Rick hasn’t regretted going independent starting with his first stop minus a flag.
“Really, it went better than I expected,” Rick said. “I set up a worst-case scenario and I knew I could survive on that. But actually, my business went up.”
Communication was key to the switch.
“I passed out a letter to all of my customers telling them exactly what I was doing, where I was going to be for two weeks, how I was going to handle it. When I came back, I knew after the first stop I went to that it was going to work. I remember, I called my wife and said, ‘It'll be OK.’
“One of the big mistakes I think most independent guys make—why I took two weeks—is some people will be leery when you're gone,” Rick said. “I swore I would not come back out until this truck was right: all my decals were professional, plenty of inventory. I didn't come out looking like I'd be gone tomorrow.
“I think a lot of guys, instead of just going after it, pick at it and think, ‘Is this going to work?’ It won’t, unless you really go after it,” Rick said.
To read Rick’s full story, in the June 2010 issue of Professional Distributor, click here.
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