#2 CJ Schmidt

Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125) – CEO

2024 Rank: #2

Industry Experience: 21 years

Previous Appearances on Counselor Power 50: 15

CJ Schmidt is once again in the silver medal spot on this year’s Counselor Power 50 list. It’s fitting for the second-generation owner of Counselor Top 40 supplier Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125), who continues to power his company into the upper echelons of the industry with bold moves and forward-looking vision.

Counselor’s 2024 Person of the Year has made a regular habit of striking deals that add to Hit’s product portfolio, with recent examples that include producing hard goods under the Cutter & Buck (asi/47965) brand name and partnering with iClick (asi/62124) to sell technology and lifestyle accessories. Hit also has been building an 800,000-square-foot facility in Ohio that will be open next summer.

So, to say that big things are happening at Hit would be a bit of an understatement, with Schmidt at the center of it all. “Over the past year we have continued to strengthen our position in the industry by expanding our product line strategically and improving our operational efficiencies,” Schmidt says. “We’ve continued to invest in technology and automation to better serve our customers; we have expanded our printing capabilities and introduced a variety of eco-friendly product options, including both new products and throughout our bestsellers. We have also refined our packaging process to reduce waste and continue our path forward to a more eco-friendly operation.”

2025 did not make it easy on Hit, or any company in the industry for that matter. Supply chain issues thanks to tariffs and fluctuating costs made for almost daily changes in strategy. Schmidt says that the difficult times gave the company a chance to look at its own processes to identify improvements.

“We took these challenging times as an opportunity to evaluate and diversify our factories,” Schmidt says. “We have also increased domestic inventory. We remain proactive in navigating our supply chain so we can continue to deliver reliable products quickly, efficiently and at our best prices.”

Schmidt, as the leader, hopes to lead by example and everything else will fall into place.

“My leadership is guided by core values of integrity, innovation and reliability,” he says. “We always strive to improve and be the best version of ourselves, to do better tomorrow than we did today. Our main goal is to support our distributors by giving them the quality products they expect at the best possible prices, great inventory and service they can rely on.”