Management

Catalog Success: Where’s the company headquartered? Chris Harris: It’s in Baltimore, Maryland. CS: What’s your customer demographic? CH: It’s a B-to-B client, which is primarily indoor malls, interior designers, the hospitality industry and retail chains. CS: What’s the primary merchandise offered in the catalog? CH: We sell commercial-grade holiday and theme décor. If you’re decorating an indoor mall or storefront, you’re going to want to buy around Christmas time or Easter or any holiday … you’re going to want to buy our theme décor products. CS: Do you strictly sell to businesses? CH: No, we do sell B-to-C. But

JoAnna Brandi, president of JoAnna Brandi & Co., has spent the past 18 years consulting companies on customer and employee relations. So at the July 9-11 MeritDirect Business Mailer’s Co-op in White Plains, N.Y., she tackled the subject of keeping employees happy on the job — a timely topic considering this trying year. She offered seven tips for not only keeping employees happy on the job, but also productive. 1. Give people the opportunity to use their strengths and skills. Noting a recent survey which revealed that 84 percent of employees in the U.S. are unhappy with their work, and less than one-third of

A quick note: Our June issue was already at the printer while the 25th Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants (ACCM) was taking place on May 19-22 in Kissimmee, Fla. So belatedly, here’s my postconference recap. This was my 22nd consecutive tour of duty at what was once known as the National Catalog Conference, and the Annual Catalog Conference after that. But rest assured, I’m not going to give you one of these old-fogey reflections on how “it ain’t like it used to be.” Instead, let’s track back just a few years to Boston, June 2001. That was probably the most apprehensive

Catalog Success: Where’s the company headquartered? Doug Mockett: It’s physically located in Torrance, California. CS: When was the company established? DM: In early 1981. CS: When were the first catalogs mailed? DM: We got into the mailing of the catalog, it had to be about two years later. It wasn’t so much a catalog as it was a single-sheet flyer; mainly because I only had one product at the time and had no money. CS: What was the one product that you were selling at the time? DM: Grommets, wire access grommets. We just had basically two different sizes and two

WHAT GOT HIM HERE: Encouragement from his wife, Sonia. Having begun his professional career in the advertising industry, Doug Mockett quickly became disenchanted with how advertisers were viewed. “When things didn’t go well,” he says, “you were a goat. And when things went well, the client was a hero. You’re kind of stuck in this neverland of never being able to take credit for anything.” Sonia, an architectural space planner, pushed Doug to try his hand at a secret passion of his: direct marketing. He began marketing grommets for office furniture, a product she believed all furniture manufacturers needed. Mockett wrote a direct marketing

On June 17-18, Catalog Success and F. Curtis Barry & Co. co-presented the first Evaluating, Selecting and Implementing Direct Commerce Systems interactive workshop in Richmond, Va. The success of this intimate event — we drew 50 percent more attendees than we had planned on — represents an exciting, fresh beginning for both of our organizations, one that could easily lead to greater rewards down the road for us, and most of all, for attendees. For this edition of The Corner View, I asked Curt Barry to give his expert synopsis of the key issues that were addressed during the conference. As he points

An exit strategy isn’t just for those thinking about retirement. What happens if the business owner — due to an unforeseen life event — is suddenly unable to carry out his or her responsibilities? Less tragically, some business owners may begin to feel their talents are better applied to a new venture, requiring successors to take over their existing posts. The good news is that succession planning is closely linked with growth management. “The things that you need in place for a transition to a successor are the things that you need to operate a good business: a solid technology base with

WHAT GOT HIM HERE: A failed retail venture. After a toy store in San Francisco in the late 1980s went under, Bauschinger was left unemployed and virtually broke. “I was bankrupt, and the only idea I had at the time was, well, ‘there are these little Schuco [international toy manufacturer] cars and a lot of residents,’” Bauschinger recalls. So he took the little money he had left and placed a two-column, 6-inch coupon ad in the western edition of The New York Times to market the remaining inventory of toy cars. Response to the ad was much better than he ever could’ve imagined,

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on becoming more adept and adapting to the multichannel world. Part one appeared in our February issue, and part three will appear in our September issue. The world of direct marketing is changing quickly. Whole new analytical tools, benchmarks and ratios have become commonplace in measuring success. You must think cross-channel if you’re to be customer-centered. And above all else, if you’re a stand-alone cataloger or retail store operator, the corporate atmosphere is forcing you to rethink your internal culture. The opposite of a multichannel approach is a channel-centric one, where one channel dominates

Catalog Success: Where are your companies headquartered? Justus Bauschinger: We’re out here in the boondocks of Nevada. Northern Nevada — about 90 miles southeast of Reno. Yerington, Nevada. On Main Street. CS: What are the customer demographics for both catalogs? JB: They’re actually remarkably similar. I’d say 45-plus [years of age], well-to-do. On the Lilliput side, committed to really fine kinds of models and antique toys, or reproductions thereof. And on the Deutsche Optik side, in fact, I never knew until I took over the company from Mike Rifkin that there were so many optical freaks out there. Or enthusiasts, I’m sorry. I