Success Advice from Paul Bellantone, President, and CEO of PPAI®

Continuing to ask respected industry leaders to share their thoughts on success, I reached out to Paul Bellantone, President and Chief Executive Officer of PPAI®, to share his advice.

Thank you, Paul Bellantone, for sharing your advice about financial success with me.

In your years of experience in our industry, what do you think the most financially successful people in our industry have in common? What advice would you give someone that wants to become very financially successful?

“I believe the most financially successful people in our industry have two things in common;

First, they recognize that simply procuring product on a client’s behalf is no longer a sustainable business model. Customers can procure product 24/7/365 often at less cost and more seamlessly. Financially successful professionals find ways to add value beyond procurement.

Second, financially successful professionals know they are generating high revenue when they are in front of their customers creating value and solving problems, not spending time on low impact tasks that can easily be delegated or outsourced like data entry, paperwork, AP, AR, etc.”

Paul knows a great deal about success in our industry after 19 years at PPAI® and leading the industry’s not-for-profit association to a record 16,000 members. He is focused on delivering compelling member value and is responsible for successfully executing the strategies and visions of the PPAI® Board of Directors and advocating for the industry and its professional practitioners.

Thank you again Paul for your awesome advice.

About The Author

Greg Muzzillo started Proforma as an industry distributor in 1978. The company grew quickly and in the early 1980s Proforma was recognized for three consecutive years on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in North America. In the late 1980’s Proforma introduced its membership program to empower distributors to retain their business ownership and independence, and to share in sales and marketing resources, purchasing power with industry suppliers, one back office including all billing, accounting, vendor payments, cash flow, computer systems and more. Today Proforma has over 600 Members and is the $500 Million leader in the Promotional Products and Print Industry. Proforma’s record breaking success includes having 18 of its Affiliates named to Inc. Magazine’s 2020 list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies and 193 Affiliates achieving its Million/Multi-Million Dollar Club with sales up to $38 million.