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Meet Howard Kent, Ironbound Valve

Newark, New Jersey: Every week we hear small business owners say, "Stay focused. Empower your people."  In this week's episode of the show we hear  it again. 

We've traveled to the four distant corners of the USA and to many cities and towns in between. You've gone to Oxford to learn about leadership and to Sydney to learn about art.  Now we go to a Portuguese neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey to learn about distribution from a business that services builders and contractors.

Hear from the man who is transforming an old family business by servicing his core clients in new ways.

Meet Howard Kent and his team at Ironbound Valve Actuation. Like most of us, he learned his lessons the hard way. He now says, "Plan your work. And, work your plan, so . . . when you do succeed, it's not by chance and it's not by luck; it's just that you followed your game plan."

The old family business was called Ironbound Supply, a distributor for pipes, valves and fittings. In the same location since 1966, Howard sells the same type of pipes his father-in-law started selling when the doors opened. But, the valve actuation business is growing globally.

As well you can imagine, to go global, Howard constantly streamlines his systems with a mixture of old technology and new.

   
*Called a sliver of genius

In the earliest days of the broadcasts of this show (back in 1994-1995), it was a special segment until we began to realize virtually every successful business is built on that special focus.