Ivy Hartman: Welcome back for the NAWBO Conference 2007 with me is Deanna Maurer of D & J Tool & Supply LLC. And Deanna tell me about what tool and supply company as a small size company what you do.
Deanna Pierce: Okay, we’re a general line industrial distributor. We deal primarily with metal working and equipment, servicing mostly small manufacturing facilities, maintenance departments and small job shops.
Ivy Hartman: So you are supplying—okay, give us some example from manufactures that you might sell to and what they do.
Deanna Pierce: We sell to AFG glass which is in Tennessee also. They manufactured glass products, doors, parts for appliances, things like that. We also deal with rotor tonics of Tennessee. They do blow plastic molding. They make a variety of products. They are from street lamps to kayaks.
Ivy Hartman: And so you’re providing these manufacturers with the parts and tools that they’ll need to actually manufacture their products.
Deanna Pierce: That’s right, yes.
Ivy Hartman: And specifically it’s going to assemble line kind of manufacturer.
Deanna Pierce: Yes.
Ivy Hartman: Okay, what got you into this business?
Deanna Pierce: Well, that’s probably a long story but I’m in my 17th, 18th year in this business now, so.
Ivy Hartman: And you must selling globally then or at least nationally.
Deanna Pierce: We do nationally. We’ve done some exporting that something that we really want to get into a little bit more and starting to do some research in that end, as well as importing on a larger scale, but we do directly importing into our company rather than buying from the importers.
Ivy Hartman: How was your association in NAWBO helped you with the D & J Tool & Supply?
Deanna Pierce: Well, I’m actually fairly new to NAWBO, so and this is the first conference that I’ve been to, but being a woman owned business and this being an association that helps propel woman owned businesses, and obviously that’s why I’m here to say what information I could gain that would help our business grow.
Ivy Hartman: In the industry you’re in, are you finding that a lot of people you’re working with are mostly males or there are lots of females as well?
Deanna Pierce: The female population is growing. I will say it’s probably 99.8% men, but the female population now as far as workers inside some of the facilities you’ll find a lot more women, yes inside the facilities.
Ivy Hartman: I would imagine they started the company 17 years ago?
Deanna Pierce: Well, I started my company in 1999, eight years ago.
Ivy Hartman: Okay.
Deanna Pierce: But I’ve got a total of about 18 years experience in this field now.
Ivy Hartman: That’s what I was trying to hitting on I thought you must have to have a lot of experience in order to have that credibility because I would imagine a stigma as it where a women’s conference that a woman business owner who is in the business that mostly male edge industry.
Deanna Pierce: Yes.
Ivy Hartman: You know that they are wondering what do you know about, tool or tool and supplies and things like that?
Deanna Pierce: Fortunately for me I’ve been around long enough that I’ve got a steady customer based and a lot of my customers know me and that stigma kind of went away a long time ago.
Ivy Hartman: So what are you looking now to build your business towards?
Deanna Pierce: Well, I like for the business to grow overall. I like to get a lot large or I’d like to actually start importing some machinery, and like I said right now we buy mostly from the importers and wholesalers and I would like to change that to where we’re actually doing the importing of some of the machine tools.
Ivy Hartman: I hope you get some of the information that you’re looking for the growth of your business from this NAWBO.
Deanna Pierce: That’s what I came here for.
Ivy Hartman: Deanna, thank you for being with us.
Deanna Pierce: Thank you.
Ivy Hartman: And keep it right here at SBTV.com
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