HAPPY ANNIVERSARY | Connie Powers (pictured) and his wife Joan celebrate 40 years of business with their company, Powers Business Machines. Photo by Paul Chin, Jr.
By T. J. Prieur
Few industries have changed as much in the past 40 years as the office supply and machinery business.
But Connie and Joan Powers have watched it all, managed to change with the times, and now are celebrating their 40th anniversary in business. Powers Business Machines, Inc., celebrated its 40th anniversary June 1. The business has grown from a one-person typewriter repair company to selling and servicing almost every type of high tech office machine available.
They’ve also increased to a staff of 17 sales and service people.
When Connie opened his door in Newport News, there were dozens of small, independently owned office supply companies throughout the area. He watched as one by one those businesses closed their door in the face of competition by big box companies like Office Max and Office Depot.
“We’ve had slow growth over the years. We haven’t had peaks, but we’ve also had no valleys to speak of,” Connie says.
He credits staying up with the times for their success. “We came out of the 70s and mostly repairing manual typewriters and manual office equipment and moved into the 80s with the electronic typewriters and calculators.
Then we became associated with facsimile machines and electronic cash registers.”
In the 90s, they transitioned again and began specializing in high speed copiers.
“We learned from seat of the pants, so to speak. It was primarily analog copiers in early 90s, and then in 1998, Sharp was looking for a dealership for its full line of high-speed digital copiers,” he adds.
He is proud of his long-time association with Sharp. The company has received the “Hyakuman Kai” Award from Sharp, for outstanding Sales Achievement for Copiers and Fax Machines, for 10 years in a row.
“When the market changes you have to change the product and change the business. Each time something new comes along we have to get familiar with the new technology; our sales people have to learn it and our service people have to learn it,” he explains.
The company is known for its wide range of office supplies and equipment. “You can get everything for your office here except the people,” jokes Connie’s wife Joan, who has been his partner in business and marriage for close to 40 years, raising three children while running their business.
“We have everything from pens to printers, shredders to staplers, file folders to fax machines and copiers to calendars,” she adds.
It started, Connie explains, with a simple desire to help people. “I’d come into an office to fix a typewriter and someone would ask me if I could get them a certain type of notebook with columns. If I didn’t know, I’d tell them I could find it for them, and I did.”
Connie and Joan believe they’ve been able to withstand the changes in their industry because of their relationships with their customers and their reputation for service.
“It’s about being fair, honest and dependable. If you say you’ll deliver a product, you deliver it on time. It you give a guarantee, you stand behind it,” he says. “I just talk to people, listen to what they need and then try to solve their problem.”
