Episode 198: Creating a Plan B with Brian Duran, MediaTree Rewards

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.

Uh, but I believe that distributors, in a weird way, they're both like the magician and also the carpenter, right? Like, the carpenter needs to have all the tools for the job, but you also need to pull rabbits out of hats because, right, that's half the job.

I think if there's one thing I've been impressed by the most over the past year It's how our suppliers are navigating these incredibly tough waters when it comes to supply chain. But sometimes you might need a solution that doesn't involve inventory at all. That's why I wanted to talk with Brian Duran. Brian's the VP of Sales and Marketing for MediaTree Rewards, a leader in digital promotions. He's been with the company for a decade and has proven to be a problem solver when it comes to logistical challenges. Brian plans to change the way you view gift cards, and equally as important, he's changing the way we approach our customers. I've never had a supplier show up on the Skucast and tell me, don't buy our product. But Brian does just that. Today we have a quick chat around creating a plan B, and also we talk about which sales trait Brian the archer has mastered when it comes to hitting the target. Sorry, Brian, I couldn't resist. Hang through to the end and you'll hear what I'm talking about. But real quick, yesterday we opened registration for SkuCon, the conference for distributors and suppliers in the industry who want to connect, learn, and reenergize alongside other like-minded pros. SkuCon will be held on January 9th in Las Vegas, but we are also live streaming this year so your entire team can join in on the experience. I'm so excited about this lineup of speakers. I mean, check out this creative group of thinkers. Davis Smith, founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, design genius Aaron Drapeland, Stephanie Leader from Leader Promotions, Sandy Gonzalez from Made to Order, Ben Adams from Advocate, Jeremy Picker from Amber Creative, Nisha Logan from Village Print Studio, Brittany Roller from BrandMerch, Jared Taylor from Brandigenous, Jodi Schillinger from Maple Ridge Farms, Regina Renda from Kickass Swag, and Kathy DeFrancesco from Snugs USA. Tickets will go really fast this year. Secure yours now at SkuCon.com. This episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonsku.com. Now here's my chat with Brian. Brian, can you tell me the story of the $100 gift cards needed in a week? Because I think that encapsulates a really poignant picture of what can happen today in a timely fashion, given all the struggles that we currently have.

Yeah, for sure. Um, I had a distributor who had a pretty crazy request from one of their clients, which is typical in this industry. And they needed to get food baskets. They want to get food essentially to 7,000 different locations. So one major challenge that you're running into is how do you ship to 7,000 locations and making sure everything gets there on time? And two, they only had a week to do this. I think they had a little more than a week, but by the time they realized they couldn't pull it off, they only had 5 days left.

Yeah.

So the distributor contacted us to see if there was anything that we could do on our side. And we had the idea— we, they figured out they could spend $100 per location and they had the idea of doing a gift card. That way the store manager was able to purchase food for everyone who attended the meeting that day. Since we were able to kind of eliminate all the shipping costs, they were actually able to spend more on the actual gift too. So I think their original budget was probably about $60 or so per location, but they were able to increase that So each store was able to get more food, which is nice.

Yeah, this is a great example of having a plan B. And can you speak to that a little more? Because I think a lot of us right now are scrambling and we're struggling with solutions when we're bouncing from one supplier to another supplier and we're having inventory issues and production issues and in-hand issues. But having a plan B with maybe a roster of supplier partners that are almost like alternative solutions could be a great thing to have in your pocket. But I loved your sort of attitude about it, is having a plan B. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, for sure. I think, uh, having a plan B is the best way to go about this. You know, like the same thing that happened to distributor— they were doing everything they could and they realized they couldn't make the, you know, the end goal. And having a backup plan is going to help you with your success. You know, your client's going to be excited that you're still able to produce something for them. So I think using MediaTree as a plan B is something great. I mean, they had 5 days, we were able to give them a proof in 3 days. So that gave us an extra 2 days to kind of, you know, work out any kinks. It wasn't really down to the wire. We were able to get things done way before that.

What kind of timeframe are you talking about when you say getting things done a lot quicker?

So for like our email delivery campaigns, we only need about 2 days to put together the emails. So that's just like proof to you and your client. And then when it comes down to it, their client needs to just provide a list of recipients. So that's the only, you know, other thing that'd be time-consuming, but it's a lot quicker than having to do, you know, the full like inventory of like, does this vendor have this? You know, can I get this from this location? We ship it from A to B. You know, everything for us is handled in-house, so it's much quicker.

Can you share another story? I know that was one particular story in light of the in-hand date. Do you have a favorite story that you've had through your career there so far that really encapsulates what you're doing at MediaTree exceptionally well?

Yeah, so this actually happened last year during the holidays. So it was a distributor. Our relationship's great. We've always kind of had like back and forth, like banter. It's one of those types of relationships. And she ran into a tricky situation the end of last year. One of her biggest clients procrastinated like most of us do during the holidays, right? They realized that everything they wanted was out of stock. The main thing that they really wanted to do was some sort of branding and they wanted to give gifts to their employees. She thought of us, she called me up and she was like, hey, is there anything you guys can pull off in this timeframe? It was about 2 weeks before the holidays, just under 2 weeks before the holidays. And, you know, we came up with the idea of doing a custom email for her and it was also a $100 gift card. And the nice thing that was added to the whole thing that wasn't really part of their original plan, what they were looking for, but ended up being kind of a key part of this whole thing was the CEO actually was able to write a whole message to the employees. So, you know, during this crazy time that was happening, they were able to write a heartfelt message along with the gift. And like I was saying before, since they didn't have to worry about logistics, everyone got a bigger gift. So it ended up being this little like bonus. They still had all their branding and everything, everything had their logos and their colors and everything. But you know, the CEO had a moment to be able to actually reach out to everyone on a personal level.

We are an industry that typically shies away from gift cards because we feel like it's antithetical to our mission, but that's not— but that, that's not the case, is it? I mean, how do you argue against that?

Well, you know, it's funny, I've always been waiting for someone to ask me that question, right? And I know how it is. I mean, we're the black sheep in the industry. I've been to so many trade shows where people are like, what are you doing here? And I'm like, I, I didn't really know early on. But anyone who is watching now, if you've been to any of my webinars, I have 3 rules of selling gift cards. My first rule is never sell gift cards. And people are like, wait, what do you mean? Like you're teaching me how to sell gift cards. Rule number 1 is never sell gift cards. And the reason I say that is I understand this industry. I understand why, you know, we're kind of shied away from, I know the margins aren't always that great. I also know that the product's pretty strange compared to everything else. Uh, but I believe that distributors in a weird way, they're both like the magician and also the carpenter, right? Like the carpenter needs to have all the tools for the job, but you also need to pull rabbits out of hats because that's half the job, I think. And I think having MediaTree on your side is a vital tool that's going to be in that shed. You know, sometimes people just specifically need gift cards and now you're servicing your client in a whole way. You're not only giving X, Y, and Z, you're able to also give the other things they're looking for. Situations like needing a plan B, you know, the stories we talked about before were a great use case for something like that. And when you get to really large, really large promotions, like 7,000 different locations, it's sometimes easier to just do the gift card option, especially with digital gift cards, because you wipe out all the logistical issues, wipe out all the inventory. It's a lot less work and you're having a really good payout with your client.

Yeah, and I would argue there's a place for both and all, right? There, there are folks, there are even folks that are— it's not even binary, it's not either or, it can be in addition to. So there might be folks putting together kits or other projects like that where this partnership makes perfect sense.

Yeah, exactly.

This age where the hybrid workforce still deals with a lot of cultural challenges and disconnections, have you seen gift cards used in campaigns to like unite people, employees, tribes, whatever the group is?

Yeah, for sure. I've seen a whole lot of that. I've seen it used in so many different ways, like, you know, giving gifts to people in the office who, you know, you're not seeing all the time, giving gifts to customers, you know, just trying to reconnect with them. And I've even seen it as like a sales tool too. It's been kind of all over the place that we've been doing a lot of big deals with. They're an auto supplier and like, and what they do is they give gifts to their customers who have consultants, like, you know, they consult with. So that was one thing that I was like, kind of new to me. I was like, oh, I've never seen anyone really use it this way. But it kind of makes sense. You know, like, right now we're sitting down talking and say this was 2 or 3 years ago, pre-pandemic, maybe we'd be sitting face to face drinking coffee together. And at that point, I would know that you like your coffee black, or maybe, you know, with sugar or cream, whatever it may be. But we have this disconnect, we're just kind of sitting in front of computers. But after a meeting like this, I can send you a little gift card, and we can kind of joke on what you're going to get on it. So I've seen a lot of different ways people are using it to connect with one another.

That's a really good point you brought up because I think we think a lot about the at-event promotion or the, the promotion that folks call and ask us for, but we don't think about how these kinds of gifts can be used before an experience or after an experience, which is what you're alluding to there. I think that's a great—

yeah, exactly. Yeah.

What is it about MediaTree in general that you wish more people knew? I like to ask this question from, of supplier partners because often there's either a misperception about the brand or there is just a category or something big that we often miss that's vital to what you and MediaTree do, whether that's your team, your culture, your product categories, whatever it might be. What do we miss about MediaTree?

All right, it's gonna sound like a two-part answer, but it's one part.

Okay.

One thing about MediaTree in the last 10 years or so, we were well known for music downloads. So I always wanted to be like, hey, we don't, we don't do it anymore. You know, like things like streaming platforms kind of killed that off. Right. Um, so then people are like, wait, what are you, what, what are you guys still doing here? What are you doing? I know that's, that's gift cards, but what it really comes down to it is I'd like to be able to know, I like people to know that we are very accessible. Like we're here. Like if you have any questions, need anything, we're here all the time. There's always someone to answer your call. You know, if you want to reach out to me, my phone number is 201-417-2157. You can text me right now. You can ask me any sort of question. I'm not going to try to sell you on anything. You know, one of the things in my webinars, I always try to, you know, let people know is that I'm going to be the first one to tell you if the deal's worth it or not. I'm not going to force you into a weird situation where your client's upset because this thing didn't work. I'll be the first one to tell you, hey, this is not how it works. Try something else. And I might even have some ideas on what that something else might be. So the answer there is I want everyone to know that we are— we're here if you need anything at all.

I'm glad you mentioned the music downloads because that's what was stuck in my mind too. So I'm glad to hear that. What are the most popular promotions happening with MediaTree?

Most popular, definitely our gift cards. And we're very like event-driven, so, you know, When Employee Appreciation Day happened, there was a huge surge there. Right now we're gearing up for the holidays, just like everyone else. So there's going to be a lot of gift giving at that point. A lot of ongoing promotions that we do end up being work holidays, birthdays, and things like that that are kind of continuous. So once someone realizes how easy it is, it becomes kind of a repeat order. And it's really easy for the distributor because they don't have to think too much about it. You know, we set it up once and then maybe they just kind of pass information along. Here and there.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Typically with gift cards, there's a slimmer margin than, say, some product and promotions costs. I don't, I don't know the exact number, but typically there is. But still, what's the value? Because a lot of people might turn that off. And, and one of the reasons why I actually asked the question is not to be controversial or to reduce anything or diminish anything. It's actually I thought of the holidays, and I thought every year, as a former distributor who was involved in fulfillment programs that ran a fulfillment warehouse, every year we had a crunch UPS and FedEx, and it was disaster from Thanksgiving on to Christmas. So I can see the value of having a product like this at our disposal. How do you address that challenge, the disparity?

Great question. And we used to kind of shy away from answering that. It was always like, oh, it's quoted upon request, we'll figure it out. And it's easier to just tell you what, what we're doing when we're saying quoted upon request. Uh, we're looking for breakage. You know, if someone is getting a $500 gift card, most likely that person's going to use it. If I got a $500 gift card right now, I'd probably stop this interview and go use it before I forgot. But if I got a $5 gift card, I might kind of forget about it. And breakage is simply the percentage of gift cards that are not used. So what we're doing is we're trying to figure out how to— we're looking at the whole thing, looking at the whole promotion, being like, all right, maybe 20% of this isn't going to be used. Maybe 10% of this isn't going to be used, and we're splitting that with you. So there were periods of time where we weren't really giving any discounts, there wasn't margin, we had to be like, oh, you know, mark it up and, you know, whatnot. What we're trying to do at this point is we're trying to give bigger discounts. You know, we try to stay somewhere around 5%. If the promotion looks good, we can try to go up to 10%. And on top of that, you're able to do, you know, the distributor's able to put a margin on their own end. So if I give you a 10% margin, uh, you're able to throw in another 10%.

I see. Okay.

Everyone's already used to paying fees and stuff like that. You know, you go to CVS, you buy a gift card, you pay like a $5 activation fee, whatever it may be. So, you know, the distributor is able to mark that up a little bit with their client because they're kind of expecting that already.

Yeah.

On top of that, you're providing a fully branded product. It's going to be very unique. We have a— it's what I call a gift card for gift cards. So, you know, you're not actually deciding, oh, I want to sell Amazon gift cards. You're providing a gift card called the Total Choice Gift Card that has 200 different options on there. So the person who receives the gift card gets to choose. So you're no longer trying to figure out, you know, I have a list of 2,000 people. What does everyone want? What's going to keep everyone happy? You know, this one card lets them choose. So, you know, for a fact they're going to be happy. It's all big chains too. It's all, you know, major companies, you know, Target, things like that. That's great.

What do you love about this business?

So I consider myself a problem solver, and I think it kind of goes back to the distributor being, you know, the magician and the craftsman at the same time. I kind of find myself to be that same way. So I love being on the phone with someone who has that same insight. I love those like aha moments when you're on the phone, even if it's like not an aha moment about like our own product. I love helping someone find a solution to the problem that they're in.

I enjoyed the first time we ever chat, the first time we ever met. I really enjoyed our visit. And so I've always been curious, you know, just about your evolution and your growth in the journey. You have a best practice or tip now that you've been doing this for a little while that you can share with other suppliers? Or even other distributors in terms of sales success?

Yeah. I want to say, it's going to sound cheesy. Um, honesty, right? I mean, I used to put together webinars and they'd be like very sales-oriented of like why you should buy this, why this is the best, why this, that. And then I realized I was like, this is kind of missing the point of what I want to convey. And that's honesty. I want to be like, hey, don't sell gift cards. It's not going to be what you want to do. You know, you're going to make better margins, 40 to 30% on everything else, but there are some situations where gift cards are the best option to sell, you know, whether that's your plan B or whether that it's a really large program and it's the better option logistically.

Yeah.

And I think especially getting into the holiday season honestly is going to be very important. You know, like any problem that you have, don't shy away from it. Don't try to hide this and that. Just be honest, be upfront. Everyone is going to feel like the ceiling is caving in on them. The person you're calling, while your ceiling's caving in, their ceiling's caving in. And I think the best way to navigate that is just stay honest, stay true, you know, just be kind to everyone that you're on the phone with. And I think it's, uh, it's really helped me grow as an individual, especially as a salesperson. Yeah. The more I kind of tackle that and just kind of not BS anything, it was just like, you know, this is what it is. Um, I've seen a lot more connection with people at that point.

Yeah, that sort of, um, stark honesty, or just pure honesty, cuts through the clutter. It cuts through all of the, the defensive mechanisms that people have and just gets right to the heart of things.

Yeah, I agree.

Are you guys anticipating a pretty big season this coming fourth quarter?

Yeah, uh, it's funny because we expected last holiday season to be very big, and it was larger than we thought. And we are currently already ahead of what we were thinking. You know, everyone is seeing the same headlines with all these shipping carriers that are going to be delayed on everything. Yeah. So there are, you know, some people getting way ahead right now and kind of ordering physical cards and getting things ready to go. But we're expecting— we're expecting it to be very chaotic and busy.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to ask all kinds of questions about logistics, how this process works, but I'll leave that up to folks to call you and when they have a project in hand they want to talk to you about. But one last question: what does Brian do when he's not working?

Um, a little bit of everything. Uh, I recently just set up an archery target in my backyard.

Oh wait, compound? Compound bow, or is it, uh, What is it?

Recurve. Recurve. Oh, recurve.

That's pro.

Wow, kind of an old school, uh, way.

Yeah, no compound for you. Wow.

Yeah, I mean, a little bit of everything.

Um, where does that come from? Why the archery?

You know, I don't know, it was kind of nostalgic. I was, uh, in middle school, we used to do it a lot, and it was like this time of year, like September, October. And it was like an activity that I really loved doing in gym class, and it kind of hit me like I was looking at my backyard and I was like, oh, I can, I can do that, I could bring that back. That's awesome. Um, yeah, that was, that was a lot of fun. There's a few people out there who I've like had conversations with, like, what do I do outside, and writing is one of them. Okay, so do you have a favorite writer? Um, Murakami right now is, uh, is my my top author right now. So one thing I am putting together is a little short story. So maybe one day I'll share that with the industry.

I love that. I love that we have that affinity. Have you read Zen and the Art of Archery?

No, I have not.

I recommend it. It's good. It's good read.

It's good read.

It's good read for actually anyone in sales too. So it's a really good read because I think it's a really beautiful metaphor for that. Well, Brian, I enjoyed chatting with you. Thanks for taking the time. We thought it was really important to have you on. Not only that, Mark and I have always been looking for an excuse to have you on the show, so I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad we got the chat.

I am too, man.

Thanks.

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.