Counselor Magazine March 2012 : Page 36

Letters ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. counselor h FEBRUARY 2012 2011 WWW .COU N S E L OR MA G.COM $10.00 TH E V OI CE OF TH E I N D U STRY B lueprint THE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO SOLVING A BUSINESS CHALLENGE www.counselorMAG.coM Combating Price-Cutters publisher, execuTive vice presiDenT Best of the Best 54 Categories + 40 Winners The Supplier Of The Year 1 Supplier Of The Year Hot Markets Target Market Education & Automotive 2011 COUNSELOR 2012 COUNSELOR Distributor Choice Awards Distributor Choice Awards the Four steps to help you maintain your margins and beat competitors that are too willing to cut prices. a way to do something more cost-effective than I BY SHANE DALE hat do you do have?” Landis says. “Are they buying their product when a local cheaper? Do they have less cost in their structure, competitor their overhead, their delivery? Have they found decides to slash some way to be more efﬁcient?” On the other hand, you may learn that the com-its prices across is hurting itself in the long run with these the board? Marilyn Landis, president petitor price decreases. Determining the impact of lower and CEO of Basic Business Con-prices to your competition’s business can give you cepts Inc., says it’s important not to insights into how to approach pricing yourself. “Are they buying an inferior product? Is that how push the panic button. “You can’t they’re getting better pricing? They may look the just automatically cut price,” she same, but are you really selling the same product as says. “You may determine that you they are?” Landis says. “There’s been a lot of that could afford to cut price and survive, in the promotional business: It looks as good, but you use the pen three times and it’s not any good, so but then you have to determine: then it’s a matter of competing against the quality What’s the long-term gain for that?” of the product they’re selling. Maybe you’re going Richard Fairfield, MASI, rfairfield@asicentral.com eDiTor in chieF, senior vice presiDenT W Melinda Ligos, MASI, mligos@asicentral.com eDiTor Andy Cohen, acohen@asicentral.com Managing eDiTors Joan Chaykin, jchaykin@asicentral.com Joe Haley, jhaley@asicentral.com senior eDiTor SPY ON COMPETITORS. A Indeed, many distributors are coming up against competitors these days that are more willing to cut their prices in order to get customers to sign on the dotted line. Call it a function of an economy that many feel is stuck in neutral. Or, perhaps it’s a business decision on the part of these companies to reduce their proﬁtability in an effort to gain cus-tomers. It could even be the natural effect of online sellers reducing price points on promotional prod-ucts and others in the market following suit. Whatever the reasons, distributors are increas-ingly facing competitors that are marketing with lower price points. Here are four steps for success-fully combating your price-cutting competition and maintaining your own proﬁt margins. to be able to sell customers on the beneﬁts of the better-quality product.” That kind of background information can help you talk to customers in a more educated manner. They may tell you they’re looking for lower prices, but if they know that the quality of the products will be sacriﬁced at those price points, then maybe they’d reconsider. Michele Bell, mbell@asicentral.com senior wriTers STEP 2 Have Honest Conversations With Clients Dave Lakhani, president of Bold Approach and author of Power of an Hour, advises having an in-per-son conversation with your customers who may be thinking about jumping ship to a lower-cost provider. “Ask them what they are really trying to accom-plish by saving money,” he says. “You may be able to help them better estimate how much product they’ll actually consume, or you may be able to ﬁnd a similar-quality product for less money. If money is all they’re concerned about, the highest quality www.counselormag.com JANUARY 2012 Betsy Cummings, bcummings2368@nyc.rr.com Dave Vagnoni, dvagnoni@asicentral.com awarDs eDiTor Average Service Not Good Enough Anymore Plugged In 10 Ways To Proﬁt Reboot 18 Elite Electronic Now From Non-Proﬁts Improve Items Your Website Hire Power Tax Changes 8 Unhappy Steps To Finding Meals 3 New Beneﬁts A Top Toys CSR Promo Face Hefty Fine for 2011 LITTLE COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE TO FIND OUT WHY THEY’RE LOWERING PRICES CAN HELP YOU COMBAT THEIR STRATEGIES WITH CUSTOMERS. STEP 1 Scout The Competition “First of all, when your competitors dramatically drop prices, one fair question business owners need to ask themselves is: Have they ﬁgured out Karen Akers, kakers@asicentral.com sTaFF wriTer 65 C. J. Mittica, cmittica@asicentral.com copy eDiTor Patricia Cangelosi Many Thanks The following letter is in response to Hub Pen being named as the Supplier of the Year within the Counselor Distributor Choice Awards, which was covered in the February issue. As a supplier to the advertising specialty industry for so many years, it had always been a dream of ours at Hub Pen to be voted a top supplier in the Counselor Distributor Choice Awards. I’m not sure those dreams ever aspired to being named supplier of the year, though. That is an honor we could not have imagined. The distributors who are part of the ASI organization have always been big supporters of Hub Pen, and we wish to express our gratitude to them. We would not be where we are without all those nice people who we work with on a day-to-day basis in the industry. We are equally honored to be chosen as the top pen supplier by the distribu-tors. We appreciate that you all value the quality we strive to bring you, and all the hard work that goes into getting our pens to your customers. We have an amazing team here, and all the credit goes to them. Thank you so much for your support. Joe Fleming Hub Pen Co. (asi/61966) 36 MArcH 2012 To cut or not To cut? The following letters were sent in response to the January issue Blueprint section that provided distributors with ways to combat competitors that are cutting prices. Is it unrealistic to think that I’ll never have the kind of conversation with my customers that your article points out? I just can’t imagine one of my clients say-ing something to me about a competitor offering lower prices and that they want to pay less. Sure, everybody wants to pay less. But I work closely with my custom-ers on clearly-thought-out campaigns. I guess if I had a customer who just called me out of the blue and wanted to order 1,000 pens, then they’d be looking for a low price. But I don’t want that cus-tomer. My client relationships are built on planning campaigns together and my company fulfilling them better than expected. Price is never an issue. Jody Green Green Promotions I’ve come up against this exact situation with some of my clients recently tell-ing me they’re seeing products online for cheaper than what I’m charging. It’s been difficult, but I’ve been able to keep these clients by giving a little on price and stressing to them the lack of service eDiTorial inTern Sara Lavenduski creaTive DirecTor Jim Lang senior Designers Hillary Haught, Pierre Schnog Designer Diane Pizzuto phoTographer Mark Pricskett eDiTorial assisTanT Carole Seymour, cseymour@asicentral.com execuTive DirecTor proDucTion Haitham Barakat execuTive DirecTor auDience DevelopMenT & analysis Debra Brill eDiTorial aDvisory boarD DisTribuTors Jo-an Lantz, Geiger Robert Ross, Chamberlain Marketing Group Marc Simon, Halo/Lee Wayne David Woods, AIA Corporation suppliers Carol Constantino, Noteworthy Co. Brandon Mackay, SnugZ/USA Inc. Lon McGowan, iClick Promos Inc. Tom Riordan, Maple Ridge Farms Inc. . All Rights Reserved ©2012, Advertising Specialty Institute® counselor enVIronMenTAl sTATeMenT. By using eco-friendly paper, counselor has saved the valuable resources below per year. TREES 335 ENERGY 232mil. BTU WATER 122,054 gallons GREENHOUSE SOLID WASTE GASES 20,195 37,232 pounds lbs of CO2 environmental impact estimate were made using the environmental Defense calculator. For more information visit www.papercalculator.org *Please recycle this magazine. www.counselormag.com

Letters

Many Thanks The following letter is in response to Hub Pen being named as the Supplier of the Year within the Counselor Distributor Choice Awards, which was covered in the February issue. As a supplier to the advertising specialty industry for so many years, it had always been a dream of ours at Hub Pen to be voted a top supplier in the Counselor Distributor Choice Awards. I’m not sure those dreams ever aspired to being named supplier of the year, though. That is an honor we could not have imagined. The distributors who are part of the ASI organization have always been big supporters of Hub Pen, and we wish to express our gratitude to them. We would not be where we are without all those nice people who we work with on a day-to-day basis in the industry. We are equally honored to be chosen as the top pen supplier by the distributors. We appreciate that you all value the quality we strive to bring you, and all the hard work that goes into getting our pens to your customers. We have an amazing team here, and all the credit goes to them. Thank you so much for your support. Joe Fleming Hub Pen Co. (asi/61966) To cut or not To cut? The following letters were sent in response to the January issue Blueprint section that provided distributors with ways to combat competitors that are cutting prices. Is it unrealistic to think that I’ll never have the kind of conversation with my customers that your article points out? I just can’t imagine one of my clients saying something to me about a competitor offering lower prices and that they want to pay less. Sure, everybody wants to pay less. But I work closely with my customers on clearly-thought-out campaigns. I guess if I had a customer who just called me out of the blue and wanted to order 1,000 pens, then they’d be looking for a low price. But I don’t want that customer. My client relationships are built on planning campaigns together and my company fulfilling them better than expected. Price is never an issue. Jody Green Green Promotions I’ve come up against this exact situation with some of my clients recently telling me they’re seeing products online for cheaper than what I’m charging. It’s been difficult, but I’ve been able to keep these clients by giving a little on price and stressing to them the lack of service That online providers tend to offer. In fact, one of my customers ordered from a website and then was frustrated when they couldn’t change the delivery date after the order had been placed. They came back to me for their next order, saying that they needed the comfort of knowing I’d be available for them if something went wrong. It seems like a small thing, but clients had better know exactly what they’re doing when they order the cheapest possible products. It usually hurts them in the end. Jeffrey Klein Smart Marketing & Promotions Thanks for the tips provided in this article. I never like to give in on price when I’m negotiating a contract with a client, but it does happen, of course. The advice about getting something in return when you do meet a price demand is great. I’m going to try to get more paid upfront, or at least try to get a guarantee of future business, the next time I cut my price at all. At least it gives my company something in return when I have to lose some profit margin on a deal. Richard Easton Eastern Advertising I’m always having conversations with my clients so I can ensure that we’re on the same page as far as price is concerned. If they want to get lower prices, they know – and I know – that they can very easily. But the key for us is to always know their budgets and price expectations, and then work to meet those. Sometimes it’s a product sourcing issue. If they want something at a certain price, I can usually find it – I just make sure they know that the quality might suffer. Or, we’ll work together to determine a lower quantity on the order, so that they can meet their ultimate budget. Pricing is like everything else in our business. As long as you Clearly know your customer’s goals and expectations, then price won’t be as big of an issue. Mark Metton Triple M Promos (asi/602890) Inspired Listeners The following letters were sent in response to the ASI Radio interview with actor and activist Michael J. Fox. Go to www. Asicentral.com/radio to hear the whole interview, and see a profile of Fox in this issue on page 88. Thank you, radio team, for this excellent interview with this bright and thoughtful man. Good listening. Jeff Tucker Andrew Thompson Company (asi/122087) Thanks for the nice interview this morning. Donn James International Merchandise Concepts (asi/62820)

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