Small Business Interview with Caitlin Corkill of Paq-Source Packaging and Logistics – Small Business Show #163

The Small business show, episode 163 for Wednesday, March 21, 2018. Greetings, folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show by, for and about small business owners here. Back in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. Back from south by Southwest.

Yes, back from south by Southwest. I have actually some great stories. I learned a very valuable negotiation lesson accidentally. But I can't tell you today because that's not what we're doing here today.

You got it?

That's right.

We didn't talk about another topic, but we'll come back to that. That's for sure. We will, for sure. Yeah. Hey, so we always talk about on the show, you know, your financials, your P and L and looking for that where you leak out a lot of your profit. And in my experience, one of the areas you can really get killed on if you ship products out of your, you know, facility or have somebody ship it for you is that packaging and your logistics. So those kind of those partners are really important. So I'm really happy here to, to have one of the founder of Pac Source with us today. Caitlin Corkill and Kaitlin, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Super excited to be here.

Yeah. So Caitlin's the founder of PacSource. These folks, they provide packaging and equipment as well as logistics consultants to help you manage your shipping, your packaging and your warehousing. Let's get things started. Talk a little bit about the history of your business, Caitlin, and how you got started and what's your story?

Yeah, absolutely. So I should start by saying I am the founder of Pac Source in Austin.

Oh, cool.

So how I got started is I sold packaging for a company called Pack Source in Denver. I was born and raised there. He was actually the owner was a family friend of my parents. I had been in sales a long time, hated what I was doing and finally just agreed to come work for him and worked for him for just shy of a year. And my husband got a job offer in Austin and decided what the heck, so we took it. I gave my 8 month notice or something along those lines. Yeah, as an employee, I love my customers. So I wanted to hand it off the right way, you know.

Sure.

But about two months before I left, the owner at the time asked if I wanted to open a branch. So I thought that there was some grand plan. I got here and there wasn't much of a plan at all. We didn't have any customers, any vendors really. He Just wanted me to kind of figure it out. So I did. We started. I started making sales calls. We were doing some of the shipping out of Denver, realized very quickly that wasn't going to work. So just really started to cultivate vendor relationships as I was making sales. Did a lot of the deliveries, all of the deliveries myself for the first year. And just being in a small city, number one amidst large cities like Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, Austin was fairly overlooked. So it was great for me. Anybody and everybody, they were overlooked all the time.

Overlooked. Some of the. Some of the bigger suppliers.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. No one was coming in here, so, you know, basically people were having to figure it out themselves. So everyone was really, really welcoming to letting me come in and learn about their business and give them ideas and suggestions. So it was awesome. And so that was 11 years ago, and I was. We've grown and grown, and I was so lucky. Recently, I actually ended up buying out the Denver office last July from the previous owners. So kind of coming. Taking it full circle, and we had separated previously and now kind of bringing both of those offices together again.

Wow, that's.

That's a great success story. Yeah, that's really cool.

All right, so I want to. Now, I'm curious as we, you know, knowing that you've brought these two offices together, like you're a business of providing efficiencies for other businesses, but by bringing those offices together, you've probably found some efficiencies for yourself in consolidating at some things between the two offices. Is that right?

Yeah, we're. We're working through those, you know. Well, so the interesting thing was this office was in Austin, was built from someone who really didn't know what she was doing. I was just in sales, and that other office had been established for a very long time, and. And so we have found a lot of efficiencies.

It's.

It's been an interesting transition to learn to rely on one another because we were. We did operate very functionally different, even though we do the same thing. But now that it's been a few months, we're really starting to find our groove, and it's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's cool.

Interesting. So you find. Yeah. Reliability inside efficiency. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that's. That I really, just. Till you said it a few minutes ago, I didn't think. I didn't think about it very much. But part of your job is really learning, like you said, about all these other businesses because, you know, if you're going to service them and understand what their needs are, you really have to know what they're doing. So, I mean, I'm sure it's pretty fascinating when you walk into these businesses and listen to their story too.

It is, it's literally my favorite part of the job. It's what is. It's just so addicting. No day is the same, no company is the same. I feel so blessed to be able to. I mean, you learn so much about business just by being on a sales call. It's. It's my favorite part of my job, without a doubt.

Yeah, that's great. I used to tell, you know, I've been in the mail order business one way or another for 25 plus years. And you know, my. One of my lines is your box is really your. Your salesperson because in many ways it's the first physical manifestation of your relationship with the customer. And, you know, having a good partner like yourself that can guide you and advise you on how you're going to make that presentation is. Is really important. Very, very important.

It is. And most people think of it as just a box. I mean, you know, all by itself, it's. It's nothing special, but it represents so much and there's so much behind it.

Yeah, for sure. So what surprises you the most when you go into, you know, a small business? Are there things that kind of reoccurring, things that you're surprised about, related to their packaging and logistics needs?

You know, I'm basically never surprised because there's so much to see. But I guess that's one of the things that is a common theme, is that because it's just a box, because it's just bubble wrap, it doesn't seem very special. And so it's neglected quite a bit. And a lot of people are focused, if they're focused on those numbers, they're focused on the material itself, not the amount of effort that goes forth into actually getting that pack packed. And so that's something that I think we are able to surprise our clients quite a bit in them, seeing how much cost is unassumed until you really dig into how long and how many people and how many times it's touched.

Yeah, that makes total sense. That's great. It's. It's critically important, but often overlooked. And especially we talk a lot about on the show, you know, not focusing just on price, but especially with what could be considered a commodity item. Everybody's like, well, I need to get the Cheapest box I can get, the cheapest whatever.

But Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It's like toner. It's like, you know, it's nothing important. People don't think it's any, it's nothing that anyone is putting on the, the forefront generally speaking. The people who are in charge of it, this is a side job for them. This is not their, the main focus. But when you're out of it and you can't print because you're out of toner, or you can't ship because you're out of a box, it's a big deal.

Well, and extending that, you know, you can buy crappy toner and it seems like it's going to work right up until the time that, you know, you go print a 30 page document that you need and suddenly it's full of streaks and it's just crap, you know, so.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Can't rely on it.

No, you can't rely on it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you come to us today on the Small Business show as a referral from another guest that we had, Kyle Backus from Casey Tool. How important are customer referrals to your business now?

They're the lifeline of our business, believe it or not. I know it's not 1995, but we literally just launched our website for the first time in the last 30 days or so. It was just. Yeah, we've always done business face to face, business to business. And I mean, we've been very fortunate enough that we were given enough opportunities from referrals to keep us busy enough to not really worry much about a website. It just became kind of a running joke after a while too.

Yeah, well, like I would, I would say the same kind of thing. Most of my packaging relationships, the better ones have always been on the phone or somebody coming by our building and, you know, working with us.

Yeah. And it's, you know, again, that experience, the things that people don't know until they've actually experienced someone who can, who can be there for them and support them and help them make good decisions. They're not just looking on a website or looking in a catalog making some assumption of what they think is right. Someone's giving them clear advice and understanding what their needs are and fulfilling them.

Yeah. So let's talk about that for a minute. The first thing, the first thing you see up at on your website at PAC and it's PAQ source.com is the tagline no catalog, just solutions. And I can tell you from someone who's Spent a lot of time getting inundated with packaging, catalogs, many, many, many from the same companies over and over again. What are you trying to achieve with that message to your customers?

Again, I think that generally speaking, someone's looking at a catalog because they don't know what they need. They're trying to understand or find some picture or some description that somewhat resonates so that they think they're making a good decision. We want to take all of that away from it. We don't want anyone worrying about their packaging. We want, rather than taking the time thumbing through a catalog for you to allow us to come into your business, understand your business, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and then help you make good decisions, make them for you. Take the worry out of it. Take the guesswork out of it. We're the experts. You are an expert in something else. Don't worry about it. We'll help you along this journey.

Yeah, that's great. I love that. And it also gets you away from. I'll use this term lightly, but you know, the bottom feeders that are just focused on price, that you don't want to waste your time.

Absolutely.

Anyway, you know, if they're not going to value what you're bringing, you know, if the first comment is about price, I just tell our salespeople that's probably not your customer. And I would imagine it'd be the same for.

Yeah, it's been great for us as a staff because it's really easy to fall into that trap, you know, and new salespeople come aboard. They're like, oh, we're just like this and this. And we're just like this company. I'm like, no, we sell the same products, we sell commodities, but we are not to be commoditized. We have a lot of value. And it's easy if you talk to some of our customers to see that it's not about what we sell, it's how we go about doing it.

I love that line.

We sell commodities, but we are not to be commoditized. I like, that's really good.

That one's free. The next one's going to cost you.

We're going to mention that we're going to be building that for like the next year. Remember that term. What was that? What was that comment? That's great because, you know, there's just so in the world we live in, so much of it is just price driven. And everyone thinks, oh, that's where I need to be. But you know, you have a few bad experiences and you realize, wow, you know, I need to get quality, you know, support or the product or whatever it is. So that's really cool.

Yeah. And that's where we really shine, is that we always make it right. You know, again, it's. It's not what we sell. That's super special. It's tape, it's bubble wrap, it's boxes, it's. It's not anything fancy. But when someone's down, we. We make it happen on a weekend. You know, if someone doesn't know what they're doing or has an issue with equipment, we'll send someone down there right away. Again, it's all about that support from the sale on.

That's great. And are you typically, you know, working with smaller businesses or you have large, you know, corporate customers as well? Where's your sweet spot?

We have. So I say our sweet spot isn't necessarily in the size of the company, but where they're at as a company. Growing companies are bread and butter. That's where we shine. Because they're in uncomfortable waters. So they don't, you know, when a company is either large or small, but they've been doing it the same way and they're not making a lot of change. They know it. They've nailed it. Even some of our customers, when they haven't made a lot of changes, we helped them get where they are and we keep them there. But we aren't as much of a need anymore. So the companies where we thrive are the companies that are growing.

I see. That makes sense. And do you have. Let's talk about how you market at your company for a little bit. You have a sales staff that's out there calling, trying to open new accounts, or. I know your website just went live, so you know what. But talk about that. What's the marketing that's worked the best for you guys?

Well, you know, again, because we didn't have a whole lot of, like, traditional marketing, I would say, like our service and our responsiveness and the way you answer a phone, how quickly you get to an email and how quickly we are to respond to issues was our marketing in the past. But now with the acquisition of Denver, we're growing. I really want to scale the business and make some big changes. So trying to be informative and we've hired a consulting group to help us a little bit more with our communication and spreading the word. Getting good information out to our customers, even if we can't individually do it, is our main Focus right now.

That's great. That's good. So is your business fairly localized in that Austin, Denver area, or are you servicing other folks and sourcing product for them, you know, in their areas? How does that work, especially with such big stuff that you're often, you know, shipping out?

Yeah, so generally speaking, I would say that we're local. So in the Austin office, we focus on central Texas, and Denver is the whole Front Range area. However, like Kyle, I mean, he's in Kansas City. We do a fair amount of business in other states, but again, it's really about how the customer is receiving us. And if they let us in, let us truly become a part of their business, that's really where we can help them, regardless of where they're at.

Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about the business again a little more. Everyone measures success differently. Cash is king. We talk about a lot here. Profits. Very easy to measure that success. But how do you measure it? What's the yardstick that you come up with that maybe beyond that cash that drives you and your. And your team every day?

So I, being a salesperson, I always thought, like, making money was easy. It was making it worth something. That was kind of the fun of running a business. And so, of course, the tenure of our staff and the way that they're taking care of each other. We've recently implemented a new system to kind of do some checks and balances. We have an acronym called cares Customer Centric, Adaptable, responsive experts, and solid. And we kind of use that to measure each other, ourselves, the team as a whole. Just kind of to check ourselves, to make sure that we're standing true to what we find important as a team.

Now. That's great. That sounds really cool. Let's talk about the 10 PAC commandments that you've got on your website. I really like that. When I was looking around, Tell me what that means to you as the founder of Austin and now running the whole show out there, as well as what it means to your team.

Yeah, so we listen to a lot of gangster rap in our office. So the 10 pack commandments are a tribute to Biggie Smalls, May I rest in peace. But it's something we took a lot of months together as a whole team to put together. And again, just focusing on what's important to us, what we are doing, and it's been a great gauge for the staff to empower them to check themselves if they don't know exactly how to make a decision, and no one's there. To answer it, they can go back to that and say, okay, am I violating the 10 pack commandments or am I following them? It's how we talk to our vendors. It's how we work with our vendors, our customers, and each other. And we really check each other on that and we talk about it regularly to make sure that we're truly saying, walking the walk and talking the talk.

Yeah, that's cool. That's fantastic. All right, so let's all. Yeah, it's all awesome and everything, but now we've got to dig in, find out, you know, let's talk about mistakes and screw ups. Since I'm so good at them, I always like to drag our guests into it too, you know, and we all learn so much when we make these mistakes. Give us your horror story or your best mistake where you really learn something, you know, after it happened.

Does going into business for yourself count?

Well, I guess that that's the best.

Answer we've ever had to that question.

Yeah, that's pretty good. It's pretty good.

Yeah. Because there have been days. There have been days where certainly all three of us here have answered that question that way. Yep.

Yeah.

No looking at the pack commandments, I don't see anything about that. Never do this.

That's right.

If anyone has made a career out of mistakes, it's me. But one that sticks out in my head. I got divorced a couple years ago, and in that whole process, I was just feeling a little bit lost. And I thought that I wanted to not run my own business. I thought I wanted to get out. So I made the very expensive mistake of hiring an M and A company and started to go down that path with them and actually didn't get very far with them, but was approached by a couple of competitors in that. That timeframe and went down a path with them. Started to. I went into their businesses and really started looking at it. I just realized how none of it felt right. And I just felt. I just realized what a special with this team that was just amazing people that cared so much. And I realized I just needed to be reminded of how. How cool it was and what a community we had built. And it just taught me, you know, just how. How cool it can be to do these sorts of things. And that's what inspired me to end up buying the Denver office. Actually.

That's pretty cool. Y.

That is good.

I can. I can totally see that. Where you, you know, you get. Well, you know, you start believing all the time, not just some of the times that starting A business or getting into business was a mistake, and, oh, if only I could get out, like, I could be rid of all these headaches. And it's. Especially in those moments, it's really easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of this is really enjoyable. And, like, they're good, like you said, they're good people that you. That you work with every day. But also, you know, you have this flexibility that that comes with being a business owner in it. You know, that's sort of the flip side to all the crap that you have to deal with. So, yeah, I can totally see where heading down that path makes it all very real without it being yet real and could completely flip that switch. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, it was. You know, it's just, you realize it's a community that you have not just a business.

Right.

Value your people that you get to be with every day and what you've created from something. Right. Because like we talked about, you know, a few minutes ago, the money. And I commend your comment that, you know, making money is easy. I've really always felt that as well. But building something is difficult. Whether it's you're trying to build wealth or whether you're trying to build your team or a family, whatever it is, that's the hard part. And ultimately, in the long run, the far more rewarding piece of the puzzle, you know, if you will.

Absolutely.

Yeah. That's cool. And, you know, our kind of, you know, our demographic here or our listeners that we always kind of talk about would be the person sitting there going through just that kind of thing. We're saying, God, man, you know, I'm just done. I don't know where to turn and all that stuff. So sharing those stories is, you know, it's fantastic. So looking back, because I know you and you can't answer this as well, I wouldn't have started it. But looking back, when you first got started, if you could give yourself some advice, if you could mentor to yourself, if you will, what piece of advice would you tell yourself as you were getting started 11 years ago?

Go process, process, process, process.

Talk about that a little more.

Yeah. So again, I was a salesperson, and I always went under the mentality that I break rules, I don't make rules. I like to kind of think on my feet. And that was great for gaining business, but it was horrible for retaining good people. And I made life so much harder on the people early on that that were working for us and for myself. Because we didn't document process and make process around everything that we do.

Would you consider yourself a real, like a salesperson, a top line person where you're just thinking, well if I can just make that extra sale, that's going to solve all these problems?

No, no, I just really didn't, I didn't. I hate thinking about the critical ways it happens and making it and assimilating it every time way of doing things was really the thing. I thought it was okay for there to be a lot of gray early on and it just made it a lot harder for the supporting team.

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I could see how, you know, rushing through and not, you know, working on that. What kind of, when you first got started, I mean, were you get everything going and talking about process, were you, do you have a good accounting package in place and documenting all that kind of stuff? Were you doing that or was that, we get that comment a lot too. We've lived that comment.

Yeah, you know, it was simple. We worked out of QuickBooks, which in itself is kind of hard. It's not a distribution software and it really wasn't until my staff, I had great people and they just kept saying, Caitlin, like you gotta have a way to do it. And I started listening to them and that's what kind of started the whole building real process around the things that we do every day. The team did it, not me.

Yeah. Out of necessity. But you know, I commend you for, for giving them the power to do that. Right. And to, to build those things. I, I, I know where you're coming from. I share some of those similar.

I nail it into everybody because I see the value of it and it's, it's a big part of what we do. Especially you know, with taking on two offices. We're trying to, you know, meld everyone together. It's, you know, re evaluating those processes. I see the importance of it now, but early on I, I just couldn't, couldn't even fathom it.

Oh yeah. I guess having multiple offices that in theory should be holding the same standard of quality. You know, protecting the brand, promoting the brand the same way. It makes this, makes this more obviously important. Although it seems like you, you learned this lesson before this happened, which is probably a really good thing.

So.

Yeah. Yes. Thank goodness.

Yeah, thank goodness.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So you're splitting your time up now. You, you spend some time in Austin, time in Denver.

Yeah, yeah. You, some days it's exhausting, but I feel so lucky I get to live in like the two coolest cities in the, in the country, as far as I'm concerned. I love both for such different reasons.

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, they are two cities in which I employ people, but I don't live anymore, so there you go. Yeah, they're good cities.

Ideally, when I really get things, you know, perfected, then I can spend my summers in the one and my winters in the other. Summers in Austin are still pretty brutal.

Yeah, that's never going to change.

Changed.

That's right.

Yeah. That's great. Well, you know, it's a great story. I love coming full circle, you know, leaving the startup and then coming back and, you know, buying the, you know, the company altogether. It's. It's awesome. And we really appreciate you sharing that story with us and, you know, tell our listeners the best way to learn about your business and connect with you. How can they reach you?

Well, of course now you can go to our website finally. But really we want to, we would love to come to your business. We would love to be a part of it and see what you're doing, see how we could potentially help improve you so you can contact us. The website has the phone numbers, but we really want to come see you.

That's great. I like that. That really makes sense. Well, it's a great story, like I said, and we appreciate you having here today. Dave, you have any more questions for Caitlin?

I don't know. Thank you so much for joining us. This is, I mean, like, you have had some of the best one liners and don't worry, we'll put them in the show notes so they're crystallized in.

A couple of weeks. So it's going to be coming right from us.

So. Oh, yeah, these are our ideas in a couple of weeks. That's right. Doors bill will be in the mail.

Yeah, exactly. That's great.

Thanks, guys.

This has been awesome. You bet.

Yeah. Yeah. Folks, well, you can find, you can find PAC source@paq source.com and of course you can find us at businessshow co. You can also find us on Facebook if you go to businessshow Co. Facebook, anything, any lasting advice to share, Shannon?

Hey, keep living that charm life, folks. That's it.

We'll see you next week.