Starline Interview with Brian Porter and Brian DeBottis

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Transcript:

Marty Hartman: Starline is a top 40 supplier in the distributor product space. A lot of people know about all the great products they have. you’re probably thinking of really great drink wear and personalization. That type of thing, when you’re thinking about Starline we’ve got Brian Porter and Brian DeBottas from Starline here to tell us all the new things that are coming down the road.

And we’re really excited to have them today. So Brian and Brian, thank you so much for being with us. And already providing value. We have a hundred percent more Brian’s in this interview than previous interviews. So

Brian Porter: happens. You come to Starline, you got to change your name, but it’s worth it in the

Marty Hartman: there you go.

Brian Porter: Marty

For having us. We’re honored to be here with you.

Marty Hartman: for those who are new to Starline, tell us a little bit about the company and what you guys do at the company.

Brian Porter: Sure. Yeah. I can kick that off. So thanks again, Marty. My name is Brian Porter. Brian, one of the brands here, right? I am the CRO. So I’m the chief revenue officer. I’ve been at the company going into my eighth year. So I oversee sales and marketing and all those teams, customer service, inside sales, those types of things. And as far as Starline itself. We are a family owned company, a third generation company started in Canada and we are now based out of Grand Island, New York, which is basically Buffalo, New York. So Western New York but we do have facilities in both the U. S. and Canada.

Marty Hartman: Oh, that’s great.

Brian Porter: things are going great. We’ve had an amazing round over the past few years. I believe Brian says what in the past three years, three and a half years, we’ve doubled the size of the company. So

Marty Hartman: Wow.

Brian Porter: So

Brian DeBottis: It’s been a good, it’s been a good run for us over the past couple years,

Brian Porter: that’s definitely, yeah.

Brian DeBottis: and to intro myself, I’m Brian Deba. I’m going into my 19th year at starline. I think I get a big, check or something next and, about a year from now. So it’s been a nice run. I’ve really seen a big change evolution.

And I’ll add to what Brian said about Starline if you’re looking for quality top to bottom quality experience, ease of use,

Marty Hartman: Right.

Brian DeBottis: That’s, what we do. That’s what we pride ourselves on.

Marty Hartman: I think, I would definitely agree that when you think of Starline, you think of quality products, you guys have some great options as far as kidding and presentation and personalization. So tell us a little bit more about what is it that you’re mostly known for? Sure.

Brian Porter: Why don’t we look at it two ways? Like I can talk about product and then Brian can maybe talk about services because don’t like to limit ourselves just to defining ourselves by the, product or the quality of the product. But that is a big component of, who we are, right?

So our biggest category is drinkware. And I think that’s what we’ve always been known for. Drinkware. Over the past 3-4-5 years, one thing that’s really helped propel us is our expansion of our, bag line. Wonderful across the board coolers backpacks and duffels and those types of things.

But cooler, coolers have definitely been the driver there. We’ve really evolved. The development and the it’s come up to match the quality of our drinkware. I guess you could say we’ve also added in a lot of brand partners we’ve got some great amazing relationships with brand partners that accounts for a good portion of our overall business here in and you’re out from you know the hottest drinkware on the planet stanley to

Jansport and uniball and pelican coolers and down from there You and then we’ve got a nice broad cross section of other markets that we serve with home styles and the lifestyle products, flashlights, electronics, all those types of things.

Marty Hartman: Excellent.

Brian Porter: Yeah.

Brian DeBottis: And I think to play off that there’s three services right now that currently define us and they all tie in together a little bit. And I would say those three services are personalization, our ability to do low cost effective spec samples. And then an on demand program, one piece minimum.

And kind of the way those three relate to one another is years ago, we started personalizing for free. And when I say personalized for free put somebody’s name underneath the logo on a drinkware item or a bag, so we can do both. And then and there’s many reasons why personalization is effective.

People, In this crazy world we live in, right? They get something that’s specifically for them with their name on it. It carries a little bit more weight. Plus they never get rid of it. And if the name of the game, it’s.

Marty Hartman: Right.

Brian DeBottis: Hands, then that’s a winner. Over time we thought, how do we push this out to the masses?

And we developed over the past couple of years, a low cost drink where spec sample program. So for a fixed price, we did a single drink where spec sample shipped. All in, but the key was not only do we logo, but we put the name of the recipient underneath the logo, and that’s been extremely effective for us.

over the course of time, doing enough of these individual spec samples. We got a lot of confidence that we could do a one off on demand program. So we have that now. Starline on demand. We’ve got about 30 items where we print a one piece minimum.

Oh, that’s great.

Yeah.

Marty Hartman: So what type of items do you have in that program?

Brian DeBottis: I can take that question too here drinkware predominantly, drinkware and bags. So you, water bottles tumblers then we go into the bag side of things where it’s cooler bags. Duffel bags and halfway through the year as we were approaching the holidays, we wanted to add more product.

/ Now, all these products have something in common. They’re decorated digitally. So the kind of the new stuff that we brought in for Q3, Q4 flashlights, a couple of best selling Bluetooth speakers. And then some like higher end quality items that were in the housewares category. Some from our brand partners, Joseph we’ve got the Stanley 40 ounce quencher and 30 ounce quencher in the program.

So a nice cross section of products that were deep inventory decorated digitally. And if you wanted to, on the drink or in the bags, you could add personalization. In the on demand program.

Brian Porter: And the

Marty Hartman: Oh, that’s great.

Brian Porter: The with the personalization and brian did an amazing job of breaking that down. It’s also not just personalization. It could be variable data So what we found is in these on demand programs, you have a lot of corporate stores You’ve got a lot of pop up stores It doesn’t just have to be marty or debo or brian on those You know, it could be a corporate name and then division those types of things you know a lot of times people will put those out there You And in one corporate office, you may have one or two people that redeem those. And in other office, you may have 300, but you never really know. And so it’s, it lowers that minimum to the the bare minimum threshold. And there’s not that overwhelming commitment to meet a MOQ, right? So

Marty Hartman: Right.

Brian Porter: In putting things out there. So we try to make it as easy as possible in that way.

Marty Hartman: That’s great that there’s a lot of different ways you can use that minimum order quantity of one. All so what are some tools that you offer distributors to help them sell product?

Brian Porter: Sure. Yeah. So we’ve got a lot, varies across the board, right? Brian actually mentioned one that, that has been our, I would say our number one driver the, spec program. And not only is it because we’re putting. Product in people’s hands, right? also the fact the follow up that comes with it So every time that someone does a drinkware piece, for example in our spec program you know it includes the personalization of the variable data Which means that it stays in the buyer’s hands and then within three to four days our inside sales team puts together follow up idea book which is another one of our great tools that is, built around that specific client, right?

So for for use let’s say it was a John Deere piece and it went out that follow up idea book would have 15 to 20 additional items in there branded with the John Deere logo built around manufacturing, agriculture, that type of thing.

Marty Hartman: Nice.

Brian Porter: Great layered approach to selling so that’s been spectacular our idea books which have been around about the same amount of time you can build those online, but that also gives you the ability to go and build a complete custom catalog for lack of a better term you go in there you pick the items You put your, graphics on there.

You put your logo on there. They are contoured on Drinkware, for example, they’re sized, and then you can fill in whatever additional themes, copies, those types of things you want. And you can build these out in a matter of minutes, right? So that’s been a,

Marty Hartman: Great.

Brian Porter: We also have the ability to do one offs on those and then of course, we’ve got our standard materials to go out We try to provide a lot of different lifestyle images through like social and email marketing We’re constantly building out different kits and different ways to approach seasonality.

Um, You know from a marketing standpoint, we’re very active We actually do print a full line catalog or actually we print a catalog twice a year It’s got a majority of the line in there But we still do a print for those people that like to have you know A physical copy in hand and then of course, we’ve got our zoom

cat.

Marty Hartman: Still some people that love the paper.

Brian Porter: Are people and I will tell you this It’s not always the demographic that you would think we have

Marty Hartman: Right.

Brian Porter: Buyers that now come to us and go you know what? I love to have something physical that I can hold and touch and tag and bend pages and go to and refer So yeah, it covers a

Yeah. Yeah

Marty Hartman: if one of our members wanted to take advantage of these programs, do they just reach out to you on the website? Do they have to sign up or apply for anything?

Brian Porter: D

/

Brian DeBottis: So the beauty of the web tools is you don’t have to sign, have a login to use them. So you just jump on the website and just like top to bottom from an ease of use perspective, if you get on the website and you get into a product category, There’s a button in the left nav that says navigation that says inventory enable.

You check that. And as you surf the website, the stock for every item is heads up display. It’s right on top of the image of the item. So no matter where you’re searching you’re not going to suggest a product that is out of stock. So continuing on the website, you still haven’t logged in. You get on the product page.

You can make a free quote, right? You can click on Logo Lab and you can upload art and you can create an accurate virtual. When, you make these virtuals, you upload your artwork and it snaps to the maximum standard decoration area. We’re not going to give you an opportunity to make it too big or put it somewhere where we can’t decorate.

If you needed something custom, you could reach out to me. You could reach out to Molly. She’s on the inside sales team. And you talk about tools that are available to you. Yeah, we talk about spec samples. We talk about a, very functional website that we’re on a Saturday afternoon.

You could knock out a bunch of work if you wanted to, but we have a team that supports you. You don’t have to do all this on your own. I’m the National Accounts Guy. It’s my job to oversee the relationship. You’ve got Molly, who’s the inside sales rep that works with me day in, day out. I need ideas.

I need virtuals. I need a quote. That’s what Molly does. And she’s very fast to respond.

Brian Porter: i’ll tell you another thing is Autonomously if people are working they like to be able to use these tools One of two things, Brian’s actually done some great videos that are available. That walk you through how to do the idea board so you can do these on your own. And then also we’re more than happy to take time to to set up a quick webinar.

Brian’s amazing about really showing you how to do this. It sounds incredibly. Like a deep dive, but it is so easy and so intuitive that it,

Get using it, we have people that just swear by it and they use it over and over. It’s very

easy.

Marty Hartman: Yeah, because if, it’s effective, it’s actually making sales

Brian Porter: That’s the key,

Marty Hartman: per personalize the catalogs for specific customers with their logos and all the products that’s fantastic. That’s going to definitely the customer’s interested in what you have to offer.

Brian Porter: Ease of use and a nice tool to help. So that’s the key.

Marty Hartman: That’s great. As far as decorating capabilities, I know you do digital color, laser engraving, and with. What’s your range of decorating capability?

Brian Porter: We, and Brian’s probably got some tools there to show you I think we’ve always been known for our, true color, right? The digital, which has been key for us long before my, my joining the team starline was, known with the word winning true color. Over the past year and change, we’ve evolved that program. Some of the limitations for us on true color, for example, where we didn’t have the ability to go down over a taper, those types of things. So now we’ve got our true point. Oh, and Brian may have some examples of that where we can actually do a full wrap on an item.

another limitation for us was the inability to do handle product, right? Because it wasn’t able to rotate. So now we have also the ability to do full four color process. On handled mugs, which actually just dropped this fall.

So Brian, you might have some elaboration there on these

Brian DeBottis: Yeah. And it all started with four color process on drinkware and it was over 10 years ago that we first developed that. And as Brian said, it’s evolved over time. In the beginning we, we had a raised feel for color process for a dollar and the ability to add a name for free, right.

And that same decoration area. And as. People got more creative with their art files and they wanted more. We’re able to do wrap decorations. I can do stuff like this where maybe you’ve got a golf outing or a conglomerate, and you’ve got all kinds of logos you want to display. For 3 for a half wrap or 5 for a full wrap.

And even stuff like this here with my my white claw bottle, you can see we can wrap top to bottom

Brian Porter: this very gross looking.

Brian DeBottis: Bills. Send that

Brian Porter: know. I don’t know That’s A lot of people are going to have a hard time getting behind that because it’s a, I’m just kidding, it says the Kansas City guy, but it does look spectacular.

Marty Hartman: Yes. Being able to do that, especially on the handled drinkware and including the Stanley line.

Brian DeBottis: That’s right.

Brian Porter: Including

Brian DeBottis: That’s right.

Brian Porter: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty Hartman: All

Brian DeBottis: And

Marty Hartman: got to drop some names

here.

Brian DeBottis: Brian mentioned that from a category perspective, drink where was number one bags has really come on as number two. And there’s a couple of reasons for the bag explosion. Number one, the quality of the bags is spectacular, guaranteed leak proof for the most part on our cooler bag side of things, but there’s two other factors.

And so the, process where we decorate these as a, transfer process that we make in house. And you might hear transfer and not think very highly of it, but It’s a beautiful transfer that we put on these bags and it allows us to do the free personalization. So there’s nothing shiny around the edges.

The white is crisp and clear as they lay down this white, it’s multiple layers of ink in this transfer. And you can see the color here. We can do a PMS matching for free when it comes to any of our digital decoration. We actually prefer that you give us a PMS value when you’re doing a

Marty Hartman: Right.

Brian DeBottis: So that we can, nail it for you.

Marty Hartman: And that’s very important when you’re dealing with the customer’s logo. They’re very particular about those.

Brian Porter: Just a little sneak peek for, you, Marty. So we try to expand the spec program right every year. Starting in February, we are going to bring back our cooler spec program. So that will launch in February. So once again, very similar to the drink where it gives you the ability to decorate these shipping cost included idea book followup but, for all of the members definitely keep an eye out for that because that’ll be coming back in February and March.

Marty Hartman: Yes, absolutely. And getting the headstart on spring and summer coolers are going to be very hot.

Brian Porter: doubt and one thing is You know for us is that we really do love to get product in people’s hands, right? I mean you look at our products on a page and it doesn’t tell the whole story, right? But especially with coolers the one brian had there like the ability to touch to feel to use it that’s where you cross the finish line

Marty Hartman: Absolutely. Wow. What else can you guys tell me that you think are Members need to know before we end the interview

Brian Porter: devo. What would you tell someone if you had him in the elevator? What’s the elevator?

Marty Hartman: the elevator pitch.

Brian DeBottis: If I’m in the elevator and you want to sell promotional products and you want a stress free experience where the product is delivered to the client and they say thank you job well done and they get something that is effective in their hands it’s going to last a long time it’s not going to end up in the trash it’s going to carry their logo proudly by their side for a long period of time then you should go with Starline.

Marty Hartman: absolutely.

Brian DeBottis: everybody get out.

Marty Hartman: Oh,

Brian Porter: it. Ease of use, right? Ease of use, service, those types

Marty Hartman: yes.

Brian Porter: And something else is, keep watching because we’re constantly. We’re looking for ways to get better for your members, right? And for example, we have a collaboration that we announced about a month ago that’s coming up.

We’re going to start carrying the full line of ProTiles products, right? We’re going to have

Blankets, those types of things. And it’s, a great addition to what we already do. We launched our collaboration in regards to web stores with Vantage in August, and that’s been, great.

So just different ways to, work with the existing people within the industry or different ways to just make your world easier going back to, Brian’s point. That’s

Marty Hartman: can’t think of any of our members that want more

Brian DeBottis: I don’t need any more. I’m getting the grays up here.

Marty Hartman: The stress free offers for our members. If you guys are stressing over it, that’s okay. We don’t mind that. Thank you so much for the time. And if people want to get a hold of you, just We’ve got our contact information on the member site and we really appreciate the time you spent today.

Brian DeBottis: Thank you, Martin.

Brian Porter: enough Marty. It was great to connect as always and we look forward to another great year together moving into 2025.