BDA & Associates
Indiana Chapter

Sometimes a gut feeling leads you down a different path. After graduating from Ball State University in May 2017 with a degree in Hospitality (and a minor is Sustainability), Kelsey Richter pursued her dream of working in the hospitality industry — until she discovered a business about which she felt far more passionate: the kitchen and bath industry. She joined BDA & Associates, a manufacturers’ representative based in Fishers, Ind., as showroom manager. After demonstrating initiative by creating a sales competition that increased revenue and taking it upon herself to learn how to install Delta faucets so she could better answer client questions, she is now happily working as a showroom sales specialist.

Kelsey’s self-described versatility helps her balance her many daily responsibilities as she works with the 30-plus lines BDA handles, travels to visit different showrooms, builders and designers around Indiana, and provides education and updates on products and ensures they have the proper sales displays and literature. In COVID-19-complicated 2020 and 2021, she also found herself having to craft the hard-to-deliver message that products may not be shipped on as timely a basis as they had been in the past.

“How could you possibly succeed at being an outside salesperson when they won’t let you outside?! Our team had to find new and innovative ways to get the information to our customers from inside the comfort of our own homes.”

Another pandemic-era challenge: Doing her very mobile job. “How could you possibly succeed at being an outside salesperson when they won’t let you outside?” she recalls. But Kelsey delivered solutions. “Our team had to find new and innovative ways to get the information to our customers from inside the comfort of our own homes. I hosted virtual succulent-building training events, cocktail hours, giveaways and general product knowledge training to keep my customers engaged.”

Kelsey and her husband, Luke, are new parents to a son, Conrad, born in August 2021, and she’s adjusting to the changing demands on her time. “Come back to me August 2022 and I will let you know how the work-life balance is going — I’m still figuring that one out,” she chuckles. Spending quality time with her loved ones is a priority (the family also shares their home with two cats, Kylo and Maui) and that includes multiple trips a year to Disney World. “Yes, I’m a Disney adult and I’m proud of it,” Kelsey says. “I love the nostalgia that washes over me whenever I step in the parks. The whole place just feels like home.”