Promotional products, corporate gift Los Angeles.

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target-marketing

Last updated on May 23rd, 2022 at 07:05 pm

I recently had a great conversation with Rhea Allen on the Rhea Allen’s Marketing Expedition Podcast about how promotional products. We started off with SWAG. Do you know what the slang SWAG stands for?  It means Stuff We All Get.  This is one of the most common idea when it comes to the promotional products.  When a company is ready to market themselves they may contact a promotional product company, pick an item to print their logos on and then just hand them out to “Everyone”.  Then I explained to Rhea about my view of target marketing with promotional products and how they can help you with company goals. You can listen to it here:

For example, when advertising on Google Adwords or social media, we will first find the right keywords or defined our audiences (in Facebook for example) before launching the campaign, right? In promotional product the same targeting principles can be applied as well. Target marketing is an important step before any marketing ventures.

Some questions to ask in target marketing:

  • Who will be the target audience?
  • What is your ideal customer like? (Make My Persona tool from Hubspot is great one for that)
  • How will the promotional item be distributed?
  • Does the item reflect your company branding?
  • Can clients relate to your message?

The goal of a promotional product is to give clients a taste of the brand experience, a reminder of the company’s mission and value. Should an environment-friendly brand be sending out a corporate gift set that is wrapped in 5 layers of plastics and in an abundance of packaging? Or should they be using their usual principle and go with eco-friendly and reusable packaging?

Create a meeting experience with promotional products

How to promote your brand during virtual events
Custom branded gift set we received on a recent virtual conference

How many webinars and zoom meetings do you log onto during work week?  One of the challenges companies have is to find ways to engage with potential clients during virtual events, tradeshows or webinars.  I have been suggesting to my clients to drop ship custom kits beforehand and include items from the kit during the event. Think branded apparel, games and social items that can be included in the event agenda. It requires a bit of planning ahead but it will certain to create memorable event for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Employee retention with promotional products

Another challenge companies face is how to retain employees while many people are still working from home. A majority of American workforce continue to work remotely according to a recent Gallop poll. How do you create sense of belonging and loyalty in a virtual work environment? One idea is to create a new hire / employee kit. Not only will it include some essential items such as employee handbook, but it speaks volume about how the company values its employees and its culture. In the age of pandemic and remote work environment, this is a new trend that we have been seeing with many clients.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Host: Rhea Allen (00:00):

On this week’s podcast, we speak with Swire ho #thepromoguy he’s born and raised in Hong Kong and Swire immigrated to Los Angeles. In 1996. He is a proud Chinese American who speaks Cantonese and Mandarin and English. And he’s trained as a sound engineer working at record studios and entertainment agencies before starting his own firm Hellman production, Inc. In 2003 in Los Angeles, Swire and his team successfully produced attractive, personalized DVD and CD cases and custom merchandise like t-shirts and all kinds of fun things that way. And he earned a score award in 2009 for small business success. His business eventually grew so popular. He decided to sell Hellman in 2013 to focus exclusively on the promotional product industry. Now he partners with Garuda Promo, and he’s going to tell us what swag means, and we’re going to find out some fun, cool things, and some ideas of what you can do, especially during this pandemic or post pandemic even.

Speaker 2 (04:27):

Welcome to pepper shop media’s marketing expedition podcast, keeping you up to date with the latest in marketing and advertising. Now here’s your host, Ray Allen,

Host: Rhea Allen (04:43):

Welcome to the marketing expedition podcast. I’m your host, Ray Allen president and CEO of pepper shock media and founder of the marketing expedition community. And today I found my guest off of pod booking a new website. That’s pretty awesome that connects people that want to be on podcasts who have podcasts and vice versa. And so let’s welcome. Swire Ho. Welcome Swire

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (05:06):

Thank you for having me on your show. Rhea. It’s nice to connect with you.

Host: Rhea Allen (05:09):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s just give everybody a little bit of a background of who you are, where you came from what you do and, you know, Swire ho the promo guy, right?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (05:20):

Yeah. I have a kind of unusual first name. So sometimes people will call me and they pause and, you know, without doing that, that’s why I gave myself the hashtag thepromoguy. So people remember it. And as the name Connie, a hint for it, I’m in a promotional product business. So my approach is a little bit different than most when people think of our industry, they think about the word swag it’s actually stand for stuff we all get. And actually, yeah, I actually don’t use that. You know, we wanted to ask the question, why a new, who you marketing, who are you trying to impress or make an, the ultimate goal for promotion products is we hope to turn our customers, client into print advocates so that they were willing to engage, refer, and marketing their product services without you even telling them to do so.

Host: Rhea Allen (06:10):

Right. I’ve also heard it as like trinkets and trash and chotchkies and things like that. Right. And so I hadn’t, I actually knew, I didn’t never know what swag stood for. So stuff we all get. That’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize that. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about some, some of the people that you’ve helped in, in building their brands with the swag, as you know, with the promotional products and things that you do. Tell me about some stories or some incidents that have helped your clients.

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (06:44):

So right now the trend is changing, you know, before the pandemic, we normally help a lot of people who attend trade shows. They have maybe a luncheon, so they will give them, give a to after the event. But now there’s no trade show. There’s no event gathering. So we have a lot of conversation with our client right now. You know, we’d discount, you know, the effectiveness for direct mailing. Now direct mailing is making a comeback, right? So for a lot of jobs that we have done in the past few months, all of them are for your drop shipping. So imagine that you’re having an event, you’re having a conference on Zoom. Sometimes we lose people interest because it’s on a computer after like 15 minutes, we start to click away, check, email, check a Facebook, whatever that we do, but they’ve

Host: Rhea Allen (07:30):

Never done that before. No, no,

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (07:33):

Not the listener.

Host: Rhea Allen (07:37):

Sorry. Yeah. I kept going. So you can have stuff drop ship to your audience

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (07:42):

Yeah. For example, if they are registered to attend your conference, your workshop, then you can present them some giveaways and something, a good way to do. And we be fun games that you could play to engage with them. So they know that the host and the speaker will call on them while he is presenting, because the key to success is you don’t want to lose the people, right? Like when you have kids in the school, like the teacher would have them jump around every 15, 20 minutes just to keep them engaged. And they know that they have to be answering some questions. So by having a drop ship kit we actually enhance your Zoom webinar and presentation experience.

Host: Rhea Allen (08:21):

I love that drop ship kit drop, drop shipped kit. You have to be careful of saying that. Ah, awesome. So what brought you into this industry? Swire? What was the, the kind of the impetus that got you to where you are with what you’re doing now?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (08:37):

Well, you don’t get into promotional product by attending a school or things like that. It, it, I came here kind of like on the path on my first business, I was in a CD and DVD replication. If you remember it, though, it used to be popular. So we work with a lot of clients in entertainment, industry, record labels, film companies. And along the way, when they go on tour, they ask, do you guys do t-shirts and merchandise that we can sell when we go to different cities or filmmakers would say, you know, we’re having a premiere, do you do give aways? You know, we kind of got into it. And at 2013, you know, we sold the CD DVD part of the business to a local competitor. And now we’re just focusing on promotional product business, because I liked the creativity of it. And there’s always someone who wants to put their logo to promote themselves. Right.

Host: Rhea Allen (09:29):

That’s probably a smart idea. Not a lot of people use CVDs or CDs and DVDs and, you know, the river, the little mini disks that we used to. Yeah. We had those too, but yeah, now it’s all streaming, right. Everybody just does video on demand and all of that kind of thing, but you’re right. People like t-shirts, they like the things that they get at the trade shows and then they collected them. Their brand is right in front of them. Right. Right. Now I’m looking, I have a little duster thing that I, you know, to sweep off and that’s a brand you know, I’ve got like all these things on my desk. I have, you know, a coaster you know, all these things that have logos on them and, and, and just different things, right. Oh, this is fun. I have a a phone holder. Right. So all of these things, these are things that you can do, right?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (10:11):

Yeah. I would ask them kind of like your example, would you just show me right. As who are your target audience? Are they behind a task like yourself? So if so, I would recommend something that goes around your desk that you don’t already have, that you would use. Right. And in your industry, before you start working with a client, I’m sure that you ask them a bunch of questions. If they want to develop a website, for example, if they want to do video marketing, so you ask them who do you want to target? So you can help them differently. However, when people come to my business, they would say, I just want to buy this for me. I like it. And when I asked them, who do you try to target, who you really want to relate this promotional product to? They say they didn’t think of that. So I think as marketer who are listening to this show, the same principle for target marketing works in promotional product.

Host: Rhea Allen (11:02):

Right. Right. I like to have these things in front of me where it’s like, it makes it convenient. Like my little cell phone holder that was given to me from Adobe max when I was there. It reminds me of the moments that I actually got to go to that event and see it. But, but now, like you said, we’re in pandemic mode. And so if I wanted to drop ship something to my guests on the podcast, for example I could just say, okay, Swire, I want to send out my care package if you will, to as a thank you. Right? Tell me, tell me what would that process look like? How could I do it? How often, you know, what’s, what are, what am I looking at if I wanted to do something like that,

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (11:41):

There are actually a couple of different scenarios where we can do that. You know, I also noticed on LinkedIn, a lot of my contact are switching jobs. You know, imagine that a lot of us working from home we are not with our team constantly. There are a lot of head hunters are going after the good people. And then if you work from home in California, where I am, you can now work at a company in New York or anywhere in the world. So by changing that HR department are scrambling how to keep their best employees to be happy. So we can actually send another type of care package to your employees, make sure that you’re still part of the team. We still values you. And then on your morning huddle, you can actually have something that, you know, all wear and you feel,uyou still being part of the team. So there are actually a lot of,utrending kind of thing. We are developing with our client because we are changing as we speak.

Host: Rhea Allen (12:36):

Right, right. Oh, that’s a great idea to send people all the same shirt to wear or a backpack or something or coffee mugs. Right. That’s, that’s always in front of me and then sort of ploy employee appreciation. And thank you, gifts and client clients. Do you want to, because we’re meeting with clients across the country now, too, and, and, you know, in zoom meetings and whatnot. So that’s another idea, right? To send to your clients, too,

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (13:01):

For example, like on your podcast, you mentioned that, you know, starting a podcast, right. It’s important. And then do you obviously want a good quality guests to be on show? Imagine when you pitched through someone really famous, you know, to be on your show, send presend them a mic and things that, that could get them ready for your show and impress, and there’ll be ready. And then they actually have the right equipment to be on your show and sound great. So we actually upleveling their ability. They want more of their influence. So that way, you know, for us to reach before we reach out to a prospect, we make an impression and then we follow up on it. You know, that will help, you know, in terms of if you’re in sales or if you are trying to make a better connection, you know, virtually

Host: Rhea Allen (13:46):

Right, right. No, that’s a great idea to send them all the gear that they need. In fact, I did a speaking engagement and they sent me this headset and I did like an unboxing video and just, you know, talked about this headset that I have on and, and you know, has the microphone on attached to it and everything. And then they, they sent me some gear and some lighting and all that, so that it was kind of a fun memory to, to get that from them and say, Oh yeah, that’s that’s right. I did get something of that nature right before I spoke at this conference. And as a way to say, thank you. And then, and then I was surprised afterwards and said, no, no, no, you get to keep it right. So, okay. What is the, I guess, funnest sort of quirkiest, craziest promotional item that comes to mind that you have worked on or have helped somebody do before

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (14:34):

Actually it’s starting you something that I read and it’s very trending right now. I didn’t do that, but I think it’s, as a good example, we all know about the Bernie Mittens, right? We’ve seen meems about that. There’s a backstory to it. You know the person actually gave Bernie this mittens. She she’s a school teacher in Vermont. Her name is Jen Alice handmade the mittens and give it to Bernie Sanders. And now what she’s doing, she was created to fundraising campaign. If you want to look, they’re still on eBay right now. Uthey, she does two extra minutes,uto help,usupport for donation for nonprofit. One is going,ufor adult 1,900, right now, the other one is going for 3,700 is still on eBay today. If you want to look at it, these are smart way to capture on the trend and she’s just quick enough to react to it. And then sometimes if we pay attention to the trends that are surrounding our industry, that’s when the good idea comes. And then because I could do have access to 5,000 items and I could also do custom product. The more that you could tell us and share with me what your industry are doing, what’s what are trending that are related to your target audience, the better I can help you.

Host: Rhea Allen (15:49):

Right. And that’s, that is really cool. And that’s the key two’s understanding the audience and what they want from you or what they may need from you. I, one time got this really cool little pouch that had the zipper, and then it had all the different types of phone connectors you could have ever imagined. And it, you know, interchanges the mountain, then it had a little eyeglass, cleaner, cleaner cleanse lens cloth for your phone with a little key chain on it. And I still have it and I still use it. Right. And so just those thoughtful things, it’s got the logo on it, of the company that gave it to me, you know, mobility, help desk, if you must know. But yeah, see, I remember who it is and, and that’s, that’s the key, right? But there’s always things that you end up with that you’re just like, I do not need one more of a coffee mugs or I don’t need one more, you know, I dunno. I love post-it notes. Two post-it notes are my favorite. I can’t go anywhere without post-it notes. Right. So those are logoed posts, pepper shock logo on ours. Anyway, I just think it is a, it’s a great way in a mouse pad. I mean, there’s so many, like you said, 5,000 items, right. What do you think is the most common thing that people give or do?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (16:55):

Right. Right now with the trend is all about face masks and it’s all about not touching other object, right? So there are popular and people turn them into kind of like very visual, you know, you wear on your face, it’s, you know, people would like to see your logo but do, going back to the effect that, you know, how the best, if we can do it is you want to buy promotional products that give people a taste of the actual experience. What does that mean is if you say my mission is to become a eco-friendly, my mission is to be luxury or for whatever that your message statement will be. Can that promotional product relate to your company brand and messages. Right. But that would be the key to success because I’m pride myself to be eco-friendly I won’t send you something that wrap in five layers of plastic. You know, we have done a campaign that people, my client have to force me to have, would packaging everything eco-friendly, all my packaging material has to be able to decompose and then they go really far and then they relate a message completely because they’re, eco-friendly, they’re organic. And, you know, you have to keep thinking of that, you know, so it fits into your branding,

Host: Rhea Allen (18:08):

But I, you know, you’re right. I mean, I think of all of the packaging that we’re using right now, why working from home, you know, the shipments from Amazon and wherever they’re coming from. I mean, I just see so much boxes and paper and plastic wrap and the meal delivery services and all the things that they’re wrapping in your right to be eco-friendly and certainly going to be something that I think would be attraction attractive to people want to look at that and say, Oh yeah you know, that means something, right? Yeah. So what are some things that you do to help promote your business?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (18:44):

Well, I do a lot of networking, you know, before pandemic and during the pandemic, because I believe that as a person, as a company, you know, there are only so much that I can do with our company. But if I have partners who are, who we able to go after a bigger order, then we could all benefit each other. And for example, you know, a natural referral partner that I like to work with is a designer, you know, so they may also be event planners or they, they might be branding and marketing company. You know, we all have the same mutual client, but then we really don’t compete with each other. So I believe in giver’s gain. So I do a lot of networking, you know, day in, day out.

Host: Rhea Allen (19:25):

Good. And how have you been able to network during the pandemic where we can’t go to events? You’re, you’re locked down and in California, you can’t go anywhere. What kind of things have you been doing Swire to help kind of, you know, get your name out there, get in front of people, network what what’s working for you.

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (19:41):

I think I also do a little live streaming show called the small business show. So one of the ways I think, you know, everyone could consider, if you’re doing B2B is to apply for LinkedIn live privilege is still invitation only. So you have to prove them, you, your content is relevant to the LinkedIn audience, but then it’s really focused because I connected with my clients on LinkedIn and my prospect on LinkedIn suppliers. You know, people who I know from chamber of commerce, all on LinkedIn. And if I’m able to create the content that people are striving for, I have their attention because they people go onto LinkedIn. Think about business. If it’s related to your contact base, then you do, you know, on LinkedIn. Or if my audiences on Facebook on Instagram, you know, go to where my clients consume the information and then I want to be there. And then to give them the content that they’re striving for.

Host: Rhea Allen (20:37):

No, that’s a really great idea. And I had to write that one down, get LinkedIn privileged to do live. I know I can do LinkedIn, but it only takes, I can only do 10 minutes and then I get cut off. If

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (20:48):

You do live, there’s not really a limit. I think I’ve been at least an hour, an hour and a half. Nice,

Host: Rhea Allen (20:54):

Nice. I’ll have to, I’ll take your advice on that. I’ll have to expand it and maybe we’ll do the marketing expedition virtual LinkedIn show or something. We’ll figure something out. That’s great. You don’t have to have me on that show too. And LinkedIn. Right. okay. So of the things that you’ve seen that you’ve helped people do, what, what have you seen that that has not worked? That has been just a complete fell and flop. So the others can avoid from having that happen again, what’s something that you’ve seen that was just like, Ugh, what were they thinking? Why did they do that?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (21:26):

I think we have to be picky when we choose the item. Again, we don’t, people want it to market to everyone because just because I have a pen, I have to give it to everyone. You don’t, you know, do you, when we do marketing, when you do, you know, for example, Google adwords, you focus on the keyword. You focus on where the list, who you want to target, and you don’t spend money on other things that are not related to you. And you can do that in promotional product. And then when you do a product, think about, does the audience want to receive that? If that’s, I know you’re buying a toe bag, you’re buying a pen, right? You’re paying money. You don’t have to put your company, name, your phone number, your address, your certification on it. Like no one wants to get a big logo from other company, unless you’re like Nike Patagonia. Right? Think about like a clever message. You know, things that like the example that you have gave me re something that’s smart that you actually actually used. And when, when this, when the conference send you the headphone, you actually do the inboxing. Yeah. You actually speaking on behalf of them without them telling you to do so, because you’re so happy and impressed with what they sent you. So, you know, think about not everyone should get that. You know, only this selective people should be able to have that experience because they are your target audience.

Host: Rhea Allen (22:41):

I’d probably plug the name of the company that has sent me the headset. Since I’m wearing it now, too, you reminded me. Cause I have the box here. It’s let’s see. It’s empower in M P O w and then their tagline is dream Explorer, inspire wired computer headset. Anyway. You’re right. I had to like, Oh yeah, I should probably mention that and then share that because they did, they sent it to me. So, so where do you see the future? I mean, BC before COVID, you know, we were able to do all these networking things, but what about post COVID what’s going to happen? Where where’s the future going? Do you see some things that have happened during pandemic carrying forward? What are those things what’s going to happen in your industry? Do you think?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (23:23):

I think networking is still happening and I would encourage anyone listening to do. Now. Now you can go to any networking meeting that you want. You know, if you speak English, you could probably go anywhere in the world. You’re going to go to East coast and you could attend a networking meeting all around the world, if you choose. And in our industry we hope the event and tradeshow industry will come, back then it looks like it’s gonna go on a hybrid. You know, we’re going to get online experience, but then think about how do you make an impact and how do you engage with your audience? And then in our industry, I think the drop ship kits, you know, does work. And then also it’s more now, depending on the brand and, you know, as helping to find the item that resonate with the audience, because people would like to become a part of a brand, but then only if they really relate and then they like the messages that behind your company. So have those ready before you wanted to take it out and to market to everyone, right?

Host: Rhea Allen (24:25):

No, that’s great. What are some maybe popular apps and tools and things that you use in your industry that you could share with others that might be helpful or useful? Or what are some, what are some things that you use? What kind of technologies or you know, convenience tools do you use?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (24:43):

Well, I, I like to use free tools. That’s something that I’ll always do if I exhaust and then have to get premium service. I do. I think a tool I’ve been using is called calendly. So they actually scheduled for my calendar. You know, now instead of five emails going back and forth, I shared the link these other times they’re available. Then, you know, just spoke me and I think it solved a lot of problem and going back and forth. And I think because now we are so comfortable with soon and we all have a webcam set up, you know, we have a headset set up, then I can really go after anyone that we wanted to, I’m not limited to my local area. And then you know, if we talk about a smaller business, now you have the advantage. Let’s assume that, you know, you want a hundred people to attend your conference. Normally that will mean booking a hotel, location, catering, soundcheck, whatever that costs will be. But right now you could book a hundred people in the same room. Your costs is very low. And then if you really have good product and services, then you’re able to do a lot more business than what you used to in a physical terms. So that’s actually an advantage there.

Host: Rhea Allen (25:56):

I think there’s definitely going to be some carry forward with, with zoom rooms and hybrid events. Like you said what are some other podcasts that you like to listen to, or that you subscribe to or follow?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (26:09):

I like fitness. So I support listened to a lot of fitness you know, podcasts. And I, especially like Tim Ferris because he is diversity have interesting guests coming on. And then I actually learned that from his podcast. He actually sent a microphone to all, all of his guests. So he used a certain microphone. He know how to sound. So I think this is another good way, you know, if we want people to take us more seriously, it’s, you know, we are doing our research. We are valuable at that time. And then as, as host, you know, that the better the guests that you can have on your show, you know, the better and the better encouragement will be as you know, as a podcast.

Host: Rhea Allen (26:50):

Absolutely. It’s always fun to get the people on the show and then they spread it and share it. And it helps with views and all of that. But then it also just helps carry forward the educational component and helping people in our case, build brands and bottom lines. That’s what we want to do. And same for you. It’s like, how can you help people get out there? And like you said, give you said you believe in the giver, give her, give her a serving mentality too. So I think that’s awesome. So I guess, because we are going on this marketing journey together and the marketing expedition I want to know what are some things that you have accomplished that you’re proud of in terms of marketing and, and how you’ve gotten to where you are now with, with what you’re doing now. What’s, what are some things you’re proud of

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (27:36):

Because I’m the kind of person who are always curious and take you back, you know, to the last company, Hellman production, ypu know, we’re in a competitive space. We in LA, you know, a lot of companies obviously target the entertainment industry. We looked at how we able to stand out as a company. So we find out that people are getting sick off the plastic box and the jewel case at that time. So we actually found a supplier overseas that actually do custom packaging. If you see those tri-folds, if you see the original packaging that when you buy a box, that DVD, you get a tour, we have some, we have a lot of ideas in there. You know, they’re also companies that you eco-friendly type documentary, Hey, they don’t like plastic actually. So we actually came up with a post-consumer wasted material. We put all the packaging in a cardboard box that are recyclable, and then it becomes really popular. So, you know, I think my trick in marketing is always find out something that people like, but they haven’t found the option yet. If you’re able to find them the option, then you’re the only company that they would like to work with.

Host: Rhea Allen (28:42):

That’s awesome. That’s very creative too, and an innovative right. To be able to address that and make sure that what’s happening is, is what your client wants. That’s that’s really good. Okay. So what are some ways that people can get in touch with you if they wanted to get some promotional items or swag stuff we always get, how do they, how do they get ahold of you Swire?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (29:04):

They could go to our website www.garudapromo.com , Or if you want to learn more about what we do you’ll Google my name Swire Ho #thepromoguy. Then, you know, you see some of the things I read that. And also I would like to learn more about what people do and then we could provide different options. And I’d like to learn about the trends in different industry. So when, whenever that I have other people who are in similar situation, that I could suggest something that work on other industry, maybe people haven’t seen that in your industry. So I like to do mix and matches to get them out there to really promote them. That’s why I call myself the promo right now.

Host: Rhea Allen (29:42):

I think that’s smart for sure. And I mean, you said that you can work with people overseas to get custom packaging that’s because you can speak more than one language, right?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (29:51):

Yeah. It’s, you know, lucky that, you know, I born and raised in Hong Kong, you know, I speak Cantonese and, and you know, Mandarin. And I like to joke myself sometime I I’m the modern age Marco polo. Right. But if, if we, we are still in business today, I’ll probably get him out of business because I can ship, you know, within a week to two weeks, I did take him years to get the product. But then the idea is the same. We find products that people have not seen before that are interesting to them. If I’m able to show you that, then you’ll be happy and you buy the product that I have, you know, that’s kind of like a merchant type mentality.

Host: Rhea Allen (30:27):

Oh gosh. Yeah. My, my husband has a company with some partners do jellies. So they’re the, the jelly shoes that the big Lebowski wears. And so they worked out an agreement and they get the dude jellies, jellies.com. There’s a nice little plug for him. But yeah, working through that and discovering and working with people because it really truly is international. I mean, we can work with people all over the world now, and I love that you have the ability to, to work and negotiate and speak the languages that can sometimes be a barrier. Right. And so do you, do you oftentimes work with others to, to help kind of overcome that barrier?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (31:05):

Yeah, I do. Because Google translate only take you so far, you know, you have to, obviously there’s a cultural difference. You know, they also, when we do business, there are ways that, you know doing both ways are sometimes they get into miscommunication is because they’re trying to mean something, but then when you translate it, it doesn’t mean the same way in the ninth grade. So sometimes, and I work with the creative and then I work with the factory factory, doesn’t speak creative and vice versa. And sometimes we have to money guy at that too, with the accounting department. My job is to make sure that everyone is happy. I’m seeing the vision of what people want to do and then I’ll make it happen.

Host: Rhea Allen (31:47):

Great. Well, I certainly can see why people would want to use your services. You can be an advocate on all sides of the, of the equation. That’s awesome. Well, Swire, any other last parting thoughts that you’d like to share with our audience on this journey that we’re going on together today?

Guest: Swire Ho #thepromoguy (32:04):

Well, I think reach out, you know, network and then don’t be afraid to try something new. Right, right.

Host: Rhea Allen (32:10):

Excellent. Thank you so much Swire for coming on the show today and we’ll, we’ll be able to sh share all your information as well. Alrighty. And for our listeners, thank you again for listening to the show. And of course, I always want to encourage you to leave some reviews and share this with others that you know, and until next time, enjoy the journey. Thanks for listening to the marketing expedition podcast, buy more [email protected]. [inaudible]

Speaker 4 (32:49):

Wouldn’t it be great. If there was one place you can go to get all the latest information and tips about marketing and advertising. The marketing expedition community is that place people like you gather in our online community to build relationships with others and find the latest marketing trends, tactics, tools, and technology. We help you build your brand and your bottom line. Start your adventure today. Visit the marketing expedition.com to find out more.

 

About the Author

Swire Ho

Swire migrated to Los Angeles in 1996. He is a proud Chinese American who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and English. He trained as a sound engineer, working at recording studios and entertainment agencies before starting his own firm, Hellman Production, Inc, 2003 in Los Angeles. Swire and his team successfully produced attractive, personalized DVD and CD cases and custom merchandise like T-shirts, earning a Score award in 2009, for small business success. His business eventually grew so popular, he decided to sell Hellman Production in 2013 to focus exclusively on the promotional product industry.

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