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McDisaster strikes again!

Friday, June 4th, 2010

The recall of 12 million (yes, MILLION!) promotional glasses that McDonalds bought direct from China is a stunning story. However, it is far from the worst thing to happen to our business, even though the order didn’t come from our business. Remember the bag company from LA who had to absorb a 10 million (yes, MILLION!) dollar fine for the same kind of thing?

While the spate of McJokes is almost endless (even my McSorry hit the stands) the underlying issue is a warning that times have changed and life as we know it has ended. (Oh, like that’s anything new!) What this illustrates to distributors, suppliers, buyers and end users alike is that the CPSC will hold your fee to the fire until you lose your feet or develop blisters.

A good friend told me just a day ago that, in my words, not his, “Our industry is hard wired for &#*&-ups.” The comment was his way of short circuiting my rant on “being a distributor” (a topic for another day) and the constant, unrelenting pressure that seems to accompany every single job we do, every day that we do it.

This business sucks a lot and it sucks often. It comes with the territory of producing custom goods for a variety of customers, most of whom do not understand the most rudimentary concepts of our manufacturing process. I wish it were different but it is not.

Thirty-three years ago, when I joined the graphics business as a printer, I ranted and raved about the variability of my customer base. Some understood graphics just enough to be able to hold a piece of paper in their hand. Others were so conversant that a press check was an event to dread. The most difficult concept for me to grasp was that I was smack dab in the middle and could make few happy and content. My life was spent taking my customer’s problems to my production staff and taking my production staff’s refusal to fix those problems back to my customer.

Back then, sometimes the customer was always right and sometimes the customer was always wrong and sometimes there was a calm and peaceful area in the middle. The middle was damn hard to find, however. We printed with ink and solvents that could take the paint off a car and strip the DNA off your genes and life was good!

Today we find ourselves in situations that we never dreamed of. Back in the Day when I trudged between Belmont Avenue and Oakbrook, the headquarters of McDonalds Corporation, all I had to worry about was if I remembered to tell my typesetter to change the point size from 8 to 7.5 on the BOG cards that I printed for them. Once each month a disagreeable artist came up to press check the half million blanks we ran to make sure that the RED was red, the YELLOW was yellow and that Ronald’s hair had detail and substance.

They were such sticklers for detail that I find it almost impossible to believe that they would have allowed their supplier to use cadmium laced inks for 12 MILLION! glasses. I have no sympathy for them. They went to China for the job, didn’t pay enough attention even though they have more money than, well, most everybody, and now the CSPC is upset that they are jeopardizing their core customer’s health. Why didn’t they pay more attention or buy the order from a US provider like my friend Ray who knows what kind of ink is verboten.

Sorry, Ronald… suck it up… this is a Mini McDisaster for your bottom line and reputation but only in the short term. You will fix the chinks in your armor and this particular problem will never happen again to you. Maybe it will be a nice thing for some sales people in our business, too. That will only happen if we, as professionals, understand the CSPS, Prop 65, etc. ramifications to our customer’s purchases. If we shield them from the &*%$-ups that are hard wired into our business we might even make more money through our business….

Happy Selling!

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It’s about damn time!

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

While the case has to go back to the lower court for retrial, the fact that the Supreme Court handed the NFL it’s ass in a crack is no longer in doubt. They ruled that the NFL’s assertions for the last many decades that they are a “business unit” are incorrect. They ruled that the NFL is, in fact, 32 separate business entities competing in every sense of the word. They said that the NFL as a group of separate entities was not bound by any license agreement that they did not enter into individually.

Regardless of the final outcome, what really happened in this case is a very, very positive thing to those of us who sell promotion and spirit items. We will soon have 32 new prospects to call on who each spend millions of dollars a year on items that promote their brand. This is really big business.

Two and a third decades ago I had the mispleasure of negotiating a contract with the NFL. We wanted to print wall calendars to be used in school fundraising by linking to a local NFL team. We sold to elementary and middle schools and helped raise millions of dollars in funds that were used to augment the aid received by government with dollars that were usually tasked for items which improved the quality of the student’s lives instead of textbooks.

Don’t think for a moment that this is self-serving self aggrandizement. We were a business. Our intention was to perform a valuable service for profit, not from the good of our hearts. We thought we could sell a lot of calendars to a lot of fathers and grandfathers if they had a nice football action photo of their favorite running back making a touchdown. It was a great idea and a dismal failure for many reasons, one of which was the arrogance of the NFL. They negotiate like one who is used to saying, “Pay us back or we’ll break your legs.”

When it was just our local NFL team, the marketing director who had just purchased twenty-four dollars of junk jewelry and didn’t get Manhattan, wanted something to buy something he could relate to when his seventh grader brought home our catalog during the PTA fundraising drive. When they had to “run it by NFL in New York” first, the discussion changed from “What’s in it for us?” meaning the team, the community and the schools, to, “What’s in it for ME?” meaning the NFL. Once the greed mongers at the NFL are removed from the picture, local NFL teams can once again ask, “What’s in it for us?” with an expectation of doing good for the community and fan base. For the first time in decades we can quit living in a “business as usual” world and move toward a “business as it should be” one. We can support our local teams and they can support their local community.

Happy Selling!

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A bad year?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

I’m no longer creeping up on my 60th birthday. It is barreling down upon me at a pace that I cannot believe. As a matter of fact, in only 19 days, 1 hour and six minutes I will celebrate turning 60 at my party which will be two days after the end of the first phase of middle age. A friend in China emailed his annual Birthday Question, “Are you better off this birthday then your were last birthday?”

I don’t know how to answer that. Last birthday, we celebrated in Bubba Gump’s Restaurant on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. See the proof here at: http://tinyurl.com/nowellhkparty
It was the last day before returning home after what was the trip of a lifetime. I was doing a job that I knew and could do in my sleep and I had few of the business challenges that I’ve had in the year since. I’m inclined to say, “No” but not “Hell, No!”

On this birthday, I find myself learning several new ways of doing business, using tools that I’ve never mastered, working harder for less money, trying new and ever more exciting ways of coping with a business year that has been more difficult than others, and generally feeling the effects of getting older.

I’m coming off a four week recovery from a wound received from an action I took while believing that I was thirty years younger and thirty-six pounds lighter. (At least it wasn’t after uttering the three most dangerous words in the English language: “Hey, Watch This!”) Being alternately bed ridden and confined to a desk with my leg elevated on the corner gave me a real appreciation for chairs without wheels. It also gave me a chance to compare the physical and mental effects of Percocet, aspirin, and ibuprophen. (I recommend ibuprophen because it reduces swelling, numbs pain and doesn’t make you stupid on the telephone.)

I am really fortunate that I am not trying to stand in line at the unemployment office with my cane and throbbing foot. I still have a job with a company that I love, doing work I’ve done for thirty-three years, in an industry that has five hundred thousand ways to say “Thank You!”

I am working on my newer business model which will include webinars, YouTube sales training, Tweets and Blogs, and working with my grandson, which is always a hoot! I am calling on customers and prospects within a local region instead of traveling 80,000 miles a year and I’m eating at home more often, instead of restaurants 24 weeks a year. Hopefully, once I can get back on the treadmill, I’ll give the thirty pounds back to the Universe to distribute to a skinner person.

So, I guess that the answer has to be, “Yes, I’m better off this birthday than last” or hope to be in 19 days, 23 hours and 52 minutes when 60 of my friends and family assemble at the Ocean Beach Masonic Lodge to eat, drink, dance, sing, schmooze and generally be merry at my expense. (If you’re in the neighborhood, stop in and join us. We have lots of food and drink and friends and family and neighbors and other good people you can party with. Info here: www.nowellwisch.com/party60/)

Afterward, I’ll be back at work doing what I do best…

Happy Selling!

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This little piggy went promoting

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

A rep in the Southeast sent out a brilliant promotion that apparently tripped some bah humbug gene in a distributor.

The rep reps a toy company. He sent an email offering a turkey or a ham for sending in up to date contact information in response to an email.

While most everybody anticipated a real turkey or ham, we got a little toy turkey and a toy pig from the toy company the rep reps. Inside was a holiday card with refrigerator magnet that gave the rep’s show schedule for 2010 and a coupon for bucks off a real turkey or ham at a national chain.

It was a really good promotion. The rep got a list cleaning, the distributors got a sample to show their kids and customers and everybody had fun.

Well, most everybody. One distributor in Florida needs a sense of humor injection from his HMO. Perhaps he can get it when he gets his swine flu shot!

I thought it was brilliant. I showed the pig to my two year old grandson who promptly stuck it in his mouth. That was a surprise that I didn’t expect and an image that I will carry for a while in my mental picture book.

I’m also recommending to distributors that they show plush toys to customers. This was pretty cool.

Happy Holidays from us to you.
nowell

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Playing with Toys and Having Fun

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

My favorite younger daughter has been having conversations with my favorite younger grandson. He, being just a month past turning two, is finding lots of things to talk about now that a larger circle of adults can understand him. Today, she related a conversation that started with his saying, “I want to go to work.”

Mommy asked, “What do you want to do at work?”

FYG replied, “I want to play with toys.” Now that sounds like a job I would enjoy! (Oh, wait… I get to play with toys at work and I do enjoy it!)

What came to mind later is that I got into this business in 1977 because I got to play with cool toys and sell them to people. Perhaps the biggest change in the business in the last 32 years is that there are more cool toys to play with and sell every year than the previous one. That seems to be one of the few things that has not changed in the business, however.

I remember a time when “EQP” wasn’t a word or condition. I’m even old enough to remember a time when I could keep most of the industry inventory in my head while discussing client needs with my customer. That has all changed.

Today we need a search engine to find a pencil or pen out of the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of variations on that single theme. Thirty years ago, people came in four sizes and a single shirt style worked for every gender. Today we have to keep several hundred suppliers in mind when looking for “just the right garment” to fit our client needs.

What I realized tonight is that I still love my work and my profession in part because I still get to sell and play with cool toys. Perhaps my favorite younger grandson is much smarter than he sounds. After all, any kid that wants to go to work and play with toys just might be one to groom for the next generation of our profession.

My favorite older grandson and I have been making sales training videos and sample kits of our new products. We do this on the Wednesday’s he gets a half-day off from school. I pay him because he is saving up for some cool Lego toys of his own but he is earning his money doing things that I had to do early in my career.

Being 10 years old means that I don’t expect as much from him as I might from an employee but I am frequently if not always surprised at how diligent he is helping PopPop in the office. He gets to play with cool toys, too. (Video Camera, automatic paper folder, plastic bag heat sealer and movies on the DVD) While his verbal skills are much more advanced than his young cousin, he is quite articulate when he remarks, “It was a good day, PopPop. I had fun.”

Well, I had fun today, too. I got to sell some cool things to people who like to sell cool things to people who like to buy cool things. Everybody got to play with cool toys and have some fun and make some money.

How cool is that!

Happy Selling!
—–

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I surrender!

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

Back in July, I lamented my inability to stay focused on task when booting up my computer. I casually mentioned that my new job made working at home a challenge. Well, I’ve recognized that it is much, much more than a challenge… it is a daunting rift in the fabric of my life.

For sixteen years, my life has been one of selling my products and services in a face-to-face environment. That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I like. That’s what I miss in this New World Order… Face-to-face.

Unfortunately, when I look at the bottom of my paycheck, it isn’t my name on the signature line. The name there happens to be the arbiter of my activity, my boss. Since I have dedicated my professional life to whatever he deems important to our enterprise, his desire for me to work on the phone and computer, in pajamas if necessary, is not considered a suggestion. It is my marching order.

I gave it a good try. I really did. I even used the computer while dressed in my bathrobe and made calls on prospects. Of course, between calls, I made coffee, unloaded the dishwasher, got irritated that my wife was using the printer for her business when I needed it for mine, and just generally found life getting increasingly complicated.

Stress levels went through the roof and the fallout was unbelievable. I spiraled into a deep depression that ate a week of “tivity,” having the intention of performing “ac,” but leaving the residue of “inac.”

I called a couple of friends who do not object to my bitching and complaining about life (as long as it doesn’t go on for too long) and received much needed kicks in the behind camouflaged as helpful suggestions and support. A few more fits and starts, a few more well delivered “suggestions” and I was ready to go do something else because I couldn’t sit on the kitchen chair any longer.

Now, after three months of fighting it, I’ve given into the realization that I am simply not a stay-at-home-worker. I’m moving into an office space. It will add about $6,000 to my annual expenses but it should increase my productivity by 1000% or more.

It will take a small bit of adjustment time but I’m up to the task. Life will be simpler. I will have a chair to sit upon at a table to hold my portable computer with wireless cell phone modem for internet access and a cell phone with Bluetooth headset so I can talk and type.

I will have to learn new tricks yet again but they seem somewhat easier than the ones I need to learn now. After all, how hard can it be to learn to drive to work in pajamas?

I’ll let you know down the road.

Happy Selling!

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“What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

An email group I belong to allows us suppliers of promotional products to toot our horn once a month. Today was one of those days. While the purpose of the exercise is to sell ourselves to the customer members of the group, we often, due to the nature and quality of the people involved, get to grapple with deeper questions of purpose and the nature of our profession.

Today brought up a topic that I can only describe (non sexistly- just substitute “Mommy”) as the “What do you do, Daddy?” question. We have all had to answer this on occasion. In this case, the topic was really, “How do you answer the “What is your business?” elevator speech.

Reading the responses from my esteemed colleagues filled me with joy, wonder and contentment because I realized that I get to earn my living as a sales professional and it is an honorable profession.

I quietly pondered my answer while sitting on the deck at sunset, watching a million colors of red to deep purple march across the sky, obscured only by the occasional puff of smoke from a truly fine Perdomo Reserve La Tradicion Cabinet Selection Robusto cigar, a birthday gift from a good friend.

It was easy to enjoy the moment because it is the first time in several days that the temperature is low enough that I am not sweating through my clothes. I have a cup of “coffee talk” with a healthy shot of Irish cream whiskey at my side. The fading light of day is being held at bay by a headlamp of ecologically friendly LED’s so I can see the keyboard. (There is no appreciable glow from the front of a good cigar to light the way.)

Thinking of what my job and business does is, in the strict sense of our profession, applicable to almost every business and industry in which sales professionals ply the trade. If you wish to use it as a base for your own answer, take out the references to my business and apply your own.

“I work in an industry that allows me to help every manner of person and activity survive, thrive and prosper by providing printed advertising, promotional and inspirational material that helps them succeed in their endeavors. My company is at the pinnacle of a business that exists for one reason only: We help hard working, intelligent people be heroes to those people and institutions necessary to their survival. Our products and services make a difference in this world.”

To all my friends and colleagues in the business of selling, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart that I can walk with you down the sometimes torturous path that we often travel in the pursuit of our life’s work. Thank you for forcing me to think about what we do and why we do it. Thank you for helping me understand that without helping fulfill the dreams of others, I can have no dreams of my own.”

Happy Selling!

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Got DELETE?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

I am a member of three email forums in three different industries. I average 166 emails a day, about 70 of which forward to my Blackberry. Partly, this is because I have my Blackberry set to vibrate when I get an email and since I carry it in my left pocket, I get 70 little cheap thrills when it buzzes and shakes.

My Outlook sends and receives nine email accounts when it synchronizes and I have four more emails that I have to check manually when at a computer. Add two Facebook accounts, two Twitter accounts, Linked In, Plaxo and a few others I can’t even remember and it adds up to a significant amount of time in front of a computer screen instead of in front of a client. Managing this mess is a nightmare on (Oops… had to stop and enjoy the incoming email buzz in my pocket… sorry, got distracted!) some days and simply an annoyance on others.

This, however, is the mark of the modern sales warrior and it must be mastered. I imagine it was as hard for an old time warrior to change from a bow and arrow to a musket as it is for me to change from a regular phone to the modern communications suite. There is simply no choice because the world is running away from all of us at a rapid rate.

Several times a year the topic of email proliferation comes up on each forum I’m a member of and each time the complaint is the same. There are too many irrelevant emails and not enough time to process them. Unfortunately, the number of emails rises every year while the amount of relevant ones remains the same. It is akin to looking for your golf ball ten years ago in a clean patch of grass that today contains a bramble of sticker bushes. It is harder to find but you still have to look for it.

It is 1:21 pm in California and I’ve been sitting at this darned computer since 6:30 am. I hate it. My left ear is going numb from the Bluetooth clip and my right ear is ringing from the high pitched whine of my external hard drive. The darned phone is vibrating away in my pocket and I just decided what to do with the incoming messages. I’m going to ruthlessly hit the DELETE key and send everything that doesn’t have relevance to the moment or immediate future to the trash bin.

You will not hear a complaint or bitch out of me. You will not hear irritation in my voice (although you might hear fatigue and disinterest). I will simply send the dozens of messages I don’t need to that black hole in the cloud. Bye Bye, emails. I hope you are not collecting in some undiscovered niche in the ether to come crashing down on me in the future. It may not be the best way to deal with the problem but it is my way.

Happy Selling!

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What economy are you participating in?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

I have learned a valuable lesson from a customer. She decided to be a non-participant in this year’s depression/recession/contraction or whatever the heck we are in. It was a decision she made at a time when the news was doom and gloom, similar to last night.

I was curious how she could effect a positive change as an individual trying to turn a supertanker by blowing through a straw and she sang a chorus of “High Hopes!”

I spoke with her last night and she was reticent to tell me the results of her experiment. I said I understood, and that we don’t like to speak bad news, either. After a moment’s silence, she said, “You don’t really understand the problem. In our case, our sales are up about 26% over last year and profitability is up another 6% above normal. I don’t want my competitors hearing of this or they may target my accounts. I don’t want the competition.”

She elaborated that her salespeople changed tact a little and started advising their clients to be conservative but still advertise to come out winners after the dust settled. They started writing very small orders but wrote them constantly. Because the customer seems to be holding onto money longer, the rush orders are more numerous and the salespeople are selling at higher than normal margins because of the need to turn things fast. The clients do not seem to mind because the kicker is only about 5 to 10% more than normal.

She continued, “Because every order seems to be a “drop dead” rush, we are getting “list plus” on most sales. The higher profit makes up for the lower quantities. I hope this recession goes on for a long time!”

Holy smokes! Some good news! Whatever will we do?

I suggest that we stop looking at the front page of the paper and start helping our customers get through the next three months. Heck… we might just sell something!

Happy Selling!

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Just tell them what you DO

Friday, May 8th, 2009

A discussion has been going on since the early ‘50’s in the promotional products business. We freak out when we get THE QUESTION that haunts us to this very day. This age-old question, discussion and disagreement centers on how to answer, “So, what do you do, stranger?”

The industry has changed names a couple of times trying to better describe itself and it is a still incomplete explanation. We still tend to describe ourselves as people who sell stuff with a name on it, trying to “pretty it up” with rhetoric about “Help you build your business” or some other combination of words which, when whittled down to the significant letters, always comes back with the pertinent two… “B” and “S.”

And it is “BS” too. You are not your industry or your business. You are a person who DOES something. The important thing is not what you do but what you TELL people you do. This is so important that it may be worth spending a Saturday afternoon in a lawn chair with a beer, a brat, a cigar and a pad of paper and pen.(For women, I recommend a Drew Estate “Acid” brand infused aromatic Lonsdale. They are a nice comfortable and mild smoke with a pleasant aroma that won’t piss off the neighbors)

The “Elevator Speech” is an oft used communication class tool designed to tell your entire story in the time it takes for an elevator to go from the first floor to the sixth floor. About 28 seconds is all you have. The idea is to whittle down your sales pitch to a 28 (or less) second sound bite designed to have the listener say, “Cool !!! I want to know more!”

Yours will be different from mine. Last week, several of my friends separately raised this issue during phone calls. We didn’t come up with a good answer but we did come up with a solution. We agreed that this discussion is something that has to stop.

Oh, I don’t mean that we have to stop disagreeing about what we are and what we do. We must do that on a regular basis. However, have to stop discussing this question as though it means something important.

The Bottom Line here is that there is no good, better or best answer other than the one you come up with for your business and activity. For me, the answer, “I help people make more money using promotional items and advertising ideas” seems to fit my activity and personality.

If that is what you do too, then use this if it works for you. Otherwise, make up your own. It will be valid for the only people whose opinions matter… your and your customer or prospect. Decide what you want to say, say it, and then go on to the next sale. Focus on what is important and tell them what is important to you.

Sound simple? Yep, it does, because it is.

Happy Selling!

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