Saji Daniel is headed down south to pitch his product line to a new potential client, just like he has since Tradex International was a two-man, one-woman show in the late ’80s. Selling, interacting with the client, being a public face, they’re all vital to success, according to Daniel.
“When I make a sales call, they’ll say, ‘You’re the owner of the company?’ ” Daniel says. He always answers: “Well, your business is important to us.”
Today, Daniel is the president of a $100 million company that saw 18 percent growth in 2010 — the year most companies were still digging themselves out of the recession.
Luck, he says with a laugh, is the key to a heck of a lot when it comes to business. But Daniel has more than just luck on his side.
Life Lessons
Saji Daniel, president of Tradex International
» Sometimes I lay in bed thinking, Yeah, I could bring in 10 other items, but then I think, Well, that’s where we’re going to screw it up.
» There’s no such thing as good or bad risk. If it’s a risk, it’s a risk. For us, everything is a
good risk.
» I can go broke tomorrow, and, guaranteed, in the next five years I’ll build another company. I am that confident.
» When I stopped micromanaging, my business grew even faster. That was really hard for me as an entrepreneur to just let go. And I have, and I’m happier that I have.
» I never worry. My boat was named Hakuna Matata. |
“What’s worked for us for 22 years is gloves,” he explains. “We can’t be everything to everybody.”
Tradex sells disposable gloves, aprons and headgear to a growing numbers of industries, from the medical field to restaurants to hair salons. Every business has certain strengths, Daniel says, but many entrepreneurs get so excited to grow that they take a pivotal step away from their foundations.
“People are always coming up to us and giving us new items to start selling or distributing,” Daniel says. “That’s not our core competency. If I’m selling, say, to McDonald’s, and I want to sell them a new product [such as] garbage bags. If I don’t do garbage bags well, it affects my business in gloves with them.”
Staying focused goes beyond Tradex’s product line, too. Daniel has kept his company small — just 42 core staffers — while growing it in huge ways: Tradex operates warehouses throughout the nation (in Cleveland as well as Texas, Georgia and California) and maintains two dedicated offices overseas to manage glove production and maintain quality control. His ratio of sales per employee, he muses, is probably one of the best in the industry.
“My entire company is run with two vice presidents, a CFO and me,” he says. “People like us because we’re easy to do business with.”
He says his clients also love the transparency they get with a Tradex deal.
“We tell them, ‘This is what we need to cover our costs and make a profit,’ ” he says. “As long as we’re open with them, that model seems to work.”
And that may be the true bottom line for Daniel: He trusts.
“If you’re honest with your customer, it’s a partnership,” he says. “There are lots of guys selling gloves. Prices fluctuate. Yet our customer retention is 99 percent.”
Daniel has committed enough warehouse space to provide the largest glove inventory in the United States, which means he virtually never back-orders a client, and he’s matched that claim with a new one: His company is now the largest seller of disposable gloves in the nation, and he’s anticipating 20 percent growth each year for the next five years. Canada, South America and China are his new targets.
“We have, almost, a recession-proof product,” Daniel says. “People are always going to get sick, and people are always going to go out to eat. Even if there’s a recession, people are getting sick; people are still eating out.”
And where there are people coming into contact with other people, whether it’s in the operating room or the kitchen, you’ll find Daniel’s gloves. You may even find Daniel himself, working at the ground level to make the deal.