How Promotional Distributors Support the Needs of Incentive and Recognition Buyers
Developing a Major Source of New Revenue
A Singular Focus on Promotional Products Distributors
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Despite signals suggesting that the growth of non-retail product promotional programs has slowed, likely because of the increased focus on sustainability
and demand for more targeted gifting, there are few signs that more distributors have rushed into the incentive, rewards, and recognition business. Nonetheless, the number of success stories is on the rise.This RRN Brand Media Coalition case study featured in a YouTube show and an RRN feature article with Kevin Dovel, CEO of Proforma Promographix, Carolina Beach, NC, and Roger Thomas, Vice President, Partners for Incentives, Cleveland, demonstrates how distributors and incentive companies can work together to serve the hundreds of thousands of mid-size and larger companies overlooked by most of the major incentive, recognition, and loyalty firms.
Click here to view or listen to the 30-minute show.
In the interview, Dovel shares his journey of expanding his promotional business by offering incentive and recognition programs as a result of a Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses program for entrepreneurs challenging participants to seek out new growth opportunities. That program and a meeting with Partners for Incentives at a trade event led to his decision to focus on recognition and incentive programs. While the gross margins for recognition and incentives programs are lower, he says the larger order sizes, year-after-year continuity of these programs, and the ability to build high-level relationships with clients, along with the full-service support of Partners for Incentives, more than makes up for the lower margins.
Developing a Major Source of New Revenue
Promotional and related products and services remain his company’s primary business, but he foresees his company’s incentive and recognition business exceeding 30% of revenue this year. The traditional promotional products business, he says, carries significant “administrative drag” involved with making presentations, selecting products, shipping samples, verifying designs for imprinting, shipping, tariffs, etc. for each program. Using the services of a company like Partners for Incentives, he says, makes design, implementation, fulfillment and measurement for incentive and recognition programs almost seamless to his company, enabling him to focus on making sure the client is happy or addressing other needs.
Backed by an incentive company with expertise, technology, fulfillment and measurement, Dovel says that he does not have to be an expert in program design and implementation. Rather, he emphasizes the need to ask the right questions to identify areas of pain or opportunities for performance improvement. In the incentive and recognition business, he emphasizes, the focus must be on understanding the prospects’ business objectives, rather than on focusing on the features of the technology or products. Dovel says he doesn’t have to worry about finding answers to the prospects’ questions because that’s where the expertise of Partners for Incentives comes in.
Thomas of Partners for Incentives emphasizes the importance of promotional product distributors focusing on performance improvement rather than on awards and pricing. He highlights that executives are more interested in results such as reducing turnover, improving productivity, or sales than on which awards to offer. Thomas works with distributor partners to focus on the significance of proper program design, including setting appropriate goals, rules structures, communication platforms, training of managers, and tracking mechanisms to ensure that the program is built into the organization’s culture and processes, because almost any company can offer technology and rewards. The program cannot achieve optimal performance without all the pieces in place, he believes, because rewards alone do not address all the factors involved with constructive behavior change.
A Singular Focus on Promotional Products Distributors
Unlike most of the other large-to mid-size incentive and recognition companies, Partners for Incentives has worked through promotional distributors and related solution partners for many of its 70 years. It employs five in-house support staff with close to 100 years of combined experience supporting distributors in the incentive and recognition market, according to the company.
Thomas reports seeing an increased focus on measurement, either in financial terms or on impact on organizational objectives, such as reducing turnover or increasing productivity or referrals. Distributors don’t need to know how to accomplish these goals, only to know the right questions to ask to generate interest in a discovery call with one of the company’s program design team. In these sessions, he emphasizes, seeking to find out what the organization wishes to accomplish and how comes before any discussion of rewards, technologies, or product features.
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