PPB October 2017

The Ball Is InTheir Court David Schneiderman of Nashville, Tennessee- based distributor Something Inked discusses the fast-paced work of providing custom items for professional sports teams. PPB When you first began providing apparel for teams, what challenges or caveats did you run into, and how did you address them? David Schneiderman One of the things that we quickly learned is that clients in this industry need things very fast—often in as little as 24 to 48 hours. Even the most difficult jobs, with multiple color imprints and multiple locations, require a turnaround of a day or two at times. So to not leave ourselves at the mercy of others, we started our own decorating and finishing operations to help meet those demands and ensure timely delivery. As we continued to grow, we took on print partners to assist but always kept the more difficult jobs in-house. Now we’re moving into a new facility that’s 57,000 square feet to accommodate more machines, packaging, inventory and offices, all to raise the level of service that our clients already expect and get from us. PPB What characteristics or business practices do you look for in partners to ensure a quality finished product that’s delivered on time and as requested? David Schneiderman We look for partners that operate under a model and mentality like ours; we never try for a one and done, it’s about a long-term relationship. A give and take, but ultimately all of our partners have an “anything it takes to deliver” mentality. No matter what it takes, we will figure it out. To that end, we even started our own logistics company, so we are prepared to deliver no matter what method or timeline we are handed. PPB Is there a typical ‘average’ number of pieces you provide in a year for your customers, or does it vary greatly based on your clients’ success throughout the season? David Schneiderman There are two seasons in the professional sports world that we serve: the regular season, where you have more time, and the playoffs. That said, while baseball teams may make plans for promotional needs months in advance, in hockey and basketball there is usually less of a plan and more urgency. In that case, you could be providing a year’s worth of products to a team while hoping they go to the playoffs. When that happens, one game could require as much as a whole season did from that team. Our business is all about service. We don’t look at the numbers or volume of orders from specific clients, we just work to make sure that whatever is needed is handled and delivered. PPB Your method of keeping track of clients’ potential needs during post-season play is somewhat ‘old school’; why use whiteboards rather than a spreadsheet or CMS? David Schneiderman We each have a whiteboard in our offices: Todd Schneiderman [his son] has a sales board with certain needs, dates, timelines, etc.; I work on the vendor negotiations—certain products are always needed, and each year we also introduce new things; Jason Rockhill handles quality control and delivery, which is often a full-time task at certain times of the year; Bill Feldberg handles the guts of the development and marketing; he works on increasing our client base, deciding on prospects—romancing the customer so to speak; and Oliver Landry helps keep all of the pieces together and going in the right direction with our operational support departments. It is truly a team effort from beginning to delivery. During playoffs, those boards are constantly changing; it’s like having a third screen for your computer. The changes can happen in a heartbeat. As an example, one season the Los Angeles Clippers and the Houston Rockets both ran with red apparel. And though they didn’t play each other, when they advanced, the Clippers changed to handing out blue items so the Rockets could keep the red. In the playoffs we generally have just 48 hours to print, ship and deliver. In addition to our operations, we also use other screen printers across the country that operate the way we do—again, those that have the “anything it takes to deliver” approach, we are glad to work with. We know we aren’t the easiest to work with at times but it’s the nature of the beast. FIVE MINUTES WITH David Schneiderman Something Inked T-shirts bearing the team's slogan await lucky Golden State Warriors fans. | OCTOBER 2017 | 75 THINK