CES Rochester Hills, MI: In the Middle of the Eastside Triangle
[Rochester Hills, MI] — Jason Thienel, the branch manager for CES Rochester Hills, is no stranger to the Michigan Eastside or starting new branches. This is his second-ever CES branch to open from scratch and his third branch to work at in the area.
“I started CES Madison Heights six years ago,” Thienel said. “From Madison Heights, I was the closest branch to Rochester Hills, and I was always calling on customers. I wanted business in this area and now I have a branch here. I got exactly what I was asking for.”
One of the things that attracted Thienel the most? New business. Thienel saw the opportunity, and he’s all for chasing it.
“I’ve been selling electrical supplies for over 20 years. One of the things that keeps it exciting is getting new business and helping your customers solve problems,” he said. “I had a great staff and a good customer base, but CES Rochester Hills is in such a good location between three successful branches, I just couldn’t say no.”
Mind the Gap
CES Waterford, CES Macomb, and CES Madison Heights form a triangle covering around 200 square miles of the Michigan Eastside.
With CES Rochester Hills filling the gap between all three, customers caught in the middle now have a new home branch to shop at, and it’s never been more convenient.
“I’m on Hamlin Road, which is one of the major roads in Rochester, straight from their downtown and really close to industrial and commercial buildings. For contractors who’ve never worked with CES, we’re extremely visible.”
Even better, there are several new residential subdivisions just on the north side of the branch.
“We’ve only been open for a few days, but we signed a new account and started some great conversations with contractors who have big projects in the area,” he said. “One of the things they mentioned was that they saw us from the road, so they stopped in.”
If Thienel was ever worried about reaching new customers, he shouldn’t be. On their first day, they had several walk-in customers who stopped by just because they saw the CES sign.
You can’t beat that type of free marketing.
Supporting Michigan’s Eastside
“Opening here was a no-brainer,” he said. “It’s not just a great store location, but there’s also a lot of business and development happening in the Detroit suburbs.”
Before this location, many people working on those developments would have to go 20-30 minutes out of their way for supplies. Not anymore.
“CES Rochester Hills will help us keep more of our customers over the years,” Thienel said. “Before, if they weren’t close enough, they could easily just go to a competitor to save time. But now that we’re right here, CES can service customers wherever their job takes them.”
He’s already had one long-time customer praise the new location, saying he was going to be in a lot over the next few months.
“’Please come in as much as you want,’ I told him. CES Macomb is their usual branch, but they’re starting a job right across the street,” Thienel said. “Of course we’re targeting new customers, but the great thing is that this new branch will help us support our old customers, too.”
Joining the Family Business
What makes CES Rochester Hills special is their product knowledge and experience. Luckily for this new branch, Thienel has plenty of both.
Jason Thienel is a third-generation electrical supplier with over 20 years of experience, and his father, Arthur Thienel, is the branch manager at CES Macomb and has nearly 50 years of experience.
It basically runs in his blood.
“Everyone knows what happened to Detroit around 2008,” Thienel said. “Things slowed down for a lot of companies in the area, but CES was hiring and just getting a start in the area. I joined my dad at CES Macomb, so it worked out kind of nice.”
Once Thienel became a branch manager for CES Madison Heights, the tip of the Eastside triangle for the three CES branches, they had a chance to work together but in a whole new way.
“We can’t help but get a little competitive,” Jason Thienel admitted. “But he’s also someone I can turn to if I ever have questions. There’s not much he hasn’t seen or done in this industry, so it’s nice to have his support whenever I need it.”
And Jason will be the first to admit that whoever’s branch has the slower year, the other Thienel will have to hear about it during family get-togethers.
Opening CES Rochester Hills
Opening a branch isn’t as easy as just snapping your fingers. Thienel knew that from the first time he started his own branch. But this year, opening a new location looked a little different than usual because of COVID-19.
“We wanted to open earlier in the year, but when Michigan shut down, everything stopped,” he said. “When we finally received a target date for October, I was jittery and excited. We hit the ground running.”
That meant CES Rochester Hills needed to source inventory from other Michigan branches, in a very short window.
“While I have my own local inventory now, we have a total of $5 million of inventory on-hand across our nine locations in Michigan,” Thienel said. “To have that support within our own branch network is great for us and our customers.”
For Thienel’s team, who stuck with him through the delay, it looks like it’s all about to pay off too.
“My sales rep, Hans Gorges, has been in the electrical supply business for five years. He came from a competitor right on the border of Detroit. With his knowledge and the following he had, we’re really looking forward to seeing some of those customers coming in here.”
“Then there’s my driver, Matt Borts. He’s green to the industry, but he has a great work ethic. I’m really excited to be able to teach him some things and watch him grow,” he said.
What’s on the Horizon for CES Rochester Hills?
“I’m hoping to be one of the top branches in Michigan,” Thienel said. “Of course you always strive for that, but it’s important to set those challenges for you and your team. Once you become profitable, you never look back. Just keep pushing forward.”
He has the team in place to do it. And one heck of a showroom to make a good first impression.
“I wanted something to wow people when they walked in,” Thienel said. “We have a 50-foot long, 6-foot tall banner with a skyline view of Detroit on our wall. There’s an open showroom with a lot of Milwaukee and Klein Tools on display, and we even did a custom-designed counter with the carpenter who did the build-out on our building.”
And now that everything is in place, customers are excited for it.
“We’re by two major highways, between three really successful branches. It’s easy on, easy off from the highway. We have a great opportunity here.”
With his smaller team in place, Thienel is pulling more than his weight as branch manager, sales manager, and operations manager, but he’s never been prouder of getting to where he is now.
“It’s a blessing to have grown with CES over the years and to now be opening my second-ever branch,” he said. “This year will be different when it comes to bringing customers in, and I’m wearing a few different caps on top of being branch manager, but we’re ready for the challenge.”
For the man who said he wants to be one of the top branches in Michigan, we have no doubt that he’s going to prove it. After all, he’s done it before.