Bruce Fox Blog

Read Time - 6 Minutes

You should be thankful.

Yes, for family...for friends…for health…blah, blah, blah.  What I really mean is you should be thankful this blog contains not one but TWO lists!  Lucky you!

Dialing back to when I was creating the schedule for these blog articles, I got to this spot on the calendar, and I was trying to find a way to tie in recognition awards to something related to Thanksgiving.  So I hashed through some obvious symbols.  Pilgrims?  Nah.  The first feast?  Yawn.  Cornucopia?  Hmmm…maybe.  How cranberries were originally known as crane berries?  Pretty obscure—not bad, but not sure what the connection might be.

So, much like the Mayflower Pilgrims, I settled on Plymouth Rock.  Which I’ll get into in a bit.

But FIRST, a bit of self-indulgence!  (It can’t really be self-indulgent if it’s not first.)  Since it was April at the time I came up with that, I can’t really say I had my turkey on.  So I didn’t really embrace the seasonal aspect of Thanksgiving as it pertains to Plymouth Rock.  Instead, I kept circling back to the word “rock”.  Which naturally (at least in my mind) led me to think of songs with the word rock in the title.  Which led me to creating a list of them.  Which will lead to the voice in your head singing these songs for the rest of the day.  Sorry, not sorry!

Hey, let’s go to the beach!

Sure, lemme just grab a few things.  Can’t just go to the beach unprepared.  Let’s see…towels, sunglasses, lotion, something to read, phone (can’t escape entirely), iPod and headphones.  Chairs and umbrella.  Football and paddle game.  Boogie board.  What else?  Cooler!  Beverages, ice…we’ll need to stop off to get some.  Snacks, of course.  Wallet, hat…and a wheel barrow to haul it all out there.

We all have “The Beach List”—essentials that enhance our seaside experience.  But, as a promotional products pro, do you have the same kind of list when it comes to providing awards to your customers?  Are you making the best of the opportunity?  Do you know how you can make the experience better for your client and the award recipients?

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know the answers—your customer probably doesn’t know either.  But here’s a cheat sheet to help you along.  When you share these ideas, you might get a “I didn’t think of that” or two:

Read Time - 4 Minutes

If you happened to have just awakened from a coma and you don’t know what day it is, there are two places you can go to know it’s nearly Halloween.

One is Home Depot.  If your home center is trading its patio furniture for a forest of artificial Christmas trees, you can be assured that trick or treaters are preparing for their assault on our neighborhoods.

The other place is your grocery store of choice.  In October, candy corn—seemingly unavailable any other time of year—is quite abundant.  In fact, I’m certain 99% of candy corn sales happen in the month of October.  (I’m equally certain 99% of candy corn is discarded in the month of November.)  So if it’s in the stores, it’s definitely closing in on Halloween.

Ahhh, candy corn…the ubiquitous and polarizing Halloween staple.  When it comes to candy corn—like cilantro or presidential candidates—either you “is” or you “isn’t” in terms of your preference.  Not much gray area in between.  But what can’t be debated is the fact candy corn is… well, no offense to the “is” faction… rather …uh… ordinary… unexciting… mundane.  Okay, it’s damn boring!

But wait!  There is hope for our Cinderella of candies before midnight strikes and the pumpkin (not coincidentally) takes her away for another year.  The answer?  Salted peanuts.  The formula is simple: 

Read Time - 7 Minutes

The World Series starts next week, and even though my team was out of it before May 1^st, I’ll still be watching in earnest.  Why?  Because I’m a baseball geek. 

I’m one of those that knows why the Dodgers are called the Dodgers.  I know there is only one player to play for (and have a hit for) two different teams in two different cities on the same day—and both hits were off of future Hall of Fame pitchers.  And I know the oddity that is the player’s uniform depicted above.  Why?  Because I am a baseball geek. 

So much so, in fact, that I’ve coupled our “20 Questions” recognition sales tool to the game and its history—associating the list of 20 pointers to corresponding uniform numbers of players in Major League Baseball history.  Why?  Because I’m a baseball geek.

If you’ve ever played 20 Questions, you know you can identify nearly anything if you ask the right questions. 

Creating an effective recognition program begins with the initial dialog with your client.  This phase of the sales process not only initiates a proper course of action for the project, but positions you as a subject matter expert for custom recognition awards.  Most importantly, perhaps, is that it creates a forum for the client’s voice.  

Center the discussion on the client’s needs, and keep the conversation going.  And, like this season’s Cincinnati Reds bullpen, stop pitching!

Read Time - 3 Minutes

The last thing my 11-year old daughter needs is a megaphone.  Pretty much the entire western hemisphere is within earshot if she chooses to be heard.  And without the aid of any amplifying device.

So it’s not unusual for me to intervene in an attempt to turn down her volume, as was the case the other evening.  For whatever reason—I gave up asking why a long time ago—she was outside, “singing” into the narrow end of a funnel normally reserved for bird feeder fill-ups, directing her boosted voice at no one in particular.  Except perhaps anyone within a three-mile radius.

“Have mercy, child!” I managed over the din.  “Can you maybe dial it down?  Try more James Taylor and less Ozzy Ozbourne.”  But, alas, her crazy train could not be derailed.

So I exercised the only remaining option:  I went back inside.  And thought about funnels, of course.  And how they can be used.  Or used differently.  Which made me think about Devo.  (It’s how my mind works, don’t judge!)

Read Time - 5 Minutes

I like trees.  They give us oxygen…They give us shade…And they’re just darn purty.

I also like fall.  Football season...The World Series… Cool nights.  And scaring the daylights out of the neighborhood children under the auspices of Halloween.  (I DO take the chain off the chainsaw!  And the blood on the hockey mask is mostly fake.)

But what I don’t like is the combination of the two.   As in the equation Trees + Fall = Frickin Leaves.  I frickin hate frickin raking frickin leaves.  It doesn’t help a bit that I might be a tad OCD (which should be CDO so it’s in alphabetical order.) OCD to the extent that one leaf on the ground is too many.  The only upside is that raking leaves is a beer sport.  As most outdoor chores are.

Read Time - 5 Minutes

Here’s a picture of our hero, Carl Friedrich Gauss, at the peak of his life, which spanned from 1777 to 1855.  Gauss was a German mathematician, and developed many statistical theories, including the Gaussian principle of normal distribution, a.k.a. The Bell Curve.  So here he is, comfortably camping out under the famous bell shape I rendered with a particularly smelly marker. 

Read Time - 5 Minutes

Ah, the 80’s…The Golden Age of Reasoning…

Okay, that may be a bit much for the decade that gave us the Smurfs and New Coke.  But as I (quickly) close in on the big 5-0, I look back on those formative years with the utmost regard for the wisdom revealed to me by the totally gnarly movies of the time.

While it’s true there were lifeless movies like Mannequin, and others like Iron Eagle that mercifully crashed and burned, there’s a lot we can learn from some of the best flicks of the 1980’s, much of which can be applied to the promotional products industry…

Read Time - 3 Minutes

Have you ever wondered why the word “why” doesn’t start with the letter Y?  Well, I have, and I can’t find any reason why “why” starts with W.

And while we’re on the topic of W—or at least I am—how come it isn’t “Double V”?  And how is it W, when pronounced, is the only letter that has more than one syllable?

Why isn’t “you” just “U”?  (Female sheep don’t know either.)  Does the spelling of the letter C include the letter C at all?  Why does the word “noel” have an L in it?  But I digress, as I often do, so please forgive me.  I went to school in Illinois near a town called Effingham where I earned an English degree, so it can be said I have a BA in BS.  A man of letters indeed!

OK, so I’m annoying inquisitive by nature, and I ask “Why?” pretty frequently.  Usually about parking-on-the-driveway-and-driving-on-the-parkway kinda stuff.  I admit I am a proud disciple of useless and trivial quasi-information.  Ironically, I don’t know why.

But there is one “Why?” question that was recently posed to me by a distributor that is certainly not a trivial matter.  It’s a big question.

“Why should I take on custom recognition?”

The answers are as easy as A-B-C:

Hurry up and scroll down so we don’t hafta look at this creepy thing anymore!

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There, that should be enough scrolling.

So, what’s up with the troll doll?  Well, I wanted to address the topic of what trends we’re seeing in the world of recognition awards and corporate gifts, and I didn’t want to mistake fads (like the troll doll) for legitimate shifts in what appeals to buyers and recipients of awards and gifts.  There are numerous points along the bandwagon route where passengers can jump on.  And off.  Fads (e.g. Pokemon GO) are short-lived; trends (e.g. “augmented reality”) are far stickier and have greater lasting power.

Identifying valid trends, and distinguishing them from mere fads, is essential to your business.  Ask your supplier partners what’s trending in their world.  In doing so, you’ll discover rare jewels among the pet rocks—valuable solutions and possibilities that endure and set you apart.

Here are some lasting trends we’ve seen developing in the recognition award and corporate gift industry: