BioFuels Journal

PEI 'Distributor 10-Groups' Provide Guidance to Members Committees, Helps Businesses Reach Their Full Potential

Tulsa, OK—Navigating your way through the treacherous waters that come with being a business owner can be a daunting task.

Too often, business owners are left feeling it's them against the world as they try to take their dream and turn it into a profitable reality.

Well, those who are trying to make a go of it as distributors in the petroleum-equipment industry and who are also members of the Petroleum Equipment Institute (PEI) have somewhere to turn that lets them know that they are not alone out there.

Knowing that many times the best ideas come from peers who are in similar circumstances, PEI has formed a series of 10-Groups for petroleum-equipment distributors.

The concept of 10-Groups—which were created in 1982 as a way to formalize the PEI "Fellowship Factor," a concept that saw members openly sharing information—is to provide a mechanism for individual firm owners to maintain an informal, continuing relationship with owners of non-competing, similar-sized PEI firms in different geographic regions.

In PEI's formation of 10-Groups, three basic precepts are followed:

• Never assign competitors to the same group.

• Set up each group so it is composed of companies with the same general mix of operations with essentially the same volume of business.

• Once a group has been organized, it must be allowed to elect its own officers and establish its own agenda.

Group members decide how often they want to meet, where they will meet, and what problems will be the focus of their discussions.

Over the past quarter-century, three consistent characteristics have been observed in the operation of 10-Groups:

1. Understanding. Since the companies in any 10-Group are roughly the same size with similar operations, there is a natural understanding among group members when specific topics are discussed.

2. Trust. Some 10-Groups have been meeting for 25 years, so a sense of confidence has been developed in the group's collective integrity, allowing discussions to take on a beneficial "no holds barred" approach.

3. Continuity. Most 10-Group members have admitted that rarely does a week go by when they don't reach out to at least one other member to discuss business.

Currently, there are 15 Distributor 10-Groups that are actively meeting at various times throughout the year.

For more information about any PEI 10-Groups, or to submit a company profile, please contact Bob Young at byoung@pei.org or visit www.pei.org and click on the "Members" link.

PEI is the international trade association for distributors, manufacturers and installers of equipment used in petroleum-marketing and liquid-handling operations.

For more information, call 918-494-9696.