Are you gambling with your time?

Are you a gambler? It seems nowadays that gambling is pervasive in our society. It certainly permeates the sporting world and it has become a major part of everyday life in many states with the influx of the lottery and all the options there.

Personally I am not much of a gambler however I believe that people should have the right to do what they want with their money as long as they are not being duped or mislead into something. How does this all affect us in the promotional products world?

Recently I have become very concerned with the number of salespeople who find themselves being dragged into bidding situations with their clients. My company has over 375 sales reps all across the country, and while we promote the fact that they are as free as any independent contractor or independent business owner to do what they want with their time, we also believe that we have an obligation to help direct them as to the best use of their time. We spend a lot of time, effort and money in the area of education and selling techniques.

This all becomes relevant when time after time salespeople tell me that they got asked to bid on a project for their client. The bid requests state that it is pretty much all about price! Yikes, this is not good! I am not sure, but I think a case could be made that awarding business based solely on price in this industry will lead the client into trouble the majority of the time. Too may things can go wrong when you take into consideration...

• artwork
• product quality
• inventory issues
• in hand dates
  

Probably more troublesome than the whole bid situation is the fact that the sales executive feels like they have no recourse. What can they do? They have to bid the project...right? They have to go through the process. Sometimes it is stated right upfront that the client is getting as many people as possible to bid on the job. What?

We talked recently to a large corporate client who told us that they had been having conference calls with distributors all over the country for more than a week alerting them to an upcoming reverse bid auction and begging with us to participate. They were very open and direct about this and thought that we would be very appreciative to be included. To be blunt about it we we were not! A reverse bid auction...you have to be kidding me!

These are ridiculous. Yeah, this is what I want to do, spend hours and hours of my valuable time trying to find a way to make less and less on an order. Does anyone else see it this way?

As far as I am concerned anyone who is spending a great deal of time bidding on projects with clients that they know, are gambling with their time. Just like the casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City we need to realize that there are more losers than winners. If you are spending time looking for bid opportunities or participating in bids with companies where you do not have an existing solid relationship you are playing an even higher stakes game. Your chances of winning is almost nil!

When I entered the industry over 20 years ago I used to hear the grumbling about the less than professional ad specialty rep who "gave everything away" meaning that they sold at such a low price that they ruined it for the professionals out there who needed to cover overhead and were running a legitimate business. We all said these people would be in and out of the industry before you knew it. I think this was true back then!

Today the same thing is happening, only technology is involved. Salespeople are getting involved in deals where they cannot possibly make any money. Is getting an order from a client where you do not make any money a good thing? While it might stroke the ego, it certainly does not help to pay any bills!

I am not sure how to change this trend of large and medium, and sometimes even small companies going out to bid their promotional products but I do feel strongly that just because everyone else is "jumping off the bridge" does not mean that you have to do the same! Maybe, just maybe if more people reacted this way and said....

"While we understand your process, we have respectfully chosen to not submit a bid at this time due to the fact that our time and creativity is worth more than you are offering."

From the corporate office we have done this and I have to tell you, the feeling you receive is somewhat liberating. Many times the company putting out the bid is dumbfounded that we do not WANT their business. Let me be clear, we may want their business, but not on the terms that they are proposing.

The morale of the story here is that all of us should think long and hard before we risk (gamble with) our time investing in projects that have little or no chance of succeeding and where even if we are the successful we have put ourselves in a position of making little money for the time spent. We would all be much better off investing our time in looking for new clients who value who we are and what we do, clients that do not feel that price is the determining factor on who they award their business to.

Remember there are a lot of things that can go wrong in this business and operating on razor thin profit margins, if any, is risky business! You might as well just run down to the casino and put all of your money on RED. Would any of you do this today?

If so...Good Luck! Remember the casinos were not built on your winnings!