Published: 19th Apr 2017

Author: Nick Bryant; National Sales Manager; ProFit Safety Footwear 

Boksburg (SA) – In June 2016, after almost 7 years since it was established, ProFit Safety Footwear started making some radical changes to its business model. A completely new look, a stronger website, involvement in social media and a complete overhaul of their range offering. Out with the old – and in with the new! Moving from just a presence in the entry level sector, their offering grew into styles to suit various price brackets as well as various industries resulting in some wonderful growth.

We knew we had a very solid foundation on which to build, but we just needed to sharpen our image and implement a new approach to the market. The Giving You More marketing campaign ran between September 2016 and the end of January 2017. We launched 7 brand new styles over this period, and have number 8 arriving imminently. It was very apparent from various discussions with the industry that the safety footwear market was looking for a competitively priced, simple yet ample product range offering, with attractive styling but more than that – product that was always in stock and something a little bit more exclusive. We had a clear plan from the very beginning that less was more – and went about carefully selecting certified partners across the country who would be responsible for distributing our product. And then we decided to show them what real service was all about. It literally changed their perception of the entry level (lower end) of the market.

Once we had this handful of PPE partners we began channelling our product through them and them alone. Everyone talks about exclusivity but very few actually offer it. But, that’s exactly what we did. And we’ve stuck to our guns. Those certified partners are fed leads from our team on the road – visiting both partners and end users – as well as from calls made to us at our Johannesburg and Cape Town offices, from our webpage or off Facebook. Partners are seeing the value and we are very proud of our approach. It’s wonderful to hear distributors saying they enjoy selling our product because they don’t have to issue 6 revised quotes after haggling for unsustainable margins for 3 days. They also appreciate that we don’t go direct to end users. The only way you can get into a pair of our safety footwear is through a partner!

We are only 9 months into the new look company but we’ve made some very impressive inroads, increased our sales and already altered the opinion the market had of “cheap imports”. It’s rather unfortunate to see how this sector has been branded. Not everything out of China is cheap and nasty! That’s a terrible generalisation.

Being competitively priced at the “budget” end of the sector doesn’t automatically exclude you from excellent and efficient service. The “Giving You More” campaign proved that – with unwavering support and all the professional touches. Something many wouldn’t expect at the entry level. The quality of our marketing campaigns and marketing presentations has been very well received.

In that 9 month period, we’ve also been able to showcase the new face of ProFit Safety Footwear, both externally as we are being seen in the market with a better product offering, but also with our new systems internally and a very fired up team. Whilst all of our partners carry extensive stocks on the shelf, they are aware that their new orders with us are only 24 – 48 hours away (region dependent). We are also very impressed with our despatch and warehouse team and new transport alliance – which has enabled us a near perfect on time/in full delivery rating.

Our Four Pillars of ProFit Promise that we strive for daily as a team are; more value, more excellence, more trust and more exclusivity. Every day someone needs to have added value, been excellent, built trust and presented exclusivity. We have a small, strong team – but are a highly motivated group of individuals who give 100% every day – and that’s making all the difference.

Our goal is quite simply to grow our market share by offering something that nobody else has at this specific sector… good old-fashioned “human to human” business built on loyalty and integrity. As someone once said, “Small daily successes are the key to staggering long term results”. That’s exactly what we strive for – small daily successes.