Gary Wilson is pitching at forklift drivers.

By Terrence Belford

Gary Wilson, the 46-year-old president and founder of Master Lift Truck Services, last year took his future firmly in both hands, won the support of his 65 staff and set off on a course which will dramatically change the nature of what his company does to earn its daily bread.

For the past seven years, since Wilson created Master Lift by acquiring a string of four small dealerships, the company has taken a traditional approach to the forklift sales and service business. It had a deal with the Japanese giant Mitsubishi to both sell and provide after-sales service for its complete line of industrial forklifts.

At the time, Wilson saw it as a significant coup: "Representing a major manufacturer is a big deal in this industry. If you don't, you are looked down on. You are not one of the big players. You are an independent."

The problem was that while Master Lift might have gained a certain cachet in the industry, Mitsubishi tended to call the shots.

"They were not concerned with my company's growth; all they wanted was growth in their marketshare," he says. "They would tell me I needed 14 sales people, not four. They had no interest in me maintaining healthy margins.

"For them it was just marketshare, marketshare, marketshare. We seemed to be working for them and that was definitely not what I wanted for this company."

As he explains it, matters came to a head when Wilson sat down with his management team and an outside marketing consultant and began brainstorming. The object was to create a path for the future where Master Lift would indeed be master of its own destiny; a path that would brand the company in such a way that it quickly rose above the clutter of competing dealerships and products.

"That branding was essential," he says. "In this business, everyone talks the same. They all trumpet the ruggedness, the dependability of their products. I wanted us to be different, to be more effective reaching decision-makers."

Those brainstorming sessions resulted in two very important decisions. The first was to establish its own branded Master Lift line of vehicles. To do that, Wilson hopped on a jet to China and in Hangzhou, three hours west of Shanghai, found a factory which could produce private-label Master Lift forklifts at a level of quality and a price that could not just compete with the major manufacturers, but surpass them.

With a two-month delivery time, Master Lift could get stock to its Oakville and St. Thomas dealerships from China faster than it had been able to get forklifts delivered from Mitsubishi's Texas factory.

The second decision was all about branding. Almost all other dealerships focused on selling to management; Master Lift would talk straight to the drivers. After all, they were the ones who spent eight hours a day or more on the vehicles. They were invariably consulted by management before purchase decisions were made.

Grab their attention and support and you might have powerful allies, Wilson reckoned.

"What our surveys showed was that drivers wanted a really cool machine," he says. "They wanted something they could personalize, that would be fun to drive (and) that looked great."

Master Lift has dramatically changed the way it does business. Down from showroom walls came pictures of Mitsubishi forkifts and up went photos and posters of customized Master Lift trucks, Master Lift staff and those of a new line called Tusk from Komatsu.

"We started selling ourselves, for a change," he adds.

The website began to bounce with not just new jazzily painted Master Lift forklifts but with accessories like skull-shaped gear shift knobs. Inquiries started pouring in from as far as Israel. Wilson says it is not unusual for the site to receive 1,000 unique hits a day.

Better yet, Master Lift can now sell anything from 3 tonne to 80 tonne capacity machines at up to 20% less than the competition.

Wilson readily admits support from his staff has been crucial. To win it, he introduced a profit-sharing plan, which allows employees to benefit directly if this bold new strategy is successful.

"It also helps focus their attention on the bottom line," he says.

Perhaps the most important result of the dramatic shake-up is that Master Lift is finally its own master. The focus is now where it should be, on the growth and financial well-being of Wilson's company and his staff.

"Time will tell, but from everything we have seen to date, I am pretty certain we are on the right road," he says.

• This is an edited version of an article which appeared in the The National Post's "Entrepreneur" section. It is reproduced with the author's permission.