As Mike Steinhoff drove down the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, something seemed eerily familiar. There were no cars on the road, businesses were closed and the streets were devoid of activity. It hit Steinhoff that he was a modern-day Dr. Robert Neville, one of the last remaining people on earth following a biological accident. But this wasn’t the movie “The Omega Man,” and Steinhoff—dashing though he may be—was no Charlton Heston. It was March 2020, during the onset of COVID-19 that prompted Americans and people around the world to stay indoors.
Madison was a ghost town, and Steinhoff couldn’t stop to enjoy a Starbucks coffee. Or much else for that matter. The president of Wisconsin-based Rhyme would soon discover that many of his largest customers were shut down and not spending any money. The uncertain future was most vexing, as days turned to weeks and weeks rolled into months.
Fast forward to 2023, when Rhyme recorded its highest revenue performance in company history. The first six months of 2024 promise to eclipse that mark and have pushed the dealer past the $30 million plateau in revenue. As Steinhoff recounted the variables and strategies that have provided unprecedented growth, he maintained that the company was actually positioned for its current success during the pandemic. Much as he would like to credit himself with the blueprint that paved the growth trajectory (self-promotion is not his strong suit), Steinhoff unequivocally defers the glory to his team of 100 and growing.
Still, Steinhoff deserves credit for his pandemic approach. As a student of history, he knew America’s ancestors had been through much worse yet still had the fortitude to endure the harshest of conditions. His father, Jack, was a Korean War veteran. William Rhyme (World War I) and Frank Rhyme (World War II) also served their country. Thus, while the staff at Rhyme was making the best of a difficult situation during 2020, Steinhoff was providing insightful perspective that helped invigorate his staff.
“We were asking ourselves a lot of questions—what does the pandemic mean to us, and how can we regain our footing?” he posed. “For our weekly company meetings, I sent out emails about American history, such as Ellis Island and what those families endured. It helped to align our people in terms of what we were going to do and how we were going to do it.”
“One day, I remember telling our people that it’s like we’re in one of those big, wooden ships, and we’re in a storm. We were all rowing hard, so take a quick break, palms up on the oars. Anyone who doesn’t have blisters, callouses and bloody hands is going to be fired or thrown overboard.”
Steinhoff is exaggerating, of course, but the fighting spirit resonated with his team. Still, it took more than a call to arms: Steinhoff ramped up sales and service training, and leaned on his manufacturer partners to provide training as well. More sales people were hired. Frankly, he feels the company didn’t follow any scheme that couldn’t be learned at a BTA member meeting. They just worked like crazy, and Steinhoff benefitted from the wisdom of partner executives such as Sharp’s Mike Marusic, GreatAmerica’s Tony Golobic and Chuck Parr (former Ricoh executive).
“I told our people that this is like a NASCAR race, and we’re under a caution flag right now,” Steinhoff added. “We need to get Rhyme ready because when the green flag waves, we’re going to floor it. We’ll hit the red line on the tachometer, get in front of the pack and stay there.”
As clients began to crawl out of their pandemic-induced shells, Rhyme was there to capitalize with companies that wanted to assess their vendors, see how money was being spent and find efficiencies. Rhyme provided assessments on network infrastructures in addition to print hardware.
“Business started to take off, and we’re a better company because of it,” Steinhoff added.
Success Rx
The dealership is a far cry from where it started, with roots that trace back to 1886, when Frank Rhyme founded Rhyme Drug in Portage. He was among the first graduating class from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s pharmacy program. In addition to medicine and sundries, he also sold stationery products. Rhyme was soon joined by his son, William (a.k.a. Punk), who saw the value in the ancillary stationery products and increased its offerings.
When the founder’s grandson, also named Frank, returned from World War II, he took his father and another Rhyme employee to a government surplus auction in Chicago and returned home with a truckload of typewriters, adding machines and related products. The office products business quickly took on a life of its own and was spun off from the drug store, which was acquired by another local druggist in 2008.
Today, Rhyme serves Wisconsin and northern Illinois with a rich vendor line that includes products from Sharp, Xerox, Kyocera, HP and Lexmark. While it has some enterprise accounts that have satellites across the country (serviced via Rhyme’s dealer partner connections), the SMB space represents a majority of its business. Clients consist of a healthy dose of education, government, health care, legal, financial and manufacturing accounts, among others.
The dealer offers managed print and IT, production and finishing gear, unified communications and A/V solutions (collaboration and commercial displays as well as signage). Rhyme also furnishes office supplies including furniture, janitorial/sanitation products and breakroom needs. The dealer’s performance has been recognized by a number of its technology partners, from being a Sharp AAA Platinum Level Servicing Dealer (one of 19 in the U.S.) to a PaperCut Platinum Partner (one of 15). Equally impressive—and more so, statistically—is Rhyme’s Xerox MPS Master Elite Accreditation, an honor obtained by fewer than 10 companies nationwide.
Strategic Expansion
The fortune enjoyed by Rhyme in the aftermath of COVID-19 has produced its share of good problems. Maintaining pace with demand has been an issue, prompting the company to add personnel in technical service, delivery, sales and client services. Rhyme also bolstered its fleet of trucks and expanded its warehouse by 15,000 square feet. Still, resources continue to be taxed as revenues climb.
One of the best moves Steinhoff made, in his estimation, was what he decided not to do, and that was add business through acquisition. Instead, he doubled down on hiring and training.
“We’ve looked at businesses for sale, but we’ve been growing faster by investing in new people than we would have by doing acquisitions,” he said. “And we get to avoid the cleanup work that can accompany a new acquisition.”
The numbers bear this out. Since the start of the pandemic, Rhyme’s staff has grown 33%—even more impressive considering Steinhoff was onboarding people during the Great Resignation and a buyer’s market for job seekers. It hasn’t been easy sledding; hiring and maintaining personnel is still an above-the-rim game, and Steinhoff doesn’t have a formula he’s perfected. Word of mouth and sterling references have helped as has multi-generational hiring, with sons and daughters of current employees stepping into the fold.
It’s clear that Steinhoff considers the team members to be the company’s most-valued asset, and he’s protective of who is invited to join the “Rhyme Family.” The high degree of tenure, in addition to the generational aspect—which includes Steinhoff’s daughters (Bayley, Kendall, Meghan), sons (Jack and Cole), wife Kim and two other relatives—are the lifeblood of the next generations of the company.
“Our YouTube channel has helped a lot in promoting Rhyme as a destination employer, outlining what we do and why we’re different,” he added. “We can tell which people are truly interested in joining us because it’s clear during the interviews that they’ve done their homework and researched the company. If I ask a candidate why they want to join Rhyme and they get stuck for an answer, we likely won’t be hiring that person.”
Staunch Ally
While employees are considered the difference-maker for Rhyme, Steinhoff also credits Sharp and Great America Financial Services for developing and maintaining a close relationship with the dealer over the past 42 years and 34 years, respectively. “They’re both great companies with great people to work with,” Steinhoff said.
Xerox also made a difference for Rhyme, helping develop the dealer’s training program. Gaining the aforementioned MPS Master Elite Accreditation wasn’t a destination—the training for sales, technical service, admin and analysts is ongoing, and the OEM is constantly “moving the finish line farther out” in terms of the degree of difficulty.
“When we got to that level, we were only one of four resellers in the country to earn that distinction,” he said. “That number may go up, but it can also go down. If you don’t keep up, Xerox will pull the certification. The process has been very beneficial for us.”
Xerox is also the primary driver that catapulted Rhyme into production print nearly seven years ago. It’s taken time for Rhyme to develop its offering, and Xerox has been there from a training standpoint, helping the dealer develop its own internal analysts, subject-matter experts and sales stalwarts. On the latter count, Steinhoff made the decision to have his sales staff also sell production as opposed to hiring dedicated representatives.
A majority of the production sales have come in the form of net-new accounts. They range from in-plant operations to marketing departments and billing entities with a smattering of print-for-pay clients. While Rhyme hasn’t turned away any production business, Steinhoff cautions his reps to be judicious with the clients selected in the event they’re not a good fit.
“I want our salespeople involved in the sales process for production and for managed IT,” he said. “I don’t want any of our people looking back and wishing they would have stayed involved in certain parts of our business. Our client managers have the opportunity to bring all our resources to every client, and we have the analysts to support them, whether it’s managed print, managed IT or production.”
Helpful Tips
The dealer has made substantial inroads with its website. Rhyme implemented design and content enhancements, including a series of more than 30 educational videos that touch on a wide range of subjects, from tutorials on vendor offerings to generalized tips on how to maximize the office experience. Daughter Kendall, who joined full-time after obtaining her marketing and communications degree, quickly put into action myriad improvements to help augment in-bound marketing and the general overall strategy. Rhyme hired several marketing professionals to form a team that includes a videographer. It’s cemented the dealer’s position as a thought leader and is accentuating its sales initiatives.
Steinhoff hasn’t ruled out diversifying into other offerings, but he confesses to being a slow adopter. Manufacturer-based software is a likely candidate, and the AI movement is impacting technology offerings to a degree that’s anticipated but still not fully apparent. He’s keen on finding out more about Xerox’s robotic process automation, and some of the technologies that have been spawned by CareAR bear watching.
“Automating processes is something we’ve been talking about in the industry for over 30 years,” Steinhoff noted. “AI has the potential to not only help our clients reduce the time to accomplish a task, but it can also help us reduce calls and cut down on sending technicians out in the field.”
Future Focus
Looking ahead, Steinhoff is banking on his leadership core to help maximize team performance and become better in everything that they do. An employee once observed two elements about the company president: nothing is ever good enough in Steinhoff’s view, and things can never happen fast enough to satisfy him. But he will wait as long as necessary, which makes him “the most patient impatient person I know,” in another employee’s estimation. It’s not that Steinhoff is obsessive; he only wants the best for his team and his clients. Judging by the longstanding employees, he hasn’t chased many people away.
Steinhoff isn’t worried about next-generation leadership as Rhyme’s family-driven succession plan is firmly in place. Managed services and production print will continue to play the role of growth catalysts. He remembers when a lack of growth cost the dealership some top performers, and he believes attracting and retaining these prized assets will depend on business expansion. That’s what keeps Steinhoff’s foot squarely on the gas pedal.
“People are what I love most about business, and we have tremendous teammates,” he said. “We need to continue to get better every day, month and year. If we do that, we can maintain growth and keep the business going for many generations to come.”
A Kindred Spirit with Competitive Fire: Honoring a Best Friend by Helping Others Impacted by Cancer
Steve Ennis was the greatest best friend Mike Steinhoff could’ve asked for—and much, much more.
The duo did everything together, especially sports and outdoor activities, whether it was baseball, basketball or boating. They stood in one another’s weddings, were godfathers to each other’s children and essentially raised their families as one big, happy brood.
“He was the perfect best friend, just perfect, and we had a great life together,” Steinhoff said.
Perhaps one of their favorite activities was hitting the links at the Edgerton Towne Country Club in Wisconsin, a demanding little course where PGA star Steve Stricker cut his teeth. Ennis and Steinhoff were competitive. Sure, everyone wants to win, but they hated losing with a passion. Some hate losing more than they love winning.
That spirit carried into business as Steinhoff convinced Ennis to join Rhyme’s sales department. The burning desire to win every deal pushed them, and they motivated one another.
“Once we determined we wanted a deal, we were all in,” he added. “His intensity in that area was tremendous.”
However, as Steinhoff observed, God’s plan for him was something different. Kidney cancer claimed Ennis’ life in 2009. Despite needing to reconcile his own grief, Steinhoff instantly knew he wanted to do something to keep his best friend’s memory alive. Other friends who loved Ennis shared that vision, and they united with Steinhoff to create the Steve Ennis Memorial Golf Classic. The annual event raises money for students whose lives have also been impacted by cancer while paying tribute to a man who left an indelible impression on everyone he met.
Through the first 15 years, the Ennis Memorial Classic has raised more than $260,000, which has funded 112 scholarships. The award amounts have increased over the years, reaching the current level of $2,000. Poring over the applications, Steinhoff notes, is a difficult task.
“Reading their stories about what they or their family members have been through is gut-wrenching,” he added. “I only wish we were able to say ‘yes’ to everybody.”
It’s only appropriate that the tournament is held exclusively at Edgerton Towne Country Club. While Steinhoff and friends have raised a considerable amount of money, he doesn’t approach it as a fundraiser. Rather, he sees it as a family reunion that attracts clients, manufacturer partners (GreatAmerica, Sharp, Xerox and Kyocera) and others whose lives have been touched by Ennis. The tone and atmosphere also resonate with people who never met Ennis but are compelled by the stories of those who knew him.
Last year, 160 golfers participated, traveling from states including Ohio, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Indiana and Iowa. “It’s nice that we can see these people once a year, like a family reunion as opposed to a golf outing,” Steinhoff said. “It sells out fast, and every year there are people who forget to register and beg to get in. It’s a memorable event.”
Out of the Ennis Memorial Classic sprouted the Rhyme Time Foundation, a 501(c) that serves various worthwhile causes. The subject of mental health took on greater significance and struck a chord with Steinhoff when a young man whom he once coached in Little League took his own life. Steinhoff has read numerous other accounts of suicides by area youth and wanted to see what the Foundation could do to help arrest the growing incidence.
“These are kids,” he said. “We felt we needed to get more involved in figuring out what’s happening because it seems to have become a bigger issue since the pandemic. It seems kids who went through the pandemic have been more affected than others. It’s definitely an area we’re focusing on.”
