Management

Blue Generation, Long Island City, N.Y., has promoted Michael Reisbaum to vice president of national accounts. Reisbaum is an industry veteran of 23 years as a promotional products distributor, and then as a director and manger on the supplier side. He joined Blue Generation in 2018...

Ask the Accountant… Question: I use two item numbers for my distributorship—one is the item number I assign internally and show the customer, and the other is the supplier’s number. Can I use both in QuickBooks? Answer: Yes, QB Premier and Enterprise allow for two different fields of item numbers. When you set up an…

Cap America Inc., Fredericktown, Mo., announced the recent promotion of Curt Carr to chief financial officer, effective immediately. Carr, who joined the company in September 2019 in the role of vice president of finance, has been responsible for all accounting functions and has made significant contributions to the organization.…

After the successful relaunch of Hub Pen as "Hub" in September 2019, the company's marketing services team went to work remaking Hub Promotional Group as HPG. "There was a lot of confusion in the market about the difference between Hub the pen company and Hub Promotional Group, the parent company," said Jason Lucash, senior vice…

Not even a high-touch and highly creative industry like promotional products is immune to the “Amazon Effect.” That may have many distributors rushing towards an e-commerce model to meet buyer expectations—but before you completely throw out the traditional relationship-based model, let’s discuss...

Here’s the question: How do we get the people on our teams to be accountable and consistently see it, own it, solve it and do it? Let’s look at three steps you can take to coach your employees to find the root of their problems...

alphabroder, Trevose, Pa., announced yesterday that it has acquired Golden State Activewear. The Golden State team will largely remain in place. Scott and Laurie Prestine will take on key roles within alphabroder. Stu Smith, Amy Carroll, Lee-Ann Stanley and Chris Beard will also be joining the alphabroder family...

The promo industry thrives on its people, but good people aren’t always easy to find. Here’s how the industry is dealing with staffing issues ranging from lack of skilled labor and aging out of veterans to filling leadership roles and developing exit strategies...

For the new year, I have decided to ask some of the most respected industry leaders to share their thoughts on success. Thank you to Norm Hullinger, the CEO of alphabroder, for sharing his valuable advice. First question: In your years of experience in our industry, what do you think the most financially successful people…

AIA Corporation, Appleton, Wis., announced that industry veterans Julie Ross and Michael Singer have joined the company as business development managers. Ross and Singer will expand AIA’s business development team, which is accountable for attracting and recruiting new distributors to the AIA owner community. They also will partner with AIA’s owner success team to support…