Slump forces company to take different course
by Carroll Copelin
as taken from Times Record News, Wichita Falls, Texas – January 5, 1989
Three years ago, Bob Wesbrooks was seriously thinking about locking the doors on the business founded by his late father, Wesbrooks, Inc.
The oil slump had decimated his hydraulic sales and repair business (he had lost from 65 percent to 70 percent of his business). But Wesbrooks decided to make one more try to keep the business going and found himself at a multi-million dollar truck stop in El Paso talking to the owner of a chain of the big truck stops.
“I saw this pile of broken impact air wrenches over in a corner and asked him what he was going to do with them. He said they would be thrown away, but I talked him into letting me take them back here and rebuild them. Out of the 12 broken ones, we were able to rebuild 10 of them at about a third of what new ones would have cost, “ recalled Wesbrooks.
That was the germ of an idea that has since ballooned into a thriving profit maker, for thus began an exchange business for power and hydraulic tools that today has about 400 customers nationwide. Wesbrooks bought a mailing list of truck stops for $75 and began sending out fliers to them.
“In 1988, our truck stop business increased 590 percent over the previous year. There’s about 2,800 major truck stops and we’ve got about 400 of them,” Wesbrooks said.
And out of those 400 truck stops, Wesbrooks said he has had only two bad debts.
In addition to truck stops, Wesbrooks’ firm deals with tire dealers.
He explained his company cleans are rebuilds exchange equipment on an assembly line basis and then ships it out with a new guarantee that’s as good as one on a new one.
“We learned action is what they (customers) want. If a truck stop’s 20-ton jack is broken, it needs another as soon as possible. It can’t wait to send it to us to have it repaired so when a customer calls in to order an exchange one or even a new one, it’s on its way 24 hours after we get the order and the truck stop has it about two days later,” Wesbrooks said.
He credits his 18 employees with taking the company through that awful period between 1982 and 1985. The payroll was cut from a high of 35 employees and those that stayed took a “pretty good” pay cut.
“We’re coming back, but they’re still not making what they were before their salaries were cut, but just as soon as I’m able, they’ll be back up there and hopefully even better,” Wesbrooks said.
The advantage his company gives on its exchange program grabs the attention of truck stops and tire dealers for the solution is obvious. For example, a new 1-inch impact wrench sells for about $329 while a rebuilt one with his company’s guarantee sells for $195, and it’s about the same savings on other tools and equipment, he said.
Another service he offers is when a piece of equipment fail, the customer simply calls a toll-free number, tells what equipment is down and a “loaner” is shipped immediately.
“When it gets to the truck stop, they simply put the broken one in the same box and send it back,” he said.
Wesbrooks started working at the company when he was only 10 years old. As he got into high school (class of 1954 at Wichita Falls High School) “all I ever wanted to do was play the drums and party.”
After high school, he found himself in California with a wife and a job, but his father asked him to come home and help with the business. Enroute back to Wichita Falls, his father suffered a heart attack in New Mexico while on a sales trip.
Wesbrooks and his wife drove through without knowing the elder Wesbrooks was in a hospital and didn’t hear of it until they arrived here.
“When my dad got back, he called me in, gave me a list of town and businesses to call on as well as places to stay. He gave me $125 and told me to stay on the road for two weeks. I’d never talked to people much before, let alone sold anything. I guess you’d say I learned the hard way,” Wesbrooks said.
Today, he has three salesmen and he covers New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and part of California.
“I guess I’m proudest of the fact I was able to save a 32-year-old family business from failing. And I learned that you don’t concentrate on just one customer – the oil business.” Wesbrooks said.
He still has oil customers such as Halliburton, Dowell and Permian, but truck stops are his biggest customers now. His is the story of a company almost completely dependent on the oil industry succeeding despite that sector’s economy.