A Conversation with Grover and Tonya Martin, Owners, ProSource

By Alan Cooper

 

UpstateBizSC:
What is your education?

Grover Martin:
I graduated from NC State for my undergraduate degree and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland for my graduate degree. In 1978, I went to work for Ferguson Enterprises, a major plumbing wholesaler out of Newport News, Virginia.  I worked in outside sales and also helped them open and manage stores in Fort Myers and Orlando, Florida.

UpstateBizSC:
When did you start your own business?

Grover Martin:
In 1996, my wife, Tonya, and I decided to branch out on our own and open ProSource Supply. We started the business in a 13,000 square foot warehouse on Laurens Rd. in Greenville, SC with five employees. I felt that I had the industry experience and Tonya had a passion for developing a showroom, and…  we just decided that we did not want to work for anyone else.

UpstateBizSC:
What is your core business?

Grover Martin:
We are a “luxury plumbing and hardware showroom”.  We offer a large selection of high end plumbing fixtures from the most reputable brands and manufacturers in the world. Basically, we are a sales organization. We provide pretty much anything that has water running through it.  Pipes. Valves. Fixtures. We also do lighting and hardware, accessories.

The main service that we provide our customers is technical design.  We use our showroom to help customers visualize what their kitchens and bathrooms are going to look like.  On the commercial side, we deal with a lot of architects and engineers who need to spec out materials for hospitals, apartment complexes, etc.

UpstateBizSC:
How did you finance the business?

Grover Martin:
This is not a cheap business to get into. We found some local investors, put together a proposal, showed it to them and they joined us as equity partners. We had a buyout agreement that was very fair and equitable.  Within six months we were able to move the company to profitability.  We bought back one half of the business after three years at a set price; we bought out the remainder at fair market value several years after that.

UpstateBizSC:
Outline your growth.

Grover Martin:
We outgrew our original space in about three years.  In the Greenville location, we now have a 89,000 square foot warehouse, a customer service department and our beautiful, elegant 5,500 square foot designer showroom.  We have stores in Spartanburg, Anderson, Hendersonville and Asheville. We now have over 100 employees.

This summer, we are very proud to showcase our a newly renovated and expanded designer showroom at our Laurens Road Location.

UpstateBizSC:
What is new and exciting about the new showroom?

Tonya Martin:
I visited showrooms across the country and got a good idea of what I’d like to achieve with this new expanded space.  It very clean, but with a lot of natural texture to it.  It’s very customer friendly and experiential.  Our customers are able to actually experience the products – feel the shower heads, feel the steam, feel the sauna, feel your kitchen faucet.  We literally have workable saunas and showers here.  You can sign up for a time and go in and experience the product. There is not another facility similar to it in the Southeast.

UpstateBizSC:
What is your focus over the next couple of years?

Tonya Martin:
Moving into the Asheville market a year ago was a big, important move for us.  We are open to possibly further expanding our footprint geographically.

Our main focus at the moment is putting together a succession plan for the business.  Our daughter is not going to take over ProSource so we are offering eight key employees to buy stock in the company.  It is very important for us to have these employees take on ownership in a company that they are working so hard to build.

UpstateBizSC:
What are you most proud of?

Tonya Martin:
I have always had a great passion for this business.  What I am most proud of is hearing that same passion and excitement in our employees. You don’t see that very often in todays’ society.

Grover Martin:
I am most proud of where we are today.  When we started out 21 years ago, we never envisioned five stores and over 100 employees.

I am also proud that we are independent and locally-owned.  There has been a lot of consolidation in this industry. It’s a very mature industry with a lot of competition from many large national companies:

UpstateBizSC:
Who are some of those competitors?

Grover Martin:
Ferguson. Gateway. Hughes.  They are all big national companies that we compete against.

UpstateBizSC:
What is the key to your success?

Tonya Martin:
I think we have achieved our growth because of our loyal customers.  ProSource is dedicated to surpassing our commercial and residential customer’s expectations through extensive product knowledge. We have a highly trained staff that does an excellent job assisting builders, decorators and homeowners with their product selections for all kitchen or bath projects. We are genuinely invested in each project and we develop deep ties to our customers.  We really try and create a fun environment.  That’s what I love to see.