Winair's Formula for Success

Yet there is incredible autonomy for the local presidents, as WinWholesale refers to the owner of each wholesaler distributor, to call their own shots. “This is an organization that is built on concepts that ownership is the best way to build wealth over time, and local people make the best decisions and are justly rewarded for results,” says Monte L. Salsman, WinWholesale's chief operating officer. From how each business goes to market and how they sell their products to how much inventory they maintain to serve their customers, the local president is in charge.

For high performers, the benefits are unlimited. “Throughout the company, there is a complete desire to pay people based on the results they produce in an unlimited fashion,” Salsman says. “Whatever a local president can produce, they get paid on. Under the WinWholesale model, the local presidents buy stock in their own company. I believe the WinWholesale model has created more millionaires than any company that has branch managers,” he says proudly.

While the local presidents of Winair stores are as diverse as the markets they serve, Schwartz says the Win model does attract a certain type of person. “They're people who have made a career decision to be in HVACR distribution,” he explains. “They're mid-career professionals who know what they're doing, they have great customer and leadership skills, and they wake up and say, ‘I want more for my family and myself.’” But that person also needs to be a risk-taker. “Like most risks, getting ownership requires an initial financial commitment.”

Another profile of a Winair distributor is a smaller distributor who is looking for someone to acquire his business. Salsman says an independent distributor who owns his business but wants to get cash out while still staying in the business could be appropriate for Winair. That business owner can build up the company again, and when he or she is ready to retire, they sell the shares back to WinWholesale.

While Noland Company locations are mainly in the Southeast, there are Winair companies across the country. Chris Lopez, president of Albuquerque Winair, started his company in 1998.

Noland became a wholly owned subsidiary of WinWholesale in 2005, and it is gradually integrating into the company, says Jean F. Preston, chief operating officer of Noland. The goal, he says, is to take the Noland businesses and offer the people within the branches ownership opportunities. “It's nice to have a company like this and offer opportunities to people who can be directly rewarded for their efforts.”

Preston says Noland is a much different culture than Winair and WinWholesale, but he says adapting to the new model has been beneficial for its employees. “Some of our guys were skeptical early on, but with some encouragement they've been taking to it,” he says. Noland, which had been a family-run company for three generations until 2005, was a top-down organization, Preston notes. With the acquisition by WinWholesale, Noland has become much more entrepreneurial.

He credits WinWholesale's procedure manual and processes with playing a major role in “unlocking potential” in Noland. The procedure manual, delivered online to employees, represents the collective wisdom gathered over WinWholesale's existence. Continually updated, it is the definitive source on how to run a WinWholesale business.

Every Winair company has a board of directors made up of the local president and three WinWholesale executives. Having representation from the corporate level is important, helping to provide a more global perspective for the individual companies, says Salsman. This allows for the sharing of best practices as well as better integrating the Winair companies with one another.