Episode 120: Just In Time with Carey Guglielmo

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.

After a successful career at Nike Inc. North America, Carey Guglielmo and his business partner Billy Hale recognized a niche within the corporate sector for just-in-time branded merchandise. They launched AST eCommerce just 5 years ago, and they're already carving a lead in the company store space. Carey is also the host of the podcast called The Brand on Talk 107.3 FM in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And in today's episode, I sit down with Carey to discuss how his Nike background helped him bring a big business worldview to the industry and how this perspective shapes his business today. We talk about the search for recurring revenue, the most profitable types of stores, shifting their focus from outbound to inbound, their sales process, and Carey's advice for young entrepreneurs, which includes creating your advisory board and the surprising boost to your business that a board can have on you and your organization. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commonsku. We just opened up registration for SKUCON, held in Las Vegas on January 12th. SKUCON is the conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the promotional products industry. It's the perfect conference to take your team and kick off your year right. Some of the speakers include Brian Pappe from MIR, Memocon from Pomo Shop, Lucas Grigliano from Rowboat Creative, Vicki Ostrom from SanMar, and many more. Plus the amazing community that gathers every year to inspire one another. It's a great time with good friends. SKUCon sells out every year. You can pick up your tickets before they are gone over at skucon.com. This episode is brought to you by CommonSKU, the platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. Begin your free trial now at commonsku.com. And now on to my conversation with Carrie from AST eCommerce.

Well, Kerry, I know you run a very progressive and unique e-commerce business in the company store space in particular. How did you get into that?

Well, it's a great question. Thank you. No, we had a 20-year run at Nike Inc. North America, and my part— my partner, Billy Hale, had a 25-year run. And believe it or not, two guys from small-town Baton Rouge, Louisiana, we We've known each other forever, did a little bit of different things at Nike North America. But long story short, we had had some exposure to what I would call the corporate merch market. And we were very, very, very intrigued by it. And a little bit over 5 years ago, we jumped off the cliff and notably for me against my wife's wishes. And, you know, after some of the golden handcuffs at Nike and at age 46, my partner's a little bit older than me, but we've had a ball doing it. And we, we felt like we needed to embrace technology and not just live purchase order to purchase order. And so we, we really embraced— we actually like, love that word e-commerce. We originally launched our company as AST Marketing Group, and approximately 2 years ago we changed to AST eCommerce. And we, we're really putting the majority of our time and resources again into the, into the technology play.

You are really trying to develop something very progressive here. What do you think are the most important aspects of a successful store?

Well, you know, that's a great question. I think, you know, it's interesting. We don't talk a lot about product, Bobby. We don't spend a lot of— when we vet out a client or they find us through our digital generation, uh, Plant BD, uh, go-to-market plan, we talk a lot about, uh, ease of navigation, the shopper experience. We talk a lot about cybersecurity these days. In fact, we won't, we launch a platform unless we have cybersecurity and also trademark contracts signed with said client. Again, JIT on demand is critical, but it's interesting, we find ourselves— and also on what we call the non-e-commerce business, whether that, you know, some people, as you know, in our space call it dropship or call it by project— we're finding ourselves talking less and less and less about the actual product. And frankly, we like that.

What's one of your favorite store client experiences? What do you love doing? What type of business do you love doing? Is there a particular client profile, or maybe it's not that specific?

We're in South Louisiana. We're doing, we're doing business now, and where we have shipped, I should say, to 46 states, but the majority of our business has been done in Louisiana. We love this industrial sector, whether it's, you know, fire retardant apparel, hard hats, safety incentives, you know, required uniform out in the field where folks can be ordering, you know, off of their iPhone with a manager-approved order system within the platform. But, you know, really, we've had several good experiences where if that client can buy into the fact that it's— yeah, the product is a piece of the equation, but really it's a cost control and it's an operating efficiency and brand management conversation. And it's about freeing up that individual that frankly, whether they're in HR, marketing, procurement, or maybe even a C-level administrative assistant, they don't need to be spending their time thumbing through a catalog and quite frankly taking, taking calls from a sales rep. At least that's our philosophy.

You know, Kerry, it seems in a very short amount of time you've got a crash course and are in this 401 state of this particular part of the business. You're in the ones, the most difficult parts of the business. The grasp you have on the client and what they're really wanting out of the relationship to me is incredibly sharp. Any failures that help drive you? I mean, that to me, some of our biggest lessons came from not only our biggest innovations and some of our biggest stores that we launched, which by the way, are very similar in terms of the client makeup that yours is. Any big lessons you've learned along the way that can help us?

Probably the biggest one, very difficult for me, boy, I just did a real poor job with it, to be frank with you, was, you know, just said yes way too often. And right out of the, you know, we're a little more than 5 years old, but we would launch stores at the sake of profitability, somewhat lost leaders, if you will. And, you know, trying to garner other parts of the business. And I just worked really hard. We got a long way to go. We're not there by any stretch. I don't think you ever are. There's never a finish line. But, you know, what's the old saying? You grow by saying no. And I think if there's one thing we could look at, it's, it's being more selective, being more disciplined with the clients that you get in bed with. And in fact, you know, and sometimes that's, that's not been the normal conversation specifically in our geography. I mean, it, you know, we will say oftentimes, in fact, we had a conversation a few weeks ago, if it— if we're going to be treated like a quote-unquote vendor, well, well then actually we may not be the right fit for you, you know, um, or it's just going to be a price conversation. But, um, we said yes too often, way too often, Bobby.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I mean, that's a recurring lesson I think for most distributors regardless of whether they're in the space of a program business or not, but particularly in program business. You know, you used the term with me, virtual buyer, on the phone. Can you, can you explain what you mean?

Well, We are just— we have some 15,000 shoppers, buyers, employees. If you look across the board at our platforms or our web stores that we've launched, and we love the virtual buyer because, I mean, frankly, we want— we have orders coming through when we're sleeping. You know, we have orders coming through, you know, on holidays. And it really is a numbers game. We wanted to— my partner and I took a big risk, you know, getting into this business later in life. And we were really, really, really emphatic about creating a recurring revenue channel where the wheels were in motion while we were focusing on other things. Again, that doesn't mean you're taking your eye off the client. It's just, it's no different than having an insurance policy that pays on the life of the policy. But, and I will tell you that we've been so impressed with what you guys are bringing to the table and some other groups I don't think we hear that recurring revenue conversation enough in our space. I really— you know, a lot of people are PO to PO, program to program, you know, meeting payroll. And in order to truly scale, boy, I think you've got to give some strategic mindset to that recurring revenue topic.

I would assume you're finding a lot of this in that industrial sector where you're— you're this particularly the uniform business or maybe these safety incentive programs or something like that.

We are. And, you know, we love the uniform business. And quite frankly, we love when there's, when there's a problem with whether it's a natural disaster. I mean, we could tell stories where there's floods down here, unfortunately, Louisiana and other places. And, you know, we've got employees getting on their iPhones and ordering their replacement uniforms and other goods where, frankly, by law, they have to have that wardrobe or those things on body, on body in order to go do their job. It's not a negotiable.

Is part of the secret of finding this recurring revenue is the right client type and the right client purpose?

It is. And, you know, it, you know, maybe again, we talked a lot about industrial, but whether it's an accounting firm, an insurance firm, or financial firm, and getting out in front of their calendar and saying, hey guys, you're doing these 5 or 6 large promotional events a year, let's put them on the calendar, let's have some forward planning activity put on the table and try to not, you know, because right, wrong, or different, promotional products specifically on the, you know, the, I would say, entry-level, mid-level price point, the more giveaway aspects, the more pure promotional aspect of the business. A lot of it's done at the 11th hour.

In 5 years, you guys have had some tremendous growth. Can you speak to that a little bit? What do you attribute that to and what's your growth been like?

Well, thank you. It's nice of you to say. It's been a wild ride.

How do you mean? How do you mean wild ride?

Well, you know, hey, I was a corporate guy forever. You know, the sports business, and, you know, and got into the management world, but never was— I still don't consider myself an entrepreneur. But we doubled our business the first 3 years. We, you know, our forecast is 20%, give or take a point or two. This— we're on our fiscal year, on the calendar year. And, you know, we hope to finish somewhere in that— no problem sharing it. So, you know, we're not a big firm. We hope to finish somewhere in that $2.5 million range after 5 years. And I would attribute it to I've got a great partner. I've got some great mentors. We have a great board of directors. Yeah. And something we're very, very, very, very humble about at AST Commerce, but we talk about it quite a bit, is our Nike background. And, you know, I find that not that that was necessarily cool or anything or that we were that good at what we did. Surely we made a lot of mistakes and we learned from a lot of smart people. But I find a lot of people trip into the promotional products industry. And so what we're trying to do we've got a long way to go, is take a larger strategic company focus to the distributorship space and have those forecasts, have those budgets, try to leverage technology, try to embrace the outsourced model and try to be disruptive and continue to evolve on a daily basis. And so that's where we are. You're kind to say we've got a long way to go, but it's been a space we very much enjoyed.

Well, and I say that too in context of the difficult space that you're in as well. You know, you've embraced the most complex part of the business. But also, it's interesting to me how you've tried to stay so lean and outsource so much of everything, which is incredibly smart and, and easier to do today than it ever was. But yet at the same time, it represents a whole host of new difficulties that you have to face. Something I've observed that you've been very good at, and it makes sense because you're outsourcing so much, is you've been very good at communicating to all of your stakeholders. And recognizing your stakeholders from your investors, your board, employees, suppliers, and you're constantly updating them about your progress. It's a great best practice. Something I wish more of us would do is, number one, recognize who all our essential stakeholders are, and then number two, communicate on a regular basis progress and how things are going. How has that helped strengthen your brand and relationships around you?

I really appreciate you saying that. It's quite flattering. Really, I got that from a great mentor of mine, a gentleman by the name of Gary McKenna, had an amazingly successful career with Nike. And we just did a lot back in the strategic corporate world. And we, hey, we've got two great banks here. We lean on our banks heavily. They're huge partners of ours. We have a board of directors, which they've been incredible to us. Really, they're a group of advisors, but we market them as a board of directors. We have, you know, whether it's a company like Sandmarc and I hate to just throw one name out there, but we don't consider SanMar a vendor. We consider SanMar a partner. So I would probably say once a month we try to send out a well-written piece of communication. It comes from my desk to all of our partners, our distribution centers most notably as well, and talk to them about not just our sales, but maybe a profitability change that's occurred with the company. Maybe we've adopted something like a HubSpot, go-to-market platform we've recently embraced, to whatever it may be. So thank you for saying that. We think that's very, very important. That P word in the corporate, you know, big company world is kind of overused, partner. But we use, but we do, we overuse it a lot because there's a lot of folks that contribute and those, our clients are generally not included on that communication. But there's a lot, a lot of folks that believe.

Yeah, interesting.

Believe in our story. And, you know, we even share occasionally, we even share some, some P&L performance and some forecast adjustments and whatnot. So thanks for the kind words.

You know, one other topic that you're a big proponent of and create your— of creating, utilizing the strongest and best tech tools for your business. What do you think are the most important tools today?

CommsCue has been a good one. And hey, you know, that's you guys. We've only been in Doing business together, Bobby, I think we're going on our 8th month and very, very, very— and I'd like to— I know that's not what we're doing the podcast, but I'm very, very intrigued on you all's approach for several reasons. We're a big fan of HubSpot and we are big fans of QuickBooks. You know, the Achilles heel of that is, you know, how do you— in a perfect world, how do you integrate, you know, all of those systems? But we're trying to— we're trying to take the best. And, you know, I have to tell you, we We just decided this yesterday. We're an hour from New Orleans, and we are— we have a wonderful office here in the middle of Baton Rouge. We are going totally virtual January 2020, and we are going into a shared working space in the warehouse district in New Orleans. And from a technology perspective, cultural perspective, onboarding perspective, we cannot wait. And that's going to be a big, big, big move for us.

And so, so let me get this straight. You're in a— you're in an traditional office environment now and you're going virtual?

Absolutely. January, we're going virtual in really 4 and a half months. And it's— we think it's bold. We think it's somewhat innovative, specifically maybe in Louisiana. But we're so technology driven that we have two of our key folks that already live in New Orleans, our chief marketing officer and our national sales director. And it's a little different. I— it's funny, I had a couple board members didn't want me to do it. My father, who is a board member and investor in the company, didn't want me to do it. It, but, uh, we're, we're crazy excited about it.

What's driving that?

Culture's driving it. I think it's a disruptive, disruptive, innovative move. Um, we are going to, I frankly say, $6,000 a month, you know, after taxes. And if I can take those dollars and invest those dollars elsewhere, specifically I want to invest them in digital lead, you know, basically putting our digital lead generation campaign on steroids. And it's— and I think it's just a change of pace. And I think as you, as you continue to acquire talent, and in today's world, status quo is, is not acceptable. And I— we're just believers in evolving. So that's kind of the basis of it.

It's a great recruitment tool. I mean, flexibility is the number one requested aspect for modern employees today. So it's a fantastic move. Kudos to you for doing it. You know, you mentioned this isn't a Commsky commercial, but you said something that intrigued me. You said you like the non-territorial aspect about Commsky. What did you mean by that?

Well, you know, I've been to a couple of you guys' events. I got to meet Mark and Catherine Graham and had heard you all's name. And, you know, we're in a pretty big space, although it's very fragmented. Bobby, you know this, and the audience knows this more than we do. We're kind of rookies in the space, but it's what, $24, $25 billion space? You talk to. And, um, $320 million in the state of Louisiana in logo merch. And there's just so much business out there. And I think, you know, what I've been attracted to is you guys share a lot of information, uh, whether it's at your meetings, whether it's on SKU Cast. There's really not this, oh, you know, somebody's gonna go poach a client or someone's gonna steal the business. Or, I mean, we're of the belief, and I think CommonSKU is made I mean, there's really no secrets anymore. I mean, there's really not. I mean, with technology and you, right? And I think, I mean, what you all have embodied to us is a lot of transparency and open book, a lot of business out there. Let's go create some friendships. And, you know, I mean, as an example, we have a few strategic partnerships with what you would technically call our competition, you know? And we love that. And I just think what I've really, really, really been impressed That is not the norm. That is, it is not, it is not the norm to kind of open up your playbook, if you will. And yeah, and you guys, you get your suppliers and your distributors to open up their playbooks and you all open up your playbook and I'm impressed by that.

Yeah. Thank you, Kerry. I'm, you know, I've got one last Commsky question. This isn't, and we're going to move on, but it has really has to do with how folks are doing business today. Not so much Commsky, but what has it enabled you to and your team to do that you weren't able to do 8 months before?

Two words come to mind. We've just become more efficient and we've become more profitable. Profitable. I mean, and there's been other things we've got, you know, we have access to dashboards and access to numbers, and that's important. We have some access to those things from some other systems, but you also have been great. But really, at the end of the day, it's been a time saver relating to overall company efficiency and profitability on a monthly basis. That's what we pinpointed.

I'm curious too, you do a weekly podcast with the radio show, actually, You interview other entrepreneurs. How's that podcast helped your brand?

Yeah, I had a ball with it. Long story short, I had a very close friend, business mentor of mine. He, he was doing a show called the Louisiana Business and Industry Show. And long story short, 18 months ago, he— we actually tape it in studio, so it's both a radio show and then it's articulated to a podcast. And he just needed a few Fridays off, and he came to me and I was a guest a few times of his, and You know, we're into it 18 months. We've now got some sponsors/partners. It's kept me engaged in the business community. It's a little bit of a diversion of what I do every day. But, but I'll tell you, it's fun. I mean, we, we've had the C-level executives of our banking partners on the show. We've had all of our partners on the show. We've had a few of our key clients on the show. We try to keep it, although it's a podcast, we try to keep it low local. We're starting to have more folks call in from around the country, whether it's from our Nike previous life or what have you. And it's been a whole, whole lot of fun. I mean, any, you know, I don't get paid to do it. It's just, it's been, it's been something that, you know, I have my CPA and my financial advisor constantly telling me and a few other people, hey, Gary, you know, you got to make sure that you're focusing on your everyday business at AST. E-commerce. But really, I try to just hand the mic over to the guests. I'm not a real smart guy. I try to get out of the way. But I found, like anything, Bobby, hey, people want to— people, you know, they want a voice, they want to come on. And if you can get guests that can give back, it doesn't matter what the space is. I mean, we've had people of all sectors come on the show, and it's something we've enjoyed. Thanks for asking. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah, it's a great open channel for a community, particularly. You've obviously had a successful career with Nike. You've launched this business with AST. What are some of the biggest lessons, watershed moments you've had as an entrepreneur in this space?

Oh, that's a very, very good one. Number one most challenging thing for me, I have always, my entire career, I have been a performance compensation guy. And I have enjoyed that. There's a lot of highs and lows. It could be stressful, but there's the momentum and the fulfillment, not just about the money, but going out there, having a target, having a budget, getting out there and really selling and having to hit a number at the end of a quarter or fiscal year and really performing at the end of the day when you're working for a publicly traded company. And that's not for everyone, but I will— the reason I started out with that is that I got this out of one of my greatest mentors. He's a board of directors member with us. And that's this, Bobby. It's literally, and coming from a sales guy, this has been tough, having the ability on a daily basis to surrender the outcome and truly, truly focus on the process. And if you can do that day in and day out, you're gonna bear fruit. And that's not been easy for me. Because I'm like, you know, where are we on the EBIT? Where are we on that latest PO? Where are we on the, you know, quarter to budget? I mean, what's our turn rate in our distribution centers on our JIT? And these things, you know, and I think sometimes you can get, you know, paralysis with over-analysis and just, you know, it's like a Nick Saban or any, you know, you hear these coaches talk all the time, focus on the process.

Since you've said that, do you have a sales process you've codified with you and your team?

We do. We're kind of constantly trying to refine it because we need to improve. We, um, I have a national sales director. There's a reason that that's his title. The majority, uh, of his time is spent on digital lead generation and business development. And we have somewhat recently tried to really get targeted within the HubSpot platform. Um, and we now have a true chief marketing officer. That, that's a big investment for us. That's new for us. And that, that individual is not writing press releases, not even— we've actually, I'm not going to say gotten away from social media, but we are not spending near the amount of resources we had with social media. We're spending, we're spending some, but we're really, really focusing on a certain piece of dirt, uh, via SEO and, and, you know, Google Analytics, and truly trying to have those applicable clients really almost come to us. And that, yeah, that's what we're trying to refine. That's not an easy thing to do, but we're spending a lot of time there.

So it sounds as if you've shifted a sales and marketing focus from an outbound focus to inbound. You know, I'm putting things together with HubSpot, with your marketing director, with your digital national sales director. There's a lot more going on digitally with you guys in bringing leads and having them come to your doorstep through either keyword-rich content or tactics like that.

Yeah, I mean, you know, when we started the firm, Bobby, it's funny, you know, we wanted a bunch of boots on the ground. And, right, you know, and I had that from my Nike days. I mean, sure, hey, let's get boots on the ground, let's, let's, let's go poach a sales rep who's got a nice book of business. And there's nothing wrong, right? And hey, I mean, confidentially, I actually have a gentleman that used to be in the space I'm actually talking to as we're talking about, about doing that. But that's, that's an exception that we have. We have totally shifted. And if But if you can invest on a daily basis as to what's happening with SEO and digital lead gen, golly, it's— I don't know much about it. My CMO does, and we are fascinated with it.

Yeah, I am too. You know, speaking of that, this topic of, you know, kind of what you've learned, and it's been 5 years, kind of a blitzkrieg for you. If you were to talk to a young entrepreneur getting into the business today, what would you tell them about where to invest their time?

I would tell them that they have to keep being you. That would be one thing that I would say. And because of the—

because of their unique uniqueness they bring to the market, is that what you mean?

I believe that, yeah. You know, and, and if you're— you know, if some folks doubt you or some folks maybe say you're too aggressive I think you have to, or I know rather, you have to keep being you. And the number one thing I feel that you need to focus in and spend your time on is, and it's kind of a cliché these days, but technology. And I was not a technology guy, but it's something I've forced myself and I've become truly enamored with it.

It sounds like that's where a majority of your time has shifted from your your perspective from boots on the ground to investing in technology and what it can bring to you, as opposed to going out and blunting your sword against that shield out there time and time again, uh, with an outbound focus. Um, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I was interrupted. I, I missed one thing I'd like to add on, Bobby, if I can. Yeah, yeah, we tripped over this. Um, it's something I've been very intrigued with, but if you were going to start out. And I cannot strongly encourage enough to— we have 12. You don't need that big of a number. Go out there and get a group of advisors. Go out there and get a board of directors, whether they're— whether they're invested in your company, whether there's a million different ways to put it together. But having that backbone of mentorship, and it's something that the market has taken notice specifically here. Locally. I've needed it. I've never done this. We've made a lot of mistakes and it's been— I would say it's been a true backbone for us. So go, go explore that. It is. It does not matter whatsoever what industry you're in. I think it's something that's intriguing to go take a look at if you're a young entrepreneur.

Yeah, that's such great advice, Kerry. And I'm going to not make assumptions because it's my job to not make assumptions here. But what has that meant to you and your brand? We're talking about an executive who was with one of the most renowned companies in the world. Who leaves to start a business in an industry like the promotional products business. You, mid-40s, you started this new career, and your number one piece of business advice is to go out and get advisors. Um, what has that meant to you specifically?

It's given me confidence. It immediately gave our firm credibility. The name of my company, the name of the company, my company, my daughter is Ann Scott, my son His trip. So that's AST. And so outside of a very small circle of folks, most people really don't care about that. But we went to what we felt was a supply chain expert, a financial expert, a sales expert. We went to someone in the space. We went to someone that was maybe just the smartest guy I've ever met. And I could name a few more, but— and we went to him and we said, hey, you know, you you're friends with our family, with some of our other partners, you've been wildly successful. We're not going to take up too much of your time. Would you consider trying to be of added value from a consultative perspective to our business? And they all said yes. And it's, you know, some are more involved than others. We don't actually physically meet that often, which is very unconventional. It's meant— I am the conduit with them, but it's also the team here. It's raised the team's confidence to be associated with these folks who frankly have their own brands, Bobby.

Right. As a leader making decisions, then it gives you this, this incredible bank to draw down upon when you're at critical crossroads in the business. I would also assume that these folks become champions, your number one champions for the brand, and because of their reach and because of their stature and because of their wisdom, that probably is an exponential increase in your Well, simply put, I mean, this is selfish, but this is part of the strategy.

Their Rolodexes are extensions of our BD effort. They just are. Right. Now, we're overly cautious to make sure that we're respectful of, again, their brand, their Rolodex. But we market them. I mean, if you go to ASTcommerce.com and we, a lot of our collaterals and materials mention our board. And now, of course, we get their approvals, but, but there's a, um, there's a rationale to that.

Let's circle back to stores since this is obviously such a hot topic for most companies today. I mean, if you're a distributor in the business today, you're typically being asked to do a store in some aspect or another. You know, Comiskey, we have shops. It's easier to do a store now than ever before, but there are stores and shops that range from the very simple that's a quick pop-up shop all the way to the incredibly complex. And you've mentioned JIT several times in our conversation. And again, it's my job to sort of just be the dumbest guy in the room. JIT stands for just-in-time inventory. You're trying to do this business with absolutely no inventory, no inventory, I would assume no commitment from the customer in that sense. There may be some contractual commitments, which we can get to in a minute. But tell me why you're passionate about JIT and what that means to you.

Well, I'm just passionate about it because that's where the market has gone. And frankly, it doesn't regardless of what your model is, the consumer is demanding it. And whether you want to refer to that as, you know, the Amazon effect, or what's happening in the grocery store business, if you just look at supply chain in any industry, not just the promotional product industry, on-demand JIT, just-in-time, it is a mandate. And I'll tell you, I mean, it's, to have John Doe employee go online, purchase one shirt, have that shirt deck— again, not taking an inventory position— have that one medium shirt decorated, have that shirt picked, have that shirt shipped and delivered to XYZ shopper or employee at ABC client in 5 to 6 business days. That is not a profitable proposition. And so for us, the question is, how do you put together that supply chain model in order to make it profitable enough to where you can go to the client base and you can say there is no inventory requirement? And to answer your question, Bobby, yes, we will not— there is a contractual volume commitment, of course, but there is no— for all, you know, there could be some minor inventory obligations depending upon, you know, the assortment of goods and whatnot. But I think the business demands it. And I think every day that goes by, the consumer is going to continue to demand it. And we feel that you're going to get left behind at the train station if you don't jump on that to some degree.

Yeah, you kind of addressed it in your comment there a little bit, but yet it was probably the question everybody's been burning to ask when you talk about producing one piece at a time and not being profitable. Have you cracked that nut on profitability overall? Are you making up for this with large contract purchases with the client? Um, just, are you offering that service because in the whole scale of things, it's a minor part of the service, whereas a major part of the service is traditional dropship and bundling and things like that? Or is this truly about figuring out the supply chain in a way that it makes, at least makes it more efficient and you're able to deliver on that, or both?

Yeah, it's— I have no problem sharing this. Our ultimate goal is to be 80% e-commerce, 20% what we call non-e-commerce business. Okay, that's our ultimate goal with our model. And no, we have not totally cracked the nut because there's a lot to it with shipping rates and, uh, and all types of programs that the big boys from a supplier perspective now offering. But we specifically, we have, uh, we actually have 4 to 5 distribution centers depending upon what you're looking at. And we're starting to get into just the fulfillment business in general that doesn't have anything to do with local logo merchandise. But there, there are specifically 2 individuals with 2 distribution centers. I won't get into the details that we have been working together for 3 years. We have the utmost faith in each other. And frankly, they were contract decorators. Before they, you know, got engaged with AST. And so they now have been able to diversify their portfolios, and they're, they're getting a piece of the action, you know, not just in contract decoration. And they're a big, big, big part of what we do, um, and we can't thank those two partners enough.

But you're right, just JIT is the way of the world now, whether that you're in a dropship business or whether you're in in the fulfillment business.

You know, it is. I mean, one of the features we love with you guys is your, you know, is your client survey figure. And I mean, that literally— I, my partner does that, you know, a couple of days a week. It probably takes like 15 minutes for him to do it. And, and all the way, Bobby, to again, this move we talked about with us going virtual, um, you know, we've talked about being paperless at AST eCommerce before, but going to this virtual co-working space New Orleans. I mean, I'm telling my team, we literally, we literally want to be paperless, virtual. And again, it's just the rate of business has gotten so— it can't get fast enough for us. The faster the rate of business, the more profitable we think we will be. And quite frankly, though, you know, again, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but the biggest delta we feel we can create with our competition.

Moving from a somewhat closed environment to a much more open environment. You sound like a very open person. You're already sharing so many details with your stakeholders, but you've gone from this, like you said, boots on the ground, sort of more of a traditional mentality toward moving toward a very open and transparent— transparency has become obviously very important to you and your brand as you move forward, particularly as you go into a virtual environment.

You want to speak to that a little bit on the transparency aspect? I went to one of you all's events again, and I I was, you know, the old school, old ways to again be guarded. But hey, look at what is social media now. Social media can be narcissistic in some ways, but look at what social media in other ways has done. Everybody has a platform. There's no— I mean, you can Google anything. I mean, I can go to Glassdoor, and I remember the old days, and it was like Heaven forbid you knew what someone made annually. Well, I mean, you could, you know, you can find that at a red light or a green light these days. And so, and, you know, I was struck, uh, in one of your Koniski events again with the distributors and the suppliers, and everyone's running around having a few beers and in a good mood and listening to these great speakers. And it was like, hey, you know what, um, and I'll say this, my late uncle who's was on our board of directors, she used to say, you know, you share all these things and you're constantly trying to improve. At the end of the day, somebody's got to go do the work and execute it anyway. So the reality, the reality of it is the idea, the old school idea of having something poached and you losing market share, I just, you know, I frankly think it's antiquated.

Thank you so much for joining me. I'm I mean, I know you're incredibly busy. I know the kind of business that you're under and the deadlines, and we heard what's on your desk. Thanks for taking some time out of your schedule not only to just talk about your business, but you know that you're sharing this with other entrepreneurs who are seeking encouragement and wanting to strive for things the way you've built them there. And kudos to you and your team. I know it's hard work. I know the sweat equity you're putting into your business, and it shows.

Bobby, appreciate it. It was a ball. We had a good time. And we're learning, we love the industry, and let's all, let's all be as collaborative as we can. Thanks, thanks to your team. It's 8 months and I know it's only gonna get better for us. Thanks, Kerry.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkuCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.comandskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.