Counselor Top 40 distributor HALO Branded Solutions (asi/356000) is a promo industry powerhouse – a roughly billion-dollar firm that does business with a bevy of household-name clients.

Still, executives said the success wouldn’t be possible without deeply rooted partnerships with key suppliers, and that’s why HALO annually honors the best of the best – as the company did at its recent Sales Achievement Gala in Las Vegas.

Members of Counselor Top 40 firms HALO (asi/356000) and SanMar (asi/84863) at the awards gala where HALO named SanMar its Supplier of the Year.

At the event, HALO named Counselor Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863) its Supplier of the Year and Sarah Smith, director of strategic accounts for Pop! Promos (asi/45657), its Supplier Rep of the Year. SanMar and Smith achieved the honors based on the voting of more than 1,000 HALO account executives and support team members.

“HALO’s sustained growth is a direct result of fostering the strongest possible relationships between our preferred suppliers and our sales team,” said Terry McGuire, HALO’s senior vice president of supplier relations. “SanMar and Sarah are perfect examples of creating success through collaboration, ingenuity and communication.”

HALO named Sarah Smith (center) of Pop! Promos (asi/45657) its Supplier Rep of the Year. Smith is seen here with members of the HALO leadership team.

Steve Cuthbert, SanMar’s chief revenue officer, called the award from HALO a tremendous honor. “We value the spirit of partnership with the HALO team that led to impressive growth last year and created positive momentum as we begin 2025,” Cuthbert said.

Smith, who leads Pop!’s support efforts for the HALO sales and operations teams, was ecstatic. “We love working with HALO,” Smith said. “This award reflects our passion to find every way to help each account executive grow their sales overall, and with Pop! Promos.”

HALO CEO Marc Simon, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people, called the distributorship’s preferred supplier program an industry success story. Said Simon: “We rely heavily on the partnership with this elite group to continue to grow our business and provide breakthrough results for our valued HALO clients.”

Based on reported 2023 North American promotional product revenue of $937.7 billion, HALO Branded Solutions ranked second on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry.