Plain and simple, Canada is booming. If your year-to-year sales to Canada aren’t up more than 100 percent, you’re missing out.
A couple of months ago, I discussed the meteoric rise of the Canadian dollar and the opportunities this presented for U.S. catalogers. Having just returned from a trip to Canada, I’m pleased to report the Canadian market is showing even more potential than I’d previously thought. The strength of the loonie, the Canadian dollar, is a matter of national pride these days. Everyone in Canada is talking about cross-border shopping and travel. I’ve never known the focus on “what you can buy for
Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a number of hours on the business networking Web site, www.LinkedIn.com. I’ve mentioned the network in my last three articles, so I’m hoping many of you have signed up and tried it for yourselves. Thanks to all of you who did and who linked to me. It’s nice to meet you! If you haven’t, join and link to me at www.LinkedIn.com/in/jimwgilbert . The following is my report.
Immediately after joining and building my profile (more about that below), I chose the option to use my AOL and Outlook address books to begin building
When visiting client companies I’m often astounded by the variation I find in how they view and treat their vendors.
Too many B-to-B catalogers take the attitude of “beating their vendors up” for another 2 percent discount or another free service in the coming year. Vendor interactions are dominated by discussions around “cost reduction” rather than “value enhancement.”
Understandably, I find in those companies vendor relationships are strained. Honest, straightforward communication between the vendor and the cataloger is limited. Not surprisingly in that environment, vendors are less than cooperative when the inevitable supply chain problems arise. Overall, an adversarial relationship exists, rather than a
I recently toured a long-standing B-to-B catalog company and was struck by the aura of its offices and people. As I walked through its call center, telephone reps were smiling and happy. They graciously said hello to me as a visitor (when they really had no clue who I was), and were courteous, polite and respectful of each other and themselves. Their body language spoke volumes.
Happy to be there, they worked productively with their friends, serving customers in the best way possible. They were eager to support, assist and compliment each other. The environment was professional and clean, and you could tell
Last week, I got an e-mail from a former student of mine telling me he was starting a company with mail order as one of its distribution channels. He had a neat idea, and I thought the items he was about to sell had merit. Clearly he had his product line thought out well.
It pleases me to no end when this happens: a budding entrepreneur, about to stake his claim in the business world. Then I get the question that I dread: “How do I buy a list so I can grow the business?” How do I buy a list? Oh man, haven’t I
In last week’s blog, I discussed salary levels in the catalog/multichannel business as they relate to other industries. I got a pretty strong reaction from Wendy Weber, president of the direct marketing recruiting firm, Crandall Associates.
For those of you who have missed the blog the past few weeks I’ve been discussing hiring practices in direct marketing. (You can find them and all past posts on the CatalogSuccess.com Web site.) This thread started with a poll stating that the direct marketing industry was having a tough time finding strong talent. So for this week, I asked Wendy to weigh in with her thoughts
For the past two weeks, I’ve offered my take on what’s wrong with the catalog-marketing hiring market. I did this after a survey published by Bernhart Associates (www.bernhart.com) stated that 24 percent and 53 percent of direct marketing companies were having a “difficult” and “somewhat difficult” time finding top-notch talent.
This week, I submit my thoughts on the state of our industry in terms of hiring salaries. As a preface, it’s been a long, uphill battle, but I think that direct marketing is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves. It seems that the rise of the Internet has helped legitimize our
Last week, I discussed some recent trends in the catalog/direct marketing employment world. In this week’s part two, I dig into the actual hiring practice.
The H.R. Issue: My Rx For Failure
Note to the H.R. department: I’ll review my own resumes, thank you. I know this may not make some people happy, but having H.R. managers screen applicants for hiring managers is like having Dracula accepting a day job; some things are just not meant to be. Let the H.R. folks at my applicants after I’ve sorted out my top few candidates. Then, they can ask them dumb questions like these:
“Describe to me a
I just read an interesting article on the National Mail Order Association Web site that focused on some good news and bad news regarding hiring practices in the direct marketing industry. The article, based on a survey put out by direct marketing recruitment firm Bernhart Associates, states that hiring in our industry is expected to remain steady.
That’s some good news for DM job seekers, but the bad news is that many direct marketing companies are having difficulties finding talented direct marketers to add to their staff.
Some survey results:
* 24 percent of survey respondents were having a “very difficult” time finding qualified candidates
* 53
Question: I want to sell my company, but I’m too small potatoes for M&A intermediaries to take an interest. What should I do?
The first thing to ask is whether you have a growth story within your company. That’s the most important thing; that’s the future of your company. It’s in your marketing results, particularly in your prospecting performance. It comes in two forms: prospect mailings and a review of the prospect universe room for growth. The answer is in your proven prospect universe, which is the quantity of names you can mail at breakeven or better. Those names typically come from either standard list
