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AFRDS Orlando Show
We See a Problem Coming
QDP New Updates

It is hard to believe (for us) that this is our first RUNTIME letter to go out since the Orlando Show, which seems like ancient history now. We’ve been busy designing brochures and developing software and so have much to pass on to you.

Our list continues to grow. Added this month: Devroomen, Dots, Famous Amos, Fannie May and Whit.

A Caution to Distributors: We are doing everything we can to ensure vendors are bar coding their product. For each one listed here, I have something in writing. However, we have experienced some frustrating exceptions from some people who occasionally re-define what "100%" means. You should confirm with each of your vendors that their product is correctly labeled.

A WARNING to Suppliers. Many distributors have made a significant investment in scanning for order accuracy on the pre-pack line. Scanning on the pre-pack line is wonderful UNLESS there are barcode problems or non-bar-coded product. If you’re NOT bar coded, you’re going to miss the boat. And if you say you are bar coded, then you need to make sure 100% means everything, that all barcodes are VALID codes and have been TESTED.

This year’s show was a week earlier—and the first day of the show was a record cold day in Florida. But it was warmer than the 20 below zero wind chill we left in Indiana. The Coronado Springs is a very spread out place with buildings surrounding a huge lake. Our room was in Casita #2 and a 10-minute walk.

Attendance

We felt all week like traffic was slow....significantly. Other suppliers agreed. Here are some stats from the AFRDS Show list:

392     Distributor Company Attendees
19       New companies we did not already have

1999 Booth Awards

These awards are not intended to endorse, recommend or even to criticize any of the following.

Lollipop Land and Pine River share the Most Creative Award. Lollipop Land had their Luau theme, including a waterfall. Pine River had a Candy Shop, complete with the "kid in the candy shop", played in character throughout the show by Mary Lindeman.

Springwater and Darlington will share the Car Wars Award Both had cars in their booths. Springwater had a '57 Chevy w/Elvis and Darlington had a yellow VW bug with a smiley face.

The Biggest Booth Award goes to Giftco with 32 booths followed by Darlington with 29.

Most People "in attendance" goes to Giftco with 53. Darlington had 24 and Richer Marketing brought 22.

Garfield Sales gets the award for Most Companies Represented with 20 followed by Richer Marketing with 16 and Giftco with 11.

The Largest Brochure award goes to Darlington with 175, or was that 200?

Giftco gets the Biggest Bunch of Brochures Award as theirs come in a box instead of a folder.

Darlington wins the Unique Give-Away with the Smiley T-shirt, but I also enjoyed the personalized key chains at Neal Adamcik's booth.

Best "ad lib" Award goes to Scotts of Wisconsin. When several of their people got to Orlando minus their luggage, the rest decided to go "casual" as well.

Liked about this year's show

Weekday Show. Thanks for watching after those of us who want to avoid working on Sunday. But, just when I thought all that consistent complaining and refusing to open the QDP booth on Sunday was working, I see that next year's show is scheduled to begin on a Saturday . . . hopefully Sat and Sun are golf and set up days.

Coronado Springs was a nice hotel, even if it did require walking several minutes to get to the convention center. The Disney people are always wonderful, going out of their way to make the "guest" have a good experience.

Smooth show. We had no problems and no complaints about how the show went. In fact, I was impressed.

122 Suppliers represented.

Disliked about this year's show

Dirty jokes at the Gala. The comedian was funny and got lots of laughs. But why must we pay thousands of dollars to hire people to tell jokes about old ladies putting their hands inside the pants of old men.....etc. How can you prevent it? The same way I prevent it when I hire someone to speak to or entertain the employees in my company -- I stipulate it in advance.

An example of a Non-Disney-type attitude demonstrated by an AFRDS worker at the sign-up booth. I paid over $2400 for my 3 booth spaces.... and one of my booth workers wanted to bring his wife and son through the show. They were given a 90-minute pass and explicitly (and quite rudely) told that if they were not out of the show in 90 minutes, that security would be sent after them.

Light floor traffic. We were not nearly as busy as normal. Part of that could have been due to the severe weather.

The way AFRDS counts. A recent AFRDS Advisor predicted "2000" attendees. When you read that, the implication is that those are potential customers . . . Consider these:

392 Distributors for 122 Suppliers
422 Supplier attendees
Some supplier attendees are listed in multiple booths.

Round Table Discussions

Marketing your Fundraising Business
Getting and Staying Revved Up
Watching your Business Interests
The Fundraising Office in the Year 2000

Because I was a panelist in one of the round tables, I was unable to attend the other three, but heard only good things about them. I noticed that attendance at the first of three sessions was the best, then down hill after that. 200 were said to have participated.

Spam Email List

In one of the Technology sessions in Orlando, someone asked a question about spam. I’m not sure of the official beginning of the term’s use in email, but one article suggested it was mailing your message to all kinds of people, as spam is made up of a variety of meats.

In the postal world, if you are willing to pay the postage, unsolicited mail is generally accepted, though perhaps not appreciated. But it is different in the cyber world. Sending unsolicited email is considered poor taste and some ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) have a disclaimer in their service that says if you do it, you can lose your service. More in PRIORITY News.

Thanks to . . .

Phil Lindemann and Pine River, and also to Art Dalziel and Lumi-lite for allowing us to use your products to display our UltraScan Bar Code Scanning program. Also to Quality Wholesale, Raddatz Marketing and Art Dalziel for participating in this month’s mailing.

Things seem to be happening quickly in the Darlington / Springwater / Supply / Global deal. I won’t pretend to have all the facts, and I’ve heard from both those who’ve been fired and those who are left to pick up the pieces, so all I can say is – read PRIORITY or watch the web page.

If Darlington’s Fort Wayne warehouse closes and (IF) the pre-pack operation is NOT continued, then we see a multitude of regional pre-pack operations popping up.

The problem we will have is when distributors using a single-licensed Ultra or WinUltra program set themselves up to offer pre-pack services and expect us to continue to support their software.

We are working on making it easy for distributors wanting to offer tally & pre-pack services to purchase additional licenses from us that would enable the use of multiple company names and legal use of our software in that expanded capacity.

Distributors looking for pre-pack service are encouraged to check with your potential service provider to ensure that, if they are intending to use Ultra, they are using a properly licensed product. We can’t tell you who our users are, but if you call to check on whether a service provider you’re considering has a properly licensed program, we’ll let you know.

Web Site

Check out News & Stuff to see the latest news (or jokes). In that section you can see our AFRDS report or our Current Specials long after you misplace this newsletter. Of course, you can check out our WinUltra, WinScan and TallyScan programs, or our Tally, Pack or Web Design services. Ultra users will want to check out the Tech Support area where we have been posting FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) so that eventually we can have nearly every question answered and available for 24-hr access.

Tally & Pre-Pack

We’ve been tallying and pre-packing orders for over a decade. We’ve always been accurate, but now that we use the UltraScan system for verifying order accuracy, we’re as close to 100% as any operation on the planet. If you use programs from Scotts of Wisconsin, we have a special arrangement to provide a limited amount of pre-pack service for their programs. Call your Scott’s rep first. And, if you need total service provider, read about our For All Seasons brochure and give John a call.

UltraScan

Over 40 distributors scanned their orders this past Fall. Find out why here.

UltraScan shows you an itemized list of the seller’s order and you can instantly see quantities updated as you scan the bar coded products. You’ll know an item has a problem before you can even get that item out of your hand. You need INSTANT response.

1. In addition to having a column for quantity ordered and quantity scanned, UltraScan puts a bright WHITE box with a red OK next to each item when you have scanned the correct quantity for that item. Those white boxes make it easy to see what’s OK and what is not.

2. The instant you scan another item, UltraScan beeps and flashes a YELLOW Light for Invalid Quantity, so you set that item aside and press one key to remove the warning and continue.

3. Scan an item that does not even belong in the order and get a flashing RED bar that says Invalid Item. You probably picked up the sharp spread instead of the nacho, and so you utilize UltraScan’s instant warning to remove that item and replace it with the correct one.

4. When you have scanned the last item in an order, hear the sound and see the flashing GREEN light that says Order Scanned Correctly, indicating that you are ready to go ahead to the next order.

New in UltraScan 2.0 is the prompt that alerts you if you prepare to scan a new order when the previous order did not reach the "Order Scanned Correctly" level.

In version 1.0, we told you to emphasize with your operator that "nothing gets by you without a green light". This new feature helps reinforce that. One instance where you would expect this new feature to kick in is when you are packing short. In that case, scan the new "accept order" bar code and you’re ready for the next order.

The price of version 2.0 is up $500 from the introductory version 1.0. However, if you act quickly (see specials), you can still take advantage of 1998 prices and save $500.

Choose a hand scanner, which enables you to shoot the product from an average seller’s order without having to touch it, a counter scanner, which operates like the grocery store scanners, and the pedestal scanner, a vertical scanner to which you present the bar code. And we now have placed a number of 360 degree scanners. These latest technology scanners are a combination of a counter scanner and a vertical side designed to scan the bar code no matter what side it is on. A bit more expensive, but the people using them think they are wonderful.

Humor

January 1, 2000.

Dear Valued Employee:

Our records indicate you have not used any vacation time over the past 100 years. As I’m sure you are aware, employees are granted 3 weeks of paid leave per year or pay in lieu of time off. One additional week is granted for every 5 years of service. Please either take 9,400 days off work or notify our office and your next check will reflect payment of $8,288,432.22 which will include all pay and interest for the past 1,200 months.

Sincerely, Automated Y2K Payroll Processing Dept

New UltraScan Report Module. UltraScan Report Module has two general reports.

The Item Report shows product ordered and product scanned. Use this as reinforcement to show your customer that they did receive everything you invoiced them for.

Then, the Seller Report shows the number of sellers and the number of sellers scanned. If the two are not the same, it will show you which order(s) were not scanned. This protects you from the "you lost an order" accusation. If you had a paper jam while printing pack slips, or if a piece of paperwork fell off the packing table, this will alert you.

When using the report module, UltraScan keeps track of those orders you accepted "as is", i.e. without the green light or the indication that the order was scanned correctly.

Introducing WinUltra v1.2

Version 1.2, our all windows WinUltra is currently being beta tested by a few carefully selected users. Those who order WinUltra now, will receive v1.1 now and the option to upgrade to v1.2 at no charge during the calendar year. WinUltra related topics on the web site include: Why Windows?, Beta Test Program, Ultra Support, Trial Version, Tech Support, Supplies and more.

New users, or DOS users considering upgrading, but wanting to examine the program first, will receive the v1.1 Trial Version. The $99 Trial version gives you time to "try before you buy" and we encourage you to do so. If you upgrade or purchase by the end of the trial period, the $99 applies toward your purchase.

TallyScan

One of the reasons the larger suppliers are going to numeric designators is because of new scanning technology. Check out TallyScan’s description on the web site here, along with our suggest steps in your decision-making process here.

As you consider timing or waiting, here’s a couple considerations. First, Cardiff’s price for the ability to access the program from multiple stations has increased by $4000 in the past 12 months. And, QDP’s history of introducing new technology is to raise the price after a few people have come aboard.

TallyScan – How to Proceed

QDP will send an initial report and general estimate upon request at no charge. Due to the nature of the programs involved, helping you through the decision-making process will require considerable time to analyze, educate and explain options.

The purpose of the consulting agreement and fee is to deter the non-serious information-only seeker.

Ultra for DOS

It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to remember how our programs functioned 4-5-8 years ago. For that reason, we will not be able to continue to support pre-v7.0 systems after July 1. We will continue to support versions 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 through Fall ’99.

Be advised that pre-v7.2 versions of Ultra will not function properly with Pentium II or later processors. For users who want to stay in DOS and also purchase new computer equipment can upgrade to version 7.2.

Last Modified: 05/27/2008