Safety products are not for everyone, but by researching customer needs, distributors can make educated choices about what products might be a good complements to their current lines — and pick up some business along the way. Safety products help distributors diversify their product offerings and increasing profitability. The key to adding safety products is to sell how they help a business comply with workplace safety requirements, notably those imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA).

The scope of the safety products market is large. According to OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910.132(a), “Protective equipment, including personal protective equipment for eyes, face, head and extremities, protective clothing, respiratory devices, and protective shields and barriers, shall be provided, used, and maintained in a sanitary and reliable condition wherever it is necessary...”

This regulation has even been interpreted to include a requirement that employers provide sunscreen and insect repellent for employees working in outdoor occupations, especially those involved in hurricane clean-up efforts, according to Fact Sheet No. OSHA 05-09.

The financial consequence for failing to comply with OSHA safety regulations is significant. According to Fact Sheet No. OSHA 93-03, in the eye protection area alone, “every day an estimated 1,000 eye injuries occur in American workplaces. The financial cost of these injuries is enormous — more than $300 million per year in lost production time, medical expenses, and worker’s compensation.”

All Things to
All Customers
 Leann Gribener, safety products manager for Grainger, Lake Forest, Ill., says the safety products distributor should start by identifying customer needs. At Grainger, this is a multi-level process involving dialogue between the customer and field representatives, working with suppliers to identify industry trends, and identifying evolving regulations that will require new or updated safety equipment for OSHA compliance.

For example, OSHA recently released a final standard that radically lowered acceptable ambient hexavalent chromium levels — a concern associated with sites that have welding operations. “The new regulation may not seem relevant to a sanitary-maintenance products distributor, but the new guidelines contain respiratory protection requirements and specific cleaning protocols,” Gribener notes.

According to a February 26, 2006, OSHA press release, in addition to lowering permissible exposure levels to ambient hexavalent chromium, “the standard also includes provisions relating to respiratory protection, work clothing and equipment, [and] hygiene areas and practices.”

These aspects of the new regulations offer the jan/san distributor an opportunity to identify customers who provide such services, and to market OSHA-compliant respirators and other safety products related to these cleaning protocols.

Grainger is unique in the industry because of its size and national scope; however, when it comes to regulatory matters, all distributors should have the same goal: to help the customer meet all their regulatory needs. As an independent, local, or regional distributor, it might not be possible to carry a safety product line that compares to Grainger’s, but this does not mean these distributors are out of the game entirely. In Grainger’s case, the company has a resale channel in which it partners with vertical line distributors to complement and expand their product offering with Grainger products. In return, the independent distributor is able to use Grainger’s products to complement their own product lines.

Make Expertise And Experience Pay Off
Tahoe Supply Co., Carson City, Nev., is a smaller company that creatively markets regulatory compliance in its safety products sales strategy. Though Tahoe Supply can’t match the breadth of Grainger’s product offering, they are able to choose their battles.

“As a sanitary maintenance distributor, Tahoe Supply is in a unique position to assess and anticipate the safety products needs of our customers,” says Nick Spallone, the company’s owner. “We try to work with our customers to make sure that they are not only using the right cleaning products, but also the right safety products and equipment,” says Spallone.

One way Tahoe Supply determines the necessary safety products for a facility is by conducting safety training sessions at customer sites. “Our customers often employ hundreds of low-wage earners with high levels of turnover,” Spallone notes. “They rely on us to provide them with the necessary safety training to make sure they are compliant with OSHA.”

This is a crucial service because OSHA not only requires employers to provide appropriate safety products and equipment, but also appropriate training. Tahoe Supply turns service — training and expertise — into sales. Once a customer sees that a distributor is knowledgeable about safety products, they are generally more inclined to purchase these products from them.

One strategy Tahoe Supply uses to sell safety products is a mock OSHA inspection. “We perform mock OSHA walk-throughs for some customers where we identify potential OSHA violations and show the customer what the fines and penalties would be for these violations if it were a real OSHA inspection,” Spallone says. This has proven an excellent marketing tool to demonstrate the practical importance of carrying the appropriate OSHA-compliant safety equipment.

“Selling a safety product is easy when the customer sees what the consequences are for not carrying the product,” Spallone notes.

Spallone also stresses protection from potential liability in his sales pitch. “Treating everything as if it is hazardous, taking precautions up front, and providing and documenting employee training can go a long way to help fight future claims,” says Spallone.

Local Partnerships
Lamers Enterprises Inc., Honolulu, takes a different approach to selling safety products. Instead of focusing on penetrating the broader safety market, Lamers prefers to carry the basic safety product categories, according to Wesley Nakamura, manager. “Our focus is on cleaning and maintenance products,” he says. “We carry gloves and eye protection because our customers expect us to, but we prefer to work with local safety supply companies to satisfy our customers’ more extensive safety needs,” Nakamura adds.

This approach allows Lamers to fulfill customers’ safety product needs without having to become a safety product supplier themselves. “We want to take care of our customers, so we make sure that if we don’t carry a particular safety product, the customer will get the right product by working with vendors we know and trust,” Nakamura says.

New Developments In Safety
 Some interesting new developments within the safety market include pandemic and homeland security preparedness. Jan/san distributors should become familiar with the regulations and recommendations provided by government agencies to know what products customers are likely to look for.

“Grainger is working with suppliers and tracking Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration regulations to help customers comply with regulatory changes affecting personal protective equipment and non-personal protective equipment in the context of pandemic and homeland security preparedness plans,” Gribener says.

This equipment includes HEPA filters for vacuums, respirators and protective clothing. As many businesses develop pandemic, homeland security, and general disaster preparedness plans, jan/san distributors have a unique opportunity. “[They can] bundle safety product offerings with traditional product offerings because the cleaning industry will play an integral role in every business’ pandemic and disaster preparedness plans,” Gribener explains.

In the event of a pandemic, the cleaning industry will be at the forefront of disinfecting and containing any pathogens. Ensuring that customers are equipped with protective clothing, gloves, eye/face protection and respiratory protection will not only be necessary to keep employees safe, but will also help distributors obtain pandemic, homeland security, and general disaster preparedness contracts.

Another new facet of the safety products market involves protection from sun and insects. With the recent attention that has been placed on hurricane clean-up and recovery, OSHA has produced Fact Sheet No. OSHA 05-09, which addresses employer obligations for staff who work outdoors in warm climates.

Specifically, employers must provide workers with SPF 30+ sunscreen, insect repellents that contain Picaridin or DEET for skin application, and insect repellents to be applied to the clothing that contain DEET or Permethrin. The fact sheet identifies solar radiation and insect/tick-borne diseases such as West Nile virus and Lyme’s disease as potential hazards from which employers must protect workers.

Outdoor work is also a growing area of concern for worker’s compensation insurers because numerous states — including New York, California and Pennsylvania — have determined skin cancer to be a compensable injury when the employee can prove they were subjected to extended periods of job-related exposure to the sun. The increased attention that OSHA and state worker’s compensation tribunals are paying to the potentially deleterious effects of outdoor work presents the jan/san distributor with an excellent opportunity to educate their customers engaging in disaster clean-up efforts or other outdoor work about the need to provide adequate protection against the sun and insects.

Selecting The Right Products
So what is the bottom line on safety products? “Find and deliver the right safety product for the right application to customers,” Gribener says.

Every distributor must start by knowing their customers’ regulatory environments. From there, partnering with local safety supply companies might be the way to go for some distributors — they get the advantage of the product line depth without the added expense of developing and marketing the safety product lines themselves. For other distributors, success may mean connecting safety products to cleaning product sales.

Then, for the company that wants to offer a full safety product line, national companies like Grainger will often partner with local or regional distributors to allow them to expand their safety product lines while utilizing the resources of the national company.

Patrick Callahan is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer.




POSTED ON: 9/1/2006