Ashley Pouche started working when he was seven years old. His parents, Fred and Marty, were entrepreneurs who both also had other careers — his father in state politics and his mother as a nurse — but they started building family businesses in 1987. The family owned and operated baseball batting cages and a baseball card shop. In conjunction with the card shop they also operated a vending business on the side. Then, in January 2000 the family opened a rental business in Parkville, Mo. And Pouche, who was a sophomore in college at the time, started working even harder.
“If I didn’t work, I don’t really know what else I’d do,” Pouche says. “I think I first filed taxes at age 11. After we started this business I was still going to school for a couple years, but we just got busier and busier. I was up here more than I was in classes, so I took a semester off with the intention of going back and still haven’t made it back yet to finish up.”
But Pouche is approaching 15 years as a rental store owner, and business at Platte Rental & Supply is better than ever.
The family saw an opportunity for a new rental business to serve the growing city of Parkville and the rest of Platte County in Missouri where it resides. “We saw Parkville as a pretty high growth area and it turned out that it has been,” Pouche says. “Platte County at one time was one of the fastest-growing counties in the state, if not ranked in the country. The other rental store that was here in Parkville was aging — a lot of older fleet.”
In fact, since 2000, when Platte Rental & Supply opened its doors, the populations of Parkville and Platte County have grown 37 percent and 21 percent respectively. The business is still in its original location, but the landscape has changed quite a bit over the years. What used to be a wide open field across the street is now a busy supermarket, and widening of nearby Highway 45 has recently been completed, bringing a big increase in traffic flow to the vicinity.
“We’ve had some big projects in the area that have really taken off,” Pouche says. “It’s allowed us a lot more visibility and we’ve become a lot more well-known.”
Another change came in May of 2008, this time to the landscape inside the building, when Pouche’s parents retired and he and his wife bought the company. Though his wife, a school teacher, isn’t involved in day-to-day business operations, Pouche, in addition to himself, has four full-time and two part-time employees and a bookkeeper who comes in a couple days a week.
“Working hard doesn’t bother me, and my guys too, to be honest with you,” Pouche says. “They work a lot of hours. They’re pretty flexible and pretty bought-in to the system. I would much rather hire and have guys that want to work and get paid to work rather than hiring 10 more employees that come in for 15 to 20 hours a week and don’t care one way or another.
“There’s a reason why I’m here seven days a week and work almost 12-hour days. Rental takes a lot of work. You’ve got to be constantly talking with your customers and seeing what they need because if you don’t then you don’t know what equipment to buy or what not to have. You’re employees like to see it too. They don’t want to have a boss that comes in once or twice a week and pops his head in and leaves. You’ve got to keep them on pace. I believe any employee would rather work right along side of the owner. If they see your passion it encourages them to do more and not just punch a clock.”
Platte Rental and Supply has grown into something of a one-stop shop for its customers, carrying the basic general rental store items such as floorcare, drain-cleaning equipment, air compressors, ladders, material-handling buggies, trenchers, brush chippers, bed-shapers, verticutters, aerators, skid-steer loaders, excavators, lifts, scaffolding as well as the full line of Stihl equipment as a dealer for the brand.
“A good portion of our customers are the lawn and landscape market up here,” Pouche explains. “There are a lot of homes to be taken care of. That’s become bigger and bigger and now we’ve become a fairly substantial dealer for Stihl equipment. We’re one of the only, I believe us and another store in the K.C. area, are what Stihl considers an Elite dealer. We have a gold-certified technician that’s been to the factory to be trained on anything and everything Stihl, and another scheduled to do the same.”
Though the store does carry a few key party and event items such as tables, chairs and novelty items such as a popcorn maker, its primary focus is general tool rental, landscaping and light construction equipment.
“We have a good mix of equipment,” says Pouche. “We don’t do a lot of party and event. We have some tables and chairs, but that’s about it. We haven’t delved into tents and jumpers and that kind of thing, although I think there’s kind of a need for that here with all the homeowners we have and the income base of the people that live in this area. People spend a lot of money on their children. I do see the need, but right now we don’t have the room to do it, nor the staff.”
In addition to Stihl, PRS carries a wide mix of other brands including Bobcat, Atlas Copco, Wacker Neuson, Vermeer, Toro, Billy Goat, E-Z Trench, Biljax, Husqvarna, General Pipe Cleaners and Little Giant.
Pouche has built up a diversified customer base, split pretty evenly among small to medium-sized contractors and homeowners, with a few regular large construction company customers such as Walton, J.E. Dunn and Clarkson, who supplement their equipment needs with items from Platte Rental as needed.
“They don’t have to rent a lot of equipment from me because we’re not into the heavy earthmoving and cranes, but the Stihl equipment has brought them in for their supplies, our service on the Stihl equipment, and just general things that guys run into when they’re on the job that they don’t have and they don’t want to run back to their shop for, but they’ll come rent it when they need to,” Pouche explains.
“Our customer base is fairly balanced. The contractors it’s a little heavier on; traffic-wise, it’s homeowners. Weekends are slammed with the homeowner business, but through the week our contractors keep us real busy with the larger equipment and the deliveries. I’d say it’s probably closer to 60/40 contractors to homeowners.”
Another offering of Platte Rental & Supply that has brought in a lot of traffic and played a significant role in its growth is its U-Haul business. About five or six months after opening its doors, a representative from U-Haul approached the Pouches about becoming a U-Haul dealership. The rep had just closed his dealership in Parkville and was looking to open another one in the area. At the time, the Platte Rental & Supply building was next door to a Ryder truck dealer, so the Pouches checked with the neighbor and got the support they were looking for to go ahead and start renting U-Hauls.
“U-Haul has actually been a blessing,” Pouche says. “We have become one of the largest dealers in the entire Kansas City Northland area. U-Haul has a top 100 dealers in the U.S. and Canada that it updates on a monthly basis and we have received that honor 25 times out of the past four years.”
More recently, United Rentals contacted Pouche to find out if he would be interested in buying its entire allotment of scaffolding. United was looking to get out of the scaffolding business in the Kansas City market. Pouche made an offer and subsequently bought everything they had after a trip to look over the condition of the pieces. Soon after, other locations contacted him and he purchased their inventory as well.
“It opened up a great niche for us,” Pouche says. “Since United Rentals exited the scaffolding market, all the scaffolding calls that come into them now they send them to me.”
PRS differentiates itself from the competition with both its customer service and late-model equipment fleet. “We’ve really updated quite a bit of equipment and people have come to expect that from us. When they come and rent it they know it’s going to work — that’s a huge thing.”
It also helps that Platte Rental & Supply is competitive on its rental rates. Coming into this past winter, the business updated its rental management software to Point of Rental and used its functionality to analyze rates and feather increases across the fleet where needed, simply raising rates on some items and increasing minimums on others.
“When it comes down to it, rates are rates and people are going to argue over them no matter what,” Pouche explains. “They always want to try to get it for a little bit less or work some kind of special deal. It’s hard to say no to them; you always want to try to do it, but at the same time you can’t give that equipment away. Equipment has gotten a lot more pricy. Tier 4 engines add $5,000, $6,000, $7000 to every piece of equipment out there and you’ve got to make up for it unless you want to rent older equipment and we haven’t made our name on that. We’ve made it on renting newer and quality equipment. The contractors understand for the most part; they don’t mind paying a premium for equipment that runs in top shape.”
PRS is also well positioned geographically among the local competition. Its direct competitor in Parkville is another independent rental company that had been around for years, but had just reopened under new owners months before Platte Rental. PRS also competes with Home Depot Rentals in the homeowner market, but other competitors have started to dwindle, including independent rental stores in Gladstone, Excelsior Springs and Kearney, Mo.
Even the national rental companies have come and gone. United Rentals, which built a brand new facility in nearby Liberty, Mo., seven to eight years ago closed after three and a half to four years, consolidating everything into one branch. RSC, which had a location in North Kansas City, Mo., has closed since its merger with United. And all of this tumult in the metropolitan rental scene has created more opportunities for Platte Rental.
Flooding in Parkville, which is adjacent to the Missouri River, created a lot of demand for pumps and other rental equipment in 2012. The government invested substantial federal money into the city’s English Landing Park, a popular 68-acre recreational area that plays host to events right on the river all throughout the year, including the annual Arts, Blues, Jazz and RiverJam, Parkville Days, Turkey Trot and Christmas on the River.
“They did a six- to seven-month-long project down there, renewing the entire landing, building new stages for music, renewed parking, baseball diamonds and volleyball courts,” Pouche says. “They sent out a contract bid and we got the bid so they rented a lot of equipment from us for a six-month period.”
Kansas City International Airport is also nearby, and while it doesn’t rent a lot of equipment, it does get a lot of Stihl equipment from PRS. Plus, plans for a new $1.2 billion terminal are currently underway, a potentially lucrative construction project looming in the foreseeable future.
“We have seen some pretty big growth,” Pouche says. “We’ve had some real big shopping districts that have gone in and Platte County itself has had a lot of new homes, and some higher-end homes, that have gone in. Whereas the homebuilders are not necessarily renting a lot, some of the subs are, and the homeowners bring in business. And we try to target those homeowners.”
Calling the Yellow Pages, “dead,” Pouche prefers to target his marketing of Platte Rental & Supply directly to those homeowners with coupons on the back of grocery store receipts as well as in neighborhood newsletters distributed weekly via email by homeowners’ associations — just trying to get the name out so potential customers know who they are. PRS also maintains a Facebook page and is actively trying to grow the number of people who follow them. The U-Haul business has been a big part of that community familiarization too.
“Everyone who rents a U-Haul and moves into the area, they have to drop it off here, so that’s one way we get them in the door — just being a drop-off — you do your best to talk to them when they move in,” says Pouche.
PRS offers propane tank filling and is looking to expand the offering to include bottle exchanges as well. As president of the Associated Rental Stores of Kansas City, Pouche recently hosted a propane safety meeting for members that he set up through MFA Oil Co., which came out and did a propane certification for anyone who wanted to become certified. Soon he would like to upgrade his propane-filling area to be able to serve customers even better.
Another possibility in the near future is the addition of a small mobile concrete-mixing plant. The other rental company in Parkville used to offer the service, but its plant has been broken for a number of years, Pouche says, and there hasn’t been any move to fix it, creating another opportunity for PRS.
“I actually recently talked to the only other rental store in the area up here that does it and he called me the other day and asked if I’d be interested in buying his plant that’s only a couple years old,” Pouche says. “But before I can delve into all that I’ve got to make sure I have the room and the time to do it. That’s something that I think there’s a need for. A lot of people still want to have the small batches of concrete instead of paying the big mixing trucks to come to their house. And we’ve got a pretty good mix of concrete customers here too.”
With all of this opportunity does Pouche have the itch to open a second location for Platte Rental & Supply?
“I see the need, much like we saw the need 15 years ago when we opened this store,” Pouche says. “Much like a lot of stores I’m sure; you start thinking to yourself and analyzing your business saying, ‘I need more equipment and more locations to rent it from.’ Then other days I say, ‘absolutely no way,’ I’d turn around and sell if someone walked in the door. You’re interacting with customers all the time and they ask, ‘How come you don’t have a place in Liberty or Platte City? I’ve got to drive all the way over here because there’s nothing over in that area.’ You never know what risk is greater than another. It’s just a matter if you can find the financing and have the will to do it.
“I grew up here. I like talking to the people that come into my store. I enjoy helping these contractors and homeowners get their projects done and get things that they need so they can keep making the whole community a better place, make the houses look newer, make the places more landscaped, the buildings nicer, you name it. I see with a business such as a rental store where the work you put in comes back to you.”
