MB America sales cycle: Seeing, believing, a deal

Max Ravazzolo nods knowingly when he hears Mike Kazmierski talk about the need to get company executives to visit northern Nevada.

Kazmierski, the head of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada, says companies are far more likely to locate operations in the Reno-Sparks area if executives come for a visit.

Ravazzolo, the chief executive officer of MB America Inc., is convinced that he can close sales with nine out of 10 construction company executives who see a demonstration of his company’s rock-crushing equipment.

And so, as often as three times a week, construction guys stand around behind the MB America office on Technology Way in South Meadows and watch as a big excavator equipped with one of MB America’s crusher buckets takes a big bite out of a pile of busted-up concrete.

The operator swings the bucket a few yards to the side and waits for a minute while the large chunks of concrete are crushed into small pieces.

The equipment isn’t cheap — MB America said one of its crusher buckets that its’ giving away at a big trade show in March is valued at $36,000 — but construction executives who see it in operation become convinced that the equipment will pay for itself.

Enough of them have convinced that MB America’s 2013 sales were up by 250 percent over the previous year, and the company is on pace for another strong increase this year as it continues to build a dealer network in North America.

Ravazzolo says, in fact, that the 1,900-square-foot office building his company purchased in 2010 will needed to be expanded to house its growing staff. The company currently employs 11 in Reno.

They serve as the United States headquarters staff for Italy’s MB S.p.A., which was founded in 2001.

Along with the construction industry, which uses MB crusher buckets to crush recycle construction debris into re-use on site, the equipment has been purchased by quarry operators, mining companies and environmental reclamation contractors.

The company’s products also include screening buckets, universal quick couplings and iron separators.