We make no excuses for maybe not being the cheapest on all our products , but we only buy from quality manufacturers and long may this continue.

More and more I worry that a brochure pigeon holes us to what is in the brochure and this worries me because our industry is so vast. I say with no exaggeration that our business is amazing, we have over a million products to offer but more than anything we want to offer a solution and no brochure is ever going to offer that.

If I asked 50 customers if they wanted a brochure to choose a product they thought might work OR speak to a specialist who can advise them on what has worked for others and more importantly what hasn’t worked then I know 50 people would want the latter and that’s what LSi is based on.

We’re not sales people – we’re advisors and we only want the best for our customers because we want you to keep coming back for the next 50 years.

So for any customer that’s reading this – feel free to throw all and any brochures you have in the bin and put 01274 854996 on speed dial.

Paul Digpal receiving his XBOX 360 with Kinect package

Last week we held a prize draw for an XBOX 360 with Kinect package – any order of £500 or more went into our prize draw. If you placed a £1000 order, you got 2 entries, £1500 got 3 and so on.

The lucky winner was Paul Digpal of Rugby Football League, here he is pictured with Natalie Corner, our External Sales Rep, receiving his prize. We’re sure he’ll be having plenty of fun with this over Christmas!

£250 M&S Voucher Prize Draw

This week we’re giving away a £250 Marks & Spencer voucher! The draw terms are the same as before, one entry per £500 worth of order. Fancy having us here at LSi paying for a gourmet Christmas dinner? Need a new outfit for your Christmas do? Want to deck your front room out in a brand new set of decorations?

Check out our latest offer here, visit the promotional merchandise or corporate clothing sections of our website of give our sales team a call on 01274 854996.

My dad told me to go to a discount fireplace store as it was cheap…so I did. I bought a fireplace I was happy with with their delivery date of the following week. That following week no fireplace – I had to call them to find out it was a week late. One week later they came to fit it. This was a weekend in November, it was cold, wet with leaves all over the floor. Did the fitters put down sheets and take their shoes off when in my house – NO. I had to ask them to after my carpet was nice and marked. It doesn’t end there. When I bought the fire I asked if I could have downlighters in and they were happy to take another £100 off me for this. They never thought that with the downlighters in unless I had good depth to my fireplace my fire actually wouldn’t fit…which it didn’t. Then the hearth should have been 15″ depth and it came at 18″ depth and I accepted this but they had to cut my carpet to fit it. They messed this up totally and when they were fitting the electrics I realised why – I asked them which one of them was an electrician and both were joiners….not electricians and not carpet fitters. The fireplace went back and I hoping for it to be delivered this week but I will now have to fit it myself because I have no faith in the company and I don’t want them in my house BUT because they have ALL my money up front I’m stuck. It’s a long winded story I know but it’s 100% true and I blame myself. I was greedy and instead of paying the right price for the right product I accept that I’ve got the right product I wanted but I’ve bought it cheap and ended up with cheap service, people who have no idea what they are doing and the finished product had every chance of looking cheap once fitted by Mr Bodge It. This reminds me of this industry and the people who play at it. We are the specialist in what we do and we do it right. I totally accept that we are not the cheapest company out there but we’re the best and after my experience I want to distance myself from the word and feeling of CHEAP.

If I could do it all again I’d pay the right price and be happy with the finished result.

It’s official – John Farnworth’s World Record is a Guinness World Record – and we’ve got the certificate to prove it!

John Farnworth, the world champion football freestyler, achieved 590 consecutive football rolls across the forehead at our promotional merchandise exhibition, The Big Promo Gift Show, on 26th May 2010. Check out the video on the right if you weren’t there, I think you’ll agree that the level of control and concentration John shows is quite amazing.

He put on some great shows for us throughout the day mesmerising visitors and staff alike.

Since the show he’s been travelling the world performing at various shows and appeared at the World Cup Final in South Africa. Not a bad job he’s got, is it?!

Chris scored a total of 43 points having been top or close to it the whole way through the tournament. Our very own senior graphic designer, Daniel Berry, scored 43 also, but being an LSi employee we couldn’t let him have it! Tom Innes came a close third with 41 points – just one more correct result would have given us a headache as to how to split them!

Thanks to everyone who played the game – I hope you found the experience more enjoyable than watching the England matches on TV! Hopefully our match against Switzerland in the European Championship qualifying campaign tonight can continue our comeback after the impressive 4-0 win against Bulgaria.

Not to forget the other home nation that’s playing tonight, good luck to Scotland in their match against Lichtenstein.

Everything I hear lately is bad news, every other week there is someone linked to this industry going out of business, we’ve seen one of the largest gift houses go under in the past two years along with a lot of smaller ones. This year we’ve seen an increase in these companies going under and it’s very sad to see, many people have been put out of a job and many of our the manufacturers we use have been left with bad debts making everything more difficult for the rest of us.

We’ve always felt that we’re at the top of the game, not that it protects us but the companies we deal with are always very loyal and we offer such a good service I feel that we do very well in bringing on board new business. I’d say we’re the Marks and Spencer’s of promotional items – you pay for what you get with us and I don’t mean this in a big headed way, I’ve worked here for 10 years so I’ve competed with the good and the bad so I know what I’m talking about. It would be easy for me to leave LSi and start up my own company working from my bedroom undercutting the whole industry but the minute something goes wrong I’m washing my hands of the problem because I can’t afford the problem. I always talk about this and use the example of travel insurance because I travel a lot. When I go to a price comparison site and give them the info of the trip and it comes up with my cheapest option at £7 and then the more expensive companies below – I have never bought the £7 policy – I scroll down and I buy with confidence with a brand name I can trust so that if god forbid I break my leg on holiday I have total confidence my policy will cover me – pick me up and get me home.

This is how I see LSi – the brand name that WILL have problems on a job over the years we trade with our customers but WILL also put the problem right.

I can tell you all day long about how LSi is a sound choice and you can buy with confidence from us and how we’re not going to go out of business but it’s just words. If you want to trade with us speak to me or my team, we can put you in touch with customers we’ve dealt with for 10 years plus and you can speak to them directly about who LSi really are.

Here are some quotes:

“As you leaf through this issue of PPD, you will no doubt read about the fantastic show put on by Lloyd and his team at LSi. I know very well how much time and effort it takes to organise such an event, and I take my hat off to them for putting on a great show. Well done to you all!” – Nigel Bailey (Trade Only)

“I recently went to an end user show hosted by LSi at the Royal Armouries, Leeds – and it was amazing!”, “You can buy promotional products from anyone but at LSi, they work with their clients so that they exceed their expectations and get more out of their promotional dollar.”, “I’m glad that LSi have bucked the industry trend of lethargy, instead opting for a proactive marketing campaign, with the most professional and entertaining end user show” – Brian Hayward (Page Partnership)

I’m very glad to say the our World Cup Score Predictor game has exceeded my expectations with 105 players so far.

In case you’ve not seen it, it’s a game where I’ve picked out some matches from the World Cup and created a page where you can enter your details and your predictions. These are then calculated every time a relevant match is played and a league table published. You get 5 points for a correct score or two points for a correct result.

Although 5 matches have pass so far, it’s not too late to play. We’ll be running the competition right up to the final and with the leaders on 14 points out of a possible 25, no-one’s running away with it. Maybe it could even help to join late as you’ve seen how some of the teams are playing!

The game is split into the group stages, the round of 16, quarter finals, semi finals and the final/3rd place playoff. We’re not choosing every match as that would take you too long so we picked 11 games from the groups, we’ll be picking a certain number yet to be decided from the round of 16 and then every match from then on in.

The best thing about this game is the prize you can win – the replica World Cup you may well have held when you were photographed with Peter Shilton and Nobby Stiles at The Big Promo Gift Show! So why not give it a go?

You can keep up with the latest news on Twitter or on The World Cup Score Predictor website.

Talking of The Big Promo Gift Show, I’m in the middle of updating the website with all the photos, videos and news from the day. Keep an eye on the website over the next 24 hours and it will all be there for you to see. You can order your Peter Shilton and Nobby Stiles prints as well if you weren’t able to pick them up on the day.

If you’re already playing the game, good luck! If you’re not playing the game, why not?! It’s free and you can win a unique prize!

Here’s the league table as it currently stands:

This industry is just like lots of others – we have the good, the bad and the ‘just too expensive’. But unlike lots of industries our product range is massive, if we want a promotional pen we have fifty thousand to choose from, if we want a promotional umbrella there are thousands out there.

Why waste your time speaking to the bad and the too expensive. Speak to the people that know what they are doing…. the people that will save you TIME.