Keeping Minnesota Job Sites Safe | Erika Sherman, MC Tool and Safety #010

Hi everyone. I'm Karissa from Shining Light on Minnesota. We have a really special guest here today, Erika Sherman from MC Tool and Safety. Welcome Erika. Thanks. Thanks for having me today. You bet. I'm super excited. All our fans will want to hear everything about where you're going and what you have planned. Why don't we start off a little bit and tell everybody about where you got started in the business and how it all came about? Sure. So, MC Tool and Safety is a family-owned distributor of tools and safety equipment for the construction industry. My dad started the company with three other gentlemen in 2002 and uh I bought in about 8 years ago. Uh my dad's looking at retirement over the next oh we'll say 12 months, maybe more, maybe less, who knows? Um but I started in distribution on the beer side of everything and uh my dad asked me to join um out of the blue and I said yes. So that's how I ended up on the tool side. Awesome. Where are you guys located? We are right off of County Connie Road J and 35W in Blaine. And what kind of tools and safety do you guys all have and what kind of construction people or what all is it entailed? Sure. So, we carry everything from hand tools like razor back shovels and hammers and um any sort of bits and blades that would go with those uh as well as power tools, cordless and corded. Uh Bosch and Milwaukee are a couple good brands we carry along with DeWaltton uh Matabo. And then on the safety side, everything from PPE to gas monitors and confined space um to respirators, H high viz, we do custom logoing um and any sort of um fall protection you would need uh job site safety, job site tools, that kind of thing. So our big customers are GC's. We love demo um contractors, anybody who's tearing a building down or building a building up and highway heavy and utility contractors are great. And my um addition to the portfolio was uh growing our um municipality and so the states and the counties and the cities though that group of uh customers has been a real pleasure to deal with. So nice. How far do you guys service? So you have contractors coming in, you have PPE, you have everything like that, and you guys have a pretty big reach. Where all do you service, too? Yeah, I mean, anybody who wants to buy can buy. We take cards and and uh cash obviously, as well as put people on terms as needed. Um our our delivery area is within about 60 to 70 miles. Nice. Um but we can also use the national delivery companies. So we can deliver anywhere. A lot of our customers their home bases or offices are they at least have an office within about you know an hour of the cities um hour and a half and after that we can uh utilize FedEx and Speedy Delivery and other wonderful anywhere. Yeah. USPS has been really great the last few years. A lot more competitive. Nice. Yeah. So your dad was in the business for quite a while. Has did he originally always was he always in the tool safety sector? Not safety so much. Um he's always been a tool guy. So uh he started at Viking Electric and they started a hand tool power tool division there in the 70s. Uh he worked at Total Tool through the 80s and early 90s. Got out of the business for a little bit and then got back in when they decided to start this one up. So fun. um in 2008 their so my dad and Terry Mlelen who started the company had their whole goal was just to keep the relationships they had with their customers you know and um that's why they wanted to start their own cuz they felt that they could service them better so they're really good customers said hey 2008 took the legs out from under us but if you guys start taking in safety equipment we'll buy it from you so they got into glasses they got into vests and they got into gloves so That's really where it started. And we were called Mlen Sales up until 2018. Maybe it's 2019. My memory fails me, but either way, um, I wanted to put tool and safety in the name because it we really do about, you know, half our business on each side of that. So, perfect. So, you started off in the beer industry. How was the transition back over to tool safety, everything like that? Oh, it was hard. I don't know. I mean like it's a your end user is similar your beer drinker and your you know construction worker but I think u the buyers are different how how you go to market um and being a marketing person at the end of my career in in the beer distribution world I had never really dealt with buying or paying invoices and dealing with vendors really at at any sort of a um non-marketing level. So, uh that that learning curve was steep and hard. Um and no joke if you want to be a business owner. It's uh it's a uh exciting adventure and some days are really hard. Yeah, it's 24/7 all every day, all day. I see you at a lot of events. Are there any associations or anything that you kind of are starting to kind of grow towards to get out there a little bit more in a larger area or larger reach? You know, I think there's so much business to be had here in Minneapolis that I'd really rather stay more local and find the people that don't know we exist yet. You know, my my dad's pokes great fun at us and said that we were really good at stealth marketing for the first 15 years we were around. Um, so now that we're doing more local and some um, a lot of social media stuff and a lot of just getting our name out there, I'd rather just find more customers here, you know, free local delivery and free, you know, pick up within an hour if it's on in stock. Absolutely. And so I'm putting a lot of Yeah. I'm putting a lot of money into a new website that's a little bit more user friendly. Um, and I I I just Oh, and you talked about associations. So, I utilize um the Association Women Contractors and I utilize MUCA, which is the Minnesota Utility Contractors Association, and then we're members of the APWA Minnesota chapter, um which is the public works associations. Uh and there's like 75 associations you could be a member of, and if not more. Yeah. And you just don't have the time and the capacity. So, we're really, really lucky with the Association Women Contractors that we have, um, a good relationship with the Minnesota Subcontractors Association. Actually, we're members of that now, too. But, uh, the TGB and the, um, Association of General Contractors. So, it's just been, um, a a lovely, I don't know, a a lovely experience with all of those. And MUCA and the AWC are are closely tied, too. Um it's just really great. It's a good fit. Yeah. And especially since you're local, familyowned, a lot of times trying to go outside the box and think, okay, how can we grow? Where can we go to when your bread and butter is all here at home? It's easier to try to keep growing and continuing because everybody's always hiring and there's always people that don't know who you are. Yeah. And it's fun to see, you know, just on the news this morning that the trades are coming back. So, these kids are going to school for the trades now and and know that they can make real good money before they're 21, you know? I just I just really like that and I have a real positive outlook on what's coming up in the construction industry. So, I I I'd love to do business further if and when we have the capacity, but for now, I just really want to take care of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and you know, I mean, as much as Duth and Rochester and uh St. and cloud are included in those numbers for us. Mano um even Hudson Wisconsin right but the cities is growing non-stop I mean everywhere you look it's every little subity and every other area within our little home area is all getting to be one and it's all you know there's so many businesses out there that aren't known and don't know how to get a hold of people and how to get a hold of the correct equipment that they need and everything like that. So, it's it's it's its own little game. It is. It is fun. And the people here are lovely. How's the marketing been going for you guys? Good. We have a part-time marketing manager and she's been doing great, I think. Yeah. Just in terms of if you look at when we started all of our posts two and a half, three years ago. Um, we're getting now just traction on some of those blogs from back then. So, it's fun to see that we were kind of ahead of the curve maybe or the algorithms that Google's using are are going right. I mean, it's it's kind of a crapshoot. And some days, you know, you just you throw it all up in the air and hope something sticks. Um, and then other days you got a little bit more of a plan, but some of it's just letting people know we're here, right? Like all the things we can do, which is which is a lot. Um, and I think that makes the marketing hard when you have so many facets, whether it's so many possible customers, so many products, you know, in our store alone, we've got 3700 SKs, right? and to let everybody know, hey, we're, you know, yes, we say tool and safety, but this is also, you know, another sector. Let's have the fall protection, let's have PPE and just keep adding everything in to let everybody know under that one name, that one little branch. Absolutely. Well, and call us. We always say, you know, give your shopping list to us and whatever we can get, we'll get and then if uh we can't, we'll let you know where the best place is to buy it that we think. Speaking of social media, how can people see you and find you? Where are you at on there? Oh, we are everywhere. So, we're on LinkedIn. We're on Facebook, Instagram, um, Twitter a little bit. We stayed off Tik Tok, but I have a Tik Tok for the company. I don't have anything that interesting to post on that platform yet. Right. Um, and I'm kind of lukewarm on it. So, nice. Good. Well, there's a large area out there. We hope that everybody keeps trying to find you. anything like let's talk a little bit more and dive into a little bit more about your why like why you do what you do. So primarily it was because my dad asked me to from the onset, you know. Um my dad always had a passion for this and I I didn't um but as I dove into training and where my dad and Terry um were really good was the tool side and where I gravitated towards was the safety side. And watching some of these safety videos, you just say how easy is it to save a life? like it it can be as easy as having two people on a job site instead of one or having the capabilities to um call out from your you know without without having your phone on you. You can just say something. So there's loan worker stuff now that's that's really cool. But uh that's where my why ends up cuz every parent should be able to get home to their kid and every kid should come home to their mom no matter how old they are. Like I'm sorry, but that's where I was at. You know, these people, you lose six workers cuz they keep going down into confined space to find their buddy that's not coming up. Well, there's no oxygen down there. So, they're all dying, you know, and it's just like where are the safeguards? What What can we do to help? And and some of that's hard and some of it's very complicated. Um and and that's my why we try and get better every day, right? Um, you can't just buy it from anybody off the internet. You can't just buy it because they say they can give it to you. We service gas monitors. We know the gas is in and out. We know when the, you know, the regulators aren't going to work with the the gases that you've got. So, it just it's more than just buying stuff. It's it's teaching and and advising. Do you guys do any classes or any teaching for safety? Anything like that? No, we're not certified to do that. We do partner with our vendors to hold classes from time to time. So we'll um partner with FallTech or Safeways to hold a competent purses training for fall protection. Um and then that is a cost to our customer, but we try and break even on it so that we can, you know, spread out that cost between many of our um our customers so that you guys aren't paying a ton just to get your people. With all the technology changing, everything like that with drones and technology and all the equipment, camera safety, everything like that, how do you guys stay on top of all all the new and good stuff coming out? You know, as best we can. Um, and some of those worlds we don't play in. Um, but but for us, we have a lot of vendor training. I have a um buying group that I'm a part of called Net Plus Alliance, and that's been lovely. They've got online training through BlueVolt Academy. Uh both of which just top-notch. Um and then that's the way that I keep my um people trained as well as find out about the new stuff cuz they're sending out some of that new um regulations and and how to be prepared for it as it comes. So yeah, that's our that's our you know, in the world of technology, it's the best thing that's happening. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that people with PPE with all the changes, restrictions, requirements, everything like that, staying on top of that, it's its own beast. And people don't realize that and it's so hard. And what worked last week might not work next week. So, you know, and we're lucky too that we've got a lot of contractors that are on top of it. And some of them pushing to make those changes so that their workers are safe, so their G, you know, their um subcontractor's workers are safe. So, um yeah, just been a lovely uh exchange of information. Um, and and even amongst my competitors, we we share. So, I like it. I that's that's the world that I like. And it's not this cutthroat I I sell so much, you go out of business thing. That's not it. Well, how many people like you get in the construction world, you see a lot of people, they're like, "This is my equipment. It's been my equipment for 30 years, 40 years." getting them to kind of get out of that my equipment shell because maybe that harness you've been wearing for 40 years isn't quite safe anymore and trying to kind of teach them the new new ins and outs of harnesses. Do you get a lot of that as well? Not so much on that side. The hard hats with the uh the new chin straps has been probably the biggest uh hurdle for for motans. But um you know, everybody likes a shiny new harness because they they're more padded and they fit better. Um, but some of the changes when you're changing processes, yeah, I've done it this way forever. I don't have to change. And you're like, but you do because the GC makes you or the OSHA rigs change or the ANC rigs change. So, um, getting guys to wear gloves if they're not used to it. That's that's hard. And then and then the cut proof gloves, they keep getting better and better and better. Man, when they came out five, six years ago, you were like, I can't move my fingers. And now some of the the products tuft to lean and and uh uh Aramix or something is a competitive product, but they're so user friendly, for lack of a better word. They're comfortable, they're safer, they're touchscreen compatible, so you've got your work on your iPad and you can use it. So, um I would say that there's camps, you know, some camps are real hard and some camps are you're like, "Hey, this is shiny and new and you look really good wearing it." It's lighter. You can move your fingers. The straps aren't quite as thick as they used to be under the chins. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Well, we really appreciate having you out today. We just kind of wanted to have you on, let you showcase where you guys are, where you're going one more time. How can people find you, and where all are you located? Yeah. So, we are at 285184th Lane Northeast in Blaine. Yeah. You can find us online at mcsales.com. Our new website's going to launch in about a week. Exciting. Yes. With any luck. And I can't promise that the e-commerce side is done all the way, but it's going to be. It will be. Yeah. It's uh that world is crazy. Everybody thinks you should be as good as Amazon and and I just, you know, until you're in there, you don't know all the ins and outs and how it all works. Thank you so much. Yep. And then uh always you can call us um but right online. So perfect. Well, we appreciate having you out. Thank you so much for stopping by. I really appreciate you having me. Thank you, Erika.