Plate Tectonics
Faint rumbles on the surface of the planet usually belie a tumultuous shift deep in the lower levels of the earth. Similar plate movements are underway at Dig-a-crusher and it is not just in the company’s increasingly popular excavator mounted jaw crusher. MQR visited the Cheshire-based firm to better understand the tiny seismic nudge of the removal of the name Worsely Plant from its marketing literature and found itself staring down the jaws of one very hungry dinosaur.
The effects of seismic activity recording 2.0-2.9 on the Richter scale are generally defined as “not felt, but recorded”. Doubtless the removal of the term Worsely Plant from Dig-a-crusher promotional material could be similarly labeled. But, as with its geological counterpart it is a telling sign of some dynamic internal readjustment.
And Worsely Plant founder Sean Heron is a man who knows his plate tectonics. A geography/geology degree under his belt, he certainly has the ability to read a changing landscape. What sets him apart from other geographers, however, is that he has the type of work ethic that can be a catalyst to major seismic events itself.
Since starting out on his own in 1997 after stints with Powerscreen, Svedala and a Midlands-based plant hire firm he has put in an average of 50-60,000 miles a year, originally extolling the virtues of mini-screens before moving to mini-crushers. But by 2004 he was beginning to see that raw enthusiasm would only get him so far.
“I was doing the big miles but I lacked a map, direction, someone who could see the bigger picture. I was honest enough with myself to know that working hard wasn’t going to be enough,” he told MQR. Enter former Blackwood Hodge director and Caterpillar general manager turned consultant Terry McSweeney.
“Sean was killing himself with the hours he was putting in,” McSweeney told MQR. “So after a meeting in Warwickshire we started working together to help him develop a better business model and structure to take the company forward.”
The meeting he is referring to took place at Modern Plant in Rugby in October last year. McSweeney had a friend with a transfer station, a lot of C&D rubble and no idea how to use the £80,000 second hand crusher he had sitting idle on his site.
“He didn’t know what he was doing with this crusher; tramp metal would fly out all over the place. I asked what he was doing with the aggregates and he said just letting them go to landfill.
“I had heard of an excavator crusher attachment for 12-40 tonne models and my mate had an underused 22tonne machine with driver. I contacted Sean and he was doing a demo nearby. So I took the guy along to see the demo.
“There was a long drive up to where the machine was working. I looked at my mate and he had bought that machine before the car had stopped. I have never seen a chap be so inspired to buy something because of how it looks. So Sean and I got talking,” he says.
Heron himself had the very same moment of simplicity when he first saw the Dig-a-crusher. “I thought God yes, that’s it. It is so simple. That’s exactly what people need. I could see the market,” he says.
The reason he could see the market was because he had travelled around the UK for years selling Viper mini-sizers, firstly for a plant hire firm and then in 1997 starting up for himself. Slowly people started to see the benefit of small screens and soon demands started to come in for mini-crushers.
“It was 2002 and the Red Rhino model was starting to be pushed but this wasn’t my market. Mine was Joe Bloggs running around in a 7.5tonne lorry with a couple of small skips and mini-diggers. He was buying my screens because they were simple.
“I knew if I was going to sell a crusher it had to be of the same mindset. Crushing is a mystery to many people. ‘Why the hell would I want to get involved with one of those? Go away, I just want something nice and simple’ my clients would say to me.”
He saw the Meccanica Breganzese Dig-a-crusher about four years ago and made a trip to the factory in Italy. He met the MD twice at Bauma with the deal being sealed at the last Munich-based show giving him exclusive rights to England, Scotland and Wales.
“I knew from the my past that exclusivity was key. I needed full control to take the product where I needed to take it. I knew where and how to sell it before the deal was sealed. In fact my first customer – Widnes Skip Hire – has just bought its fourth,” he says.
He started off with the 900 model. It fits on 21-30tonne machines and is still what he calls his bread and butter. He targeted anyone who needed crushed material. Ground workers, waste transfer stations, hire firms, and demolition were all targets.
He admits there were teething problems in the first 12 months but people bought them because they could understand the concept. He cites a local builder as a good example.
“They had 200tonnes of material here and 500tonnes there. First they said they couldn’t afford the £30-£40,000 for the machine but then did some sums.
“A 200tonne job cost £5.00 a tonne to get rid of. Then there was the £8-£9.00 a tonne to replace the material. They did around 20 of these jobs a year and so figured out it was costing them at least £52,000.
“He had the machine, the driver, the space, and a customer for the end product. It was all there except a machine to turn raw material into finished product. The Dig-a-crusher filled in the gap. They could see the concept once they had had it explained,” he says.
But, as McSweeney says, conceptual selling is an expensive way to sell plant. “You have to go out into the market and educate people. This takes a lot of time and effort and you need a strong marketing mix to help make it work.”
And this is at the heart of the Worsley Plant readjustment and the removal of its logo from Dig-a-crusher branding. McSweeney forced Heron to step outside the box and look in. And when he did he saw there was confusion in the marketplace.
Worsley Plant is Heron’s contract crushing and screening business, and pre-dates the Dig-a-crusher. Starting as a small hire business it now operates four Kleemann crushers, one Metso model, 12 screens – all from Powerscreen through Blue Machinery – four Volvo excavators and four Volvo wheeled loaderss. It works with the big five quarriers.
“People would mix up Worsley Plant and Dig-a-crusher. It became clear to me there was a lot of confusion and that more time needed to be spent on branding and marketing the Dig-a-crusher as a separate entity,” says Heron.
Enter the smooth psychology degree-honed branding skills of McSweeney. Coupled with his hard-nosed experience of the plant world, he set to work researching Heron’s company history to develop a path forward.
“The first thing he told me to do was set up a dealer network. We had three dealers last year but two of them didn’t work. I didn’t have the experience so it was a bit of a disaster,” says Heron. So what went wrong? Inexperience and being too soft, says McSweeney.
“As soon as you meet Sean you know you are with a genuine, straight-up guy. Trouble is, sometimes he is too nice.
“He should have researched dealers more closely and given them definite targets before he signed up to agreements. He should have ensured they had the infrastructure to do the job, that they were motivated to do it and that they fitted culturally. This is what we are now doing,” he says.
The goal is for three new dealers a month this year and they are more or less on target. Also in are PR, advertising, networking, exhibitions and open days all working to stress a single brand supporting dealers and direct sales and depicted by the memorable yellow Crushersaurus dinosaur logo, the joint creation of Heron and a designer friend.
And that’s not all. Already they are dipping their toes into Dig-a-crusher Plant Hire and are seeking to set up a full hire fleet.
“With attachments the confrontation with dealerships between sales and hire is much less critical. We have the product, we have the service engineers and we have the market. It seems the next logical step,” says McSweeney.
So, be warned! The Crushersaurus is going all Jurassic Park, breaking out of its enclosure and heading for your business. And given the simplicity of the offering, it seems unlikely any Cretaceous style extinction event is set to wipe out this omnivore. It’s hungry and now it has direction and even a road map. So listen out for roars.
Sean Heron: 07768 393883
