MLR Alliance’s Tony Pinto, Tony Tuso, Julia McDonald-Ward, Bill Reisack and Drew Ward show off the red cruiser bike donated by SOLE Bicycles as a door prize at the May 11 event.
MLR Alliance, a cooperative effort of three North Texas-based multi-line rep groups, pulled out all the stops for its annual invitation-only tabletop show by holding the May 11 event at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas—home of the Dallas Cowboys. The event drew more than 200 distributors and their clients to a window-filled, field-level space where they could view the playing field and see, touch and learn about promotional products from 20 exhibiting suppliers.
Kristen Dowling and Trey Norris, both of Bob Lilly Promotions, attended the MLR Alliance event with their buyers.
The annual sales event by the group, comprised of Tuso Marketing, Pinto Marketing and Reisack Sales and Marketing, was the third in a three-city strategy. A few days ago, MLR Alliance held similar events for clients and their buyers at minor league ballparks in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Tony Pinto, principal of Pinto Marketing, explains why the attention-getting sporting venues were chosen for the shows. “The industry has changed so much that you have to change—if you don’t change, you’ll be like everybody else. You have to do something different.” He says it’s not efficient for suppliers or rep to try to see all 64,000 distributors in the industry. “This gives the distributor and end customer the opportunity to do something different together and gives the distributor one-on-one time with the suppliers.”
Tony Pinto (center) explains the features of a BEST Promotions USA product to a group of buyers and their distributors at the MLR Alliance event.
Kristen Dowling, senior account executive at Dallas-based distributor Bob Lilly Promotions, spent her morning at the event with several colleagues and buyers. “We invited a ton of clients to come out and view the lines and see what we do,” she says. “We hope seeing all of this sparks more interest and gets more ideas going in their minds for events coming up.”
