If your competition took aggressive measures to try to take you and your business down, would you know how to handle it?

The business owner in this story wasn’t going down without a fight.

See how she got back at the person who tried to destroy her.

Report me for “breach of contract”? Be prepared to lose your life’s work.

I own a construction equipment dealership, specializing in excavation gear. The main brand I carry has dealership “every 2 blocks” to the point that there are over 800 in the lower 48 states alone.

They do this to keep prices down, because dealers have to compete with each other.

In 2005, business was booming.

I was making 15% on all new gear, and selling it by the truck load. I was one of the largest dealers in the U.S., and I was the largest in my region.

She started working with a different supplier.

The factory provides us with the machine, as well as accessories for it. As a dealer, we are not allowed to sell non-authorized after-market accessories if the machine itself is being financed through the factory.

I had many complaints about the lowering quality in accessories made by the factory, to the point that I was no longer comfortable putting my name anywhere near it.

I asked a friend of mine that deals only in used excavators where he gets all his gear, and he introduced me to a factory in China.

I go visit the supplier. I’m impressed, and from that day on only use after-market accessories.

It sounded like a good business strategy.

I get around the financing issue by selling all machines with no gear, which means no quick couplers, buckets, or hydraulic thumbs, and getting that financed, then the customer has to pay cash for the accessories.

If that is an issue, I have a secondary bank that will finance them, just not at 0%.

In addition to a better quality product, I now can provide a much better price. For example, a 24″ dig bucket would typically sell for about $1,500, and we would buy it for $1,200.

I’ll now sell it for $700, and pay my man in China about $300. This of course helped me get more deals, which would have gone to other dealers.

Instead of being able to call up another dealer and take a machine in on trade if I don’t have it, I can only get them from the factory, meaning instead of needing to hold $1,000,000-$1,500,000 of inventory, I was having to hold about double that.

But her adversary was onto her.

At one point, I sell a machine in to the heart of another dealer’s territory unrestricted and the customer turns out to be the dealership’s owner’s neighbor.

This ticks off the other dealership and he finds out where my price advantage is coming from. His neighbor tells him that he didn’t pay for the accessories separately and he takes this as he financed it all.

The other dealer turns me in to the factory, and implies that I’ve always used after market gear, and that I’ve always financed it through the factory, neither of which are true.

Time for an audit!

He made enough waves that the factory sent people out to inventory my lot, to make sure I actually had all the machines on my lot that I claim I do, and to make sure all the accessories I claim are theirs, actually are.

They audit my sales for the past 8 or 9 years of our business relationship, and going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. The kicker? They don’t let me use any financing they offer while they’re searching for a non existent error or scam on my part.

After about 2 months of having 2 or 3 men going through all of our paperwork, inspecting every signature, and calling over 150 different customers, I get the green light to keep selling and they leave.

Unfortunately, this turns what should have been the height of the season, in to one of the worst quarters I’ve ever had.

In 2008, dealers were getting ready to close down. I went from making 15% on the new machines to making 5%, and I went from over doubling my money on each accessory, to selling them at $100 over cost.

And she knew how to handle the changes.

I’m proud to say I didn’t lose a single penny during this. I eventually had to cut back my sales staff, but we never lost a cent.

Anyway, dealers were trying to get rid of their inventory, because they didn’t want to have to pay for it when the flooring expired.

Well, flooring started expiring, and the dealers didn’t have networks in place to be able to sell them far enough, or suppliers in place to sell them cheap enough, so they were getting stuck.

At this point, I was selling everything cheep, but was still selling it, and still making at least $2,000 a sale, so I didn’t run out of flooring on a single item.

Once a dealer ran out of flooring, and couldn’t pay for their gear, the factory would be responsible for trucking it back to their distribution centers, and then they would be stuck with all the gear.

I struck a deal with the factory: the other dealers were now getting free extended flooring and weren’t paying for their machines. If I needed it, or could sell it, they would pay my shipping expense, so I could sell it.

6 of the 7 sellers loved this because I was freeing them of hundreds of thousands of debt every month.

And she had her opponent right where she wanted him.

All but one. I stuck the dealer that turned me in with every single item he had. He tried to get me to take them, literally offering my thousands of dollars to do so, so he wouldn’t have to either pay the factory or lose his contract with them.

It came to the point that our state had about $2,500,000 worth of inventory on hand, across all 7 dealers. Guess what?

Nearly half of that was all on dealer 7, and his inability to sell them, and inability to pay for them, cost him his contract with the factory, and his dealership as a hole.

Once the financial crisis started turning around, I had the chance to actually buy his location, building, land, shop, etc, but turned it down. Another dealership did buy it, and actually hired him on as a manager.

After a few months though, he got fired, as he just couldn’t close a deal anymore.

Mess with me and take food off of my table and I’ll destroy the business that you’ve ran for decades, that was founded by your father.

I wouldn’t want to be on this businesswoman’s bad side! She knows her stuff!

Here is what folks are saying on Reddit.

Very impressive resilience.

I agree. I also don’t believe in moving sales overseas so you can get people to work for peanuts.

It would be a nice metaphor, but maybe not the best business move.

I’m sure she found it satisfying, too.

Wow this is dark, but yes.

This should be a case study for business classes.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.