"I've learned that it takes three things to succeed: knowledge, vision and hard work."
Customer is king
At Ace Tool, marketing is defined as whatever goes into making it easy for a customer to buy. It starts in the showroom, according to the owner. "We pay an immense amount of attention to our showroom displays," she continues. "They are our only chance to make a good first impression and we want them to be both informative and easy to get around — making it appealing encourages customers to stay a little longer and maybe pick up an extra item or two. We can track as much as 50 percent of our sales, in some cases, from response to our displays."
When Ace Tool Repair got started, there were no displays, and no showroom. "The standing joke," says sales manager Javier Vanegas, "is that in the first store one customer had to leave before a second could come in…it was that small."
Starting a few blocks away, Ace Tool is in its third location — more than doubling its size with each move — and has been here since 2000.
"When our customers kept asking to buy tools from us, we decided it was time for a big change," Polidoro recounts. "The first line we took on was Milwaukee Electric Tool. Our customers respected the line and kept asking for it, so we placed an order for $10,000 worth of tools. "$10,000 went a lot further back then," she laughs.
Ace Tool is adding new items to its inventory on a regular basis and culling its offerings as well. "If a product isn't selling, or demand falls off, we'll take a close look at it," she points out. "We want to be sure the dollars Ace Tool invests are wisely spent. If we don't stock enough of what a customer wants, he might go elsewhere and we want that exit door closed. But if we stock too many things that don't move, we're wasting valuable space and dollars. It's a balancing act. And, when we do make a change, we aren't likely to drop a whole line, more likely individual products within a line."
Not reputation alone
Like any successful business, Ace Tool's reputation is its best form of advertising, but it doesn't stop there. All the media available in the New York City area are considered for Ace Tool's promotional projects. Basic radio spots, like the recent one pulling listeners into the store to have Senorita Makita sign a poster after they "test drive" the newest tools in the line, are common — as are an assortment of print projects. In 2005, Ace Tool made its TV debut.
