The OGs of Closeouts: Legends, Deals & Industry Lessons

Speakers

Stephanie Beringhele
VP, Growth + Partnerships, ASD Market Week 

Speaker 1 00:15
Hello, hello! We are here at the last session at the Hub, and we’ve got a treat for you. This is called the OGs. We’ve got some original players within the closeout and the Exis inventory space. Happy to present Danny Cole with Cole imports and closeouts. Come on up. He’s wearing a beautiful purple shirt today. And then Bradley Nardic with the Bazaar Girls. Bradley, come on through. So I’m very excited to have this session because we have one person who started his business when he was 15 or 16, and then we have another one who inherited a business from his grandpa, and now has the task of keeping it running. So I think that resonates with a lot of you. But I want to start, Danny. Introduce yourself and how you started Cole Import.

Speaker 2 01:08
Danny Cole, Coal Imports and Closeouts. We’ve been doing this a long time, and this is our 41st year. As Stephanie said, started when I was really young. I was about 15 years old, selling at Swap Meet, just figuring out a way to buy and sell merchandise, hustle, make things happen, and here we are, 41 years later. If you haven’t seen our booth, we have a pretty good-sized booth here at the show. 50% of our business is imports, 50% is closeouts. Cover a whole lot of different categories, and still really enjoy the industry and what we do.

Speaker 2 01:45
I was a joke. I was born in the back of a warehouse. My grandfather started our company in 1960. He passed away when my dad was about 19. My dad dropped out of college and took over the business. I’ve worked there since I was a kid, and we’re all closeouts. That’s all we do, and you know, similar to Danny’s story, you know, my dad grew up going to the flea market and swap meets and stuff like that. So it’s been in our family a long time, and yeah.

Speaker 3 02:19
So what’s unique about this situation is that both of these entrepreneurs are very much similar to those that are in the audience. Anyone an entrepreneur who started the business from the ground up, just flipping things or selling out of nowhere? We got one over there. Anybody else? It’s a hard task, and it definitely wears at your soul. So these gentlemen actually have a great sense of humor. They do great, amazing things on social content. So my question to you: Why do you do the content? Why do you get social? Why do you have fun with it? What’s the point of it?

Speaker 2 02:53
Well, speaking for us at Kole, you know, for me, it’s finally the avenue to get my face out to the world, and I was brought up always believing that I had a face built for radio, so the fact that I get my face out on social media is a real win for me. No, what we’ve really discovered on social media, it’s a great way to basically have touch points with a whole lot of people that we otherwise wouldn’t get to know, and it’s a relatively easy way to do it. We work really hard to make social media a fun endeavor. It’s not serious. It’s not overly pretty in terms of the way we put it together. But it’s to basically keep getting the point out there that we’ve got deals, we’ve got a lot of merchandise, we want to get to know people, and we want people to see the fun within our company. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, and that’s really what we work towards.

Speaker 2 03:49
Well, I think that in this business, you people want to trust who you’re doing business with. You know, like it’s it’s definitely a business that’s built on relationships and trust. And so, I think if you you know we try and show a little personality online, and have that be a way where people can get to know us by just some of the stuff that we make videos about or post about it and do. So similar to Danny, we we we like to have a good time in our office, and you know, so we try and make it fun online.

Speaker 3 04:19
So in our industry, we are constantly battling tariffs, trying to find and source goods all over the place. So both of you have had unique experience in this portion. Danny, what is your advice for people that are in the business for them to best source products?

Speaker 2 04:39
I think at the very core, it just comes to how hard you want to work to find them. You know, Brad’s business is 100% closeouts. Unless they’re hustling to find deals, they’re going to be in trouble. I have a little bit of a cushion. 50% of what we do is imports, so I always feel somewhat safe that we’re going to have deals, but it really comes down to just basically getting yourself out in the marketplace in as many different places in as many different ways as you can, so that when there’s people looking to move goods, they’re thinking of us. So in other people’s cases, it’s really just getting your name out there, getting to know as many people as you can, walking around a trade show like this, introducing yourself to as many people as possible, and letting your navy out there so when there’s deals, people want to speak to you.

Speaker 2 05:34
I got to remember the question. Yeah, I I think you know, like when I look at how we source our inventory, it’s it’s always from people we know. It’s always from companies we’ve done business with, and as a closeout buyer, our our job is to try and get a shot, you know, and get a chance to go win a deal. So, you know, I I think to Danny’s point, it’s it’s a pretty small world in the closeout and import wholesale space, and if you get a good reputation, and people find out that you pay your bills on time, and that you do the right things, then you know word will word will travel fast. So I think the best way to you know win deals and find good inventories to build real relationships with the people you’re doing business with, and hopefully over time that that turns into, you know, inventory.

Speaker 1 06:25
So part of the session was they. Oh, we got an add on

Speaker 2 06:28
I’ll just add one point to that because I think what Brad said is really accurate about building relationships, and I think it’s a little bit of a lost art at this point. I think there’s a lot of people that really work through email, and they don’t work to build relationships with people. Yeah, I think Brad and I have been doing this a long time, so we’ve met a lot of people over the years. But we’ve never slowed down our desire to keep meeting people. So whether it’s a first-time customer in our booth or someone that’s been there for 25 years, we make the effort to build that relationship, and I think that comes back to you over and over.

Speaker 3 07:05
So something that I think is interesting is that these gentlemen are kind of at different scopes of their their lives. So Danny has a family that he wants to pursue. We’re in the same stage of life.

Speaker 2 07:16
What do you What do you mean? This is

Speaker 3 07:19
Danny is going to give his business, not yeah. He’s making his sons and his nephews work real hard. Him and his brother built this business, and they want to train the next generation to take it on. Where they feel so confident and empowered that they get to add new elements to it. And Bradley, vice versa, you are taking on a company that was presented to you, and you have the hard task of keeping it going. So, how are you taking on those positions?

Speaker 4 07:53
You know, I think like any business, it’s it’s one day at a time. I worked for my father for 15 years before he retired, and try and learn from the things that he did well, and you know, I think in our business there’s there’s not a lot of secret formula to it. It’s just be really good to people and have a good team, and I you know keep it pretty simple. You know, I when when my dad retired, I think you know it was a little bit daunting to kind of step into his shoes. He ran a company for 40 plus years, so you know we’re just trying to keep up building on what he did, and and a lot of it’s driven from you know good relationships and trying to negotiate good pricing. It’s it’s a fun and simple business. So that’s that’s my point of view.

Speaker 2 08:47
We both have a simple for a similar formula that we really try to keep it fun and we try to keep it simple. I think it’s a mistake a lot of people make is when you overcomplicate things that don’t need to be overcomplicated. Brad said a minute ago, about the formula really is: if you do the right thing, if you make deals with people, if you honor your word, if you pay your bills on time, people are going to want to do business with you. And I think that’s really what both of our companies have stood for for a long time. I was lucky enough; I had a lot of times with Brad’s dad. Would have loved to have met your grandfather at some point, sure he was an amazing man. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, you know. I think for Kole Imports, what we do very similar. You know, we really believe that we have a lot of responsibility to all the people that work with us at our company. I say work with us because it’s something we always talk about. We don’t like to think about people working for us. Everybody that works with us hears that constantly. We do work together. So the younger generation of Koles. This industry has had some bad stories where a new generation has come in and things haven’t gone very well, and we really believe that everybody that works in our business, especially the younger Kole’s, realize that with the last name comes a lot of responsibility. They do not get to work easier hours than other people. In fact, they have to work longer hours than other people. I think people that work for us are watching that next generation to make sure there’s the same commitment that my brother and I have given the business for 41 years that my parents, who worked alongside of us years ago, gave the business, and I think it’s really just a matter of making sure we don’t lose sight of that.

Speaker 3 10:34
So you’ve been talking about partnerships a lot. Well, with partnerships, there’s also a lot of memories, and I had these gentlemen on this stage, which means I could be uncensored, and I want to know your best story that you have that’s ASD relevance. Blast from the past that could be good. Uh huh.

Speaker 2 10:53
I was 22 when I came to my first ASD show, and I it was my first time in Las Vegas. I spent about three months of pay, and I I came straight from the club to the show floor, and did a terrible job. And my dad almost fired me. That’s that’s the best story I got, to be honest with you. That’s it.

Speaker 2 11:15
Yeah, we all I think have some of those stories from years ago. Times have changed a little. I think my story be I was 16 years old and I was working the ASD show at 16, so that was 45 years ago. I was working the ASD show and I was dealing with a gentleman from New Hampshire who I had been selling merchandise to over the phone. I remember his name. His name was Dennis Ruall from D and E Distributing in New Hampshire, and I’d done business with him for about a year, which means I was selling him over the phone at 15 years old, and I called him and said, “We’re going to be at the ASD show. Can you come to our booth? He said, “Absolutely”. He came up to the booth. He said, “I’m here to see Danny Cole, and I said I’m Danny Cole, and he looked at me with this bizarre look because he had no idea I was 16 because I’ve been stuck with this voice since I was eight, and he looked at me and said, “No, I think I’m looking for your father, and I said, “No, you’re not looking for your my father, Dennis. I’ve been speaking to you for the last year”, and his jaw literally dropped because he thought he was speaking to someone that was like 30 or 40, and I was 16. I was still in high school. I was working after school, and kind of a story that always stuck with me.

Speaker 3 12:34
Okay, so here’s something that I think a lot of people can relate. Sometimes you go to a show and you find product, and you’re like, “Ooh, it’s so good, and then it ends up being really, really bad. Well, guess what? You can be a retailer doing that, but you can also be an exhibitor who finds and sources great product that just doesn’t hit right. So, what was the worst thing that you bought? Let’s let’s turn it dipty. What is the worst thing you ever bought that you’re like, why did I do that?

Speaker 2 13:05
I think like, you know, during COVID, it was hard to tell if the world had like too many cleaning supplies or not enough cleaning supplies. You know, so like during that time, I remember I got a call and they were like, you have three trucks of like disinfectant wipes, and I thought, oh my God, like this is the most brilliant thing. Like, and and it turns out like there was way way too many produced. So I I think I’ve mostly bought bad deals. I but I’m not in charge of buying anymore because of that. So that’s that’s the truth. But I think any time that we’ve tried to chase a trend, you know, our business is based on value, and and anytime that we’ve tried to hop into a trend just because it was hot or just because you’ve heard people talking about it, and we got away from the principles that we buy behind, which is helping the companies that we sell to beat Walmart and make a margin. Anytime that we get away from that, it’s it usually ends up being a a pretty bad deal for us. So, I’ve I’ve made a lot of those, but but it’s it’s always about sticking to the to the core principle.

Speaker 2 14:19
And being that I’m partners with my brother, and being that he’s not on stage. It seems only right that I would blame the buy on him. Our worst deals, without question, were bought by my brother. No, we both bought our share of bad deals, and what we’ve learned over the years is the deals that we’ve really regretted are the deals that we bought because of how cheap it was, and we couldn’t resist the buy because of how cheap it was. We really don’t do that anymore. We learned the hard way that we used to kind of joke: There’s no bad items. There’s there’s just bad prices. And the truth is, there are bad items. There’s items that people just don’t need. So you could get a deal on something that’s a ridiculous deal, but you have to think about it from the perspective of: Is the item going to sell at the retail level? So we learned the hard way there were times that we sold deals that our customers didn’t do that well with, which is not what we want to hear. We want our customers to have success with what they buy from us and not get stuck with merchandise. So, but we stay away from pretty religiously now is a deal that is just a great deal, but not a really functional item that is going to go to mass since it makes sense.

Speaker 1 15:34
Okay, so one of the misconceptions that buyers ask me is they say I see these big booths and they’re so intimidating, and we don’t know if they’ll service us. How do you counter that? We’ve got a lot of independents, a lot of mom and pops. How do you set them up for success and encourage them to come to your booth?

Speaker 4 15:53
Well, we’re very friendly. If you walk by our booth, I’m actually a professional water boy. I’ve probably given most of you water here today. No, we we our whole business is built on selling to independent mom and pop retailers. That’s when my grandfather started the company in 1960. That’s what we did, and 66 years later, that’s what we do. So anybody who has a need to to buy something at a good price, and you’re gonna you’re gonna either put it online, or put it in a store, or put it on whatnot, or go sell it to somebody else. We, you know, come one, come all. I I I know the Kole’s very well. I know they’re very friendly and very kind people, and very similar. So, yeah, our approach is there’s you know, no no deal too small,

Speaker 1 16:42
And not to contradict Brad, and he’s sounding really nice, but he also has a mean chokehold. And if you don’t place an order right away, I’ve seen him do it to many customers. No, we have a very similar technique. We want to make it easy for people. People walk up to our booth and they ask us what our minimum is, and our answer is, we want you to place an order. We don’t even talk about what a minimum is. We just want people to come in, place an order. We started our business as you know we talked about earlier, selling at the swap meet, and we probably had $100 to our name when we started. So we were that smallest customer, and we remember the people that treated us well. We’ve met customers at this show that their first order was $500. That have turned into amazing customers over the years. So our simple rule is: make it easy for people to figure out how to do business with us. Once people start buying from us, we hope they have a good experience. They’re buying repeatedly, and it becomes a customer for the long term.

Speaker 3 17:42
So one of the trends we’re seeing, if you go to any floor, you’re going to notice that live selling is everywhere. And you both, both you gentlemen, have great personalities. So I want to get your thoughts on: Could you become a celebrity seller on whatnot or TikTok shop? What are your thoughts about live selling?

Speaker 1 18:01
I’m all over it. I’m ready. No, I think you know. Look, as long as I’ve been speaking to people, coming to shows, I’m very comfortable with what we do, and I really enjoy what I do. And I think whether it’s a whatnot seller, whether it’s standing in our booth, or whether it’s a buyer walking the show, I think if you enjoy what you do, it makes it really easy. I would love to try to be a live seller. I think it would be a blast. I think it’d be really fun to try it. Do I want to do it every day forever? Probably not. But I do think it’d be really fun to give it a go. I think Brad and I can actually probably do a great team show. I think I think we’d have a lot of fun doing it, which is really something we both pride ourselves in. You asked a social media question a few minutes ago. If you haven’t watched Brad’s social media videos, I encourage you to do it. He probably gets more comments from me than anybody. They’re just fun, and you know it gives you a minute to pause, laugh a little bit, and remind yourself not to take yourself too seriously.

Speaker 2 19:03
I don’t think I have what it takes to be a whatnot. If I did a collab with Danny, I would do it for sure. But but I respect anybody who is doing it because I think it’s a cool new. I mean, whatnot just got valued at $20 billion. It’s incredible. You know, Danny’s been in the business a long time. So if we, in the 1990s, everyone had an independent retail store, and then 10 years ago, everyone had an Amazon store, and now you know whatnot is the next wave of of retail in America. So I personally don’t don’t want to do it, but but I but I would support anybody who did.

Speaker 3 19:44
Okay, so one thing that is tried and true within the retail space, you got to have a lot of grit, a lot of grit. You got to have some hustle. Times are tough, and then all of a sudden they’re great. So, what is your advice to keep people focused on the task at hand? Keeping their business moving forward when there’s tariffs, when there’s all these other things going on. So, how do you encourage people to keep going in the retail space?

Speaker 4 20:09
My opinion is, if you, I, you know, I agree with what Danny said earlier. If you enjoy what you’re doing, then you’ll always find a way to take the next step. And if if you’re not having fun doing it, and it’s it’s it’s just about an outcome or a means to an end, then I think it’s it’s very hard to to have the the wherewithal to keep to keep going. But if you like it, then and you do the next thing, then you know most of the problems that you have to solve aren’t aren’t that complicated. It’s it’s just continuing forward. So I think if if you enjoy it, then that’s that’s like the the secret ingredient to everything, in my opinion.

Speaker 2 20:45
I pretty much echo that. I would simply day also just really believe in what you’re doing. Whatever that is, whether you’re a retailer, whether you’re a wholesaler, whether you’re a whatnot seller. I think if

Speaker 1 20:58
you genuinely have passion for what you do, doing all these things becomes second nature. So for me, when I get to the show every morning, it’s not a chore to get to my booth. I’m excited to get to my booth because it’s another day and I’m ready to go. So I think at a retail level, if you come in every day with that mindset, I think that’s the mindset that will serve you well.

Speaker 3 21:19
They sound so good, aren’t you? So encouraged. So this part of this segment was also there’s no BS in this panel session. So, gentlemen, what keeps you up at night? What’s the hardest thing about doing the stuff that you do day to day?

Speaker 2 21:35
We only buy closeouts. If I’m wrong, I owe somebody a lot of money, and I didn’t make any money buying it. That’s that keeps me up every day of my life. We we we buy deals from some of the biggest manufacturers on the planet, and you don’t want to pay them late. And you know it’s that’s no BS. It’s it’s really that simple. It’s it’s pay the bills on time, make sure the team is taken care of, and stay healthy.

Speaker 1 22:05
Yeah, this is not surprising. We’ve got similar answers again. I think for us, you know, this is this has been my whole life. Like I said, I started this in high school, and probably wouldn’t have gotten out of high school if not for the fact that my mom really wanted me to. Never went to college. Started this in high school, and there was no fallback plan. So the joke I used to say to people, and they asked me if I went to college. When I when I was about 20, I was self-conscious that I didn’t go to college because I lived in a community that everyone went to college. So I started telling people I went to SMU, and SMU, and they’d say, “Oh, the one in Texas, and I’d say, “No, San Diego, Swap Meat University, and that’s where I really got my education that has stuck with me all this time. So what keeps me up at night, and knock on wood, I really don’t-I’m not kept up at night a lot. But starting a business that started out of the trunk of our car, and now having 100 people that work in our building, it’s the responsibility that comes with that to make sure that we do our job right, because there’s a lot of people that’s livelihood depends on us to do our job right, and thankfully we’re over 40 years of doing it right. But I take that pressure super super seriously.

Speaker 3 23:19
You can hear the passion in their voices, but these gentlemen, so they don’t just preach about it; they live it. So, for you to be in business this long, and also what you don’t know is that a lot of their employees have been with them for a real long time, and that is a testament that they enjoy working for them, and there is a safe place. So, how do you suggest people best help out their employees to keep them for the long run because ultimately that’s your success. Robbie, I know you give turkeys during Thanksgiving, so what else do you do? You got to do more than a turkey.

Speaker 2 23:53
Look, I think opportunity to move forward if if you have a team and they they have a chance to to do better for themselves, I feel like that’s what most people want out of work is that you could make more money over time and you know not be withheld from kind of reaching the next ladder. We do give turkeys to all of our employees on Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if that’s what keeps them or not? I’ve got a kid right here in the front row. He’s worked for us for about five weeks, six weeks, so kind of long term. But you know, I think being reasonable and being fair is kind of the way we we try to do it. Yeah, but but I will say like when my dad retired, like we had a bunch of people who worked for us for a long time who no longer work for us. So I’m just being real. Like if you want to know the truth, like you gotta have people who want to do the thing you’re doing and with you. So it’s not all it’s not all perfect from from my side.

Speaker 2 25:00
So I think my answer would be a little bit different. I think for us, we’ve always really believed in trying to empower people. So it’s something that when people start working for us, our company name is Koleal Imports. But literally, the day anyone starts in our office, a photo frame is put on their desk with a picture of our building, and instead of it saying Kole Imports, it would say Stephanie’s imports, and that is put on your desk the day you start. And we tell people every day when they start, we want them to think of their desk as their own business, and we want to empower them to do their thing. Obviously, they have to work within the confines of what we do, but we don’t want a bunch of people that are robots coming in being told the way they need to do it. And we feel really, really good. I’ve got, I think I have 20 people over 25 years in our building. We have a dozen people over 35 years, and that’s a real testament to the fact that people do enjoy coming in. We give out the turkeys too, but I agree with Brad. They’re not sticking around for the turkeys. They’re sticking around because they come in every day and they feel like they’re a part of something, and they’re given the opportunity to actually put their own mark on. Take that, Bradley. No chokehold.

Speaker 3 26:20
So final question, and then we’ll open it up for anybody who else has questions. But what is the one? What’s the advice you’re giving to somebody who says, you know, what I want to, I want to enter the closeout space. This is the business for me, and I want to try this out. Do they do it or do they run? And if they stay, what should they do?

Speaker 2 26:38
You know, like I said before, I think if you enjoy if you enjoy this trade, it’s it can be a lot of fun and you can meet a lot of great people. If it’s something that truly like gives you you know a lot of that you know kind of zest to keep doing it every day, but I do think that there are many other businesses that don’t require as much blood, sweat, and tears as this one to do well, so you know, I I think join the closeout or or the import business or run is really a question of if that’s what you love to do. Negotiate on pricing and look at inventory and think about what’s going to sell. Talk to people who are running retail stores. I think Danny does an amazing job. They’ve built an incredible company. I’m, I’m. When I first started coming to the ASD show, I was super intimidated by the Kole booth, but so it’s cool to be sitting up here with Danny. He’s a great guy. They’ve built a great company, but I think that the people who we look for to join the bazaar are people who genuinely want to sell closeouts every day, or genuinely want to buy closeouts every day, and if that’s what you love to do, then you know, do that thing.

Speaker 2 27:50
Yeah, and I’d agree with what Brad just said. It is not an easy business, but I believe wholeheartedly the juice is worth the squeeze. If you are willing to put in the work, if you’re willing to put in all the effort that goes along with it, it’s a great business. It’s a fun business. I would not want to be in the sheet metal business, where all I was doing is looking at what’s the price of sheet metal per pound. My brain would not do well with that. I like that every day there’s a new deal happening. Every day we’re looking at a category we haven’t looked at before, and it’s truly really interesting. Stephanie and I share a word in common that we both love, which is grit. And Stephanie touched on it earlier, and I know Stephanie shares the word with her kids all the time. And the closeout business is a grit business. It is not autopilot. It is not reordering Clorox bleach because it’s sold out. You’ve got to be willing to work all the time. But if we do, I think whether it’s on the wholesale side, the retail side, there’s a good payoff if you do.

Speaker 1 28:58
All that to say, if you’re looking for closeouts and you want to purchase it? You’re definitely going to want to stop by the bazaar at see Bradley, and of course Danny Kole with Kole Imports and Clothes. So, gentlemen, thank you for being a part of this panel discussion. Can we give a round of applause? So make sure you see them and just wait for about five more minutes. We’re going to be doing a retail award event. I see John Adew in the court, or Goodgirl just might be getting a gold chain spinner. Lorries, I don’t know where they are, but we’ll be presenting some amazing awards for some tried and true retailers in just a few. So thank you so much.