Episode 110: How Adversity Shapes a Brand with Lisa Smith of Republic Promos

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.

We're about helping people. Like, with our clients, if you just look at it as you're serving somebody, yeah, that's all you need to do. Yeah, that's all, that's all what we're supposed to be doing, not only in our work, but in our whole life. We're just supposed to be helping people.

Lisa Smith started her career in the business as a temp, and at that time, she was recently divorced and and as a single mom, learned the ins and outs of this business box by box and order by order. 6 years ago, she struck out on her own along with business partners Amber and DeeDee and built Republic Promos, one of Austin's most vibrant promotional products companies. In 2016, they made the Fast 50 list. In 2017, they were recognized as one of the top 25 marketing companies in Austin and one of the top women-owned businesses. Mark Graham and I traveled to Austin where among the lush rolling green hills on the outskirts of town, we sat at Lisa's dining room table in her beautiful home to talk about this incredible journey of hers full of faith and perseverance. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commscue. Before we get into the episode, I want to tell you about just a few of the sessions going on at Skucamp this fall. Our friends Johanna Gottlieb with Axis Promo will share how to stay hungry despite success. Sarah Webb with InTandem will be sharing her experience from salesperson to CEO, shaping a culture while building a company. And we'll be interviewing Jamie Mayer, the top marketing executive at BDA. Jamie built one of the original boutique agencies in this business, SwervePoint. We'll chat about his journey from startup to scale up to successful exit. SKU Camp will be held September 22nd through the 25th. You can learn more at skucamp.com. Remember, you can ask us anything. If you have any questions about sales, commissions, where to find new clients, how to grow existing clients, whatever the topic, email me bobby@commonsku.com and we'll answer your question here on the program. This episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. Begin your free trial now at commenscue.com. Here's our conversation with Lisa Smith of Republic Promos. How did you get your start?

I started as a temp at Gear 4 Sports. So I was a single mom. I was going through a divorce. I had no skills.

How long ago was this?

This is like 23 years ago. But literally, I wasn't even an employee. Like, I started in their warehouse, in their quality assurance, and my job was basically I just checked garments all day, boxed them, and that was my job.

Was this a distributor-type company or?

Well, Gear 4 Sports, it's apparel.

Okay, sports marketing.

Yeah, but they also had a distributor segment of their company. So I started for gear, and then after like 3 to 4 months, they made me an employee. And then after a year, I think it was a year or 2, they moved me up to the office. Basically, I just had people that gave me a shot every step of the way.

And 23 years ago, you were just looking for a job.

Exactly.

You didn't care whether it was in the promotional industry or—

The only thing I needed was I needed to get a job where they would hire me and I could get insurance for my kids. That was my goal.

Wow.

So, yeah.

And then it looks as though your business journey as Republic started 5 to 7, 6 years ago.

Yeah. Basically I started at Gear in the warehouse and then they moved me up to the office. In the office it was with Tandem Marketing, which is their distributor. And we had big accounts, like we had Michelin, Lexus, nationwide. And so I managed inventory, that was my job. And then I was there for 5 to 7 years and then we moved to Texas. And we moved to Texas, I went to Bell's Advertising, which is another distributorship.

So you left Tandem?

Yeah, yeah. And then when I went to Bell's is when I went into sales.

Okay.

So, and I was at Bell's for 7 years.

And, and how was that transition from working in a, an operations capacity at Gear to moving into sales? Was that scary?

It was scary, like my husband at the time, he's like, we didn't, I'd gotten married while I was at Gere. So when we moved down here, he was like, if you don't make any money, it's okay, let's just try it. So I started at zero, 'cause it was straight commission. So you know that your first year you don't make hardly anything.

[Speaker] Right, right, right. But you at least had the interest in it. It wasn't like you were terrified of the idea of, cold calling and you were up for it.

Yeah. So the first year was hard in sales and then after the first year you start getting reorders and referrals. So, yeah.

That's amazing.

So fast forwarding here then to Republic, how many people are on your team?

There's 14 of us now.

And you have folks in remote locations. Can you tell us those locations?

We have one that lives in Denver, one that lives in Dallas, one that lives in Kansas City, and then 4 that live in New Braunfels, and the rest are here.

Okay.

So we're pretty spread out.

Yeah.

If we just take a half step back, I'm interested in this journey that you took from sales at the distributor you just mentioned to the founding of Republic. How did you go from a junior salesperson, straight commission, to founding your own distributor a few years later?

Okay, so when I was at Bell's, And that was one of the best things I did because I had really good mentors there. Like I learned I needed that, you know, like I needed that those 7 years to learn all the ins and outs. And then it was when the economy went bad in like 2007 or 2008, there was a print shop that didn't have promos. So I went there and helped them get that set up. They did not have ASI. So I learned how to set it up there. And then 2 girls from Bell's followed me there.

Right.

So we were there, we were there for probably 3 or 4 years. It didn't work out. They didn't understand the ASI, so it just was not a good fit. So at the end of that is when we said, okay, we're just going to try to do our own.

Right, right. You and the 2 colleagues.

Right, right. So it was the 3 of us that started. Yeah.

Wow.

So what a story.

Are there a few questions around this in terms of the past 5 years and what that's meant in terms of growth and what you've learned through that experience. But I'm kind of curious at this point about clients in terms of what types of clients do you serve? Are there similarities in those characteristics for all the clients that you serve?

Well, so we have a mixture. We do a lot for the Air Force military, but our main is probably the high-tech is our main.

Makes sense.

Yeah, but we have medical. It's spread out.

Any particular services that you specialize with?

Probably just like we're really good at art, so that helps give you a leg up. Yeah. You really have to know art to, I think, to offer a service.

Right.

And stepping back, as Mark said, again into your business journey, what has the past 5 to 6 years been like?

Oh, it's been awesome. I mean, it's been hard, but so when we first started it, we thought, the 3 of us, we thought when we first started it, that we'll get about half the people follow us. I don't think we lost a client.

Wow.

Like they all, and not only that, but when we started it, it was like everybody wanted to help us be successful. We just kept getting more. Oh, that's great. And so we had to hire another person and it's just gone from there.

Right, right. Pretend we were speaking to one of your clients right now and I was to ask them, why do you work with Republic? Why do you work with Lisa? What do you think they would say?

I think the first thing they would say is that we're the fastest they work with. That's our— we get told that time and time again. Like, you are so fast, so responsive. And then just friendly. And we always try to do extra, go the extra mile.

Right, right. So you have the client's back. Professional babysitting, I like to call this industry to some extent. I think the most successful among us as distributors And even suppliers, I would say to some extent, are the ones that can babysit and just really have their clients' back in a way where the client literally does not need to worry about anything. They can go and focus on what they do, and then you can go focus on managing their promotional needs. And I know it sounds simple, but it's amazing how difficult it can actually be streamlining that whole process.

Yeah, well, so, you know, at my former company, they didn't have— We have one person that all she does is track orders. Because you can't just trust the factories are going to do what they need to do.

You need to babysit them too.

Yeah.

Has it been just an upward trajectory for the past 5, 6, 7 years? Wow.

Every year. And we made the Austin Fast 50 in 2013. It's on our website for fastest growing.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah, for an Austin-based business, that's—

Yeah. We were 25th overall and 15th in the micro category. Wow. Right. That's great.

If you were to paint a picture of the ideal client for Republic, what 2 or 3 characteristics define the ideal client for you?

What we've really gotten into the last couple of years are clients that need programs where we do the fulfillment and they have multiple orders coming in every week, that's an ideal client.

Do you do all of that in-house or do you outsource the fulfillment?

We do it in-house now. This past year we got a warehouse and we have some big programs that, yeah.

What is the rough percentage split between programs and the custom dropship part of the business?

I would say programs are, Probably 25%.

Right.

And then the rest just kind of, yeah.

Right, right. You do the programs and you get the customers.

They're kind of our anchor and then the rest comes.

Yeah, it's actually really interesting that when you ask that question, or at least when we've asked that question of a whole host of distributors that do fulfillment, it's usually around a 25-75% split. Oh, really? Yeah. So it seems like it's very consistent with what we're seeing with the rest of the industry, at least for distributors that choose to do fulfillment.

Yeah. And we didn't do that at first, but we just, we had requests, so we just had to figure it out. That's a new, you know how it just takes a while to figure it out? We're still in the figuring out, you know? I mean, it's going okay, but we're still like, we got this warehouse, we should have gotten double the space. So we have 9 months left and then we'll get something bigger.

Well, what's the saying here in Texas? Buy more land, buy more cattle, right? You buy more land, you have to buy more cattle. You have more cattle, you have to buy more land. It's just like never-ending, right?

Yeah.

So tell us about your sales team. The folks we talked about in your other organizations, are those all sales?

No. So we, we have 5 outside sales.

Okay.

And then we have 2 that— and we've gone through a transition, we have a lot of new people, so we're training right now. Yeah. But we have 2 that are going to handle just the, the programs, the online stores. And in the past, we've kind of all just been doing all of the jobs, but we're having to break it out to make it more streamlined. So we're in the process of that right now.

Right. Right now, listeners can't see this, but we're sitting in your lovely home just north of Austin. And I'm curious as to how you divide working from home versus working in your office.

So we all like to work from home, except for—

Yeah, not surprised given the environment.

And the other thing I think, and I mean, I don't know what other people think, but I think we get a lot more work done working at home. Home, right?

Right.

Because we're not sitting here chatting all day, you know? Yeah.

So, right. And so the office is largely where fulfillment happens.

Exactly.

And then, and then you've got a manager that manages that from a Monday to Friday perspective.

Yeah. And then, and then if we have like vendor meetings, we'll go all go in there, right? And then we have a little showroom, right?

This growth that you've had, I'm very curious about this. Has this just been organic and referral-based, or have you had a specific outreach strategic plan?

No outreach.

Okay.

So it sounds bad. No, like we, we, it's been word of mouth.

Yeah.

And then like we didn't even have a Facebook page until this past year. Like we just, and we have so much coming in that we've just had to figure it out.

Yeah. Do you qualify types of clients? I mean, are there, is there a threshold for who you'll work with? Is there sales volume you'll work with or type of customer that you'll work?

Well, so up till this point, we've taken anything. But we're getting to the point now where I think we have to be smarter about not doing these tiny orders that take up half the day.

Yeah, for sure. Right.

How do you manage price objections, or is that something that comes up? It sounds like business is just coming in left, right, and center. Do you have price-sensitive customers that are very sensitive about pricing? And if so, how do you overcome those objections, or do you just meet their price demands?

Well, so we, we don't have a lot of that, but if something comes up and they want, you know, lower price, we'll look at it. We'll try to work with the factories, right? But the other thing is we try to stay very competitive on pricing. Like, we try to stay competitive with the online distributors.

Sure.

So like for imprint, like our pricing is kind of right in there, right?

Okay.

Which is interesting, just as a side note, that a lot of people will say that for imprint is killing the industry, dragging prices down. And what's interesting, you really look at it and you look at some of those first column prices they have, I mean, we can do the math as distributors, mid-40s gross margin. And certainly there are some of the loss leaders that I think that you see, or that may be discouraging for some distributors, but 4imprint certainly doesn't have this aggressive pricing model that I think many people fear them to have?

Yeah, well, I remember when they first were getting popular, like I was at Bell's and some people thought, oh, they're going to put us out of business.

Yeah, everybody thought that.

I don't think that. I think it comes down to your service.

Yeah, absolutely. So what do you enjoy about this business?

I really like it because it's— I'm still learning. You can never learn everything.

Yeah. Never ending.

Yeah. You can never learn everything about the industry.

Right, right.

So that's what I really like about it.

Maybe two steps back, I'm curious about the specific role that you play at Republic versus your partners.

So I try to like just manage, manage our team, and then I have a right-hand person, which she was one of the people that started. Her name is Amber, and right, she handles— she's kind of our IT ops person, right?

So, right, so that's how you split the roles, really?

Yeah.

Are you more sales Yeah. In that sense, yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Great.

You've built a progressive brand. There's an energy and vitality to your brand. There's a confidence to your brand that you can feel. How did you shape that? Where does that thinking come from? Did you know what you didn't want to be and that helped shape who you are?

Yes. This kind of goes back to when I was a single mom. When I first started it, like one of the things I really love about it is that we have moms that can work from home.

Yeah.

And that I wish I would have had that when, you know. And then the other thing is that we are faith-based. Like, when we started it, we started it with God as our— and I feel like that has been the biggest reason why we've been so successful. Right.

Tell us more about that.

So everything that I've done, you know, or I would say that God has helped me do, I feel like that God has helped me do things that are above my ability. Yeah. From the very beginning. Because when they moved me up to the office, all I could do is type. He's just put mentors in my path and just helped me all along the way. And I try to bring that into this company, and our whole team feels the same way.

You can sense that gratitude in you because you recall vividly those lean years. You've referred to them here multiple times, and that's a clear reflection. And it's got to be incredibly rewarding to be able to provide that type of atmosphere. Opportunity for those that didn't have it.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I, I'm working at a company that I wish I would have had when I was starting out.

Yeah. The reason why I like extracting the question— we're not afraid of asking any questions. We've had this faith-based conversation before, and the reason I'm sort of extracting that more is I just love— we, we love getting to the heart of why you do what you do.

Yeah.

And we touch on it sometimes with what you enjoyed about the business in terms of curiosity And just always learning and it's this insatiable hunger to learn more and do more. But then also this rewarding aspect of the businesses that we often, I think, gloss over in terms of the why we exist and what we're doing.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I heard this on another podcast, but they said that good companies are, it's the how, but great companies is the why. And so we're about helping people. With our clients, if you just look at it as you're serving somebody, that's all you need to do. That's all what we're supposed to be doing, not only in our work but in our whole life. We're just supposed to be helping people.

Yeah, you know, in a lot of our sessions that we lead, we talk about this a lot, that we sell purpose, not product. A lot of clients, you know, every client that comes to us comes to us with a mission and a purpose. There's something they're trying to achieve with what we have to provide, and there's a really intrinsically rewarding aspect. To this business that we tend to overlook. Do you have specific mentors or folks that have meant a lot to you in your journey? I'm sure there's a lot because of—

Yeah, so I— well, so my first mentor that when I moved up to the office, her name was Laura Saylor, and I don't— I've lost contact with her, but she just really helped me. Like, I didn't know how to do hardly anything, and she always said that you can do it. You know, like she— Then when I went to Bell's, there was the top sales guy there. His name's Bill McCluggage. When I first started, I was like, "I want to be like Bill," because he was just methodical, just a great salesperson. I tried to learn everything I could from him.

I think the most successful that you find in this industry are those that are prepared to park their egos and learn from other people and be curious. And to surround themselves with great mentors.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that, you know, you want to stand on the shoulders of giants, really.

Yeah.

Of other people. So that's, that's a great story.

Yeah.

This business, overcoming adversity and challenges and problems is a key part of being successful in this business. So an example could be something as basic as a factory misprints an order or ships it out late and your client is upset with you. And you have to overcome those problems. I'm curious as to how you overcome and manage those problems, which I suspect must happen from time to time.

Oh yeah. So whenever something, a problem comes up, we always try to tell the customer as soon as possible. Right. Because then you have options. If you wait and you just let it go, then you have no options. Right. So, but even there's always going to be that one order that slips and all you can do is just say you're sorry and try to make it right on the next.

You strike me as someone that has got a very calming disposition and personality. Does that stress you out when that happens, or do you manage that by counting to 10 and speaking calmly and respectfully to the supplier partner or the client?

Well, hopefully. I hope it was— Or is there another side to you? I mean, every once in a while I feel really stressed. But I mean, you know, like, The other thing I always ask is, did we do the best job we can? And if we did, then that's all we can do. You know, like some things are out of your control, so you just— getting mad about it is not gonna help the situation.

I like that as a question, because if you're asking that as a question, sometimes the answer to that can be no, you didn't do the best job you could, because either you forgot to put the order in on time, or you messed up the artwork on your end, or there was some workflow flow problem that got in the way, and that is a learning opportunity.

Well, and we have done that too.

Sure.

Where it's just like, what— yeah, what could we have done? What can we do different next time? Yeah. So we do have those too.

So trying to get a glimpse into what your daily life is like, and one of our favorite questions to ask is kind of what's on your desk right now, like what's on your priority list. So if we were to hang out with Lisa today what would we be doing?

We each manage different accounts, so I feel like I need to reach out to some of my people today. Also, we have a big AR right now, so I need to like help with that. So we're all just trying to like keep up with everything.

That's when tough Lisa shows up.

I do every once in a while. I'm like, you need to pay your invoice today.

There'll be a courier showing up at 2:30 PM.

Yeah.

Will a check be ready for—

What I suspect about this is that because of your disposition, when you do actually have to send that email or make that call, that it sounds heavier than it probably is.

Oh, it totally is because I'm past my limit.

Right.

So, and like they've gotten 4 notices and we need to get paid today.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

What does the future look like for Republic? I know that's a very large question, but what kinds of things are occupying your mind as you think of just growing into the next phase of your business journey?

Well, so we've brought on all these new people, you know, and then my husband's joining the team. So we have our first man joining the team. So, yeah.

We'll be thinking of you.

But we're really excited. Like, I feel like right now we are at our 2.0. We're right before we go into the next phase. So I'm like really excited about that. Like, I don't know everything that's going to happen, but I do feel like We have a good future coming.

That's great.

I have a question that I think the two of you can answer in noting that the two of you have something in common in that, Bobby, you also started in a warehouse job 25 or so years ago at Robin.

Yeah, starving hippie kid.

Yeah, exactly. But similar to your story, Lisa. And I think that at first blush, you wouldn't think that someone that starts off packing boxes in a promotional warehouse would end up either owning a distributorship or being the president of a distributorship like you were, Bobbi. If you reflect on your journey from that time when you started off in the bottom rung, was there something about that experience that contributed to your executive outlook today?

So I— no matter where I was, from the very beginning, I just always wanted to do the best job I could. That's to feel good. I want to do the best job. And then I think one of the things for me is whenever I got married to my husband and everything, he gave me confidence. And I haven't always had this kind of confidence. There was a time when I first went into sales, I was like, I don't know if I'll be able to do it. But then you get little successes and then it just like, you build on that. I don't know if I answered your question.

Yeah, that was good.

And Bobby, I'm putting you in the hot seat.

Yeah, yeah. I think part of it, and I'm picking this up from you as well, is that you also were in a few organizations where you learned along the way. And in my case, the owner of the business was 50-some-what years old, into his second career at that point, and they didn't know much about the business either. And we were all figuring out— you talked about joining that company where you started with ASI. So there was something about it. In my case, unlike Lisa's, in my case, I was all they had as an alternative. So, oh, so it's like, well, let the kid figure it out, right? And so there wasn't any other choice though, and we just, we just learned along the way. I also suspect something about you, Lisa, that might be the case for me too. When you are sort of nurtured in this fulfillment environment where you're dealing with so many aspects, from picking, packing, to small orders, to large orders, to the e-commerce side, to customer service, to sales, you tend to have a broader outlook on the business as a whole, and you tend to learn all these different disciplines. And it's not that you become better at any of that, it's just your scope becomes broader. And if anything, I think that fed into the executive outlook because you were forced to work through all of these different aspects of the business. So though I dropped out of 3 colleges, I had a wide opportunity to learn in various disciplines I mean, who cares if I was screwing it up all the time, but I was learning a lot along the way, and I think that contributed— to your question, I think that contributed to that outlook.

100%. And if I think about my journey, while I didn't start in a warehouse capacity, when I started my distributorship almost 20 years ago, I was doing every job. It was everything from accounting to customer service to sales to, I suppose, packing boxes for the UPS driver that had to get them out the door. While I do very little of those jobs now, I think about the gift that it provided me in terms of this overall view on how the business operated. It gave me that empathy for the people that I ultimately hired to do those jobs and who ultimately were able to do them much better than myself. I'm just always curious about those origin stories because the most most people who get into this business seem to start in through the sales side, and it's rare that you have someone who grows into the current role that you're in right now from a temp warehouse capacity. I mean, that's very unusual, but congratulations to you for doing that.

Oh, well, thanks. Well, so Hit Promotional Products, they flew our whole team to Florida a few years ago, and they did a tour of the warehouse. And their factory. And it was just like me all over again. Like when I— and then, you know, like if something does go wrong with an order, you think that person didn't mean to do that. Like, you know, they're on their feet all day long. So yeah, sometimes they don't have air conditioning.

Yeah.

You know, before I get to my final question, was there anything else you want to talk about that we didn't touch on?

I don't think so. Well, one thing I do want to say is that, you know, part of Republic's success is that we have the best team.

Yeah.

Like, I could not have done this without Amber, first of all. And then DeeDee was another that she started with us and she passed away.

Yeah.

So that, that was really sad, but her daughter took over her account. So that's—

Oh, that's beautiful.

Yeah. But basically we would not be where we are without the team that we have. There's just no way.

Yeah.

So I just want to—

That is, that's amazing. And it sounds like DeeDee's contribution just from the tone of her voice was so significant.

Yeah. And I could search the whole world over and not have a better team than what we have today.

That's a gift. That's a real gift.

It is a gift.

Yeah. You're speaking to a young entrepreneur in this business. She's just gotten into it. She might be 6 months into it. She might be a year and a half into it. She wants to build a company like Republic. What do you say as you sit over coffee and share your life story? Are there essential— this is very difficult to get down— essential things, but are there essential— is there an essential piece of advice you would share?

Well, what I would say, but this is my background, is work in the industry for at least 5 to 10 years and learn the industry. I think there's a lot to be said about learning, learning a trade and not just jumping in. But that's me, like that's, some people can, you know, I just think it helps and it helps to be around other people that have been in the industry so you can learn.

We've got a whole series on this that we did and we had on apprenticeship being the number one training method in this business. People don't talk about it, but that's exactly the case with so many successful people in the business. That was, thank you, that was my final question, Mark.

Yeah, and my final question is that you've talked about your curiosities in your whole career. How do you indulge your curiosities? How do you stay current? How do you learn and be a better professional on an ongoing basis?

Well, so I think now at this stage, just being surrounded by younger, like, it just gives me a lot of energy.

Right. And your team is younger.

They're younger, they're creative. It just helps me, and I'm still learning from them, which I really like. Yeah.

That's cool.

I don't know if that answered your question.

It absolutely does. And I think that what you find for— I think you have two types of leaders. I mean, if I was to be very black and white about it, I think that you have some leaders that are reluctant to listen to younger colleagues because they started the business, and it was successful on their terms, and they may continue to be very successful with that hard-headed approach. And then there's others that are much more open to the ideas of younger people, even if those ideas are challenging. I mean, we all have kids, and kids challenge their parents, just like younger employees can challenge, you know, the founders. And I think that— but having that open-minded view Even if you may disagree with some of those views, I think make you stronger. So good on you for being so open to those colleagues. And my guess is that they are probably very appreciative of that, knowing that they're being listened to.

Yeah, I think so.

Lisa, thank you for your time, for inviting us to your beautiful home. It's gorgeous. I wish our listeners could see because it's a gorgeous area, beautiful rolling hills of Austin, Texas, and your home almost stunning.

Oh, well, thank you. You can thank my husband for that because he picked up pretty much everything.

You mentioned that at the earlier part of this.

Yeah, yeah.

So, well, congratulations on such amazing success with your business, on building such a team, on surviving so many years in this business and thriving, really, and to come out where you're at today, where you're helping people and building a fantastic brand. We're honored to have you on, on SkiTalks.

Oh, well, thank you, thank you.

Thanks so much for tuning in to 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.