Bobby Lehew

Inc. 5000 - So, what?

What follows is a flagrantly biased, celebratory self-promotional write-up. I make no apologies for it!

What is more difficult than making the Inc. 5000 list of fastest private growing companies in America? Making it multiple times in a row! Last year was the first year we were recognized as one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S. and we received the recognition this year as well. We're aiming to hit it in '09, too! Having just watched the Olympics, there is no end to the comparisions between business and sports, but searching for an apt metaphor, I couldn't think of a single sport that reflects our business (any business) directly. Combine long distance running with occasional sprints, place obstacles in all paths and make the finish line somewhat elusive (more like a constant roll toward an ever changing finish line) and you've come close to a worthy comparison. Perhaps the decathlon is the closest comparison to business?

Around 2002-03 we made some strategic decisions. We decided we were going to stop trying to become all things to all people (easy to do in a $19 billion dollar industry that, literally, sells to everyone). We were going to focus on what our clients recognized as our core competencies, the services they valued above all others. Many businesses, including ours, were challenged by Jim Collin's book Good to Great, particularly the Hedgehog concept. We attempted to answer these questions:

1. What could we be the best in the world at? (helping large companies and large organizations increase the impact of their branded products)
   
2. What drives your economic engine? (fulfillment: making the creation, availability and delivery of branded products powerfully simple)
   
3. What are you deeply passionate about? (we are passionate believers in the effectiveness of well-placed promotional marketing and the strategic significance of well-managed brand assets)
   

Answering these questions strengthened our resolve. We always were a fulfillment company. We knew our best clients valued this feature above all others. We ramped up our investment in future technologies that enabled us to better manage branded materials through private-label company stores. We made some core internal adjustments. We rebranded. Most importantly, we simply got busy proclaiming what we do to the market we serve.

It is interesting that Collins notes that "the good-to-great companies frequently produced spectacular returns in unspectacular industries". Our business covers all areas of branded products: promotional products, corporate apparel, printed materials, ads, corporate identity, etc. - we're not a web 2.0 business, we're not about social networking or anything that would turn heads. But when you look at the list of promotional product companies that have made the Inc 5000 list, you will notice that most of them are a different kind of promotional products company. The market is changing. On the Inc. 5000 list, the companies that manage branded products in any form are doing spectacular things in "unspectacular" industries. It's exciting to be a part of the tectonic shift that is occurring in these industries. This subtle, dramatic change answers the "so, what" to making the Inc. 5000 list. There is more going on in that list than meets the eye.

A BIG thank you to our clients who continue to entrust us to manage their print, promotional products and corporate apparel with such a unique concept; and a HUGE, HUGE thank you to my colleagues at ROBYN who make it all happen, every single day.

Other links:
Robyn website
Robyn blog
Robyn press release

5 Benefits to Having a Branded Products Company Store

With all my detailed discussion throughout the Company Store Series about inventory management, store creation and marketing your branded products through a company store, I never wrote a single post simplifying the key reasons to creating a company store for your branded products. Following are the top five reasons why companies create a company store to help manage their promotional products, printed materials and corporate apparel:

controlled branding: brand abuse is/was out of control; no system of protection for the brand

simplifying corporate apparel: apparel selection and ordering is messy - requires to much administration

central location, ease-of-use: no organized system for your branded products

controlled purchasing: product purchasing is fragmented, no purchasing leverage for the organization

minimize administration: too much energy duplicated across multiple locations to create similar branded products

Whenever I ask a client of ours why they chose to create a company store for their brand, almost always the response is the same: marketing professionals are spending too much time procuring and organizing material for their brand when their creative capital is best spent on mission critical objectives, i.e., selling, communications, market development, etc.

I can reduce this down to three simple words: speed, power and control ...

Four iPhone apps that make you more productive (not more distracted)

Update: since writing the post below, a new iPhone business card scanner has been released through the iTunes store that scans, then syncs, business cards into your Mac address book, more details here.

Now that the dust has settled over iPhone 2.0 and those of us with our shiny new toys are adding applications like it was the Treo (here we go again), I made a short list of my favorite productivity apps:

• Twitterriffic: I joined Twitter reluctantly and never quite got used to the somewhat ceaseless interruptions so I had to turn off notifications. I'm sure a skilled user would have found another way to stay connected without being constantly disrupted, but leave it up to iPhone 2.0 and Twitterrific to salvage my loss of love for Twitter. I use Twitter(iffic) by following (mostly) marketing professionals or business professionals who point to articles or important news going on in the marketing world. It is fun to occasionally read about what else is going on in their lives, but I have thoroughly enjoyed tapping into the minds of these gurus when I experience wait times. Mircoblogging is the new water cooler.
  
• Omnifocus is at the top of my list for most productive iPhone apps. Omnifocus is what the iPhone was built for. Now, my "to-do" list, or project management tool is easily viewable and can be updated virtually anywhere. I use it as a simple shopping list as well as a project management tool that helps break down significant projects into manageable tasks. I subscribe to David Allen's Getting Things Done method of project management and particularly enjoy how I can publish and access tasks by context. A thorough review of Omnifocus for the iPhone can be found on 43folders here.
  
• NetNewsWire has created a brilliant interface for the iPhone. Brilliant in its simplicity. For me, RSS feeds on the iPhone are for wait times. I prefer the Mac's NetNewsWire interface if I'm anywhere near my laptop but since my daily digest of input consists of a growing list of RSS feeds, it's nice to catch up on these feeds no matter where I am. You can read a more detailed review from Macworld here.
  
• Evernote: Oh, wow. I find myself reduced to monosyllabic exultations over this one. When I first tried it, I remember thinking "big deal". That is, until I amassed a significant list of notes on my laptop that easily sync to my Evernote account and are accessible on the iPhone. Use it as your business card scanner, an audible to-do list, and much more.
  

These tools are so easy to set up and use they make you feel as though you could accomplish anything. Herein lies a strange paradox to productivity tools: they can actually make you less productive. It is now easier to capture all of those wonderful ideas that constantly flit through your mind, anywhere at anytime. Managing this flurry of thought takes time. More importantly, knowing which projects to manage, when, takes a careful ordering of priorities. In the words of Neil Young, "if you follow every dream, you might get lost". Distractions are at an alarming all-time high. These tools should be a means-to-an-end that allow us to focus more, not less. (Consider what International Chess Master Josh Waitzkin writes regarding the "multitasking virus"). Nonetheless, I prefer these tools as alternatives to not capturing most ideas at all and certainly to a less ordered way of approaching my day (week, month, year).

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Marketing Links (and other interesting stumbles) from July 2008

• Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane) by Steve Rubel
• Since meeting Gary Kelly, my eye has noticed virtually everything in my peripheral having to do with Southwest Airlines. Marketing Shift notes how Southwest is the airline of profitability because of its technology
• From Be Relevant! - Ten Things to Look For When Choosing an Email Marketing Service and also Top 5 Mistakes that Email Senders Make in Scheduling their Mailings
• Engineers formerly with Google launch a new search engine: Cuil (reported here in the Wall Street Journal)
• 100 Cool Things You Can Do With RSS (loved this list)
• Five Steps To Successful Site Architecture For B2B SEO
• All marketers should be looking at FriendFeed, a couple of helpful articles: How Brands Will Use FriendFeed from Jeremiah Owyang and BrandStreaming: What Is It and Who's Doing It from ReadWriteWeb (join me on FriendFeed here)