ScratchPro has recently been added to Braxton-Bragg's product line, and since it's a bit of a departure from our expansive catalog offerings, we thought we'd catch up with Bruce at his office to find out more about ScratchPro, about him, their Managing Director, and how he became involved with ScratchPro.
SRG: Hi, Bruce. Would you mind telling us a little about yourself and how you got involved with ScratchPro?
BruceB: Happy to. I've been involved in sales and sales management for 30 years. My background has been in consumer electronics. I had my own manufacturers' rep company where we represented many of the CE heavyweights like Pioneer, Nintendo, Hitachi, Intel and a host of others.
Unfortunately, my market started to see a signification attrition of accounts, so I decided to get out of the rep business and cross over to the vendor side of the business. My first stop was at a company named Digital Innovations.
I helped two engineers who had developed a product that removed scratches from CD's and DVDs, gain placement at retail. From that single product we built a $25 million company in a little over four years.
It was then I realize I had a knack for working with new products and establishing distribution for them. I did some consulting and had a client who made the proverbial offer I couldn't refuse to come and work exclusively for them. That company was Neat Receipts - again a single product that we grew to $22 million in four years.
In between, I continued to do consulting work, helping start ups and companies that wanted to enter the retail space. Through a friend I heard about an opportunity with Superabrasive and their plan to bring the first diamond paste-based consumer product to market but needed help to make it happen. SRG: So what intrigues you about ScratchPro?
BruceB: Well, it was a bit of deja vu for me as it was a scratch removal product but for automobile finishes, chrome and metal trim and headlamp restoration. Now, this is a crowded market place but this product really worked. I've always believed that if you build the better mouse trap, people will seek it out as long as they know that the better mouse trap is out there. So my job was to get the word out and get distribution to support the product sales. Braxton-Bragg was not necessarily in our sweet spot, but their catalog is really superb and they have great reach to their customer base offering "better mouse traps" at great prices. It made sense that since they were already a Superabrasive customer that we get ScratchPro out there with them as well.
SRG: How has that worked out?
BruceB: Well, it's really early so the jury is still out, but I'm very confident we'll see a nice addition to our overall sales both for the Braxton-Bragg customer who buys it for themselves, as well as, letting some of their customers know that ScratchPro is out there. You can never have too many evangelists out there preaching the value of your product.
SRG: So share with our readers how ScratchPro works and why it's better than anything else for dealing with scratches on car finishes and restoring headlamps.
BruceB: Well, as I mentioned, this is the first product for consumers to use diamond paste. Being the hardest substance known to man, it made sense that if you could channel its properties via creating a paste, you would be able to remove scratches from a wide variety of products.
George Popov, who created the product and is the CEO of Superabrasive, thought to himself, there's a lot of cars out there that have scratches, let's tailor this paste to the automotive market. With that, he developed a three step process that uses different sizes of diamonds in the paste to remove the scratch and then, with finer diamonds, polish and restore the original finish only with the scratch removed.
The product gives professional results - the same like you would expect to get if you brought your car to a body shop for scratch removal, only at a fraction of the price.You can usually get about 10 repairs out of one kit so it's very cost effective, too.
It's non-toxic and comes with everything you need: Three syringes filled with the different grades of diamond paste along with three application pads with covers. The paste and the application pads are color coded so you can't make a mistake as to which paste goes on which pad.
Depending on the size of the repair, you can usually expect to spend anywhere for 10-20 minutes to get excellent results. As long as you clean up any residual paste after each step, you can expect to get body shop results for your repair.
SRG: So what's the selling price for ScratchPro?
BruceB: It's priced at $29.95 in the Braxton 2012 catalog and website.
SRG: Wow! Sounds like a great value.
BruceB: It really is when you consider that you could spend $100 or more to have it done professionally at a body shop. It also removes the guess work of trying to use a buffing machine on your own with the risk of burnishing your finish if you don't know how to use it. And when you consider that other products only do a marginal job, you can buy ScratchPro and get it done right the first time.
SRG: Well, this was most interesting, Bruce. We really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
BruceB: My pleasure. I look forward to Braxton-Bragg's customers trying ScratchPro and then sharing their experiences with us via our website. You can post testimonials at www.scratchpro.com . There's a cool demonstration video there on the home page as well.
SRG: Great! Thanks again, Bruce.
Superabrasive is recognized in the stone industry as a leader in the development of superior diamond technology for polishing, using excellent ingredient to deliver the best results. The ScratchPro for Auto repair kit uses a 3-step diamond paste grit that gives body-shop repair results at a fraction of the cost.
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