In our industry, distributors, and suppliers also have two distinct types of growth, and both are a requisite for future-proofing a thriving business. And since Q4 is well underway, many of us are beginning to think about 2025 business planning and benchmarking, we wanted to share a few ideas from our numerous interviews with leaders on how to create benchmarks for both type 1 and type 2 growth.

David Priemer has had 20 years leading top-performing sales teams, including his tenure with Salesforce, where he was not only the Vice President of Commercial Sales, he was the creator of the Sales Leadership Academy program, and he’s often referred to as “the sales professor”.

PromoCares is an all-volunteer-driven organization; their mission is to inspire, educate, and provide actionable strategies to encourage social and environmental responsibility in the promotional products industry and the industry's communities. Each year, the board at PromoCares picks a new initiative called their “4 good events” to rally the industry around a cause and use the collective energy of suppliers, distributors and service providers to make an impact on the world.

Today, we’re talking mergers. KG Specialties is a Portland-based distributor who, this year, merged with Premier Press. Premier employs over 200 people, and they handle a wide variety of print, fulfillment, and logistics management for clients. Our guests are Kyle Gibson, the owner of KG Specialties and now Director of Promotional Merchandise at Premier, and Premier’s Vice President, Manuel Saez.

Sam Brown is one of the very few marketing strategists whose expertise is solely in the promotional products business. Sam has been the chief marketing strategist at some of the most notable brands in the industry including Summit Group and Brandvia.

Today, we are talking with Neil about two fundamental priorities for Polyconcept: sustainability and how deeply sustainability permeates all of their decisions at PCNA, and technology through the lens of making distributors’ lives easier.

Stephen Musgrave is the Executive Vice President at Genumark, the largest Canadian-owned distributor and one of the largest in North America. Genumark has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies, is a 13-time Prix Image Award recipient, and was honored as one of Counselor Magazine’s Best Places to Work. With its 42,000-square-foot sales and distribution facility and over 100 full-time employees, Genumark serves over 2500 active accounts.

Liz got her start as the production manager at RightSleeve, then became the director of supply chain for Rightsleeve and eventually, the VP of Supply Chain and sustainability for Genumark, one of the largest distributors in North America and managing a team of 16 people focused on optimizing supply chain diversification and sustainability to drive growth.

Today on the skucast, we’re joined by Kirby Hasseman, whom some of you know as the CEO of Hasseman Marketing & Communications, a full service marketing company and promo distributor.

This year, a renewed focus on operations, sourcing, and technology has emerged for suppliers. At skucamp in Austin, Texas, we held an interview on stage with three of the industry’s largest supplier leaders: Neil Ringle, CEO at PCNA, Dan Pantano, President and CEO at alphabroder prime, and CJ Schmidt, President and CEO at Hit Promotional Products.