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.