Always innovative since its founding, Professional Supply was the first irrigation distributor in Florida to add landscape lighting to its product offering. Mark and Chris Kelly watched California irrigation distributors grow profits with landscaping products and incorporated them into their business in 1981.
The couple also started selling chemicals, hand tools, mulch and fertilizer with an objective to provide anything that a contractor would use to irrigate, landscape or light a yard.
“The initiative toward outdoor living can help everyone in IMARK,” said Mark Kelly, CEO, Professional Supply. “Expanding product lines and markets will only strengthen the independent distributor. As a company that has seen a consolidation of most of its competitors, Professional Supply is proudly continuing as an independent with an eye on new concepts.”
Mark and Chris Kelly founded Professional Supply in 1980 and it now has four locations—three in south Florida and one in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Colin Kelly, their son, joined the business in 2012.
The three branches on Florida’s Gold Coast in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach and Palm City serve as the base of the business. Using nine trucks, Professional Supply manages deliveries from these three locations to the Florida Keys in the south and through Vero Beach to the north.
“In 1995, we decided that we had strong management in place at the Florida locations and could move to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where we had first lived after our marriage in 1975,” Mark Kelly said. “We purchased a niche plumbing supplier and started to add products including the irrigation and landscape lighting lines along with other products. The Virginia location has followed Florida and now has four trucks delivering all over Virginia, eastern Carolina and Maryland.”
The company has always been focused on training the contractor base to understand and sell more. The initiative started when Mark was a manager at Sta Rite and attended countless pump schools across the country. “Professional Supply took that concept to multiple product lines and has trained hundreds of landscape lighting contractors, tankless water heater installers and turf installers,” Mark Kelly said. “The training aspect and the fact that we have people inside that understand product allows us to be ‘early adopters’ of new products and concepts.”
During the recession in 2009, Professional Supply took a different stance than most and decided to expand product lines. The company added 10,000 plumbing line items, of which most were brought in through its relationship with Equity Plumbing (now IMARK Plumbing). “We currently stock about 30,000 line items across plumbing, irrigation and landscape,” Mark Kelly said.
Mark and Chris attribute the business’ growth to their son’s leadership in the business. “Colin came into the business in 2012 after managing a restaurant chain he started after college,” Mark Kelly said. “Colin’s understanding of the need for generational shift in the business has led us to multiple innovations. We have multiple e-commerce platforms operating and we have a very simple text ordering system that has been an extreme help during the pandemic.”
Text ordering allowed Professional Supply to run an almost touchless will-call system for its counter trade during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company recently implemented a new ERP system, which makes the business almost totally paperless.
Text ordering allowed Professional Supply to run an almost touchless will-call system for its counter trade during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, Colin Kelly led the implementation of a new ERP system, which makes the business almost totally paperless. “He has also worked to find younger tech-savvy people to come to work in what everyone thinks is a low-tech, boring business,” Mark Kelly said.
Professional Supply prides itself on having someone in the company that can answer technical questions about any product sold. “Sometimes, we are even called when the contractor has purchased the item from a competitor, but they know we can help,” Mark Kelly said. “That situation often leads to the next sale to that contractor.”
He continued, “The benefit of having younger people employed here is that they understand some of the new technologies. We sell 38 WiFi-compatible adaptors and controls for products that were not WiFi five years ago. Understanding how all these items interface and provide a benefit is something we must communicate.”
IMARK Plumbing vendors have also played a major part in the company’s continued growth, and the Kelly family is particularly excited with the new emphasis on irrigation and outdoor living that Scott Bardreau at IMARK has brought to the table.
“We are working with other distributors in the group to develop plans to add vendors and new members, but most of all value-added communication between fellow members,” Mark Kelly said. “We are a true hybrid of plumbing and irrigation so that we can bridge the gap for the group.”
For more information, visit professionalsupply.com.