MAKE A PIT STOP! A 1999 NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division racing car has won yet another sponsor from the electrical industry. Pass & Seymour Legrand (P&S), Syracuse, N.Y., will become an associate sponsor of the 02 Busch Grand National NASCAR racing car, driven by Ward Burton. Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc., the primary sponsor of the car, invited Pass & Seymour to join the team. As an associate sponsor, Pass & Seymour will have its company logo displayed in two different locations on the car and will be able to offer contractors and distributors an exciting day of racing at each NASCAR event. Hospitality passes will provide Pass & Seymour's guests with food and beverages, pit tours, door prizes and an opportunity to meet Ward Burton, four-time Busch Series winner in four full seasons (1990-1993) and track-qualifying record holder at both Charlotte and Darlington motorspeedways.

GET COOL CADDY STUFF! A brand new catalog from Erico, Inc., Solon, Ohio, is stuffed full of "way cool" merchandise for the company's Caddy fastener customers. In their newest customer appreciation and rewards program--CADDY Stuff--Caddy proofs of purchase are worth $1.00 apiece toward coolers, jackets, tape measures, watches, golf balls, putters and a whole lot more stuff! For more information on the program call 440-248-0100 or visit www.erico.com on the Internet.

YOGI BERRA NEWEST MVP One of the all-time great sports legends has joined JJI Lighting's MVP Awards program. Yogi Berra, 1972 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and three-time American League Most Valuable Player award winner, will be present at JJI's MVP Awards/Championship Experience sales-incentive awards ceremony for 1999/2000. Berra played in a record 14 World Series games and was elected a to baseball's All-Star team 15 times. The JJI MVP Awards Program is a three-tiered performance reward program with a Most Valuable Player theme. The program is organized parallel to the way major-league sports are organized. There are playing seasons (fiscal years) and MVP awards for the All-Star Game, Post-Season Playoffs and Championship Series. Sports-themed recognition awards are given to those professional lighting sales agencies that meet any one of three progressive sales targets during the "season," culminating in the Championship Experience at a world-class resort outside the U.S.

Robert N. Haidinger, JJI's chairman and chief executive officer, says that in addition to the increased monetary rewards that come with meeting or exceeding sales targets, the MVP program provides increased peer and customer recognition for what is the backbone of the commercial lighting industry--the independent professional lighting sales organization. What participants from the Greenwich, Conn.-based company's manufacturing subsidiaries and their sales agencies alike find most invigorating, according to Haidinger, is the exceptional opportunity to meet and learn from sports stars who are themselves Most Valuable Players and year-in, year-out champions in their own industries. Visit the company's Web site at www.jjilightinggroup.com.

MANUFACTURERS' REP WINS THE GOLD Tom Mooney of the manufacturers' rep agency P&S Sales, South Windsor, Conn., has taken home the Gold+ Vendor of the Show award, bestowed by CLS, Hartford, Conn., at the company's Gold+ Olympics. CLS employees judged forty-five participating vendors at the show on enthusiasm, creativity and overall booth presence. The event proved to be an enormous success, with CLS boasting revenues in excess of $900,000 for the one-day event.

A RACE TO FIND OLD RELIABLES In celebration of the 95th anniversary of Reliance Electric products, Rockwell Automation, Cleveland, Ohio, is organizing a race to search for the oldest, continuously operating Reliance product still in service. The finish line for the race will be the end of 1999.

The race is called the Reliance Electric Time Trial Endurance Challenge, and it's issued to all customers, distributors and integrators of Reliance products, along with the Rockwell Automation sales staff.

One winner in each of the three categories (motors, drives, and programmable controls) will win an all-expense-paid trip for two to a NASCAR Busch Grand National Race in spring of 2000. Winners will spend time in pit row at the track and meet the driver for the Rockwell Automation NASCAR motorsports team. Prizes will also be awarded for the Rockwell Automation employee or distributor who tracks down the winning customer.

For official rules and entry forms or for more information on the Challenge visit www.reliance.com/95anniversary.

DRIVING PROFITABILITY ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY Prophet 21 is co-sponsoring two seminar series, one with Microsoft and one with IBM, in half-day conferences devoted to increasing profitability via the Internet.

Representatives from each company will provide insight on specific issues affecting the wholesale distribution marketplace. IBM and Microsoft will each discuss how to develop a scalable, extendable and affordable strategy for growing distribution-centric companies through technology.

Prophet 21 will address how today's changing e-commerce technologies will change the approaches distributors use to measure customer profitability and allow distributors to "data mine" existing customers and markets through advanced customer-profiling methods.

IBM conference discussions will center on database technologies, Internet tools and strategies and how to maximize today's various platform technologies with Citrix Winframe thin-client server computing to reduce infrastructure costs and increase profits. Guest speakers will include Charles Germano, segment executive, wholesale distribution, IBM Corporation, and Rich Safranek, industry segment specialist, Prophet 21.

Microsoft conference discussions will center on database technologies, data warehousing, Internet tools and strategies, and how to maximize today's thin-client server computing to reduce infrastructure costs and increase profits. Guest speakers will include Andrew Gammuto, business development manager, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, Microsoft Corporation, and Scott Deutsch, vice president of marketing, Prophet 21.

Upcoming classes will be held in various cities across the U.S. throughout October and November. For more information, including dates and locations of the Prophet 21/IBM conferences or the Prophet21/Microsoft conferences, visit Prophet 21's Web site at www.p21.com or call 800-PROPHET.

REP SURVEY YIELDS INSIDE SALES SURPRISE Jack Berman, publisher of the quarterly Better Repping Survey Report, came up with some surprising findings in his last survey among inside salespeople, in both manufacturers and manufacturers' representatives offices. The survey revealed that inside salespeople feel that they don't get as much training in many key areas as they think they need; that they often find themselves caught in the middle of internal and external communications gaps; and that they don't feel properly appreciated.

Participants in the quarterly Berman studies of issues relating to improved teamwork and profits in the rep-principal relationship are the subscribers to Better Repping. Berman says the Inside Sales survey drew a larger response than any other questionnaire he has ever issued. One reason is that he asked his management-level subscribers not to respond, but rather to duplicate the questionnaire and then ask their inside salespeople to fill them out and return them.

Berman says the most surprising finding was that only about half the respondents had any training as a new employee on telephone practices, and nine out of every ten respondents have no written guidelines on answering phones. He says this is a frightening discovery because these are the people that project the company directly to the customers on the telephone.

Aside from questions dealing with training, this latest survey also asked respondents to communicate what they like best about their work, what they find most stressful and what their "opposite numbers" do that turn them off. In most instances, the answers reveal it's not what they do so much as what they don't do and should be doing.

Berman has provided his subscribers with guidelines for conducting ten new programs of "Sales Aerobics" with their inside sales staff to remedy many of these problems. There are separate exercises for the manufacturer cadre and the rep cadre. Copies of the Sales Aerobics exercises and the report on Inside Sales are offered free to interested parties. Call 310-472-4039.

GO WEST YOUNG W.A.C. In a major growth spurt, W.A.C. Lighting, Garden City, N.Y., has extended its reach to the West Coast. In an effort to better serve its customer base west of the Mississippi River, the company will open a new warehouse in the City of Industry, near Los Angeles, Calif. The warehouse, scheduled to open in September, will stock the complete W.A.C. Lighting product line and will include offices and a factory showroom. For more information call 800-526-2588 or visit the company's Web site at www.waclighting.com.

TAKING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD Holophane Lighting, Newark, Ohio, is taking its Parade of Progress utility-lighting show on the road this fall. The show, which is displayed in a 20-ft trailer bearing the company's logo, showcases the company's line of outdoor lighting products, including its roadway, area and high-mast systems. The trailer is staffed with Holophane outdoor technical experts.

Zachary Gabler, the company's utility market manager, says the purpose in taking the presentation on the road is to bring new technology in roadway lighting directly to the engineers, specifiers and maintenance personnel who work in the industry, specifically department of transportation and utility customers at their facilities. Besides customer locations, the Parade of Progress trailer will make appearances at several trade shows, including the Tec Street and Area Lighting Conference in Atlanta in October.

THE CREAM ALWAYS RISES TO THE TOP! Shelia McKay, president of Bergen Industries, Inc., Las Vegas, Nev., is one proud lady. Earlier this year, the company was nominated for a Nevada Minority Purchasing Council award by the Southern Nevada Chapter of NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners). The awards ceremony is designed to recognize corporations and minority business owners that have excelled in programs, products and services. Bergen Industries, which manufacturers electrical safety products, walked away from this year's Excellence Awards ceremony at Caesar's Palace with the Minority Business of the Year trophy. Congratulations!

WHEW! NOW THAT'S SOME GROWTH! Shelia McKay, president of Bergen Industries, Inc., Las Vegas, Nev., is one proud lady. Earlier this year, the company was nominated for a Nevada Minority Purchasing Council award by the Southern Nevada Chapter of NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners). The awards ceremony is designed to recognize corporations and minority business owners that have excelled in programs, products and services. Bergen Industries, which manufacturers electrical safety products, walked away from this year's Excellence Awards ceremony at Caesar's Palace with the Minority Business of the Year trophy. Congratulations!

HOME ENERGY GENERATION ACT PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON BACKUP ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS U.S. Representative Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) has introduced a Home Energy Generation Act that he says will encourage the development of reliable and affordable home energy generation technologies. If passed, the legislation will allow consumers who use solar, wind or other alternative sources to generate electricity and effectively sell their excess energy back to the local utility by rolling back their utility meters. Currently, only 30 states have provisions for some type of "net metering," as this practice is known, but states have implemented these programs differently. No uniform federal legislation for net metering now exists.

Power system supplier Trace Engineering, Arlington, Wash., participated in Inslee's presentation and demonstrated practical ways that consumers could benefit from passage of the bill using their new "whole-house" backup electric systems-the only battery backup inverters on the market currently approved for utility sellback. Trace Engineering's president, Bill Roppenecker, says the bill will remove many ofthe cost-prohibitive impediments that utilities have placed in the way of pioneer "customer-generators."

Trace's systems enable consumers to sell or feed excess power back to the utility in states with net metering, with the added advantage of providing emergency electricity to homes or businesses during power failures. When connected to solar panels or other renewable energy sources, these systems can provide power during even the longest blackouts caused by extreme weather, potential Y2K issues or the utility distribution problems becoming increasingly common as demand surges.

The backup electric systems come in a wide range of sizes. All models feature protection from blackouts, silent operation and UL Listing for assurance of safe operation. For more information, call 360-435-8826, ext. 4053, or visit the company's Web site at www.traceengineering.com.

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