Samplesecure.com Retail's #1 Online In-Store Advertising Network

Entrepreneur Rae Romanoff Makes Working Hard at Store Level Look as if she's Hardly Working

Las Vegas, NV - Years ago, Easy Off ran an advertising campaign to show America how simple it was to clean their ovens. The spot showed a beautiful woman, lazing on a raft in a big swimming pool. Coming in for a close up, she delivered the powerful line, "I'm cleaning my oven."

"For women, this was the ultimate in successful multi-tasking," Samplesecure.com Co-founder and EVP, Rae Romanoff points out. "To be able to combine a grueling task with a concurrent leisure activity and do both well."

Romanoff and Co-founding partner, Martin Ehrhard, have spent the last five years designing Samplesecure.com so that retailers and suppliers could do a little oven cleaning of their own.

Using technology to streamline the ordering and management process, the pair created the only online management and buying network for retailers and suppliers that want to manage their demo/event programs in-house for higher profits.

"Saving time is as important as saving money. Offering quality in addition to the savings provides the security busy executives needs to trust the system to manage their in-store programs," Romanoff explains. "It one of the reason's I chose the company's name - Samplesecure. We need to re-build trust in this industry."

Online communication was a key factor in the system's development because there can be several companies involved in one in-store event. "Even if a company is only supplying the printing or the fulfillment, they should have access to the entire event schedule in order to be ready for their portion of the order. Likewise, suppliers and retailer should have the same program access. It won't cure all the ills, but it will make troubleshooting issues easier to peg and resolve," Romanoff explains.

On the front lines for over thirteen years, Romanoff shared in-store event success and heartbreaking, costly failures with her clients. "In 2002, we were forced to use this one group at Wal-Mart that had an exclusive contract. We were running a "Vote for your favorite CremeSaver" program and fourteen hundred Wal-Mart stores failed to return the postage pre-paid ballot boxes."

Upon investigation, Romanoff discovered that the D-One stores did not following the program as contracted. Instead, bowls of CremeSavers were placed on tables alongside two other products with a sign that said Help Yourself. "When I politely asked for a credit on the error, the Wal-Mart manager, Kirk Zebly, told me that my client had to pay for the whole program whether it was done correctly or not. I was floored."

Angered by the waste of her client's budget and completely forgetting protocol, Romanoff went over Zebly's head to the Marketing Department, landing in the office of then VP of Marketing, Bob Connolly. Assessing the situation, Connolly made some quick fixes to rectify the situation, which including voiding the exclusive management contract and making peace with CremeSavers.

"Another time, I was doing a frozen food sampling for a group servicing the military and I was billed for no-shows. Thanks to Nine Eleven, each base required a picture ID to gain access to the commissary and when I checked for proof of performance, over fifty bases were missing ID photocopies."

Bound and determined to change things, Ehrhard and Romanoff worked tirelessly on a computer program that left little room for human error. "Half of the problem was the lack of a paper trail. The other was the ability to hide mistakes in the field long enough to get paid for jobs that weren't done. No can do with Samplesecure.com," Romanoff says confidently. "The online accountability is superior to the current method and I hired a field force of retired criminal investigators to police the stores. There will be no waste of budget on my watch."

Often referred to by her clients as the Queen of Cheap, Romanoff is flattered at the compliment. "You don't have to waste a client's budget in order to make a profit. In fact, it's the opposite. Show clients how to save money and they will spend even more with your company. More importantly, you'll gain their trust and that's the most important element needed for a long-term business relationship."

Improving the In-Store Demo

Higher wages for demonstrators, coupled with program training and field supervision can increase profits from product sales for retailers and suppliers

Las Vegas, NV - In a online meeting with network event market affiliates, Samplesecure.com's EVP, Rae Romanoff outlined the new national program training and field supervision policies that will become standard operating methods to the companies in the retail marketing services industry that are part of the new online ordering system.

Samplesecure is changing the ordering, routing and tracking of retail marketing support services like demonstration and event conducting, merchandising, fulfillment and kitting to an order-direct online process as a first step towards improving the quality of labor services at store level.

"In the current model, budgets for program training and field supervision are not included, yet they are two key factors in making sure more product is sold at store level. The biggest question I am fielding is why prices on in-store demo labor aren't decreasing with online ordering and the simple fact is, they can't, if retailers and suppliers want to improve the quality of labor at store level," Rae Romanoff explained. "To staff an event at store level with online ordering, one company is going to deduct forty percent of the labor budget for their operating and overhead expenses and SampleSecure charges a separate labor reservation and job management fee per event, per store. It sounds pricey until you realize that in the current model two companies each deduct 40% of the labor budget and that all retail marketing support services are up charged and, that none of the ancillary budget overages are rebated. Stabilizing the prices, controlling the increases, eliminating hidden profit centers and reallocating current budget to higher wages at store level, program training and field supervision are the first proactive moves towards making the purchases and use of these services easy to access and manage, as well as end friendly at store level."

Each Samplesecure event market affiliate, (ema) takes a turn acting as lead ema and coordinating the program details for the other participating affiliates. Part of their job is conducting a training class locally, web camming it for future airplay on the Samplesecure.com website and on You Tube. "Training couldn't be easier," adds n. Rachel O'Ryan, director of network affiliate relationships. "This is a young, mobile marketing force, not a grandma squad. Online is second nature to them. They can watch the training film as often as they feel they need to, in order to prepare for the event. It's mandatory that they at least view it once and take a short quiz at the end, if they expect to be paid for training."

Training is one component that will improve service at store level. The second item is field supervision. Until scanning time sensitive priority data at store level becomes available, each ema employs a field supervision force of store checkers that spot check for attendance and the network employs a field of retired IRS/special investigators to troubleshoot areas where field labor is a problem. Demonstrators with repeat records for no shows will be eliminated from the labor force.