Kruckeberg’s book is right on brand

There’s an old adage that says, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

Blooming Prairie businessman Craig Kruckeberg has felt that way about many of the jobs he’s held, but now he applies it to something else: writing a book.

“I get frustrated with what I see out in the world, especially when it comes to marketing,” he said. “It’s the hardest thing to start spending money on, and it’s always the first budget they cut.”

The result of his frustration is a 187-page book called “If Success Comes Overnight… You’re going to Jail!”

The front cover sums it up nicely as a “down in the dirt book on branding and marketing your business.” It’s written much like Kruckeberg talks – sprinkled liberally with expletives and irreverent tales.

The autobiography tells the story of Minimizer, the family company founded by his parents and grown through Kruckeberg’s strategic and constant branding, and of his life before and after he became a blue-collar entrepreneur.

“I started writing it, and it just transitioned into, ‘here’s my wealth of experience.’ Marketing is uncomfortable for people,” he said, “because half of the marketing dollars are a waste – you just don’t know which half.”

Customers may have your phone number, know your name, and call you, “but if you don’t do something with that phone call, you’ve wasted it,” Kruckeberg said. “The marketing doesn’t stop once they call. There’s more pieces to the puzzle.”

It took him some time to understand how effective those pieces are.

“Networking, if you’d asked me 10 or 15 years ago, I would’ve said I needed to go a seminar or a Chamber event, but truly at the end of the day, it’s just ‘go make some friends’,” he said. “That’s all it is, but that’s the hardest part for people.”

Including Kruckeberg.

“Every personality test I ever took says I’m an introvert,” he said and waited for the laughter to subside. “And people say ‘no, you lie.’ But you’re marketing yourself, you’re marketing your company, you’re marketing your kids. Every day is marketing and branding.”

He was good at it, the best there was in his field.

“Minimizer was the number one brand for after-market parts in the heavy truck industry, a $300 billion industry,” Kruckeberg said, but he understands if you don’t quite understand what the company did.

“We weren’t a household name,” he said, but the people who counted knew the name.

Kruckeberg spent millions on marketing, and it paid off: He eventually sold the company in late 2017 for tens of millions of dollars – so much, in fact, that taxes alone were $15 million.

He’s an expert at taking his own advice after learning over the years that “once you realize who you are, what you really care about and don’t care about, you’ll be better off. Everybody’s got a different personality, so when it comes to business, you have to realize what yours is.”

Kruckeberg is brash, but no one can dispute his dedication to his hometown.

Donations to various organizations number in the millions of dollars, but his loyalty to Blooming Prairie keeps him here and keeps him bringing business here.

After selling Minimizer, Kruckeberg bought Stinar, a company founded in the 1940s by a World War II veteran named Frank Stinar.

Within about 20 years, the company was a worldwide force in aviation ground support equipment – stairs that roll up to airplanes, lift trucks, and de-icing devices. It also became a major supplier to the U.S. government for its military needs.

But after the family sold the business in the mid 1990s, it foundered badly. Kruckeberg saw the opportunity and bought it. Though Stinar was originally based in Eagan near what eventually became MSP International Airport, that’s not where it is now.

He could have closed the company, sold the building, and been left with a seven-figure profit.

“I moved Stinar back to Blooming Prairie when Minimizer moved out of the building,” Kruckeberg said.

“I’ve worked with Denny (Heimerman) at Metal Services and all those guys for 30 years,” he said. “I knew what I needed to know, and we had the relationships, so that’s one of the reasons I moved it down to Blooming Prairie.”

He’s already repairing the reputation Stinar developed in the bad years, rebuilding relationships and working on parts fabrication to improve the products. Customers like Delta and Boeing are calling again.

As Kruckeberg writes in the book, “My own family’s business had a similar story of sacrifice and commitment in its first 35 years; maybe that’s why it seemed right for me to think about Stinar’s history.”

His family, he said, “rolls their eyes” when Kruckeberg talks ideas, including the book. His oldest daughter read a rough draft and responded with a compliment.

“Then after that, she says, ‘you might want to change this, and you’re going to have to change that…’,” Kruckeberg said.

His father, who founded Minimizer – then known as Spray Control Systems – hasn’t read the book.

“I’ve got a copy for him in my truck,” Kruckeberg said. “I just haven’t gotten it to him.”

He laughs about the book becoming a best-seller and said any profits will go to the Leo Augusta Children’s Academy. People can get a copy by contacting Kruckeberg on his Facebook page.

“I have this information; I’m going to put it out there, and if people want it, it’s there,” he said of the book.

“It’s just the things I learned,” Kruckeberg said. “My college education is nine months of cooking school; the other things, I had to learn. I tell the younger generation, if you’re willing to get dirty, if you’re willing to work while everybody else is out partying,” success will come.

“You do what has to be done,” he said. “You grind it out, and all of a sudden, oh (expletive), there it is.”