February 20th, 2015 Show Notes – Selling To Big Customers, Selling To Small Customers
Please find some links and notes from the 2 Regular Guys Podcast. This week we welcomed to the show Michael Robertson the CEO of SGIA. He talked about the recent annual planning meetings and what is coming up for SGIA. Then Terry and Aaron talked about some choices when seeking out customers. We can pursue the larger customers with the larger payday, or we can seek out the smaller customers to spread our base. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. In this program, we’ll discussed this topic from two angles: 1st as an equipment/supply vendor selling to decorators. And 2nd as a decorator selling to end users, both large and small.
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Annual Meeting with Michael Robertson
President and CEO of SGIA
- SGIA recently held its annual planning meetings. Can you tell us a bit about this effort? Who participates and what was the outcome?
-Waterbased Inks
-Guide to Fabrics
-Workshop Development - Can you give us an update on the upcoming SGIA Exposition from a garment decoration perspective?
-Fastest 50 Shows for Growth
-92% Sold Out already - What other SGIA activities should the garment decoration community be aware of?
-Garment Centered Site
-Webinar weekly
-SGIA Journal
-Totally T-Shirts Workshop (March 30th to April 3rd)
Selling to big customers, selling to small customers
- Equipment for decorating shirts and other substrates… let’s talk about selling into the marketplace starting with large companies.
-The plus is you’re dealing with an educated buyer.
-What’s an educated buyer.
-Financing the deal is usually not an issue for the larger customer.
-Will likely also try to beat you up on price.
-This customer can be more demanding of you, your company, and requests beyond the sale. - Let’s go to the other end of the spectrum and talk about selling to the smaller decorators.
-I would prefer 100 small customers to every single big customer.
-Finances are critical and often every penny is spent on this purchase without any capital to sustain the business
-Just yesterday, “It looks like the price just keeps increasing. A printer is $16,995 plus a pretreated for $3,995 and a heat press for $1,291.” Almost implying you’re trying to pull a fast one on them by explaining there’s more to the process than just the printing machine.
-Knowledge might begin and with, “I want to print t-shirts. How does that work?”
-Customer I spoke with this week, “Can I just put the shirts in the sun until I get a heat press?” It’s a real business. The smaller the operation, the more Support required. - Let’s shift gears and talk about the end consumer of our products. Terry, talk about selling to larger customers.
-The “eggs in one basket” scenario.
-Getting paid is a concern as well – asking for terms and then not being a priority.
-Bob, trainer at US Screen, went out of business with a pile of orders on his desk. - Selling to the small end user.
-Education, education, education. You’ll spend time explaining what is and what is not feasible.
Shows
- NNEP Embroidery Mart Columbus – 2/20 – 2/21
- NBM Orlando – 2/25 – 2/27
- DAX Kansas City – 2/27 – 2/28
- ISS Atlantic City – 3/13 – 3/15
- ASI Long Beach – 3/25 -3/26
- DAX MN – 3/27 – 3/28
Other News/Events
SGIA Survey is out. Fill it out here!
- Complete Screen Printing Business Course – Atlas Screen Supply in Chicago – March 21 – 22, 2015
Terry’s Books
Screen Printing: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Direct to Garment: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Scheduling and Estimating Production Time for Garment Screen Printing Just $2.99 as an e-book
This show is brought to you for a full hour by: Equipment Zone, with 20 years experience selling garment printing equipment nationwide. Equipment Zone offers the new Epson F2000 SureColor direct-to-garment printer, their own VelociJet-XL DTG printer, and the all new SpeedTreater-TX automatic pretreat machine with a full 16”x24” pretreat area. Introductory price is $3,995. Equipment Zone also carries a full line of DTG inks and supplies. Go to EquipmentZone.com
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