I am also in agreement. This is not the place to advertise your business. If you are in the busiess and wish to comment on the state of the fund raising industry or expose some weird business practice, that is fine. I do think opinions from the industry are helpful as many PTOs do not know what always happens in the fund raising industry---i.e Giftco going out of business and its ramifications on schools. Just don't try to sell us on your particular company.
I totally agree with ptomomindy...and I do believe that I stated this before. TracyScentsyLady logged on to "PROMOTE" her business. The PTO message boards should be for the tireless volunteers who want/need to discuss issues/questions about running their non-profit groups. The boards should not be used to advertise and "profit" from us. TracyScentsyLady....advertise somewhere else!
I agree that there are some companies that are not up front with their issues, especially with how much the closing of Giftco had affected them. At the New Jersey Expo, just weeks after Giftco closing, I had asked a few companies what they were going to do and they looked me in the face and said that they were not affected. I knew they were not telling the truth. A friend works for one of the companies in question and told me a week earlier how much they were in scurrying to find a new distributor and they were throwing out their fall catalog.
Only talking about the positive aspects of companies and reps doesn't help anyone other than the companies and reps. We should all know if there are problems out there so that we can ask questions and not sign contracts blindly. At the same time, positive comments help us also as a starting point or guide when researching fundraisers.
If you are a rep on these boards, I don't believe you should be blogging on and commenting on fundraisers.
I agree that selling the positive points of a company is best. My point was there are companies that are still showing many of the licensed items that were the exclusive property of Giftco and acting like all is well and this is what you will see in the fall. Sorry, that is deception and how can anyone agree that is okay?
This seems to be turning out to be a sales person's website--I am in sales and one should never do negative selling...Your salesperson should be telling you about their company and its strengths not what is wrong with others...They should show you why thier catalog is better and their service record or history of sales..Sales people who are selling on a supplier going under should be ashamed of themselves one should never sell on the fears of others but they should be able to tell you they are good for you... unless your salesperson owns and operated their own warehouse...they have no idea where their items come from or how people can change generic items from one company to the other. But with they should know is that this has happened several times in the past 5 years and all of the fund-raising companies survived and serviced their accounts-- no one knew because no one at that time went on a website to broadcast negativitiy.
If you personally have a problem with a company don't stay with them...if you are in sales...do your job and sell positively and professionally and it will be a good fund-raiser.
