Company Profile
If
Rich Piselli were to write a book on running a successful business, it
would probably be titled Trust, with chapters such as "Keep Your Word,"
and "Stay Focused," and "Don't Waste People's Time." The conclusion?
That would be on the importance of building and maintaining a good
reputation.
"In this business, all you really have is
your reputation," says Piselli, who is president and founder of R.P.
Machine Enterprises, Inc., of Statesville, North Carolina. "If you
don't do what you say you're going to do, word gets out, so you've got
to keep your promises. There's just no other way."
 Piselli
began acquiring this knowledge back in 1989, when he shifted from the
Oriental import/export business to buying and selling used equipment
for a company called U.S.A. Machinery. He quickly noticed that each of
the salesmen specialized in certain types of equipment, but that they
tended to shy away from gear machinery. "Not many guys understood gear
equipment, because these are unusual machines," he says. "They're not
like a simple lathe or a mill, they're more intricate. So I decided to
take advantage of the situation and make that area my own. When I
started with U.S.A., they had maybe three or four gear customers on the
computer, so I took that and just ran with it. I made some good
contacts and sold some gear machines that nobody else knew anything
about."
The downturn of the U.S. economy took its
toll on the company, which closed its doors in the early nineties,
leaving Piselli to consider what his next career move would be. He'd
managed to pull together a solid network of gear-machine buyers and
sellers, and he decided that he wanted to continue building on his
work. He approached a friend--who owned a gear-cutting shop in
Cleveland and had bought some machines from him in the past--about
housing a couple of used machines, and the venture went well. Piselli's
confidence in the market grew to the point that he realized he needed
space of his own.
"I'd been working out of an office
in New York, traveling to Cleveland when a customer needed to see a
machine, but I felt like it was time to consolidate my activities and
my inventory, so I started looking around for a good place to do that,"
he says.
On a visit to Statesville, North
Carolina--just outside of Charlotte--Piselli fell in love with the
area, and not only for its natural beauty, but due to the positive and
supportive business climate. "It's very pro-business here," he says.
"Plus it's a great distribution location, since it's easy for the
trucks to get in and out with Highway 77 and 40 right nearby."
Piselli
bought his first building in 1995, with some 50,000 square feet of
warehouse space. "We jumped right into it," he says, "and before you
knew it, we had that building filled up with machines. And since then,
our business has just taken off. We never missed a beat--we've never
had a downturn."
Since that day, Piselli's
real-estate holdings have grown to the point that he now owns more than
700,000 square feet of commercial space--much of which he leases to
other businesses--and has recently added an additional 400,000 square
feet. "It's not that we're dying to just keep getting bigger and
bigger, because things can get out of hand," he says. "In fact, working
with a set amount of space forces you to buy smarter. But I see growth
as a sort of necessary evil at this point, because it's what we're
gonna have to do to be able to move up to that next level."
That
level, he explains, involves a number of operations and services that
the company has recently begun to pursue, such as retrofitting and
recontrolling older machines. "These are machines that have good metal
and good ball screws, but their controls have become obsolete," he
says. "So what we're doing is putting in new state of the art controls,
and what we end up with is a crackerjack machine for a third or half
the price of a new one."
Retrofitting older machines
is a natural progression for the company, Piselli says, since it has
never sought to comply with the norm. "We have taken the concept of the
small-time dealer, the broker who's spending all of his time on the
phone buying and selling, and completely blown it apart," he says,"
because with gear equipment, you can't just sell the machine. There's
so much more going on, in terms of tooling, fixturing, and support,
that you need to be able to offer a complete package. And that's what
we're able to provide--a complete, turnkey package."
In
addition to used equipment, R.P. Machine now offers new equipment as
well, and it has recently entered into a relationship with New England
Gear to sell its line of shapers and Gear Spec's CNC testers, and
CNC-recontrolled Reishauer gear grinders. "At this point, probably 70
percent of our business involves used machines, and 30 percent is new
and retrofitted equipment," he says. "But that may shift to 60/40 in
the coming year because retro-machine sales are going so well."
In
addition to Gould & Eberhardt, Pfauter, Liebherr, Mitsubishi,
Gleason, and other gear-related machinery. The company imports new gear
hobbing machines from China, outfitting them with new CNC controls,
which results in a never-used machine with the full range of
gear-cutting capabilities, and at a significantly lower purchase price.
"These are phenomenal niche machines, but at a fraction of the cost of
other machines," Piselli says.
Even more than its
extensive inventory and ever-growing list of services, the company's
approach to doing business sets it apart from the crowd. "We're pretty
aggressive, but that's because we're confident about what we sell and
what we do," says Piselli. "But the most important thing of all--and
what I think we're known for in this business--is that we do what we
say we're going to do. Because you've got to be straight with people,
and you can't waste their time. As a result, I'd say that 80 percent of
our business is repeat business, and that's unheard of in this
industry_ unheard of."
When buyers contact Piselli to
ask what he has in stock, he turns the question around: "I say 'never
mind what I've got, what do you need?'" he says. "I ask them to tell me
what kind of machine they're looking for, what they want it to do, and
what they're planning to spend on it. That way, I'm not wasting their
time, they're not wasting my time, and we can get them up and running
that much faster."
With a global network of
connections--R.P. Machine's customer base stretches across the United
States and even into countries including Germany, Japan, Korea, and
China, among others--Piselli has even fielded queries from customers
seeking employees. "I really see that as a compliment," he says. "When
somebody buys a machine from me, and then they ask me to help them find
a machine operator or whatever, that says they trust me. There's no
telling how many guys I've gotten jobs for."
This
willingness to go beyond the typical bounds of the buyer/seller
relationship is central to the company's philosophy, he says. "When we
sell a machine, we stand behind it 100 percent. If the machine breaks
down, we'll send in a technician to set things right, and if it still
isn't working out, we'll take it back and send them another one."
Piselli
says that, of the millions in inventory he keeps on hand, he has a
back-up for 90 percent of the machines. "Duplication is essential in
this business, because I've got to have something to offer a customer
in case he decides that the original machine isn't working out, for
whatever reason," he says. "I've also got to have replacement parts in
stock, because parts can cost as much as the machine, sometimes,
especially if you have to go to the manufacturer."
This
aspect of the business also takes up a significant portion of the
company's warehouse space. "To be honest with you, I'm always on the
lookout for what you might call 'white elephants,'" Piselli says. "If
it's too old or worn out to keep operating, we'll break it down for
parts. But I also know that when somebody's looking for an offbeat
machine, they're going to come to me. Sooner or later, I'm gonna sell
that machine."
Advertising is essential to making
people aware of his company's stock and services. As an example,
Piselli recalls an incident where a potential customer that he'd been
trying to work with for months, if not years, and who was located right
down the road from him, finally called him one day out of the blue. "So
I went to see the guy and I said 'how'd you find out about me?' and he
holds up a magazine and points to our ad," Piselli laughs. "I'd been
knocking on his door forever, and he finally calls me because he
remembered seeing our ad!
"You've got to get your
name out there, and not just once," he says. "You've got to keep it out
there. And if you do that, people are going to remember it and call
you."
Still, Piselli says he places the most emphasis
on his reputation as a means of spreading the word about his company.
"I like for people to think well of the company and what we do," he
says. "I want them to have a good experience with us, and to know that
we'll be there for them, no matter what. We want to be seen as the
'go-to' guys."
And it's never too early to begin
working on this relationship, he adds. "If a company's just starting
up, I'll tell them to give me a third down, and I'll keep their
machines on my floor, and we'll take care of the balance once their
building's finished," he says. "In the meantime, we'll be working on
those machines, getting all the tooling and the parts ordered so that
when those machines hit the floor, they'll be running."
 Although
he spends the majority of his time in the office, Piselli usually
travels once or twice a month, calling on his customers and scouting
out good buys--and not only on equipment, but entire factories. "One of
our first big deals, and one that really helped put us on the map,
involved a company called Cambridge Gear up in Ontario," he recalls.
"When we first bought the company, we were planning to keep it running
and get in the gear-cutting business. But once we learned more about
the unions and other complications that we really didn't want to get
into, we decided to break the company up and sell off its assets,
including the machines. We ended up doing very well with that, but it
had people going 'who's this Piselli guy? Where'd he come from?'"
In
a larger sense, the answer is New York, where Piselli grew up in a
family that placed a premium on hard work. "I know it's a clich�, but
I've always gone at things 110 percent," he says. "I believe that if
you work hard enough, you create your own good luck."
In
addition to this strategy, R.P. Machine has always made a point of
reinvesting its earnings back into the company, building its inventory
and expanding its services in order to better meet its customer's
needs. Another key component of the company's success is the attention
paid to "staying focused."
"When I first started this
company, it was just me," Piselli says, adding that he now has eight
employees and a long list of proven contract technicians on call. "And
I've had to learn everything about running a business on my own. But
even once you're dealing with payroll and inventory and bank payments
and all the other headaches, you've got to stay focused on what you
originally set out to do. And when times are tough, you've got to
remember your commitment to the customer, to doing things right and
keeping your word. I've seen plenty of guys who started their own
businesses end up being overwhelmed by the responsibility and losing
their minds and shutting down the shop. So you've got to be able to
multitask--that's essential to being successful in this business."
Piselli
also believes that it's important for the company to have a presence at
the industry's various trade shows. "We're a member of AGMA and MDNA,"
he says. "We've displayed at Gear Expo for the past six years running,
and we've had a booth at the IMTS show for the past three years. And
even though we might sell a machine or two while we're there, just
enough to cover our expenses, that's really not why we go. We want to
say hello to our customers, to spend some time with them, and we also
owe it to them to prove that we're serious about being a player in this
industry.
"It also gives me the opportunity to tell
potential customers that, if they'll give us a shot at their business,
we'll be there for them from that point forward," says Piselli. "And
when we give somebody our word, they can take that to the bank."
For more information on R.P. Machine Enterprises, Inc., contact Piselli at (704) 872-8888, or via e-mail at rich@rpmachine.com. To search the company's inventory click here. |
