ASI Success Story: Connect Customers With Creative Promo Solutions

Get the technology, support and information you need to grow your promo products business.

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INTRO

Brenda Speirs is Queen Bee at Buzztag, a distributorship that loves connecting people with promotional products! But her swag success story starts over 25 years ago in San Francisco, when she worked for a promo entrepreneur whose clients were high-end, high-tech companies. Battling the common misconception that promo products are cheap, throwaway items, these clients had BIG budgets and spent them by sending their clients top-of-the-line ski bags and gifts. Brenda realized:

“It’s not about trinkets and trash – it’s about quality items.”

 

After moving to Central Oregon and taking a “mommy break” for a couple of years to have kids, Brenda decided to dip her toe back into the promo pool. What started from her couch has turned into her distributorship Buzztag, which has nine employees, warehouse space, in-house fulfillment and decoration, and clients all over the U.S.

FAVORITE PART: THE PEOPLE

Brenda loves the people in the promo products industry: “It’s full of incredibly generous, kind, thoughtful people who want to help.” She finds industry events essential in further developing relationships with her promo colleagues.

Another group of people Brenda values are her customers: “All of our customers are amazing.” She’s found these relationships to be crucial to growing her business. “When you become friends with your customers and they suddenly change jobs, they take you to the new company.”

KEY TO SUCCESS – THEN & NOW

Brenda’s previous employer was a member of ASI®, so she knew what to do the instant she reentered the promo space: “I made sure I had a membership with ASI. It’s as easy as filling out an application, and suddenly you have those resources at your fingertips.”

“An ASI membership is the key to my initial and ongoing success.”

 

#1 MUST-HAVE BENEFIT: SUPPORT

She also highly values her dedicated Customer Success Manager: “Anytime I need anything, I send Jason a quick email and he makes it happen. He reaches out when there are new changes in technology or anything he thinks I should learn about.”

“There’s no way you could be a distributor without
having a support system like ASI in your back pocket.”

 

“I pick up the phone, call ASI and someone answers
my questions or guides me in the right direction.”

 

#2 MUST-HAVE BENEFIT: TECHNOLOGY

When it comes to a core ASI benefit that Brenda uses to run her business, she says, “Definitely ESP. ASI’s technology has been at the forefront for many years.”

“With ESP®, you can find any products, any supplier,
any resource anywhere that you’d never ever find on your own.”

 

#3 MUST-HAVE BENEFIT: NEWS & TRENDS

One great way Brenda stays on top of industry trends is through ASI’s e-newsletter articles and annual State of the Industry reports, which share important stats on markets, products and more: We use that all the time in our collateral that we send to customers.”

Want this Success Story as a PDF? Click here to download.

 

Explore the ASI membership benefits Brenda talked about and more.