Power Sales Holds Steady at the Helm Through the Pandemic

Many companies talked about pivoting or making other major changes because of the pandemic. Not so Kansas City-based Power Sales, one of the largest master fulfillment companies in terms of warehouse square footage, inventory, and orders. According to CEO and Founder Dave Roberts, from the start of the pandemic, the company simply doubled down on its cautious approach to business and its focus on its people only to be pleasantly surprised by the degree of growth over the last two years. 

 

Says Dave Roberts, company founder and CEO, Power Sales has had a long record of growth sticking to its knitting: providing master fulfillment services to the corporate market, including prompt and accurate shipping, deep brand availability, customization and personalization, logistics, and reporting. 

 

Power Sales does not get involved with incentive program design, technology, sales support, and has no plans to do so. It doesn’t hold event gifting programs. “We stick to what we do best: helping our reseller partners select and deliver on time the right products for their programs. A lot of our work is involved with creating electronic connections with our partner catalogs so that there is a seamless, positive participant experience.” 

 

Power Sales does not deal directly with end-user clients, he underlines. “All of our customers are incentive, recognition, loyalty, promotional companies, or experts in key vertical markets.” Given the high level of demand, he says Power Sales is selective about whom it works with. 

 

When the pandemic hit, his company was able to remain open without interruption as an essential service because it drop-ships products to people. To protect employees and current customers, “we actually scaled back our business somewhat so that we could spread out our employees across three six-hour shifts to ensure social distancing in the warehouse. No one really knew the science about this new disease, so we had to be cautious.” The company was able to pay the employees for a full eight hours with the help of the pandemic government funding programs. This approach also ensured that the company could meet the commitments of current customers, which turned out to be a blessing, he says, because of the supply chain challenges. 

 

Nonetheless, he says, it wasn’t long into the summer of 2020 that he began to realize that business was going to be better than expected. “When the pandemic hit, we had no idea what would happen. We had to prepare for the worst. We were pleasantly surprised.” By fall of that year, it was back to full operations, he says, especially because the precautions apparently paid off. “We did not have a major issue with Covid sicknesses at the company. We were fortunate.” 

 

Roberts feels his focus solely on providing brands and customization pays off because the resellers know he’s not in any competition with them for programs or events. “We are strictly here to serve their merchandise needs.” His business is growing at double-digit rates, he says. 

 

Would the industry benefit if it were better known to corporations? “It certainly would be for incentive, recognition, and loyalty companies, I think, but it wouldn’t matter to us. I am not sure we could effectively grow much faster.” 

 

For More Information

Dave Roberts, CEO

Powersaleskc.com

Droberts@psakc.com

powersaleskc.com

 

 

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