Never underestimate the power of a word-of-mouth recommendation. One of Minnesota Lakes Bank’s newest customers, Wendell’s, Inc., is one of the 10 oldest companies in Minnesota. They took a look at Minnesota Lakes Bank thanks to a good, old-fashioned referral, and one year later they are big fans.
“We had not even heard of Minnesota Lakes Bank before a colleague recommended that we contact them last year,” explained Jeff Murphy, President at Wendell’s, Inc. Located in Ramsey, a 45-minute drive northeast of Delano, Wendell’s, Inc. produces minted and identity products.
“We had debt with another bank, and we were looking for a new partner. The debt structure had complexity and created challenges for the business,” Jeff continued. “and our colleague suggested we ask David Krause at Minnesota Lakes Bank to take a look at the opportunity.”
As David Krause got involved, Jeff became impressed with his ability to listen and thoroughly understand the situation, and then to provide creative options to solve their problem.
“I really was impressed with how things developed with David and Minnesota Lakes Bank,” Jeff said. “He came forward with creative solutions and displayed a real willingness to think outside the box with new ideas. Our confidence level in David and the Minnesota Lakes Bank organization was very high as a result.”
Wendell’s employs roughly 40 people, and the average tenure among employees is extensive. Four people recently retired, one with 50 years’ experience, two with 48 years and the other with 36. The current most senior employee just completed 49 years of service.
Wendell’s Minted Product line includes custom anniversary medallions used in the chemical dependency recovery field as well as challenge or commemorative coins sold to military, fire and police departments around the country. The company’s other major product line is Identity Products (name badges, rubber stamps and interior signage) used by a wide variety of organizations that employ individuals that need to visually identify themselves.
“These two product lines in which we’ve competed for years,” Jeff explained, “have dramatically different market dynamics. We have the longest tradition in Identity Products, but within this highly price-competitive market we possess essentially no product differentiation: our value proposition lies in our ability to completely integrate into our customers’ IT platforms. On a continual basis, we then pull product customization detail and purchase order data directly from their systems, enabling us to fulfill orders for each of these customer’s seamlessly. For our largest retail customers, we process thousands of orders per day, all with a 24-hour turn and shipped direct to our customers’ stores without a traditional purchase order/order entry process coming into play.”
Wendell’s faces a nearly complete opposite situation with its Challenge Coin product line. In that market space, 95% of all the coins used in the United States are sourced offshore in Asia, and most of that from China. Wendell’s is the only cost-effective American mint competing in the market, thanks to technology and innovation.
“We can’t compete with Asia on labor costs, so we worked hard to develop technology that allowed us to take much of the labor out of our processes,” said Jeff. “Now our differentiation is that we’re the only American manufacturer of coins at our price point, competing directly with Asia, and we take pride in going to market with that feature.”
Wendell’s is a family-owned business. Larry Cody, the current owner and CEO, has been involved since 1985, and the family has worked diligently to make employees feel part of the family.
“I was hired four years ago,” said Jeff, “and I inherited a great group of people who take pride in what they do. My goal was to figure out how to strengthen the employer-associate bond. We’ve tried to create transparency in our decision making. We turned over some decision making to employees in situations where that makes good sense. We are fortunate to employ such committed and caring people.”
As a company founded in 1882, Wendell’s has proven it knows how to adapt to the times. They believe they’ve found a good culture fit with Minnesota Lakes Bank.
“Ramsey is about 45 minutes from Delano,” said Jeff. “When it comes to banking, you weigh logistics against the partnership you have with people who understand you. With Minnesota Lakes Bank’s technology, distance is not an issue. The value of the partnership we created is what really matters to us.”