STEGER, Illinois — Around 2010, when the Great Recession had a grip on the U.S. economy, Mike Bless developed a website for his business, Specialty Crate Factory. Little did he know at the time how important having a digital presence on the Internet would be to the future success of his company.
Bless, 60, grew up in the Chicago region and has lived there his entire life. His business is located in Steger, Illinois, about 33 miles south of downtown Chicago.
Bless was working as a contractor, selling and installing doors and windows, when he purchased the business from another wood container manufacturing company in 1991. “I got a pickup truck load of wood, two boxes of nails, and three customers,” he recalled. He was attracted to buy the business because “I just thought it would be a good fit for my skills.”
He steadily grew the business. “It was a slow process,” said Bless. Starting out working in a garage, he later purchased an 1,800-square-foot building. In 2003 he built a 12,000-square-foot building for the company on a 3-acre site.
Today he has about 400 customers, but Specialty Crate Factory remains a small business. With two employees, the company produces about 200 crates per month.
The website (www.specialtycrate.com) was built by Mike’s office manager, Steve Claflin. The website has been responsible for driving the company’s success since then, according to Bless, generating about 80% of new business. “Without that, we would not be attracting new customers at all,” he said. Prior to adding the website, he relied mainly on word-of-mouth and cold calling for marketing. “The old-fashioned way, you know.”
The website has descriptions of the company’s products and services as well as photographs of finished goods. In addition, potential customers can fill out a form online to specify the size and weight of the object they need to ship and other factors in order to receive an estimate.
The company’s crates, containers and skids have been used to ship art works, machines and equipment, parts and components, molds, control systems, medical equipment, glass furniture, grandfather clocks, and trophies, to name a few objects. In addition to custom crates and containers, the company also builds heavy-duty custom skids and pallets, including skids to ship round objects like pipes and gas cylinders and others for industrial machinery and heavy equipment.
Bless began offering reusable containers for shipping and storing trade show exhibit materials for about 10 years. They are custom designed, extremely durable, and feature doors and ramps to make them easy to load and unload the contents.
The company also offers services to pick up a customer’s shipment, build the container, pack it, and ship it. About 10% of the time, customers want Bless to pack the crate with their product and prepare it for shipment. Otherwise, finished crates and containers are shipped empty.
Bless buys heat-treated wood material because about 50% of the company’s production consists of crates or containers for export. His company is certified by Lee Inspection & Consulting Services.
Bless buys ½-inch and ¾-inch plywood and 2×4, 2×12, and 4×4 lumber. Since he deals in relatively small volumes, he buys from small lumber yards in the region. His shop is equipped with a Striebig panel saw for cutting plywood panels and a collection of Rockwell table saws and Dewalt chop saws for cutting lumber to length. For assembling crates and skids, he uses Dewalt pneumatic nailers and various brands of staples, nails and screws.
The company has a truck for local deliveries. Courier and common freight carriers are tapped for shipments to other states. Many customers have a preferred carrier and arrange for their own pickup.
About 90% of customers are manufacturing businesses. About half are in the Chicago metropolitan region, and the other half are scattered across the country in such states as Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota.
“We get calls from all over the country, which was very surprising to me,” said Bless. Those calls are generated from companies that see the Specialty Crate Factory website online.
“I don’t understand why they don’t buy from the town they’re in,” added Bless, “but they don’t. I think once they read our website, they understand we can make a very high-quality crate for them, which we do…I’d almost say we have zero returns or complaints.”
Since he has established accounts, a lot of business is repeat orders for crates or containers a given customer requires.
Bless designs the interior of the crate with dividers and other features that may be necessary to isolate and protect objects during transit. A typical order may be from 1-20 containers. About 80% of the company’s production is shipped fully assembled, and the remaining 20% in knock-down form for final assembly by the customer.
Bless hired Steve to be the office manager, preferring to continue working building crates. “I make crates all day long,” he said, along with Steve and the company’s other employee, Juan Mendez.
Specialty Crate Factory generates about two cubic yards of scrap wood per week that is collected by a solid waste company. Some of the scrap lumber is cut into blocking and is sold to other local companies for use as dunnage. “We don’t have a lot of scrap because we use almost every square foot or lineal feet of material,” said Bless.
Bless works 45-50 hours per week. He and Steve Claflin have a hobby they enjoy: building and flying radio control model airplanes.
Although the Internet has been a boost to business, there are still two very important reasons for Bless’ success that have little to do with technology: product quality and customer service.
Building containers accurately to the proper dimensions and ensuring a high-quality product are very important to Bless and his business. “We’re a very high-end specialized company,” said Bless. “We demand high quality. That’s our whole, that is our motto. We don’t settle for ‘good enough.’ ‘Good enough’ is not even allowed to be said in this building.”
Strong customer service also is important, he emphasized. “We are extremely customer friendly and always work with the customer on their behalf,” said Bless. “We treat our customers like they’re golden. We totally respect what they mean to us.”
For more information on Specialty Crate Factory, visit www.specialtycrate.com.
