There was a new face kicking off Conference Day at the PPAI Expo on Monday, Jan. 13, in Las Vegas. Drew Holmgreen, less than a week into his new gig as CEO of the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), was on hand to share his vision with members.

Formerly an executive with Meeting Professionals International, Holmgreen said he’s seen firsthand the power of branded merch.

“As a 25-year marketing vet driving brands, I’m a witness: We deliver joy,” Holmgreen said. “Connections are the reality of what we do. … [Promo] is the tangible and emotional connection of a brand.”

He added that one of his goals in the new role is to “ensure the work we do is elevated, appreciated and respected.”

Embrace Change & Cultivate Customer Experience

Tiffani Bova, formerly the chief growth evangelist at Salesforce, was the keynoter at PPAI Expo on Monday, Jan. 13.

Tiffani Bova, bestselling author and former chief growth evangelist of Salesforce, encouraged attendees of her keynote address on boosting sales to look at their businesses with a “new mind.”

“When you’ve been in an industry for a long time, you get an expert’s mindset,” she said. However, that can be limiting your view and keeping you from adapting to necessary change.

“Real change happens when you focus on and provide yourself the space to have the beginner’s mind,” Bova added, noting that often the biggest challenge to a company’s long-term survival isn’t external forces, but rather “internal inertia.”

She also stressed the importance of customer experience, sharing that even though 75% of companies believe they’re “client-centric,” only 30% of consumers feel the same way about those companies.

“The experience imperative has hit a moment of truth,” Bova said. “A strategy of racing to cheap is not a good strategy. … You have to give them the experience they expect.”

She gave an example of a restaurant with spectacular food, but poor service, compared with an eatery that served decent food but had stellar service. Which, she asked, would you be more likely to frequent again?

“If the experience isn’t good, people will not come back,” Bova asserted.

It’s not enough to engage with customers, she said, adding that brands must, instead, connect with them. Bova cited statistics to prove her point: 81% of customers expect faster service as technology advances and 79% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments. Nonetheless, only 34% of customers say brands treat them as unique individuals.

She also suggested removing friction from the sales process – using technology tools like AI to help with predictive selling – as a way both to boost sales and improve customer experience. “If you make it more frictionless for salespeople to sell, there’s less friction to customers,” Bova said.

Top Distributors Share Growth Strategies for 2025

Brand Fuel (asi/145025) Co-president Danny Rosin moderated a panel on growth strategies, featuring Counselor Top 40 distributors: Jill Albers, senior director of business development at BDA (asi/137616); Mitch Mounger, market president of HALO Branded Solutions (asi/356000); and Debbie Abergel, chief strategy officer at Nadel (asi/279600).

Years ago, Mitch Mounger recalls a client asking for something that was seemingly impossible. They needed a product developed from scratch, in a significant quantity, and they needed the items in hand in just five days.

The market president of Counselor Top 40 distributor HALO Branded Solutions (asi/356000) decided to take a risk, booking a flight to Vietnam to convince a factory to take on the project.

“We begged and pleaded for them to make the product almost not knowing if it would work,” he recalled. Then, Mounger and his team talked an airline into counting 15 pallets of finished product as “luggage.” They drove the items to the client, who was so pleased with the result that it turned into a program that’s been ongoing for the last 15 years.

The moral of the story? “Care more than people think is reasonably necessary,” Mounger said.

It was just one of many insights on business-building strategies Mounger and other distributors shared at a lunchtime session moderated by Brand Fuel (asi/145025) Co-president Danny Rosin at PPAI Expo.

Jill Albers, senior director of business development at Counselor Top 40 distributor BDA (asi/137616), advised attendees to hone their time management skills. “You need to remember to set time aside every day for growth,” she added. “If you’re not planning time accordingly, it’s not going to happen.”

She also suggested that leaders learn to “fail fast” and allow their team the space and safety to try new ideas – and potentially fail some of the time – as well. “The best ideas come from the bottom up,” Albers said. “Let your team take some of the risks themselves.”

Debbie Abergel, chief strategy officer at Counselor Top 40 distributor Nadel (asi/279600) and a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of the most influential people in promo, urged against complacency – adding that even though distributors are all essentially selling the same products from the same suppliers, there’s always a way to put a unique twist on it. “Think of yourself as an explorer taking on uncharted territory,” she advised fledgling distributors seeking to scale.

When asked about bringing younger people into promo, Abergel added that 2025 is the perfect time to enter the industry. “I don’t think it’s a hard sell like it was 20 years ago,” she said. “There’s an attraction to this industry that we’ve never really seen before.”

Why Branding Is Crucial for Business Building

Back in 2014, Joelly Goodson, senior sales associate at Counselor Top 40 distributor BAMKO (asi/131431), was on top of the world. Her sales were strong, and her family life was just as successful. A year later, however, her marriage had ended, and she became a single mom. She also saw her sales plummet.

“It took a toll,” she said during a session on branding. “I felt like a loser. Mentally, I was a mess.”

But she kept plugging away, and after reading Jen Sincero’s bestselling You Are a Badass, Goodson started calling herself the “Branding Badass,” updating her social media handles and her outlook. It gained traction, as did her Branding Matters podcast, which has had guests that include well-known author Seth Godin.

“People started paying attention,” she said.

Goodson shared five tips to help other promo pros reach their branding potential and boost their businesses.

1. Tap into your badass superpower: Figure out what makes you unique and lean into that.
2. Be remarkable: You have to be so good and different that people will talk about you and recommend you to others, she said.
3. Know your competition: This is both so you can collaborate and be collegial, but also because if you know the problems they’re solving you can find the gaps and solve those problems for clients yourself.
4. Be consistent: Brands aren’t built overnight. It takes years of consistent effort to build and maintain a following.
5. Invest, learn and educate: In order to set yourself up as a thought leader, you have to be a lifelong learner but also be generous with your expertise and act as a mentor when you can.