Episode 173: The Decisive Moment with Rhys Bowen, Name Brand Promotions

I learned so much from that specific project last year. In fact, of all the projects we've done last year, that one may have given me one of my personal greatest insights. And it was once someone is, you know, multiple days, multiple late nights into, in this case, an artwork or a creative, and it keeps changing or their idea is rejected, me as the leader of the sales department and somebody who works with the art team, has to keep that motivation going because you have to make sure that the finished piece is the best piece.

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Cartier-Bresson was famous for one of the most iconic photos in the 20th century. You'll recall it immediately. It's the blurry photo of a man jumping over a puddle, and it was taken in 1932. He released a book called The Decisive Moment, and he's remembered for that phrase. He said this about photography, and the same can be said for our own decisive moment when someone opens and receives a beautiful, well-executed promotional campaign. It's the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an experience, as well as the organization of forms which give that moment its proper expression. My guest today is Rhys Bowen, VP of Sales for NameBrand Promotions, and we start our conversation talking about this very decisive moment when it comes to creating campaigns for clients. A little about Rhys. After a decade of developing product for many of Europe's largest companies, including Disney, Estée Lauder, and more, he decided to swap England for America, where he, along with Kevin Felgate, lead the incredibly talented team at NameBrand Promotions. They're known for their complex and imaginative projects for some of the biggest brands in the world. Reese is also very meticulous in how he communicates and engages with clients, earning him the respect he deserves, not just as a thought leader, but as a thoughtful leader who is passionate about investing in the careers of his team and who, above all, loves what we do. I love talking with Reese because he sort of has this slanted perspective, and I mean that respectfully. He looks at the same things we do every day, but he always seems to be looking at it from a different angle., and as such, heightens the value of what we do. We talk about selling ideas versus products.

I think people buy ideas, not products.

Yeah.

And I saw that as a young man and I realized like even like 19 or 20, if I could share an idea with someone, the level of buy-in I had with that client transcended the product and transcended the price.

The art of continuing the conversation.

You know, the magic of an idea is just a conversation. If you say no, there's no conversation. If you say it can't be done, there's no conversation. If you say that takes 5 days to manufacture and 3 days to ground ship and the person needs it in 2 days, it's the end of the conversation. If you start with ideation, you're constantly pursuing and increasing the conversation to get to the endgame of where you want.

And one of the least talked about secrets of sales leadership.

There's nothing more powerful than when you lead a sales team is when you, for the framework that you've, you've rolled out, you watch an account manager or salesperson within that framework create a win for themselves and they go home that night and they're like, dude, I done it. Like, I, I don't know, you know, I, I just won Sony Pictures, I just won I just won Adobe. When they get those wins themselves, I think it just, it just adds to the culture.

And much more. By the way, for Commscue users, we just launched Commscue University Plus. It's a 2.5-hour event specifically for Commscue users who are serious about becoming pros on the platform. With 3 focus sessions plus community-led breakout electives for sales reps and owners, your team will learn how to maximize productivity while learning how other pros use Commscue to grow their sales. The strongest benefit of attending Commerce University Plus is that you'll get a masterclass level of learning concentrated into just a few short hours. It's built for teams. It's minimum investment and maximum impact. You can check it out and register at commonskew.com/universityplus. This episode is brought to you by CommerceQ, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, Begin your free trial now. Visit commonscue.com. Now here's my chat with Reese. Reese, you have such a genuine respect for that moment, that moment we worked so hard to create when a recipient opens and receives a well-executed campaign. It just happened to me yesterday when I received a campaign. You bring together multiple forms, design, production processes, distribution, logistics, packaging, all for one experience. What does this decisive moment really mean to you?

What was your moment with your campaign yesterday, Bobby?

I can't wait to talk about it, actually. So the wonderful team, my colleagues at CommonSki, sent me a gift from Driftway Coffee, which was a coffee tasting for 3 months. And Rhys, you and I have been doing this a long time, and as someone who has received a lot of campaigns, a lot of merchandise in the mail and also distribute a bunch. I am sort of processing it as a practitioner. So when I open the box and I receive this note, I get, of course, the handwritten message from someone. The coffee company didn't just send a big huge bag of coffee. So I'm a coffee aficionado. They didn't send a huge bag of coffee, they sent little samplers, and inside was an envelope that said, do not open until you're tasting. There was a note from the team on each packet of coffee. They had actually printed my name, so we had customized packets, my name on every packet. And then the— to me, one of the magical parts was to go online, follow the link, enter your code so that you could sign up to receive the rest of your coffee to make sure that it was tailored toward you and your taste. It was beautifully executed, beautifully packaged, beautiful design. The neatest part is I broke the rule, I opened the envelope anyways because I was so curious about the campaign, and inside was a postcard, several postcards for each packet of coffee that really explained what you would have heard if you went to a coffee cupping about the origin and the country and the people that grow the beans and all of those things. So they really did a great job creating this experience in a box. And when When I talked with you about recording this, you have such an amazing respect for that moment that we work so hard to create.

You know, what you just explained is similar to a conversation, right? There are so many conversations we have on a daily basis, but we remember so few. So you ask yourself, why do I remember certain conversations over others? And I know that some conversations could be striking because of your personal moment or your professional moment. Most conversations land with me, I think anybody, because for some reason you connected. It could be a daft conversation over your soccer team, you know, an event you went to with your kids, or even a joke. I think that all too often people forget that that is the power behind product as well. And so I think that moment you just touched on, that passion that you relived, that campaign, you know, that product that was sent to you, which was just coffee, there was something about it that struck a chord. Yeah. So if I was to say what that moment is to me, I'm not too sure if there's a single moment that guides our entire team or us, but we really, really seek for our clients' clients, our clients' target audience, to express what you just expressed. Yeah. Because it's like an element of like a genuineness You know, another way that I would say it is you can always taste love in food. So whether you're having a meal around the family table or even like sometimes cheap food from a food stand, a food cart, right, when someone's put love into it, you can taste it. And you can equally taste when you go to a super fancy fine dining expensive restaurant that lacks love. And I think that that metaphor transcends into into product, excuse me, and if you can put a little bit of love, a smile, maybe like a multi-step interactive process like you just discussed with the coffee, if you can find the right way of applying that to the client's opportunity, I think that's the moment. I think it's the moment for a few reasons. I think it's the moment because the client instinctively knows it's the moment. And then if you embark on this project together and you decide to do something more than just slap a logo on a cup or give out a pen, and you dare to put thought, creativity, humor, fun, challenge, intrigue, you dare to put any of that into an experience and apply an experience to the product, then something else can happen. And I guess the highest expression of it isn't just, you know, the client coming back to you with another order or building the relationship. And I guess the highest expression is when that client's email box or cell phone starts binging because their clients' clients are recognizing it. Yeah. Now they're getting messages from their clients to say that coffee was insane. You know, the ability you let me choose my coffee. No one ever lets me choose my coffee because I always prefer organic over dark. I prefer light roast over medium-bodied. And what happens with that is you start to really interestingly like bring in choice into that campaign. And I think that's one of the moments. I think there's a hidden moment as well in what we do. I don't know if it's 9 times out of 10, but usually our client is completely hidden from, and that's the amount of work our team has put into making that happen, right? And whether that's time constraints, supply chain constraints, creative constraints, just coming up with the idea. So sometimes I just see product or see one of our campaigns, our orders, and I know what's going on behind the scenes that is often unknown, but like maybe subtly recognized. I think there are two moments that drive me and definitely drive Namebrand.

Yeah, I loved what you said. I no longer apologize for being too esoteric in this business because we sell a medium that is emotional, period. And that transference you talked about, that you can feel that energy— I know there are some Buddhist monasteries that won't allow you to cook in the kitchen unless you've spent time in the garden, enough time in the garden, because the energy that you transfer to the food growing, it will transfer to the food as you cook it. And so I always thought that was an interesting insight into our human energy and our human experience. And I know you're exactly right, because You look at all the complexities of what we do and you look at the hard work of putting together an amazing creative team, and all of that work is hidden beneath the surface for the client, obviously, but it is felt and experienced in that moment. And you referred to a campaign you build as a three-part story, which I just love that phrase. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Yeah, yeah. Well, um, I, I read something a month ago that spoke about one of the One of the great problems for where we're at with COVID is, you know, the lack of touch with people, that physical touch. Yeah. And I'm going to completely butcher this example, but they were talking about the sunlight that basically departs itself in your mitochondria. When you touch someone, you put that energy exchange, that sunlight, into someone else's body. So you will never have to apologize to me for being too esoteric because I could— I have to pull myself away from that just to get back to reality, I think. But But I think, I think where you're going at with that is you can't just give somebody one item and expect, you know, a significant percentage of the audience you're targeting to be persuaded, molded, changed by that item. Someone once told me that it takes 7 to 12 touchpoints in a sales process to really even get awareness of the client. Yet most people stop at 2 or 3. I think that metaphor carries over to our industry, that people are so fixated on giving out a cup, and that cup might be a beautiful, you know, dual-layered, copper-insulated, beautiful item, but it's just a single impression. So I guess the question is, what's the appetite? What's the feasibility? For us to do more or create more than just one impression. If it's for a singular item where you just have to give away a cup at a trade show, let's stick with that example. What more can you do with that? How can you amplify that? Can you put a little card inside that says, I'm great for coffee, but at 5 o'clock on a Friday, fill me up with your favorite drink because that's how I roll too. And all of a sudden there's like those little secondary touchpoints start to amplify the initial offering. And when clients come to us, I think the one you're referring to was for a campaign we've done for Sony, they wanted to speak to their largest clients. I just couldn't get my mind past that they're speaking to their largest clients on a near-daily basis. So really what we're doing with product campaign, which we created for them, was just amplifying that process. So in amongst all of the emails, the texts, the calls, the traditional marketing, we've got an amazing opportunity to actually give something and create that type of experience that you expressed with the coffee. And so our thought was, as opposed to giving them 3 great gifts that were somewhat disconnected, how could we intertwine these 3 gifting strategies together? I mean, we've done it through tremendous artwork, relentless hours, long nights, weekends. But yeah, when you source in ideation, when you look at these 3 kits together, I would be blown away if even the most unreceptive recipient of those gifts doesn't say, dude, there's a lot of thought, care, creativity in that. There's a lot of love in that. And out of those 3 sets, I'm definitely going to use half of them or give one to my spouse, child, parent, you know, neighbor. Yeah. And I can see that Sony cares. This is, this is well thought through.

What was their primary intent behind that campaign?

To express gratitude. Yeah. To just say that, you know, through these times, how can we just show you that even though we are a large multinational, company. We are really grateful for your business because we couldn't do this without you. And so we created a campaign of gratitude and took key figures from the Sony Pictures portfolio and expressed them into a 3-part story, each done with a static drawing. And I mean, the other thing to that particular campaign is we had about 2 and a half weeks from go to, to go. And, and, you know, one designer in particular probably put in excess of 50 hours just, just into the illustrative part of it.

Yeah, this was a custom hand-drawn pieces, right?

Custom hand-drawn piece that included key components of Sony Pictures brand, um, through, through Hollywood. And we created a a vision of someone standing at some water looking at Hollywood in the distance. The second one just expanded upon that story, and the third one is yet to be released, so I can't say too much about the third one. But we took key characters and intertwined that. And if there's one, one thing I feel like I have to add, this is I learned so much from that specific project last year. In fact, of all the projects we've done last year, that one may have giving me one of my personal greatest insights. And it was once someone is, you know, multiple days, multiple late nights into, in this case, an artwork or a creative, and it keeps changing or their idea is rejected, me as the leader of the sales department and someone who works with the art team has to keep that motivation going. Because you have to make sure that the finished piece is the best piece. And when I say what we learned was our first illustration was mind-bendingly good, it was beautiful. However, as we went back and forth with their team and received their feedback and digested their feedback and executed their feedback, it really allowed me to see how right the client was, how much more on brand the finished piece was than our beautiful art expression the first time around. And I think that really helped the 3-part story, that the amount of work and like sincerity the art team approached that particular campaign with. Once we nailed the first picture, the second and third just started rolling because we already had the— we'd already captured the message of the campaign at that point.

Yeah, it sounds like there was an essence you were trying to get with that design, which leads me to another question. Once led a design studio as the creative director, working with some very large brands like Disney, Estée Lauder, and more of those. How does design infuse your work at NameBrand?

And how—

it sounds like a dumb question, but I'm trying to ask— how critical is design at this juncture in our industry where we're at, where we're creating campaigns for clients, where we have a more sophisticated buyer, I think, than ever before? And What separates, I think, many of us is this one aspect of design. How does it infuse your work?

I mean, honestly, Bobby, I would be doing creative directors a disservice if I was allowed that word to be attached to me in that I've been very lucky to work with a series of creative directors. We've got an awesome one at Namebrand and they understand design in a way and are committed to design in a way that I'm just not. And not to get too off track here, but I left school extremely young, so I mentally left school probably at 15 and, you know, went off into the world of work. And by 17, I found myself in— it was called ProntaPrint, but you guys would call it like a King Carl or a FedEx copy center, right? And we were in the heart of London, in Chelsea, and there were a ton of agencies around us. As a young man, I was just thrilled by the excitement of agencies and honestly, the people that worked at agencies and, you know, you could see why I would, would I rather spend my time photocopying sets of annual reports or would I rather spend my time working with these agencies? Right. And I was, I was young, so I became really close. Like I asked myself unknowingly at the time, like, what do these agencies need? And at the time, all I had to offer was speed and service, I think. So I just gave them that. But I soon started to like connect some dots. And one thing I could never get myself past was, man, some of their designs were just lights out. Some of their designs were— I remember just looking at them literally in awe. And yet, you know, 6 months, 12 months down the line, this company would go out of business. And I couldn't understand how a company that was so good at the design element of their offering can stay in business. And obviously you learn as you gain more experience. There's a lot behind that. And actually in the design field, that is all too common. But I started to realize that design services can often come as an afterthought in the sales process. And I think people buy ideas, not product. And I saw that as a young man and I realized even like 19 or 20, if I could share an idea with someone, the level of buy-in I had with that client transcended the product and transcended the price. The difficult part is coming up with the idea. So, you know, I relied on some, you know, pretty basic graphic design skills to make up for my lack of words or lack of ability to express the vision and just really doubled down on that as the years went by. And we won all of those companies you mentioned. We won through creative services. We won through an ability to capture their brands and express it visually and do a really, really good job of that. And when we expressed that creativity to them, discussing the pricing and the product became much easier because you were both bought into the same point. You were both on the same page with the idea. So I definitely didn't have this, I don't have, didn't have the same strategy that many, many creative directors do, and particularly with their understanding of design like that. That isn't my forte. But I realized and realize that if you can, if you can capture a campaign's feeling, if you can express an idea that a client likes, there's real value associated to that. Yeah.

I want to come back to your professional journey in a minute, but to stay on this topic of design for a second, As you work with clients, you guys have created some phenomenal, very complex campaigns. And as you've worked with clients through the years, have you codified a process of engaging a client from ideation through to completion? I mean, is there, is there vernacular you guys talk about? Is there structure? Is there some kind of, you know, in writing or any kind of art form, there is structure, and it's those constraints that give us that fuel our creativity. Is there such a thing with you at Namebrand?

The easy answer probably is no, but yet there is a framework for success that we are building on incrementally as every year goes by. I think the nature that we have codified how we capture our clients, we are starting to do a better job of codifying how we capture our clients and what our real value is to them. And I know that because we've stripped it down and bring it up in our very first meeting with them. We just lay it on the line and tell the truth as much as possible. We say we're not for everyone, but if we're for you, we're probably really, really for you. I like that. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a work in progress to understand the balance of, you know, design hours, art hours, ideation hours that go into a project before the project has been agreed. And that is a work in progress. I will say that when we get it right, there's like a, I know this might seem like a funny word, but there's a truth element to it that I think is unspoken. I think when you bring a great set of ideas and a system for executing those ideas to a client in a pitch or before they've given you the project, I think they realize that you're pretty invested in them and their brand. And there's an element of truth, I think, attached to that that allows us to scale. But honestly, Bobby, it's a work in progress. As we scale and bring in new people, to have to teach that to new teams expeditiously is something we're constantly working on and making sure that we don't lose our je ne sais quoi, like making sure we don't lose what our special sauce is while we try and codify it, while we try and scale it, while we try and systematize it.

You know what you crystallized for me is something we all give lip service to in this business. We will say we're not for everyone, but then you flipped it on its head. That's the negative that says that we're not going to do business with just everyone. What you flipped on its head by saying, when we do business with you, we are going to engage you and your team 100%. And I don't mean that as just a lame metaphor. I mean, we are going to invest in you and your brand. There's like a decision made, not only work that we won't do, but the type of work that we will do and the level at which we will do it. I don't know. I didn't have a question there, but I just— it just really crystallized that for me. And another thing we do, we give a lot of lip service to the idea of an advisor, but you strike me as someone who's very skilled in offering a strong opinion to customers about what they should do with their merch. Do you have an example where you and/or your team advised a client, it resulted in a big win. I'm curious about the aspect of having a strong opinion with a customer, taking all of our skill in sourcing, design, merchandising, taking that to the customer as a true agency, as a true consultant.

Funny enough, I think you, you almost answered the question in your statement before. That at Namebrand, we just only know one way and it's kind of all in. And it's definitely different. It's definitely not like many other companies, but we only really know one way. And what I mean by that is if our client has a problem, I've got first-year account managers that are coming into my office saying they're going to jump on a plane and fly to Missouri to get something out of UPS where it's stuck and get a rental car and drive it back to their client. And there's just an element of that I want to bring up because I think that really comes from our leadership. Like, companies embody their CEO in really interesting ways. And our CEO, Kevin, is just, he's just an all-in person. There's no doubt. There's like, there's no 50%, there's no 80%. Like, if he invests in you, your team, your, like, in this case, the company, there's He only knows all in. I think that that has expressed its way through how we speak to our clients, meaning if our client comes to us with a project, a campaign, we only know one way, and it's like, do you need art services? Do you need fulfillment? Do you need ideation? Do you need inventory management? Do you need warehousing? Because we come to this table with this whole bag of services, this whole plethora of services, And that's the way that we express ourselves. And so to your question is, I think that allows us to strip out a lot of the BS upfront when it comes to identifying and analyzing a project with a client. I think they've learned that about Namebrand as well. The people who know us know we come to the table with these services and this like at times super weird commitment to like get you, get you a lanyard. A bag and a cup, like, what on earth are you doing? It's just promo. But where I'm going with that is, I think that all-in mentality, that like relentless pursuit of like truth from the get-go, allows us to really get to the needs of the projects. The sooner we get to the needs of the projects, the sooner we can start doing what we do best, assuming it's the ideating, the sooner we can start bringing ideas to the table. And if we start bringing ideas to the table, we start to get the, you know, the magic of an idea is just a conversation. If you say no, there's no conversation. If you say it can't be done, there's no conversation. If you say that takes 5 days to manufacture and 3 days to ground ship and the person needs it in 2 days, it's the end of the conversation. If you start with ideation, you're constantly pursuing and increasing the conversation to get to the endgame of where you want.

Yeah, you and Kevin have done a masterful job positioning and marketing your business. What's important to you and your team from a UVP standpoint in the marketplace?

I think companies are always, always working this out and probably, you know, realigning it. I think that the most successful companies have that dialed in. We have a couple of people in our building who have this saying, make it happen. And I think we try and say yes as often as possible, but we say yes the right way. Yeah. Meaning we don't just say yes for the sake of it. We say yes to the intent of the project, and then we start to apply our skills in supply chain, our skills in decorating, our skills in creativity, our skills in how our services will amplify the project. And come back to the table with the client. So I think our marketing UVP and how we approach each project are a little bit different. It's actually, frankly, it's quite hard to market a message like that. Yeah, make it happen. But when we deal with our clients on a daily basis, they tend to come to us with very high-level delivery objectives and allow us to backfill the details for them. And I think that that has become what's special. Special about us and from what I know, pretty counterintuitive to the industry we work in.

Right. You also said something I think very important, and that is that a UVP is not a one-and-done type of experience. It's— you're a living, breathing document in that sense when you're trying to nail down your UVP. I do think the best, like you said, the best brands do have that dialed in, but it's the dialing process that many of us are actually in right now. Particularly over this past year where many of us had sort of changed and switched our purpose and alignment. When I use the phrase marketing is sales, I'm curious what comes to mind for you, because here's why I ask that question. We're at a different juncture in our industry and in the marketing advertising world where marketing and sales used to be a very separate discipline, but now that most of our clients are behind screens in a very literal way, and we are no longer out in front of clients like we used to be. Marketing is sales. There is now, for example, some of the tools that allow customers to hide behind are the very tools that allow us to see them and find them. So when I use that phrase, what comes to mind for you?

Have you ever seen Glengarry Glen Ross? Yes. Like, I don't know, to me that comes to mind, right? Because there's just a singular— for those that haven't seen Glengarry Glen Ross, I highly advise you set aside, you know, 40 minutes of your life on YouTube and type in, right, I agree, Coffee's for Closers. And if you're in the sales industry and your sales numbers aren't where they need to be, you may need a stiff drink before you watch it because it's going to certainly bring up a few feelings. But my point is, it's just so ruthless. It's so selfish. It's so self-motivated. You know, here's your number. Yeah, here's the set of knives. Here's the car. Pick up the phone, bang the table, curse people out, make the sale, make the sale, make the sale. Yeah. And I actually— and I do not mean to cause offense, but I think there's a contingent of that within the promotional product industry.

For sure.

I mean, I don't mean for the shallow aspect of it or like, you know, the mean aspect of playing, you know, Alec Baldwin is obviously not a great guy in that movie, right? What I mean, what I mean specifically is people in our industry just sell product and here's your cup, here's your logo. And when you have such a separation between the sales process and the marketing process, I don't think they intertwine. Maybe someone can use fast words and say they do intertwine, but I believe they intertwine less. You know, at Namebrand, we sell services and the very fact we sell services versus products means they have to intertwine because the marketing aspect is often a part of the sales pitch, right? So if, if marketing is just making product desirable and sales is delivering the products, our sales team is spending most of their time on how to make that product desirable and how does it fit the campaign, how does it fit the end user, and how does it fit the specific request of the client. They're not coming to us just because they want, you know, 50 cups. They're coming to us because they're going to give those 50 cups to somebody else. So I think, I think the separation that comes to my mind is when you sell a service, the marketing and the sales definitely, definitely blur and they become more of one process. When you just sell a commodity, you know, you market your commodity, you go online or you speak to someone and they give you the price and you close the commodity. There's more separation there.

Yeah, I love that point. I love that point. It makes the sales process more mechanistic and less human. And we're friendlier at it in our industry. But those that don't have those intertwined, are missing that huge, huge component that probably softens, yet at the same time, as you used a word earlier, amplifies the sales process.

It also creates a unique set of challenges for recruiting, training, and growing because, you know, a lot of salespeople want to know how much something costs, how many people they can speak to. And how many they can close. And the transactional aspect of our industry allows some salespeople to grow. But if you're trying to grow accounts, while everybody would be disingenuous to not say they're looking to win an order, of course you are. If you're trying to attract the right type of client and find out if they've got a core set of needs and wants that you have the ability to, you know, bring respite to, to solve. Yeah. And that's a completely different set of talents, characteristics, personality traits for a salesperson. And we really, really believe in account salespeople. We believe that we just don't want salespeople selling, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars worth of merchandise. We believe in people winning accounts. I think the mentality you have to, have to have to win those accounts it's just a different kettle of fish. You really need, you honestly have to be vested in the client. You have to be prepared to put a lot of work in upfront and consistently demonstrate your value again and again and again because these larger buyers have so many options. And I think if you can do that with the right level of integrity and speed and you don't get sloppy in showing them good ideas or you don't get sloppy in like taking things for granted, I think you can start to build, like, really strong relationships with our clients. And then, you know, once you get to that point, the fun really happens. You can really start to make great, great, great work.

On this point, it makes recruitment harder, it makes training harder. You are very passionate about leading others. That's something you mentioned to me when we talked a few weeks ago, is that you feel like you're at a stage where investing in others is your primary role developing others. How do you do that in this industry? What does that look like on a daily basis? I know a lot of what we do in our training process is very organic and as such requires the right soil, the right environment. But what do you do on a daily basis to help facilitate that?

I get energized around people. You know, I get energized around great clients. Great work colleagues, great friends. And the leading aspect is something that I think everybody is constantly improving in. If you analyze your own leadership, you can always find a handful of good decisions and probably a larger handful of not so good decisions. Right, right. So I think, I think where we are at specifically as a company is taking what Namebrand was for the first 4 years You use the word codifying that, I've used the word growing that, scaling that, and putting those resources and skills into the hands of other talented people. So I think as a leader, I'm looking for character, I'm looking for attitude, I'm looking for people who are, you know, real go-getters, have tremendous personal integrity. I'm looking for people who bring energy to the team, when their colleagues are having a tough day, a tough week, they're the sort of people who will give up their own time, you know, add to their own day to pull their colleagues out of their rut or, you know, the scenario they find themselves in. And if we can find people like that, we have a bunch of great, great people at Namebrand right now. As Kevin, you know, expressed last year very eloquently, he just said, We've got the right people, all we've got to do now is give them the resources they need to grow and push them. So I think it's just, it's our job, it's my job as a leader of the sales team to set the goals really high, give them the resources, coaching, training to hit those goals and really to create opportunities where they get the wins themselves. And what I mean by that is I think that's, you know, leadership There's nothing more powerful when you lead a sales team is when you, for the framework that you've rolled out, you watch an account manager or salesperson within that framework create a win for themself. And they go home that night and they're like, dude, I done it. Like, I done it. You know, I just won Sony Pictures. I just won I just won Adobe. When they get those wins themselves, I think it just adds to the culture and adds to the buy-in of our company. But it is challenging, and it's challenging because we are definitely looking to grow careers versus just have like, you know, high flyers for a single year or two. I think if you're dedicated to a career, as you would know, the work that goes into that is almost never-ending. Yeah, correct. So it's overarching, overarching direction, making sure I can pick the energy up when I sense it's down, but really build this team out that does all of that for us, because that's the culture that, when I'm not in the room, that's the culture of the company and team. And I think that that's so powerful.

Yeah. You mentioned a few things there. One is you look for these intrinsic values as you're recruiting, but also in developing those from teams. But what I loved about what you just said is that you want to help them get to that first win fast, because once you've experienced that— I had a friend of mine who ran a multimillion-dollar operation and constantly recruited salespeople, and he said, I never look for salespeople who are motivated by money. I always look for salespeople who are motivated by something more intrinsic, something more intangible. We're all motivated by money to some degree. Or another, but helping them get a win accumulates everything about the hard work that they did, from design to sourcing to merchandising to all of the sweat equity they put into it, all of their creativity, all of this inspiration. Helping them get a win helps them experience that moment with clients, because we as distributors have two experiences. We have the experience of helping facilitate the end user experience, that decisive moment we talked about to open this talk. And then we also have the experience of going back with our client once a successful project is landed. And that whole emotional experience is a part of helping our teams get those wins and develop and mature, I think, as a professional. As leaders today— and has always been the case, but I think today more so than ever— leadership is a two-way street. And I'm curious what you have learned from your team that you value the most.

You know, the win, to go back to something you just said, the win isn't the order. Like, if you, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but if you're short-sighted, the win is the order that you just closed. If you really buy into a process, if you really buy into your career, if you really buy into bringing people, like, not buzzword value, but like real value where someone trusts you, where someone works with you, where people share their— your clients share their displeasure, their problems along with their wins, then you understand that the real win is the relationship. And that sounds like such a cliché, but yet it is so true. We all have people we call in times of need. And in the world of products, you know, our clients call us. They call us because they, you know, I hope they realize that when we put that phone down or we leave that meeting, we go away and just go absolutely, you know, 10x, level 10, and bringing to life what we just discussed. Yeah. And so you ask, um, what do I learn the most? I mean, Bobby, I'm constantly learning, constantly learning through my own mistakes, my own errors. I've learned a couple of things. I've learned just to keep pressing forward. I think If you tell your team you learn from your error, you learn from your mistake, you have to just, you know, move forward and regroup and get better the next time. You have to apply that to yourself as a leader, and that requires a little bit of vulnerability, that requires you to openly express when you've made mistakes, when you've made errors. So I've definitely learned to share that with my team, because if I can't do it, then how are they going to do it? I've also just learned like energy, like to see the vibrancy that the sales team in particular, that's the team that I specifically lead at Mainbrand, the energy they bring on a daily basis, actually all the departments, that the energy and continuity and dedication they bring to their work, to their projects, is something that's humbling. I think it's something that it only increases within myself and it never stops. It just grows, grows, and grows. I think something else I've learned through the years, and this is probably some of the biggest errors we make, and it could be a sensitive topic, but you've also learned the responsibility of protecting that team in terms of its culture. That when you have someone who just doesn't fit, like, that, that's— they could be a great person, they just, they just don't fit your culture, they don't fit your mission. It's really important to challenge the person as to why. And if they, if they don't fit, then just be honest about that and ask what you can do to help that person find something that fits elsewhere. Because if your crew is coming to work every single day ready to deliver, the last thing that they need is someone who's ready to take away.

Yeah. Last few questions. You left school at 15. Rhys, how did that shape who you are today?

Well, I mean, I think when people leave school early, it's obviously not often for the right reasons. I left school mentally early for a ton of pain that I personally found myself in. How did it shape me? Well, I mean, I was fortunate enough to have a great support network around me where it just continued to evolve and shape me in the right direction. It shaped me to really never give up. It shaped me to kind of like search for answers that aren't readily available to other people, or maybe answers that can't always be learned through traditional forms of academia. And so yeah, I think it shaped me there. It shaped me and guided me to make my decisions through experiences of myself and through others versus just books, etc. So, but it actually was a blessing. I mean, honestly, Bobby, it was, it was a blessing because, uh, I look around and look what I have now between, you know, my family and my kids and, you know, name brands, which is basically family, and all the people that work there. And I just think, wow, I couldn't, I couldn't swap this for anything.

I love that. Rhys, thank you for joining us today. It It truly has been a pleasure.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I look forward to hopefully next year us doing this in person. Yes, maybe over a beer in Vegas so we can get our crazy industry back together and start feeding back off our supplier partners and seeing what they have to offer and maybe have one or two nights at a bar somewhere.

Yeah, I agree. I can't wait.

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