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Steve Lazar has become an industry veteran in a specialty niche of the industry: helping distributors and manufacturers turn their surplus inventories into working capital. His company, Lazco Corp., is a HARDI member without a warehouse, purchasing directly from sellers, identifying buyers, and coordinating shipment directly from those sellers to buyers all over the country.
Lazar talks about what he does and what he's seen along the way in this edition of Meet The Wholesaler.
One question we often ask people: What's the worst business advice you ever got?
Lazar: I had started a surplus business called Speedway Supply. I was selling a lot of equipment to contractors all over the country, so I had a lot of this inventory in the warehouse, about a million dollars' worth of inventory at the time. And I made a decision, based upon many things, that I was going to change my model from a warehouse to a sell/buy operation, which is what Lazco does today.
So I connected with an auction company. This was something totally foreign to me, but they said, "You know, with your inventory, you will do very, very well."
To make a long story short, it was a bad day in Chicago. No one showed up, and it went for under $1,000. And that was one of the most difficult situations in business that I had. Here I am always telling companies to turn their surplus into working capital, and now I'm dealing with the same problem myself.
But the good news is, I was still able to change the model to what we do now with Lazco Corp. and move on with life.
The situations and problems that your customers need help with - space challenges, changing brands, etc. - are recurring issues. It makes sense that a business would help facilitate solutions for them. So why don't more companies do what you do?
Lazar: Because it really is a skill set. And it's not that easy. I don't think there are too many who have the pulse, viewing the situation from the perspective of the manufacturers, the distributors, and understanding the dynamics.
One situation that might come up is that 13 SEER product, for example, is able to be sold in...