Many distributors in the industry claim to be a "promotional products agency" but still function, largely, as a traditional distributorship. But Grapevine Designs has truly created an agency infrastructure and expanded their offerings to include a variety of creative services.
Janie Gaunce started Grapevine Designs, one of the original, agency-minded distributorships, back in 2000. Since then, Grapevine Designs has been honored as a “Best Places to Work” company by the Kansas City Business Journal and they consistently rank as one of the top “Women-Owned Businesses in KC,” and have garnered numerous other industry awards. Janie, a graduate of KU, is active in the KC community, most recently serving as Marketing Chair for the University of Kansas Hospital Advancement Board. She is a co-founder of “100 Jobs for 100 Moms” program that provides jobs that include mentors for women who have transitioned out of addiction. Within our industry, Janie was elected to the PPAI Board in 2012; currently serves on the Board of A Brand Company; named Volunteer of the Year and Membership Chair for PPAM and is an active PromoKitchen mentor.
This skucast episode features Janie's session she delivered at skucon on the topic of Building the Agency Model. As one of the earliest adopters of the agency model, Janie learned many lessons and shared her evolution as an agency minded business including:
- Tracking and billing for time
- How to price your services
- Developing your creative team
- Compensation challenges,
- And the practicality of opening up a conversation with your customers to expand your service offering
A timely topic full of helpful hints and ideas, you can listen to Janie's session and view her presentation, below:
