Distributor News

The Consumer Product Safety Commission ("CPSC") has hired Andrew Kameros as Assistant Executive Director of Compliance and Field Operation, the office that oversees product safety recalls and plays a significant role in rulemaking and enforcement proceedings.  Prior to joining the CPSC, Mr. Kameros was General Counsel and Director of Compliance at the lobbying firm Cassidy and Associates.  He helped clients develop ethics, disclosure and compliance programs and systems regarding lobbying activities.

Is your small business effectively using Twitter to market your products or services to existing and potential customers? If not, it should.

Aside from Facebook, it's another major tool with marketing power. The popular microblogging site touts a growing membership of nearly 200 million registered users, making Twitter fertile marketing ground to help you attract and retain customers. But many small businesses are mystified when it comes to maximizing their exposure on Twitter and as a result, make common marketing mistakes that often have adverse effects.

Although social media usage by companies, nonprofits and government agencies has risen dramatically in recent years, the process of measuring social media results remains elusive for many. The latest Blue Paper and podcast from promotional products retailer 4imprint, Social media measurement: Show me the results!, presents an 11-step primer to help kick off the process of measuring an organization's social media efforts.

Benchmark Capital Partners, LLC, Palm Desert, California has announced 2Q sales exceeding those of the past six quarters. Benchmark credits the improving economy, robust demand for acrylic point of sale displays and the successful launch of their new e-commerce web sites.

Benchmark recently launched two brand new e-commerce sites: TaymarPlasticDisplays.com serving qualified distributors and wholesalers with stock point of purchase displays and brochure holders and DisplaysDirect.net providing similar products to the public and small businesses. Both sites were jointly developed with the assistance of Graphtek Interactive Media.

Congress is mired in a standoff over the nation's fiscal stability, and once the parties find agreement, lawmakers will head home for August recess. When they come back, they'll have another fiscal crisis to confront: The U.S. Postal Service's pending bankruptcy.

The Postal Service has been going bankrupt for some time now. In the second quarter of 2011 alone, it lost $2.2 billion.

There are two comprehensive bills in Congress aimed at rescuing USPS, one from Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and another from House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

National Premium Inc., a Promo Marketing Top 50 Distributor company, recently named Scott Schmidt as its new president, following the untimely death last September of his father, Richard Schmidt, founder and previous president of the company.

Schmidt, who had previously been a national account director for one of the National Premium's largest clients, will now be in charge of managing and increasing National Premium's network of account executives and the company's strategic direction.

If Shakespeare were writing today, he probably would leave out the lines:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Why? Because studies have shown that, in all probability, sticking that rose in a Coca-Cola can or a MacDonald's wrapper would really make people perceive it as smelling that much sweeter. A brand is more than a name—it is the sum total of a consumer's experiences with a recognizable product—and it is powerful. It is also frustratingly hard for investors to put a number to.

Federal contracts intended for small business are being awarded to large corporations, according to a Senate inquiry.

They are being counted toward the congressionally mandated goal of ensuring that 23 percent of all federal contracts go to small businesses, the inquiry found.

"A system that should be helping small business is in fact doing little more than helping the government play a numbers game," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs contracting oversight subcommittee.

"This is a time for all of us to take a hard look at the way the government does business," she said.

Social media marketing is definitely catching the attention of businesses but there's still some hesitation, some misconceptions, some fear and some non-clarity in terms of how to go about with social media, what to expect and when to expect.

This post tries to demystify top five myths about social media.

Myth #1: Social Media is Easy
I often hear this: "I have hired interns for managing our social media. They are very tech-savvy so I am sure they will do a good job at that."

Bill Vernon, chairman emeritus of the Iowa Games and CEO of The Vernon Company, was honored with the Iowa Games Founder Award in Jack Trice Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2011 Iowa Games, in Ames on July 15.