Stephen Prince, president of National Business Products Inc., a Franklin, Tenn., distributorship, heard the call of the wild even louder than O'Toole. Several years ago, he was selling paper products to an aquarium when he proposed a plastic card program to help the client attract and retain members. The aquarium accepted his idea, and Prince soon realized he had stumbled onto a larger opportunity. Today, National Business Products sells to zoos across the country. The distributorship also handles related products and services, including fulfillment.
Some zoos choose to personalize cards on their own laser printers.
So those laser-printable forms are very popular because they can do their own personalization. The New England Zoo is a good example of a typical, if slightly smaller, zoo customer. He also provided envelopes for its mailings. He convinced the client to accept his proposal by stressing plastic cards' durability. They're destroyed very easily, and I told the zoo I could upgrade it to a plastic card that would be of much higher quality.