D2DCon 2024 | Cutting Out the Middleman: Tim Nixon's Path from Door-to-Door to Building a Custom Apparel Powerhouse | The D2D Podcast

In this episode of The D2D Podcast, Tim Nixon, CPO and Co-Founder of Truware, joins to discuss his journey from door-to-door sales to building a custom apparel company that caters to brands like Nike and Lululemon. Tim shares how Truware is revolutionizing the apparel industry by offering fully customized products, eliminating middlemen, and passing on cost savings to clients. He also reveals how his door-to-door sales background has equipped him with essential skills for business success, from motivating teams to delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Tim breaks down Truware’s unique approach to product design, from merging the best features of top brands to developing a white-labeled web store for client fulfillment. 

Learn how applying door-to-door sales principles has fueled Truware's growth and how businesses can benefit from innovative custom solutions.

You’ll find answers to questions such as:

• How did Tim Nixon leverage his door-to-door experience to build Truware?
• What sets Truware apart from other custom apparel companies?
• How does eliminating middlemen save businesses money?
• What role does customization play in Truware’s success?
• How can door-to-door sales strategies drive growth in other industries?

Get in touch with Tim:
Website: truwearservices.com
LinkedIn: Tim Nixon

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Transcript

00:07
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to D2D Podcast. I am joined on day one of D2DCon 7. I'm joined with one of the co-founders of Truware, right? That's right. Tim Nixon. Yep. I will give my little rant about Truware. Truware has probably given me more outfits in the last two D2DCons than Sam has ever given me. So I appreciate you guys for that. Love that. Everything that I wear is probably the most comfortable stuff.

00:37
But Tim, like so so thankful and so grateful for you being on our show. What I want you to do is start with your background, your history, where you're coming from, why the door to door space, why are you like, just give me a little bit about and then we'll jump into more stuff down the road. Love it. Yes, it's interesting. I mean, I grew up in Texas, you know, the youngest of 10 kids. My dad was an accounting professor, very frugal, very, you know, diligent, hardworking type guy.

01:07
You know, so like ten years old my dad's like hey, you're gonna pay for your own college So go mo lawns and so I started knocking doors getting clients to mo lawns for built up a lawn mowing business Well, I was growing up grew up selling waters at Texas a and in football games I mean that's anything to make a buck man, you know And so for me, you know, obviously graduated high school in Texas came to BYU And then once I got back from my church mission, it just kind of made sense

01:37
I love to know this. Yes. Where'd you serve your mission? So this ties in perfectly to true. I served in Taiwan Which is Republic of China? Carry on that's awesome. So that's where the Mandarin comes in and up studying Chinese and business at BYU But when I go back from my mission, I was like, hey I want to make money and I'd heard that door-to-door space is a great way to do that And so I got connected to my business partner Joe and it started knocking doors selling pest control. So

02:06
is one of the higher ups advantage marketing. And so I knocked for four summers total. And it was the end of my third summer. Joe and I were in Pittsburgh doing training, training some new reps out there. And I just told Joe, I said, hey, I have this idea to make dress shirts that feel like Nike polos, like that type material that are liquid, stain repellent. And he's like, dude, bring me as your partner and I'll fund it. I'm like, OK. No brainer.

02:36
So we started off with that, but as I was doing my trips to China, I was busy in these factories where they make Nike and Lulu lemon and fury adidas all this stuff. I said, well, Vantage, we're wearing polos who what poles are we wearing? And they're like random brands all these right sport tech, whatever it is. And so I remember coming back and like Joe, why don't we go to these companies and say, hey, what are you paying to get a custom polo? Oh, X. All right. We'll do it for why would you say 20%? And we'll make it custom and do it ourselves through the.

03:06
I've been able to leverage. So that's kind of how Trueware started. And it's grown and evolved since then. So with Trueware, like where this whole door to door, it's hard to, I feel like once you get into door to door, there's always a means to an end. It's always. But it's always in your blood. Like what made you want to do the clothing? What made you want to say, hey, you know what? Instead of having a side hustle, this is going to be my full-time hustle and we're going to blow this up. Why? What was that factor that was just like,

03:36
we're done here, we're doing this. Yeah, great question. Honestly, I think for me it was, it was a culmination of my trips to China and just seeing the manufacturing world and the opportunities that were there. And for me, it just, it garnered a lot of excitement of like, hey, knocking doors is great. It was a great way to be able to make money. And you can go that route, right? You can build it up, you can give your teams, have downlines, and that's a great way to do it. For me, I wanted to be able to utilize my Chinese speaking because I'd worked so hard to learn it and be able to leverage that

04:06
I saw a lifetime worth of opportunity not just in apparel but miscellaneous products being able to manufacture Consults as well. So it's kind of just wanting to have gratitude for the door to door all the lessons I learned I mean a to me completely and starting true air for sure. I love that. I love that's awesome. So

04:28
You know, Truware, I mean, there's so many out there, right? There's so many apparel companies. There's so many, like, give me, give me a little bit of why.

04:38
Like, what makes you, what's your uniques? Let's put it that way. What are your three uniques that, like, this is why everybody goes with true wear, this is what I've heard? Like, what's that for you guys? So we felt like we were able to find a niche here in Utah because there weren't a lot of companies that had the capabilities to custom make apparel overseas. It was all just like buying wholesale, putting a logo on it, and reselling it. Which, like, we can do that too. If you want a Travis Matthew polo and you're die hard Travis Matthew fan, sure, we can give that for you.

05:08
advantage I would say the biggest pro coming with true wear is that we can work hand-in-hand with you to design product from the stitch up so if you're like dude I love this little lemon t-shirt but I wanted to have the cut of this underarmor polo but I wanted to have the fit of this Adidas t-shirt I love we can morph all three of those from the stitch up and make it custom overseas which just other people aren't doing that right yeah we also I think having the ability to cut out the middleman we're able to save money for

05:38
because there is nobody in between me and the people who are actually sewing the clothing, which just is such an advantage to the people that we work with. Yeah, no, I love that. I would, honestly, you all, I would have to say I totally agree. There hasn't been a whole lot of apparel companies that honestly have impressed me as much as True Wear has. Oh, I appreciate that, man. In all honesty, I mean, now that we've made that connection

06:08
I mean, like, my joggers now, I probably wear all... I stole, you heard this first, I stole all of the excess D2D joggers you guys gave us last year. Because I loved them so much. They're comfy. Coats, so comfy. They fit great. They're great, yeah. Like, the shirts are awesome. Like, I know this year, you guys are, you know, they did an awesome, like, sweatsuit for what our theme is. Right. I tried that on. I could sleep in that.

06:38
day in and day out. Again, what he's saying is true. I would agree with those uniques. I think there hasn't been a bad experience from us. Cool, appreciate that. Obviously, just like anything, when you order so much, it's always a struggle. Totally, totally. So that's why it's never been a bad, I don't have anything bad. Everything that you've said has been on point. Now when it comes to Trueware and everything, what is the biggest thing that attracts your employees?

07:08
Like I just I'm curious because apparel is cool. Yeah, yeah. But like what's like I look over at your booth like we're right over here, right? And one it's hopping with people because you guys are making custom shirts here at the show and stuff. Totally, totally. But at the same time, I see a lot of your employees and just talking about the apparel lines, right? Yeah, yeah. Like what drives them to be like, hey, I wanna be a part of this. I love what you're doing. Yeah, great question. I mean, I think honestly, we're just constantly innovating, which is fun, right? Yeah. It's like these guys come in and they get to give

07:38
their input and say, hey, I like this hoodie, but have we thought about ever making a hoodie like this? And I mean, Joe and I will be the first ones to say, we don't come from an apparel background whatsoever. I think I have a good idea of fashion sense. Maybe my wife would disagree, I don't know. I feel like I do. So I just see stuff in the market that looks cool. I'm like, I wanna make that, or I wanna change that. So I think that everyone has this mentality, they bought into Truewear, because they know that their feedback and their opinions are valued and are taken into consideration. And so it doesn't matter

08:08
a warehouse worker or someone in the C-suite, anyone's opinions or ideas to help us enhance our brand is gonna be taken into consideration to help us become a better company. Dude, that's awesome. I love that. I think it's huge when you can have your employees feel that they're heard, right? Totally, totally. And when I say heard, they can say everything. There's a lot of CEOs or C-levels, whatever you wanna call it, that just dismiss a lot. For sure, for sure. But when you feel like, oh, this idea actually came true.

08:38
And this is all I was part it gives him a sense of ownership in that it makes like oh, man I can't wait for the next or I can't wait to do this right so I think it's super powerful, and I love that What I want to also know from you is I'll probably ask everybody else on here, too But I want to know like what are your three things from going from door to door to starting true air like what are your three? things that Your three wins your three strokes like what were the things that you wish you knew? But you had to find out the hard way

09:08
Dude, I just love this so much. Like, this was the greatest. Like, just your three wins, three losses, something like that in the business. I mean, look, like, I think one of the hard things about starting a company, well, one, like, when you do door to door, you know, like, I remember I used to quantify what I could buy that day based on how many sales I got, right? So I'm like, hold on, OK, you know, this is my commission. If I can sell three accounts, I mean, I can go buy that new thing I want on Saturday, right? Yeah. And I would start to, like, do those purchases in my mind. As you start a business, you can't operate that way. You can't say, well, if I make $3,000,

09:38
I'm gonna go spend 10. No, you can't. Because you have to save for a rainy day. You have employees to pay. You have a lease. You have all these things, these expenses. It's like changing the mindset from like the rep to the owner mentality, right? Which, I was 24 when I started TrueWare, and so that was like kind of a hard thing to switch in my mind, you know? So, still a young kid that wants to spend money, you know? But it's been good. It's been like so beneficial to have Joe as my business partner because he does bring seniority.

10:07
owner in pest control for a while and so I was able to learn a ton from him. He's really been a mentor, a business partner which has been really great. But yeah I think like obviously that learning to transition from being a rep to an owner was huge. Honestly overall door-to-door taught me so much how to talk to different people right. It's like you have a stay-at-home mom and then an army vet and then a grandma and then a bullish type dad. You have to learn how to talk to each person and communicate with them in an effective way that they want to hear you and buy what you're selling.

10:37
And Trueware is the same thing. We're dealing with clients that are tech companies, mom and pop shops, door to door, even within door to door, so many different segments. And so we have had to adjust our pitch and adapt to our client, which I learned from door to door. That's awesome. So let me ask you this question, because obviously going from a door to door culture to basically an apparel, like corporate, like I shouldn't say factory, but I'm in this warehouse or whatever, right?

11:07
Like, how are you, because in my opinion, nothing can ever beat the door-to-door culture. Yeah, totally. There's so much energy, there's so much stuff going on. How are you taking what you've learned in the door-to-door space and that culture side and implementing it and like fusing it into your employees now? Yeah. Because it's kind of a different, it's a different element, right? Totally. And so it's a little harder, right, to get that excited or anything like that, but what are you doing to just keep them excited, keep them pushing?

11:37
Like, are you doing incentives? Are you doing trips? Are you doing this cool stuff? What's it look like coming from that background to this one? For sure. Yeah, so that was something super important when Joe and I started to develop our sales team was, yeah, how do we keep guys motivated? Because we remember door to door, you have your correlation meetings every morning. You're doing your chance. You're hyping each other up. Bash cash Fridays. You know, Thursday, Thursdays. I mean, we remember all that stuff, right? So we tried to establish a similar mentality where it's like, hey, we have our monthly quotas for our guys. If you hit your quota, you're going

12:07
get this prize gift, if you get 20% over you get this, 50 this, every four months, every six months, throughout the whole year, you get a trip, all these things. So guys feel motivated. That's why door to door, if you have the right mentality, you can crush it because you're motivated by your commission and by the gifts and the money. Same thing in the sales at Trueware. We got to motivate these guys. So I feel like we've tried to put in good benchmarks for them, so you feel incentivized to go reach for that next step.

12:37
Flipping. Love that. That sounds awesome. So, you know, I believe, and you've already said it once, but I want to say it again, it's just everything that we take from door to door, because door to door is what's molded me. Like, you know, a little bit about my background is I came from the corporate side, I did inside sales. I guess it's cool. But, but like what it taught me was it helped me going from cold calling to door to door. It already taught me how to get my teeth kicked in. Yeah,

13:07
And so I remember, oh, well, I had to mold myself to be like, I had an alter ego when I went into the office. It was like, it wasn't Steven Pritchard getting his teeth kicked in. It was Jimmy Anderson, right? It's like, oh, hey, Jimmy. It's like, yeah. Because when I left, it's like, you get no's so many times. It's one of those things where it's like, dang, man, I suck. I can't do this. But when it's not you, it's like, yeah, I don't care. I left the door, and it's like, oh, Stephen had a great day. Everybody in the office was nice to him.

13:37
this and I think like just taking what motivated us there and seeing the power of it and finding ways to implement it I believe door-to-door can be implemented in any company for sure no matter what industry no matter what you're doing it's just certain things have to change but the concept is there so I Tim I had to you for having that ability to recognize that because we always also

14:07
their job is. Oh, they don't do this or they don't do that or sure. Oh, man, I come in and work 60 hours to get this done and no appreciation. Right. But when we realize that that small little, you know, Fast Cash Friday or throw down Thursdays or whatever that competition is for them to get where they like to get that jolt of energy. It's only it is it empowers them to be like, hey, I love being here. I can't wait to come back. Yeah, for sure. Because the last thing we ever want is somebody to be miserable. Yes. Just like a rep.

14:37
support do anything they want to leave. Totally. Right. Yeah. So look, I can't say enough about you guys. What is something on your mind that is like in 2024 for Truewear that you want to kind of give? Do you have any big plans? Or is there anything like expand? What's it look like for Truewear in 2024? Totally. So we're going to continue to make high quality stuff. That's just kind of what we do. Probably our biggest enhancement, new kind of product offering is we're really starting to develop our web store side of our company.

15:07
So we will create custom websites for our clients where then we can upload our true art product and mirror our product, or they can pick out certain items from Nike or P&L R that they love. We can host this on their site, and then their employees can go buy that, and we'll do the fulfillment for them. Oh, you fulfill? We'll fulfill everything. Oh my gosh. So it's just like, we can get a web store out. So you're telling me it's white labeled, so if I came, and we're like, hey, we're going to get a D&D, or whatever, or expand, right? There's going to be web pops in. It's like, it's an expand store.

15:37
Yep, and always eat we click it goes to your processing right and then you just fill We're hands-off. Yeah your hands off Everything everything would be door-to-door brand and your website would be your website We just had all the back and stuff that you don't want to have to worry about so that's bad. Yes. It'll be awesome That's cool. I think that's also something that's missing right? It's something people always want it swag is so flipping easy to get people amped on Yes for sure and if you have an access like a website or something It's like so easy like go get this toy because everybody

16:07
I felt like, if you remember, right, I've been probably about a decade, but everybody felt like, oh, I just need to keep getting the Polos, but if you have a good store, dude, they have no problems going on to buy. 100%. You're not trying to kill them, right? You're not trying to take their whole paycheck, but you put it at a good price, like, nobody has ever, like, oh yeah, oh, this is so badass, like, I need this. I mean, these door-to-door guys are spending two grand on Travis Scott. They can afford a $50 hoodie, right? Exactly. I'm like, you know, so, yeah. I'm with you. No, that's, I look forward to seeing that. That's gonna be awesome.

16:36
So how's that work though? So like when you're looking for those do they just contact you? What's it look like to get that site? Yeah. Yeah, it's only so Usually like in an onboarding meeting with our clients, right? So like if it's a existing client we have it's just a new product offering For new clients that we're meeting with it's one of first things we're bringing up now It's a great way to get people in the true our ecosystem But also just take the stress out of the business for them because yeah, they're having to deal with oh my gosh

17:06
15 offices and 15 cities across the country. How am I getting this one guy his prize award? You know? And now it's like, no, every rep has their own login. They can go on the website, order it. We ship it direct to their house, their apartment, wherever they're selling. And as an owner of a company, you're like, oh my gosh, literally this is so awesome. Yeah, well what I hear, what I hear from this, right, is hey, do what you're good at, and let me do what I'm good at. Exactly, exactly.

17:36
care of that you're gonna do way more you're gonna be way happier your reps are gonna be happier because I'm good at what I do for sure and I want to fulfill on all their stuff you're gonna see new swag coming in and out and you'll have to worry about oh I got to find this person I gotta go do this the way you positioned it I believe is like you just give it to the owner or whatever that looks like and say hey sign off on this toy it's just what you want yep yep and done and move past and just let them go yeah and then we maintain it every month so we have in-house website developers that will upload new product and we'll

18:06
pictures and put new banners and landing pages so we just I mean we want to make it a seamless process but make it a professional looking site so your employees are like wow my company invests money into me and my experience I love that well dude Tim thank you so much for your time guys please go see true where go to their website do start wearing their stuff it's the most comfortable stuff I've ever put on I love it Tim thank you so much I appreciate

18:36
Thanks. We'll see you guys next time. All right, man. See you, dude