Don Long, founder and owner of Long Machine Co. in Maiden, North Carolina, launched the vault and monument trailer side of his business in 1989.
A self-taught engineer, Long builds custom trailers that can lift and maneuver concrete burial vaults. His clients build the vaults and then come to him to get their vaults where they need them to go. Today, Long Machine Co. has nearly 500 clients nationwide and in Canada. As the company has expanded over the years, PIERCE has remained its trusted winch and remote dealer.
When he first started building vault trailers, Long considered using a rival company’s winches. But as he talked to the company’s sales team and researched the product, he felt what they were offering was an overpriced winch that didn’t meet the needs of his equipment.
“The price was ridiculous for the size of the winch,” Long recalls. “It didn’t have enough lifting capacity…[and] was being overloaded. Over a period of time the wear and tear showed up.”
For his vault trailers, he needed a sturdier winch with at least a 6,000-pound lifting capacity. After talking to PIERCE, he learned about their 9,000-pound capacity PIERCE wormgear winch. It was the size and quality he wanted at a quarter of the price that the rival company had offered for their larger winches.
With the PIERCE winch, Long and his customers are both happy: “The customer is assured that he doesn’t have to worry about straining to lift his products, and the pricing was great.”
Of his 500 customers, only one prefers the rival company’s winch. “I make him buy his own and supply it to me to put it on,” says Long.
Long has expanded his partnership with PIERCE in recent years, now buying and selling Lodar wireless remotes to control his winches.
After nearly three decades, he remains committed to PIERCE and says he would recommend them to any manufacturer or dealer needing that type of equipment.
“There’s no problem, and they take care of me,” he says.
Sounds like the formula for a lasting relationship.
