Episode 102: Supplier CMO Series, Nate Robson with Raining Rose

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew. Hello and welcome to the Skewcast.

This is Mark Graham, and we are back for yet another edition of our Supplier CMO series. In this series, we interview prominent marketing professionals on the supplier side to uncover what it takes to market effectively within our industry. This series is designed to uncover the personalities of our supplier marketers and to better understand the role that marketing plays in bringing promotional products to market. On today's SkewCast, I speak with Nate Robson, Director of Promotional Sales at Raining Rose. Nate has been at Raining Rose for the last 8 years, helping guide the organization's promotional division into the powerhouse it is today in the promotional products industry. I was excited to talk with Nate as Raining Rose has always had a unique approach to using marketing to cut through the noise of their crowded category, lip balm and personal care products. As this is a show about marketing, I wanted to understand Nate's approach to brand positioning, developing a brand personality, and leveraging different marketing channels to grow sales. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

And it's such a great pleasure to welcome Nate Robson to the SkewCast today. Nate, welcome to the program, sir.

Thank you, Mark. I'm so glad to be here.

Yeah, despite your groggy voice, you have assured me and the audience that it was not the result of a big bender. It's the result of some sickness, and you're a trooper for being here.

That's right. I might have wished the bender over the sickness. It certainly has been sickness running through our household. So you've got my deep, sexy James Earl Jones voice for you today. So take pleasure in that there for what it's worth.

There you go. Well, the promotional products industry appreciates your commitment to education by being on the SkewCast here. So thank you.

You bet.

All right, Nate, can you tell me about your role at Raining Rose? I know that this is a CMO series, but you straddle both sales and marketing. So we made an exception here today to, to have you join us. Can you talk a little a little bit about your role and specifically how it impacts the marketing side of Raining Rose.

Sure. For the last 8 years, I've been the director of promotional sales, which is one of the divisions under the Raining Rose umbrella. And my main responsibility there has been to grow that division profitably. It involves growing sales, growing the team, hiring and firing, strategy for our division, so on and so forth. And Recently, I guess last November, our director of marketing actually stepped down. She made the career choice that she wanted to spend more time with her family and, and go that direction. And we have yet to back hire for that position. So that's where I've been filling in a little bit more so than ever before with regard to some of the marketing responsibilities on, on what we need to do as an organization to continue to grow. And so I have been straddling that for the last several months and and getting a new appreciation, I guess you could say, for some of the things that marketing has to do and where they can add value. Ultimately, I think sales and marketing are so interrelated anymore that it's tough to draw that line between the two, at least from my standpoint. I think they work in concert with one another, constantly kind of creating this circle of feedback loop between the two. And they have to be in concert with each other if you're going to be effective. And that's only— going to continue going forward. So really a lot of sales in my eyes is marketing. A lot of marketing is sales. And it's just a matter of where you're starting to apply your resources into what specialties that you're putting people on to be effective.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we're going to talk about those resources in just a moment. Can you tell me the makeup of the marketing team at Raining Rose, the size of it, the different roles, how they all roll up to you and what it is that each person does?

You bet. So we've got 6 current members to our marketing team, and they're broken out really by skill set. And so we have a couple people that are more focused on web analytics, web design, keeping up our digital front. We have somebody that is not full-time, but most of their primary task is more on the social media platforms that we utilize to drive interest, to drive sales, and drive awareness. And then we also have somebody who is in content, which is more of our editorial content that we're putting out there, a writer, I guess you could say, and putting out good compelling content through our blogs and, and through various mediums where we need to actually have copy done. And then we also have some specialties with regard to trade shows, some of the events that we do, who just, they, they're responsible for coordinating the shows, coming up with the themes, making sure the design fits with the message we want to put out there. And that's been such a big part of our marketing budget previously obviously we wanted somebody to have that as their primary focus, so we were maximizing our investment in those particular platforms. But that, that's really what kind of what makes up our marketing team. And I think you're seeing it shift, or at least we are, in that there's more and more of a need towards people that have that analytical skill set along with that creativity. I think that's a balance that you didn't always look for, but now it's becoming more and more important that data is becoming such a big driver of what decisions you're making from a marketing standpoint that you need, you need to have somebody in there that has a strong analytical mind along with the creativity to solve the customer's problems, not only today, but what are they going to be in the future? And how are we letting the data kind of help guide our decision making? And I think that's, that's going to become more and more of a need as we go forward.

What is the most effective marketing channel for you today? Are you able to identify that one particular leader that just stands heads and shoulders above the rest?

I wish I could confidently, and I think again, this is the opportunity for us is to get better at defining what our goals are with where we put money and then how we're judging the results from those. Because, you know, in today's environment, attributing a sale to a specific marketing activity becomes pretty difficult, especially our B2B space. You know, it might be 2 or 3 or 4 different things that ultimately led them to where now they're a consistent customer for you. And so it becomes challenging in that sense. But, but I think historically, I think we've always felt that this industry was— specifically the promo industry— is, is very relational. And I think it still is. And I think we put a lot of weight and stock into our people and physical conversations and in-person visits. And that's why we invested so heavily in trade shows and travel. And in people to be having these conversations one-on-one or in a group setting or what have you. But that's where I think we've always felt the most confident that we were having impact. And I think that's changing a little bit. I mean, I think the consumer's changing in a way where we need to take a stronger look at some digital marketing efforts and take a look at how people are gauging interest in And even the consumers we're getting, at what stage in the buying cycle are we finding that they're open and receptive to even hearing us now? I think that's changed. And so that whole mix, I think, has to adjust along with it. So I would say historically, I would say it's been the conversations. It's been the in-person conversations. But I do think it's moving more towards, I would say, the digital side of it, of how you're able to get in front of parties that are interested in what you have, And then you hit them with that personal conversation to get them through the buying cycle. I think that's a slight nuance, but I think that's where I'm seeing the evolution is that conversation is now happening much further down the path. I feel like the consumer's already 70, 75% of the way there before they even talk to you.

Yeah.

They know more about your company by the time they talk to you than ever before, just because of all the information that's out there.

I think that's a really interesting observation. I know that Bobby and I have spoken a lot about this concept called engagement commerce, like this evolution of e-commerce is now found where parties are engaging and developing and maintaining relationships online so that they, they can ultimately transact online, but they're facilitated through online channels and online communities. What you're getting at is that yes, it's important to have a physical presence at a trade show like Expo. Or an ASI show or the EME style events that you had referenced before. Clearly very expensive to invest in those channels, but still, still certainly important because there's traffic there. But how your brand is taking those conversations to the online space in between those shows, I think is really exciting. And I think the best suppliers are the ones that are really leveraging those digital channels to maintain those relationships. So they're in front of these projects and opportunities. So that way it's not like, all right, we'll see you at the next EME or we'll see you at least. And then it's like this cross your fingers in the interim that you're going to get orders in between then. It sounds like you haven't perfected it, but at least you're aware that you're investing more resources there.

Exactly. That's right on. We certainly have not perfected it, but we see that it's, I think, more effective when you can accomplish that. You can create that I think we're selling to communities anyways all the time. And I, I think it's in today's day and age, you can connect digitally within those communities, using those as a platform to connect on an emotional level and, and build credibility and do it consistently when, when it isn't tapping on the door right now, knocking on the door right now. And so I— but I think that puts you in the best position when one does come knocking to be able to have that conversation with the customer and create that transaction opportunity?

Well, I think, I think that if I, if I put my distributor experience or just distributor hat on here, that so much of how many distributors will buy from suppliers is when a supplier is top of mind. I mean, sure, there may be preferred vendor lists and buying groups and all that stuff. I'm not discounting that at all. But for the day-to-day, day, uh, day-in-and-day-out projects comes down to how top of mind and how relevant that particular supplier is to that particular project that is happening at that time for that distributor. And I think the best suppliers are the ones that are where the distributor is, quite simply, right? That's not rocket science, but it's how top of mind you are in a relevant way. And I certainly am not trying to communicate to suppliers that this means that now you can go and indiscriminately spam 14 times a day a distributor because they'll just simply They start ignoring you. So it has to be relevant top-of-mind interactions. And I think the best suppliers are the ones that have been able to figure that out and creating those relationships when it really matters. And that's, I think, never been more, probably never been more terrifying for a lot of suppliers when they think about that. Like, how are you going to scale those relationships? But I also think it's never been more exciting, uh, inaccessible to suppliers, even the particularly the small to mid-sized suppliers that are now able to use digital tools to be able to scale up in a way they wouldn't have been able to have done 10, 15 years ago.

Right, it evens the playing field a little bit, a lot, right? I mean, in terms of the resources required to have that kind of reach and that kind of top-of-mind awareness, so to speak.

All right, I want to, given that this is a marketing-oriented discussion, I want to talk about the brand of Raining Rose. I want you to tell me what the Raining Rose brand means to you.

I think to me, and this is on several— I'm trying to compartmentalize here on different levels because we serve different audiences, and I think each one we're sending a bit of a different value proposition with our brand to each audience that's going to speak to them specifically. But at its core, Raining Rose is a company that was founded on creating opportunity. I mean, it literally was purchased by some investors, venture capitalists, very successful businessmen, with the idea that they would grow this company and create something special. And they have in a lot of ways. And I think that from the very beginning, that DNA of this is an organization that's going to exist and create opportunities for everybody who wants to be a part of it kind of infiltrates throughout the organization. And that's why you've seen us kind of grow in different ways. It's where is, where's the opportunity presenting itself? And I've always said when I'm looking to bring people into Raining Rose and hire, that you're going to do really, really well here if you have a lot of initiative. Because if you've got a lot of initiatives, very flat organization, you're going to have somebody that you can bend their ear, present your idea, and you get resources behind you to go after it. And it's very opportunistic in that way. And I think we approach that, we have that same mentality with customers in all of our different divisions as well. Now that has some downside effects to it as well, but I think overall in the grand scheme of things, it certainly has got us to where we are today in terms of our growth and our size and our success. We stand for things. I think we're an organization that certainly in our Eastern Iowa community here, we've been a very big supporter of the community in a lot of different ways. And organizationally, we started to tell that message a little bit more loudly with our B Corporation status and making sure that, you know, it's kind of helped us give us a platform to say this is what we do and what we stand for and how we approach our business, which without that B Corp certification, we didn't really have a good mechanism to talk about corporate responsibility. It's a broad term that a lot of people have very different definitions on what that means. And so I think what B Corp has helped us do from that standpoint is define it. A little bit and help us tell that story that, you know, we are a company that a lot of people, they want to partner with us or align with us because of the values and the principles that we stand for based on business decisions that we've made. And so I think that's at our core, and that expands into all of our different divisions. I think if you look at our contract division, we've kind of, based on the opportunities that came to us and have grown with us, we've been positioned as the premium manufacturer in the cosmetic space dealing with, you know, the finest natural and organic ingredients and, and being able to help companies get seals that they want to market. Things like USDA certified organic seals or kosher or eco-friendly, Blue Bunny, these types of things that they want to use in the marketing. We've become known as the manufacturer that can accomplish this for them. And so that's certainly where we've what we've kind of grown into on that side of things. And in the promotional product space, you know, I think we've kind of been that fun-loving company that we don't take ourselves too serious, but we have very high-quality products and we do what we do and we do it very, very well. We haven't expanded, you know, since I've started here. I don't— I think the one category we added was hand sanitizers beyond the lip balm that we didn't have from the, you know, 8 years ago when I started. So we haven't proliferated our offering with just everything under the sun, which you tend to see a little bit of that in this space. We've stayed very narrowly focused and tried to find value beyond just the product itself. You know, in our space, the product's just the vehicle, right? It's a vehicle to tell a message or drive an action. And so how do we help you solve a problem with our vehicle? And that's where our sales efforts, where we spend a lot of time, and even our marketing efforts, where we try to make sure that that messaging getting out there. All right.

Now, now maybe, maybe I'm, I've already answered this question or maybe you already have, but I'm going to ask it anyhow. So if you could change one thing about how our industry operates today, what would it be? In other words, what do you feel is broken about our industry today?

That's a great question. I, I think the immediate thing that jumps to my mind and it's a problem that together supplier and distributor, I think we need to solve is that I just, It gets back to misuse of resources. I see so much redundancy in terms of who's investing in what. You know, suppliers are taking on a lot of that now. Distributors are doing some of their own. There just seems to be within our supply chain a lot of redundant efforts. And I think part of the challenge is that, you know, suppliers are trying to service a wide-ranging group of audience in terms of sophistication and what they're going to find value in. And I think distributors are in a little bit of the same boat in that depending on their level of sophistication, they're going to find value in different resources. And so that's always been the frustrating thing for me. I wish we could get to more of an efficient model where one or the other is embracing this is where we add value and then we deliver it. And I think, you know, it's tough as an existing business to do that because it might that in turn leads you to say, okay, I'm not going to do business with this type of customer because I'm only going to focus on this. And that's always tough to do. But I think that's a big challenge that I see. The whole passing of data too, and I think this is where the promo standards effort has come into play and it's gaining a lot of momentum. And I think it's got the critical mass to play out here. And I know we're certainly embracing it and moving moving that direction because we do see the benefits of the efficiency gains, you know, down the road should this get adopted by the masses. But I think that, that whole passing of the, the information and making sure that we're reducing, for example, entering a PO 3 times— there's no reason in our supply chain that that should happen, but it does hundreds of times a day. And, and that's, that's just ripe for change. And, and if it's not going to be somebody within the industry, it's certainly going to be somebody without to come and, you know, really eat your lunch with that. I mean, that is just a glaring inefficiency that somebody's going to jump in and solve that problem. I'd rather it be suppliers and distributors working together to figure that out rather than some outsider to come in to do it. But I think those are the biggest challenges that I see. It's inefficient right now, and that makes us vulnerable. I think some drastic changes.

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, I think that you get more creativity when you reduce these inefficiencies. I think you reduce cost out of things, which makes our medium that much more competitive. I think that you've got, I mean, there's a whole laundry list of benefits, right? You've got suppliers and distributors that are working on their highest and best use and we're driving the low value aspects of our business out of it altogether, which I think we need to be doing. And that can be automated through technology, and it means that more people can be redirected towards the creative and sales efforts to help drive more sales for both suppliers and distributors. I can certainly tell you that the whole concept of what PromoStandards represents and just the, the reducing of all the friction between suppliers and distributors has been, I would say, a near obsession of ours on the Common SKU side and something we talk about all the time in terms of just how each and every day can you reduce the inefficiency in a distributor business, but also particularly how they interact with, with their supplier partners. Nate, what is your proudest accomplishment on the job so far?

I would say, I think if I reflected back on my entire tenure here, it's just been the ability to take something that was very small. And grow it to something that I think is more significant. And along that path, a lot of, I think, critical decisions that required some forethought and some strategic thinking. And, and I think while I've certainly made some wrong decisions, I think I made a lot of right decisions in terms of the direction of the company and how to build it out and how to grow it. And seeing from where we started to where we're at today, I'm really proud of that. And most, most recently, with regard to my team, you know, one of the things we wanted to focus on is making sure that whoever is speaking of Raining Rose, that they are a representative of the brand. And, you know, you have all the opportunity in the world in the promotional product space to go out and create your brand, your personal brand within the company and, and out to the community. What I've seen over the last couple years with my team is is they've taken that and, and they really have created their own personal brands. And I'm pretty proud of them and that and the team and how they've been able to accomplish that. When you look at Rainy Rose and who represents us, you know, whether it's Mason or Lindsay or Kelly, you know, they're creating their own brand out there in the community. And, and I just love that, and I love to see that. So that one is, is most recent for me, and the evolution I've seen them take in terms of getting more effective with their communication and, and, you know, creating their own personal brand and representing Rainy Rose in a positive way. And so I think those would be the two things I would point to, right?

What's on your desk right now, like physically on your desk? I'm, I'm curious to know if this can give us some more insight into the twisted mind that is Nate Robson.

Well, I've just installed a brand new stand-up desk that I'm pretty pumped about. So it's, it's sitting right on top of my old desk and I can raise it and lower it, which I'm pretty stoked about because I was sitting way too much. I've got my notepad here that is— Get Your Shit Together is the title of the notepad. So it helps you list out the easy shit, the tough shit, and then the oh shit. Yeah, keeps my day on track. I've got my Paul's cough drops here, which has kept me from going into a coughing spell during this.

Yeah, you've been, you've been great so far.

Yeah, we're hanging in there. I've got my Common Skew socks. Believe it or not, I've got 3 of those Common Skew socks that, that you guys all sent to us, which I'm using as incentives for our group to hand out as they achieve different things.

So there you go, the value of promotional products.

That's right, that's right. I've got some R&D products that I'm looking at Let's see, what else do I got? Some pictures, family, and golfing, which is a passion of mine. I do enjoy my golfing.

Yeah.

All the other confidential stuff I've got to, I've got to refrain from talking about. Yeah. That makes it.

Yes, yes, yes. Well, we don't expect you to divulge any secrets. So what 3 brands do you admire the most and why? They can be from the industry, Nate, or they can be from outside the industry.

Sure. Oddly enough, I've never been a really big brand guy, so there's no, there's no like real brands that I, I could point to that I am really loyal to. I like to try new brands, I like to try new things. Maybe that's a personality thing, I don't know. From a personal standpoint, that's where it's at. But if I look at the industry, I think brands that, that I see that are doing really well— well, you mentioned one, Gold Star. I think they do a phenomenal job with, with their branding. I really like a lot of the things that they do. Common Skew, and I'm not just saying that because we're doing the podcast here, but I think you guys have done a phenomenal job with branding. Every event that you've done, I think, has really effectively created what you were setting out to create. You know, you've created this vibe of, of really cool people in a cool community and following, and I think a lot of people want to recreate that in many ways and figure out how are they doing that. So I think certainly the Comiskey brand is a brand that sticks out to me in this industry as one that's been innovative and certainly has been drawing a lot of attention. I spend a lot of time looking at our competitors. So, you know, as I look at competitors, I think Snugs has done a good job. You know, they're excellent with video and we know more and more people are consuming video in terms of how they're getting their messaging and how they're getting information.. And I think they're, they're really, really good with that. And they, they have a, I think, a pretty compelling personality as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

So they stand out to me. Is that 3? Did I get to 3?

You did get to 3. Uh, you, you did. And, you know, it's interesting, Snugs really did come to mind a lot when I was preparing for this interview. And Brandon Brown, of course, was on the Skewcast for the CMO Series a few episodes ago and had a chance to speak to him. And, you know, I don't know whether there's something about selling lip balm and being like quirky, cool people. I don't know if there's some kind of connection there, but Snugs, there's no question that they've created a brand that is so uniquely them but is so personality-driven in a very different way than you have at Raining Rose. I mean, it's very clear to see the differences, but The commonality is that they, just like you, have not been afraid to put themselves out there and be a little bit funky, a little bit, you know, what they had, like the retro zip-up jackets and like the long, you know, the pull-up socks and knee-high socks. I think that they were doing this year at Expo. And, you know, you guys are doing Ghostbusters, right? It's different, but it's quirky. And whenever I've spoken to any of these suppliers, particularly Snugs or Gold Star, or, you know, there's a, there's a whole list of others as well that have invested in personality-driven marketing. None of them have ever said there's been regret in terms of how it is differentiated in the marketplace, how it's led to ROI, and how it's led to this unique positioning of their brand in a, in a really crowded space. And I, maybe I say that maybe it's a bit of a public service announcement that if there's anyone listening to this as a marketer on the supplier side that is maybe not sure about an investment in personality-driven marketing, I think that they only have to listen to, you know, to you or to Brandon Brown at Snug to just know that there's gold in them hills. Yeah. So, but I don't think it's for the faint of heart. I don't think it's for everyone. Maybe I should say it is for everyone, but you have to do it in a way that it's authentic.

I think that, I think that's so true. And I think, I think more globally, if you, if you pull that out, take product out of it, take our industry out of it, I think you're, you're starting to see that everywhere where people are aligning themselves with the personality of different brands. And I think the more you go narrow, the more you go more authentic, the more you go tighter into that community that you're trying to capture, that's where you're going to see growth. Which, it sounds opposite, right? Why would you narrow to get bigger? But, but I think that's the nature of our consumer right now. And the more you embrace and define more specifically who it is you're going after, the better results you're going to get from the investment you put into driving that personality and those principles you stand for. So I think that's a, that's a direction just globally where marketing's going.

Well, it sounds like to go back just a few questions ago, it sounds like you were alluding to that a little bit, Nate, when you were talking about those early days when you were brought on to drive the promotional sales of this retail company. It sounds like at that point, the personality of your brand was less defined, that you were more generic. I mean, you said it yourself, that you had the same pop-up booth as hundreds of other people at Expo. Weren't particularly differentiated. But is it fair to say that you had taken that approach back then because there were just so many distributors and you just felt that to be more general would open you up to more people? Like, was that the thinking? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm curious.

Yeah, no, I think, I think it probably stemmed from the point that, okay, this is what we have to offer. And when I looked at the landscape initially, you initially look at all the, the more generalists and you say, okay, well, how do we differentiate from these guys that everybody's going to? And it leads you down a path of narrowing your differentiator and being able to tell that story more passionately and more effectively. And so you start to hone in on these, these small narrow pockets where you feel like, okay, this is where we can cut through the clutter, this is where we can stand out. And I think it was that mindset of trying to find out, okay, where is the value that we can bring that nobody else can, that kind of led us way down this defining our personality and being who we are and just embracing it. But I think it started with where can we truly add value where others can't? And then we communicate that has kind of taken on its life of its own. But that's always been a little bit of trial and error.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, I think it's just such a, it's just really interesting. And I just know I look back at my time, almost 20 years in this space and just see how suppliers, I think the best suppliers are the ones that have really invested in this unique point of differentiation as opposed to just seeing, presenting themselves as multi-category type suppliers without a point of differentiation. I know that sounds obvious, but I think you're just seeing a new crop of suppliers come to the market in the last 5 years. To me, that feels much more evident as I walk the shows and I see the, see the supplier group today versus 15 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it, and I think you'll, you'll continue to see that, that change in that I think you're going to have 2 different strategies, right? You're going to have those that are looking to to maybe acquire more, get more categories, build up revenues ultimately with the goal to sell. And as we've got this consolidation going on in this industry, how do we become more attractive to either private equity or bigger groups? And you're going to see things continue to move that direction. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, I think the opportunity is for that niche player to completely embody what it is they do and do it better than any one of those players out there. And you'll see the people who get stuck in the middle are going to be the people who suffer, I think.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, Nate, this has been such a fascinating time with you. I really appreciate all the time that you spent. I know that you were a little under the weather, but you performed brilliantly, sir, with all these tough questions that I was throwing at you. So on behalf of all the folks out there that are listening, I really wanted to thank you for your time and your expertise and your creativity.

I appreciate it, Mark. I've always— now this is not sucking up to you again though, but of all the industry podcasters out there, I felt like, you know, you were, you were certainly one that I've looked up to. I think you're one of the best interviewers in the business. So it was an honor to take part in the podcast.

Well, thank you very much. You were a great guest and I know we could have continued for much longer. So thanks so much, bud. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SKU Cast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.