Top-notch salesmen undercut competition, sell $13 million in belts for leather maker.

Top-notch salesmen undercut competition, sell $13 million in belts for leather maker

Cinching up sales of 650,000 imitation-leather belts a week are Jaime Sanchez, 35, and Sean Pattison, 27, top-notch salesmen with Prestige Leather Creation Inc., a $20 million (sales) belt manufacturer based in Vernon.

The key to such volume? "In our end of the business, the trick is to keep the prices low," says Sanchez, a Highland Park native who attended Fairfax High. "The cheaper we sell, the more volume we get out of it."

With that strategy in mind, Prestige charges from 85 cents to $1 for imitation-leather belts, called "cut-ups," which are sold by the hundreds of thousands to such major manufacturers as Cherokee, Guess?, Levi-Strauss and Bongo.

Another must for garment-industry success: "Deliver the belts on time," says Pattison. "A manufacturer doesn't want a bunch of $20 pieces held up because some 85-cent belts are late."

Sanchez and Pattison reportedly sold $13 million worth of belts last year.

It was Sanchez who presented the idea of producing cut-ups to Prestige owner Sharon Goode. The owner herself has received a lot of press coverage, for converting what had been a moribund dog-collar maker into a major belt manufacturer, which employs more than 300 workers.

But now the bulk of Goode's sales come from Sanchez' and Pattison's customers.

"It just shows you that not that many dogs are buying belts," says Sanchez.