This month, Complete Medical Services moved into a new 15,000-square-foot building in Sterling Heights, Mich., which seems a long way from where the provider of refurbished diagnostic imaging equipment began.
When CMS started in 1996, its president
Tony Orlando, focused on selling small diagnostic equipment (such as 24-hour Holter monitors) for the primary care physician, working out of his apartment.
"I was working for a company that was repping the Holter monitors and I was considering starting my own business and I told them 'I would like to distribute this product,' and they were getting away from a direct sales force. They set up a distributor agreement for me and I started," Orlando explains. "We started from nothing. I was just buying boxes of equipment and throwing them in my car and doing cold calls and knocking on doctors' doors and trying to get a sale."
Back then it was just Orlando alone, but soon Jeff Rubinoff and Ray Wlodkowski came aboard, and now the three have worked together for almost 15 years.
"We soon got a little 600-square-foot office space and started taking on other equipment," Orlando says. "We moved to a bigger space; and seven years ago I bought a building with 5,000 square feet and a warehouse. At that point, we were already the leading company in refurbished bone density equipment, had huge ultrasound sales, developed a service department and really started concentrating on the international business."
The company has strived to develop a dealer market. Where once 100 percent of sales were directly to the end user, over time the percentage to dealers has increased to the point that they now sell more directly to dealers.
"We have grown 30 percent a year for the last several years," he says. "The keys to growth have been trying to look ahead as much as possible. The domestic market has really changed so we have looked to diversify our product, which we have done, and continued to develop our product line."
Today, CMS specializes in bone density, ultrasound, nuclear cameras, C-arm, and mammography. Orlando feels the biggest success of the company is how they have become a leader in bone densitometry.
"When we first started selling bone density, we were buying from a couple of companies in Florida, and we knew there was a great market for it," he says. "We took that product and within a very short time, starting refurbishing. At this point we are now the number one company for refurbished bone density equipment."
Having built the foundation of the company on bone density, CMS is hoping to duplicate that success with C-arms.
"We want to do the same thing with C-arms and hope to become the number one company with refurbishing C-arms," Orlando says. "We have not been in that arena very long but we are definitely on track to do it."
The company also plans to expand its service and parts business and expects to grow its international market.
"We have known that we can't just rely on domestic sales, so we have put a lot of time and energy into international sales," Orlando says. "We have sent people over to India, Germany, Brazil and we have invested a lot into developing this."
Orlando says the company's philosophy is to support people in the best way they can.
"We try to go over and above for our customers," he says. "We don't squabble over little things and we want to make them happy."
The new facility offers a full rehab facility, testing machines, paint booth and the company is inviting its customers and vendors to view the warehouse at an open house and barbecue Aug. 23.
"We want to thank our customers and vendors for sticking with us for the last 14 years," Orlando says. "We want everyone to come out and see the showroom and warehouse and we'll celebrate with a little party."
