They previously operated as Sprint Digital and joined Minuteman Press to strengthen their capabilities. For the 2022-2023 football season, Minuteman Press sponsored the Dorchester Ladies Football team with an away kit. This opened the door for David and Juanita to build a relationship with Dorchester Town Football Club and their apparel kit sponsor Acerbis. As a result, Minuteman Press in Dorchester is now the primary branding partner for Dorchester Town FC kit.
What started out as a series of small jobs, such as printing stickers, programmes, game posters and so on, saw the company approached in April 2024 by one of the Dorchester Town youth teams about providing them with a branded kit. And potentially working with their kit sponsor Acerbis and becoming their branding partner.
“We met with the GM of Acerbis UK and then attended the tournament where we showcased some of our branded items. Things have progressed from there and we started working with them on more and more kits,” says David Prince.
The first job the company was tasked with was to apply the Dorchester Town FC badge and sponsors’ logos to the First Team training kit. This amounted to 245 items of clothing, and about 300 logos, which was turned around in two weeks, according to Prince. The next stage was the First Team home and away kits. That meant the need to apply various sponsors’ logos across various kit items, shirts and shorts. This added up to over 540 different logos.
“Subsequently, we have branded the U23s kit and have branded two youth teams, one with a full home kit and the other with training wear. We also have two more teams in the pipeline, and we are now branding over 230 Items for their youth team managers, which is another exciting and profitable piece of business that we won in late August of 2024,” he adds.
Crucially, for David Prince, the partnership provides a major opportunity to work with a community-owned club and to showcase its wares to other teams in the surrounding area.
Indeed, as he also notes: “All of this has created another opportunity with the kit provider, Acerbis. We look forward to working with them to expand our offerings to other sports clubs and perhaps open opportunities in motorsports apparel and vinyl stickers, where they are market leaders.”
As for keys to Minuteman’s growth, apparel has been a major area – mainly from the football club – according to Prince. “This can be attributed to marketing and exceptional customer service. Customer service goes without saying, it’s our biggest differentiator from the internet. Our social media presence helps us showcase our offerings across our Google Business Profile, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. My BNI chapter is very small and is attempting to grow so that will be a focus as will be referrals from existing clients,” he adds.
And, given its core products, including flyers, orders of service, mounted posters, banners, and apparel, David Prince is decidedly upbeat.
“Our rewards are reflected in our reviews, customer retention and winning new opportunities such as the football club. Knowing your successes are down to you and how you behave and respond to customers is rewarding, when you get time to stop and think about it.”
His advice to others is to treat all customers as though they are most important, given you never know where or with whom your next biggest opportunity will come. Try not to turn down business unless it’s really not something you do, you never know what will come from that initial obscure request.
