We had a few delays thanks to Mr. Flu and Mr. Crud but today finally arrived, the day that we turn the fabric samples over to the rep group and wait to see how the world will receive them. Thanks to all of your wonderful comments I approached the day filled with confidence and excitement.
First we snapped quick pictures of the each piece on the wall to give us some smaller files to mail to designers for presentations:
Here are a few of my favs:
Then we put together the sales presentation aka “talking points” booklet. Thanks Shootflyshoot for the pretty pic!
Then we had to design, print and cut all of the tags for each sample.
And finally it was time to cut and assemble. All hands on deck ya’ll!
One of the things I am most excited about with the samples is an innovation the mill and I came up with that I have never seen done before.
Notice the row at the bottom of the fabric ( below) which is a smaller scale that the rest? When the designers receive their samples they obviously will not have a full width of fabric therefore they will not know what the full repeat looks like. Instead of having to go the price list or flip over a tag to see a picture they will have a full repeat printed right on the fabric at 1/4 scale so they see true color, true scale, true placement.
Pretty cool idea I think.
They will also be offered almost limitless options for customizing for their jobs. Love that stripe but wish it was vertical instead of horizontal? Your wish is our command.
Love that huge scale but really just need a pillow and don’t want all of the waste? We will decrease the scale and print to the exact size pillow form you have.
This is as custom as you can get without designing it all yourself. We do all the work. You look like a genius. Sweet.
Did I mention that I love these peeps?
Remember last week when I talked about having to reach ( word of the year) out to others who will lift you up and help you achieve your goals. Well these three plus Jeff and a few others are my chief lifters. That one at the end? She prays for me… all the time… and she’s not even my Mama. haha What sweet encouragement they bring.
Martin Choate has been my Duralee rep for the last decade and has walked this walk every step of the way with me.
Her cute hubby, Tab, has started his own rep group called White Calf Designs and they have assembled quite an impressive group of companies to represent. I am so honored to have made the cut!! They have the exclusive rights to show and sell so if you are interested, give them at shout out at tab.choate@knology.net .
They came in bearing these gorgeous flowers
and then jumped right in there pulling, cutting, tagging and folding.
Thanks guys. What a great day.
Before we knew it we had a big beautiful pile of debutantes ready to make their debut. So get ’em girls.
The world is your oyster.
Then we loaded Tab down
and said, “Go get em Boy!”
If you know of design firms or showrooms that might want to take a peek I would be so happy if you passed this along.
Oh! and Happy Friday Ya’ll. Can you believe ‘Bama got snow?