June 24, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode of Printing's Alive, Warren Werbitt and Tim Andrews discuss ASI's role in the promotional product space and its partnership with Printing United Alliance. Warren shares his experience as an ASI member, offering insights into integrating promo products into print businesses. They explore industry evolution, quality improvements, and the importance of educating printers. Topics include marketing strategies, dispelling myths, enhancing customer service, the ESP platform, trade shows, and the ROI of quality items. Sustainability trends, tariffs, and the business advantages of promotional products are also highlighted, along with upcoming ASI shows.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of Printing'sAlive, where we talk everything print.
Today, we have another special guest.
As you know, all my guests are special.
Today, have Tim Andrews of ASI.
Welcome, Tim.
Thank you, Warren.
Thanks for having me on.
Oh, pleasure.
Always a pleasure to have someone on who'sdoing something really cool that could be an
(00:32):
asset for people in the print industry.
So let's start off by, how about you just giveus a little bit of an introduction as to who
you are and what you do, and just reallyshortly what ASI is.
Yeah, I'm Tim Andrews.
I'm President and CEO of ASI and ASI is reallythe player that provides technology, education,
(00:54):
trade shows, events in the promotional productspace.
So anything you can put a logo on is either inone of our databases or it's at our trade
shows.
And we really serve the distributors that arereselling those promotional products and the
suppliers that are either manufacturing thoseproducts or they're importing those products.
And then they're decorating them on demand withthe logo of the client or the distributor.
(01:15):
So that's what we do.
Cool, cool.
Also, I'll just let everyone know if you didn'tknow, but you should know that, I don't know,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ninemonths ago, because I don't remember that much,
you guys did a little partnership with PrintingUnited Alliance.
We did.
We bought their print and promo brands, whichis a magazine that many people here probably
(01:41):
are familiar with, and also their website, andalso some trade shows that they had, some small
events that are one on one events that arehosted by suppliers and they bring in qualified
distributors.
So, in addition to that acquisition of someassets there, we also did a long term co
marketing agreement to help, people that are inprint understand promo and people that are in
(02:04):
promo to understand print.
So I think it's a great alliance.
The Printing United Alliance is awesome.
And we were meeting over a lunch and we startedtalking about what we think the future looks
like.
And we had an incredibly aligned viewpoint thatthese spaces have been coming together over
time and that's accelerating.
And we wanted to help that acceleration and thesuccess of the people that are in print to come
(02:29):
into promo and promo to come into print.
Cool.
So for people listening, that's part of thereason why I wanted Tim on here so that let
everybody know that we have an association withthe promo industry.
But I wanted Tim on here to talk about ASI.
And I'll tell you first a little story about meand promo and how I got involved in promo back
(02:53):
when I had my company.
And I never really thought of promo before whenwe needed our own stuff branded.
I went to someone, if we had a customer thatrequested something, I would refer someone to
them because I was always thinking, it's what apain in the ass.
It's all small, it's all little and blah, blah,blah.
And then one day, nothing to do with selling acustomer, but I saw this Tumi briefcase in the
(03:21):
store and it was like $1,200 and there was noway that I was going to spend $1,200 on a brief
case, but I really wanted the briefcase.
So this is where I came up with this idea.
I'm gonna join ASI.
I'll be a member.
I think at the time the membership was $6.07,$800 for the year.
And I would call up Tumi as a promotionalprovider and see if I can get a briefcase.
(03:45):
And I called Tumi and Tumi offered me thebriefcase at half price, which is wholesale, so
that I could show it to a customer and see ifthey liked the sample, which was me.
So I got a Tumi briefcase for $600 instead of1,200, and I'm like, wow.
So I saved $600 which covered most of themembership, which left $200 over to cover, and
(04:09):
just by buying our own promo stuff direct, notonly did I save that 200, but I ended up saving
a lot of money.
And then once we had that, I'm like, oh my God,we should just offer it up to a couple
customers.
And we didn't wanna get too heavy because Imean, the catalog could be this thick and
there's a million things.
(04:29):
And in print, print salespeople, you know,don't really wanna sell promo or didn't really
wanna sell promo.
Why?
Because it's smaller items and then they arelooking at their print and bigger invoices and
whatnot.
But the truth is the for what I saw was thepromo became another extension, another item
and another product that we could sell to analready existing Cleontel.
(04:54):
And we went out and we just created, I don'tknow, seven, eight, nine, ten basic items that
people can use, different pens, different cups,could be a USB key, etcetera.
And we use that in our promo.
And I kid you not, and I mean, you're not gonnabe surprised by this, but all of a sudden,
customer comes in and wants to buy a 100 cupsfor their staff and to give away.
(05:16):
100 cups at $7 a cup was a $700 order.
Cost $3.53 50 in the pocket, paid thecommitment, the salesman commission.
And we just went from that.
What I ended up doing after that was I hired aperson who was in promo to come into the
building, and we now had a promo expert whounderstood the systems and all of that, and who
(05:41):
my salespeople could refer their customers to,and we would, you know, take care of the
salespeople and have this person who understoodit on.
So I personally, I think you everyone should beselling promo, and you don't even have to go
into it in a big way, just a small way.
And then all of a sudden, even when I did theprint whisper and I went out and did
(06:04):
sweatshirts, just being a member, it's hugesavings.
It's not a it's not an expensive thing.
So I don't know if I you know, how other peopleget into promo, but selfishly, if you're the
owner and you like electronics and you likecertain things, sign up just to be a member so
you could buy stuff for your house at adiscount, And then you can make your money in
(06:25):
the office.
I wouldn't suggest that to everybody,
but a lot to unpack there, Warren.
There's a lot to unpack there.
Go ahead.
I would say, you know, your story is notunusual in the sense that many people in promo
were in a different space, right?
I've been in the industry, in ASI for twentytwo years.
And some of my very first conversation withpeople that were at more business forms and
(06:47):
they were moving from more business forms oryou fill in the blank of those big players that
we all know the names of if you've been inprint a long time.
And they were looking for how can we, offsetwhat we fear to be a decline in revenue from
print, or what in fact is a decline in revenuefrom print.
And, many of those folks were looking at whatis my current customer buying?
(07:08):
What can I do with the information I know aboutthem?
And the great thing about print is you oftenhave the logo and understand how to handle
artwork for a client.
And for what we've seen as other people havetried to come into the space and they try to
join ASI as a distributor, one of the keybenefits and one of the success factors that we
see is do you understand how to manage artwork?
(07:31):
Because if you don't know how to manage artworkand understand the process of putting words or
ink on a fabric or paper or whatever substrateyou wanna say, it's much harder to understand
because the concept it can be lost on people.
So we've got 20,000 distributor members andevery story is different.
Many of them are somewhat similar to yours.
(07:53):
They hear about promo and frankly, first partof your conversation is a great way for people
in print to get involved in promos, to find atrusted partner in the neighborhood who you
wanna have a business relationship with andlearn from and join up with.
So what you described is pretty common.
What we see today, and this is sort of incomparison to say twenty years ago when most
(08:15):
people were in promo and you know, a fewpercentage points of people were in different
industries like printing as an example.
What we see now is the membership really acrossthe board looks like a really a diverse group
of people who are in adjacent markets likeprint, who have added promo to their business,
(08:36):
or they're in promo and they've added print.
But quite honestly, it's more print addingpromo at this point.
And we think around 15 or 20% of our current20,000 distributor firms, are in the print
space in some sort of significant way.
They identify as a print oriented person orbusiness.
And so we think, of course I agree with you, Ithink it's a great way for someone in print and
(08:59):
these other adjacent markets like signs forinstance, to come into an additional business
for themselves to add revenue, but mostimportantly, to allow them to serve their
clients better.
So when a client comes in and they needsomebody's help, how can I help them across the
board?
And I think this is a great opportunity.
So I'm glad we're spending time talking about
(09:19):
Yeah, was just gonna hold up my pens.
Every pen in there has a company's name on itthat I've picked up at a trade show, except for
the highlighters.
Those are highlighters, There's
highlighters in the industry too.
I've got friends I can introduce you to.
Oh, I'm sure.
So, and the other thing I just wanna point outto everybody in, that's gonna sell promo from
my own perspective, if it isn't quality, don'tbuy it.
(09:43):
Because when you're buying promo personally andyou're buying shitty products that are cheap
and weak, when you give them out, it's anextension of who you are.
So make sure.
And the good stuff always stays with people.
I mean, I don't have all my YETI tumblers here,although I do got my other YETI, but it really
does stay, right?
(10:03):
Well, I think that's a really good point.
I think that what we've seen in the last littlewhile, you know, is topics like sustainability
and high quality, and whether that's a brandedpiece like your Tumi bag or whether it's simply
a high quality unbranded other than the brandof the company that's trying to market itself
by using promo, high quality is really payingoff.
(10:24):
That's not a trend anymore.
It's not just sort of a flash in the pan.
People want sustainable product.
They wanna make sure that the product is reallyhigh quality, that when they give it out with
their brand on it, it's gonna be somethingpeople look at and wow, I really love this.
I'm gonna keep this.
And that's really important.
The smaller products are still important inthis space overall, but for sure, there's been
(10:47):
a shift to a higher quality product, even lowerpriced products that are higher quality, even
in the lower price points.
Right, you need a pen that leaves some good inkon the paper and roll, roller balls smoothly
across and doesn't bleed all over your handswhen you rub your hand over it.
Well, you don't want a pen that's gonna nothave ink after five minutes of writing.
(11:08):
That too.
No, Which by the way is the reason that adistributor needs to really get educated.
So I think that's an important part.
We've people here listening obviously today.
I think understanding the products and whatmakes them work and who the good suppliers are
and etcetera, is a really important part oflearning about becoming an ASI distributor.
I think that's great.
(11:29):
And I mean, if you're a printer out there, ifyou're gonna get into it, you don't have to be
overwhelmed by it, right?
Like I said, 10 products that are across theboard that are good.
You can even make some samples, make your ownsamples on them.
Actually make a bunch of the products that youwanna sell and take them and give them to your
customers.
Leave them on the desk, leave them everywherearound.
Give one to the receptionist, give one towhoever, know, anyone that's your customer.
(11:53):
It's really good.
What, so when, since you've merged associationswith Printing United, how has the membership
been in terms of printer signing up for more?
And in signing up for more, has it been good?
Has it been a good sign up with a goodtransition into what they're doing?
(12:15):
Or did some people just drop off and not useit?
And I'm asking those questions because if theydropped off, I'm interested to know why, you
know, maybe to fix it up or offer up somesuggestions.
Yeah, I think it's, you know, and just toclarify, you know, we didn't merge with the
association, just to clarify, we've had peopleask us, we purchased some assets, but we've got
a co marketing agreement with Framing UnitedAlliance.
(12:39):
I think that we're doing a lot of educationtogether.
We're not looking to do a flash in the pan andget hundreds and hundreds of new members
joining.
What we're trying to do is educate people inthe print space about this opportunity and then
encourage them to come to a trade show,experience walking the show forward.
We've got a show in July in Chicago, forinstance, people could certainly come.
And we're sort of taking this sort of a step ata time, the sort of the crawl, walk, run.
(13:03):
It will not benefit anyone if we have a bunchof people that get disappointed and burned out.
So we're really taking a careful approach,making sure that people reach out to us really
go through a process of learning andunderstanding and really have a good sense of
this.
So we've got probably 150 or something newmembers as a result of this in the last few
months, but we feel good about that.
We think that it's the right pace at the righttime.
(13:27):
And would you know of the 150 or so, how manyare satisfied or not?
Yeah, you know what I find is that, you know,ASI membership is a monthly relationship.
And if people get unsatisfied, they drop prettyfast.
We've had a really good stick rate.
So I think people that are coming in,especially in these early days, are people that
(13:47):
maybe were already playing in the space.
They knew a little bit about the space.
They're probably more knowledgeable about it.
And so I feel really good about where we are inthat.
I think, when we look at cancellations orpeople that decide they don't wanna be an ASI
member anymore, it very typically is they justdidn't sell enough, right?
I didn't sell enough to my customers.
I couldn't find prospects.
(14:09):
We certainly can help them do all those things,with the services we offer and we have a
learning platform so they can really learnin-depth at their own time with sort of bite
sized classes they can take.
All of that's really important.
If someone decides they see an email marketingpiece from us or they hear this and they think
money's gonna fall from the trees, that reallyisn't what's gonna happen, right?
(14:31):
It's gonna be a slow growth activity, as youstart explaining that you offer promo now to
your clients, you look for prospects and you dothe kind of marketing you're talking about.
That's sort of the guerrilla marketing andgiving out products just to remind people, hey,
I do promo now too.
And also just training yourself, frankly, tomake sure that you're representing this vast
(14:53):
array of what you're offering.
And I like your idea about narrowing the scopeof what you're doing.
Know, it's, it's you can't there are 1,200,000products in our ESP plus database from about
3,000 suppliers.
That probably isn't the right thing for a printshop to start offering.
They need to figure out what are the 20, and wecan help by the way, we've got lots of case
(15:16):
studies talking about what are the topproducts, how do you identify those And
identifying, okay, what are the categories ineach of those categories?
Who should I be working with from a supplierperspective?
And what products should I have to give away asa lead generation for my own business?
And a lot of the suppliers we work with will dospec samples with your client or your
(15:37):
prospective client's brand and logo on there.
So that's a really important thing to keep inmind as well.
That's where I would tell the print companiesto ask for samples printed with their own on
it.
And that they could show to the customers.
So a couple things.
If you've been dealing with printers for alittle while, you've learned that they're a
(15:59):
little stubborn.
You've learned that they're not so easy toengage with all the time.
And not because they're bad or anything, but alot of the print companies are limited with the
staff that they have and the resources.
And the idea of taking on something perhapslike promos is so overwhelming, right?
(16:21):
And I would suggest to you that you set up likea little print promo package for those guys,
girls, to make it easy, right?
And then they come in and they just start.
To the print company who's listening, beforeyou start worrying about how you're gonna
market it, you're really marketing it first toall of your own customer base, You're making
(16:47):
maybe a little brochure or a little whateverprinted piece that lets people know you're
doing it.
And you've now given your salespeople a reasonto go knock on every door just to say hello,
not to ask to quote anything, because when youask to quote something, people there get a
little annoyed, but go in just to say, hey,wanted to bring you our latest offering.
(17:10):
And you could bring them a little box with thepen, with the pad, with the cup, with the
whatever, and people aren't gonna throw thatout and you leave it on their desk and they'll
leave it there.
And then when they need something, they willhopefully call you.
But at the same time to the printer, you putlittle cards in every invoice you send out in
every envelope.
(17:31):
If you're sending out invoices, if everyone'spaying online, well, on their receipt that goes
back, put a little promo for the promo, right?
It's not that hard and you don't have to gothat, you don't have to go that deep to get
into it.
I didn't think it was a hard sell.
(17:52):
I think those are great ideas.
I think that educating yourself about how to dothat.
And I think also with clients, just simplyasking open ended questions and saying, I'm
happy to have done this work for you right nowor the work that I have on an ongoing basis
with you.
How do you use promo in your business?
Have you incorporated in the way you'remarketing yourselves?
(18:13):
Who are you trying to reach when you're tryingto reach out to promo?
The demographic's really important.
Are you trying to reach men, women?
Are you trying to reach boys?
Are you trying to reach girls?
Is it you're trying to reach them in the winterwhen it may be cold and maybe they need a
certain kind of apparel?
You trying to reach them in the summer whenmaybe they need a little lighter apparel.
So I think that questioning of people is reallyimportant and learning, perhaps more than in
(18:37):
the print space where in the print space, weare printing these certain kinds of things In
the role as a source and a source of ideas inthe promo space, you've got to really dig in
and say what kind of business problem you haveyou're trying to solve?
What's your marketing problem you're trying tosolve?
And who's the demographic who you're goingafter?
And all of that's really important to thendefine what kind of products they should be
(19:01):
supplying in that marketing campaign.
Yeah, and it doesn't really matter what you'reselling as a salesperson.
You should always be asking important questionsabout the people's businesses.
Yes.
And then you should bite your tongue for fourseconds until they start to respond.
My tongue has holes in it from learning to bitemy tongue because I always have something to
(19:21):
say.
Right?
But what do they teach you?
Shut up and let the other person talk.
Then it comes back and it goes that way, right?
What are some of the myths and the barriers orthe barriers and the myths that you think
people think about when they hear promo?
(19:43):
Yeah, I think, there's a few things, especiallyin the print side.
So I think, for some of the print folks thatwe've talked to that have joined and others
that are still pursuing this, I think gettingpast the idea that they have to manufacture the
product.
I think there may be a myth or a concern that,gosh, I don't wanna add equipment to put logos
on writing instruments.
(20:04):
So I think one myth is I have to warehouse itor I have to buy it in advance or I have to
actually do the decoration myself.
None of that is true.
Certainly on the apparel side, you can havecapability to do printing on apparel in house.
And that may make some sense for some peoplethat really understand that business, which the
printer people often do, not always becausethey may be outsourcing some of the printer.
(20:26):
So I think that's one myth bust, which is likesuppliers warehouse the product, they have it
there, you order from them, you give them theartwork, they send you back a proof, you
approve the proof after your clients looked atthe proof hopefully and approved it and then
they produce it for you.
And they either ship it to your shop if you'vea shop or they can drop ship it blind to your
(20:46):
client.
So I think that is one really important thing.
Number two, I would say is the margins are low.
You know, what would you say the average marginis, for print printer?
Well, margin, low because, well, the good ones,it's high, but I will tell you that the profit
leaders in the industry, you know, run at about9% net profit at the end of the year.
(21:10):
Yep.
And most of the others are in the 2% to 3%,which is very low.
So promo can have a 36 to 40% gross margin,which is a nice healthy number because again,
you've got no money wrapped up in warehousingthe product, owning the product, you're buying
on demand.
And so you referenced a 50% discount, you know,etc.
(21:34):
Or 50, you know, 100% markup is what they'redoing, right?
That's the margin we're talking about.
It's not, some people think, it's low margin.
I don't want to be in this.
It's low margin.
It's not low margin and you've got no capitaltied up in it.
You don't have to have a warehouse.
So that investment is quite low.
Three, I think another myth is my customersalready are buying promo and they don't need my
(21:56):
help.
Well, everyone wants to have, a client thattrusts them, and everyone who's a client wants
to have a vendor, a relationship with a partnerthat they, someone who knows them and
understands them and gets their vibe, right?
And so I think that myth that I can't reallysell this because they're not gonna buy it from
me is another myth that I would bust.
(22:16):
I think that is truly not true.
That's just a weak salesperson.
Well, they exist out there, Warren.
Oh no, for sure.
But a good salesperson will bring whatever tothe customer and talk it through and find out.
I mean, one area where promo is great if you'rea print company, you know, a lot of your
customers probably go to do trade shows orexhibit somewhere.
(22:40):
And the beautiful thing if you can do promo isyou save them from having one more stop to go
to, right?
You know what you're doing with the artwork,you're managing it and you're saving them time.
And that's part of your pitch, right?
Do you wanna go out to three people?
And the promo will probably be the smartest,the smallest amount, dollar amount item that
(23:03):
they buy when they're doing a show betweeneverything they spend to go and the people and
the setup and all of that.
So I think that that's really easy.
Yeah, the no inventory, everyone should know noinventory, it's really easy.
One thing that I really liked when I joined andI went on the site was, I mean, aside from
(23:25):
spending hours looking for my own shit, when Ifound stuff for a customer, I would go, I can
go on there, and when I'm quoting them, I wasdoing it, sending the samples, sending it
directly from your site.
Right.
And then I would BCC me the email, I didn'thave to go check after and see where it was.
And it just made it seamless and it made itquick, where, you know, a bunch of years ago,
(23:48):
wasn't so quick.
I think that's a great point.
Maybe one of the myths I should have busted isthat it's hard to do.
We've actually solved a lot of the problems.
Not all of them, we're still working on theproblems in this industry, of course, but ESP
plus our platform allows you to search forproducts by category, by keyword, all sorts of
things, create a incredibly professionalpresentation with your own branding as a
(24:08):
printer on the presentation and the branding ofthe prospective customer.
The customer, you send it out, you can go backand forth on our platform, them saying, I like
this, I don't like this, I love this, whatever.
I wanna order a 100 of these, but that's allthat back and forth is on our platform and is
very visible and stored forever under thatclient or prospective client's name.
(24:30):
So you can always go back and look at them.
And then you can recreate, once you've settledwhat they want, you create the PO with really
like a couple of clicks and it creates the PO,sends the PO out to the supplier and sends it
off.
And then you can set up things like reminderssaying, okay, I wanna be reminded in six months
to call this client back and say, hey, do youwanna reorder those hats?
Are you out of hats yet?
So there's a lot of that.
(24:51):
And in our industry, a really important part ofthis is in our industry, a very big percentage
of the orders, something in the 30%, 35% rangeare reorders of something that they've already
purchased.
And so that is a real blessing and somethingthat printers really understand so much is what
you
all
do.
Profit, you know, somebody calls you up andsays, Hey, those mugs I bought, I need to order
(25:12):
50 more.
You literally go into our platform.
You pull it up on the client name, you find theorder that you had, which is very simple to
find.
You hit a button that just recasts that POfresh, you know, for the 50.
So it really is a great easier than it was tenor fifteen years ago when your people were
pouring through DVDs and CDs and God knows whatthey were doing.
(25:33):
Yeah, mean, could set up catalogs for certaincustomers where they go on, right? Then
Then everyone in that company could buydirectly from it and it goes right through.
Yeah.
So I think it's great.
Listen, I remember one customer wanted to buy150 umbrellas from us, like printed umbrellas,
and I'm like, woah, and that was a 100, I mean,that could have been a $20 item because they
were better umbrellas, and all of a sudden yougot a $34,000 item, you're making 2,000, it
(25:58):
adds up quickly.
Yeah, it's really,
that's it.
I would recommend to everybody, it's worth thetry.
You can call me if you wanna know a little bitmore about it.
So let me ask you, a print company comes on andthey wanna join.
They go on, they go in, they go onto thewebsite, they fill in their details.
(26:19):
Yeah.
And then tell me what happens after.
Yeah, pretty quickly.
We'll reach out to them.
We'll ask them some additional questions.
We screen to make sure that they're buying onbehalf of clients and not on behalf of
themselves.
So you slip through our process here.
Oh, didn't do a company name, but I did do areal company.
Okay, so we sort of do a screen there to makesure we enroll them in some courses.
We connect them with somebody who can supportthem for the first two years.
(26:42):
We give you a success manager that's really bethere for you.
So you've got questions about how do I fill outmy first purchase order?
I've gotta be walked through how to create myfirst presentation.
I wanna set up a company store, which we offer,for one of my clients that wants to have a
curated list of 10 products that theiremployees can buy or that their customers can
come in and buy because maybe it's a fundraiserfor a local school system or something.
(27:04):
So we'll help you with all that hands ongetting all that up and running.
And of course we also build and host websitesfor distributors.
I mentioned we got 20,000 distributor firms,something around 15,000 of those firms have
websites we've built and host for them.
So you can have a website that a customerclient prospect can come on.
They either find you through a Google search orthey can find you because they've got your URL
(27:25):
on a business card that was in some sort of anoffering that you had.
They go on your website and they can do theshopping, fill out a shopping card, hit a
button and you can have it go to you as a lead.
You can have it go to you as an order or youcan actually take the credit card on the
website.
So all of that we help people walk throughbecause we know that the first few times of
this, it's complicated.
You mentioned people are busy.
(27:46):
They're already running their business.
And this is one of these things like, okay, nowhow do I do this?
It's outside my usual role here.
And so we really try to provide lots ofhandholding for the first year or so to really
make sure that people get across the firstthree or four big things.
And then they get an order like your umbrellaorder for 2 or $3,000 and they go, okay, well
(28:07):
this is real deal now.
This isn't $20 worth of ink pens.
This is a real deal.
And so I think then they get excited.
Making money makes people excited.
At least people I know, it makes them excited.
I don't about you, Warren, but that gets peoplegoing.
Oh, for sure.
Listen, these Yetis, I don't have to tell youin the store, a Yeti in the store for a liter
(28:29):
and a half water bottle.
This is a $70 water bottle.
Yeah, big deal.
Christmas, I had two companies send me Yetitumblers, which I always do a little ad for
them because I just love my tumbler and I lovewhen I take it fishing and it keeps my tea
warm, But a quality product, you don't put itdown.
It's And for those customers who say, you knowwhat, Yeti's a little out of my $70, a little
(28:53):
out of my world.
The good news is in our industry, there's lotsof suppliers that have yeti alike product that
is incredibly high value for 20 or $25 So youcan give your client an option.
You can say, understand you want the yeti at$75.
You want the YETI or do you want the 20 or $25product that is incredibly equivalent to that
(29:14):
product.
So lots of price points on industry as well,which is really helpful.
I think when you're talking to a client thatmay have a significantly smaller, they got
bigger eyes and they got budget, you can talkabout the big price stuff, but then you can
come down to a price point because in ourworld, that umbrella you mentioned, there's a
$100 umbrella probably and there's a $5umbrella.
(29:35):
And so the client really can have a lot ofselection across not only numbers of suppliers,
number of products, categories, but also pricepoints, which is really important.
Yeah, know all kinds of opportunity.
So now I'll just say, so when I joined, therewas one thing that I didn't like.
Uh-oh, wasn't me, was it?
(29:55):
No, I didn't know you then, or I would'vecalled you myself to give you some grief.
No, and I say this because this, it bugs mewith a lot of things.
So when I went and joined up and it was easyand I got on, all of a sudden you guys started
trying to sell me all these other services.
And not that the services aren't good, theservices actually are pretty good, but I just
(30:18):
want you guys to remember when you're going todeal with the print owners and because they're
limited on resources, they're limited financialresources, human resources, and whatever other
resources, the last thing they want is anythingpushed on them.
So you gotta, if you're gonna do that, do it ina way that like you're asking them every so
often when they're ready to know more orletting them know and then let them ask you
(30:43):
because all the different, and then it justgets confusing and then it gets frustrating.
And then the easiest thing is to cancel.
So if I could tell your rep something.
I think really good points.
I would say one thing that we changed about, Idon't know when you joined, but about two years
ago we changed.
Years ago.
Okay, so about two years ago, we changed ourapproach.
We used to sell membership of ASI separately.
(31:05):
But at the end of the day, we were sort oflike, you know what, it's wonderful.
And it provides value because it reallydifferentiates someone in the marketplace.
It gives you an immediate credential to workwith suppliers.
But we now merge that basic membership with alicensed ESP.
And so that cuts down on the pestering oftrying to sell you more things.
So I think that we have a lot more packages.
(31:27):
Okay, good.
We really encourage people to buy a packagethat's gonna help them be successful.
So it's membership plus an ESP or two ESPlicenses, depending on what you've got, number
of people you have in your organization.
And then maybe some print catalogs.
So you've got maybe 20 or 30 print catalogscome to you two or three times a year.
And of course you also have access to oureducational platform and you can also go to all
(31:47):
of our trade shows.
We wrap that all into a package so that one, wedon't have to bug people, we don't bug people
whether, you know, and also so they can be moresuccessful because we know that if they just
join and that's it, they're not gonna besuccessful.
If they just join and they have ESP, they maybe successful, but not as much as if they go to
a show, we've got three shows, Orlando,Chicago, which is in July, and in Fort Worth,
(32:08):
Texas.
If we get you to come to a show, you're gonnabe more successful because you're gonna walk
the show floor, you're gonna understand theproduct, you're gonna understand how the
business works, you're gonna sit through threeor four educational classes about social media
sourcing product, how to create a greatpresentation, how to use AI in your business,
all these different topics we have.
And you're gonna come back to your shoprefreshed, excited and ready to go.
(32:32):
So I don't wanna disappoint you, but we have ahard time getting printers to come to the print
shows.
I know.
And that's- sorry, and I am a giant advocateof, if you are a printer, if you're a print
owner, if you work within a printing company,ask your owner to send you to a show.
If you're an owner, come to the show.
(32:53):
It doesn't mean you're buying something.
It's not about buying.
I never buy at a show, if I could be reallyhonest with you, because I am not bringing my
financial guy with me and I'm not a math guyand I'm not doing all the financing, but I go
to a show for a couple reasons.
I go to a show to be counted.
The more people that go to shows, the higherthe count, the more excitement there is within
(33:16):
the industry.
And then you don't have everyone going, oh,there's nobody here, there's nobody here.
I go to the shows to network.
I go to the shows to meet people and to pick upideas.
If I could leave a show with one idea, becausetube is too complicated to go back and remember
and to do something.
If I could leave with one idea and take it backto the shop, that's what's amazing, you know?
(33:40):
And then I'm there to meet and see old friendsand do it all.
So everyone should be going to the showsbecause it's like, have friends who, maybe
China's not a good example right now, but Iused to have friends that went to the shows in
China, which were huge, and that they would gothere for ideas and thoughts.
If you're staying in your office, you can'tlearn, you can't grow, you can't see and you
(34:03):
won't know what's out there.
Yep.
And you won't get ideas.
Think great shows, Right, shows give you otherideas, right?
Bring a customer to a show.
You're just walking, you want them to see towhat goes on there.
So yeah, so good luck with getting printers tothe show, unless we have some incentive.
(34:24):
Well, I've got a couple of pieces of magicthere, okay?
So first of all, when we look at the map and welook at Chicago, we look at the Dallas Fort
Worth area and Orlando, there are a lot ofprospective There are a lot of printers who are
prospective clients to be selling promotionalproducts.
And so we do three day shows, often one of thedays is on the weekend.
(34:44):
And so we have an education day typically, andwe have two show days that are open that people
can walk the show for.
And so we really encourage people, you don'tneed to come the whole three days.
And if you're in a driving range of any ofthose three spots, in our case, you can drive
in, spend the day, park, spend the day.
We have a lot of incentives.
So ASI members, if they wanna stay overnight,if they come to both days of the show and get
(35:05):
scanned, they get a free night in a hotel roomin our block.
Oh, cool.
Which is awesome.
So you can come in.
We also do all sorts of other things, freeparking passes.
We do free tickets to the gal if you registerearly for the show.
So there's lots of incentives that allow an ASImember to come and really make out pretty well.
So you can get a couple of meals on us.
(35:27):
Can get, really it's on the suppliers who arepaying us, but I mean, a couple of meals, you
can get free parking, you can get a free roomif you wanna stay overnight.
So there's a lot of opportunity there to do it.
And of course, the other piece that's reallyimpactful is, the relationship, think we're
going to talk about this in a few minutes, withPrinting United at their trade show, which will
be in 2026.
(35:48):
And that will allow you to see promo suppliersplus all the print people.
So that's a good two for one activity, which Ithink is gonna be very exciting for people that
you're right, can't be out of their shop ortheir offices, three or four times a year for a
two to three day show.
That just doesn't work for what their businessis.
Yeah, and anybody's listening, if COVID taughtus anything, that thing that happened years
(36:11):
ago, you don't have to be in your office.
You can get away from your office.
People will not miss you for a day or two andeverything will get done.
And if you're a print owner, you know what I'mtalking about when I say when you're not there,
more stuff gets done without you becausethey're not waiting to line up outside your
door to ask you a dumb question.
And all of a sudden you come back and they'relining up with all the questions again, which
(36:35):
is a pretty amazing miraculous thing when thathappens, right?
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Well, a lot gets done.
When I'm not here, if I'm out on the road, I'mguaranteeing that people are doing great work.
So it's something And you know why?
They want you to know that you can count onthem because they prefer when you're not in the
office.
(36:55):
That's how they keep you away, by doing right.
I think that works.
And I think for all of us, not only have welearned we can operate businesses and keep our
finger on the pulse of our businesses, but wecan also learn a lot.
So even if you can't come to one of our showsto spend the day in education, we've got dozens
of courses online and you can watch all thosecourses as an ASI member at no cost and really
(37:16):
learn about the industry in their twenty,thirty minutes.
Most of them are sort of bite size things.
So during a lunch break or whenever, you cansort of get up to speed on what's going on in
the industry.
So that's really helpful as well for peoplethat can't
And are the videos, do you have a video sectiongeared towards the printer?
Yes, we do, yeah.
Okay.
Absolutely, asicentral.com/education.
(37:36):
And we're actually, this is top secret becausewe haven't launched it yet, but in Chicago in
about a month, we're gonna be launching anentirely new education learning platform.
But we've got some courses tailoredspecifically for the printer looking to commit
a promo.
Okay.
And I'm I'm just laughing to myself because I'mjust thinking, am I gonna get this out?
(37:59):
So are you what kind of offer do you have forthe printer to join up for a month or two for
free to get his foot wet or her foot wet orfeet because it's feet's plural.
Right?
And I don't know if you have something, I'mjust putting it on the spot because I can.
We get a couple offers.
The best thing to do is this, email me,Tandrews, TANDREWS,@asicentral.com, and I will
(38:22):
have our best and brightest talk to you abouthow you can get in the industry.
Cool, maybe you can give me some type of codeto put on when I put the podcast up in the
description that they can click on it and gosomewhere.
We'll do that, we will definitely do that.
Just do maybe the print whisper at ASI orsomething.
Special
landing page just for you.
Special landing page just for you, Warren.
(38:44):
Oh my God, that would be so nice.
Anything just for me is good.
I don't get a lot of that, but it's all good.
And so I remember reading not long ago, it wasin, they're talking about like quad graphics
and something like $26,000,000,000 orsomething, or no, dollars 26,000,000,000 is
what the industry is.
Yes, yes.
(39:04):
Quad graphics is that multi billion dollarprinter who has gone into promo.
Yep.
Am I correct with that?
Yeah, that's
what they've announced.
That's what they've announced, yeah.
So tell us a little bit about it because folks,this is a, I'm gonna say the last name once,
the Quadrucci family that owns Quad, andthey're smart people.
(39:26):
So we should be looking to them as to why theymade that move.
And what I know is what they said when theyannounced this big move into the promo is that
their clients who are buying print from themare also buying promo.
And people are looking for one stop shops.
And they see this as a great opportunity,think, to be able to do all the things we're
talking about, not have to have inventory of aproduct, not having to manage that whole
(39:50):
manufacturing process.
They do a lot, I think at Quad that is digitalnow in terms of not only the printing of
course, but also digital services that surroundand marketing services that surround their
clients.
And I think they see this as another veryintegral piece of the puzzle that allows a
client to have one partner to be able to helpthem with all their marketing needs, whether
it's social media, whether it's print, whetherit's promo, they want to be the one stop shop.
(40:14):
And I think that on that scale, is prettygrand.
But I think there's a lot of smaller scalesthat many of your listeners are incredibly
adept at managing.
And the kind of clients that they have are thesame kind of clients, only maybe a little
smaller, but equally productive, profitable,and good opportunities for the printer to get
(40:36):
in the space.
And the bottom line is you're there to help thecustomer save their time and money and make it
easy.
I mean, remember when I had my print shop, wegot into large format.
We got into mailing.
We got into packaging.
We got into printing.
We were doing the promo.
We did all the FSC, all the sort of all thesustainability certifications.
(41:00):
Why?
A, it's all good for marketing when you do allthat and it lets people know what you're doing.
But more importantly, it was the sales pitchabout come to us.
We could manage your brand.
We could manage it across all platforms.
It's not easy, so we'll start with the hardestitem first and then go.
Or you know what?
(41:20):
You can go to four different suppliers and Ihope your logo matches.
Well, think you're experts, printers areexperts in that brand management piece, which
is really important.
I visit with a printer who is now in promo andhe's got a couple of huge restaurant chains.
And what he had been doing for these restaurantchains to begin with was printing their
(41:40):
employee handbook, which at the time was inprint form, right?
And every time a new employee came in, theywould send him through email the name of the
new employee.
And this is restaurants, there's a lot ofchurn, a lot of turnover, you know, in the
staff.
And he went to me was like, gosh, you know, whydon't we do some branded apparel for these
employees?
(42:00):
And long story short, it went from being a costto that restaurant chain, there were two
restaurant chains, rather than a cost ofmailing this out, they actually had the new
employees.
They would go on a website, they go on awebsite, they put in their name, etcetera.
They then pay for their two or three shirtsthey get.
And because the way they structured thepricing, the box has the free shirts in it.
(42:23):
The box has also got the employee handbook init.
It ships.
And by the way, the restaurant now pays zero,and the new employee pays for the shipping and
all this.
And so it went from So that person wasincredibly smart with their client.
They went to their client and said, let's shiftthe whole thing around here.
Let's change that whole model.
So I think that kind of thinking about how do Iadd promo in a very integrated way with what
(42:47):
I'm already doing with clients.
And by the way, how do I make it a win to them?
That was a huge win.
That company went from spending $20 for everynew employee for the printing and the mailing
to spending 0.
And that is a huge especially when 25% of thepeople don't show up after their first day or
something, right?
Right.
Well, the other thing is as an owner, what Ithought was really cool, when you go out and
you buy everybody the branded shirts or the tshirts or the uniforms, it's just really nice
(43:11):
in the plant for the team because everyone is,number one, everyone feels like they're on the
team.
Number two, when you're giving them shirts anduniforms, they're not dirtying and ruining
their own clothes.
Right?
It's that.
And what's really special is when you havepeople come in and visit the place or you're
doing a tour or press approval, you look like ateam.
(43:32):
Yep.
And everybody's on the same page.
Which is, I don't even know if you can measurethat in any terms of, you know, getting
something back from it.
But I know when I go into places and I feellike it's a team, I'm like, okay, I'm in the
right place.
Quality of it And
it's a really good reminder that some of these,some of the price points are really very
(43:55):
affordable.
That's the other great thing about promotionalproducts because we get a great return on
investment when a marketing, when someoneincludes promotional price in marketing.
We have lots of stats, by the way,asicentral.com/research has lots of information
about how you can show your customers and yourprospects the return on investment they should
get from each of the categories.
We've got every category in return oninvestment, but think about this.
(44:17):
I mean, how many of us have dozens of thingsaround our house, we've had five, ten, fifteen,
twenty years, that are still promoting thosebusinesses and are really valuable.
So I think that price point in terms of theimpression, price per impression, the cost per
impression, promo is a great return oninvestment, which is another pitch to customers
(44:37):
and clients.
So I'm gonna go back to the, you're saying thelongevity of some of the items.
I'm gonna go back to being quality because whenit's quality, you don't throw it out.
You keep the cotton t shirt, you keep thehoodie, right?
I mean, the other thing is when I was doingpromo and I was putting my logo on it, I made
sure not to make my logo too big and gaudy,right?
(44:58):
So that people would wear it When you're rightacross your whole chest, it doesn't get worn as
much, right?
Yeah, that is a great point.
I think I have been preaching this a lot in thelast couple of years because I started seeing
this proliferation of these huge big brands,you know, in some of these spaces.
And you see this in some of the fashion brands,you know, they'll plaster their brands.
(45:19):
I think that, something much more discreet ismuch, much classier.
I refer to his, I don't want to look horsey,right?
And so that logo should not look like a horseon your chest, right?
It should be more like a very subtle thing onthe side, done really well.
And I think that's really important because youwant people to keep the product and use the
product.
Well, and if you're gonna put a big logo, thenI want you to pay me, right?
(45:42):
Even on my car, I took the dealership stickeroff back.
A, I don't need it on there, but B, I paid forthe car.
Why am I advertising you?
If you want, give me a free oil change and I'llput the sticker on.
Right?
I think it's a good
Right?
Just everything's gotta be Everything has towork for everybody.
Yeah.
And then that's really, you know, the bestthing.
(46:05):
Any big trends that you see that we should knowabout?
I think a couple of things.
One, and you mentioned sustainability a littleearlier.
I think that sustainability is burst out.
It's no longer a trend, it's a requirement.
So I think that sustainability piece is huge inour space and getting bigger.
I think it is then engendering a couple ofother things, and one is transparency.
(46:27):
You know, the industry has been very secretiveover the years.
Know, over time that secrecy has gone away.
I think the internet sort of blew up some ofthat secrecy.
There's still a lot of mystery about thisindustry quite honestly.
There's still a very important ASI number thatprotects the identity of suppliers and
distributors.
There's lots of pieces of this.
But I think that transparency is something thatis starting in Europe.
It is coming here, and it started to already behere.
(46:50):
And that transparency is around where was thisproduct sourced?
Where was this fabric?
Where was this cotton grown?
Where was it actually woven?
Who and where was the screen printing done?
All of that detail is starting to be embeddedin some products.
And I think that is gonna be a huge, if we'resitting here in five years talking about this,
(47:10):
I think you're gonna see lots of differentkinds of identification of that life cycle of
the creation of a product.
And it's starting to happen in Europe.
We're starting to see it here a little bit andyou're gonna see more of that because people
really do care and do wanna know.
And a lot of those are, they're nowincorporating QR codes.
You scan the QR code and it pops up and tellsyou all that information.
(47:31):
And this was started really because of importrestrictions and issues in terms of social
responsibility of growing cotton in certainplaces, mostly in China.
And so all of that is sort of blown up to bethis big transparency issue.
So I think sustainability was a trend.
It's now a longer trend.
It's a known environment, it's life, right?
(47:54):
That I think the other piece is how do wereclaim product?
And so there's a lot of effort in our spaceamong some fairly big players that say, once
the promotional product has come end of life,how do we make sure that it is recycled
properly?
And do we have the right kind of labeling onthe product so that people know what to do with
it?
Or do we have processes to reincorporate thatinto the stream of supply chain?
(48:18):
So I think those are two big things going on.
That transparency thing though, you're gonnahear a lot more about that in the next three to
five years.
Listen, I think with the internet, I think withAI out there, there are no more secrets
anymore, right?
I laugh with people that say, I don't wannagive you my phone number or my email, but they
haven't turned off Google history, which isfollowing them everywhere they go.
(48:40):
So it's, there are no secrets.
Oh, one important thing that I'd forgotten thatjust came to me with all the tariffs going on
today.
Right?
I guess we don't even know where the tariffsare anymore because we need your guy to make a
final decision.
But how the industry dealing with it?
(49:02):
Well, two things.
One, he's not my guy nor he's not my guy.
So I'm
not going I mean the head of the country.
I understand.
I understand what you're saying.
You know, I could say that maybe we're theeleventh, and you know, so I think you would
get what I mean about that.
You know, I think that certainly in the firstpart of the year, it was an incredibly
(49:22):
uncertain time.
Know, you wake up and there's 155 or 145% orwhatever kind of tariff you want to say,
there's reciprocal tariffs.
You know, our industry in the first Trumpadministration looked at what happened with
China tariffs and said, we need to change somethings.
And they moved a lot of manufacturing andsourcing out of China to places like Vietnam
and Cambodia and around the world.
(49:44):
And so that was moved.
And the reason that they did that was becausethey didn't, they thought China would be the
only country ever in the crosshairs of thisbecause that was the first country that was
tariffed at a steeper rate than we hadpreviously had.
In this next round, of course, many of thecountries that people had moved manufacturing
and sourcing to are on the list of thereciprocal tariffs.
(50:05):
And so it's a pretty complicated time.
I think that where we are today is things seemmore certain.
There seems to be less discussion about it.
There are presumably negotiations going on, youknow, across dozens of countries to figure out
what these tariffs really are going to looklike.
And we're getting close because the sort ofpause on them is coming up here in the next few
(50:31):
weeks and comes off presumably.
So there'll be another big nudge of news in thenext couple, three weeks about those tariffs.
But I think certainty is what business peoplewant.
We wanna know where are they gonna be, give metime to figure it out, and I'll figure it out.
The real problem in this whole first half ofthe year was it's up, it's down, it's we don't
know.
(50:51):
It's really hard to manage, but I think it'ssettling down.
I think people are understanding that there'sgonna be some significant tariff on China
that's higher than it was before.
I think there'll be 10 or 20% tariffs on someother countries where we didn't have tariffs
before.
I think the suppliers will be able to absorbthose and also pass along some of those costs.
And of course for tariffs, it's reallyimportant to remember that the tariff is on the
(51:13):
import value, it's not on the ultimate price,right?
If I'm importing a $10 product, that $10product has a 20% tariff, that's $2 I pay.
I may buy that as a supplier.
I may sell it to a distributor for $20 who'sgoing to then sell to somebody for $30 So that
$30 product used to be $28 It's $2 more.
So there's ways to move that pricing around andabsorb some of it, not all of it, prices are
(51:37):
going to go up.
But I think people are getting their feetgrounded and their heads screwed back on.
Now, if we wake up tomorrow and suddenly thetariffs are at 140% again, all bets are off.
All off, right.
Yeah, no, I think in general, I mean,beginning, everything tariff, tariff, tariff,
(51:57):
and then it's slowly coming down.
I mean, listen, everything in life, evenwithout the tariffs, everything in life seems
to have gotten expensive lately.
Right?
So, absolutely.
All we
could do.
But that's why you need to do promo because ifyou have one more item, it just offsets some of
your other losses or not losses, but maybe lossof other potential revenue.
(52:18):
So you never go.
And in promo, mean, you could really buyanything under the sun in promo.
Oh yeah.
Well, there's a million, we have 1,200,000 inour database, from 3,000 suppliers.
You can find almost anything.
Oh my God, I would spend days looking and thenI'd have to, okay, get out of here because you
don't need all that stuff, you know?
I would just ask that there'd be a little morephishing items put in there because I couldn't
(52:40):
find any, but that's just my own personalthing.
I'll look into that.
I'll look into phishing.
And I'll go, okay, and get back to me on thatone.
So we're gonna wrap up here, but this wasreally good.
But before I let you go, any final words youwanna have to my audience of millions, I wish?
It's not scary.
(53:00):
Promo is not scary.
You can learn it.
You can add it to your product line.
You can serve your clients better than you'veever served them before by allowing them to
have one source for all the things they needwith their brand.
And so that's my final thought for sure.
And asicentral.com, check it out.
Lots of information there about what we offer.
And of course, you're in the Chicago area, youwant to come to Chicago next month, check out
(53:24):
asishow.com, learn all about our Chicago showor Orlando in January or Fort Worth in the
first quarter of next year.
When is the show in Chicago?
July.
July what?
About a month away.
We're about a month out.
Okay, so now I gotta bump the other podcast toget this one in so that it comes up in the
(53:46):
month on You just did a maneuver I
moved myself to the top of the without evenknowing I could.
No, I'm gonna move it up in a week or two.
It'll be on.
Thank you, Warren.
When people get a chance to hear this, andwouldn't want them in August to hear that
there's a show in July.
Now that wouldn't be good for you or for mycredibility with what I'm trying to put out
(54:07):
there.
So, okay, so I'll do that.
I was just gonna say the same thing that Timsaid, look into it.
It's not scary.
Feel free to reach out to me if you want somehelp because I can give you some rudimentary
help on it.
It's so worth looking into.
You will be so surprised with what thepotential is and what can come from it.
(54:28):
Especially if you're doing monthly mailings andyou decide to offer some giveaways.
But we could talk about the giveaways and allthe marketing stuff later.
Go sign up, asicentral.com.
Know what, before you wait for me to put out mylink that they're gonna give me, and then
we'll, I'll set it up with them that they takecare of you in a good way and give you a great
(54:48):
introduction.
Tim, great to have you on, Completelyappreciate it.
Love bringing to the audience, you know, thingsthat exist, make them feel a little better
about what they're doing, realize how easy itis and give them other opportunity out there.
And I'm hoping everyone is going to come see usat the show.
Chicago might be a little early for some of youin July, but Printing United is in October.
(55:12):
It's in Orlando and I will be there.
And if you find me, I will let you buy me adrink.
How's that?
I'll look for you.
I'll be there as I'll be there with ASI aswell.
So I'll find you and we'll have a drink.
Okay, cool.
Everybody, thank you for listening.
You know me, I'm always appreciative andgrateful.
(55:33):
If anybody has any ideas, anyone wants to hearme talk about something, anyone knows somebody
wants to be on it that has something great tosay, reach out to me.
It would be my pleasure.
Otherwise, we're signing off.
Printing's alive.
I love print.
Warren Werbet, next time.
Thanks, Tim.
Great, thank you very much, Warren.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of Printing'sAlive, where we talk everything print.
Today, we have another special guest.
As you know, all my guests are special.
Today, have Tim Andrews of ASI.
Welcome, Tim.
Thank you, Warren.
Thanks for having me on.
Oh, pleasure.
Always a pleasure to have someone on who'sdoing something really cool that could be an
(00:32):
asset for people in the print industry.
So let's start off by, how about you just giveus a little bit of an introduction as to who
you are and what you do, and just reallyshortly what ASI is.
Yeah, I'm Tim Andrews.
I'm President and CEO of ASI and ASI is reallythe player that provides technology, education,
(00:54):
trade shows, events in the promotional productspace.
So anything you can put a logo on is either inone of our databases or it's at our trade
shows.
And we really serve the distributors that arereselling those promotional products and the
suppliers that are either manufacturing thoseproducts or they're importing those products.
And then they're decorating them on demand withthe logo of the client or the distributor.
(01:15):
So that's what we do.
Cool, cool.
Also, I'll just let everyone know if you didn'tknow, but you should know that, I don't know,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ninemonths ago, because I don't remember that much,
you guys did a little partnership with PrintingUnited Alliance.
We did.
We bought their print and promo brands, whichis a magazine that many people here probably
(01:41):
are familiar with, and also their website, andalso some trade shows that they had, some small
events that are one on one events that arehosted by suppliers and they bring in qualified
distributors.
So, in addition to that acquisition of someassets there, we also did a long term co
marketing agreement to help, people that are inprint understand promo and people that are in
(02:04):
promo to understand print.
So I think it's a great alliance.
The Printing United Alliance is awesome.
And we were meeting over a lunch and we startedtalking about what we think the future looks
like.
And we had an incredibly aligned viewpoint thatthese spaces have been coming together over
time and that's accelerating.
And we wanted to help that acceleration and thesuccess of the people that are in print to come
(02:29):
into promo and promo to come into print.
Cool.
So for people listening, that's part of thereason why I wanted Tim on here so that let
everybody know that we have an association withthe promo industry.
But I wanted Tim on here to talk about ASI.
And I'll tell you first a little story about meand promo and how I got involved in promo back
(02:53):
when I had my company.
And I never really thought of promo before whenwe needed our own stuff branded.
I went to someone, if we had a customer thatrequested something, I would refer someone to
them because I was always thinking, it's what apain in the ass.
It's all small, it's all little and blah, blah,blah.
And then one day, nothing to do with selling acustomer, but I saw this Tumi briefcase in the
(03:21):
store and it was like $1,200 and there was noway that I was going to spend $1,200 on a brief
case, but I really wanted the briefcase.
So this is where I came up with this idea.
I'm gonna join ASI.
I'll be a member.
I think at the time the membership was $6.07,$800 for the year.
And I would call up Tumi as a promotionalprovider and see if I can get a briefcase.
(03:45):
And I called Tumi and Tumi offered me thebriefcase at half price, which is wholesale, so
that I could show it to a customer and see ifthey liked the sample, which was me.
So I got a Tumi briefcase for $600 instead of1,200, and I'm like, wow.
So I saved $600 which covered most of themembership, which left $200 over to cover, and
(04:09):
just by buying our own promo stuff direct, notonly did I save that 200, but I ended up saving
a lot of money.
And then once we had that, I'm like, oh my God,we should just offer it up to a couple
customers.
And we didn't wanna get too heavy because Imean, the catalog could be this thick and
there's a million things.
(04:29):
And in print, print salespeople, you know,don't really wanna sell promo or didn't really
wanna sell promo.
Why?
Because it's smaller items and then they arelooking at their print and bigger invoices and
whatnot.
But the truth is the for what I saw was thepromo became another extension, another item
and another product that we could sell to analready existing Cleontel.
(04:54):
And we went out and we just created, I don'tknow, seven, eight, nine, ten basic items that
people can use, different pens, different cups,could be a USB key, etcetera.
And we use that in our promo.
And I kid you not, and I mean, you're not gonnabe surprised by this, but all of a sudden,
customer comes in and wants to buy a 100 cupsfor their staff and to give away.
(05:16):
100 cups at $7 a cup was a $700 order.
Cost $3.53 50 in the pocket, paid thecommitment, the salesman commission.
And we just went from that.
What I ended up doing after that was I hired aperson who was in promo to come into the
building, and we now had a promo expert whounderstood the systems and all of that, and who
(05:41):
my salespeople could refer their customers to,and we would, you know, take care of the
salespeople and have this person who understoodit on.
So I personally, I think you everyone should beselling promo, and you don't even have to go
into it in a big way, just a small way.
And then all of a sudden, even when I did theprint whisper and I went out and did
(06:04):
sweatshirts, just being a member, it's hugesavings.
It's not a it's not an expensive thing.
So I don't know if I you know, how other peopleget into promo, but selfishly, if you're the
owner and you like electronics and you likecertain things, sign up just to be a member so
you could buy stuff for your house at adiscount, And then you can make your money in
(06:25):
the office.
I wouldn't suggest that to everybody,
but a lot to unpack there, Warren.
There's a lot to unpack there.
Go ahead.
I would say, you know, your story is notunusual in the sense that many people in promo
were in a different space, right?
I've been in the industry, in ASI for twentytwo years.
And some of my very first conversation withpeople that were at more business forms and
(06:47):
they were moving from more business forms oryou fill in the blank of those big players that
we all know the names of if you've been inprint a long time.
And they were looking for how can we, offsetwhat we fear to be a decline in revenue from
print, or what in fact is a decline in revenuefrom print.
And, many of those folks were looking at whatis my current customer buying?
(07:08):
What can I do with the information I know aboutthem?
And the great thing about print is you oftenhave the logo and understand how to handle
artwork for a client.
And for what we've seen as other people havetried to come into the space and they try to
join ASI as a distributor, one of the keybenefits and one of the success factors that we
see is do you understand how to manage artwork?
(07:31):
Because if you don't know how to manage artworkand understand the process of putting words or
ink on a fabric or paper or whatever substrateyou wanna say, it's much harder to understand
because the concept it can be lost on people.
So we've got 20,000 distributor members andevery story is different.
Many of them are somewhat similar to yours.
(07:53):
They hear about promo and frankly, first partof your conversation is a great way for people
in print to get involved in promos, to find atrusted partner in the neighborhood who you
wanna have a business relationship with andlearn from and join up with.
So what you described is pretty common.
What we see today, and this is sort of incomparison to say twenty years ago when most
(08:15):
people were in promo and you know, a fewpercentage points of people were in different
industries like printing as an example.
What we see now is the membership really acrossthe board looks like a really a diverse group
of people who are in adjacent markets likeprint, who have added promo to their business,
(08:36):
or they're in promo and they've added print.
But quite honestly, it's more print addingpromo at this point.
And we think around 15 or 20% of our current20,000 distributor firms, are in the print
space in some sort of significant way.
They identify as a print oriented person orbusiness.
And so we think, of course I agree with you, Ithink it's a great way for someone in print and
(08:59):
these other adjacent markets like signs forinstance, to come into an additional business
for themselves to add revenue, but mostimportantly, to allow them to serve their
clients better.
So when a client comes in and they needsomebody's help, how can I help them across the
board?
And I think this is a great opportunity.
So I'm glad we're spending time talking about
(09:19):
Yeah, was just gonna hold up my pens.
Every pen in there has a company's name on itthat I've picked up at a trade show, except for
the highlighters.
Those are highlighters, There's
highlighters in the industry too.
I've got friends I can introduce you to.
Oh, I'm sure.
So, and the other thing I just wanna point outto everybody in, that's gonna sell promo from
my own perspective, if it isn't quality, don'tbuy it.
(09:43):
Because when you're buying promo personally andyou're buying shitty products that are cheap
and weak, when you give them out, it's anextension of who you are.
So make sure.
And the good stuff always stays with people.
I mean, I don't have all my YETI tumblers here,although I do got my other YETI, but it really
does stay, right?
(10:03):
Well, I think that's a really good point.
I think that what we've seen in the last littlewhile, you know, is topics like sustainability
and high quality, and whether that's a brandedpiece like your Tumi bag or whether it's simply
a high quality unbranded other than the brandof the company that's trying to market itself
by using promo, high quality is really payingoff.
(10:24):
That's not a trend anymore.
It's not just sort of a flash in the pan.
People want sustainable product.
They wanna make sure that the product is reallyhigh quality, that when they give it out with
their brand on it, it's gonna be somethingpeople look at and wow, I really love this.
I'm gonna keep this.
And that's really important.
The smaller products are still important inthis space overall, but for sure, there's been
(10:47):
a shift to a higher quality product, even lowerpriced products that are higher quality, even
in the lower price points.
Right, you need a pen that leaves some good inkon the paper and roll, roller balls smoothly
across and doesn't bleed all over your handswhen you rub your hand over it.
Well, you don't want a pen that's gonna nothave ink after five minutes of writing.
(11:08):
That too.
No, Which by the way is the reason that adistributor needs to really get educated.
So I think that's an important part.
We've people here listening obviously today.
I think understanding the products and whatmakes them work and who the good suppliers are
and etcetera, is a really important part oflearning about becoming an ASI distributor.
I think that's great.
(11:29):
And I mean, if you're a printer out there, ifyou're gonna get into it, you don't have to be
overwhelmed by it, right?
Like I said, 10 products that are across theboard that are good.
You can even make some samples, make your ownsamples on them.
Actually make a bunch of the products that youwanna sell and take them and give them to your
customers.
Leave them on the desk, leave them everywherearound.
Give one to the receptionist, give one towhoever, know, anyone that's your customer.
(11:53):
It's really good.
What, so when, since you've merged associationswith Printing United, how has the membership
been in terms of printer signing up for more?
And in signing up for more, has it been good?
Has it been a good sign up with a goodtransition into what they're doing?
(12:15):
Or did some people just drop off and not useit?
And I'm asking those questions because if theydropped off, I'm interested to know why, you
know, maybe to fix it up or offer up somesuggestions.
Yeah, I think it's, you know, and just toclarify, you know, we didn't merge with the
association, just to clarify, we've had peopleask us, we purchased some assets, but we've got
a co marketing agreement with Framing UnitedAlliance.
(12:39):
I think that we're doing a lot of educationtogether.
We're not looking to do a flash in the pan andget hundreds and hundreds of new members
joining.
What we're trying to do is educate people inthe print space about this opportunity and then
encourage them to come to a trade show,experience walking the show forward.
We've got a show in July in Chicago, forinstance, people could certainly come.
And we're sort of taking this sort of a step ata time, the sort of the crawl, walk, run.
(13:03):
It will not benefit anyone if we have a bunchof people that get disappointed and burned out.
So we're really taking a careful approach,making sure that people reach out to us really
go through a process of learning andunderstanding and really have a good sense of
this.
So we've got probably 150 or something newmembers as a result of this in the last few
months, but we feel good about that.
We think that it's the right pace at the righttime.
(13:27):
And would you know of the 150 or so, how manyare satisfied or not?
Yeah, you know what I find is that, you know,ASI membership is a monthly relationship.
And if people get unsatisfied, they drop prettyfast.
We've had a really good stick rate.
So I think people that are coming in,especially in these early days, are people that
(13:47):
maybe were already playing in the space.
They knew a little bit about the space.
They're probably more knowledgeable about it.
And so I feel really good about where we are inthat.
I think, when we look at cancellations orpeople that decide they don't wanna be an ASI
member anymore, it very typically is they justdidn't sell enough, right?
I didn't sell enough to my customers.
I couldn't find prospects.
(14:09):
We certainly can help them do all those things,with the services we offer and we have a
learning platform so they can really learnin-depth at their own time with sort of bite
sized classes they can take.
All of that's really important.
If someone decides they see an email marketingpiece from us or they hear this and they think
money's gonna fall from the trees, that reallyisn't what's gonna happen, right?
(14:31):
It's gonna be a slow growth activity, as youstart explaining that you offer promo now to
your clients, you look for prospects and you dothe kind of marketing you're talking about.
That's sort of the guerrilla marketing andgiving out products just to remind people, hey,
I do promo now too.
And also just training yourself, frankly, tomake sure that you're representing this vast
(14:53):
array of what you're offering.
And I like your idea about narrowing the scopeof what you're doing.
Know, it's, it's you can't there are 1,200,000products in our ESP plus database from about
3,000 suppliers.
That probably isn't the right thing for a printshop to start offering.
They need to figure out what are the 20, and wecan help by the way, we've got lots of case
(15:16):
studies talking about what are the topproducts, how do you identify those And
identifying, okay, what are the categories ineach of those categories?
Who should I be working with from a supplierperspective?
And what products should I have to give away asa lead generation for my own business?
And a lot of the suppliers we work with will dospec samples with your client or your
(15:37):
prospective client's brand and logo on there.
So that's a really important thing to keep inmind as well.
That's where I would tell the print companiesto ask for samples printed with their own on
it.
And that they could show to the customers.
So a couple things.
If you've been dealing with printers for alittle while, you've learned that they're a
(15:59):
little stubborn.
You've learned that they're not so easy toengage with all the time.
And not because they're bad or anything, but alot of the print companies are limited with the
staff that they have and the resources.
And the idea of taking on something perhapslike promos is so overwhelming, right?
(16:21):
And I would suggest to you that you set up likea little print promo package for those guys,
girls, to make it easy, right?
And then they come in and they just start.
To the print company who's listening, beforeyou start worrying about how you're gonna
market it, you're really marketing it first toall of your own customer base, You're making
(16:47):
maybe a little brochure or a little whateverprinted piece that lets people know you're
doing it.
And you've now given your salespeople a reasonto go knock on every door just to say hello,
not to ask to quote anything, because when youask to quote something, people there get a
little annoyed, but go in just to say, hey,wanted to bring you our latest offering.
(17:10):
And you could bring them a little box with thepen, with the pad, with the cup, with the
whatever, and people aren't gonna throw thatout and you leave it on their desk and they'll
leave it there.
And then when they need something, they willhopefully call you.
But at the same time to the printer, you putlittle cards in every invoice you send out in
every envelope.
(17:31):
If you're sending out invoices, if everyone'spaying online, well, on their receipt that goes
back, put a little promo for the promo, right?
It's not that hard and you don't have to gothat, you don't have to go that deep to get
into it.
I didn't think it was a hard sell.
(17:52):
I think those are great ideas.
I think that educating yourself about how to dothat.
And I think also with clients, just simplyasking open ended questions and saying, I'm
happy to have done this work for you right nowor the work that I have on an ongoing basis
with you.
How do you use promo in your business?
Have you incorporated in the way you'remarketing yourselves?
(18:13):
Who are you trying to reach when you're tryingto reach out to promo?
The demographic's really important.
Are you trying to reach men, women?
Are you trying to reach boys?
Are you trying to reach girls?
Is it you're trying to reach them in the winterwhen it may be cold and maybe they need a
certain kind of apparel?
You trying to reach them in the summer whenmaybe they need a little lighter apparel.
So I think that questioning of people is reallyimportant and learning, perhaps more than in
(18:37):
the print space where in the print space, weare printing these certain kinds of things In
the role as a source and a source of ideas inthe promo space, you've got to really dig in
and say what kind of business problem you haveyou're trying to solve?
What's your marketing problem you're trying tosolve?
And who's the demographic who you're goingafter?
And all of that's really important to thendefine what kind of products they should be
(19:01):
supplying in that marketing campaign.
Yeah, and it doesn't really matter what you'reselling as a salesperson.
You should always be asking important questionsabout the people's businesses.
Yes.
And then you should bite your tongue for fourseconds until they start to respond.
My tongue has holes in it from learning to bitemy tongue because I always have something to
(19:21):
say.
Right?
But what do they teach you?
Shut up and let the other person talk.
Then it comes back and it goes that way, right?
What are some of the myths and the barriers orthe barriers and the myths that you think
people think about when they hear promo?
(19:43):
Yeah, I think, there's a few things, especiallyin the print side.
So I think, for some of the print folks thatwe've talked to that have joined and others
that are still pursuing this, I think gettingpast the idea that they have to manufacture the
product.
I think there may be a myth or a concern that,gosh, I don't wanna add equipment to put logos
on writing instruments.
(20:04):
So I think one myth is I have to warehouse itor I have to buy it in advance or I have to
actually do the decoration myself.
None of that is true.
Certainly on the apparel side, you can havecapability to do printing on apparel in house.
And that may make some sense for some peoplethat really understand that business, which the
printer people often do, not always becausethey may be outsourcing some of the printer.
(20:26):
So I think that's one myth bust, which is likesuppliers warehouse the product, they have it
there, you order from them, you give them theartwork, they send you back a proof, you
approve the proof after your clients looked atthe proof hopefully and approved it and then
they produce it for you.
And they either ship it to your shop if you'vea shop or they can drop ship it blind to your
(20:46):
client.
So I think that is one really important thing.
Number two, I would say is the margins are low.
You know, what would you say the average marginis, for print printer?
Well, margin, low because, well, the good ones,it's high, but I will tell you that the profit
leaders in the industry, you know, run at about9% net profit at the end of the year.
(21:10):
Yep.
And most of the others are in the 2% to 3%,which is very low.
So promo can have a 36 to 40% gross margin,which is a nice healthy number because again,
you've got no money wrapped up in warehousingthe product, owning the product, you're buying
on demand.
And so you referenced a 50% discount, you know,etc.
(21:34):
Or 50, you know, 100% markup is what they'redoing, right?
That's the margin we're talking about.
It's not, some people think, it's low margin.
I don't want to be in this.
It's low margin.
It's not low margin and you've got no capitaltied up in it.
You don't have to have a warehouse.
So that investment is quite low.
Three, I think another myth is my customersalready are buying promo and they don't need my
(21:56):
help.
Well, everyone wants to have, a client thattrusts them, and everyone who's a client wants
to have a vendor, a relationship with a partnerthat they, someone who knows them and
understands them and gets their vibe, right?
And so I think that myth that I can't reallysell this because they're not gonna buy it from
me is another myth that I would bust.
(22:16):
I think that is truly not true.
That's just a weak salesperson.
Well, they exist out there, Warren.
Oh no, for sure.
But a good salesperson will bring whatever tothe customer and talk it through and find out.
I mean, one area where promo is great if you'rea print company, you know, a lot of your
customers probably go to do trade shows orexhibit somewhere.
(22:40):
And the beautiful thing if you can do promo isyou save them from having one more stop to go
to, right?
You know what you're doing with the artwork,you're managing it and you're saving them time.
And that's part of your pitch, right?
Do you wanna go out to three people?
And the promo will probably be the smartest,the smallest amount, dollar amount item that
(23:03):
they buy when they're doing a show betweeneverything they spend to go and the people and
the setup and all of that.
So I think that that's really easy.
Yeah, the no inventory, everyone should know noinventory, it's really easy.
One thing that I really liked when I joined andI went on the site was, I mean, aside from
(23:25):
spending hours looking for my own shit, when Ifound stuff for a customer, I would go, I can
go on there, and when I'm quoting them, I wasdoing it, sending the samples, sending it
directly from your site.
Right.
And then I would BCC me the email, I didn'thave to go check after and see where it was.
And it just made it seamless and it made itquick, where, you know, a bunch of years ago,
(23:48):
wasn't so quick.
I think that's a great point.
Maybe one of the myths I should have busted isthat it's hard to do.
We've actually solved a lot of the problems.
Not all of them, we're still working on theproblems in this industry, of course, but ESP
plus our platform allows you to search forproducts by category, by keyword, all sorts of
things, create a incredibly professionalpresentation with your own branding as a
(24:08):
printer on the presentation and the branding ofthe prospective customer.
The customer, you send it out, you can go backand forth on our platform, them saying, I like
this, I don't like this, I love this, whatever.
I wanna order a 100 of these, but that's allthat back and forth is on our platform and is
very visible and stored forever under thatclient or prospective client's name.
(24:30):
So you can always go back and look at them.
And then you can recreate, once you've settledwhat they want, you create the PO with really
like a couple of clicks and it creates the PO,sends the PO out to the supplier and sends it
off.
And then you can set up things like reminderssaying, okay, I wanna be reminded in six months
to call this client back and say, hey, do youwanna reorder those hats?
Are you out of hats yet?
So there's a lot of that.
(24:51):
And in our industry, a really important part ofthis is in our industry, a very big percentage
of the orders, something in the 30%, 35% rangeare reorders of something that they've already
purchased.
And so that is a real blessing and somethingthat printers really understand so much is what
you
all
do.
Profit, you know, somebody calls you up andsays, Hey, those mugs I bought, I need to order
(25:12):
50 more.
You literally go into our platform.
You pull it up on the client name, you find theorder that you had, which is very simple to
find.
You hit a button that just recasts that POfresh, you know, for the 50.
So it really is a great easier than it was tenor fifteen years ago when your people were
pouring through DVDs and CDs and God knows whatthey were doing.
(25:33):
Yeah, mean, could set up catalogs for certaincustomers where they go on, right? Then
Then everyone in that company could buydirectly from it and it goes right through.
Yeah.
So I think it's great.
Listen, I remember one customer wanted to buy150 umbrellas from us, like printed umbrellas,
and I'm like, woah, and that was a 100, I mean,that could have been a $20 item because they
were better umbrellas, and all of a sudden yougot a $34,000 item, you're making 2,000, it
(25:58):
adds up quickly.
Yeah, it's really,
that's it.
I would recommend to everybody, it's worth thetry.
You can call me if you wanna know a little bitmore about it.
So let me ask you, a print company comes on andthey wanna join.
They go on, they go in, they go onto thewebsite, they fill in their details.
(26:19):
Yeah.
And then tell me what happens after.
Yeah, pretty quickly.
We'll reach out to them.
We'll ask them some additional questions.
We screen to make sure that they're buying onbehalf of clients and not on behalf of
themselves.
So you slip through our process here.
Oh, didn't do a company name, but I did do areal company.
Okay, so we sort of do a screen there to makesure we enroll them in some courses.
We connect them with somebody who can supportthem for the first two years.
(26:42):
We give you a success manager that's really bethere for you.
So you've got questions about how do I fill outmy first purchase order?
I've gotta be walked through how to create myfirst presentation.
I wanna set up a company store, which we offer,for one of my clients that wants to have a
curated list of 10 products that theiremployees can buy or that their customers can
come in and buy because maybe it's a fundraiserfor a local school system or something.
(27:04):
So we'll help you with all that hands ongetting all that up and running.
And of course we also build and host websitesfor distributors.
I mentioned we got 20,000 distributor firms,something around 15,000 of those firms have
websites we've built and host for them.
So you can have a website that a customerclient prospect can come on.
They either find you through a Google search orthey can find you because they've got your URL
(27:25):
on a business card that was in some sort of anoffering that you had.
They go on your website and they can do theshopping, fill out a shopping card, hit a
button and you can have it go to you as a lead.
You can have it go to you as an order or youcan actually take the credit card on the
website.
So all of that we help people walk throughbecause we know that the first few times of
this, it's complicated.
You mentioned people are busy.
(27:46):
They're already running their business.
And this is one of these things like, okay, nowhow do I do this?
It's outside my usual role here.
And so we really try to provide lots ofhandholding for the first year or so to really
make sure that people get across the firstthree or four big things.
And then they get an order like your umbrellaorder for 2 or $3,000 and they go, okay, well
(28:07):
this is real deal now.
This isn't $20 worth of ink pens.
This is a real deal.
And so I think then they get excited.
Making money makes people excited.
At least people I know, it makes them excited.
I don't about you, Warren, but that gets peoplegoing.
Oh, for sure.
Listen, these Yetis, I don't have to tell youin the store, a Yeti in the store for a liter
(28:29):
and a half water bottle.
This is a $70 water bottle.
Yeah, big deal.
Christmas, I had two companies send me Yetitumblers, which I always do a little ad for
them because I just love my tumbler and I lovewhen I take it fishing and it keeps my tea
warm, But a quality product, you don't put itdown.
It's And for those customers who say, you knowwhat, Yeti's a little out of my $70, a little
(28:53):
out of my world.
The good news is in our industry, there's lotsof suppliers that have yeti alike product that
is incredibly high value for 20 or $25 So youcan give your client an option.
You can say, understand you want the yeti at$75.
You want the YETI or do you want the 20 or $25product that is incredibly equivalent to that
(29:14):
product.
So lots of price points on industry as well,which is really helpful.
I think when you're talking to a client thatmay have a significantly smaller, they got
bigger eyes and they got budget, you can talkabout the big price stuff, but then you can
come down to a price point because in ourworld, that umbrella you mentioned, there's a
$100 umbrella probably and there's a $5umbrella.
(29:35):
And so the client really can have a lot ofselection across not only numbers of suppliers,
number of products, categories, but also pricepoints, which is really important.
Yeah, know all kinds of opportunity.
So now I'll just say, so when I joined, therewas one thing that I didn't like.
Uh-oh, wasn't me, was it?
(29:55):
No, I didn't know you then, or I would'vecalled you myself to give you some grief.
No, and I say this because this, it bugs mewith a lot of things.
So when I went and joined up and it was easyand I got on, all of a sudden you guys started
trying to sell me all these other services.
And not that the services aren't good, theservices actually are pretty good, but I just
(30:18):
want you guys to remember when you're going todeal with the print owners and because they're
limited on resources, they're limited financialresources, human resources, and whatever other
resources, the last thing they want is anythingpushed on them.
So you gotta, if you're gonna do that, do it ina way that like you're asking them every so
often when they're ready to know more orletting them know and then let them ask you
(30:43):
because all the different, and then it justgets confusing and then it gets frustrating.
And then the easiest thing is to cancel.
So if I could tell your rep something.
I think really good points.
I would say one thing that we changed about, Idon't know when you joined, but about two years
ago we changed.
Years ago.
Okay, so about two years ago, we changed ourapproach.
We used to sell membership of ASI separately.
(31:05):
But at the end of the day, we were sort oflike, you know what, it's wonderful.
And it provides value because it reallydifferentiates someone in the marketplace.
It gives you an immediate credential to workwith suppliers.
But we now merge that basic membership with alicensed ESP.
And so that cuts down on the pestering oftrying to sell you more things.
So I think that we have a lot more packages.
(31:27):
Okay, good.
We really encourage people to buy a packagethat's gonna help them be successful.
So it's membership plus an ESP or two ESPlicenses, depending on what you've got, number
of people you have in your organization.
And then maybe some print catalogs.
So you've got maybe 20 or 30 print catalogscome to you two or three times a year.
And of course you also have access to oureducational platform and you can also go to all
(31:47):
of our trade shows.
We wrap that all into a package so that one, wedon't have to bug people, we don't bug people
whether, you know, and also so they can be moresuccessful because we know that if they just
join and that's it, they're not gonna besuccessful.
If they just join and they have ESP, they maybe successful, but not as much as if they go to
a show, we've got three shows, Orlando,Chicago, which is in July, and in Fort Worth,
(32:08):
Texas.
If we get you to come to a show, you're gonnabe more successful because you're gonna walk
the show floor, you're gonna understand theproduct, you're gonna understand how the
business works, you're gonna sit through threeor four educational classes about social media
sourcing product, how to create a greatpresentation, how to use AI in your business,
all these different topics we have.
And you're gonna come back to your shoprefreshed, excited and ready to go.
(32:32):
So I don't wanna disappoint you, but we have ahard time getting printers to come to the print
shows.
I know.
And that's- sorry, and I am a giant advocateof, if you are a printer, if you're a print
owner, if you work within a printing company,ask your owner to send you to a show.
If you're an owner, come to the show.
(32:53):
It doesn't mean you're buying something.
It's not about buying.
I never buy at a show, if I could be reallyhonest with you, because I am not bringing my
financial guy with me and I'm not a math guyand I'm not doing all the financing, but I go
to a show for a couple reasons.
I go to a show to be counted.
The more people that go to shows, the higherthe count, the more excitement there is within
(33:16):
the industry.
And then you don't have everyone going, oh,there's nobody here, there's nobody here.
I go to the shows to network.
I go to the shows to meet people and to pick upideas.
If I could leave a show with one idea, becausetube is too complicated to go back and remember
and to do something.
If I could leave with one idea and take it backto the shop, that's what's amazing, you know?
(33:40):
And then I'm there to meet and see old friendsand do it all.
So everyone should be going to the showsbecause it's like, have friends who, maybe
China's not a good example right now, but Iused to have friends that went to the shows in
China, which were huge, and that they would gothere for ideas and thoughts.
If you're staying in your office, you can'tlearn, you can't grow, you can't see and you
(34:03):
won't know what's out there.
Yep.
And you won't get ideas.
Think great shows, Right, shows give you otherideas, right?
Bring a customer to a show.
You're just walking, you want them to see towhat goes on there.
So yeah, so good luck with getting printers tothe show, unless we have some incentive.
(34:24):
Well, I've got a couple of pieces of magicthere, okay?
So first of all, when we look at the map and welook at Chicago, we look at the Dallas Fort
Worth area and Orlando, there are a lot ofprospective There are a lot of printers who are
prospective clients to be selling promotionalproducts.
And so we do three day shows, often one of thedays is on the weekend.
(34:44):
And so we have an education day typically, andwe have two show days that are open that people
can walk the show for.
And so we really encourage people, you don'tneed to come the whole three days.
And if you're in a driving range of any ofthose three spots, in our case, you can drive
in, spend the day, park, spend the day.
We have a lot of incentives.
So ASI members, if they wanna stay overnight,if they come to both days of the show and get
(35:05):
scanned, they get a free night in a hotel roomin our block.
Oh, cool.
Which is awesome.
So you can come in.
We also do all sorts of other things, freeparking passes.
We do free tickets to the gal if you registerearly for the show.
So there's lots of incentives that allow an ASImember to come and really make out pretty well.
So you can get a couple of meals on us.
(35:27):
Can get, really it's on the suppliers who arepaying us, but I mean, a couple of meals, you
can get free parking, you can get a free roomif you wanna stay overnight.
So there's a lot of opportunity there to do it.
And of course, the other piece that's reallyimpactful is, the relationship, think we're
going to talk about this in a few minutes, withPrinting United at their trade show, which will
be in 2026.
(35:48):
And that will allow you to see promo suppliersplus all the print people.
So that's a good two for one activity, which Ithink is gonna be very exciting for people that
you're right, can't be out of their shop ortheir offices, three or four times a year for a
two to three day show.
That just doesn't work for what their businessis.
Yeah, and anybody's listening, if COVID taughtus anything, that thing that happened years
(36:11):
ago, you don't have to be in your office.
You can get away from your office.
People will not miss you for a day or two andeverything will get done.
And if you're a print owner, you know what I'mtalking about when I say when you're not there,
more stuff gets done without you becausethey're not waiting to line up outside your
door to ask you a dumb question.
And all of a sudden you come back and they'relining up with all the questions again, which
(36:35):
is a pretty amazing miraculous thing when thathappens, right?
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
Well, a lot gets done.
When I'm not here, if I'm out on the road, I'mguaranteeing that people are doing great work.
So it's something And you know why?
They want you to know that you can count onthem because they prefer when you're not in the
office.
(36:55):
That's how they keep you away, by doing right.
I think that works.
And I think for all of us, not only have welearned we can operate businesses and keep our
finger on the pulse of our businesses, but wecan also learn a lot.
So even if you can't come to one of our showsto spend the day in education, we've got dozens
of courses online and you can watch all thosecourses as an ASI member at no cost and really
(37:16):
learn about the industry in their twenty,thirty minutes.
Most of them are sort of bite size things.
So during a lunch break or whenever, you cansort of get up to speed on what's going on in
the industry.
So that's really helpful as well for peoplethat can't
And are the videos, do you have a video sectiongeared towards the printer?
Yes, we do, yeah.
Okay.
Absolutely, asicentral.com/education.
(37:36):
And we're actually, this is top secret becausewe haven't launched it yet, but in Chicago in
about a month, we're gonna be launching anentirely new education learning platform.
But we've got some courses tailoredspecifically for the printer looking to commit
a promo.
Okay.
And I'm I'm just laughing to myself because I'mjust thinking, am I gonna get this out?
(37:59):
So are you what kind of offer do you have forthe printer to join up for a month or two for
free to get his foot wet or her foot wet orfeet because it's feet's plural.
Right?
And I don't know if you have something, I'mjust putting it on the spot because I can.
We get a couple offers.
The best thing to do is this, email me,Tandrews, TANDREWS,@asicentral.com, and I will
(38:22):
have our best and brightest talk to you abouthow you can get in the industry.
Cool, maybe you can give me some type of codeto put on when I put the podcast up in the
description that they can click on it and gosomewhere.
We'll do that, we will definitely do that.
Just do maybe the print whisper at ASI orsomething.
Special
landing page just for you.
Special landing page just for you, Warren.
(38:44):
Oh my God, that would be so nice.
Anything just for me is good.
I don't get a lot of that, but it's all good.
And so I remember reading not long ago, it wasin, they're talking about like quad graphics
and something like $26,000,000,000 orsomething, or no, dollars 26,000,000,000 is
what the industry is.
Yes, yes.
(39:04):
Quad graphics is that multi billion dollarprinter who has gone into promo.
Yep.
Am I correct with that?
Yeah, that's
what they've announced.
That's what they've announced, yeah.
So tell us a little bit about it because folks,this is a, I'm gonna say the last name once,
the Quadrucci family that owns Quad, andthey're smart people.
(39:26):
So we should be looking to them as to why theymade that move.
And what I know is what they said when theyannounced this big move into the promo is that
their clients who are buying print from themare also buying promo.
And people are looking for one stop shops.
And they see this as a great opportunity,think, to be able to do all the things we're
talking about, not have to have inventory of aproduct, not having to manage that whole
(39:50):
manufacturing process.
They do a lot, I think at Quad that is digitalnow in terms of not only the printing of
course, but also digital services that surroundand marketing services that surround their
clients.
And I think they see this as another veryintegral piece of the puzzle that allows a
client to have one partner to be able to helpthem with all their marketing needs, whether
it's social media, whether it's print, whetherit's promo, they want to be the one stop shop.
(40:14):
And I think that on that scale, is prettygrand.
But I think there's a lot of smaller scalesthat many of your listeners are incredibly
adept at managing.
And the kind of clients that they have are thesame kind of clients, only maybe a little
smaller, but equally productive, profitable,and good opportunities for the printer to get
(40:36):
in the space.
And the bottom line is you're there to help thecustomer save their time and money and make it
easy.
I mean, remember when I had my print shop, wegot into large format.
We got into mailing.
We got into packaging.
We got into printing.
We were doing the promo.
We did all the FSC, all the sort of all thesustainability certifications.
(41:00):
Why?
A, it's all good for marketing when you do allthat and it lets people know what you're doing.
But more importantly, it was the sales pitchabout come to us.
We could manage your brand.
We could manage it across all platforms.
It's not easy, so we'll start with the hardestitem first and then go.
Or you know what?
(41:20):
You can go to four different suppliers and Ihope your logo matches.
Well, think you're experts, printers areexperts in that brand management piece, which
is really important.
I visit with a printer who is now in promo andhe's got a couple of huge restaurant chains.
And what he had been doing for these restaurantchains to begin with was printing their
(41:40):
employee handbook, which at the time was inprint form, right?
And every time a new employee came in, theywould send him through email the name of the
new employee.
And this is restaurants, there's a lot ofchurn, a lot of turnover, you know, in the
staff.
And he went to me was like, gosh, you know, whydon't we do some branded apparel for these
employees?
(42:00):
And long story short, it went from being a costto that restaurant chain, there were two
restaurant chains, rather than a cost ofmailing this out, they actually had the new
employees.
They would go on a website, they go on awebsite, they put in their name, etcetera.
They then pay for their two or three shirtsthey get.
And because the way they structured thepricing, the box has the free shirts in it.
(42:23):
The box has also got the employee handbook init.
It ships.
And by the way, the restaurant now pays zero,and the new employee pays for the shipping and
all this.
And so it went from So that person wasincredibly smart with their client.
They went to their client and said, let's shiftthe whole thing around here.
Let's change that whole model.
So I think that kind of thinking about how do Iadd promo in a very integrated way with what
(42:47):
I'm already doing with clients.
And by the way, how do I make it a win to them?
That was a huge win.
That company went from spending $20 for everynew employee for the printing and the mailing
to spending 0.
And that is a huge especially when 25% of thepeople don't show up after their first day or
something, right?
Right.
Well, the other thing is as an owner, what Ithought was really cool, when you go out and
you buy everybody the branded shirts or the tshirts or the uniforms, it's just really nice
(43:11):
in the plant for the team because everyone is,number one, everyone feels like they're on the
team.
Number two, when you're giving them shirts anduniforms, they're not dirtying and ruining
their own clothes.
Right?
It's that.
And what's really special is when you havepeople come in and visit the place or you're
doing a tour or press approval, you look like ateam.
(43:32):
Yep.
And everybody's on the same page.
Which is, I don't even know if you can measurethat in any terms of, you know, getting
something back from it.
But I know when I go into places and I feellike it's a team, I'm like, okay, I'm in the
right place.
Quality of it And
it's a really good reminder that some of these,some of the price points are really very
(43:55):
affordable.
That's the other great thing about promotionalproducts because we get a great return on
investment when a marketing, when someoneincludes promotional price in marketing.
We have lots of stats, by the way,asicentral.com/research has lots of information
about how you can show your customers and yourprospects the return on investment they should
get from each of the categories.
We've got every category in return oninvestment, but think about this.
(44:17):
I mean, how many of us have dozens of thingsaround our house, we've had five, ten, fifteen,
twenty years, that are still promoting thosebusinesses and are really valuable.
So I think that price point in terms of theimpression, price per impression, the cost per
impression, promo is a great return oninvestment, which is another pitch to customers
(44:37):
and clients.
So I'm gonna go back to the, you're saying thelongevity of some of the items.
I'm gonna go back to being quality because whenit's quality, you don't throw it out.
You keep the cotton t shirt, you keep thehoodie, right?
I mean, the other thing is when I was doingpromo and I was putting my logo on it, I made
sure not to make my logo too big and gaudy,right?
(44:58):
So that people would wear it When you're rightacross your whole chest, it doesn't get worn as
much, right?
Yeah, that is a great point.
I think I have been preaching this a lot in thelast couple of years because I started seeing
this proliferation of these huge big brands,you know, in some of these spaces.
And you see this in some of the fashion brands,you know, they'll plaster their brands.
(45:19):
I think that, something much more discreet ismuch, much classier.
I refer to his, I don't want to look horsey,right?
And so that logo should not look like a horseon your chest, right?
It should be more like a very subtle thing onthe side, done really well.
And I think that's really important because youwant people to keep the product and use the
product.
Well, and if you're gonna put a big logo, thenI want you to pay me, right?
(45:42):
Even on my car, I took the dealership stickeroff back.
A, I don't need it on there, but B, I paid forthe car.
Why am I advertising you?
If you want, give me a free oil change and I'llput the sticker on.
Right?
I think it's a good
Right?
Just everything's gotta be Everything has towork for everybody.
Yeah.
And then that's really, you know, the bestthing.
(46:05):
Any big trends that you see that we should knowabout?
I think a couple of things.
One, and you mentioned sustainability a littleearlier.
I think that sustainability is burst out.
It's no longer a trend, it's a requirement.
So I think that sustainability piece is huge inour space and getting bigger.
I think it is then engendering a couple ofother things, and one is transparency.
(46:27):
You know, the industry has been very secretiveover the years.
Know, over time that secrecy has gone away.
I think the internet sort of blew up some ofthat secrecy.
There's still a lot of mystery about thisindustry quite honestly.
There's still a very important ASI number thatprotects the identity of suppliers and
distributors.
There's lots of pieces of this.
But I think that transparency is something thatis starting in Europe.
It is coming here, and it started to already behere.
(46:50):
And that transparency is around where was thisproduct sourced?
Where was this fabric?
Where was this cotton grown?
Where was it actually woven?
Who and where was the screen printing done?
All of that detail is starting to be embeddedin some products.
And I think that is gonna be a huge, if we'resitting here in five years talking about this,
(47:10):
I think you're gonna see lots of differentkinds of identification of that life cycle of
the creation of a product.
And it's starting to happen in Europe.
We're starting to see it here a little bit andyou're gonna see more of that because people
really do care and do wanna know.
And a lot of those are, they're nowincorporating QR codes.
You scan the QR code and it pops up and tellsyou all that information.
(47:31):
And this was started really because of importrestrictions and issues in terms of social
responsibility of growing cotton in certainplaces, mostly in China.
And so all of that is sort of blown up to bethis big transparency issue.
So I think sustainability was a trend.
It's now a longer trend.
It's a known environment, it's life, right?
(47:54):
That I think the other piece is how do wereclaim product?
And so there's a lot of effort in our spaceamong some fairly big players that say, once
the promotional product has come end of life,how do we make sure that it is recycled
properly?
And do we have the right kind of labeling onthe product so that people know what to do with
it?
Or do we have processes to reincorporate thatinto the stream of supply chain?
(48:18):
So I think those are two big things going on.
That transparency thing though, you're gonnahear a lot more about that in the next three to
five years.
Listen, I think with the internet, I think withAI out there, there are no more secrets
anymore, right?
I laugh with people that say, I don't wannagive you my phone number or my email, but they
haven't turned off Google history, which isfollowing them everywhere they go.
(48:40):
So it's, there are no secrets.
Oh, one important thing that I'd forgotten thatjust came to me with all the tariffs going on
today.
Right?
I guess we don't even know where the tariffsare anymore because we need your guy to make a
final decision.
But how the industry dealing with it?
(49:02):
Well, two things.
One, he's not my guy nor he's not my guy.
So I'm
not going I mean the head of the country.
I understand.
I understand what you're saying.
You know, I could say that maybe we're theeleventh, and you know, so I think you would
get what I mean about that.
You know, I think that certainly in the firstpart of the year, it was an incredibly
(49:22):
uncertain time.
Know, you wake up and there's 155 or 145% orwhatever kind of tariff you want to say,
there's reciprocal tariffs.
You know, our industry in the first Trumpadministration looked at what happened with
China tariffs and said, we need to change somethings.
And they moved a lot of manufacturing andsourcing out of China to places like Vietnam
and Cambodia and around the world.
(49:44):
And so that was moved.
And the reason that they did that was becausethey didn't, they thought China would be the
only country ever in the crosshairs of thisbecause that was the first country that was
tariffed at a steeper rate than we hadpreviously had.
In this next round, of course, many of thecountries that people had moved manufacturing
and sourcing to are on the list of thereciprocal tariffs.
(50:05):
And so it's a pretty complicated time.
I think that where we are today is things seemmore certain.
There seems to be less discussion about it.
There are presumably negotiations going on, youknow, across dozens of countries to figure out
what these tariffs really are going to looklike.
And we're getting close because the sort ofpause on them is coming up here in the next few
(50:31):
weeks and comes off presumably.
So there'll be another big nudge of news in thenext couple, three weeks about those tariffs.
But I think certainty is what business peoplewant.
We wanna know where are they gonna be, give metime to figure it out, and I'll figure it out.
The real problem in this whole first half ofthe year was it's up, it's down, it's we don't
know.
(50:51):
It's really hard to manage, but I think it'ssettling down.
I think people are understanding that there'sgonna be some significant tariff on China
that's higher than it was before.
I think there'll be 10 or 20% tariffs on someother countries where we didn't have tariffs
before.
I think the suppliers will be able to absorbthose and also pass along some of those costs.
And of course for tariffs, it's reallyimportant to remember that the tariff is on the
(51:13):
import value, it's not on the ultimate price,right?
If I'm importing a $10 product, that $10product has a 20% tariff, that's $2 I pay.
I may buy that as a supplier.
I may sell it to a distributor for $20 who'sgoing to then sell to somebody for $30 So that
$30 product used to be $28 It's $2 more.
So there's ways to move that pricing around andabsorb some of it, not all of it, prices are
(51:37):
going to go up.
But I think people are getting their feetgrounded and their heads screwed back on.
Now, if we wake up tomorrow and suddenly thetariffs are at 140% again, all bets are off.
All off, right.
Yeah, no, I think in general, I mean,beginning, everything tariff, tariff, tariff,
(51:57):
and then it's slowly coming down.
I mean, listen, everything in life, evenwithout the tariffs, everything in life seems
to have gotten expensive lately.
Right?
So, absolutely.
All we
could do.
But that's why you need to do promo because ifyou have one more item, it just offsets some of
your other losses or not losses, but maybe lossof other potential revenue.
(52:18):
So you never go.
And in promo, mean, you could really buyanything under the sun in promo.
Oh yeah.
Well, there's a million, we have 1,200,000 inour database, from 3,000 suppliers.
You can find almost anything.
Oh my God, I would spend days looking and thenI'd have to, okay, get out of here because you
don't need all that stuff, you know?
I would just ask that there'd be a little morephishing items put in there because I couldn't
(52:40):
find any, but that's just my own personalthing.
I'll look into that.
I'll look into phishing.
And I'll go, okay, and get back to me on thatone.
So we're gonna wrap up here, but this wasreally good.
But before I let you go, any final words youwanna have to my audience of millions, I wish?
It's not scary.
(53:00):
Promo is not scary.
You can learn it.
You can add it to your product line.
You can serve your clients better than you'veever served them before by allowing them to
have one source for all the things they needwith their brand.
And so that's my final thought for sure.
And asicentral.com, check it out.
Lots of information there about what we offer.
And of course, you're in the Chicago area, youwant to come to Chicago next month, check out
(53:24):
asishow.com, learn all about our Chicago showor Orlando in January or Fort Worth in the
first quarter of next year.
When is the show in Chicago?
July.
July what?
About a month away.
We're about a month out.
Okay, so now I gotta bump the other podcast toget this one in so that it comes up in the
(53:46):
month on You just did a maneuver I
moved myself to the top of the without evenknowing I could.
No, I'm gonna move it up in a week or two.
It'll be on.
Thank you, Warren.
When people get a chance to hear this, andwouldn't want them in August to hear that
there's a show in July.
Now that wouldn't be good for you or for mycredibility with what I'm trying to put out
(54:07):
there.
So, okay, so I'll do that.
I was just gonna say the same thing that Timsaid, look into it.
It's not scary.
Feel free to reach out to me if you want somehelp because I can give you some rudimentary
help on it.
It's so worth looking into.
You will be so surprised with what thepotential is and what can come from it.
(54:28):
Especially if you're doing monthly mailings andyou decide to offer some giveaways.
But we could talk about the giveaways and allthe marketing stuff later.
Go sign up, asicentral.com.
Know what, before you wait for me to put out mylink that they're gonna give me, and then
we'll, I'll set it up with them that they takecare of you in a good way and give you a great
(54:48):
introduction.
Tim, great to have you on, Completelyappreciate it.
Love bringing to the audience, you know, thingsthat exist, make them feel a little better
about what they're doing, realize how easy itis and give them other opportunity out there.
And I'm hoping everyone is going to come see usat the show.
Chicago might be a little early for some of youin July, but Printing United is in October.
(55:12):
It's in Orlando and I will be there.
And if you find me, I will let you buy me adrink.
How's that?
I'll look for you.
I'll be there as I'll be there with ASI aswell.
So I'll find you and we'll have a drink.
Okay, cool.
Everybody, thank you for listening.
You know me, I'm always appreciative andgrateful.
(55:33):
If anybody has any ideas, anyone wants to hearme talk about something, anyone knows somebody
wants to be on it that has something great tosay, reach out to me.
It would be my pleasure.
Otherwise, we're signing off.
Printing's alive.
I love print.
Warren Werbet, next time.
Thanks, Tim.
Great, thank you very much, Warren.
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