An ALLPRO® Publication VOL. 22, ISSUE 4 JULY / AUGUST 2012
by:Scott Morath It’s official, July is here, which means we’ve passed the halfway point of yet another year. From this moment forward the rest of the year is going to rocket by at warp speed. Before you know it you’ll be toasting a successful 2012 and slurring the words to “Auld Lang Syne,” as the night sky is lit with fireworks. Still, in the here and now it’s only the beginning of July and there’s a lot of work to do before we start planning for the holidays. For ALLPRO, that means ramping up preparations for the Fall Stockholder meeting in October. This year’s meeting will be held at the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is just outside of Phoenix. The format will be a little different than last year’s meeting in that we will not be hosting exhibits. Instead, this meeting will focus on a mix of member information/breakout sessions and workshops. The purpose of this article is to give you a brief overview of what we have planned for the fall. The first series of workshops on tap for the fall meeting will cover Point of Sale software. Each of our three POS suppliers; EPICOR (Activant), CBC Computer Systems, and SBC Solutions (Autologue) will hold individual workshops where they will discuss topics relevant to their respective software systems. These will be held concurrently and members can attend the POS session of their choice. Following the POS sessions we will host two very important sessions:
vs. buying through distribution and also present effective selling tactics on ALLPRO branded products to generate greater profit dollars. Afterwards we'll host the stockholder general session and town hall meeting. This segment will provide members an opportunity to openly discuss organizational or industry topics with board and committee members, the ALLPRO staff and the group as a whole. That should keep everyone gainfully involved the first day of the meeting. The second day will pick up with a recap and continuation of Pender Newkirk’s Loss Prevention session from the 2010 stockholder meeting. Many of you felt there wasn’t enough time for this session then, so we are not only revisiting it at this meeting but PNC will expand on their previous session. Following the PNC presentation we will hear from several members who will offer insights and advice on diversifying your business model. Specifically, we have a number of members who’ve expanded their product offerings to include industrial/high performance coatings, hardware, window treatments and commercial wallcovering, and flooring. The Loss Prevention and diversifying your business sessions will be presented to the group en masse, which should allow for a wealth of valuable input and interaction from the membership. Aside from the full schedule of breakouts we will also host a Next Generation reception just prior to the opening reception. We received quite a bit of interest in continuing to offer a reception just for the under 45 crowd, so this should provide another great opportunity for the up-and-comers to meet and network with one another.
• Valuing Your Business – presented by accounting firm Pender Newkirk & Company, this session will focus on determining the value of your company and also discuss the planning steps necessary in transferring ownership.
• Effectively Managing your Purchasing and Selling – presented by Gleco Paint, this session will focus on purchasing tactics that balance direct purchasing
Obviously, we’re still in the process of finalizing the registration forms and other materials, which should be available on the ALLPRO website in the coming weeks. The above is meant to give you a sneak peak at what the fall meeting will hold, so you can begin to plan accordingly. You can expect an official announcement complete with agenda and registration materials from us sometime during mid-July.
Optimizing Your Website For Mobile Devices Part I: Ipads and Tablets tablet landscape, it makes no sense to continue with Flash. Although not as dynamic as flash slideshows, a suitable replacement called JQuery allows programmers to replace most flash content quickly and easily and allow your site to be iPad compliant. An example of a JQuery presentation that used to be Flash can be found at www.hadlockpaint.com on the home page. Say Bye Bye to Flash. Anyone resistant to updating their Flash routines to JQuery or other solution are really asking iPad users to simply look elsewhere.
By: Al Kinnear One of the hottest topics in the world of websites and website development is how one goes about optimizing a corporate website for the rise of mobile devices role in society’s website browsing. A study performed last year from Pew and from On Device Research showed that over 25 percent of people in the US who browse the web on mobile devices almost never use any other platform. Mobile devices consist of tablets and smart phones. This month’s technology focus will be on optimizing a website for a tablet.
2. Review your page content and consider splitting content into more bitesize pieces. It’s a-ok to require a user to scroll down to complete content review, however, you simply cannot overwhelm a user with never ending pages of content. The user will simple press the X and leave your website.
According to Time.com, tablet sales worldwide will exceed 275 million by 2015. At the end of 2011 Apple had sold 55 million iPads since their introduction and some forecasts show Apple moving 66 million iPads in 2012 alone. The tablet segment of the mobile market is not as large as the smart phone segment, but it does require that attention be paid to it on its own when optimizing your website.
3. Use PDF documents to offer additional product information, sales offers, promotional coupons etc, this not only allows minimal scrolling, but also allows the user to store your site content for future reference on their tablet device.
4. Pay close attention to how
Tablets range in sizes from approximately 7 inches to 10 inches in screen size, and vary in resolution size from 1024 x 600 for the Samsung Galaxy to 2048 x 1536 for the newest iPad. Check out www.tabletpccomparison.net for a really great comparative analysis of tablet sizes etc… The resolution indicates how many pixels can be displayed in each dimension (width x height). This is quite important when planning your website optimization as you want to make sure you keep these dimensions in mind.
your website looks in both the portrait and landscape modes on a tablet device. This is where you need to review the resolutions of the tablets and make a decision on how best to optimize your website page layout. This is definitely a conversation that you need to have with your website programmer. The conversation should focus on the appropriate page layout dimensions to best take advantage of PC browsers while still allowing for a great experience on a tablet.
5. Review your website on your favorite tablet and have your staff do the same. There is really no better tool for evaluating how your website looks than reviewing it on your PC, and as many tablets as you can find. Make sure that you and your staff are satisfied with your website on both devices. After a few rounds of review, you will have the confidence to know that your website provides a pleasurable experience on both a PC and Tablet.
There are ways to actually sense when a tablet device is landing on your website and then providing a website that has been optimized for tablet viewing only. Experience tells us that there is not much appetite for this type of expenditure on websites within the paint and decorating website space. We have found that the most cost effective solution for our clientele is to optimize the website for both Tablets and PC users with 5 easy steps Optimizing for Tablets –
Our next article will look at a cost-effective way of providing an optimized Smart Phone website version for your business that allows you to not only provide important details for folks looking at your website on a Smart Phone, but also a strategy that does not break the bank account in doing so.
5 Easy Steps
1. Remove all Flash from your website: There was a well-publicized feud between Adobe and Apple which rendered Flash absolutely useless for any Apple iPads. Since Apple’s iPad dominates the
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To Pin or Not to Pin, that is the Question.
not offer the same for Facebook’s business pages. Hopefully the developers at Pinterest will allow for that feature as the site grows in popularity but for now it is not an option. Aside from that, pins can be shared through Twitter or embedded directly into a website.
Who uses Pinterest and why? According to comScore, 80% of Pinterest users are female, primarily between the ages of 18 and 54 with some college education and an annual household income between $25k and $75k. When you stop to consider that women today are responsible for 85% of all consumer purchases (including 94% of home furnishings and 91% of houses), they purchase for the their families, and control the research and evaluation stages of purchasing, it’s easy to see why Pinterest is gaining so much attention from marketers.
By Scott Morath Keeping up with the seemingly endless emergence of new social media sites can be a daunting task. What’s more, understanding their uses and determining whether or not they can be effectively leveraged for business is not always obvious. For that reason this article takes aim at Pinterest, the newest social media site that has taken the internet by storm. It’s an imagesharing service that, according to comScore.com, has reached the 10 million-user mark faster than any standalone site ever. The intent is to offer a brief overview of Pinterest and help you evaluate it as a possible tool for your business.
The second part, why they use it is simple. 72% of women using Pinterest are Gen X and younger, which means they, for the most part, are technology savvy and readily assimilate it into their every day routine. Additionally, web enabled smart phones and tablets now permeate the marketplace, which means people can access web based information almost anywhere and at any time and they frequently do.
What is it? Classifying Pinterest as an image-sharing service is correct but that’s a bit of an oversimplification. Essentially, it is a digital “scrap book” that allows users to curate their interests by posting, or ‘pinning’ images onto one or more pin boards he or she has created. Users or ‘pinners’ as they’re called, can setup any number of pin boards, which are usually categorized by individual interests (i.e., home ideas, decorating, inspirations, apparel, etc.).
Additionally, Pinterest provides a convenience in that it allows its users to consolidate and organize their interests onto a single, user-friendly web-based platform that can be accessed on the go. Since content is visual and organized by whatever category a user has set, it is very easily and quickly retrieved. And since the image pinned typically links back to a website, more detailed information is just a tap of the touch screen away.
Pinners collect images from any number of sources. They can come from other websites such as travel sites, food blogs, online catalogs, etc., they can be uploaded directly to the site or even ‘repinned’ from another user’s collection.
For instance, my wife recently signed up on Pinterest and quickly observed that she no longer needed to cut recipes out of magazines. She simply opens the Pinterest app on her iPhone, goes to her recipes board, and looks for the “product shot” of the Balsamic Honey Pulled Pork Sliders she pinned earlier and clicks the image, which links her to the site with the recipe. From there she can either begin preparations or pay a visit to the market to pick up whatever ingredients she may need.
Pinterest is a social media site, so content is meant to be shared and pinners have the option of following other pinners. However, unlike Facebook or Twitter a user’s pin boards are available for public consumption. Meaning, a user cannot limit their pin boards to specific followers or make them private. As a user pins new items those pins will appear in their follower’s ‘pin feed’ (similar in principle to Facebook’s news feed) and also be visible in the larger pool of pins that any user can browse through (see screen shot on this page).
The Business of Pinterest When you consider who uses the site and why, the appeal for business application is considerable. You essentially have the key buyers of households everywhere collecting, organizing, and storing visual content representative of ways they want to spend
Unfortunately, a big downside to Pinterest right now is its limitation when sharing across other social media platforms. While an individual user can share pins to their personal Facebook page, currently Pinterest does
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money. The above example of my wife accessing the sliders recipe could be applied to clothing, household products, lawn & gardening, or just about any other consumer product category. One comScore statistic I found particularly interesting indicated one of the top categories on Pinterest is ‘Interior Design’ and one of the top brands followed is ‘Better Home & Garden’.
places, add your own captions and pin them to various boards you’ve created. • Tool for brand building – as a paint store or decorating center you are in the business of being a color and or decorating expert. Anything you can do to further that perception among your customers is brand building. Providing a convenient resource with creative and inspirational examples of pairing various colors will only build on that perception.
However, in terms of being a driver for sales Pinterest lends itself more to businesses that rely on a highvolume of website traffic, such as an e-commerce site. I think for a true, local brick and mortar store it serves more as a means to augment your other social media efforts, a resource for your customers who use Pinterest, and a tool for building your brand. In short, the content you pin will probably never translate to an immediate uptick in sales but could certainly aid in how your customers perceive your brand and your business as a resource.
But what would I pin? While there is a category for products in the broader Pinterest search criteria for products of all types, I wouldn’t waste time posting images of paint cans or rolls of wallpaper. Reason being, Pinterest is a repository for inspirational and aspirational ideas in the form of visual imagery. Users login to curate those ideas, not look at pictures of the product they might use to bring those ideas to fruition.
• Augment existing social media – the focus of social media from a business standpoint is to provide value to your customers. If used correctly and promoted via other channels, Pinterest can serve as one more social media tool in your marketing tool belt. It allows you to round out your social media presence, reach an audience you may not be tapping into, and provide content in a way that Facebook and/or Twitter are not designed for.
That being said, you want to post an image that evokes an emotional response and showcases color in interesting ways. Images could range anywhere from a picturesque sunset to a flower garden to a nicely appointed living room to food items. Basically, anything that showcases color. For example, Southern Paint has a board for ‘Color Inspired by Food’ where they feature a collection of interesting and appealing color combinations found in every day food items. Other boards are titled ‘Clothing for Walls,’ ‘Inspirations,’ ‘Colors we Love,’ and ‘Don’t forget about the kids.’ Each offers a collection of different images that focus on the specific category and offer ideas that provide customers the impetus to visit their stores to bring those ideas to fruition in their home.
• Resource for customers who use Pinterest – customer here is the consumer; the person looking for creative inspiration, design and decorating ideas. Keep in mind they are curating these ideas, collecting them on a pin board labeled ‘inspirations,’ ‘decorating ideas,’ ‘my future living room’ or something similar to use for later reference. They’ve seen a room vignette, color combination or something else that appealed to them enough to re-pin [save] to their board. By providing your own boards with a wide selection of inspirational color schemes, textural patterns, and designs a decorating center can set itself apart as a resource for those things and begin to build a following. The good news is you don’t have to create original content, you can curate images from a variety of
That is Pinterest in a nutshell. As with any other social media platform, it is not a means to directly promote your business but a way to add value, which is marketing speak for pay it forward. Is it worth the time and effort to have a presence on Pinterest for your customers? In my opinion, if your business is positioned as a decorating center and you are fortunate enough to employ full or even part time color consultants, designers or creatives who can make the time (15-20 minutes per week) there is a benefit. If however, you are a business that caters primarily to the pot & brush professional painter and you find it difficult to keep up with your website and/or Facebook then don’t jump in just yet. If you’re somewhere in between those two extremes, it’s a judgment call. As with any social media there is a time commitment and you do have to work at it but you’ll get out of it what you put into it. If you’d like a more detailed overview of Pinterest inbound marketing firm Hubspot has published a comprehensive, and free, e-book on Pinterest. You can find it at http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/ho wtousepinterestforbusiness.pdf
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ALLPRO® Company Profiles By Angel Chovanec ALLPRO has had the good fortune to add the highest quality companies in the industry to the group. We are pleased to profile some of our newest member and supplier partners CHAPMAN’S PAINT COMPANY
for 27 years before we started this retail business in 1997. We are trying to keep it small and simple.
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Founded: 1946 Location: Bryan, TX Telephone: (979) 776-8191 Web site address: www.chapmanspaint.com Founder: Jim Chapman Current President: John R. Jahnke ALLPRO Contact: John Jahnke 1 Store # Full-Time Employees: 6 Wholesale/Commercial/Contractor: 70%, Retail/DIY: 30% • Chapman’s Paint is one of the South’s finest and most complete paint and flooring store since 1946. Our highest priority to our customers is service. Our staff, with over 140 years of combined experience, is thoroughly knowledgeable in all facets of paint application. We want to be your paint and flooring store! • Chapman’s Paint is an independently owned and operated company established in 1946 by Jim Chapman and his son “Chick” Chapman. Mr. Chapman was a man of integrity which is why Chapman’s is known for its high standard of quality in paints and supplies it sales.
PHOENIX TAPES
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Founded: 2007 Location: Charlotte, NC 28273 Telephone: (704) 588-3090 Web site address: www.phoenixtapes.com Founder: Jim Merritt Current President: Jim Merritt ALLPRO Contact: Sean Kim # Full-Time Employees: 8 Phoenix Tapes manufactures high performance masking tapes exclusively for small dealers and regional paint companies. Once you get your contractors using our tapes they won’t be able to find them at any “Big Box” or “National” chains and will have to come back to your store. Why sell tapes that a contractor can buy down the street at a “National Retailer”? Because we manufacture nothing but masking tapes, our products are not only the best in the world, they are priced to help you achieve the best margins. • Phoenix Tapes was formed when Cartoseal (a unit of The International Tape Company) decided to downsize and move operations overseas and Sales was due to be eliminated in this move. Because he felt that the products were the best in the market, he quickly assembled a group of investors to purchase the assets and keep the plant in operation. Jim was officially laid off on Friday afternoon and returned the following Monday as the company’s new president and CEO. Phoenix is now 100% American owned and operated with manufacturing based in Charlotte, North Carolina where Phoenix manufactures the best masking tapes in the world and manufactures exclusively for small and medium size businesses. • Company Slogan: Always find a way to help our customers
LUU COLOR CENTER • • • • • • • • • •
Founded: 1997 Location: Rockville, MD Telephone: (301) 984-0066 Web site address: www.luucolorcenter.com Founder: Toan Luu Current President: Toan Luu ALLPRO Contact: Toan Luu 1 Store # Full-Time Employees: 2 Wholesale/Commercial/Contractor: 40%, Retail/DIY: 60% • Luu Color Center is a well established retail store. • Luu Color Center owned a contracting business
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Welcome New Members We are pleased to welcome our two newest member companies to the ALLPRO family of independents, Chapman’s Paint Company and Luu Color Center. Chapman’s Paint is a single store located in Bryan, Texas and has been in business since 1946. Luu Color Center operates one location in Rockville, Maryland and has been in business since 1992. Both companies offer a traditional mix of painter/maintenance and retail business. Congratulations to ALLPRO member Canpro Decorating Products, who recently added two new companies, Lake’s Pro Paint & Lacquer Centre and Markham Colours & Décor, to their roster of members.
2012 Golden Hammer Award Recipients Special congratulations to Aubuchon Hardware who received the Retailer of the year Award at the 28th Golden Hammer Awards held as part of the National Hardware show in Las Vegas. M. Marcus Moran Jr. accepted the award on behalf of Aubuchon Hardware. Moran, grandson of the company founder W.E. Aubuchon, credited the company’s success to its 1,250 employees. “We’re very proud of all of them. Our store managers have an average length of service today of 23 years. They are the backbone of the business. We will bring this Golden Hammer back home to them,” said Moran to The Home Channel News. The Home Channel News also recognized several ALLPRO Supplier partners for product innovation & improvements at the Golden Hammer Awards Ceremony. Award recipients were: Hyde Mfg. for Paint Supplies & Tools, Benjamin Moore for Paint Wall Treatments & Stains and DAP for Caulking & Sealants. Congratulations to all!
J.D. Power and Associates Interior Paint Satisfaction Study Congratulations to supplier partner Benjamin Moore who recently ranked highest in 2012 J.D. Power and Associates Interior Paint Satisfaction Study. The study measured six key factors of the painting experience: Application, product offerings, durability, price, design guides and warranty/guarantee. The study was based on responses from more than 8,000 customers who purchased and applied interior paint within the previous 12 months. This is Benjamin Moore’s second consecutive year with this highest rank.
IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER … ALLPRO 2012 Fall Stockholder’s Meeting Westin Kierland Resort & Spa Scottsdale, AZ, Oct 25 – Oct 28, 2012
ALLPRO 2014 Spring Show & Sales Meeting JW Marriott Desert Ridge Phoenix, AZ, Mar 19 – 23, 2014
ALLPRO 2013 Spring Show & Sales Meeting JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa Tucson, AZ, Mar 20 – 24, 2013
ALLPRO 2014 Fall Stockholder’s Meeting Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa Miami, FL, Oct 16 – 19, 2014
ALLPRO 2013 Fall Stockholder’s Meeting Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa Hilton Head Island, SC, Oct 24 – 27, 2013
ALLPRO 2015 Spring Show & Sales Meeting Rosen Shingle Creek Orlando, FL, Mar 18 – 22, 2015
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ALLPRO Has Gone Mobile Early last year we developed the store locator feature on the ALLPRO website. It provides an easy user interface that allows those interested in purchasing ALLPRO brand products to find the nearest ALLPRO member retailer. As part of our advertising campaign in American Painting Contractor and the Paint Contractor magazines we also incorporated QR Codes that link readers directly to the store locator feature in an effort to drive traffic to the website. Users simply scan the QR Code using their smart phone and up pops the website. This year we’ve been working with our website provider Mercury New Media to optimize that particular section of the site for mobile devices. We are pleased to report that area of the site has been launched and anyone who scans the QR code from their iPhone, Android or other mobile device will find an easy to use site that fits in the palm of their hand. Meaning, they won’t have to enlarge the view to select specific links or read text. For now the mobile site is limited to a very brief ‘About Us’ section and a ‘Contact Us’ section in addition to the locator. We will be expanding the public footprint of the mobile site, as well as the regular site, to include ALLPRO product photos and other information but for now our focus was on getting the store locator feature optimized. It should provide users on the go, which is pretty much everybody, a much easier and user-friendly experience when trying to find an ALLPRO member retailer nearest them.
Scouting Report Online We mentioned this in the last issue but only briefly so we’ve decided to give it a little more press. The Scouting Report is now available online under the Resources and Documents tab. Specifically, you’ll find the link labeled ‘Scouting Report Archive’ in the submenu bar of that tab. We currently have the archive populated with issues that go as far back as May/June 2011 but will be uploading additional back issues as we’re able to reformat them for uploading. In addition to back issues the most current issue will always be shown at the top of the list. We realize that not everyone memorizes the articles and content of every issue, so we’ve built in a search feature to help you find the particular issue you may be looking for. Simply type in a keyword then click the ‘Apply Filter’ button and it will provide you a list of every issue that contains the particular keyword you’re looking for. Needless to say, if you type words like ‘ALLPRO’ or ‘paint’ there’s a good chance you’ll get a list of every issue contained in the archive. To open any issue shown on the screen simply click on the download link, which will give you the option of opening the file as a PDF or save the issue to your computer. Unfortunately the advertising section is not included in the online version. Beyond the immediate time frame of each issue the advertising section provides no real value and only adds size to the individual file, so we decided not to include it in the online version. Also contained in the archive are the current rate card and ad reservation forms for those suppliers who want to advertise in one or more issues. Just click the link and the respective form or document will open up as a PDF, which you can fill out and fax or scan and e-mail in to the ALLPRO office. It’s easy as can be.
As part of our ongoing efforts to encourage participation in the ALLPRO distribution centers from our members in the Northeast and Southeast, we have begun offering monthly ‘Hot Buys’. These Hot Buys are sent out via email, hardcopy, and are also posted to the ALLPRO website. Be sure to keep an eye out for the monthly hot buys and take advantage of them as often as you can.
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Think Customers Want a Relationship? Think Again. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review tackled three commonly held myths regarding customer/brand relationships and interactions. The 1st myth dispelled was that consumers want a relationship with your brand. They don’t. A study of 7,000 consumer showed 77% don’t have (or want) a relationship with a brand while only 23% do (sounds a lot like the 80/20 rule). The 2nd myth was that interactions build relationships. Nope. 64% of consumers indicated a shared value as the biggest driver, while 13% indicated frequent interactions led to a relationship. The 3rd myth was the more interactions (i.e., e-mail traffic, social media posts, flyers, etc.) the better. The study showed no correlation between frequency of interactions and likelihood to purchase. The moral of the story, to quote the article, “More isn’t better.” What is better is to understand which of your customers wants a relationship and which doesn’t and adjust your approach to each.
Facebook: What Not to Do. You’ve heard this before (Scouting Report Mar/Apr 2011) but new data from Facebook confirms – lose the conversational nonsense. According to Advertising Age, Facebook recently conducted a month long survey that looked at over 1,200 posts from 23 different brands in an effort to gauge which posts yielded more interactions with fans. “By far the biggest predictor of engagement was that the post was on a topic relevant to the brand.” In short, they “Liked” your page because they had a positive experience with your brand or (see above) because of a shared value (community). In short, focus on topics that are relevant to that. Additionally, if you want fans to share your posts and spread the word post more photos and videos. And finally, if you’re going to ask questions, use questions that begin with “where,” “when,” “would” and “should.” Avoid starting a question with “why” as those have the lowest like and comment rate.
Mobile – is it really necessary? If you want to market to the next generation of consumer then yes, it really is necessary. Investment bank and asset management firm Piper Jaffray recently conducted a survey of 5,600 high school students. The survey showed that 34% of those students own an iPhone and another 40% indicated they intend to buy one in the next six months (other brand choices of smart phones were not surveyed). Additionally, an identical 34% indicated they own a tablet and of that, 70% owned an iPad. Another 19% of students intend to purchase a tablet and of that, 80% plan to purchase an iPad. These are eye opening statistics when you consider the survey was conducted on high school kids who are 3 – 5 years from becoming household consumers themselves and not college students who are 1 – 2 years from becoming household consumers. To echo the gist of Bigeye Production’s article in this issue, now is the time to begin looking at optimization.
Editor/Production Scott Morath
Proofers Ann Spire Julia Thomas Angel Chovanec Chris Gingell Pat Brulfer Matt Spire
Contributing Writers Scott Morath - ALLPRO Al Kinnear - Big Eye Productions
ALLPRO® President Travis Detter
Exec. Vice President Joe Poliseo
SUGGESTIONS WELCOME Your suggestions, ideas, articles and comments are encouraged. The Scouting Report is an important communications media for ALLPRO®. Mail all correspondence to:
The Scouting Report c /o ALLPRO® Corporation 4946 Joanne Kearney Blvd. Tampa, FL 33619 • (813) 628-4800 Website: www.allprocorp.com The Scouting Report is a bimonthly publication of the ALLPRO® Corporation. Printed on recycled paper