Publisher's Note | Innovations & Inspirations | Problem Solvers

NEW INDUSTRY INNOVATION

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Whenever you see this: simply visit our Web site at www.balloonsandparties.com/GetMore.shtml and you will see an extension of each article in words and pictures. Just one more great innovation from BALLOONS & Parties Magazine, bringing you more valuable information to help your business grow.

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Whereoware and Randy Eller to Collaborate on
Technology and the Industry

Whereoware, the Gift and Home Industry’s leading online sales and marketing firm, announced yesterday that former CBK President and current head of Eller Enterprises, Randy Eller will become involved with Whereoware in a management consulting and financial role. Terms of the financial transaction were not disclosed.

As a consultant and new member of the Whereoware management committee, Eller will focus on strategic positioning and maximizing the value of Whereoware’s programs to its clients. The financial infusion will be used to help Whereoware expand its sales and technical capabilities in order to more quickly respond to its new growth opportunities.

“The greatest influence on the Industry over the next few years will be technology,” said Eller. “As both a satisfied customer and observer, I’ve watched Whereoware’s success in developing powerful systems and an outstanding customer base. I’m even more impressed with their vision of how technology can help the Industry. Whereoware shares my passion of assisting those who depend on the independent specialty store and I’m looking forward to helping them achieve this goal.”

“Randy Eller has proven himself to be that rare combination of a great analytical thinker and a superb operational manager,” said Eric Dean, President of Whereoware. “We’re entering a period of high growth and opportunity and we’re thrilled to have someone of Randy’s caliber to help us navigate.”

About Whereoware: Launched in 2000, Whereoware provides website development tools and Engagement Marketing solutions that allow companies to grow their business and increase online sales. Whereoware’s CatalogLive! Suite provides suppliers everything they need to drive qualified traffic to their websites and convert browsers into buyers. For additional information, visit http://www.wowcataloglive.com or contact Whereoware LLC, 1175 Herndon Parkway, Suite 500, Herndon, VA 20170, Phone (877) 521-7448; Fax (703) 889-1218.

About Eller Enterprises: Located in Franklin, Tennessee, Eller Enterprises was founded in 2004 by Randy Eller. They are a consulting firm serving companies and individuals primarily within the Home Accent, Furniture, and Giftware industries. These businesses include Wholesalers, Product Designers, Marketing, Public Relations, and Advertising firms. Eller Enterprises also offers personal executive coaching and professional speaking to customers in a variety of industries. For additional information, visit www.ellerent.com or contact Eller Enterprises, 341 Cool Springs Blvd., Suite 140, Franklin, TN 37067, Phone 615-771-1112, email info@ellerent.com.

DAZZLEWRAP^TM PRESENTS NEW CONCEPT
IN GIFT WRAP AND PRESENTATION

Look What Happens When an Asian
Lantern Meets a Gift Bag

Use DazzleLite^TM and Make Your Gift Glow

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. -- It looks like an Asian lantern, is shaped like a dome and creatively unfolds to unveil a new design concept in gift presentation and packaging.

DazzleWrap^TM, manufactured by It’s A Wrap Creations of Mission Viejo, California, has already impressed many gift recipients. “Someone brought a DazzleWrap^TM prototype to a gift-exchange party that I hosted, and the room ‘lit up’ with excitement!” says Kathy Penick of Manhattan Beach, California. “Everyone was so intrigued by the delicate folds, the shape and the glowing light that the moms in the room didn’t really care what was in the package — they all wanted to keep the package itself. It was a huge hit and people couldn’t stop talking about it.”

DazzleWrap^TM glows in the dark with the addition of a DazzleLite^TM, an eight mode small light that adds a compelling, soft glow which completely transforms the look and presentation of each DazzleWrap^TM. The light can be set to create solid or changing color patterns.

DazzleWrap’s^TM creation and retail introduction is the culmination of frustrated gift wrapper David Bezar, from Mission Viejo, California. “I draped the gift in ribbon but felt that it lost the ‘surprise’ benefit I wanted for my daughter,” he said. “I found an Asian lantern that was perfect for my idea. I cut it in half and affixed a cardboard base to it to keep it sturdy. It looked like an expensive gift bag made out of an Asian lantern and was received almost better than the gift inside.”

To use DazzleWrap^TM, you simply place your gift on the sturdy DazzleWrap™ base then unfold the intricately pleated paper dome over your gift. Small magnets keep it closed.

They come in a variety of solid and multi colors and feature a soft cord handle and attached coordinated gift card.

Bezar says scissors, tape, ribbons and tissue paper are not necessary. “It takes seconds to wrap a present with DazzleWrap^TM. Simply unfold the base, place the gift inside and close it.”

The new gift packaging products are available in mini, small, medium or large sizes. Mini fits a ring box or a gift card and small is perfect for other jewelry and small gifts; CDs, DVDs and cell phones fit inside the medium; and the large size can hold purses, books, video games or clothes. The retail prices for DazzleWrap^TM are $2.49 to $6.99 and are available at select gift retail outlets and online at www.wrapcreations.com.

For more information, please contact It’s A Wrap Creations, 23052H Alicia Parkway, Suite 172, Mission Viejo, California, 92692. The phone number is (888) 355-8906.

TENTH ANNUAL BEST NEW PRODUCT AWARDS PRESENTED AT NATIONAL STATIONERY SHOW NEW YORK, NY, - Five National Stationery Show® exhibitors were honored with Best New Product Awards during the Show’s Opening Ceremony, on Sunday, May 21, 2006, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The 10th annual Best New Product Awards were presented in five distinct categories: Celebrate®, Homework®, Indulgences®, Presents® and Take Note®. Editors from the top industry trade publications reviewed more than 100 submissions and selected outstanding new products based on innovative product design; aesthetic appeal; new product direction and niche; creative use of materials and packaging. Winners of the 2006 Best New Product Awards are: Celebrate – Party & Occasions Tarta™, Marketing LLC (Chicago, IL), for the Toppers by Tarta Self-Sticking Pop-Up Gift Topper. Each topper is a perfect addition to any gift for any occasion. Home Work – Desk Top & Personal Office ZuZu™ (Louisville, CO), for the Crocodile paper stationery products and accessories, available in six vibrant colors. The crocodile line includes nesting boxes, journals, accordion photo albums and wrapping paper sets. Indulgences – Fine Lines & Luxury Cleo Writing Instruments (Munich, Germany), for the Gessner wooden pen and key case set. The Gessner pen and case consist of a cherry wood finish in a Hessian pouch. Presents – Gifts, Novelty and Crafts Supplies E.K. Success (Clifton, NJ), for the Let-Me-Tell-You & Me and My Honey wedding, honeymoon and anniversary keepsake. Packaged in a suitcase-style box, the keepsake houses a three ring album with more than 80 inspiring pages to for personalizing memories. Take Note – Cards & Social Stationery Hugz®, Inc. (Dallas, TX), for Big Bear Hugz Greeting Card. Hugz greeting card line come in a variety of characters. The card is sent in a capsule and is designed to “hug” the recipient with its arms when the capsule is opened. “The quality of the 2006 winners is outstanding,” said Lori Robinson, show manager. “This year’s winners not only represent the creativity and diversity of the Show’s five distinct sections, but help define the direction of the social stationery market.” Judges for the 10th annual Best New Product Awards were: Caroline Kennedy, Gifts & Decorative Accessories; John Saxtan, Giftware News; Jessica Rivchin, Greetings, Etc.; Julie McCallum, Party & Paper Retailer; Glen Bowen, Pen World and Jeanne Wines-Reed, Scrapbook Retailing. The 60th annual National Stationery Show is taking place May 21-24, 2006, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. As the premier market for stationery resources in the United States, the National Stationery Show presents approximately 1,300 exhibitors in five distinctive sections: Presents®, Celebrate®, Take Note®, Home Work® and Indulgences®. The Show draws 14,000 domestic and international retailers representing department, chain and specialty stores, boutiques, stationery, greeting card and gift shops, bookstores, bridal shops, party stores, hospital gift shops, museum stores, gallery/craft retailers, home furnishings stores, specialty office retailers, floral and garden centers, mass merchandisers, catalogs, on-line retailers, import/export firms, distributors and TV shopping clubs. The National Stationery Show is owned and managed by George Little Management, LLC. For exhibitor information, contact Kelly P. Bristol, assistant show manager, at George Little Management, LLC (GLM®), Ten Bank Street, White Plains, NY 10606. Telephone (914) 421-3228. Fax (914) 948-2918. E-mail: kelly_bristol@glmshows.com. Attendee information is available by contacting GLM’s Customer Service Department, at (800) 272-SHOW or (914) 421-3206. Additional information and registration is available online at www.nationalstationeryshow.com. Five National Stationery Show® exhibitors were honored with the Best New Product Awards with the Show's Opening Morning Ceremony, on Sunday, May 21, 2006 at New York City's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The Best New Product Awards winners are (left to right): MaryBeth Vallequette of ZuZu (Louisville, CO) for the Home Work® section; Karin Sloane of E.K. Success (Clifton, NJ) for the Presents® section; Natasa Lekic of Hugz (Dallas, TX), for the Take Note® section; Manfred Gau of Cleo Writing Instruments (Munich, Germany) for the Indulgences® section; Marta Petter of Tarta Marketing, LLC (Chicago, IL) for the Celebrate® section and Lori Robinson, show manager for the National Stationery Show. The National Stationery Show, running 21-24, 2006, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center will present 1,300 exhibitors and will attract nearly 13,000 attendees. Additional information is available online at www.nationalstationeryshow.com. PRESS CONTACT: Cathy Steel/Rebecca Bourla (914) 421-3265 E-mail: rebecca_bourla@glmshows.com

"TWO-IN-ONE GREETING CARD" Functional
Novelty Greeting Invented

PITTSBURGH...InventHelp announces that one of its clients, an inventor from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, has developed a greeting card that would provide the recipient with a practical, lasting product that would be used immediately. The inventor has created a prototype.

The TWO-IN-ONE GREETING CARD would provide a novel way to send greetings. This item could make a more lasting impression than standard cards, which are often discarded quickly by the recipient. Producible in a variety of styles suited to any holiday or special occasion, the TWO-IN-ONE GREETING CARD could also help gift-givers obtain more value for their money.

The inventor came up with the idea for TWO-IN-ONE GREETING CARD due to a dissatisfaction with traditional greeting cards. "I was tired of spending money on greeting cards realizing they would only be thrown away soon after they were opened," he said.

The original design was submitted to the Vancouver office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 04-VCR-1219, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission services at www.inventhelp.com.

Airigami U: Latex University

Come join the fun and work with some of the best balloon artists in the industry at "Airigami U: Latex University." This hands-on workshop will cover topics like sculpture design, balloonicature, large-scale decor, balloon project management, and more while actually creating Balloon Manor II - an interactive, family-friendly fun house! Besides being part of a great learning opportunity, you'll be contributing to a worthy cause.

At the end of the project, you'll receive your certificate of completion from Airigami U, as well as a CD portfolio of the project you helped bring to life.

Airigami U will take place October 15-21, 2006, but plan to stay until October 29, for more hands-on experience maintaining the Manor for public tours!

For more information and to register, visit: www.balloonmanor.com

Visit "Shows & Events" on Qualatex.com for more upcoming events: www.qualatex.com/balloons/shows_and_events.php

Betallic's Google Eye balloons went WILD at Valentine's Day! Now you can make Google Eyes part of your Everyday product selection too! Each Birthday, Get Well and Celebrate balloon has real Google Eyes attached. They'll make you giggle 'cause they wiggle!

Paramount Cards Closes Its Doors

Paramount Cards Holding Corp. closed its doors at its Canadian and U.S. locations on July 21, according to news reports.

The closure cut 1,270 jobs. Employees were notified July 21.

The company had shifted most of its operations to Cambridge, Ontario, last fall. The company's headquarters remained in Pawtucket, R.I.

Paramount Cards was America's oldest and third largest greeting card company, according to the company's Web site. The company also owns retail chain Card Smart.

For more information on the story, visit http://www.pbn.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/121758.

Converting, Inc. Recognized By Flexographic
Technical Association For Tenth Year In A Row

CLINTONVILLE, WI – Converting, Inc. was awarded a Gold Award from the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) at the association’s annual conference in Louisville Kentucky on April 30th, 2006. The award marks the tenth year in a row where Converting, Inc. was recognized for excellence in technical achievement in flexographic printing

There were more than twenty five napkin entries in the annual competition where leading napkin printers from North America and Europe submit their most technically challenging work for consideration. Converting, Inc.’s  entry received top honors because of the technically difficult nature of the design, and the amount of ink coverage on the napkin with minimal wrinkling and excellent print registration.

Converting, Inc. has received recognition from the FTA every year since the company began printing in 1996. “This industry competition continues to be more competitive each year with more manufacturers submitting higher quality entries” remarked Pete Gretzinger, Print Manager at Converting, Inc. “Continuing to push flexographic technology with consistent, high quality results is a tribute to our people.”

Converting, Inc. is a privately held company with worldwide distribution in the specialty party, discount, drug, supermarket, foodservice and contract manufacturing channels of distribution. To learn more about Converting, Inc. log on to the company's web site: www.convertinginc.com.

Problem Solvers

Service Standards: The Key to Becoming
Like the Businesses You Love
By Marsha Lindquist

Your service standards are your personal corporate statement about what your organization does and how it does it, whether you produce services or products. In other words, it's a statement of your business's service philosophy or attitude. While businesses commonly state their service standards to their customers and prospects by posting the standards in public places and in marketing materials, you need to state your standards internally, too, and get full buy-in from everyone in your organization. If your internal stakeholders don't fully understand and practice your service standards, stating them for external stakeholders will be a meaningless exercise.

What is a service standard, exactly? One very successful business's read: "We will endeavor to greet people in the way we want to be greeted. Once they're with us, we will treat them with respect and the knowledge that they know our business almost as well as we do. In return, we will expect to get the kind of feedback that will allow us to continually improve and change anything that is not working in our organization."

Many organizations already have service standards, but most don't actually practice them even intermittently throughout the organization. Your service standards need to be a part of the business's fabric, and those running the organization need to make the standards something their people do on a regular basis.

When you're developing your own service standard, it must focus on your customers and how you want to treat them. You want your customers to have an expectation that they're going to be treated a certain way. Three types of standards exist. Which of the following is most like your organization?

Which would you like to be?

• Celebrity Red Carpet Standards: Businesses that live and breathe their high service standards make you feel like an award-winning star at every turn. When you're looking for highly-polished, flawless service, you know you can go to this kind of business, the crème de la crème of hotels, for example. You know you'll find real attention to detail, and that everything will be done well because everyone throughout the entire organization, from upper management to the people who clean the brass in the hallways, understands what they're delivering. They are there to serve you, first and foremost.
  
  
• Yellow Brick Road Standards: These kind of businesses will take you where you need to go, but without the bells and whistles. They deliver good value, and are efficient at what they do, but there's not much attention to detail. It may be a restaurant that you know you can count on for a consistently good meal, but not everyone there greets you, and the staff seldom go out of their way to ensure you a complete dining experience. They take care of business, and that's it. If something goes wrong, they'll take care of it right away; they're service standards are to satisfy the customer by delivering what you ask for, but they rarely go beyond that.
  
  
• Welcome Mat Standards: The philosophy of this sort of business is "We're here to get the job done. How you're treated is really not that important to us." People who work in businesses like this may have personal standards they try to implement, but they are not enforced uniformly throughout the organization. It's not uncommon to find that these businesses have declared themselves to have service standards, but the people in the organization don't know what those standards are, and therefore they don't know what's expected of them. When they're hired, they are likely to hear: "Get the job done," and little else. They're untrained in how to treat their customers and give no attention to the value of what they deliver.

Communicate Your Standards Often

When you know where your organization fits in these three categories, you need to communicate this internally. Start at the interview process. Make sure each candidate knows what your service standards are. If you expect them to deliver the service standard that you set out, then you need to tell them in the interview process what that is. When you bring them on board, you can reiterate those standards in their orientation.

Then, frequently remind your people of the organization's service standards. This could be in a weekly newsletter where you offer tips to help employees incorporate these standards into their daily lives at work. Target the tips to different groups each week, so no one feels singled out for advice. This practice also reinforces the notion for everyone in the organization that the standards apply to them all.

Performance reviews offer another opportunity to reiterate the service standards, but only on an annual basis. So also offer regular training in the service standard philosophy, giving everyone the opportunity to do role-playing in which they practice implementing the standards to solve problems.

Another option is to post signs that say, "Are you doing XYZ of our service standards?" or "How have you improved our service standards today?" This may seem a little silly, but if such materials aren't around as daily reminders, people get caught up in daily business and busy-ness and forget.

To establish whether your organization's service standards are being implemented, you'll need to be proactive. You are likely to hear about it promptly from your customers when your people are not practicing them, but you'll need to do a bit more legwork to see the standards in action. In other words, you either patiently wait for the information to make its way to you through the feedback loop or you interact with customers and others your organization does business with and see for yourself. You can then incorporate the information you get back into your organization.

Have the Kind of Organization You Love to Work With

You can tell instantly when an organization you work with has a good service standard, and they know it. They make those standards part of their daily habits, and you can see it in the faces of all of the people in the organization. As a customer, you get the feeling that you want to come back, that you want to buy something from this place or work with them again. You want to be the repeat business they want you to be! Don't you want your customers to feel this way about your organization? Of course you do! So develop a set of service standards for everyone to live by, or dust off the ones you've relegated to a sign out front, and do what it takes to get your people to put them into practice each and every day. By doing so, you'll quickly see your company's profits increase.

About the Author:
Marsha Lindquist is a successful business strategist, author and speaker. As CEO of The Management Link, Inc., Marsha has over 20 years experience as a business consultant who works with her clients to transform their organization through her Value Advantage formula. She has enhanced communication, facilitated change management, and improved overall strategies with companies including BP Amoco, Fleishman Hillard International Comm., and Northrop Grumman. For more information on her speaking and consulting work, please visit: www.MarshaLindquist.com or email her: Marsha@MarshaLindquist.com.