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Is AFRDS in for Some Competition? Did you get it? I actually emailed that question to nearly 300 distributors recently, asking about the fax apparently sent to AFRDS distributors inviting them to join a new FREE association, the National Association of the Product Fund Raising Industry, or NAPFI. Over the course of the few days following receipt of that free membership fax, I spoke with a representative of NAPFI and invited him to send me a press release which I could print with permission in this newsletter. What I received was a typed, unsigned, letter which explained some of the questions I had expressed about statements in their fax. The following information is based on my original phone conversation with NAPFI as well as with two sources at AFRDS, the written responses I received from NAPFI and from approximately three dozen distributors. Distributor membership in NAPFI appears to be free this year, although one distributor indicated in a written email that her understanding was that there would be a charge next year. However, since hers was the only response that indicated a future charge for distributors, I'll just put that out as I received it -- one opinion. According to Marc, who attended the AFRDS Phoenix trade show wearing a badge from an AFRDS distributor member, he is no longer a distributor, but is now an employee of NAPFI. When he complimented RUNTIME and indicated considering some of my past criticisms of AFRDS policies (in particular, the fee for distributor membership) to help formulate NAPFI strategies, I checked and found that my records had him as an active distributor in southern California and on my top mailing list. My criticisms of AFRDS have always been with the intent of causing improvement to this association, not having any part of the formation of another. NAPFI claims to have been in the works for four years, but is just now beginning to recruit distributors. To date, the emphasis has been on recruiting new suppliers with the purpose of introducing them to the product fundraising industry. It appears they will make their money by selling information and marketing services to suppliers for $395-$4995 per year. That seems to confirm the comments from AFRDS that they appear to be a "for profit entity". At this point, NAPFI is not actively recruiting AFRDS suppliers, as one of their opinions is that AFRDS is too closed. They have not yet had their first national trade show and none has been scheduled yet for 2002. I'm not going to encourage or discourage membership in NAPFI. Competition for AFRDS might not be a bad thing. (see PRIORITY News for more)
We’ve picked the "Best from the Best". When I look at a major vendor’s largest brochure, and it doesn’t matter which vendor, I can see items in the brochure that I really like and others that are questionable, to say the least. When they have a license, they want to put that license on lots of items to get volume for the licensor. When they buy rights to an artist design, they need to use that design a lot. When you look through one of those brochures, do you find items you don’t like? Me too. From your CUSTOMER’S perspective, we have gone through the industry to pick the best for them. We use the entire brochure to sell product, including the front and back cover. Do your schools teach conservation? Do they believe in efficient use of our resources, our trees? Then point out all the wasted space on the other brochures. After all, does the customer make a purchase decision based on the embossing of the cover? Nope. In fact, look behind THEIR embossed cover and see how that negatively impacts the product behind the cover. More pictures per page, tastefully organized. Notice our product descriptions. They are concise. Do people really read those paragraph-long descriptions? We gain that space to put more pictures per page. Multi-Season approach. Once the end of Fall 2001 approaches, you can pull the middle four pages out of the brochure and continue with the All Occasion portion for Spring 2002. That offers a couple additional advantages to those who are doing your own product fulfillment. First, you can order more liberally in the Fall because you know items will carry over to the Spring. And then, at the end of the Fall, some distributors will sell those items to you at overstock or clearance prices. We don't title our pages, but we focus on different themes and people groups. Two Garden pages (including the cover) give us a more all occasion look. We have pages aimed at kitchen items, jewelry, men, holiday (these 4 pages can pull out leaving the rest of the brochure for Spring 2002) snowmen (but instead of one design on different items, we have lots of different designs), Santas, angels, bears, kids and the best food pages we've seen, showing all generic shots with no brand names or trademarks (so use whoever's product you want). When competing with the Mega Brochure programs, here are some things to consider when showing our 103 item brochure. How much time will the end customer spend turning pages in a brochure? Our 103-item brochure has 12 pages. Other programs have 24-36+ pages. Pick one up and pretend you’re the customer. Start turning pages. Keep going. Also, we have a 24-item Wrap Insert available if you need roll wrap. If you don't need it, you can pack using smaller boxes and bags. Service Options / Product Pricing.
Did you get a sample brochure with this newsletter? We try to send brochures to our more active contacts who we think might be interested. So if you didn't get one, it could be that we know you already have your own, or that you haven't contacted us for a while. We do eventually remove unresponsive names from our mail list. So keep in touch. Call if you need a brochure or need more info. In the March issue of PRIORITY News, I comment on the following statements from their written words: "the deadline for your Free NAPFI membership is about to expire" "the fastest growing association in the product fundraising industry" "2001 is shaping up to be our assoc's most exciting year ever" "Bible of the Product fundraising industry . . . published twice a year" "the NAPFI trade show is the premier event in the product fundraising industry" "active NAPFI distributor members receive many exciting special offers, valuable benefits, and savings." I also share comments from distributors in KY, CO, TX, MD, AL, CA, WA, PA, NY, IN and MI . . . at least. I'll share my preliminary conclusion also. A review and comments about Harvey MacKay's 66 things you should know about your customer, with appropriate fundraising anecdotes. Our current subscription list is the largest it has been (thank you very much). A 1-yr subscription is $49. Email receivedHi John - Just had to thank you again for your great [PRIORITY NEWS] publication! . . . I really appreciated your candid "story" about the cattle call, and the unprofessionalism of some of our "sponsors" (or potential sponsors). -Steve P.S. My check is in the mail! Some topics we're researching for upcoming issues include, Affiliate Programs for your web site and how to use your web site to recruit part time contractors. All cutting edge software programs have the challenge of keeping documentation up to date. Even with our best efforts over the years, we've decided that, instead of updating our current manual, we're going to write a new one. Sara Phares has started writing a new manual from scratch, making sure that not only every feature is covered in detail, but that important details are highlighted in special boxes. The new manual will still be in pdf format and available by request. No completion date set, but look for it in early summer. Have you been run over yet by competitors who are already on-line? The Internet is growing in popularity and many people are shopping for fundraisers just like they shop for everything else. The Internet is an easy way to get your information out there. It can also save you in paper costs because it is electronic, and updating information is easy. If you are ready to get on-line, give QDP a call today and we’ll send you information on the web design packages that we already have available. We will work with you to meet your goals and needs. Check our websites at www.qdpcorp.com/spdesigns. UCollectWithin the last couple weeks, we received a call from a distributor telling us that a school customer wanted to get data from our computer tally program into a Lotus spreadsheet to use for their record keeping as the children turn in money. That's EXACTLY what UCollect is all about!! Once you complete your tally with WinUltra, a simple menu operation creates the UCollect disk to give to the sponsor. You can search for sellers, enter multiple partial payments, and indicate that additional product was taken or returned. You can even ADD or EDIT sellers, just in case you work with one of those groups that have late orders. At any time, the sponsor can print a report of everyone or of just those who have a balance due. UCollect is an Add-On Module to v1.2 of the WinUltra Order Tally System. The Introductory Price includes 60 days FREE support plus two never-expiring complimentary incidents. Upgrade to 1.2 of WinUltraWhat? You don't have WinUltra? Then you need to consider ordering our 30-day Trial to "try before you buy". Not a stripped down demo, our trial version is the real thing, there just happens to be a timer involved. We can reset the timer over the phone. If you already have an earlier version of our software, here are some reasons to upgrade now:
Upgrade to WinScanWinScan is our Windows version of UltraScan. Now, you can control (and even select or add your own) sounds through your sound card. Also, see the last item scanned (for when you stop in the middle of that huge order). Did you say you wanted to scan prizes? Stay tuned. Visit our website and look for UltraScan (or WinScan) under Products. Read more about how scanning for Order Accuracy helps as you address packing, the #3 Bottleneck in Fundraising. QDP E-notesFor your FREE subscription, send your email address to John@QDPCorp.com. We can tally ANY brochure. I was surprised to learn that one distributor thought we only tallied our own brochures. NO! NO! We can tally any brochure from any vendor and print fantastic reports for your sponsor -- and all reports have YOUR company name printed on them. We can tally and PACK the following for Fall 2001:
Thanks for reading RUNTIME!
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