Distribution Talk

"The greatest thing to do, the best thing to do, is to be prepared… But if you're not prepared, it's going to bring down your business." ~Tom Held

If you haven't given IT security much of a thought, this episode will change your mind about doing so...immediately!

I got the chance to speak with Tom Held, Senior Consultant of Cyber Security and IT Risk Management with The Oakland Group, about intellectual property theft and why your business - yes, even a "small" nuts-and-bolts kind of distributorship - is ripe for ransoming.

"The thing about ransomware that you don't hear about it because it's happening on these small scales," says Tom about the day-to-day business of hacking.

Once the domain of basement-dwelling malcontents, the industry is now a profitable, illegitimate revenue stream. At one extreme are the organized crime syndicates from countries like Russia and China making big news by targeting large corporations and institutions. But a more likely threat to your business is posed by the 9-to-5 job con men. These criminals hit multiple small marks in a day, racking up millions of dollars a year with dozens of daily low-ransom hits - all from the relative safety of the internet.

In addition to jamming company laptops, phishing tactics - those "help a Nigerian prince reclaim his kingdom" emails - have also become more sophisticated. Think you're too savvy to fall for a fraudulent bank notice, tax documentation request, or accounts payable issue? Think again.

"We're vulnerable to our daily routines, right? We've got other things to worry about…," says Tom. Those day-to-day responsibilities can overpower our better judgement, especially when we're in a hurry.

"That email comes in and, okay, fine. I'll click on this thing..." By the time you've realized what you've done, the damage is done and it will cost you not only money but lost time to repair your business.

It's difficult to persuade small businesses they need cybersecurity but Tom has seen hacking's devastating consequences. He recommends three key actions for getting a handle on your exposure.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

http://www.distributionteam.com

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbader/

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-held-0776a7126/

Phish testing strengthens employee susceptibility to socially engineered scams.

A data inventory and risk assessment narrow down potential access points for hackers. Where's your going? Where's it being stored? Who's sending it?

And creating policy ensures that protocols are in place before your company is forced to address a breach.

Still not convinced? You may find yourself scrambling for Bitcoin and taking ransom instructions from a hacker's hotline.

"In some cases, the customer service is so great that you're almost reassured that you will [regain access to your data] because they want future business," Tom says. "What's odd is, in this industry of ransomware, the big players want people to know that they will get their stuff back because then they're more likely to pay the ransom."

That's a level of dark web client care we can all do without.

"I'm such a believer that my kids need to do something different, at least for a period of their life. Go apply for your own job. Negotiate your own salary. Negotiate your own working conditions and work hard and impress your own boss. Find out if that's right for you or if that's maybe not as easy as it appeared to be." ~Bryan Keen

A century is a long time to be in business. While Bryan Keen, president of Keen Compressed Gas Co., takes those hundred years in stride, he doesn't take anything for granted.

He's capitalizing on new markets and broadening the company's reach with 15 locations throughout the Mid-Atlantic. I got to chat with Bryan about family history, creating a knowledgeable workforce, and planning for Keen's future.

"Managing through the changes every year is fun," says Bryan. "You look back on what you accomplished and where you were two years ago or three years ago, or even last year and you just ...you know, you've got to be proud of what you accomplished."

Keen has succeeded where other companies have failed. A family-run operation whose first location opened in 1919 doesn't flourish into the 21st century without managing through challenges and proactively seeking areas in which to expand.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbader/

Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-keen-178b7511/

***

And they don't grow without a commitment to their people. Keen has a long history of supporting its employees for success through training and premiums. "You can't just be happy with what you sold yesterday. You've got to keep them fresh...you've got to get them excited about [new products], and you've got to compensate them for selling it."

If you've listened to Distribution Talk in the past, or you're part of a legacy business yourself, you already know how Bryan's story goes. An adolescence spent watching his grandfather, his father, and extended family grow the business. Summer vacations in the warehouse while high school buddies were at the pool. And then a break from the familiar company confines he'd grown up in.

"I went to work for the company that bought [the propane] segment of our business and I was challenged with the conversion, basically transitioning that business and those employees ...and I had to get them on board with the new corporate structure."

Bryan says he learned a lot of incredible lessons from his three years away: negotiation strategies, leadership styles, purchasing plans--so much so that should his own children want to follow him into the business, he'll urge them to try something different before opting back into Keen.

Bryan went "all in" on the family business early on. "I realized the opportunity that was in front of me," he says. He has a knack for sussing out market options and choosing the ones that will work the best for Keen.

So, while the auto plants and steel mills slowly left the industrial Northeast, the company got busy aligning with new tech: pharmaceutical businesses, university research and development departments, convenience food packaging operations. Keen also just completed a major plant investment which has the company poised to reach new heights.

After 20 years at the helm, does Bryan see an endpoint for himself yet? "You got to keep it fresh and keep having fun running the business and the day that you don't have fun running the business today, you really need to start looking at your options," he adds, "but I'm nowhere near that."

"We're focused on delivering what our members are asking us to do. And what our members are asking us to do is train their people and help develop relationships between themselves and the manufacturers." ~Kevin Higginbotham

Imagine running a company and having to answer to 58 bosses. As CEO of Evergreen Marketing Group, that's Kevin Higgenbotham's daily reality. I sat down with Kevin to find out how this cooperative of independent distributors works and what strategies Evergreen uses to promote long-term member success.

You get the feeling that Kevin's heard this question before: Why would a contractor come to an Evergreen distributor member versus anybody else?

As someone who started with the Texas-based cooperative twenty-five years ago, he's quick with the answer. "Because of the quality of the people. So as you walk into an Evergreen location, a branch, the people behind the counter know what they're talking about." That's on-brand for the group.

Unlike other collectives, Evergreen's focus isn't on buying product; it's motivated by a desire to foster professional growth amongst members. Their approach is all-encompassing. Training and education, business development, and manufacturer partnerships. Evergreen delivers with product knowledge sessions and their Planning For Profit program.

"[Planning For Profit] gets the distributors at the local level and the manufacturers' reps at the local and national levels together to honestly talk through, "how do we work together to grow the business?"

Does the program meet member expectations? Kevin says Evergreen's data doesn't lie. "I've been able to demonstrate over time...hey, this is worth your time.'"

***

Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbader/

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-higginbotham-3807a84/

***

Kevin shared a few tips from the Planning for Profit playbook.

The first is simple: Always do what you say you're going to do -- on both the distributor and the manufacturer side.

Second: Write everything down. Whatever that looks like to you -- pen and paper or a notes app -- just jot it down because you're more likely to get it done.

His third tip is for manufacturers: Understand the nuances between clients. Even in a collective, customer A is not the same as customer B.

Lastly: Set aside time in October or November for a thorough year ahead planning session -- then check in with your progress the first week of April. "The worst thing to do is continue to execute a plan that's not working and then to not know that it's not working until the third quarter." Wise words whether you're a large distributor or a small one.

Want an in depth look at how Evergreen's model works? Listen in as Kevin and I break down the details and get dig deeper into Planning For Profit.

Bonus reading suggestion for your management bookshelf: Working At Cross Purposes by Mike Marks.

30 episodes. Thousands of unique downloads. Dozens of interesting guests. Listeners in upwards of 30 different countries. It's been an amazing first year for Distribution Talk. I'm genuinely grateful for your support and your continued interest. Thank you!

As for this installment, I've opted to go solo with a question: do you own a business or a job?

As the year, the decade, draws to a close, there's no better time to see how you score. So, what's the difference between the two?

A job requires you to be there (physically as well as mentally) in order for the operation to run smoothly -- or at all. You're the engine that drives every aspect of the day-to-day, from sales to administration. If you were to take a few weeks off to travel the world, your company would flounder or worse.

A business, on the other hand, is set up to run efficiently and effectively should you step away for a month on a well-earned sabbatical. If the latter sounds impossible, hear me out. Not only does adopting a business mindset allow you to enjoy what you've built but doing so also prepares your company for a profitable sale (if or when that time comes).

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbader

***

Experience has shown me that the litmus test for business vs job holds true whether we're talking about small family companies or organizations operating in the millions of dollars range.

And the essential element for both is the same: build a great team.

If there's one piece of advice I've heard over and over again from DT guests it's surround yourself with knowledgeable people. Ask yourself if you're merely filling a vacancy or recruiting talent for your company's future. Recruiting talent is an ongoing process, one that's conducted even when there's no position to fill...yet. If you've recruited the talent but still find yourself with a job, ask yourself if you're training them with an eye toward the future or directing them into stagnation and complacency.

Critically assess your style. Path-centric micromanaging exhausts your attention and is a poor use of employee resources. Adopting a more goal-focused approach and ceding absolute control allows your team to grow in confidence and skill, ultimately creating the sustainability that supports time away and attracts interested buyers.

So how and where do you start? If you've listened for a while, you've come to rely on this podcast as a genuine resource for practical ideas; 30 episodes worth of conversations with thought leaders, consultants, and distribution business owners just like you.

If you need guidance, I hope you consider reaching out to me. Assisting distribution clients get there is both my profession and my passion.

Here's to a bright, self-sustainable 2020! Have a wonderful holiday.

http://www.distributiontalk.com

"Well, I think it's the author Jim Collins that talks about two business models: the genius with a thousand helpers model versus a solid management team. And, you know, when you're a genius with a thousand helpers, you have nothing to sell because when you walk out the door, the business is worthless." ~Jim Sobeck

Jim Sobeck, CEO of New South Construction Supply out of Greenville, South Carolina, is a long-range thinker whose ideas have consistently placed him well ahead of the market. And, he's got a way with words! We had the kind of conversation that makes you want to lean in and take notes.

"I was kicked off allowance at age 12 and had to start working in the warehouse sweeping." So begins the story of how Jim got his start in the business, sweeping, loading trucks, and doing anything and everything a boy could do in his father's construction company.

After college, he made his way to Chicago and eventually Dallas. "I had the sales and marketing responsibility over six branches of Owens Corning, about $125 million of P-and-L responsibility at age 23. You know, you either grow or die when you're thrown into the deep end of the pool at that age."

Grow he did. At 29, he got into the computer software business for lumberyards and contractors. He went on to grow that company into a $30 million business which he sold fifteen years later during the height of the internet bubble for a "ridiculous" amount.

Today, his company New South Construction Supply has nine outlets, most with rebar fabrication shops in house, with locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

"What I love about it the most," he says about the business, "[is] we all learned in school there were only three needs: food, clothing, and shelter. Everything else is a want. And so, it's not a fad business. It's not a hula hoop. It's not a pet rock. People will always need shelter, so it's never going to go out of style. And I love that."

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Jim on LinkedIn.

***

He also loves finding new ways to sell smarter, often years ahead of his competition. In once instance, Jim championed an app rollout that his son was less keen on. "I said, I don't care if anyone uses the app... I don't want to be late to the party." Last year, New South reached a goal of 22,000 orders via their mobile app.

Jim is equally canny in his ability to successfully manage acquisition outcomes. By his count, he's purchased eight companies on his own and several more in his days with the software firm.

"Most acquisitions that fail failed due to a poor cultural fit," he says, recalling a study which marked the failure rate as high as 72%. "The most important thing by far is the cultural fit. That's the thing I always look for. You know, do we mesh?"

Beyond culture, he's unwavering in his stance that audited financials are the only financials worth reviewing in an acquisition. "I was schooled by one of my early mentors: Run it like you're going to sell it."

To that end, he also advises companies worth more than $5 million to put together a board -- and to pay attention to their advice. "Why not surround yourself with five other people that are smarter than you and shut up and listen!"

That's my cue to step aside so you can listen in. Jim is one of the smarter people in the business. In fact, he wrote the book on it: The Real Business 101: Lessons From The Trenches.

If you're in need of tips for successfully navigating a branch expansion, an acquisition, or a generational transition, Jim's the man with well-tested plans.

"At some point, we have to have a real assessment of whether these [social media] platforms are giving us what we want. And, the truth is, the more time you spend on them, the less happy people are." ~Curt Steinhorst

Can I have your attention? You've probably got a million things (besides this episode of DT) vying for your notice. And I'll bet you're trying to devote fragments of time to all of them -- often all at once.

Curt Steinhorst is a coach, speaker, and author who's literally wrote the book on how the infinite distractions of a fast-paced world are harming our psyche as well as our productivity. He offers simple, thoughtful strategies for regaining our focus - without ditching our tech.

"What you pay attention to, you become." That's especially astute commentary coming from someone who was diagnosed with ADD as a child. It's no wonder that corporations and individuals seek Curt's positive, practical assistance to help them curtail attention deficits.

Rather than wholesale dismantling of social media feeds or strict adherence to inbox zero, he's developed methods to minimize distractions and promote the natural human tendency toward inquisitiveness.

"We are wired for curiosity," he says. "The base system of attention in our brain is that we're wired to seek out and explore new things. Uncover something that's interesting. Focus on it until something else comes about. So, we're not really made to just zoom in and focus efficiently, perfectly all the time."

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

***

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Curt on LinkedIn.

***

As we bounce from checking email to reading an influencer's piece on LinkedIn to hopping on Slack for the latest project update and back again to that inbox, we're constantly circling, never landing.

"We're consuming about 500% the amount of information as someone in 1990 was. We simply can't process that. No one can process that. So we react by filtering arbitrarily."

The key to meaningful filtering, says Curt, is personal (or organizational) assessment. "It's critical that we step back and ask the question how can I put the things in place that will support me focusing on what it is that I actually care about?"

Curt relies on three effective filters to help him sort through the day's never ending data. The first is space -- setting up the physical places that are for particular work. "If you can literally say there's certain places that I'm going to do only certain things [in], then we call that sacred places in various forms."

The second, and rather obvious, filter is technology itself -- but Curt points out that many of us fail to set even the simplest notification or inbox parameters.

The third is people -- utilizing your admin, your co-workers, your boss to minimize distractions, making you more productive as a result.

Ultimately, productivity thrives when humans are aware of their limitations and set boundaries to harness what is valuable.."I think we just have to realize technology is different than us and give ourselves a chance to just be very limited but excellent as a function of that."

Easier said than done? Not if you listen in and you'll learn more about Curt's favorite filters, his book Can I Have Your Attention, and his company, FocusWise Inc.

"I never thought that I would be here 36 years later having worked in this industry as a woman, but I love it. I feel totally blessed. I love everybody I work with. Not every day is a great day or an easy day, but it's worked... it's been so good for my family. " ~Michelle Shearer-Rodriguez

If you've listened to this show for a while (and, I know you have!)you've no doubt heard many guests reminisce on their formative years in the family business. My guest Michelle Shearer-Rodriguez, president of Shearer Supply, can relate; she's held every job at the company her father started in the mid-80s. That insight has proven valuable as she preps the next generation for success with her servant-style leadership -- whether they're blood relatives or not.

Michelle's enthusiasm for the multi-generation company she heads extends well beyond the 13 family members currently working at Shearer. She's passionate about getting people into roles where they can succeed -- for their own good as well as that of the business.

She's fervently commitment to staff education and takes advantage of support from HARDI, among others, to expand on the company's own in-house training.

***

Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn.

***

Michelle genuinely enjoys encouraging her team and creating space for them to grow. "Half of having your own business is putting the right person on the right seat on the right bus."

She's noticed a lot of companies focusing all of their right person/right place spotlight on outside sales. She'd like to see more attention paid to branch managers and the job (or, rather, jobs) they do to support success.

"You know, we hear a lot from our outside sales people...every single one of them would tell you that they can work for years on a customer, get a customer, and they can lose that customer overnight if that branch loads the wrong piece of equipment or you know, delivers short, something like that," she says. "My philosophy is: there's inside [sales], there's outside sales and no one trumps the other."

There's also a dozen blood relatives working alongside the hundreds of employees who want to be a part of the Shearer Supply family because of the company's commitment to its people.

As for the future, Michelle's thrilled that her three children have taken on roles in the family business. They've brought with them fresh knowledge and experiences as well as an enthusiasm for the business which is rubbing off on their friends. "The people that we've been hiring, they're people they went to college with. They never heard of heating and air conditioning and their coming into our industry. So I'm excited about that part. I think that is so cool!"

Listen in to find out what else Millennials are bringing to the business, learn which character traits Michelle has dubbed the 3Es, and get a bonus book recommendation Ego Is The Enemy.

"Friends in the rep business are very important. I mean, from acquiring lines to sharing best practices, it's not just one guy and in one territory. There's a bunch of people that know each other and work together." ~Dave Wright

This episode is 30 years in the making. That's how long I've known Dave Wright, president of WG Wright & Associates. In that time, the company has transformed from a manufacturer's rep to a wholesale distributor and private label. Having covered the business from so many angles over the decades, you can bet this show ticks a bunch of boxes--past, present, and future.

"We started as a manufacturer's rep, solely working out of my dad's garage." It's a common origin story: a garage, a guy, and a desire to build something good. But, unlike so many failed or consolidated shops, WG Wright has defied the odds, adding new chapters by differentiating itself from the competition, then diversifying to outlast them.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Dave on LinkedIn.

***

"It was through our processes of understanding what's needed in the market and do what we could to fill it," Dave says of the company's early decision to move from manufacturer's rep to stocking inventory. Today, the company has, in his words, a whole bunch of different things happening within their menu of services.

The cost of keeping inventory on hand is a hot topic. Customers get used to finding certain items on you shelves so when a manufacturer decides they're no longer interested in consigned inventory, you've got to punt. "They came to us and said, 'Hey...we need you to become a wholesaler. Put a program together.' So, we did." They followed that decision up with Mighty Tie cable tie line, their foray into manufacturing a USA-made branded product. "It's been a fun little product line," says Dave.

Price, performance, inside sales, taxes. We unpack a lot in this episode. One of the most interesting was high emotion, low margin sales. Take cable ties for example.. "It's a thing you have, you know? No one cares about it…," Dave says. "It's a pretty easy thing to sell. It's a good commodity item...and most importantly, it's not emotional. If you try and sell a job box or a ladder, oh my gosh! You know how emotional those things get?"

Taxes are another emotional subject -- and getting more so, from what Dave's witnessed. "States like Washington are coming back and taxing companies that ship into Washington. California is notorious for it.'

He's not blinking yet. WG Wright has weathered storms since 1977. Want to know how they've done it? Listen in for Dave's insight on specification work, consolidation, Millennial buyers, and more.

"Ninety-nine percent of distribution sales people are going to tell me their purpose is to make a sale, right? I think they're wrong. The purpose of the world's top-producing sales organizations is to identify and then satisfy our customer's needs profitably." ~Dirk Beveridge

By definition, innovate means to make advantageous changes to something established. My guest Dirk Beveridge, founder of UnleashWD and president of Beveridge Consulting Group (aka Leadership Today), wrote the book (literally) on how distributors can create new methods and drive success even in challenging times. Our conversation is packed with must listen material, the kind of anecdotes, tips, and resources for which Dirk receives hefty retainers as a sought-after keynote speaker.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Dirk on LinkedIn.

***

"I did it absolutely wrong," Dirk says of his path to becoming one of the foremost authorities on innovation. He created his first UnleashedWD Innovation Summit without any idea of what truly innovation meant. "If I would've done it right, I would've done the research and wrote the book first and then [held] the summit."

Happy accidents aside, Innovate! How Successful Distributors Lead Change In Disruptive Times, is a must-read as it lays out a model for remaining sustainable and profitable. He urges readers to focus on vision, culture, value proposition, business model, and leadership with a beginner's mindset, the theory that by setting aside years (decades...generations) of preconceptions, your business can thrive while others are still running their distributorships the same way they did years (decades...generations) ago.

"I'm your guy to get people in the room to rethink what it means to break that same mousetrap" He's also the guy to get teams acquainted with what sets their business apart from the competition. "It comes down to product, service and relationships. [But] all three of those things have become commoditized."

It's not just sameness that's threatening growth. It's the fear surrounding succession planning and the inertia that breeds. "I think the number one disruptive force that distribution is going to be facing...is this tsunami of presidents, owners, CEOs who are going to be transitioning the business to the next generation in the next three to ten years."

He's observed aging companies firsthand and understands how improper planning affects their chances for survival. That's why Dirk's passionate about his new program. My Life's Work is an executive coaching system created specifically to guide businesses through this major leadership change.

"We've developed a success path," he says of his three-year curriculum. Members meet quarterly to work on all aspects of their plan. When they graduate, they take with them a unique formula for their company. "If the business is going to be prepared for that transition, we have to focus on purpose. We have to focus on aligning around a strategic plan. We have to focus on growth of capabilities personally and the company. And we have to focus on making long-term decisions and investments."

Ultimately, Dirk's goal is for participants to approach their company's next chapter with a beginner's mindset, to be open to new ideas, and engage in transparent conversations. That's how you leave a meaningful, lasting legacy. That's how we set the next generation up to lead change in disruptive times.

Ready to launch your legacy, check out the inaugural My Life's Work session on January 16, 2020. Ready to for more great insight from Dirk? Listen in as we discuss ways to add more value to your business and find out about his work with National Association of Wholesale Distributors.

"You can't chase every single need, but when there's a consistency from one contractor or one customer to the other, that becomes an opportunity. And if there's a trust that you have built, the opportunity turns into profitability." ~Jeff Peterson, Geneva Supply, Inc.

How does an affable guy who started out in the liquor industry become a leader in e-commerce strategy and fulfillment?

When you meet Jeff Peterson, CEO and co-founder of Geneva Supply, Inc. out of Delavan, WI, the answer is clear: How could he not?!

"I always wanted to own a sports bar…" And with that, Jeff's deep into the story of his unorthodox route into distribution. Although the twists and turns are many, the common throughline is his undeniable skill at building relationships.

After selling the bar, Jeff went searching for his next challenge when the opportunity found him. "One of the guys that I knew, I was helping manage his band and he was the Greenlee Textron rep for Wisconsin…"

That connection lead to a sales job with a family-owned tool distributorship and Jeff soon found himself driving to job sites in a company pickup truck selling items to contractors that he himself had no idea how to use. "Within six months, I ended up being the number two outside salesperson for this company."

Jeff's ability to balance his inexperience with honesty in those early years made all the difference in his career. "I think the reason was because I went in there and asked a ton of questions and when they [contractors] asked me questions, I was honest with them. When I didn't have an answer, I followed up with them."

It's a simple but crucial effort he credits with his success. "You don't have to be the smartest person in the room...but you've got to be the smartest person knowing they need an answer."

He became so adept at finding answers that the family-owned distributorship he helped grow had no choice but to fire him and his future business partner. Once again, however, the relationships he nurtured while working for someone else came through to form the foundation for what is now Geneva Supply.

These days, Jeff's still the guy finding answers and providing strategies for his clients e-commerce distribution challenges. Geneva has flourished as a one-stop shop for building brand strategy and supply chain infrastructure.

"I was just telling our team this morning...Geneva Supply is a marketing company that does logistics." The company's gearing up to expand beyond the coasts, giving Jeff more opportunities to cultivate relationships internationally.

Listen in to find out how Jeff got Geneva Supply up and running in a day (there's an airplane hanger involved!) and what's next for e-commerce.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn.