For many years, Fasteners Inc. was heavily involved in the residential construction industry, selling to professional homebuilders in the state of Michigan. John Szlenkier, the company's president and owner, says the market represented as much as 65 percent of their business at one time.

He knew many of these builders and a couple of years ago he began to hear a distressingly consistent refrain from them—that residential housing was headed for a downturn.

“They told us the handwriting was on the wall,” he says today. Szlenkier didn't waste time reacting.

“We immediately started chasing after the commercial jobs. [Sometimes] you have to change. If you don't, you die,” he says. “That has carried us through. We actually had a very good year last year.”

Unfortunately, Fasteners Inc. had to make a handful of layoffs in the process.

“We probably let go about 10 percent [of our employees],” Szlenkier says. “When things get tight, you make some conscious decisions.”

However, Szlenkier refused to do what some Midwest business owners did: implement pay cuts virtually throughout their companies.

“I had a hard time doing that, being president and also principal owner of the company. So you know who took the biggest pay cut? Me,” he laughs. “But that's OK. I can handle that. But for me to go tell my employees to swallow up in hard times is a tough thing to do.”

Fasteners Inc. has nine locations in Michigan, a state that has had a challenging economic climate in recent years.

“But we're a resilient state,” Szlenkier says. “We'll come back, there's no question about it.

“But it won't be this year. It wasn't last year and it might not even be 2009. But indications are that in the long term, 2010, it will come back. It has always done that. Usually, we're the first ones to fall in to a recession, but we recover pretty quickly, too.”

One successful selling point Fasteners Inc. impresses upon its customers is helping the commercial builders do their jobs faster, allowing them to cut labor costs and, ultimately, keep more jobs. While fasteners still do well, Szlenkier and his company also emphasize selling “fastener systems.”

As an example, Szlenkier points to coated dry wall screws, a popular item carried by most distributors. But when Fasteners Inc. incorporates them with cordless nailers, builders can do the job as much as five times faster, he says.

“If they can take that system and [do the job] as much as five times quicker,” he explains, “what do you think that will do to his labor hours and to his profit?”

While he has his concerns about the economy, Szlenkier says he is an optimist by nature. Recently, he heard some of his salespeople talking informally and saying that the country is entering a recession.

He has a ready rebuttal for them.

“I say if we are in a recession, we're not participating. So get that thought out of your mind,” he says. “I'm a positive person. There are always opportunities. You just have to find them.”