Fulfilling Customer's Needs Gets More Business Each year, more than 10,000 employees of an international brokerage firm volunteer in their local communities as part of a coordinated 10-week program. Mailroom attendants to division heads participate in charitable walks, bathe animals at shelters, read to blind children and improve houses for the needy. Spread across the world, they have one thing in common: Each volunteer receives a hat and T-shirt from the firm. Joe Corbo, vice president and operations manager at distributorship Vanguard Inc., New York City, knew the program existed and persistently called the firm until he identified its purchaser. Intrigued by Vanguard's collateral material, the buyer agreed to a meeting. "My prices on the shirts were probably the same as everybody else," Corbo says. "I was not getting this order if I had to compete shirt for shirt with someone else." Corbo discovered that the hats and T-shirts were being delivered to the client's site, where office personnel packaged and distributed them over the 10-week period. He offered to take fulfillment out of the firm's hands. The firm would provide a spreadsheet before each event with the participants' names and shirt sizes. Vanguard would bag the hats and shirts according to the event and deliver them with a packing slip identifying the event and its team leader. Within days, the purchaser agreed to Corbo's proposal, pleased that the company could eliminate inventory and avoid the hassle of fulfillment. "They had never had anybody offer them distribution before on a weekly basis," Corbo says. "It separated us from others making the pitch to get the T-shirts. I came across as a solutions provider." The firm specified brands and custom colors, and Vanguard delivered the hats and shirts, even shipping the products for events in Europe and Asia. Vanguard also sold the firm a safety kit for the home improvement volunteers. It included work gloves, dust masks, nail aprons, as well as hats and T-shirts. The distributorship since has earned more of the brokerage firm's printing business.