10/09/2013

Leadership Q&A: FPDA Vice President of Finance Tim Gillig of Livingston & Haven

FPDA In Motion spoke with FPDA Vice President of Finance Tim Gillig. Gillig is vice president of sales at Livingston & Haven in Charlotte, NC.

FPDA: How did you get into this industry?

Tim Gillig: I was a Western Carolina graduate in 1982, with a manufacturing & engineering technology degree. It was right in the middle of a recession, so there were not a lot of opportunities out there for a young graduate. I worked for a theater rigging equipment company for a while. But a couple of years later I was ready for a change. I called up the head of my department at Western and he had a professor that was working with Livingston & Haven on his thesis, trying to increase productivity in our warehouse. Livingston & Haven ended up contacting me, one thing led to another, and I’ve been here ever since.

FPDA: Tell me about Livingston & Haven and what makes the company unique.

Gillig: It starts with the owners. The Vanns have created a very family-like atmosphere here even though we are a very large organization. We cover six states throughout the Southeast, and yet, it still feels like a family here. I think that’s the most unique thing about our company.

FPDA: What challenges or projects have you been focusing on recently?

Gillig: One challenge that we have today, which I think is something that is common throughout the industry, is trying to find good quality salespeople to fill in for these individuals that are getting ready to retire. A lot of baby boomers are at that age, so we’ve seen people with 10, 20 or 30 years of experience here at Livingston & Haven retiring. Trying to back-fill that has been a real challenge for us.

One of the techniques we’ve used is reaching out to the universities here that have engineering curricula and developing relationships with them. We have their students come in and see what we’re all about, helping them get excited about the same things I got excited about 29 years ago as a young individual just starting out.

The other challenge we have is how to reach out to the 15,000 accounts that we have, plus another 20,000 or 30,000 that we could reach out to, in a way that aligns our customer service with the needs of each segment. It’s a different way to go to market, and we’re working through that. We hope to have some new initiates ready to roll out by the first of January 2014.

FPDA: I couldn’t help but notice the zombie video on the home page of your company website. What’s that all about?

Gillig: I guess it did exactly what we wanted it to do – capture your attention. A big part of our culture here is to have fun, so the zombie video is partly just that. But it’s also a marketing initiative to promote our GoSol Power mobile solar products line.

FPDA: Can you tell me more about the GoSol line and why you decided to add it?

Gillig: We have what we call a “genesis” group here at Livingston & Haven, which is a melting pot of people that look for ways to expand our business in a sustainable way, whether it be through fluid power or other things. We kind of fell into the solar business when Sandy hit, because it made us realize that if we had mobile solar power, we could help not just the storm victims but people in a wide variety of situations. We know that a lot of people use diesel generators, but when you run out of fuel, you don’t have power. Solar runs whenever you have sunlight.  

From that initial idea, we developed a whole product line, and it’s really blossomed from there. We’re in the infancy stage – we’re not usually the ones making the products, so that brings a whole set of new liabilities and legal issues.

FPDA: Tell me more about how Livingston & Haven uses video as a communication tool.

Gillig: Video is a great way to communicate to our own people. We cover six states, so sometimes communication can be somewhat lacking. So video is a great way to communicate corporate initiatives and things like that. With L&HTV, we can also communicate better with our customers and prospects. It drives traffic to our website, and it’s a way for us to reach out to our customers and show them something new.

FPDA: How did you come to join FPDA? What benefits have you gained from membership?

Gillig: Originally we weren’t active in FPDA, but Rock Able from Cross Sales reached out to us and invited us to connect with the association. We decided to join, and going to the meetings, I found a whole new world there. It was very exciting for me because I was meeting people in the industry that I’d never met before, specifically other distributors that were not in my circle. Whenever I meet people, I always gain new ideas on how to better run my own business by seeing how other people do things. The reports that FPDA provides, which help you to compare your own performance with that of the industry, also help us to keep on track.

FPDA: As vice president of finance for FPDA, what projects or goals have you been working on this year?

Gillig: The two areas that I see where we can continue to improve is to try to get more members, which is obviously more revenue for us. Increasing the level of participation in the University of Industrial Distribution is another area. I’m a firm believer in UID, and I try to send two to four of our people every year to train them on strategies for the distribution industry. The university has many different sales and operations management training courses for purchasing, finance, inventory management and sales roles. They really have something for every piece of your business, even the warehouse, so I think it’s valuable industry training that everybody can benefit from.