Spring 2020 Strategies

CUSTOMER PROFILE

On a Growth Trajectory How Tanco Lumber Found Success Working With Blish-Mize John and Carla Stauffer operate two locations in Missouri, both of which have been growing rapidly over the past few years. They just moved their Branson West location to a new building, and the store in Forsyth recently underwent a major expansion.

T he market around Branson West is crowded, but that hasn’t stopped Tanco Lumber from setting a radical growth trajectory. With help from Blish-Mize, the Missouri business moved into a brand new building and expanded its customer reach.

Starting Small It was only about five years ago that John and Carla Stauffer found a foothold in the Branson West, Missouri, market. They already operated a successful lumberyard in nearby Forsyth, Missouri, and felt there were opportunities elsewhere, too. Real estate was difficult to find, but they finally secured a former medical office building. Space was limited—the building could only fit about 1,200 square feet of retail—but demand was not. John asked his supplier Blish-Mize to help him put as much hardware into the space as he could. And still customers were asking for more. With the building quickly maxed to capacity,

the Stauffers began looking for land where they could build from the ground up. “The city helped us find a location off a main highway,” John says. “When they did a traffic count, we knew this would be a good place for a store. So we started talking with Blish-Mize to help design what size of building we needed and then how we could lay out the interior.” John has been trusting Blish-Mize with his hardware orders for about 20 years. They were the first ones to earn his business. When he opened his first lumberyard, he wasn’t that interested in selling a lot of hardware; he just wanted to buy a few items as add-ons to his lumber sales, and Blish-Mize let him do that.

30 Spring 2020 • Hardlines Strategies