Students help with business plan

Teresa Driver, an employee of Uniform Express in Mocksville, cuts patterns for another set of scrubs. Students from UNC Greensboro observed the work that takes place at the business. Photo by Steve Huffman

Rachel Rosenthal, left, and Emily Shetler, students at UNC Greensboro, listen as Delmar McDaniel, owner of Uniform Express, explains his business. Photo by Steve Huffman

Justin Southard, a student at UNC Greeensboro, takes a look at an embroidering machine at Uniform Express in Mocksville. Behind him are fellow students Yirkarah Young and Emily Shetler, and business employee Teresa Driver, seated. Photo by Steve Huffman

By Steve Huffman

For the Salisbury Post

MOCKSVILLE — Delmar McDaniel said that five years ago, his business, Uniform Express, was doing about $40,000 a week in sales.

Times have changed.

McDaniel, who founded the company in 1982, said sales have been slashed 75 percent in recent years, to only about $10,000 a week.

"I'm personally not making a lot of money anymore," McDaniel admitted.

His company manufactures nursing scrubs, choir and judicial robes, and uniforms for cafeteria workers and the like. It's located near Greasy Corner, just outside Mocksville.

Exactly what caused the downturn in business, that McDaniel can't say. Maybe it's the sorry state of the economy, he said, or maybe it's that his business is taking a beating from Internet competitors.

Whatever the reason, he realizes he needs to turn things around.

"I know manufacturing, not marketing," said McDaniel, who graduated decades ago from N.C. State University where he majored in textiles. "I haven't had a marketing course in my life."

So McDaniel jumped when students from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro offered to visit Uniform Express earlier this week to get an overview of the operation. After that, the students planned to return to campus to spend a few weeks composing a marketing plan that might help McDaniel boost sales.

Students will eventually be making a presentation to their professor and classmates concerning their plan for Uniform Express. It'll all factor into their grades for the spring semester.

"Marketing is the most important thing in life," McDaniel said. "If you can't sell it, you can't make any money."

The students who visited Uniform Express — Rachel Rosenthal, Nikki Shelley, Emily Shetler, Justin Southard and Yirkarah Young — are all seniors in Dr. Lew Brown's Marketing 429 class.

The visit was initiated by McDaniel's son, Justin, the plant's manager, who contacted the N.C. Department of Commerce for help in righting the listing ship that is Uniform Express. Commerce officials put the McDaniels in contact with Jim Miller, business counselor with the state's Small Business and Technology Development Center, who works with Brown's students at UNCG.

Miller accompanied the students to Uniform Express.

"They get to interact with a real company as opposed to all book learning," Miller said. "It's invaluable experience."

Delmar McDaniel founded Uniform Express in 1984, the business initially involved almost solely with the manufacture of uniforms for Food Lion. The association with Food Lion has since dissolved, but Uniform Express has over the years ventured into a variety of other areas.

McDaniel moved the operation from downtown Mocksville to its present location in 1992. The business now occupies five buildings that range in size from 3,000 to 10,000 square feet.

Business was at one point so good that McDaniel opened another production facility in Ashe County. That plant has since closed and its seven workers laid off. The approximately 20 employees in Davie County no longer work full time as the company struggles to hold on.

McDaniel said 10 percent of his company's business is through walk-in traffic and the remainder is mail order. McDaniel gave the UNCG students a walk-through of the business during their visit.

Along the way, students asked lots of questions. When McDaniel was showing examples of the variety of scrubs and uniforms his business produces, someone asked if the business makes lab coats for doctors.

McDaniel said they'd tried, but the venture flopped.

"No, they're too tight," he said of the spending habits of physicians. "They won't buy anything. They wear what they wore in school."

McDaniel said he'd come up with what he thought were some ingenious ideas that didn't always prove fruitful. An example, he said, was a beauty smock with the pockets in the back that would prevent the stylist's uniform from inadvertently collecting the hair of his or her customers.

Great idea, McDaniel said, with zero orders.

"Same as nothing," McDaniel said of the number of those rear-pocketed smocks he'd sold. "It can be a good idea, but that doesn't mean it's going to sell."

Nikki Shelley, one of the students who visited Uniform Express, said the process of completing a marketing plan for a business involves a great deal of work. She said she and her fellow students would have to study the information that McDaniel provided and also study the company's Web site (duckscrubs. com).

They'd go to the Web sites of the company's competitors for information, Shelley said, and study the market as a whole.

"There's a lot that goes into it," Shelley said of completing a marketing plan.

Justin Southard, another student, agreed. He said he'd reviewed the duckscrubs Web site before visiting the plant, and said the first word that pops up on the home page is "cheap."

" 'Cheap' is not a good word," Southard said." 'Cheap' implies inferior quality. 'Inexpensive' is better."

McDaniel laughed when asked if he minded taking suggestions from a group of young whipper-snappers like students from UNCG.

"Not at all," he said. "Any suggestions they're willing to make, I'm more than happy to listen."