CNY Executive Q&A: A chat with Joni Walton of Danlee Medical Products

In this issue, I speak with Joni Walton, founder, owner, and president of Danlee Medical Products, Inc., a provider of medical and cardiology supplies based in DeWitt. Danlee sells supplies to more than 4,000 health-care professionals nationwide, as well as dealers and distributors. Walton founded the company in 1994. The business operates in a 12,800-square-foot space in the Rodax Office Park at 6075 E. Molloy Road.

KNAUSS: Joni, tell me a little bit about the journey of how you got to be here. Where did you go to school, what did you study, and what was your professional path?

WALTON: First of all, I did not go to college. I have a high-school diploma from Gouverneur High School in northern New York. I did attend a two-year secretarial course at a vocational center, at BOCES, in Gouverneur, but no college. I actually was looking into college. I went to check out a few different places, but I didn’t feel like it was the right fit for me. I chose not to go. I got married at a very young age, 18, and moved out here to Syracuse without a job. We decided to come to Syracuse because at that time, I think that my exact words were, “I think Syracuse is the land of opportunity.” Coming from Gouverneur, it really did seem like the land of opportunity.

When I first came to Syracuse, I had a few different jobs. One of the jobs was at Diagnostic Medical Instruments (DMI), which manufactured Holter heart-monitoring equipment. They hired me to be their customer-service person. I did order entry, invoicing, spoke to customers, things like that. The day that I was hired at DMI, they had 100 employees and the day that I joined, they laid off 40 people. I was like, “What’s going to happen here?” Five years later, when they sold out, I was one of the last ones standing — one of 10 employees. Through my journey at DMI, I guess I’ve always been the type of person that likes to know everything about the company. I don’t want to just go in and know my job. I want to know what everyone else does and how everything I do affects every department.

DMI manufactured Holter heart-monitoring equipment. They offered paper that worked with their machine and one Holter kit that went with their machine. That’s all they provided. Every day on the phone, I would get calls from customers saying, “We don’t want the kit. We just want electrodes or we just want the razor or the batteries.” I kept saying, “No, all the time and that “we don’t do that.” During a performance review with my boss, I had asked him why we didn’t concentrate more on the supplies and offer different variations and options. He very specifically told me that the money was in the equipment, while the supplies were just icing on the cake. I kept pressuring him about it so he said, “If you want to do something, just go ahead.” I think he just really wanted to get me out of his office at that point.

I went back to my desk and I started calling vendors and holding meetings, trying to learn and understand what these products were and what was available. I was researching not only supplies for the DMI equipment, but also selling supplies for all of the competitive equipment that was out there because they are all very similar with just a slight variation. Long story short, within a year’s time, the supply division was another division of the company. I had four people in the department besides myself and we were doing about $500,000 in supply sales at that point. Then a much larger company, Burdick, came in to purchase Diagnostic Medical Instruments for its Holter technology. The supply division was a conflict of interest, because we sold directly to the end user and the other company sold to dealers and distributors only. 

I knew the day they came in that we weren’t going to be around long, but they kept telling us we were and then finally, when the executives came in and had their meetings with everybody they said, “We’re closing your office within a year.” They interviewed the final people that were left. During my interview, they had asked me to go with them to Chicago. I said no. They said they needed me to stay for the one year of transition that it was going to take because at that point, I not only did the customer service job I was originally hired for, I also managed the supply division and had taken on several other responsibilities as well. I was very involved in everything that went on there because as people were let go, I just kept taking on more duties.

I ended up telling Burdick that I didn’t want to stay for the year. I said, “I’m young, I’ve been here five years and I thought I was going to have a career here. Now, I have to start over again. I want to start over immediately. I don’t want to waste another year of my life.” The executives were trying to get me to stay and I got very angry at that point. I remember standing up and talking very loudly and saying, “I’m not going to stay for another year and waste my time. The only way that you can make me consider staying is to let me buy the supply division.” At that point, they said, “Are you serious? Do you really want to do that?” Total pride took over because we didn’t have any money. I didn’t know how I would ever possibly do that. I didn’t know how to run a company but it was just something that came out.

They asked me if I was serious and then of course, pride took over, so I said, “Yes, I’m serious.” They said, “If you’re serious, we want you to go around the building, tell us everything you want, any inventory, any furniture, any people you’re considering taking with you etc.” I said, “Really, all I want is the phone number and the customer list, but I will go around. To open my business, I’ll need some furniture and things.” So I went back with the list, they put a price on it, and I said okay. After that came the hard part because I had to find financing to buy it. Like I said, my husband didn’t have much, maybe $500 in the bank. I went to probably every bank in Syracuse and everybody told me no. I was 29. I didn’t have a college education. I just had my experience working at DMI. The Burdick executives didn’t want to hear any of it. I was getting really frustrated and the company was starting to pressure me. “Are you going to do this or not? We’ve got to know,” they said.

I called a former boss of mine, Mason Bergh, who I had worked for when I first came to Syracuse when I was 18. Mason had owned three companies in the past. He had since retired and moved to Pennsylvania. I contacted him and said, “This is what I’m trying to do and can you give some advice on how to get these banks to listen to me.” Without even a hesitation, he said, “I’ll loan you the money.” I immediately said no. “We’re friends. I don’t want this to come between our friendship.” I said, “I’m still going to go back out and keep plugging.” I went out again. I was still getting nowhere so I finally called him up and said, “All right, I will do this but you will be my bank. I’m going to pay you interest. We’re going to have a lawyer write up documents. We’re going to do the whole thing the right way.” He said, “You bet your butt we will.”

We did just that. We got all the documents done. He sent me the money I needed for the initial startup. The deal that I had made with Burdick at that time, which was purchasing Diagnostic Medical Instruments, was that I would stay with them for the one-year transition and help them. However, I said, “you have to allow me to use some of your resources to be setting up my company while I’m working here because obviously, I can’t walk out the door and just open the next day.” They agreed to that. They actually gave me a key to their building and full access any hour of the day or night, which as I think back now, was very trusting on their part to let me walk all around the building when I could have taken anything I wanted.”

The next year leading up to opening my company was probably the hardest of my life. I had a 4-year-old son, (the namesake of my company — Daniel Lee), I was married and my husband worked swing shifts at a company, which was very hard to work around. I would get up at 4 a.m. and be at work by 5 a.m. I made sure I got out of there at 5 p.m. so I could have dinner with my son and my husband, give my son a bath, read him a story, and do everything I had to do as a mom. And then I would go back to work and stay until 1 a.m. so I could get everything done. I made a commitment to Burdick and I didn’t want to let them down by not fulfilling my duties per our arrangement. I would say to anyone wanting to own their own company, that support is so important. It will test everything inside you to make you want to quit. My husband was my number one supporter and, at times, I think we felt we were in hell. But he stood by me, supported me, and helped me with anything that needed to be done — whether it was our home, our son, the business, or just talking me off the ledge when I was ready to give up. We will have been married 33 years this year. Best decision I ever made. 

I followed that schedule for a year and on Jan. 28, 1994, which was my 30th birthday, we opened the doors to Danlee Medical Products, Inc. I remember the day like it was yesterday. We opened the doors and the phone was ringing. I was like, “Oh my gosh, the phone is already ringing,” I answered the phone with butterflies in my stomach because it was really happening. I remember the customer wanted to buy the thermal paper for the DMI machine. 

We’ve been here in our current location in Rodax Office Park for the entire time, going on 22 years. When we started, I had leased a 2,400-square-foot space here and that included our offices and the warehouse space. Now we have 13,000 square feet, including everything. This is the journey of how we began.

KNAUSS:  It’s quite the journey.

WALTON: Yeah. Mason Bergh, who was my angel investor, if you will, is no longer with us. What started out to be, a loan of $25,000, kept increasing with a phone call saying “I need a little more.” It was about $100,000 later that I finally stopped. But he was all paid off within the first 10 years. Mason is truly the reason I am here today. The confidence that that man had in me still to this day overwhelms me. He never got involved in the company. He just loaned me the money, sat back, and said “do your thing kid.”

KNAUSS: Great story.

WALTON: The company is now a multi-million-dollar business. It’s profitable. Yes, we’ve been profitable every year, with the exception of our first year, and we have grown every year.

KNAUSS: How many people did you take with you when you were just starting out?

WALTON:  3

KNAUSS: How many employees do you have now?

WALTON: 16.

KNAUSS: Tell me about the culture you’re trying to create at Danlee.

WALTON: Well, our executive team just had this conversation. For 2016 our theme is “Make It Happen.” My whole thing is that, every company talks about customer service and everybody says they have the greatest customer service ever. The thing is though, I really believe we do. I want the customers to have an experience that they have never had before and would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. We really work for the customer. We’re regulated by the FDA. We have policies and procedures and we have to do things a certain way. We’re very flexible with our customers, but as you grow, that becomes harder and harder to be that flexible. But I feel like when we make decisions to do things, I don’t ever look first at what Danlee needs. I look at what the customers need — what do they want, what do they need, and then I try to structure that around our regulations and policy. 

KNAUSS: You mentioned 2016 and your growth. Talk a little bit about your process, what kind of growth you expect to see, and how you are going to get there.

WALTON:  We are always looking for growth, but I’m into very controlled growth. I have always looked at my business as if I am only one bad decision away from losing everything. My company and my employees depend on me each day to make the right decisions for our company, and I take that very seriously. I feel like so many companies start off and they spend way too much money and try to do way too many things at once without focus. I like to pick manageable numbers that we can achieve while managing the same level of service our customers have come to expect. I also look at what I can handle as an individual. I need to know I am not spreading myself too thin. We have to look at our industry too because the medical industry is changing constantly. Many times, the products that we have today, are not going to be around much longer because they are on their way to becoming obsolete. That has happened many times since we’ve started and will continue to happen. We’re always thinking ahead, “Okay, this is going to go away. What are we going to replace that with?” We’re starting to talk more about custom products because we do have quite a little niche providing items for customers that are currently unavailable. Our Holter kit business is another part of our company which is growing rapidly. We make custom Holter kits, stress kits, and event kits. We have taken on a lot more kits as well, such as disaster relief, clinical trials, and MRSA. We really can kit anything. We plan to put a lot more effort in advertising and marketing into that area of our business. 

Another thing is when we first started the company, about 95 percent of our business was to the end user (health-care professionals) and about 5 percent was to dealers and distributors. Now, it’s about 60 percent dealers and distributors and 40 percent to the end user. We’ve decided to put a lot more effort and focus in our marketing to our dealers. We never really marketed to them directly before, and most of that business was gained by word of mouth. We have decided to do some You Tube videos, video blogging, e-campaigns, and things to try to help our dealers to be able to better sell to their customers by offering better information pertaining to our industry and products.

About the author: Jeff Knauss is managing partner & president of a digital-marketing firm, DigitalHyve.com, and has always been interested in hearing successful executives' stories. He lives in Camillus with his wife Heta and son Max. For more, check out his blog at www.CnyCeo.org