Tom Flesch,
President and CEO
Gordon Flesch Co.
Smart business practices are a lot like Novocain. Give them a little time…despite some initial pain, they’ll always work.
The Gordon Flesch Co. (GFC) was founded in 1956, and many of the founding principles of the firm and its business practices have enabled it to thrive still more than 60 years later. Gordon Flesch himself was an astute businessman, and he knew that the best thing he could do for reaping continued growth was to hire the best people and let them perform the duties he’d set for them.
Perhaps it was the hands-off approach that set the stage for Gordon Flesch Co.’s future leadership. His son, Tom, had worked for the company in a limited capacity since the age of eight, performing menial tasks initially, tackling janitorial duties in high school, and then driving delivery trucks when he secured his license. Even in college, the younger Flesch handled installations. But upon graduating college, Flesch took a job in commercial insurance sales for Liberty Mutual.
“My future wife got a teaching job in Milwaukee, so I moved there after I graduated,” he recalled. “There were a lot of similarities between our industry and insurance. At the time, cold calling was the best way to get the bulk of your business in commercial insurance and the copier business. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a great training ground.”
When a sales rep left GFC to start his own business, creating an opening, Tom Flesch and his brother, John, split the territory and began selling audio/visual equipment. Forty years later, Flesch—a 2018 ENX Magazine Difference Maker—continues to build upon the legacy of his father while taking the company into the 21st century with new technology tools but the same old-fashioned employee cultivation methods that are timeless in nature yet equally effective throughout the generations.
People Behind Success
Flesch shies from taking credit for the dealership’s continued evolution. In fact, he believes senior management teams—like a head coach in sports—are often overemphasized. A crackerjack management unit is only as good as the people driving activity to the street—the sales, service and admin teams that make success happen on a daily basis.
“Our people here have always been extremely dedicated, professional and hard-working,” Flesch observed. “It’s the best part of the business, what makes a company go. We’ve been extremely fortunate to have really experienced people who have been with us 30, 40 years.”
Gordon Flesch’s aforementioned practice of hiring people and staying out of their way has long provided a gateway for the company’s success, and the practice goes a long way toward procuring impressive tenure. “Giving people the opportunity to grow in their roles and move up to positions of more responsibility—that’s how you keep people,” he added.
Honesty and integrity have been the twin values Flesch adopted from his father. It has garnered GFC a reputation within the industry, and the trust developed with manufacturers and fellow dealers has helped foster corporate growth.
Cooking Up Wins
Aside from his father, Flesch also garnered wisdom from GFC’s Ted Williams, his former boss and former vice president of sales. One of Williams’ famous mottos was “you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.” It’s a nod to the difficult decisions that need to be made in business, whether it’s deciding to promote someone or sever ties with an individual. However, incorrect decisions are a part of business, and the measure of a good company is being able to recognize them and move forward.
“We’ve always had the philosophy that one bad decision isn’t going to bring the company down,” Flesch noted. “If it’s the wrong decision, we’ll recover and move on.”
GFC has focused, among other things, on three vital areas for growth in the past year: cultivating new, larger accounts; building its managed print services business and making more money with managed IT. Flesch hopes to see that success continue into 2019, while also garnering more work in the production print and wide-format printing arenas. Acquisition may also play a role in GFC’s growth as it looks to build strategically while sticking to its core of Great Lakes region business.
Tom and Jeannie Flesch have been married for 42 years and have two sons, Patrick and Mark, who are vice presidents of the western and eastern regions for GFC, respectively. Tom Flesch enjoys spending time with their six grandchildren and finds comfort in escaping to the family cabin in northern Wisconsin. He loves to golf and go skiing but admits his golf game leaves a bit to be desired.
“It’s been a rough year; I’ve been a bogey golfer,” he said. “But it’s something I can do with my boys, which makes it a great sport.”
