skucast

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...

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.

Emma Ralphs is a strategist and copywriter at Butterfly Cannon, an independent, award-winning, sustainably-focused brand design agency, headquartered in London, specializing in aspirational brands across the world. Emma wrote an article, “From Tacky to Trendsetting: How to Create Covetable Brand Merch,” based on her research experience and work done for the exceptional Johnnie Walker merch campaig...

From protest merch to campaign merch to bands and brands, branded merch has become what one author calls a social signifier: From Tim Horton’s shop to UPS merch to Biden’s Dark Brandon mug and more. Plus, how branded merch is the perfect medium for what some are calling the Joyconomy.

Tune into today’s skucast as Joey shares his best tips from "Never Lose an Employee Again" and in January at skucon, he’ll be sharing some useful insights!

Today we talk with Steve about sales leadership, technology, and SanMar’s recognition by the Wall Street Journal as one of 2022’s best-managed companies alongside companies like Apple and Microsoft!

Brett Boake, whom many of you know, is the General Manager at Score Promotions, a team of over 50 dedicated promo professionals in the US and Canada. Brett is one of the industry’s most inspirational sales leaders, which is why it’s no surprise that this year Brett and the leadership team at Score Promotions, hired an in-house Performance Coach & Therapist, Yonah Budd.

Today, we chat with Craig about this astonishing growth, covering topics ranging from their new e-commerce academy, to tips on integrating new DCX employees with your team, the incredible cultural exchange happening between American and Filipino employees, plus, the new DCX + commonsku collab!

Today, Kirby and Bill join us on our show and next week Mark Graham and I will be joining Bill and Kirby on their show in a fun little crossover project, but for this episode, we wanted to get inside the head of these two leading industry thinkers to talk about the most innovative trends they are changing this industry for the better.

A sustainable idea factory, that’s the vision of a Quebec-based company called Kotmo. Founded by Céline Juppeau and her business partner Cindy Couture, Kotmo is now selling their vision into the US Market.

Frontier, based in Charlotte, NC is a private equity growth firm with $1 billion in active funds focused exclusively on software. Frontier Growth was listed on Inc Magazine’s inaugural list of “The 50 Best Private Equity Firms for Entrepreneurs,” a list of founder-friendly private equity firms. Join us as we chat with commonsku co-founders Mark and Catherine Graham about this chapter in the common...

“Making business a force for good,” that’s the purpose behind B Corp. And when our good friends Danny Rosin and Robert Fiveash, through their company Brand Fuel became B Corp certified, it’s as if they opened a door for our industry in a way that wasn’t quite possible.

Mike is moving out of his role as Production Manager and into a new role as Program and Fulfillment Manager for Paperclip, so during our chat, we wanted to know not only what his experience was like in the production role but how he’s training his replacement, plus, his advice on how to do this production job well and what it involves.

Paul Roetzer is founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute, and founder of Ready North (formerly PR 20/20), HubSpot’s first partner agency. He is the author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence (published last year)  The Marketing Performance Blueprint,  and The Marketing Agency Blueprint (Wiley, 2012); and he’s the creator of the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON). Paul’s mission is to make AI appro...

Dale Denham joined PPAI as president and CEO in 2021, leading the rebound of the industry’s largest trade association following its 50% loss of revenue and staff due to COVID restrictions. Dale has guided the organization, now growing once again, through an explosion of industry initiatives, driving digital transformation and corporate social responsibility while also raising awareness of the powe...

Andrea Stoll is a brand fanatic. A graduate from one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, Babson, with an MBA in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial studies… she’s a veteran of brand experience through her work with some of the greatest brands in the world, including Nike, Vans, Reebok, and Converse — and today, she advises clients and serves as director of brand engagement for...

We recently hosted a company retreat, but “retreat” is not the right word; it was a combination of competition, collaborative brainstorming, a values-building, peer-to-peer gathering experience  …. We learned a lot. About how to bring your team together in a way that fosters ingenuity, about how to spark the most progressive ideas to help our customers, and it included our own hackathon, values ex...

Mike Paton has spent a lifetime learning from entrepreneurs. He’s an author, speaker, EOS Implementer, and host of The EOS Leader Podcast.

Three friends are laid off from their jobs around the same time, and one thing they have in common is a love for all things outdoors, including surfing. They decide to start, of all things, a beach towel company. After a scrappy and humble start investing their last dollars in the business, fast forward a few years, and the company born as Slowtide is now partnering with famous bands like the Wu-T...

Our good friend Seth Godin released a new book today, May 30th, and in concert with his new book, Seth joined us to pre-record today’s conversation so that we could publish it simultaneously when the book dropped, the book is called, The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams and it’s a management book for a new era.

Eric Liedtke was responsible for ushering in some of the most famous collabs ever produced such as Kanye West’s Yeezy and Beyonce’s Ivy Park. And now, Erik has stepped away from all that and started a fascinating brand called Unless Collective. Unless makes plant-based streetwear designed to leave zero plastic waste.