you guys are funny.
Lets clear up the confusion or mis-information...
BDP Distributing is the name of the Company that my wife and I now own.
Bannerdudes Promotions Distribution... (basically)
No - I dont work for Lars. I know Lars and have become a personal friend.
Yet - I work for myself.
Actually It did start as an offer to become a sales rep for Lars, but it quickly changed into owning the distributorship for all of California. With a contract that includes expansion to a few other states in a time. So, that is what I have been doing. Hiring Sales Reps and building out out warehouse.
I hired another top notch rep just the other day.
And No, the packages I am sending out are not "sampler packs"
Doing that creates problems. Many of us recall the ****storm that started when some new CP members insisted upon doing that. I dont go there.
Now to the guys who have inquired about those products, I will handle those one at a time off the board.
You see Im not into retailing anything whatsoever, it would create a conflict of intrest with my reps and our retailers.
I can say that my personal education about industry certainly has expanded and I now have a bunch more knowledge about the industry as a whole.
It also has a strange conitation when you walk into the retailers and meet them, they normally only meet the sales reps and occasionaly factory reps.
To Me its not all about the product specificaly, as we have a few different lines to deal with just with this manufacturer. Its about the marketing and deployment that has been inconsistant at best in this state for the last few years. By simply setting up a solid distributors policy we have already regained many accounts that once where rather high level retialers.
Our practice of handeling the product as we would handle our own personal cigars is rather attractive to our retialers.
I have set up a 3 stage storage system and it seems to make sence.
I now even have the option to have a booth at the RTDA. I just may do so real soon.
Hb