Pieces of Us

We rarely, if ever, publish a blog or information that is completely self-serving. This is not part of our belief or practice as a business - we believe our success is built upon the success of those we work with and interact with on a daily basis.

Since we began tweeting five weeks ago, we have rapidly grown in our following through Twitter, and appreciate every single one. Our business practice has always been to reach out and assist those selling our products, using our products or developing creative solutions that have nothing to do with our products.

Our main product is a service, supporting our business associates and communities in building and developing their brand and generating interest and income through the promotional product industry.

We are able to do this through awareness and mindfulness of the industries we work in, monitoring trends, listening to our clients, listening to our employees, treating customers with respect, being humanistic, offering a level of transparency through social media and of course, laughter.

We are able to behave in this manner for several reasons. Clothpromotions Plus is a family owned company that treats all of employees with dignity and respect and maintains a culture of family through each and every position within our company. We believe in a lateral hierarchy. Each and every employment position is equally important. Without the sales department - there is no business, without the production department - the sales people have nothing to sell, without the operations people - the production and sales people would have no guidelines or procedures, without the cleaning staff - no one would have a pleasant work environment.

A vertical hierarchy is where the porter answers to the desk staff, the desk staff answer to the administrator who answers to the manager who answers to the area supervisor who answers to the vice president who answers to the COO. We certainly understand and follow a certain "pecking order," yet no employee is fixated on titles and everyone understands that their productivity impacts everyone else. This respect our employees share for each other allows us to convey this to our clients and business associates.

The backgrounds of our founders and operations people is diverse and knowledgeable in many areas. We have backgrounds in business, sales, branding, government, non-profit, health care, technology and psychology. Decades of combined education and experience intermingle daily.

I post, write and monitor this blog. After graduate school, I worked in mental health. With almost 10 years in the almost every facet of the psychiatric field, direct practice, fund raising and health administration world - I took my skills and background to the marketing and advertising world. Much of marketing is based in human psychology and sociological trends. It has been my training and career to monitor those trends and observe human behavior. I discuss this to not tout my experience or career history, but to validate our place in the advertising and promotional products realm.

We use educated and measured means to listen to the needs of our industry and to provide individual and mass information back. If this results in any growth and success of our distributors or their clients then we feel proud and accomplished. If this results in our own growth and success as a company, than we have more than done our job.

As a company, we incorporate advertising, technology, business and psychology backgrounds - as human beings, we incorporate communication, relationship building, listening and responding.

As you read our blogs, you will see how we incorporate our marriage of backgrounds. We will never posit ourselves as a company that simply believes we know what our customers want; we will be a company that is progressive in meeting the needs and wants of a growing customer base that demands individualized attention and knowledge of our market.

Clear vision with Clothpromotions.

The Market for Marketing

I was recently reminded in a business telephone conversation that distributors sell specific products to specific businesses. I use the term "reminded," as I had forgotten that a vast majority of distributors of advertising specialty products envision a specific client and the specific product match for that client. Our company follows a bit of a different philosophy than this concept. I do not believe our philosophy is unique, nor is it divergent from the majority of thinkers. However, a certain marketing idealism seems to vacate during these trying economic times or in settling with the idea that any order is a good order.

For your direct consideration:

Marketing Definition-

Management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer.

As a philosophy, it is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction.

As a practice, it consists in coordination of four elements called 4P's: (1) identification, selection, and development of a product, (2) determination of its price, (3) selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place, and (4) development and implementation of a promotional strategy. Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of Harvard Business School's emeritus professor of marketing Theodore C. Levitt) "Selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs."

(Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing.html)

There appear to be many Sellers in the distributor arena and far fewer Marketers.

Speaking directly as a company, Clothpromotions Plus (CPP) has invented itself through the expressed needs of a marketplace. Expressed needs indicating it is what the industry desires, whereas implied needs indicate what the Vendor imposes upon the industry in hopes they will desire.

CPP had researched the industry (industry defined as the entire product and service business world), and discovered something, EVERYONE WANTS THE SAME THING in a "marketing" product or campaign: Quality product, low cost, maximum value for exposure, usability, function, branding, high return on investment (ROI), universal appeal and usefulness. Most business marketers will certainly also tell you, an individual targeted marketing campaign is always more successful than throwing a wide net and hoping you catch something.

Sure, we could sell any imprintable item. We could SELL any imprintable item. We chose to market.

We use our product to brand ourselves, we use our product to give away at tradeshows, we use our product as our business card, we use our product daily on all the items it is useful for, we use our product to sell our product.

CPP is marketing a concept, that corporations, universities, non-profits, wholesalers, manufacturers, health care agencies, distributors and everyone that is in any type of business or service industry is seeking and expressing. Businesses desire and express needs for high ROI.

We are marketing a product that primarily functions as a marketing tool. Moreso, we market the idea that our product everyone in America and beyond can use multiple times a day (and actually will use), will remain in an individual's possession for over one year and up to ten years (the longest thus far we have seen), brands a company's name and message and exposes that brand to the user of the product multiple times a day, and is less than one dollar total cost of said product. Now divide $0.50 by 365 (days in a year) and then by 5 (average number of uses per day). Your answer should be $0.000274. This number indicates that each exposure will cost the company that uses this marketing item $0.000274.

That is what we market, the concept of using an advertising specialty item to MARKET an end user's brand, and result in a sales conversion.

My advice to distributor's is market to your clients, do not sell. Anyone can sell with enough moxie.

Meet the client's expressed needs, listen to your client, discover what they want to occur with spending their money and match them with the appropriate techniques and campaign to deliver a truly value added service. Assist your clients to assist their business. You will walk away a hero, every time.

Clear vision with Clothpromotions.
www.clothpromotions.com

Qualities of Promotion...A Mild Intro

As initial blogs may go, this will be no different. It will not be the same either.

There is much information, education, opinions and general clutter surrounding the world of promoting, branding and advertising oneself or one's business interests.

How that translates in real life and how real individuals and businesses adhere and follow through with the wealth of information and motivation, is typically an entirely different situation.

Blogs are simply re posted or discussed around the water cooler or through FB or emails back and forth. Articles typically are used in the same way. (I am guilty)

Twitter is similar, yet allows us hands on, direct contact and immediate responding to those posting (pending it is original work). (again, guilty)

How many people walk out of a Tony Robbin's session feeling as if they can conquer the world? ...Calling family members, re-thinking their lives and careers and empowering themselves to the point of euphoria and catharsis.

And what happens in no less than, 2 days later? I cannot speak for everyone... but pep-talks are temporary and if everyone was as motivated and successful and life changing and life affirming as our friend Tony Robbins... we would not need Tony Robbins.

He is a template, I am not directing anything in regards to him specifically.

Isn't the point that we all want and have the ability to experience that energy sprouting from within us, compelling us to take charge of our lives and create the world as we would have it??

I have read many articles on both sides; fear of failure to move forward in life, or fear of success that life may actually work out.

Either way - the main motivation appears to have fear involved and the hypothesis would be that we may be perpetually living in response to avoiding the fear, rather than proactively running the show.

We are, collectively, interacting on a more personal basis (albeit electronically) with each other and even celebrities (biggest Twitter example: @aplusk). Our best resource is our self.
Promoting oneself is promoting the uniqueness of oneself. The differences and the interests of others is always more interesting than routine familiarity. I am not suggesting an anarchistic approach to marketing, I am not denying adding a little bit of it either.

Persistence, common sense, practicality, and usefulness - are the qualities to have when promoting. The uniqueness of the brand, product or person - will inevitably shine through.

Clear vision with Clothpromotions.