Hi, I'm Ashley
Hayes, President & CEO of PromoHeadquarters.com and
Eco-Swag™,
our "green" division.
I'm so glad
you stopped by, and hope we can exceed your expectations
in your search for promotional items, client gifts and
employee gifts, be it by the quality of our products,
the great prices, or the knock-your-socks-off service.
(Hopefully, all three!)
People are
always asking me how my company came to be, so I thought
I'd put my story right here, so even those I haven't yet
met (via phone, internet or otherwise) could see how this
all came together.
Long story
short: I'm an inventor, and 10 years ago needed to come
up with the money to fund an invention I wanted to sell
on QVC.
Back in 1998,
shortly after moving to Nashville, I was in the process
of having an invention of mine prototyped (getting a working
model that looked like what my final product would and
should). This process, all-in-all took well over two years
(far longer than it should have, but that's another story!).
Well, as I was anxiously awaiting my perfect prototype,
I was going about preparing to submit my product to QVC
(there is a ton of necessary preparation), which
was my ultimate goal, at that time. (My product was called
the Wiser Visor™. It's a lightweight, all cotton
-- no plastic -- sunvisor that slips onto your sunglasses,
leaving you with no "head squeeze," and no "visor
hair.") I already knew I was onto something good,
since I'd already sold the first design of my visor (a
year earlier) to no less than the Los Angeles Dodgers.
(I lived in L.A. at the time.). It was a tiny order, but,
hey, they're the Los Angeles Dodgers! It was awesome (and
inspiring).
Well, as
I continued my preparation for QVC (having total -- blind!!
-- faith they'd love my product, and I'd get on the show),
and waited for my perfect prototype (which I was then
going to have to send to China to have mass-produced),
I had the idea to sell logo'd baseball caps, which my
visor manufacturer made, to local businesses. My manufacturer
loved the idea, and overnighted me their whole line! Now,
I didn't know the first thing about selling baseball caps
but, I figured, heck, I'd once sold ink cartridges for
credit card machines, over the phone (Ah, such a great
use of my B.S. degree from U.S.C.!), so how hard could
it be?
All I knew
was that I needed to sell, sell a lot, and sell quickly,
as I had visors to manufacture, patent attorneys to pay,
and goals to reach!
So, I opened
my phone book (remember those?), and it fell open to car
dealerships. So, I immediately decided I'd have a Baseball
Caps Special for car dealerships. I looked at my price
list my manufacturer had sent me, figured out the best
price I could that would be a great deal for my new customers,
and good enough for me, and started making calls. (For
those of you who don't know, the real spelling of torture
is c-o-l-d-c-a-l-l-i-n-g.) Eventually, someone sounded
interested and I made an appointment.
Trying not
to appear as clueless as I was, I went to the dealership,
showed them the different caps, discussed pricing and
turnaround time, and, lo' and behold, they bought some
caps! But, then they said, "Do you guys (me and my
big staff of: me) carry keychains? I said, "Oh, yes.
We do it all" (not knowing the first thing about
keychains, where they came from, or where I was going
to get them). Then, as I stood there, praying they'd forget
what they'd just asked me, they said, "Can you bring
us some samples, or a catalog or something? I said, "Absolutely."
So, of course the next several days were spent making
phone calls, asking questions (lots and lots of questions),
finding product information online (which was a lot harder
back in 1998 than it is today!), printing off pictures,
pricing, etc., and cutting and pasting them into a "book."
Once that was done, I called the dealership back and made
an appointment to come in with my "keychain catalog."
But, the
calls for the baseball cap special continued, and in the
middle of all that, I called my manufacturer with a question.
A person I'd never met answered the phone. We ended up
having a great conversation, and he told me his position
was in the importing division of their company. He then
told me how much I could sell my baseball caps for, and
how my customer and I would both benefit, if I imported
my caps. The orders would have to be larger (Chinese manufacturers
have to make it worth their while), and the customer would
have to wait 60-90 days, rather than two weeks, but it
was a total win-win situation. I loved it!
So, I went
back to that first customer, the Chevrolet dealership,
and ran the idea by them. They loved the idea that they
could save $3(!) a hat, and they had the time to wait,
so they increased the size of their order, and we were
off and running.
Inspired,
as any salesperson is by his or her first order, I set
about making more phone calls for my new "imported
cap special." It really was (and still is!) a great,
win-win situation, so I excitedly made hundreds of phone
calls, got some appointments (got lost most of the time
because I was then new to the Nashville area. This was
before GPS, and maps make me dizzy), made several sales,
and continued on with my prototype manufacturing.
Again, my
#1 goal at this time was to get my product perfected,
manufactured, then onto QVC -- more than once, hopefully.
I'd previously had no plans to start a "baseball
cap" business. I simply wanted to sell my visors!
.
But, there
was no turning back.
I realized
how many people could use what I had, how many companies
there were in the world (and how many logos were just
waiting to be put on something!), and how useful promotional
caps, and promotional products, in general, really were.
(They're little ads that go on and on and on.) So, I knew
what I had to do.
More phone
calls, more questions, more digging and investigating,
and finally . . . PromoHeadquarters.com. (I left "dot
com" as part of the name, to make it super easy for
folks to find my company, whenever they heard the name.)
Now, not
only did I carry baseball caps and keychains, but, eventually,
anything that would hold a logo: coffee mugs, screenprinted
t-shirts, embroidered dress shirts, Bic pens, golf balls,
golf tees, golf towels, briefcases, paperclip holders,
and all kinds of marketing tools. (I don't like to call
them "giveaways," because they really are, and
should be used as, marketing tools.) Really great marketing
tools.
PromoHeadquarters.com
now carries over 800,000 ad specialty items and imprinted
goods, representing over 4500 manufacturers. (We also
still do importing for those who have larger orders, have
the 90 days to wait, and want to save a substantial amount
of money.)
In addition,
while we've helped countless businesses grow their brands,
through strategic use of promotional producsts, we've
also been helping them green their brands, for
several years now; and in 2008, we really turned over
a new leaf (pun completely intended!), by launching Eco-Swag.com™,
where we carry hundreds of thousands of earth-friendly,
sustainable and biodegradable promotional items, incentives
and client gifts.
Eco-Swag™
appears to have launched at just the right time, as we
have more new customers, per week, than we used
to have in a month(!) -- all of them wanting to switch
to eco-friendly versions of the products they've been
using (from plastic pens to recycled paper pens, for instance),
or to explore newer, greener ideas (biodegradable desk
fans than illuminate their logo in the blades, like Krista
D, from Portland, just did; or seeded, plantable, custom-shaped/imprinted
cards, like Brittanie G., from Seattle, just did.) New,
earth-friendly products are being made available to us,
through our more than 4500 manufacturers, every day, and
we're excited to be able to offer these to all our customers,
and future customers. (To receive e-mails about any of
our Specials, just give us a call, or send me an e-mail,
directly.)
I'm always
interested in knowing how I can make things better at
PromoHeadquarters.com
and Eco-Swag.com,
and, as such, would love to hear any feedback you may
have, about your experience working with us: Did you find
what you needed? Did we give you out-of-this-world customer
service? Did you love your products? Did your customers
love your products? Were all your questions answered?
Is there anything we can do better? Please let me know.
You can e-mail me,
directly, right here.
[If you're
new to the ad-specialty world and want to know how promotional
items can benefit your company, put "e-book"
in the subject line of your e-mail, and I'll send you
a free, downloadable, no-obligation e-book, which will
show you how to genuinely grow your brand by using promotional
products (aka "swag"), and, of course, we'll
steer you toward the "greener" stuff (eco-swag),
because that's really where our hearts are.]
Be sure to
download our free toolbar, if you haven't yet! Click
here now, and you'll instantly have access to not
only our products, but to specials all over the web, from
companies like Amazon, Expedia, Buy.com, and more! It's
completely secure, virus-free, spyware-free and worry-free.
Thanks again
for giving me the opportunity to serve you.
Sincerely,
Ashley
P.S. Oh, and yes, in case you were
wondering: I did get on QVC, several times, with my product.
(Yaaay!) Check out the video and, hey, get inspired!
