Elias Wilf

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Elias Wilf

THE ELIAS WILF STORY:

The history of Elias Wilf changed radically in 1990. That was the year the organization expanded into hard surfaces after operating as a carpet only distributorship for nearly 75 years. It was also the first time the family-run organization asked a young employee named Jeff Striegel for advice.

“I knew I didn’t have the answer,” recalls Striegel, who is now president of the company.

“But that was better than the fancy ideas everyone else was trying to impress each other with. I wasn’t a family member, but it was obvious we didn’t know what the customers wanted.”

Today, Elias Wilf boasts what some can only refer to as a distributor’s wish list: a quarter-million square feet of warehouse space; more than 15,000 SKUs; professional customer service and credit departments; a 3:30 p.m. cut-off time for next-day deliveries; and 34 delivery-only trucks. Expansion, professional management teams and high-tech services aside, family members such as Arnold Cohen, chairman, and Hillard Cohen, executive price president, remain involved in the operation to ensure core family values are not replaced by stern business decisions.

“Family businesses do things in a certain way that takes care of people – Arnold taught me that,"

Striegel said. “Sometimes you have to do things that don’t make sense on paper, like pay for someone’s insurance who hasn’t worked for you for seven years. But maybe they worked for you for 20 years. I didn’t understand that 15 years ago, but I understand it now. People buy from people — that won’t ever change. ”

It seems that taking care of people — both employees and customers — is paying off.

This year Elias Wilf was ranked the No.1 distributor on its blind survey and was awarded

Distributor of the Year awards from several of its major suppliers (Mannington, Quick-step, Lauzon and Capella) at Surfaces 2005.

Now that’s taking care of business.