Building Success With the Help of Tomorrow’s Workplace
Full Line Specialties
Business manager and entrepreneur, Ken Ehman carried a career in textiles into a specialty products company in 1996. Many businesses now turn to them to market and promote their businesses, as well as to say thanks to staff and customers with customized products ranging from the traditional pens, mugs and golf balls to polo shirts, leather jackets and high end appreciation commodities. These include high tech gadgetry with a company’s logo and slogan elegantly embosses, displayed, embroidered or otherwise displayed on virtually any product imaginable.
Sam Singh, Ehman’s Partner and Sales Manager become involved after working in his family’s business, which was a supplier to Ehman’s. The two hit it off and a successful company has been the result. Currently Full Line employs about 14 people, most in the sales end of the operation.
Although the company is flourishing, both men realized that they needed to develop some formal aspects to their business including a road map (a mission and a vision statement). Working in a business, the fun part was dealing with people and satisfying their needs for product, while the paperwork, being something that had to be done, often was the last thing anyone wanted to do.
When the “Tomorrow’s Workplace” project came along, looking for companies to participate in helping them develop a system of protocols to be applied in the business world when the project is completed, they embraced it.
Singh and Ehman spoke with Editor Ray Hudson about their business and the impact of theprogram on their operations:
What do you find so attractive about this business?
KE: It changes every day. And we get really neat gadgets to look at. We’re the first ones to see the fashion trends, the new styles for next year, as well as the pricing for next year, and we really get a charge out of that. The other side of the coin is that we’re always selling products to people that need them for events, and to see the look on their faces when they get that stuff and show their appreciation for the products. We really get charge out of that.
SS: Talking to big corporations and finding solutions to their purchasing needs, such as setting up an online merchandise store for the company to select from. It’s more solution oriented than asking if they’d like to buy a pen. Then when you’ve done a good job and you see the smile of appreciation on the customer’s face, that’s the emotional payback.
We’ve just come through a brutal economic downturn, how did things work out for you?
KE: Sales have been down probably around 20%. I think our industry is down a lot more than that so I think we’re going in the right direction and we’re a little bit ahead of the curve. Part of our strength is that we aligned ourselves with good vendors, and we started selling brand name products so if people are looking for Adidas, or Nike or Greg Norman, we’re the ones they come to. Companies are still buying although a lot more carefully. It’s the very small companies that have really cut back through this period.
SS: I find that customers are going to the lower cost items so instead of spending $1000 on leather coats, they’ll spend the same amount of money on say coffee mugs and hit a lot more people.
How did you become involved with the Tomorrow’s Workplace (TW) project and how has it been?
KE: We became involved through the Surrey Board of Trade, and the TW people looked at our company and thought Full Line could use their services. What they’ve done is helped us to even further streamline our mission and our vision, where we want to be and where we want to go. Being a small company we’ve been running helter-skelter and didn’t take the time to sit down and develop our own mission statement.
The people in the project have helped us develop our mission statement, and are working with us on our business plan and working with us on the human resources side. As we’ve grown, and have employees now, and we have to make sure that they’re happy, so the project helps us develop our plans to ensure that. Working with the consultants, Lynn, Gail, and Tomas has been very good for us.
It has been a little stressful for us because we still have to run our business and we’re coming into our busy period and it does take time to be organized.
SS: We’ve always talked about the need of mission statement. It’s always been on the radar and we recognize that it’s important. The TW consultants made us realize that it’s not just important, it’s urgent. They’ve helped us through the process of creating the road maps to achieving these things. They’re more than just slogans as we’ve found out.
In the next phase of Tomorrow’s Workplace almost ready to begin, they’re going to put three more businesses into the process, what would you say to those operators?
KE: I highly recommend that anybody that has the opportunity to be involved with TW, do it! It brings your business focus into line. It forces you to do things that you’ve put off, and let’s face it we’re both sales guys and we tend to put this stuff of to “later” and it doesn’t get done otherwise. Also, do it for your staff, that’s where it really pays dividends.
This article is a reprint and used by permission from the August 2009 issue of the Business In Surrey, monthly publication of the Surrey Board of Trade .
