CASE STUDY PERSPECTIVE: Dave Grandstaff from Southeast Promotional Products and Uniforms

“I think selling both uniforms and promotional products is a natural because the customer base is basically the same. In all fairness, the uniform business is no more complex than the issues one faces in the ad specialty industry.

Our experience so far has been hitting the market at peak need. The idea of selling uniforms started for me early last year when I was approached by a client that makes glasses and mugs for local hotels. They asked me about some work shirts. This got me to thinking. We started taking uniforms on calls with the wearables I was already selling.

It helps that we are the second largest tourist destination on the East Coast. We have 13.5 million visitors a year. So, the hospitality industry here is big. We have 1,600 restaurants, for example, within a reasonable driving range.

Any promotional product distributor that is hesitant to go into the uniform business I would think is probably shooting themself in the foot. Its like the lotteryyou cant win if you dont play. And really it is not that big a chance to take.

Just get familiar with the catalogs. Nine out of 10 promotional product distributors are already speaking with end-users like cleaning services or local hospitals, both big purchasers of uniforms as well.

There are two reasons why a local mom-and-pop can outperform a national uniform sales organization, at least in our area. One is the chamber of commerce here is very strong and adamant about using local vendors. The local hospitality association has 800 plus members, with regular monthly meetings, and they also want to keep suppliers local. Of course, the big companies have representation in town but it goes a little deeper than that here. I have been here since 1973, and that probably helps.

The business is just me and my wife. We outsource almost everything. We carry no inventory. With minimal investment, you can do this.

There is still plenty of business out there. We started in February 2002 selling uniforms and one month later added the word uniforms to our company name. In fact, response has been so good we may reserve the wording and put uniforms before promotional products.

For the most part, outfitting a uniform program, for the promotional product distributor, is going to be the same work as any other sales they have made in apparel. The primary task is embellishing a shirt, a sweater or a cap. If they can figure that out, they can figure out the uniform industry.

Public safety gets more involved of course. I am pursuing that as well now with the assistance of a uniform manufacturer who knows that end of the business. I applied to be on the county and city lists to be notified of bids. I have been gathering information on law enforcement uniforms.

Adding uniforms has made the business more diverse and exciting. Uniforms have also improved my ad specialty sales. While I am in there for uniforms, I ask By the way, what else do you embellish? and that has translated in many additional orders. I dont know which plays off which better, but the reality is most businesses use both uniforms and ad specialty products.