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Business Builder
By: Wendy Williams
Issue: 2009jul
Blending individual goals and interests with promotional products can lead to big business opportunities as well as personal rewards.
I always dreamed of being an ambassador. As an elected member of the board of directors of the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia (www.ivc.org) for the past 13 years, I have positioned myself to become a citizen diplomat, meeting as many international guests as I choose. I have been able to integrate my life’s dream and goals for international peace and global understanding into my work selling promotional products as vice president of sales and partner at Del Mar, California-based distributor JR Resources (UPIC: jrresour).
In 1992, I discovered the International Visitors Council (IVC) when I was invited by a colleague to attend a cocktail party welcoming international guests from Russia. The IVC links Philadelphia-area people, businesses and institutions with hundreds of rising and established international leaders each year. The IVC administers the U.S. State Department leadership exchange programs and the Philadelphia Sister Cities Program and works with the foreign affairs agencies in Washington, D.C., the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
My involvement with the council has given me the opportunity to travel on behalf of the State Department to Kazan, Russia, on a business exchange and to attend sister city events representing Philadelphia in Aix en Provence, France, and Florence, Italy. I have hosted people from more than 50 countries representing every continent except Antarctica. People from these countries have worked alongside me, visited my home or attended different events with me. In fact my distributorship gives me something to bring to the party in terms of my seat on the board, and I also use it as a vehicle to host the many people I do. It enables me to share sales and marketing expertise as well as cultural experiences.
The purpose of the council is to build partnerships among people from the Philadelphia area and citizens of other countries that strengthen democratic ideals, encourage economic development and promote cultural understanding through the exchange of ideas and knowledge through face-to-face contact in our homes and businesses. In addition, we position our region for economic growth in a global economy through international linkages.
You might have noticed that I am a connector (as you might well be). Malcolm Gladwell talks about this kind of individual in his book, The Tipping Point. The IVC and the NCIV provide a multitude of business opportunities for me to explore and capitalize on in this capacity. I have become a resource of promotional products for the many chapters who sponsor events and give recognition awards to volunteers who participate. Also, as a member of the IVC Board of Directors comprised of all the local top businesses, I have many more opportunities to establish new clients.
My first assignment was to mentor Andrey Bopolepov, who was part of the Community Connections program. This program was a Clinton/Yeltsin plan to bring young Russian entrepreneurs to the U.S. for five weeks to be mentored by American businesspeople and live with American families to learn about our businesses and culture. Andrey was a nuclear physicist from Urals State University in Ekaterinburg, Russia, who was interested in creating the Urals region’s first marketing research firm. He told me in 1995 that he wanted to use his scientific mind to learn marketing research and build a business.
I took Andrey on all my sales calls and introduced him to customers ranging from Mobil Oil, for which I was creating safety communications programs for the Embassy Suites Hotels, where he met directors of sales who shared their marketing plans with him. He was able to interview all the principals in my small company to learn about management styles, taxes, bookkeeping and record-keeping requirements, as well as company social activities. I brought him to New York City for a tradeshow and introduced him to the city and the Jersey Shore. After returning home he went on to create the largest marketing research firm in the Urals. We had a truly meaningful experience and are friends to this day. Needless to say, my customers were delighted to meet him and share in this citizen diplomacy process with me.
Also I discovered that the IVC was one of 94 members of the National Council for International Visitors (NCIV), which represents a network of opportunities for citizen diplomacy designing and implementing professional programs that provide cultural activities and home hospitality for foreign leaders, specialists and scholars. Each organization is dependent on a corps of volunteers who serve as board members, professional resources, mentors and home hosts. Each year the NCIV’s member efforts involve more than 80,000 volunteers across the country. Sen. Arlen Spector, D-Penn., nominated this organization for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. The NCIV holds a conference each year to learn more and meet like-minded folks from all over the country. I have attended this conference for the past five years and provided them with promotional products.
I met one of my favorite promotional products customers during a trip to Russia when I was representing Philadelphia. An IVC colleague was my partner on the trip, during which he spoke about tourism and I spoke about sales and marketing. Upon our return 10 days later, my friendship with this colleague opened doors for me to the convention and visitors’ bureau and many Philadelphia-area hotels. Many of these opportunities turned into real business. Also, as I mentor and escort visitors to meet different business people, I receive unique door-openers to new companies to which I can ultimately offer my promotional products expertise.
I offer these ideas to those of you who might have interests similar to mine. If you are looking for a great organization that is part of the smart power of diplomacy, IVC has been doing this work for more than 50 years. It is an organization with the power to connect you to leaders and everyday people who are doing everything they can to make their world and ours a more peaceful, understanding place.
Wendy Williams is a 34-year industry veteran currently with JR Resources (UPIC: jrresour), a Del Mar, California-based distributor. She began her career with the Synanon sales team in California, where she rose to VP of sales and marketing before moving to Impax, a Philadelphia-based advertising agency, to help expand its promotional products business.
609-915-6479
wendy@jrresources.com
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