Supreme Allied Commander of Marketing and Sales At Waymatic
They are one of the leading custom trailer manufacturers in the United States.
Their custom built trailers can be found on just about every Midway in the United States, from the small special events units to the large deluxe State Fair models .
They make ‘em all.
The co. we are speaking of is Waymatic.
We spoke with Waymatic’s Supreme Allied Commander of Sales and Marketing – Mr. Chris Coulson.
Q – Chris, where do you find the people to make these trailers of yours? That looks to be a highly developed skill and I’m just wondering what kind of background these people have.
A- Well, we do a whole lot of in-house training. Every trailer we do is custom. It’s a little bit different every time but they’re basically built the same way that they’ve been since the 60’s. We still got people bringing in trailers from the 70’s that they’re still using today and making money with ‘em. We basically train everybody to do it the same way that we’ve always done it. As long as you’ve got a little bit of welding experience and you can read a tape measure we can usually teach you how to do it.
Q – Your website states your trailers last at least 20 years. Then what happens? Do they need an upgrade in equipment? Do they have to have a new trailer built?
A – Usually the only wood we use is some marine grade wood on the floor but it’s all steel, aluminum stainless. Really, unless you have a wreck the only thing we have any trouble with is some rust here and there. Around here ( Tennessee) it’s not that bad but mostly people up on the beach will put their trailer on the beach and they’ll get the salt water. Sometimes up North they’ll get some of the salt on the roads and get a little rusty but really rust is the only culprit that really gets our stuff. The stove and the fryers of course will need to be upgraded. As far as the shell of our trailer , they last a long time.
Q – Most of the trailers being used would be by people doing county and state fairs, correct?
A – Yes, Sir.
Q – And it’s mostly a seasonal thing so they wouldn’t be on the road in Winter unless you’re talking about some fairs in Florida that start in March.
A – Right. We’ve done ‘em all over. Every state pretty much has some of our trailers. The majority of the ones we’ve done are pretty much in use somewhere.
Q – You have completion out there so how do you get the word out about Waymatic?
A – So, I do the marketing here but I really don’t have to do a whole lot of advertising. We’re kind of the top of the line and even before I got here that reputation was already built by the 80’s. We were the place to come to for the high end concession trailers. It’s just reputation is the biggest thing for us now and we’re just trying to keep that reputation going. We do go to some shows and show our stuff. We go to Gibtown in Florida. They have a show. That’s kind of where all the fair people from all around have a Winter home in Gibsonton and it’s just been that way forever. We do a show there and show our trailer. We go to IAPPA ( International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) in Florida. We do shows here and thee but most of it is just word of mouth.
Q – Let’s say a potential customer comes in to you and says “ I need a pizza trailer”. And your next move is to say what? “ How much money do you have to spend or how much space do you need?” Is that how it works?
A – It’s mostly space is what we start out with. What size trailer do you need? Most of ‘em have been big lately probably about 24’( foot) is what we’ve been doing a lot of up to 28’( foot) lately.
But, How big do you need and what are you going to be selling out of it? We’ve done so many trailers we have a pretty good idea of what the layout basically needs to be. Everyone is custom so we do it exactly however the way they want. If they want a certain height we do that. Anything they want. Plus we do all the custom graphics. I do the graphics here too. We give ‘em a basic layout of what we’ve done in the past and then just go from there.
Q – I would imagine these trailers are expensive. If someone is just starting out and says “ I’d like to have an ice-cream or pizza trailer” they probably couldn’t afford it could they?
A – You’re right. We get very few starting out people. (laughs)
Q – That’s what I thought.
A – Most of the ones we get are established concessionaires. A lot of’em have been with the same show for a long time. The hardest part about running a concession trailer is getting into the good spot at the good fairs like the Minnesota Fair. They’re like one of the premier fairs to get into. You can make over a million dollars at just one fair.
Q – I didn’t realize one concessionaire at one fair could make that much money.
A – Yeah. There’s a cookie (stand) and they make little bitty chocolate chip cookies and she makes well over a million ( dollars) for each fair. She’s been there a long time and I think she’s moved into an actual building that she uses there. But, it’s not uncommon to make over a million dollars for 3 weekends in two weeks. But most of the time we get the guys who have been doing it for a long time, have an established route , know what they’re doing and say ‘O.K. we want to upgrade. We want to get this trailer that’s gonna last us the rest of the time so we’re not gonna have to worry about it.
Q – What is your background? What were you doing before Waymatic?
A – Well, I’ve always been in graphic design. I worked at a bank. Doing design for landscaping. I’ve done my own comic books. That’s kind of where I started here doing the graphic design. Now I’m kind of moving into a little more of the marketing thing. We don’t do a whole lot of marketing just ‘cause we don’t have to. Now, I’m kind of into the sales and finally I’m into the engineering part of it especially with more of the top sign ‘cause I can make ‘em look however I want them to look. Make ‘em as crazy as I want. So, the people that were doing engineering said if you’re gonna start doing all this crazy stuff you’re gonna have to learn how to build it and I’m working on that now. I’m learning how to build it all.
Q – After designing something do you then go to the engineering guys and say “ These are the materials you’ll need to use”.
A – Kind of. I design it. Of course you gotta make a job order for each part. So, I design each part, each panel, each stiffener, put the parts out. We make all the parts here ourselves. The only thing we don’t make here is the axel. We make everything else in-house from the ground up. So, I tell ‘em what parts to make, give ‘em a layout of how it’s all put together. I have helped . I have built out on the floor. Most of the guys here have done some of the building at one time. But, for the most part we have a crew out there. And trailers are only about 20% of what we do here at Waymatic. It’s definitely what we’re known for, but it’s not our biggest money maker here.
Q – What is your biggest money maker then?
A – Well, we are a custom metal shop. So, we do a lot of custom parts like electrical cabinets that are used for transformers , the big cabinets they put all the electronics in. Mostly stuff like that.
Q – Would you say the trailer part of Waymatic is a growth industry?
A – Yes, because we can’t keep up. We do have probably 2 or 3 decent competitors as far as doing the same thing we do. But, it’s pretty specialized. We keep losing competitors seems like every 2 or 3 years and we’re having trouble keeping up. We’re basically booked up through 2027. We can kind of do what we want to do normally but of course materials are going up so it keeps getting harder on us as far as keeping the price down.
Q – Is it friendly competition that you have? If you can’t complete a job in the time the customer wants do you then refer that person to one of your competitors? And they will in turn do the same for you?
A- Oh, yeah. We’ve sent several to different competitors especially if it’s something that’s a little more complicated , kind of out of our wheel house. We try to stay with what we know. So, if it’s something a little different we’ll send it to other places. We want people to get what they want. Like I say, we got plenty of work going. So, we’re happy to help out, helping people find another place to get what they want.
Gary James
Official Website: www.waymatic.com
