Episode 177: Swag in Space with Lee Fine, Juice Marketing

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We ended up having, of the 32,000 boxes that went out between the two pre and post race in 87 countries, we ended up having less than 0.01 non-deliverers or, or messes or things that we, we had to respond to.

That's insane. Lee Fine is the co-founder and the head of sales and strategy at Juice Marketing. A marketing production house focused on creating interactive experiences, which includes disciplines like branded merch, web development, video production, fulfillment, print, and creative services too. Juice Marketing's clients are some of the most enviable brands today: Apple, Google, Amazon, Boeing, the Yankees, the Giants, the Seahawks, Bumble, the list goes on. Lee Fine is entertaining, surprising, always insightful, and the bringer of stories. He studied film in college, which taught him how to think from the viewer's perspective. And it's where he learned that every detail matters. A few of my favorite Lee-isms: "I challenge the why and create the why not." Or another one: "We eat with our eyes first." And I have to say that we're thrilled to have Lee and Robert and their amazing and creative team on board as customers here at Cometscue. Today, in addition to the Boston Marathon story, the clip you heard at the beginning of this show, we also talk about the Blue Origin story. Since not many of us have clients who are making human spaceflight possible, I wanted to hear more about the work they are doing to help their clients orbit planet Earth. We also talk about how to vet projects outside of your scope.

We can do this. We may not have a ton of experience in this, but all the pieces that go into this, we do. Let's just put it together.

How Juice Marketing fits the various services they offer into each client opportunity.

Clients don't always understand how video, web, and merch can play together.

The importance of getting at the table early.

And I tell this to all of our clients, if you can get us at the table earlier, even if we don't need to speak, we can just shut up and be listeners. So as you're spitballing your kind of activation plan, we could start brainstorming and even in our heads silently of ways that we can accompany that with merchandise. That's awesome.

And a whole lot more. Two quick notes before we get into that. Number one, many of you know about Promo Kitchen, but for those that don't, it's a nonprofit organization led entirely by your peers, professionals in the industry who focus on education and mentorship. One of the original founding chefs at Promo Kitchen, T. Hamilton, was a dear friend of ours who lost her battle with cancer. She was an amazing creator who contributed greatly to many of the organizations in this industry. She helped elevate all of us with her unique sense of style. In her honor, Promo Kitchen created the T. Hamilton Creative Scholarship Fund. You can learn more about it and donate at promokitchen.org/donate. Also, this week we launched a really cool new concept that we're excited about. It's called Community Meetups. We're taking live interviews featuring insightful and inspirational talks by the most streetwise entrepreneurs and mashing those up with a community hang plus a micro-learning lab. Bring your team each month to grow together as we share our insights on the topics of sales planning, marketing tactics, and more. It's a fast hour shared with smart friends in a co-learning environment that will be a blast of encouragement and tactical takeaways for you in your growth journey. The whole CommonQ team will be there, plus many of your friends and favorite personalities. Come meet up with us. Register now at commonsq.com. /communitymeetups. Now here's my conversation with the one and only Lee Fahn. Blue Origin, that's an astounding client. Now, not many of us have clients who are literally building a road to space. How'd that come about?

You know, it's a, it's a solid question because the answer is certainly not as sexy as how other people or how we even have secured new opportunities or clients. This was a relationship that someone on our team had with someone within their org, and that person within their org had actually zero kind of responsibility or involvement in the work that we provide for clients. They were on the finance side, and it was because of that relationship we had a seat at the table. In the RFP process.

Wow. You know what's funny, Lee? I've had this little exercise in my mind that I loved to do onboarding people of the organization, and that is it's almost like a little mind map of all of their connections in the world. And not to be— not to like poach those connections, but just to explore the incredible multiplicity, if you will, of our world, the 7 degrees of separation, so to speak. And that's a great story about how within your organization you probably have contacts other organizations that would surprise you?

You know, it's funny, we do, yes and no. But the thing for us is, and we are very comfortable admitting that because we're a small company, if a larger opportunity or RFP or project, it doesn't matter if it's a one-off or long-term program, just on paper, we're not going to compare well to the big players. Now, we want big player action, but we know that if they're just looking and comparing us to the other larger distributors within our space, we're not likely going to get that seat at the table. Now, once we have it, we're super confident we can, we can close, but it's not— there's been times when we've actually turned down RFP opportunities with some very large clients because just filling out the 72 pages of defining who we are is going to turn a potential procurement person off if they're just looking at our size of company, not our capability, but the size. If we can get to the table, we're confident.

Does that have something to do with the strange paradox that Juice is, in a sense, like, you're very hard to categorize?

I know, and I love that about us because I've often been a huge critic of our industry and our space and challenging it for being, or criticizing it rather, for being too stagnant and not willing to make change. And if you look at the companies, some of the larger companies in the world that we admire. And I know it's an overused term that goes back decades, but change is important. And our industry, I do feel like, has been guilty of just being complacent. Right.

You know, you guys have done so many different projects for somebody like Blue Origin. Of all the projects you've worked on them, was there a project or two that was the most impactful or most inspiring?

You know, it's funny, we're actually, I would say, working on that project, excuse me, right now. So I don't want to get into too much of the specifics of what it is, but I could build the framework of what it's about. And that is Blue Origin has asked us to put together their anniversary product line for their employees who are celebrating their 5, 10, and 15-year anniversaries, milestone anniversaries with the company. And traditionally, not always across the board, but traditionally, this typically falls into a category with companies where it's a plaque, maybe a trip, maybe a pocket of cash, what have you. They wanted really cool kind of kick-ass merch. This is a company whose employees have really bought all in to the brand. You walk on the Blue Origin campus and people are wearing their gear everywhere. And the only other company I can compare it to is my experience being on the T-Mobile campus. It's the same thing. And I spent many years on the AT&T campus and it wasn't there. So I know even in like just telecom, just comparing those two, T-Mobile, it is magenta everywhere. You kind of look out of place when you're not wearing magenta. And the same applies to Blue Origin. If you're not wearing some sort of branded gear, you look out of place. And so they, the HR team kind of challenged us with, with coming up with some very different retail-esque style merch that is branded. So because they applaud their brand versus, you know, a lot of times people say, hey, let's just go tone on tone. Let's, let's turn it down. They want to turn the dial all the way up. And I love that.

Yeah. Also, there's this tremendous— it's a pinnacle we try to shoot for in terms of the clients we want to work with. But this brand pride is significant. I was on a call earlier this morning with some folks in a mastermind group, and I was talking about how Shops Stores allowed us to— when you flipped it on its head where it was more than just a brand management tool, it allowed us to cultivate brand champions. And at its height, that's what we're doing. To work with a brand like Blue Origin, yeah, that has that kind of pride of ownership, if you will, even though it's not owned by the employees, it's an emotional investment, is huge.

It really is. And I think the culture kind of defines itself that we're doing some pretty big stuff. And I'm speaking as if I'm a blue person not representing Jews here. So, so get on board, no pun intended, because this is changing some pretty major things that are happening on planet Earth, leaving planet Earth. Right. And so not by any means to diminish what our other clients or other companies around the world are doing, or the impact. But what these guys are doing is remarkable, exciting. There's a lot to not be excited about in our world right now, and so, right, what they're doing is pretty incredible. It's not just providing a trip for regular citizens to leave our orbit. They have these what's called payloads, where third-party companies who don't own their own rocket ships— because apparently they're not that cheap— to leverage these private companies like a Blue Origin to bring up their and you insert thing here, whether it's a satellite or something for the International Space Station or what have you, that's major. That's improving the lives of all of us here today, not just, not just the folks at Blue Origin specifically. So it's cool. Robert, my business partner, and I joke around at the office now that we are astronauts, and we ask people to really just refer to us as Astronaut Lee and Astronaut Robert. Because we know, uh, less than a pinky nail of information about outer space now, so we, we think that you're qualified. That qualifies us. Yeah. Um, but they're an exciting client doing really exciting things, and that keeps it really fun.

How has working with them changed your perspective as someone running a branding, marketing, merchandising company?

You know, in some ways it hasn't at all. In a couple of ways it might have that I haven't probably given it a tremendous amount of thought. Most of our clients, if not all of them, and I think many people on the distributor side listening to this conversation can attest, our clients care about their brand and brand marks. However, there is definitely a different level from one client to the next on how much they care about their brand and what it's on. So you can't make a mistake when you're going to outer space. And by no means am I comparing going to outer space the same thing as putting a Blue Origin logo on the left chest of a quarter zip. However, they put the same amount of attention to detail in making sure it's exactly what they want and the quality of what they expect, just as they would with, you know, a widget for their their rockets. So yeah, I know that sounds like a really kind of broad statement, but they do that. They care about every detail of their brand to a level that I can't remember seeing in a long, long time.

Yeah, I had an executive VP of marketing tell me one time that she said to me, Bobby, everything we do validates the investment made in this brand.

Yeah, I like that.

And we were just the print and promo people, right? And this was a franchise system. And she was speaking of their clients and the investment they're making. That goes for employees making the investment of their lives into this brand, working for this brand. Sure. That's essentially what you're talking about.

It is. If the people at the top of a company, regardless of the company, don't respect their own brand, why and how should anyone beneath them on the chart do the same? Yeah. And when people feel that they are connected and passionate about where they work and what they do, they care about their brand. And ultimately, that's what every company's worth is. That's their value, their brand. So I think Blue Origin is one of those kind of at the top as far as respecting their mark.

That's cool. You guys work on some fairly complex projects and some wild projects, things that most of us obviously don't get into. Even the most progressive of us do not get into. Tell me about the Boston Marathon project.

You know, this one was definitely— the highlight in what was widely the worst year for people, not just personally, but professionally. The Boston Marathon, which is obviously an iconic event here in the US, did something for the first time that it had never done in its 124-year history. And that was make the decision to hold what is now commonly used, the phrase, a virtual marathon. 13 months ago, we never really knew what No one really used that term, and now it's, it's kind of everyday language. The Boston Marathon is different from some of the other bigger marathon races. For example, the New York Marathon is a lottery. The Boston Marathon, you have to qualify. And so not just anyone, like I'm not a runner, but even if I was dared to run it, I can't just go qualify for the Boston Marathon. And there are, they cap it at 30,000 participants and they have anywhere from 75 to 90 countries represented every year at the Boston Marathon. So when they made the decision to do a virtual race, they knew that they had to do some things to accommodate people around the globe and not just the people in the US because of the group of geographical diversity that makes up the participants in this event. So when they reached out to us, it was through Amazon and our relationship and work that we do with Amazon. We were preparing to do some on-site activation in Boston during the Boston Marathon with Amazon as not a title sponsor, but a key sponsor. When the decision to make a virtual race out of, well, obviously the pandemic, Amazon was still committed to use the money they were going to put towards their onsite activation in another manner. And my client got me on the phone and we just started talking. And when we got on the phone with the Boston Marathon and the Zoom calls started going like crazy. And we came up with something that was not only tangible and potentially fun and exciting for the recipient, but also met what the Boston Athletic Association's needs were to adhere to their sponsors' activation that was also being canceled from it not being a live event. So for example, if Gatorade is a sponsor, they would give away product maybe at the starting line, the finish line, and post-event party, but because it's virtual, how are they gonna get stuff to people around the world? So the best thing, we came up with an idea of doing this custom box that by no means are we coming up with something that's never been developed before, but the custom box allowed every sponsor to have something inside and get their value out of their decision to be a sponsor at this, what would be a live race normally. So it's interesting because when we kind of landed on this product of doing a custom box, all the things going inside were not going to come out of Juice. So the Adidas wearables, the Finish Line— it's not Finish Line, excuse me— the, uh, the number you wear, your bib number, all your sponsors, we weren't doing any of that. And in a normal project in our space, that's that's the money, is the stuff. And so I kind of, you know, went with this, there's opportunity here. It's not going to— I can't be a pig. I can't go after it all because all this other stuff was long developed before Juice was at the table. So our sole responsibility is to leverage our fulfillment partner and receive I think it was— I think we ended up at 28 pallets of stuff. So all the sponsors and stuff to the warehouse, Boston Athletic Association sent everything, and Amazon and Adidas, you name it. And then we had 30— well, what we did was— I know I'm giving you way more detail than you probably care.

No, I love the detail.

Keep going. So we did— we ended up doing 2 boxes. We did a pre-race and a post-race. Boston Athletic Association had no idea what they were gonna get in terms of numbers. So they said, let's cap it so we can control some budget somehow. At the pre-race, the first 15,000 people to sign up for the virtual race will get this box regardless of where they are in the world. Right. And then anyone who signs up, including those 15,000, anyone after who completes their marathon, um, will get the post-race box. So we ended up doing 32,000 total custom boxes, shipping them to 87 countries around the world, which was insane because these are drop shipped to people's homes. And I said in another conversation recently, I learned I became this pseudo expert in like international freight and international logistics. Oh my God. I know a couple of Ukrainian laws about taxes that I never ever thought I would ever need to know in my life. Or I've shared this story a couple of times as well, but in Costa Rica, I didn't know that a street address could formally be, you know, 3 yards past the stop sign on the left. And that's legit. And so getting all that, this became a logistical project, like the box, making the custom box. Sure. We all do that. That's fine. You have a vendor, they make boxes, artwork's approved, great. This became a logistical project very quickly, not just receiving all the goods domestically, but then fulfilling and sending them out. The post-race boxes, the, the pre-race box everyone got was the same thing. So hypothetically, if Lee got Bobby's box and Bobby got Lee's box, doesn't matter because all the stuff inside was the same. The post-race box had a ton of variable data because You got a box regardless if you finished the virtual race or didn't. What you didn't get that I would get if I finished the race is that medal, which is your biggest kind of— Right. You know? Yeah. Claim to fame. And that's that badge of honor. That's that bragging piece. And so we had very little room for mistakes on the post-race box. We ended up having, of the 32,000 boxes that went out between the two pre and post race in 87 countries, we ended up having less than 0.01 non-delivers or messes or things that we had to respond to.

That's insane.

Insane.

As someone who used to run a fulfillment company, that's insane.

I wish I knew that, Bobby, like 6 months ago because I would have had 8,000 questions for you about fulfillment. I don't think I could have helped you any. If you could send me your resume, I probably have a lot of them.

Wow. What an incredible— I was going to ask you how the client handled the, what for sure would be the percentage of error on something like that, particularly when it's so high risk.

Yeah, they were overwhelmed. Really, really proud of everything and everyone's part. Now, I will say the other part where companies like Juice and other distributors make money is in freight. And we all know that, right? And every one of these shipped on Amazon's account. So there was even still that opportunity for us that wasn't an opportunity for us. So we weren't making merchandise and we weren't putting the freight on our bill and then charging a client. Now, that probably is a good thing. Amazon's rates are significantly better than Juice Marketing's. Slightly larger than us. Right. So we were able to leverage that. But out of this, we got a $300,000 project. For custom boxes fulfillment and execution, which was a great win for our company. So what's interesting now is the New York Marathon has since reached out to Amazon saying, wow, do you want to play with us too? So who knows what will now come out of this for Juice? I have an amazing client at Amazon who is incredibly supportive of Juice and the work we do, and we earn it every time. And so she's already said to me, you know, if we do something with New York or other events, get ready because coming to you.

So Lee, help us understand exactly what your role is because it sounds to me like Amazon's a fulfillment house, but that's not the case.

It's not the case. So Amazon in its simplest terms was the signature on the check. We actually use— we have a partner fulfillment center in Cincinnati, Ohio. So all of our programs for a variety of our clients or larger fulfillment projects happen out of that partner's fulfillment house in Ohio. And we use them for this project as well. So it's, it's kind of interesting with Amazon because a lot of times, and I think this is a common thing with large companies, the larger the company, the more kind of difficult it is to get things done. So would this have happened at an Amazon warehouse really effectively? Probably. They're pretty good at that stuff. Was it easier for them to tap us on the shoulder and leverage our capability and also the hands-on attention for such, you know, needed white glove kind of execution?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

This brings me to a question about Juice Marketing. Does you do all kinds of things, but you basically, you are truly an agency where I think many of us in this business might bill ourselves as a merchandise agency, which we are. But you're doing agency work, you're doing video, you're doing all kinds of things beyond the scope of promo. You also seem to get involved in a wide variety of wild projects. This is an example that most promotional people probably could have fell into in terms of custom box, but the full scale of this is bigger. We all found ourselves going outside of scope. It's easy to know what to say no to, but how do you guys vet an opportunity? How do you know what to say yes to? Is that like an instinct? Is it a formula? Is it just something you kind of know after failing at it so many times?

It's a great question. And I feel like I would be completely BSing you if I said we have this algorithm that we use to formulate a decision whether we're going to kind of move forward or respectfully decline an opportunity. And the truth is we don't have that algorithm. We certainly will look at opportunities and understand all of the moving parts. To be able to make a sound decision saying, you know what, we can do this. We may not have a ton of experience in this, but all the pieces that go into this, we do. Let's just put it together. We've absolutely said no to clients for a variety of projects that are out of our wheelhouse or something we just simply do not do. One example is a client of mine at Amazon. A couple of times had asked us to be their digital marketing ad buyer and understand with all the different demographics that they were going after and for a variety of different products, how, what medium we should use and how we should reach these people. And he said a couple of different times, we're really good at making the content that you need for those people, but where you should go extend that message and how you should move about doing that is not our specialty. We're not, we don't do that. It's forget about not being good at it. We just don't do it. But there are certainly occasions where projects have come to us that we said, you know, let's tackle this. This is an opportunity that we can do and we can do it confidently because it's one thing to say let's tackle it at a risk and really lose the potential loss of a client. There's nothing good that comes out of that. So decisions are made. Soundly, but there's definitely times when we said, screw it, we got this. I think you have to have that risk mentality to push yourself a little bit. I, I think otherwise you're just gonna get what I said at the top of this conversation, fall guilty of being stagnant within this industry.

Yeah, it sounds like you— one thing that you respect is the difference between a calculated risk versus a gamble. Yeah. Although you feel more adventurous than perhaps I would have been, it's almost as if knowing yourself and your team well enough to know that, yes, we haven't done this project before, but we've got the muscle and we've got the prowess for a project like this.

Sure. I think, though, it's more— I think there's a couple of things that kind of lend credibility to how we go about doing it. For one, Robert, my business partner, and I, on paper, we shouldn't even like each other, let alone on a business together. Like, we are so, so different. We live in different parts of the city, like a good 40 minutes away. I love urban. He loves suburban. He is not a risk taker. Everything is very, very thought out. He's very operational minded. These are things that I am not. And I think that balance is what allows us to kind of exist. There's been times when I've really done a full-court press convincing him on why we should maybe take that risk or do something. And vice versa, when he's kind of, you know, stiff-armed me saying, here's why we shouldn't. You know, video was not something he wanted to get into. I really— I don't want to say convinced him, but it really educated him on why it makes sense. Right. If an opportunity comes to my my desk or my email and it's a heavy, heavy numbers game, I'm going right to him to help solve or understand if this opportunity makes sense. But the second part of it, I think, Bobby, for why things like doing things outside of the box a little bit works for us is this is not the Lee and Robert show. Like a lot of our projects, our clients, the work we do is because of the people inside our organization. And also, again, like, and I think this is hugely important. Just last week, I mean, all of us are working from home, but I had to meet a colleague at the office to help with a project. And we ended up having a 4-hour conversation and a 4-hour conversation of this particular employee saying, hey, we did this poorly. Here's why. And we need to fix it. And it was a really, really healthy conversation. In a normal organization, an employee often doesn't have the time or not the time, excuse me, the opportunity to tell an employer, here's how you screwed up, and I think we could fix it, but we shouldn't do this again, at the risk, you know, that could be career suicide. And I welcome it because from day one, Robert and I acknowledge that if we are the two smartest people in the room, our business is screwed. We're screwed. Yeah. And I know that's an often used cliché, and it's very easy for an employer to say that. I don't feel like an employer. Everyone to me feels like a coworker and I trust them because I don't know even that much more of what I don't know. Yeah. So I rely on them.

Well, it's almost cliché. It is cliché, but you have to in order to scale. I mean, you absolutely have to. You can't depend. And I don't mean just from a physical standpoint, from a strategic diversity standpoint. I know Catherine's really, really always been big on the reason why diversity is so important for businesses, the diversity of thought. And tying these two together is your team and the diversity of thought and respecting those differences between your teammates, but also you and Robert, the fact that you respect those differences and know that you've got this wild-ass idea.

Yeah.

And you're going to bring it to him because he's going to poke holes in it. Right. And knowing that those two differences exist and they exist for a reason is because by the time you're done, you're going to walk away with a tangible idea, certainly a better idea. Absolutely.

I mean, that was perfectly said because that's exactly what happens when I have a crazy idea and it's, and it works because I, even with my clients, we do a lot of video for Amazon and I recently told my client, I love executing these projects. I'd love to bring more to the table. Can we develop content ideas for you? And she said, are you serious? Yeah, of course. But what is that going to cost? And I said, nothing. We like doing that part. Let me earn it. You know, in a year, if she says, oh my gosh, the concepts you came up with are the most brilliant things in the world, I want to pay you for this, we'll have that conversation. But we have to prove ourselves as content generators. And these are things that will be aired on television or on Amazon's website. These aren't just projects that are going to be shared within a team during a holiday party. And so You know, she pays a lot of money to large agencies to just come up with content creative. And I said, we've got some really good ideas. And so I'm excited to kind of now delve into that area of expertise because I think it will just add to our, our game, not just being the video production team, but also the video content creative team.

You've got this multi talented, multi-disciplined approach to work. I mean, you're, you're doing swag on one hand, you're doing merchandise, you're doing video. Do you find these components complement each other with clients, or do they operate as separate businesses within— under one roof?

You know, it's really interesting, Bobby, because we so often, when we go into a new client pitch, which obviously in the last 12 months isn't a thing anymore, right? Which will return and we'll be able to do that. That's my favorite part about my job. I explain, I try to understand first what our client or potential new client is looking for, because if they— a lot of companies, for example, with video, do it in-house. I'm not there to take away someone's job, and they might love what they do. So I'll really kind of— and that's where I turn the dials on, you know, okay, we need to be brand merch heavy in this meeting. Let's turn down the video. And it looks like there might be some web opportunity. Let's turn up that dial. So we kind of recreate that pitch deck depending on the client is, and hopefully, hopefully doing our due diligence prior to that meeting to understand what they want. But at the same time, clients don't always understand how video, web, and merch can play together. So for example, going back to that Amazon Boston Marathon project, we ended up creating a splash page because we put a QR code in the— on the inside of the box when you— when these athletes lifted it up and they're unboxing, there's a QR code for discounts that they can get on Amazon. So they snap that QR code and it took them to a page that we designed that had another link to go to the amazon.com/running page with all the gear that you can buy. And it accomplished a couple of things. One, Amazon was understanding who was clicking on that QR code because we provided that data to them. Two, it gave the athletes a really special experience to know that there were specific discounts that only they got or whoever they shared it with on Amazon. And so there's where opportunity lies for us to continue to do explaining, if you will, to our clients of how merch web can work in tandem.

I think you're on to something huge there when you— when it comes to tying all of these experiences together as opposed to creating disparate experiences. And I don't know what I'm trying to get at. I don't know that I have a question, but I think it's fascinating to tether or at least connect the dots for a customer.

Yeah, I think, you know, like all of us, uh, customers are often guilty of kind of staying in their lane. Right. And categorizing you for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, that's one of the things that our industry unfortunately deals with. And I don't know if it will ever go away. An opportunity event and experience and execution of an event never starts with what merchandise are we going to have. And I understand that and I'm completely okay with it. In fact, if I did start like that, I would say you should scrap this whole opportunity. But at the same time, what do you mean by that? Can you clarify that? I mean that if, if any of our clients or a group of people on the client side sit down and say, hey, we, we are launching a new product, we have to plan an event. Let's start talking about first what product we're going to have. What merchandise are we going to give away? There's so many other moving parts that have to happen first, especially with merchandise being a part of this, because merchandise should always be like accompanying the main attraction, not be the main attraction. Now, and I know a lot of people are like, what are you talking about? It's merchandise. We have— no, stop. That's not true. It should never be the lead in the movie. It should be— what's the word I'm looking for?

Yeah, like a supporting actor.

Supporting actor. Thank you. Because also the merchandise has to make sense with the event. So if you build the event around the merchandise, now you're saying that that merchandise is more important than the brand message that you're trying to convey or get out there. And I think I'm not offended by that. We know our place. I will say the earlier a client— I tell this to all of our clients— if you can get us at the table earlier, even if we don't need to speak, we can just shut up and be listeners. So as you're spitballing your kind of activation plan, we could start brainstorming in our heads silently of ways that we can accompany that with merchandise. That's awesome.

I love that idea. Yeah, I love what you just said, Lee, because often we think we have to be invited to the table with answers to begin with and just, just telling the client if we can just be there to listen, we're going to be a far more educated merchandiser for right down the road.

It's— clients love that because especially in our world where you have not always, but we work with a lot of agencies in addition to like directly with the brand itself and they have a lot of moving parts that are going on. That agency or the client directly. A lot of moving parts to develop an event and some of them are very busy and if we make that mess messier, we failed. If we can help tidy up a little bit and come to them with concepts and ideas before they're asking just because we were listening, they benefit. And then, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, there's some people in this space that are really, really, really good at sourcing great merchandise. But you really— like, I think what we need to do best, uh, in our part in the, in the wheel is make our clients' lives easier. That's how you get clients.

One thing I wanted to ask you about the past year, and as business has changed, your team has changed, um, like everybody's team has changed, leaders have changed, everyone has changed to some degree. And there are many changes that probably happened over the past 12 months with the organization, like a lot of us, where it impacted the way we work going forward forever. As leaders, what have you learned from your team? What's changed for you guys?

You know, this is where sometimes being too transparent doesn't make me look wonderful, but I'll be super transparent. Okay.

We—

it's so funny, we're so client-focused that I would— I feel confident, unfortunately confident in saying that I feel like Robert and I could have done a better job kind of leading our team through this as far as connecting more regularly. You know, one of the biggest things— now, not everyone works out of Seattle. There's a couple of folks that work remote, but the bulk of us work in Seattle. And one of the things we've all talked about that we miss so much is just that banter in the office, right? That collaboration and that kind of impromptu brainstorm. We miss it. And it's really hard to always do that on a Zoom. You kind of fall into your lane, sit at your desk. Oftentimes I stand up and look at my wife going, I've been sitting here for 8 hours. Like, this is, this is reason number 97 why I need to lose weight. Like, we're at the office, I would generally get up and walk around. But, you know, we just like everybody else, we started off the pandemic, hey, let's do a couple virtual cocktail Zooms. And the novelty of that wore off. And, and you, you know, try to Um, have team meetings. They're very few and far between, just to keep people— Robert and I are very adamant on our team knowing the status or the state of our business, um, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So we do that, but it's not consistent enough. I think, to be very, uh, truthful, we are very, very anxious to get back to the office consistently. I think we—

that's where we do our best work. I'd forgotten you were a client before. How does that inform your work and your confidence.

It's so funny because so I worked at Pepsi and I ran marketing for the West Coast, like Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii. Um, I had— it's the job of a span of my life where I say I had the best perks, uh, in employment ever because Pepsi, as you know, is a sponsor of so many different teams, stadiums, sports leagues, what have you. I, I have all the tickets. So from that aspect, it was beautiful. And I got to go to Hawaii and Alaska 5 times a year for 5 years, which great. Right. But talk about a job that I truly wasn't passionate about. For starters, I'm a type 1 diabetic who was doing marketing to drive, you know, type 2 diabetes, hoping people drink more and more sugar water when I personally didn't drink it myself. So that felt a little bit awkward from an aspect of our industry. I, of course, when I needed to wrap my arms around merch, called former colleagues and such where I kind of knew and had a relationship and trust that had existed. I relied on those guys. But it is really interesting because going back to what I said earlier, it just solidifies the fact that merch was never my prominent responsibility in a project or an event. It was an aspect of it. And the good and the right merch really mattered, but I never led with it. And I really, you know, it's funny because my distributor that I used is now a colleague of ours at Juice. And I said one day we need to work together again because she's so awesome. And, uh, her name's Sha, she works out of Indiana, and she's been with us from the beginning, and she's one of the most creative people I know. And so I was fortunate enough to leverage our relationship and get the value out of someone who does it better than anyone I know. That's great.

Yeah. Talking with creative people, I'm always fascinated by how they develop a creative mind and how they develop a distinctive style or a distinctive eye for good decision-making when it comes to merchandise, video, whatever the creative output is.

Right.

How do you think you have developed that? And is this an ongoing development? If so, I guess what I'm asking is, how do you keep your creative muscle strong?

It's a really good question. And my thought on that is that I don't— I use this term and I use it a lot. I did not invent this term and I don't know who first said it, but we eat with our eyes first. And I remind our team about this. Every single day because little, little detail. What I do, Bobby, is I always put myself in the— whether if it's a video, the viewer's perspective, it's a— if it's merch, the recipient's perspective, it's a— if it's web, the user's perspective. I always pretend that I'm on that side of the table. So there are some filmmakers out there, and I'm by no means am I referring to myself as a filmmaker, but it is their art and it's their craft, and they're not thinking about the end user's experience because they are true— it's like a painter. They're making their art and it's, and it's amazing and it's beautiful. What we're doing is not for me, it's for my client and their end user. So I can't just throw ink at a board and go, ah, that's what I created, I was feeling that today. So I don't have the luxury of— I'm not that person. I'm the person who has to think on behalf of the user digesting it. And so I think what keeps me on my toes, because I absolutely have a tendency to go off the grid, is reminding myself, how is this going to be received? Because that's what pays the bills. I'm not just a person who gets to go do something and hope that people like it, but really it doesn't matter if they do. It only matters if they do. So reminding myself about that often is, I think, what allows me to kind of stay focused on creating stuff that hopefully is well-liked because I'm thinking on behalf of the user.

Love it. Lee, man, thank you. I always enjoy chatting. I mean, really do always enjoy talking with you.

Me too, man. I, you know, it's funny, I think I said at the top of the call, I thought we were doing video and, you know, talking to Bobby is very intimidating because you're incredibly stylish and I am your forever t-shirt and jeans guy. Often a baseball cap. Right now I'm not, but I— so I was already nervous, like, man, he's gonna look cool and I'm just gonna be in a t-shirt and jeans. So we're not on video, so I'll just tell people that I'm wearing such cool clothes right now. If you could only see me. I love it. But I really enjoyed the conversation as well, and I appreciate all the work you guys do. I listen to your podcasts and Mark just sent me one that you guys did with the Brand Merch folks in LA and what they're doing. And is it Brand Merch? I say it right?

Yep.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

It was really, really interesting. And like, that's— those are the type of innovators that I think are going to redefine our industry and how we kind of live in this space. But it has to— absolutely. Change is so good. Change is healthy.

Lee, you're encouraging to me, man. Thank you. Not because of the style comments, but because you are a constant inspiration and thanks for all you do.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

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.

Mm-hmm.