Woman Turns Gift Ideas Into Business Success : Entrepreneur Sarah Goldman has found a niche in the highly competitive promotional items field.

Golfers are probably used to just about anything when it comes to fashion on the green.

Still, the pants that Sarah Goldman had made for her husband stand out. They are blue, with small red bulls--each stitched in the shape of the Merrill Lynch logo.

They’re the last thing in taste, and they went over like a cool drink at the 19th hole. Nearly 200 Merrill Lynch employees have ordered them.

Don Goldman’s pants were actually doing double duty: They promoted his employer, Merrill Lynch, and they showed how adept his wife is at doing what she does.

Through her company, The Newport Connection in Santa Ana Heights, Goldman arranges to have promotional items made for companies to give to clients or to new contacts at trade shows. She puts together incentive prizes for sales offices, theme party favors and “pillow” gifts for people who attend company meetings out of town.

Goldman’s line of work may sound familiar. California has the largest number of promotional companies in the nation, with more than 1,000 in business. In fact, this type of company is so common that Steve Martin chose to use the idea in his movie, “L.A. Story,” making his oh-so-L.A. girlfriend (played by Marilu Henner) a specialist in gift baskets. She used the word “gifting” as a verb.

But even in a highly competitive field, Goldman is finding herself a niche. She has been in business more than eight years, and expects sales of about $2 million when her current fiscal year ends next March. Her clients include Weight Watchers International, Koll Management Services and the daytime TV drama “The Young and The Restless.”

Goldman ingeniously solved a problem that is troubling many service businesses in this recession, and that may be a key to her success. A year ago, she found that much of her business was tied up in industries that were struggling: 30% with computer companies and 10% with real estate developers.

One solution Goldman found was to retain the sales services of a woman who had worked for CBS. She is now seeking out broadcast clients for Goldman.

Also in an effort to broaden the company’s client base, Goldman and her six salespeople, who work as independent contractors, are trying to take the chill off cold calls. They are sending toy helicopters--which actually fly for several seconds--to the chief executives of the companies they want to work with.

The helicopters arrive with a note saying Goldman or one of her salespeople will be calling in two or three days to request the names of people who handle promotional spending, service awards or client recognition programs for the company.

“Most of the time we do not speak directly to the CEO,” Goldman said. “We speak to the secretary, and she says, ‘Yeah, he’s in there playing with it now.’ ”

With names of the right people in hand, the salesperson then calls saying she (Goldman’s salespeople are all women) was referred by the CEO’s secretary. It gets them an interview 90% of the time, Goldman says.

She also seems to have a knack for knowing what will motivate people.

“What’s going to turn on a truck driver is not going to turn on a broker,” Goldman explained. Truckers, she said, appreciate auto-related gifts, caps, flashlights, pocket protectors.

Brokers like “expensive toys,” such as a pen-size device that beeps when it’s time for the next appointment. And they like recognition items that can be displayed on the desk.

Goldman said she developed her sensitivity to corporate gift giving after spending years as a recipient. Her husband retired three years ago as vice president and resident manager of Merrill Lynch’s Newport Beach office.

An example of an inappropriate gift was a fruit basket they received in their hotel room on one trip to Kentucky, she said. They were never in the room long enough to eat the fruit, and they couldn’t carry it onto the plane to take home.

Goldman began her business when her husband asked her to recommend gifts that would work as sales incentives in his office. She chose luggage. Soon after he retired, he joined her in business, and now handles the office administration for the company.

Goldman said she sometimes wishes she had begun her career as an entrepreneur earlier in life, but she has done the next best thing and passed her wisdom on to her two daughters. One is a psychologist, the other a mortgage banker.

“I could have had an empire if I started when I was young,” she said. “I encourage my daughters to do their own thing, to have an achievement of their own.”