Two-thirds of business don’t last 10 years. Eight in 10 don’t make it 20 years.

In other words, it’s a great achievement for a company to last a decade or two and beyond. And certainly those companies and their leaders have accrued a heaping amount of wisdom that allowed them to get to where they are.

In this episode of Promo Insiders, we brought together three distributors celebrating milestone anniversaries this year to trace the evolutions of their companies and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. The panelists were:

• Marcia Tarnoff, CEO and founder of Blank2Branded (asi/141113), a distributor in New Jersey celebrating 10 years.
• Matt Sklar, executive vice president of Dynamic Advertising Solutions (asi/184666), a distributor with locations in Arlington, VA, and Philadelphia that’s celebrating 20 years.
• Owner Tom Casad and Business Manager Kelly Taylor of Coldwater, OH-based distributor Totally Promotional (asi/168375), celebrating 30 years.

“For 30 years I’ve been saying it’s about the customer, it’s about the employees and it’s about the company, and it’s in that order,” says Casad, who started his first business at the age of 22 and sold it after 20 years before starting Totally Promotional. “I never get up in the morning and not try to improve the business. A big part of my day is thinking about how to improve the business. I’m always running scared from the standpoint of ‘If I don’t keep up with what everybody else is doing, I’m going to go out of business.’ And I enjoy doing that. It’s a pleasure for me to be in business for 52 years.”

Enjoy this episode featuring a wealth of advice and reflection, and get inspired to propel your business to long-term success.