State of the Association

by: Dan Borschke
President/CEO, NARMS International

The Reason to Belong; What’s New at NARMS For You!

It goes without saying that 2009 will provide all NARMS members with enormous challenges. But perilous times also provide spectacular opportunities and those opportunities start with your continued membership in your trade association. Obviously this isn’t the first economic downturn this industry has experienced but let’s not repeat the common practice of cutting back on essential expenses so we can meet a more modest bottom-line. The commonly accepted practice in previous downturns is to reduce marketing budgets and even eliminate optional membership dues in an attempt to make ends meet and most marketing experts will tell you that is the worst thing one can do in trying times.

I am certainly not the first person to say that this is not the time to over-respond to ever-changing economic conditions. Retailer numbers are certainly down but let’s be honest – shrewd business people can still find niches and markets that are responding positively to the new international climate and with some planning and insight we all can keep our heads above this economic tidal wave of bad news.

One way to respond positively to the economic conditions that we find ourselves in is to take advantage of all services and products NARMS avails its members. NARMS is currently in the middle of an extensive Strategic Planning Process and we are quite thankful to Phil Lauria of Pelcos Advisors for his assistance in making this process something very unique for any trade association. Though we are far from achieving conclusions on many of the elements of the new plan, we are quite confident that ultimately we will result in a much more focused association and a more robust industry upon completion of this year-long process.

Hopefully you have seen and experienced some of the new NARMS offerings that are results of the Strategic Plan. In bad times it is essential to find new ways to network and NARMS now has a monthly educational opportunity via webinars. We are very excited by the initial response of this monthly informational tool with 80 members registering for the each of the first two events. With the generosity of members Synergy Systems and Natural Insight we have been able to provide the webinar series on a complimentary basis. Many thanks are also necessary to Ready Talk, our conference call and webinar service member that is partnering with NARMS to make these webinars possible. I would encourage you and your staffs to register for these educational opportunities at www.narms.com.

Talking about our website, I hope you have noticed the evolution into something very new and vibrant. The Web 2.0 format avails interaction and comments from all participants and new and exciting articles and links that provides more information than ever before. The new www.narms.com format also highlights the newest jobs available from the Job Bank right on the home page as well as all other pages that you advance to during your visit. It is important to note that when a member now lists a job on the Job Bank you also get that job listed on www.indeed.com, www.simplyhired.com and www.myspace.com all for the same price of $80 for a 30 day period. It is a bargain that you must take advantage of in this ever costly recruiting environment we find ourselves in.

Another new and exciting option for NARMS members using The Recruiter, is a service that allows you to provide a job posting text to speech and deliver it in voicemail form to any cell phone or land line. This very modest additional 12-cent charge affords the recruiting member to contact potential workers virtually immediately rather than waiting for a response from the posting on the worker’s home page later in the day. This is a great new service made available to NARMS members in partnership with One Call Now and we hope you take full advantage of it for your recruiting needs by contacting us at: 1 888 526 2767.

NARMS is also proud to announce that it has become a charter member of the Retail Advisory Board of the Center for Retailing Excellence at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. NARMS becomes the first non-retailer of this group that includes such notable companies as: Kohl’s, Target, Shopko, AT & T, Bon-Ton, Crate & Barrel, Hy-Vee, Macy’s, Roundy’s, Lands End, Sears Holdings and Walgreens. In this capacity NARMS may engage multiple opportunities with the newly formed center, including guest lecturers, campus recruiting activities and possible student field trips to member company sites where feasible. The partnership allows NARMS participation with a group of corporate executives who will create a bridge between the UW-Madison’s academic programs and the retail industry.

Finally, one of the most exciting services available to NARMS members will take place in early 2009 when the new NARMS Virtual Trade Show now in development comes to www.narms.com. The NARMS Spring Conference Trade Show continues to grow and evolve but frankly only a fraction of our members seize the opportunity each year to experience the excitement that takes place on the exhibitor floor during our annual event.

Starting in 2009 all members and non-members alike will have the opportunity to visit with the varied exhibitors that present their services and products 24/7 on the NARMS website. The Virtual Trade Show will literally take you to a trade show floor and you will be able to see video messages and Power Point Presentations and even interact with the exhibitor via text or telephone. After the Spring Conference we may expand the exhibit hall with additional exhibitors not present in Colorado Springs along with the opportunity for all members, for an additional fee, to participate in many of the educational sessions that occurred at the Spring Conference. This exciting, developing option should prove quite valuable, not only for exhibitors, but for all members!

As you can see, though the economy may be down, your association continues to find new and creative ways to make your membership even more valuable. This is membership renewal time and for the same price you paid in 2008 your 2009 membership will avail each member company additional benefits that none of us could even contemplate just a few years ago. Those new and exciting benefits that we just mentioned along with the upcoming 2009 Spring Conference highlighted in great detail in this edition of NARMS TODAY proves to be reason enough to continue your NARMS membership in 2009. Remember, NARMS is only as valuable to our membership as you can help make it! We are here to assist you in every way possible. To that end, please contact us if we can be of service to you. Best wishes this holiday season and we are all looking forward to working with you in the new year.

You Can Always Sell More… By Strengthening Your Strategic Selling Skills

Strategic selling involves increasing your competitive advantage by strengthening your ability to communicate your uniqueness, value and competitive differential to a customer or prospect. How strong are your strategic selling skills?

Strategic selling includes starting off each call with a strong strategic uniqueness or philosophy statement about you and your company that takes less than two minutes to present. It also involves you developing a more strategic or “big picture” focus to your selling messaging, selling language and overall philosophy or approach to a customer’s business.

The toughest single question asked by customers today is “Why, based on all the competitive alternatives available to me do I want to buy from you?” How successful have you been persuasively answering this question from your customers or prospects?

Most sales reps would answer this “Why buy?” question by explaining all of their products or services best “features and advantages.” It’s then up to your buyer to organize and sort everything you covered so they understand the overall value and impact of doing business with you. But this also means your success is completely dependent on your buyer’s ability to summarize and interpret everything said so they can understand the overall value of buying from you and your company.

Strategic or philosophy selling is not in conflict with “feature-benefit” selling. Both need to be utilized by you in your persuasive selling. But most sales reps spend all their time on a call only focusing on explaining their features and advantages with little to no time spent positioning their philosophy or approach.

Strategic Selling Is Based On You Being Able To Prove A Difference In Your Value
A foundation of successful strategic selling is understanding you are not in a price driven market.

Here’s the simple reality of selling…if you’re working as an outside sales rep then you’re NOT in a price driven market. It’s not that you’re in a price driven market, it’s that all markets are value driven with pricing only being a distant second. Strategic selling is based on the simple concept of “the more of a differential you can show me in value the more of a differential I’ll be willing to pay in price.”

The reality is price will always be a factor in any buyer’s decision. But the challenge for buyers is not based on getting the lowest price, the real buying challenge is being able to find the vendor with the best value offering so you then don’t mind paying a higher price. In fact many buyers have stated they can’t afford to buy the lowest price due to the usually also lower value provided.

Strategic Selling Focuses On Your Customers Instead Of On You Or Your Products
An important component of Strategic selling is your ability to focus on your customers and what they want and need. But too many sales people only sell to one person….themselves! The sad reality is most reps spend all their selling time only talking about their products and themselves.
Customers aren’t actually buying your products or services; that has no real value to them. What they’re buying, and find profound value in, is what your products or services will actually do for them.

The foundation of strategic selling is to not spend the majority of your selling time talking about yourself, your company or why your stuff is so competitively superior but instead to focus your selling message on how your customer is going to benefit and receive greater value buying from you compared to anyone else. What can you do to make sure you focus your discussions and selling efforts on your customer and what you can do to address their challenges?

Strategic Selling Involves Selling As A Single Team With One Voice and One Message
A critical key to strategic success is to sell as a single team with one voice and one message. Do you and your fellow reps work as a team? The reality is most sales team’s don’t.

And it’s not just your fellow sales reps we need to worry about. How many different people from your company will communicate with a prospect before they sign an agreement? Most companies have several talking to prospects including service and technical people, management, credit and your administrative team.

What can you do to insure you have a single and simple uniqueness message that’s discussed and confirmed by all members of your team?

Strategic Selling IncorporatesThe Four “Core Values” Selling Language Into Every Sales Call
Strengthening your strategic selling language is also based on your understanding of the core values or driving philosophies of why buyers buy. These terms are called the core values of buying because they’re the central themes, philosophies or driving justification of why a buyer likes you over all other alternatives.

Whether you’re buying for your personal or business consumption there’s only four reasons or core values why you’d select a vendor from a field of competitors.

Why’d you choose that vendor? I chose them because they did more than anyone else to:

#1- Lower my risk.
#2- Make my life or work easier.
#3- Lower my total costs or increase my profitability.
#4- Increase my competitive advantage.

These core values are such powerful selling terms because they parallel the thinking and reasoning of your buyers. All other customer buying reasons fit into or will be a sub-set of these four core drivers of buying behavior.

Try dropping at least one of these four terms into every customer conversation to see if you notice any difference in your buyer’s responses or questions.

So how strong are your Strategic selling skills? We know you’re good. Now the question is are you good enough and committed enough to increase your strategic selling skills by communicating your strategic message of competitive uniqueness on every call?

About Jim Pancero
Jim Pancero is a sales and sales management consultant based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has been conducting advanced sales training for experienced sales professionals since 1982. Go to www.pancero.com to learn more.

Lessons from the mouse

What can you learn from a mouse?
When that mouse has been delighting and entertaining hundreds of millions of people for decades – it turns out there’s plenty to learn. I had the opportunity to “work for the mouse” at Walt Disney World for twenty years and during that time I learned invaluable lessons about service excellence and the creation of “walk through fire” customer loyalty. Now, as a customer service speaker and consultant, I’ve learned that these same principles can be practiced by any organization or individual.
In these challenging economic times, most organizations are looking for strategies that will differentiate them from the competition. This article describes three low cost (or no cost) “lessons from the mouse” that can be immediately implemented…

Pay Attention to the Details– “Everything Speaks”
Every detail of the service environment communicates something about your organization’s brand. Everything the customer sees, hears, smells, tastes, or touches impacts their experience. Anything out of alignment with the brand causes a disconnect in the mind of the customer. That’s why Disney World is so fanatical about keeping the place clean. A clean park is consistent with the Disney brand.
Imagine the impact of noticing dead or dying plants while seated in the waiting area of a hospital emergency room. Such details don’t inspire much confidence in a patient who may be in a medical crisis. Customers may not consciously notice every detail, but subconsciously clues about the quality of your organization are being communicated. What are the details in your organization saying?

Never Let “Backstage” Come “Onstage”
An organization’s “onstage” environment is where customer interactions take place. “Backstage” is where operating processes occur that are necessary to the business, but would detract from the brand if observed by a customer. As a Disney “cast member,” I often saw Cinderella smoking a cigarette in the break room. But as a Disney World guest, would you want your two-year-old daughter to witness such a disturbing scene? All of a sudden, that college fund becomes money for prolonged therapy.

You don’t want anything to detract from the image you have worked hard to create for your customers. Open stockroom doors, overflowing trash cans, abandoned room service trays at a fancy hotel … all examples of allowing customers to see the “backstage” of the organization. And, the errors are not always physical. Employee complaints about management or other customers must be kept backstage as well. If overheard by a customer, your organization’s brand is diminished. In your organization, what “backstage” elements should customers never see?

“What Time is the Three O’clock Parade” Is Not a Stupid Question
Walt Disney World guests ask some funny questions. Every Disney cast member has been asked, “What time is the three o’clock parade?” In my first Disney job at the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Attraction, dressed in my Captain Nemo costume, many guests would ask, “Do you work here?” Such questions may seem ridiculous, but we were taught to understand the question-behind-the-question. Guests asking about the three o’clock parade really want to know what time it arrives at particular spot along the route. Guests who asked if I (dressed as Captain Nemo) “work here,” really just wanted to know if I could help them. Disney cast members understand that many guests are simply out of their comfort zones.

In any service situation, be it a computer repair shop, a doctor’s office, or an amusement park, visitors may be nervous or overwhelmed. Who, for example, hasn’t found themselves intimidated by an unthinking employee who uses unfamiliar industry jargon as though we should know what he or she knows? Taking the time to see the situation “through the lens of the customer” is a hallmark of service excellence.

Conclusion
In today’s competitive business environment, differentiating your service is the key to attracting and retaining customers while driving bottom line results. More than ever customers are focused on value - what you can do that other organizations cannot or will not do. The three “lessons” described in this article might seem simple, or even obvious. But few organizations actually practice them. Those that do, however, place themselves in a league above the competition.

Check out: Blue Ocean Strategy

A book review by NARMS Today Editor, Ken McKenzie

In challenging economic times, we’re all faced with decisions that help determine the best way to drive profitable growth, no matter what our business. But the ideas captured by authors Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim in the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, force thinking that is foreign and unnatural to most of us. Subtitled, “How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant”, the international bestseller sold more than a million copies in its first year of publication and is now published in 41 languages as one of the leading business strategy books of all time.

As I listened to Renée Mauborgne speak as keynoter at the closing general session at this past summer’s ASAE annual conference in San Diego, I came away; certain in my determination that this needed to be the next book to review and share with NARMS members in an upcoming issue. The concept seems so simple. Perhaps too much so, as human nature may require us to expect to find “answers” to business challenges to be captured in some complex business formula for success where we’d have to plug in intricate numbers of costs and market share sales.

Stop competing in overcrowded industries and fighting for shrinking market share in those red oceans, and instead create blue oceans of uncontested market space ripe for growth. That’s it! Now there is no doubt, the concept is easier said than done! But learning about it, absorbing its potential and reviewing the real life examples such as Cirque du Soleil and Nintendo’s Wii may inspire you too to seek out “value innovation” for yourself and your company.

Critical of earlier claims by others that successful business are either low-cost providers or niche-players, the fruits after extensive study allow Mauborgne and Kim to propose finding value that crosses conventional market segmentation and offering value and low cost.

The concept - red and blue oceans
Come with me then, for a brief visit and better understanding of red and blue oceans. Red oceans represent all the known market space; industry boundaries with accepted and understood boundaries. What’s ‘normal’ in this realm is watching companies fight and claw to outperform their competition with the goal of picking up a little more market share from existing demand. As things get more crowded, several things happen. Prospects for growing and profiting are reduced as the market becomes commoditized with all this increased competition leaving the water “bloody”.

Blue oceans, meanwhile, stand for all the industries not yet in existence today. This is unknown market space not yet tainted by competition. Here demand is created fresh, not fought over. Opportunities exist for market growth that can be profitable. Now you may think that it is nearly impossible to generate entire new industries such as eBay did with online auctions. More often though, blue oceans develop out of red oceans; ever evolving when a company alters the known boundaries of an existing industry. Creating and then capturing new demand can be very exciting!

Earlier Studies
The authors’ research chronicles over 150 blue ocean creations spanning across more than 30 industries. They have analyzed those successful blue ocean creators and their less successful competitors left behind in red oceans. What they found was a consistent pattern of strategic thinking behind the creation of new markets and industries.
Use of the term “blue ocean strategy” may be new, but we don’t have to look far to realize that blue oceans have always been around. Think back a century and things as basic as automobiles, music recording, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and management consulting were unheard of.
And, in my lifetime, we’ve seen rapid development of multibillion dollar industries known for cellular phones, biotechnology, discount retailing, express package delivery, snowboards and coffee bars, to name a few.

Looking ahead, it seems quite conceivable that new blue oceans will remain the engine of growth. Historically, most companies:
Define their industry similarly and focus on being the best within it
Look at their industries through the lens of generally accepted strategic groups and then try to stand out in the group they play in
Focus on the same buyer group, be it the purchaser, the user or the influencer
Define the scope of the products and services offered by their industry similarly
Accept their industry’s functional or emotional orientation
Focus on the same point of time – and often on current competitive threats – in formulating strategy

The more that companies share this “conventional wisdom” about how they compete, the greater the competitive convergence among them.

Our authors instead declare that a common “six paths framework” reflect the basic approaches to remaking market boundaries. These cause one to:
Look across alternative industries. Take note of different functions and forms but with same purpose. NetJets and NTT DoCoMo reviewed as examples.
Look across strategic groups within industries. Curves, Polo Ralph Lauren, Toyoto’s Lexus, Sony Walkman are all examples.
Look across the chain of buyers. Novo Nordisk’s delivery to the users in the insulin industry, Bloomberg financial support tools and Canon copiers are reviewed here.
Look across complementary product and service offerings. Examples here include NABI, a Hungarian bus company, Borders books and Barnes & Noble.
Look across functional or emotional appeal to buyers. For a closer look, discover Swatch, QB House and Cemex examples.
Look across time. External trends are hard to predict precisely for the future but insights in trends that are observable today can help a lot. Most significant here are things that are decisive to your business, irreversible and have a clear trajectory. Some examples might be CNN, Apple iTunes and Cisco Systems.

Examples Up Close
The limited space we have over these few pages of a magazine article limit our case study examples, but I would like to share a couple. Cirque du Soleil has reinvented the circus and in 20 years surpassed the revenues that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey amassed over a century. Formed in 1984 by a group of street performers, Cirque has been created in a climate of numerous alternate forms of entertainment: sporting events, TV and video games. Defying the significant trends that have seen traditional circuses in long-term decline, Cirque created uncontested new market space that made the competition irrelevant.

Traditional circus acts had long focused on benchmarking one another and sought maximum market share by tweaking the traditional circus acts. Securing more famous clowns or animal act entertainers raised the cost structure without altering the circus experience much. What Cirque did was create better solutions to given problems by giving people the fun and thrill of the circus along with the intellectual sophistication and artistic richness of theater at the same time!

Realizing that the lasting appeal of traditional circus centered on the tent, the clowns and the acrobatic acts, Cirque kept the clowns but have shifted their slapstick humor to reveal a more enchanting, sophisticated style. It glamorized the tent that had routinely been traded out for rented venues necessary in surviving circuses, but traded out sawdust and hard benches for higher degrees of comfort. Acrobatic acts were retained but their roles were reduced and made elegant through more ‘artsy’ presentation.

Looking across the market boundaries, Cirque adapted elements of theater, incorporating artistic music and dance and created multiple productions that netted a new form of live entertainment.

A more recent life example of BOS, since the book was written, involves NARMS member company, Nintendo, and its now-famous video gaming console, the Wii, whose cumulative sales through June exceed 30 million units worldwide. Instead of fighting for a shrinking share of market in the highly competitive video game industry, the company instead reached out way beyond existing demand by way of “non-customers”, non-gamers, teenagers choosing sports, parents and older people in general. In the context of blue ocean strategy, Nintendo chose to apply Four Actions Framework by eliminating movie playing, reducing required levels of graphics and physics, raised the level of fun and created the “magic wand”; the Wii remote.

Designed to target audiences not traditionally known to play videogames, the Wii teams up with software designed to complement daily life. By simplifying its interface and by marketing software, Nintendo has managed to spark greater mainstream appeal than any previous consoles with even the pronunciation and spelling of the name ; two “ii’s” in the name representing two people standing side by side, representing players gathering together and ‘we’ emphasizing that the console is for everyone, including me!

Tools & Framework
The development of the Blue Ocean Strategy concept has also led to the introduction of a number of practical business planning tools, methodologies and frameworks to formulate and execute BOS concepts, making it a systematic and repeatable process. Again we don’t have room here to explore them, but these include:
The Strategy canvas
The Four Actions Framework
Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create Grid
The initial litmus test for BOS: focus, divergence, compelling tagline

Further, frameworks and methodologies have evolved applicable to strategy execution, including:
Tipping Point Leadership approach
Four Organizational Hurdles framework
Kingpins approach, Fishbowl management, atomization
Hot spots, cold spots and consigliore approach
3 E principles of Fair Process

Summary
It is noteworthy, I believe, to note as the authors have that blue ocean strategy is not about technology innovation. Use of cutting edge technology has contributed to blue ocean growth in several instances but does not create the defining moment.

It is undeniable that several of the tools identified in the supportive documentation involved in the book are also utilized by other management styles, including Six Sigma practitioners. However, the blue ocean/red ocean analogy is a powerful and memorable metaphor, aiding in its application by persons stimulated into action.

Now it’s your turn. If you are motivated even a little by what you’ve read here, go find a copy of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s book, Blue Ocean Strategy, printed by Harvard School Business Press and read it carefully for yourself. Most importantly, remember that in blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. In our modern world, ample opportunity for growth still exists for those creative and determined to apply value innovation in ways that can be both profitable and rapid. And good luck as you navigate your business ocean travel experiences!

About the Author
Renée Mauborgne is The INSEAD Distinguished Fellow and a professor of strategy at INSEAD, (the world’s second largest business school). She is also Co-Founder and Co-Director of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute. She was born in the United States.

Mauborgne is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum. Her Harvard Business Review articles, co-authored with W. Chan Kim, are worldwide bestsellers and have sold over half a million reprints. Their Value Innovation and Fair Process articles were selected as among the best classic articles ever published in Harvard Business Review. They have co-authored articles in The Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The New York Times and The Financial Times amongst others.

Mauborgne has published numerous articles on strategy and managing the multinational which can be found in: Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Business Studies, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review and others. She is the co-author of Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). Blue Ocean Strategy has become an “International Bestseller,” after reaching the “Wall Street Journal Bestseller,” “BusinessWeek Bestseller,” and “National (American) Bestseller” status. It sold over one million copies in the first year and is being published in 41 languages, breaking HBSP’s historical record of most foreign language translations ever achieved. Blue Ocean Strategy won the Best Business Book of 2005 Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was also selected as the number one Strategy Book of 2005 by Strategy + Business, Booz Allen & Hamilton’s leading business magazine, and as a Top Ten Business Book of 2005 by Amazon.com.

Mauborgne co-founded the Blue Ocean Strategy Network (BOSN), a global community of practice on the Blue Ocean Strategy family of concepts that they created. BOSN embraces academics, consultants, executives, and government officers.

What does a little NARMS history have to do with volunteering?

by Chuck Belding
PIC Division Chairman

Oh the memories. Many of our current members share them with me whenever we reminisce about the early 90s. Those were the days we struggled to get a group of “service companies” to come together to form an identity…and raise the bar from “You mean those unreliable service companies?” to “What a great resource those service companies are!”

If we had any identity at all, it seemed to be negative. Yet, here I was the owner of an “installation service company” and had no idea what kind of industry I was in. Then a customer gave me the chance to work jointly with Tom McNulty of In-Store Service, St Louis to do a joint rollout. My company (then TMI) did the heavy lifting and assembly and ISS did all the detailing, stocking and clean-up, making the department ready to sell product.

Tom and I decided we really needed an association, so we called our customers and came up with about 30 companies that did “something” for which they were paid by “somebody” and did most of it in retail environments. We invited them to a meeting in Chicago in 1990 and 12 showed up (from eight companies) to explore our options.

Truly, we had no idea what that spark would ignite. In our infancy, we simply called ourselves (unofficially) NASA (National Association of Service Agencies). Everything we did was volunteer; from calls to postage to writing newsletters to setting up times and places to meet (about twice annually during Chicago trade shows) until we finally met Gary Ebben and chartered as NARMS in 1995.

Well, to most of you that is ancient history and you may ask, “What’s he getting at? What does this have to do with me, a PIC, wanting to volunteer for NARMS?”

Well, EVERYTHING. Volunteering is a relatively easy thing to do now. NARMS has a powerful staff that does most of the work. What the staff needs, though, is our collective input; our ideas; our opinions. And yes, even our criticisms.

With all the industry changes, we have added and lost members of the PIC Committee over the years. We have several new members I am proud to introduce and thank:
Peter Monte, Quest Service Group
Rick Hall, The Beam Team
Mark Roberson, Davaco
Bill Rinder, Pat Henry Group

But, we need more. We have had a couple members who have had to resign from the Committee, either for personal reasons or because they left our industry. So we need to continue to bolster our Committee with new faces and new ideas.

Could that volunteer be you? Are you wondering if there are residual advantages?

Whenever anyone asks me what I get out of NARMS, I have to say that friendships rank #1. Having been around “forever,” I have had the great fortune of working with leaders of some of the largest and most diverse companies in our combined 3rd party industry. I know I can call any one of them for advice at any time and that bond of having volunteered together on Committees or during my terms on the Board assures a warm response and an immediate assurance of help and support.

What about getting business? I have never felt this should be one’s sole motive for belonging to NARMS, but WOW … it is a cool byproduct. I received a call one day from a fellow Board member and was on a flight the next. That led to an almost immediate $ million project for me and our mutual respect grew even closer (as my staff wore their shirts).

I strongly encourage every PIC reading this article to STEP UP! Give a call to me, to Paulette Blaskey, Ken McKenzie or Dan Borschke at NARMS to say “I’m ready to do my part.” You can call me anytime at 800.218.7552, Ext. 208 and I’ll share more enthusiasm and answer any questions I can.

I look forward to at least a few of you accepting the challenge … now … and jumping into the think tank that is, collectively NARMS.

Any reluctance to share and not get back in return? Ken McKenzie recently commented to me that “We know the PIC community has some talented people but the ultimate benefit to NARMS members will come from the willingness to reach out to each other instead of insisting on operating within their own comfort zone.”

Thanks Ken. I think that says it all.

On the road again

By Ken McKenzie
VP, NARMS International

I hate to admit that I am old enough to remember two different songs by that name; neither of them modern. The 1968 version sung by Canned Heat resulted from some 1920’s blues inspiration that also included a second hit, “Going Up The Country”, the song that initially drew my attention to them so many years ago.
Read more

Greetings From the MSO Committee!

By: Steve Workman, MSO Division Co-Chair
& Carlos Roca, MSO Division Co-Chair

This past summer our committee met in Chicago spending a good share of our first day discussing the MSO Operational Benchmark Survey of 2008, with a presentation shared by Chris Dammann and additional insight from Vickie Alarie. Some highlights included:
- Supermarket work has risen for MSO, but Home Improvement continues to be the top venue
- Resets and POP Placements are the top in-store activities performed by MSOs
- Manufacturers are 49% of our client base
- MSO work is split 60/40 between Project vs. Continuity

The committee also discussed criteria for future appointments to the MSO Committee; citing key qualifications, such as active NARMS member for at least three years, attendance at a minimum of two NARMS annual conferences and member in good standing with the association. All totaled the group felt that the committee should consist of:

- 20% small companies (3 members) $1-5 Million in revenue
- 50% medium companies (7 members) $6-20 Million in revenue
- 30% large companies (4 members) $20 million plus

Among the key determination and clarification is that the company is the member of the committee not the individual; with a targeted maximum of 14 members and a minimum of ten. The actual appointment of new committee members is done by NARMS Chairman with recommendations brought forward by Committee Chairs, gleaned from suggestions from the NARMS Board, the President/CEO and MSO Committee suggestions.

Our planning day closed with a visit over Dennis of Prism Retail Services and also two other local area NARMS member guests, Howard Schwedel and Mike McElligot from Touchpoint 360.

Our second day of planning included a project update from Steve Wilkinson, Multi- Merchandising Action Professionals (MAP), who shared progress on the redrafting of the MSO Proficiency Merchandising Training Manual. The goal is to re-launch this important tool at the 2009 NARMS Spring Conference. Continuing our planning for MSO track sessions at spring conference, we discussed internet marketing, selling concepts, out of stocks and what makes MSOs indispensable.

NARMS has conducted three webinars to date and if you havent taken one in, be sure to check out the upcoming calendar for this valuable member benefit being offered at no additional charge. I thought it might be interesting to share some highlights from the first three NARMS Webinars, highly targeted to MSO companies.

In session one, Chris Dammann reviewed highlights from the latest execution of MSO 2008 Operational Benchmark Survey. NARMS member MSOs represent a wide spectrum of business sizes, shapes and forms in their broad diversity with significant market experience. Also, the trend line continues to rise in use of technology to capture and share market data in real time reporting.

The second webinar included Vickie Alarie as key presenter as she shared how an MSO company can better position itself to communicate to clients its ability to address current store-level challenges. Discussing strategic MSO Benchmark study findings in a context of broader industry assessments, Vickie offered participants a working clients on the value MSOs bring to the retail process.

Utilizing market data shared in an earlier Procter & Gamble study, the more recent In-Store Implementation Sharegroup and NARMS 2008 MSO Operational Benchmark Survey data, Alarie offered how a merchandising service organization (MSO) can address the needs of the marketplace:

- Providing arms and legs to effect change at the shelf through
- Ensuring planogram compliance
- Performing replenishment tasks
- Installing promotional and new item displays; fixtures and POS materials
- Planning and implementation performed by operationally experienced and professional companies
- Projects executed by experienced, trained and supervised field personnel
- Access to critical flow of real-time information enabled by technology
- Broad offering of services allowing for improved process flow
- Increased compliance and accountability

Finally, Mark Hunter led the third webinar in late October, helping members in “Establishing Maximum Value for Your Price in a Volatile Economy.” Key points shared involved that commodities are bought at cost; benefits are bought at a profit. Sell first, based on the questions you ask the customer; negotiate later! Know the cost of changing vendors and tell, dont ask. Also, remember to forever keep prospecting for future business and be ready to walk away, as your time is your most important asset! Mark Hunter also shared ideas on selling price increases and the importance of pricing guidelines based on value the customer will gain.

We look forward at having many of you join us at the NARMS Annual Spring Conference in Colorado Springs next April. See you then!

Science & Retail

Science & Retail OR What Do The Angers Bridge and the Galloping Gertie have in Common With Today’s Retail Environment?
By: Kelly Baker
Manufacturer’s Division Chair

You may have watched a film of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, sometimes referred to as the Galloping Gertie. The film shows a bridge contorting and twisting, for no apparent reason, to its demise. The Angers Bridge collapsed in 1850 when a group of French soldiers marched across in formation. Both of these failures have something to do with resonance effects. Read more

IFBA: Back to Our City of Heritage

By: Jim Hall
IFBA Division Chair

Greetings from YOUR IFBA! I trust you have enjoyed your summer and are looking for another busy and exciting holiday season.

Your IFBA Division has been very active planning for 2009 and our return visit to our heritage city of Chicago. After a spectacular event in Las Vegas, we will once again be back at the Chicago Wyndam for our Top to Top event in May, 2009. Read more

Tips for Choosing a Design Firm for Your Website

Online interactivity is the latest wave in creative advertising. In all markets having a website is no longer an option it is a requirement. Successful interactive web production requires a strong combination of world-class graphic design and leading edge technology skills. The firm of your choice should combine technical expertise with creative initiatives to support your success in this vital advertising medium. To launch a national interactive campaign, including mobile, streaming, customer registration, sweepstakes, User Generated Content and rich media make sure your agency can execute your creative vision. Look for the following when choosing your design firm.
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