At an official and glamorous opening party on 9 May at the company's new headquarters in Gemert, Netherlands, distributors, customers, family and friends were treated to a night of music and celebration with the company's warehouse transformed for one night only into a nightclub complete with bands, DJs and free flowing bar.
ELC Lighting's sales manager Silvio Cibien identified an opportunity to extend his thanks to the people who have made the company the success it is today and enabled the move to premises of its own. He said, "I can hand on heart say that none of this would be possible if it wasn't for the commitment our distributors have shown us since ELC Lighting first started trading over 16 years ago. I feel particularly honoured by their loyalty, with several of our distributors having been with us since day one - something that is very rare indeed."
One of these is Christian Pies of Cast Lighting in Germany. He said, "The unique thing about ELC Lighting is that we know they are always on our side. We work together and Silvio and the rest of the ELC team are always on hand to offer support and act immediately if there is ever a problem. We have never felt chased into meeting monthly targets, we are never held to account if we don't. ELC Lighting says its success is down to its distributors but I am sure most of the other distributors would agree when I say, the secret of their success is in the way they treat their distributors. They respect that we know how to do our job well and as such give us the freedom to get on with it and deliver results."
Silvio added, "Perhaps this is because having started out as a distributor myself 28 years ago, I know how it feels to have a company breathing down your neck to meet targets - I see no reward in that at all. I hope that we treat all our distributors with the professionalism they deserve - they are after all the experts when it comes to selling our products and it is the fruits of their labour, coupled with the fact that ELC Lighting does make exceedingly good products, that has given the company its first real home."
Joost van Eenbergen, owner and head of R & D, added, "We have waited 16 years to take this big step of custom designing and building our very own premises from the ground up. We feel confident in our future, we have faith in our fantastic network of distributors and we look forward to building on the brand and continuing to grow as a business too. Our new premises have been designed with plenty of room for growth and this is something we are very focused on."
(Jim Evans)
