PPB June 2021

Promo, for example) and internal virtual social activities. We’ve also worked on strengthening relationships with our suppliers, owner community and the industry at large. I’m proud of how everyone at AIA stayed focused on elevating and servicing our communities for growth, applying our collective passion and individual expertise. What actions have you taken to restart sales for your business in the past fewmonths? AIA is focused on providing relevant content and sales support to our owner community in a way that is specific to each unique business. Through our peer network, we’ve leveraged a tremendous amount of best practice sharing between our industry talent and partners. While we’re seeing sales increase, we know we need to be agile in response to what we expect will be an uncertain and potentially uneven economic recovery. How do your sales in Q1 2021 compare with sales in Q1 2020? Although we ended 2020 with a remarkable recovery in sales, the start of 2021 was slow. In March and April, we saw much more order activity and we are optimistic on the outlook for the remainder of the year. What are the biggest issues or trends that are influencing your sales right now? The biggest challenge is the unpredictability of this economic recovery. Just as we responded to various phases of the pandemic, we need to be agile in how we manage the phases and “K-shape” impact of economic recovery, which will affect each industry differently. Given the broad-based relevance of the promotional products industry to all other industries, we are affected by regional, national and global recovery patterns, and expect to continue to be impacted by continued disruptions in sourcing, supply chain, logistics and pricing. In general terms, what are your revenue expectations for the company by year-end? At AIA, we believe that each challenge we encounter is an opportunity in disguise. With our uniquely creative, agile and ambitious owner community, I am confident that we will continue to strengthen our competitive position. Toby Zacks CEO Zagwear Orangeburg, New York In broad terms, what has the past year has been like for your company financially? In broad terms, I would say it’s been challenging and enlightening. It’s forced us to take a hard look at all parts of the business; some that we had not studied as closely prior to the pandemic. The silver lining is that I ammuch more in-tune with the finances of the business now and working more closely with what we need to do to thrive. As many companies did, we applied and received a PPP loan, and we also sold a tremendous amount of PPE. That was a very welcome revenue stream that we did not expect when all of this initially broke back in February 2020. So, we had a better year than expected but are cautiously optimistic because the PPP money is no longer available, and the PPE demand has slowed—it’s just a matter of how quickly our clients return to spending as they once did. As when the pandemic initially unfolded, there are still many unknowns distributors are facing; around timing, normalcy, revenue and spend. What changes have been necessary in your company over the past 12 months? I lead with technology both in-house and in the way we work with our clients. We’ve developed tools that have been extremely valuable to our clients and have helped us from a revenue perspective. We pushed our technology development forward, knowing clients would be looking for efficiencies and ways to tackle the new challenges of a remote workforce. We’ve also changed how we go to market to be aligned with the current needs of our customers today, not a year ago. Their needs have changed quickly and we have always operated like a speedboat rather than a cruise ship. This has helped us react in real time to support the challenges brought on over the last year. What actions have you taken to restart sales for your business in the past fewmonths? We have been having more business development meetings to share wins and talk through challenges. We are also having conversations with clients— really connecting with them. We are learning more about their business so we can insert ourselves in areas of value. We are a very broad-based business and have so much to offer. In addition to the U.S., we have offices in Europe and the UK; we are providing a full array of services in all regions to support our largest clients. In addition to product sourcing, print services, logistics, fulfillment and creative, we are now helping our clients reduce their carbon footprint as well as providing enhanced data security of personal information. What Distributor Principals Are Saying About Sales | FEATURE | JUNE 2021 | 51