When Hills Machinery decided to expand its business into these other states, it also did so with the intention of selling Hitachi heavy equipment in those markets.
(Hitachi photo)
After a company becomes successful, staying that way means it needs to be like a living organism — always growing and forever adapting.
Over the past several years, the people at Hills Machinery, a Columbia, S.C.-based distributor of equipment built for construction, paving, environmental and agricultural needs, have wholeheartedly embraced that philosophy, with the result being that it is one of the top dealers in the Southeast.
When a team of two brothers, Jim and Adam Hills, began Hills Machinery in 2007, their goal was to build a business that gave customers a range of practical solutions to fulfill their construction and equipment needs.
"We aspired to have growth, but I don't think you can ever imagine what things will truly be like many years later," said Jim Hills, the company's president. "The pivotal thing that has happened over time is the acquisition of talented people and great OEM partners — in that order."
Case Construction became a major product line for Hills Machinery in 2010, followed by Hitachi Construction & Mining products, makers of excavators; Toro, Rokbak and Hudson Brothers Trailers. They join the heavy paving lines available through Hills — Sakai America, Mauldin and Astec/Roadtec.
Its customers also can find machines manufactured by Case IH, Carlson Pavers, Felling Trailers, FAE, Edge Innovate, Rubble Master, Eagle Crusher and IROCK.
Hills Machinery was pleased to be able to attract both Astec/Roadtec and Sakai products as they are highly sought-after from highway contractors, and each bring in a different customer base from what its dealerships in North and South Carolina had generally been serving, Hills said.
In those two states, Sakai's compaction paving-only machines are available through their Hills Machinery branches.
"With Astec, we focused on product support in the first year because of a lack of inventory availability," he said, adding that Astec's addition came about in 2021. "It has also brought a significant amount of parts and product support business to us that we had to make sure we were ready to handle, both in added parts personnel and experienced and trained people in the service department. We continue to invest in the people, and the people have been the key to both the customer and the dealer success."
In addition, Hills Machinery's Rental Division is now active in the two Carolinas as well and is due to be expanded to its branches in Virginia and Georgia as a focal point of the distributorship's overall business plan, he explained.
Hills Machinery Branches Out
Until recently, Hills Machinery had nine distributorships across the two Carolinas — in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Greenville, Wilmington and Asheville in the Tarheel State; and, in South Carolina, Charleston, Columbia and Greenville.
Then, Hills began to cast its eyes north to Virginia, and south to Georgia, to invest in new facilities to expand the product lines it represents.
In 2022, it opened a full-service facility in the Richmond, Va., market and plans to expand into a stand-alone facility further east in Chesapeake in the state's Tidewater region. Similarly, the distributor is developing a branch in Savannah, Ga., slated to open its doors this month and has recently welcomed customers to its new store in Wise, Va.
"We prefer to go with an existing location in Chesapeake, Va., because we can get up and running more quickly, but if we are faced with needing to build, we are prepared to do that as well," Hills said. "We do have resident technicians in most of the areas where we do not have brick and mortar today. Our response time generally should be from a few hours to within a couple of days for any situation."
In another market, a Hills Machinery-affiliated company, RJV Equipment/Ditch Witch of Tennessee, operates branch offices in Nashville and Knoxville. Recently, a contract was signed to build a new, second facility in the Nashville market, he said.
It is set to open in the third quarter of this year and offer Ditch Witch underground machines, Kubota construction and Sakai paving equipment.
"We brought on the full line of Sakai products for both the Tennessee and Virginia markets," he said.
Hills views the Volunteer State as a growth opportunity for the crushing product lines already carried by Hills Machinery in the Carolinas, Virginia, and soon, in the planned Georgia branch.
Dealership Expansion Under Way in South Carolina
All three of the Palmetto State branches of Hills Machinery either have or will soon undergo expansion efforts.
According to Hills, the Columbia store recently added a parts depot measuring approximately 80 ft. long, 40 ft. wide and 24 ft. high, and a high-rack parts system dedicated to Hitachi and Astec products. It also sports 3,000 sq. ft. of new office space, and an 80-ft.-long by 40-ft.-wide drive-through service bay.
"Charleston will feature a large-scale initiative with the addition of a separate building to house office space and a new, 6,000-square-foot training and rental center," he said. "The existing office, parts and service departments there will be completely remodeled, and we will quadruple our parts storage capacity and double the service area while modernizing it. When finished, it will be a 100 percent increase over the current square footage."
In addition, the Upstate South Carolina facility in Greenville will likely see the construction of two more drive-through bays that should double that branch's service department capacity as well.
Major OEMs Have Vested Interest in Hills
When Hills Machinery decided to expand its business into these other states, it also did so with the intention of selling Hitachi heavy equipment in those markets.
Hills said that the manufacturer played a key role in making that decision.
"They wanted to have larger-scale dealers, and we aspired to continue our growth in those regions," he said. "So, it fits well into our long-term strategy of carrying several of the product lines that we have in the Carolinas and supplements the growth of the new businesses."
Hills Machinery also partners with Toro to market its rugged lines of landscaping and compact construction equipment in all three South Carolina branches as well as in Charlotte and Wilmington, N.C.
"Toro gives us another product offering for many of our customers in the landscaping industry that buy compact track loaders and mini excavators," said Adam Hills, the dealership's executive vice president. "The compact equipment line brings in new customers, but it is also an addition to our rental fleet."
Jim Hills added that the small end of the compact line, within which Toro products occupy, is likely the fastest growing segment of the market.
"We have not been able to keep them in stock longer than a week or so once they hit the yard," Adam Hills said. "We have people waiting on them because the quality of the equipment has been so good."
Large Investment in Recycling Machines
Even before Hills Machinery planned its branch network expansions into Virginia and Georgia, the company long had salespeople working in those markets to sell its aggregate crushing and screening equipment.
Among the environmental machines available companywide are Rubble Master, IRock Crushers, Eagle Crusher and Edge Innovate.
Their inclusion in Hills Machinery's inventory represents a sizable investment made by the dealership in the crushing, screening and recycling segment of the equipment business over the years. In fact, the company created a division that only focuses on these types of products.
"It has been highly successful from the perspective that it allows us to come to the table with full-service solutions for those customers," Hills said. "We may sell them a crusher, but many times they may need to have a device to load the machine, and very often they need products to stack the materials, so as a full-service provider, we can come in with a value add. We have realized that it is critically important to be focused and to be knowledgeable and professional in that area, which is why we have specific divisions within our organization."
Just like the environmental specialists at Hills Machinery, its paving division personnel and product-support people only concentrate on asphalt equipment and service.
"We can bring full-service solutions to the market; however, we are not generalists," he added. "Rather, we must be professional experts and represent each of these products. Our investments today must be in people, training and facilities in order to execute successfully."
To that end, Hills Machinery works to identify talented people — not just service technicians, but those with managerial skills and sales talent.
As a result, the dealership quickly became proficient at running an effective 24-hour-a-day product support business, Hills said.
"We have a rapid response program that is in place for any calls that come in after hours – anywhere in the Carolinas – and it is our aim to have someone on a job within two hours under any circumstance knowing, for instance, the perishable nature of a lot of the materials used in the paving business," he said.
Success Rooted in Product Support
Hills noted that his company's attentiveness in supporting its products "is the bedrock upon which we hold onto the customers that we have today, and it allows us to have an opportunity to do business with customers in the future. Product support is a business unto itself so it is in our best interest to be as good at it as we possibly can. It is also in our customers' best interest to make sure that they continue to grow their business successfully with us as their partner."
He added that his company has been an attractive ally for top-tier equipment makers because they understand Hills Machinery will not only make the necessary investments in products and support but place the focus squarely on their machines as anchors of the dealership.
"When we take on any partner, we are fully invested in both their success, and ours, and the entire organization is geared to make sure that happens," Hills said. CEG
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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