E16
How to grow a distributor from $200K to $100M
Benco Dental's Larry Cohen tells his grandson Benj Cohen, founder and CEO of Proton.ai, how he grew the business from $200K to $100M: reinvesting in inventory, learning to delegate, and walking away from a buyer.
Episode summary
Benj sits down with his grandfather Larry Cohen, Benco's second-generation owner and chief customer advocate, to talk about growing the company from $200K to $100M.
Larry recalls losing a customer after proving his prices were lower than a competitor's. He also remembers the day after the 1972 flood wiped out Benco's office and inventory, when his employees asked him what to do next.
For years, Larry outsold Benco's other three reps combined. Eventually, he hired six salespeople to cover the route he'd been driving alone. He kept one territory so he'd still hear from dentists directly.
He put much of what he earned back into the business. When he made $30,000, he took home half or less. "Everything in inventory, all the time," he says. By the time his son Chuck offered to take over, Benco had reached $100M. Chuck said he'd run it differently. Larry agreed, and Chuck and his brother Rick went on to grow Benco to about $1 billion.
Watch if you're figuring out how to hand customers over to new reps or thinking about who will run the business after you.
In this episode
- How Larry closed a sale a competitor spent 20 minutes pitching
- The college friend's advice that led Larry to hire more salespeople
- Why proving his price was lower cost him a customer
- Why he gave away his best territory, and the one he kept for years
- The 1972 flood and the 1% loan that put Benco back in business
- "I'm the budget": what changed when his sons took over
- The buyer who lost the deal by closing a branch without asking
