A Top 40 distributor is celebrating a milestone anniversary.

The brainchild of Memo Kahan, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of the most influential people in the industry, PromoShop (asi/300446) is now a leading distributor. But there was a time when Kahan had no idea what he wanted to do professionally, let alone mastering the complexities of promotional products.

The PromoShop team on the company’s annual incentive trip to Punta Mita, Mexico, in 2022. This year, they’re headed to the new Four Seasons Resort in Tamarindo, Mexico.

Born in Mexico City, Kahan immigrated to California with his family. Immediately out of college, he didn’t have much career direction, but he did know one thing: He didn’t want to move back in with his parents. So, he hired a headhunter to help him find a job.

She landed Kahan an interview at supplier Western Badge & Trophy in Los Angeles, now called WBT Industries (asi/96640). “The owner sat with me for four hours, and at the end I couldn’t believe I wanted to work there,” he says. “I learned a lot, and I loved working out of a factory and seeing how products were made.”

After learning the ins and outs of manufacturing, Kahan received formal sales instruction at his next job. Bob Waldorf, owner of Idea Man in California, provided classes for his reps and hired Kahan three years after he joined Western Badge. “I became a better-versed salesperson,” says Kahan, “and I made more connections in the industry.”

A few years later, Kahan had made enough of a name for himself at Idea Man that the owner of nearby Incentive Innovations asked him to take over the company.

“He basically gave me his checkbook and book of business and said, ‘Don’t screw it up,’” says Kahan. “So that gave me an opportunity to learn how to run a firm, and we were successful. We doubled in size.”

A few years in, Kahan knew he was ready to start his own business. He was familiar with manufacturing from his time at Western Badge & Trophy, and he had sales training from Idea Man plus management expertise from Incentive Innovations. He’d made connections in Hollywood, a gold mine of sales opportunities for creative distributors. But he had also just bought his first house and now had a young child. “The timing wasn’t great,” he says, “but it worked out.”

At that time, 25 years ago, it just so happened that Kahan’s father was selling his company and had an office near Marina Del Rey with six months left on the lease. He offered the large space to his son for the remainder of the lease, but Kahan never left: It’s still PromoShop’s headquarters today.

Since 1998, PromoShop, which is now certified minority-owned (one of only a handful of firms on the Top 40 list) and hit $55.8 million in revenue in 2021, has brought on more sales reps across North America. In addition to HQ in Los Angeles, it has California offices in Encino, Orange County and San Diego, as well as Boise and Detroit, plus Canadian locations in Toronto and Windsor, ON. It also has regional presences in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, New Jersey, New York, Seattle, the San Francisco Bay Area and West Palm Beach, FL, with a total of 34 sales reps.

A major turning point for the company, says Kahan, was when it brought on the late industry veteran Jim Buescher as chief operating officer a few years in. He made such a mark on promo, particularly on the West Coast, that the Foundation for SAAC (the Specialty Advertising Association of California) has hosted a golf tournament in his name to raise scholarship funds for members’ kids.

“Bringing on Jim was an amazing experience – he was like a father figure to me,” says Kahan. “He said, ‘I need to be empowered, though.’ And I said, ‘Sure, I’ll focus on sales, and you focus on operations.’ I don’t know where we’d be or what would have happened without him.”

Top-shelf tequila, “the official drink of PromoShop,” that the company shipped to business connections and friends to celebrate 25 years.

Success over 25 years, says Kahan, depends on experienced people as well as the three pillars he established in the beginning: manufacturing know-how, sales expertise and a rich business network that offered opportunities to show off creativity.

“Those have been our catalysts over 25 years, and we’ve been able to attract great talent,” says Kahan. “We have a great brand in the industry. Our culture is our people, and we want to grow with our clients’ needs. There’s no secret sauce – take care of people, empower them and make them feel appreciated.”

In 2006, Kahan was named Counselor’s Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year; not long after, the company was one of the first in the industry to establish an eco-friendly division. Five years ago, Kahan announced the beginning of a strategic partnership with distributor Icon Blue – a collaboration stemming from Kahan’s Idea Man days, when he met co-worker Walter Hill, Jr., who would go on to found Icon Blue.

PromoShop also won Counselor’s 2021 Promotional Campaign Award for Best Client Promo with a direct-mail campaign for the Idaho Potato Commission, designed by Kris Robinson, the company’s Boise-based executive vice president, partner and chief sustainability officer. Robinson, a member of ASI Media’s Promo for the Planet advisory board, appeared on an ASI Media Social Angle podcast episode to discuss the power of nostalgia in marketing campaigns.

But with the high hills came a particularly low valley: when Kahan and the executive team had to make extremely difficult decisions in the days following major COVID shutdowns in the spring of 2020. They told everyone on Friday, March 13 – “a day that will live in infamy,” Kahan says – to stay at home until further notice, and that this was an opportunity to test their systems. But the situation was worse than they had imagined; by the next week, like so many businesses around the world, they had to lay off team members.

“We were scared and upset,” says Kahan. “We went from 115 people to about 80. It was horrible. We never had to do that before, and a lot were young people just starting out in their careers.”

And yet, says Kahan, demand for products came back, slowly but surely. In the months immediately following the first lockdowns, PromoShop designed and sold charity T-shirts to benefit the struggling restaurant industry and launched an apparel sales-powered food bank initiative that fed more than 20,000 people in California, Washington and Idaho. A little over a year later, the distributor was providing products for live events once again.

“There’s no secret sauce – take care of people, empower them and make them feel appreciated.” Memo Kahan, PromoShop

“We’ve had the best three years of our company history since then,” Kahan says. “People’s resiliency has been amazing. It’s been painful, the whole situation, and we’re going to be dealing with the mental health toll for years to come. But we continue to get new clients. We’re planning to keep bringing on reps; 40 is our happy number, and I think we can grow by double digits each year moving forward.”

The office space may have been too big in 1998, but it’s now the perfect size for all the fulfillment projects that PromoShop handles. Recently, it shipped two orders of more than 40,000 employee kits – over 80,000 boxes in total – all over the world.

“Our headquarters has turned into a kitting facility. Each room has a different client’s items in it,” says Kahan. “Our people continued to work through COVID, and we figured it out. Our hearts are still strong.”

Moving forward, the team is focused on continuing to win RFPs and getting more market share. “The boutique approach is working,” Kahan says. “And so is our employee engagement. We have health and wellness sessions, both in-person and virtual, and all-company meetings on Tuesdays. We’re still here with a big smile. We’re happy-go-lucky.”