The manufacturer in CA requested a phone meeting for today, but he didn’t call me at the scheduled time. When I called him 15 minutes later, he apologized profusely and asked me to call him back in an hour because he didn’t have a chance to look at my specs, materials, or drawings yet. An hour later I gave him a call back, and I found out from his assistant that he was at the post office and would give me a call when he got back, probably within 15 minutes. He called me over an hour later.
So you might be wondering why I’m putting up with these shenanigans. Well, I think I have enough evidence now to say that most small-scale leather manufacturers are aloof and flaky. Do they want new business? “Yes!”, they all say, because business is slow and they really want to take on new clients to help with their cash flow. So given their upfront enthusiasm, I don’t understand why don’t they call when they say they will, or ever email back so people don’t question whether their email address is still valid. I’m completely stumped.
Now let’s look on the bright side. The CA manufacturer finally gave me a ballpark estimate for the bag prototype, so I can use this as a benchmark when speaking with my other 2 manufacturing prospects. I may end up having more than one manufacturer make samples so I can see which factory is easier to work with and has better construction and technique. I figure I’ve been pretty lean with my expenses to date, so some experimentation with picking a manufacturer might be worth the short-term cost.
In other news, I’ve finally finalized the fabric patterns and colors for my launch products, and almost finished with picking the bag liner, so this means that next I’ll order fabric samples for the prototype, and then work with the manufacturer to order the fabric and leather I’ll need for my first production run.
I’m so close to getting the production going. I wonder if the ”Little Engine That Could” felt the way I do right now.