How to Start A Home-Based Promotional Products Business

Many businesses use promotional products, such as pens, hats, t-shirts, etc., as part of their marketing. This provides a great opportunity to make money in your local area.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. To get started, you will need to become familiar with the hundreds of products that can be customized for many types of businesses. There are many items available that have been designed for specific trades and you can find them with just a bit of online research. For instance, golf supplies, such as golf balls, tees, club covers and many, many other items are available for golf courses, golf tournaments or for companies that may deal with a large number of clients that golf.
2. Once you are familiar with all of the available products, you will then need to determine what companies you will use as suppliers. There are a few ways to go about this. The first is to find companies with low prices and fast turn around on the product, then simply broker the purchase and make a nice commission. The second option is to become a direct representative of the companies that actually produce the products, however, while the commission is higher, this can become very time-consuming and even costly.
3. With the first two steps accomplished, you will now need to contact local businesses in your area. A great time to do this is a few months before a local home show or products and services show. A list should be available as to who will be participating and can be obtained by contacting the host of the event. Almost all of the participants will be in need of some type of promotional item to hand out.
4. As you find businesses that are interested in promotional products, then you will need to create a flyer/brochure displaying items related to their trade. If you do this before determining a need, you would be creating hundreds of pieces that you may not need. This also saves many hours of time, allowing you to focus on making calls.
5. When an order is placed, you will need to know how much of a mark-up to use in order to make a fair commission, as well as how much to charge for shipping and be able to provide an accurate delivery date. This will need to be determined prior to meeting clients, by contacting the supplier used for certain products.
6. The process may be a bit difficult in the beginning, but after the first few orders, you will be able to carry out the process with ease.