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Trade of
the Tools
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Business New Haven
2/22/1999
By: Fiona Phelan
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When it comes to selling a product, most businesses follow the well-trod advertising paths of radio, television and print media. Some sell their products only through stores. Many send out brochures and catalogues. More and more are looking to the Internet for their inaugural forays into e-commerce.
Although the Southington-based American Standard Co. does use some of the conventional methods named above, it also employs an uncommon component in its marketing plan: retail and trade shows.
In fact, according to company President Nat Florian, more than 50 percent of the company's sales come from events like the Eastern States Exposition (Big E) in West Springfield, Mass. and other state fairs, home-and-garden shows and trade shows across the country.
American Standard, a third-generation family-owned tool-and-die and metal-stamping business, manufacturers a line of pruning tools for amateur gardeners, professional landscapers and arborists. For more than 30 years the company has produced Florian Ratchet-Cut tools.
These tools make pruning and trimming trees and bushes easier, the company says, because of their patented built-in ratchet system that multiplies the users' strength up to seven times, according to Florian.
Instead of relying on scissor action simply to cut a stem or branch, Florian tools include a third component between the two handles of the product. When the handles are squeezed together a small bar slips into a notch (the ratchet). The user then squeezes the handles again and the bar slips into the next notch. The motion is repeated until the two blades come together and the stem or branch is cleanly cut.
“The difficulty in marketing this product is that it's not immediately obvious what it does,” explains Florian. “When you go to a garden or home show, an institutional show for landscapers or any of the state agricultural fairs, you have a large concentrated audience.
“The larger fairs are really worth the effort,” he says. “We can demonstrate how the product is used, and people can see first-hand just how easy it is to use.
“Nothing gets the idea across better than letting the customer actually see and use the product while it's being demonstrated,” he adds.
American Standard (which is not related to the plumbing-supply company) has been marketing its products through trade and retail shows for the past 30 years.
With just 25 employees at its 20,000-square-foot manufacturing site on Water Street in Southington, American Standard relies on a network of hand-picked re-sellers to demonstrate and sell Florian tools at shows, exhibits and fairs.
Until recently, the team of re-sellers has concentrated its efforts on fairs and shows on the East and West coasts. This year, according to Florian, the company plans to expand its range to include the vast number of fairs and trade shows in the Midwest and throughout the rest of the country.
The re-sellers are not American Standard employees, but are under contract to sell the tools. At times there are between six and eight professional salespeople selling the product at fairs and trade shows. The salespeople earn a commission on each product they sell, Florian explains.
At an event like the Big E, a re-seller might sell more than 200 hand-pruners and walk away with additional orders placed for the company's larger tools as well.
“The re-sellers are independent of the company, but we maintain [control over] who goes to what show and in to what areas,” says Florian. “We really try to match the person to the show.
“Some are better at one kind of show than an other,” Florian says. “Someone who might sell at a state fair like the Big E may not be the right salesperson for an indoor show like a home-and-garden show. They all have their own style of selling.”
Marketing the product this way was an “evolutionary kind of thing,” recalls Florian. “We started selling our tools back in the 1960s at the Boston Flower Show. We really didn't know what we were doing at that time.”
At that show, American Standard sold only one of its Max-Lopper tools.
The following year, the company introduced its hand shear at a trade show in New York. That, according to Florian, set the gardening world “on fire.”
“Obviously there have many, many steps between developing the tool, promoting it and profiting from the product,” notes Florian. “It hasn't all been peaches and cream. We used to go to different trade shows and people would tell us how to market our product.”
Along the road, the company has tried several alternate ways of selling the tools. At one point, says Florian, American Standard entered into a private-label agreement with the New Britain-based Stanley Works: American Standard manufactured the product, and Stanley sold it under the latter's name.
“When Stanley wanted to lower the price and the quality, we walked away,” recalls Florian. “We want to produce a high-quality product at a fair price.”
The price of the various tools ranges from about $35 for the original ratchet-cut pruning tool to $280 for a maxi-pole pruner system, which has an interchangeable handle that allows the user to trim branches up to two inches in diameter and can reach up to 14 feet overhead.
Gardening tools, according to Florian, are a product that can and will survive economic recessions.
“We've been through the boom and bust times,” he says, “and our sales don't drop off. Gardening is something that remains steady. In good times someone might hire a landscaper who uses our product. When the economy declines, that amateur gardener will go out and buy good tools like ours and do the job themselves.”
In addition to trade shows, the company employs an array of “traditional” marketing tools. A digest-sized, four-color catalogue is sent out several times annually, and customers can place orders by phone, fax or mail.
Additionally, the company recently created a Web site (www.florianratchetcut.com). Although online orders cannot yet be taken, the company plans to add that feature in the next year, says Florian.
“We want to avoid the trap of putting all our eggs in one basket,” Florian says of the different marketing tools. “If we don't make a profit in one area, then we don't want to keep pursuing that as a marketing tool.
“We haven't done any one thing consistently,” acknowledges Florian. “Over the years we've tried a little bit of everything to find what really works for us. We've had some good sales increases in the past few years, but we know we're still not covering the market.”
Currently the company is focusing on domestic sales since its products are American-made. However, Florian has his eyes on opportunities in other English-speaking countries which may also lead to production outside the U.S.
“We're constantly doing make-or-break decisions to see who can produce our product more efficiently,” says Florian. “If it makes more sense for us to subcontract a piece of work and maintain the quality of the tool, then that's what we'll do.”
The idea for the product was Florian's father's. In 1965, R. Steuart Florian was awarded a patent for the company's Maxi-Loppers. The younger Florian, who has a degree in chemical engineering from MIT, and his brother Jonathan re-engineered the product and acquired a second patent. It is this product that the Florians still sell today.
And American Standard remains family-owned. It is headed by Nat and Jonathan Florian. Another brother, Don, is now retired from the business. Family ownership will endure, says Florian, now that his son Sean has taken over as operations manager and daughter-in-law Beth as office manager.
“There's competition out there, along with interest in the company,” says Nat Florian. “We certainly want to grow. But not too big, too fast.”
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