Preferred Suppliers? Spare Me!

Seriously, someone needs to take a long hard look at the term "preferred suppliers" and what it really means to their business. The operative word, for those of you who are not yet onto your third can of morning Red Bull, is PREFERRED, but sadly, the meaning of this word seems to have become somewhat diluted in recent years. In some other cases, the meaning has been forgotten altogether. But fear not my loyal readers and get your mind trampolines ready for me to bounce some wisdom on you.

Like all of you, I too have preferences - I prefer Diet Coke to the regular stuff, I prefer running in the evenings to waking up at 5am and I prefer McDonalds to Burger King.

But let's look at some other preferences in my life. I used to prefer Ready Brek to Shreddies. I used to prefer Rentaghost to Grange Hill and most of all, I used to prefer using mousse to hair gel.

The point is that preferences change - OK, the last one really was out of my hands (and out of my head too), but that's all they were - they were preferences. Something worked for me - I liked it and it served its purpose well. However, if I had not opened myself up to the possibility of something better being out there then imagine how limited my knowledge of the world would be. By trying new things I learned that Ready Brek was NEVER going to make me have an orange glow, that Timothy Claypole was quite possibly one of the most poorly played characters on TV and that baldness is sexy. It is - I checked.

So why is it that when people tell me that they have a "preferred supplier" that what they actually mean is that they have an "exclusive contract"? I'll tell you why - it's because in most cases, they don't have that. What sensible, forward thinking business locks itself into a relationship with only one supplier? Exactly - they don't.

What's more, have these people ever thought to ask what it is they actually do prefer about their suppliers? Is it price? Could it be product range or quality of service? If it is price, how likely is it that your preferred supplier will lower his or her costs to beat off the competition when they're blisfully aware that the competition is not even being given the chance to quote?

And don't even get me started on complaceny. OK - I've started anyway. All too often I meet with companies who tell me that their current suppliers don't offer them anything creative; they merely top up their clients' stock when it's running low. Again, how hard do they really need to work when their competitors are being shown the door.

Is this all just a plea for more business? Well of course it is! When have you ever known me to be subtle? All I ask of you is this - the next time you're about to tell a new potential partner that you have a preferred supplier, ask yourself these three important questions:

1. What is it that I prefer about my suppliers?
2. What would it take from a new supplier to impress me enough to try them?
3. Have I checked with Paul Rose already?

See? It doesn't take long and you may just then take the first steps towards a new and beautiful relationship.

Have a great week in business and please tell your friends and colleagues about this blog - every time someone emails me to tell me that they're reading I get a little boost to take me through my day, so feel free to share the love!

My three favourite words...."Tell me more"

And you thought they were going to be "Here's my order" or "We pay cash". What sort of a mercenary sales person do you take me for? Actually, don't answer that, the truth would only hurt us both in the end.

So why are "tell me more" my three favourite words? It's simply because that's the response that every marketeer should be looking to elicit from their new biggest client, and there's no reason why a piece of promotional merchandise shouldn't do the same thing.

Let's take an example. You go up to a trade show stand and some monkey in a polo shirt tells you why his or her company is great, hands you some literature and, just because you seem like a nice person, gives you a free pen. Your elation lasts even less time than it takes an average Australian to whinge about how we're kicking their arse at The Olympics. Did the polo monkey make a sale? Maybe....maybe not.

Now let's move on to the next stand. This time the company rep tells you about his or her company, hands you some literature and then hands you a calculator and tells you that it runs entirely on tap water. At this stage, your curiousity kicks in and you say the magic words, "Tell me more" and that rep gets to engage you in a conversation. They're not talking about their company or trying to make a sale, they're simply building a rapport with a new prospective client.

And so that same client goes home that night and empties his bag of goodies onto the living room floor to decide which goes in the bin, which he gives to his kids and which go back to the office with a follow up call. Now which pile do you think the water powered calculator is going in?

I was once asked how important I thought promotional merchandise was and I realised that it's really not important at all. Some cool giveaway presented just for the hell of it is a waste of time and money. No sale has ever been won or lost because the winning team gave a pen away with their presentation. The winning team established a rapport with their client - they went the extra mile and they engaged that client in conversations outside of the sale. All of that can start by giving them something more intriguing and more likely to bring about those three magic words....."Tell me more".


Just to be clear, the calculator that runs on tap water is not some random thing I plucked from my brain after a heavy night on the cough syrup. This entire blog was inspired by the fact that a simple meeting with a client became one of the most interesting conversations I have had all year, right after I presented them with the product.

So take a look at the merchandise that you've bought this year. What are you excited about? What was different and special? Did any of it open a door that was previously only left ajar for you? If your answer to that last question is "no" then we really need to talk. If you answered "yes" then I hope that it was me who supplied the gift in question and if not, how do we fix that for next time?

To remind you, a special promotion for the next couple of weeks where you WILL - not CAN but WILL receive a free digital photo frame with built in MP3 player for orders over £1000 in value (or 200 water powered calculators if you prefer). Have a good week.

There's no such thing as a dumb idea

OK, scratch that - there are literally millions of bad ideas out there. In fact, by the time you got to the end of that first sentence, someone you know will have had one - hey, it may well have even been you.

When you find yourself in a creative environment such as the one we have here at Merchandise Mania, you're often treated to a nugget of pure genius - an idea so incredibly "left of field" that you'd think it would have come from the mind of Stephen Hawking after a heavy night on Vodka, Red Bull and class A narcotics.

An example? As I write this my colleague has been asked to come up with ideas for a Moroccan themed evening. Now when we get given a brief here we brainstorm and I am proud to say that the newest member of our team came up with an idea of pure gold. Are you ready? I hope you're sitting down........

Cous Cous shaped stress toys! No, you're not dreaming this, this actually happened and the resulting laughter in the office has lifted the mood for the rest of the day. Let's be fair, if you want cous cous shaped stress toys you need two ingredients - a stress ball (round will do but if you can't find that at your local supermarket then any shape will suffice) and a cheese grater. Apply the ball to the grater and repeat until you have enough cous cous to accompany a mid sized chicken shish.

OK, enough messing around - is there really a point to all of this? Well I'm delighted that after only 3 entries you think that I need to be making a point. What happened next was that the resultant laughter was so loud that other people wanted to know what the joke was. We shared it and within 10 minutes my colleague (the one who got the brief in the first place) had a list of relevant and less than ridiculous ideas to present to her client.

Be fair, there are plenty of very successful products out there that began as crazy ideas. At some point in history, some TV executive thought it would be great to fit a bunch of social misfits in a house and film every little petty discussion that came up. They called it Parliament TV and it didn't do too badly.

Some people go for weird combinations as a good idea. A few weeks ago I saw Marmite Guinness in the shops. Right, so some bright spark thought "People like Marmite...people like Guinness....hold on a second!" NO NO and thrice NO! I like curry and I love cheesecake but I can assure you that a Sara Lee Tikka Cheesecake is never going to make it into my fridge.

Like any progressive company, Merchandise Mania is a melting pot of ideas, most good, some bad and some which get written down in a very special book which we refer to whenever we need an emotional boost. The real beauty comes in realising how much we love what we do here. As I've said before, I'm fine with providing pens and mugs and mousemats to people if that's what they want, but I'd much rather wake up in the morning and wonder what crazy idea is going to pop into my brain that day.

Sometimes we don't even need a brief. Right now we're sitting on loads of great products which would be right for you so the next time you get an email from us with the subject "I saw this and thought of you", we really did think of you. Open it, take a look - if you don't find it relevant it will have cost you twenty seconds. If you don't open it at all, it may well cost you thousands of pounds in lost potential revenue.

So this week, a challenge - not for you but for me. Let me know where you are struggling; where your creative juices have temporarily dried up, and let me and my team help you. I promise you we'll come up with something memorable together and at the very least, you'll have a fun story to share with your colleagues.

Have a good week.

For more stress toy recipes log on to www.tastystresstoys.com/areyoumental?

Above and below the line marketing - what's the difference?

Before I started in this industry, the terms "above the line" and "below the line" marketing were unknown to me. To the outsider, allow me to explain - Above the line marketing is the stuff one usually thinks about when they hear the word "marketing"; it's your print, radio, television and so on. Below the line is everything else.

It saddens me to think that everything my company does is below this famous line. Who drew this line? Where does he live? Could I take him in a bare knuckle fist fight or at least an intense game of Buckeroo?

If you do something - anything in fact that gets your company's name into the minds of your customers then it's marketing - pure and simple.

The trouble is that there are some huge companies out there who don't seem to know the difference. Dozens of times every day I will call a company who straight away tell me that they don't have a budget for marketing and yet I will have taken their phone number from an advert in a national paper which will have set them back several thousand pounds! Untargetted, unimaginitive and with a lifespan of one day - there are moths that have lasted longer than these people's marketing efforts and so in an attempt to spend wisely, they repeat the very same advert a week later - genius!

Why are these smart marketeers so ready to dismiss promotional merchandise as a viable way to generate more business? Now don't get me wrong - giving away a random pen to some passer by at a trade show is about as useful as a bacon sandwich in a synagogue. People throw money at advertising because it's the done thing, but that doesn't necessarily make it the right thing.

But it's not all pens and mousemats. These things certainly have their place but there are over a million other ideas out there. People are happy to spend so much money and yet so little time on their marketing and the costs can be huge. I pride myself on giving good advice - sometimes a pen is the right way to go, but I need to ask a lot more questions before I arrive at that conclusion. I'm not trying to make a sale here (although I have no objection to your buying from me) but I am trying to make sure that you get the best advice.

The person working at the newspaper advert office only wants to know the size of advert you want to buy and on what date you want it printed. He doesn't care about your business because he doesn't need to - and yet you form a strategic alliance with this person?

So let's dispense with this concept of what I do being "below the line" - I know that my clients have had great responses to the merchandise that they have given out. It's lead to more business and more long standing relationships between them and their customers. When was the last time a newspaper advert did that?

And so it is that I draw a new line - and all marketing, from the multi million pound TV campaigns to the humblest ballpoint pen will be above it. Now that's out of the way, can we talk about your marketing?

Can one blog truly make a difference?

And so it begins...... I enjoy sharing my thoughts with so many of you on the telephone that I thought it was about time that I put them in print, so to speak.

Each week I'll be posting what I think is exciting in the world of promotional merchandise - new advances in printing technology, new products, you name it, it will be here.

I'll also be sharing stories that I hope will serve as a learning experience for us all - failing that, they'll just be a really good laugh.

If you have a topic that you'd like me to comment on, please just let me know. My creative juices run best on a Tuesday morning between 3.15 and 3.17am - which is why I usually miss them entirely!

I promise to try to entertain and to educate. If I don't, then you are certainly within your legal rights to stop reading, or call in the authorities to take me away to a small institution to have small electrodes attached to my more intimate areas. I think The Priory is closest to us here - Amy Winehouse's ambulances make it there in about 10 minutes.

So here we go...stay tuned and let's have some fun.