A look at the calendar shows the Summer of `25 is on the fast track to becoming a fond memory, and many of you are making plans to ensure you log at least a few hours of beach time over the next four weeks. Here at the offices of ENX Magazine, we’re looking ahead to our December issue, which will include the Top 10 news stories of the year feature. That’s a quick pivot from sand to snow, but that’s the nature of publishing.
While there have certainly been some big stories to emerge on the national stage, I’m sure our gentle readers all have their own triumphs that have made the year a major success. So, as dealers embark down the back nine holes of 2025’s calendar Q3 and gird for a strong finish, we thought it would be nice to check in with executives to see what has been the highlight of their year from a business standpoint thus far. This edition of Hot Takes captures a sampling of dealer success stories. If you would like to share your memorable wins, fire off a quick email and we’ll include you as well.
Dan Strull, CEO, GoodSuite, Woodland Hills, California: The highlight of 2025 has been the first quarter which was the completion of three straight growth quarters, coming on the heels of two subpar quarters in 2024. My first book release, “10X Happiness: Maximize Your Full Potential to Achieve Your Happiest Life,” was the next highlight. Finally, our first-ever Costa Rican President’s Club adventure saw us take 24 people to the JW Guanacaste. We had an absolute blast.
Mason Smith, MTS Office Systems, Greenville, South Carolina: We have added four additional teammates, including three in sales this year, in order to aggressively go after some new/additional business in our market. Also, we’ve seen a few of our competitors get acquired, so some changes in our market should benefit us.
Thomas Fimian, CEO, Levifi, Charleston, South Carolina: Our continued growth focus has been Levifi’s business highlight so far. It started out with the acquisition of XDOS Inc., a Xerox sales agency and dealership with offices in Sumter and Florence, South Carolina. This strategic acquisition marks Levifi’s seventh and brings the company full circle for me. I began my career in the workplace technology industry at XDOS in 1997 before founding Levifi in 2002.
Levifi recently launched a major investment into its sales operations by adding two VPs of sales, Tregg Lindberg and Richard Merrill. They’re tasked to build and expand Levifi’s 10 branches to support our growing team of technology consultants. It also frees up our CRO, Lance Redler, to focus on strategic revenue growth areas.
Tim Renegar, CEO, Kelly Office Solutions, Winston-Salem, North Carolina: For Kelly, the biggest highlight in the last six months—which is our fiscal second half—has been the growth and maturing of our ancillary revenue streams. Water/ice/coffee and MNS continue to grow at a double-digit pace. Growth is strong in the core however these are growing at a larger percentage rate.
Dawn Abbuhl, President, Repeat Business Systems, Albany, New York: Our IT department has had about 25% year over year growth already. So far, the year has been filled with exciting growth, especially in our IT division. We welcomed new roles, including a BDR, technical consultants, an IT director, and additional team members in customer care, remote operations, and IT technical support. Alongside these additions, we celebrated promotions and embraced our Career Path program to support employee development.
Joe Blatchford, CEO, Image 2000, Santa Clarita, CA: The first half of the year has definitely been a bit of a mixed bag for us. Our numbers are slightly down compared to last year, largely due to the uncertainties in the first quarter. The confusion surrounding tariffs created a lot of hesitation among businesses about whether to proceed or hold off, which undoubtedly impacted our performance. Manufacturers were also thrown off balance, given that almost every country they worked with was involved in the tariff discussions. Furthermore, many dealers started preemptively ordering more equipment to avoid the anticipated cost increases projected by nearly all manufacturers.
On the bright side, our second quarter performed exceptionally well, though it wasn’t quite enough to offset the challenges of the first half entirely. We’re optimistic about the second half of the year, thanks to a few larger transactions in the pipeline. Notably, we closed a significant deal involving over 300 units, which gave our second quarter a substantial boost. As our industry begins to stabilize, we anticipate a much better outcome for the latter half of 2025.
