Why CTC Gives FREE Hand Sanitizers with Diamond Series Toners.

It’s a great feeling of pride to take an idea from a goal to reality! But pride can be foolish when one elicited the help of others to achieve that goal. To stay humble, it's important to share the credit with all those whose help and influence played a vital role.

What was my goal?

To find a way to get hand sanitizers to my customers for free.

Why was this my goal?

Due to COVID-19, many essential PPE products are unavailable through distribution and being diverted directly to healthcare facilities. Hand Sanitizers are key to staying healthy when you can't wash your hands, but they have been back ordered indefinitely. Price gouging has run rampant with what limited is available. Someone needed to help!

Far too many lives have already been lost, and I want nothing more than to help my clients be and feel safe when going to work, out to the store or simply going for a walk. Masks and gloves are in short supply, and finding hand sanitizer has been almost impossible. Essential workers are overwhelmed, overworked, overexposed and under prepared. My clients need protection, and cleanliness is key to their health and safety.

How did we achieve this goal?

Well, that's a great story.

My clients have been asking for hand sanitizer left and right. I checked my usual major distributors and they were fresh out. I honestly didn't know where I would find any hand sanitizer, buy I was on a mission to help if I possibly could. When I'm fixed on something, I tend to share my goals and challenges with anyone willing to listen.

Who knows who might be able to help?

The key connection came to me during a conversation between me and a long time loyal customer Brandon, who is currently working on several prime time TV shows for a major studio. After he placed his usual MICR toner order, we got to talking. I expressed to him how frustrating it had been not being able to provide hand sanitizers to my clients, particularly when there are daily requests coming in and a massive need right now. That was three weeks ago, and the major distributors are STILL all on back order with products like Purell hand sanitizer, with no accurate ETA's and no end in sight.

It appeared that I had shared my feelings with just the right person at the right time. He excitedly connected me with his father Dave who had a large order of hand sanitizer shipping in from China. I spoke with Dave, liked him a lot, but there were too many unknowns with regards to product quality of the Chinese product.

That opportunity would have been a short term and unsustainable solution, but still I followed back up with Dave about a week later because he stated that he was on a mission to create an American made hand sanitizer. I knew this wasn't a pie-in-the-sky goal, because Dave had owned and operated other successful businesses and he knows what he is doing. I know this because I've been supplying one of his businesses for almost 15 years. It turned out to be a very productive follow up call, because he had made great progress in getting his 80% alcohol hand sanitizer FDA approved and manufactured here in the United States. That's right, 100% American made and bottled hand sanitizer.

Don't ignore perfect timing! 

It was clear his was a huge opportunity, so I took the ball and ran with it, but I wasn't going to be able to do this on my own.

Find your advocates.

First, I brought the idea to my GM and sold him on my vision. As an Account Manager that sets pricing for my clients, I'm on the front lines in the fight against price gouging, which seems to have reared it's ugly head again ever since Covid-19 became a household name. I wanted to give our customers hand sanitizers for free with their orders. Scott Roussin is an intelligent man, and thankfully he caught my vision. This roll out would be difficult, because we knew some buyers would want to purchase these hand sanitizers, and there may have been some sales representatives that would want to profit off of them. No judgement, but that is not how I wanted this to play out.

Being passionate about getting hand sanitizer to our customers for free, I also wanted them to look really good! Our Coast to Coast logo is short and wide, and therefore looked tiny on the small bottle.

I took some time to re-design our Coast to Coast logo to fit better and be more visible on a small 2 ounce bottle. We call ourselves CTC for short, so I simply used the current logo but just with those letters. I also designed the label for these bottles with the help of Matt, Dave's other son. What do you think of our new logo?

Team up!

While Scott was extremely busy taking on the operational and logistical challenges, he also shared my re-designed logo with our volunteer marketing team that I didn’t even know existed at Coast to Coast. That team consisted of other Senior Account Managers who were proactively creating marketing material for their book of business. They quickly adopted me into their small group and got me set up with Microsoft Teams. Luckily we all know and respect each other, and have collaborated with each other before.

Do more than what is expected of you.

It's important to understand that my job title is ‘Senior Account Manager / Government Task Force Manager’, however I don’t believe in just doing what my job description entails. I was taught to make it a practice to step into whatever role needs to be done. That being said, in the short term I am paid based on the profit from my sales, and my sales alone. 

I’ve always strived to go above and beyond the call of duty, and have treated my role as if I am the business owner. Recently, I actually became one when Coast To Coast Computer Products became an employer owned company!

With our recent change to employee ownership, I can see that in the long term I may be compensated for the growth of the company as a shareholder. My point is this...I chose to invest my time and energy in the month of April in executing this Free Hand Sanitizer promotion so that our clients will have a way to stay clean and healthy while out and about.

Don't give up when times are tough!

My sales for the month were at their lowest points in over a decade. Businesses are shut down and our economy is hurting. My customers have been spread out in home offices.

I didn’t let that stop me from focusing on creating a solution. I had already got the ball rolling, but I was not about to pass the buck. Now, as a part of our volunteer marketing team, I collaborated with them about the roll out of this project. No more lone wolf marketing for me. That meant running my ideas by others, whose knowledge and experience I respect, listening to their feedback, and adjusting my approach based upon the group’s responses. I was happy to get others on board, because I wanted to see my idea come to fruition, and the more help, the merrier.

Scott had successfully made arrangements for our several of our Diamond Series toner, ink and drum cartridge distributors in the United States and Canada to invest in bringing in stock of thousands of our CTC branded hand sanitizers. With those all being delivered within a week, it was time to work on creating a marketing piece. 

Learn from others.

I’m not a design expert, but I knew I wanted something simple and clean looking, like the hand sanitizer we’d be providing. I shared the slogan that I had put on the label by my family.

I asked, “What do you think of this slogan? ‘Get in touch with Coast To Coast today!’”.

My older son Avery responded, “Well, not literally.”.

We all laughed, and I thought that was brilliant due to our current social distancing, so I added it to one of the 7 advertisement concepts. 

The marketing team voted on their favorite, and it just happened to be the idea which included my 11-year-old son's humorous input.

Beyond voting for their favorite advertisement, each member of the marketing team also provided valuable feedback and unique insights. There were factors that I hadn't taken into consideration, such as legal matters. One of the main benefits of being a part of a committee is having others see in your blind spots.

As you may have seen, we just launched the promotion on May 1st last Friday. I'm very excited to read and hear about our customer responses. I’ve learned some valuable lessons in executing this project that I'd like to share:

• Even when things seem hopeless, there is always a way to be a part of the solution.
• Set your goals high and helpers will come out of the woodwork to assist you.
• Slowing down and getting others involved in your plan often leads to improved results.
• Listen to and learn from the feedback of others.
• Always do more than what is expected of you.