[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: I’m Adam Fox. Evan. So happy to have you here today.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: So good to be here.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: What’s going on at Han?
[00:00:12] Speaker A: We have a lot going on at Han.
One of the big things that we are kicking off this year is a little bit of a rebrand.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Oh, tell me more. Rebrand.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Are we changing the color?
[00:00:20] Speaker A: I thought you might like that. Yeah. The. The green that we know and love and that I’ve bled for years is going to be retired.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: No way.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: We are going to be coming to market in a very different way.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: We’re keeping the logo as is. Okay. You’re going to see a lot more muted tones. You’re going to see blacks, you’re going to see whites.
And it is definitely an elevated aesthetic compared to what you’ve seen in the past. And we love the green. The green had a. Had a great lifetime, but, you know, it’s time to move up and to step up and show up in the market in a different way.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: When do we think that’ll be debuted?
[00:00:54] Speaker A: It is going to be rolling out here shortly. So we just announced it at our national sales meeting a few weeks ago.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: And, you know, along with that, there’s a couple of other things that we’re doing this year that are really cool as well. So everybody loves Neocon. Everybody loves Design Day. Right. And we’ve seen a shift as. As the years have gone by where people have kind of migrated from the Merchandise Mart over to Fulton Market. And we were in the Merchandise Mart for years. Right.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: And you guys had a kind of
[00:01:20] Speaker A: a really cool space. Now we do have a really cool space right now. So we’re actually right next door from the Merchandise Mart these days at 350 Orleans. But we are opening up a new space in Fulton Market that will debut at Design Days this year, and it’s going to be called the Flagship.
So that is something that we’re super excited about, and it’s going to be a. It’s going to be an experience.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: So how much of the rebrand has to do with the recent acquisitions and all that kind of stuff? Is H and I looking at it from a different perspective? It’s kind of an integrated furniture offering now.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah, good question. We’re still going to market as separate brands, so the acquisition has been really monumental, but we’re still approaching our go to market strategies the same way that we have in the past.
What I will say about the acquisition is that, you know, if you read Monday Morning Quarterback, if you read any of the publications, Muscatine Iowa, where we’re headquartered now, is now the center of the commercial office furniture world. It is the capital of the office furniture world because that effectively made H and I the. The largest commercial office furniture manufacturer in the world.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: I mean, listen, I’ve spent time in Muscatine, and it was between you and John Deere. So it’s. It’s. You know, it’s. I guess they’re saying the same thing about tractors.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: That’s. That’s right. That’s right.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: That’s awesome. Hey, let’s talk about vertical markets for a second. When we think about, you know, whether that’s education, whether that’s health care, whether that’s whatever that vertical market would be, where’s han going in 2026? Where are you guys leaning? Heavily.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Education has probably been the biggest vertical for us in recent years. It has been growing significantly for us, and we have really done a lot to show up well in that space. So if you think about our assortment several years ago, we really didn’t have the products that we needed to fill an entire classroom. We were always good in the admin space and private office. We always showed up well there. But we lacked a little bit from our assortment when it came to filling up the entire classroom. Because the way things are in the classroom now is very different from when you and I went to school. Right. I think you probably sat in a row and you looked at the blackboard, and that was about it. Sure. Kids learn very differently today. Right. And there are different pockets within the classroom where you have to cater to the way students learn. So we filled a lot of the gaps that we had in our assortment for the classroom specifically. We’ve got items like storyline and tangram that allow people to be a lot more flexible in the classroom than they have been in the past. And you think about the purchasing of education, there is more than just a classroom. Right. There is the private office, there’s the admin space. And I mentioned we do very well there. But these schools don’t have a ton of opportunities to do refreshes in their classroom all the time. So when they’re making an investment in what they want to have in their classroom and what they want to have in the admin space. They want something that’s going to be durable, something that’s going to stand the test of time, something that looks good, something that. And then something that can be reconfigured as well. Right. Because what they need in the classroom today may be very different in three or four years, but they may not have the budget to do a refresh at that time. So we’re considering all of that as we build out our assortment and as we propose different products for customers as well.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Is it still that annoyingly uncomfortable blue hard surface chair?
[00:04:29] Speaker A: There’s more than just that. There’s tons of options. Now, you’ll be happy to know our Smartlink chair is always rated as one of the most comfortable.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I don’t think we had that public school in South Florida. I think we had that. We were just excited when somebody had the, the, the tray in front of them. You put your feet on. You all excited. You weren’t supposed to put your feet on.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Relax a little bit.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. That’s, that’s totally awesome. When you know. This is a new thing for us at sp. We’re introducing, you know, distribution Unpacked, our new podcast.
Let’s talk about distribution. What could our customers. What’s one thing that our customers could take away from this conversation that could help them be successful with your solutions with their customers?
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, a number of things. But I’ll start with. You guys have a very compelling go to market strategy as you think about SP Richards as a whole, right?
You have the wholesale aspect where you can deliver faster than just about anybody in the market, which I think is huge. And then you think about the project ARM where you can sell full project solutions. That’s more than just what you have stocked there. And then you’ve got your team of furniture experts as well. You’ve got world class sellers. You know, we talked to a lot of them yesterday and it’s a group that’s super excited to get out there and to move the needle in 2026. So I think with the different strategies that you have around speed, project transactional, that’s tough to compete with.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: So a big trend for us, we’re kicking off is our new kind of mantra here at SP is all about simplifying complexity. It’ll be a big focus for us in 2026 as we kind of take the brand forward.
What’s one or two things that our end users, not our end users, our customers can really take about how we simplify complexity. What is on doing to simplify that? How is SP simplifying and how can we partner to make it a better experience for our joint customers?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like we’re lockstep on that approach. What, what I call it always is the complexity crisis when it comes to ordering furniture. Right. If you get into a project where you’re thinking about installing you know, multiple private offices, conference rooms, training rooms, things like that. It can be pretty overwhelming. It’s almost like decision fatigue. And with our product assortment and the solutions that we have in market, we can make it a lot easier for your customers because they don’t necessarily need to use multiple manufacturers, they don’t need to consult with multiple sales reps. They can use Han as their one stop shop for everything that they need. So they’re not managing multiple POs, they’re not managing multiple shipments, multiple deliveries. It takes all that complexity out of there and you still get a great product at a great price point as well.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: That’s awesome. So, last thoughts, anything you want to share, Anything our folks need to know moving into 2026.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. A lot. But I don’t want to, I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say we have some pretty exciting products that are launching this year.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: It’s exciting.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we’re, we’re pretty pumped for it. We’re going to have new seating line, we’re going to have a new soft seating line come out. We’re going to have, you’re talking about, you know, student, student chairs earlier. We’re going to have a new student chair that’s launching as well.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Can’t wait to see it.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: A lot of this is going to be debuted at Design Days at the flagship at Fulton Market as well. So the timing’ going to be very, very appropriate for it.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Evan, thank you so much for taking some time with us today. We’re so excited to have you on our new podcast, Distribution Unpacked.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Hey, happy to be in the debut episode. What a treat.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Thanks, man.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Thank.
You.
