Featured in Print Solutions magazine, September 2015
By Pete Redondo, Vice President of Sales, Regency Franchise Group
We started out as Regency Office Products. We always intended to bring other products and services to complement office products, but we didn’t know where that would lead. We ended up getting into print in 2007, with our strategic advantage centered around Web-to-print technology. The a-ha moment was when someone asked if we could sell promotional products. We didn’t even have an ASI number when we did it. We bought them through someone else and still made good money.
We informed our salespeople that they would be selling promotional products. One of the sales reps, who was trained to sell office products, came back and said his clients didn’t buy promotional products. They weren’t interested. Finally, he starts doing one-off promo orders for a national cable company that specializes in rural markets. They’ve got 2,000 dealers. The cycle is, “Here’s my audience. Here’s my budget. Here’s what I need. Give me some ideas.” Usually, whoever comes up with the first viable idea gets the order, but sometimes, the incumbent gets an opportunity to quote your ideas, and it’s a bidding war. You win some and lose some, but the margins aren’t strong, and it drifts into a commoditized, price-driven decision.
So, that’s how he started with this company. That’s how he got his foot in the door. But then he asks, “What are you doing with your dealer network? How do you get branded items approved? You’ve got these branding standards. I’ve got this technology. I can create this marketplace for your corporate-approved items.”
Fast-forward to five to seven years later — I’ll bet 90 percent of his sales are promo, and most of it is apparel. He’s got a five-year contract with them. They’ve got quarterly minimums they have to hit. If they don’t hit them, he sends a bill, and they pay it. He is not their “preferred” provider — he is their single source. Now, he is building a similar platform for their sister company that has 6,000 dealers. It has everything to do with the technology, not just on the front end for the end users, but the integration with their accounting system.