News
Who's Who: Frank Lunn and Tom Mortimer
Frank Lunn and Tom Mortimer, the two men behind Kahuna Business Group, are opening up a new chapter of their lives with the publication of 'Stack the Logs!' a motivational book written by Lunn.
September 11, 2003
While the word "partnership" pops up frequently in press releases and other company announcements, it's often nothing more than a buzz word.
So folks are sometimes surprised to find out how serious Frank Lunn and Tom Mortimer, two principals of Kahuna Business Group, are about backing up the buzz.
"When they came down to our offices for the first time, they asked me, '
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Frank Lunn, left, and Tom Mortimer |
"None of their affiliates are shielded from us," said Mark Smith, a sales manager for Triton, noting that unlike most ISOs, Kahuna doesn't seem to fear that its sales agents will try to buy their hardware directly from the manufacturer at the first opportunity.
Mortimer, Kahuna's executive vice president of sales and marketing, said, "We feel that if we bring enough value to the program, our affiliates won't have any reason to leave."
A key difference between Kahuna and most ATM distributors, Mortimer said, is that it employs no in-house sales staff to compete with its independent agents.
It's in the name
Kahuna shuns the common industry term "sub-ISOs" for its agents, calling them "affiliates" instead. "We don't compete with our affiliates or subordinate them to us," Lunn said.
Lunn, the company's president, credits Mortimer with designing the affiliate program, which the two say is based on three tenets: leverage, value and partnership.
Lunn said that affiliates benefit from Kahuna's volume-based buying power with manufacturers like Triton, which gives them leverage. Kahuna can provide value through services such as backroom support. "An affiliate may be on the verge of hiring another person or two, but find they can do better by outsourcing the service to us," he said.
Kahuna's partnerships with several vault cash providers, processors and other companies allow affiliates to try several alternatives rather than "picking one, locking in for the long term and praying they made the right choice," Mortimer said.
While Lunn and Mortimer negotiate for attractive deals on their affiliates' behalf, "they never ask without giving," said Triton's Smith. "If we run a promotion for them, they exceed it. If we ask them for 120 units a month, they'll give us 180."
The men also "are trying to improve the industry by acting as advocates for change," said Smith, referring to a provocative, Lunn-authored column entitled "Will 'worst practices' of some doom the ATM ISO?" published on ATMmarketplace in June. "They're calling on the industry to take accountability for its actions. Everything they say they do, they apply in their own office."
Rest is history
The two share a natural talent for marketing, exemplified by the Kahuna name and logo, a cresting wave right out of "Hawaii Five-O." Though the name was created on a whim -- "if this works, it could be the big Kahuna," Lunn remarked to the company's lawyer when they were trying to decide on a name for a new division of CMS -- it has earned a high profile in the industry.
Frank Lunn/Tom Mortimer |
"When we wear shirts with the logo, we always get, 'Hey, it's the Kahuna guys,'" Lunn said.
The pair first met at Community Merchant Services (CMS), a Bloomington, Ill.-based ISO that Lunn founded with two former Illinois State classmates. Mortimer, who had left a job in medical sales to sell point-of-sale terminals for CMS, wasn't interested in making a career of it. "I'd done my share of cold calls and knocking on doors," he said.
But he knew he wanted to work with Lunn. "In the first 10 minutes, I could tell Frank had integrity and passion and, most importantly, a vision," Mortimer said.
"We were instant friends," confirmed Lunn. They became close quickly when both of their fathers suffered serious health problems at roughly the same time.
His father has always served as an inspiration for Lunn, who left school in his junior year to start an advertising/marketing company, served as an Army officer in the Desert Shield/Desert Storm conflict in Iraq, then managed a group of c-stores for Clark Oil before founding CMS with two partners.
A new chapter
A message in a 1997 birthday card given to him by his father set the course for a new chapter in Kahuna's history, and Lunn's life. Filled with his father's formula for success, the message became "Stack the Logs," the title of Lunn's new motivational book, scheduled for release next week.
"Stack" stands for: Set a destination and course, Take immediate action, Accept results simply as feedback, Correct your course based on feedback and Keep stacking the logs.
Lunn wrote the bulk of the 320-page book while his son Frankie, then 9, was undergoing treatment for acute myeloid leukemia at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is tithing 10 percent of proceeds from the sale of the book, which is being published by Kahuna through its new Empowerment division, to the hospital.
Lunn and Mortimer created ATM-related charitable opportunities as well, including donating a percentage of ATM sales made by their affiliates this month to St. Jude. Their goal is to give the hospital $1 million.
They hope to produce an audio version of the book by Christmas. Later, there will be a Spanish-language version, a youth version and possibly more books, Lunn said.
"How does this relate to ATMs? I don't know," said Lunn, who will head to New York soon to set up distribution channels and media tours to promote the book. "But it feels like we're on the right path."
"Selling ATMs is fun, but at the end of the day is it going to have made a difference? Now we can leave the world knowing we've made some small difference here," Mortimer said.
After six months of chemotherapy treatments, Frankie's leukemia is now in remission.
"It's one hell of a story," said Triton's Smith. "It's changed their lives for the better."
