Carrot-Top Flags and Banners

Carrot-Top Flags and Banners
There is something about a flag. Flags are more than products. Flags connect who we are. They channel deep human desires to belong, to be part of a group, a mission. Steve Cates is a friend who is on a mission to make the best flags and banners in the world. Steve helps run Carrot-Top Industries, a Hillsborough, North Carolina company. Carrot-Top was making flags long before the red headed comedian co-opted their name.

I’ve wrestled with how to cover the generic ads painted on our RV rented for Martin’s Ride. At first I thought I would wrap the RV. Wrapping would make the RV look like one of those ad billboard buses you see at the airport. Wrapping is expensive and we don’t have access to the RV until the day before we leave for the west coast. We leave (left) on Tuesday, June 29th from Duke Hospital and don't stop until we see Hollywood, LA and Santa Monica where I will dip my wheel in the Pacific ocean and collapse (no doubt).

With only ten days to go before we leave I had a V8 moment. I know someone in the flag and banner business. I worked with Steve for years before he joined Carrot-Top. Steve is one of the hardest working guys in rock and roll. He started working in the call center at our old company. If you’ve ever worked in a call center you know it is not for the faint of heart. Call centers are open 24/7/365 in good weather or bad. Call center agents and managers spend most of their time fixing problems and getting yelled at. Some people are nice and generous, but many are angry before they pick up the phone. Steve is never afraid. He knitted a good team together and set about solving problems.

Good people get rewarded. Steve was rewarded with a promotion to head the company’s multi-million dollar catalog where I worked closely with him. I learned to love Steve’s passion, trust his judgment and like working with him. When Steve was offered a great job selling flags it seemed appropriate and right. Flags and banners was something Steve would throw himself at full force helping this Carrot-Top find new ways to reach customers.

Carrot-Top Industries is headquartered in a nondescript building across the street from Vietri, the Italian ceramic importer. Steve manages a vast flag and banner empire. Carrot-Top sells flags and banners to people and businesses. Carrot-Top Industries and Flag Expressions sell American flags made in America. What a concept. Making things is what America used to be about. Now we outsource much of what we buy to China. Steve and Carrot-Top believe in making American flags in America. Flag and banner quality is better and easier to monitor, and it we should make our flags HERE!

Maybe making our flags in America is a symbolic gesture, a line in the sand, but it is an important one. Making things is important. Making things keeps us connected with who we are. We make things. We are Americans. America is not just one huge service economy. 

Carrot-Top Industry knows flags we make here are better, last longer and are easier to care for than flags made over there. We make the best things in the best ways. My friend Steve and his impressive creative and operational team dedicate their lives to flags and banners. They created banners for Martin’s Ride and I stressed what was possible. Steve’s team was nonplussed. They set about improving my ideas and making Martin’s Ride banners fast, beautiful and with care.

I can recognize when a team is so in sync they answer each others unspoken questions and finish a fellow worker’s sentences. Steve’s team at Carrot-Top Industries is a high performance team. They created magic with my ideas and did so with a calm, honesty and a straight forward approach. This kind of skill and talent improves any product or company, but I was glad to see such passion and commitment to making American flags and banners for Martin's Ride.

If you need to fly Old Glory this July or work for a town, museum or sports team in need of flags and banners call Steve and Carrot-Top. Don't call the comedian, call the best flag manufacturers in the world. Tell them Martin sent you. Take this extra step, because there is something about a flag.

Thanks Steve and everyone at Carrot-Top Industries. If we could get you guys working on cancer we would cure this thing in nothing flat. Great job and I appreciate your support, guidance and love for what you do.

Keep making the best flags and banners in the world. Together we cure cancer in our lifetime.

Thanks,

Marty

Martin Smith, Founder Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer

→ Visit http://www.carrot-top.com/