After struggling but surviving the 2001 recession, Great Lakes Supply president Joe Nelmar made a conscious decision to diversify his customer base.

“In 2001, we were pretty heavily invested in the manufacturing end,” Nelmar says. “That was tough back then. And we learned very quickly that we needed to do things differently. So we really made a push into the education markets and that has been good for us.”

Indiana's school departments and universities aren't the quickest payers, Nelmar admits, but they pay steadily.

“They aren't paying in 30 days, but [will in] 60 days,” he says. “We're slightly ahead of last year. Our margins are holding their own. I'm grateful that during this [particular] recession, we're better diversified in our customer base than we were in '01.”

Great Lakes Supply is located in Michigan City, Ind. In addition to selling to education and general manufacturing, the company includes a few area casinos as customers. Great Lakes employs 14 people and has annual sales of approximately $4 million to $5 million, Nelmar says.

Seventy-five percent of its customer base buys janitorial and building maintenance products. The rest go more for packaging materials like foam, steel banding and pallet wraps.

And, of course, there's the “green” market. The jan-san industry has always been more or less on the cutting edge of many green product developments. In addition to environmental gains, Nelmar has seen the health advantages that come with these products.

“For years, people were cleaning their buildings with products they didn't understand or even know anything about,” he says.

Nelmar cites one customer who was using a strong degreaser that came in 55-gallon drums. The customer didn't wear masks or gloves and experienced side effects including arthritis. Buying that material in smaller, more air-tight containers, Nelmar says, helped eliminate the symptoms.

“All of that happened before the industry was educated about taking care of the people who were actually using the stuff. Now green is everywhere,” Nelmar says.

Great Lakes has also increased business by being bullish toward online sales. The company's Web site has free-to-download software for customer orders.

“It gives them the flexibility to put together an order at their own pace and on their own time,” Nelmar says. “They can see their order history and how much they paid. Some people really like to order online and more and more are doing so each day.”

For a handful of special clients, Great Lakes will expand its product offering depending on the customer's needs.

“We try to make it easier for customers to reduce their vendor base by broadening our offering when we can. … [It's] almost a custom-distribution program where we stock product specific to the customer's needs. And that's worked well for us,” he says.

As an example, Nelmar cites a customer who needs linoleum knives and garden sprayers.

“Because we're a smaller company, we can respond quickly to customer requests. We make a good margin on that, so we can justify keeping kind of an 'oddball' thing like that in our warehouse just for one [customer],” he explains.