Spartan Tool Company in Columbus, OH, has been selling Milwaukee Tool products for 40 years or more. When Spartan Tool CEO Derek Elbaor took over the construction and contractor supplies business in 2024, Milwaukee was an obvious choice for a dedicated Growth Plus plan. With consistent communication and thoughtful collaboration, these teams grew their business together by 121% — and they don’t plan to stop there.
NetPlus had a conversation with Elbaor and Spartan Tool CFO Jim Foley as well as Milwaukee Industrial Construction Territory Manager Brittany Leckrone to discuss their recent success. Spartan Tool joined NetPlus in 2011, with Milwaukee joining shortly after that in 2015. Though there was an existing longstanding relationship between the two companies, these Columbus-based pros took the partnership to the next level when they connected about pursuing Growth Plus plans together in 2024. With a growing team, their focuses were to provide excellent training and resources, ensure they had the right inventory strategy in place, and increase sales. At the end of their plan, it was clear to both companies: they “blew it out of the water.”
“When we took over Spartan Tool in February of last year, we were committed to becoming a Diamond member,” Elbaor shared. “We wanted to get to that top tier of supporting suppliers within NetPlus. Our biggest vendor partner is Milwaukee, so it made total sense to align ourselves with them on a Grow Plus plan.”
A few months later, the Spartan Tool team began working with Leckrone and they started to put their plan into action.
“Derek and Jim have both brought so much to the table with Spartan Tool and Milwaukee as a whole — they expanded from counter sales into outside sales, which was a huge success in terms of natural growth,” Leckrone praised.
The Spartan Tool sales team grew from two salespeople to nine, adding an outside sales arm to the existing counter sales model.
“Staffing is very challenging,” Elbaor said, echoing an industry-wide pain point. “We’ve had a lot of turnover in the process of getting to nine. It has not been a straight line by any means.” But they kept at it and found the right people for the job. Spartan Tool took a risk on some younger staff without any relevant experience. Employees with the right personality and attitude that are willing to learn can be just as great of an asset as a seasoned salesperson, if in a slightly different way.
“We also had the benefit of an established customer base, being in Columbus for 40 plus years,” Elbaor said. It provided an excellent opportunity to prepare their rookie staff members. “Our customers know who we are, so targeting them and bringing sales staff to them in an outside manner got a really warm reception. It wasn’t cold calling on companies that have never dealt with us, we had just never done outside sales before.”
Besides reaching NetPlus Perks Diamond status, Spartan Tool’s primary goal was to reach their full rebate potential with Milwaukee. To do that, they needed the right products in the right quantities.
“We had done a large hand tool conversion to Milwaukee,” he said. “We moved from SK Tools to Milwaukee on sockets and ratchets and a lot of those kinds of hand tool accessories. A big focus for us was getting to a maximum hand tool rebate with Milwaukee, which we did achieve primarily through the expansion of the hand tool SKUs that we’re currently stocking here.”
With the right inventory in place, it was critical to arm the growing sales team with the resources they would need to sell effectively. Milwaukee held a series of trainings for the Spartan Tool sales staff and kept in close communication to answer questions and provide additional resources.
“We focused our areas on knowledge and ensuring that the team members that were joining Spartan Tool were fully equipped,” Leckrone added. “We wanted them to be able to go out in the field and sell, not only focusing on counter sales but expanding the horizons with that knowledge piece was a huge piece of the growth plan overall.”
Their segmented sales trainings covered safety products, plumbing and pipe fitter tools — an opportunity for expansion they’ve recently identified — hand tools, and Milwaukee’s MX FUEL. Primed with training directly from the supplier, the sales team was able to reach that incredible growth.
“From Milwaukee’s side, knowledge is power,” Leckrone said. “If Derek’s sales team does not feel equipped and confident to sell Milwaukee, they’re not going to.” And so, she said, she’s glad to continue to answer calls and texts, hold lunch and learns, plan trainings on different categories and new products to benefit both businesses in the long run.
The Milwaukee and Spartan Tool teams are already planning for 2026 and beyond. “In 2026 we’re going to introduce Milwaukee into e-commerce for us,” Elbaor said. “We’re currently redeveloping an in-house website, and it looks like it’s probably going to deploy in the first quarter or so of next year.”
The partners also have plans to continue to expand on their recent work together, adding more counter days and exploring training within other categories for the sales team. They also have the potential, Leckrone said, to incorporate additional support from Milwaukee’s local Columbus team on job sites and out on sales calls.
“We’re focusing on the customers that Spartan Tool focuses on, winning incremental business which in turn will continue to grow Derek’s business, grow into different categories, and so on,” she said.
By identifying mutually beneficial overarching goals and breaking them into yearly plans, they’re ensuring they see consistent, attainable growth year after year.
With 16 years of experience on the supplier side of the construction industry, Elbaor had a crucial word of advice for his distributor peers who are hesitant to get started.
“The best distributors in a given market have their hands up; they’re looking for help from their vendors,” he said. “The distributors that are closed door and are worried about working with vendors or sharing information with vendors or making sales calls, those are always the guys who are not growing. Put your hands up. Ask for help from vendors. The vendors are there to help you. They will give you better pricing, they will give you promotions, they will give you samples to win business with end users. But if you don’t ask them for help, you won’t have that resource brought to you.”
“If you want to grow sales, you have to invest in inventory,” he went on. “It’s one thing to target a customer. It’s another to actually have the item in stock that you’re trying to sell. Milwaukee has allowed us to do some competitive buybacks, even just returning dead inventory and reinvesting those dollars into correct SKUs. Having that correct inventory has allowed us to continuously grow share.”
Leckrone was nodding along. That collaborative approach is beneficial for distributors and suppliers alike. Their open communication was and continues to be a driving force in their success.
“Continuing to lead with questions both on Derek’s side and on my side, as well, has allowed us to collaborate more effectively and easily,” she said. “Not only am I understanding and learning his business, his goals, and his strategy, but I’m then bringing it back to the table at Milwaukee and understanding what I can do to collaborate with him to ensure that we are reaching those goals.”
Growth Plus plans bring strategic financial, organizational, and operational benefits for everyone involved. Target a NetPlus partner you want to grow with and begin to work through what your success would look like. Reach out to the NetPlus team for support and watch your business grow.