Allied Awarded Family Owned Business Award

We are proud to announce that Allied Wire & Cable has won the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Family Owned Business Award for the Best Medium Sized Business in Philadelphia and it’s surrounding areas. This is Allied’s third year of winning achievements in this specific award category.

Company Co-owner, Tim Flynn, was also invited to discuss his successful business philosophy during a special panel at this year’s 2018 award ceremony. There he spoke at great lengths about his guiding motto… “Common sense before dollars and cents.” Here is a brief excerpt from the panel.

Tell us your story

Allied Wire & Cable was started with my two brothers and friend Chris Burke in 1987 in my parents’ basement in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Like many entrepreneurs, we had limited resources but big dreams and an unbeatable work ethic. We had to – because we were responsible for sales, marketing, purchasing, operations, invoicing and collections. Our parents helped us with billing, operations and fed us nightly or, most likely, we would have starved. Today, our Allied Wire & Cable family has grown to almost 300 team members. We have locations throughout the country and have received two presidential awards for business excellence. We have always known that, if you treat people well, great things can happen. We are blessed with a great group of team members who work with us and care deeply about the company. This is one of the biggest reasons Allied Wire & Cable still prospers.

We were taught early in our lives to help the less fortunate. If you can’t give money, give some of your time to help make a difference. I am delighted to say Allied Wire & Cable has given millions of dollars back to the community, supporting organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation and providing scholarships for at-risk Greater Philadelphia youths. Recently, we raised $65,000 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

What is your biggest challenge and how are you working to overcome it?

Our biggest challenge has been finding and hiring good people. We are offering bonuses internally to team members who help us recruit good individuals. We also use recruitment services, ads, signs—anything that draws in prospective employees.

What is the proudest moment in running a family business?

I have so many to share over a 30-year career. One of our highlights is when we could finally afford to move out of my parents’ basement. After four years in our parents’ basement, we moved to Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, in an old 10,000-square-foot warehouse in which built our own offices.

Why should readers patronize family businesses in the region?

Family businesses care. They care for their employees; they care for their customers; and they care about the community.

As a Family Business of the Year winner, what is your family business motto?

This is the motto we have been using since we came up with it in 2008 during the last recession. This motto shows why we are better than most companies:

“Common sense, not dollars and cents.”

We do what it takes to make you successful.