It seems to be a partnership borne out of a mutual desire to give customers exactly what they need through friendly, honest service.
When CCS Equipment Sales LLC, a full service equipment dealership located just north of Raleigh, wanted to begin offering a bigger line of wheel loaders to give their utility company customers a fuller line of equipment, they zeroed in on Kawasaki, a manufacturer known for its well-made machines.
Coincidentally, Kawasaki also was looking for another dealer for its equipment in the lucrative eastern North Carolina market.
The result was that CCS Equipment and Kawasaki teamed up earlier this year to begin offering the Japanese maker’s line of articulated wheel loaders in the eastern half of the Tarheel State.
Since the deal was finalized in the last few months, Charles Davis and Todd Snyder, the two partners who run CCS Equipment, have quoted several Kawasaki machines to some of their customers, as well as sold both a model 45ZV-2 and a 65TMV-2.
“We have been selling Takeuchi’s line of small wheel loaders, but Kawasaki is the only line of big wheel loaders that we have,” explained Snyder. “By carrying the Kawasaki brand it opens up the marketplace for us as far as the bigger machines for our utility customers and maybe, eventually, we will be able to sell to quarries.”
CCS is a small dealership with about 15 employees, but since its founding 14 years ago it has been able to serve a wide range of clients both large and small. In the current economy, though, Snyder said that in order to stay competitive, bold steps have to be taken.
“We have gotten our start working a great deal with owner-operators and utility guys,” he added. “But bringing on Kawasaki just opens up another revenue stream for us and gives us more of a full line of equipment to offer these guys. We have never had a big wheel loader to offer before, but now we have something attractive for the utility companies, with whom we do a lot of business.”
Snyder said that CCS Equipment also was drawn to Kawasaki due to its excellent reputation in making top-of-the-line wheel loaders.
“I think that we kind of fit the profile of somebody they were looking for — somebody that is sales- and service-oriented and, as it happened, we were looking for a product in that size,” he added. “We were very fortunate to run into those guys and get a partnership going.”
Humble Beginnings
CCS Equipment Sales was started in 1998 as an equipment brokerage firm by the trio of Charlie Snyder (Todd’s father), Charles Davis and Steve Jefferies in a small, one-room office above an ice cream shop. The next year, the company moved to Youngsville, a small town in Franklin County just to the northeast of Raleigh.
Today, CCS Equipment is still at the Youngsville site on five acres along N.C. Highway 96.
Since that time, Jefferies and Charlie Snyder have both retired and Todd Snyder came aboard in 1999.
The company has moved from being a simple equipment broker to now offering a full line of services, including sales, rental and repair.
Besides moving Kawasaki wheel loaders and Takeuchi loaders and excavators, its new product line also includes Link-Belt excavators, Gehl skid steers, loaders, pavers, excavators and telehandlers, as well as Multi-Quip’s lineup of construction machinery equipment (compaction, generators, welders, lighting solutions, dewatering equipment and concrete/masonry equipment).
However, according to Snyder, their bread-and-butter is the variety of used equipment they have for sale, especially CCS Equipment’s inventory of excavators.
“In the last four or five years, the used equipment has been what has really sustained us and we have done a lot of overseas business in that time,” he said. “Our parts business and rental business have been real strong for us, too.”
Thriving in a Competitive Market
The core of the dealership’s business, though, is eastern North Carolina, from Alamance County just west of the Triangle to points south and east.
“This is a very competitive marketplace and that starts with the big guys that sell Caterpillar and Komatsu,” Snyder explained. “But, as I said, we have had to be creative and we have learned that taking care of the owner/operators has always been the thing that has made us successful.”
Snyder counts CCS Equipment’s relatively small size as an asset in helping to nurture the company’s important one-on-one relationships with its customers.
“Charles and I are around here all the time, so if answers are needed we can provide them pretty quickly,” he said. “There are not a lot of people you have to go through to get an answer.”
He added that there have been times when larger dealerships have dismissed CCS Equipment as just a little company that “may not be around long, but I think after surviving this economy it has been proven that we are to stay.”
Eric Olson
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.
Read more from Eric Olson here.
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