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.