GIFTS—Finding That Perfect Gift

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Trims Unlimited


Year Founded:

1969


Core Business:

Promotional and marketing gifts


Revenues in 1995:

$1 million


Revenues in 2000:

$2.5 million


Revenues in 2001:

$4 million (projected)


Employees in 1995:

1


Employees in 2000:

4


Goal:

To get more corporate business


Driving Force:

Creativity in finding good promotional gifts and molding the company’s services to meet the clients’ needs


Company spares no expense to help corporations and executives search the world over for pricey presents

One Thursday afternoon while carpooling her children around Los Angeles, Susan Roth got a call on her cell phone.

It was a casino executive in Atlantic City seeking help with finding a rare case of Chateau Le Pin, one of the world’s most sought-after French wines. He wanted to give the wine as a consolation gift to a gambler who had just lost $1 million that day.

Without even breaking her stride, Roth placed a few phone calls, located a private collector with a well-stocked cellar, negotiated to purchase the 12 bottles for $43,000, had the case shipped to New Jersey and got her children to their destination on time.

Such is the work of Roth, president of Trims Unlimited, a small business that could be considered a sophisticated concierge service for big companies and high-end executives. Trims’ clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Oracle Corp., Ariba Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Merrill Lynch, IBM Corp., Boeing Co. and Universal Studios.

“Basically, we spend other people’s money,” said Roth, sitting inside her new Mid-Wilshire offices, which on this day are still half empty waiting for office furniture to arrive.

Trims Unlimited helps corporations find gifts for its executives or clients, puts together promotional or marketing packages for conferences and events, and does Christmas shopping for chairmen who need a memorable gift to bestow on fellow board members.

“We pick out the vendors to do a good job for us and our clients, and then we pressure them to do a good job and mold them for whatever we need for a project,” said Roth, 50, a former high school English literature teacher who inherited the business from her mother after she passed away in 1985.


Dogged persistence

One of Roth’s clients, Ariba Inc., a B2B business in Northern California, called on a Saturday seeking 1,500 spiral notebooks with its logo printed on the cover as well as on every notebook page for a conference the following day in Miami.

Roth had done a similar order for Ariba some time back using a Long Island printer. But she had dealt with him during the week and had only his work telephone. She had no idea how to contact him on a Saturday.

Since he had an unusual last name, she hunted online for his home telephone number. She didn’t find him, but she found his mother, who called the printer. The printer agreed to fill the order that day and have the notebooks shipped to Ariba in time for its conference a day later.

It’s that kind of swift work that keeps Trims Unlimited’s customers returning for more.

“I worked with Susan for five years (while I was) at Oracle and now for two years here at Ariba,” said Stuart Gold, Ariba’s vice president of corporate events and programs. “If I need something engraved on a Sunday and sent by sonic air right away to Europe, you can’t call a major corporation who is there for you. This is what we need. A partner who just gets it.”

Being the national corporate representatives for Baccarat Crystal, many of the gifts that Roth selects are from the French crystal company. For example, Caesar’s Palace needed a New Year’s gift for its high-roller clients. Roth came up with an $1,800 crystal ice bucket made by Baccarat.

“Not everything we do is expensive,” explained Roth, noting that recently she ordered 100 party hats and favors for a 5-year-old’s birthday party being organized by a Hewlett-Packard executive.

But she does get her share of expensive gift requests. Not long ago, a major Hollywood studio trying to woo a famous producer asked Roth to ship a $10,000 Zodiac boat to the Fiji Islands, where the producer was hanging out.

No problem. She found a dealer and arranged to have it sent.


Early days

The small business has changed drastically since Roth’s mother, Helen, started it in 1969. Helen Roth was basically a personal shopper to the very wealthy in New York City and Washington, D.C.

When Helen Roth became ill, her husband, Samuel, tried to manage the business for a while. But the female clients were driving him crazy. When Helen died in 1985, Susan bought the client list from her father for $100.

She kept the business going in New York for three years, after which she decided that she couldn’t live on the West Coast and maintain a business on the East Coast. She moved the business to the guest house behind her Hancock Park home, where it stayed until March, when she moved to a Mid-Wilshire office building.

The business progressed at a steady pace until seven years ago, when serendipity intervened. A friend in Chicago bought a car from an Oracle executive who was moving to Los Angeles. The friend suggested that the executive, Stuart Gold, who was taking over as Oracle’s senior director of events, look up Susan Roth. He did and soon started using her services for many of the events that Oracle was organizing.

Meantime, she met Debbie Lanni, whose husband, Terry, was a top executive with Caesars World Inc. Caesars, which is in the business of keeping its top gamblers happy, is always showering expensive gifts on the high-rollers. Roth soon was employed to find many of these expensive gifts, such as the $5,000 rhinestone-encrusted handbags designed by Judith Leiber that are given to the wives of big spenders.

With several companies on her client list now, business has grown swiftly.

“We are flexible and adaptable enough to mold ourselves into any project,” Roth said. “We just never say no.”

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