Raymond Martin Company is an investment and consulting company specializing in industrial distribution and service businesses. In short, we provide operating company management access to: capital, inventory, IT infrastructure, marketing programs, and employee benefits.
Our objective is to be involved in mutually advantageous long-term equity relationships. Although it is written for potential Gas and Supply partners, the following letter best illustrates who Raymond Martin Company is.
An Open Letter to Independent Distributors
Your Business Is Your Baby
It keeps you up at night with work and worry. You've nurtured it for years in hopes that someday - maybe today - it would be rich enough to return the favor.
So What Happened?
If you're in the lucky minority of small business owners whose retail or service establishments beat the odds, maybe you're reaping the rewards you hoped for.
But according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, more than half of all new businesses will close their doors for good within four years. Most privately owned small firms will struggle to find affordable capital and a reliable, competent workforce. Most business owners, in fact, will become victims of their own success, unable to meet the demands of a customer base they helped to build.
And yet small businesses like yours remain a cornerstone of the American economy.
Your work ethic and innovation, your knowledge of local conditions and dedication to the customer are assets the largest corporations can't hope to match. If anyone can make your business prosper, it's you.
And We Can Help
Gas and Supply is the largest provider of welding gases, industrial supplies, tools, parts and safety equipment in the Gulf South. Our dozens of locations stretch from Oklahoma City to Venice, Louisiana, and from Houston, Texas to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This means each local store can operate like a regional giant, pulling inventory as needed from any warehouse in the network. As we grow, so do our partners. And that's where you come in.
We are constantly looking for new retail and service locations to share in our unrivaled (29% annual!) growth rate and revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If you'd like to maintain your customers, grow your company, and secure your place in the future of our industry, then join us.
Management with a Difference
Gas and Supply, through its Raymond Martin management company, seeks out promising, locally-operated businesses to empower with capital, inventory, IT infrastructure and other back office services. We offer proven strategies for growth, detailed financial assistance, ready cash and credit, and the full resources of our legal staff, HR and service divisions, communications network, shared employee health insurance, 401k program, and more. Our work behind the scenes sets our partners free to concentrate on sales.
What's our secret? Gas and Supply's business success and exponential growth are based on a unique co-ownership model. Existing management and sales representatives are maintained at each of our partner locations, providing continuity in leadership and the preservation of existing business relationships. This is key: As one of our partners put it, "Guys on the front line are your contact with the customer. They're the people who generate your revenue -- they have to stay!"
With Gas and Supply, they do. Our annual turnover in sales and management staff hovers around 0%, companywide. No one wants to leave. Nine out of ten of our in-store managers retain their current positions after joining our team. And on our side, managers average 12 years on staff and have 25 years experience in the field. Our men and women are skilled veterans, invested in the success of our partner companies.
The Decision Is Yours
Gas and Supply is already the largest independent distributor of gases and industrial supplies in the Americas. Our dominance in the Gulf South is a given, and by participating in the Industrial Gas Suppliers Alliance (IGSA), we compete nationwide, chopping the giants down to size. The strength of our cooperative approach is proven, and it finds its source in independent operators like you.
What we offer, in short, is a share in the wealth: a piece of a very large pie. All we ask is for the benefit of your hard work and your wisdom, and the spark of your entrepreneurial spirit.
When you're ready to start building a future for your company and for the people who depend on it, let us help you make it happen.
