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DAY IN THE LIFE
Willing And Able
BILL PETRIE STRIVES TO ELEVATE DISTRIBUTORS
THROUGH STRATEGIC, TACTICAL SUPPORT
BY JEN ALEXANDER
Read on to see what a day in the life
looks like for Petrie.
What kinds of projects or
tasks might you tackle on a
given day?
It really depends on the day. I may be
working on an RFP response, creating
an overall branding/marketing plan,
consulting with a client on a particular
challenge, conducting a sales training
session or giving a webinar for one of
the regional associations. I tend to do a
lot of writing (I blog twice a week and
write monthly articles for both
PromoKitchen and DistributorCentral)
and I speak at regional associations, so
that takes up some of my day.
How does this job challenge
you?
It challenges my way of thinking,
and I’ve had to learn that my path to
sales growth and success isn’t the only
way. I endeavor to fully immerse
myself with each client to fully under-
stand where they are and where they
want to go. It’s about active listening,
joint-venturing a plan, then executing
against that plan to achieve the goals
we’ve laid out.
F YOU’RE A DISTRIBUTOR
who’s looking for a
helping hand, Bill Petrie wants to be your go-to guy—so
much so, in fact, that he spends his days at Franklin,
Tennessee, business services provider brandivate (UPIC:
BVATE), which he founded in 2014, looking for new ways to
engage industry professionals and provide them with solutions
to the everyday problems that pop up in the promotional prod-
ucts business.
Petrie, who spent 15 years in leadership roles at industry distributor companies,
now focuses on serving small and medium-sized distributorships that are looking to
grow. “I am passionate about the industry and would like to elevate it as much as
possible,” says Petrie. “In fact, that’s how the name brandivate came to be: a combina-
tion of brand and elevate.”
I
Bill Petrie enjoys a Texas A&M University football
game with his wife, Sandy, and twin sons Drew
(left) and Mitch, who are 12 years old.
SEPTEMBER 2015 •
PPB
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