Is It A Season of Peace — or Panic?
When you think of the promotional holiday season, what comes to mind first? Is it time spent with your family and friends? Is it enjoying a well-earned break to relax and stuff yourself with good food? Is it the serenity of a peaceful season? Or is it the stress and anxiety of last-minute rush orders, non-stop calls from customers pushing for updates, and constant follow-up with vendors?
For many industries, the months leading up to the holiday season are often packed with a whirlwind of activity. The holiday season for our industry is no different. According to the 2018 Corporate Gift Giving Survey from the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), 42% of employers plan to give gifts to their employees. And that’s just employees — not business partners, prospects, current customers, and so on. This figure is up from 40% last year, where the average gift per employee was $79. And while the total amount per employee dropped in 2018, you can expect this trend to continue this year.
While the promotional holiday season is a great opportunity to win new customers and increase business with existing customers, it can quickly become an administrative nightmare — especially for small distributors that lack support teams. Customers wait till the last minute to place orders for everything from employee gifts to items for company parties. In the span of just a couple of months, you could be taking more calls, answering more emails, attending more meetings, managing more vendors, and navigating more backend details than you have the entire year.
Get the Support You Need to Skip the Stress
We all know that the time leading up to the holidays can be difficult. It’s not a new trend. But at iPROMOTEu, we’ve made it a point to provide the services and support that our Affiliates need to eliminate the hassle of the promotional holiday season and focus on what matters more: spending time with family and selling more products. Here are a few ways we do just that.
Order Financing
No matter how long you’ve been running your distributorship, no one wants to tie up their hard-earned resources in a down payment or deposit for a large order. Maybe you wanted to throw your own holiday party. Maybe you were going to issue some bonuses for your team, but an unexpectedly large order has now made that impossible. And what happens if more than one or two customers place big orders? How can you possibly take those orders?
At iPROMOTEu, we believe a great opportunity shouldn’t preclude itself. The holiday promotional season is a natural source of great sales opportunities, and we want Affiliates to be able to benefit from their customers’ trust in choosing them for a large order. Order financing ensures Affiliates can take any order (large or small) with confidence — and without having to fill out any credit applications or put up any capital of their own. We take care of all the details so Affiliates can stay focused on the relationship and their year-end sales goals.
Back-Office Support
The financial aspect of the promotional holiday season isn’t the only challenge distributors face. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of how things will get done. If you have a small team or are a one-person operation, there’s only so much that can get done in a day (and only so much midnight oil to burn before you’re just burnt out). Even if you have dedicated support staff, they only have two hands and only so many hours to get work done.
There are simply too many opportunities for the ball to be dropped when the promotional holiday season arrives. That’s why we provide Affiliates with a variety of back-office support services. Just a few of these include:
- Order Follow-up — keeps orders moving during busy times so nothing gets missed
- Rush Ordering — ensures you win every opportunity; no order is too last-minute
- Out of Office Support — you take off the time that you’ve earned; we’ve got your back
Virtual Assistant Program
Administrative tasks take a lot more time than many people realize. Sending an email might not seem like a burden, but multiply that by the number of customers, vendors, and orders you have, and it can quickly take up large chunks of your day. While you could use a helping hand, maybe you don’t have the resources or time available to hire a full-time employee. Even if you do, it takes time to train new staff — time that should be focused on doing what you do best.
To help Affiliates remove these administrative tasks from their plate, iPROMOTEu offers the Virtual Assistant Program. Affiliates can book a dedicated remote assistant to help with anything from creating and managing marketing campaigns to handling customer and vendor communications. You shouldn’t have to miss out on promotional holiday opportunities simply because you don’t have enough help. With the virtual assistant program, you never will.
Preferred Vendor Program
One of the best assets you can have as a promotional product distributor is a reliable, cost-effective vendor. The last thing you need during the promotional holiday season is to be following up with vendors non-stop because they’re not meeting your expectations. And with so many orders, it’s to your advantage to work with vendors that can provide exceptional pricing and service — maximizing your revenue and delivering a best-in-class experience at all times.
As one of the largest promotional products organizations in the U.S. and Canada, iPROMOTEu and our network of Affiliates hold immense buying power. We have partnered with approximately 200 vendors as part of the iPROMOTEu Preferred Vendor Program (iPVP) to provide Affiliates with discounted pricing, dedicated representatives, free samples and promos, and customer service that simply can’t be beat. Ordering is faster, there are virtually no risks since the vendors have been vetted, and we even offer a generous cash redistribution.
Achieve Promotional Holiday Season Success with iPROMOTEu
If you’ve historically experienced greater order volumes, more stress, and less free time during the months leading up to the holidays, iPROMOTEu is here to show you a new way. As a distributor, you need to be putting your greatest skill to use: selling. You cannot grow your business by writing administrative emails, following up on multiple orders throughout the day and week, running marketing that could otherwise be automated, and so on.
Your time is valuable. Let iPROMOTEu help you get the most out of it during the promotional holiday season. These services and so much more are available to distributors looking to take their business to the next level as well as successful salespeople looking to branch out on their own. And along the way, you retain complete independence. Keep your name, branding, and customers. No non-competes. No restrictions. Just the support you’ve been looking for.
Ready for your best holiday season yet? Get in touch with us today.