Deborah Katz, owner of Fully Promoted Milford, CT, recently secured her largest order to date: an employee giving campaign for Community Health Resources, a Connecticut-based organization with more than 800 employees.
- The project generated $75,000 in revenue.
- Katz, who joined the branded merchandise industry in 2021, is a franchisee of Fully Promoted (PPAI 240143, Gold), PPAI 100’s No. 51 distributor.
The opportunity with CHR grew from a connection Katz made at a human resources trade show in 2023. “We often focus on helping HR with pain points, such as retention, recruitment and anniversary programs,” says Katz, who worked closely with HR during her decades in corporate marketing.
- The conversation about the order began in March 2024, but it wasn’t until the end of that year that Katz won the contract.
CHR was looking to overhaul a long-standing employee giving program that had become a major logistical challenge for its internal team. The firm was storing more than 1,000 items in a vacant office, tracking paper coupons, coordinating pickups and requiring employees –many of whom are remote – to collect gifts in person.
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Demonstrating the evolving role of merch distributors, Katz stepped in as a solutions partner, managing sourcing, decoration, fulfillment and direct-to-home shipping.
Franchise Network Makes Scaling Possible
However, pulling this off would be too challenging for a one-woman operation.
To execute fulfillment at scale, Katz collaborated with fellow franchise owner Michelle Bottino of Fully Promoted of St. Charles in Illinois, who helped handle embroidery, warehousing, fulfillment and shipping.
“We are considered a showroom model, so we don’t do in-house production,” Katz says. “Michelle and her team are used to fulfillment at this level. One of the benefits of being part of a franchise is you have the depth of the bench.”
Deborah Katz
Owner, Fully Promoted Milford, CT
Katz connected with Bottino, who has been a franchisee for nearly eight years, through the Fully Promoted owner network and conversations at The PPAI Expo 2025.
“We’re in a group that meets every week,” Katz says. “We discuss our wins, our struggles, how someone does something. For the most part, everybody is super eager to see everyone succeed. There’s no politics or one person against the other like you find in corporate. It’s been very refreshing.”
Bottino says the partnership reflects a core advantage of the franchise system.
“Working with Deb on this milestone order for her business is the perfect example of our Fully Promoted franchise system in action,” Bottino says. “No job is too big for our network. It was a pleasure to assist Deb with this order, and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year.”
Building A Foundation For Future Growth
The upgraded program featured premium retail brands, including Carhartt, Helly Hansen, Owala, Adidas and The North Face, and eliminated weeks of manual labor for the client.
“Our employee giving program is an annual initiative that we love to do, but it was a very serious operational burden for us,” says Katie R. of CHR. “Working with Deb and her team helped ease that burden significantly and allowed us to refocus our attention and energy to what’s most important – our employees and the communities we serve.”
Michelle Bottino
Owner, Fully Promoted of St. Charles
CHR has already committed to working with Katz again for its next campaign, with improvements planned around reporting and fulfillment scheduling.
“At the end of the campaign, we set up a call for a postmortem,” Katz says. “Overall, it went really well. We learned a lot that will make next year even smoother.”
For fellow distributors looking to handle complex, high-volume campaigns, Katz emphasizes preparation and trusted partners.
“Map it out step by step,” she says. “Try to think of every contingency ahead of time. Do what you usually do but make sure it can scale. And if you have to outsource fulfillment, make sure you trust whoever is handling it.”
