PPB June 2020

LARGE DISTRIBUTORS Michael Emoff Chief Vision Officer Boost Engagement, LLC, dba Shumsky Dayton, Ohio How have your sales and business been affected by the pandemic? Promo sales are a fraction of what they were last year. Fortunately, we have made a pivot to PPE and back-to-work kits, etc. When do you foresee your sales returning to pre-lockdown levels? Keep in mind that I don’t have a crystal ball, but typically I do have a perspective. And speaking specifically for “promo sales,” I expect it may be up to a couple of years before we see all sectors back to our old normal. This would include trade events, travel-related spend, retail and restaurants. What shape of recovery do you think this will be—U, V, W, some combination or other—and why? Promo sales recovery will be a slow “U”—so this would be a gradual recovery. In addition, PPE sales will be an inverted U and eventually revert to the large medical supply providers. I expect these lines will cross in the fall; that is the point when those who benefited from PPE sales will need to have their business in a position to manage profitability primarily with promo sales again. Although the SBA Paycheck Protection Program will help many of us, I believe expense management will be critical throughout the remainder of this year and into next year. What actions are you taking now to restart your business? Investing in growth, training, marketing and re- invention. In growth, we are looking for new rock-star sales teammembers, likely from outside of the industry. Our focus will be on cultural fit and ability to leverage relationships. We are also looking for acquisition or merger opportunities. In training, we are offering all of our teammembers the opportunity to spend time right now to take the CAS/MAS courses through PPAI. We’ve accelerated our mentoring program within our organization; we’ve assigned mentors to our most recently-added sales teammembers to grow them quickly in preparation for a quick start as the restrictions lift. We’ve never invested so much in marketing. I learned a long time ago that those who invest in solid marketing during an economic downturn accelerate the quickest on the upside. In re-invention, something new for us has been formalizing a plan to re-invent ourselves. We’ve created a diverse taskforce to brainstorm new and different business models, which can have a powerful impact on our future. Ideally, we would leverage our existing assets (customers, processes, team members) to provide complementary services or offerings to existing or prospective clients. We are two weeks into this process and already seeing benefits to our program. What are your revenue expectations for year-end? Although the make-up of revenue will most certainly be different than last year, we expect to finish the year consistent with last year or perhaps a little better. Bob Herzog President Corporate Imaging Concepts Northbrook, Illinois How have your sales and business been affected by the pandemic? Top-line sales have been negatively impacted by COVID, however, it has been very customer-specific. Our technology and health-care customers are doing pretty well, but those related to retail or travel have been devastated. We have also seen our webstores hold their own during this downturn—it is almost as if our webstore customers don’t consider a webstore purchase in the same light that they view a special-order purchase. In addition, we have done a decent job of pivoting into selling PPE. We did have strong PPE sales in April. The other business implication of the COVID situation was that we laid off 30 percent of our staff on March 30. Very difficult times. When do you foresee your sales returning to pre-lockdown levels? I think we won’t see pre-lockdown sales levels until the second quarter of 2021. I do want to be optimistic but there are just too many headwinds pushing against the promo industry. Having said that, I do believe that we will continue to see some big winners FEATURE | A Snapshot Of Distributor Activity 50 | JUNE 2020 |