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Thursday
December 22, 2011 Happy Holidays from ASIFiled under: Community, News About ASI As everyone gets ready to head home for the holidays – or at least leave the office for a couple of days – I want to wish each of you my very best. Despite the economic uncertainties here, there and everywhere, I was heartened this week to read about the so-called Layaway Angels, the mostly anonymous strangers who are paying off layaway balances for people struggling to make their final payments in time to put those presents under the tree. To date, these angels have paid off about $420,000 worth of toys and clothes in big box stores all over the country – without expecting so much as a “thank you.” I don’t know about you, but when I read about generosity like that, it makes my heart swell to three times its size, just like the Grinch’s in the classic cartoon. Everyone celebrates this time of year in different ways. Here at ASI, employees knocked themselves out with Ugly Sweater and cubicle decorating contests. And you can’t walk two feet without finding a big tin of delicious cookies just waiting to sweeten your day. More important, employees opened their wallets and donated a record amount during our annual Adopt-A-Family drive, money that went toward gifts for 53 area children and 16 parents receiving assistance from our local homeless shelter. Throughout the company, you’ll also see gifts and greetings from numerous ASI members – some so creative and so classy they really knock your socks off. The myriad of ways companies find to proudly display their logos always serves to remind me just how imaginative this industry truly is. Like many of you, ASI held its annual holiday party last week, choosing to celebrate with a Western roundup theme. That meant lots of Texas-sized cowboy hats, checkered shirts, spiked lemonade – and even mechanical bull rides. No, I didn’t dare climb aboard myself – but plenty of employees did. We captured a few of the rides on video, so if you’re in need of a laugh as you hustle to finish out the week, click here, here, here and here. Enjoy!
Monday
December 12, 2011 Marching Toward Success with ASIFiled under: Community, Industry Initiatives, Member Benefits, Members, News About ASI ASI’s ongoing commitment to advanced technology is moving two giant steps forward with the launch of two new initiatives: ASI SmartSales for distributors and ASI SalesPro for suppliers. Designed specifically for this industry – in cooperation with tech giant Oracle – ASI SmartSales and ASI SalesPro represent the next generation of sales tools for industry professionals. We spent a year on R&D, and millions of dollars, to ensure our members possess the most technologically advanced sales arsenal available. Now, it’s your time. Using ASI SmartSales, distributors will have a complete contact and lead management system to help them close more business and provide accurate forecasting. Every individual salesperson in an organization will be able to easily send out personalized e-mail campaigns with tracking and analytics. Managers will be able to track the sales pipeline and forecasts. But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what user Lisa Marks, president of On Your Marks, had to say: “Organizing customer contact information is key to a profitable distributorship. SmartSales is helping me organize my marketing and my time for the first time in many years. The fact that it’s cloud-based means our entire team has access day or night. I’ve looked for a perfect solution to help me manage all our communication for a long time, and this is the best. I’m so grateful to ASI for teaming up with Oracle to provide this very powerful, cost-effective tool.” ASI SalesPro offers suppliers a sophisticated sales tool dedicated to sales management, marketing campaigns and revenue-generating capabilities. With SalesPro, every single salesperson becomes a marketing machine, with the added bonus of superior tracking and analytics. The plug-and-play business platforms integrate Oracle’s cloud-based technologies with the appropriate ASI products to create a unique, highly secure platform consisting of a hybrid implementation of cloud and locally hosted software and databases. Distributors with ESP who are interested in ASI SmartSales should e-mail asismartsales@asicentral.com or click here (Password: Own The Customer). Members who want to sign up for ESP and ASI SmartSales should call their ASI account executive at 800-546-1350. Suppliers interested in subscribing to ASI SalesPro should e-mail salespro@asicentral.com or call 800-546-1226. For a video demo, click here. These new tools are intelligent, powerful, efficient – and easy to use, since we build everything at ASI with one person in mind: you. If you have any questions, please call your sales rep today. And let me know what you think by posting a comment or e-mailing me here.
Tuesday
December 6, 2011 The Future is MobileFiled under: ASI Shows, News About ASI, Using Ad Specialties Digital power player Randi Zuckerberg shared a ton of business-building advice with us on ASI Radio this week, but since we’re about to launch ESP Mobile, I was most excited by her enthusiasm for the future of mobile. “More and more companies are creating beautiful experiences on mobile devices, on tablets,” Zuckerberg, former director of market development for Facebook, told our listening audience in advance of her upcoming keynote at the ASI show in New York City. “They’re bridging all those experiences – watching content on TV and having incredible mobile experiences simultaneously,” she said. “We’re on the tip of the iceberg with mobile, and I’m really excited to see where we go.” Zuckerberg, who’s launching R to Z Media to help companies take advantage of social media, said she advises people to “provide a product so useful people want to use it around the clock, like e-mail. Focus on building a brand, rather than on being hip or cool.” What great advice! Somehow I didn’t expect someone cool enough to sing in a cover band called Feedbomb to be so grounded. With her 7-month-old babbling happily in the background, Zuckerberg joked to the radio crew about her son making his very first appearance on ASI Radio – all the while dishing out advice on branding and connecting with clients in cyberspace. Zuckerberg will share a lot more of that advice May 10 during her keynote on Social Change Through Social Media: How the Web is Changing the Way We Live, Vote, Organize and Work. To register for the show and hear her speech, click here. On creating a ubiquitous brand, Zuckerberg advised our audience to avoid getting caught in a bubble. “Anyone developing a global brand needs to really get out there and talk to people who are using your products,” she said. Social media is a great way to catch the attention of a potential client or business partner. Open a dialogue by posting or tweeting articles about them or their campaigns and encourage friends and followers to re-circulate. “People are really suckers for flattery, and social media is great in that regard,” she said. “When you’re on social media, be sure to really respond to people and have a conversation – don’t make it a one-way communication.” Zuckerberg, who’s responsible for the successful launch of Facebook’s U.S. election and international politics strategy and Facebook Live’s streaming coverage of the presidential inauguration, gives a lot of credit to her “rock-star” teams. “It’s really important to have a culture where people truly believe great ideas can come from anywhere,” she said. “You’ll be much more effective at creating something truly groundbreaking if you can empower people on the team to be experts. And to come up with really interesting challenges and solutions.” To listen to the interview in its entirety, click here. I’d love to know what you liked best about the interview, so post a comment or e-mail me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Tuesday
November 15, 2011 Power on to 2012Filed under: Members, News About ASI, Research We spent three great days in California at the 2011 Power Summit – braving surprisingly chilly weather – debating, networking and strategizing with a diverse assemblage of about 250 industry leaders and aspiring leaders. For photos, videos and news of the Counselor Power 50, click here. During the summit, we heard from experts like John Hamm, an executive coach and author of “Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills for the Practice of Great Leadership.” My main takeaway from John was this: Be honest – with your employees and with your customers. The Power Summit is always a whirlwind of ideas, discussions and debates. For me, three main themes emerged from this year’s gathering. The first is focus. Focus on your business and refocus your efforts as we barrel toward the end of 2011 and into 2012. The second theme is technology. Power your business with the latest technology and increase efficiency and your bottom line. The third theme is talent – recruiting it and developing an even deeper bench. And once you’ve built that team, don’t forget to bring them into as many discussions as possible. You’d be amazed at the great ideas that surface from brainstorming sessions. One of the highlights of the summit was the release of ASI’s latest research study, “Defining the Disconnect: An Analysis of Channel Beliefs vs. Customer Needs in the Advertising Specialty Industry.” This is the very first industry study to tell suppliers and distributors straight out if they’re delivering products end-users really want. If you haven’t already, I urge you to read it in its entirety by clicking here. Circulate it to as many industry friends as possible. The next ASI Power Summit will be at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort in Naples, Florida, November 11-13. It’s never too early to register. For more on the 2011 summit, please check out my Tim’s Take videos by clicking here and here. If you attended, I’d love to know your thoughts. Post a comment or e-mail me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Thursday
November 10, 2011 The Industry RespondsFiled under: Community, Media Coverage, Members, News About ASI I received immediate feedback to my letter to members concerning President Obama’s call for cuts in federal government spending on ad specialties. I appreciate everyone who responded and applaud your passion – no matter where you stand on this particular issue. The executive order titled “Promoting Efficient Spending” was posted Wednesday and made me feel less anxious about its overall impact on our industry. Section 7, Extraneous Promotional Items, reads: “Agencies should limit the purchase of promotional items (e.g., plaques, clothing, and commemorative items), in particular where they are not cost-effective.” Can we live with that? Many of you who wrote think we should, for the overall good of the country. Others think Obama’s stance is anti-business and that his views on economic recovery are misguided. One point I’d like to stress is that ASI is not partisan in any way. As an organization, we advocate on behalf of this industry – and not for or against any particular politician or political party. Below is a sampling of some of your comments – with names removed. They represent what many of you are thinking:
There have also been a number of articles written about this issue, including one that ran on the Politico blog, which quoted me. As it turns out, even Politico was unable to find any agencies that have paperweights, stress balls or coffee mugs. In addition, I also spoke to a Washington Post reporter on the issue and was happy to continue to hammer home the cost-effectiveness of ad specialties – and how using them often actually saves the government money when compared to other forms of advertising. That’s a point all of us should be making – no matter which color state we live in. To read the Washington Post article, click here. Stay tuned for more as this issue continues to develop. And keep writing, by posting a comment or e-mailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Wednesday
November 9, 2011 Obama Attacks Fed Promo Product SpendFiled under: Community, News About ASI As you may have already seen, President Obama has announced a mandate to cut 20% from federal agency spending on “plaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items.” The cuts are designed to trim the government’s “wasteful spending.” We are undertaking an aggressive PR campaign to immediately educate the media and others to help the general public, as well as political leaders, understand the importance of our industry: job creation, promotional products’ incredible ROI and why our industry’s output and value shouldn’t be called “wasteful spending.” We’re calling on everyone to reach out to their senators and congressmen – they need to hear from each of us, collectively and individually. I am sending a letter directly to President Obama. Below are talking points you might consider in a letter to the editor of your local paper and to your senator or your representative.
You can find your senators here. Click here to find and write your U.S. representative. We’ll provide additional information and guidance in coming days as we continue to learn more and evaluate ways to effectively respond. Let me know what action you’re taking and if you have any other suggestions by posting a comment or e-mailing me here.
Wednesday
November 9, 2011 What Do End-Users Really Want?Filed under: Industry Initiatives, News About ASI, Research, Using Ad Specialties This week, ASI released its latest study, which addresses the key question, “Are you delivering what end-users really want?” The answer may surprise you. In the first industry study to tell suppliers and distributors if they’re delivering the right products, ASI documents the discrepancies in attitudes and opinions between buyers, sellers and end-users of the products fueling our $17 billion industry. “Defining the Disconnect: An Analysis of Channel Beliefs vs. Customer Needs in the Advertising Specialty Industry” lays out a plain case for paying attention to customers’ wants and needs. At the same time, it points the way to new selling opportunities. Significant findings of the study show:
For a downloadable PDF of the study, click here. I suggest reading it in its entirety – and letting its findings help you improve the way you think about your products. It may help you boost your bottom line. To read our press release, click here. I encourage you to share the results any way you can: tweet about it, post the link on Facebook, email it to everyone in your company. The study — authored by our executive director of research, Larry Basinait — compares opinions about ad specialty preferences and usage patterns from suppliers through to end-users. The study also examines overall opinions about ad specialties as well as specific product types: shirts, caps/headwear, bags/totes, writing instruments, mugs/glasses, desk/office/business accessories and calendars. Some key study takeaways include:
Please let me know what you think by posting a comment or e-mailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. |
