The Economy

Surviving the “R” Word

I am going to write a couple of blogs on the stress that is being placed on distributors, sales professionals and end customers.I want to inject a little reality into our current situation. I truly want all folks to be successful (with or without Boundless Network). Hopefully some of the topics will create a sense [...]

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Politics and Promotional Products

I have to admit: I am enamored with this political season. I love the gamesmanship of the candidates, watching the debates and arguing (soft debating) with my friends and co-workers. Candidly, I don’t have a dog in this year’s presidential race, as it’s my personal opinion that neither of the candidates are very good and that the entire system is broken and quasi corrupt. I won’t go into more detail for now, but if you see me at a show and you want to talk politics, we can rant and rave about the election with a couple of cold ones.
As I lay awake in bed last night at 3 a.m., my sleep-deprived brain started taking the race in some interesting directions. I began to wonder: if I was putting together a company and could only hire prominent members of the political arena, who would I pick, and for which roles? And, most importantly, would they survive in my company?

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Survivor: Promotional Products Edition

This weekend I performed an experiment: I tried to go the entire weekend without spending one minute thinking about the economy and the politics surrounding it. Between the political campaign and the stock market, it starts to be a little taxing on the psyche.

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The Glass Can Be Half Full

You may think that I’m smoking crack here. As your 401K and your retirement go down the crapper, here I am talking about looking on the bright side. But believe me when I say there are going to be some major winners during the transition of our economic climate. These will be companies that take advantage of the chance to build a better business model that works.

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Anatomy of a Distributor Meltdown

In the promotional business, your most precious asset is your working capital. You cannot run your business without capital and/or effective credit. I promise you, in these declining economic times, more and more distributorships will fail because of not properly managing their working capital to deal with a decline in their business.

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Are You a Prius or a Suburban?

I am one of those guys. You know which ones I’m talking about: the big car guys. I drive a 4X4 Chevy Suburban and have been for the past 20 years. I grew up in big cars, my friends drive big cars, and I anticipate I will be a Suburban driver for the next 20 years.

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Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog?

We’re all talking about the stinking recession. Yes it sucks, but folks… let’s just deal with it. Take the good with the bad, get your head out of the sand and start taking control of the situation. In this environment, the winners will rise to the top—and the losers will prepare their obituaries.

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$4 a Gallon and 90 Cent Koozies

Today as I write, gas has hit $4 a gallon at the pump in many parts of the country. We are in the midst of an election year, and the majority of companies are scrutinizing their business to evaluate how a recession will negatively or positively impact their business.

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Building Your Business in a Recession

A few months ago I wrote about the negative impact a recession will have on the vast majority of promotional products distributors. Since that time, I have attended numerous industry trade shows and have left each one confident that the success of Boundless Network’s sales professionals over the next year (or however long the negative economy sticks around) will increasingly be at the expense of other’s who are not providing true value to their customers.

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Industry Sees Drop in M&A’s

Last week the ASI Promogram reported that the industry has seen a 32 percent drop in mergers and acquisitions, which I find somewhat interesting but not surprising. The reason? My best guess is two-fold. First, I think there are only a limited number of distributorships that have the wherewithal to structure win-win relationships. Second, I think the majority of these “larger” distributorships are boring business models that offer more of the “same ole same ole” with no real strategic value. The new breed of distributorships (younger progressive types) is looking for something more significant and unfortunately, there are only a couple of suitable options.

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