Voices | Solutions Sticky Situations Industry pros are quick to share expertise, insights and opinions on all things promo. Amid this batch of answered questions, distributors share how they deal with mistakes and difficult clients. Compiled by Kristina Valdez Q A Distributor Asks: Before I refund my customer for a mistake I made, is there anything else I can tell my customer? I gave them the wrong imprint color on bags, and they’re demanding a full refund. Understandably, the supplier refuses to offer any credit or resolution. I love fixing mistakes like that. [I give a] full refund and let them keep the goods. Some of my 20-plus year clients have been “saved” that way, and some of my 20-plus year clients came to me that way after other distributors thought it was better to not make those clients whole. ROYCE SCHMIDT Owner Glacierwind Specialties Montrose, British Colombia, Canada PPAI 756354, D1 Get the bags back if they are insisting on a full refund. If they balk at returning them, ask why would they want to keep them if they are wrong? If they already used the bags, offer a substantial discount, because they were obviously not that bad. SUSAN HYSEN Client Success Executive Summit Group Silver Spring, Maryland PPAI 364377, D10 Q A Distributor Asks: For all the independent distributor owners, is there a rule of thumb of how many support/ customer service people a company should have in relation to the number of orders per month? I’ve been working in this industry for over 20 years with some “strong” sales numbers, and I’ve been running very lean with just me and one support assistant. In my opinion, a single person can process between 600 orders per year on average while also doing sales, accounting and all the other things. It depends a lot on how efficient your process is. Beyond that, help would be needed, and it is worth it to have someone. Affordability comes from your average order value. Six hundred orders averaging $50 is a lot different than 600 at $2,000. MIKE GOEBEL President Proforma One Marketing Missoula, Montana PPAI 587673, D2 I believe I’ve heard, and my past 20 years would demonstrate, that the average order size in our industry is about $750. (It was much higher, about $2,500, in my Silicon Valley days with a large company and lots of support.) Average industry margin is 35% to 40%, so average profit per order is $250 to $300. If your goal as an independent, working alone, is to write at least 50 orders per month, that’s $35,000 to $40,000 ($500,000 a year in sales) or $12,000 to $15,000 per month in gross income. Half of that is salary expense, the other half is for admin expenses and retained earnings. JOHN GRANTHAM Owner JLB Promotions Lacey, Washington PPAI 792007, D1 If your object is to sell the business down the road, then build it up. But if you just like making money, work on the larger accounts and assign the smaller stuff to the staff. They will run the whole thing I love fixing mistakes like that. [I give a] full refund and let them keep the goods. —Royce Schmidt Leonid studio / Shutterstock.com 38 • APRIL 2023 • PPAI
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