Touchstone Acquires C3 Marketing
Looking to expand its customer base in the Atlanta area, distributor Touchstone (asi/345631) has announced the acquisition of C3 Marketing (asi/154540). Financial terms of the deal, which was finalized in early January, were not disclosed. C3 President Becky Cross will join Touchstone as a senior account executive, operating out of a downtown Atlanta office with additional staff. “We look for people who fit into a certain culture and it was obvious after meeting with Becky that she was a great match,” said Steve Paradiso, COO of Touchstone, in an interview with Counselor yesterday. “Atlanta is a very strong market and a place we want to target.”

In business for the last 14 years, C3 has serviced a variety of markets and clients, including Toyota and the American Red Cross. The company has generated revenues in the range of $2 million to $3 million annually. “I’m very happy with this decision,” said Cross. “I felt instantly that Touchstone was the right fit because they not only have the technology, but the creativity, experience and passion. We’ll be able to take our accounts to the next level.”

Video Report: Industry News Of The Week
Debuting today, Counselor PromoGram is presenting a video news report that will highlight the top stories every week. Called Industry Update, each episode will detail the most important trends and news items impacting the ad specialty market.

In this episode, we discuss the impact of the Food & Drug Administration’s decision to more closely monitor the health effects of plastic-product chemical BPA, look at a new supplier acquisition, and share some positive economic news. Click here to watch Counselor PromoGram’s Industry Update.

If you have any news you’d like to see covered on Industry Update or in Counselor PromoGram, please send it to newsdesk@asicentral.com.

Hiring Freeze Begins To Thaw
According to a recent report, many companies are beginning to consider staffing up. After cutting staff down to the bone, a number are looking to add more employees, and at the same time fewer companies are planning layoffs, according to Careerbuilder.com. Of the 2,700 hiring managers and human resources professionals surveyed, 29% said they plan to increase the number of full-time employees this year. This was more than double the 14% that were looking to add salaries in 2009. Eleven percent plan to add part-timers. While the job market has been up and down, December marked the lowest level of jobless claims since July 2008, according to the Labor Department.

Holly Polston of Garment Graphics (asi/201682) in Tucson, AZ, is among the numerous distributors that are looking to bolster their existing staffs. “We are growing. We just put two ads on Craigslist. Although, I prefer to hire people based on personal referrals. It’s great when that happens.” In addition to a full-time admin and a part-timer, “we are always looking for salespeople. We’re just not having a lot of luck now.”

Podcast: Product-Specific Sales Strategies
On Tuesday’s ASI Internet Radio Show, the hosts took calls from audience members looking for ideas on how they could sell specific ad specialty items. Looking for ways to market new products or target specific end-user markets with promotional products? Check out this podcast.

Click here to listen to the product-sales-strategies segment from Tuesday’s show.

If you’d like to check out a recording of the whole online radio show, go to www.asicentral.com/radio. And, don’t forget to join us next Tuesday, January 26, for our next broadcast. Log on to www.asicentral.com/radio at 10:30 am eastern time and give us a call at 215-953-4979 or e-mail us at radio@asicentral.com to participate on the show. We want to hear from you.

Do You Have America’s Most Creative Sales Team?
For an upcoming feature in Counselor magazine, the editors are looking for distributors that have creative sales teams. Do you brainstorm until all hours of the night, present wild promotional ideas to clients, and generally approach the ad specialty market in a unique and creative way?

ASICentral: Introducing The New Tweet Tracker
If you’re asking yourself ‘What’s a Tweet Tracker?’ you’re surely not alone. Basically it collects all the posts, or “tweets,” of the five ASI people who tweet for the company and places it all in one neat spot on the ASICentral homepage, and looks like this:

Learn more about the Tweet Tracker here.

Got questions, comments or any type of feedback regarding anything ASICentral, don't hesitate to contact us at feedback@asicentral.com. Also, follow ASICentral at .

New Course Available on ASI Education's OnlineLearning Center 
Be sure to register at http://www.asicentral.com/asionlinelearning for some exciting new courses available exclusively to ASI members. Brought to you by ASI Education, Online Learning is the newest and most convenient way for distributors to get educated. Here are some of the courses from our New Distributor Success Track available now:

NEW
Building Profitable Client Relationships. In the advertising specialty industry, 75% of the average distributor’s revenue comes from repeat clients. That’s probably because it costs anywhere from five to eight times more to gain a new customer as opposed to retaining the ones you have. In this course, we'll explore ways to build profitable client relationships. This includes: tactics to turn one order into repeat business by building a positive relationship with your client; how to creatively reach out to clients; and how to patch things up when you've made a mistake.

Course Track: New Distributor Success
* Nailing Down the Basics
* Write Your Business Plan
* Marketing Your New Business
* Steps to Selling Success
* Creative Case Studies
* Avoid These First-Year Pitfalls
* Managing Your Business
* Wearables Crash Course
Coming Soon: 
* Green Apparel From A-Z: Grown Your Eco-Wear Business
* Social Networking Tactics That Deliver Results

In The News
Artmetal Promotional Products (asi/36980) has announced that its president, Evan Krofchick, has been selected as a Team Ontario swim coach for the 2010 Canadian National Special Olympic Games in London, Ontario.

Boxercraft (asi/41325) announced that it has joined the National Network of Embroidery Professionals Preferred Vendor Program and is offering second-column pricing to all NNEP members.

Halo/Lee Wayne (asi/356000) held its annual awards gala in Las Vegas last week. The distributor named Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125) as its Supplier of the Year and Lisa LeMond, national accounts manager for Bic Graphic USA (asi/40480), as its Supplier Rep of the Year.

Prime Line (asi/79530) has announced that it has been fully accredited by the Quality Certification Alliance, an independent organization focusing on the safety of industry products.

Promovision Palomino (asi/79898) announced the launch of Customize Your Lanyard, a software package that gives distributors the ability to run a lanyard Web store on their own Web sites.

Quality Logo Products (asi/302967) has completed its office expansion project and has plans to increase its staff in 2010.

S&S Activewear (asi/84358) announced the launch of its new Web site at www.ssactivewear.com, with an updated design and improved features.

Staton Corporate & Casual (asi/89380) has launched a new video promoting its 2010 catalog. The video can be found at: www.statononline.com.

Sweda (asi/90305) announced a new feature on its Web site called SMARTSearch, an application that filters products by category, color and price range. Go to www.swedausa.com for more information.

Vantage Apparel (asi/93390) announced it will begin servicing the Canadian market with special shipping and pricing, while offering its full line of products and decoration.

Vispak Inc. (asi/93987) has announced that it is no longer represented by Majerus Marketing in the Southeast U.S. The company is currently seeking representation in that area.

WorkflowOne (asi/333647) announced that it awarded several grants to non-profit organizations in the Dayton, OH, community in 2009 through its employee foundation.

People On The Move
Broder Bros. Co. (asi/42090) announced the appointment of Hank Harrell as executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Vantage Apparel (asi/93390) has hired Matt Clark as national accounts manager for Canada.

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