Dear Catalog CEOs: Vendors and Trust

Dear Catalog CEOs:

You've already read about the National Catalog Forum.  Most likely, you didn't participate, did you?  The article suggests that almost nobody attended (less than 100).  The good folks at the ACMA work their rear ends off to make your life easier (or even possible), charging almost nothing in exchange for their exhaustive work.  Heck, you could cut your advertising spend by 0.1% and never miss it, reallocating the revenue to the ACMA.  Why not do that?

Trust?


Over and over, I run into issues of trust when interacting with the vendor community.  Too often, folks are trying to "win accounts", if you will.  In the past year, I watched as a vendor privately slamed in-house staff in an effort to increase vendor revenue and utility.  

I, too, hear stories about me, stories about vendors that all of you work with (you know them by name), stories about the many ways they tell you not to work with me.

I realize it's tough out there, and that our vendor community is fighting to survive.

I also realize that trust is a currency far more valuable than money.  The more desperate our vendor community becomes to maintain revenues, the harder it becomes for all of us to trust each other.


Why not take the first step in improving trust by tossing a few pennies toward the folks at the ACMA?  At least in their case, you know that somebody is truly looking out for your best interests.