We have enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the founders of the Mesh Conference (Stuart, Rob, Mike, Mark and Mathew) since they launched “Canada’s Web 2.0 Conference”  five years ago. When I think about the most interesting promotions we have designed in our company’s history, the ones that stand out are those where a unique partnership exists between us and the client.

When done right, people love swag … especially at tech events like Mesh. It can shape a delegate’s experience of the conference as well as provide a great first impression. Who doesn’t like to be welcomed to an event with a well designed gift, particularly one that will have value long after the event?

Well, coming up with branded merchandise that will impress a discerning crowd is a daunting (though fun) task. With plenty of input from the Mesh team, we designed a survival kit to welcome attendees. Items ranged from the practical (peppermint gum) to the fun (poetry magnets) to the cheeky (condoms). Practical, fun, cheeky – exactly the makeup of this crowd. In addition to the survival kit, we produced T-shirts (that fit women too!), uniforms for the staff and scarves for the speakers.

After 5 years of designing swag for the Mesh team, we entered the 2009 merchandise into two industry award competitions – Image Awards (Canada) and Pyramid Awards (US). This past week, we won the Image Award for Canada and we were a finalist in the US competition.

A very special thank you to the Mesh team for being such a fun and creative group to work with. Now on to #mesh10!

Lyndsay and I presented to a group of camping professionals yesterday at the OCA Conference. The topic was “Youth Trends” and their impact on merchandise programs in the camp retail sector. As a successful merchandise program is an important branding opportunity for most camps, we wanted to shed some light on the key drivers behind teens’ and tweens’ buying decisions as it relates to fashion and clothing.

The presentation is available below:

In September 2005, my young family and I rented a cottage in rural France for a month. It happened at a hectic time in our personal and business lives and I felt that going away for an extended break would give me some much needed perspective.

At the time, I had fallen into the common entrepreneurial trap of no longer being able to see the forest for the trees. After 5 years of running the business, I was starting to lose steam. Some time off was what we needed, but not the average “let’s take the family to Disneyland” kind of trip; we wanted to get away and really enjoy life by living in another country, away from the normal tourist attractions and without any formal agenda.

For 4 weeks, we were able to replace our normally hectic routine with more leisurely pursuits: farmers’ markets in the morning, 2 hour lunches, siestas in the afternoon, wine tastings, long hikes in the surrounding countryside, home cooked dinner, capped off with 1 hour of Skyping back with the office in the evening. It was a fabulous way to spend the month.

While my mind was at rest, I was able to start thinking about my business in a different way. During my walks in the countryside, I started developing an internet strategy that went onto reshape our entire business model, ultimately allowing us to stand out within a crowded marketplace.

Thinking back to this experience, I was reminded of Bill Gates’ “think weeks” where the Microsoft founder locks himself up to do nothing but think for the week. In many ways, our experience in France was similar as it forced me to remove myself from the day to day minutiae so I could think big about the next stage of my business.

The critical lesson I learned from this experience is that busy entrepreneurs need to stop and smell the roses from time to time (or in our case, the lavender)!

This week I attended the PPAI Expo, the largest and longest running promotional products show in the world.

I was invited to present on how my experiences with social media have allowed RIGHTSLEEVE to grow and differentiate within this industry. I’d be reluctant to ever brand myself a “social media expert” (I am skeptical of the term), rather I like to think of myself of an industry entrepreneur that has dabbled in social media over the past 5 years and has learned a lot along the way, my trail scattered with a mix of failures and successes.

I have drawn inspiration from a number of people whose works I reference in this presentation. The links to their books  can be found here:

Chris Anderson The Long Tail

Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody

Tara Hunt The Whuffie Factor

Joel Comm Twitter Power

Mitch Joel Six Pixels of Separation

2009 has been a learning experience, to put it mildly.

I have spoken to countless business owners across a range of industries about 2009 . Most people have indicated it was the worst year in their entire business careers. Industries are down on average 20-25%, bankruptcies and mergers abounded and I had to catch my breath when an industry colleague told me that his business was down 50% in 2009 …. 50%! 

All of this has given me pause to consider what we have learned in 2009 and how this will impact our business landscape in 2010. I have distilled this down to 3 thoughts.

 1. It’s not about the product, it’s about the process

The way companies have ordered promotional products has not changed much over the years. Most organizations place their orders through a promotional distributor who is responsible for the ideation and ultimate production of the order. I think this is an outdated process, one that will be replaced by more sophisticated web based processes that allow companies to procure their merchandise via simple to use order management systems. As a result of what technology enables, this will be available to companies of all sizes, not just the multi-million dollar programs.

Let me give an example. We were approached by an organization looking for a second opinion on their merchandise program. They had been working with an incumbent distributor who was doing a nice job in terms of ideas and execution. However, the organization’s real challenge was inventory risk and being stuck with product if it did not sell. We honed in on that specific challenge and offered our online retail store which collects orders across the entire organization and then produces the goods just in time, thereby eliminating the inventory risk. The product became secondary, shifting the focus to how the process could help solve their business challenges.

2. Social media is now mainstream

@techfanster tweeted the following which sums up exactly where we are in the social media space as of late 2009

If I hear “social media expert” once more I’m going to scream. Congrats on having twitter AND facebook… so does my mom. Really.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc are still enjoying the spotlight. Users have set up accounts in droves, web 2.0 conferences abound and “experts” have come out of the woodwork to educate the masses. People listened and started experimenting in a big way in 2009.

So, now what?

I see 2010 as being the year where we will see the true divide, specifically between the people who use these tools effectively to develop a strong community of friends, fans and customers vs the bandwagon jumpers who setup a Twitter profile only to spam people with product specials. My friend Bobby Lehew wrote a fabulous post about this very point, highlighting the difference between “social networking and social netbeing”. In the post, he suggests that having a social media presence takes a lot of work, just like networking in real life does. It’s just as hard to fake it online as it is in real life.

3. Differentiate or die.

The promotional industry shrunk by 20% in 2009 as buyers across North America scrutinized their budgets. Questions ranged from “do we really need to give polo shirts for this year’s tournament” to “are we spending our budget in the most efficient way possible?”

I believe that companies will be able to grow in 2010 by truly differentiating themselves from the competition. Focusing on a specific market segment, developing a proprietary technology, becoming the expert in a specific product category are all ways to accomplish this vs being the “I can get you anything” product generalist. As they say, “jack of all trades, master of none.”

Regardless of whether any of these predictions prove to be true, 2010 is certainly going to be an interesting year.

Please feel free to post your predictions for 2010 – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I recently read Geoff Smart’s Who: The A Method for Hiring - a comprehensive look at how to interview and ultimately hire top talent into your company. I synthesized the main steps in his book and have listed here to help others who are involved in the hiring process.

Hiring is never a perfect science, but the process can be made more effective by digging deeper into a candidate’s career history and asking the right questions. After years of interviewing candidates for positions at RIGHTSLEEVE, I found this book a very worthwhile read with many clear takeaway points.

Part 1: Establishing a Scorecard

I was recently interviewed by Promo35 – an industry group established on Facebook for distributors under the age of 35 (I just made it)! A lot of the questions were quite creative so I needed some time to respond with something thoughtful.

The contents of the interview are below:

1. What do you wish you knew back in your 20’s that you know now?

To not take business so seriously. Business can be very emotionally draining, especially when it’s your own company. As much as possible, emotion should be removed from business as it can lead to poor business decisions.

2. What one thing do you wish you would have done in your earlier days? What one thing do you wish you would have NOT done in your earlier days?

I wish I had spent more time delegating in my early days. While it was worthwhile for me to “learn” the business by doing everything at the beginning, I could have brought people on board earlier to help me grow the business. In terms of something I wish I had NOT done, I wish I had stopped micromanaging earlier (this is such a hard thing for an entrepreneur to do, but ultimately a “hands off” approach is less stressful for everyone involved). Once I learned to give people their space, productivity increased dramatically,

3. What piece of advice would you give the younger generation hoping to be in your shoes later in life?

Get out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to innovate and zig when other people zag. It’s very easy to get caught up in the herd mentality, but it’s hard to build a truly great, long-term and sustainable company by simply playing by the rules (think Apple, Netflix, Zappos, Amazon). Keep reading and attending industry (and non-industry) conferences – this will keep you on the cutting edge when it comes to new trends.

4. What helps you get up and go to work in the morning?

I love what I do and I get a kick out of what we have built at RIGHTSLEEVE, especially the impact our web presence has had on our business over the years. Our clients are fun to work with and my team is very committed to creating a great company and sustaining our unique positioning in the marketplace. I
am very fortunate to be a part of such a positive work culture,

5. Name a vice you have?

Technology (I am a tech, social media, and web geek).

6. What would you stand up for no matter how much backlash came with it?

The value of a liberal arts education vs the constant focus on business and engineering degrees. (I graduated in 1996 after taking a 4 year undergrad in Arts. It helped lay the foundation for my entrepreneurial career as it taught me how to communicate, present and be very inquisitive).

7. Is the customer really always right? Please no politically correct responses; we want your honest opinion.

No. However, it makes good business sense to side with the customer as a quick resolution to a problem can work wonders for your reputation. If the customer is taking advantage of us, we will politely side with them the first time, but will choose to move on from the relationship after that point. There are too many good customers out there and it does not make sense to be working with a customer who is not aligned with our values.

8. What famous person has this world put up on a Pedestal that you believe does not deserve to be there?

A tie between Paris Hilton and Perez Hilton.

9. If all of a sudden you had control over the entire Promotional product industry what ONE thing would you change?

The lack of professionalism in the industry. I love the business of promotional products, but I think that this industry attracts too many people who lack professionalism and are looking for a quick buck. It will be hard to be seen as equals with the advertising industry (the industry we often try to compare ourselves to) until this changes. Having said this, the industry has made great strides in recent years to improve our image (via the PPAI, ASI, regional associations).

35. Your turn to ask a question, you can ask any question you want, something you want the readers to think about and answer for themselves

What role will the distributor play in 10 years?

On Nov 12, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to speak with one of my entrepreneurial heroes, Michael Dell. This was in association with our winning the Dell SMB Excellence Award (Canada) for our use of technology in our business.

I vividly remember my first computer purchase as an 18 year old student heading off to university. I struggled out of the Dell showroom in 1992 (they had one back then) with 2 huge boxes which housed the monitor and CPU. When I mentioned this Michael Dell, he jokingly commented how they have been able to reduce the size of the boxes over the years.

The video of the conversation can be seen below

I just returned from the Canadian National Championships of Red Bull Street Style (a client of ours). I will let the images taken from my video camera do the talking.

The point of this video is to demonstrate how effective Red Bull has been at living the values of their brand. The vibe at their events is contagious. An amazing brand story.

The hooded sweats we did are below (on the ground)

On Nov 12 (at 12 noon EST), I am participating in a live webcast from Dell’s headquarters in Round Rock TX.

Dell is hosting a virtual panel discussion featuring the winners of the Dell SMB Award (from Canada, US, Mexico and Brazil). The discussion will focus on how companies are using technology to cut costs, increase efficiency, improve customer relations and grow.

You are welcome to join the webcast by registering here

The official press release can be found here