ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240014
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Marketplace
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL
THE WELCOME WAGON LADIES (Yes, all Southwest Virginia Welcome Wagon representatives are women) say it's an enjoyable sales job.
The first time Welcome Wagon visited my family, I was about 5 years old and we had just moved to a new town in Iowa. I'm sure my parents were happy to get maps of the town and certificates for free car washes, but the best thing in the goody basket, in my opinion, was a free cake from a local grocery store.
It almost made up for the fact that the Welcome Wagon woman didn't pull up to the house in a big covered wagon, as I had hoped.
If you've moved within the last several years, you've likely noticed that the welcoming service, which greets newcomers with baskets of gifts and advertisements from local merchants, has been all but dormant in Southwest Virginia, a result of financial problems at the organization's national level. But the privately held company was bought last year by CUC International Inc., a Connecticut membership services company that quickly began pouring money into it.
Gloria Zayechek, the new Southwest Virginia field manager, has built her staff up to 14 local representatives. She figures she'll need about 50 to cover her territory, which stretches from Richmond to West Virginia's Greenbrier Valley. A few of her reps have been with Welcome Wagon 12 years or more. They've been working on their own, without much national help, over the past few years. But most are new recruits who have joined in the past several months. All, so far, are women. Many once worked in marketing or advertising but decided they wanted more flexible schedules or less stressful jobs.
Representing Welcome Wagon is certainly a more enjoyable sales job, they said.
"It's the best thing I've ever done," according to Linda Bailey, a Roanoke rep who used to work in medical sales.
The reps scout out new residents, new parents and newlyweds - people in the middle of "lifestyle changes," Zayechek said - and bring them baskets filled with small gifts from local merchants: a key chain from a car dealership, a water bottle from a health club, a shoe-shine cloth from a shoe repair shop. The merchants also include cards that can be redeemed for more free gifts during a visit to the shop.
Each merchant pays Welcome Wagon a $2 to $3 fee per home visit. In return, they get a jump on their competition by targeting new residents as soon as they move into town. This can be a real boon for small businesses that can't afford - or don't need - full-market advertising, said Susan Gross, national vice president of sales for Welcome Wagon.
"But it's never, never aggressive advertising," Zayechek said. There are no strings attached to the gifts; that's a Welcome Wagon rule, she said. Welcome Wagon does tell sponsors which residents they've visited. But merchants must sign an agreement stating they won't sell, lend or rent the names to anyone else.
"It's the nicest, most friendly way to advertise to people," said regional manager Teresa Kaplan, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Representatives are responsible for signing up their own "basket" of merchants, and they get a commission from the sales they make. Each rep must have at least 10 sponsors; some have 30 or 40. The key, they say, is to recruit merchants who offer services that their targeted consumers are likely to need: health clubs, baby toys, groceries.
"One of the reasons we hire local people is that they're very familiar with the community," said Gross.
Because they know the area, reps also can tell new residents about other community services - where the DMV office is, or who's on the city council, or how to get a library card.
Visits usually last around 45 minutes, although a few of the reps admitted spending three hours or more in a home at times. Much of it depends on how many questions the new residents have, they said.
Welcome Wagon started out in 1928 as a money-making enterprise for a Memphis newspaper. The head of the paper's advertising department knew local merchants needed a way to reach Memphis newcomers, who might not yet subscribe to the newspaper. He put together a team of longtime Memphis residents who knew the area and could visit new folks with gifts and information about the town.
The service got its name from the Conestoga wagons of frontier days, when townspeople sent wagons filled with supplies to passing wagon trains as a message of greeting - and with the hope of enticing travelers to settle in the community.
Today, there are 2,200 Welcome Wagon representatives nationwide, representing tens of thousands of merchants. Welcome Wagon has 27 sponsors in the Roanoke Valley and close to 50 in the New River Valley.
The local Welcome Wagon is gearing up for special Mother's Day visits for new moms. For more information, call 776-6965 in Roanoke, or 552-8941 in the New River Valley. Welcome Wagon's national number is (800) 77-WELCOME.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Gloria Zayechek, the newby CNBSouthwest Virginia field manager for Welcome Wagon, holds one of the
baskets the organization presents. She was training new
representatives Tuesday at the Roanoke Airport Marriott. Zayechek
has built her staff up to 14 local representatives, but figures
she'll need about 50 to cover her territory, which stretches from
Richmond to
West Virginia's Greenbrier Valley. color.