Assignment: Improve Sales

Earn extra credit by marketing to school sponsors

Even in thriving economies schools have limited financial support, so difficult financial times like today's force education administrators to be creative. Instead of abandoning promotional products, schools are placing ads on decals, seat cushions and parking permits so they can still have these necessary products without paying for them. It's a tactic professional sports teams have been using for years, so it's a natural progression to university athletics and other school programs. Selling to these solution-seekers is why distributors exist. Educators are interested in new ideas to solve their monetary woes, and only you, distributors, have the solution-selling skills to extend their funds and exposure.

Sponsoring School Spirit
It may seem roundabout, but one of the best ways to sell into the education market is to target the businesses in the area instead of the actual school. "Some schools will contact local businesses to advertise on the item and the business will donate the item to the school," said Jeanna Abercrombie, sales manager for Wharton, Texas-based Pepco Promotional Products. These local sponsorships are lucrative for the businesses and also for distributors. "These 'sponsorships' or ad space present a tremendous sales opportunity for distributors," said Mike Stoeck, director of sales and marketing for Stouse Inc., New Century, Kan. "If the distributor sells the ad space, often times the ad dollars will exceed the typical retail value of the items and the distributor can provide the product to the school for free," he explained. "It's a 100 percent profit for the school and the business gets great advertising," added Abercrombie.

Stoeck offered an example of sponsorship selling to show the benefit to a distributor. "250 Honor Roll bumper stickers with coupons on the liner may sell for around $200 net," he said. "Placing ads on the liner sold to four businesses at $250 each results in $1000 in revenue and $800 in profit. That is an 80 percent margin and the school didn't spend a dime on them," Stoeck concluded. The secret here is that the distributor is demonstrating his or her solution-selling to schools without the school having to pay for it. "[Schools] see the distributor as a hero providing free product while the competitors of the distributor tried to sell them the product," elaborated Stoeck.

Recruiting The Best
The education market covers elementary schools to universities. These schools offer vastly different budgets. "Universities buy more, and understandably there is greater competition to win those orders," said Stoeck. He mentioned that most sales go to the alumni, recruitment and fundraising programs.

Abercrombie added athletics to the list of money-making collegiate programs. "Our promotional poms can be seen during college football season almost any Saturday," she said. Stoeck seconded her claim. "Larger schools trend toward the athletic programs and departments," he said. He offered guidance for distributors entering the education market. "Simply follow the money to the booster clubs," he advised.

Don't limit yourself to the larger budgets of colleges and universities however, because profits exist at primary and secondary schools as well. "There is a large opportunity presented by the high school and middle school market," said Stoeck. "[It] presents less competition for the order, more customers to call on and a greater ability to bring in local businesses to support the school." Less competition is a benefit that cannot be ignored.

Reading, Writing And Repetition
With so many elementary schools, high schools and colleges in the U.S., overlapping colors are unavoidable. According to Abercrombie, some colors are repeated more than others. "The most popular color we do in a lot of our items, especially our poms, is white," she said. "[White] shows up very well on nationally televised events." Abercrombie also listed certain color combinations like blue/white and red/white that are good for school promotions.

With common colors come common products. Though order quantities and regularity change from middle and high schools to colleges and universities, the actual products remain the same. Stoeck noted decals for car windows, car plates and magnets are popular, especially for direct mail campaigns, and Abercrombie listed seat cushions, pennants, promotional poms, cups and foam novelties as popular choices.

Safety (And Customization) First
SaferProducts.gov has forced suppliers to reevaluate their product safety because it offers a place for consumers to complain about defective and/or dangerous items. Suppliers do not want to be listed on the site, and distributors do not want to associate with companies that sell defective products, so safe selling is the only option. "The biggest and only big change to our products has been to be made CPSIA-compliant," affirmed Abercrombie.

Consumers are demanding higher quality in the actual style of products as well as the safety. Stoeck mentioned that custom shapes are taking the lead over stock shapes in Stouse Inc.'s magnets, decals, bumper stickers and parking permits. "Schools are savvy and like good design like the rest of us," he said. "A simple rectangle or square design has transitioned to a multi-colored die-cut shape or special material that enhances the school's logo." Stoeck added that schools are using one product to complement another. "As an example, it is not uncommon to see a decal or discount card used as a hang tag on an article of clothing," he explained.

Hurricane Irene | API Power Outage | Staff Memo

General Update: The API facility is still without power due to Hurricane Irene.
Two new generators have been installed and will be able to provide limited power, to a number of office systems. The API production facility will be offline, pending full power restoration. Full power restoration is not anticipated until Friday, 9/2.

API staff and employees are allowed to report to work on 8/31 after 8am. Limited access to systems will be available.

Phones: Phones are operational during business hours only until power is fully restored.

Email: The email system is currently being rebuilt. Email will be accessible on 9/1 at the earliest.
You will be updated as soon as the system is live.

Computer Access: Computer and network access is accessible, but limited during business hours. If you have API Citrix credentials, it is recommended that you access the system that way. Citrix access is available during business hours only. (Please note: All computers/offices are not functional.)

API Shipping Department: The API shipping department is fully operational, shipping and receiving.

Facility Lighting: Facility lighting is not operational.

API Production: API Production is not operational and will not be operational until power is fully restored.

Liberal leave will be in effect until power is fully restored.

We will be providing updates via this page daily, as we receive them.

Thanks for your patience.
API Management

Save the Dates

14 ways to rescue your calendar promotions from mediocrity

Low-tech. Boring. Unsexy. Woefully utilitarian. As promotional items, calendars might seem about as interesting as a 6th-grade play on the metric system (about two hours too long and as exciting as repeatedly listening to a small, affectless human dully counting to 30). Repeated countings to 30 aside, thankfully the boring reputation of calendars is more myth than fact.

Like any other promotional item, it's not what the item is, but what you're able to do with it creatively. Calendars may lack the innate trendiness of high-fashion tees or the intoxicating, brain-snaring pull of the latest tech gadget, but that doesn't mean they're at all a weaker product (in fact quite the opposite is true). There are any number of clever angles and creative hooks to weave into a calendar promotion. While by no means a complete list, below are 14 tips to help you make the most of calendars.

1. You Don't Have to Start with January or December.
"One surprising trend is starting calendars with a month other than January," said Amberlea Barnes, CEO for Drummond Printing Inc., Stuttgart, Ark. "We recently completed an order for a horseback riding camp," she said. "Their season starts in May, so they chose a May 2011-April 2012 wall calendar and listed their locations and events on each date block. We were able to create a truly custom calendar that is useful and commemorates the year for participants."

2. Use as a Greeting Card.
"Instead of sending the customer a greeting card that has eight seconds of exposure, send the customer a calendar," said Phil Martin, MAS, national sales manager for Warwick Publishing Company, St. Charles, Ill.

3. Get Sponsorships.
"One great promotional idea for helping generate calendar sales is to include sponsorship and ad pages to allow the organization to raise money to pay for or offset the cost of the planner by selling ads," said Tim O'Boyle, general manager for JournalBooks/Timeplanner Calendars, Charlotte, N.C.

4. Consider Regional Iconography for Artwork.
Ted Paul, publisher for Beautiful America Publishing Company, Woodburn, Ore., stated that Beautiful America has had great success with wall calendars decorated with famous local outdoor scenes. Based out of the West Coast, he cited the company using specific locations like Columbia Gorge and the Oregon coast. "There is a connection to what people buy," he said. "People like to have stuff from their own state."

5. Add Value.
"Any time you can add value to the calendar, you give the recipient more of a reason to hang on to it," explained Martin. He gave the example of adding coupons to each month of a calendar. "Now you've given them a reason to hang on to it for an entire year," he said.

6. Use Higher Quality Calendars to Outlast the Competition's.
Paul explained that more expensive and better decorated calendars were likely to be kept on merit of beauty, which will ensure that end-users continue using your client's calendar and not any of the many others they could pick up over the course of a year.

7. Work Creatively with the Concept of Time.
"One of our most successful calendar programs was a pictorial planner for a national nonprofit organization World Vision," said O'Boyle. "World Vision helps provide wells and clean drinking water in third-world countries. This planner documented the progress with pictures on every month, included a letter from the president thanking donors and continuing their ongoing messages and plea for support," he explained. "The feedback we have gotten is that donors have grown to rely on this planner and it has been proven to be extremely effective to help retain members, donors and raise funds."

8. Use as a Business Card.

"A calendar really is a business card, but it's a business card that sits on desk not in the drawer," said Martin.

9. Make Use of Multiple Imprint Spaces.
From empty date blocks to the inside covers to the margins for each month, there is a lot of space on a calendar that can be decorated. Paul related an anecdote where a realtor client decorated a drop tag to get users to flip open a calendar and view the inside back-cover ad. On the drop tag, there was a man pointing upwards, gesturing for users to flip to the back of the cover and see the realtor's full ad.

10. Use QR Codes.
Short for "quick response," QR codes are essentially special bar codes that are read and interpreted by the cameras on most internet-enabled smartphones. "QR codes can send them to a video, to a phone number I think, it can to websites, etc.," said Martin. "So there's a lot of uses for the QR codes."

11. Use as a Yearly Incentive to Pull End-users Into a Purchasing Space.
Paul related an anecdote where a car-dealership client set up a yearly calendar gift promotion for its customers, designed to get them to visit the store. The dealership would mail out a flyer, alerting customers of the arrival of the year's current batch of calendars. The calendars were stacked in the showroom, so the customers would have to come in and see all the new cars for that year in order to pick up the calendars. Quoting the dealership owner, Paul said, "'It used to be that I would see my clients maybe once every 4 to 6 years when they had to by a new car. But now I see them every year.'"

12. Calendars Don't Always Have to go to Customers.
Martin gave an example of an auto manufacturer using calendars as inter-office motivational tools, rather than a direct advertisement to customers. The calendars were given out to employees carrying the company's mission statement in order to provide them a year-long reminder.

13. Order Early.
Not exactly a creative tip, ordering early can give you a competitive edge all the same. Both Martin and Barnes stated that many calendar manufacturers offer earlier-order discounts starting around July. Some suppliers will not even charge up-front, allowing you to reserve an order up front and not have to pay until the order is shipped months later.

14. Present Useful Information.
Paul gave an example of golf-themed calendars that Beautiful America prints, filling the dated portion of the wall calendar with information relevant to playing a specific hole at a real course. "What I do is, we do a ghost image behind the grids on monthly portion of the calendar," he said. "We do a schematic of all the hole, where the traps are, where the water is. It shows where to hit your first ball, where the second one goes, and so forth," he explained. "Then in the upper right-hand corner of the grids page, we have a four-or-five line caption, all about that golf course and that hole. How best to play it, etc." The par information and yardage is also included.

The Friend Zone

By: Tama Underwood, Associate Editor



A Distributor Asks:
One of my reps brings in more business from his network of friends and family members than from strictly professional relationships. I’m considering shifting some of these friends-and-family clients to another rep with him still receiving some commission from each. I don’t want to lose these clients—or the rep—in the short-term, but if this rep were to leave the company one day they would surely go with him. What should I do?

Lorey Gallop-Wintz, MAS
Owner
Help Is On The Way
UPIC: HIOTW: First of all, distributors have no guarantee that any of our reps will be with us tomorrow, and experience tells us that the majority of the business stays with the rep, not the distributor. It is my belief that if you attempt to take any of the sales commission from this rep you will lose the rep and the business. I would urge you to leave the situation alone, otherwise you may end up with a lose-lose situation.

Jack Mushin, CAS
Director, Sales & Marketing
Promotional Products of New England 
Reps leave distributors every day, and from what I have seen it has always been because the rep was not treated to their expectations. I left a company, along with a top salesman, and I recently saw another rep who left a big company. Even professional relationships become friends with your rep and will follow them when they leave you. Treat them special, give them bonuses and let them share in some of your year-end incentives from suppliers. Then you will not have to be paranoid. In the meantime, you are profiting from their friends and family.

Joanne Worrall
President
JPR Consulting, Inc.
UPIC: jprconsl
Why would you try to break something that seems to be working well? Surely you can’t honestly believe that if this rep left your company his friends and family would stay with you—of course not. This isn’t just a business of getting orders and selling stuff. This is a business of relationships, with the best promotional products reps making themselves a resource to their client base. We build our best sales results by first building a trusting relationship with our customers. As we become more familiar with their needs, we can better consult to them on promotional products and ideas. And the more we are proactive with them, the more we become part of their marketing team. It’s a win-win for both of us. Anyone can sell some promotional “stuff” to a stranger, at least once in a while, but it’s a great rep who makes himself part of his customers’ business family. In my opinion, if you try to share these customers with another rep, you’re likely going to alienate that rep and possibly the customer(s) too. Instead, why not incent this “friends and family” rep to mentor the other salespeople on how he gets his network to work for him?


Manita J. Bartels
President
The Calvert Co., Inc.
UPIC: CALVERT
Be happy he has friends and family that buy from him. Of course they would leave if he went somewhere else. Take them away and see how fast he leaves and takes them with [him].


Mary Dowling, CAS
Owner
Dowling & Associates
UPIC: DOWL0001
Considering your rep networked his family and friends with positive results, it would be a no-win situation for both parties. It would be a sure bet that the rep and his clients would leave if you followed through with this.


If this rep is carrying the bulk of your business, you may want to re-assess the other reps’ account activity. I would focus on bringing in more business rather than focusing on the possibility of the rep eventually leaving.
Rich Battaglino
President
Gotham Promotions
UPIC: GOTHAMPR
Consider granting minor ownership if his sales are that strong. This will cement the relationship.

Sara Galbiati
VP Of Sales
InnoPack USA, Inc.
UPIC: innopack
I would not switch those clients to other reps. The reason they are buying from your firm at all is because of their personal relationship with their friend. Of course they would follow him; they are friends.
If you are worried about him leaving, do everything possible to make his stay with you as cushy as possible. Ask him what perks would help him do his job better. Offer him better commissions when he meets certain sales targets. Let him know that you want to do everything you can to back him up. If you make his job easy for him, he won’t try to go somewhere else.

You’ll start losing the customers if you switch them to other reps. You are missing that the fundamental reason they went with your salesman is because he is awesome and convinces everyone he knows to buy. You can’t easily replace that quality.


Tricia Woods, CAS
Regional Sales Manager
Universal Creative Concepts-Midwest
UPIC: UCC
Golden Rule: People buy from people. If I were the rep to receive the newly transferred clients and expected to service them while not receiving the full commission, that would not sit well with me.

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It’s Not Too Late
Have your own two cents to add to this reader question? Leave your advice in the comments section below.

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A Distributor Asks:
We recently questioned a $1,300 freight charge from a major supplier by providing quotes from an online freight quote center. The factory dropped the charges by $500 even though we showed that the discount should have been $800. We paid the product portion of the invoice within five days, but the factory would not release any further orders without full payment for the freight. We tried via phone, factory rep and e-mail to resolve this situation. The supplier’s vice president of customer relations said its invoice should be sufficient proof for an end buyer who questions a bill. We ended up discounting the freight bill by an additional $200 for the client. Was there a better way to handle this situation?

What’s your answer? E-mail answers along with your name, title and company name toQuestion@ppai.org by July 31 for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue of PPB magazine.

Bring On The Fun

By: Audrey Sellers, Associate Editor

Whether specifically for play or disguised as office products, games and toys let your clients smile on their customers. 

When it comes to games and toys, the classics still rule. Take, for example, Monopoly and yo-yos. Monopoly made its debut in 1935 and since then has amused an estimated 500 million people worldwide, according to www.hasbro.com. And although yo-yos first appeared in 500 B.C., this simple toy unites thousands every year at the World Yo-Yo Contest, according to the American Yo-Yo Association.

Why is this? People like to have fun, whether they’re scooting past Go and collecting $200 or walking the dog. Put a logo on games and toys and you have the start of a super fun campaign. “Games and toys are effective promotional products because they’re social by nature,” says Bill Schulte, owner of Cincinnati, Ohio-based supplier Late For the Sky Production (UPIC: OPOLY). “By using games and toys, you’re offering an experience. They’re different from staple items like mugs, shirts or pens, or products with that kind of utility,” he says.

This is why Schulte recommends presenting games and toys separately from the other items you pitch your clients. “You can put significantly more message into games and toys and you get considerably more exposure,” says Schulte. “They work as a sort of interactive, social brochure for your clients.”

Plus, there are endless options when it comes to personalizing games and toys. “The category is so much more accessible than in the past. You can customize all sorts of games, which is exactly what people want. The trend is to be more personalized, more focused on the audience and less generic,” Schulte says.

Remember the Y2K buzz back in 1999? Schulte says his business was booming with distributors requesting games about the turn of the new millennium. After that hype fizzled, distributors wanted animal games, and board games about dogs and horses went galloping out of the factory.

The trend now isn’t about a year or an animal; it’s about living green. “Earthopoly is our most popular game this year,” Schulte says. “The game components come straight from the earth—everything is green. People have a greater interest in eco-friendly products and we get many requests to customize the title of the game. People want to attach their brand to it.”

So when is a good time to bring on the fun? Schulte says when your clients have something to celebrate. “Games are a great way to track history and pay homage to things that happened historically because games can be chronological in design,” Schulte says. “They make great keepsakes, so anniversary and employment markets are strong. There are so many places to put information, such as the deed cards and board spaces. Games have great educational value.”

Casinos and banks can wish good fortune for visitors and clients with the Dice Spinner Pen, a frosted, click-style pen accented with spinning dice.

The Deluxe Poker Set is packed with everything players need for game night all tucked inside a durable, stainless steel carrying case.

Music and game lovers can plug the Riff-Rocker™ into a PC to download games. This miniature USB guitar controller is portable, pocket-sized and functions like the widely popular guitar controllers at retail.

Plow into your next promotion with Chompster, a pull-back racer that chomps as it speeds along flat surfaces.

Road trips are more fun with the Travel Naval Battle Game, a classic battleship game in which players try to sink their opponent’s ships. It’s packaged in a leatherette case with brushed aluminum trim.Toy Takeaway: Travel agencies and car dealerships can connect with kids and parents with this travel game—it keeps youngsters entertained on the go while keeping a marketing message in front of Mom and Dad.

Your clients can give their customers a fun challenge with aCustomized Sudoku Puzzle Book. Customize the front and back cover, or write a personalized forward page.

Put a fun spin on an environmental campaign with Natural Hardwood Yo-Yos. They can be customized to look like a spinning earth with your client’s logo on the other side. Toy Takeaway: Whether sold in theme park or zoo gift shops, or doled out as gifts at carnivals or fairs, this yo-yo is pocket-sized amusement for all ages.

Tangle Therapy comes in handy as a stop-smoking aid, stress reliever and for hand, joint and muscle therapy. All four rings can be customized with the same message or use different art on each ring.

The Solace 5 In 1 Outdoor Game Set is loaded with 31 pieces for recipients to play volleyball, badminton, horseshoes and a flying disc ball game. Everything is packed in a durable carrying case for toting to the park or beach.

The 2-In-1 Drop Dart Game & Adhesive Note Holder merges business and fun, with one side dedicated to storing a notepad and the other for a quick game of darts. It includes one yellow adhesive notepad. Toy Takeaway: Office products that double as toys are more likely to hang around on desktops, so talk to your clients about forgoing standard-issue office supplies for ones with dual purposes.

Office workers can add a playful touch to their desktops with My Hub-E, a four-port 2.0 USB hub.

Kiddos can learn puppy training tips and fun facts about dog breeds when they break out the Puppy-Opoly game board.

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Case Study: Stix And Stonz Game Motivates Employees To “Be The One”

Challenge: One Communications, a telecommunications solutions provider, wanted to find a promotional product for internal team-building and communicating a key corporate message. The company’s motto, Be The One, encourages its more than 2,000 staffers to be the one to make a difference, brainstorm new ideas or simply to make a fresh pot of coffee.

To further drive home the motto, One Communications tapped New York, New York-based distributor EPromos Promotional Products (UPIC: EPROMOS) for help finding a promotional product for use in team-building events. The product had to be something appropriate for employees at all levels and it had to reiterate the company’s message while encouraging creativity and new product development.

Solution: A Stix and Stonz magnet game imprinted with the message in the form of a cycle diagram was a great fit for internal and external promotions. Plus, it’s a hands-on, interactive promotional product that invites participation. Employees could keep it on their desks and fidget with it while speaking on the phone or contemplating internal or customer issues.

Result: One Communications reported an internal promotion success, with employees responding well to the game and its message.

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Mini Moving Trucks Drive Home Survey Responses

The last box may have been hauled off the moving truck, but the workers at New York-based Moishe’s Moving and Storage aren’t done with the job—now they have to find out how well they performed by e-mailing a survey to customers.

Moishe’s knows that logging on to the web for a customer satisfaction survey probably isn’t top priority for people who have just relocated residences, so it sweetened the deal with a promotional product: a pint-sized version of its signature red moving truck.

“It made sense to use the toy trucks as a thank-you gift for completing the survey because Moishe’s trucks have become synonymous with New York and many customers ask for them,” says Mat Newman, who works in PR for the company. “Plus, our main customer base is families. Kids love them and adults use them as paperweights at the office.”

The mini trucks have made a solid impact on survey responses, with a 10-percent jump in participation.

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Macy’s And F.A.O. Schwarz Partner Up To Skyrocket Sales
Breeze into a Macy’s store and you just might find a parade of children’s toys alongside the arrangements of fine china and crisp linens. This is because F.A.O. Schwarz, a name synonymous with timeless, upscale toys, has teamed up with the department store to operate year-round toy departments in 685 Macy’s locations.

This is the first time in 20 years that Macy’s has shifted to an always-open-for-business toy department in hopes that it will “drive store traffic, particularly to our children’s departments,” Terry J. Lundgren, the chief executive of Macy’s, told The New York Times.
If Macy’s is using games and toys to draw people in and boost sales, talk to your clients about following its lead. You don’t need a full-scale toy store to appeal to youngsters—
just playful items to keep kids entertained and your brand message in front of parents.

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Laura Bayless Muses On Amusement Products
The director of sales and marketing for Buztronics, Inc. (UPIC: 2899) is hooked on the Riff-Rocker (it’s her top pick from her line because it’s a mini version of the guitar game disappearing from store shelves everywhere—you know the one) and says toys and games can be a blast for any campaign.

“They’re perfect for tradeshows because they attract attention to the booth and keep people there to learn about the vendor’s products and services,” she says. “They work well for a wide range of programs because they’re ageless—they’re for adults and kids alike. At the end of the day, people take them home and continue to use them, thereby keeping the imprinted name and message front and center.”

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“My family’s favorite game is UNO, followed by Monopoly and Clue. We are huge game players and keep all the scores in a file—we have scores from 2000 and maybe even before. This way bragging rights can always be verified.”
—Daryll H. Griffin, president of Norcross, Georgia-based Accolades, Inc. (UPIC: ACCINC)

Customer Service Myths

If You Believe Them, You’re In Trouble.
By: John Tschohl

If I were to ask 100 CEOs to define customer service, I would guess that 97 of them would say this: Customer service is providing the customer with service that is fast, accurate and courteous. While those are indeed elements of customer service, there is more to it—so much more.

Customer service is a moving target; it is whatever the customer thinks it is. This includes quality products, convenience, competitive prices, timely responses, reliability, a personal touch and knowledgeable employees. Customer service means doing what you say you will do and doing it when, if not before, you say you will do it. It is operating on the belief that no transaction is complete unless the service customers receive is sufficient enough to motivate them to return.

Most CEOs and other executives don’t fully understand customer service and its huge impact on sales and profits for their organizations. They don’t understand what they should (and shouldn’t) do in order to provide the best possible service to their customers. In fact, many of them have false beliefs when it comes to customer service.

Here are three myths that hamper organizations throughout the world in their efforts to provide exceptional customer service and, in the process, to attract and retain customers:

1. Adding employees improves customer service.

You can add all the people you want, but it won’t improve your organization’s customer service. More doesn’t necessarily equal better. Too many organizations have too many under-performing employees; you need to weed them out. In developing countries, the typical company has at least 25 percent more employees than it needs.

If you have 50 employees and add 50 more, all you’ve done is double your workforce. But, if you have 50 employees who are focused on customer service, who are knowledgeable, enthusiastic and have positive attitudes, you will have a winning team. If you train those employees in the art of customer service and support this training by giving them the tools they need to take good care of your customers, you will see your sales and profits skyrocket.

2. The more you pay employees, the more committed they will be to customer service.

Increasing employees’ pay will do nothing more than eat into your organization’s profits. I’ve addressed this myth for more than three decades to clients throughout the world, stressing to them that money is not a motivator. It will not change an employee’s behavior. If you doubled every employee’s salary tomorrow, it would not improve customer service, and in 30 days you’d be out of business. If you have employees who do not provide good service, who are not committed to taking care of your customers, what you pay them will not change the way they operate.

So, you’re probably asking: What will motivate my employees to provide better customer service? The answer is this: Recognition. There is no stronger motivator than positive reinforcement and public praise. Think of it this way: If you are a parent trying to teach your young child to put away his toys at the end of the day, what do you think will be the stronger motivator—a dime each time he does so, or constant praise, especially in front of family and friends?

If you recognize the efforts of your employees who go above and beyond to take care of your customers, they will seek continued recognition by improving the service they provide. A $200 bonus would be gone in a day or two, but a word of praise will live on indefinitely. Recognition is the most powerful motivational tool you have—use it.

3. Your employees are empowered.

This is more than a myth; it’s a delusion for most managers and executives. Empowerment means that your employees have the authority to do whatever it takes to immediately solve a customer’s problem—to the satisfaction of the customer, not the organization.

In order to empower your employees, you must train them and give them the skills they need to take such good care of your customers that they wouldn’t think of doing business with anyone but you. Don’t handcuff your employees with cumbersome policies and procedures. Give them the authority to bend and break the rules in order to serve your customers.

It takes a miracle to get employees to make empowered decisions because they think they will get fired if they make a mistake. Let them know that it’s okay to make a mistake in the process of providing exceptional customer service. Without empowered employees, you will never be a service leader.

Don’t underestimate the power of customer service. Exceptional service builds loyalty, which in turn builds profits.

John Tschohl, the internationally recognized service strategist, is founder and president of Service Quality Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Described by USA Today, Time and Entrepreneur as a customer service guru, he has written several books on customer service and has developed more than 26 customer-service training programs that have been distributed throughout the world. His monthly strategic newsletter is available online at no charge. 952-884-3311; john@servicequality.com; www.johntschohl.com.

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24 Best Ideas For Memorable Customer Service

By Tina Berres Filipski

PPB asked recipients of this year’s PPAI Supplier Star Award to comment on the elements they think are critical to ensuring long-lasting customer satisfaction.

What are your three best pieces of advice to keep customers happy?

Don R. Martin, President
Bloomin’ Promotions (UPIC: Bloom108)
1. Offer solutions, not just products. We encourage our distributors to share information about each project early, so that we can make recommendations to ensure it is as successful and cost-effective as possible.

2. Manage the customer’s expectations. Because our products are handmade, there are slight variations in the thickness of the seed paper, as well as subtle color variations. We do our best to minimize these variations, but we encourage distributors to help manage the customer’s expectations.

3. Sample the product. We encourage distributors to plant our products and see for themselves that our paper really does grow. If they have seen how well it grows firsthand, and have that peace of mind when a customer asks, it is a powerful selling tool.

Richard Ouellette, President
Zoogee World, Inc. (UPIC: zoogee)
1. Educate your reps. Our company makes every effort to ensure our customer service representatives are fully versed in all company and product information. In addition, we train them to effectively and methodically probe distributors to accurately determine their customers’ requirements and then provide them with the most cost-effective solutions we have available to impress their customers.

2. Ensure accurate imprints and quality products. It is important to our company that our customers are satisfied with the quality of our products and our full-color domed imprints. In order to assure that the customers’ requirements are met, we provide free virtual samples (paper proofs) and even custom physical spec samples.

3. Provide fast production and delivery. Because all of our products are produced in our North American facility, we are able to provide a fast and accurate five-day production time to meet the growing need for speed expected by our distributors and their customers.

Jack Goldberg, CAS, President
Mid-Nite Snax® (UPIC: midnite)
1. Build relationships. We provide a sense of security that their orders will be processed and shipped with care and accuracy. We always put ourselves in our customers’ shoes to understand where they are coming from and work to exceed their needs.
2. Pledge quality. Quality control is crucial to keeping our customers coming back for repeat orders. We send out the best and don’t settle for anything less.
3. Be reliable and consistent. When you place an order with Mid-Nite Snax, you know what to expect. We provide the same level of service for each customer and order regardless of the size. We follow the customer’s in-hands date on every order and always do our best to ship the orders on time.

Brett Hersh, President
Admints & Zagabor (UPIC: ADMINTS)
1. Treat every order, regardless of size, like you are dealing with the biggest order your company has ever received.
2. Under promise and over deliver. If you know you can ship orders regularly within four days then promise five-day delivery, but ship in four days on a regular basis.
3. Stand behind your product. Mistakes happen, but how you deal with them and how you make distributors look to their clients will get you a customer for life.

Steve Rone, VP Sales/Marketing
World Wide Lines, Inc. (UPIC: WORLDWID)

1. Provide incredible customer service and quality products. Distributors need to know that their orders will be taken care of and that, no matter how big or small, it is the most important order we have in-house. It will be shipped on time, and it will be correct. Providing a comfort level for distributors, and building a reputation in the industry as a company dedicated to customer service and quality is key for keeping customers coming back.

2. Go the extra mile and really become a partner with the distributor, not just a supplier that takes and ships orders. In the day-to-day, back-and-forth of our industry, especially now, it takes strong supplier/distributor partnerships to be successful and to be a company distributors can count on for fantastic new ideas, innovative solutions and cutting-edge products and imprinting techniques.

3. Offer something extra. Provide them with a level of service and attention they do not expect every day. At World Wide, we love to get creative with all of our full-color capabilities, and it is so much fun to take a one-color logo and add a colorful background or provide solutions to tricky artwork or design problems and become a creative source and partner that they can count on.

Tom Riordan, President
Maple Ridge Farms, Inc. (UPIC: MAPLE)
1. Respond immediately. When a customer has a problem, fix the problem as quickly as possible in a way that has the least impact on the customer. For instance, if a product needs to be replaced, arrange to have the product picked up rather than making the end buyer ship it back.

2. Engage customers. Stay in touch with your customers and continually provide them with useful information on how they can sell more of your products. The more they sell, the more they’ll come back.
3. Ask their opinions. Involve your customers in product development. Ask them what they’d like to see you add to your product line. By adding products that your customers request, you’ve made it easier for them to come back and order from you rather than from some other company. A few years ago, we surveyed our customers asking them what they’d like to see added to our product line. A recurring request was cookies and brownies. We took that advice, and now we sell nearly one million cookies and brownies a year. I guess it pays to listen.


Gary Haley, President
Beacon Promotions, Inc. (UPIC: BEACONP)
1. Respect the customer’s time. When you contact a customer regarding a point of clarification, ask them all the questions you have about the order. Try not to come back a day later with another question.

2. Offer solutions. When something goes haywire (and it does from time to time), offer a couple of suggestions around a remedy. Try not to dump the problem on the distributor’s lap and wait for an answer. Rather, try to offer two reasonable suggestions.

3. Be as timely as you can. Try not to let days go by before contacting a distributor with questions. Try to get things done in the first 24 hours.

We do other things too, such as ship early and save distributors expedited freight whenever we can, thank new customers for coming to Beacon and thank customers who send us larger orders for their business. It all adds up to an ease-of-doing-business strategy that has served us well.


Megan Ludlow, Marketing Manager
SnugZ USA (UPIC: SNUGZ)
1. It’s all about customer service. Customer service is more than just picking up the phone and giving an order status. It’s building a partnership with our distributors and knowing how important it is for them to build a partnership with their customers. That’s where the business comes from, so keeping everyone happy right from the beginning is what we are striving for. If an order is not done right, regardless of whose mistake it was, we will correct it. We are also quick to let customers know if there is a problem. We aren’t perfect. We have run out of inventory on in-house orders before. If we can’t find an acceptable substitute, we will make our customers aware as quickly as we can, and we will give them the contact information of another supplier who has the same item.

2. Stand behind your product. Don’t take it personally if a customer is unhappy. Redo the order and do what you can to make sure you don’t get that same complaint in the future. If you want to build repeat business and are sending out something that even you wouldn’t use, the customer won’t be coming back in the future.

3. Have a ‘can do’ attitude for quick-turn orders. One of our favorite phrases distributors use is, ”My customer needed this yesterday.” We understand they are only trying to please their customers to earn their business and that business is their livelihood. We want our customers to trust that if they come to us with a quick-turn order, we will get it out. We don’t gouge our customers with rush fees either. They will most likely have to pay for overnight shipping as well, and those charges are not pretty. The point of our products is to promote business. If we charge an arm and a leg, it is not worth the rate of return, and they might decide it’s not worth it at all.

Early Adopter

Bobby Lehew, CAS, is a down to earth promotions exec who harnessed the power of social media before many knew it existed. By: Tama Underwood, Associate Editor

You’ll never meet a more likeable narcissist than Bobby Lehew.

Of course, only Lehew would consider himself a narcissist—that’s what makes him so likeable.

“One of his most valuable assets is his ability to go into a room and, by the time he leaves, have everybody thinking they’ve made a new friend,” says Larry Sharp, Lehew’s mentor and colleague at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Robyn Promotions and Printing (UPIC: ROBY0001). “He knows how to be polite and friendly to people.”

Lehew, CAS, director of operations for Robyn, exudes a humble, by-his-own-bootstraps mentality that’s instantly endearing. Better still is the fact that it’s not an act; he earned it. From second grade on, Lehew grew up at a home for troubled boys in Amarillo, Texas. Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch taught lessons in hard work and a “yes, sir/no, sir” attitude that Lehew still practices today.

“A large part of what I’m doing today stems from where I grew up,” Lehew explains. “How do you keep 350 boys out of trouble? You work them. I’m super proud to be from there.”

Lehew compares his time at Cal Farley’s to growing up in the 1950s. (It was really the 1980s.) He recalls waking at 6:45 am every day to wait tables. “That place was so important in making me a worker and making sure I understood work,” Lehew says. “The promotional products business is so challenging. You can be dealing with so many areas of the business in a day.”

Rise To The Top
The facets of a promotional products business are varied, and Lehew has dealt with them all. After graduating from Cal Farley’s, Lehew attended different colleges while working odd jobs—sometimes three at once. Eventually, at age 21, he accepted a position at Robyn that had him packing and shipping boxes in the warehouse. “It sounds a lot fancier than it was,” Lehew jokes.

Lehew was new to the industry, and so was Robyn—he was the company’s second employee. “I’m extremely fortunate that I started with the company when I did because it allowed me to cut my teeth in the business,” Lehew says, lending a nod to another mentor, Mervyn Hackney. “He really gave me opportunity after opportunity.”

Lehew took those opportunities and rose from warehouse worker, who also emptied trash cans and made coffee, to customer service rep to salesman. “Since we were a growing company, there weren’t models we could copy, and the internet wasn’t around,” Lehew recalls. “We had to figure things out on our own. I was hungry enough that it allowed me to create things I didn’t know a thing about.”

Lehew took over as director of operations in 2001—right after the dot-com crash. Lehew, a techie through and through, saw it as yet another opportunity and made technology-based fulfillment solutions Robyn’s star offering.

Since its start, Robyn had offered warehousing and fulfillment services to clients. Yet, it billed itself as a promotional products shop. Once Lehew came on as director of operations, and the dot-com bust made technology more affordable, Robyn refocused on company stores and fulfillment programs and pushed product sales to the background. “Technology really let us center on what we did best and take it to other companies,” Lehew says.

Realigning its priorities also helped Robyn secure its future in the marketplace. “Bobby took over in 2001, and up until that time we were pretty much a one-customer company,” says Sharp, controller/CFO for Robyn. “We had one customer who paid all the bills.” This customer used Robyn’s fulfillment service, and Lehew decided that if the company’s fulfillment template worked for one, then it could work for many.

Five years after Robyn put its fulfillment-focused strategy into place, its revenue grew from $3.7 million in 2001 to $6.5 million in 2006. Two years later, in 2008, revenue nearly doubled from the 2006 numbers after two clients enlisted Robyn to carry out their rebranding campaigns. It was during this time that Robyn was named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.

“We were on a rocket ride,” Lehew says. “People in this industry don’t like to hear this, but it was hard not to make money in this business in ’05 through ’07. We didn’t know it at the time, but there were a lot of low-hanging fruit.”

Following 2008, Lehew says Robyn felt the economic collapse like the rest of promotional products businesses, only it fared much better. “We’re in the Oklahoma City market, which is fairly healthy and growing,” he says. “Last year we scaled back, but now we’re having a hard time keeping up with demand.”

Tech Savvy
While refocused branding, Oklahoma City’s healthy economy and a stellar staff that knows how to work in harmony as a team had a lot to do with Robyn’s success over the past decade, early adoption of technology also played a role. And few, if any, championed technology in the company more than Lehew.

Lehew has a reputation among colleagues as a social media and digital guru, eager to learn and adapt to the newest gadgets. He has delivered entire client presentations on an iPad and is currently campaigning to get one for every member of Robyn’s sales team. He also chooses to use collaborative, web-based scheduling software over Outlook. A quick web search on Lehew reveals his presence on typical techy spots such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. Scroll down, however, and one will find listings for him on Google Profiles, Vimeo, Gowalla, Plaxo and a host of other sites too numerous to list. Add to this the fact that Lehew writes one of the industry’s longest-running blogs, Branded Matters (www.brandedmatters.com), and his techie status becomes even clearer.

Such internet connectedness isn’t unusual in today’s hyper-wired culture, but Lehew says he was one of the first to jump on the trend. His blogging goes back to the beginning of the medium, when, he says, blogging was considered weird. Lehew began blogging in 2003 when medical crises in his family prompted him to go online seeking more information. “The web became a friendly place,” Lehew says. “We took to the web, and we met people looking for therapies and cures.

“After that season of life was over, I was left with these tools—how to blog.” Lehew was blogging about his personal life before blogging was a cool way to gain instant clout; however, those who knew him weren’t buying it. “The first time I wrote about myself, friends and family gave me a hard time, saying, ‘Who wants to read that?’”

He was undeterred, however, and decided that “If my friends and family don’t like what I write, then fine, I’ll write for strangers.” Believing that there was an audience out there for him, Lehew began writing about his experiences in business and the industry in Branded Matters. “The blog process is also an incubator,” he says. “By formalizing it in writing, you’re able to think through business processes or challenges better.”

The Branded Matters blog often touches on subjects such as marketing, social media and the industry, but really nothing is off limits. “In order to keep my interest in it, I just write about whatever I want,” Lehew says. “I realized I wasn’t going to stick with it if I told myself I was just going to talk about koozie campaigns or something like that.”

Not only is Lehew the author of Branded Matters, but he’s the face of it too. A self-portrait serves as the logo and resides on the homepage. “I am a narcissist,” Lehew insists. “It goes back years ago, when people said, ‘You’re going to go online and talk about yourself?’

“Personal branding was a phrase that people hated when it first came on the scene,” Lehew adds. “But as we now know, buyers are making their purchasing decisions and qualifying who they work with through the web—no longer through the phone or face-to-face, so it is important to make a voice online.”

When asked, Lehew reports that Branded Matters only has about 200 subscribers, but adds that he’s not counting. “It doesn’t matter how many readers you have,” he says, “it’s what kind of readers you have.” Lehew says he’s discovered a network of professionals—technically competitors—with whom he can discuss and exchange ideas. “I’m proud to say there are some really cool people in the industry who subscribe. And that means a lot to me, because these people are smarter than I am.”

How many real narcissists would say that?

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Get To Know Bobby Lehew, CAS

How You Say It
His last name is pronounced Lee-hue, but he’s not fussy about it. “You can call me whatever you want, just call me,” he often says.

Time In The Industry
Lehew entered the industry when he signed on with Robyn Promotions and Printing in July 1991. This month marks his 20th anniversary working for the company.

How He Plans To Celebrate
“I’ll probably write a blog post about it. That will be good enough. Maybe I should go back and ship an order of pencils.”

Other Associations
Lehew sits on the Board of the American Marketing Association.

Celebrity Lookalike
Lehew is often mistaken for The Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne, also from Oklahoma City.

Advice To Those Starting Out
Get organized. “You have clients calling every day for something you know nothing about and asking for specifics on things like safety,” he says. “Our industry is really unorganized, but if you spend a large part of your energy on marketing and organization, it will help you in the long run.”

Children And Family
Lehew and his wife, Audra, have five kids, which range from ages five to 17.

Favorite Blog Post On Branded Matters
It’s called “Get Real (An Unconventional Guide to Goal Setting).” “It’s one of those gut-wrenching posts you throw your life into,” he says.

Prime Real Estate

Seven Tips to Construct A Real-Estate PromotionBy: Audrey Sellers, Associate Editor

A Housing Overview
• 5.3 million: Projected number of existing-home sales in 2011, up from 4.9 million last year
• 5.6 million: Projected number of existing-home sales in 2012
• 603,000: Projected housing starts in 2011, up from 595,000 last year
• 908,000: Projected housing starts in 2012
• $170,000: Median existing-home price, which is predicted to hold steady for the next two years
• $202,100: Median new-home price, the lowest since 2003
• 20%: Number of homebuyers who are single women
• 12%: Number of homebuyers who are single men

Source: National Association of Realtors

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123,400: Approximate number of real-estate brokers in the U.S.
394,400: Approximate number of real-estate agents
59% of these professionals are self-employed

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor

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$20 billion: Amount the real-estate sector spent on advertising in 2010
$22 billion: Projected spending in 2011

Source: www.adweek.com

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Who Owns A Home?
• 69.2: Percent of Americans who owned a home in 2004
• 66.4: Percent who own a home in 2011

Source: www.bloomberg.com

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Two-thirds of Americans view home ownership as a safe investment, according to a 2011 Fannie Mae survey.

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The American Dream Lives On
• 8 in 10 adults agree that buying a home is the best long-term investment one can make
• 81% of renters say they’d prefer to buy a home one day

Source: Pew Research Center

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Seven Tips To Construct A Real-Estate Promotion
1. Explore cooperative marketing. “This could be between the settlement company and the mortgage lender, or the lender and the buyer or leaser,” says Seth Weiner, MAS, president of Gaithersburg, Maryland-based distributor Sonic Promos (UPIC: sonicpro). “This provides more opportunity for like businesses to hit people with multiple messages about the same overall final goal, which is getting them from one place to another.”

2. Pay attention to logos. “Not every real-estate agent is aware of certain t’s that need to be crossed and i’s that need to be dotted when it comes to the finer points of using logos,” explains Mike Stackhouse, salesperson for Yorktown, Sasketchewan-based distributor Source Embroidery. “Everything must be done to corporate standard.”

3. Make use of QR codes. “These make sense for everybody in the real-estate market. Say you drive by a house for sale and grab the sale sheet. It should have some pictures and also a code you can scan to see a two-minute video of the house,” suggests Weiner. “Real-estate agents aren’t grasping this idea, so it’s an opportunity for distributors.”

4. Don’t follow the crowd. “Real-estate agents can be uncreative. If one sees another doing peel-off magnets for business cards, they all start doing it,” Weiner says. “Instead, they should order items that are reflective of them or things that their clients will like. Don’t just mass-produce100 barbecue sets.”

5. Consider the unconventional options. “Chocolate isn’t on the forefront of brokers’ minds, but it’s a great gift for real-estate promotions,” says David Miller, president of Freeport, New York-based supplier Chocolate Inn (UPIC: chocinn). “We can change the shape of a chocolate house to reflect the shape of the house on the market.”

6. Explain the value of relationships. “There aren’t many real-estate agents who work on relationships—they work on transactional business,” Weiner says. “Most agents only sell a few houses a year. They should be spending money on those people, but they’re not. They should be thinking about referrals.”

7. Know that business will go on. “Whether the housing market is in the doldrums or not, brokers still need to make a living,” Miller says. “They still need to elicit sales. There’s less going on in the market now, so it’s more competitive. Distributors should try to get their clients in the forefront of people’s minds.”

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Real-Estate Campaigns That Work
Two distributors share examples of their real-estate success stories.

“One of my clients is a settlement company. We wanted to target their top real-estate agents, who were their referral sources. We had three huge snow storms last winter, so we used a three-piece snow shovel they can put in their car. It came with a fully custom newspaper mailer that included a cute story about ‘Snowmageddon,’ and how their company helped people plow their way out of the mortgage misery. It was very tongue-in-cheek.

“We did 100 snow shovels. It was cool because it was three pieces, and it was simple to ship. It was made to be put in the car, as many real-estate agents are always on the go. I’ve always suggested to my clients that if they’re going to target real-estate agents, remember that they’re going to be in their car often, traveling from place to place. Why give them a ceramic coffee mug? Give them a travel mug. But then at the same time, they also have about 17 of them. So let’s do something completely different, which is why we went with the shovel. Most people don’t have a shovel in their car. My client got a mad amount of response and positive feedback.”
— Seth Weiner, MAS, president of Gaithersburg, Maryland-based distributor Sonic Promos (UPIC: sonicpro).

“I’ve worked for ReMax for about two years. A major campaign we did was a billboard-sign campaign in which we designed and printed a series of 8’ x 16’ signs to post on highways throughout southern Saskatchewan. [The client] did 20 of them for its agricultural team and urban team.

“They were looking for someone to simply handle it. They didn’t want to worry about what would look good or how big the billboards should be. They wanted to put those decisions into a company that specializes in that type of thing. Trust was an important factor. They wanted to make sure pricing was fair, artwork was topnotch, and the advice they were getting from us was expert. They feel that their expertise is selling houses and ours is promotional advertising.”
—Mike Stackhouse, salesperson for Yorktown, Sasketchewan-based distributor Source Embroidery

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Home Sweet Home
Open the door to new business with these self-promotion and housewarming ideas.


(Clockwise from top left)

Sweeten the home-buying experience with a Custom Chocolate Gift Box. It contains a customized center chocolate piece surrounded by 12 milk- and dark-chocolate pieces.
Chocolate Inn UPIC: CHOCINN 800-526-3437

Display happy moments in the Hampton Classic Folding Frame, which is made from cowhide leather with a contrasting color interior. A magnetic closure lets it snap shut and tuck inside a moving box.
Prime Resources Corp. UPIC: PRIME 800-873-7746

Promo Planters brighten any home with a pop of color. The containers are made from rice hull and corn husk, and can be customized with a full-color digital logo. Choose from eight seed options, five planter colors and five package designs.
Aakron Rule Corp. UPIC: AAKRON 800-828-1570

The Write On Clip includes a strong magnetic back to keep it visible on the fridge and a white marker board to jot down open-house times. A dry-erase marker is stored in the clip.
Crown Products, Inc. UPIC: CROWNPRO 800-367-2769

A quick spritz from the House-Shaped Hand Sanitizer and hands are germ-free. There’s no alcohol in this odorless sanitizer, which is nontoxic and eco-friendly.
Calibre International LLC UPIC: HCL 800-707-2757