Looking for that PEFECT Fit???

One Size Does NOT Fit All!

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I think we all recognize that one size does not fit all! This statement is true in all aspects of our life.


I know I find myself going through my closet looking for that "favorite" pair of jeans. What makes them my favorite? They fit just right?


If you find yourself selling in the promotional products industry today I think you would agree that finding that company that meets your needs the best is just like looking through your closet for those jeans. Some jeans that used to fit just don't do it any more. Maybe they are too losse or too tight but the bottom line is that you just don't feel comfortable so you continue to look around.


At our company we talk to a lot of people who are out there looking for a new home for their promo sales. Can our company offer them the perfect fit? You would probably expect me to say YES, YES, YES.


In reality my answer is I DON"T KNOW!


Why don't I know? The #1 reason is because I know nothing about a prospective hire until we get a cahnce to meet and speak to them. Individuals call us all the time to get information. While I am wide open to telling them virtually everything about our company and how we operate I am aslo respectful of their time so I usually will attempt to ask a few questions about their current situation in an effort to tell them what is probably most important for them to hear. I am amazed at how many people will not open up and tell me much about their siutuation. After all, what am I going to do with information that might include the following...

• annual sales volume
• average gross profit
• years in industry
• fringe benefits

My recommendation to anyone who is out looking to align with someone new is to expect to be asked some questions. If a prosepctive new employer does not ask you a bunch of questions I would beware. This is a huge red flag!


By asking questions and answering questions I have found that it is pretty easy to find out if there "might" be a fit. I say "might" because I think the second step is that you should go to visit the company offices to meet their entire team. Do they have a team? Maybe, maybe not.


You owe it to yourself to really check out any prospective employer. There are only a few decisions that might be more important in your life (maybe a spouse or a new home) than this one so take your time and do your homework!


If anyone says that they are a fit for you, and they have not asked you a bunch of questions, I really question their authenticity. How do they know? At our company the last thing, and I mean the last thing, that we want is to have someone join us and be surprised three months down the road that we don't do something that they thought we did. or maybe they find that their biggest customer is one of our biggest customers...OOPS...what do we do now?


So if you are looking or know someone who might be looking for a new home for their business please feel free to check us out but you need to know that you will get the straight scoop. We pass on many opportunities because it is not the right fit. We will be 100 % honest, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it does not benefit us to have a salesperson with us who is not happy!


Honesty truely is the best policy!

Trust and Respect - Is anything more important today?

Are there two more important words in our industry today? Think about it!

Can you work with or for people that you do not trust?

Can you work with or for people that you do not respect?

Let me change the question to ask "Do you work with and for people that you trust?" How about respect?

If the answer to either of these is no, then I feel very sorry for you!

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I see two things happen regularly in this industry that just boggles my mind. The first involves salespeople who will use vendors that they do not know to place orders for their best clients in order to save a nickel. Why on earth would you do this? In this day and age clients should be treated as gold. Would you leave your children with strangers in order to get that long needed night out on the town with your husband or wife? I hope not so why, why, why would you take a chance placing an order with a vendor that you do not know.

At the risk of alienating the people and the organizations that hold industry trade shows I have to say that at our company we are looking to consolidate or reduce our list of vendors. Sending our salespeople to shows with the objective of finding a twelfth headwear vendor is not very smart in our book. Of course if you and/or your organization recognizes that you have gaps in your vendor list where you do not have that reliable go to source for say, stainless steel mugs, that is another story.

Adding to our list of way too many vendors is NOT something that we want to do especially in this age of product safety and quality concerns. Selecting a supplier who can save me a little bit of money by taking shortcuts on quality is not an option! My mindset is that I cannot and will not play "russion roulette" with my customer's brand! I also will not jeopardize the relationship that I have with my buyers, those people that I worked so hard to gain their trust and loyalty. I refuse to potentially throw it all away to save a nickel or a dime. I believe that this is aprt of the value that we are bringing to our clients, the fact that they trust us in return for us using our experience and our industry knowledge to source prodcuts from trusted, tried and true manufacturers where we have a track record of success.

Doing this does not always assure that there will be no errors. I am not that nieive as I have been around the block (some would say more than a few times). What it does mean however is that the chances are better than good that they will produce a quality product with a great imprint and deliver it where it is supposed to go on time! After all isn't this what your customer expects from you! If a customer's sole focus is too save a nickel I would make the case that you are just renting them and that they will not be with you for very long.

At our company we work very hard to vette all of our suppliers. Get to know them inside and out. Check them out with the industry's credit sources. Check them out with Dun and Bradstreet. We ask some of our friendly competitors if they have used these vendors and if they have proven reliable. I would stress that this is only recommended if you trust and respect the people that you ask for a reference. Ask the supplier for references!

Does everyone do this?

My second pet peeve involves industry salespeople who need a new home for their customers for one reason or another. Perhaps you have been working for yourself running your own distributorship and you come to the realization that it is time to step back and simplify your life. Maybe you want to slow down and "smell the roses". Another scenario that comes into play is where you have been working for someone else and the rules of engagement keep changing (and not for the better, if you know what I mean) or you finally realize that they are not providing you what you really need to grow your business.

Way too many people in this industry are wooed by the high splits or the slick ads and email campaigns. One recent add that I looked at compares waht some distributors pay as a percentage of profit and compares it to their royalty percentage that is apercentage of the total sales price. Is this honest advertising? I think not as it is meant to deceive people! The sad fact is that it works in many cases! Why does it work?

In my opinion it works because some people spend more time comparing prices in the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon than they do comparing distributor firms that they are considering to work with for the rest of their lives. Huh? That makes no sense! Would you buy a house with out going to look at? Would you make a major purchase of something like a new car without taking it for a test drive? I hope not.

If you have ever switched companies in this industry then you probably know everything is not the way it seems. You owe it to yourself to go visit companies to see and experience their culture. You need to talk to other salespeople that are in the filed in similar positions and of similar size as you are. You need to talk to suppliers that deal with the company. You need to do some homework to see how long they have been in business. I suggest pulling a credit report. This can be very revealing.

Ask to see a copy of their contract or agreement. If there is any hesitancy on the part of a firm to provide you with this at the very beginning of the discussion I see red flags and lots of them. Why would they hesitate to supply this? After all this is one of the most important decisions of your life? If someone holds back on that, what else might they hold back on? H-m-m-m!

Ask to speak to salespeople that have worked for the comapny more than 6 months. I see regualr cases of firms promoting saslespeople who joined their respective companies a few months ago. This isn't all bad but I would want to talk to salespeople who have been working for the company for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years and more. Oh the firm hasn't been around that long...they have only been in business for three years. H-m-m-m!

You owe it to yourself to do your due diligence. There are alot of good sild reputable distributors where you can hang your shingle for years to come. There are many differnt models to choose from. Some pay more than others but offer less support. Some offer a ton of support and marketing but pay less in terms of commissions. Some, like our company, offer employee status with group health and dental insurance as well as a 401 k plan while most do not. Of course this is not needed or desired by every one so we have options where you can be independent and get a higher split percentage.

Doing your homework on the front end can go along way to assuring that you find a fit that will serve you well long into the future.

Do not rush your decision! It is absolutely imperative that you trust and respect the people that you work with and for if you are to be successful. Working with a company that has a culture and philosophy that aligns with your own is the "secret sauce" to a successful recipe for long term happiness.

At Vernon we strongly urge qualified candidates come to our home offices for visit to meet our team. I am an open book, personally, and I am very straight forward with them that one of my major resposnibilities is to hire good quality salespeople who will fir in with our culture. Not everyone will fit in!

I also let them know that by coming to our corproate campus they will get to meet the support staff, those people that will be helping them day in and day out to make their clients happy. They can spend time talking to these folks one on one alone to get the "real scoop" on waht makes our organization tick. This is our first step in earning the trust and respect of our sales team members.

I let prospective candidates know that even if they come and visit our corporate offices prior to making a decision and they uncover something that makes them realize that The Vernon Company is NOT for them, it has been a successful trip from our perspective. Why would I say that? Because at the end of the day we have over three hundred salespeople who work with us as team members who want to be here. They work with us because we take care of their needs. We are not perfect but we are darn good at providing them with that combination of compensation, benefits, tools and services that they need in order to be their best!

We do not want people working with us that are "stuck" due to a non-compete contract, or a contract with penalties for early termination. Trust and respect is earned and it is a two way street. We trsut and respect our salespeople and we think they trust and respect us. Actually we know that they trust and respect us but don't take our word for it! Talk to them!

At our company these two simple words...TRUST and RESPECT... are more important than ever before!

Are they at your company?

Promo Products: A Career or A Hobby?

Without a doubt promotional products are my career and they have been this way for the last twenty-three years. What really irks me, not only with some in my own company but also with many, many others in the industry is that there are many salespeople who are part-timers or "hobbyists" to use a term from my friend, David Woods of AIA.

I am all for people keeping busy however I wish they wouldn't do it in our industry. Do people still collect stamps or coins? How about building model airplanes? Maybe not, since sniffing the glue has been determined to be dangerous.

In an industry that is faced with many challenges when you consider legislative challenges and product safety concerns, salesperson education and training are very important. Will the "hobbyists" do what it takes to rise to the challenges that the industry faces? I think the answer is a very clear N-O.

So what is the solution? I think, if we look down the road, we can see a day when product knowledge will become more important in this industry than ever before. Knowing and understanding the supply channels will be a must for salespeople!

The case where a salesperson meets a vendor at a trade show who has a table and two chairs and displays some product professing that he or she can get it cheaper and faster than the other guy will become a thing of the past. It will be a given that a salesperson know where the product and is coming from and that is compliant with all of the required safety regualtions in place at the time. Some of the larger distributors like Vernon will continue to do well because they are and will continue to invest in the realtionships with the solid industry vendors who are doing the "right" thing when it comes to product safety. They are not taking shortcuts!

Our company is promoting the suppliers who are building a track record of producing "safe and reliable" products. Working with a company who is watching out for not only your client's best interests, but yours as well, will become more important in the year's ahead.

Small distributors will have a real hard time understanding and building the infrastructure to keep up. The "hobbyists" should begin to go away as clients demand more in terms of product and supply channel information from their reps. The part timers or uneducated salesperson who say "huh, what do you mean?" will be left by the wayside and quite frankly they should!

Again, as always, this is just my opinion but I think all the signs are there that this will be the future. Where do you stand? How much do you know? What do you understand?

There is help out there with our organization PPAI. I recommend to anyone who wants to learn more that they go to ppai.org and check out the section on product safety. In addition to this subject there is so much more that is avaialble for those individuals who want to better themselves so that they are positioned to succeed today and tomorrow.

I hope that includes you! I know that I have a lot to learn. The day we stop learning is the day that we..................

Well I think most of you know the answer.

What was I talking about….

They say that we live in a “sound bite” age and I could not agree more with this statement. I spend a good deal of time in my current role talking to account executives around the country about what they should focus on to be more successful. In addition there are some times when I really focus on what I need to do to help Vernon be more successful as a company. This all sounds great but then it comes time to put these words in to action….and I can’t remember what I was talking about.

Does this ever happen to you? How do we keep our attention span on one subject so that we can actually accomplish our goals? This is a good question. This morning on my 45 minute commute to the office I proceeded to jot down all the thoughts going through my head. Oh my, what a busy place it is between my ears this morning. You will see what I mean as I list out my random thoughts.

• Why don’t salespeople make more cold calls today?
• Do teenagers ever actually talk on the telephone?
• Why can’t I delegate more things to the people that I work with?
• What do our salespeople offer that cannot be purchased on line? Service, creativity, experience, etc.
• Why doesn’t every salesperson with Vernon sell at least 20 calendar orders per year?
• Do people believe that you have to invest in yourself?
• The Vernon website is fantastic!
• Do negative people realize that they are negative?
• How many of us knew growing up that we wanted to be in the promotional products industry? Chris, Rick, Cameron and Stephanie…your opinions don’t count here!
• At what age can you say what you want and not worry about what others think?
• Why don’t more salespeople recognize what Vernon offers and sign up with us? We are good people…aren’t we?
• Why do salespeople not take advantage of every preferred and accommodation supplier that offers spec samples?
• When do teenagers realize that they do not know everything?
• If salespeople sold the way politicians campaign, no one would ever sell anything and we would all be out of work. Just my opinion…sorry but I am tired of the negative campaigning.
• Is your glass half full or half empty?

OK, now I am pulling into my parking spot at work so I need to shut off the mind and go in and actually get something done. I actually thought about more things but some of them were not appropriate to write down and share.

I think you all get the point here and it is not that Dave is a raving lunatic that needs help. That may be a subject for a different day. My message here is that I recognize that it is extremely difficult to stay focused on the task at hand, no matter what the task is.

Being a successful salesperson in today’s workplace requires discipline on the personal and professional level. An individual must be goal driven and they must be organized. They must have the attention span to list out their goals and to design a game plan on how they will hit their goals.

They need to be able to recognize if they are on track or off track at any given point in time. If they veer off track, and this happens to all of us, they must do what it takes to get back on track and headed in the right direction. They must be willing to learn from others. They must be open to new ideas. They must understand that “my way is not the only way”.

I struggle every day to have my list of things to do (I am a list person). Some days I have a list of lists. I have to prioritize every day. Sometimes priorities change from day to day depending on the circumstances. I have to remember what I am trying to accomplish? What is my end goal? There have been times when I am analyzing numbers when I have forgotten what I was looking to do. This is not good! I need to get back on track.

Think about this as you approach your work today? Is there a plan? Are you all over the place as I was on my ride in this morning? Can you take a few minutes to really think through things? Do you have list? Are you organized?

Only if you take the time necessary to get everything in place do you have a chance to maximize your productivity. I strongly urge each and every one of you to begin your day with some reflection of the day’s goals. It is also a good practice to end it the same way looking back at what you got accomplished and what is on your list for the next morning. Go to bed at night. Get up in the morning and look at the list again. Is it still applicable? It is amazing some times what a good night’s rest will do for your ability to prioritize and plan.

Today my glass is half full! I have a plan. I know what I want to do and I know how I am going to do it! It WILL be a successful day!

I hope your day is successful. Good luck! You have the control.

Truth in Advertising - Does it still exist?

One of the major responsibilities that I have with my organization involves advertising. Our goal is to let people know about The Vernon Company. Yes it involves recruiting but more importantly it involves disseminating information about who we are and who we are not. We go to great lengths to try to dispel misconceptions about our organization.

The ultimate goal is to encourage an individual or a company that is looking at making a change down the road to engage us in conversation. Let's get together and talk. We can talk about what is important to you and what is important to us. We can establish what you need and then compare that to what we offer to see if there might be a match. We can examine the culture of our organization to see if there is a philosophical fit. We are very proud of the messages that we put out there and we are confident that we can stand behind any claims that we make. Can all advertisers make this claim? Heck no!

I am getting more and more peeved at the claims I see in ads from some major companies. When we sit down to discuss ad concepts we are very quick to say that we really do not want to use words like best, most and only. We are honest enough to know that we do not know all there is to know about all the distributors in this industry.

We offer the BEST Service!

We pay the MOST commissions!

We are the ONLY company to do....(insert your claim here)

Recently I have viewed some ads by Top 40 distributors with blatantly false claims. Does anyone who takes their money ask for proof that their claims are real? I think not as the almighty dollar carries an awful lot of weight.

A recent ad placed by an Ohio based company features a pie chart showing a "traditional" distributor and the fact that they are paid 50 % of the profit while it lays out an example of their organization paying 91 % of the profit to the rep owner. This is a perfect example of mixing apples and oranges because in reality their representation of the "traditional" distributor is accurate (in my opinion) while they fail to mention that they pay the rep owner 91 % of the gross sales revenue, NOT 91 % of the profit! Some of you might say this is NO BIG DEAL but the reality in this example is that they would pay 75 % of the profit to the owner if the order has 36 % gross profit percentage and less if the the GP % was lower. If the order was sold at 20 % they would pay the rep owner 55 % of the profit NOT 91 %! Some people can't handle the TRUTH!

Another company ad (from another Ohio based firm) makes the claim, actually several of them, that they are the ONLY company to do several things. They protect against bad debt and product liability. Nobody else does this, they claim! Really...I don't think this is true! But there is no "fact checker" in this industry. It has to be YOU!

A third company from the great state of Texas finds a way to spin everything in their favor while we hear from many of their reps that they cannot handle some of the most basic functions of the business like processing orders in a timely manner. H-m-m-m? It appears to me in this instance that even the lies are bigger in Texas. This same company is very proud to announce to their world that they have raised another round of venture capital to run their business. This is the third or fourth time. Shouldn't the company be able to survive on its own profits by now? This would be like me announcing to the world that I managed to find another company to give me a credit card or that my current credit company has increased my credit limit. Great news...I have more debt or I owe people more! This doesn't seem to be a good thing to me, but what do I know?

So where does the truth fit in with all these companies? I am not sure! The reality is that they all need to sleep at night. My interest and concern enters into this discussion as we attempt to tell people who we are and how we operate.

To some this may sound like sour grapes and while I understand that, my real intent here is to encourage all advertisers to advertise with integrity. We are very direct when talking to potential candidates looking to learn more about Vernon to be honest and forthcoming. Misleading or hiding information from them that will eventually come out two to three months down the road does no one any good. If presenting the facts in a straight forward manner causes a prospect to decide that Vernon is not for them we are OK with that. We only succeed if the salesperson or business owner who aligns with us succeeds! Having someone on board with us who feels like they were duped, lied to, or misled does nothing positive for our organization.

So if you are reading this what do you do? My suggestion is to do your due diligence up front! You are talking about a career choice. You can not afford to make mistakes because you acted too quickly or it seemed too good to be true. We all know the old adage that if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is! Talk to other reps from the organization. Talk to your supplier friends about the company. Pull a D & B report on the company to see their financial rating. Ask to see their financial reports. Ask to see any contracts or agreements that they might have in place. Find out how you can get out if things do not work out the way you thought. Is there an exit strategy?

Think about what you need and what the company offers.

Everyone loves money ....right? However at the end of the day what you might need is sales support.

Everyone wants to own their own business...right? Really? I am not sure because with ownership comes more responsibility and more pressure and more sleepless nights. In good times certainly a case can be made that ownership means more money but during tough, lean times it can mean more debt, more uncertainty, less sleep and more anxiety medication.

So do your homework! Don't rush into anything. Investigate and compare organizations. Go to meet them. I don't know how a significant producer in this business can make a decision to join a company (even if it is our organization) without going to visit. At Vernon we encourage people to come visit. We will cover the costs for anyone who is seriously considering a change. Even if the visit shows them something that causes them to pass on our organization it is better than them joining and both parties investing a good deal of time in a transition only to part ways three months down the road. We want people to join us for the right reasons. We want people to align with us for the long term! Immediate gratification...sure there is some of that when you make a decision to change but we want to be a home for our sales executives for a long, long time!

We welcome your questions. In fact we encourage them! We hope that you ask lots of questions because there are a lot of loose claims out there in the industry, and you owe it to yourself to work for a company that is honest and ethical first and foremost. Often that begins with the claims that they make in print!

OK, I feel better that I got this off my chest. I should be okay now at least until I open another industry magazine and read that "Company ABC was the first to invent the internet" and that "they are the ONLY company to pay 105 % of the profit in commissions".

I know that we all want to believe that everyone has your best interests at heart but no one should be more concerned about you than you!

Do you have a minute?

As I sit here on a Friday afternoon I am pondering the question above...Do you have minute? I think the most common answer is "sure I have minute" but in reality the answer is "no I do not!".

I find that I am getting more calls from people offering me services that I may or may not need but I really don't even have the time to listen to what they are talking about. Does anyone else out there know what I mean?

They say we live in a sound bit age and boy ain't that the truth. I cannot sit to watch a movie because they are too long. I have trouble with 30 minute television shows because when the commercial comes on I switch to another station and start watching something else.

How does one sell in this environment? Am I the only one that thinks like this?

I have found that being short and to the point has its advantages. Be respectful of people's time! When you note this in a conversation most people will either thank you for understanding that there time is valuable or they will tell you that they are okay and they have an hour.

Usine the muliple media channels is another way to go. Combining face to face calls, with emails and phone calls and electronic presentations go along way. Allowing your prospect to view your message on their terms and in their time frame makes perfect sense.

How about using videos?

In less than a few minutes you can get your message out and make your point. Suppliers are using videos to pitch their products. Distributors are using videos to train their salespeople.

We use You Tube as an avenue to answer questions for both our existing salespeople as well as people on the outside looking to find out more.

You Tube offers the viewer the option of watching videos when they have the time. If you find something that you really like you can click to subscribe to the channel so that you are alerted to any new videos that come out.

So when you think of people out there and whether or not they have a minute to spare, the right approach might be to assume that they do not and use videos to prepare and present your message.

Viewers can save and view the message later. You can resend it at a later time to make sure the viewer did not miss it the first time around.

And with today's technologies you can purchase a video flip phone and begin shooting today.

Your videos can be up and running in a matter of minutes and it will not cost you a boat load of money!

Think about this when you have an extra minute!