What Did We Learn At PPAI Las Vegas about Who Is Buying What?

There is no shortage of products in Advertising Specialty.  

In fact there is no shortage of sales people or promo product distributors, either.

There are plenty of approaches, methods, books, and tutorials on how to sell swag. 

But there are limited numbers of customers and projects.

But after 20 years of making stuff for the Promo Products Industry, we already knew all of those things.

Here are some things we did learn.

We talked to over 500 people salespeople and owners, some old hands, and some first timers, at the PPAI show in Las Vegas.  In every single case, we told them that Bike Month (as in bicycles) was coming.  We were startled that only about 3% had any idea what month is Bike Month.  Do you know?

We were also surprised to see that most local distributors had no relationship with the local police department.  Did you know that there is almost always a PR person, and sometimes even a PR department at every police department.  Many of these have full time or part time staff that go to schools, hospitals, service clubs, chamber meetings, youth sports teams, and local community events to promote safety, community policing efforts, and general goodwill.

Many of these projects involve promo items.  Moreover, the PR department or officer will also commonly know where the other supporting efforts are going on.  So, for instance, let's take a look at Bike Month.

Bike Month is in May.  There are 3 major components. Bike to Work Week.  Bike to School Week.  And Bike Safety Month.  All of these are commonly supported in your community by companies (bike to work), schools (bike to school and bike safety), and hospitals and police departments (bike safety.)  It is possible that bike safety may also be a function of parks and recreation.

In addition to all of this, there is the national, statewide, and regional efforts around the Share the Road idea.  Share the Road is year round, but gets special bicycle emphasis in May.

Based on our survey at the show, we believe that many of these groups do not have a serious promo products rep calling on them.  Yet we see the orders coming to us from these organizations that are hundreds of units, and often thousands of units.

Our most popular item for bike month activities is our bike safety light.  We will almost certainly run out.  Every year we order way more than the previous year, and still we run out.  You would be wise to place your order by April 1 to insure delivery in April or May.  

That's what we learned at the show.  What did you learn?  Help others with your comments below.

David and Goliath, Gladwell's New Book, Makes You Think

Book Review - Can David and Goliath Help Your Promo Business?

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 total.  The Bat cost $1.00 more than the ball.  How much does the ball cost?  Click on this link for the surprise answer.

One thing you can be sure will always happen when you read something by Malcolm Gladwell, you will start thinking just a little differently.  I've read The Tipping Point which I reviewed here.  I've also read Blink, which I suppose I should review at some point.  I just bought Outliers, which I will definitely review in these spaces in a couple of weeks.  As the headline indicates, Gladwll makes you think.

For instance, David's victory over Goliath should have been obvious, says Gladwell.  An accurate projectile fired from 100 feet away is certainly safer than going into close quarters with a guy two feet taller than you.  There's more to that story that I'll let you read for yourself.

Many of our top entrepreneurs are dyslexic.  Way out of proportion to the general population.  Turns out top achievers also have disproportionately had a great loss (death of a parent) in their childhood.  How do these kinds of setbacks result in creating successful individuals?

Gladwell is clear that he is indicating his agreement with the Biblical principle that we will all have tribulation in this life, but that it is for our good.  Our success is dependent on what we do about it.  How we deal.  He is also proposing that really successful folks become excellent at working around such issues, and finding unique ways to overcome. To a certain extent, Gladwell probably says that we are not as likely to be really successful, but for the tribulation.

My beef with Gladwell is that many of his examples lied, cheated, bullied, or otherwise used bad behavior to achieve their results.  Gladwell speaks to this, but not loudly enough.  I'm wondering (hoping) that maybe there are examples of citizens who have overcome adversity without having to compromise character.

I didn't find this book to be as good as the other two.  I highly recommend Tipping Point.  Blink is a fine read.  This one is worth the $7.50 on Kindle.

How Smart Are You Really? Three Questions to Find Out Your IQ

Here is the answer to the question.  What question?  The one that we asked in our review post of Malcolm Gladwell's new book, David and Goliath.

If you answered 10¢, you didn't take the extra minute to think it through.  A good math test taker will always work the problem backwards to determine if he got it right.  In this case, the bat cost $1 more than the ball and together they cost $1.10.  Now that you know the answer was not 10¢, can you come up with the right answer?

This is the type of question you will find on the CRT test.  It is a short IQ test that correlates very well with the much longer tests normally given.  Here are the other questions:

(2) If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take
100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____ minutes

(3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size.
If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it
take for the patch to cover half of the lake? _____ days

Hopefully you used what you learned from the first question in evaluating and answering these two.  These answers are way at the bottom of the page.
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(1) 5 cents (not 10)
(2) 5 minutes (not 100)
(3) 47 days (not 24)