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Wednesday
April 7, 2010 Green is Good: The Green Catalog is HereFiled under: Community, Industry Initiatives, News About ASI “Going green” can mean a lot of different things, from buying organic produce at your local supermarket to overhauling your company so it’s as energy efficient as possible. “Green” is such a hot concept, 4 in 5 small to medium size businesses now offer some sort of green products or services. Here at ASI, during the month the world celebrates Earth Day, we’re issuing our 2010 edition of The Green Catalog, which consistently sells out, year after year. These days, environmentally-conscious buyers want green products that are useful – and clever – and this catalog really delivers. Inside, you’ll discover more than 120 eco-friendly items, ranging from seed packets to products made from fast-growing and renewable bamboo (it grows up to 4 feet a day!). Flip through and you’ll find pencils made from recycled tires, water-powered clocks, stapleless staplers and even watches powered by a mercury-free battery. Want to reach a music loving audience? Try the seeded music download cards. Download your tunes – then plant the card in the ground and watch it grow. A price index in the back of the catalog makes it easy to choose products to match any client budget. Products are also grouped by easy-to-use categories, including food and drink, outdoors, trade shows, bags and briefcases, clocks and watches, office, sports, travel, and home. The book ships free from now until April 15, and a free digital version comes with the print purchase. The front of each copy can be imprinted in full color with the distributor’s logo and contact information, and ASI offers this feature year-round. And in further response to the ever-growing demand for eco-friendly products, ASI now features a pavilion at our five super-regional trade shows dedicated to showcasing only green products. To order The Green Catalog online and to see sample pages, click here. The catalog – circulation 135,000 – has already sold over 100,000 copies, so don’t wait too long to order yours. And let me know what green products are working for you by posting a comment or emailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Monday
March 29, 2010 ASI Heads Back to VegasFiled under: ASI Shows, Industry Initiatives, News About ASI ASI is shaking up Las Vegas this September with a newly-announced Holiday Preview trade show at the Sands Expo Center. We tweaked a previous show in response to requests from suppliers and distributors who wanted a more intimate format. The show takes place Monday and Tuesday, September 13-14, and presents a terrific networking forum to learn what’s new for the holiday selling season. In addition, we’ll offer several educational and networking opportunities, including the acclaimed “New Distributor Success Track” for newbies, an “Exhibitor Presents” session for select exhibitors to present their hot new products for 2010, tabletop exhibits and a closing networking reception. The Vegas show is similar to our very successful Advantages Roadshow — our traveling tabletop show — and the format provides a platform for exhibitors to meet on a personal level with prospects and clients. Distributors may register now for the ASI Holiday Preview at asishow.com. Suppliers interested in exhibiting at the ASI Holiday Preview should contact Karen DiTomasso, vice president of sales, at 800-546-3300 or at kditomasso@asicentral.com. It’s never too soon to start thinking about the holiday selling season so let me know your thoughts by posting a comment or emailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Monday
March 29, 2010 Sign Up Now for the ASI Women’s SummitFiled under: ASI Shows, Guest Blog, News About ASI We’ve been busy, with our recent virtual trade show and the launch of the new ESP Web and ESP Orders – hopefully you were “at” the show. I want to let you know we’ve got more up our sleeves, including a new event in the works – the ASI Women’s Summit. It’s happening at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City, on Tuesday, May 4, during the ASI Show New York. This exclusive action-packed afternoon will provide an environment for women to network and share ideas with women leaders, peers and executives in the advertising specialty industry. We’ll have a networking reception with beverages and hors d’oeuvres, and a luncheon keynote by Barbara Corcoran. Barbara parlayed a $1,000 loan into a $5 billion real estate business, and she now runs one of the most successful real estate firms in New York City. The lunch will be followed by coffee and dessert with promotional products industry expert, Rosalie Marcus, The Promo Biz CoachTM. Rosalie will lead an interactive discussion about how women in our industry can leverage their strengths to build their businesses. There’s much more, and you’re sure to leave this Summit with new ideas you can immediately apply at your company in the second half of the year. Register by this Wednesday, March 31, and the cost of the event is only $149; after that it’s $249. To register and to learn more, click here. I look forward to seeing you in New York! -Dana Dana Reaume is education coordinator for ASI – reach her at dreaume@asicentral.com.
Monday
March 22, 2010 Let the Revolution Begin: ESP Web and ESP Orders DebutFiled under: Industry Initiatives, Member Benefits, News About ASI Tomorrow, one of the most ambitious efforts we’ve ever undertaken becomes reality when we start rolling out the new ESP Web and ESP Orders during our first virtual trade show of 2010. If you haven’t seen what ESP Web and ESP Orders will do to revolutionize how distributors and suppliers interact, watch the video here. The roll-out is the culmination of more than a year’s worth of work on the next generation of ESP and a new product, called ESP Orders. From the start, we put you – our members – front and center, and we reviewed thousands of your comments to develop revolutionary new services that satisfy your business needs. We also relied on a number of beta testers, like Bobby Lehew, director of operations for Robyn Promo (asi/309656), who took the new services out for a test drive and provided feedback. His conclusion? “ESP Web is simple sophistication at its best. I submitted a project to a client within minutes of using it for the first time. I have the freedom to access ESP Web from anywhere and it lets me concentrate on my clients and their needs.” This next generation of ESP is now browser-based, meaning it will run in Explorer, Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome. ESP Orders, brand-new, will allow distributors to easily transfer information from ESP into a sales order and then into standard purchase orders that can be sent to suppliers with the click of one button. The data will be easily integrated into ASI Computer’s ProfitMaker, QuickBooks or your own enterprise financial system. No one has to rekey data, and this is a huge time-saver everyone will love. It sounds simple, but getting this right required an entirely new approach to ESP – figuring out how to provide a true web-based platform, preserve the functionality users depend on every day and reduce inefficiencies between distributors and suppliers. ESP Web and ESP Orders will start rolling out to segments of ESP users during the virtual trade show taking place live from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. EDT tomorrow, Tuesday, March 23. A graduated rollout will continue throughout the spring. Training videos covering major new features of the services will be available on the log-in screen of ESP Web. Demonstrations of ESP Web and ESP Orders will continue in the training room at the ASI booth and in select “power session” rooms at all upcoming super regional ASI Shows, including ASI New York and ASI Chicago. I’d love to know what you think so please, kick the tires and take it for a spin if you can. Then post a comment or email me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Friday
March 19, 2010 ASI Named a “Best Places to Work”Filed under: Community, News About ASI There’s no doubt tough times cause businesses to ask a great deal of employees. So it was especially gratifying to me that so many of our employees recently voted ASI one of the region’s “Best Places to Work.” Greater Philadelphia Media sponsored a contest to recognize top employers, based on employee nominations. Altogether, more than 100 local companies received nominations. In the end, ASI was nominated in nine categories and won the “Best Places to Work” award among companies with more than 200 employees. This week, our human resources department (pictured, along with me and ASI vice chairman Matthew Cohn) picked up the award and enjoyed a celebratory luncheon. We all share this award with Carol Albright, our SVP of HR, her team and everyone who works here. When employees talk about why they like working at ASI, they usually mention benefits like our on-site day care, training classes and wellness program, which rewards participants for things like going to the gym and stopping smoking. And four times a year, we recognize individual employees or teams for outstanding efforts and accomplishments. Not surprisingly, a lot of companies are cutting back on such programs, thinking it’s a way to save some money. But, as a recent story in ASI’s Successful Promotions magazine shows, companies are wise to continuously reinvigorate their incentive and recognition programs to keep loyal employees. ASI’s Counselor magazine also has “best places to work” competitions – for the promotional products industry – and you learn what past winners have done correctly in their profiles here. Let me know what your company does for its employees by posting a comment or emailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Thursday
March 18, 2010 Register Now for 2010’s First Virtual Trade ShowFiled under: ASI Shows, Industry Initiatives, News About ASI This Tuesday, we launch our first virtual trade show of 2010. It’s free for distributors – and there’s still time to register by clicking here. The show, taking place from 10 a.m-3 p.m. EST, features virtual show booths, multimedia demos, digital catalogs, online sample requests, a complete passport program and more than $17,000 in prizes. The event has already attracted more than 20 top suppliers, including the Magnet Group (asi/68507), PrimeLine (asi/79530) and Snugz USA (asi/88060). Enjoy online ASI Education sessions while networking and selling in real-time through interactive multimedia booths. During the show, we’ll also launch the much-anticipated, revolutionary new ESP Web and ESP Orders services. ESP Web and ESP Orders will start rolling out to segments of ESP users Tuesday and a graduated rollout will continue throughout April. We held two virtual trade shows in 2009, and based on feedback, both qualified as successes. The shows are an ideal way for distributors and suppliers to connect, learn and sell without even leaving the office. At a time when we all could use innovative methods to be more efficient, these shows are perfect for reaching new prospects, grabbing market share and getting educated. A virtual show doesn’t replace face-to-face meetings you get at national shows (ASI New York is around the corner in May), but for some sales staff who can’t travel, virtual shows present prime selling opportunities. Even if you can’t attend Tuesday’s show, you’ll be able to access it on demand once it’s posted online. In addition, ASI will host three additional virtual trade shows on April 28, June 16 and September 22. Let me know your experiences with virtual trade shows by posting a comment or emailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Wednesday
March 17, 2010 The Secret to Success: Do What You LoveFiled under: Community, Members, News About ASI In a recent radio interview, I was asked about my early goals and how they helped me realize my dreams. In short, I live by a pretty simple guiding rule: do what you love.
As I told radio show host Herb Cohen, my family was on food stamps when I was young. But, that never stopped me from pursuing ambitious goals. After college, I left the great Midwest for New York City, starting out as a national copyreader for Dow Jones News Service – and ending up president and chief executive of Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive. Under my management, Dow Jones was one of the first companies to provide business information to corporate desktops over the Internet. Today, I head a company that’s equally ambitious and forward-thinking. Here at ASI, digital products now make up 70% of our service lineup, up from 20% just a few short years ago. Our emphasis on cutting-edge technology – and an investment in the people who drive that technology – sets ASI apart and keeps us finely attuned to business today and the future. In a real sense, I’m still following the same dream I had as a kid: doing what I love. You can hear what I had to say about our industry during the Executive Leaders Radio interview, a weekly roundtable with executives and CEOs, live this Friday from 8-9 a.m., on WWDB Radio. Just click here to listen to the live stream of the show during that hour. Let me know your secrets to success by posting a comment or emailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. |
