Trends to bank on for 2011

This time of year, people have a tendency to focus on the past, spending time looking back at the year that’s coming to a close. But I’ve always found it more useful to look ahead to the future. In that spirit, here are a few predictions for 2011:
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A cautionary tale

The smell of change is in the air in the promotional products industry. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve heard me say a thousand times that the industry will change more quickly over the next five years than the previous 20, thanks to technology advancements and increasingly higher client expectations. Unfortunately for many distributors and sales professionals, these changes in the marketplace are leading to changes in their pocketbooks (the bad kind).

But this change is a long time coming. Other industries comparable to ours went through this upheaval a decade ago or more. Think about the travel agent business. Their success was built on personal relationships, good customer service and a lack of better/faster/cheaper options. But 10 years later, when was the last time you called a travel agent?
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Our dysfunctional industry

When I speak to outsiders about the promotional products industry, I characterize it as a screwed-up $20 billion industry that is decentralized at every stage of the supply chain. Usually they look at me funny. Then I tell them that 98% of the distributors have sales of less than $3 million, and they look at me funny again.

Exactly why the promotional products industry is so fragmented has been the subject of much debate. I’ve always thought the explanation is pretty simple: it starts with the customer and the decentralized approach they take to buying promotional products.

A few points to chew on:
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Vote for Boundless

I love politics. Some might say a little too much.

Most recently (to the dismay of both my wife and the Boundless HR team), my political banter has ramped up even more in anticipation of today’s midterm elections. Am I passionate about the subject? Absolutely. I want our country to retain both our position as a world leader and the entrepreneurial foundation that has enabled us to get there.

This election to me represents the future for my children, and my attitude is that we (you and I) have to send a clear message to the DC politicos: “Add value or go home.”

After you leave the polling booth, I encourage you to continue thinking about the future, but shift internally to your business.

Imagine the date is Nov 2nd, 2012 and try to answer these important questions:
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What do you want to be when you grow up?

Yesterday I was asking my little girls, Ally (6) and Katie (3), what they want to be when they grow up. This is a game we play every so often—it’s my way of checking in and seeing if my parenting has any impact their perspective on life. Katie, my little firecracker, told me she wanted to be a big sister (mommy didn’t like this answer), and my eldest told me she wanted to get a scholarship to play golf for the University of Texas. I said to myself, “ok, my parenting is working.” These girls are dreaming big, bold and without any inhibitions.

Now that I’m in my 40’s I realize no one has asked me this question in a while. At what age do we quit dreaming about the future and just settle in for the long haul? How long before real-world challenges prevent you from daring to dream anymore?
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What’s going on in corporate America?

Over the last 120 days I’ve been speaking with business owners about what’s going on in corporate America. The questions we continue to discuss center around the economic climate, recovery or no recovery, inner workings of corporate America and overall gut feeling about the next 24 months. Chewing on all of these conversations, I wanted to expand the dialog to include my industry friends.

As you would expect, I have a theory. I believe that what’s currently happening in corporate America (and what will emerge over the next few years) actually allows for some big opportunities in the promotional products industry. But only a small number of business owners are currently positioned to take advantage of them.
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Light + soil + water = recipe for company culture

Right smack in the middle of Austin’s live music district, on the corner of 6th Street and Brazos, you’ll find the Boundless Network corporate headquarters. This spot has been our home for five years, during which time we’ve built a reputation for throwing some pretty great parties and events on our amazing third-floor patio. Starting this month the patio is being put to a new use as the scene of our culture committee’s Q3 gardening competition.

Each company department was responsible for planting their own garden on the Boundless patio. Entries include: The Avant Garden, Daily Dirt, James and The Giant Tomato, The Superb Herb Garden, and Boundless Botanicals of Doom (an all-pepper garden).

My personal favorite was “The Superb Herb Garden,” the brainchild of our sales support team; the herbs will be used down the road in various adult beverages.

If you’re looking for a fun, culture-enhancing activity for your team and you have even a small amount of outdoor space, consider starting a collaborative garden. Check out some pictures below of the “fruits” of our labor!

Let’s keep growing… it’s a tough world out there.

-JB

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Big fish story

This past weekend, I went to East Texas to go black bass fishing with my father. This is a regular trip we take for some R&R and to hunt for the monster bass. As someone prone to finding business analogies in everyday life, I of course started drawing parallels between fishing and professional success.

I ended up with four key findings:
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The Climb to #1

In sports or business, striving to be number one is important.

One of my biggest frustrations is seeing how we’ve become so soft with our children, a society where everyone is a freaking winner. Real life doesn’t work that way. Much to my wife’s dismay, if you ask my 6-year-old about second place, she will tell you that second place is the first loser. Whether you’re dealing with 6-year-olds playing sports or distributorships in the promotional products industry, there are always winners and losers.

Counselor Magazine recently published its annual Distributor Top 40 list. Boundless Network was ranked 33rd. It’s great that we’re on the list, but there are other numbers we can consider that tell, as Paul Harvey would say, “the rest of the story.”
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Boundless celebrates another great year

Last week Boundlessians from far and wide gathered in Austin for Founders’ Circle 2010, our annual three-day celebration of everything we’ve accomplished as a company. It’s part education, part recognition, and more than a little part partying. About 130 Boundlessians from all over the country converged at Boundless World Headquarters for some intense fun, and boy did we push the envelope this year. (Note to self: stay off mechanical bulls!)
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