Strategic Advisor to the Chief Executive Officer, Fastenal
Search every verified Daniel Florness interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. During Fastenal's Q2 2026 earnings call on July 15, 2026, Daniel Florness, the company's CEO, discussed the company's performance and priorities. He stated that he "would have felt a hell of a lot better about the quarter if our incremental margin would have been 24%," noting a challenging gross margin trend. Florness said he told Jeff Watts, the president and chief sales officer, that when a trend is favorable, one should "convince everybody to do the things necessary to keep that trend going." He also described his philosophy as including "love growth" and "incrementals matter," adding that "every problem can be addressed in a simpler way if you're growing." Florness acknowledged that the company paid bonuses tied to growth, which contributed to margin pressure, and he emphasized the need to balance growth with incremental margins to maintain organizational discipline.
“I believe our incremental margin will be stronger in 2025. And the challenge to them is as as as as our momentum takes us through the year, and time will tell what the economy allows that momentum to shine through as, but as our momentum takes us into 2025, there's a lot of expenses that we've been squeezing really tig...”
“We had to get good at tariffs back in the 2018 time frame, 2017 time frame. You know, a lot of times we focus on tariffs that have been that come into the United States, but tariffs are not something that's unique to the United States. We've been going through tariffs coming into Mexico for the last year and a half. We...”
“I would have felt a hell of a lot better about the quarter if our incremental margin would have been 24%. Coming into the quarter, we had a gross margin trend that was challenging. And one of the things I told Jeff, the hardest when when you have a trend that you're that's your friend, you love that trend. You you cher...”
“We love growth, but right behind it is incrementals. So you got to find the balance in that every day because that balance gives you discipline throughout your organization that you're not sacrificing one for the other. Does that mean if a if a district manager had a customer call up right now and they had $100,000 sal...”
“I would have felt a hell of a lot better about the quarter if our incremental margin would have been 24%. Coming into the quarter, we had a gross margin trend that was challenging. And one of the things I told Jeff the hardest when when you have a trend that you're that's that's your friend. You love that trend. You yo...”
“Love the people that are part of this team and and because it's your chosen family and that means you challenge the heck I won't say the hell out of the heck out of everybody to uh to grow their skill set. The second one is love growth. And and I and this is an accountant saying this to a sales guy, but uh but love gro...”
“If you don't understand the math and you want to solve a problem, I don't think you're serious.”
“Being a leader is gaining confidence in yourself without being arrogant. Being a leader is being vulnerable.”
“Well, mix from the standpoint we focus a lot on the ISM, the purchasing managers index published by ISM, and that's been sub-50 for 36 of the last 38 months. So from the standpoint of the economy is not giving us any lift. We are getting good traction in the marketplace and we finished out the last half of 2025 with do...”
“So you are absolutely correct. Most of the fasteners in this country, in North America in general, come from northern Asia, China primarily. Obviously huge impacts, and for us what it's meant is over about the last six years, seven years we've been actively expanding our ability to import fasteners because there's stil...”
“We've been moving supply chain around the planet in earnest since 2017 2018 time frame. We have worked to diversify our supplier base around the planet and a little bit more in North America but really around the planet so to have diversity in supply so you're not caught off guard by some price change or or a tariff ch...”
“For us, it's been sluggish since November of 2022. That's been sub 50 since November of 2022. So we've been in a sluggish economy for a long time from our perspective.”
“I think the biggest sign that we're seeing is the knife has stopped dropping. You know, we were trying to catch that falling knife for a two-year period. When I talk to our district and regional leadership throughout the world, the feedback I hear is, you know, they're not talking about this $200,000 month customer who...”
“The economics still do not work. And part of the challenge there isn't just the economics, it's the amount of time. When we were researching it very in depth two and a half years ago, one of the challenges is it's easy to find a site. It's relatively easy to get a building up and get a supply chain set up. The most cha...”
Fastenal Company Q2 2026 Earnings Call | Onsite Enterprise Infrastructure Scaling Supports Gross Margin Twitter ...
Fastenal Co (FAST) — Q2 FY26 Earnings Call Live coverage with Benzinga. Q2 FY26 Results EPS: $0.33 (est. $0.33) — inline Revenue: $2.39B (est. $2.33B) — inline Reported: 2026-07-14 Recent Quarters Q1 FY26 (2026-04-13): EPS $0.30 vs est $0.30 · Rev $2.20B vs est $2.20B Q4 FY25 (2026-01-20): EPS $0.26 vs est $0.26 · Rev $2.03B vs est $2.05B Q3 FY25 (2025-10-13): EPS $0.29 vs est $0.30 · Rev $2.13B vs est $2.13B Q2 FY25 (2025-07-14): EPS $0.28 vs est $0.28 · Rev $2.08B vs est $2.06B About Fastenal Co Fastenal began as an industrial retailer, expanding its product portfolio from nuts and bolts…
How do you lead an organization you can’t control? Dan Florness has spent 30 years answering that question at Fastenal and the last 11 as CEO of what is now a $9 billion industrial distributor operating in 26 countries. He joined as CFO in 1996, when the company’s run rate was about $250 million. Today, Fastenal does $37 million in revenue a day. It takes about a week to match a full year of the business Dan joined. But Dan never fit the CFO archetype. He ran a manufacturing division, dug into supply chain and product development, and supported national accounts — because he thought about the…
Fastenal Company (Nasdaq: FAST) announced last month that Daniel Florness had communicated to the company's Board of Directors his decision to step down from his role as Chief Executive Officer of Fastenal on July 16, 2026. On December 19, 2025, Fastenal's Board appointed Jeffery M. Watts, Fastenal's current President and Chief Sales Officer, to succeed Mr. Florness as Fastenal's CEO effective as of July 16, 2026. Florness joined Fastenal in 1996 and became CEO back in 2016. He expects to continue to serve as a Strategic Advisor to the firm's incoming CEO until early 2028. Dan joins to discus…
Fastenal CEO Daniel Florness joins Tim Stenovec and Carol Massar to discuss the letter signed by over 60 Minnesota CEOs calling for the de-escalation of tension in Minnesota after a second citizen was killed by ICE operations. See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. Bloomberg Talks curates top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest names in finance, politics and entertainment. On Bloomberg Talks, we round up interviews with Fortune 500 CEOs, government officials, well-known investors and business leaders. Lis…
Fastenal CEO Daniel Florness joins Bloomberg Businessweek Daily to discuss the company's latest earnings results and outlook, ...
Fastenal is a $52 billion market cap wholesale distributor of construction and industrial supplies…think nuts, bolts, screws, anchors, rivets, and other fasteners, as well as other industrial, janitorial, and safety supplies, and cutting tools. CEO Dan Florness speaks on the company's latest disappointing enrings results with Bloomberg's Carol Massar and Bailey Lipshultz See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. Bloomberg Talks curates top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest names in finance, politics and ent…
On Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, Tim Stenovec and Norah Mulinda discuss President Donald Trump's to impose stiff financial penalties on Russia if it does not end hostilities with Ukraine, while pledging fresh weapons supplies for Kyiv. They also spoke with Fastenal CEO Daniel Forness about the company's earnings, and discussed the President's latest criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. On today's episode: Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Angela Stent, Fastenal CEO Daniel Forness, and Bloomberg News Federal Reserve Reporter Amara Omeokwe Chapters: 00:00:00 - Bloomberg Businesswee…
Fastenal CEO Dan Florness speaks on market conditions for industrials and manufacturing in the US with Bloomberg's Tim Stenovec and Norah Mulunda. See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information. Bloomberg Talks curates top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest names in finance, politics and entertainment. On Bloomberg Talks, we round up interviews with Fortune 500 CEOs, government officials, well-known investors and business leaders. Listen to more Bloomberg Talks: • Bloomberg Talks (Audio) Subscribe to Bloom…
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