Candace Lillund knew she needed to stand out. This was her golden – or perhaps, crimson – opportunity.

The 2024 Republican National Convention was scheduled to take place in her backyard of Milwaukee, WI, and someone had to supply its promo.

The principal of ScoutPromotions, part of Counselor Top 40 distributor Proforma (asi/300094), was determined to be that person.

“When I saw it was announced ... I really made it a mission,” Lillund says. “I have as much right to this business as anyone else.”

Bucket hats and ballcaps were among the branded merch ScoutPromotions sourced for the 2024 Republican National Convention.

She attended meetings, asked questions and connected with people on the RNC Milwaukee Host Committee. Lillund pestered and persisted and was ultimately rewarded.

ScoutPromotions secured a deal to provide merch for the first Republican primary debate in August 2023, and the distributor earned the opportunity to supply the official branded merch of the 2024 RNC, a breakthrough deal for the woman-owned small business.

Lillund has been in promo since 2009, switching gears after spending nearly two decades working in print sales at Xerox. At the time, she was just starting her family and decided to take time off to rethink her career and identify what was missing in her life.

“I had always wanted my own business,” Lillund says.

So, she started one. Using her sales background and marketing ingenuity, Lillund launched ScoutPromotions, despite having no prior experience in the promotional products industry. A few years later, she joined the Proforma network as ScoutPromotions carved out a niche selling promo to Wisconsin construction and manufacturing companies.

Lillund was in a position to pounce when she caught wind of the political functions happening in Milwaukee. With events come people; with people come business.

“I knew it was in my backyard, and I wanted to participate,” Lillund says. “It couldn’t have been any closer or more exciting.”

She got in contact with Visit Milwaukee, a local marketing organization that serves small businesses and attractions, as it was holding preliminary meetings coordinating with the Republican Party for the 2023 primary debate. This was before a vendor portal was set up – Lillund anticipated its competitiveness and made her name known before anyone asked.

ScoutPromotions was first in line when requests for proposals went live, but that wasn’t enough for Lillund: She wanted to make a splash, distinguish her proposal from the other boxes of GOP merch someone had to sift through. The merchandise proposals were made by email and in a physical product drop-off.

“If you’re reading an RFP, most likely you’re there at 11 o’clock at night after the day is done, and you’re exhausted,” Lillund says. “I’m thinking, ‘This is really boring for them.’ It’s kind of boring for me, except the dollar signs are exciting.”

To give her proposal a boost, she packed it with Red Bulls, energy bars, pens and highlighters on top of the merch. The extra effort gave her an edge, and Lillund was rewarded with a deal.

There are different hoops a distributor must jump through when supplying promo for political events, Lillund says. Among the signage, banners, drinkware, hats and apparel, most of it had to be produced domestically and within a restricted time frame.

“It can be challenging because there are very limited suppliers out there that produce all USA-made product. If they do, it’s very difficult to get them to respond quickly,” she says.

Lillund credits her partnership with Proforma as the reason she could get access to quality vendors and manage client demands quickly and effectively.

“If I was just Candace H. Lillund promotional products company, I wouldn’t have that kind of leverage,” Lillund says. In her pitch to suppliers, she explained the opportunity they had for future business in political merch if they pulled through. “That was a strong selling point.”

When planning began for the 2024 RNC, her connections with Visit Milwaukee and the Republicans and her performance supplying merch for the debate played to her advantage when dealing with the host committee – but again, Lillund went the extra mile.

Using the Republican logo she had access to from the debate, Lillund included a Champ Chain necklace with a huge elephant medallion from Simba (asi/87296), challenge coins, and red, white and blue ribbons in her RFP.

“I think all those things add up,” Lillund says. “I’m hoping that kind of set me apart from someone else who might have just come in with a manila folder tucked with a couple of hard copies in it.”

Lillund’s instincts were spot on, as ScoutPromotions was selected once again to supply merch for the biggest Republican event of this year’s campaign.

Can coolers were among the items in the official RNC merch collection.

ScoutPromotions wanted to honor its city with the RNC merchandise. The front of the T-shirts featured an elephant over an outline of Wisconsin; on the back was a drawing of the Milwaukee skyline. The collection also featured polos, quarter-zips, pins, mugs, hats and bucket hats with the same logo. There was a can cooler featuring the Wisconsin outline and an elephant holding a beer in its trunk.

With her reliable, creative performance for these events, Lillund hopes it’s only the start to a lasting partnership with the GOP.

“Over the course of two years, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well,” Lillund says. “The fact I won the RFP twice in a row from the same group of people, I would hope it’d solidify a pretty nice relationship moving forward.”