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32 FEDA News & Views A Sidenote on Leadership Stabiner is gone now but he's still in Fusari's ear. Note the similarities in their leadership styles. By nature, Fusari is a doer. That, of course, is what carried him on the Bowery. These days, however, it's his willingness to shrink that makes him a good leader. "Very few people will acknowledge how much pressure comes with leading," he says. "It's unbelievable. Every day I wake up and the first question I ask myself is what are my people looking for from me today? It's definitely a balancing act. Sometimes being a good leader is shutting up and allow- ing those that work for you to just do it, as opposed to telling them how to do it. Sometimes they're going to fail and that failure could cost us some money, but I'm ok with that if I can develop another leader. What I'm not okay with is waking up every day and providing the answers for everyone." Stabiner was not big on clipping wings either. He coached— way before sales management pros linked perks like improved performance and competitive advantage to one-on-ones. That's one of the things Fusari remembers most about Stabiner, all of the huddles. "Ira was in Chicago and I was in New York but we talked all of the time, at least once a week," he says. "He would fire me up and tell me how great I was doing. He would tell me how bad I was when I made a mistake, and he would tell me how not to do it again. We would review the wins and the losses and every time I would try to talk about price, he would try to move me away from it." "We were only together for two years but in those two years I learned so much about sales, customer relations and what it takes to achieve a high level of success under adverse condi- tions. We had a special bond." Cancer was the culprit. Two years after taking Fusari under his wing, Stabiner passed away. "In 1985, I lost my father, right around the time that we were developing a different type of adult relationship," he says. "Not too long after, Ira passed away from the same disease, so it was a very difficult time for me, maybe the toughest in my life. "Then the Dura-Ware opportunity surfaced. With Ira gone and the company and the industry changing all around me, I felt like it was time for a change. Had Ira still been at Bloomfield, then I honestly don't know if I would have left there." From a Rep's Perspective Of course, Fusari has never been one to shy away from tak- ing a chance. At 32, he took a definitive one "on the industry" when he passed on an opportunity to serve as vice president of sales for a lighting fixture manufacturer—and along with it, a country club membership, company car, and a sizeable raise. "I looked at the 14 years I'd put into the industry and said why do I want to give that up and start over in a new industry," he says. "This was my industry and I didn't want to give that up. That was the first time that I uttered those words to myself." Four years later, he took another chance and moved to California after meeting his future wife, Jill Rothkopf of Economy Restaurant Fixtures, at a buying group conference. And then he reinvented himself as a rep. Why a rep? It was just a natural progression, says Fusari. "The 11 years that I was at Dura-Ware all of my salespeople were manufacturer's reps and I got to travel with them, have dinner with them, talk with them, and learn the do's and the don'ts. So when I made the transition, I basically just called upon the past." Those contacts led to several solid lines, allowing Fusari to make a pretty good living as a rep his first year before even- tually merging with a larger firm in Oakland. Four successful years in the trenches is what makes him uniquely qualified to say this: "If things happened, and I had to start over again, I could see myself back at the manufacturing level, I could see myself staying at the dealer level, but I can't see myself going back to being a rep," he says. "And I don't mean that in a demeaning way. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for how truly difficult their jobs can be. As a rep, you're squeezed by both your customer—the dealer—and your customer, the manufacturer. The rep is the middle man and really has to do a good job on both sides." Quick to admit his own faults, like not always being atten- tive (not to mention patient) when a rep calls on him, Fusari is far from blameless for his part in the channel's woes but he does try to make partnering a priority. For one, outside of encouraging joint sales calls at Myers, he requires all of his salespeople to follow up with their reps once a lead exchanges Deeply Rooted continued continued on page 36 Being a Manufacturer's Rep The rep is in the middle. You have to appease and placate the manufacturer and perform numbers for them and, at the same time, do the same thing on the dealer side, your customer, who is the most important per- son in the equation. So for me, it was about maintaining a lot of different relationships. Sometimes, I don't think everyone recognizes that the rep really has to do a good job on both sides.