"How I made it in promotional products sales"

By Jen Zorger
Advantages: 2005JUN

Some people get a job through a classified ad, a job board or a head hunter, but others have a more colorful story to tell. To paraphrase the saying, when one door closes, another, often better, one opens. Here, industry salespeople share how they recognized a great opportunity and broke into promotional products.

Few people actually choose a career," says Earle Miller, creative director at Design Studio 606 (asi/179924). "Most are either born into, or fall into, the profession in which they will spend their lives."

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Miller knows what he's talking about. Some industry professionals are born into the business. Many get into it through a friend. Designers, like Miller, seem to find promotional products lucrative vehicles for their art. And then there are those people who seem simply and magically destined to be here.

Artistic Endeavor
Miller got started on a creative path when a grade-school art teacher noticed his talents and moved him into an advanced class. Later, he joined the Navy and worked briefly in two other jobs before following his artistic bent and enrolling in the Maryland School of Art and Design and then the Corcoran Gallery of Art's School of Art and Design. When he began doing freelance graphics, promotional products wove their way into his life.

"Within a few years of graduation, something curious became clear," he remembers. "Having created client projects from newsletters to annual reports, it seemed without fail that, upon delivering the final product, the client would ask that their logo be put on some tangible product. Taking this as a sign, I'd always find these products to satisfy my client. The rest, as they say, is history."

Dina Heidger, president of Brand Central Promotions LLC (asi/145001) had a similar experience. "I was working as the design director and brand manager for an internationally licensed lifestyle brand and was doing freelance design on the side," she says. "My freelance customers kept asking me if I knew a good manufacturing plant for the things I was designing, and when one of my customers asked if I could design a shirt for a promotion to give away 35,000 compressed shirts, I decided it was time to start Brand Central. We got that job and billed her for $345,000 worth of shirts and vent work to execute the promotion!"

Heidger still sees herself more as a designer than a salesperson and relies on her talent and customer service to keep business coming. "My husband laughs, because I do no sales or advertising and am still swamped with business. I am considering slowing it down now to spend more time with my two-year-old twin boys, and I am trying to figure out what scenario will work best for me."

From Fired to On Fire
Some people stumble - happily - into the industry after losing another job. Ron Baellow of Bright Ideas (asi/146026) is an award-winning salesman who's passionate about his calling. When he lost his job, he'd been vice president of sales and marketing for a fire-extinguisher manufacturer that sold through distributors. He had used promotional products in previous jobs and knew someone in the industry, so he thought he'd take a shot at selling them, too.

"One of my employees' sons was in the business in the Washington, DC area," he recalls. "When I was fired - out of the blue - I did what you are supposed to do, which is call everyone you know. In my call to Craig, I asked him to open up a branch in Charlottesville, VA, where I was living. He said, 'I don't need your money - you can start your own business.'"

Baellow talked it over with his wife and she agreed, telling him, "If your success is dependent on your ability to sell, we should do it."

His industry connection gave him about two hours of training. "He gave me a Register, some of his Spectrum catalogs, explained the pricing structure and told me to call him when I had questions," he says. "And call him I did - every day with questions on who to buy this or that from and all types of questions about art and decoration."

The learning process didn't slow him down, though. "In my first year, I did over $600K all by myself. When people meet me and find out about our company and its success, they always want to know about all the different types of companies and industries I researched before I started Bright Ideas. They are amazed when I tell them we just fell into this."

Whether Baellow sensed the potential of the industry or really was just lucky to choose it, his move has clearly worked out for him. Perhaps his passion and talent for selling give him special insight into how promotional products can increase sales for his clients.

Reena Underkofler launched All About Promotions (asi/117006) after a string of job disappointments. "In 1999, two weeks before Christmas, I was laid off from an office manager/bookkeeping job," she says. "I was devastated, and I took my time trying to figure out what I wanted to do." A friend who owned a screen-printing and embroidery shop convinced her it would be fun to join her staff. "After a few short weeks of working there, I realized that she was right."

In fact, she ended up more excited about the business than her friend was. "One day, while I was looking for something in the storage room, I came upon all of these catalogs that contained really cool stuff that could be embellished with a logo," she remembers. "I asked about them and was told that it's too much work and takes away from the focus of the company. I asked if I could sell them myself and I was hesitantly granted permission."

Soon afterwards, the friend had to close her business. The two of them started a new company, but Underkofler found that her friend's lack of enthusiasm held them back. After 10 months, she sold her half of the firm and was out of work again.

"That's when the magic happened," she says. "I didn't have much confidence in my ability to be on my own, but once again, my husband stepped up to the plate. He knew I loved this industry and wanted to be a part of it. He also knew that I was very successful at running businesses, since I had successfully done so for three previous companies."

She started All About Promotions in October of 2001 and sales boomed. "By May of 2003, my husband put in his notice at the company he had worked for as vice president of marketing for 10 years. We now work together, and we love every minute of it."

Underkofler says she always wanted to own a business with her husband and work from home, so they can raise a family together. Selling promotional products also taps into her artistic bent and her fun-loving nature. "I find this industry fun, because promotional products are fun," she says. "People love to give and receive them. I have made lifelong friends with many of my clients, and this business allows me to do one of my favorite things, and that is travel."

You've Got a Friend
A lot of people seem to break into the industry though a friend - but mixing friendship with business can be tricky.

"I started The Ferris Group Inc. (asi/193421) after having a conversation with a friend who was a VP at GlaxoSmithKline," says Eric Ferris, who had been working for an IT recruiting/staffing service at the time. "He told me I would get all the business from his organization, and it was a no-brainer for me to go out on my own, as the financial windfall would be mine and not shared with someone I was working for."

The windfall fell flat, however; GSK had just completed a lengthy bid process for vendors and couldn't add him to their list. Ferris didn't want to go back to his former job and, fortunately, he knew someone already in promotional products - his father-in-law. "We both had the same idea," he says. "He had been in promotional products for 12 years and, during the past four to five years, I had been sending my clients - those I provided staffing services for - to him for their staff shirts, giveaways, etc."

His father-in-law offered to take him on as an independent rep, giving him those accounts as a starting point from which to build a base. Ferris had thought about joining his father in-law's firm in the past but never had a compelling reason to make the move. Now he did.

Within a year in promotional products, he was taking off. "I did this 'apprenticeship' for 2004 and felt comfortable enough to go out on my own and get my own ASI number in December," he says. "It worked out better than I could have expected, and I have enjoyed every minute of it since I decided to take his advice."

Andrea Nutt, owner of Andrea Nutt Promotions (asi/122042), also got interested in the business through friends. She'd left a VP position at an executive recruiting agency when she had her third son and daycare costs got out of hand. Wanting to stay at home, she thought of two friends, one a distributor and one in events planning. "I put two and two together and asked both of them to give me a chance," she says.

The events planner invited her to bid on a large campaign involving promotional products. "I won the business and was successful enough to put together 28 different giveaways for one incentive trip," Nutt says. "It took me five months to complete the project from beginning to end, and the contact at the corporation then began to call me for other business."

In September of last year, she decided she was ready to start her own company. The hard part was breaking the news to her friend/employer. "I spent a whole night worrying over it," she remembers, "but finally I explained that I appreciated her giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, but that I had to move away from the nest so I could look out for my own best interest. She was incredibly gracious and has actually mentored me a little since our split. Her parting comment to me was, 'I knew you would eventually do this, because you get it - I just didn't expect it so soon!'"

Of course, starting a business is by no means easy, but Nutt says her background as an executive recruiter has helped her succeed. "I think one of the reasons this industry is a good fit for me is because I understand the value of assisting my clients in promoting a positive image to their end-users and clients," she says. "Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, having been an executive recruiter, I clearly understand the nuances of attracting and retaining high-quality workforces. As a result, I am, hopefully, able to assist my clients in their efforts to achieve a high degree of satisfaction within their employee base through rewards and incentives as well."

Most significant to her are the personal rewards of her business. "The greatest gift of all was being able to work from home, still be a mom to my kids (now 11, eight and four), being an independent businessperson and, of course, my friends having the faith in me to give me a big break."

Family Affair
Being born into a family with a promotional products business is obviously useful when it comes to getting your foot in the door, but some offspring go through a stage of rebellion.

"I was 14 when I found out there was money to be made in the promotional products industry," says Chad D. Harness, VP of marketing and sales for Tryad Specialties Inc. (asi/347601). "My dad did not want to spend the hand-assembly charge from a supplier to insert pens into a special package that he had created for a client. So he asked me to do the assembly for him and he was going to pay me $50 - when you're 14, that's a lot of money. Well, little did I know the order was for 2,000 of these high-end pens. I not only had to stuff the pens but also a little instruction flyer had to be folded and put inside."

Harness was furious, but he didn't stay mad long, taking on a variety of jobs among the businesses his family owns. "I have worked as a delivery person, run a night shift for our embroidery company, worked in a silkscreen shop and worked for a while in a print shop. My father thought all of these experiences would make me a better promotional product salesperson, and it has really helped me out in today's market. I don't know a lot of my competitors who can say they have worked hands-on with the above aspects of our industry."

At 32, he has never worked outside the family business. "Bottom line, I was bred to do what I do. My wife says I'm a promotional product machine! I just love this industry and would never want to do anything else - not even for more money."

Craig Davidiuk, The Idea Guy (asi/348057), was also born into the business, but he underwent a longer rebellion stage.

"Basically, I was born into sales long ago," he says. "I was in denial for several years because of my distaste for the family business (a lapel pin manufacturer)." His family was based in a small town in Alberta, Canada, and Davidiuk felt he had to get out in the world. "Also, I am a very creative person and didn't see the opportunity to be creative at my parents' company. Wrong. Sales is very creative."
He took a job as a film and television producer but wasn't happy with the money. "It was at this time I realized that being a producer is essentially sales, and all of the services I was providing were related to marketing other people's businesses." In that respect, the job had a lot in common with promotional products consultation and likely helped prepare him for the field.

After two years of running his own video-production company, he began selling for his parents. "Initially, what surprised me is that 99% of the people I called actually listened to me. Then I got a hold of a nice man who was organizing a conference for food inspectors. He felt pins would be the perfect low-cost gift, and he bought some on the spot. It was very validating. It was the first time in my career that I felt like I was actually good at something."

A decade later, he's more confident than ever. "This month I knew I'd made it when my bid for lapel pins was accepted by an Olympic organization. It was the largest sale of my career, and I beat out competitors who had been beating me for years. These are big companies with several million in gross sales, and I leveraged my ability to sell myself and create innovative solutions for the customer."

One Thing Leads to Another
Often, a distributorship grows out of another business. Robert T. Cherry, Jr., vice president of McEwen Cherry (asi/265500), spun his business off his work as a manufacturer's representative in the automotive industry.

"I'd made a lot of contacts with VPs of sales and marketing managers from various manufacturers, as well as having a distributor base of over 600 already in place," he explains. "The relationships were already built. Then, I finally listened to one of my best friends in the promotional products business in Dallas who'd been telling me for five years I needed to capitalize on those relationships."

Starting a separate division within his firm to sell promotional products to his distributors as well as the factories he represented, Cherry drew on his 20-plus years of experience in sales and marketing to help guide his clients' promotional strategies. "I'd seen my factories, as well as their competitors, run hundreds of different promotions - aimed at the distributor, the consumer and trade shows - from apparel to trinkets," he says. "I've seen what has worked and what didn't."

He launched his promotional products division in 2001, and since then it's grown to dominate his business and time. His new field is more enjoyable for him too. "As a factory sales agent, we sold mostly the same products year-in and year-out. It can get very stale. Selling promotional products has invigorated my enthusiasm for sales by constantly giving me something neat and new to go out with and do my dog-and-pony show."

It's not just the variety of products that inspires him, but their nature as gifts. "It's a blast selling these types of products, because I always feel like Santa," Cherry says. "When we walk in to deliver an order to our customers, we're bringing goodies - products the customer doesn't deal with on an everyday basis and something everyone gets excited about. It doesn't ever get mundane."
Gil Levitch's firm, Louisville Display (asi/256050), was also once a completely different business, though it had the same name. "We mostly installed window and interior displays and sometimes even created them," he says.

A friend went into promotional products and wanted Levitch to join him, but he couldn't leave Louisville Display. "I made a deal that if he furnished me with catalogs and samples and taught me how it all worked, I would sell with him and pay him 50% of the profit at the end of each month. He went for that, so we started. My first sample kit had pens, wooden rulers, and flyswatters with a big hole in the middle of them."

The swatter spurred Levitch's imagination - and sales. "The flyswatter was a success because I loved it and my mind went crazy with ideas. Car dealers bought them because it gave their customers a 'sporting chance.' Banks bought them because it gave their loan customers a 'sporting chance.'"

Once Levitch found promotional products and began to make use of his creative side, he couldn't be stopped. After five years, the people who owned his company asked him to become his own distributor. "I found out that I could get the franchised lines I needed - there were a lot of them then - and then, with a letter of credit from my bank for $1 million on signature, Louisville Display really became part of my life, and it still is, 40 years later. I have never forgotten that flyswatter and how much it meant to my beginnings."

Escape From the Rat Race
The entrepreneurial spirit it takes to work in the promotional products field often appeals to people who are frustrated with corporate jobs. When Pat Sugrue, co-proprietor of Creative Marketing Concepts (asi/170736), got his promotional products business off the ground, he was still a project manager with a large Fortune 100 computer/services company. He'd started with his employer right out of high school, had been there for three decades and had survived many changes.

"Working in the corporate world for 31 years was getting old," he says. "I was looking for a business to start prior to leaving. A friend of mine was a plant manager for a large multinational promotional company and suggested I contact them."

He did and started supporting a few small accounts, making sales calls and delivering orders on his lunch break and in the evening. Soon he was selling products from other lines and getting involved with ASI. His decision to leave his day job came during a moment of leisure. "I was on a golf outing in Minnesota with several small business owners and entrepreneurs who had made similar leaps of faith starting companies, and I realized there was an opportunity, but it required hard work, education and patience."

Sugrue retired from his corporate job within a month, and since then has grown his business each year. The creative nature of the industry has even allowed him to incorporate golf into some of his business meetings - and he really enjoys the work he's doing too. "I get great satisfaction from assisting schools, organizations and businesses with their personalized product needs," he says. "It's nice to have a successful and supportive wife too."

Sandra Ilson, an account executive for CorpLogoWare (asi/168827), moved from a corporate sales job to working for a small distributor and later teaming up with a large organization in the industry.
"I was the director of sales and marketing for a resort and used to buy promotional products from a local distributor," she says. "He always used to say I worked too hard for my employer - why not sell promotional products, as I would make more money? This went on for a couple of years, and when a change took place in my career, I decided to take him up on his offer."

She worked for him for several years and then decided she could do better elsewhere. "Last year I joined a national organization with amazing technology, and I'm growing my business and have less stress and more support."

Ilson has a BSBA with a major in marketing and has always worked in sales. She also draws on her experience as an end-user to put herself in her clients' shoes. "I used to buy the products when I was in hotel sales, so I understand the value of providing a useful item that branded my resort," she says. "Branding is a key marketing issue, and famous logos leave a recognizable impression on consumers: Nike, IBM, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, GM - why not help my clients leave a lasting impression through the creative use of logoed merchandise? My mission is to recommend what works and fits their budget."

Her vision is driving her to keep growing. "The challenge of coming from a small distributorship is learning to seek big clients so I can increase the size of my average order. That is taking time, but I'm making great progress."

Simple Serendipity
Perhaps the most fateful story belongs to Mark Fyten, MAS, of Image Builders (asi/230025). Working as a recruiter for DeVry Institutes of Technology in 1995, he was traveling extensively and wanted more time with his family. "One afternoon, I was sitting in my office at home, thinking about my situation," he says, "Since all of my sales background was in advertising, I was contemplating a return to advertising, but I knew I didn't want to go back to work in radio. I knew of Image Builders, since they had a sales rep my area. I also knew that their sales rep was getting on in years and must have been getting close to retiring. After thinking about it for awhile, I decided to just pick up the phone and give them a call."

The phone was answered by a pleasant, live voice. "I asked for the sales manager and was transferred to a woman named 'Barb,'" he recalls. "I gave her a quick listing of my qualifications, told her where I lived and asked her if they were looking for anyone with the skills I had to offer."

There was silence on the other end of the line. For an instant, he thought the woman had hung up, but she regained her voice, and her response revealed she'd been stunned. "I will never forget her exact words: 'It is interesting that you called, since we were just talking about what we were going to do up in Little Falls. Why don't you come down, and we'll talk about it?'"

Fyten got the job. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, Barb began a battle with cancer and passed away. She never discussed their introduction at length, remarking only that he had impeccable timing. But if, somehow, they shared a single psychic moment, he's grateful for it. "One two-minute phone call, and I've loved my job ever since," he says.

What is it he loves about the business? "Having gotten my start in sales in the broadcasting business, my initial sales training was centered around the concept of 'find a need, fill it with an idea and charge what the idea is worth,'" he says. "The neat thing about promotional products is being able to craft tangible ideas that can help businesses. Promotional products are flexible and fun ways to fill needs, and I guess I just like to have fun while I make a living."