September was another record setting month with over 2.4 Million in sales. We will need an equally productive last 90 days to reach our company goal of 25 Million. Based on the activity we continue to see and reports from many of our reps, I see no reason why we cannot accomplish that goal together. The last few months have been challenging, but we are working hard to hire and train more people to provide you with the best support possible. In the last few months we have added to our billing/accounting department. We are in the process of hiring a 5th order entry specialist and 4 new account executives in our customer service department. We wish Angele Hermes and Kim Perry luck in their new careers, both decided to move on to accommodate a more flexible work schedule and pursue their individual passions. Rest assured, we have hired some great people and continue to look for the right people to be the best partners for our reps.
October is a prime month for holiday spending but it is also a great month to sit down with your customers to help them plan for their January trade shows and events. Any prospects for import orders are best served to get the process started now to prepare for that month when the Chinese close down for Chinese New Year.
Let's keep the momentum going and make 2014 YOUR best year ever.
Get Charged
Fred
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| GET CHARGED! |
Ginny Pohl Lands Monster "Get Charged" order, one of the largest orders in the history of Proforma Albrecht.
Ginny Pohl has worked with her client for over 30 years and that relationship paid off "Big Time" when she was able to help them select just the right product to be given to their employees for their 50th Anniversary Celebration. The final selection resulted in an order for 14,000 RH54 and RH55 Men's and Woman's Full Zip Jackets from San Mar worth over $507,000.00. The jackets are from San Mar and are being decorated by 5'Bs Embroidery, one of the few who has the production capacity to meet the November 7th event date. Ginny, thanks for sharing this awesome story:
This is very much a relationship business! This large project began because of a long standing association with the staff and especially the Special Events Coordinator who reports directly to the CEO. This relationship has been intact for over 30 years. The Special Events Coordinator has been consistently loyal, depending on me when there were "miracles" that had to be performed!
This order is for a large network of hospitals serving the Greater Dayton Metropolitan area. They are a leader in healthcare, providing state of the art facilities and equipment and were written up in the newspaper as one of the Top 10 Healthcare systems in the nation for the past 3 years.
The 50th Anniversary project started about a year ago and has been an ongoing evolution. It continued through 7 product iterations....pens, umbrellas, polos, regular sweatshirts, then ¼ zip sweatshirts, jackets and ending with a sweater like material jacket from San Mar. Toward the end of the process, it was between the Charles River jacket in which an actual spec. sample had been done by another distributor and the San Mar jacket RH54 and RH55. I provided quotes on both jackets and won out with San Mar because they were able to provide inventory for a November 7th in hand date.
Next came the challenge of finding a decorator that could also meet that tight in hand date of November 7th. Embroidery was in 2 locations creating a large demand on the decorators. We were heavily supported by Touchstone Embroidery in which they actually did the digitizing for a golf outing the client was doing for the 50th Anniversary on black golf towels. However, when it came to the jackets, they did not have the capacity to it in the timeframe needed. We then turned toward 5B's Embroidery which we had used in the past at Cooper Ad Specialties and they stated they could fulfill the requirement we needed.
I have been in this business more years than I care to mention. There have been many challenges throughout those years. We were originally started in this business as Cooper Ad Specialties and then signed up with Fred and Suzette in 2002 - which is the best thing we have ever done! My philosophy has always been to develop strong client relationships which was built on dependability, on-time delivery, and quality products. Almost 100% of the time I recommend that they see samples before purchasing. I always provide detailed proposals with product options because an "option of one is no choice at all." Also, I will be providing pens, coasters and mugs for this occasion, but in much smaller quantities.
Cathy Rossner's Biotech client, was searching for the right solution for an internal career fair resulting in 4 great orders for 2750 each of 15509 Backpacks from Norwood, worth over $10,000.00; SM3880 Boom Amplifiers from Bullet, worth over $8200.00; PL1221 Burst Sticky Note Books from Prime Line, worth over $6800.00 and PL441 Lip from Aloe Up, worth over $2500.00. The total order comes close to $28,000.00.
