By: Sandy & Roger Riedinger
Beverly International Nutrition
In our last No Nonsense E-Newsletter Sandy took you behind the scenes and told you how we got started with Beverly International. This issue I'm going to fill in more details and tell you a little bit about myself and how everything came together.
I graduated from college in 1970 with an Accounting degree. But, instead of following that career path, I went into education. Taught 7-8 grade math and algebra for 19 years in an inner city school, all the time acquiring more and more education, first a masters of science, then a rank I (30 + hours above a masters) in administration. I spent my last 10 years in education as principal of a rural elementary school.
All the while, (from age 9) I lifted and learned everything I could about it. I really got interested in supplements on graduation from high school - getting ready to go to UC on a track scholarship (discus and long jump) and needed to add some muscle. First, was Weider and Hoffman crash weight, but soon went to Blair's (and consulted regularly with Blair).
I first became acquainted with Beverly (BI) in the later "70's from Iron Man and then met Jim at the 1981 Midwest Invitational contest.
I opened Polaris Total Fitness Center in 1982 (that's where I met Sandy a couple of years later) and carried Blair's and Beverly International. Blair was winding down at that time so we pretty much were all Beverly. One thing I especially remember is we started with BI exclusively, then around 1985 supplement marketing started mushrooming and I fell for it and started carrying a number of lines. But, the funny thing is, whenever I or a gym member was interested in competing, without conscious thought, we always put them on Beverly.
I sold the gym in 1986 but Sandy and I continued to sell Beverly as private distributors. Whenever I had the opportunity I would pump Jim Heflin for info. Some of his stories regarding the industry were astounding. Being from KY I had no idea of the kinds of trade practices that existed in the supplement industry. Luckily, BI, along with Natural Source were in business for the right reasons and made legitimate products, without undue hype, and that always met label claim.
In 1990, Jim asked Sandy and me if we would like to be his reps in the Southern Ohio/KY area. At the same time Bob O'Leary asked if we would like to represent BOSS which carried numerous brands. The deal was we had to purchase the inventory up front from Jim (initially about $3500) while with BOSS we needed no initial investment, we'd just send in the orders to be fulfilled.
We looked into our hearts and knew that to stay true to our values we had to go with Beverly. I played music at night after acting as principal in the day, and Sandy added group aerobic classes to her dental technician and full-time new mother duties. It was still taking too long so Sandy sold her Jetta for the final $1000. We saved the money up and placed our first order as BI authorized dealers.
Once we made the investment, we started studying everything we could about entrepreneurship and starting and growing a business.
We had to start from scratch because the distributor whose place we took started his own supplement line and initially took all of his established customers with him.
Our 1st year goal as distributor was $20,000 gross sales (not profit, but total sales). We reached it on New Year's Eve at 6:00pm when a national competitor from New Jersey called with his order. I'll never forget, he was a physics teacher and told me that he always ordered Beverly because it really contained what it said. He told me that for example, l-carnitine attracted water and when he left his Energy Reserve bottle open, the tablets swelled with water. He didn't need to analyze it in his lab to know it was the real thing.
Gradually the old customers started looking for Beverly again and many competitors in particular were seeking help so we added a Nutrition Consultation aspect to the business and one by one, grew customers. In 1995, Sandy and I attended a Zig Ziglar seminar (as part of my job as principal) in the very last session a guy named Dan Kennedy came on, everyone was leaving but Sandy and I stayed. He gave us our first lesson in marketing, but not what you normally think of when you hear the word advertising or marketing, he said the best marketing was to:
- make quality products that you use yourself for best results (same formula as Jim Heflin started BI with)
- go the extra mile in customer service.
We've stuck to this formula for the past 15 years. If there is something better available and it's something we would use ourselves, we have our research team figure out how to make it into a product that will give us the best results possible, we then make it available to the public.
Jim Heflin retired in 1998 and sold BI to Sandy and Roger. We have carried on since.
Beverly's core values are:
- Integrity - we define this as being completely honest in our dealings with others, even in matters that may be known only to us.
- A "client" vs "customer" mindset. A customer is someone who buys a product or service; a client is someone who is under your care, someone who you act in a "fiduciary" role.
- Optimization and Innovation - continuous and never ending improvement
From 1999-2009 Sandy and Roger have increased Beverly sales by 806%.
Mentors:
Jim Heflin
Rheo Blair
Jim Rohn
Jay Abraham
Brian Tracy
Jeff Everson
What we have done to create a successful business:
- Set Goals
- Take full Responsibility
- Go the Extra Mile in quality and service
- Develop personal relationships with clients
- Self Discipline
- Positive Mental Attitude
- Accurate Thinking (not pie in the sky)
- Learned from Adversity
- Paid Close Attention to Boring Business Basics (Accounting, etc)
Summary: It's almost like my (Roger's) whole life was leading me to this position. My need to build up for track and field led to study of weight training and the supplement industry; accounting degree (though latent for 25 years) turned out to be indispensable in running Beverly; teaching and education has allowed me to write, edit, and publish No Nonsense magazine (since 1995) and make it into an educational physique improvement/bodybuilding nutrition journal, education experience has helped also in furthering BI staff education in weekly meetings.