In 1986, Rose Jenne put all of her assets on the line, including equity in her home as collateral, and started Jenne Distributors with $10,000, betting that a focus on fair business practices and customer satisfaction would propel the company in its early years.
Sales topped $2.4 million that first year, then jumped to $4.2 million in the following 12 months. During the past 14 years, the company’s growth has never stopped.
“We’ve been growing at a 25 to 40 percent rate since the inception of the company over the last 14 years,” says Jenne. “We’ve been experiencing the last several years a 40 percent growth rate, and we expect to keep experiencing that. Right now, we’re still on target for that for this year.”
It was quite a feat for Jenne, who had taken her first traditional business position working as a sales representative with a regional manufacturer’s rep group just three years before. By 1984, though, she was working for herself as an independent representative of telecommunications equipment and supplies, a move that led to the creation of Jenne Distributors two years later.
The idea behind the company was born of the split up of AT&T and the general lack of distributors selling telephones and communication products. Jenne wanted to create a business that offered telecommunications installers and resellers a single point from which to purchase rather than having to deal with several different manufacturers. Wanting to avoid the “box mover” stereotype with which many distributors are branded, Jenne made customer support, easy ordering and fast service cornerstones of the company.
Presenting her vision to telecommunications equipment manufacturers, however, she met with more than a little opposition. Initially, Panasonic was the only company interested in working with her. Nevertheless, Jenne persevered and sold Panasonic products.
Within several months, however, her success rate was drawing other manufacturers to her door. They were now willing to allow her company to distribute their products. Today, Jenne Distributors carries 130 lines of products.
Eventually, the company grew to the point that Jenne realized she needed a concrete business plan. The result was a strategy that focused on a value-added approach to win clients rather than simply dropping prices lower than the nearest competitors. That formula is still what drives the company’s 40 percent average annual growth rate, even when the rest of the telecommunications industry is at 25 percent.
It’s one reason Jenne Distributors was honored by Ernst & Young LLP as an Entrepreneur Of The Year in the Distribution Services category.
“We’re exceeding the industry growth rate, I think, because of the service that we offer and the planning of how we’re going into the future with the marketplace,” she says. “We’re tying in the Internet with a lot of things we’re doing and I’m not talking just Internet sales, but Internet applications. We are in the technology arena and I would say that would seem to be the growth area for this decade.”
In May 1996, Jenne Distributors’ growth became too much for the company’s Westlake headquarters. Construction began on a 32,000-square-foot office warehouse facility in nearby Avon that would be the new company headquarters. Then, in November 1996, Jenne formed N2NET Inc., an Internet service provider offering dial-up access, Web hosting and Web design and distribution opportunities through the Internet.
Both companies moved into the Avon facility in September 1997.
But no matter how much technology changes the face of her business or offers new opportunities for growth, Jenne insists it is her company’s service that is the secret of its success. In fact, she says she has created a unique entity in her industry — a telecommunications distributor that worries less about model numbers and orders and focuses making sure customers have a good experience with the products they purchase.
“Our customers could be on the job and ask a question and we could walk them through it,” explains Jenne. “It’s fast, speedy service, and knowledgeable.
“We really provide service to our customer, and no other distributor is like that in the entire country right now, at this point, for this type of product.” How to reach: Jenne Distributors, (440) 835-0040
Jim Vickers ([email protected]) is an associate editor at SBN Cleveland.
