Deal With It

Bill has over 20 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products companies, always working collaboratively to achieve the “wow” desired by the target audience.

A Managing Partner at brandivate, a full-service marketing services and advertising agency, Bill is featured speaker at numerous national and international events, a serial creator of content marketing, and co-host of the industry-leading podcast, Promo UPFront. Bill has extensive experience defining brand strategy, creating successful marketing campaigns, creating and developing winning RFP responses, and presenting winning promotional products solutions to Fortune 500 clients.

A fierce advocate for the Promotional Products Industry, he is the Immediate Past President of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, has worked closely with senior leadership at Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) on many committees and work groups. In appreciation of his years of service to the promotional products industry, Bill was named as an inaugural PPAI Fellow—a program designed to recognize influential individuals who have actively supported the industry through personal involvement.

Bill lives in Franklin, TN with his wife of 26 years, Sandy, and their 17-year-old twin boys, Drew and Mitch.

In the old days – and by old days, I mean 10 years ago – there was a stage and an audience when marketing a product or service. It was simple: Brands took the stage, shared their message with the audience, and that audience would decide what, if any, action to take. Fast-forward to today,…

You first must accept that you’re not Amazon, and you’re never going to be Amazon. You don’t have the resources, infrastructure or financial means to compete with their e-commerce efficiencies. What you can do, however, is leverage the best practices of Amazon, which will help you take a unique approach to how you run your business...

From a very early age, the message of failure is driven into our subconscious: Failure is bad. Failure means you didn’t prepare. Failure means you didn’t study hard enough. Failure means you are lazy, or worse, weren’t smart enough to begin with. All of this teaches us that, more than anything, failure is something to…

How often do we say our decisions or policies are made for the benefit of the customer when the reality is they are self-serving? In business, one of the keys to fostering long-lasting relationships is transparency. People may not like specific policies or decisions, but they will accept them when they are carried out openly and honestly...

We often move throughout our day with neither thought nor purpose. Sadly, this same whirlybird approach is applied to the work presented to clients on a far-too-regular basis—especially as it relates to promotional products. If you want to stand out from the product pushers and grow your business, it's time to not just work with thought and purpose, but to share that with your clients...

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