Counselor Magazine May 2012 : Page 104

Fastest-Growing Companies FASTEST-GROWING MRL Promotions By Betsy Cummings #1 DISTRIBUTOR When your entire marketing plan rests on ﬁx-ing the branding of clients, you’d better have a clear brand for your own company. After harping to his clients that brand consistency is the key to marketing success, Michael Levitt looked around and noticed his company was far oﬀ the mark. Suddenly, he realized, “We have this market-ing kit, and a website that doesn’t match, and an e-mail signature that doesn’t match,” recalls Levitt about his moment of clarity as the presi-dent of MRL Promotions ( asi/258137 ). “We’re 104 promoting successful branding, and the ﬁrst step is to do that for your company. We have that now.” It took a while to get there, in part because Levitt, who started the company seven years ago from his dorm room, was too busy managing orders in the company’s early days to strategize a consistent brand-ing message. That’s no longer the case. Levitt and his team of seven employees made it a priority to create a coherent brand going forward by making the distributor’s website, brochures, catalogs, T-shirts, business cards and just about anything else with the logo on it have the same look – a simple font accompanied by charcoal, red and white colors. These steps, Levitt says, are key to set-ting his company apart from competitors. It must be working. This year, MRL Promo-tions is the fastest-growing distributor in the ad specialty market after growing its sales by 471% between 2009 and 2011 – an increase from $350,000 to $2 million. As a political science major at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Levitt started experimenting with printing shirts. That led to requests for hoodies, embroi-dered polos, other apparel orders and, even-tually, promotional products in general. He attended his ﬁrst trade show (ASI Orlando) when he was 20 and just a sophomore in college. That was followed by a three-month internship with a distributor in New York before returning to Florida to continue with his own ﬁrm. Today, MRL’s oﬃce takes up 3,600 square feet in Ft. Lauderdale. That kind of growth has allowed Levitt to hire one or two additional employees, which in turn frees Levitt from administra-tive duties for more time in the ﬁeld. Last year he sold over $1.5 million, and has both pitched to a wide array of clients as well as focused on a few strategic customers in areas like the beverage industry. “I think it’s every person’s wish to land the big guys, but it’s not realistic,” Lev-itt says of distributor pipe dreams that might include behemoths like Coca-Cola. “The small accounts cannot be neglected or ignored.” They can turn into larger accounts, Levitt says. Plus, they “pay the bills.” Moreover, smaller players within a larger market (energy drinks and coconut water, for example, instead of Coke) have oﬀered a robust niche for Levitt, not to mention a more expansive level of expertise within the beverage marketplace. Similarly, Levitt says his growth has MAY 2012 | COUNSELOR

Success Stories

Betsy Cummings

Fastest-Growing Companies DISTRIBUTOR MRL Promotions When your entire marketing plan rests on fixing the branding of clients, you’d better have a clear brand for your own company. After harping to his clients that brand consistency is the key to marketing success, Michael Levitt looked around and noticed his company was far off the mark. Suddenly, he realized, “We have this marketing kit, and a website that doesn’t match, and an e-mail signature that doesn’t match,” recalls Levitt about his moment of clarity as the president of MRL Promotions (asi/258137). “We’re Promoting successful branding, and the first step is to do that for your company. We have that now.” It took a while to get there, in part because Levitt, who started the company seven years ago from his dorm room, was too busy managing orders in the company’s early days to strategize a consistent branding message. That’s no longer the case. Levitt and his team of seven employees made it a priority to create a coherent brand going forward by making the distributor’s website, brochures, catalogs, T-shirts, business cards and just about anything else with the logo on it have the same look – a simple font accompanied by charcoal, red and white colors. These steps, Levitt says, are key to setting his company apart from competitors. It must be working. This year, MRL Promotions is the fastest-growing distributor in the ad specialty market after growing its sales by 471% between 2009 and 2011 – an increase from $350,000 to $2 million. As a political science major at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Levitt started experimenting with printing shirts. That led to requests for hoodies, embroidered polos, other apparel orders and, eventually, promotional products in general. He attended his first trade show (ASI Orlando) when he was 20 and just a sophomore in college. That was followed by a three-month internship with a distributor in New York before returning to Florida to continue with his own firm. Today, MRL’s office takes up 3,600 square feet in Ft. Lauderdale. That kind of growth has allowed Levitt to hire one or two additional employees, which in turn frees Levitt from administrative duties for more time in the field. Last year he sold over $1.5 million, and has both pitched to a wide array of clients as well as focused on a few strategic customers in areas like the beverage industry. “I think it’s every person’s wish to land the big guys, but it’s not realistic,” Levitt says of distributor pipe dreams that might include behemoths like Coca-Cola. “The small accounts cannot be neglected or ignored.” They can turn into larger accounts, Levitt says. Plus, they “pay the bills.” Moreover, smaller players within a larger market (energy drinks and coconut water, for example, instead of Coke) have offered a robust niche for Levitt, not to mention a more expansive level of expertise within the beverage marketplace. Similarly, Levitt says his growth has Come from a sales approach that includes a diversified client base. Last year when the National Basketball Association was embroiled in a lockout, Levitt’s one basketball- related account suddenly went cold. In a larger sense, “if I had all my accounts solely based on the sports industry, I’d have a big problem on my hands,” he says. In the same way, Levitt feels that MRL should offer a wide range of products and services to clients. Providing full procurement services (whether overseas or at home), virtually any product in any format, as well as marketing and branding advice, are critical for MRL to maintain explosive growth, he says. And it’s made his sales pitch that much more appealing. With prospects, “75% of the time we hit.” Certainly, Levitt has learned hard lessons in the past several years. In the beginning he thought relying on a handful of suppliers would be enough. “You never think to broaden your horizons in the event that your go-to may be out of stock,” Levitt says. In addition, Levitt has spent several years forging relationships with key contacts at the suppliers he uses. “It’s not as Simple as calling and demanding to speak” to an executive, he says. “We proved ourselves by learning about the products” sold by important suppliers. Levitt says MRL also invites supplier reps to its offices on a regular basis to learn about new products and stay on top of the latest information, as well as maintain solid relationships with company contacts. Levitt and his team work with vendor reps to figure out ways they can increase sales for specific product lines. And, “we don’t pick up the phone unless we truly need something,” he says. That way when MRL’s salespeople do call with a request, they get the attention they need. To increase sales quickly, Levitt has opted – for the moment, anyway – to hire sellers with industry experience. That’s particularly necessary since he has a sales Team of three. “If we had 50 to 100 people in our company and had someone to train, it would be another story,” he says. “Finding the right members to join our team is the trick.” For now that means industry players with drive and a “takecharge attitude.” It’s that hustle, more than anything, that Levitt says has helped him see explosive growth. “I think there’s definitely a small percentage of luck in there,” he says. “But then again, it’s also from doing good business and standing by my work.” — betsycummings23@gmail.com FASTESTGROWING SUPPLIER Sunjoy Group The growth seems almost too strong to believe. In less than five years, sales at Chicago-based Sunjoy (asi/90154) have skyrocketed from $47,329 in 2007 to nearly $4.5 million in 2011.How? Its president Harrison Fu points to an integrated supply chain. Certainly other suppliers have that in place, too. What makes Sunjoy’s so effective? A supply chain nothing short of Apple’s, according to Fu. “We manage everything with great detail,” he says. While most suppliers try to assemble a supply chain linked with competent, reliable factories and business partners (working with different companies from year to year), Sunjoy has focused on improving its supply chain members – not by leaving them for better ones, but by working with them to improve processes. “We deal with everybody on our supply chain as our business partners, and we help everybody grow,” Fu says. It’s a common tale of woe among suppliers: A factory in Asia, say, talks a big game and seems to offer what a supplier needs, and then suddenly delivers poorly constructed products. Certainly “this is the weakest link” when operating overseas, Fu says. But “instead of changing from one factory to another, we chose to train the factories we are working with and help them to grow and understand the customers’ needs.” If that includes instructing a particular manufacturer to change glue types, then Sunjoy asks them to do that, setting the standards for which glues to use with which products. In addition, Fu says, every order is run through Sunjoy’s Total Quality Management (TQM) standard. The company manages each manufacturer it works with, declining to carry any inventory and drop shipping directly “from our TQM station to the end-user’s dock.” All of these steps help the company ensure faster, better and less costly management of product manufacturing, Fu insists. That’s passed along to customers, which keeps them loyal and, in turn, coming back for reorders. To keep up with such explosive growth, the company realized that it would need more sophisticated systems to manage its global network. Suddenly an off-the-shelf CRM system wasn’t enough to handle the overabundance of orders. In 2010 Sunjoy began expanding on and standardizing its ERP system so that orders would be electronically viewable from the point of sale to delivery. Fu says the company built a customized ERP system with “nine steps to follow the orders, from the sales and service department in Chicago to the operation in Shanghai and Shenzhen,” along with shipping and delivery. To do so, the company had to step away from standardized, traditional systems and be willing to build its own ERP system from the ground up. SAP, for example, “was a big challenge,” as Sunjoy’s team found data accessibility slow overseas. Other technical glitches began to hinder order processing. So, the company began to build its own ERP system to make sure orders and supply chain systems would run seamlessly. Now, all of Sunjoy’s business partners within its supply chain work on the same platform. The system offers distributorfriendly features, such as an interface that allows them to register and request customized products for samples and orders. Distributors are also allowed to see communications between Sunjoy business partners as their orders are processed. Will this help to improve communication lines between Sunjoy and its clients? Fu says it will, adding that the system’s newest version will allow users to comment on specific products in the same way users can post comments on Facebook. Distributors can also customize individual products through a Web interface. In fact, transparency is the company’s biggest focus. Transparency, Fu says, improves efficiency and communication – emboldening clients, he hopes, to speak up about necessary customer service or order processing improvements. “We used to build the workflow mainly within each individual team or department,” he recalls. But a disconnect in communication between departments, as well as a lack of awareness about the status of an order once it left a department, meant the company needed to make changes in order to remain competitive. The point, Fu says, is to “get customers and vendors involved in our workflow. We think all our goals are the same: to serve and make more happy customers.” — betsycummings23@gmail.com.

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