Formed in 1978, Success Express started as a small scale meeting planning company to aid consultants and Directors with Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. have a better experience at the annual Seminar in Dallas, TX,  The brainchild of J.S. “Kirk” Kirkpatrick it started that first year with 50 participants.  Over the next 15 years it grew to over 1500 participants.  In 1993 “Kirk’s” son, Kirby reluctantly took over the operation of the business as a means to support himself during college.  After graduation, married with a young family, and starting his career as a Secondary Social Studies teacher, Kirby continued building the business in conjunction with his job.  After several years it became clear that the need for Success Expresses services was continuing to grow.  So in 1998 it was decided Kirby would leave teaching to build Success Express into a full time meeting planning company.  Within a few years the calendar was maxed out with meetings and events.  Ever the entrepreneurs, Kirby and Kirk began looking for ways to expand the revenue streams with current and future clients so they added promotional products to their services.  

 

In 2000 Kirk decided to retire, leaving Kirby as the sole owner of new and ever changing business.  Kirby, in response to requests from clients and seeing a lack of quality local options decided to add trophies to his business.  This slowly resulted in the opening of a retail location offering awards and promotional products to the public in addition to his meeting planning clients in 2001.

 

It was about this time that Kirby began to recognize that, while he may not have been called to spend his career in a high school classroom, he did truly love and miss teaching.  So it was decided to add Training and Development to his offerings.  Kirby quickly invested in becoming an expert in the DiSC Personality Systems and an authorized distributor of InScape Publishing (Now Wiley) and their DiSC  training products.  Since this decision was made, Kirby has trained thousands of people in DiSC as well as a variety of other professional development skills.  His experience in business, as well as background writing curriculum, allows him to meet the needs of his customers at a very personal and specific level while maintaining a focus on measurable business objectives and outcomes.  To learn more about Kirby and what he has to offer in professional devlopment training and coaching follow this link.

 

In 2005 Success Express, now with 5 employees and a booming awards business, again responded to client requests and started offering screen printing and embroidery services to their customers marking the final addition to our line.

 

After 5 years with a retail location in Avon, Indiana, the store was relocated to the adjacent town of Plainfield in their historic town center.  From this location, we were able to continue to expand our business and clientele as well as leverage our experience with screen printing to offer spirit wear for the local high schools.

 

Unfortunately, just when the retail side of the business was reaching a high level of economic success, the economic downturn of 2008 happened.  At the same time, a year long construction project was begun on the road in front of the store.  These two items combined with a lot of little issues to force another restructuring of the business.

 

In 2010, the retail location of the store was shuttered and instead Success Express changed its business focus to meet its clients where they work.  We now offer our custom consultations on-site and virtual consultations and project research.  We have discovered that by not being restricted to a retail location we can get to know our customers much better, and provide a much higher level of personalized service.  In essence we have shifted to a virtual environment with a focus on keeping best business practices that customers appreciate from a local, brick and mortar store.

 

Additionally, what we save in overhead also allows us to focus on bringing our high level service to our customers at a very reasonable price.

 

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little bit about our story!