Perfect 10 Satellite Distributing Co.

Company is First and Foremost a People Business

Terry Fleming was sick of working Saturdays.

From 1975-85, Fleming owned four retail stores that specialized in car stereos and satellite television systems.

“I was 35 and had worked every Saturday of my life,” Fleming said.

So he sold the stores and started manufacturing C-band antennas with six employees in 1985.

“That was our core business for about 10 years,” Fleming said.

But the advent of 18-inch antennas made that business obsolete, and the company shrank from 200 employees to 25.

In 1995, Fleming reformed the business as Perfect 10 Satellite Distributing Co. to provide distribution, training and support to satellite system dealers who provide audio, video and high-speed Internet access.

“The new technology now is digital TV via satellite with two-way, high-speed broadband capability,” Fleming said.

Perfect 10, in North Little Rock, now employs 140, is the largest satellite distributor warehouse in the country, and is the top national distributor for Hughes Network Systems, the General Motors subsidiary that owns DirecTV.

In 1998, Fleming said the business had a 150 percent growth rate, followed by a 200 percent growth rate in 1999 and a modest 33 percent growth rate in 2000.

He explained that Hughes’ DirectPC technology enables satellite Internet access with an upload speed of 256 kilobits per second and a download speed of 400 Kbps.

And Perfect 10 has a strong lead generator in Internet service provider America Online.

“AOL realized that a lot of their customers need speed, and 56K modems don’t cut it,” Fleming said.

Through a contractual agreement between AOL and Hughes, an advertisement pops up and offers AOL users high-speed Internet access for an additional $19.95 a month.

“And then for $100-$150, they can also have satellite TV on the same dish,” Fleming said. “We do 3,000-4,000 customers per month off the AOL link. And they have 21 million customers.”

Perfect 10’s revenue last year was about $80 million, Fleming said, and this year it should hit $115 million in revenue.