Great educational sessions are such a good use of time but bad ones are a huge waste of time. We’ve all been in educational sessions only to realize five minutes into the session the content was misrepresented, or the speaker is horrible.
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The end of the year is a great time to evaluate your business and see what’s working well and what you need to let go of. I’m sure that you have all heard the expression, “Work on your business, not just in your business,” but how many of you take the time to do that on a regular basis?
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I had a chance to spend time with Stephanie Leader, president and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based distributor LeaderPromos, and we spoke about the importance of transparency and the supply chain as it relates to promotional products.
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I love good coffee. I’m the one who wants to hit all the coffee plantations when we are in Kona, Hawaii, even though we have been to these places multiple times before. I even have to watch our airline weight limits because of how much I buy. Hey … it’s Kona Coffee fresh from Kona and I’ve got to have it!
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One of my former marketing professors at a large, local university recently asked me to help judge upper-level marketing presentations with other area marketing professionals. The small, group presentations were based on either a product introduction or a new marketing plan for a small business facing an issue.
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And I mean that in the most loving way possible. Can you describe what you do without using the word “products?” Can you write a pre-approach letter to get an appointment without ever referring to a specific or a general laundry list of products? Instead of being the advertising equivalent of a Chinese restaurant menu with a long list of “stuff” you can sell, how about you start talking about what solutions you can offer? Here are six of them:
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The scent and sweat and stale-roasted almond stench of a trade show at 3:00 p.m. can be deadly. Greene was trying to get out of the massive hall without being spotted by an enemy … or an ex-girlfriend. Someone came up behind him from a darkened booth. Greene felt something cold and hard press into the small of his back. A gun muzzle?
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It’s that time of year again, you’ve got to buy a gadget for your favorite geek or risk not getting support for another year. This year, we’ve got lots of great gifts for geeks to consider. There are far more than I could cover so I’m only sharing what I’m either using or wishing I was using and why. Please help everyone by carrying on the conversation in the comments and adding the gadget you crave or favor the most.
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Making the leap from $300,000, $400,000 or $500,000 in sales to becoming a multimillion dollar distributor can take some hard reflecting, tough choices and most importantly lots of planning. What it comes down to is this: Are you willing to go outside your comfort zone, pursue major accounts and challenge your sales team to follow suit?
Read MoreOn each and every Thanksgiving, my Father—a simple man, cowboy and alfalfa seed farmer originally from the Montana badlands—upheld his patriarchal honor to begin our feast with a humble short-and-sweet toast. From the time I remember him playing peek-a-boo with me, until the time he played peek-a-boo with his youngest grandchild (my daughter) until his passing 19 years ago, he would proclaim the same, simple wish for all: “May there be more of us next year.”
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