2019 Top Distributors: ePromos' Steve Paradiso on Leadership, More

By Sean Norris

Each year, Promo Marketing compiles the top promotional products distributors into one comprehensive list. We asked some of the 2019 top distributors for their thoughts on the industry, their plans for the future, what they love about promo and much more. Here, we profiled Steve Paradiso, president of ePromos Promotional Products, the No. 27 company on our 2019 Top 65 Distributors list.

For Steve Paradiso, president of ePromos Promotional Products, his company's success comes down to two main factors. The first is its ability to adapt quickly to a wide range of customer needs, understanding their business and putting them together with the right teams and people. The second is all about leadership, with Paradiso calling his executive team "second to none" for the way it's seamlessly integrated acquisitions, identified opportunities and acted on them with a clear strategy.

"Our executive team lives in different cities across the country, and yet we meet every day and couldn't feel any closer or operate the business any better if we all lived in the same town," Paradiso tells us. "We have created a rhythm at the executive level, and we've been able to translate that throughout the whole organization. I feel very lucky to be a part of it."

Good advice: "The best advice I can give is, 'The best order you take is the one you don't,'" says Paradiso. "What I think it says is, spend the proper amount of time on the business you can build and grow, and don't waste time on shiny objects, even if the short-term opportunity looks great."

What he's watching: "Compliance. It’s one of the most critical considerations we face now—and will continue to face in the future—as the barrier to entry shrinks," Paradiso says. "We must work to make sure our customers do not have to worry about the safety of the products we deliver."

View the full 2019 Top Distributors list (including a separate list of the fastest-growing distributors) here, or click here for stats, trends and analysis from the list.