The Quote Magician was originally developed for use in our office to make life easier for our staff.  When we became contract decorators to the Promotional Products industry we decided that this was a very useful tool and we should share it with our distributor clients.  Our thinking was, they will use the tool and buy their decorating services from us.  The Quote Magician was to become a marketing tool for us and useful selling tool for our reps.  At the same time, we had developed other tools and programs for our Boardwalk reps.  Sample Sets and a Full Service program and a Free/Reduced Cost shipping program were already in place.  But these tools and programs needed a software component to help support and encourage their use.  So the software program known as Boardwalk Tools was born.

Boardwalk Tools is Free to download and use, and offered only to distributors who buy their decorating services from us.  It is a series of software modules that work together to support a Promotional Products Distributor’s selling efforts.  The foundation of this set of modules is the Quote Magician.  There is also the Shipping Calculator and the Fabric Square Sample Set module, and in the future there will be an Art Ideas Portfolio.

The Shipping Calculator tool was created to support the Full Service program.  For Full Service orders we will purchase the garment and decorate the garment, all for one price.  It saves the distributor the hassle of ordering the garments from the wholesaler.  All Full Service items are eligible for Free/Reduced Cost Shipping.  The Shipping Calculator helps calculate those shipping costs.

The Fabric Square Sample Set is a selling tool created for distributors.  It is a physical set of printed samples that allows them to show examples of high quality screen printed designs to their clients, especially Special Effects decorating techniques.  By integrating this tool with the Quote Magician distributors can give clients an idea of what a particular sample technique will actually cost.

Boardwalk Tools was the first software program to be released for use by people outside of our company.  It was first used by Promotional Products Distributors.  Later we allowed a small number of decorators (embroiderers actually) to test drive the system.  They were hooked.  The very next question they asked after gaining access to the Boardwalk Tools program was “How can I enter in my own decorating tables?”  We knew this was coming.  We were already building that functionality into the Quote Magician.

But wait, if a user of the Boardwalk Tools program is entering their own decorating tables that means they WON’T be buying their decorating services from us.  We’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer but even we understood that’s bad business…and an opportunity.

Once the functionality to allow an end user to enter their own decorating tables was created we also created the standalone Quote Magician program.  Our thinking was, if we already had distributors who buy some of their decorating services from us, but also want to use the tool with their own decorating tables, why don’t we sell the Quote Magician to other decorators so they can benefit from its use.  As stated earlier, our initial decorator users of the Boardwalk Tools program were embroiderers who bought their screen printing services from us.  They were thrilled to have the ability to use the Quote Magician with their decorating tables.

So, if you are a decorator who would like to harness the power of the Quote Magician to price your decorated apparel, you should buy the standalone Quote Magician.  If you are interested in the Boardwalk Tools add-ons - which can be unlocked within the Quote Magician - you can request a new product key which will unlock the Free version of Boardwalk Tools, or you can buy access to the Paid version of Boardwalk Tools which gives you the ability to enter your own decorating tables while also retaining the Boardwalk Marketing decorating table information.

For more information go to www.boardwalkmarketing.com.