skucast

Mark Graham and Bobby Lehew had the privilege of visiting with Pierre Martichoux, Founder and CEO of Chameleon Like, and his team in their Gilroy, CA factory headquarters just 20 miles south of Silicon Valley. Join them for a thought-provoking conversation on how to blend art and commerce into a thriving enterprise that keeps you young-at-heart!

Welcome to a new series designed to uncover the personalities of the industry's most prominent and successful supplier marketers and to explore the role that marketing plays in bringing promotional products to the market.

Brandon Brown began his career with Snugz USA ten years ago, working in the marketing department from the ground up, building what would eventually become one of the most imaginative and hard-working creative teams in the entire industry.

Russ Mogell is the founder of Seven Sourcing, a factory-direct import company that assists promotional product distributors with the development, manufacture, and importation of custom, branded merchandise for leading brands including Pepsi, Budweiser, Verizon, Disney & the NFL.

Before Seven Sourcing, Russ was the 3rd generation owner of supplier, Toppers. Sold in 1999, Toppers was the 5th largest supplier in the industry.

Russ has been featured in several leading industry publications highlighting his experience with importing & product safety, including PPB, Counselor & Identity Marketing magazines and was recognized in 2010 as a PPAI Rising Star.

Russ has also served on PPAI’s North American Leadership committee & currently serves as a chef & past mentor chair at Promo Kitchen, a non-profit community, focused on education & mentorship in the promotional products industry.

In this episode, we talk with Russ about some of the keys to success importing projects, including:

- How to move beyond the catalog to make creativity the commodity killer

- The best ways to work with your importers and supplier partners

- What a distributor should be concerned about when importing

- Trends that the leading importers watch to help create experiences through product

- Tips on handling the financing conversation with your customer

- And more!

Join us for a quick and helpful discussion about how to kill commodities with custom, creative imported products!

Sara Webb began her career in the industry as a college student working for Nevins Group.

Fast forward, and in 2013, Sarah opened InTandem Promotions, a creative and vibrant promotional products distributorship located in the Atlanta, GA area.

We talked with Sarah about her entrepreneurial journey as well as lessons learned along the way, including:

-Fast-growth and adapting to change

-Hiring and retaining employees

-Letting go and learning to lead

The most important quality needed to thrive in this business

Join us for an enthusiastic conversation with one of the most positive and encouraging leaders in the business!

Friends since the 4th grade, Craig Dunlap and Kirk Meyer have led their $8 million dollar distributorship through a host of changes, most notably a conscious cut in 30% of their revenues which led eventually to a 30% increase in gross profit. We sat down with Crag and Kirk to explore why and how they decided to narrow their focus on the right kind of client and how they have managed to build a successful company through a strong partnership. We also discussed the values that govern their business and how it affects the way they work, values that are expressed in the acrostic, "Gimme Magic."

Welcome to a new series designed to uncover the personalities of the industry's most prominent and successful supplier marketers and to explore the role that marketing plays in bringing promotional products to the market.

David Clifton (alphabroder) is our first guest in this series on supplier marketing. David's experience spans to not only include a role as former Executive Director of Marketing with Dell Computers, but David also served as the CEO of promotional products distributor, Hotlink.

Our guest today is Bill Petrie, well-known and loved by many, but also, someone who has experienced both the valleys and the mountaintops in a career that spans over 17 years in executive leadership positions in the industry. In 2014, Bill launched brandivate, the first executive outsourcing company solely focused on helping small and medium-sized promotional products enterprises responsibly grow their business. In 2017, brandivate was acquired by PromoCorner where he now serves as President.

Mark Graham (commonsku's Chief Platform Officer) and Bobby Lehew (commonsku's Chief Content Officer) talk about what’s in store for attendees at skucamp this year and we paint a picture of what the experience will be like, live from the Ace Hotel New Orleans.

In this episode, commonsku's Chief Platform Officer, Mark Graham, and Chief Content Officer, Bobby Lehew, explore what the future of B2B e-commerce could look like. They share their failures at trying to build their own e-commerce solutions and walk through what the buyer’s experience could be if we simply challenged our conventional views of e-commerce and re-imagined the buyer’s journey.

In today’s episode, commonsku’s Chief Platform Officer, Mark Graham and Chief Content Officer Bobby Lehew sit down and discuss a shift that has happened in the marketplace over the past ten or fifteen years: the rise of the progressive distributor.