Management

Do Something Positively Deviant in 2004
January 1, 2004

Are any of these titles on your business card: deviant, contrarian, barbarian, agent provocateur or radical boat-rocker? If not, perhaps they should be. You could be playing it a bit too safe, and that could be the biggest risk you take. You risk boring your customers, losing their attention and ultimately, their admiration and loyalty. In their book, โ€œThe Deviantโ€™s Advantageโ€ (Crown Publishers, 2002), authors Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker sing the praises of getting out of your comfort zone by being โ€œpositively deviant.โ€ They define โ€œpositive devianceโ€ as โ€œa force for transformation โ€” an inexhaustible font of new ideas, products

A&F Needs to Clean Up Its Act
January 1, 2004

The storm surrounding the teen-apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) was kicked up a notch after 60 Minutes last month reported that the merchant is being accused of racial discrimination in its hiring practices of retail sales clerks, preferring whites over ethnic minorities. A&F officials refused to be interviewed on camera for the 60 Minutes spot, saying they couldnโ€™t comment on the alleged discrimination since theyโ€™re currently in litigation. Of course, over the years other companies being sued have appeared on 60 Minutes, lawyers in tow. But I guess A&F wanted to โ€” uncharacteristically โ€” play it safe this one time. For those

Attract Top Talent
October 1, 2003

Only a few years ago, catalog companies were โ€œoffering the moonโ€ to attract the best and brightest management-level talent. But this year, itโ€™s more of an employerโ€™s market, and catalogers can afford to be more demanding when it comes to selecting the right people. Moreover, a lot of very qualified candidates may be open to making a move now or in the near future โ€” or they may already be searching for a position. As an employer, you can open wide this window of opportunity and hire the talented management team you need to move your company forward before the economy turns

Itโ€™s Not Easy Being Big
August 1, 2003

Comma Crazy โ€œIโ€™ve got a lot of changes,โ€ said the cataloger. I sighed. Weโ€™d already been through countless rounds and sent files to the color house very late. And the cataloger still was making changes. Color costs were soaring. I got out my red pen. โ€œReady for your changes,โ€ I said. โ€œOK,โ€ said the cataloger, โ€œin the first sentence, third word, remove the comma before the word โ€˜andโ€™ ... โ€œ One nice thing about smaller catalogs is that often theyโ€™re run by entrepreneurs who are pretty good at distinguishing between things that matter and things that donโ€™t. But as a catalog company

Privacy Under Scrutiny
June 1, 2003

Consumers are nervous about how much of their information is readily available to anyone who knows how to access it. Weโ€™re not talking just about identity theft, which is a criminal offense, but about legal marketing practices. Indeed, consumers are being deluged with direct marketing offers pitched at them by mail, e-mail and telephone. Think about it from their viewpoint. While you think youโ€™re helping consumers by making just-in-time offers to satisfy their needs and desires, theyโ€™re thinking: โ€œWhoa! Can we get a little privacy over here?โ€ Just how much do consumers care about this issue? A lot. For example, 69 percent

Lessons From Spiegel
April 1, 2003

Misfortune and miscalculations led to the bankruptcy filing last month of the Spiegel Group, parent company of the Spiegel and Newport News catalogs and Eddie Bauer. Itโ€™s hard to watch the unraveling of such a venerable company as Spiegel. What lessons can other catalogers take away from this story? Understand that private-label credit cards are a risky business. Analysts estimated customersโ€™ recent default rates at 17 to 20 percent of all Spiegel credit card receivables, noted a report in the New York Times. In all, 41 percent of purchases companywide and 73 percent from the Spiegel catalog were made with the private-label credit

How to Waste Your Marketing Dollars
March 1, 2003

When you call a catalog advertising agency, designer or copywriter, you expect to have things your way. After all, you have the cash. While you certainly can have things your way, the strongest-selling catalogs generally are those in which the cataloger has worked as a partner with โ€” not a dictator to โ€” the creative team. How can you bring a detailed knowledge of your product line and customers to the table, without smothering the creative process with non-negotiable rules? Following are four guidelines that may help. 1. Leave your quirks at the door. A national manufacturer with a highly respected brand launched

Catalog Start-ups: What You Need to Know
February 1, 2003

If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. โ€”John D. Rockefeller Building wealth by starting a catalog is the stuff of legends. The reality, as you know, is much different. Having inadequate financing from the start is a blueprint for failure. Yet, having adequate financing and deep pockets doesnโ€™t guarantee your success either. Sure, cataloging is fun and exciting, and it can be rewarding. My intent is not to scare readers away from the prospect of starting a catalog from scratch. Rather, I want to make you

Be a Survivor
October 1, 2002

The most unlucky cataloger I ever knew was a food cataloger who watched helplessly in 1994 as its retail store in Northridge, CA, turned to rubble in a disastrous earthquake. A year later, the same cataloger was again forced to watch as its retail store in Japan literally slid into the ocean in the Kyoto earthquake. Next time you think the gods have singled out your catalog for special torment, remember this cataloger. Cataloging has seen its share of recent collapses and closures (e.g., Fingerhut, Springhill Nursery, Willis & Geiger, Balduccis). Several others have come right to the brink of disaster before

The New Focus: Corporate Citizenship
October 1, 2002

Perhaps itโ€™s the image of CEOs and CFOs being led away in handcuffs, or the new corporate fraud bill hastily signed into law during the summer, but lately Iโ€™ve been thinking a lot about corporate responsibility. And apparently Iโ€™m not alone. Two reports on the topic recently crossed my desk. A study from The Conference Board found that more and more company executives are accepting corporate responsibility as a new strategic and managerial functionโ€”complete with bottom-line repercussionsโ€”that requires their attention. The other report, this one a Jericho Communications survey of 264 Fortune 1000 CEOs, found that 36 percent of respondents said