Episode 205: Never Stop Asking Why (with Bill Petrie)

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Why is the marketing in our industry so lacking in both elegance and results?

That's a voice many of you are familiar with, the voice of Bill Petrie, founder and managing partner at Brandevate. Bill created Brandevate to help ignite and accelerate growth. With over 22 years working in executive leadership positions, Bill works with both suppliers and distributors who are seeking to grow. He's a featured speaker at the PPAI Expo, past president of the RAC Board, and Bill has extensive practice coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, executing content strategies, and more. He's a highly respected thinker in the business and co-host of the popular industry podcast Promo Upfront, where he and our friend Kirby Haasemann do a brilliant job sharing their unfiltered thoughts on the world of promotional products sales marketing and branding with a really heavy dose of reality, but also humor. Here's the thing about Bill. He's a critical thinker, someone who operates consistently with an open mind. Something I love about Bill and that you don't get at first glance is beneath that tough exterior is someone who really cares about elevating this industry. If you notice on the Promo Upfront podcast, for example, he's always bold enough to venture a strong opinion, but also kind enough to give credit where credit is due, no matter the source. He is one of those unique voices who shapes our industry for the better. Today, Bill and I talk about asking the hard question: why? In our business, especially these days, we're doing all we can to keep up, which means we often function day-to-day as sort of autopilots of chaos. But when it comes to vital priorities like shaping a new business direction or restructuring our sales and marketing, It's imperative we stop and ask the hard questions, which is what we talk with Bill about today, how to deftly and strategically determine your why before you decide what and how. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at CommonsQ. And as a regular listener, you've heard me talk about SKUCon, the conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the promotional products industry. It's held in Las Vegas on January 9th. And by now you know that the in-person event is sold out, but SKUCon is also being broadcast virtually. So if you didn't get a ticket, we encourage you to join us from the comfort of your home, your hotel room, wherever you are, to be inspired by folks like Davis Smith, the founder of Cotopaxi, design legend Aaron Draplin, advocates Ben Adams on the topic of experiential marketing, Amber Creative's Jeremy Picker on building inspirational merch, Stephanie Leader from Leader Promos, and Sammy Gonzalez from Made to Order on how to create a strategy for epic growth, plus our very popular SKUCon stories and many more speakers. Virtual attendees will get exclusive interviews that the live attendees won't experience and even one-to-one networking. If you register for the virtual experience, you'll receive the official 2022 SKUCON t-shirt, a shirt designed in collaboration with Aaron Draplin that you just have to see. So hop on over to skucon.com to register your entire team today. This episode is brought to you by CometSKU, 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 begin your free trial now, visit commonscue.com. Now here's my chat with our friend and Brandivate founder, Bill Petrie.

Bill, I think because we are such a close industry, this very friendly, gregarious industry, we tend to emulate each other with best practices, which is really good. That's a really good part of our business, but we also end up inadvertently doing a lot of derivative work, which results in us looking and sounding the same. It's almost as if we didn't stop to ask the most basic but essential question, which is why. So, Bill, let me ask you this. You think about this a lot. Why do you think it's so hard for us to start with why?

I think for the most part, Bobby, it's so much easier to just fill yourself with busyness It's easy to be busy. It's easy to have a lot of activities and walk away from your workspace at the end of the day and feel like I've accomplished something or I was busy all day. But when you really break it down, very few can explain what moved the ball forward that day. And so it's so easy to do what we've always done. So sometimes we become derivative of ourselves. And then the next step is, well, I like what they're doing and I think I want to do something like that. And I think where the real challenge with the question why comes in is it goes beyond inspiration. You know, when it goes beyond inspiration, that's when magic happens. You can use what people do, but you have to be inspired by it and not just, you know, deliberately steal. Because I do think there's also a component of laziness. I hate to say, if we're all being honest, It's a hard thing to do, to look in the mirror virtually or actually and have hardcore introspective conversation with yourself. Why do I do the things that I do? It's so easy. You know, there's the lies we tell each other and then there's the lies we tell ourselves. And then those lies we tell ourselves are the real dangerous ones. Yeah. Uh, and in my mind, right. You know, to me it's that need to pause and have those introspective conversations with yourself and understanding why we do the things we do, and it forces you to be candid with yourself. So I don't think there's enough of that. I think it's just too easy to gloss over and have this feeling of, I'm busy, I'm producing, and maybe be inspired by others but inadvertently stealing from others.

Yeah, it's almost as if we— because we are a close industry somewhat, we do rub shoulders a lot together. We see what each other is up to. We look at competitors. And that's only one input. One input is what the competition is doing. And I have found that typically when a distributor really digs deep— so distributor, for example, this could work for suppliers as well, obviously— when they really dig deep into multiple outputs— other industries is another output, uh, an industry factor— love and want to watch. Like Steve Jobs would watch the architecture industry, not necessarily the tech industry, for what his next move was going to be or how they're going to design the next product. So the competitors are one input. The other input that I think that goes vastly ignored which is going to sound ridiculous for me to say this, is our actual top 5, 10 clients and why they buy from us and what has changed in buying from us, which is a really radical input factor when you look at that. Because I think we spend so much time looking at the competition and emulating best practices that overshadows what has actually changed intrinsically in our business.

Couldn't agree more. And like, you know, we get back to that question of why, you know, we can all point about, well, Brand X over there is doing something that's radical, and that makes me feel I'm jealous about my own marketing, for example, but take the next step and say, well, why do I feel that way? Is it because I don't have the resources to do that? Is it because maybe I'm scared to push the envelope the way they're pushing the envelope? Or am I just feeling that way because it's different and it really doesn't impact me and maybe I should continue doing what I do? You know, when we start asking ourselves why we do everything, it's one of those great questions because there's never really a final answer. You know, why is the sky blue? It's because of this. Well, why is that? I mean, anybody who has kids knows how frustrating that can be. But when you turn it internally, there's some real magic that happens with that honest introspection.

Yeah. Do you have some examples, um, either in our industry, outside? Not to pick on anyone, but I'm really trying to demonstrate for folks what we're talking about in case we're overgeneralizing too much.

I, I think the thing that comes to mind, Bobby, is, is, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right? As we get to our usable quotes here, but there was such a proliferation of content during the pandemic. And as someone who has produced with my friend Kirby Haasman, we've produced a podcast for 6 and a half years now every Friday, except taking one 5-week period off during a job transition. It seemed like everybody all of a sudden had a podcast. And so, and again, it's one of those things, it was varying degree of quality. In a varying degree of commitment. And there was some clear derivative things, some of them kind of fun and cheeky. At the time, Kirby and I were doing a podcast called Unscripted, and Brian Porter and John Norris over at Starline did a podcast called Scripted. That was funny. I thought that was great because it was a clear jab, which was fun, but most had no clue what they were doing. And so they were trying to just fill time, and that's fine, right? We all needed things to do as we were sheltering in place. But very few took the time to ask, why am I doing this? And so because they didn't ask why they were doing it, they ended up inadvertently being extremely derivative of each other. And it was this cannibalistic area of content where we saw our listenership go down simply because there's only so much one can consume in a given period of time. You know, as a species, we love to complain about the noise We love to complain about how noisy things are, but at the same time, we seem to do every single thing in our power to use that noise as both a shield and a reason. We use it as a shield because, well, I can't get that done. Things are too busy, things are too noisy, I'm overwhelmed. But then we use it as a same thing. We use it as a reason we can't get those things done. Right. You know, we as a shield, we don't allow those quiet moments. We make sure we have our Bluetooth speaker on in the shower. We listen to podcasts when we try to fall asleep at night. Right. And then it's the reason because it's this crutch of why my marketing doesn't work or why does this piece of content doesn't work. And I think as a species, we really need to start having the courage to embrace silence and use that silence to understand why we do the things that we do and how it can work better. There's a reason that the old joke, which is rooted in a lot of truth, is the best ideas I have are right when I'm falling asleep or when I'm in the shower because it's nice and quiet.

When you mentioned our interruptive culture and how we tend to sort of actually welcome and want this noise, um, despite some of our feeble efforts to block it, someone mentioned to me that immersive experiences like Netflix binging are actually the way a noisy culture gets immersed in something, because now we've gotten so used to the interruption culture that it's such a vital part of what we do. And I guess I'm— to tie this to what we're talking about, When you look at podcasts and blogs and social posts, we have an active input filter that's going on all the time. So I think part of the challenge might be because we are increasing our intake of ideas that's happening out there, we're also increasing our intake of ideas from within our own people group, our own tribe, and therefore there's a higher percentage of duplicative content coming at us. And the dangerous part is that's how we form our ideas. Is out of this same little pot.

Well, the way we consume content now, we can pick and choose. So we make sure that the content, you know, whether it's intentional or not, we intentionally, unintentionally or intentionally make sure that the content we're consuming really aligns with our belief systems. It's uncomfortable to have your belief systems challenged, right? I talk about worldviews. Everybody has certain worldviews, and those are things that don't change. I have a worldview that Van Halen is the greatest American rock and roll band. That's a worldview. I'm not going to entertain a conversation that would dissuade me from that opinion.

Right.

But I have many opinions that I love being challenged on because it allows me to learn. I don't know it all. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And I love having intelligent conversations or watch content and consume content that challenges things I maybe thought I want to be true, but I'm willing to be wrong in it. We have to be willing to be wrong a little bit.

Do you think this aspect of us not asking why enough, or us not inviting contrary opinions or other perspectives into our world, is because we control our input so much, but also because we like our noisy routines?

Very much both. I think we love our noisy routines. You know, we love surrounding and immersing ourselves in constant motion, in constant input. You know, I look at my kids and they're 18, about to be 19 in a week, depending on when this drops, and they're in college. I've had both of them come home for visits and it's been wonderful. But after about an hour, they're watching TV, having conversations, 5 of them at a time on their phone, and then having kind of a conversation with me. And they choose— the thought of them, you know, one of my favorite movies, for example, is Jaws. That is a delicious, well-shot movie that very— has a very slow build and then this wonderful crescendo that you have to pay— have paid attention to the entire story and all this dialogue. And I think my kids will never appreciate how incredible that type of storytelling is because it's just not kick-ass enough, right?

Yeah.

But yeah, I think, I think we choose those things because it's mind candy. I want more candy. I want more candy.

Yeah, you're bringing up something vitally important, I think, for our businesses, because marketing is a noisy place and because marketing is one of those input channels. When you apply this to the business, I think there are a couple of factors happening. First of all, the economy's rebounding, so we have that, that we're dealing with. We're getting back into some old routines where busyness is now the marker of success, where we had a period there in the pandemic where busyness was no longer the, the marker of what we would identify as a, as a version of success. You know, it's a feeble marker, but that's how people would identify busyness. Supply chain issues have become so commonplace now, and I think they're going to be that way for such a long time that it's in the foreseeable future that the two aspects now, the busyness and supply chain issues, are going to keep us occupied. The reason why I'm bringing that up is because in order for you to actually question why, you have to pause long enough to do so. I think that's kind of what we're getting at is the crux here is that you have to pause long enough to do so.

I think so. And I think in any sort of crisis, there are positives that can come out of it. And while I wouldn't wish the supply chain challenges any suppliers and distributors are experiencing, it will force a level of creativity. Yeah, that I think I'm excited to see, you know, Kirby and I spoke about it. Kirby Haasman and I spoke about it, that this is an opportunity for really right-thinking distributors to not just say, I can put your logo on anything in this catalog. It's an opportunity to say, here is what I have available because now it's limited. And here is your message. And I'm going to be creative here and combine your message to the right marketing vehicle and actually move your audience to action. I'm gonna put some thought into this. I'm gonna put some care into the overall experience. I'm gonna try to figure out what emotion you really want that target audience to feel when they receive this decorated nugget of merchandise and what they're going to do with it to help you move your business and your goals forward. So I'm real excited to see how people really adapt to that.

Yeah, I agree. Well, how do we, how do we end up thinking different? I need to— I'm a good Gen Xer, right? I've always been a why person. I've never been a how person. I can't fix a damn thing. I don't know how to do a lot of things, but I'm a good Gen Xer because my axe is always ready to grind against anything, right? I have an axe ready to grind against anything, so my why is always on. How do we question why without exhausting everyone around us?

Yeah, I love this question because I'm a fellow Gen Xer and I can find fault in just about everything and grind it up, including myself though. I think, again, you start by questioning yourself and it has to be sharply, honestly, but kind of in private. It's stepping out of yourself and out of your comfort zones and asking, you know, kind of using the content marketing example we talked about earlier, you know, why do I accept good enough? I mean, these are real questions I've asked myself because I find myself in these ruts because I start I like certain aesthetics, and the second I feel comfortable in those, I need to start challenging why I'm comfortable. So these are literally the questions I ask myself. Why do I accept good enough? Because we all do. Why am I following instead of leading? Why am I creating X? And X can be anything. And, and then the follow-up question is, why is it important that I accomplish Y?

Yeah.

And then the one overall I ask every single day. Why is my brand important to my target audience? I really ask that every single day. And I know I'm never gonna have a good answer for that, but I'm continuously focusing and I'm chasing the dragon there. I want an answer someday. Why does what I do matter to the people who pay me to do what I do? But I will say this, it's a glass houses thing. You really shouldn't start questioning others until you've thoroughly and thoughtfully asked yourself your whys. You know, you— once you ask yourself, then you can start helping other people. You do a lot of what I do in the industry in terms of mentoring others. It's something I know we both believe in, and I have no problem asking, why do you want to do this? Why is this your goal? Because I ask myself the same things.

Yeah. I think that's how contrarians cannot be exhausting, is actually first—

I think you're right—

first asking why of yourself and making sure you're constantly questioning that about yourself before you're just pointing that at others.

Well, as both fellow Gen Xers, and I think the way you and I both think, we're both also the poster children of self-deprecation. So that helps too.

Right. Is there a story in your life where you had to ask why and you saw some amazing results despite the difficulty, or perhaps despite pushback, or maybe you didn't get agreement from everyone? Was there a time where you can clearly say, I asked why and it paid off?

Yeah, I, you know, I think the best example is really starting Brandivate, to be very candid with you. When we looked at— and you look at the marketing in our industry, we asked, why is the marketing in our industry so lacking in both elegance and results? I mean, I think we know the general feel and look of the advertising industry, you know, supplier marketing to distributors and then distributors to a lesser extent end users is just very inelegant. It seems to be very price-centered. It's basically a digital paper version of a guy in a corner opening up his overcoat saying, do you like any of these watches? And so what we wanted to do was inject some retail-inspired, not copied, but looking— we talked earlier, looking outside of our industry, what moves people, what connects people, when marketing is really at its most effective. And yeah, got a lot of pushback, you know, got a lot of pushback, not from people who believed in us, but certainly from people I consulted who I respect in the industry say, yeah, the industry is not going to go for that. That's just not what they're used to.

Right.

But I'll tell you what, we have seen results and it's not easy to come by in the world of marketing and branding where ROI is generally, oh, this feels right. Yeah. You know, we've had one supplier client saw an 87% increase in engagement with their advertising. And that includes distributors sharing a ghostwritten blog with their end users. And they also have the largest sales month in a category that they had considered kind of an afterthought to their entire line. Whereas we looked at it and said, you've got some really great merchandise here that can tell somebody's story. We've done distributor client rebranding, they've been a distributor for 40 years and done some amazing custom merchandise. But their name and their branding did not speak to any of that. And we they redid that. Now they're seen as much more progressive and much more vibrant. And they've not only seen an increase in their clients, but they've also seen an increase in the people who want to now work for them. I guess we all know that's a challenge these days. So when you have the courage to ask those why questions and the courage to challenge the status quo, or hell, even your own success, you can truly innovate and drive change as opposed to being forced to adapt to the change other people have the courage to make.

Yeah, Bill, with Brandivate, you wade into the middle of companies, and essentially that's what you're doing. You're asking why. And when folks are building a business, they're very attached to certain outcomes or certain practices that they've created through the years. And that attachment, even though by just hiring you, that would be an openness, you would think, but I would also assume that you walk in with your why questions and change can still be difficult. Have you found How folks can embrace this whyness and be more open to why by just engaging with them? Like, what have you learned through this process of walking in the middle of a brand and asking the question why?

Honestly, great question. We do walk into that. You know, people take that first step to hire us and know that we're coming in because they need change. They just don't know either how to affect that change. They may not know the types of change that needs to happen, but there generally is some resistance. Once we start asking those why questions and you start, you know, we start every client relationship by really looking at the overall brand. What are the strengths, but what are the weaknesses too? We all have them. And the one thing we always come back to when we start getting that resistance is always treat the brand with respect. It is someone's baby. Yeah. And the way we always approach it is please understand, we're not telling you your baby's ugly. We're telling you your baby's beautiful. But we're also telling you your baby's outgrown the clothes that it's wearing. And we just want to design some new clothes for your awesome baby. Right. And that generally gets this light bulb moment. We're like, okay, you know, because it's very easy for these why questions, if they're not asked in a respectful manner, to be seen as an attack.

Right.

And, you know, you can almost see the look on people's faces. I'm paying this guy to rip my brand apart. No, no, no, you're not paying us to do that. We want to help. It's the same beautiful baby, just needs a new set of clothes.

Right, right. I've learned this with both leaders and folks that are inside a business, is that typically a business is talking so much among themselves that they can't differentiate what is often a brilliant idea or a good idea that needs to be honed more And often what we're hiring when we hire somebody is we hire an outside perspective. I know that sounds painfully obvious, but what we hired was not just the perspective. We hired somebody to come in with a very, very strong opinion. I know Mark is really big into this, that you should always have a very strong opinion, and that's kind of what you're wading into. No question. You know, no one didn't hire you— they didn't hire you to be nice necessarily and tell them how great they look, even though everybody wants to hear that.

No. There's always a, there's always a balance between I kind of want this guy's validation.

Yeah.

But I want Bill and Kelsey to also tell me how we can be better. How can Brandivate help me be better? Absolutely. And we all have that in us. Yeah.

Yeah. Are there more practical ways we can each practice more whyness? And I'll be honest, thinking about this podcast, I actually had to ask myself, am I practicing a mindful whyness in my own life, in my own habits? So I could run a habit series right now on the blog. Am I actually doing that myself? And how do I actually practice this on a regular basis?

I don't think there's a real answer. How's that for straddling the fence? I don't think people need to start with like, why am I in business? I mean, that's, that's obvious, right? You want to grow, you want to make money, you want to support your family, so on and so forth. But if you, if you really want to grow and drive change and do work that matters, which I think we all inherently really do, want to do work that matters both internally for our clients and our external clients, you have to slow down and take the time to be that 3-year-old to ask why. So I think every 3 months, I think if you sit down and schedule some why time, it can start with, well, why do I have a cup of coffee every morning? Yeah, why do I— why is my morning routine this? And then I think you start looking at your business. Why does my business go to market this way? Could be social media, it could be your traditional marketing. Why do I continue to sell the way I do? Why do I target this type of client? Why is fill in the blank, whatever it is, important to my business? Why do people come to work here? Why do they leave? And what— maybe even why should I make an investment? You know, if you do that on a regular basis and quarterly, you think it's a good way to do it. And it's a couple-hour exercise, but you start getting in this habit of doing it. It really gives you a very different perspective on your business. Because again, we're human beings, we're creatures of habit. We love our routines, we crave them, we like to complain about them too, but we love our routines. Things become automatic, it's easy. And so to me, I found for me about every 3 months when I feel my routines become ruts, that's when it's time to change things up. That's when I start getting very uncomfortable because I'm doing exactly what I shouldn't be doing, which is kind of going on autopilot.

What's interesting about what you just said in the sense of self-evaluation or business evaluation is that we have been handed by the universe very cyclical rhythms in our world. So we already have seasons baked into our lives. We already think in the business world like quarterly. I think there was one book that something with the title of Your 3-Month Year or something like that. So it's almost forcing a conversation or placing a conversation where the rhythm of change makes sense. So whether that's a quarterly analysis, whether that's a 6-month analysis, and that can be individually, you know, every season. If you're— if you live in a part of the country where you're fortunate enough to have 4 seasons, even though none of us probably know what that is anymore, you tend to actually have a built-in change mechanism. I think if you embrace it, I think, and I think maybe it's a matter of being cognitive of the fact that you are hardwired to approach change, but it's really just making it a mindful moment. I don't know if that means like putting things in the calendar. I don't know if that means like a quarterly assessment where it's okay to ask why, because here's one of the challenges: employees might be timid about asking why. And so maybe as leaders, we need to carve a space in those quarterly or 6-month brainstorming sessions to simply ask the question why.

Oh, no, no question. I think we absolutely have to do that. You know, you said we're hardwired to, you know, we're hardwired because so much, so many things are thrown at us. We've turned into very reactive beings. Yeah. You know, I have clients who, they're overwhelmed by their email every day. And one of my first things I explained to them is turn off your email. And you can almost see if we're on the phone, you can almost see them having a fit. Well, I I have to be responsive to my clients. And I remind them, I said, there used to be a time when you didn't get emails on your plane and you flew somewhere for 3 hours and you— the plane landed, you fired up your phone, and the first thing you did was download the 45 emails. And by the time you walked off that plane, you have deleted the 20 messages that needed to be deleted. So now you're down to 25. You filed the 10 that just needed to be filed. You've responded to the 5 that you need to respond to. And then the other 5 were just FYI emails you to later. You can do that in your actual daily life too and find so much more time and be more intentional about having those why moments. You know, I try to tell my kids when I'm trying to get their attention, I'll shake my phone and I'll say, do you see this miracle device here? You know, nod their head and I'll say, this is for my convenience, not yours. I will respond at a time of my choosing. And we need to be more intentional about that in our, in our business lives too. And it's got me thinking about the employee question. You know, employees might be a little— it's a little daunting to ask why questions of an organization, right? Yeah. And so I do believe that every person at every level in every organization has not just the right, but I actually believe it's a duty to ask why. Why should be part of the culture. Yeah. And, and be encouraged. You know, if a leader asks for example, why do we go to this trade show, to a new employee, it's a perfect time for the leader to say to the employee, this is a question you should ask. Yeah, if you— if this is all new to you, you should ask because it gives that leader that chance to pause and truly think about the why. Why? What is the ROI? Are we just in the habit of going to the show? And what benefit or repercussions would happen if we didn't I wouldn't go to the show. Yeah. So I think when we allow our staff, our entire community and our ecosystem to ask why, the person that asked that why question respectfully is asking you to defend a decision. And that's a good thing because things have changed and things will always continue to change and evolve, questioning everything. And so making it part of that onboarding process and specifically telling new associates that part of their job is to continually be curious and ask why is critical for any organization, I think, to be forward-thinking.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And some of us, some of us have been raised as really good soldiers, and we have to actually activate that voice and be pretty vocal about it. Some personalities do not need a lot of encouragement to ask why.

That is true.

The thing about time limitations, I think one of the sort of markers in an organizational or individual's life is— and again, probably painfully obvious But sometimes that's what a podcast is about, is to point out the painfully obvious, right? Is that when your plate gets so full and things are starting to fall off, a lot of that might be because you have things on your plate that are just part of routine. And I noticed that it's actually about content. So the content proliferation— there is never a lack of new and good ideas when you're in the content game, Bill. As you know, there's never a lack of what all we can do. There is a lack to what exactly we can execute. And so what I find is that we typically get into some content routines and this applies, I think, to all of our businesses, whether it's sales routine, marketing routines, that often you're in a routine that is so comfortable but it's no longer effective. And I think that's where that, that quarterly check-in about asking why— we call them analytics, but it's a boring way to think of it. But that's what an analytic review is really about. It's really asking the question why, right?

And, you know, and I look at that, I get in ruts too. Yeah, I'm guilty of it just like everybody else. I mean, I publish a blog every Monday And sometimes I am so creatively vacant, I don't know what I'm going to write about. And I have to— I start saying, maybe it's time to move this to every other week. Maybe I've run out of ideas for the time, right? Or, you know, I— if there's times I notice where, you know, Kirby and I with our podcast, if we— I feel like we actually had to put a moratorium. We are no longer discussing industry acquisitions unless it's something ridiculously major that we can't ignore. Because it just— and then for a while we actually said we are not the pandemic podcast of record because it felt like, oh, right. And then lately we've put a moratorium on supply chain talk. You know, there's only so many times we can say, exactly, guys, get in front of your clients and warn them. So we start asking why, why do we keep talking about this? I mean, I know it's important, but, um, is this, you know, part of the podcast, right? Is this beautiful amalgamation of entertainment and education. And if it borders too much on, uh, sounding like the schoolmarm who's reminding you to do your math homework, that's not fun. And so we can't do that, right?

I'm gonna map this question of why to something awkwardly for a minute because I'm trying to chase the thought. And I know you, Bill, you're going to help chase the thought down and pin it down. But the thought is this, that I think why is is really woven into our own weirdness. So for example, when we find ourselves looking too much, thinking too much, and acting too much like our competitors or other folks, I think there is a— there's a— has been a distancing from what really makes us weird and what really makes us, in that sense, when I say weird, I say it in utmost respect, unique and individual. And Catherine's a really good example of someone who often would talk about our North Star are. And really what makes us weird is the thing about making people's lives easier and honestly becoming this sort of invisible engine that's powering their business. And there's a weirdness to all of that. And I don't know what I'm asking other than, do you find that when folks aren't asking why enough that they've removed themselves too far from their own weirdness?

I do. I think you do. I think it, as silly as this sounds, it starts with a company mission statement. And I know that sounds like, okay, Grandpa, we get it, our company should have a mission statement. But they serve a purpose. A mission statement is that what you're talking about, that North Star, that guiding light. It's the why you do what you do. And I'm a big believer that should be loud and proud on a company website. And so the thing that motivates what we do at BrandVay, what Kelsey Cunningham and I do, is hopefully unique and unique in our space that we play in. And by formulating that in a vacuum, when you create that weirdness, right, you create— this is, this is what I visualize. This is why we exist. We exist, you know, to what our mission statement says. I could read it to you, but that's not what I want to do. So I'm not going to. But the point is, you have to have that mission statement because that's the thing that everybody in the organization looks to.

Yeah.

And when they start looking outside and you start feeling like, well, I'm taking some of that and that's kind of what we do— if it's not 100% in alignment with that mission statement, with your internal weirdness, then it probably shouldn't be done.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. We had a sort of a crisis of our whyness back years ago when we evolved into this company store and shops model as when I was a distributor. And one of the questions that we had to ask was why our top 5 or top 10 clients were buying from us. And we found out when we peeled that back, they actually bought from us because we made the management of brand and materials easier, which was different than selling a shirt. And so when we, when we got into that and dug into it, I agree with you on the mission, is that when our mission became about that, it just really sharpened our focus in terms of who our future clients were, who our future employees were. And so I agree with you, forget the fact that it's an old mechanism. The mechanism still works to ask the question why and to filter everything through that. Does your why change, Bill, as a business?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I think it changes all the time. And I think what you guys do, and we've started to do here because we've been in business about a year and a half, so now you feel like, okay, we're not the new kids on the block anymore. We have a viable and sustainable business model. Now's the time to start asking the exact question you asked, which I love. Why do our top 5 clients buy from us? Why are they drawn to us? Why is there a connection there? Because that not only helps you redefine what your mission statement is, because a mission statement is, you know, it's a work in progress, as it should always be a work in progress. You're never done with your mission statement, in my opinion. I think it, you know, it might, it might not change for 20 years. But that doesn't mean you're not looking at it on an annual basis. How does my audience change? Why are they buying from me? Why are certain people I think should buy from me, why are they not buying from me?

Right.

You know, because that's part of it too. And so what we're finding out why people buy from us, because they feel like we view— even though I have 20 years plus in the industry and Kelsey has 15 years plus in the industry, what we're finding out is they feel like we are viewing the industry in a totally different manner, like we're outside. And that's not what I had thought. And I love that, by the way. I have no problem with it. I think it's fantastic. But that will shape how we go to market moving forward. Right.

Well, Bill, I'd love a chance to talk with you. And I have to say, you have done a really good job of being the voice in the industry that does ask why all the time. And I say that respectfully. Um, because I've seen you do that time and time again. And I think it's the impetus of your show. It's the core of what you guys do. It's the core of what you do as a business. So if anyone has codified and sort of exemplified this as a discipline and as a mindful practice, it really is you. And so thank you for pushing and challenging all of us and for being Bill.

Well, I appreciate it. I, I only know how to be me, thankfully. If I could figure out how to be someone else, I'd do it. How to— yeah, how to be Eddie Van Halen, but I can't do that, so I'll be me.

Thanks, Bill. Appreciate your time.

Hey, thank you.

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

Mm-hmm.