skucast

Debbie Grishman founded Cowdin Collaborative to help leaders get unstuck. Think of Debbie as a Peloton instructor for your career or a fiercely intelligent counselor for your business, she has nothing but your best interests at heart, she’s an intense listener and coach, and she has only one ambition: to help you discover roadblocks and realize a better (or maybe clearer and less confused) version...

Clients are seeking higher quality merchandise experiences as evidenced by some of the most notable distributors seeking the Original Favorites brand, join us to hear why!

The most encouraging part of CEO Summit? To hear how humble beginnings led to incredible growth, humility, challenges, opportunities, and seasons of overcoming and winning.

In today’s episode, we ask Pierre and Camila to break down the process they went through and the impact it has had on the clarity of their mission. Plus, we talk about the difficulty of navigating –as a supplier– between providing transparency as a manufacturer and working through their distributors while creating a memorable brand for both.

More and more distributors are faced with the challenge of serving International clients, sometimes it’s just one project, a client that requires merchandise drop-shipped anywhere in the world. At other times, it’s an RFP opportunity that requires international expertise.

Kate Hallett, CMO at Harper + Scott is one of my all-time favorite guests because she is a) brilliant b) she doesn’t hold back, she’s very forthcoming about her experiences and c) has expertise as a client, a journalist, and a distributor/agency.

Brian Duran has been an essential part of Media Tree’s growth and success over the past decade. You’ll soon see he’s a logistical strategist and is constantly thinking about how to drive innovation through tech in digital promotions and rewards.  Brian is a leader in the digital reward space, a category that has become increasingly popular in a post-COVID world.

If you are struggling with any of these: getting the most out of your day, prioritizing the important things, planning, even just feeling lost in the volatility of change in business — have we got a refreshing episode for you.

This year, many distributors are in the process of rethinking their brand strategy and their visual identity, including, of course, their digital presence, and whether you are doing this or not, there are some big changes coming with Google Analytics on July 1 that everyone needs to act on now, which is why we invited our in-house expert on Digital Marketing, Luke Williams, to the skucast to talk...

Ethan Dowie is the customer-obsessed CEO of Indigo Promotions, a top branded merchandise distributorship located in New York. Ethan’s 25 years old, with a passion for building businesses, his goal is to create the most innovative and successful distributorship in the world, one that puts the needs of its clients first.

About two weeks ago, the largest gathering of technologists in the promotional products industry happened at PromoStandards Tech Summit. Over 150 attendees from over 60 companies gathered together at the premier tech event, and today on the skucast, we’re sharing with you a glimpse behind the scenes at Tech Summit, which includes a panel led by commonsku’s CEO Catherine Graham and also, a brief br...

Today, we talk with Liane all about conflict: how to do it right, how to channel it for good, how to not let conflict become a debt snowball, and how to flip the fight for good!

Sterling Wilson is the founder and President of Pop! Promos and somewhat of a polymath with deep expertise in the supply chain which also gives him a very unique perspective on US-China relations at the moment and its potential ramifications for our industry.

With more than twenty years of experience in the apparel industry's retail, wholesale, and manufacturing sectors, Jerry Wheeler brings a unique perspective to the business. In 2008 he founded EcoCentric Brands, a sustainability consultancy built on the premise of an integrated bottom line that equally values human, natural, and financial capital.

Today, we will identify four essentials missing from your plan. Join us for our next installment in this series, where we’ll unpack the first one: strategy. We’ll bring you interviews, stories, and lessons from the trenches, from those who have learned to rise above and jump light years ahead.

Tom’s an ultra runner, someone who runs 50, 100 mile races for the challenge of it. Tom is the founder and CEO of 1-800-TSHIRTS and Envision Custom Screen Printing and Embroidery, an Inc. 5000 company. Tom is also the co-founder of Dimensional Brewing Company, a micro-brewery in Dubuque, Iowa,s and he has served on many notable boards and non-profits including a foundation Tom and his wife Amanda...

In January, we traveled to Las Vegas to host skucon and early the next morning, Rob Spector, President of Spector and Co, treated us to a tour of the new facility. But this episode isn’t just about a factory tour. Part of our team: Mark Graham and Dave Shultz and I, joined Rob and his VP of Manufacturing, Juan Martinez to view the progress and also, understand how a Montreal-based company consider...

In today’s episode of the skucast, we’re bringing you a live session recorded at skucon 2023, “CRO Secrets to Driving Sales Success.” Our panel is hosted by Catherine Graham, commonsku’s CEO, and our guests are Trina Bicknell, CRO of HPG; Sam Kates, Chief Sales Officer for Spector and Co.; and Holly Brown, Chief Revenue Officer at Polyconcept.

In today’s episode of the skucast, we’re bringing you a live session from skucon 2023, recorded just this past Sunday, and it’s called The Tipping Point: In three, brief 10 min interviews, we’ll talk with three distributors who have each experienced a turning point in their business, we’ll uncover the challenges they faced, the obstacles they overcame, and the tipping point that led to their growt...

Tom Rector (Founder and CEO) and his team at ScreenBroidery grew over 143% from 2021 to 2022, and along the way, they created a pretty special experience: A Shark Tank Experience bringing together clients and suppliers. Today, we talk with Tom about their phenomenal growth, his advice for entrepreneurs during uncertain economic times, and a little something he calls, “Storytelling Land.” Join us!

Today’s episode is all about AI and, more specifically, the phenomenon of chatGPT. Are new emerging technologies like chatGPT threats or opportunities? Will deep learning tools replace consultative salespeople in the promotional products industry? Will tools like chatGPT disrupt traditional search methods like ESP and Sage? Join us as we explore the future of AI and chatGPT for promo!

Whether you are a team that is in-person and at the office 100% of the time or whether you are a hybrid team or completely virtual, we are all figuring it out: trying to find the best way forward to work on strategy together while maintaining a strong culture

The supplier of the future is working –right now– to create this very catalyst for growth. And we’re not talking to the wonderful technologists who are behind the scenes making these changes possible, we’re talking with the front line sales team who sees this change as the new leverage for sales growth.

And we can think of no better way to celebrate our 250th episode than by inviting commonsku cofounders Mark Graham and Catherine Graham on today’s episode to talk about the major trends driving and shaping the future of our industry and the sometimes small-scale and quiet changes happening beneath the surface that will become seismic disruptors in the immediate future and over the next 2-3 years.

Jeremy Parker began in the business just like many of you did: hoofing it, old-school style, knocking on doors, cold calling customers, and landing business. Today, we talk about how swag.com has soared from $300k in sales to nearly $40 million in a span of seven years and how an award-winning documentarian became the co-founder of swag.com