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industry. Overall, fewer suppliers
are using MLRs. If a bigger sup-
plier buys a smaller supplier and
the bigger has factory reps, as
they gobble up the smaller sup-
pliers, those multi-line reps are
affected.”
What He Wants Suppliers And
Distributors To Know:
“There is
a misconception that it’s a glam-
orous life but that’s definitely not
the case. It’s a lot of hard work, a
lot of travel. Just to set up for a
meeting can take 15-20 minutes
just to bring in the samples from
your suppliers. When I get home
from a trip I’m in my office at 8
or 9 o’clock at night and I’m
working on the weekends. It’s
not a 9-to-5 job. When we are
out on the road, there is stuff
going on back in the office that
has to get done, and there is a
lot of physical work too.”
Help Him Do A Better Job:
“Open communication. From the
distributor standpoint, the more
they will share with me—the
more it will help them. If they
can communicate with me what
they are working on and the
industries they are calling on,
that helps me to be a better rep
for them. For suppliers, keeping
us up to date on quotes when
we are out in the field [is critical].
At times, there can be a discon-
nect. Email is the most time-con-
venient way to get the word out
to the whole sales team but
every supplier is a little bit differ-
ent. One of our suppliers is
based in Missouri and I’ll stop in
there every two or three months
if I’m in the area for training, or
to pick up samples. A lot of sup-
pliers will have us come out
every one or two years for sales
meetings or we’ll have sales
meetings at The [PPAI] Expo.”
WHEN VILIA JOHNSON MADE
the transition
from wholesale sales in the retail channel
to national sales at promotional products
supplier Cross 14 years ago, she was already
acutely aware of the robust power of a
brand. Her years working as a vice presi-
dent at L’Oreal with major retail fragrance
brands like Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren
and Paloma Picasso helped Johnson under-
stand how brands are used to incent,
reward and delight the client base.
Now, as president of her own multi-
line rep firm, BrandSource Incentives in
Bellevue, Washington, she enjoys finding
the right items that reward, recognize and
motivate customers, their clients and
employees. “I love the diversity of what we
offer—from great products to great on-site experiences to technology solutions,” she says. Her
role now as a multi-line rep plays to Johnson’s strengths. “My customers know that I am devoted
to their best interests and that I am not going to let them down. If something goes sideways, we
work very hard to make it right.”
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Johnson travels only about 10,000 miles annually, most
of it by plane, to serve customers throughout Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Idaho. She says
she’s much more productive working with customers from her desk. The biggest challenge, then,
is not driving a carload of samples and catalogs from customer to customer but the sheer diversity
of products she must learn about and be prepared to present to clients.
“There are too many fun products to sell,” she says. “The hundreds of retail brands we repre-
sent have so many interesting and exciting products. There is no way to talk about all of them but
we know what is available when the right opportunity comes along.”
Her nominator, Nancy Varner, owner of distributor AIA/C’Est Bon Creations, LLC in
Seattle, Washington, admires Johnson’s incredible knowledge about all of her lines and her com-
mitment to her customers as well. “She was willing to attend an extremely large end-user show
out of state for two years in a row,” Varner explains. “She was the expert in her lines and the end
users were very impressed with her knowledge. I’ve asked other multi-line reps to do the same
with that show and they were all too busy. Vilia is always busy but never too busy to help out.
She has a wonderful attitude on life in general which translates into her business.”
Continued On Next Page
Vilia Johnson
President,
BrandSource Incentives
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