A Chat With David Isham, president/CEO, National Roper’s Supply

CS: So you had no prior experience in cataloging before you started this?
Isham: No I didn’t. I’m 40 right now, and I was 29 or 30 when we were mailing our first catalogs. I had the help of the guy at the agency I mentioned, but they really hadn’t been involved in mail order at all either. They did a great job creating marketing campaigns for companies, but we limped through the production of catalogs together. And I instantly realized how expensive it is to produce a catalog. I’m still good friends with the guy, and we joke about it now. But I was a young guy with a small company, and I was always hammering on them about how expensive it was.