Prime Line Interview with Jon Granek

 

Prime Line Web site 

Transcript

Marty Hartman: I am really excited about today’s conversation because we’ve got John Granick with us, director of Outside Regional Sales at Prime Line. As many of Prime Line recently relaunched with a fresh new look and some exciting updates that directly benefit our members. So today we’re going to dive into what’s new at Prime Line.

Some standout products you should know about and have on your radar. And we’ll get John to give us his take on where the industry is heading and maybe even get some sales tips to help us all grow our business. So John, thank you for being with us today.

Jon Granek: My pleasure. Glad to join you.

Marty Hartman: Alright. So could you give us a. 10,000 foot view of all of the changes that have been going on with S&S alphabroder Prime Line.

Jon Granek: Been? Absolutely. Yeah. So it’s very exciting. Um, now that S&S has acquired, um, alphabroder Um, looking to extract Prime Line to be its own division. It’s we’re running a standalone company, essentially under S&S, but, um, we’re able to provide a, more dedicated service that’s more experiential with regards to hard goods and ultimately being able to provide a better experience for all your members.

Working with Prime Line and so we got a new website, new dedicated customer service team. New dedicated inside sales team, outside sales team. All with a, long period of experience, both in hard goods and then specifically with JetLine and Prime Line. So, it’s exciting to come back together.

And funny enough we like to use the phrase getting the band back together. ’cause we have a lot of people that were with JetLine and Prime years ago that are either moving back over to Prime specifically or coming back to the fold like myself. So it’s exciting.

Marty Hartman: I think that’s great. Tell me a little bit about your transition with the company. I’m glad to hear that you’re back with Prime Line. I.

Jon Granek: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I started with JetLine back in 2009 and was there all the way up until alpha Broder acquired Prime Line and right when Covid hit unfortunately I was I was laid off because of the. Lay the land during COVI. But it’s exciting to come back now.

I’ve been gone for four years, but coming back to lead the team the experience with the line, the experience with with, the products and things. So it’s it’s good to be back and leading the team.

Marty Hartman: you’ve got the experience with the company and the fact that you’ve got a whole new customer service team. Tell our members how that’s gonna benefit them.

Jon Granek: that Absolutely.

One of the main downfalls, I guess of the combined bag approach with one rep in selling the apparel and the hard goods together from both an outside and inside perspective. Was limited visibility and focus on hard goods, limited training. So now when you call in and ask for customer service you’re getting a dedicated team with experience in hard goods. So you’re gonna get the information you need when you need it, as opposed to getting an answer that’s I need to look into it. I’ll get back to you. So every, everyone has the experience, ultimately providing a better experience for you.

Marty Hartman: apparel and hard goods are Different.

Jon Granek: yes.

Marty Hartman: so talk to folks that are, maybe they’ve been with s and Alpha Broder, but they’ve just never really delved into the hard goods. How can you help them to really grow their business in that direction?

Jon Granek: Sure. It’s a a great aspect of, our industry is the tangible product that goes along with apparel and everything else. And it’s it’s one of those products that has a, bigger market.

Margin built into it as well, so it able, it’s able to put more money in your pocket. But it’s got a lot of variety too. While there’s a lot of variety in apparel, of course there, there are differentiators, whereas with the hard goods there’s a lot of differentiation for the type of product you’re using, the type of audience you’re going with. So it’s a, it is just another revenue stream. So if you’re not selling hard goods you’re doing yourself a disservice by, not opening up that revenue stream for you.

Marty Hartman: that’s great to diversify. Everybody’s looking at more. Are ways to break money into their business and to grow their bottom line. So diversification is key.

Jon Granek: it’s a great add-on. If you’re doing apparel, chances are there’s a giveaway, that component that’s going with that as well. And might as well entertain that conversation with your customers.

Marty Hartman: I want to go back to your comment about getting the band back together. Prime Line is was such a huge, place in the industry. It seemed like everybody was familiar with your product line and then it got mixed up and alphabroder and all that. So now that you’ve got your new website and your standing alone tell us give us some ideas of what has changed in the product line and how it’s going to make a difference with distributors that are taking a, new look that they haven’t seen in a while.

Jon Granek: Absolutely. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna share my screen just to show you our website one of the great things that came back were the themes, 24 hour rush, different vertical integrations, but some of the products that we’re adding. Black+Blum is a great story for their give back, their sustainable practices. But their product line is very current, very modern. And very usable actually in the world. We are now with bringing Lunch to Work, right?

Marty Hartman: Right.

Jon Granek: a great product to use. But the 1% back to nature is a great great give back. And then they also donate one meal at least for every unit sold. And another brand we’re bringing in is Grosche, which has a great story behind it. The founder of the company was in Southeast Asia. Visiting family. They had a daughter at the time who was 10 months old, is now 18 years old, but at the time, ingested bacteria infested water, got very ill had to rush to the hospital, was unconscious for 10 hours by the time they got there and were struggling to get a line to hydrate the baby. They ultimately figured out how to hydrate the baby. Got a line in, but they wanted to do something for the world. With regards to the water situation. What could they do? They decided to fund filtration systems. So for every unit sold, provides 50 days worth of clean drinking water to a filtration system installed either in a village, a building for an organization, et cetera. And they’ve already funded over 300 million days worth of, clean drinking Water.

Marty Hartman: That’s great.

Jon Granek: really great project behind it. But the story the why and then the what. It’s just a, it’s just a great great story. Really some great brands and things that we are we are utilizing in addition to the everyday items that we were known for that kind of went away like I mentioned with the stress relievers and things like that.

Marty Hartman: . Well, I think that’s, uh, really great to introduce products that have a story to your customers because that, helps them engage, uh, people. Love a good story. And if they can get behind a product, they know that they’re getting it for their customers or their employees and they know that, uh, what’s behind that company.

That really helps in the sales process.

Jon Granek: Absolutely. So

Marty Hartman: any other ideas that you can give our members about ways that they can improve or increase their sales of products, especially with Prime Line.

Jon Granek: Sure. I encourage you we offer you guys free spec samples. I just need a shipper number. I encourage you to take us up on spec samples. When our reps reach out, please let them come in and talk about our line, talk about our services, things that we can do. Random samples of course are free with with a shipper number as well. One thing that a service perspective that I think we’re doing beyond what a lot of our competition is is proactive communication. We run reports daily that let us know where orders are. so we can communicate to you ahead of time whether there’s gonna be an order issue getting out so we can make a corrective action before you’re waking up and figuring it out. Something else we can do is provide a report card for our service levels shipping on time so you can gauge how we’re performing with your other vendors.

And hopefully with our service aspect and our performance, we’re able to get more looks and ultimately have you ask us for more. Ideas. We want to be proactive with the ideas, but also we need to know what you’re working on and things so that we can get you the right items. You never know, we might have the right item lurking around the corner that we could provide for you. We’re also happy to do free marketing materials, custom storyboards, things like that to integrate our products into your offering. But I think we have a great line that fits into just about any industry. So all we need to, all we need to have is the door open, and then we’ll get you some great ideas.

Marty Hartman: I think that’s really helpful. The spec samples and all of the support by your team I think that’s gonna be a big help. So you, mentioned the 24 hour. Button right there on the front page. So I’m assuming you got some really great deep inventories on those items. How’s it look as far as inventory?

With Prime Line? I know that people are real concerned now when it comes to inventory and where your items are manufactured.

Jon Granek: Sure. Yeah, so 24 hour rush. It’s a huge component. For us it’s becoming bigger. Even in a couple days that we’ve had the 24 hour rush button up there, we’ve noticed an increase foot traffic on there. It’s definitely good. And to the inventory part. With our rush items, we do keep more inventory. Typically there are better selling items. So we are we will keep a good amount of inventory, but from a general perspective of inventory, we’ve taken a big position on inventory to hedge. Issues with tariffs and things like that. We just had a small price increase recently, but that was more inflationary yearly kind of thing. It really didn’t hit the tariffs aspect of it. If we haven’t. An influx of orders that eliminates inventory. There’s certain items that will increase as they go. We’re not just gonna do a broad spectrum price increase on things like that. But inventory’s good right now. You wanna look at it on the site as we, go along.

’cause you never know, large orders can come take inventory. But as a general rule, our inventory, we have a pretty good position that we’re gonna be able to hedge off any kind of inventory pricing concerns as we go. Throughout the year but we are good at inventory to ultimately answer that first question.

Marty Hartman: That’s great to know. Being able to get the products when you need them.

Jon Granek: exactly.

Marty Hartman: So transition a little bit. Just I’m curious. I know that there’s a lot of products in your lineup. Any particular favorites that you have?

Jon Granek: particular, that’s a great question.

I’ve always been partial to Rubiks. It’s one of those legacy Prime line items. But I started with JetLine and when Prime first acquired JetLine, I was a. I always loved Rubik’s as a kid. I could never solve one, but it was still always fun to use. And then being able to put a company logo on there, it just makes it even cooler.

So it’s great for, I think any kind of company that was founded in the seventies or eighties could be a nice kind of retro anniversary item. But Rubik’s has always been partial. Our Tuscany collection from Lehman is another great great collection that I’ve always loved it. Very comparable to like the higher end leather journals, but it’s a, polyurethane leatherette that we deboss, which is really high quality. Then the new products that I just shared, the Grosche and Black+Blum become very partial to.

Marty Hartman: Are you seeing any particular industry, trends that our members need to be aware of and how can they continue to thrive and prosper?

Jon Granek: Yeah this for the marketing aspect. Our storyboards definitely help sell quite a bit. Obviously custom flyers not anything it could be catered specifically to an end user or any distributor we can do. But really the trends that I’m seeing in general, and it’s been for the last several years and it really seems right now. It’s finally taking hold is the sustainability and eco approach. It’s always been talked about. But until recently I, it was always, we some sub distributors did it, but it was more a supplier push and now the more conversations I’m having, I. The more it’s really drilling home and end users are starting to really want to use and be involved with products that have some kind of, give back some kind of sustainability, not necessarily an eco product. Because let’s face it, bags and drinkware are technically eco products ’cause they’re reusable. But stories that can go with products seem to be resonating more. than they have in the past. And that’s what companies tend to be going towards.

Marty Hartman: I couldn’t agree with you more. I think people are hardwired to tune into a good story and the more that a distributor can do that with their customers the more that they’re going to increase their sales, I believe.

Jon Granek: Absolutely. And one example I’ll mention again, Grosche. Our team has really been pushing Grosche ’cause we had the owner of the company tell us that story. And when the owner tells you that story, it’s way more moving than when I tell the story. And there’s usually it’s just an eco kind of thing, and it’s oh, it’s an eco item.

Push it, put the why behind that and what they’re doing. It just, it really makes you want to sell their product.

Marty Hartman: All right, as we begin to wrap up our time together, John, anything else that our members need to know before we wrap up this segment?

Jon Granek: Sure. One thing to know is we’re a full line supplier with everything from a dollar up to $150. Everything in between. We have a lot of kits we have a lot of standalone items, retail brands. Very niche products that tie in well to industries. I’m trying to think what else? Trying to think what else I didn’t talk about.

Marty Hartman: I think we covered quite a bit.

I certainly hope that folks that, new Prime line JetLine back in the day and we’re big fans. I hope that they are coming back. ’cause Prime Line is outstanding alone. You’ve got some really great partners that are, energizing your company from a financial basis. I hope that new customers and old customers alike will be coming back to Prime Line.

Jon Granek: Likewise. Yeah, I think our service levels to just cap that off. I think our, service and experience that we’re gonna be able to provide is going to lend to customers wanting to use us more. I think. And on top of obviously the variety of product and, things like that. But but I think your, members are gonna recognize a very significant improvement in in the user experience.

Marty Hartman: We really appreciate that. So I wanna reiterate to all of our members, check out the private member site to discover more about your program, discounts with Prime Line, and check out Prime line.com for to see the new products and the stories behind them. John, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Jon Granek: Thank you, Marty. Really appreciate it.