17. John Bruellman & Kevin Walsh

Showdown Displays (asi/87188)

2019 Rank: N/A

John

Title: CEO

Industry Experience: 25 years

Kevin

Title: President

Industry Experience: 10 years

When Showdown Displays exhibited at its first industry trade show in the early 2000s, it received puzzled looks by distributors and fellow exhibitors. Sure, companies needed signage and displays, but they weren’t considered promotional products … yet.

“It took a while for people to embrace the idea,” says CEO John Bruellman, who joined the Brooklyn Center, MN-based supplier in 2006. “We told them ‘your clients are probably buying this stuff, but they could be buying them from you.’ What better promotional item is there than a sign or display?”

A U.S. Army officer who then worked as a generalist for different Fortune 500 companies, Bruellman wanted a change of pace, preferably something smaller and independent with potential to grow. Founded in 1999 by serial entrepreneur Ed Flaherty (private equity firm Pfingsten Partners took over in 2017), Showdown Displays offered a product line and capability that Bruellman felt had yet to penetrate the North American market. He focused on managing the company’s growth by instituting a true quality control system, along with operating metrics and process documentation. He also beefed up the leadership team with highly qualified, passionate members, such as company president Kevin Walsh.

“He’s the best salesman and marketing pro I’ve ever worked with,” Bruellman says. “Kevin has been key to building the Showdown brand and creating top-notch customer relationships.”

Prior to joining Showdown in 2011, Walsh bounced around the East Coast working in sales and marketing for several apparel companies. Having gone to Syracuse University for graphic design, he’s always considered himself a “part-time artist,” and the promo industry provided the perfect canvas. “This particular channel allows creative minds to be innovative,” Walsh says.

Together, they’ve spearheaded the company’s massive success. For a decade, Showdown has dominated Counselor’s Distributor Choice Awards in two categories: banners & flags and signs & displays. Maintaining nearly five-star ratings in every ESP performance category, Showdown was named Counselor’s Supplier of the Year in 2017. The mentally stimulating environment and all-inclusive nature of the company has contributed to its longtime membership on Counselor’s Best Places to Work list, as well as being named one of Minnesota’s Best Places to Work by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Those accolades are just part of the reason Bruellman and Walsh rank so high in their Power 50 debut.

“It’s not an overstatement to say we created a huge category in the promo products segment,” Bruellman says. “We created a new source of revenue for thousands upon thousands of distributors.”

Sign-Zone Inc., Showdown’s parent company, has been on an aggressive expansion process over the past three years, acquiring Netherlands-based Promic B.V. Display Systems and Czech Republic-based Jansen Display Group, which has additional locations in Germany, the U.K., Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Spain. On the domestic front, Sign-Zone acquired Huntsville, AL-based Xarisma, adding silicone edge graphics (SEG) to Showdown’s product line.

Those strategic acquisitions contributed to the company’s total global revenue of $149.25 million last year, continuing a trend of revenue rises that’s seen sales shoot up 76.5% overall between 2014 and 2019. This year, Showdown made Counselor’s list of the Top 40 suppliers in the industry for the first time.

“Our biggest challenge used to be keeping up with our growth,” Bruellman says. “But now it’s COVID-19.”

With high sales in the first two months of 2020, the company was on track for another record year. But Showdown’s momentum, like that of many in the industry, came to a screeching halt in mid-March. “We had 42 consecutive quarters of growth prior to Q2 2020,” Walsh says. “Now we anticipate being down 30% from 2019. We’ve basically survived this as well as we could have.”

Most of Showdown’s products are meant for trade shows, conferences, sporting events, fundraisers – all crippled by shutdowns. As a result, the company is relying on sidewalk signage meant for restaurants and mom-and-pop shops that need customers to know they’ve reopened. “Many of our products have been repurposed and we’ve had to update our marketing so distributors can educate their clients,” Walsh says. For instance, trade show graphics have been turned into social distancing dots, so people in line know to stand six feet apart. Another example is taking a trade show banner and putting it behind your office chair to promote branding.

Despite the recent challenges, Bruellman considers Showdown to still be in growth mode. With the pandemic sure to accelerate industry consolidation, there will be more opportunity for acquisitions in the U.S. He’s also interested in expanding further into Europe, as well as Australia and South Africa.

“We expect a fairly substantial uptick in business by mid-2021,” Bruellman says. “Many distributors still haven’t picked up our category. We’re poised to pick up right where we left off. People want to be with other people and that won’t change. Events will come back. Face-to-face marketing will come back.”