Heads turn as 26-year-old helen gabbard strides into physicians’ offices behind a four-wheeled walker piled high with lunches and a giant duffel bag full of HME products.

A healthy young person using a walker is indeed an odd sight. “I get funny stares,” Gabbard admits. But she does not mind the strange looks or nicknames, such as “The Walker Lady” and “Commode Queen of the Rocky Mountains,” because this tactic is one of the most successful educational—and marketing—strategies she employs for Major Medical Supply, based in Denver and Longmont, Colo.

During the physician lunches, Gabbard empties her duffel bag and shows off new products. She says physicians are often dumbfounded that there are items as simple as compression hosiery donners available to help patients manage hard-to-put-on therapeutic stockings.

Educational events, like the physician lunches, are especially important to Major Medical because its biggest challenge, Gabbard says, is not competition from other local HME dealers, but the ignorance of both physicians and the general public. So, in addition to the physicians’ lunches, Gabbard lectures for special interest groups that represent potential consumers, such as the Arthritis Foundation, the Lupus Foundation, senior groups, and pulmonary rehabilitation groups. After one lecture, Gabbard recalls, attendees rushed to the stage to get more product information.

“I let this one lady test my four-wheeled walker and she was actually walking out to her car with it,” Gabbard says, laughing. “I went back to the office right after the presentation, and four of the [lecture attendees] were already there.”

Teamwork Matters
Gabbard attributes such successful moments in part to Major Medical’s unique teamwork dynamic, which blends family ownership and local partnership. Each of Major Medical’s locations has a partner/manager on site to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction and operating efficiencies. In addition, all employees have a vested interest in the success of the business through incentives and input into the company.

“Their voice matters! They are the front line, dealing with our customers every day, and they are the ‘difference makers’ in our business,” says General Manager Doug Coleman.

The original company was established by Gabbard’s father, Harry Asmus, and mother, Sally Asmus, RN, in 1983. It quickly expanded to five locations—one of them in Longmont—and became the largest DME supplier in northern Colorado, according to Gabbard. Major Medical Supply sold to Homedco, later Apria, in 1994.

Six years later, a local hospital-owned DME approached Ty Harper, an owner/manager from the original business, and made Major Medical an offer to re-enter the HME industry. The company set up shop in the very same office as the original Longmont store and was able to secure its original name. Gabbard and her older sister, Jeanne Coleman, took on sales and marketing. Jeanne’s husband Doug Coleman, who was a partner and general manager for the seminal offices, returned to serve as general manager. Gabbard’s younger sister, Sara Asmus, pitches in between her college studies. In addition, several previous employees, including Harper, came back to work. And even in his retirement, Harry Asmus comes in every couple of weeks.

Second Time Around
The current company is following a growth plan similar to the one it used back in the ’80s and early ’90s to quickly grow the original business to five locations, Doug Coleman says. Major Medical now has 23 total employees at both stores and plans to open a third.

The ease with which they reentered the business is based on the partnership’s commitment to servicing customers, already established relationships with referring physicians and patients in the community, and their one-stop-shop business model, according to Doug Coleman. Plus, customers and physicians alike appreciate that the business is locally owned and operated.

“When my sister and I go in and talk to doctors, we find that they are just fascinated,” Gabbard says. “They think it’s great, and honestly, they’re getting better quality service because we are smaller and more responsive; we do a lot of customizations, and we have people who have been working for us forever.”

One-Stop Shop
Part of Major Medical’s philosophy is offering a very broad product line in a region where most of its competitors carry only DME or only respiratory products. This approach builds customer loyalty and sales, Gabbard says. With a variety of products, customers may come in for one item, but when they see all the other products on the showroom floor, they often find solutions to other needs.

Carrying a full line of HME and respiratory products also makes Major Medical an easy choice for referring physicians and patients, Doug Coleman says. Customers do not have to go to one store for a wheelchair and then another for oxygen supplies.

“Apria does 5% of products, but a ton of them. We do 95% of the products, and we make money in all of those little niches,” Doug Coleman says. “It would be very difficult for a big company to manage that depth of product. That’s just too complicated.”

Another motive for Major Medical carrying a full line of HME products is that the company does not think it is fair to customers to sell only the most profitable equipment and then send patients with multiple needs down the street to another provider.

“Our employees are a wealth of information to customers and referral sources. They are cross-trained to understand patient needs, product and service solutions, and reimbursement issues for thousands of items,” Doug Coleman says. “Major Medical Supply is committed to meeting all of the needs of the communities that we serve.”

Ultimately, that is why the family and its partners are in the HME business: to offer those who are not healthy enough to just use a walker as an equipment cart—as Gabbard does in her marketing meetings—a large selection of affordable products that can improve their lives.

“You’re in the industry to make a profit,” Gabbard says. “But deep down inside, it is cool to help people in need and then do so cost efficiently so that you can continue doing it.”

Kelly Stephens is news editor of Dealer/ Provider.