Oftentimes, even the sharpest eye can't decode the hodgepodge of notes found on college bulletin boards. But Bob Levitt was able to cut through the clutter, which ultimately jumpstarted his career.
As an undergraduate at San Diego State University, Levitt spied an "Earn While You Learn" advertisement from a promotional products distributor in need of a campus representative. Levitt made the call—and after just nine months of employment, he launched his own company: Levitt Specialty Items. Levitt continued his work for five years before going corporate. During the next 24 years, he assumed various roles—including sales, sales management and new business development—for large national distributors.
Today, he serves as president of The Bob Levitt Company, located in Encino, Calif. Levitt also is an executive board member for the Specialty Advertising Association of California (SAAC), the California region's nonprofit association and the force behind the annual SAAC Show slated for August 7-8 in Long Beach, Calif.
Here, Levitt talks about himself and shares his thoughts on the promotional products industry.
Print+Promo (P+P): How do you set goals for yourself? For your business?
Bob Levitt (BL): In my personal life, the formal goal-setting process has always eluded me. I believe in it and I know it works—but I never got into the habit of it. Honestly, this is one of the shortcomings I am constantly working on. I tend to be more reactive than proactive, and I work on reversing this almost daily. It's kind of ironic, because in my business life, I actually train it, preach it and know its value.
For my consulting clients, we start with macro goals, then break them down into micro ones. By assigning point people and specific targeted completion dates, we are able to cover a lot of ground. Essentially, it's like the old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. From an association standpoint, many of us are on boards and volunteer our time for a larger cause. On the SAAC Board, we are strong on process, we work with a strategic plan, and we [excel] at taking goals and breaking them down into small, achievable steps. By having nearly 40 volunteers on numerous committees, all working toward pieces of the same goal, we are able to make huge progress in improving the SAAC show in August and providing tremendous value to both attendees and exhibitors.
P+P: What do you expect to be some of the biggest changes/challenges the industry will face?
BL: Traditional lines are being blurred in the supply chain and the very definition of what our industry does is being redefined. The biggest challenge is to figure out where each of us stands. The definitions of "factory," "importer," "supplier," "decorator," "distributor" and "client" have changed from what they were five to 10 years ago. Adapting to that change is critical for survival. It's no surprise to me that the expression "adapt or die" is so popular today.
P+P: What keeps you up at night?
BL: I used to have zero doubt about the ability of this industry to provide enough for me to have a well-balanced, financially stable life, and to create enough of a yearly surplus to help me prepare for the future (e.g., kids' college tuition, weddings, retirement). Over the last five years, a "good year" is one where you have flat growth, or you didn't lose money, or you had single digit growth. The widespread financial instability has led to lower expectations, more sacrifices and making justifications so we can sleep at night—in other words, "I'm OK, at least it's not as bad as (fill in the blank)." The late-night conversations in my head center around changing that paradigm. I am constantly challenging the relevancy of my work to my clients, as well as continuing to build upon the mission of SAAC as a leading regional association to the industry.
P+P: What do you think is the most exciting, cutting-edge thing your company is doing right now? Why?
BL: On the consulting side of The Bob Levitt Company, we use key words and phrases like "unusual strategic alliances," "collaboration," "understanding our weakness," "outsourcing to compensate," and "segmenting core competencies into trainable, sellable and cohesive packages." It simply means doing project work for other distributors or suppliers, or taking nearly 30 years of experience and breaking it down into small parts that can be offered to others.
- People:
- Bob Levitt
- Elise Hacking Carr
- Places:
- California
- Encino
- Long Beach