Golden, Colorado-based laser maker Epilog Laser announces the opening ofEpilog Laser Canada, a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company.
“Our model is to sell through distributors, and we had a distributor in Canada we had worked with for about 15 years, and had a really strong relationship with them,” says Mike Dean, Epilog’s director of sales and marketing and one of the company’s three co-founders.
"But as a distributor they’re an independent company, and they were purchased by one of our competitors. And so we found ourselves without a distributor in Canada one morning. Thursday night we had one, Friday morning we didn’t.”
Dean says it was a big shock, both for the company and for its 2,000 Canadian customers. Epilog quickly deployed three salespeople across the country to provide customer care Dean says, and, behind the scenes, discussed what its next move would be.
“We talked to a couple of people in the industry and we decided we would be better off to go it alone,” Dean says. “We recovered fairly quickly, because we continued to sell into Canada ever since this happened, but now what we’re seeing is an opportunity to create a wholly owned subsidiary of Epilog in a foreign country and have complete control over that distribution model.
“It’s exciting, you know. When you start up a new business you’re faced with all these obstacles. Epilog has been in business for some 20-odd years, so I had kind of forgotten about all those old obstacles but man, they exist.”
Epilog Laser Canada is located in Mississauga, Ontario. It will be run by Terry Fix, sales manager, and Gilles Frenette, territory sales manager. John Dixon, an independent distributor, will serve the Western part of the country, Dean says.
Dean, who is also known as “Mr. Epilog,” will be at the new Canadian facility to conduct a three-hour laser engraving workshop at a grand opening event the company is having on Friday, Oct. 16. The event goes from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and will feature tours, demonstrations, a laser clinic and more. Dean’s seminar will be from 5 to 8 p.m. Visitwww.epiloglaser.com/clinics/index.htm to register.
Private demonstrations will be available by appointment on Saturday, Oct. 17. Call Epilog Laser Canada at 905-608-1188.