In this podcast episode, Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Commonsku, introduces a recently popular blog article that recaps the company’s inaugural CEO Summit held in Toronto. The summit gathered over 20 senior executives from leading promotional product distributors to share best practices across growth stages, team structures, HR, compensation, technology, and culture. The episode outlines three recent initiatives at Commonsku—hiring a new VP of Product Management, launching a virtual customer‑to‑customer event, and expanding the community portal. The core of the episode is a detailed rundown of the 16 trends and ideas that emerged from the summit, ranging from team‑selling pod models, vertical specialization, and hiring upper‑management to AI adoption, 4‑day workweeks, and EBITDA benchmarks. Throughout, LeHew highlights quotes from participants, emphasizes the collaborative spirit of the summit, and points listeners to resources such as the community site, podcast archive, e‑books, and the new "Backpack" newsletter.
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Hey friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Commonsku, back with another article. Now, if you're a regular listener, you'll know that occasionally we'll read an article from our blog that is popular with readers, and this particular article has seen a lot of traction over the past few days. But let me give you some quick background on it. Now, we're always looking for new ways to learn from our customers, to hear your feedback, and to spend as much time building Commonsku to be the very best software product for your business. In that listening spirit, we've done a few things lately that allow us to be better listeners. 3 things. First, we hired a new VP of Product Management, Charlie Moscow, to our executive team. A big part of Charlie's role is to be in front of our customers listening to what we do well and where we can improve. You'll hear more from Charlie in a future episode. Second, we realized that one of the best ways to grow your knowledge on Commonsku is to connect with other distributor customers on the platform. To this end, we are introducing a virtual event where customers can come together in small groups to share CommensCube best practices with each other. So stay tuned for more on that in the future. And third, we just hosted our very first CEO Summit at the beautiful Bisha Hotel in downtown Toronto with over 20 top executives from some of the largest distributorships in the industry gathering to connect and share best practices on all kinds of topics ranging from AI to sales incentives, compensation, team structure, HR and culture, and more. Today's article features 16 inspiring ideas and bold trends from the CEO Summit. And speaking of articles, Ksenia, Lucia, and Kate from the Kominsky Marketing team recently updated our blog, our community page with all kinds of great features. You can now easily search our backlog of articles. So for example, if you're looking for an article on sales compensation, you can now do so. And you could also see our latest posts featuring trends or our catalog of over 250 podcast episodes or our eBooks. And you can sign up for our new newsletter called The Backpack. All that and more at community.commonsq.com. Today's article is brought to you by CommonsQ, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commonsq.com. Now here's the article, 16 Inspiring Ideas and Bold Trends from CommonsQ's First CEO Summit. "The evolution of growth in a distributor's journey has 3 crucial inflection points," said Joe Sommer with Whitestone Branding. "Getting to $3 million is one, then growing from $3 million to $10 million is another, and then growing from $10 million to the $40+ million stage. At each stage, the CEO needs to evolve." These words from CommsQ's first CEO Summit, held at the beautiful Bisha Hotel in downtown Toronto, encapsulated the mission of the event. Over 20 top executives from some of the largest distributorships in the industry gathered to connect and share best practices on topics ranging from AI to sales incentives and compensation, team structure, HR and culture, and more. One thing they had in common: they each use Commonsku to power their business. But as each CEO began to share more of their story, the similarities began to fade. What emerged was a commonality in challenges and opportunities, but also very distinct approaches to how they structure their teams, how they go to market, and how they envision their future. The CEO Summit included two hosted dinners as well as a full day of topic-by-topic peer learning. And the event kicked off with Aaron Couturier, Commscue's VP of Customer Success, sharing how leaders make the most out of Commscue, and a mid-morning session introducing Charlie Moskow, Commscue's Vice President of Product Development, who demonstrated how we prioritize client-led platform development as well as a glimpse into the current and future roadmap. Mark Graham, Commscue's President and Chief Brand Officer, said, our objective with CEO Summit was to bring together a group of Commscue customers who are all about the same size in teams and revenue to accomplish 3 things: to create a full day of collaboration and best practice sharing, to give our executive team a chance to listen and learn from their unique challenges, and to share our development work in progress, including a glimpse at future ideas that would create even more efficiency and growth. From the full day's agenda of peer-led discussions, here are 16 top trends, tips, and resources that shape some of the most progressive distributors today. Number 1: From traditional reps to team selling model. Team selling is the norm, or what Caleb Gilbertson with Imprint Engine calls a pod structure for teams. Team selling is not only a great solution for clients, but also for employees, as it creates an organic mentorship and apprenticeship model for training. Plus, with less reliance on one person as a contact to the customer, you mitigate the pressure and improve overall team health. You can also manage better each team's progress as its own business unit. 2. Focus teams by specialty or vertical. Many in the room agreed with the team selling model, with some focusing their teams by specialty or vertical. Josh Kaczynski with Sky High has an e-com team and is currently working through ideas to concentrate more of their teams on specific niches of expertise. 3. Hiring upper management. One challenge every owner faces is becoming a bottleneck for growth. Hiring upper management with clearly defined roles and goals is a crucial step for CEOs—getting out of your own way, but also finally being free to work on the business rather than in the business. And mostly, Joe Sommer stressed that creating a solid organizational structure creates clear paths to growth for those wishing to grow in the company. Number 4, HR roles are on the rise. Half of the participants said they have a dedicated HR role or fractional HR director. HR is becoming a crucial role, is particularly needed once an organization grows beyond a certain level. Other roles on the rise: COO, director of marketing, and supply chain managers. Number 5, referral bonuses and assessments. When it comes to recruiting the right type of employee, many CEOs have implemented a referral bonus with their teams and also Use assessments to aid with the hiring process. Number 6: The CEO Advisory Board. Just as your team structure won't be the same as when you began, neither will you. Hiring a coach or an advisory board is one way for a CEO to help get themselves and their team to the next level. And because of this, a third of the room has implemented some form of EOS system or borrowed from EOS principles such as featured in Traction, or used tools like Bloom Growth to help navigate through seasons of growth. Number 7: Adopting and integrating gold standards. Ritz-Carlton does it right, so why reinvent the wheel? Adopt the Ritz-Carlton gold standards or modify their standards for you and your team as your company values. Number 8: Shrink to grow. Many in the room agreed with the idea that often you have to shrink your client base in order to grow, meaning winnowing out poor-performing clients or lackluster sales is a crucial part of growing. One distributor stated that success to them is growing the top line exponentially by increasing their client size and reducing overall total clients. In other words, growing from 500 clients to 100 of the right kinds of clients. Number 9: Expanding globally might mean putting down roots. There was a general consensus in the room by those who have already done it that global expansion might mean opening offices overseas, though there are exceptions to this rule. Most distributors in the room face overseas pressure to perform for the international client. 10. Growth by acquisition. Almost all of the distributors in the room were open to growth by acquiring other distributors and strategically considering it as part of their future strategy. One distributor shared his experience growing both organic sales as a comparison against merging or acquiring another distributor, stressing that acquisitions and mergers take the right fit and take time, but they can often outperform traditional organic growth. 11. AI is being adopted fast. Tools like Gong and SeamlessAI and HubSpot's AI integration were mentioned as tools used for lead gen and sales training. One distributor is using ChatGPT to auto-generate initial rounds of ideas for clients, which are then vetted by the sales team. It's clear from the feedback that many distributors are now experimenting with forms of AI in order to create more efficiency in their day-to-day, as well as creating content for the brand. Number 12: Designate a commons queue champion. Most larger distributors have an employee who serves as the internal champ for the team. The internal champion stays up to date on new releases and modifications to the platform and then informs the entire team. The internal champion even uses tools like Loom to record videos about new features or to feature their own hacks they've discovered and then share them with the entire team. As you grow, this role is invaluable when it comes to onboarding new employees, said one attendee. 13. The 4-day workweek. One distributor is in the process of implementing a 4-day workweek for everyone in the company. Another distributor already deployed a 4-day workweek twice a month, allowing employees to alternate their Fridays off so that there is still a team to respond to customers even on a Friday. 14. Compensating salespeople on the gross. Compensating salespeople on gross sales rather than gross profit is a growing trend that makes the calculation simpler and therefore more easily trackable and more fun. Number 15: Individual incentives for each and a bonus for all. Most distributors in the room deploy some variation of the individual incentives plus bonuses based on the business unit's growth and/or the overall company growth. Matt Fisher with Probitis shifted to an all-person bonus based on growth, and it dramatically shifted their company's culture. One distributor pays a bonus based on growth as a percentage of each person's salary. So they said, if we grow by 20%, you get a 20% bonus based on your salary. And finally, number 16, an EBITDA number. Now it's a topic very little discussed in our industry and therefore kind of a mystery. What's the ideal EBITDA for a promotional products distributor? Though distributors vary in their overhead costs, a straw poll among those attending CEO Summit revealed that a healthy EBITDA ranges between 10% and 12%, with one distributor achieving a 20% EBITDA. "Amazed us all was how readily everyone shared their ideas," said CommonsQ CEO Catherine Graham. "Most of these distributors did not know one another, and by the end of the conference, many had made connections that will continue well beyond the event. There were so many learnings from different approaches and business models with lots of great takeaways. I found it inspiring to see all the innovative ways these companies are growing their businesses, and the progressive thinking around everything from team structure to technology adoption to sustainability. It left us all excited about our industry's future. The CEO Summit was a rich discussion among unique leaders, but it all started with one question: What was the first promotional product you ever sold? Answers: Weeple, egg timer, t-shirt, business card, magnifying ruler, disappearing ink mug, pen, L-shaped LCD clock, mouse pad, denim shirt, silly bands, yard signs, and a real live lobster. Stories were shared about assembling a first order on a kitchen table, in a garage, from a dorm room. 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. Special thanks to Jim Martin at Numo and Pierre Martichoux at Chameleonlike for the amazing journals and custom bags that graced the hands of each CEO at CommsQ's first ever CEO Summit. Until next time, friends.
