If you”™ve ever placed an order with JP Promotional Products, you might be surprised to find out just how small of a team you were doing business with. And that”™s no mistake ”” JP”™s father-daughter duo, Shari Pulver and Robert Rosenthal, have always believed in bringing the speed, efficiency and professionalism of a larger company to their customers, despite operating with just five members, including themselves, on their team.
The Ossining-based company supplies imprinted promotional products and fulfillment services, mostly to other businesses.
Before starting JP Promotional Products, Rosenthal ran a much larger business, the now-defunct Union Pen Co., which was in Greenwich.
“I”™ve been in the industry well over 40 years,” he said. “We owned a large promotional products distributor and sold that in 2003 and then started small. And it”™s more fun being small, to be honest with you. The other company, we had 175 employees, and now we have a handful, which is much better. When I owned a large company, even though the ego was there, it wasn”™t as much fun.”
Around the time Rosenthal bought Union Pen, Pulver ”” his stepdaughter and now the president of the company ”” was living in San Diego, working in technology sales. But, she was ready to return to New York in 2000.
“I was always in sales, that”™s my background,” Pulver said. “Then when I moved home, Bob said to me, ”˜Do you want to work for me, or put your resume out?”™ I was turning about 30, and I said ”˜Yeah, all right, I”™ll come work for you.”™ And here we are. So that”™s how I got into the industry.”
“Basically, we bribed her to come home,” Rosenthal said.
Perhaps it was a bribe, but the father-daughter partnership proved highly successful. JP Promotional now makes a solid seven figures in sales and completes around 800 to 1,000 sales per year. Clients range from small and midsize businesses to large local companies such as Regeneron and White Plains Hospital, and even to national companies like Lockheed Martin and RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co.
JP Promotional works with hundreds of vendors, supplying both generic and brand-name products. They noted that people sometimes think they just sell pens for a living, but their offerings are very diverse. Among the huge array of products they”™ve converted to promotional items are sunglasses, blenders, Patagonia fleece jackets, water bottles, Bose headphones and watches from Tourneau. They offer many items with rushed shipping, turning them around in as little as a day.
“Our target audience is anyone, any business, because almost every business has a product with their imprint on it,” Rosenthal said. “The bulk of clients are in the tristate area, but we”™ve got accounts all over the place, from Missouri to California. It”™s whoever finds us.”
Despite the small size of the team, Rosenthal and Pulver have always made it their priority to act like a big company.
“We started with zero 18 years ago ”” I mean nothing,” he said. “But we made a decision we were gonna act like a big company, not a small company. We spent money on things a small company wouldn”™t normally spend on, especially a company with no revenue at the time. So we”™ve maintained that. We”™ve had people compliment us on our team structure and how organized and efficient we are, when, you know, there”™s five of us in total.”
“They think we”™re a lot bigger than we are,” Pulver added.
Rosenthal shared a story from their early days as a company. After selling Union Pen, Rosenthal offered to do fulfillment services for a friend who remained at the company.
“Long story short, he got us a small fulfillment account ”” some guy selling TV components,” Rosenthal said. “We had two tiny offices, not much bigger than this, and he said, ”˜Where should I ship this stuff to?”™
“So he shipped us several boxes that we piled all over the place. We got a UPS account and started shipping. Now, this was out of maybe 300 square feet of space. He emailed me one day saying what a great, efficient organization we have, because we ship so quickly and everyone is so attentive. Meanwhile, we”™re sitting on these boxes! And then he wanted to send over pallets of stuff to ship.
“We were down the street from (Westy Self Storage) in Elmsford, so I ran down and rented a room in Westy”™s and I said, ”˜You can ship it to our warehouse,”™” he laughed. “And our warehouse was a room in Westy”™s. And every day we”™d run down and pick up the stuff that we needed to ship. But the point is, we made it sound like we were a big company and that helped us grow over the years.”
JP Promotional”™s size and level of success make it unique in the industry, where midsize companies are somewhat rare.
“In our industry, there are supposedly 22,000 distributors,” Rosenthal said, and “21,500 are small, mom-and-pop, $300,000-a-year companies. There”™s only a handful of our size. Now, there are some $600 million to $700 million distributors. We”™re not a small one, but we”™re not a $700 million distributor.”
According to Pulver, their customer orientation and emphasis on service is what makes them stand out and keeps clients coming back in an industry in which, as Rosenthal noted, anyone can undercut someone in price.
“We”™ve lost orders literally over pennies,” Rosenthal said. “The only thing that differentiates us is that we go above and beyond with the extra service.”
“Anyone can place an order,” Pulver said. “Like Bob said, there are thousands of us out there. It”™s the service and the follow-up, beating the customer to the punch. Just being one step ahead. It”™s the service, it”™s being around, being accessible. My customers, if I don”™t reply in 10 minutes they get worried ”” they”™re going to call someone, they think something happened. Service, service, service, and do it with a smile.”
Clients are also often pleasantly surprised to learn of the family-run aspect of the company.
“A lot of people, even people in large organizations, like the family approach,” Rosenthal said.
“If I”™m out and I say I”™m that I”™m going to pass this off to Bob, and then they thank me and say ”˜Please, tell your colleague Bob that he did great,”™ I”™m like ”˜Well, he”™s also my dad”™ and they love it,” she said.
“People, they get that sense of hand-holding and family and that we care. You”™re not just a number, like when you go to one of those bigger companies. You”™re dealing with a family, you know? And people get a real kick out of it, too ”” it”™s actually pretty funny. It gives you that warm and fuzzy (feeling). And we think that we treat our employees the same way. Because they hear our nonsense all day, we talk about home things too, so you have to be pretty comfortable to be around that.”
For many small businesses, 2020 was a year that saw huge losses and even closures. Rosenthal and Pulver chalk it up as a decent year for JP Promotional. Even with many large businesses deciding to cut spending, they retained many accounts that decided to put funding not spent on travel, meetings and parties toward their employees, in the form of gifts and other perks, which Rosenthal and Pulver were happy to arrange.
“We did a lot of gifting, (businesses) really set nice budgets for the individuals, which they normally wouldn”™t have done,” Pulver said. “I noticed that some really turned to focus on the employees, to try to make them feel good and send them gifts. We did one project that was really cool. We did jigsaw puzzles with their logo on it. And that was a gift we did in the beginning of the pandemic, because everyone was home. So people were getting really creative with that sort of thing and really giving back to their employees.”
JP Promotional was also able to fulfill sales for personal protective equipment such as surgical masks, face shields, hand sanitizer and barriers from their existing and new vendors.
As for 2021, Rosenthal and Pulver are beginning to see businesses resuming their buying of regular promotional items, a sign, they hope, that things will rebound and return to normal.
Their close relationship extends outside the business, too. Dad and daughter live just five minutes away from each other, and even vacation together with their family.
“We go away together, so we move the office to wherever we are at that time,” Pulver said. “We can be anywhere doing our job.”
Despite their success, there are no plans to add any other family members anytime soon.
“Max at two family members,” Pulver said. “We don”™t need any more.”
“It took us long enough to figure out how to work together without killing each other, so we”™re not gonna introduce another option into this, that”™s for sure,” Rosenthal said.
