Client Showcase – The Power Of Positive Relationships

The end of the year is a good time to celebrate successes, especially in a challenging year when success has been hard-won and not always easy to come by. At CRM, we have a lot to be thankful for and high up on the list is the solid relationships with our clients.

This month, we’d like to showcase one of our long-standing clients – Branded Products and Services Ltd so we grabbed a quick ‘fireside chat’ with Director Julie Arnold to get the lowdown on the company’s 2022.

Branded Products and CRM: a winning team?

“When we started the business 14 years ago, we were neighbours of CRM in Kidlington and Alan Sowden, CRM’s Technical Director, was our accountant. Since then, we moved to Bicester and when Paul Skinner became a fully qualified accountant, he took us on and we’ve not looked back since.

“With a production and sales background, I manage the financial side of the business, doing the bookkeeping but I have no formal accountancy training so Paul’s support and expertise in Sage and VAT is an absolute godsend. He really understands the ups and downs of our industry where we have to pay upfront to suppliers but wait for 60 days for payment from customers after delivery.”

How has the business developed?

“Our business is constantly evolving. When we started 14 years ago, we supplied branded floppy disks, CDs and mouse mats but of course that has all changed and our top products now are phone chargers, USBs and power banks. We have stayed true to our roots, with a speciality in technical branded items and we print the branding on all sorts of different products (as you can see in the photo).

“Like many businesses, we did some serious head-scratching when the pandemic hit but we managed to diversify again and sourced PPE masks and hand sanitiser to supply our customers with what they needed. This became 80% of our turnover during the pandemic and kept us afloat.

“When events and corporate entertaining were back on track for end-users, the calls from distributors picked up again and it was good to get back into doing what we knew best. We have almost restored our income to 2019 levels but it has been a rocky couple of years, with such economic and political instability. A major challenge for us is the Dollar exchange rate as we pay our suppliers in USD so a small change in the exchange rate has a big impact.”

What would you like 2023 to hold for Branded Products?

“We have seen some high peaks and low troughs this year which have evened out to make a good year, but I would be pleased to see more steady growth in 2023 without the heart-stopping moments.

“We enjoy what we do and our team is loyal and hardworking. We have a small workforce of seven people and the shortest serving member of staff has been with us for 10 years! I’d like to keep it that way, it’s so much better to maintain the skills our team has built rather than recruit and train up new employees.

“I see Paul at CRM as part of our team, in fact the whole of CRM is a great support for Branded Products. If I have a tricky accountancy problem, there is always someone at CRM that will know the answer. I even realised after a number of years that as a child, I had been good friends and neighbours with Alison on reception, but we didn’t recognise each other’s voices for several years!”

Find out more about Branded Products and Services at www.branded-products.co.uk/