescent lighting and the back –reached by folding doors – is heated.
   “The installers have a heated environment with ample light to work with,” says Pickart. “When you’re trying to make stone as perfect as possible, you need that.”
   Caton, who sends his crews out in 14’ trucks, prefers they not actually work in the box.
   “We have foldout worktables and they can pull the generator out of the back of the truck, put the stone on the worktable, and fire up,” he says. “We’d rather pull it out and work on the table or the ground. Or, we’ll run cords into the house and work it in the kitchen if it’s new construction. We slide the stone off the end of the cabinet, work it and clean up the mess.”
  
ADDED BENEFITS
   While these company owners believe their box trucks make fabrication quicker, easier and safer for their installers, they say the benefits go well beyond that. It’s an added form of advertising that no door sign on a pickup can match.
   “The main reason we went with box trucks was for the advertising,” says Caton. “We have seven box trucks running around Kansas City, and it’s some of the best advertising we have.”
   Pickart compares them to mobile billboards.
   “We have an 8’ X 18’ billboard on each side of the truck,” he says. “It’s a picture of my showroom with how we display our granite. Billboards here right now are running about $4,000 a month. The graphics cost $4,000-$5,000, but it’s a one-time cost.”
   Malave agrees. He utilizes 4’ X 4’ images of the company’s showroom and stone library, as well as specific jobs.
   “They also have the name prominently displayed all around, and information on what we do,” he says.
   Not only are those graphics working as their crews travel from jobsite to jobsite, but Caton says there’s never any question about who’d doing a job. He even incorporates it into his other marketing.
   “When we’re in somebody’s driveway, all the neighbors know we’re doing that house,” he says. “We do a program where if someone calls and says they saw our truck in their neighborhood, they get a percentage off. That usually helps us lock down additional sales.”
   That advertising isn’t the only image enhancement the trucks provide, either. These men believe it also helps raise the professional image of the trade itself.
   “We’ve had many builders and homeowners who’ve called and complimented us not only on the professionalism of the individuals who did their job, but also on the professionalism of the company,” says Malave. “When they show up at the jobsite in a professional-looking vehicle and they get out in uniforms, the customer feels these guys are pros.”
   “The level of professionalism it brings is amazing,” agrees Pickart. “The number of husbands who come out and look at the back of the truck is enormous. I think it raises the level of professionalism to go with the products we’re selling.”
   Of course, there are some drawbacks. Although the trucks aren’t large enough to require special licensing for drivers, there are some safety concerns. Pickart says it’s his policy that one of the crew has to be behind the truck directing the driver whenever it’s backing up.
   A bigger one can be the cost. Pickart notes box trucks can run several thousand dollars more than a pickup, although he believes he’s made that up on faster installs.
   And, Caton says his company replaces the chassis of its trucks – but not the boxes – every three years.
   “We buy the cab and the chassis,” he says. “The dealer comes and picks up the truck, takes off the box and installs it on the new chassis. All we do is spend a little fixing a door maybe, or putting on a little paint. It’s a big savings.”
   Ultimately, Caton says he would recommend box trucks to not just those in the stone trade.
   “I think they’d work for any trade,” he says. “You have to let people know who you are and what you’re doing, and I don’t think there’s anything better out there for doing just that.”

This article first appeared in the March 2008 print edition of Stone Business. ©2008 Western Business Media Inc.