do you want to know how a 75 year old
screen printing business went from
making a hundred thousand dollars a
month to more than 400 000 in revenue by
expanding their business watch this
video if you want to establish a
business that leaves a legacy
in this episode we're talking to brent
and his wife tara the people behind the
loch name incorporated together they've
expanded their family business into lac
promo and apparel and both of their
companies have been growing every year
since then if you can't get repeat
business you don't have a business we've
got huge customers that do huge bulk
orders we're going to give you a quick
sneak peek on how they're made at this
manufacturing facility so we truly get
economy of scale today brent and tara
will talk about how they were able to
transition into this family business the
skill sets that you guys need to build
an empire of your own and everything
else that businesses need to have in
order to succeed
you know we'll roll out a couple
thousand aprons at a time
go for those bigger customers i would
say and just work those relationships
and what's your number one tip for great
customer service all right you guys
without further ado hit that like button
subscribe to our channel and the bell so
that you don't miss anything let's go
say hi to brent
[Music]
yeah come in you must be brent paul how
are you pleasure to meet you likewise
let's get this done all right sounds
great let's do it
you guys we're here with the current ceo
of lock name inc brent thanks for for
taking this absolutely thanks for taking
the time it's our pleasure we can't wait
to share your story so let's start with
your story when your grandfather started
loch nane's screen printing company and
when did you get involved yeah so my
grandfather started our company in 1946
uh came back from world war ii
kind of started it with our apron
product side of the business and we soon
started printing those shortly after
that for companies like safeway all the
way back in the day 50 years ago and
they're still a customer today and my
father joined him and then i joined in
1992 have been doing it ever since so
brent really cool wall this is your
grandfather that's actually my father
so yeah this is my dad he's probably 24
years old he's he's now 80. i mean this
is literally going back to early
um you know ar i mean here's his
accounts receivable i mean vita milk i
mean everybody's heard of that safeway
is on there you know safeway 117 and 60
cents you know they literally had a
sewing machine and they
made the first apron and basically went
out to local meat markets and then
ultimately the first major supermarket
chain was safeway
that was in 1950. that's amazing and you
guys
keep watching the video because later on
brent and his wife tara are going to
share an incredible tip hack that you
can use in your business as well
[Music]
let's
go into the difference between your
apparel right on the other side where
we'll talk to tara more about some of
the apparel stuff you guys
and then you're manufacturing here right
you've got direct to customer there
you've got safeway and alperson's here
what's the pros and cons and challenges
between the two like what do you like
most what i would say from a business
standpoint
and ease of business i like the
manufacturing side because while we make
a number of different apron products and
apron materials the nice thing is once
we get a customer on the manufacturing
side of the business they tend to order
the same thing over and over and over
again so we truly get economy of scale
and it's not changing all the time
whereas when we go do promo and apparel
you know they may a customer may order
t-shirts on this order and next they
order water bottles and next they order
um you know a journal with a pen and
then they want coffee mugs and oh yeah
we want our other logo on this and so
you're almost reinventing the wheel i
can see that many times on each order
and so economies of scale can be more
difficult to accomplish over there other
than getting larger customers right i
mean that order more
you guys we're here with tara who is
handling uh more things on the loch
promo side of things and we've got some
questions for her so tara thanks for
doing this with us yeah you bet uh let's
talk about the average check on the lock
promo side for an average customer okay
do you do bulk orders
why or why not and then what's the most
popular product that you sell most of
okay
um you know average invoice i think per
customer would be
i would say 500 to a thousand i mean
we've got huge customers that do a huge
bulk order so i'll talk about that a
little bit but also we really do have a
minimum order it takes a lot to set up a
job and so we have to have a minimum
order just to cover the cost of the
setups what is your minimum order for
screen printing it's 24 pieces 24 okay
and uh was bulk ordering always from the
get go or did you discover that we
should do that and that's where the
profits are and so forth
obviously very quick to figure out the
bulk orders or where the profit is for
sure that is our bread and butter but
it's also what we specialize in because
we're set up to do large orders
generally our customers that do the
large orders are like big tech companies
or events people doing events and so we
definitely do a lot of bulk orders i
would say that's the majority of our
orders and what's the most popular thing
that you just continue selling out
teas teas for events they change every
time different logos every time
but yeah i would say t-shirts for sure
on the screen printing side okay what
are the profit margins for teas or just
on average on this side of the business
we try to do a 40 profit margin okay to
cover overhead and any commissions for
our sales people okay
[Music]
let's switch gears and talk about your
current monthly revenue for the whole
company and break it down for us
on the apron side of things sure and
then your other business that you
expanded to right the uh promo uh the
promo and the apparel stuff so just
curious on that
yeah so we're we're um approximately 400
000 a month you know certainly we have
times of the year that are busier versus
a bit slower here and there but
approximately
250
plus on our what we would call our
manufacturing apron side of the business
and
you know around 120 to 150 150 000 a
month on what we would term our promo
and apparel side of the business okay
[Music]
how did you get your name out there and
established your reputation as hey now
we don't just do aprons right because
that's what you're known for since 46
what platforms did you use social media
how much money did you spend
tell us as much as possible so before we
actually opened the doors and started
this division
we were screen printing for people that
knew we had a screen printing department
you know uh the kids soccer team is like
hey could you do some sweatshirts for
our team or whatever and be like oh yeah
we should figure that out on the side
come on just do it on the side and and
word of mouth people knew we could do
screen printing so it's kind of like
favor for other businesses so
it started
pretty organically like that and then
once we had a lot of our own customers
saying what else do you do we're like
why not expand into this we've got all
the screen printing equipment we've got
the space we've got the warehouse so
we officially opened lock promo and
started that and quite frankly a lot of
it was word of mouth even friends that
worked at zillow when it was only five
employees you know just first starting
out a friend of ours worked for them and
they're like oh yeah we'll do your stuff
so we really grew with them to where we
are now go for those bigger customers i
would say and just work those
relationships and you farm into the
whole company and you word of mouth
really helps a lot
let's talk about the most important
skill set that any aspiring entrepreneur
should or could have and if they're weak
on it like what would you suggest to
them where they can improve on it you
know you just you have to be organized i
mean you have to have a plan and you
have to find a way to stick to the plan
i think sometimes with creativity comes
you know just your your your target is
too big sometimes you know and so
um i think you just you you've got to
narrow your target you need to have a
plan and you need to
make sure you can be disciplined enough
to execute your plan and what do i need
to to execute my plan the second thing
is you ultimately have to be able uh to
delegate i think the the one of the
biggest problems in small business is
we're so invested right as entrepreneurs
and
it's our baby and like for my father the
way we grew was to bring in someone else
which was me
who
um was younger more energy
ready to go sell and that's how we we
were really able to grow the business so
stop trying to do everything yourself
bring out people that can do it better
absolutely
people love this question and that is
your overhead costs on the printing side
versus the manufacturing and what's the
biggest monthly expense that you have to
incur every day for every month sure so
um overhead similar to manufacturing in
that we need the space it's a hands-on
job it's a hands-on product so we we
need this warehouse space we need space
for all the machinery and for people to
work and put these orders together our
biggest overhead i would say besides
labor is the cost of the space here the
square footage that we need yeah we do
we're part owners in our building too
but we we do lease yeah okay but at
least labor and then your lease is the
biggest one yeah what would be after
that just supplies you know
manufacturing side it's the materials
everything that goes into making the
aprons on that side over here it's the
machinery it's even maintaining the
machinery right um
and the inks and
obviously the everything that we're
printing too
you guys if you've ever been to costco
and you've seen these red or white
aprons right uh we're going to give you
a quick sneak peek on how they're made
at this manufacturing facility so brent
take it away
yeah so obviously it comes in on rolls
um you know we take the rolls and
we just mount it up on our spreading
machine here and uh i'm gonna be your
assistant right now all right here i'll
pull it over and and yeah we'll just put
it right up in the in there if you want
to put it in there yep you got it okay
so spreading machine goes up and down
the table you know we'll roll out a
couple thousand aprons at a time and
then we slowly once we get that done and
it's about a hundred high or so then
we'll put our pattern on top of it and
we do literally manually cut it out um
with this cutting knife so you put a
hundred layers yeah how thick would that
be because this is yeah so it's probably
about you know something like that okay
yeah so uh you definitely get a great
economy of scale even though it is a
manual process um you do still get a
real good economy of scale on that kind
of how different is this process
compared to what it was back in the 50s
yeah you know it's much has not changed
hardly at all wow yeah is that a good
thing
well i mean i i think everything's a
function of cost and and
part of the thing they obviously have uh
machines that will come and they will
cut it you know you can have a machine
that automatically cuts it out itself
but not when it's that thick that's like
a few layers high that it would do that
we have not seen anything to this point
as high as as thick as we cut this
material that would be able to do it
without being having a manual presence
[Music]
let's talk about the employees how many
employees do you have on both sides of
the business whatever you can share in
terms of what their average pay is on
the manufacturing side versus screen
printing we have about 25 employees
total now we have you know our graphic
artist our screen printer and and screen
printing assistant you know it's
probably about nine on the promo apparel
side and
you know whatever that would leave 16 on
the manufacturing side so definitely
more on the apron side yeah how does the
pay differ pay differs from the
standpoint of on our promo apparel side
we have
we have a salary and then we have
commission over and above salary and so
you know you you have that ability to go
i mean obviously the more you sell the
more you make so we don't have any of
that there's no commission on the
manufacturing side how much do they get
paid at least on this manufacturing site
the sewers and everybody else yeah you
know they're probably in the um
you know depending on experience
depending on what they're doing they're
in the you know 20 an hour okay you know
range and up i mean so that's kind of
where we're kind of where we're at over
here
[Music]
brent when you came into this family
business and took over essentially
what changes were made why were they
made and how did that impact the
business good question i i think you
know when you think about bringing on
someone new to your business one of the
best things you get from that is a new
set of eyes on the business right and so
i had the ability to have an amazing
mentor and my father who had been
building the business and was it was
definitely growing but you know i was
probably able to just bring in frankly
some youth and some excitement and we
recently brought our daughter a couple
of years ago and it's the same thing but
you know really it was just the energy
for me to go out and hit the road and
go sell our product i mean so really it
was it was sales it was top-line revenue
generation uh which is where everything
has to start in a business i mean if you
don't have revenue it doesn't matter how
well you run or how efficient you are if
you don't have revenue you know you
don't have a business awesome you guys
if you want to hear more tried and true
business advice from incredible people
like brent check out our podcast that
just went live upflip.com forward slash
podcast where we talk about how to build
a team organization and increase your
revenue check it out
with your knowledge and experience
though what would you think it would
cost today to get something started
similar to this i mean on a small scale
right you know you're probably going to
need rent of you know at least 10 grand
a month depending on how big a facility
you're gonna you're gonna get but you
can finance you can finance equipment
you still gotta have cash to run your
business and that alone you're gonna
want
you know available cash so i i would say
you know something like a manufacturing
business and again it depends on what
size but yeah you're gonna need
you know you're gonna need 300 000 bucks
i mean to put together all of the kind
of equipment you're talking about and
and the the staffing the people to run
it um it makes sense you know making
payroll every two weeks
for business owners you know they know
that's if you've never had to make
payroll every two weeks that's a whole
different thing in running a business i
mean people that have just worked for a
business that have never had to worry
about
actually writing checks every two weeks
you got to have the cash you got to make
sure these people's lives are dependent
on it you know there's a pressure and a
stress that comes with that
[Music]
what happens once it's cut and you pull
it out uh where yeah so once once we cut
it it comes off the table on a cart okay
and then uh then we we bring the card
over and then we come over to our sewing
machines they get dispersed onto the
machines you know this is what a
finished apron looks like here and uh
right now it's just getting what we
would call a bar tack that just just
comes in here right in there a little
bar tack that solidifies that here's
your bar tack right there so it just
puts that into the side just so these
don't pull out it gives that extra
reinforcement these girls sell you know
at least 300 aprons a day in total oh
each
yeah and then it comes over and we'll
fold them
uh get them folded and then get them
boxed into whatever box configuration
they're going to go out the door and
they get bagged up and
wrapped up with shrink wrap and off they
go you'd survive in a hurricane wearing
this thing you bet pretty darn new
that's the idea yeah
so how's the seasonality of this
business right both sides um what's a
busy month in terms of dollars what's a
slow month in terms of dollars and how
do you shift in those really slow
seasons especially last year with all
the craziness going on yeah yeah that's
a good question definitely
fourth quarter i would say for both
sides of the business is our busiest
quarter it's our highest revenue quarter
uh on on the manufacturing side for the
aprons that's when a lot of supermarket
chains hire more people in the stores
because of the holidays so we sell more
aprons and the same thing you get a lot
of year-end gifts to employees to
customers that kind of thing on the
promo side of the business and and the
printing side so
that is by far the busiest time of our
year covid was a challenge for everybody
on the on the promo side on the printing
and you know promo and apparel side you
know all of a sudden one of your biggest
vehicles for selling product which is
events
went away i would say that's where we
were very fortunate to have the other
division of the business we were
fortunate that supermarkets
actually
really i mean they were having all-time
record sales at supermarkets because
people couldn't go to restaurants so
huge for us from that standpoint of
helping buoy us through that through
that season and we did fortunately have
enough customers that were still doing
some things
it just the way you did projects for
companies changed drastically it now you
had to ship to
every customer individually you weren't
shipping to an office
[Music]
how many employees do you have and what
do you do to to to run and manage the
team in terms of employees and workflow
etc what can you tell us on that so as
far as production we pretty much pretty
small team about three or four people
depending on what's in in-house and who
we need to bring in to
add to that production team or that
production schedule sales people-wise we
have about seven sales people some are
part-time some are full-time
um some from home some from the office
exactly more more home like even our
graphics department people are been
working from home since covid and that's
worked out really well that's okay yeah
good but obviously for production we
gotta have hands on we gotta have people
here so
uh but a lot of our sales team is
working from home and has continued to
unless a lot of times we got to come in
and check on orders ourselves to do
press checks press troops for our
customers so in that since they'd come
in too any experience tips tricks that
you can share with our audience in terms
of just running a great team in the
apparel promo side yeah i think a lot of
communication
education
a lot of times i'm the go between
between our suppliers or manufacturers
what new products are up a lot of times
they're so busy talking to their
customers or writing up orders they
don't have time to really do the
sourcing and the researching so
i try and really uh reach out to them on
that new products educating getting us
signed up for out of town events where
we can learn more too and setting up
with our reps from other suppliers
how do you maintain such a great
reputation with all your customers and
what's your number one tip for great
customer service customer service is
what truly builds your business right
anybody can make a product and sell it
once but if you can't get repeat
business
you don't have a business and so it's
funny my dad had a saying that was
ruthless delivery that's really what
we've kind of focused on here is
granted we have a typical lead time
which might be you know two weeks on the
manufacturing side
so we always try to stick within that if
we can there's going to be times that
you're not going to be able to make that
the biggest thing and the way you build
long-term relationships is how you react
when there's a problem interesting when
everything's going great
it's really easy but it's when
we
have a mistake on an order whether we
ship the wrong product we ship not
enough product it's significantly late
whatever that might happen to be
how do you follow that up how do you
stand behind your product
and that's just something we have always
looked at that we are in this for the
long term it's far less expensive to
keep a customer than it's ever going to
be to go find a new one so even if it's
going to cost you in the short term you
got to find a way to make that customer
happy and frankly that's where you
solidify relationships is when something
goes wrong
let's talk about inventory for both
sides of the company
do you have a system in place that
allows you to manage it yeah you bet i
mean inventory is uh
incredibly important and and can be
incredibly costly you need to have
in-house always available to you yet you
don't want to be sitting on months worth
of inventory because it's it's cash and
you know for small business i mean cash
is king cash is everything and as it is
with every company but for small
business in particular
cash is what keeps the doors open and so
you have to be very careful about either
making sure you're not sitting on
inventory that isn't moving or just too
much inventory and it's interesting we
we have a customer management system on
our promo and apparel side that's called
com and sku okay and so we run that on
that side of the business we run a
software system called profit maker
on the manufacturing side that has a
built-in inventory component to that
everything is already input into the
system and that's how we create our pos
and that kind of thing and then
everything is received once it comes in
the door and then it's a running tally
in the system everything is built for
for example our apron products down to
the amount of thread a grommet
everything is built into that apron so
every time one ships out it pulls that
out of the system
[Music]
once it's in a box
what happens i'm guessing over there
that looks like a shipping yep so our
shipping air over here and we'll either
ship small package whether it's ups
or fedex our main trucking company if
we're going to put it on a pallet and
wrap it up our main trucking company is
fedex freight so that's who we use
mainly for our ltl shipments most of our
small package shipping on the
manufacturing side of the business is
done through ups okay smaller ones
smaller ones however we also use
fedex express
because we were able to with all of the
shipping we're now doing directly to
customer employees homes versus shipping
the whole load to an office we now ship
everybody's at home
has been at home we ship directly to
their homes
we were able to get a really good rate
with a big envelope size from fedex
express okay that we can get as much in
that envelope and ship it out at a set
price so they're beating ups on that
part they're better than ups on that
tara tell us about the supply chain for
the promo side of the business versus
manufacturing like what are the
differences right where do you get them
how do you find the best deal
things like that so suppliers are
totally different on both sides it's
really two separate businesses the only
thing we're sharing is the screen
printing our suppliers are totally
different than the apron suppliers it's
material that we are literally sewing
into aprons and on this side we're
purchasing from the manufacturers making
the t-shirts we're purchasing the ink
from people that make the ink and then
we're doing all the decoration in-house
i don't know if this is a valid question
but is it harder to get supplies for
this business versus that one or they're
about the same uh uh since covid yeah
it's it's a little more difficult on
this side on this side absolutely
absolutely just shortages of teas and
stuff like that shortages of teas about
a month ago we could not find white
basic teas to save our lives so we're
we're kind of it's filling in a little
bit but
we're having the same issues everybody
else is out there
[Music]
brent what's next for this company what
are you seeing for the next three to
five years we're really buoyed right now
i mean it's been interesting as a
manufacturer i mean we have a facility
in china that we deal with and and we
bring in a lot of finished product from
that has helped us over the years in
many regards because
business goes through cycles and we
definitely went through the cycle where
people wanted it made in the usa
then everybody wanted it for the
absolute bare minimum price they could
get it and that's not going to happen in
the usa so
we went to china we established
relationships over there with with a
factory in particular
what's happened now with with supply
issues and tariffs and everything that's
going on in kovan 19 and the lack of
ships and containers coming to the us is
people want to buy
almost out of necessity right now made
in the usa and our largest customer
basically came to us and said we want
everything made in the usa and this is
going back almost six years now about
they came to us and we'd probably been
bringing in 80 of their product from
overseas they said we want everything
made domestically so
that has provided us a great opportunity
right now to what we want to do is
increase our product availability of not
only aprons but being able to sew other
products on this side and then the promo
and apparel side of the business that's
just a function of
selling more product you know i mean
it's always more selling more product
but
again it's it's what type of you know
what industry do you want to sell to
that kind of thing and so that's where
we've been spending time where do we
want to sell our product where are
growth opportunities
this is a big question with our viewers
and that is either partners or family
members working together so
how do you how did you figure out that
balance of family work life what are
some tips tricks and experiences you can
share with us that we can implement in
our world as well first of all i would
say i i've been incredibly blessed
because my dad made it incredibly easy
for me to come into the business i i
think as the younger generation entering
a family business
it really is going to depend on how the
older generation
uh accepts you coming in if they're
going to say if they're going to have
the attitude of more this is my business
this is how it's going to be done this
is how it's always done i call the shots
you're in and you can give me input but
i'm going to do what i want to do that
would be really challenging i did not
have that i have a number of friends
that had that in going into family
businesses that it was very challenging
right my experience
couldn't have been better as i say i was
extremely fortunate that my dad was
willing to hear what i had to say and if
i could lay it out in a way that made
sense then he'd be willing to make a
change and um
he was hard-headed i guess exactly
exactly and gave grace right i mean at
the end of the day he gave grace because
yeah i'd worked in the family business
growing up but there was a lot of things
i didn't know right i mean all of a
sudden now i'm much more in a position
coming from commercial real estate where
you're managing no one but yourself now
i'm coming in and we've got employees
and how does that look and so i had so
much to learn
um and he was just a fantastic mentor
and allowed me to grow
and allowed me to feel i had some
responsibility which i think is
important to everybody
[Music]
you guys blitz time with brent brent
these are our fan base questions thank
you guys for submitting these questions
this is from daniel alexander
asking how did you come up with the
business idea well my grandfather had it
had a buddy that had the material said
figure out something to make out of this
material and
he came up with aprons and rain jackets
there you go this is from trent uskoski
um how in depth did you did you go with
your standard operating procedures and
training manuals definitely not a 10
second answer we'll give you a little
bit more but what can you say on that uh
that's that's critical by the way is
uniformity's everything and and so i
think a lot of that is just built over
time you're going to continue to modify
it but uh makes sense through experience
is basically how that comes together
okay this is from garrett stevenson
thank you garrett um how can he says how
can we get started any recommendations
yeah i think if you're talking about
whether it's screen printing or whatever
i mean there's always a question of the
chicken or the egg right do you need to
know how to screen print first or do you
need to have customers first and the
answer is you got to know how to screen
print because if you're going to go tell
somebody you can do it and then you
can't yeah then that's not going to work
so you know whether it's watching
youtube i know we've had a screen
printer here that learned how to print
on youtube and then either you need to
bring in a salesperson or you got to be
able to sell too but eventually you're
going to need two because you got a
print while they're selling got it
well we talked earlier in the video
about a hack
something you're willing to share with
our viewers
take it away
and thank you oh absolutely absolutely
my hack would be
you you have to get to the point that
you can get an economy of scale i mean
if you're talking about whether it's
screen printing whether it's making
apron products
you you can't be doing a dozen or two
dozen or even a hundred i mean and
believe me i mean that it's going to
take time to grow that but as quickly as
you can you need to move to economy of
scale because that's that's what's going
to allow you to be
around for a while if you're going to
consistently try to do just a few pieces
here and there and you're going to do a
great job you're not going to make any
money
and and then the second thing up in in
response to that would be
you have got to provide customer service
all the way through
the selling cycle with your product so
you got to stand behind it you got to be
willing to back it up at all costs
[Music]
brent what's your favorite business book
why and how has it helped you just
become a better person yeah uh i would
say that the most recent book i read was
uh it's called dare to lead by brene
brown
it talks about her leadership style
which is far more empathetic and i think
in today's workforce
uh it's just incredibly important with
uh there's a lot of people that have
been dealing with different emotions and
different things through covid and
learning how to lead
maybe with a softer heart and in in
different ways to approach people i
think has been critical that's awesome
[Music]
for people watching who can't make up
their mind on which customer to pursue
or which avenue to go with to get their
name out what would you tell them
and any pieces of advice just to
entrepreneurs in general yeah with the
experience you have you know i i do
think sending out emails and stuff like
that is is great but you got to get to
the right person so the more you can if
you know somebody that works at that
company find out who's making decisions
on making the orders that you would talk
to
try to try to get in that way because
sending the blank emails and the blank
things you're not targeting right just
junk mail yeah yeah it's gonna it's
gonna go to junk if i'm going into
business that i just happen to really
like and i'll say oh you know i do this
i do this kind of thing i'd love to do
a small order for free and just show you
what we can do show you the the quality
of our stuff if it goes somewhere great
and if it doesn't no big deal or if you
already have somebody else that you're
working with no problem just let me show
you what we can do and if you still want
to stick with what you are no problem in
general though people are really happy
with what we do and how we do it and our
customer service so
knock on those doors whether it's
virtually or through connections of
somebody that you know that works at the
company if you have the resources to
kind of do a one a freebie
that's a good way to get it people love
to see you know have things in their
hand people love to see their own logo
on something in their own hand and more
than likely they'll put through an order
with you that's a wrap what an
incredible episode with the owners of
this family business lock name right
behind me they've been in business since
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