Randy Meppelink runs a 4th-generation family business based in Michigan that doesn’t just sell machines, they also teach fabrication. Whether it’s building roller shades from scratch, improving your current workflow, or launching new products like outdoor shades, Randy and his team help window treatment pros go from retailer to full-on fabricator. He brings a rare perspective: real-life experience in fabrication and hands-on product knowledge. His facility doubles as a working fabrication space where businesses can test machines, learn the ropes, and get hands-on experience.

Andrew Meyer is the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Indiana Coated Fabrics, a U.S. manufacturer of high-performance textiles. With over 20 years in sales, marketing, and brand development, he now focuses on serving the window shading industry through ICF’s U.S.-made blackout and light-filtering fabrics. Known for pairing market insight with a hands-on approach, Andrew helps fabricators, distributors, and designers navigate supply chain challenges and design trends. Outside work, he’s a devoted husband, father of three, and active community volunteer.

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Will Hanke (00:00)

All right, everybody. 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. I’m your host, Will Hanke and today we’re joined by two industry leaders helping dealers cross over into the world of in-house fabrication. So first is Randy Meppelink.

Randy runs a fourth generation family business based in Michigan that doesn’t just sell machines, they also teach fabrication, whether it’s building roller shades from scratch, improving your current workflow or launching new products like outdoor shades. Randy and his team help window treatment pros go from retailer to full on fabricator. He brings a rare perspective, real life experience in fabrication and

hands-on product knowledge. His facility doubles as a working fabrication space where businesses can test machines, learn the ropes, and get hands-on experience. Andrew Meyer, meanwhile, represents Indiana Coated Fabrics, one of the last U.S.-based manufacturers of coated-shade fabrics. While they’re known for blackout materials, ICF goes far beyond that.

They work with some of the biggest names in the industry, providing custom converting and finishing services for companies that want to apply ICF’s precision to their own textiles. For 60 years, ICF has supplied everyone from massive commercial brands to independent dealers. Andy’s mission is to help more US fabricators, big and small, access top tier materials and stand out with local made quality.

Together, they’re showing us what it really takes to bring fabrication in-house, adapt to industry shifts, and build a more resilient, profitable window treatment business. Guys, thanks for being on today. And I’m a… Yeah, and I’m out of breath now, right?

Randy Meppelink (02:03)

Yeah. Thanks, Will. We appreciate the invite. You bet.

Andrew Meyer (02:03)

Thank you. Yes.

Randy Meppelink (02:08)

Hahaha!

Andrew Meyer (02:08)

That

was quite the intro. ⁓

Will Hanke (02:12)

Yeah,

so, so let’s jump in. Randy and Andy, could you each introduce yourselves briefly and tell us a little bit about things that maybe we don’t know yet?

Randy Meppelink (02:23)

Well, thank you very much. And like you said, I am fourth generation. My family immigrated from the Netherlands. they went from Holland to Holland. So real original, right? We went from Holland, the country, to Holland, Michigan, the city. So place they felt comfortable. But a lot of people may not know a couple of things.

I’ve been in the industry really a long time since I was a child, you know, picking up or helping my grandfather. You know, we were fabricating drapery rods and, you know, shades way back in the 70s and stuff. but fast forward a little bit. One of the things that some people know and maybe a lot of don’t know, but there was a mini blind that was sold by a company called Leveler.

for years, and they had a paint system on there that was a dust guard paint that repelled dust. And I was the inventor behind that. And so that was ⁓ one of mine. so that’s something that you asked of people may not know about me. That’s one. It’s not really out there. You’d have to do the research to find it. yeah, that’s what it And I’ve been involved in a lot of product development with companies that are, whether it’s

Will Hanke (03:19)

nice.

Have a cool.

Randy Meppelink (03:39)

Hunter Douglas, Levolor, Comfortex, used to be Comfortex. Over the years, where I’ve contracted and done individual engineering products for them. So there’s many products that are out in the industry today that I have touched in one way or another in that product design. So yeah.

Will Hanke (03:58)

That’s awesome,

awesome. Very cool, how about you Andy?

Andrew Meyer (04:01)

⁓ Yes, so my name is Andrew Meyer here with ICF. While Randy and I do share the same barber as well as facial barber, I didn’t realize we’re both sporting the go-to today. I’ve been with ICF for about five years now. Tim Foster, whom a lot of the industry folk know, brought me into kind of… ⁓

kind of reinvigorate how our approach was and how we’re going to market with what we do. A lot of people in the industry know ICF and we’ve been kind of doing this blackout material for a long time. However, we do a lot of other things. Outside of shading, we do an art and entertainment ⁓ materials. We do converting work for various shade fabrics as well as other industry materials.

⁓ And we work in the industrial sector as well in making fabrics that get used in various applications. know, everything from tarmacs at the airport to your fabric HVAC materials. So lots of different things that we touch. The bulk of what we do is in the shading world. So which is why we’ve got great relationships with people like Randy and many others out there.

And as you kind of mentioned in the intro, we work with some of the biggest names in the shading industry, all the way down to the small mom and pops. And that’s what’s a lot of fun, is to be able to kind of work with both ends of the spectrum in what we do in providing fabrics to the industry.

Will Hanke (05:27)

that. love that. Randy, you mentioned that your company is four generations strong. What does it what does keeping it in the family, you know, kind of mean and for how you serve the industry today?

Randy Meppelink (05:39)

So family dynamics are extremely unique when you’re dealing with four generations in the business. Me being the third, but the fourth generation now working in the company and managing. One of the things that we did, and we ran out of kids, my wife and I, we created different divisions within the company so that they work together, but they don’t really cross over.

Andrew Meyer (05:58)

You

Randy Meppelink (06:06)

And that way it helps with the family dynamics piece of that because they’re directly responsible for their own division, whether it’s on the machinery side or whether it’s fabrication side or whether it’s supply, the different things like that involve. So that’s one of the important pieces with a family business, I think, is to have some separation for each of the members.

Will Hanke (06:27)

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. My daughter works with me and she’s, it’s tough to keep the two things separated sometimes between dad and boss. ⁓ But so I know about the family dynamics a little bit at least. So ⁓ Andy, you mentioned that your business is, or that the business is 60 years, been around for quite a while now.

Randy Meppelink (06:41)

Yes.

Will Hanke (06:52)

How has it evolved over the decades?

Andrew Meyer (06:55)

Yeah, so ICF actually started by Bill Haldowing. He worked at a very large, just not gonna name him, very large company that did some window shading, but they also did movie screen projection screen fabrication. they had started to slow down the shading side of their business, so he actually started ICF to kind of fill that void. And…

ICF started as our name says in long format, Indiana Coated Fabrics, we coated fabrics and we made various coated textiles to service, like I said, shading industry and then morphed into projection screen industry. And then somewhere in the 90s, early to mid 90s is when we actually got our first laminator. And that opened up a whole new world of shading, shading material opportunity. So we went from

just coating fabrics to then going into being able to provide a blackout material that was laminated and not go the coding route. Now, fast forward even further, we actually do various textiles that use both of those practices. So we’ve got materials that are both laminated and coated to provide different textures, different approaches to the shading industry, as well as the projection screen industry, and as well as some of the other

other ⁓ sectors that we service. So we started with this one idea and we’ve kind of really morphed based on the needs as well as our capabilities. And so now we run ⁓ two laminators. We run a narrow width and a wide format width. And then we also have our coating oven, which has different ways in which we can apply coatings to fabrics.

Will Hanke (08:32)

Yeah.

Andrew Meyer (08:51)

So yeah, we’ve been approached, obviously internally as well as some of our customers of asking, can we provide some exterior materials? like you’ve mentioned, we’ve seen significant growth. Last year ago, February, when we were at Stuttgart, it seemed like exterior was all the rave at the show out there. So we knew that’s something we need to start focusing on. And so we’ve been…

looking at bringing in some material, applying some waterproofing components to it to make it ⁓ worthy of outdoor shading or awning. So we’re exploring those. We’ve got a lot of R & D underway. So we don’t weave anything in-house, so we look for different opportunities to be able to convert fabrics to make it worthy of ⁓ outdoor, whatever the application might be. But yeah, exterior is a big focus right now for us.

Will Hanke (09:43)

Yeah, yeah, how about you, Randy?

Randy Meppelink (09:45)

I agree. It’s one of the fastest growing categories right now that we see. fabrication of exterior shades can be unique because you do need some special pieces of equipment. But us being also a fabricator and selling fabricated outdoor zip screens and channel guides, wire guide shades, we can kind of walk that dealer through to the right system that they need.

On the motorization side, you know you mentioned motors. motors are absolutely, they’re really, and you need a good brand behind it. There’s a lot of motors that are out there that can be used that are not maybe the best ones right now. so we try to help that dealer understand what are the good brands of motors? Where should we be focused on for that? But I don’t see any slowdown in the outdoor market. ⁓

Will Hanke (10:32)

You

Randy Meppelink (10:32)

It was interesting, our third person that’s going to be in the third company that’s going to be in the booth without jumping ahead was here this past week. And when we get to that part, I’ll introduce him. But anyway, we were talking about how many outdoor shades in the country of Australia are sold. And it’s phenomenal. And Australia, while it’s landmass the size of the United States, the people probably would not even fill California.

Will Hanke (11:01)

Right.

Randy Meppelink (11:01)

And yet they outsell the US in outdoor shades. And I said, my first comment to him was, well, that’s because it’s a tropical location. And he’s like, no, it’s not. says, Melbourne down in the South, he said, we’re five hours flight from Antarctica. He said, it’s cold in the wintertime, which is there now. They go north when they want to go to a warm climate. But people see that, and we’re seeing that growth move from

Will Hanke (11:25)

You

Randy Meppelink (11:30)

countries like where outdoor living is so big and it’s really gonna and when it takes off and it has but as it grows in the United States as with anything it’s going to boom.

Will Hanke (11:42)

Yeah, yeah, I don’t see any slowdown in it either. Randy, you mentioned helping people cross over into new products like the outdoor shades. Can you break down a little bit of what that looks like for a company that’s maybe just starting out?

Randy Meppelink (11:56)

Sure, sure, absolutely. And we tried to, in the beginning, and I guess probably why we enjoy helping others, obviously it’s part of our business model, but we’ve been down that road where we tried the things that if there was only somebody that could have told me way back when we started with it that, don’t do this, don’t sew the zipper on the side because that’s really not.

you should weld that on. The thread’s going to give way after years of being exposed to the out, even if you use marine threading, that type of thing. that’s what we do then with that person. When they want to do that crossover, step into a new product line. One, we always invite them to our facility. They can see what it’s like and experience. Look, these are pieces of equipment we recommend, but not everybody has a budget for this.

but maybe we can steer you towards this or we can help you get started. Maybe we’ve, you know, we’re very good at finding and moving used equipment throughout the country too, to dealers that, you know, where they have a fixed budget, how much they can spend to get started. That’s kind of what we try to do though, is just try to find those right places and right fits for everybody in that.

Will Hanke (13:08)

like that. That’s awesome that you have ⁓ the access to be able to do that. Andy, what does the domestic manufacturing mean for your customers, especially in today’s market where tariffs are top of mind?

Andrew Meyer (13:21)

This is like hot topic number one right now. ⁓ man, especially with a continually moving target on what’s going out there in the landscape. It’s actually, you know, we’ve definitely seen an uptick in a lot of smaller fabricators and smaller shops kind of turning to us. And I think, you know, as they’ve gone out to source,

Will Hanke (13:23)

Right.

Andrew Meyer (13:43)

fabrics, they’re running into some obstacles. Whether we talk about the tariff, we talk about delays in getting material overseas, there’s definitely been an uptick for us, which is great. And one of the things that we always vocalize is, hey, we are one of the last standing domestic manufacturers of what we do, which is good and bad. It definitely provides opportunities so that we can continue to provide US

made goods. Now I will give the disclaimer that you know some of the material raw materials that we have to source there are components that come from various places. We try to source as much domestic raw material as we can. However we’ve got limitations too. So we do have to go overseas for some stuff. But it is a awe inspiring moment when you you’re having a conversation you’re meeting with them you’re on the phone whatever it is and they say well so you guys actually make this stuff in Indiana. So absolutely. So

⁓ It is, it’s a humbling experience to be able to still provide that for people.

Will Hanke (14:38)

Yeah, I’m having more of those conversations with potential customers for our business as well. That’s something that is definitely top of mind right now. So ⁓ as more dealers start to fabricate in-house, what do you think is really driving that shift?

Andrew Meyer (14:49)

Absolutely.

Randy Meppelink (14:58)

I, yeah, well, I mean, what’s driving it is control, right? I mean, now you’re able to control, when you can start building it yourself and allying yourself with the correct suppliers to get what you need, you get to control the narrative of what you’re supplying. And, you know, people say, sometimes I hear it’s like, we’re not near big enough, you know, we’re not large. No, yes, you are, okay? If you build,

Andrew Meyer (14:59)

I’ll Randy answer that.

Randy Meppelink (15:22)

If you were gonna do 25 shades a week, okay, on a very small scale, there are ways to jump into fabrication that you can do that and you can, and margin and profit is not a bad word, right? And it’s all what people want, you wanna put that onto your products. so if you can build it, you can definitely be successful.

Will Hanke (15:46)

Yeah. Randy, as you work with those types of businesses, are there any patterns that you see in the people that have success implementing that?

Randy Meppelink (15:57)

Yeah, know, some of the biggest ones are, and shade people or window covering people in general, if they’ve been in business for a while, they’re very ingenuitive, intuitive, they’re very, you know, I never, I should let me back up. I am always amazed and I’m always learning from other people and unique.

procedures. Just the other day I was working with an audio visual company and they told me a way that they were installing a shade system behind columns in an office building and they were mounting it on a board first and then putting the board up behind and then mounting the board. It’s like I never heard of that idea before. It’s that’s fascinating. It’s great. It makes complete sense. You’re not trying to tuck yourself in behind and mount a bracket.

So window covering people, by far in the majority, are set up to do that. Because they do have to figure out unique things in a lot of unique situations.

Will Hanke (16:57)

Yeah, yeah, so two part question. How hard is it to get started on the fabricating of shades? And then what are some common misconceptions or fears people might have about going down that

Randy Meppelink (17:12)

So the hardness to get started is what pieces of equipment do I need to make the shades? If I’m going to do roller shades or outdoor shades, do I need from a saw to a welder to inspection hoist to a cutting table? Those four pieces of equipment are your most important pieces of equipment. And then we would look at with a fabricator that’s looking at doing it or even one that’s starting it on a small scale.

What type of space requirements do you have in your building? Make sure they understand that if they’re going to go into building outdoor shades, those extrusions come 19 to 20 foot long. So you may not be able to stand those up in your building. Now they’re going to be, how do you store them? And that being said, also understanding what freight costs can be. So if you’re ordering extrusion and it’s 19 foot long links,

you’re at the high end of what your trucking companies are going to charge because there’s a thing that they call extreme length charge. And that’s going to be a big fee. And if they’re residentially, let’s say they’re a fabricator that’s working out of their shop or barn or garage or whatever, because we run into that, that’s also a piece that’s going to be, OK, now you’ve got that fee on top of it. So those are just some of the things that we try to.

point out to them as they’re going along and they want to step into that fabrication world. Andy can pass the ball to Andy here. I like this on the screen. can move it over. But freight costs probably are one that you see a lot too as well.

Andrew Meyer (18:43)

Absolutely, it’s, you know, especially with kind of what you just mentioned about how the companies is the longer you go, the worse it gets. I mean, we do a lot of wide format material. So when we’re sending out 10 foot long rolls, it’s, know, these guys will run it through a quoting process. And it’s kind of like, okay, you you want five skids of this stuff.

you’re up against ⁓ some logistic stuff as well. So definitely those things that you kind of as a fabricator, you got to keep that in mind how to build that in.

Will Hanke (19:06)

You

Yeah, yeah, definitely an important piece of it. since we’re on this kind of thread a little bit, what is your guys take on how fabrication affects margin lead time and just overall business control?

Randy Meppelink (19:32)

So one of the things, and I’ll talk from a fabricator to a supplier a little bit here, So understanding what lead times can be and fabrics, everything that you want to order, we all want to order as a fabricator on a just in time, right? We all want to bring it. We want to order when we need it. And we’re assuming that our supplier stocks it. maybe, but they’re

If you walk a mile in their shoes, they can’t stock everything either. So it’s a fine line of material availability. And that’s the first thing. Am I right, Andy, on that? I mean, that’s it.

Andrew Meyer (20:11)

Yeah, I believe we got an order from a company called Window Products the other day asking, I’m going to send somebody down to pick up a couple of rolls. I said, hold on, let me make sure I got these.

Randy Meppelink (20:22)

And it was even after close, will you set the rules outside the building? We’ll pick it up at 2 a.m. in the morning or whatever.

Andrew Meyer (20:24)

It was!

No, there’s a lot of truth in that and I think a lot of it starts with managing expectations. Whether it’s all the way down at the end, end fabricator going straight to the consumer or all the way coming up through us and providing the material to the industry. As long as we set those expectations, everybody should be set up for success. So Randy just mentioned, a lot of the times we do our production, should say that, we do a significant amount of production as made to order.

However, while we’re doing that, we’re trying to anticipate what the market is going to do based on forecasting from some of our larger customers. So we’ll go ahead and try to run stock on three, four, or five different colors in a certain category of material. It doesn’t always work out perfectly that way, or there are situations where large orders come in and completely evaporates your

your inventory. we tell customers, hey, we’re about a three week turn on narrow width materials. We’re up to four weeks on wide width materials. And that’s just how our production scheduling runs. But we try to beat those expectations 99 % of the

Will Hanke (21:39)

Sure.

Yeah. Under promise, over deliver, right? So I’d like to, yeah, I’d like to kind of dive into the whole, like the importance of quality materials, domestic sourcing, that kind of stuff. Andy, ICF is more than just a fabric supplier. Can you walk us through what else you guys actually do for your partners?

Randy Meppelink (21:43)

Exactly.

Andrew Meyer (21:45)

set it up back, let somebody pick it up.

Absolutely, absolutely. So as I mentioned in the beginning, we are known for our four ply vinyl blackout lamination. That’s what we do. We make four ply vinyl blackout day in and day out. We do a lot of other things. We do an artist material for the art and entertainment industry. So if you picture people doing murals in kind of high end office settings or even high end homes.

⁓ We have a lot of artists that will paint these murals in studio and then reapply it in the final installation. And it’s a 100 % cotton weave that we do some acrylic coating to it to prime it and basically make it ready for the artist to do their work. That is actually one of my favorite things to work on because it is such a niche product, but yet it has such a wonderful

traction and who we deal with. So one of the things I’ve been working a lot is how to grow that side of our business just because we actually work straight with the end artists. We don’t go through any dealers or any wholesalers or anything. So that’s kind of a fun thing we do. ⁓ Projection screen, which I mentioned, we do a lot of projection screen that gets used in kind of educational format, office settings, things like that. But we do a lot of converting work.

And that’s been a huge growth sector for us. So we’ve got some pretty sizable ⁓ customers out there in the market that will send us material, whether they want to take a material that had some opacities to it and they want to make it a blackout. So we’ll go ahead and finish it with lamination to convert it into a blackout format. We might take a material and apply an FR package to it.

apply, like I mentioned earlier, apply a waterproofing package to it. Still, it’s a finished product, but they want to offer it in a couple different ways. I will say from us being domestic and doing what we do, we have been on a mission to, we got rid of the bad anemone a handful of years ago.

We’re now about 96, 7 % of the way there to get rid of anemone in its entirety. So for all of the fabric people out there, the anemone, there was a good anemone and a bad anemone. And like I said, we got rid of the bad one many years ago and now we’re getting rid of the good one so we can be completely free of the anemone additive to make ⁓ an FR package. So we’re really excited about that. And I think being domestic, we kind of have that…

that ability or that foresight to know Massachusetts, California, these states that are being very proactive and trying to get rid of that stuff, we’ve got our ear to the ground so we can be able to kind of try to be ahead of the game. And so when those things do happen and when those changes happen, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to pivot, or we already have. So yeah, we dabble a little bit in, ⁓ like I mentioned earlier, the industrial market.

And in that sense, we’re taking material and we’re putting a neoprene finishing to it. We’re making it a conductive material so that we’ve got a customer that uses this material and there’s a lot of static electricity in the application that they use. And we need to make sure that a current can pass through the fabric and so that there’s no charge being built up. So…

We get to do a lot of fun stuff. It’s just not stuff that the end user is typically aware of, because we’re so early on in the process, but a lot of different things that we do.

Will Hanke (25:31)

very cool

Will Hanke (25:31)

So Andy, let’s talk about US-based sourcing. It’s a hot topic right now. How are you seeing the industry shift and what’s kind of driving that demand?

Andrew Meyer (25:41)

Absolutely. Us as a supplier here domestically, we’ve definitely seen an uptick. And we’ve even seen it where we’ve got customers asking us, where do your raw materials come from? And we exhaust every measure possible to provide domestic raw material sources. And as I mentioned earlier, we still have to get some things from overseas. It’s just the way the industry is.

but it’s definitely something that is actively being sought after. And it’s something that is part of an active conversation when you’re introducing yourself as a textile manufacturer, people are digging to find out where does this stuff come from? So it is very much a hot topic.

Will Hanke (26:22)

Yeah, Randy, anything to add to that?

Randy Meppelink (26:25)

⁓ it’s I agree with everything Andy is saying for sure. And, you know, we’re even adding on the machinery side of things. We’re building one particular cutting machine model now in the United States. We are soon working on some other projects as well. We’re manufacturing it here only because

of the uncertainty of we don’t know where with the whole global thing of where it’s going and not to be political. We don’t know where you know we don’t know where tariffs are going to go. But you know I will say it seems like they’re here to stay for a while. So as good as any good businessman would do or woman you’re going to reinvent yourself in today’s economy and you’re going to say OK if it’s going to be US sourcing that’s what we’re going to work on. And that’s and we’re we’re definitely making a push on that whether it’s

with working with Indiana Coated Fabrics on a couple of fabrics that they can do that and whether that or with other fabric suppliers that are manufacturing the fabric here in the United States, you know, we definitely want to be sourcing locally when possible now for sure.

Will Hanke (27:33)

Yes. So, let’s let’s jump in on the tariff thing just a little bit ⁓ without going too deep into the politics side of it. How are they impacting dealers and how does working with a domestic supplier help them?

Andrew Meyer (27:37)

boy.

Ha ha ha.

Randy Meppelink (27:40)

Yeah.

So the dealers are seeing pass-through tariffs. We’re passing through tariffs as we get tariffs added to ours, whether it’s on tariffs with our component suppliers, machinery, all of it. mean, there’s basically anything that’s coming into the United States now has a tariff on it of at least 10%. Now, that 10 % is not 10 % to the dealer. So what we do is we need to

We need to figure out that number as it trickles down because what we saw, and there are suppliers out there that are charging 10 % tariff. And when you question them, like, well, that’s what the tariff is. But they’re buying it here and selling it here. They’re using it as a profit generator. And in my opinion, and Andy and I have had long talk, we kind of both agree.

Andrew Meyer (28:33)

Mm-hmm.

Randy Meppelink (28:42)

I don’t want to do it as a profit generator, but it’s not something we as manufacturers can absorb either. But we need to find that right number to pass along. I think that’s key as how you do that. A 10 % tariff trickles down to a 4 to 6 % tariff somewhere down that line. And not every product that’s even products that we source in the US

use componentry or parts of that product that they have to get from overseas. So even a US-sourced manufactured product can still have a tariff applied to it of a small percentage.

Andrew Meyer (29:17)

Yes.

Will Hanke (29:23)

Yeah, but it’s not 10 % because it’s either not fully from overseas parts or they’re doing 10 % off of the final price instead of their actual costs.

Randy Meppelink (29:34)

Yep, exactly.

Andrew Meyer (29:34)

Exactly,

⁓ We, much like Randy, we are in a similar boat. We’ve implemented a surcharge on our invoicing. We went out to every single, not every single, almost every single customer, whether we sat down with them, got on the phone, got on Teams calls, and basically talked through it and said, hey, we have been forced. Here’s where we’re going. You know, we talk about our

Will Hanke (29:36)

Yeah.

Andrew Meyer (29:58)

our raw material supply chain. We talk about how our fiberglass weave, while that’s a domestic weaver, they’re getting the yarn from India or wherever it might be. So it trickles down as Randy said. The gratifying part is after I have these conversations with all these customers of, we do have to start implementing a surcharge for the tariff, we come out to about 3.5 % is what we’ve had to put down.

What I’m hearing is some of these companies like Randy had mentioned are absolutely gouging customers on just dropping this full tariff amount. it doesn’t make sense, and you’re not doing anybody justice by doing it this way. I guess maybe in the long run it’ll help us, and people will steer away from trying to source those materials from people that are just not playing a good game.

But it’s almost in everything that we’re doing and we have to do it. It’s the only way to continue to go forward. But I can say with confidence that we have kept it as absolutely low as possible. And we’re gonna be reflective of what happens with the US administration. As Randy said, yeah, it’s probably gonna be here for a while. If it changes, if it goes down, we’ll make it go down. We don’t want this thing on there any more than the customer wants it.

will be reactive as the government reacts.

Will Hanke (31:23)

I think there’s something smart about being transparent with it. Like you said, just opening a conversation. I think that’s pretty smart. for the ones that are just blanket adding a percentage, when we see an economy kind of go down a lot, a lot of those companies start to feel the pressure and it shakes them out. And the cream rises to the top, I guess you could say.

As my mom would say, they’ll get their comeuppance, right?

Andrew Meyer (31:50)

hahahaha

Will Hanke (31:53)

So

Andy, going to toss you a little bit of a softball here. For businesses that want more control over product quality, turnaround time, what are the advantages of partnering with a US-based fabricator like ICF?

Andrew Meyer (32:08)

Absolutely. I will say first and foremost, turnaround time. Even though we’re gonna give you the expectation of roughly a three week turn, it’s gonna be typically a lot quicker than that. You’re not sitting here waiting on a ship to come overseas. You don’t have to buy an entire container. We will sell you two rolls if that’s all that you need. Would I like to sell you a container? Absolutely. But we have the flexibility of doing a

a single roll all the way up to 20 skids. So whatever the application might be. And we have a lot of flexibility because we have so many different coloring options, we have so many different finishing options. All of this being right here in the Midwest, we can do it fast and we do it with the utmost quality and we source as much of a quality component as possible.

Will Hanke (32:59)

That’s awesome. Thank you for that. So both of you, as you mentioned earlier, Randy, you guys are going to be at the Sun Shading Expo in November. ⁓ What can people that attend that show expect to see there?

Randy Meppelink (33:08)

We are.

Well, we, so we’re gonna wet the whistle on our booth, we’re not gonna, we’re just gonna say is we’re gonna have an experienced booth, okay? And we invite you to come by our booth and have, we’re gonna have a really good time, okay? And while having a good time, we’re really gonna be able to talk to you about what our theme is, taking it from fabric to finish, okay?

And that’s kind of why, you know, we have Indiana Coated Window Products, Global Machine Innovation with us and UltraCut, okay, where we’re the, together with those companies and we invite you to see why we’ve partnered with them. And, Will, one of the things, and I think I said this before, but, you know, we speak fabricator. So when we talk machines at the show,

OK? We’re walking the walk, right? I mean, we’re talking to machine. We’re not just a machine company that sells a particular line of machine. And it’s a cure-all for everything. And it does everything. We sell the machines we use every day. And that’s why when someone comes up here to see us, it’s really unique. anyway, back to the show. We got it.

We’re in Indianapolis, and that’s the race capital of the world. And that’s going to be my intro as to a little bit about what to come to expect to see ⁓ at our ⁓ booth.

Will Hanke (34:41)

Alright, fair enough, fair enough. So they can come for the experience, but they can also bring questions, like real world questions that you guys will actually be able to answer.

Andrew Meyer (34:42)

Definitely.

Absolutely, we are going to be there showcasing everything from fabric as if you just needed to get fabric and how that then translates into the process of fabricating a shade. So stepping you through from the beginning all the way to a finished product.

And that way we can field questions. Hey, I’ve got technical questions on the material. I’ve got technical questions on the end use of the fabricated shade or anything in between. So we’re really excited to be able to kind of create this kind of three dimensional approach utilizing ultra cut window products in ourselves in a booth setting. So I will say you better race to get to our booth. What?

Will Hanke (35:33)

I like that. I have a booth as well. hope mine is facing towards yours so I can see some of the fun, right?

Should be good. So what role does collaboration between companies like yours play in helping dealers succeed? Randy?

Randy Meppelink (35:50)

So really, where that comes in is when we start with a fabricator, we start talking to them about a cutting table and then fabric. We have that conversation typically then about, well, where do I get fabrics from? What’s my best sources? And that’s where our partnerships like with Ediana Coated is. We want to tell the story to that fabricator. We want to say, we’re going to put you in touch with Andy. You need to talk to him.

And they’re going to take care of your needs in this particular line of fabric. And if you need this style of fabric, we’re going to guide you in those directions. And motorization, same thing. Some of the products we sell, we’re not taking any back end or commission or anything. We’re just wanting, we want them to be successful. Because.

to borrow a term from a friend of mine who’s retired out of the industry, but John Fitzgerald, and I got to call his name out, he was the vice president of Comfort Tax, him and Tom Marczak, but he coined the term a long time ago, your success is our success. And when he said that, I’ve always remembered that. That was 25 years ago when he said that at a meeting. that really is, their success, a fabricator’s success is my success, it’s Andy’s success. And that’s how we.

That’s how we grow together.

Will Hanke (37:08)

Yeah, yeah, there’s something really good about as a business owner or representative of being a coach for somebody. So they come into your booth, we need fabric. go talk to that guy. You know, you’re the resource, but you’ve also kind of brought them all together in one spot. That’s fantastic.

Andrew Meyer (37:08)

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Will Hanke (37:28)

Yeah, really cool. What are you guys most excited to showcase at the expo? And you’ve kind of already hinted to some sort of surprise, but I’m curious what you guys are excited to showcase.

Andrew Meyer (37:40)

I think it’ll be fun that we’re gonna be able to demonstrate the fabricating of a shade. We’re gonna be able to demonstrate kind of all that is involved with that. But obviously there’s gonna be some fun stuff for them to do when they step into the booth. But yeah, being able to showcase this 360 degree approach, whether it’s a wholesaler, whether it’s an end fabricator, we can touch all these different points of the market with one stop.

Randy Meppelink (38:06)

We’re going to have a new cutting table, brand new design. This cutting table is designed for the entry level person that wants to get into shade fabrication, whether indoors or outdoors. And we’re super excited about that. We’ll have a mini model of it for display and operation. then we have on the outdoor side with Ultra-Cut, we’ll have some of our new products

our new welding equipment with that as well. we’ve got some brand new stuff coming to the market that we’re excited to share.

Will Hanke (38:36)

And as you mentioned, the ⁓ Sun Shading Expo is in November. This is 2025 that you’re listening to it right now. Excited to do that. Obviously it’s in Indiana. As a midwesterner, that’s fantastic for me. I can drive to it. That doesn’t happen very often, but I guess you guys probably can too, right?

Randy Meppelink (38:53)

Correct?

Will Hanke (38:55)

That’s awesome. So a couple quick bonus questions for somebody who’s listening and considering the in-house fabrication. What’s the first step they should realistically take?

Randy Meppelink (39:08)

Wanting to if, OK, the first step is preparing your budget. How much do you want to spend to get in? OK, now, that being said, nobody wants to spend more than they have to. ⁓ but realistically, come up with a realistic number of what is where you’re at. And you might be shocked at what it takes to get into making shades.

Will Hanke (39:21)

You

Randy Meppelink (39:35)

It may not be as high as what you think it is. A lot of people from the machine side of things here, and they see all the fancy XYZ type CNC cutting machines, they can be very expensive. They can be very, ⁓ what’s the word I’m trying to think of, awe-inspiring. It’s like, wow, do I really need all that? we did a test here. ⁓

on Thursday, we had an XY table and we had an operator working on a Y-axis only table. And we timed it in a good shade cutter, outcut the XY, the computer table. And we were all shocked. And because if we were all betting, we would have thought the XY was faster. But it wasn’t. And it is in some cases. it’s not. And so really, start out with your budget.

Space requirements, how much, you know, come talk, when you talk to me, I’m going to ask you those questions. I’m going to say, how big a space do you have? Okay. We can do a layout for you. You know, Mitch in our office will actually do a factory layout on a CAD system as to how your factory should look like. You know, what, that needs to see. And, and then how much space do you have to store fabric? You know, we want you to store a lot of Indiana coated fabrics. So it’s ready and available to make shades.

Will Hanke (40:51)

Okay.

That’s good. Thank you for kind of laying that out. Big picture. What trend do you guys will shake up the window covering world in the next three to five years?

Andrew Meyer (41:10)

I think the exterior side of that business is gonna continue to just be explosive, something we’re gonna be paying a lot attention to. And I think a lot of the work that we’ve been doing lately, we’re seeing a lot of, ⁓ man, how do I say this? We’re seeing a lot of textiles that…

didn’t necessarily come to the market as a blackout format are now having that option added. So I think you’re going to see a lot more design centric be.

in combination with those types of characteristics. I think you’re also going to see some more dual shade stuff come out too. I mean, I know there’s a good portion of it, but ⁓ we’re seeing a lot more requests of, we want this fabric of yours to be in conjunction with this other fabric that we’re sourcing for a dual shade purpose. yeah, that’s my crystal ball, but by no means is it crystal clear.

Will Hanke (42:04)

Yeah. All right. Anything to add, Randy?

Randy Meppelink (42:06)

I would agree on ⁓ looking in the same crystal ball on outdoor shades and dual shades. Those are the two fastest growing categories we see. And for a fabricator, since we’re talking to fabricators in this podcast, a dual shade is two shades on one window. That’s twice as much product that you can make. those are opportunities, not negatives. Those are opportunities for growth.

Will Hanke (42:35)

good, very good. If my wife knew that there was such a thing, I’m sure she would order it, right?

Not necessarily because she needs it, just because she wants it, right? So thank you guys for being on today. ⁓ If somebody wants to learn a little bit more and connect with you guys, what is the best way for them to do so? We’ll start with Randy.

Randy Meppelink (42:56)

OK, so emailing our company is probably the best way. We will always talk to you on the phone. Don’t get me wrong. But with the amount of phone calls that come in, it’s very difficult to as much time and effort as you are not effort, but as much time into speaking to everybody. email is the best that we can get started and then kind of gives us some direction. Great way we’ll respond. I’ll get you to the right persons in the company here, whether it’s machinery, fabrication, new products, that type of thing.

at that would be randy @ window products inc inc.com so [email protected] and I’ll direct that email and I respond to everybody so I will definitely respond back.

Will Hanke (43:24)

Okay, what is that email?

Okay, perfect.

Awesome, we’ll put that in the show notes as well if anybody wants to, if you’re driving and can’t write that down at the moment, we’ll make sure that you get that. How about you, Andy?

Andrew Meyer (43:48)

⁓ Yeah, very similar setup to what Randy mentioned. ⁓ By all means, check out ⁓ www.indianacoatedfabrics.com A good amount of resource on there to kind of illustrate what it is we do and the different sectors that we kind of play in. But also, shoot me an email. ⁓ Phone calls are great, but kind of like Randy said, it’s just constantly…

bouncing off the hook here, but Andrew.Meyer M-E-Y-E-R @ indianacoatedfabrics.com.

Will Hanke (44:19)

Awesome. And again, we’ll put that in the show notes with a link to your website and everything. Thank you guys. Any last thoughts for professionals trying to grow in this industry?

Randy Meppelink (44:30)

My biggest one, as you’re going to hear this before the trade show, go to the Sun Shading Expo in Indianapolis. Please. It’s a great opportunity. you’re considering fabrication, or if you’re considering even looking for new suppliers, whether it’s fabrics, or components for your motors, or anything in our industry, go to the trade shows. Trade shows are so important. And this one.

This sun shading expo is really geared towards rolling products, things that roll up, up and down. That’s the biggest part of our industry right now. And if you’re selling that, you need to be there.

Andrew Meyer (45:10)

Same sentiment is come check out the show. Indianapolis is an extremely easy city to get to, whether by car or by plane. And obviously being downtown focused, the show itself is going to be so well contained that it’s just very accessible and there’s going to be lots and lots of great stuff there for people to check out.

Will Hanke (45:29)

Yeah, it’s a great show. I’ve attended the last three or four years in a row now and it seems like it gets bigger every year. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you guys again for being on the show today. You shared some fantastic things that ⁓ that really, really can help people that are maybe thinking or maybe they weren’t even thinking of going that route. So they’ll reach out to you, hopefully.

Randy Meppelink (45:38)

Absolutely, it has been.

Will Hanke (45:55)

to talk a little bit more about that. But thanks for giving us kind of a behind the scenes look at what’s really possible for dealers to take fabrication into their own hands.

Randy Meppelink (46:05)

Well, thank you. Thanks for having us.

Andrew Meyer (46:06)

Yes, yeah, thank you

Will Hanke (46:06)

Yeah,

Andrew Meyer (46:07)

for having, yes, thank you so much. It was a lot of fun.

Will Hanke (46:07)

yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, if this got you thinking about the next step for your business, whether it’s sourcing smarter, fabricating in-house, or simply finding more control in your process, I hope you found something actionable today. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, consider subscribing or sharing it with someone in the industry who might find it helpful. You can find more episodes and resources over at Window Treatment Marketing Pros on YouTube.

Spotify, iTunes, and all the usual places. Until our next episode at Marketing Panes thanks for listening.

Will Hanke (00:00)

All right, everybody. 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. I’m your host, Will Hanke and today we’re joined by two industry leaders helping dealers cross over into the world of in-house fabrication. So first is Randy Meppelink.

Randy runs a fourth generation family business based in Michigan that doesn’t just sell machines, they also teach fabrication, whether it’s building roller shades from scratch, improving your current workflow or launching new products like outdoor shades. Randy and his team help window treatment pros go from retailer to full on fabricator. He brings a rare perspective, real life experience in fabrication and

hands-on product knowledge. His facility doubles as a working fabrication space where businesses can test machines, learn the ropes, and get hands-on experience. Andrew Meyer, meanwhile, represents Indiana Coated Fabrics, one of the last U.S.-based manufacturers of coated-shade fabrics. While they’re known for blackout materials, ICF goes far beyond that.

They work with some of the biggest names in the industry, providing custom converting and finishing services for companies that want to apply ICF’s precision to their own textiles. For 60 years, ICF has supplied everyone from massive commercial brands to independent dealers. Andy’s mission is to help more US fabricators, big and small, access top tier materials and stand out with local made quality.

Together, they’re showing us what it really takes to bring fabrication in-house, adapt to industry shifts, and build a more resilient, profitable window treatment business. Guys, thanks for being on today. And I’m a… Yeah, and I’m out of breath now, right?

Randy Meppelink (02:03)

Yeah. Thanks, Will. We appreciate the invite. You bet.

Andrew Meyer (02:03)

Thank you. Yes.

Randy Meppelink (02:08)

Hahaha!

Andrew Meyer (02:08)

That

was quite the intro. ⁓

Will Hanke (02:12)

Yeah,

so, so let’s jump in. Randy and Andy, could you each introduce yourselves briefly and tell us a little bit about things that maybe we don’t know yet?

Randy Meppelink (02:23)

Well, thank you very much. And like you said, I am fourth generation. My family immigrated from the Netherlands. they went from Holland to Holland. So real original, right? We went from Holland, the country, to Holland, Michigan, the city. So place they felt comfortable. But a lot of people may not know a couple of things.

I’ve been in the industry really a long time since I was a child, you know, picking up or helping my grandfather. You know, we were fabricating drapery rods and, you know, shades way back in the 70s and stuff. but fast forward a little bit. One of the things that some people know and maybe a lot of don’t know, but there was a mini blind that was sold by a company called Leveler.

for years, and they had a paint system on there that was a dust guard paint that repelled dust. And I was the inventor behind that. And so that was ⁓ one of mine. so that’s something that you asked of people may not know about me. That’s one. It’s not really out there. You’d have to do the research to find it. yeah, that’s what it And I’ve been involved in a lot of product development with companies that are, whether it’s

Will Hanke (03:19)

nice.

Have a cool.

Randy Meppelink (03:39)

Hunter Douglas, Levolor, Comfortex, used to be Comfortex. Over the years, where I’ve contracted and done individual engineering products for them. So there’s many products that are out in the industry today that I have touched in one way or another in that product design. So yeah.

Will Hanke (03:58)

That’s awesome,

awesome. Very cool, how about you Andy?

Andrew Meyer (04:01)

⁓ Yes, so my name is Andrew Meyer here with ICF. While Randy and I do share the same barber as well as facial barber, I didn’t realize we’re both sporting the go-to today. I’ve been with ICF for about five years now. Tim Foster, whom a lot of the industry folk know, brought me into kind of… ⁓

kind of reinvigorate how our approach was and how we’re going to market with what we do. A lot of people in the industry know ICF and we’ve been kind of doing this blackout material for a long time. However, we do a lot of other things. Outside of shading, we do an art and entertainment ⁓ materials. We do converting work for various shade fabrics as well as other industry materials.

⁓ And we work in the industrial sector as well in making fabrics that get used in various applications. know, everything from tarmacs at the airport to your fabric HVAC materials. So lots of different things that we touch. The bulk of what we do is in the shading world. So which is why we’ve got great relationships with people like Randy and many others out there.

And as you kind of mentioned in the intro, we work with some of the biggest names in the shading industry, all the way down to the small mom and pops. And that’s what’s a lot of fun, is to be able to kind of work with both ends of the spectrum in what we do in providing fabrics to the industry.

Will Hanke (05:27)

that. love that. Randy, you mentioned that your company is four generations strong. What does it what does keeping it in the family, you know, kind of mean and for how you serve the industry today?

Randy Meppelink (05:39)

So family dynamics are extremely unique when you’re dealing with four generations in the business. Me being the third, but the fourth generation now working in the company and managing. One of the things that we did, and we ran out of kids, my wife and I, we created different divisions within the company so that they work together, but they don’t really cross over.

Andrew Meyer (05:58)

You

Randy Meppelink (06:06)

And that way it helps with the family dynamics piece of that because they’re directly responsible for their own division, whether it’s on the machinery side or whether it’s fabrication side or whether it’s supply, the different things like that involve. So that’s one of the important pieces with a family business, I think, is to have some separation for each of the members.

Will Hanke (06:27)

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I like that. My daughter works with me and she’s, it’s tough to keep the two things separated sometimes between dad and boss. ⁓ But so I know about the family dynamics a little bit at least. So ⁓ Andy, you mentioned that your business is, or that the business is 60 years, been around for quite a while now.

Randy Meppelink (06:41)

Yes.

Will Hanke (06:52)

How has it evolved over the decades?

Andrew Meyer (06:55)

Yeah, so ICF actually started by Bill Haldowing. He worked at a very large, just not gonna name him, very large company that did some window shading, but they also did movie screen projection screen fabrication. they had started to slow down the shading side of their business, so he actually started ICF to kind of fill that void. And…

ICF started as our name says in long format, Indiana Coated Fabrics, we coated fabrics and we made various coated textiles to service, like I said, shading industry and then morphed into projection screen industry. And then somewhere in the 90s, early to mid 90s is when we actually got our first laminator. And that opened up a whole new world of shading, shading material opportunity. So we went from

just coating fabrics to then going into being able to provide a blackout material that was laminated and not go the coding route. Now, fast forward even further, we actually do various textiles that use both of those practices. So we’ve got materials that are both laminated and coated to provide different textures, different approaches to the shading industry, as well as the projection screen industry, and as well as some of the other

other ⁓ sectors that we service. So we started with this one idea and we’ve kind of really morphed based on the needs as well as our capabilities. And so now we run ⁓ two laminators. We run a narrow width and a wide format width. And then we also have our coating oven, which has different ways in which we can apply coatings to fabrics.

Will Hanke (08:32)

Yeah.

Andrew Meyer (08:51)

So yeah, we’ve been approached, obviously internally as well as some of our customers of asking, can we provide some exterior materials? like you’ve mentioned, we’ve seen significant growth. Last year ago, February, when we were at Stuttgart, it seemed like exterior was all the rave at the show out there. So we knew that’s something we need to start focusing on. And so we’ve been…

looking at bringing in some material, applying some waterproofing components to it to make it ⁓ worthy of outdoor shading or awning. So we’re exploring those. We’ve got a lot of R & D underway. So we don’t weave anything in-house, so we look for different opportunities to be able to convert fabrics to make it worthy of ⁓ outdoor, whatever the application might be. But yeah, exterior is a big focus right now for us.

Will Hanke (09:43)

Yeah, yeah, how about you, Randy?

Randy Meppelink (09:45)

I agree. It’s one of the fastest growing categories right now that we see. fabrication of exterior shades can be unique because you do need some special pieces of equipment. But us being also a fabricator and selling fabricated outdoor zip screens and channel guides, wire guide shades, we can kind of walk that dealer through to the right system that they need.

On the motorization side, you know you mentioned motors. motors are absolutely, they’re really, and you need a good brand behind it. There’s a lot of motors that are out there that can be used that are not maybe the best ones right now. so we try to help that dealer understand what are the good brands of motors? Where should we be focused on for that? But I don’t see any slowdown in the outdoor market. ⁓

Will Hanke (10:32)

You

Randy Meppelink (10:32)

It was interesting, our third person that’s going to be in the third company that’s going to be in the booth without jumping ahead was here this past week. And when we get to that part, I’ll introduce him. But anyway, we were talking about how many outdoor shades in the country of Australia are sold. And it’s phenomenal. And Australia, while it’s landmass the size of the United States, the people probably would not even fill California.

Will Hanke (11:01)

Right.

Randy Meppelink (11:01)

And yet they outsell the US in outdoor shades. And I said, my first comment to him was, well, that’s because it’s a tropical location. And he’s like, no, it’s not. says, Melbourne down in the South, he said, we’re five hours flight from Antarctica. He said, it’s cold in the wintertime, which is there now. They go north when they want to go to a warm climate. But people see that, and we’re seeing that growth move from

Will Hanke (11:25)

You

Randy Meppelink (11:30)

countries like where outdoor living is so big and it’s really gonna and when it takes off and it has but as it grows in the United States as with anything it’s going to boom.

Will Hanke (11:42)

Yeah, yeah, I don’t see any slowdown in it either. Randy, you mentioned helping people cross over into new products like the outdoor shades. Can you break down a little bit of what that looks like for a company that’s maybe just starting out?

Randy Meppelink (11:56)

Sure, sure, absolutely. And we tried to, in the beginning, and I guess probably why we enjoy helping others, obviously it’s part of our business model, but we’ve been down that road where we tried the things that if there was only somebody that could have told me way back when we started with it that, don’t do this, don’t sew the zipper on the side because that’s really not.

you should weld that on. The thread’s going to give way after years of being exposed to the out, even if you use marine threading, that type of thing. that’s what we do then with that person. When they want to do that crossover, step into a new product line. One, we always invite them to our facility. They can see what it’s like and experience. Look, these are pieces of equipment we recommend, but not everybody has a budget for this.

but maybe we can steer you towards this or we can help you get started. Maybe we’ve, you know, we’re very good at finding and moving used equipment throughout the country too, to dealers that, you know, where they have a fixed budget, how much they can spend to get started. That’s kind of what we try to do though, is just try to find those right places and right fits for everybody in that.

Will Hanke (13:08)

like that. That’s awesome that you have ⁓ the access to be able to do that. Andy, what does the domestic manufacturing mean for your customers, especially in today’s market where tariffs are top of mind?

Andrew Meyer (13:21)

This is like hot topic number one right now. ⁓ man, especially with a continually moving target on what’s going out there in the landscape. It’s actually, you know, we’ve definitely seen an uptick in a lot of smaller fabricators and smaller shops kind of turning to us. And I think, you know, as they’ve gone out to source,

Will Hanke (13:23)

Right.

Andrew Meyer (13:43)

fabrics, they’re running into some obstacles. Whether we talk about the tariff, we talk about delays in getting material overseas, there’s definitely been an uptick for us, which is great. And one of the things that we always vocalize is, hey, we are one of the last standing domestic manufacturers of what we do, which is good and bad. It definitely provides opportunities so that we can continue to provide US

made goods. Now I will give the disclaimer that you know some of the material raw materials that we have to source there are components that come from various places. We try to source as much domestic raw material as we can. However we’ve got limitations too. So we do have to go overseas for some stuff. But it is a awe inspiring moment when you you’re having a conversation you’re meeting with them you’re on the phone whatever it is and they say well so you guys actually make this stuff in Indiana. So absolutely. So

⁓ It is, it’s a humbling experience to be able to still provide that for people.

Will Hanke (14:38)

Yeah, I’m having more of those conversations with potential customers for our business as well. That’s something that is definitely top of mind right now. So ⁓ as more dealers start to fabricate in-house, what do you think is really driving that shift?

Andrew Meyer (14:49)

Absolutely.

Randy Meppelink (14:58)

I, yeah, well, I mean, what’s driving it is control, right? I mean, now you’re able to control, when you can start building it yourself and allying yourself with the correct suppliers to get what you need, you get to control the narrative of what you’re supplying. And, you know, people say, sometimes I hear it’s like, we’re not near big enough, you know, we’re not large. No, yes, you are, okay? If you build,

Andrew Meyer (14:59)

I’ll Randy answer that.

Randy Meppelink (15:22)

If you were gonna do 25 shades a week, okay, on a very small scale, there are ways to jump into fabrication that you can do that and you can, and margin and profit is not a bad word, right? And it’s all what people want, you wanna put that onto your products. so if you can build it, you can definitely be successful.

Will Hanke (15:46)

Yeah. Randy, as you work with those types of businesses, are there any patterns that you see in the people that have success implementing that?

Randy Meppelink (15:57)

Yeah, know, some of the biggest ones are, and shade people or window covering people in general, if they’ve been in business for a while, they’re very ingenuitive, intuitive, they’re very, you know, I never, I should let me back up. I am always amazed and I’m always learning from other people and unique.

procedures. Just the other day I was working with an audio visual company and they told me a way that they were installing a shade system behind columns in an office building and they were mounting it on a board first and then putting the board up behind and then mounting the board. It’s like I never heard of that idea before. It’s that’s fascinating. It’s great. It makes complete sense. You’re not trying to tuck yourself in behind and mount a bracket.

So window covering people, by far in the majority, are set up to do that. Because they do have to figure out unique things in a lot of unique situations.

Will Hanke (16:57)

Yeah, yeah, so two part question. How hard is it to get started on the fabricating of shades? And then what are some common misconceptions or fears people might have about going down that

Randy Meppelink (17:12)

So the hardness to get started is what pieces of equipment do I need to make the shades? If I’m going to do roller shades or outdoor shades, do I need from a saw to a welder to inspection hoist to a cutting table? Those four pieces of equipment are your most important pieces of equipment. And then we would look at with a fabricator that’s looking at doing it or even one that’s starting it on a small scale.

What type of space requirements do you have in your building? Make sure they understand that if they’re going to go into building outdoor shades, those extrusions come 19 to 20 foot long. So you may not be able to stand those up in your building. Now they’re going to be, how do you store them? And that being said, also understanding what freight costs can be. So if you’re ordering extrusion and it’s 19 foot long links,

you’re at the high end of what your trucking companies are going to charge because there’s a thing that they call extreme length charge. And that’s going to be a big fee. And if they’re residentially, let’s say they’re a fabricator that’s working out of their shop or barn or garage or whatever, because we run into that, that’s also a piece that’s going to be, OK, now you’ve got that fee on top of it. So those are just some of the things that we try to.

point out to them as they’re going along and they want to step into that fabrication world. Andy can pass the ball to Andy here. I like this on the screen. can move it over. But freight costs probably are one that you see a lot too as well.

Andrew Meyer (18:43)

Absolutely, it’s, you know, especially with kind of what you just mentioned about how the companies is the longer you go, the worse it gets. I mean, we do a lot of wide format material. So when we’re sending out 10 foot long rolls, it’s, know, these guys will run it through a quoting process. And it’s kind of like, okay, you you want five skids of this stuff.

you’re up against ⁓ some logistic stuff as well. So definitely those things that you kind of as a fabricator, you got to keep that in mind how to build that in.

Will Hanke (19:06)

You

Yeah, yeah, definitely an important piece of it. since we’re on this kind of thread a little bit, what is your guys take on how fabrication affects margin lead time and just overall business control?

Randy Meppelink (19:32)

So one of the things, and I’ll talk from a fabricator to a supplier a little bit here, So understanding what lead times can be and fabrics, everything that you want to order, we all want to order as a fabricator on a just in time, right? We all want to bring it. We want to order when we need it. And we’re assuming that our supplier stocks it. maybe, but they’re

If you walk a mile in their shoes, they can’t stock everything either. So it’s a fine line of material availability. And that’s the first thing. Am I right, Andy, on that? I mean, that’s it.

Andrew Meyer (20:11)

Yeah, I believe we got an order from a company called Window Products the other day asking, I’m going to send somebody down to pick up a couple of rolls. I said, hold on, let me make sure I got these.

Randy Meppelink (20:22)

And it was even after close, will you set the rules outside the building? We’ll pick it up at 2 a.m. in the morning or whatever.

Andrew Meyer (20:24)

It was!

No, there’s a lot of truth in that and I think a lot of it starts with managing expectations. Whether it’s all the way down at the end, end fabricator going straight to the consumer or all the way coming up through us and providing the material to the industry. As long as we set those expectations, everybody should be set up for success. So Randy just mentioned, a lot of the times we do our production, should say that, we do a significant amount of production as made to order.

However, while we’re doing that, we’re trying to anticipate what the market is going to do based on forecasting from some of our larger customers. So we’ll go ahead and try to run stock on three, four, or five different colors in a certain category of material. It doesn’t always work out perfectly that way, or there are situations where large orders come in and completely evaporates your

your inventory. we tell customers, hey, we’re about a three week turn on narrow width materials. We’re up to four weeks on wide width materials. And that’s just how our production scheduling runs. But we try to beat those expectations 99 % of the

Will Hanke (21:39)

Sure.

Yeah. Under promise, over deliver, right? So I’d like to, yeah, I’d like to kind of dive into the whole, like the importance of quality materials, domestic sourcing, that kind of stuff. Andy, ICF is more than just a fabric supplier. Can you walk us through what else you guys actually do for your partners?

Randy Meppelink (21:43)

Exactly.

Andrew Meyer (21:45)

set it up back, let somebody pick it up.

Absolutely, absolutely. So as I mentioned in the beginning, we are known for our four ply vinyl blackout lamination. That’s what we do. We make four ply vinyl blackout day in and day out. We do a lot of other things. We do an artist material for the art and entertainment industry. So if you picture people doing murals in kind of high end office settings or even high end homes.

⁓ We have a lot of artists that will paint these murals in studio and then reapply it in the final installation. And it’s a 100 % cotton weave that we do some acrylic coating to it to prime it and basically make it ready for the artist to do their work. That is actually one of my favorite things to work on because it is such a niche product, but yet it has such a wonderful

traction and who we deal with. So one of the things I’ve been working a lot is how to grow that side of our business just because we actually work straight with the end artists. We don’t go through any dealers or any wholesalers or anything. So that’s kind of a fun thing we do. ⁓ Projection screen, which I mentioned, we do a lot of projection screen that gets used in kind of educational format, office settings, things like that. But we do a lot of converting work.

And that’s been a huge growth sector for us. So we’ve got some pretty sizable ⁓ customers out there in the market that will send us material, whether they want to take a material that had some opacities to it and they want to make it a blackout. So we’ll go ahead and finish it with lamination to convert it into a blackout format. We might take a material and apply an FR package to it.

apply, like I mentioned earlier, apply a waterproofing package to it. Still, it’s a finished product, but they want to offer it in a couple different ways. I will say from us being domestic and doing what we do, we have been on a mission to, we got rid of the bad anemone a handful of years ago.

We’re now about 96, 7 % of the way there to get rid of anemone in its entirety. So for all of the fabric people out there, the anemone, there was a good anemone and a bad anemone. And like I said, we got rid of the bad one many years ago and now we’re getting rid of the good one so we can be completely free of the anemone additive to make ⁓ an FR package. So we’re really excited about that. And I think being domestic, we kind of have that…

that ability or that foresight to know Massachusetts, California, these states that are being very proactive and trying to get rid of that stuff, we’ve got our ear to the ground so we can be able to kind of try to be ahead of the game. And so when those things do happen and when those changes happen, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to pivot, or we already have. So yeah, we dabble a little bit in, ⁓ like I mentioned earlier, the industrial market.

And in that sense, we’re taking material and we’re putting a neoprene finishing to it. We’re making it a conductive material so that we’ve got a customer that uses this material and there’s a lot of static electricity in the application that they use. And we need to make sure that a current can pass through the fabric and so that there’s no charge being built up. So…

We get to do a lot of fun stuff. It’s just not stuff that the end user is typically aware of, because we’re so early on in the process, but a lot of different things that we do.

Will Hanke (25:31)

very cool

Will Hanke (25:31)

So Andy, let’s talk about US-based sourcing. It’s a hot topic right now. How are you seeing the industry shift and what’s kind of driving that demand?

Andrew Meyer (25:41)

Absolutely. Us as a supplier here domestically, we’ve definitely seen an uptick. And we’ve even seen it where we’ve got customers asking us, where do your raw materials come from? And we exhaust every measure possible to provide domestic raw material sources. And as I mentioned earlier, we still have to get some things from overseas. It’s just the way the industry is.

but it’s definitely something that is actively being sought after. And it’s something that is part of an active conversation when you’re introducing yourself as a textile manufacturer, people are digging to find out where does this stuff come from? So it is very much a hot topic.

Will Hanke (26:22)

Yeah, Randy, anything to add to that?

Randy Meppelink (26:25)

⁓ it’s I agree with everything Andy is saying for sure. And, you know, we’re even adding on the machinery side of things. We’re building one particular cutting machine model now in the United States. We are soon working on some other projects as well. We’re manufacturing it here only because

of the uncertainty of we don’t know where with the whole global thing of where it’s going and not to be political. We don’t know where you know we don’t know where tariffs are going to go. But you know I will say it seems like they’re here to stay for a while. So as good as any good businessman would do or woman you’re going to reinvent yourself in today’s economy and you’re going to say OK if it’s going to be US sourcing that’s what we’re going to work on. And that’s and we’re we’re definitely making a push on that whether it’s

with working with Indiana Coated Fabrics on a couple of fabrics that they can do that and whether that or with other fabric suppliers that are manufacturing the fabric here in the United States, you know, we definitely want to be sourcing locally when possible now for sure.

Will Hanke (27:33)

Yes. So, let’s let’s jump in on the tariff thing just a little bit ⁓ without going too deep into the politics side of it. How are they impacting dealers and how does working with a domestic supplier help them?

Andrew Meyer (27:37)

boy.

Ha ha ha.

Randy Meppelink (27:40)

Yeah.

So the dealers are seeing pass-through tariffs. We’re passing through tariffs as we get tariffs added to ours, whether it’s on tariffs with our component suppliers, machinery, all of it. mean, there’s basically anything that’s coming into the United States now has a tariff on it of at least 10%. Now, that 10 % is not 10 % to the dealer. So what we do is we need to

We need to figure out that number as it trickles down because what we saw, and there are suppliers out there that are charging 10 % tariff. And when you question them, like, well, that’s what the tariff is. But they’re buying it here and selling it here. They’re using it as a profit generator. And in my opinion, and Andy and I have had long talk, we kind of both agree.

Andrew Meyer (28:33)

Mm-hmm.

Randy Meppelink (28:42)

I don’t want to do it as a profit generator, but it’s not something we as manufacturers can absorb either. But we need to find that right number to pass along. I think that’s key as how you do that. A 10 % tariff trickles down to a 4 to 6 % tariff somewhere down that line. And not every product that’s even products that we source in the US

use componentry or parts of that product that they have to get from overseas. So even a US-sourced manufactured product can still have a tariff applied to it of a small percentage.

Andrew Meyer (29:17)

Yes.

Will Hanke (29:23)

Yeah, but it’s not 10 % because it’s either not fully from overseas parts or they’re doing 10 % off of the final price instead of their actual costs.

Randy Meppelink (29:34)

Yep, exactly.

Andrew Meyer (29:34)

Exactly,

⁓ We, much like Randy, we are in a similar boat. We’ve implemented a surcharge on our invoicing. We went out to every single, not every single, almost every single customer, whether we sat down with them, got on the phone, got on Teams calls, and basically talked through it and said, hey, we have been forced. Here’s where we’re going. You know, we talk about our

Will Hanke (29:36)

Yeah.

Andrew Meyer (29:58)

our raw material supply chain. We talk about how our fiberglass weave, while that’s a domestic weaver, they’re getting the yarn from India or wherever it might be. So it trickles down as Randy said. The gratifying part is after I have these conversations with all these customers of, we do have to start implementing a surcharge for the tariff, we come out to about 3.5 % is what we’ve had to put down.

What I’m hearing is some of these companies like Randy had mentioned are absolutely gouging customers on just dropping this full tariff amount. it doesn’t make sense, and you’re not doing anybody justice by doing it this way. I guess maybe in the long run it’ll help us, and people will steer away from trying to source those materials from people that are just not playing a good game.

But it’s almost in everything that we’re doing and we have to do it. It’s the only way to continue to go forward. But I can say with confidence that we have kept it as absolutely low as possible. And we’re gonna be reflective of what happens with the US administration. As Randy said, yeah, it’s probably gonna be here for a while. If it changes, if it goes down, we’ll make it go down. We don’t want this thing on there any more than the customer wants it.

will be reactive as the government reacts.

Will Hanke (31:23)

I think there’s something smart about being transparent with it. Like you said, just opening a conversation. I think that’s pretty smart. for the ones that are just blanket adding a percentage, when we see an economy kind of go down a lot, a lot of those companies start to feel the pressure and it shakes them out. And the cream rises to the top, I guess you could say.

As my mom would say, they’ll get their comeuppance, right?

Andrew Meyer (31:50)

hahahaha

Will Hanke (31:53)

So

Andy, going to toss you a little bit of a softball here. For businesses that want more control over product quality, turnaround time, what are the advantages of partnering with a US-based fabricator like ICF?

Andrew Meyer (32:08)

Absolutely. I will say first and foremost, turnaround time. Even though we’re gonna give you the expectation of roughly a three week turn, it’s gonna be typically a lot quicker than that. You’re not sitting here waiting on a ship to come overseas. You don’t have to buy an entire container. We will sell you two rolls if that’s all that you need. Would I like to sell you a container? Absolutely. But we have the flexibility of doing a

a single roll all the way up to 20 skids. So whatever the application might be. And we have a lot of flexibility because we have so many different coloring options, we have so many different finishing options. All of this being right here in the Midwest, we can do it fast and we do it with the utmost quality and we source as much of a quality component as possible.

Will Hanke (32:59)

That’s awesome. Thank you for that. So both of you, as you mentioned earlier, Randy, you guys are going to be at the Sun Shading Expo in November. ⁓ What can people that attend that show expect to see there?

Randy Meppelink (33:08)

We are.

Well, we, so we’re gonna wet the whistle on our booth, we’re not gonna, we’re just gonna say is we’re gonna have an experienced booth, okay? And we invite you to come by our booth and have, we’re gonna have a really good time, okay? And while having a good time, we’re really gonna be able to talk to you about what our theme is, taking it from fabric to finish, okay?

And that’s kind of why, you know, we have Indiana Coated Window Products, Global Machine Innovation with us and UltraCut, okay, where we’re the, together with those companies and we invite you to see why we’ve partnered with them. And, Will, one of the things, and I think I said this before, but, you know, we speak fabricator. So when we talk machines at the show,

OK? We’re walking the walk, right? I mean, we’re talking to machine. We’re not just a machine company that sells a particular line of machine. And it’s a cure-all for everything. And it does everything. We sell the machines we use every day. And that’s why when someone comes up here to see us, it’s really unique. anyway, back to the show. We got it.

We’re in Indianapolis, and that’s the race capital of the world. And that’s going to be my intro as to a little bit about what to come to expect to see ⁓ at our ⁓ booth.

Will Hanke (34:41)

Alright, fair enough, fair enough. So they can come for the experience, but they can also bring questions, like real world questions that you guys will actually be able to answer.

Andrew Meyer (34:42)

Definitely.

Absolutely, we are going to be there showcasing everything from fabric as if you just needed to get fabric and how that then translates into the process of fabricating a shade. So stepping you through from the beginning all the way to a finished product.

And that way we can field questions. Hey, I’ve got technical questions on the material. I’ve got technical questions on the end use of the fabricated shade or anything in between. So we’re really excited to be able to kind of create this kind of three dimensional approach utilizing ultra cut window products in ourselves in a booth setting. So I will say you better race to get to our booth. What?

Will Hanke (35:33)

I like that. I have a booth as well. hope mine is facing towards yours so I can see some of the fun, right?

Should be good. So what role does collaboration between companies like yours play in helping dealers succeed? Randy?

Randy Meppelink (35:50)

So really, where that comes in is when we start with a fabricator, we start talking to them about a cutting table and then fabric. We have that conversation typically then about, well, where do I get fabrics from? What’s my best sources? And that’s where our partnerships like with Ediana Coated is. We want to tell the story to that fabricator. We want to say, we’re going to put you in touch with Andy. You need to talk to him.

And they’re going to take care of your needs in this particular line of fabric. And if you need this style of fabric, we’re going to guide you in those directions. And motorization, same thing. Some of the products we sell, we’re not taking any back end or commission or anything. We’re just wanting, we want them to be successful. Because.

to borrow a term from a friend of mine who’s retired out of the industry, but John Fitzgerald, and I got to call his name out, he was the vice president of Comfort Tax, him and Tom Marczak, but he coined the term a long time ago, your success is our success. And when he said that, I’ve always remembered that. That was 25 years ago when he said that at a meeting. that really is, their success, a fabricator’s success is my success, it’s Andy’s success. And that’s how we.

That’s how we grow together.

Will Hanke (37:08)

Yeah, yeah, there’s something really good about as a business owner or representative of being a coach for somebody. So they come into your booth, we need fabric. go talk to that guy. You know, you’re the resource, but you’ve also kind of brought them all together in one spot. That’s fantastic.

Andrew Meyer (37:08)

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Will Hanke (37:28)

Yeah, really cool. What are you guys most excited to showcase at the expo? And you’ve kind of already hinted to some sort of surprise, but I’m curious what you guys are excited to showcase.

Andrew Meyer (37:40)

I think it’ll be fun that we’re gonna be able to demonstrate the fabricating of a shade. We’re gonna be able to demonstrate kind of all that is involved with that. But obviously there’s gonna be some fun stuff for them to do when they step into the booth. But yeah, being able to showcase this 360 degree approach, whether it’s a wholesaler, whether it’s an end fabricator, we can touch all these different points of the market with one stop.

Randy Meppelink (38:06)

We’re going to have a new cutting table, brand new design. This cutting table is designed for the entry level person that wants to get into shade fabrication, whether indoors or outdoors. And we’re super excited about that. We’ll have a mini model of it for display and operation. then we have on the outdoor side with Ultra-Cut, we’ll have some of our new products

our new welding equipment with that as well. we’ve got some brand new stuff coming to the market that we’re excited to share.

Will Hanke (38:36)

And as you mentioned, the ⁓ Sun Shading Expo is in November. This is 2025 that you’re listening to it right now. Excited to do that. Obviously it’s in Indiana. As a midwesterner, that’s fantastic for me. I can drive to it. That doesn’t happen very often, but I guess you guys probably can too, right?

Randy Meppelink (38:53)

Correct?

Will Hanke (38:55)

That’s awesome. So a couple quick bonus questions for somebody who’s listening and considering the in-house fabrication. What’s the first step they should realistically take?

Randy Meppelink (39:08)

Wanting to if, OK, the first step is preparing your budget. How much do you want to spend to get in? OK, now, that being said, nobody wants to spend more than they have to. ⁓ but realistically, come up with a realistic number of what is where you’re at. And you might be shocked at what it takes to get into making shades.

Will Hanke (39:21)

You

Randy Meppelink (39:35)

It may not be as high as what you think it is. A lot of people from the machine side of things here, and they see all the fancy XYZ type CNC cutting machines, they can be very expensive. They can be very, ⁓ what’s the word I’m trying to think of, awe-inspiring. It’s like, wow, do I really need all that? we did a test here. ⁓

on Thursday, we had an XY table and we had an operator working on a Y-axis only table. And we timed it in a good shade cutter, outcut the XY, the computer table. And we were all shocked. And because if we were all betting, we would have thought the XY was faster. But it wasn’t. And it is in some cases. it’s not. And so really, start out with your budget.

Space requirements, how much, you know, come talk, when you talk to me, I’m going to ask you those questions. I’m going to say, how big a space do you have? Okay. We can do a layout for you. You know, Mitch in our office will actually do a factory layout on a CAD system as to how your factory should look like. You know, what, that needs to see. And, and then how much space do you have to store fabric? You know, we want you to store a lot of Indiana coated fabrics. So it’s ready and available to make shades.

Will Hanke (40:51)

Okay.

That’s good. Thank you for kind of laying that out. Big picture. What trend do you guys will shake up the window covering world in the next three to five years?

Andrew Meyer (41:10)

I think the exterior side of that business is gonna continue to just be explosive, something we’re gonna be paying a lot attention to. And I think a lot of the work that we’ve been doing lately, we’re seeing a lot of, ⁓ man, how do I say this? We’re seeing a lot of textiles that…

didn’t necessarily come to the market as a blackout format are now having that option added. So I think you’re going to see a lot more design centric be.

in combination with those types of characteristics. I think you’re also going to see some more dual shade stuff come out too. I mean, I know there’s a good portion of it, but ⁓ we’re seeing a lot more requests of, we want this fabric of yours to be in conjunction with this other fabric that we’re sourcing for a dual shade purpose. yeah, that’s my crystal ball, but by no means is it crystal clear.

Will Hanke (42:04)

Yeah. All right. Anything to add, Randy?

Randy Meppelink (42:06)

I would agree on ⁓ looking in the same crystal ball on outdoor shades and dual shades. Those are the two fastest growing categories we see. And for a fabricator, since we’re talking to fabricators in this podcast, a dual shade is two shades on one window. That’s twice as much product that you can make. those are opportunities, not negatives. Those are opportunities for growth.

Will Hanke (42:35)

good, very good. If my wife knew that there was such a thing, I’m sure she would order it, right?

Not necessarily because she needs it, just because she wants it, right? So thank you guys for being on today. ⁓ If somebody wants to learn a little bit more and connect with you guys, what is the best way for them to do so? We’ll start with Randy.

Randy Meppelink (42:56)

OK, so emailing our company is probably the best way. We will always talk to you on the phone. Don’t get me wrong. But with the amount of phone calls that come in, it’s very difficult to as much time and effort as you are not effort, but as much time into speaking to everybody. email is the best that we can get started and then kind of gives us some direction. Great way we’ll respond. I’ll get you to the right persons in the company here, whether it’s machinery, fabrication, new products, that type of thing.

at that would be randy @ window products inc inc.com so [email protected] and I’ll direct that email and I respond to everybody so I will definitely respond back.

Will Hanke (43:24)

Okay, what is that email?

Okay, perfect.

Awesome, we’ll put that in the show notes as well if anybody wants to, if you’re driving and can’t write that down at the moment, we’ll make sure that you get that. How about you, Andy?

Andrew Meyer (43:48)

⁓ Yeah, very similar setup to what Randy mentioned. ⁓ By all means, check out ⁓ www.indianacoatedfabrics.com A good amount of resource on there to kind of illustrate what it is we do and the different sectors that we kind of play in. But also, shoot me an email. ⁓ Phone calls are great, but kind of like Randy said, it’s just constantly…

bouncing off the hook here, but Andrew.Meyer M-E-Y-E-R @ indianacoatedfabrics.com.

Will Hanke (44:19)

Awesome. And again, we’ll put that in the show notes with a link to your website and everything. Thank you guys. Any last thoughts for professionals trying to grow in this industry?

Randy Meppelink (44:30)

My biggest one, as you’re going to hear this before the trade show, go to the Sun Shading Expo in Indianapolis. Please. It’s a great opportunity. you’re considering fabrication, or if you’re considering even looking for new suppliers, whether it’s fabrics, or components for your motors, or anything in our industry, go to the trade shows. Trade shows are so important. And this one.

This sun shading expo is really geared towards rolling products, things that roll up, up and down. That’s the biggest part of our industry right now. And if you’re selling that, you need to be there.

Andrew Meyer (45:10)

Same sentiment is come check out the show. Indianapolis is an extremely easy city to get to, whether by car or by plane. And obviously being downtown focused, the show itself is going to be so well contained that it’s just very accessible and there’s going to be lots and lots of great stuff there for people to check out.

Will Hanke (45:29)

Yeah, it’s a great show. I’ve attended the last three or four years in a row now and it seems like it gets bigger every year. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well, thank you guys again for being on the show today. You shared some fantastic things that ⁓ that really, really can help people that are maybe thinking or maybe they weren’t even thinking of going that route. So they’ll reach out to you, hopefully.

Randy Meppelink (45:38)

Absolutely, it has been.

Will Hanke (45:55)

to talk a little bit more about that. But thanks for giving us kind of a behind the scenes look at what’s really possible for dealers to take fabrication into their own hands.

Randy Meppelink (46:05)

Well, thank you. Thanks for having us.

Andrew Meyer (46:06)

Yes, yeah, thank you

Will Hanke (46:06)

Yeah,

Andrew Meyer (46:07)

for having, yes, thank you so much. It was a lot of fun.

Will Hanke (46:07)

yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, if this got you thinking about the next step for your business, whether it’s sourcing smarter, fabricating in-house, or simply finding more control in your process, I hope you found something actionable today. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, consider subscribing or sharing it with someone in the industry who might find it helpful. You can find more episodes and resources over at Window Treatment Marketing Pros on YouTube.

Spotify, iTunes, and all the usual places. Until our next episode at Marketing Panes thanks for listening.