San Jose-based company gets Pinnacle to SBC front doors
Every Friday, The Pinnacle appears in mailboxes and on porches
at more than 18,000 homes in San Benito County.
How it gets into readers’ hands involves a delicate ballet. The
plain truth is that all of the phone calls, research, interviews,
photo sessions, carefully constructed advertisements and hard work
are worth nothing if the last, crucial step in the process falls
through. That’s delivery.
San Jose-based company gets Pinnacle to SBC front doors
Every Friday, The Pinnacle appears in mailboxes and on porches at more than 18,000 homes in San Benito County.
How it gets into readers’ hands involves a delicate ballet. The plain truth is that all of the phone calls, research, interviews, photo sessions, carefully constructed advertisements and hard work are worth nothing if the last, crucial step in the process falls through. That’s delivery.
Rural residents in San Benito County have come to count on the U.S. Postal Service for their weekly dose of news. But most copies of the paper go to residents of San Juan Bautista and Hollister via a contract delivery service – A&A Distribution, Inc. of San Jose.
The man who gave birth to A&A in 1970 is Manuel Austin of Los Gatos. Austin, an affable man who is never more than a phone call away, still often works six days a week, 14 hours a day.
“It’s something I’ve chosen to do. I enjoy it immensely,” he said Wednesday. Austin, who threw copies of the San Jose Mercury News as a boy, came into the business through a mentor.
“I worked for a man for about a year-and-a-half, and he went bankrupt,” Austin recalled. “He was a dear friend of mine and his expenditures were way too high. He laid people off one by one and I was the last one left.”
Austin took that experience to the bank and started a business of his own.
Today, A&A distributes some 1.5 million pieces of material each week, covering cities from Santa Rosa to Sacramento to Monterey. The business employs 250 carriers who are on the payroll, not contract employees, and 36 managers. A&A’s distinctive silver panel trucks are a familiar sight on the streets of Hollister and San Juan each Friday.
Staging from a 5,000 square foot office near Norm Mineta International Airport in San Jose, A&A’s crews prepare publications for distribution each day.
The location of the business near three major highways is critical.
“We want to beat traffic, so they’re on the streets working by 7 a.m.,” Austin said. “The goal is to get every piece on the porch. Otherwise, people have to contend with the weather, or a car may run over it. We try to get it to the place where it can be seen and accessible. We’re dealing with the elderly, with the disabled. If it gets on the porch, it usually gets read.”
How Austin ensures that the paper is on the porch is an endeavor in itself. Both of Austin’s children work in the business. His son, also Manuel Austin, heads quality control and earlier this year became a full partner in the business.
“We have a complete verification service,” Austin said. “My son has a staff of eight that does nothing but independent verification. Whether it’s 100,000 or 5,000 they’re all important to us.”
The verification team uses a variety of strategies to check delivery, and drivers know that reliable delivery is linked to pay raises.
“We shoot for at least 100 percent, and I tell them if they can do better that’s great,” Austin said.
The one thing A&A does not do is direct collections. The people using A&A pay directly for delivery service and handle billing subscribers themselves. In the case of The Pinnacle, it’s not an issue because it is distributed throughout San Benito County free of charge.
Austin recalled that long-ago job delivery the Mercury News. “Collecting was the worst thing,” Austin said. “I changed from a paper route to cutting lawns or washing cars in my neighborhood.”
The business has changed dramatically during A&A’s 36-year history. While most people of a certain age recall their first job as one throwing papers, the task is not one parents today are often eager to give over to their children.
“The safety of the child is out there,” Austin said. “It’s turned into a negative.”
There were also concerns some years ago when the popularity of the Internet exploded. Many social observers predicted that the paper would soon disappear from the newspaper, in favor of digital distribution.
They were wrong.
“It’s turned out to be marvelous,” Austin said. “The thing I determined we needed to do … is to continually service the customer. There’s less service today, and people are frustrated. I’m in a service business so I need to be service oriented. We do our best to do that.”
The business continues to evolve. Currently A&A is moving toward collecting some demographic information. A contract with a local municipality has A&A crews logging all the multiple family housing in the community. A system is in the works for address-specific distribution as well.
A&A is privately held, and Austin declines to discuss gross revenues, but after 36 years, with more than 250 employees, it’s clear the business is thriving.
What’s left to prove? With a successful history, and two children who followed the trail he blazed, why does Austin continue to come into work in the morning when he could be working on his golf game?
“I’ve been blessed in my life,” he said. “I would like to share that with all my employees. I’d like to let them know they can also do what they want to do. The dream that you have can also be fulfilled.”
There may be another reason, and that’s seeing a complicated task come together as the result of building a well-oiled machine.
“I’m a former Marine. I run it like the Marines. We have a mission to accomplish.” Austin said.
