Lincoln Contractors Supply
“Saying ‘yes’ to our customers has allowed us to grow.”
Business Basics
From eleven locations across Wisconsin, Lincoln Contractors Supply is a leading supplier of concrete equipment as well as safety equipment, pneumatic tools, air compressors, masonry supplies and much more. The company has a heritage of more than 65 years of customer satisfaction.
We spoke with the firm’s third-generation president, Aaron Knief.
Banking Story
“After the Great Financial Crisis, our relationship with our prior bank changed,” says Aaron. “It didn’t sour so much as become ‘let me call into the office and see if we can do that.’ Around that time, Brian Hillstrom of Johnson Financial Group called on us. He asked us, ‘If we were able to do five things for you, what would those five things be?’”
One of the five things was to structure a portion of Lincoln’s financing over a seven-year term rather than the traditional five years. When Brian returned with a proposal, Aaron says his jaw dropped—and so did Lincoln’s chief financial officer’s. Aaron says of Brian, “He may not say ‘yes’ right away, but he’ll say ‘let’s sit down and figure it out.’ Having a relationship with Johnson Financial Group has allowed us to invest in our business the right way, to make us more profitable and to grow.”
Aaron explains that as a distributor, Lincoln both sells and rents products. Financing on the rental side can be thorny, he explains, because while equipment is easy to value when it’s new, that’s harder as it depreciates over time.
Brian Hillstrom, SVP, Commercial Banking, Johnson Financial Group, explains, “There’s seasonality and lead times of up to six months. We believe it makes a big difference when a bank really understands the business. A banker can be flexible and adapt to the business.”
Aaron says flexibility has made it possible to say “yes” to customers. “We do a lot of temporary heater rentals in the winter, to keep construction sites warm,” he explains. “As we grew our heat division, we had the philosophy that when our customer said, ‘I’m ready to go with you guys and will need heaters in a month or so,’ we’d prepare a quote—even if we didn’t have sufficient heaters in inventory. In the winter, I’d meet with our banker, Brian, more regularly to talk through where we were. Thanks to a line of credit with Johnson Financial Group, we were able to order more heaters.”
The same dynamic has held true even with expensive equipment. Aaron once saw a $100,000 piece of equipment at a trade show that he recognized could be popular with rental customers. He explains that he asked Johnson Financial Group, “‘If I get into this, and a customer comes with a big order, what’s that going to look like?’ They said, ‘If the order comes, take it.’” With a long history of working together, Aaron and Brian had confidence they could come up with an approach to meet the business opportunity.
Aaron sums up the relationship this way: “I have confidence that you guys will always work it through.”