When he bought Speed’s Power Equipment in 1991, Sam Wilson felt the thrill of owning a small business wear off quickly. Amid a recession, his 15 employees struggled to sell pretty much any available brand of power tool in his shop about a mile south of downtown Salt Lake City. Then Home Depot opened eight blocks away. Wilson, now 51, was ready for a strategic Hail Mary.

He stopped carrying almost every brand of machinery that could be found in a big-box home-improvement store, which left him primarily with a bunch of chain saws, blowers, and hedge trimmers made by Stihl. Wilson also moved his business to a new location six blocks away — six blocks closer to Home Depot, that is. “I’m not going to lie; I was nervous,” he says. “But my sales went crazy. It was just awesome.”

Stihl has become the world’s top chain saw seller and a manufacturing powerhouse by actively positioning itself against two of the most powerful forces in commerce: big-box retail and the Internet. In the U.S., Stihl has annual sales of about $1.3 billion, says Fred Whyte, its president, and that figure has been going steadily up.

Stihl has built its business model in the U.S. around retailers such as Speed’s—mom-and-pop hardware stores, lawn mower repair shops, and thousands of other small outfits with creaky signs out front and piles of greasy spare parts in back. About 8,500 Stihl dealerships exist in the U.S. These aren’t the places consultants mention when…