"Ready, Set...Whoa!"

Who is the “Pencil”?

The Pencil is anyone who makes buying and placement decisions that affect the revenue of your company and your company’s eligibility for retailing opportunities. Your Pencil may be a retail buyer, assistant buyer, merchandise manager, or influential licensor.

What is the Pencil Principle?

That “Products Fail Without Performance”

In today’s retail environment, vendor companies must position themselves as logical destinations for opportunities through differentiation, execution, service, and an understanding of their Pencil’s business. While your products may still get you in the door, they will not ensure a long-term vendor advantage on their own.

Who will benefit from the Pencil Principle series?

Start-up supplier companies that want to develop an understanding of modern major retail and licensing processes.

Start-up supplier companies that are seeking reality-based strategies which will make the best use of available resources.

Start-up supplier companies that want to assess the viability of retail launch.

Established vendor companies that are concerned about hitting a wall with their current accounts and licensing partners.

All vendor companies that desire to become candidates for new branding, licensing, and distribution opportunities.

All vendor companies that seek to maintain long-term advantages with their current and future retail and licensing partners.

Unlike the multitude of traditional one-size-fits-all business and sales tomes, the Pencil Principle series was created to specifically address the needs of suppliers to major retailers and even more specifically, focuses on major retailer and licensor expectations (“Big Pencils”). Our assumption is that once you are meeting and exceeding the expectations of the most sophisticated retailers and licensors, you are generally well positioned to take excellent care of everyone else.

The Pencil Principle series spotlights approaches and techniques that apply to both start-up and established vendor companies. We believe that start-up companies will benefit from looking one step ahead at the challenges facing an established supplier, while established vendors can continue to explore best practices. That said, the most beneficial information for established suppliers begins in Chapter Five although we believe you will find helpful and hopefully entertaining information throughout the book. After all, growing established suppliers find themselves in a “start-up” position any time they seek to launch new products or expand distribution! Beyond that, much of the information in Chapter Two, Five, and Six , as well as Chapters Eight through Eighteen, borrow from our sales seminars and can be used by established suppliers to smooth out the rough edges and re-visit successful sales strategies and follow-up techniques.

The Pencil Principle series does not claim to provide magic bullets that will guarantee initial buyer meetings for start-ups (no one can do that), or to eradicate the most onerous and inevitable conflicts between Pencils and their vendors (mark-downs, co-op requests, late shipments, and tight schedules). For established companies, we explore non-product best practices that increase face-time and alleviate problems while improving the perception of your company in the eyes of your most valued Pencils.