In this episode of The Joe Show, ASI's Managing Editor Joe Haley shows off some great items for clients looking to do outdoor marketing in the winter. Know marketers looking to connect with the ski set? Want some product ideas for cold-weather resorts? Check out this video. Subscribe now to our YouTube videos.

Wonderful Winter Promotions
With a month of autumn remaining, smart promotional products distributors are doing their part to fire up creative cold-weather campaigns. Keep in mind, some like it hot.

Case in point: A recent winter self-promotion campaign got far from a frosty reception for Bert Brander, vice president of Sim & Brander (asi/327000). He found that looking on the sunny side could turn cold-weather promotions on their head and get his clients’ attention in a big way. To get them thinking warm thoughts about his company, Brander sent 25 clients a “summer pack” in the dead of winter.

Each client received a canvas tote bag embroidered with the Sim & Brander logo, stuffed with a beach towel, branded lip balm and sunblock – and a mailer trumpeting that there were “only 126 days left” before summer arrived.

“People loved it,” says Brander. “The embroidery business really picked up after that – we even got an order for 800 polo shirts from one of our clients, which was unusual in the winter.”

Of Trees and Treasures
Of course, traditional campaigns also work, and the numerous events taking place around the holiday season provide ad specialty salespeople excellent opportunities related to wintertime festivals and celebrations.

Sam Kinsinger, owner of K Design Marketing (asi/238254), helped trim one of the biggest trees there is: the United States Capitol’s Christmas tree. Every year a different state is selected to provide a tree for the West Front of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. This year it’s Wyoming, but two years ago it was Kinsinger’s home state of Montana. Coordinated through a team that included the Montana Forest Service, local business leaders and nonprofit organizations, the state was charged with providing the tree for the event and helping run a promotional campaign to celebrate Montana’s selection and its natural resources.

Kinsinger served as marketing chair, creating not only the logo for the campaign, but a range of products featuring the Capitol Christmas Tree logo, including 5,000 glass ball ornaments, several hundred 16-oz. coffee mugs, and 2,500 lapel pins in the shape of Montana featuring the slogan, “Sharing Montana’s Treasures.” “It was a huge campaign – we spent two years on it, with $200,000 to $300,000 in revenue spent,” he says.

The Capitol Christmas Tree effort included a tree-cutting ceremony (where the turnout was so huge that people had to be turned away) and tour stops with the tree throughout Montana before it made its way to Washington D.C., where it was displayed for an entire month. The promotional products were sold or given away at every stop, so individuals could have a keepsake to remember the honor.

“Our biggest hit of all was a bookmark,” Kinsinger says. “We gave away about 6,000 of them. The glass ornaments were flying off the shelves – people just liked the look of them.”

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Voted on by hundreds of ad specialty distributors, ASI's publication for industry suppliers, Supplier Global Resource, announced its first-ever Sales Rep of the Year: Brad White, vice president of sales at AddVenture Products Inc. Watch an exclusive interview in which Brad discusses his sales strategies. Subscribe now to our YouTube videos.

Increase Your Profits in 2011
Boosting margins – even the tiniest bit – can be a herculean task. Just ask any distributor who has tried to raise prices recently, as clients have tried to do anything they can to ensure they pay less for goods than they used to.

“People get so crazy and the customer wants more value, so that translates to cutting prices,” says Paul Scivetti, chief idea officer of Synergen Inc. (asi/397417), a distributorship based in Dassel, MN.

Indeed, clients will still be looking for values – yes, also known as lower prices in many cases – but, as our experts point out, pushing margins higher is certainly possible. Here are four strategies for boosting profits.

Step 1: Negotiate Better Terms
“I still believe in, ‘Don’t ask, don’t get,’” says Brad Akers, president of Tip-Top Branding (asi/344851), a distributor based in Chicago. Distributors should ask suppliers if they’ll extend special pricing on certain occasions such as high-volume orders, he says. Even 5% can make a substantial margin difference.

Of course, suppliers will be more apt to cut distributors a break if they can guarantee a certain level of business, early payment terms or other carrots, says Shaun Smith, managing director of Leadas Business Advisors, a business consultancy in New York. When Akers asked a supplier recently to “tighten up a bit” on an order of 10,000 T-shirts, the supplier offered Tip-Top a pricing discount. “If 20 other factories carry the same items, typically you’re more apt to get them to price match or come down a bit,” Akers says.

In fact, distributors like Akers, while espousing the virtues of service, don’t think relationships – in this price-conscious market – drive business decisions about price cuts as much as the need for orders in a tight market. When it comes to bargaining for free spec samples, rebates, reaction time or other requests, he says, “If a supplier wants the business, people will get very aggressive whether they know you or don’t.” That fact, he says, can give distributors a leg up on boosting order margins.

Step 2: Get More Strategic With Sales
Identify which customers are more profitable than others, says Jonathan Byrnes, president of Lexington, MA-based business consultancy Jonathan Byrnes & Co., and the author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink: Why 40 Percent of Your Business is Unprofitable and How to Fix It. Then he suggests distributors color code clients or otherwise break them down into categories from best to worst. “You could do something like red, yellow and green charts for each customer on how profitable they are,” he says.

For example, greens might be fine, the yellows might need more sales attention and the reds might represent cases of customers – potentially lucrative – whose accounts need serious attention. Then distributors should direct sellers to focus their attention accordingly, so that they can target accounts that have the most potential to not only turnaround, but also provide the best margins, Byrnes says. The key, he says, is not to give salespeople too many demands at once. Just one thing to fix on a few key accounts is plenty.

“The first thing people think of is, ‘How can I fire 40% of my customers,’” Byrnes says. “But that’s the wrong thing to think about, because the most important thing is to take those good customers and make sure you never lose them, because your competitors will be going right after them.”

Step 3: Outwit Bad Buyers
Sure, the 80/20 rule – where 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients – applies to almost any distributor, but firing bad customers indiscriminately is a dangerous move, says Bruce Bachenheimer, clinical professor of management at Pace University in New York. For years, experts have suggested small-business owners dump the deadweight. Instead, Bachenheimer says, keep the marginal clients – you never know when a small order or difficult customer might pay off handsomely down the road – but make them turn their drain on your company into a potential profit center.

For example, Bachenheimer says, when electronics retailer Best Buy noticed certain types of shoppers would buy a TV to watch the Super Bowl and return it the next day, the money it cost to service the returns and restock those items was a drain on its profits. So it started charging a restocking fee to discourage customers who had no intention of keeping the products they bought. Distributors might consider imposing fees, for example, for clients that repeatedly demand multiple samples, art proofs, shipping returns and other profit-reducing services.

Step 4: Stop Competing on Price
Cutting prices sets “a lousy precedent,” says Scivetti, and forces distributors to “race to zero margins.” He adds that running a distributorship on 2% margins as some do isn’t sustainable. Instead, he says, Synergen competes by providing more service than its competitors.

When a recent client’s business-card order was printed with the wrong finish, for example, Synergen not only paid for replacement cards, but doubled the client’s order at no cost. By not reducing the price along the way, the profits allowed Scivetti to cover that kind of mistake. “When you run a business on 2% margins, you can’t do that,” he says.

Top Trends of 2011
The best apparel salespeople know the rule: The design on the shirt isn’t the literal message their clients want to convey. There exists a deeper, unspoken message. And by culling together quality products, hot trends and effective decoration, it creates a brand reputation that goes beyond a mere company name. So in gathering next year’s crop of hot trends – an intriguing mixture of yesteryear revivals and subtle fashion sensibilities – we noticed that more than ever, it’s the message behind the message that really counts. Accordingly, we’ve deciphered the unspoken qualities that mark the leading trends in 2011. After all, apparel is worth a thousand unsaid words.

1. Full skirts. Sex sells, but in the promotional world, miniskirts can be a tough bargain. Full skirts, however, offer timeless elegance for just about any wearer. Extreme hemlines are getting their day in the sun once again, and full skirts are leading the way by offering a unique silhouette in today’s jeans-and-shorts world. Look for flowy, high-waisted options that are fitted at the hips and flare out to the bottom. Be sure to pair them with a more form-fitting, traditional shirt to pull off the retro vibe and play with the contrast in cuts.

2. Fur and feather trimmings. Apparel went wild this fall and will still be on the prowl in 2011. First it was leopard prints, spotted on everything from bags to shoes to tops. Now, fur and feather trimmings rule the roost, the latter adding a touch of “Old Hollywood glamour,” according to Lucky magazine. Obviously real fur and feathers work, though you might catch the ire of PETA for it. Opt for the faux alternative, which offers all of the functionality and none of the hassle. Whether it’s trimming the hood of a jacket, accenting a hat or catching the eye as a unique piece of neckwear, fur and feathers will continue to flock together.

3. Heritage brands. Yearning for better days? Nostalgia is rising as a powerful force in apparel, offering classic sensibilities with a “those were the days” mentality. Apparel companies with a strong sense of history and deep collections are rummaging through their storage bins and bringing back key pieces. Dickies Occupational Wear (asi/49675), for example, is offering vintage replicas of its long-sleeve work shirt and cuffed khakis from 1922. Woolrich (asi/98192) still carries its signature flannel buffalo shirt, which has been worn by outdoor enthusiasts for over a century and a half. Any client who deploys these garments embodies a simple but profound message: We’ve been around for a while, and we’re not going anywhere.

4. Subtle decoration. All-over prints are still popular. But after the Ed Hardy look – gaudy foils, ornate flourishes and bold prints – reached critical mass, fashion sensibilities have begun to push back and embrace a more understated form of decoration. Subtle is the word, propagated through techniques like laser etching (which uses a laser to burn off the top layer on polyester items, creating a logo) or tone-on-tone embroidery. “It’s not over-the-top or too flashy. It’s tonal and subtle, yet interesting,” says Lauren Cocco, merchandiser and decoration specialist for Vantage Apparel (asi/93390). The left chest is still a prominent location, but sleeve cuffs and back yokes are also perfect places for a distinct, but understated, logo.

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