You're in for a real treat on today's Success Stories podcast.
In 1978, Greg Muzzillo began to start in the industry by starting his own company perform up with a $200 investment and an answering machine and some business cards. He started franchising, his distributorship model in 1986.
And fast forward today, the company has over 650 offices with over $650 million in annual sales. We'll talk to Greg about all that and more. So buckle up and get ready to hear some great stories on tips on success.
You're in for a real treat on today's Success Stories podcast.
In 1978, Greg Muzzillo began to start in the industry by starting his own company perform up with a $200 investment and an answering machine and some business cards. He started franchising, his distributorship model in 1986.
And fast forward today, the company has over 650 offices with over $650 million in annual sales. We'll talk to Greg about all that and more. So buckle up and get ready to hear some great stories on tips on success.
Marshall Atkinson 0:06
Welcome to Success Stories brought to you by S&S activewear. I'm your host, Marshall Atkinson. And this is the podcast that focuses on what's working so you can have success too. You're in for a real treat on today's Success Stories podcast. In 1978, Greg Muzillo began to start in the industry by starting his own company perform up with a $200 investment and an answering machine and some business cards. He started franchising, his distributorship model in 1986. And fast forward today, the company has over 650 offices with over $650 million in annual sales. We'll talk to Greg about all that and more. So buckle up and get ready to hear some great stories on tips on success. So Greg, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.
Greg Muzillo 1:02
Marshall, thanks for having me. Yeah. And
Marshall Atkinson 1:05
you live in Tampa, but you started in Ohio, I
Greg Muzillo 1:08
grew up in Ohio. And yeah, one year after I went to college there started performing like he said, phone answering machines and business cards and a lot of high hopes,
Marshall Atkinson 1:18
right. So take us back to 1978, you started performer one year out of college, what was life like back then compared to today, and what major moves helps you get to where you are today?
Greg Muzillo 1:33
Well, life was a lot different back then martial performance started as the name may imply, as a forms company. Remember back in the day, when there were all these different parts of forms with all the carbons in between them. That's how we got our start actually, pretty quickly morphed out of that. But the world was also very different back then. And I think COVID is probably the most significant thing that has changed. But back then you could just go door to door. And that's how we started perform. I'd go door to door knocking on doors, I had a partner at the time. And one day I had sales training one day, we took some business cards and went on the street and showed me how to go door to door, ask the receptionist who buys their printing and get a sample and bring it back. And he'd explained to me what it was. And that was my training. And that's what we did, I would park my car, go up and down major business avenues in Cleveland, Ohio, go up and down different buildings there or go to industrial parks park a car and do what we called Field calling back then Marshall.
Marshall Atkinson 2:35
And what's interesting to me is that a lot a lot of people when they graduate from college and move on the start working for somebody and you chose the entrepreneurship route. What was your thinking about that? You
Greg Muzillo 2:50
just actually I did go to work for what is now Deloitte and Touche on the audit team. I was on the audit of American Electric Power Westinghouse General Motors, and I love studying accounting, but I hated doing it Marshall and, and my professors would say, you know, Greg, because I graduated top in my accounting class, they would say when I come back anymore what happened? You know, because they saw me being some future superstar accounting guy. I said, You guys need to have a class that starts at eight in the morning and goes to eight o'clock at night, and it's called sit down and shut up. When you just study accounting for an hour, you don't really learn the life of a junior accounting accountant just sitting down, shutting up ticking and tying things and so forth out in the audit field.
Marshall Atkinson 3:36
So you realize this isn't for me. I need to do something else.
Greg Muzillo 3:41
Yeah, I had a buddy that was a roommate. We were fraternity brother. We were roommates after graduate from college and he was working for a print distributor. He didn't like his boss. I realized very quickly I didn't like accounting Marshall. And so we will be out on Friday nights going to discotheques. That's how old I guess I am, you know, on Friday nights looking for dates for Saturday night. Well, we got to talk about our careers and and then he'd explained more to me about distribution of printing. And you know, when you study accounting, you don't learn about distribution, because you're studying cost accounting, so you kind of get this bias that everybody makes the stuff they sell. But he quickly opened up my eyes to No, no, no, there's also this whole distributorship piece and, and he'd be telling me about $50,000 orders with $20,000 in profit $80,000.35 or $40,000 in gross profit. And I got very serious very quickly like what Tell me more, and it became very apparent as a distributor, we didn't need any capital. We didn't need any manufacturing equipment, manufacturing employees, manufacturing, real estate, we just needed to have the gumption to go sell and so I thought, dang, I know accounting, you know, sales. Let's go do this. So within six months of graduating, I knew I could eat peanut butter and jelly Sam just for a couple of years, and in a way we went, That's great.
Marshall Atkinson 5:03
Now, I think college graduates all want to work for somebody is really rare. I think people just get out and have the bravery to launch out on their own. Don't you think there's something missing? Well, I've read
Greg Muzillo 5:20
because we're very involved in entrepreneurship programs in various universities and colleges. I've read that 10% of all college students today, no matter what their major report, they want to own their own business someday. However, I think to your point, they want to develop some sense of security, financial security first, prior to doing that. And I think in today's world, people have something called a side business, or there's other words for that side hustle. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that going on, while people try to use their full time job to finance their way to get a business going.
Marshall Atkinson 5:57
Right. And so where did the whole promo industry come in to you like, shortly after doing the forms, you started just selling other things? What was the jump there was start, like, if I'm putting a logo on a form pad, I can put a logo on a pin or a notepad or whatever, right? How did that happen?
Greg Muzillo 6:20
Well, it's a great question. So in the beginning, the printing side of the business doing very well. And the margins in the business were insane. And once you got an order, especially for business forms, you would just send an order to the plant that would say, exact repeat your order number, bah, bah, bah, or my order number, bah, bah, bah. And here's the new starting number, and you'd make a fortune, like it should have been illegal. So that was in 78, we started and then through a lot of hard work, we made the inc 500, you know, Inc Magazine publishes the list today, it's the 5000 fastest growing companies back then it was only 500. And we made that list three years in a row. And so we got a little publicity about these two college fraternity guys that start this business and build this multimillion dollar company. And so we got some requests for franchising. So 1980 by 1986, we started franchising the business. And shortly thereafter, we had a franchise owner in Dallas, Texas, I'll never forget. You know it because we were small enough, I could see what people were doing. I could see their orders come through, et cetera. And I met never forget saying to this guy, Hey, what is this wacky stuff yourself? And what's this wacky stuff. And he explained promotional products to me Well,
Marshall Atkinson 7:44
wacky stuff.
Greg Muzillo 7:48
So I called a buddy of mine, that owned Galaxy blues, Terry bridges, you may be you know, aperi. At the time, he no longer he sold out. But I went and visited Terry was nearby in Cleveland, and I gave him back, I said, period, save all the magazines you get about the industry, because every industry has its magazine, save every publication, you get everything you get about this promotional products industry, I'm going to come back in a month and collect them from you. That's what I did. Terry saved up all the magazines for me, and I just, I believe in immersion. Like, if you're going to do something, immerse yourself in it. And so I just wanted to immerse myself in the promotional products business. And that's how we got our start. And curiously enough, at the same time, forums were going away. And so we were doing more commercial printing. And it ends up that the same people that are buying, training or buying promotional products, you know, same relationship, it's the same marketing department, sales department, human resources department meeting and events department, it was just a real natural add on, right? For us.
Marshall Atkinson 8:59
Well, that's great. That's very interesting. So, and you're a very sales oriented guy, that sounds like it comes natural to you. My father was the same way he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady with white gloves. He just had that ability. You know, and I think a lot of people struggle with sales, and I think it's an inner confidence, or I don't know what it is, right? But what are your top tips on lead generation, nurturing, all that kind of stuff on building a sales pipeline? How do you think about that?
Greg Muzillo 9:30
Was Sure, and I learned some lessons the hard way. Marsha, we all have right back in 1978. With that phone answering machine, it was you know, it's not that fancy stuff. You know, digital didn't exist back then was one of those. I think we could only get 20 messages on that machine. And I'd be out calling and I talk to people and they take my business card and they tell me you know, Greg, next time we need something, we'll give you a call and I probably heard that three or four times a day just I'm out hustling out selling going door to door. And I started to think within three or four months, I don't think our answering machines pick it up, because it can only take one of your 21 messages and probably at least 100 or more people have told me next time I need something I'm going to call you. And I kept thinking we might need to get a bakery. Well, anyhow, obviously, nobody ever called me and I realized buyers are liars. And, and so I learned a lot about selling. But I will share with you what I know about selling, which is first of all, it doesn't matter. How do you sell, you gotta know why you want to go sell? Why do you want to go sell, and get a picture of your family get a picture of your future, because most people could make 10 times everybody listening right now to this can make time 10 times as much money's they're making more than likely if they just knew their why. And changed up some of them then what they're doing. But if you know your why you can do some really amazing things even when not so amazing things happen, because sales suck. Can I use that word with the Marshall Plan? We all admit it sales suck. So get over it being poor sucks worse. And so anyhow. So what is the process? And I think it's the same in every b2b business, we have to identify qualified prospects, whether that's going door to door back in the day, I don't think that's the most efficient way, I would surely wouldn't do it again, that way Marshall, identify qualified prospects, who are the people that could buy who are the businesses that can buy what we sell? And there's lots of ways of doing that, of course, we know about referrals, as can people that already love you. Number one, who inside of the company, is also buying what we sell, you know, I recently chatted with one of our franchise owners in Cleveland, who went from $600,000 to 3.5 million in three years. And I asked him, How did he do that? 650,003.9. And he said, you know, what I realized he said, I realized I was calling on a number of businesses, and I wasn't getting anywhere near all their business, I decided, he said, to get more of the business from the people that already knew me. So he bought some package of whatever it was to get information about who are the decision makers in the company. He did some research, he reached out to the people in those organizations, those companies and ask them about this person works in the company, this person works in the companies, who are these people? Do they buy any of what we sell printing with products? And then when those people had those triggers, they had those names? They're able to say, oh, yeah, so he asked her 50 introductions to people inside of his current customers, he got about 25. And from those 25 introductions, I call them walk me down the hall referrals. But nonetheless, their internal referrals to existing customers, he went from 650, some 1000 to 3.5 million. So identify qualified buyers in your own accounts. Right, who else? But anyhow, so we identify qualified buyers? And there's other lists we all know about LinkedIn, and then there's Best Places to Work lists and your town. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff but don't
Marshall Atkinson 13:26
you think that like some people I think, will do anything? Except sell like, yeah, the golden hour of selling because you know, you're not doing anything early in the morning around lunchtime or at night, right? And when instead of selling, that's when they decide to clean their desk, or that's when they decide to work on the presentation. Instead of actually doing the sales activities because they fear rejection or something I'm talking about and
Greg Muzillo 13:56
100% 100% sales sucks. We already agreed to that sales sucks but being poor sucks worse. So can we all get over it because everybody listening to this podcast, no matter what they sell, whether it's obviously apparel, but could be lots of other stuff, promotional products made the grinning, has 10s of millions of dollars of prospective business within an hour's drive of them. And people that behave that way, are just postponing success. Most people I know of in this industry postpone success. For so long. They end up living a marginalized life, that they never achieve what they could have achieved. And most people listening right now could do 10x whatever they're doing, if they just changed up a few things.
Marshall Atkinson 14:48
Like what you hear so far, be sure to subscribe so you can get the latest from Success Stories. And now here's Devin free with the SNS spotlight,
Commercial 14:58
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Marshall Atkinson 15:31
So in your world, which is primarily, you know, mostly promo, what is the percentage of apparel? For you guys? Do you know what those stats are? Just like exact just what does your gut tell you? of our $650 million
Greg Muzillo 15:47
in sales? About 40% of it is promo, hard goods and wearables or soft goods. And out of that, my best guess would be because we don't have perfect staff. But my best guess would be that a third of that 40% is wearables. And then the rest is is hard goods. Okay, approximately.
Marshall Atkinson 16:10
Right. Okay. So early on you were talking about your franchise network. Right. So what's different about taking your franchise network approach in the industry? You know, I don't think everybody really understands what a franchise is. I know they understand McDonald's, they understand. Maybe you're a carpet cleaning franchise, but maybe people don't understand what the whole promo industry franchise ideas about can you help them with that?
Greg Muzillo 16:39
Sure. Well, back in the day, I realized I didn't have the money to afford a Chief Financial Officer Chief Technology Officer marketing, even though we were five or $6 million, approximately in those dollars, probably today a whole, you know, $20 million in sales in today's dollars. But we still weren't large enough to really have the right sets of resources to build a great organization. And I thought if there was some way that I could share in resources with other distributors without being competitive, we could have a lot better resources. And the bottom line is Marshall. You can't make $500,000 doing $50 an hour, you can't make $500,000 a year doing $50,000 A year work and most people in this industry do $50,000 A year work all day. Order Entry quoting everybody that's running any kind of embroidery equipment, silkscreen equipment, invoicing, collections, paying bills, accounts receivable, accounts payable, most people spend their most of their workday, six to eight hours a day, or maybe 16 to 18 hours a day doing the $1,000 your work. And they wonder why they ain't get rich. Well, you can't make $500,000 a year doing $50,000 A year work. And so we do the fit the $1,000 a year work for our folks, all of what it takes to grow a dynamic organization. So they have more time to sell, hiring, manage salespeople, and buy out their competition and grow a dynamic business.
Marshall Atkinson 18:22
So the franchise concept is you're helping them with their invoicing and purchasing. And while a lot more like the admin part of running the business, right, a
Greg Muzillo 18:35
lot more than that. First. In today's world, it starts with technology. We've invested over the last six or seven years over $25 million in our technology platform. We have a vision and business management technology tool helps our folks every step of the way in running their business managing their salespeople managing their workflow be more efficient, then we have three levels of company stores. Because these kids that grew up with one of these right from the time they were in diapers, they want to be able to order online and through E commerce, whether it makes sense or not. And of course today with a distributed workforce with people not going back to the office with COVID, just about every business that everybody knows that has a distributed workforce that probably needs a company store at some simple level. So we have three levels of company store from very basic to very advanced, and we don't need to get into it, but it's very advanced stuff for Fortune 500 type customers, et cetera. We have 8000 of those stores today. Those stores. The Pro stores integrates with the provision, business management and or order entry system that integrates with our suppliers. Today. Half of the orders that go through our stores are what we call touch lists. In other words, they reach a reorder point the Border goes through provision directly to the customer. And our folks, our distributor owners that own a franchise, technically, distributor owners and their salespeople touch nothing. Right? So it starts with technology, you got to have great technology to succeed and thrive in today's world. But we also then offer great business development tools and resources, from earning new customers selling more to current customers to hire and managing salespeople to buying out the competition. Oh, wait, Marshall, there's the only four things that are going to make you rich, everything else is going to make you crazy. So let me tell you, those four things again, go get new customers sell more to current customers, hiring managers, salespeople, and by the competition, those are the only four things that will make you wealthy, everything else will make you crazy. And you probably got a couple of people listening right now that are pretty crazy doing all that other stuff. So we have coaches that coach our folks in how do they do those things. And that's a huge part of it, we have about a $5 million a year marketing budget that that equips our folks with the sales tools, the marketing resources, etc. To get out in the market and tell a great story. We have people on our staff that all they do is process RFIs and RFPs. And we win half million dollar million dollar projects. Because our help with processing an RFI processing an RFP, and a lot of companies. Sometimes people just JOIN US Marshal, because they get a large opportunity. But a big business with a big opportunity doesn't want to do a lot of business with a small company. They just can't. We just recently had a lady sell her business $2 million year business to one of our distributors, we have an acquisitions department that helps our folks do acquisitions. But she had a fortune 500 or larger client actually larger, spending $30 million a year on promo 30 million and wanted them to do the business. But they were only a $2 million company and there was no way they told her listen, we love you, we love your your folks, we want to bring this business to you because they did not like their current supplier. And so she sold her business. And she was also with the age where that makes sense. But she also is in it for the longer run. And now we're in the process of winning. And we've already won a big part of that $30 million in business. So it's hard for small business to do big business with big businesses, because big businesses want to know they're a part of a big business. So when we go in together with our distributor owners and tell the $650 million story with our technology, it helps them win business, they never could have won on their own.
Marshall Atkinson 22:55
That's great. And I love the fact that you're offering training and the support, because I think that's really needed with folks. But just because people don't know what they don't know, right, and you want to be enthusiastic about things. And it's really easy to go down a path and realize I'm go it's a dead end. It's a cul de sac, I've made the wrong move. Right. One of my friends His name is Richard is one of his favorite quotes is from Oscar Wilde, which is experience is what you get when you don't get what you want, right. And I think a lot of people, you know, don't have that experience. And by aligning yourself with people who've already traveled down the road, you can avoid the speed bumps in the cul de sacs and the things and it allows you to gain traction allows you to gain success faster, because you're really having somebody mentor you along the way. And I think that's just a really fantastic benefit of that. All right, so winding up here, right, let's talk about the future. And they say that rust never sleeps, and neither does the industry. So what are the one or two major things do you think is going to impact this industry the next couple of years?
Greg Muzillo 24:16
Yeah, you're not gonna like my answer, Marshall. The answer is I don't care. I don't Okay. I'm gonna tell you why. No, I could say artificial intelligence or something that waxes intelligent or some kind of crap. But you know, when people start talking about the economy, and are we in a recession or a bubble, I don't care. I don't care. Businesses in North America spend about $300 billion on printing and promotional products, $300 billion printing and promotional products. And yet even in a recession, things go down 20% Okay, so then that's only $250 billion. I know at Proforma, we don't even do a billion. So everybody shut up about the economy and let's go get the two 140 9 billion that we ain't get today. And so it's the same with the future. Yeah, maybe there's going to be artificial intelligence or, you know, I don't know, I do think there'll be a shift to people wanting to do business in the E commerce world, which is why we offer all of the technology. And also the training that leads to only performing people can be called certified ecommerce consultants in the industry. But I know more, what's going to stay the same, what's gonna stay the same is people are going to need to buy apparel, promotional products and printing, that's gonna stay the same. What else is gonna stay the same as people are eventually going to buy primarily from people they know, like, and trust. Now the way people get to know like, and trust people, I changed a little bit, and that there could be a little bit of a shift to some online stuff, but you're not seeing any major massive change. Yeah, there's some small orders and some companies doing some interesting things. But for the people that are listening, my encouragement would it be to worry about the future, the industry and all the other reasons why you shouldn't be going out and selling. My encouragement would be for you to say, you know, I don't know what I've done in the past, but I'm listening to the stupid Italian. And he's making sense. And I want to leave an amazing legacy for my family and for the world. And I could be making 10 times as much money, if I just changed up a few of the things that I'm doing. And I owe it to my family. And I owe it to my legacy to go out and get more of the millions and millions of dollars in business that are an hour away from me, I need to stop doing the $50,000 an hour work. So I can start doing the $500,000 of work, to change the future of my family, and to change the future of my legacy. And that my friend Marshall is the future that matters.
Marshall Atkinson 26:59
That's great. You're exactly right, we get we get so caught up in the hyperbole of the whatever, that we really should just focus on what we're good at and what's in front of us. I love it. All right, well, great. So thank you so much, Greg, for sharing your story of success with us today. What is the best way to contact you as someone wants to learn more about what you do or how you can help them? Or if they just have questions.
Greg Muzillo 27:31
I know I'm at a point in my life where I know a lot of people helped me and I'm always happy to help other people. I'm greg@proforma. And if there's any way I can be of help or assistance, I'm happy to do so in as much as so many people have been wonderful and helpful to me, throughout my life and throughout this business.
Marshall Atkinson 27:57
Awesome. Well, thank you, Greg, and I appreciate your time today. Yours. Great. Thank you. Well, that's our show today. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date on the latest Success Stories episodes. have any suggestions for future guests or topics? send them my way and marshall@marshallatkinson.com and we'll see you next time.