The Advantages Distributor Salesperson of the Year and award finalists were determined by a panel of ASI staff using the following criteria: annual sales, year-over-year increase in sales, colleague testimonials, prestige of clients and creativity in recent promotional campaigns.

>>Back to main page

Steve Flaughers
Proforma 3rd Degree Marketing (asi/300094)

As a delivery boy in college, Steve Flaughers brought gourmet salads to a Proforma franchise owner, who happened to tip quite generously. His biggest tip wasn’t monetary – it was advice that changed Flaughers’ life.

“My senior year he told me to check out the industry,” Flaughers says. So he joined the company, Proforma 3rd Degree Marketing, and instantly got a taste of success. “I sold an order of 20,000 football schedule magnets to the marketing department. I got a commission on that, and was like holy crap, that was easy.”

Flaughers quickly advanced up the company ladder, eventually purchasing Proforma 3rd Degree in 2009. It was a huge risk to invest in a company during the global recession, but Flaughers managed to achieve growth during the economic downturn by targeting the higher education sector. “Everybody was losing their job and going back to school, so the marketing departments were willing to spend money,” he says, “and I figured they probably weren’t going anywhere.”

With a goal of turning his company into a million-dollar producer (and then a multimillion-dollar one), Flaughers employed an aggressive growth strategy of mergers and acquisitions along with building a diversified client portfolio in education, manufacturing, oil/gas and more. “Truly we were built on the small accounts and now move the needle forward with larger accounts,” says Flaughers, whose company is on pace to finish over $2 million this year. “We respect, appreciate and are thankful for anyone willing to spend their marketing dollars with us.”

The key, he says, is not simply providing solutions, but creative ones. “I listen to what our clients want,” he says. “I learn about them, their events, their recipients, what’s been done in the past, and I try to learn about their competitors.” With that information, not only does he strive to meet the client’s goals, but he searches for the creative secret to “one-up their competition.”

Flaughers latest innovative technique has involved Facebook Live, in which suppliers send boxes of new products and the Proforma team opens them on camera to demonstrate their usefulness. “We’re having customers literally place orders on the spot,” Flaughers says. “We’re just showing products, but we’re doing it in a new, creative way.”