Indoff Incorporated December Newsletter 2019

“Indoff Provides Solutions to Your Business Challenges.”

December 2019

INSIDE Indoff

11816 Lackland Rd. St. Louis, MO 63146

Prose CONTENT President’s

by Jim Malkus, Indoff President & CEO Page 2 Human Resources Report Page 4 Recruiting Report Page 6 Finance & Accounting Report Page 7 Vendor Relations Report Page 8 Marketing Updates Page 9 Case Study Page 10 Operations Report Page 11 Anniversaries Page 12 Social Media & Partners of the Month Page 14 New Additions Page 15 Techie Talk

Happy Holidays to All! Whether it is Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or the winter solstice, I wish you all a blessed and safe holiday season. My hope for you is that you find peace and love with family and friends during this time of the year.

This is my 32nd holiday season with Indoff – rest assured, I did not see this coming when I signed on back in March of 1988. It can feel horribly repetitive (Groundhog Day) when I go to write these types of notes, so let me apologize in advance if some of this seems formulaic. 2019 has been an interesting year. We won’t reach 2018’s secured or billed totals, but this will be our secondbest year in our history – certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I think our results are indicative of the economy in total – 2019’s growth in GDP will not match 2018’s for a variety of reasons. We have made some significant investments in the future this year. In marketing, we are finalizing the installation of a modern CRM and marketing automation tool – Sugar. This will improve the quality of our e-marketing efforts and provide information that we can use to improve our future efforts with e-marketing, flyers, and our website.

Speaking of our website, we will launch an updated site early in 2020. We are utilizing the same team that helped us in 2014, and with Craig Pennington’s guidance, we are excited about the changes. It’s not so much about the “look” – it’s more about the platform and our ability to keep the site fresh and current on our own. Debuting any day now (and perhaps before you’re reading this) will be a new Vendor Information page within Confluence. Colin is updating the code to bring our wealth of information together on one page and giving Partners the ability to add some of their own vendor information within Confluence – local contacts, special discounts, whatever may be appropriate. This will then be followed by an update to the Vendor portal where vendors can upload information.

We are very excited about this enhancement and think these three investments – marketing automation, website and vendor information page – will work together to really upgrade our marketing efforts that will benefit all. We are super appreciative of Craig, Michael and Colin’s work in these areas. I’ll do the traditional Year-in-Review note in January; I’ll go into some detail then. In the meantime, please do remember to take some time to reflect on your year, on your blessings and on your plans for 2020. I am deeply appreciative of all you do for Indoff, and I wish everyone a very happy holiday season and a wonderful 2020!

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INSIDE Indoff

Human Resources

by Robin Migdal, Indoff VP of Human Resources Happy Holidays to all of you and your families. I wish each of you a safe and blessed holiday season and a happy, healthy 2020!

The 401(k) plan limits have increased for next year: • Limit on elective 401(k) deferrals for 2020 is $19,500 • Catch up contributions, aged 50 and older is $6,500

Robin Migdal Indoff VP of Human Resources

The IRS released the final version of the new 2020 Form W-4 with revisions designed to make accurate income-tax withholding easier for employees.

Current employees are not required to complete a new form but can choose to adjust their withholding based on the new form. Please contact us with questions or to obtain the new 2020 W-4 Form.

The holiday season is a time to reflect on how fortunate we are. This holiday season, we will collect canned goods for Operation Food Search in conjunction with our world-famous Box Decorating contest. We also have $2 jean days throughout the year, and each quarter we collect for a different charity: • 1 st quarter “National Kidney Foundation” - $1,000.00 • 2 nd quarter “Alzheimer’s Association” - $1,000.00 • 3 rd quarter “Welcome Home Angel”, John Kaiser’s foundation - $2,000.00 For the 4th quarter, we are collecting for St. Louis Honor Flight. This local charity’s mission is to honor our Veterans with a one-day, all expense paid trip to Washington, DC to visit the World War II Memorial.

As you go through the holiday season, remember to give thanks for your blessings. If you can, toss a few dollars in the red kettle; it makes a difference. If you can’t, remember those less fortunate during this season.

Happy Holidays and thank you for all you do for Indoff!

Holiday Schedule Tuesday, December 24 – Christmas Eve Corporate office will close at 12:00 pm Wednesday, December 25 – Christmas Day

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INSIDE Indoff

Recruiting

by Angela Suntrup, Indoff VP of Recruiting Happy Holidays!

I can’t believe 2020 is almost here! The Recruiting group has had a great year adding quality Partners! Without your help we would not have hired thirty-eight Partners through November. It is your continued support that helps Indoff grow!

As this year winds down and you begin to think about 2020, keep in mind of our retirement options. This year we brought on 6 mentees under the mentor program. These mentees have been working with their Indoff mentors to learn our industries and eventually will take over their book of business when they are ready to retire. Below are three great options if you are looking into Retirement:

Angela Suntrup VP of Recruiting

• Mentor Program: Hire and train a replacement new to the industry and share commissions on your customer base after you retire. Several Partners havebrought on board a family member or friend to train and turn accounts over to them, and this approach helps with that process.

• New Hire Program: Find and help hire a qualified replacement and earn significant overrides on your accounts after you retire.

• Partnership Agreement: Sell your accounts at retirement to an existing Partner; split commissions on your customer base after you retire. This has been successfully done by many Partners over the years.

Through November we have started 38 Partners: MH 12 BP 8 CI 16 PP 1 ES 1 Total 36

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Hiring W2 Partner’s will remain our focus in 2020. Keep in mind that Indoff offers a $1000 referral bonus if you refer someone that becomes a Partner.

Partner Program Qualifications: • At least 3 years outside sales experience in Material Handling, Commercial Interiors, Business Products, Promotional Products, or Energy Solutions.

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INSIDE Indoff

Finance & Accounting

by Julie Frank, Executive VP & CFO As we close 2019, we look forward to 2020 and what surprises it will have in store for us.

I heard there is an election, but I remain optimistic that it will be a very good year for Indoff and our Partners!

Here are some things my managers are looking to improve upon in 2020: Credit – Shannon Algee manages this group. They set up new customers, process new credit apps, approve orders that exceed credit limits and work with leasing companies.

In 2020, Shannon would like to continue to improve the tools our Partners use. In 2019, we created the on-line credit app, added deposits into the payment tab and added the credit hold status onto the customer credit check report. If there are ideas you have, let us know and we will attempt to implement them.

Julie Frank Executive VP & CFO

Accounts Payable and Billing – Maurice Belle manages this department. They set up new vendors, process vendor invoices, bill customers, manage W-9 certificates and work closely with vendors and Sales Partners. In 2020, Maurice will have more timely and effective communication; they will ask more questions to better understand your needs and to minimize transferring you around the office. They hope this leads to improved two-way communication with the Partners.

A/R Collections – Cherrie Bledsoe leads our collections team. In 2020, they are revising the collection focus from calling on past due invoices to managing the customer’s whole account so that it comes up on their worklist less often.

Finance – Ashley Hawkins is our Controller and manages this group. They post cash receipts, run credit cards, manage sales tax returns and exemption certificates, renew business licenses, maintain our workers compensation certificates, prepare monthly commission summaries, process expense reports, track advertising budgets and prepare our financial statements. In 2020, Ashley’s primary goal for the group is to return all Partner inquiries on the same day they are received – even if that is a “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

Have you made your New Year resolutions yet? Do you have concrete goals in place that will help you succeed next year? Now is the time to set your plan into action! Please know that we are here to help in any way we can.

Happy New Year to each of you! We are looking forward to a great year ahead in 2020.

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INSIDE Indoff

Vendor Relations

by Adam Heck, Vendor Relations Manager Hello Partners,

I hope you are enjoying the Holiday season and are getting ready for the start of 2020. In the last newsletter I discussed my role as Vendor Relations Manager and how I work with vendors. For my article this time around, I wanted to discuss some initiatives I have for 2020, and where I could use your help.

Adam Heck Vendor Relations Manager

What is most important to our vendors is the ability to get their products in front of the Partners and it’s also their biggest challenge. Indoff is uniquely structured and a lot of the vendors have difficulty wrapping their heads around how to work with us. My goal is to help them understand the Partner Program, how the Partners go to market, and the marketing programs available to the vendor. This will continue to be a focus for 2020.

You may see and automatically delete the emails I forward out, but the ability to quickly forward out a vendor email is an efficient way to reach a large and diverse sales force. We also offer the ability for the vendor to spotlight their products through blog posts and videos that we share with the Partners on social media.

This helps us with content, allows the Partners to see some quick info from the vendors in their social media feeds and gives the vendors another avenue to market to the Partners. We can’t guarantee them sales, but I can promise to help them get info out.

The area where I could use your help is identifying outside reps from the manufacturers and especially good independent reps that you work with. I would like to add more from both of these groups to my distribution list and become a resource for them. This is the hardest vendor group to identify, so if you have any good outside reps or independent reps, please send me their contact info.

Thanks for your attention and Happy Holidays!

Marketing Updates It’s Not Always About Price Often when we lose a deal we hear that the buyer went with the lowest price, and that can be true. Yet in reality, price is only one factor in the overall determination when a job is let. In a perfect world every vendor would always have available product, quality would be the same no matter who you purchase from, there would be no rush for delivery, and the company would stand behind their product if something goes wrong. We don’t live in a perfect world, though, so it’s important that we rely on our vendors to come through when our customers have a need.

Quantum Storage Going Above and Beyond

Recently an Indoff Partner, Duane Young from the Dallas, TX area, had a near impossible request from one of his customers. He was given a very specific request, a fairly large quantity of bins that were less than 8” tall that had to be 24” front to back, and that were needed immediately – that very day. Indoff is extremely fortunate to work with many outstanding vendors so Duane reached out to several of his contacts to see if it was even possible. Quantum Storage was able to step up and within hours the order was ready. Duane’s customer authorized a direct shipment of 6 pallets to fulfill the order.

But that was not the end of this story. The next day the same customer called Duane once again and needed 500 smaller bins in a different size with clear lids. By the time the order was able to be processed the warehouse personnel had left for the day. That didn’t stop Dean Cohen of Quantum. He rallied two co-workers to help him pull and palletize the cartons of bins. They had them on the dock for pick-up at 7:30 AM Miami time, loaded onto a truck which drove straight through to deliver the next day.

This is a great example of an Indoff Partner working with a company that has a great product that was willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the order was completed to everyone’s satisfaction. A tip of the cap to Dean Cohen, Quantum Storage employees, and Duane Young. Working together they made the customer happy and pulled off the near impossible.

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CASE STUDY:

Indoff and AIS team up to help a nationwide security company create a safe, productive, and cohesive workspace.

LaForce had grown and they were becoming distracted by the mess of loose cables around the office. They were in need of a well thought out design to increase employee productivity while creating a consistent look to their offices that could be carried out nationwide.

Increasing space to increase the bottom line As companies begin to grow they often run in to issues with the amount of workspace they have available as well as difficulties keeping everything organized. LaForce was no different as they had begun seeing a mess of cables strewn about the office. T hey needed help designing a concept that would allow their employees to collaborate with each other while cleaning up the office and providing ample space for employee equipment.

Indoff Sales Partner, Rodney Petrie, was contacted by LaForce and setup a prelimary meeting to discuss the issues they were currently experiencing with their current commercial furniture dealer as well as what Indoff could provide. Rodney listened to their pain points and provided ideas that were consistent with LaForces needs. As such, he designed a workspace with new furniture and solutions for improved operations. Once all the office information was gathered Rodney schedule a meeting with LaForce at the AIS Showroom in Chicago.

With office measurements in hand they were able to discuss options and then handpick their new furniture while meeting employee needs.

GOALS • Maximize the work areas for the increasing amount of employees in each department.

• Create a cohesive look across all 13 nationwide LaForce locations.

STRATEGY • Utilize Indoff’s access to AIS and their wide selection of products.

• Utilize additional Indoff Partners located near LaForce offices for local support nationwide.

RESULTS • 50” panels give the advantage of collaboration while hiding electrical cables and communications within the panel.

• Additional storage and filing in workspaces as well as a slot filing system for the accounting department.

• Created a national account with AIS to ensure a cohesive look across all La Force Locations.

“

My experience with Rodney and Indoff has been very positive. Making sure that we, as the customer, are getting the right solution at a good value stands out when working with you and the Indoff team. Another area that stands out is the service after the sale, such as working through issues that potentially come up through delivery and installation and then the following up to make sure things get taken care of the right way.

Jonah Behrend Corporate Secretary

Indoff

INSIDE Indoff

Operations

by Pam Hake, Indoff VP of Operations Hello Again to Everyone in Indoff Land. Last time I challenged you all to get a good wrap up to 2019 and a jumpstart into 2020. So how is that going for everyone? If there is anything you need to discuss or you just need a sounding board, let me know.

This sounds like a good time to review just what my role is here at Indoff. Anyone that has met with me during an orientation visit, has likely heard me say, “The Partners being out there selling is the reason for the Corporate Staff to be here administrating.” If you have a question, but don’t know who to ask, start with Our Partner Support folks. If your question is something that you think requires a manager’s touch, but you aren’t sure who, then start with me.

Here are just some of the things that I deal with on a day to day basis.

Pam Hake VP of Operations

• Large Bids - If you are getting ready to bid a large project to a customer let’s have a quick conversation (or email) before you present the quote to the customer. Just the basic particulars. Customer, vendor(s) (including their terms), margin, customer payment terms.

• Job Problems - It is the Partner’s ultimate responsibility to solve job problems, however, run it by me and we can decide the next steps. Whatever it may be.

• Opportunities - If you have something that you think is a good opportunity, but you are not sure how to go about it, or if it is something we can do, talk to me. Together we can decide on best course of action.

• Account Conflicts - Luckily this really doesn’t come up a lot, but for various reasons account questions do come up. Please remember before approaching a possible customer to look it up in Confluence to make sure it doesn’t already belong to someone in your division. If you have a case where you are not sure what to do, get in touch with me and we will work through it together.

• Partner Review - Each month by Anniversary date I review Sales and Gross Profit for the previous 12 months. Then I take appropriate action, Transitions from W-2 to 1099 and vice versa, Has someone left us, but not made it official.

Is a conversation called for?

• General Contracts and Customer Agreements - Such items must be signed by an Officer of the company. These items are handled by me or Jim Maulkus.

If credit gets a request that appears to be for a GC, they will refer me to you, • I am here for the Partners - Whatever is on your mind, let me know. If there is someone who can better handle your particular case, I will steer you in that direction.

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This is only a snapshot of what I do around here. This doesn’t begin to tell the story of what I get involved in. Bottom line if it is important to you, it is important to me.

Happy Anniversary!

10 Years

20 Years

Linette Going

Jean O’Malley

15 Years

John Landro

Mark Adams

Bob Frederiksen

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Follow Us! Stay connected with Indoff by following us on social media! You can find us on several social media platforms via the usernames provided below:

@IndoffInc

Indoff, Inc

@Indoff_Inc

Indoff Sales Partners of the Month s

Congratulations to our top Partners from each division!

November Material Handling Jeff Chambers - $455,398

Commercial Interiors Georgine Golitko - $558,318

Business Products

Nicole Stinson - $126,927

Promotional Products Keith Harris - $47,775

Allied Appliance

Chris Koeneman - $255,353

Welcome!

Meet the New Additions to Indoff

Teresa Dos Santos CI

Bruce Bennett PP

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Scott Branch CI

Terry Brokenshire CI

Chris Weaver Recruting

INSIDE Indoff

Techie Talk

by Shawn Faulkingham, Chief Information Officer Happy Holidays!

2019 has been another productive year for IT. We’ve made several improvements to Confluence, implemented some new technology in our infrastructure, and have (knock on wood) successfully kept our systems secure.

Shawn Faulkingham Chief Information Officer

Our group has also changed as well. Courtney Brazell now manages Partner Support and the help desk – a well-deserved promotion and enhancement to how we support our Partners. Within IT, Colin has hired a new and very talented programmer, Tabitha Songer! In just a few short weeks, Tabitha is already contributing with code updates to our credit check and order syncing routines.

You will notice more and more of Confluence having the consistent look of the procurement model as Tabitha and Colin update code.

As of now, we continue working our CRM migration and our marketing automation software and should have this up by the end of the year. This is an excellent addition to our Marketing tools in helping Craig Pennington execute our marketing plans. We are also revamping our public website’s look, feel and functionality. These changes will enable us to maintain the site and the content more effectively, which in turn will help with our marketing efforts and strengthen our web presence.

Finally, Colin, Adam Heck and Craig are working together to greatly enhance Partners’ access to vendor information as well as Vendors’ ability to share images, price files and brochures with us. Look for a major overhaul of the Vendor account page and information in the coming few months – we’re excited about this upgrade!

Colin Faulkingham Chief Technology Officer

Enjoy the holiday season with family and friends, and thank you for everything that you do! Don’t hesitate to call or email if you have any questions, comments or just want to nerd out for a minute!

Shawn, Colin and Tabitha

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