Schwag in your bag

If you’re a Sales guy or gal, you know all about schwag. What kind of schwag is in your bag?

I remember when The Sales Guy returned from his first conference after our son was born. And, you guessed it, The Sales Guy tossed some schwag in his bag for our newborn. This was special schwag. The Sales Guy scouted out the cute, limited edition, stuffed raccoon with t-shirt from the moment the booth girl put the mammal on the counter.  At the time, I thought it was the sweetest thing that The Sales Guy was missing his newborn [and hopefully me]. As it turned out, because The Sales Guy is a sales guy, he turned the situation into a negotiation!  Took two days for him to work the deal and trap the coveted Ricky Racoon!

The Sales Guy seems to go to fewer shows these days so we’re running low on pens, post-its, coffee mugs, etc. And what the heck happened to those awesome light up yo-yos?  This winter, our entire family rocked schwag.  We communicated daily on my company’s pre-rebranding post-its. The Sales Guy modeled weekly his company’s issued dress shirt. We showed our son we loved him on Valentine’s Day viasticker schwag. Even our first snowman sported baseball cap schwag!

Here’s the crazy part about schwag. It takes a lot of creativity (and often money) for schwag to have any schwagger and do the needful. It must drive Marketing teams crazy to hear stories like ours.  They spend all this time figuring out just the right schwag to get attention, show off the brand, etc. And, then, people like us abuse the schwag. I have no idea who Ricky Racoon was “representing” nor do I care. The part I love about schwag when it finds its way into our home is that it means The Sales Guy has been thinking about us when he was on the field.