Recommending Promotional Products: Advice From a 20 Year Veteran of the Industry

You are a promotional products expert. A customer has a need and you are going to recommend a product to fulfill that need. How do you know the best item to pitch to your client? Asking the right questions will help you a great deal to align budget, application, and target audience.

As an example, if the promotional application is to be executed as a mailing to adults, your customer is going to want a product that is flat, unbreakable, and in most cases, does not increase the cost of postage. The obvious choices are magnets and calendars. Calendars are sometimes just big enough that additional postage is required for using Canada Post. When in doubt, call the supplier and ask questions.

Don't limit yourself to the obvious though, get creative. For the above mailing situation, you may want to explore foam puzzles, sticky notes, or grippers depending on your client's budget and the goal of their mailing. You will score points and develop customer loyalty by coming up with great ideas that surpass the client's own. Besides that, it will keep your job fun and interesting.

When putting together ideas for product recommendations, don't forget to consider things like freight - i.e. glassware is bulky, heavy, suffers periodic breakage, and has hefty freight charges. If the product is coming into Canada out of the U.S., you will have duty and brokerage concerns. These things need to either be amortized into the unit price, or charged separately. Unless you are making extraordinary mark-ups, you need to pass these costs on to your customer.

Time frames are a very important part of supplying promotional solutions. Most often, clients have an event or program start date that has to be observed and worked towards. If the delivery time required is less than 3 weeks, you will likely want to call the supplier before contacting your customer and check the date, as well as whether or not getting it sooner will incur rush charges. Again, you can incorporate the rush charge into the pricing when doing up your quotation, or add it to your customer's invoice as a separate item. Note: make sure you have warned your customer that there is extra cost associated with the rush - never spend their money without first checking with them.