“Indoff Provides Solutions to Your Business Challenges.”
July 2018
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 3 Anniversaries Page 4 Recruiting Report Page 5 New Additions Page 6 Finance & Accounting Report Page 7 Vendor Relations Report Page 8-9 Business Wisdom: Doug Fletcher Page 11 Partner Features Page 12 Sales Partners of the Month Page 13 Marketing Report Page 15 Techie Talk
Welcome to July – we’re halfway through the year, and what a half-year it has been. Through six months, we have secured $91,000,000 in new business – wow! In 1991, John Ross and John Temple had an idea – the Partner Program – and began building a new distributorship that was unique. Our program is built on a few simple principles: • The salesperson brings the value to the transaction and should be compensated. Our 50% commission rate has been untouched for 27 years in respect of this fact. • Salespeople know what is best for their customers. Give them the freedom to choose the right solution for their customer; don’t burden them with call reports, required vendors or weekly meetings. Give them the freedom to manage their own business. • Back this up with a financially sound base through an effective administrative effort. Making this idea work requires the talents and efforts of hundreds of individuals. It has not always been a smooth trajectory – 2009 saw our volume drop 20% as the Great Recession hit. It requires a consistent belief in the program and defense of its principles from temptations to change. Thanks to everyone’s contributions, we just wrapped up our best six months in our history, and we are optimistic for the future. You can’t do $91 million without some stars; we already have 18 Partners who have secured over $1,000,000 through June 30. Congratulations and thank you to: Kristy Long Sherry Turner Matt Munchel Paul D’Ambra Georgine Golitko Chris Koeneman Joe Vander Zanden Stacy Bernhardt Bruce Lang Mike Esposito Dave Morrow Lee Key Darrin Wicks Duane Young Talent + Freedom + Financial Strength = Success! Thank you all for all you do for Indoff throughout the year!
Bill Jacobson Sam Hubbell Doug Fletcher Theresa Guest
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Human Resources
by Robin Migdal, Indoff VP of Human Resources We’ve hit the midpoint of the year and HR is busy as we head into the last half of the year. We just wrapped up open enrollment, and we updated payroll with any changes. We did change our UNUM short term disability plan; effective July 1, 2018, the short term maximum weekly benefit increased to $2,000 from the current $1,385. This change decreased the cost for the combined short and long-term disability from 59 to 58 cents per $100 of gross pay.
Robin Migdal Indoff VP of Human Resources
Our accounting firm finished up the audit of our 401(k) Plan making sure our Plan is compliant with IRS regulations. Your 401(k) 2nd quarter statement includes the Participant Fee Disclosure Statement (previously sent via email). Please review your statement for details on the investments in our retirement plan and information on the fees and expenses. For the last six months of 2018, the Guaranteed account will receive a rate of return of 3.00%. We have reached the mid-point for tracking your GP to attend the Champion’s Circle Meeting in May 2019. How are you doing? Attendance for the meeting is based on your gross profits for 2018 – GP of $220,00 and greater, free trip and private room, $110,000 and greater, free trip. See you there! On a more immediate note, the 2018 Sales Meeting is this October 18th through the 21st at the St. Charles Convention Center. All invites have been sent and I will begin making the travel arrangements very soon. Please contact me with any questions you may have regarding the meeting and I look forward to seeing you. Have a great rest of the summer and thank you for all you do for Indoff!
Clearwater Beach 2019
Happy Anniversary! 20 Years
David Studebaker July 1
Paula Smithson August 1
15 Years
Jeff Heard July 10
10 Years
Duane Young August 1
Joe Allen July 24
INSIDE Indoff
Recruiting
by Angela Suntrup, Indoff VP of Recruiting Hello summer!
Time for sun, fun and vacation! This time of year can be difficult to stay focused on business but the class of 2018 is not slowing down! Through June we have hired 24 Partners and the class of 2018 has sold over $2.7M! Please welcome our newest Partners!
Angela Suntrup VP of Recruiting
Keiko Pace-CI Suzanne Gill-CI BJ Dunwody-CI Steve O’Connell-BP Gary Miskimmon-MH Dave Birkenhagen-CI Jake Williams- MH Ginger Huff- CI
David Strong-CI Marc Fritz-MH Matt Zschoche-CI Deb Liles- CI Lee Daniels-MH Jim Liles- MH Nancy Craig- CI
Brian Kenner-MH Tim Dorman-MH Mark Lowe- CI Wendell James- BP Rick Burnette- MH Jim Gerlach-MH Frank Venturella-BP
As always, Partner referrals are necessary to keep Indoff growing. 13 of the 24 hires this year came from your Partner referrals. Please continue to seek out referrals from any of our divisions. Talk to your referrals about why you made the move to Indoff and how the freedom of our Partner Program lets you run your business as you see fit. Highlight to your prospect that they are in control of their income and the ability to make money is limited only by their effort. If you are unsure if someone would be a good fit, see if your prospect can answer yes to the following questions. If so, you need to call me and refer them! • Does your prospect have 3 to 5 years of outside sales experience in one of our divisions? • Do they have a transferable customer base? • Does your prospect have yearly sales of $350k ($200k in Promotional Products)? • Can your prospect work independently, outside of a dealership structure? If we hire your prospect, you will receive the $1,000 referral bonus once your prospect generates $1,000 in Gross Profit!
Welcome! Meet the New Additions to Indoff
Anthony Kren Appliance Service Coordinator
Jake Williams MH
Craig Pennington Marketing Consultant
Lee Daniels MH
Gary Miskimmon MH
Rick Burnette MH
Dave Birkenhagen CI
Frank Venturella BP
Bruce Tomberlin BP
not pictured Ginger Huff CI
Nancy Craig BP
INSIDE Indoff
Finance & Accounting by Julie Frank, Indoff Executive VP & CFO It’s hard to believe but we are already half way through the year and half way through summer. In St. Louis it feels like we’ve been in the throes of summer since early May, skipping spring weather all together. May not only brought on warmer temperatures, it brought in a flood of sales in all divisions and from all areas. May May was a record secured sales month for Indoff, coming in just shy of $20 million (after the conversion of our Canadian sales to US dollars). It was truly a team effort with close to 50 partners selling over $100,000 during the month.
Julie Frank Indoff Executive VP & CFO
June The month of June ended with 18 partners already reaching the million dollar sales mark, including four over $2 million, wow! We also have many partners on track to join the million dollar club, including three who started in 2018. Congratulations to all of you who are having an amazing year! We believe the reason we hire and retain so many good Sales Partners is because of the freedom we give you: • Freedom to set your own schedules (especially nice in the summer months) • Freedom from credit risk (follow our credit policy and you are protected) • Freedom to set your prices (with reasonable margins) and freedom to choose your vendors. Just like freedom makes the US a great place to live, we hope it also makes Indoff a great place to work. I hope that all of you are enjoying your summer and finding some time to relax and unwind. There is still plenty of time to finish the year strong and qualify for the Champion’s Circle trip next May. Based on our results so far this year, I’m guessing this will be one of our biggest and best reward trips ever.
INSIDE Indoff
Vendor Relations
by Adam Heck, Vendor Relations Manager Hope you’re having a good summer so far. For the July newsletter I wanted to discuss a vendor outreach program that we have recently started. For several years we have regularly emailed information to manufacturers and rep groups as well as provided a point of contact for any questions or issues that arise. We have recently decided to begin also calling out to the reps and managers that work with Indoff Partners. We think this will benefit the company in several ways- increased vendor knowledge of how Indoff operates, more information from the vendors on discounts, spiffs and new products, and hopefully more vendor referrals for new Indoff Partners to grow the company.
Adam Heck Vendor Relations Manager
Indoff is unique in many ways, but for the vendors the main difference is that they have a large number of independent thinking Partners to sell their products, instead of a sales manager or dealer/distributor owner who then directs what the reps sell. That can be a major challenge for some vendors. Accordingly, we try to educate the vendors on how Indoff Partners go to market, and provide marketing tools to them to mitigate the challenges of working with hundreds of outside reps. We think proactively making calls out will provide more opportunity for clarity. We also will be asking each vendor about discount levels, spiff programs or any new products that we should be aware of. The goal here is not to inundate the Partners with information, but with so many products and vendors available to us, we want you to have the most up to date information from the manufacturers. We suggest that the vendors send emails to me, to forward onto the message boards, as opposed to direct email correspondence. I have also started a list of vendor discounts- if you have any vendor discounts that you want me to add, please send them to me. The process of making these outbound calls and emails will help us refine and grow our vendor database. We want all our vendors to know that Indoff provides a point of contact-me- that can help them with whatever comes up. If they like dealing with us and have good success selling to the Partners, its very likely they will refer reps or small owners to us in the future. That helps us grow and maintain a strong Partner group. If you know of any local vendor reps or rep groups that should hear from me on occasion please send them my way. Thanks for your attention. Have a great rest of the summer.
INSIDE Indoff
Business Wisdom
by Doug Fletcher, Commercial Interiors
Doug Fletcher Bentonville, AR “It’s not for everyoneonly those that are not afraid of going out and getting their fair share of the market.”
Scotland is a very diverse and historic place, from iconic golf courses, to legendary scotch whisky distilleries, to ancient castles built high on mountains thousands of years ago. This year, Indoff Partner Doug Fletcher got to see it all! Every year, Kimball takes its top 100 dealerships across the nation on a “reward” trip to say thank you for selling Kimball. This year Doug earned one of the trips to Scotland for a week. While on the trip, the sellers wore name tags that told their dealership name, and Doug repeatedly got some form of amazement when the other sellers saw that he was with “Indoff ”.
INSIDE Indoff
“I got comments like; Do they take you seriously in your market, because we really don’t take Indoff seriously in our market? - Yes, yes they do take me seriously when I take their business on a daily basis! And I do” said Doug. “I also got several comments about how Indoff calls them all the time and they never really gave it any serious thought, to which I answer ‘Of course they call you, we only want the best. We call many, but only a few actually get offered a position. It’s not for everyone- only those that are not afraid of going out and getting their fair share of the market.’” Kimball is a top-rated company and Doug puts their products up against anyone in the market. Over the last year, he has beat out all of the top four manufactures with Kimball and gained some pretty loyal clients along the way. “I am very proud to be with Indoff and very proud to be one of Kimball’s top 100 dealerships in the nation. I hope to repeat it again this year as the trip is to Iceland and Copenhagen next year!” Congratulations, Doug, and we’re very proud to work with you, too! We look forward to photos from Iceland next year.
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70th Anniversary 1945 - 2015
Partner Features Frank Venturella Business Products
What excites you about joining the Indoff team? It is a well respected company in the industry and the back end support they offer. Why did you decide to join Indoff? I am retired and decided to start my own company. How long have you been in the Business Products industry? I have been in the office products industry for 10 years. How do you enjoy spending a day off? Tennis, golf, fishing If you were to create a slogan for your life, what would it be? Hard work pays off
Jake Williams Material Handling What excites you about joining the Indoff team? The opportunity to work independently and still have a great team to rely on for support if needed. Why did you decide to join Indoff? It’s a great opportunity. How long have you been in the Material Handing industry? Just shy of 3 years. What are the main products you focus on selling? Pallet Rack How do you enjoy spending a day off? Disk golf with my friends or relaxing with my family.
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Indoff Sales Partners of the Month Congratulations to our top Partners from each division!
May
June
Material Handling
Material Handling
Duane Young - $588,712
Bill Jacobson - $351,789
Commercial Interiors
Commercial Interiors
Stacy Bernhardt - $1,389,537
Bruce Lang- $294,407
Tom Vanhoozer - $181,564
Darrell Reed - $118,075
Business Products
Business Products
Promotional Products
Promotional Products
John Hollern - $79,837
John Hollern - $148,309
Chris Koeneman - $354,748
Chris Koeneman - $442,270
John Vasquez - $112,580
John Vasquez - $67,116
Allied Appliance
Energy Solutions
Allied Appliance
Energy Solutions
INSIDE Indoff
Marketing
by Morgan Powers and Elizabeth Roe, Marketing Coordinators Hello everyone!
Hope you all had a happy 4th of July. We sure did! With the freedom Indoff provides you to run a business the way you want, we try our best to encourage you to use all the marketing resources we provide. You have the freedom to create an image and brand yourself, so why not take advantage of the opportunity.
Elizabeth Roe E-Marketing Coordinator
Morgan Powers Marketing Coordinator
As you might have seen, the Marketing Department sent out an E-Marketing Survey this past month. From your answers, we have calculated some results that we would like you to keep in mind and that we will take into consideration for future emails. • Although most of you liked the overall look of the emails, we will attempt to Switch It Up! We will still keep the emails within the same layout in order to create brand awareness and associate the emails with Indoff, but will attempt more variety to keep your customers interested. • Because the Partner email is included in the body of the email, we don’t always know when a Partner gets a lead off of the email pieces. We would really appreciate you taking the time to let us know so we can closer monitor the monetary value of the program. • We want to provide the best content for you and your customers. With that being said, we are not experts in your fields. Partner topic suggestions are always encouraged and welcomed. This is a great way for you to directly target your customers and as a result, increase overall sales. As a side note, starting mid July the Marketing Department will be starting a weekly email blast to all Partners called Marketing Monday! Keep on the lookout for our helpful tips and tricks to better your marketing efforts. Always feel free to reach out to us for anything you might need!
Elizabeth Roe 314-997-1122 ext. 1243 or elizabeth.roe@indoff.com Morgan Powers 314-997-1122 ext. 1208 or morgan.powers@indoff.com
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Techie Talk
by Shawn Faulkingham, Chief Information Officer Ahh...summer is here! Heat, heat and more heat. I do hope we have a cool end to the summer, but here in Saint Louis, that is a pipe dream at best! The IT group has been busy over the last few months with a couple of projects: cXML - Colin has been working with Customers to enable us to interface more effectively with Customers’ ERP systems and Ariba. Customers that have a national footprint or several departments/locations may be able to take advantage of this! Have a chat with Colin to see if it is something you can leverage to improve your relationships with your Customers!
Shawn Faulkingham Chief Information Officer
EnterpriseOne ERP - Colin, Courtney, Julie and myself have been working on upgrading our ERP system. It’s vital that we keep up to date with the latest technology for our ERP to insure our internal workflow and data security are working optimally. Our expected cutover will be in early fall. Stay tuned for updates! Since we have just celebrated Independence Day for our great country, I would like to take a moment to chat about the power and freedom of the Partner Program and the technology that powers it. From day one, the Partner Program has been about freedom; freedom to do your business the way you want and when you want to do it. We had some tools for you in place in the very beginning (The Template, IRIS). As of today, that looks a lot different due to advances in technology.
Colin Faulkingham Chief Information Officer
Technology has the ability to empower people. Technology allows you to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. It keeps you connected to your family and friends, but also keeps you connected to your Customers and your business! Your response times to customers and vendors are quicker, increasing satisfaction with your performance. Confluence has been able to help you do that since 2004; it is available 24x7, 365 days a year in any part of the world with Internet access. The Partner Program powered with Confluence and other technologies make it easier for you to do business the way you want, and free up time in your lives to do the things that you want! If you have any questions about using any technology out there, please give us a call or send us an email. Shawn, Colin, Courtney and David
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