News

At Reynolds and Son, Inc., being a specialist means knowing your customers and doing everything possible to meet their needs

By Victoria Fraza, Managing Editor

Source: Industrial Distribution, October 2002

Bruce Seel and Ted Goulette see potential customers everywhere. No business is too small, no industry too marginal, to be excluded from their view. After all, their territory is the state of Vermont, where industrial accounts are few and tourism rules, leaving industrial distributors to follow customers wherever that might lead.

Seel is president and Goulette is vice president of Reynolds and Son, Inc., a general-line distributor based in South Barre, Vt. The broad-based strategy has worked well for this $7 million company, whose doors opened in downtown Barre in 1874. Today, when many small distributors are narrowing their focus to serve specific industries or specialize in certain product groups, Reynolds and Son continues to cast a wide net, selling everything from cutting tools and safety products to contractor supplies and janitorial items.

That doesn't mean Reynolds and Son is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Each Reynolds and Son salesperson has an area of expertise, and a special safety division allows the company to add value to that product group. Striking a balance between generalist and specialist isn't easy, but Seel and Goulette say that's where teamwork comes in. Employees work together, in conjunction with suppliers, to meet the varying needs of their diverse customer base. Pooling their knowledge and resources is a fundamental part of those efforts.

The formula keeps Reynolds and Son busy selling to everyone from granite producers to ski resorts throughout the state, as well as 20 miles on either side of the border with New Hampshire to the east and New York to the west.

"It's because we don't have a huge amount of smokestacks," Goulette explains. "You have to think of everyone as your potential customer."

Seel echoes those sentiments, adding that: "In a state of 600,000 people, you've got to follow the customer ... We need to try and be all we can be to those customers - and do a good job at the same time."

Solid foundations

Reynolds and Son has been serving customers in Vermont since the late 19th century, when George Reynolds opened his hardware and mill supply store to serve the Barre community and its growing granite industry. Located in Central Vermont, Barre is world-renowned for its high-quality granite, widely used for monuments and in building construction. The granite industry is still an important part of Reynolds and Son's business, representing 15 to 20 percent of sales.

The history associated with the granite industry is also a source of local pride. Seel and Goulette note that Reynolds and Son was the country's first Ingersoll-Rand agent, selling air-powered drills used for quarrying granite. Attesting to the quality and reputation of the substance, they point out that Barre granite is used today by drill manufacturers to measure drill speed. As Seel explains, Barre granite is to rock-drilling what Fahrenheit is to temperature.

Three generations of Reynolds' ran the company until 1972, when George Reynolds' granddaughter Cleora sold it to Fred Seel, Bruce's father. Fred moved the headquarters from downtown Barre to the current South Barre location and shifted the company's focus from retail to industrial business. During the 70s, Reynolds and Son began selling to customers in the woodworking, plastic, marble and slate industries, among others. Bruce Seel and Ted Goulette bought the company from Fred in 1986 and branched out even further, selling to contractors, utilities, municipalities and the like. Seel has worked full time for the company since 1976; Goulette started in the 1960s.

"We saw that to grow, we had to start marketing to other industries in the state," Seel explains. Two branches were set up to support the expansion - one to the south, in Rutland, Vermont, and a second in Burlington, which is situated on Lake Champlain, about an hour northwest of Barre.

The Burlington branch was opened last year in response to the growing business in that region. Home to the University of Vermont and one of the state's largest employers, IBM, the city is a hub of activity and a natural draw for distributors. Building has boomed in the past several years, though the recession has taken its toll. Recent layoffs at IBM and a slowdown in construction are two examples of the weak economy.

Despite those conditions, Burlington is still a growth area for Reynolds and Son and serves as an example of the company's "follow the customer" philosophy. While industry drew them to the area, Seel and Goulette say there are plenty of other reasons to stick around.

"We're there calling on industry and contractors already, why not the City of Burlington?" asks Goulette.

That kind of forward-thinking attitude is what keeps Reynolds and Son going strong, says Tom Vetras, territory sales manager for safety equipment manufacturer MSA Inc. Vetras has been working with Seel, Goulette and their employees for five years, expanding safety equipment sales to industrial and fire service accounts across the state. He points to the formation of Reynolds and Son's Safety Plus division two years ago as an example of the company's progressive stance.

Led by a salesman with OSHA training and certification, Safety Plus was created to give customers the service and expertise they need when buying safety products. Essentially, it's a value-added selling philosophy. Establishing safety programs and providing training are two of the division's top priorities.

"They wanted to bring some value-added services to the marketplace ... to separate themselves from the competition," Vetras explains.

Safety sales represent 12 percent of Reynolds and Son's business today, compared to five percent five years ago. It would have been easy for this well-established business to sit back and rest on its more than 100-year reputation, rather than think of ways to grow the business. But that's just not the way it's done at Reynolds and Son, says Vetras.

"They've been smart enough to know that you can't rely on the 'good old boy' network anymore," he says.

Moving ahead

While the people of Reynolds and Son have their eyes to the future, they haven't turned their backs on the past. The principles of honesty, integrity and hard work that the company was founded on still apply today. So does relationship selling. While industrial distribution has long been known as a "people" business, that quality is probably most evident in this rural corner of the Northeast.

"Vermont has not become impersonal," Seel says. "One of our strengths is that we work people to people."

Vetras agrees, adding that the personal touch really does make a difference for this small company: "They're exactly what you'd think of someone from Vermont - very honest, very loyal and straightforward, which is a joy to work with these days."

The trick is balancing the old values with the Yankee ingenuity required to move ahead. While Seel and Goulette are proud of their company's 128-year history, they don't dwell on it. It's a constant challenge, says Goulette, to remind employees that in today's business environment, Reynolds and Son is just as vulnerable as a start-up in many ways. Any business that fails to be innovative, he says, runs the risk of becoming stale.

"Like everyone else, we're a small distributor and we're going up against some big players," Goulette says. "You can't let employees think that simply because the company's been around for over 100 years, we'll be around for 100 more."

So Seel and Goulette pay close attention to technology and new ways of doing business. Their computer system is vital, allowing electronic ordering and billing for customers and suppliers. The company is a member of Prophet 21's Trading Partner Connect, an Internet trading network, and has been using its main software program for 22 years. E-mail and fax correspondence with customers is common, as well - whatever makes it easier for them to do business with Reynolds and Son.

The distributor is also a six-year member of the marketing group Affiliated Distributors, has some regional accounts throughout the state, and is entrenched in a value-added documentation program designed to simultaneously build business and save customers money.

"We try and bring real value to our customers," says Seel. "We want to show them, in some way, how Reynolds and Son has saved them money."

That's where documentation comes in. Go to any industry workshop or seminar these days and you're guaranteed to find someone talking about documenting the value distributors bring to customers. The idea is that showing clients how you've saved them money, time and labor - or helped them produce a better product - makes good business sense. The process helps prove the distributor's value, while reducing costs for the customer. While many distributors are struggling to do this, Reynolds and Son has been at it for four years.

The company's program works like this: salespeople track all of the cost-saving measures they've taken for customers. That can mean a variety of things: product recommendations that have saved time or money, inventory management programs that streamline procurement, or other process changes that make it easier for the customer to run his business. The changes are recorded in a simple report, which is signed by the customer and the Reynolds and Son salesperson. At the end of the year, the customer gets a detailed cost-savings report for the entire year.

As with any new program, this one started small. Select accounts - those interested in the program and that do a significant volume with Reynolds and Son - are top on the list of potential "documented" customers. Seel and Goulette plan to implement the program with all key accounts in the next few years. Not only does it build trust in the business relationship and reliance on the distributor, they say it also helps them deal with a customer's personnel changes. Referring back to a series of cost-savings reports can justify to a new employee why their company does business with Reynolds and Son.

Seel and Goulette hope such measures prove to their business partners that Reynolds and Son is a company on the move. At the same time, they want to reinforce that their focus is the same as it's always been: the customer.

"Customers want you to be their eyes and ears," says Goulette. "They want you to find what they need. If you come through, they'll come back to you."

Back to Top