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David Soria From America’s Window Covering Buying Network
Guest Profile: David Soria
David has been in the industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021. His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry.
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To learn more about David Soria visit:
America’s Window Covering Buying Network
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Video
https://youtu.be/VO5DQ6HmtmU
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Transcript
William Hanke (00:02)
All right, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes, the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. Today’s guest is David Soria. David has been in the window treatment industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021.
His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management, as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry. David, thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (00:43)
welcome.
William Hanke (00:45)
Excited to have you here and kind of talk through a little bit about what’s known as the network, I guess, right? Yeah, awesome. So why don’t you start out by sharing a little bit of background about your journey, obviously, in the window treatment industry and some key roles that have helped you kind of shape your expertise.
David Soria (00:51)
Yep, that’s right.
Sure, sure. You I got started in the industry when I answered a newspaper one ad, if you remember those, looking for a salesperson, somebody who might have an interest in design and who would be doing shop at home sales for that company. at the time I’d done some in-home sales, had a background in theater design and also in teaching.
William Hanke (01:15)
You
David Soria (01:33)
And the job sounded interesting. And this was for a fairly large window coverings retailer in the Chicago area. And when I started with them, they had over a dozen shop at home decorators working for them, big company. They had their own workroom, made their own drapery, vertical, shears, top treatments. And, you know, talk about a nice problem. They were drowning in leads. I got a two week
crash course in their showroom on blind shades and drapery and then I started taking sales calls. I mentioned that they were busy. I still remember I took 20 in-home calls my first full week with them. Mostly for hard treatments but still 20. A of customers to see. The owner had really great plans to expand.
William Hanke (02:21)
Wow.
David Soria (02:28)
eventually moved me into a supervisory role doing ride-alongs with the team, training, setting up promotions, working with the general manager and our marketing manager to develop programs and incentives. At the time, I didn’t know that the owner was building up some debt behind the scenes and that eventually caught up with him and forced him to close. I was fortunate enough to leave before that happened.
I then went to work as a territory rep for a hard treatment fabricator that had recently expanded into the Midwest. I was with them for some really tremendous growth and change at that company and the industry. We saw our product mix shift dramatically from more commodity products like verticals and cellular into the explosion of interest in horizontal woods then.
natural shade category and really the first big wave of screen shades and motorization. That company was eventually purchased by a larger national company right around the time of the 07-08 financial crisis and a number of years later they got absorbed into another company. I continued with them for a number of years before I moved on.
wanted to make a change, do less travel and have more time with my family. But it was a great way to learn about the industry. I couldn’t have asked for a better training ground. Having a chance to do the shop at home taught me a ton about product sales and the challenges that designers and retailers face every day. That in turn made me a better territory rep for the two companies I worked with.
you know, walked in the dealer’s shoes before. So I knew how important training, follow-up and the dealer support really could be. Now, as you said, I’ve been with America’s Window Covering Buying Network almost four years now as national sales manager. And that gives me an opportunity to really synthesize a lot of those previous experiences as I work with our account team, our members and our vendors.
William Hanke (04:52)
Yeah, I love the fact that you’re kind of homegrown, right? You’ve already walked the walk and you understand what they’re going through now, right? And the kind of struggles that they have, even down to the point of understanding the in-home sales process. I love that.
David Soria (05:07)
Yeah, yeah, and it is a process.
William Hanke (05:10)
Very good. Yeah. Yeah. So all that brings you to what we call the network. And tell me a little bit about AWS CBN as an overview.
David Soria (05:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. America’s Window Covering Buying Network. And we shorten that to the network a lot of times. We’ve been servicing the company’s been servicing the industry for over 20 years now. And in fact, one of the vendors that I used to work with had been a supplier. So I remember meeting with the owner here at the network, Alan Meyer, to discuss our company’s programs. They had to be, you know, over 10, 15 years ago now.
William Hanke (05:48)
Okay.
David Soria (05:53)
The company is a nationwide membership group serving window covering professionals, designers, workrooms, independent retailers. Now here I work with our account team as well as our members and vendors. I’m involved in several areas contributing to our printed newsletter, organizing monthly webinars for members, along with other functions here. It’s pretty amazing though to see the growth we’ve had just
In the few years I’ve been here, we have members in all 50 states. We’re going to hit 1,500 members total before the end of the year, 2024. And right before the pandemic, we were happy to hit 1,000. So that’s some pretty significant growth.
William Hanke (06:33)
Nice.
That’s fantastic. I love the list of things that you’re involved in. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got a dull moment. That’s awesome. That’s great. So Tell me a little bit more about a buying network. What is that and how does it benefit somebody who may be listening to the podcast today?
David Soria (06:50)
No, never a dumb moment. I love it.
Sure. Well, to start off with buying groups have been around a long time and in a lot of different industries. The idea is pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Members of a buying group receive better discounts on their purchases because the group leverages the total buying power of the membership for the benefit of the members. Now in the window treatment industry, this means the vendors will offer network members discounts that members
would not ordinarily be able to receive on their own. For some vendors, you know, I think you can think of it as a franchise level buying power. Various vendors offer sample discounts as much as 50%, a dealer spiff, aggressive promotions, some exclusive to the members. One vendor has even created a natural shade book that only members have access to to sell a private label option.
And that’s obviously a real game changer for those members who were in competitive markets.
William Hanke (08:10)
There’s a lot of window treatment dealers out there now that are probably selling the products that you guys have partners with, and they don’t realize they could be getting some sort of a discount just by being in the buying network.
David Soria (08:22)
Right? Right?
William Hanke (08:24)
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So and you said it’s around close to 1500 now. So you guys got some decent leverage on the on that side as well.
David Soria (08:34)
Yes.
William Hanke (08:36)
That’s great. I love to hear that. That’s really cool. Kind of a different approach to it. What is when we look at a WCBN or the network, what is kind of your core value proposition that you promote?
David Soria (08:52)
Sure. You know, our bottom line goal as a company is to help our members by making their businesses stronger, more profitable, and ultimately more successful.
William Hanke (09:06)
OK. And you guys do that through, obviously, the vendor relationships. But you also mentioned that you have some other things like a newsletter. Tell me a little bit more about that.
David Soria (09:15)
Yeah, sure. We publish a monthly newsletter that has a wide amount of industry information, articles, certainly from our vendors, but general interest articles to anybody who’s in the industry from industry experts, from Roger Mcgalliff, Deb Barrett, Jessica Harling, the one and only Will Hankey.
contributes so it’s great and it’s a hard publication. mean we mail this out, it’s not an e-newsletter and we hear stories from our dealers who say, you know, can you tell me what the fabric is on the cover because I have a customer who saw it in my shop and is looking for that. So that happens all the time.
William Hanke (09:45)
you
wow. That’s cool. I love that in the digital world, you guys are kind of going the old school route a little bit. And and the newsletter is not just like a sheet of paper. Like it’s it’s a legit magazine, I guess. That’s great. And every month different every month, obviously, the the the people that submit articles. But you guys also have things in there specific to vendors teaching that kind of stuff as well. Right.
David Soria (10:22)
28 page, Yep.
Yep. We view it as an educational piece that anybody who picks this up, you know, it’s like, it’s like going to a training, right? If you can walk out of a training meeting with a vendor or speaker and walk away with one or two, two or three actionable items, it’s been worth your time.
William Hanke (11:00)
Yeah, that’s great. OK. What about who joins the network? So what is the typical vendor or retailer look like?
David Soria (11:10)
Well, I don’t know that there is one I mean we have a wide variety of businesses who joined from Really the small mom-and-pop companies up to large million dollar plus retailers We have folks who are strictly a shop at home working out of their house or office as well as really well established bricks and mortar folks there are
interior design firms, window covering specialists, work rooms, installers even who sell decorators, designers. There are even some floor covering or furniture retailers that also have a window treatment department. If they’re independent companies and sell window covering, they should consider becoming a member. I do want to stress independence if I could just for a moment. mean,
William Hanke (11:49)
Okay.
David Soria (12:00)
Folks that don’t already belong to a window covering franchise group that has their own buying program like a, well, you know the names, Budget Blinds, Gotcha Covered and others. The franchises sometimes get handed specific vendors and programs by that parent company and obviously pay a significant amount of money to sell those approved vendors. They often are paying a monthly fee for various services.
accounting, marketing, stuff like that, besides the initial buy-in to the franchise and any regular royalty payments. I know some do, some don’t, but the cost to belong to one of those can add up really fast. Groups like that lock down their franchises for a certain number of years unless they end up selling a territory. We’ve even had members over the years who’ve joined after they
left one of those arrangements sold or whatever separation and opened as an independent. And, you know, our membership, the network membership for a dealer, it’s only $180 a year. And we have not increased that in several years. So get it now before the price goes up, right? Our members tell us that they saved, often saved their membership fee on the first order.
William Hanke (13:18)
That’s right.
David Soria (13:26)
You asked me about who should consider joining if you say look at business size or revenue too and there’s no real minimum or maximum revenue to begin to see a benefit. We see it all the time for many members that depending on the vendor it may be only one or two orders for the membership to pay for itself.
William Hanke (13:50)
Yeah, yeah, 180 bucks a year. It doesn’t sound like it’s a it’s a big roadblock to get started, right? And yeah, yeah. So can you tell me you don’t have to be specific, but with a couple of vendors, can you tell me what kinds of discounts somebody could expect to get?
David Soria (13:59)
No. It’s not a big ask.
Sure, you know and any discount has value I mentioned One vendor has a program where members can get as much as 50 % off samples But another one has you know 25 % off sampling in terms of product discounts Often those are you know 5 10 15 as much as 20 % when you
pile on some of the promos that they’re doing as well.
William Hanke (14:44)
Got it. Okay. That’s really cool. Are there any ranges like revenue ranges for people that join your program where it starts to really become beneficial to them?
David Soria (14:56)
Yeah, you know, the more the more dealer sells, the more they’re going to save. mean, I would put it that way. On the other hand, even that company that says, hey, you know, I only do a little bit with XYZ vendor, should I really join? And it only takes a few orders during a calendar year for some vendors to make that membership pay for itself.
So I would say that regardless of the vendor, the dealer’s purchase level, that they should look at it closely and see whether it would be beneficial to them. And that’s part of our account manager’s job here is to work with dealers, look at the membership closely, and see whether it would help them. For some, it will help them a lot. And if it doesn’t, you know.
William Hanke (15:50)
Makes sense. I also can see that somebody who maybe contacts you, maybe they’re only using one of the vendors that you offer, but might get exposed by just being part of your program to other vendors that they didn’t realize even existed. And maybe end up saving money on products they’re already offering.
David Soria (16:12)
Yeah, we do hear that as well is, hey, you know, I joined because of this company or that company, but then I discovered this other company that has a product that, you know, other people in my market are using that I’ve heard about. I’ve learned more. And I wanted to add them to the mix. I definitely, definitely hear that from our members.
William Hanke (16:38)
Sure, yeah. And my company, Window Treatment Marketing Pros, is a preferred marketing vendor for you guys. We do get people that outreach to us and say, I didn’t think about marketing my business, but I probably should be thinking about that. And our name came up, of course. So we do get those same kinds of conversations where they didn’t realize that there was something else that they needed to grow their business.
David Soria (16:44)
Yes.
William Hanke (17:08)
So that’s always a great benefit, maybe a hidden benefit on your end that they realize after signing up.
David Soria (17:17)
Yep, absolutely.
William Hanke (17:19)
Cool. Let’s talk about challenges. So what are some of the biggest challenges that your members face and how does, you know, like a buying group really help them address those challenges?
David Soria (17:33)
Well, know, bottom line for the members joining is saving money. So we want to be able to do that for them first and foremost. You know, and obviously if you can reduce your costs, you’re going to make more money, be more profitable in the long run. But in terms of the challenge that are going on right now, I think we all recognize the market is super competitive.
not just about being able to maintain your margins, but dealers have to generate enough leads to fuel sales. You brought up the marketing component and you know, there are all these marketing services through additional vendor partnerships that from enhancing SEO, driving leads, website design, CRM setup, email marketing campaigns. You know, there are a lot of ways that, that members
can derive benefits to address that kind of a challenge. I know I’m aging myself by saying that the retailer I used to work for generated leads by running an ad in the local shopper paper, right? They even tried out a TV guide ad and it didn’t work out too well. But nowadays it’s digital marketing, using your website to drive leads, repeat customers, grow business, generate reviews online, get noticed in the first place.
William Hanke (18:46)
Right.
David Soria (19:02)
And many window covering dealers just don’t have that expertise, nor do they have the time to do the work it takes to comprehensively market their businesses. So having marketing partners who understand the window covering industry really is, you know, a game changer for them.
William Hanke (19:23)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s been a great partnership for us, obviously. I wanted to also I want to also ask you about webinars. You mentioned obviously the newspaper newsletter, whatever you call it, that goes out, the physical one. You guys also do webinars to help your members learn different things about different aspects of their business. It’s not just.
David Soria (19:27)
We appreciate it. Yeah.
William Hanke (19:49)
vendors pitching products, right? It’s a learning type session.
David Soria (19:53)
Right. Yeah. You know, we do at least one webinar a month, sometimes additional ones. We bring on our vendor partners to really be the star of those and to share something new about what’s going on. So if they have a product launch, if they have product promotion, if they have updates, training on a product, and many times,
What we’ve encouraged is that the vendors, and we started doing these, by the way, during COVID where nobody was meeting in person. And so it was an opportunity we realized for vendors to bring their showroom alive by showing it and doing the next best thing to having that sales rep sit down across the table, which was to show product, show samples and demo that.
And obviously, you know, that sales rep or sales rep team can only meet with one person at a time. Whereas our vendor webinars are open to our entire membership. So you can have have the national sales manager from a particular company presenting product or the product expert in that company presenting product to people from coast to coast and
So that’s very powerful. And it’s also an opportunity for somebody, say, who doesn’t have an account with a particular vendor to get a firsthand look at that product without the push, the sales angle of, I showed you my product, now sign off. They can judge for themselves whether that product line fits their needs.
William Hanke (21:46)
I love that. think that’s really smart that people can get on and watch those and do it in their own time, right? Without a huge time commitment as well, which obviously is important for people that are trying to run a business. Yeah. So one last thing. I did have a note here that you guys also have a private Facebook group that I’m assuming all your members have access to and can ask questions not just to the vendors, but to each other, right?
David Soria (22:16)
Yeah, we do maintain a private Facebook group as well as a public page. But on the Facebook group itself, there are no vendors. you know, we do encourage if you have something that’s nagging you about a particular vendor, give us a call. We, you know, talk about a one-on-one, but we see members posting tricky windows that they’re looking for advice for.
William Hanke (22:27)
okay.
David Soria (22:44)
the same as some of the other Facebook groups, but what’s different is you don’t have that vendor jumping on and saying sell my product, I’m the solution. You have other business owners who’ve seen the same window can make suggestions, can share their expertise and advice. So it’s very helpful to the members, I think.
William Hanke (22:53)
Yeah.
That’s great. mean, for 180 bucks a year, mean, just that would be worth it, right? That you could save a ton of money just by asking, how can I complete this project? And who can point me in the right direction?
David Soria (23:20)
Yeah, and you know, one of the things too, well, that we see is that members, by taking advantage of the various things that we offer, we see them growing their businesses at a faster pace and by having additional promotions, better pricing, they’re getting better margins. You know, it’s recently, I was recently talking to one of the territory reps from one of
the vendors that we work with. And she was saying she’s talking up our membership. Well, why? She shared that the dealers in her neck of the woods, her territory, the ones who are network members, she was seeing grow at a greater incremental rate and the non-network dealers were just kind of flat. So she was encouraging them to, you know, get on board.
and join and we love to hear stories like that. We hope that we can provide members with a leg up with those tools. The website, the Facebook, the webinars, all of that.
William Hanke (24:35)
That’s great. I mean, it makes total sense that if they’re saving money on the same types of products that everybody’s selling, they’d have more cash flow, right?
Cool. So question about the industry overall. I always like to ask this kind of question. What kind of marketing trends are certain, not even just marketing, what kind of trends are you guys seeing that is, should be important and on the radar for window treatment businesses as we roll into 2025?
David Soria (25:06)
Sure, you know, we always talk about that and trying to look for, know, what the hot trends are and what trend in one market is going and maybe not in another. I think my advice would be for the dealers wherever they are to analyze their local market really carefully. You know, what’s happening in their market may not be what’s happening nationwide.
tell you roller shades or motorization, but there are always exceptions for the latest trend. You know, I recently spoke to one of our members and she’s not in a small market. And she said, we’re still selling a surprising number of vertical blinds. I’m not going to give you that as a national trend, but you just never know for a particular market what, the hot product is. You know, that said, I would encourage any dealer.
has not yet embraced motorization to really get on board. It’s only going to grow in popularity and that means talking about it on every sales call, showing a motorized hand sample. If you have a showroom, having motorized product in your showroom. We have a vendor that has extra discounting specifically targeted to SOMTI motorization so that our members are able to save
additional on those products. I’d encourage dealers also to look beyond the interior window and expand their horizons. You know, if they’re just selling blinds and shades, what would happen to their business if they added soft options? That seems to be a growing trend. Fabric shades, drapery, balance, even just a simple panel program. What would that do to your bottom line? You’re in the home.
What about wall covering, rugs or accessory items if you’re already in soft? What about adding that? How about exterior product? Certainly, you know, some of the companies, have an exterior shade, but what about zip screens? What about awnings, pergolas, structures, exterior shutters and the like? We’re looking at some additional things to bring to our members next year and we’re really excited to…
to be able to do that. These are trends that are in the industry towards that outside of the house product. If dealers haven’t seen it in their market yet. In terms of marketing, you brought that up earlier. Have they updated their website? Do they have a dated appearance or does it show everything that they offer? Does it tell a story? Does it entice a customer to get in touch?
personal touch, like the owner’s picture even. How do they stay in touch with their current customer base? Do they have an email newsletter or other ways to generate word-of-mouth referrals? And obviously we’re in a visual industry and I think the cutting-edge businesses are making sure that they’re capturing great photos from their jobs, posting them, using social media, geo-tagging them.
I’ve heard from designers and workrooms that are having great success with Instagram reaching their target customers, making connections long term. Get the word out, tell your story.
William Hanke (28:44)
I love it. You’ve summarized more than I could ask when it comes to some sort of advice on what to do. What a great list of things that obviously, these are actionable items that people can, that they can grab and start to do. A lot of them aren’t even that costly to do so.
David Soria (29:04)
Yeah. I mean, look at your client mix. Who are they? Where are they? How did you find them? What are they buying? And look at your vendors. I mean, that’s where we come in to a little bit. Look at the big or even small changes in the industry. This is year end. It’s the time to reconsider a lot of things in your business. How would you tweak it for 2025? Are you reconsidering your mix of product, your mix of vendors?
And, you know, was last year better or worse than 2023? And what might you do differently? Are you ready to grow, ready to hire, open or expand a showroom? Bottom line, what are you, what are you driven to do with and for your business in the new year?
William Hanke (29:57)
Yeah, fantastic advice. I love it. When it comes to putting all that together and coming up with a plan, joining the network should be something that they consider. Where would somebody go to learn more about it?
David Soria (30:13)
Sure. Our website awcbn.com is a public facing page. There’s a members log in there where our members have additional information, but that public page gives a lot of information, FAQ information about joining. can check it out there. There is an application that they can fill out right.
right online, it’s a secure server to handle the payment, DocuSign server, and the links there. If they have questions, they can call us here at the office. We’re here in the central time zone at 847-281-3152, and we’re here Monday through Friday most days, 8 to 430.
William Hanke (31:08)
you
David Soria (31:09)
You know, we’ll take a little time off for Thanksgiving and all, but yeah, give us a call and we’d be happy to answer any questions. And if you have questions about if joining made sense for your particular business, we can definitely work through that.
William Hanke (31:29)
Love it. And you’ve got a great sales staff, too, that can answer a lot of the questions that might come up.
Love it. That’s great. So David, thank you so much for being on today. I’ve learned a lot about the network. I think it’s a great no brainer for people in the window treatment industry. And as you mentioned, some other industries as well where there’s still some advantage there. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (32:01)
Thank you, Will. Enjoyed talking about it with you.
William Hanke (32:04)
Yeah, no problem at all. If you found today’s conversation helpful, be sure to check out our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss the next update. We’ll have more insightful discussions and expert guests coming your way to help you thrive in the window treatment and awning business. Stay inspired, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks again, David.
David Soria (32:28)
Thank you.
William Hanke (32:32)
Sweet.
Transcript
William Hanke (00:02)
All right, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes, the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. Today’s guest is David Soria. David has been in the window treatment industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021.
His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management, as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry. David, thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (00:43)
welcome.
William Hanke (00:45)
Excited to have you here and kind of talk through a little bit about what’s known as the network, I guess, right? Yeah, awesome. So why don’t you start out by sharing a little bit of background about your journey, obviously, in the window treatment industry and some key roles that have helped you kind of shape your expertise.
David Soria (00:51)
Yep, that’s right.
Sure, sure. You I got started in the industry when I answered a newspaper one ad, if you remember those, looking for a salesperson, somebody who might have an interest in design and who would be doing shop at home sales for that company. at the time I’d done some in-home sales, had a background in theater design and also in teaching.
William Hanke (01:15)
You
David Soria (01:33)
And the job sounded interesting. And this was for a fairly large window coverings retailer in the Chicago area. And when I started with them, they had over a dozen shop at home decorators working for them, big company. They had their own workroom, made their own drapery, vertical, shears, top treatments. And, you know, talk about a nice problem. They were drowning in leads. I got a two week
crash course in their showroom on blind shades and drapery and then I started taking sales calls. I mentioned that they were busy. I still remember I took 20 in-home calls my first full week with them. Mostly for hard treatments but still 20. A of customers to see. The owner had really great plans to expand.
William Hanke (02:21)
Wow.
David Soria (02:28)
eventually moved me into a supervisory role doing ride-alongs with the team, training, setting up promotions, working with the general manager and our marketing manager to develop programs and incentives. At the time, I didn’t know that the owner was building up some debt behind the scenes and that eventually caught up with him and forced him to close. I was fortunate enough to leave before that happened.
I then went to work as a territory rep for a hard treatment fabricator that had recently expanded into the Midwest. I was with them for some really tremendous growth and change at that company and the industry. We saw our product mix shift dramatically from more commodity products like verticals and cellular into the explosion of interest in horizontal woods then.
natural shade category and really the first big wave of screen shades and motorization. That company was eventually purchased by a larger national company right around the time of the 07-08 financial crisis and a number of years later they got absorbed into another company. I continued with them for a number of years before I moved on.
wanted to make a change, do less travel and have more time with my family. But it was a great way to learn about the industry. I couldn’t have asked for a better training ground. Having a chance to do the shop at home taught me a ton about product sales and the challenges that designers and retailers face every day. That in turn made me a better territory rep for the two companies I worked with.
you know, walked in the dealer’s shoes before. So I knew how important training, follow-up and the dealer support really could be. Now, as you said, I’ve been with America’s Window Covering Buying Network almost four years now as national sales manager. And that gives me an opportunity to really synthesize a lot of those previous experiences as I work with our account team, our members and our vendors.
William Hanke (04:52)
Yeah, I love the fact that you’re kind of homegrown, right? You’ve already walked the walk and you understand what they’re going through now, right? And the kind of struggles that they have, even down to the point of understanding the in-home sales process. I love that.
David Soria (05:07)
Yeah, yeah, and it is a process.
William Hanke (05:10)
Very good. Yeah. Yeah. So all that brings you to what we call the network. And tell me a little bit about AWS CBN as an overview.
David Soria (05:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. America’s Window Covering Buying Network. And we shorten that to the network a lot of times. We’ve been servicing the company’s been servicing the industry for over 20 years now. And in fact, one of the vendors that I used to work with had been a supplier. So I remember meeting with the owner here at the network, Alan Meyer, to discuss our company’s programs. They had to be, you know, over 10, 15 years ago now.
William Hanke (05:48)
Okay.
David Soria (05:53)
The company is a nationwide membership group serving window covering professionals, designers, workrooms, independent retailers. Now here I work with our account team as well as our members and vendors. I’m involved in several areas contributing to our printed newsletter, organizing monthly webinars for members, along with other functions here. It’s pretty amazing though to see the growth we’ve had just
In the few years I’ve been here, we have members in all 50 states. We’re going to hit 1,500 members total before the end of the year, 2024. And right before the pandemic, we were happy to hit 1,000. So that’s some pretty significant growth.
William Hanke (06:33)
Nice.
That’s fantastic. I love the list of things that you’re involved in. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got a dull moment. That’s awesome. That’s great. So Tell me a little bit more about a buying network. What is that and how does it benefit somebody who may be listening to the podcast today?
David Soria (06:50)
No, never a dumb moment. I love it.
Sure. Well, to start off with buying groups have been around a long time and in a lot of different industries. The idea is pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Members of a buying group receive better discounts on their purchases because the group leverages the total buying power of the membership for the benefit of the members. Now in the window treatment industry, this means the vendors will offer network members discounts that members
would not ordinarily be able to receive on their own. For some vendors, you know, I think you can think of it as a franchise level buying power. Various vendors offer sample discounts as much as 50%, a dealer spiff, aggressive promotions, some exclusive to the members. One vendor has even created a natural shade book that only members have access to to sell a private label option.
And that’s obviously a real game changer for those members who were in competitive markets.
William Hanke (08:10)
There’s a lot of window treatment dealers out there now that are probably selling the products that you guys have partners with, and they don’t realize they could be getting some sort of a discount just by being in the buying network.
David Soria (08:22)
Right? Right?
William Hanke (08:24)
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So and you said it’s around close to 1500 now. So you guys got some decent leverage on the on that side as well.
David Soria (08:34)
Yes.
William Hanke (08:36)
That’s great. I love to hear that. That’s really cool. Kind of a different approach to it. What is when we look at a WCBN or the network, what is kind of your core value proposition that you promote?
David Soria (08:52)
Sure. You know, our bottom line goal as a company is to help our members by making their businesses stronger, more profitable, and ultimately more successful.
William Hanke (09:06)
OK. And you guys do that through, obviously, the vendor relationships. But you also mentioned that you have some other things like a newsletter. Tell me a little bit more about that.
David Soria (09:15)
Yeah, sure. We publish a monthly newsletter that has a wide amount of industry information, articles, certainly from our vendors, but general interest articles to anybody who’s in the industry from industry experts, from Roger Mcgalliff, Deb Barrett, Jessica Harling, the one and only Will Hankey.
contributes so it’s great and it’s a hard publication. mean we mail this out, it’s not an e-newsletter and we hear stories from our dealers who say, you know, can you tell me what the fabric is on the cover because I have a customer who saw it in my shop and is looking for that. So that happens all the time.
William Hanke (09:45)
you
wow. That’s cool. I love that in the digital world, you guys are kind of going the old school route a little bit. And and the newsletter is not just like a sheet of paper. Like it’s it’s a legit magazine, I guess. That’s great. And every month different every month, obviously, the the the people that submit articles. But you guys also have things in there specific to vendors teaching that kind of stuff as well. Right.
David Soria (10:22)
28 page, Yep.
Yep. We view it as an educational piece that anybody who picks this up, you know, it’s like, it’s like going to a training, right? If you can walk out of a training meeting with a vendor or speaker and walk away with one or two, two or three actionable items, it’s been worth your time.
William Hanke (11:00)
Yeah, that’s great. OK. What about who joins the network? So what is the typical vendor or retailer look like?
David Soria (11:10)
Well, I don’t know that there is one I mean we have a wide variety of businesses who joined from Really the small mom-and-pop companies up to large million dollar plus retailers We have folks who are strictly a shop at home working out of their house or office as well as really well established bricks and mortar folks there are
interior design firms, window covering specialists, work rooms, installers even who sell decorators, designers. There are even some floor covering or furniture retailers that also have a window treatment department. If they’re independent companies and sell window covering, they should consider becoming a member. I do want to stress independence if I could just for a moment. mean,
William Hanke (11:49)
Okay.
David Soria (12:00)
Folks that don’t already belong to a window covering franchise group that has their own buying program like a, well, you know the names, Budget Blinds, Gotcha Covered and others. The franchises sometimes get handed specific vendors and programs by that parent company and obviously pay a significant amount of money to sell those approved vendors. They often are paying a monthly fee for various services.
accounting, marketing, stuff like that, besides the initial buy-in to the franchise and any regular royalty payments. I know some do, some don’t, but the cost to belong to one of those can add up really fast. Groups like that lock down their franchises for a certain number of years unless they end up selling a territory. We’ve even had members over the years who’ve joined after they
left one of those arrangements sold or whatever separation and opened as an independent. And, you know, our membership, the network membership for a dealer, it’s only $180 a year. And we have not increased that in several years. So get it now before the price goes up, right? Our members tell us that they saved, often saved their membership fee on the first order.
William Hanke (13:18)
That’s right.
David Soria (13:26)
You asked me about who should consider joining if you say look at business size or revenue too and there’s no real minimum or maximum revenue to begin to see a benefit. We see it all the time for many members that depending on the vendor it may be only one or two orders for the membership to pay for itself.
William Hanke (13:50)
Yeah, yeah, 180 bucks a year. It doesn’t sound like it’s a it’s a big roadblock to get started, right? And yeah, yeah. So can you tell me you don’t have to be specific, but with a couple of vendors, can you tell me what kinds of discounts somebody could expect to get?
David Soria (13:59)
No. It’s not a big ask.
Sure, you know and any discount has value I mentioned One vendor has a program where members can get as much as 50 % off samples But another one has you know 25 % off sampling in terms of product discounts Often those are you know 5 10 15 as much as 20 % when you
pile on some of the promos that they’re doing as well.
William Hanke (14:44)
Got it. Okay. That’s really cool. Are there any ranges like revenue ranges for people that join your program where it starts to really become beneficial to them?
David Soria (14:56)
Yeah, you know, the more the more dealer sells, the more they’re going to save. mean, I would put it that way. On the other hand, even that company that says, hey, you know, I only do a little bit with XYZ vendor, should I really join? And it only takes a few orders during a calendar year for some vendors to make that membership pay for itself.
So I would say that regardless of the vendor, the dealer’s purchase level, that they should look at it closely and see whether it would be beneficial to them. And that’s part of our account manager’s job here is to work with dealers, look at the membership closely, and see whether it would help them. For some, it will help them a lot. And if it doesn’t, you know.
William Hanke (15:50)
Makes sense. I also can see that somebody who maybe contacts you, maybe they’re only using one of the vendors that you offer, but might get exposed by just being part of your program to other vendors that they didn’t realize even existed. And maybe end up saving money on products they’re already offering.
David Soria (16:12)
Yeah, we do hear that as well is, hey, you know, I joined because of this company or that company, but then I discovered this other company that has a product that, you know, other people in my market are using that I’ve heard about. I’ve learned more. And I wanted to add them to the mix. I definitely, definitely hear that from our members.
William Hanke (16:38)
Sure, yeah. And my company, Window Treatment Marketing Pros, is a preferred marketing vendor for you guys. We do get people that outreach to us and say, I didn’t think about marketing my business, but I probably should be thinking about that. And our name came up, of course. So we do get those same kinds of conversations where they didn’t realize that there was something else that they needed to grow their business.
David Soria (16:44)
Yes.
William Hanke (17:08)
So that’s always a great benefit, maybe a hidden benefit on your end that they realize after signing up.
David Soria (17:17)
Yep, absolutely.
William Hanke (17:19)
Cool. Let’s talk about challenges. So what are some of the biggest challenges that your members face and how does, you know, like a buying group really help them address those challenges?
David Soria (17:33)
Well, know, bottom line for the members joining is saving money. So we want to be able to do that for them first and foremost. You know, and obviously if you can reduce your costs, you’re going to make more money, be more profitable in the long run. But in terms of the challenge that are going on right now, I think we all recognize the market is super competitive.
not just about being able to maintain your margins, but dealers have to generate enough leads to fuel sales. You brought up the marketing component and you know, there are all these marketing services through additional vendor partnerships that from enhancing SEO, driving leads, website design, CRM setup, email marketing campaigns. You know, there are a lot of ways that, that members
can derive benefits to address that kind of a challenge. I know I’m aging myself by saying that the retailer I used to work for generated leads by running an ad in the local shopper paper, right? They even tried out a TV guide ad and it didn’t work out too well. But nowadays it’s digital marketing, using your website to drive leads, repeat customers, grow business, generate reviews online, get noticed in the first place.
William Hanke (18:46)
Right.
David Soria (19:02)
And many window covering dealers just don’t have that expertise, nor do they have the time to do the work it takes to comprehensively market their businesses. So having marketing partners who understand the window covering industry really is, you know, a game changer for them.
William Hanke (19:23)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s been a great partnership for us, obviously. I wanted to also I want to also ask you about webinars. You mentioned obviously the newspaper newsletter, whatever you call it, that goes out, the physical one. You guys also do webinars to help your members learn different things about different aspects of their business. It’s not just.
David Soria (19:27)
We appreciate it. Yeah.
William Hanke (19:49)
vendors pitching products, right? It’s a learning type session.
David Soria (19:53)
Right. Yeah. You know, we do at least one webinar a month, sometimes additional ones. We bring on our vendor partners to really be the star of those and to share something new about what’s going on. So if they have a product launch, if they have product promotion, if they have updates, training on a product, and many times,
What we’ve encouraged is that the vendors, and we started doing these, by the way, during COVID where nobody was meeting in person. And so it was an opportunity we realized for vendors to bring their showroom alive by showing it and doing the next best thing to having that sales rep sit down across the table, which was to show product, show samples and demo that.
And obviously, you know, that sales rep or sales rep team can only meet with one person at a time. Whereas our vendor webinars are open to our entire membership. So you can have have the national sales manager from a particular company presenting product or the product expert in that company presenting product to people from coast to coast and
So that’s very powerful. And it’s also an opportunity for somebody, say, who doesn’t have an account with a particular vendor to get a firsthand look at that product without the push, the sales angle of, I showed you my product, now sign off. They can judge for themselves whether that product line fits their needs.
William Hanke (21:46)
I love that. think that’s really smart that people can get on and watch those and do it in their own time, right? Without a huge time commitment as well, which obviously is important for people that are trying to run a business. Yeah. So one last thing. I did have a note here that you guys also have a private Facebook group that I’m assuming all your members have access to and can ask questions not just to the vendors, but to each other, right?
David Soria (22:16)
Yeah, we do maintain a private Facebook group as well as a public page. But on the Facebook group itself, there are no vendors. you know, we do encourage if you have something that’s nagging you about a particular vendor, give us a call. We, you know, talk about a one-on-one, but we see members posting tricky windows that they’re looking for advice for.
William Hanke (22:27)
okay.
David Soria (22:44)
the same as some of the other Facebook groups, but what’s different is you don’t have that vendor jumping on and saying sell my product, I’m the solution. You have other business owners who’ve seen the same window can make suggestions, can share their expertise and advice. So it’s very helpful to the members, I think.
William Hanke (22:53)
Yeah.
That’s great. mean, for 180 bucks a year, mean, just that would be worth it, right? That you could save a ton of money just by asking, how can I complete this project? And who can point me in the right direction?
David Soria (23:20)
Yeah, and you know, one of the things too, well, that we see is that members, by taking advantage of the various things that we offer, we see them growing their businesses at a faster pace and by having additional promotions, better pricing, they’re getting better margins. You know, it’s recently, I was recently talking to one of the territory reps from one of
the vendors that we work with. And she was saying she’s talking up our membership. Well, why? She shared that the dealers in her neck of the woods, her territory, the ones who are network members, she was seeing grow at a greater incremental rate and the non-network dealers were just kind of flat. So she was encouraging them to, you know, get on board.
and join and we love to hear stories like that. We hope that we can provide members with a leg up with those tools. The website, the Facebook, the webinars, all of that.
William Hanke (24:35)
That’s great. I mean, it makes total sense that if they’re saving money on the same types of products that everybody’s selling, they’d have more cash flow, right?
Cool. So question about the industry overall. I always like to ask this kind of question. What kind of marketing trends are certain, not even just marketing, what kind of trends are you guys seeing that is, should be important and on the radar for window treatment businesses as we roll into 2025?
David Soria (25:06)
Sure, you know, we always talk about that and trying to look for, know, what the hot trends are and what trend in one market is going and maybe not in another. I think my advice would be for the dealers wherever they are to analyze their local market really carefully. You know, what’s happening in their market may not be what’s happening nationwide.
tell you roller shades or motorization, but there are always exceptions for the latest trend. You know, I recently spoke to one of our members and she’s not in a small market. And she said, we’re still selling a surprising number of vertical blinds. I’m not going to give you that as a national trend, but you just never know for a particular market what, the hot product is. You know, that said, I would encourage any dealer.
has not yet embraced motorization to really get on board. It’s only going to grow in popularity and that means talking about it on every sales call, showing a motorized hand sample. If you have a showroom, having motorized product in your showroom. We have a vendor that has extra discounting specifically targeted to SOMTI motorization so that our members are able to save
additional on those products. I’d encourage dealers also to look beyond the interior window and expand their horizons. You know, if they’re just selling blinds and shades, what would happen to their business if they added soft options? That seems to be a growing trend. Fabric shades, drapery, balance, even just a simple panel program. What would that do to your bottom line? You’re in the home.
What about wall covering, rugs or accessory items if you’re already in soft? What about adding that? How about exterior product? Certainly, you know, some of the companies, have an exterior shade, but what about zip screens? What about awnings, pergolas, structures, exterior shutters and the like? We’re looking at some additional things to bring to our members next year and we’re really excited to…
to be able to do that. These are trends that are in the industry towards that outside of the house product. If dealers haven’t seen it in their market yet. In terms of marketing, you brought that up earlier. Have they updated their website? Do they have a dated appearance or does it show everything that they offer? Does it tell a story? Does it entice a customer to get in touch?
personal touch, like the owner’s picture even. How do they stay in touch with their current customer base? Do they have an email newsletter or other ways to generate word-of-mouth referrals? And obviously we’re in a visual industry and I think the cutting-edge businesses are making sure that they’re capturing great photos from their jobs, posting them, using social media, geo-tagging them.
I’ve heard from designers and workrooms that are having great success with Instagram reaching their target customers, making connections long term. Get the word out, tell your story.
William Hanke (28:44)
I love it. You’ve summarized more than I could ask when it comes to some sort of advice on what to do. What a great list of things that obviously, these are actionable items that people can, that they can grab and start to do. A lot of them aren’t even that costly to do so.
David Soria (29:04)
Yeah. I mean, look at your client mix. Who are they? Where are they? How did you find them? What are they buying? And look at your vendors. I mean, that’s where we come in to a little bit. Look at the big or even small changes in the industry. This is year end. It’s the time to reconsider a lot of things in your business. How would you tweak it for 2025? Are you reconsidering your mix of product, your mix of vendors?
And, you know, was last year better or worse than 2023? And what might you do differently? Are you ready to grow, ready to hire, open or expand a showroom? Bottom line, what are you, what are you driven to do with and for your business in the new year?
William Hanke (29:57)
Yeah, fantastic advice. I love it. When it comes to putting all that together and coming up with a plan, joining the network should be something that they consider. Where would somebody go to learn more about it?
David Soria (30:13)
Sure. Our website awcbn.com is a public facing page. There’s a members log in there where our members have additional information, but that public page gives a lot of information, FAQ information about joining. can check it out there. There is an application that they can fill out right.
right online, it’s a secure server to handle the payment, DocuSign server, and the links there. If they have questions, they can call us here at the office. We’re here in the central time zone at 847-281-3152, and we’re here Monday through Friday most days, 8 to 430.
William Hanke (31:08)
you
David Soria (31:09)
You know, we’ll take a little time off for Thanksgiving and all, but yeah, give us a call and we’d be happy to answer any questions. And if you have questions about if joining made sense for your particular business, we can definitely work through that.
William Hanke (31:29)
Love it. And you’ve got a great sales staff, too, that can answer a lot of the questions that might come up.
Love it. That’s great. So David, thank you so much for being on today. I’ve learned a lot about the network. I think it’s a great no brainer for people in the window treatment industry. And as you mentioned, some other industries as well where there’s still some advantage there. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (32:01)
Thank you, Will. Enjoyed talking about it with you.
William Hanke (32:04)
Yeah, no problem at all. If you found today’s conversation helpful, be sure to check out our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss the next update. We’ll have more insightful discussions and expert guests coming your way to help you thrive in the window treatment and awning business. Stay inspired, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks again, David.
David Soria (32:28)
Thank you.
William Hanke (32:32)
Sweet.
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By Window Treatment Marketing Pros
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Guest Profile: David Soria
David has been in the industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021. His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry.
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To learn more about David Soria visit:
America’s Window Covering Buying Network
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Transcript
William Hanke (00:02)
All right, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes, the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. Today’s guest is David Soria. David has been in the window treatment industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021.
His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management, as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry. David, thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (00:43)
welcome.
William Hanke (00:45)
Excited to have you here and kind of talk through a little bit about what’s known as the network, I guess, right? Yeah, awesome. So why don’t you start out by sharing a little bit of background about your journey, obviously, in the window treatment industry and some key roles that have helped you kind of shape your expertise.
David Soria (00:51)
Yep, that’s right.
Sure, sure. You I got started in the industry when I answered a newspaper one ad, if you remember those, looking for a salesperson, somebody who might have an interest in design and who would be doing shop at home sales for that company. at the time I’d done some in-home sales, had a background in theater design and also in teaching.
William Hanke (01:15)
You
David Soria (01:33)
And the job sounded interesting. And this was for a fairly large window coverings retailer in the Chicago area. And when I started with them, they had over a dozen shop at home decorators working for them, big company. They had their own workroom, made their own drapery, vertical, shears, top treatments. And, you know, talk about a nice problem. They were drowning in leads. I got a two week
crash course in their showroom on blind shades and drapery and then I started taking sales calls. I mentioned that they were busy. I still remember I took 20 in-home calls my first full week with them. Mostly for hard treatments but still 20. A of customers to see. The owner had really great plans to expand.
William Hanke (02:21)
Wow.
David Soria (02:28)
eventually moved me into a supervisory role doing ride-alongs with the team, training, setting up promotions, working with the general manager and our marketing manager to develop programs and incentives. At the time, I didn’t know that the owner was building up some debt behind the scenes and that eventually caught up with him and forced him to close. I was fortunate enough to leave before that happened.
I then went to work as a territory rep for a hard treatment fabricator that had recently expanded into the Midwest. I was with them for some really tremendous growth and change at that company and the industry. We saw our product mix shift dramatically from more commodity products like verticals and cellular into the explosion of interest in horizontal woods then.
natural shade category and really the first big wave of screen shades and motorization. That company was eventually purchased by a larger national company right around the time of the 07-08 financial crisis and a number of years later they got absorbed into another company. I continued with them for a number of years before I moved on.
wanted to make a change, do less travel and have more time with my family. But it was a great way to learn about the industry. I couldn’t have asked for a better training ground. Having a chance to do the shop at home taught me a ton about product sales and the challenges that designers and retailers face every day. That in turn made me a better territory rep for the two companies I worked with.
you know, walked in the dealer’s shoes before. So I knew how important training, follow-up and the dealer support really could be. Now, as you said, I’ve been with America’s Window Covering Buying Network almost four years now as national sales manager. And that gives me an opportunity to really synthesize a lot of those previous experiences as I work with our account team, our members and our vendors.
William Hanke (04:52)
Yeah, I love the fact that you’re kind of homegrown, right? You’ve already walked the walk and you understand what they’re going through now, right? And the kind of struggles that they have, even down to the point of understanding the in-home sales process. I love that.
David Soria (05:07)
Yeah, yeah, and it is a process.
William Hanke (05:10)
Very good. Yeah. Yeah. So all that brings you to what we call the network. And tell me a little bit about AWS CBN as an overview.
David Soria (05:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. America’s Window Covering Buying Network. And we shorten that to the network a lot of times. We’ve been servicing the company’s been servicing the industry for over 20 years now. And in fact, one of the vendors that I used to work with had been a supplier. So I remember meeting with the owner here at the network, Alan Meyer, to discuss our company’s programs. They had to be, you know, over 10, 15 years ago now.
William Hanke (05:48)
Okay.
David Soria (05:53)
The company is a nationwide membership group serving window covering professionals, designers, workrooms, independent retailers. Now here I work with our account team as well as our members and vendors. I’m involved in several areas contributing to our printed newsletter, organizing monthly webinars for members, along with other functions here. It’s pretty amazing though to see the growth we’ve had just
In the few years I’ve been here, we have members in all 50 states. We’re going to hit 1,500 members total before the end of the year, 2024. And right before the pandemic, we were happy to hit 1,000. So that’s some pretty significant growth.
William Hanke (06:33)
Nice.
That’s fantastic. I love the list of things that you’re involved in. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got a dull moment. That’s awesome. That’s great. So Tell me a little bit more about a buying network. What is that and how does it benefit somebody who may be listening to the podcast today?
David Soria (06:50)
No, never a dumb moment. I love it.
Sure. Well, to start off with buying groups have been around a long time and in a lot of different industries. The idea is pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Members of a buying group receive better discounts on their purchases because the group leverages the total buying power of the membership for the benefit of the members. Now in the window treatment industry, this means the vendors will offer network members discounts that members
would not ordinarily be able to receive on their own. For some vendors, you know, I think you can think of it as a franchise level buying power. Various vendors offer sample discounts as much as 50%, a dealer spiff, aggressive promotions, some exclusive to the members. One vendor has even created a natural shade book that only members have access to to sell a private label option.
And that’s obviously a real game changer for those members who were in competitive markets.
William Hanke (08:10)
There’s a lot of window treatment dealers out there now that are probably selling the products that you guys have partners with, and they don’t realize they could be getting some sort of a discount just by being in the buying network.
David Soria (08:22)
Right? Right?
William Hanke (08:24)
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So and you said it’s around close to 1500 now. So you guys got some decent leverage on the on that side as well.
David Soria (08:34)
Yes.
William Hanke (08:36)
That’s great. I love to hear that. That’s really cool. Kind of a different approach to it. What is when we look at a WCBN or the network, what is kind of your core value proposition that you promote?
David Soria (08:52)
Sure. You know, our bottom line goal as a company is to help our members by making their businesses stronger, more profitable, and ultimately more successful.
William Hanke (09:06)
OK. And you guys do that through, obviously, the vendor relationships. But you also mentioned that you have some other things like a newsletter. Tell me a little bit more about that.
David Soria (09:15)
Yeah, sure. We publish a monthly newsletter that has a wide amount of industry information, articles, certainly from our vendors, but general interest articles to anybody who’s in the industry from industry experts, from Roger Mcgalliff, Deb Barrett, Jessica Harling, the one and only Will Hankey.
contributes so it’s great and it’s a hard publication. mean we mail this out, it’s not an e-newsletter and we hear stories from our dealers who say, you know, can you tell me what the fabric is on the cover because I have a customer who saw it in my shop and is looking for that. So that happens all the time.
William Hanke (09:45)
you
wow. That’s cool. I love that in the digital world, you guys are kind of going the old school route a little bit. And and the newsletter is not just like a sheet of paper. Like it’s it’s a legit magazine, I guess. That’s great. And every month different every month, obviously, the the the people that submit articles. But you guys also have things in there specific to vendors teaching that kind of stuff as well. Right.
David Soria (10:22)
28 page, Yep.
Yep. We view it as an educational piece that anybody who picks this up, you know, it’s like, it’s like going to a training, right? If you can walk out of a training meeting with a vendor or speaker and walk away with one or two, two or three actionable items, it’s been worth your time.
William Hanke (11:00)
Yeah, that’s great. OK. What about who joins the network? So what is the typical vendor or retailer look like?
David Soria (11:10)
Well, I don’t know that there is one I mean we have a wide variety of businesses who joined from Really the small mom-and-pop companies up to large million dollar plus retailers We have folks who are strictly a shop at home working out of their house or office as well as really well established bricks and mortar folks there are
interior design firms, window covering specialists, work rooms, installers even who sell decorators, designers. There are even some floor covering or furniture retailers that also have a window treatment department. If they’re independent companies and sell window covering, they should consider becoming a member. I do want to stress independence if I could just for a moment. mean,
William Hanke (11:49)
Okay.
David Soria (12:00)
Folks that don’t already belong to a window covering franchise group that has their own buying program like a, well, you know the names, Budget Blinds, Gotcha Covered and others. The franchises sometimes get handed specific vendors and programs by that parent company and obviously pay a significant amount of money to sell those approved vendors. They often are paying a monthly fee for various services.
accounting, marketing, stuff like that, besides the initial buy-in to the franchise and any regular royalty payments. I know some do, some don’t, but the cost to belong to one of those can add up really fast. Groups like that lock down their franchises for a certain number of years unless they end up selling a territory. We’ve even had members over the years who’ve joined after they
left one of those arrangements sold or whatever separation and opened as an independent. And, you know, our membership, the network membership for a dealer, it’s only $180 a year. And we have not increased that in several years. So get it now before the price goes up, right? Our members tell us that they saved, often saved their membership fee on the first order.
William Hanke (13:18)
That’s right.
David Soria (13:26)
You asked me about who should consider joining if you say look at business size or revenue too and there’s no real minimum or maximum revenue to begin to see a benefit. We see it all the time for many members that depending on the vendor it may be only one or two orders for the membership to pay for itself.
William Hanke (13:50)
Yeah, yeah, 180 bucks a year. It doesn’t sound like it’s a it’s a big roadblock to get started, right? And yeah, yeah. So can you tell me you don’t have to be specific, but with a couple of vendors, can you tell me what kinds of discounts somebody could expect to get?
David Soria (13:59)
No. It’s not a big ask.
Sure, you know and any discount has value I mentioned One vendor has a program where members can get as much as 50 % off samples But another one has you know 25 % off sampling in terms of product discounts Often those are you know 5 10 15 as much as 20 % when you
pile on some of the promos that they’re doing as well.
William Hanke (14:44)
Got it. Okay. That’s really cool. Are there any ranges like revenue ranges for people that join your program where it starts to really become beneficial to them?
David Soria (14:56)
Yeah, you know, the more the more dealer sells, the more they’re going to save. mean, I would put it that way. On the other hand, even that company that says, hey, you know, I only do a little bit with XYZ vendor, should I really join? And it only takes a few orders during a calendar year for some vendors to make that membership pay for itself.
So I would say that regardless of the vendor, the dealer’s purchase level, that they should look at it closely and see whether it would be beneficial to them. And that’s part of our account manager’s job here is to work with dealers, look at the membership closely, and see whether it would help them. For some, it will help them a lot. And if it doesn’t, you know.
William Hanke (15:50)
Makes sense. I also can see that somebody who maybe contacts you, maybe they’re only using one of the vendors that you offer, but might get exposed by just being part of your program to other vendors that they didn’t realize even existed. And maybe end up saving money on products they’re already offering.
David Soria (16:12)
Yeah, we do hear that as well is, hey, you know, I joined because of this company or that company, but then I discovered this other company that has a product that, you know, other people in my market are using that I’ve heard about. I’ve learned more. And I wanted to add them to the mix. I definitely, definitely hear that from our members.
William Hanke (16:38)
Sure, yeah. And my company, Window Treatment Marketing Pros, is a preferred marketing vendor for you guys. We do get people that outreach to us and say, I didn’t think about marketing my business, but I probably should be thinking about that. And our name came up, of course. So we do get those same kinds of conversations where they didn’t realize that there was something else that they needed to grow their business.
David Soria (16:44)
Yes.
William Hanke (17:08)
So that’s always a great benefit, maybe a hidden benefit on your end that they realize after signing up.
David Soria (17:17)
Yep, absolutely.
William Hanke (17:19)
Cool. Let’s talk about challenges. So what are some of the biggest challenges that your members face and how does, you know, like a buying group really help them address those challenges?
David Soria (17:33)
Well, know, bottom line for the members joining is saving money. So we want to be able to do that for them first and foremost. You know, and obviously if you can reduce your costs, you’re going to make more money, be more profitable in the long run. But in terms of the challenge that are going on right now, I think we all recognize the market is super competitive.
not just about being able to maintain your margins, but dealers have to generate enough leads to fuel sales. You brought up the marketing component and you know, there are all these marketing services through additional vendor partnerships that from enhancing SEO, driving leads, website design, CRM setup, email marketing campaigns. You know, there are a lot of ways that, that members
can derive benefits to address that kind of a challenge. I know I’m aging myself by saying that the retailer I used to work for generated leads by running an ad in the local shopper paper, right? They even tried out a TV guide ad and it didn’t work out too well. But nowadays it’s digital marketing, using your website to drive leads, repeat customers, grow business, generate reviews online, get noticed in the first place.
William Hanke (18:46)
Right.
David Soria (19:02)
And many window covering dealers just don’t have that expertise, nor do they have the time to do the work it takes to comprehensively market their businesses. So having marketing partners who understand the window covering industry really is, you know, a game changer for them.
William Hanke (19:23)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s been a great partnership for us, obviously. I wanted to also I want to also ask you about webinars. You mentioned obviously the newspaper newsletter, whatever you call it, that goes out, the physical one. You guys also do webinars to help your members learn different things about different aspects of their business. It’s not just.
David Soria (19:27)
We appreciate it. Yeah.
William Hanke (19:49)
vendors pitching products, right? It’s a learning type session.
David Soria (19:53)
Right. Yeah. You know, we do at least one webinar a month, sometimes additional ones. We bring on our vendor partners to really be the star of those and to share something new about what’s going on. So if they have a product launch, if they have product promotion, if they have updates, training on a product, and many times,
What we’ve encouraged is that the vendors, and we started doing these, by the way, during COVID where nobody was meeting in person. And so it was an opportunity we realized for vendors to bring their showroom alive by showing it and doing the next best thing to having that sales rep sit down across the table, which was to show product, show samples and demo that.
And obviously, you know, that sales rep or sales rep team can only meet with one person at a time. Whereas our vendor webinars are open to our entire membership. So you can have have the national sales manager from a particular company presenting product or the product expert in that company presenting product to people from coast to coast and
So that’s very powerful. And it’s also an opportunity for somebody, say, who doesn’t have an account with a particular vendor to get a firsthand look at that product without the push, the sales angle of, I showed you my product, now sign off. They can judge for themselves whether that product line fits their needs.
William Hanke (21:46)
I love that. think that’s really smart that people can get on and watch those and do it in their own time, right? Without a huge time commitment as well, which obviously is important for people that are trying to run a business. Yeah. So one last thing. I did have a note here that you guys also have a private Facebook group that I’m assuming all your members have access to and can ask questions not just to the vendors, but to each other, right?
David Soria (22:16)
Yeah, we do maintain a private Facebook group as well as a public page. But on the Facebook group itself, there are no vendors. you know, we do encourage if you have something that’s nagging you about a particular vendor, give us a call. We, you know, talk about a one-on-one, but we see members posting tricky windows that they’re looking for advice for.
William Hanke (22:27)
okay.
David Soria (22:44)
the same as some of the other Facebook groups, but what’s different is you don’t have that vendor jumping on and saying sell my product, I’m the solution. You have other business owners who’ve seen the same window can make suggestions, can share their expertise and advice. So it’s very helpful to the members, I think.
William Hanke (22:53)
Yeah.
That’s great. mean, for 180 bucks a year, mean, just that would be worth it, right? That you could save a ton of money just by asking, how can I complete this project? And who can point me in the right direction?
David Soria (23:20)
Yeah, and you know, one of the things too, well, that we see is that members, by taking advantage of the various things that we offer, we see them growing their businesses at a faster pace and by having additional promotions, better pricing, they’re getting better margins. You know, it’s recently, I was recently talking to one of the territory reps from one of
the vendors that we work with. And she was saying she’s talking up our membership. Well, why? She shared that the dealers in her neck of the woods, her territory, the ones who are network members, she was seeing grow at a greater incremental rate and the non-network dealers were just kind of flat. So she was encouraging them to, you know, get on board.
and join and we love to hear stories like that. We hope that we can provide members with a leg up with those tools. The website, the Facebook, the webinars, all of that.
William Hanke (24:35)
That’s great. I mean, it makes total sense that if they’re saving money on the same types of products that everybody’s selling, they’d have more cash flow, right?
Cool. So question about the industry overall. I always like to ask this kind of question. What kind of marketing trends are certain, not even just marketing, what kind of trends are you guys seeing that is, should be important and on the radar for window treatment businesses as we roll into 2025?
David Soria (25:06)
Sure, you know, we always talk about that and trying to look for, know, what the hot trends are and what trend in one market is going and maybe not in another. I think my advice would be for the dealers wherever they are to analyze their local market really carefully. You know, what’s happening in their market may not be what’s happening nationwide.
tell you roller shades or motorization, but there are always exceptions for the latest trend. You know, I recently spoke to one of our members and she’s not in a small market. And she said, we’re still selling a surprising number of vertical blinds. I’m not going to give you that as a national trend, but you just never know for a particular market what, the hot product is. You know, that said, I would encourage any dealer.
has not yet embraced motorization to really get on board. It’s only going to grow in popularity and that means talking about it on every sales call, showing a motorized hand sample. If you have a showroom, having motorized product in your showroom. We have a vendor that has extra discounting specifically targeted to SOMTI motorization so that our members are able to save
additional on those products. I’d encourage dealers also to look beyond the interior window and expand their horizons. You know, if they’re just selling blinds and shades, what would happen to their business if they added soft options? That seems to be a growing trend. Fabric shades, drapery, balance, even just a simple panel program. What would that do to your bottom line? You’re in the home.
What about wall covering, rugs or accessory items if you’re already in soft? What about adding that? How about exterior product? Certainly, you know, some of the companies, have an exterior shade, but what about zip screens? What about awnings, pergolas, structures, exterior shutters and the like? We’re looking at some additional things to bring to our members next year and we’re really excited to…
to be able to do that. These are trends that are in the industry towards that outside of the house product. If dealers haven’t seen it in their market yet. In terms of marketing, you brought that up earlier. Have they updated their website? Do they have a dated appearance or does it show everything that they offer? Does it tell a story? Does it entice a customer to get in touch?
personal touch, like the owner’s picture even. How do they stay in touch with their current customer base? Do they have an email newsletter or other ways to generate word-of-mouth referrals? And obviously we’re in a visual industry and I think the cutting-edge businesses are making sure that they’re capturing great photos from their jobs, posting them, using social media, geo-tagging them.
I’ve heard from designers and workrooms that are having great success with Instagram reaching their target customers, making connections long term. Get the word out, tell your story.
William Hanke (28:44)
I love it. You’ve summarized more than I could ask when it comes to some sort of advice on what to do. What a great list of things that obviously, these are actionable items that people can, that they can grab and start to do. A lot of them aren’t even that costly to do so.
David Soria (29:04)
Yeah. I mean, look at your client mix. Who are they? Where are they? How did you find them? What are they buying? And look at your vendors. I mean, that’s where we come in to a little bit. Look at the big or even small changes in the industry. This is year end. It’s the time to reconsider a lot of things in your business. How would you tweak it for 2025? Are you reconsidering your mix of product, your mix of vendors?
And, you know, was last year better or worse than 2023? And what might you do differently? Are you ready to grow, ready to hire, open or expand a showroom? Bottom line, what are you, what are you driven to do with and for your business in the new year?
William Hanke (29:57)
Yeah, fantastic advice. I love it. When it comes to putting all that together and coming up with a plan, joining the network should be something that they consider. Where would somebody go to learn more about it?
David Soria (30:13)
Sure. Our website awcbn.com is a public facing page. There’s a members log in there where our members have additional information, but that public page gives a lot of information, FAQ information about joining. can check it out there. There is an application that they can fill out right.
right online, it’s a secure server to handle the payment, DocuSign server, and the links there. If they have questions, they can call us here at the office. We’re here in the central time zone at 847-281-3152, and we’re here Monday through Friday most days, 8 to 430.
William Hanke (31:08)
you
David Soria (31:09)
You know, we’ll take a little time off for Thanksgiving and all, but yeah, give us a call and we’d be happy to answer any questions. And if you have questions about if joining made sense for your particular business, we can definitely work through that.
William Hanke (31:29)
Love it. And you’ve got a great sales staff, too, that can answer a lot of the questions that might come up.
Love it. That’s great. So David, thank you so much for being on today. I’ve learned a lot about the network. I think it’s a great no brainer for people in the window treatment industry. And as you mentioned, some other industries as well where there’s still some advantage there. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (32:01)
Thank you, Will. Enjoyed talking about it with you.
William Hanke (32:04)
Yeah, no problem at all. If you found today’s conversation helpful, be sure to check out our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss the next update. We’ll have more insightful discussions and expert guests coming your way to help you thrive in the window treatment and awning business. Stay inspired, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks again, David.
David Soria (32:28)
Thank you.
William Hanke (32:32)
Sweet.
Transcript
William Hanke (00:02)
All right, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Marketing Panes, the podcast where we talk with real window treatment and awning service providers or business owners about their successes and struggles related to marketing their business. Today’s guest is David Soria. David has been in the window treatment industry since the mid 90s before joining America’s Window Covering Buying Network in 2021.
His previous experiences include in-home sales for a local retailer and sales management, as well as field sales for national brand suppliers to the industry. David, thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (00:43)
welcome.
William Hanke (00:45)
Excited to have you here and kind of talk through a little bit about what’s known as the network, I guess, right? Yeah, awesome. So why don’t you start out by sharing a little bit of background about your journey, obviously, in the window treatment industry and some key roles that have helped you kind of shape your expertise.
David Soria (00:51)
Yep, that’s right.
Sure, sure. You I got started in the industry when I answered a newspaper one ad, if you remember those, looking for a salesperson, somebody who might have an interest in design and who would be doing shop at home sales for that company. at the time I’d done some in-home sales, had a background in theater design and also in teaching.
William Hanke (01:15)
You
David Soria (01:33)
And the job sounded interesting. And this was for a fairly large window coverings retailer in the Chicago area. And when I started with them, they had over a dozen shop at home decorators working for them, big company. They had their own workroom, made their own drapery, vertical, shears, top treatments. And, you know, talk about a nice problem. They were drowning in leads. I got a two week
crash course in their showroom on blind shades and drapery and then I started taking sales calls. I mentioned that they were busy. I still remember I took 20 in-home calls my first full week with them. Mostly for hard treatments but still 20. A of customers to see. The owner had really great plans to expand.
William Hanke (02:21)
Wow.
David Soria (02:28)
eventually moved me into a supervisory role doing ride-alongs with the team, training, setting up promotions, working with the general manager and our marketing manager to develop programs and incentives. At the time, I didn’t know that the owner was building up some debt behind the scenes and that eventually caught up with him and forced him to close. I was fortunate enough to leave before that happened.
I then went to work as a territory rep for a hard treatment fabricator that had recently expanded into the Midwest. I was with them for some really tremendous growth and change at that company and the industry. We saw our product mix shift dramatically from more commodity products like verticals and cellular into the explosion of interest in horizontal woods then.
natural shade category and really the first big wave of screen shades and motorization. That company was eventually purchased by a larger national company right around the time of the 07-08 financial crisis and a number of years later they got absorbed into another company. I continued with them for a number of years before I moved on.
wanted to make a change, do less travel and have more time with my family. But it was a great way to learn about the industry. I couldn’t have asked for a better training ground. Having a chance to do the shop at home taught me a ton about product sales and the challenges that designers and retailers face every day. That in turn made me a better territory rep for the two companies I worked with.
you know, walked in the dealer’s shoes before. So I knew how important training, follow-up and the dealer support really could be. Now, as you said, I’ve been with America’s Window Covering Buying Network almost four years now as national sales manager. And that gives me an opportunity to really synthesize a lot of those previous experiences as I work with our account team, our members and our vendors.
William Hanke (04:52)
Yeah, I love the fact that you’re kind of homegrown, right? You’ve already walked the walk and you understand what they’re going through now, right? And the kind of struggles that they have, even down to the point of understanding the in-home sales process. I love that.
David Soria (05:07)
Yeah, yeah, and it is a process.
William Hanke (05:10)
Very good. Yeah. Yeah. So all that brings you to what we call the network. And tell me a little bit about AWS CBN as an overview.
David Soria (05:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. America’s Window Covering Buying Network. And we shorten that to the network a lot of times. We’ve been servicing the company’s been servicing the industry for over 20 years now. And in fact, one of the vendors that I used to work with had been a supplier. So I remember meeting with the owner here at the network, Alan Meyer, to discuss our company’s programs. They had to be, you know, over 10, 15 years ago now.
William Hanke (05:48)
Okay.
David Soria (05:53)
The company is a nationwide membership group serving window covering professionals, designers, workrooms, independent retailers. Now here I work with our account team as well as our members and vendors. I’m involved in several areas contributing to our printed newsletter, organizing monthly webinars for members, along with other functions here. It’s pretty amazing though to see the growth we’ve had just
In the few years I’ve been here, we have members in all 50 states. We’re going to hit 1,500 members total before the end of the year, 2024. And right before the pandemic, we were happy to hit 1,000. So that’s some pretty significant growth.
William Hanke (06:33)
Nice.
That’s fantastic. I love the list of things that you’re involved in. It doesn’t sound like you’ve got a dull moment. That’s awesome. That’s great. So Tell me a little bit more about a buying network. What is that and how does it benefit somebody who may be listening to the podcast today?
David Soria (06:50)
No, never a dumb moment. I love it.
Sure. Well, to start off with buying groups have been around a long time and in a lot of different industries. The idea is pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Members of a buying group receive better discounts on their purchases because the group leverages the total buying power of the membership for the benefit of the members. Now in the window treatment industry, this means the vendors will offer network members discounts that members
would not ordinarily be able to receive on their own. For some vendors, you know, I think you can think of it as a franchise level buying power. Various vendors offer sample discounts as much as 50%, a dealer spiff, aggressive promotions, some exclusive to the members. One vendor has even created a natural shade book that only members have access to to sell a private label option.
And that’s obviously a real game changer for those members who were in competitive markets.
William Hanke (08:10)
There’s a lot of window treatment dealers out there now that are probably selling the products that you guys have partners with, and they don’t realize they could be getting some sort of a discount just by being in the buying network.
David Soria (08:22)
Right? Right?
William Hanke (08:24)
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So and you said it’s around close to 1500 now. So you guys got some decent leverage on the on that side as well.
David Soria (08:34)
Yes.
William Hanke (08:36)
That’s great. I love to hear that. That’s really cool. Kind of a different approach to it. What is when we look at a WCBN or the network, what is kind of your core value proposition that you promote?
David Soria (08:52)
Sure. You know, our bottom line goal as a company is to help our members by making their businesses stronger, more profitable, and ultimately more successful.
William Hanke (09:06)
OK. And you guys do that through, obviously, the vendor relationships. But you also mentioned that you have some other things like a newsletter. Tell me a little bit more about that.
David Soria (09:15)
Yeah, sure. We publish a monthly newsletter that has a wide amount of industry information, articles, certainly from our vendors, but general interest articles to anybody who’s in the industry from industry experts, from Roger Mcgalliff, Deb Barrett, Jessica Harling, the one and only Will Hankey.
contributes so it’s great and it’s a hard publication. mean we mail this out, it’s not an e-newsletter and we hear stories from our dealers who say, you know, can you tell me what the fabric is on the cover because I have a customer who saw it in my shop and is looking for that. So that happens all the time.
William Hanke (09:45)
you
wow. That’s cool. I love that in the digital world, you guys are kind of going the old school route a little bit. And and the newsletter is not just like a sheet of paper. Like it’s it’s a legit magazine, I guess. That’s great. And every month different every month, obviously, the the the people that submit articles. But you guys also have things in there specific to vendors teaching that kind of stuff as well. Right.
David Soria (10:22)
28 page, Yep.
Yep. We view it as an educational piece that anybody who picks this up, you know, it’s like, it’s like going to a training, right? If you can walk out of a training meeting with a vendor or speaker and walk away with one or two, two or three actionable items, it’s been worth your time.
William Hanke (11:00)
Yeah, that’s great. OK. What about who joins the network? So what is the typical vendor or retailer look like?
David Soria (11:10)
Well, I don’t know that there is one I mean we have a wide variety of businesses who joined from Really the small mom-and-pop companies up to large million dollar plus retailers We have folks who are strictly a shop at home working out of their house or office as well as really well established bricks and mortar folks there are
interior design firms, window covering specialists, work rooms, installers even who sell decorators, designers. There are even some floor covering or furniture retailers that also have a window treatment department. If they’re independent companies and sell window covering, they should consider becoming a member. I do want to stress independence if I could just for a moment. mean,
William Hanke (11:49)
Okay.
David Soria (12:00)
Folks that don’t already belong to a window covering franchise group that has their own buying program like a, well, you know the names, Budget Blinds, Gotcha Covered and others. The franchises sometimes get handed specific vendors and programs by that parent company and obviously pay a significant amount of money to sell those approved vendors. They often are paying a monthly fee for various services.
accounting, marketing, stuff like that, besides the initial buy-in to the franchise and any regular royalty payments. I know some do, some don’t, but the cost to belong to one of those can add up really fast. Groups like that lock down their franchises for a certain number of years unless they end up selling a territory. We’ve even had members over the years who’ve joined after they
left one of those arrangements sold or whatever separation and opened as an independent. And, you know, our membership, the network membership for a dealer, it’s only $180 a year. And we have not increased that in several years. So get it now before the price goes up, right? Our members tell us that they saved, often saved their membership fee on the first order.
William Hanke (13:18)
That’s right.
David Soria (13:26)
You asked me about who should consider joining if you say look at business size or revenue too and there’s no real minimum or maximum revenue to begin to see a benefit. We see it all the time for many members that depending on the vendor it may be only one or two orders for the membership to pay for itself.
William Hanke (13:50)
Yeah, yeah, 180 bucks a year. It doesn’t sound like it’s a it’s a big roadblock to get started, right? And yeah, yeah. So can you tell me you don’t have to be specific, but with a couple of vendors, can you tell me what kinds of discounts somebody could expect to get?
David Soria (13:59)
No. It’s not a big ask.
Sure, you know and any discount has value I mentioned One vendor has a program where members can get as much as 50 % off samples But another one has you know 25 % off sampling in terms of product discounts Often those are you know 5 10 15 as much as 20 % when you
pile on some of the promos that they’re doing as well.
William Hanke (14:44)
Got it. Okay. That’s really cool. Are there any ranges like revenue ranges for people that join your program where it starts to really become beneficial to them?
David Soria (14:56)
Yeah, you know, the more the more dealer sells, the more they’re going to save. mean, I would put it that way. On the other hand, even that company that says, hey, you know, I only do a little bit with XYZ vendor, should I really join? And it only takes a few orders during a calendar year for some vendors to make that membership pay for itself.
So I would say that regardless of the vendor, the dealer’s purchase level, that they should look at it closely and see whether it would be beneficial to them. And that’s part of our account manager’s job here is to work with dealers, look at the membership closely, and see whether it would help them. For some, it will help them a lot. And if it doesn’t, you know.
William Hanke (15:50)
Makes sense. I also can see that somebody who maybe contacts you, maybe they’re only using one of the vendors that you offer, but might get exposed by just being part of your program to other vendors that they didn’t realize even existed. And maybe end up saving money on products they’re already offering.
David Soria (16:12)
Yeah, we do hear that as well is, hey, you know, I joined because of this company or that company, but then I discovered this other company that has a product that, you know, other people in my market are using that I’ve heard about. I’ve learned more. And I wanted to add them to the mix. I definitely, definitely hear that from our members.
William Hanke (16:38)
Sure, yeah. And my company, Window Treatment Marketing Pros, is a preferred marketing vendor for you guys. We do get people that outreach to us and say, I didn’t think about marketing my business, but I probably should be thinking about that. And our name came up, of course. So we do get those same kinds of conversations where they didn’t realize that there was something else that they needed to grow their business.
David Soria (16:44)
Yes.
William Hanke (17:08)
So that’s always a great benefit, maybe a hidden benefit on your end that they realize after signing up.
David Soria (17:17)
Yep, absolutely.
William Hanke (17:19)
Cool. Let’s talk about challenges. So what are some of the biggest challenges that your members face and how does, you know, like a buying group really help them address those challenges?
David Soria (17:33)
Well, know, bottom line for the members joining is saving money. So we want to be able to do that for them first and foremost. You know, and obviously if you can reduce your costs, you’re going to make more money, be more profitable in the long run. But in terms of the challenge that are going on right now, I think we all recognize the market is super competitive.
not just about being able to maintain your margins, but dealers have to generate enough leads to fuel sales. You brought up the marketing component and you know, there are all these marketing services through additional vendor partnerships that from enhancing SEO, driving leads, website design, CRM setup, email marketing campaigns. You know, there are a lot of ways that, that members
can derive benefits to address that kind of a challenge. I know I’m aging myself by saying that the retailer I used to work for generated leads by running an ad in the local shopper paper, right? They even tried out a TV guide ad and it didn’t work out too well. But nowadays it’s digital marketing, using your website to drive leads, repeat customers, grow business, generate reviews online, get noticed in the first place.
William Hanke (18:46)
Right.
David Soria (19:02)
And many window covering dealers just don’t have that expertise, nor do they have the time to do the work it takes to comprehensively market their businesses. So having marketing partners who understand the window covering industry really is, you know, a game changer for them.
William Hanke (19:23)
Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s been a great partnership for us, obviously. I wanted to also I want to also ask you about webinars. You mentioned obviously the newspaper newsletter, whatever you call it, that goes out, the physical one. You guys also do webinars to help your members learn different things about different aspects of their business. It’s not just.
David Soria (19:27)
We appreciate it. Yeah.
William Hanke (19:49)
vendors pitching products, right? It’s a learning type session.
David Soria (19:53)
Right. Yeah. You know, we do at least one webinar a month, sometimes additional ones. We bring on our vendor partners to really be the star of those and to share something new about what’s going on. So if they have a product launch, if they have product promotion, if they have updates, training on a product, and many times,
What we’ve encouraged is that the vendors, and we started doing these, by the way, during COVID where nobody was meeting in person. And so it was an opportunity we realized for vendors to bring their showroom alive by showing it and doing the next best thing to having that sales rep sit down across the table, which was to show product, show samples and demo that.
And obviously, you know, that sales rep or sales rep team can only meet with one person at a time. Whereas our vendor webinars are open to our entire membership. So you can have have the national sales manager from a particular company presenting product or the product expert in that company presenting product to people from coast to coast and
So that’s very powerful. And it’s also an opportunity for somebody, say, who doesn’t have an account with a particular vendor to get a firsthand look at that product without the push, the sales angle of, I showed you my product, now sign off. They can judge for themselves whether that product line fits their needs.
William Hanke (21:46)
I love that. think that’s really smart that people can get on and watch those and do it in their own time, right? Without a huge time commitment as well, which obviously is important for people that are trying to run a business. Yeah. So one last thing. I did have a note here that you guys also have a private Facebook group that I’m assuming all your members have access to and can ask questions not just to the vendors, but to each other, right?
David Soria (22:16)
Yeah, we do maintain a private Facebook group as well as a public page. But on the Facebook group itself, there are no vendors. you know, we do encourage if you have something that’s nagging you about a particular vendor, give us a call. We, you know, talk about a one-on-one, but we see members posting tricky windows that they’re looking for advice for.
William Hanke (22:27)
okay.
David Soria (22:44)
the same as some of the other Facebook groups, but what’s different is you don’t have that vendor jumping on and saying sell my product, I’m the solution. You have other business owners who’ve seen the same window can make suggestions, can share their expertise and advice. So it’s very helpful to the members, I think.
William Hanke (22:53)
Yeah.
That’s great. mean, for 180 bucks a year, mean, just that would be worth it, right? That you could save a ton of money just by asking, how can I complete this project? And who can point me in the right direction?
David Soria (23:20)
Yeah, and you know, one of the things too, well, that we see is that members, by taking advantage of the various things that we offer, we see them growing their businesses at a faster pace and by having additional promotions, better pricing, they’re getting better margins. You know, it’s recently, I was recently talking to one of the territory reps from one of
the vendors that we work with. And she was saying she’s talking up our membership. Well, why? She shared that the dealers in her neck of the woods, her territory, the ones who are network members, she was seeing grow at a greater incremental rate and the non-network dealers were just kind of flat. So she was encouraging them to, you know, get on board.
and join and we love to hear stories like that. We hope that we can provide members with a leg up with those tools. The website, the Facebook, the webinars, all of that.
William Hanke (24:35)
That’s great. I mean, it makes total sense that if they’re saving money on the same types of products that everybody’s selling, they’d have more cash flow, right?
Cool. So question about the industry overall. I always like to ask this kind of question. What kind of marketing trends are certain, not even just marketing, what kind of trends are you guys seeing that is, should be important and on the radar for window treatment businesses as we roll into 2025?
David Soria (25:06)
Sure, you know, we always talk about that and trying to look for, know, what the hot trends are and what trend in one market is going and maybe not in another. I think my advice would be for the dealers wherever they are to analyze their local market really carefully. You know, what’s happening in their market may not be what’s happening nationwide.
tell you roller shades or motorization, but there are always exceptions for the latest trend. You know, I recently spoke to one of our members and she’s not in a small market. And she said, we’re still selling a surprising number of vertical blinds. I’m not going to give you that as a national trend, but you just never know for a particular market what, the hot product is. You know, that said, I would encourage any dealer.
has not yet embraced motorization to really get on board. It’s only going to grow in popularity and that means talking about it on every sales call, showing a motorized hand sample. If you have a showroom, having motorized product in your showroom. We have a vendor that has extra discounting specifically targeted to SOMTI motorization so that our members are able to save
additional on those products. I’d encourage dealers also to look beyond the interior window and expand their horizons. You know, if they’re just selling blinds and shades, what would happen to their business if they added soft options? That seems to be a growing trend. Fabric shades, drapery, balance, even just a simple panel program. What would that do to your bottom line? You’re in the home.
What about wall covering, rugs or accessory items if you’re already in soft? What about adding that? How about exterior product? Certainly, you know, some of the companies, have an exterior shade, but what about zip screens? What about awnings, pergolas, structures, exterior shutters and the like? We’re looking at some additional things to bring to our members next year and we’re really excited to…
to be able to do that. These are trends that are in the industry towards that outside of the house product. If dealers haven’t seen it in their market yet. In terms of marketing, you brought that up earlier. Have they updated their website? Do they have a dated appearance or does it show everything that they offer? Does it tell a story? Does it entice a customer to get in touch?
personal touch, like the owner’s picture even. How do they stay in touch with their current customer base? Do they have an email newsletter or other ways to generate word-of-mouth referrals? And obviously we’re in a visual industry and I think the cutting-edge businesses are making sure that they’re capturing great photos from their jobs, posting them, using social media, geo-tagging them.
I’ve heard from designers and workrooms that are having great success with Instagram reaching their target customers, making connections long term. Get the word out, tell your story.
William Hanke (28:44)
I love it. You’ve summarized more than I could ask when it comes to some sort of advice on what to do. What a great list of things that obviously, these are actionable items that people can, that they can grab and start to do. A lot of them aren’t even that costly to do so.
David Soria (29:04)
Yeah. I mean, look at your client mix. Who are they? Where are they? How did you find them? What are they buying? And look at your vendors. I mean, that’s where we come in to a little bit. Look at the big or even small changes in the industry. This is year end. It’s the time to reconsider a lot of things in your business. How would you tweak it for 2025? Are you reconsidering your mix of product, your mix of vendors?
And, you know, was last year better or worse than 2023? And what might you do differently? Are you ready to grow, ready to hire, open or expand a showroom? Bottom line, what are you, what are you driven to do with and for your business in the new year?
William Hanke (29:57)
Yeah, fantastic advice. I love it. When it comes to putting all that together and coming up with a plan, joining the network should be something that they consider. Where would somebody go to learn more about it?
David Soria (30:13)
Sure. Our website awcbn.com is a public facing page. There’s a members log in there where our members have additional information, but that public page gives a lot of information, FAQ information about joining. can check it out there. There is an application that they can fill out right.
right online, it’s a secure server to handle the payment, DocuSign server, and the links there. If they have questions, they can call us here at the office. We’re here in the central time zone at 847-281-3152, and we’re here Monday through Friday most days, 8 to 430.
William Hanke (31:08)
you
David Soria (31:09)
You know, we’ll take a little time off for Thanksgiving and all, but yeah, give us a call and we’d be happy to answer any questions. And if you have questions about if joining made sense for your particular business, we can definitely work through that.
William Hanke (31:29)
Love it. And you’ve got a great sales staff, too, that can answer a lot of the questions that might come up.
Love it. That’s great. So David, thank you so much for being on today. I’ve learned a lot about the network. I think it’s a great no brainer for people in the window treatment industry. And as you mentioned, some other industries as well where there’s still some advantage there. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being on today.
David Soria (32:01)
Thank you, Will. Enjoyed talking about it with you.
William Hanke (32:04)
Yeah, no problem at all. If you found today’s conversation helpful, be sure to check out our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss the next update. We’ll have more insightful discussions and expert guests coming your way to help you thrive in the window treatment and awning business. Stay inspired, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks again, David.
David Soria (32:28)
Thank you.
William Hanke (32:32)
Sweet.
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