Episode 213: Rebooting Your Business for Growth with Lee Fine and Robert Lederman, Juice Marketing

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.

It doesn't mean that his way is right, mine's wrong, or vice versa. We— there's a value that I stole from Amazon when I was there that we've used a lot, which is it's OK to disagree. But if we decide on something, we're going to disagree and commit.

They were the most unlikely pair to form a partnership. And yet several years later, Robert Liederman and Lee Fine find themselves in the middle of an incredible growth season professionally and personally as they co-navigate the creative powerhouse known as Juice Marketing. Lee Fine is the co-founder and head of sales and strategy for Juice. His sales and marketing experience spans 23 years working for or alongside some of the world's most recognizable brands, including Pepsi and Amazon, and he's respected for his brilliant creativity and passion. Robert Liederman is co-founder and head of sales and operations for Juice. Robert is highly regarded in the merchandise world as an activation guru. Aside from impacting the sales growth at Juice, Robert is the architect behind the backend procedures Juice uses daily to run its business efficiently. Today on the Skucast, we talk about their successful partnership as it enters a new season for Juice Marketing. We also chat about the difficulty of deciding what it is you will do and won't do for clients, client diversification as a never-ending process, and how being open to talent acquisition can create incredible opportunities. Plus, we talk about why they felt the need to change their infrastructure and the importance of focusing on ops in your organization today. One quick note, at SKUCON, I presented a talk on the subject, The Future World of Branded Merch. This Wednesday, February 16th at 2:00 PM ET, I'll present an expanded version of this topic. I'll not only share the branded merch revolution happening all around us from brands like Hulu, Netflix, KFC, Ritz-Carlton, Fortnite, but also authors like Sally Rooney and Hiroki Murakami. Gazillionaires like Elon Musk. In our expanded version, we'll look at how the next generation of branded merch pros will help reshape our industry and the key components needed to expand your world. Invite a colleague and join us. You can register at commonsku.com/webinars. 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 begin your free trial now, visit commonscue.com. Now here's my chat with Robert and Lee from Juice Marketing.

Juice has had such a tremendous amount of growth, and you have been a magnet for talent recently. What did 2021 look like for you guys in terms of business growth, both literally and figuratively? Let's start with you, Lee.

Well, I mean, obviously coming off of 2020, uh, with everyone around the globe experiencing something that we could not have predicted predicted or clearly not prepared for. Going into 2021, we were, you know, a little bit concerned, a lot of bit excited because some, some sort of normalcy a little bit was coming back. We had a good ramp of sales coming towards the last quarter of 2020 that kind of set the table for us to kind of feel excited and optimistic about 2021.

Yeah.

And we hit the ground running. And to your question, obviously, growth is always kind of at the forefront of our plans and our, our meetings. So we wanted to be a little bit more aggressive with going after new clients versus waiting for clients to come to us.

Yeah.

And also securing kind of contractual relationships versus transactional relationships. Yeah. So that was kind of one of our priorities. And we also knew that If we didn't get the right people in place, all of that would've been all for naught. So we were really focused on business growth and people growth at the same time. Yeah.

Robert, what did it look like for you? What did 2021 look like for you?

Coming off of '20, not knowing what the heck was going to go on in this world. And really, quite frankly, we weren't sure what to expect when the pandemic hit. And then We found our kind of our way and are finding new business opportunities. And I was kind of bullish going into 2021. I thought that we were aligned to do some really, really great things. We have some stable clients that allowed a solid foundation for us to kind of go and get out of our guardrails that we were normally in. And Lee hit it right on the nail, right on the head. We went after some new business. We got very involved in fulfillment. Which we were doing some of it, but it took us to a whole new level. And then our clients started appreciating and realizing that for whatever reason, some of the things we were doing, our competitors weren't doing or doing it the way we were. And it has led to some pretty big Fortune 50, probably, clients coming to us that has garnered new master service agreements that were unexpected. But it was a product of the hard work that we put in. And then Lee also on the people side of it, I mean, we thought we got to keep it tight, we're going to stay kind of cohesive, kind of keep going. And as our kind of business started growing, opportunities to bring in different talent came in and it was unexpected. And the talent we brought on has just been, quite frankly, as humbling as I can imagine owning this company with Lee. Like these people wanting to come work for us. We looked at each other like, how did this happen? I mean, I'm humble in that way because I am that kind of person. But I looked, we had our team meeting the other day on a Zoom call and we had 13 people. I don't even know how many people. And I was looking at all these people going, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Oh, and like just fired up. And so it was unexpected but earned, I would say, is what we've kind of found, or what I think.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I think also real quick, Bobby, we, we would be remiss if we didn't include the fact that there's a thank you to CommonSKU because it's because of CommonSKU and SKUCon 3, 4 years ago that, that I spoke at and met, um, Yvonne Zeman, that a relationship was kind of started and thus continued to where we are today, which is the acquisition of Monarch Company in this past past year, which— and their team coming over to Juice, which has been a huge thing for us in a variety of ways. But I mean, I honestly— it's because you guys inviting me to come speak at SCUCon that that formed.

Well, what a great fit too, when Yvonne and Anna both were looking at coming over to you guys. It made perfect sense. And you're— you and both you as individuals and what you've built as a brand has been phenomenal. One thing, question I had going back to clients and where you focused on clients Did your client mix or focus change over the past 12 months? And then I have a sort of a sub-question to when you said you both focused on business development. Did you look at your business mix and say, we're going to go after clients that do a lot of like the discipline of fulfillment and packaging, and then you knew who to target based on that discipline? Or do you say, we're going to go after clients that look a lot like our existing clients?

Quite honestly, I, I think our goal is to have diversification with our client base. Mainly having to do with hard times or events that may go on in the world that have an impact on business, on certain business. And so it's always been my mindset to say, let's diversify. Because for example, in a downturn in the economy, in what is it, 2008, the one thing that kept my business going, my previous company was sports because sports had to do things to drive attendance. And so that business went up. So my business didn't struggle. And I used that mindset while corporate may have come down, the overall balance of the two, So if you have a level playing field of some of the diversification in your client base, it allows you to kind of do that and get through those hard times. And so when looking at new clients, I don't think we have a certain criteria specifically on type of client. We have a criteria based on now how much work potential there is, because quite frankly, we can't go work with, you know, Lee Fine's coffee latte place down the street that needs 12 t-shirts. It's just I would love to do that and help the local guy out, but we just, we can't do that kind of business anymore because it takes us away from our bigger clients. And so really it's been fortune high-tech companies to sports teams to dating apps. It's been all over the place.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, diversifying your portfolio is like a never-ending conversation you have all the time, right? Because it's such a state of flux. Lee, did you want to add something to that?

Yeah, I mean, I think I would just echo what Robert was saying as far as there's no specific criteria or industry that we're focused or concentrating on. We're working with two biotech companies, for example, right now, one that came over with the acquisition of Monarch and one that we've been working with here in Seattle. Not a space or an industry that we said, you know what, this is a growing industry, we should go attack it. It's a relationship business. Robert and I are not your kind of traditional cold callers. It's not what we like to do. It's not what we're great at. So we kind of don't do that. We leverage relationships and understand what the opportunity is for us to go, you know, really attack it.

Yeah. Did you find yourself doing more fulfillment and kitting and packaging last year than you ever had, or was it the previous year? Or I know you did the Boston Marathon project, which we talked about before, is phenomenal.

Did you—

you laughed— did you find yourself in the middle of tons of those projects?

Yeah, I feel like for a long time I was— it was an amazing opportunity for all those projects to come to fruition, but it was all hands on deck. I mean, truly, you know, we're not, we're not a huge company. We're 15 employees. So it really was all hands on deck. But there were times when I remember like just looking in the mirror going, what am I doing with my life? All for the good. It was having that honest moment because it's 11 o'clock and you're at the office and you're breaking down boxes because, you know, the next day is recycling. You're going to fill up those bins, like things like that. But what it did for us ultimately was strengthen and deepen relationships.

Yeah.

And, and we're seeing the fruits of that labor come to fruition right now tenfold. Like, the amount of trust and growth in those relationships because we, we did that, we rolled up our sleeves and just kind of got our hands dirty, and we all have the box knife scars to, to show it, um, proved, proved long-term success because our relationship with these people has now just skyrocketed.

Yeah, Bobby, to add to that, we literally— Lee's not kidding— we had a project that we decided was too big for our humble domain here in Kirkland, that we couldn't do what we needed to do here. So we decided, let's bring it to Robert's house. And so on a Saturday, we had myself, Lee, Jeff, Drew, my wife, my kids, Lee's wife, all in my 3-car garage fulfilling a project for one of the highest levels at Amazon you can imagine. But we decided we wanted to do it because we knew what it was going to lead to long term with them. Yeah. And we had to have our eyes on it rather than our fulfillment house doing it. Yes. We packaged 6 pallets of backpacks with things, but again, it was the level of clientele it was for and going to, right? It had to be perfect. And since that time has led to an extremely deeply entrenched relationship with someone that runs some of the highest level events for Amazon.

Yeah. How has sales changed for you and the team at Juice in terms of working with your clients? I mean, you're doing fulfillment programs, getting— and actually Forrester Research and other B2B research companies are showing that there's a lot more team sales happening than there used to be. The three of us sort of have been doing this a while, and you can remember it was a Lone Ranger business for a long time. Now it seems like teams are more to the forefront in terms of working with clients. You can have multiple people touching a client. In terms of selling to them, working with them. So how has it changed for you guys?

I'll take a first stab at this. So Robert, interject if you feel otherwise. But I think for us, we've not wavered from the get-go of what sales and going after sales and managing sales and relationships is. And like, as I alluded to earlier, 100% of relationship business for us. Yeah, there's a lot of people that do what we do. And while we feel like we do some things that other people don't, whether it's web specific or video, sure. But when it comes to merch, it's a lot of people that play in the sandbox. But it's the level of relationship and how we treat that relationship that allows us the opportunity, I think, to inquire about new opportunities and get the opportunity for those new opportunities. Yeah, I've used the word opportunity 7 times. But I think it's— there's that part. But it's also, yes, as accounts are growing within Juice, we are putting more people on that account team. To grow our service levels with them. So whether it's creative, project management, additional salespeople, we are absolutely seeing that happen because the work is calling for the growth.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And one thing I want to add is that we started this company and then Lee had a dream of bringing video into our mix of what we do. And I looked at him and I'm like, That makes no sense to me. This is dumb. Why would I bring video? We do merchandise, we do, you know, cups and pens. I'm like, this is what we do. And I stopped and thought, why would— we're living a dream. Why do I— would I want to crush his portion of the dream to see this come to fruition? So I shut up and I said, great, let's do it. So we start out, and I'd say what, it was 3-5% of our business probably 7 years ago. That is, and we wanted to be a little different number, and I think over the last couple years that number has changed pretty significantly. But what got even more interesting to me is not only have we diversified the video and merchandise, but now we're getting into literally doing creative work for our clients. Like, we're getting clients that are saying, we're just going to pay your team to do creative work. No, I don't need merchandise, I just need your creative brain. And so what we're seeing is, I think, is more so than anything, is a diversification of our business is now not as much merchandise only. It's still the majority, but there are other things from our web to our video to our creative. And that's what I love right now, is that we're turning into literally a true— what we call ourselves a marketing production house. We're not an agent. We don't like to use the word agency, but we're truly a one-stop shop. And there are a lot of companies out there that do design, do video, do web, do merchandise. I don't believe there's another one out there that does it all under one roof. Yeah, quite frankly, does it well, which is cool.

Catherine came up with a phrase that I love about working with a client in any aspect of their brand expression that they, they want to. I'm sure there's limits where you won't go, but so you find yourself doing digital, video, all kinds. Can you give me an example of a project that you do for a client that's outside of merchandise.

Go to our meeting last week. That's saying who it is. Just say what we did last week. It was one of the cool— I told Lee about this opportunity. I'm like, we're going to pass. And he goes, no, we're not. This is perfect for us. I go, let's talk. And then we talked.

So one of our clients, one of our top 3 largest clients came to us. This is Robert. Robert owns the senior level relationship of this account. And their need was, I don't know if it's 15 to 20, Robert, offices around the country that they are looking to redesign, um, their lobby space. They know that it's a, it's a tough world out there for talent acquisition. And they really want folks who are coming in to interview in person or coming in on their first day, starting the job after being hired virtually, to open that front door and go, oh my gosh, look where I work. How cool is this? How badass is this place? And they came to us saying, you do cool stuff. Can you help us design the look and feel, the new look and feel of this? So we're talking 3D modeling, we're talking coming up with a pretty intense list of things that they can buy, whether it's artwork, furniture, depending on the size and dimensions of that. That lobby space? What are the monitors gonna look like? What are the monitors gonna show on the screen? All of that has nothing to do with branded merchandise. We do all, we literally do all of their branded merchandise, but this project opportunity only exists because of the design work we've been delivering.

And the trust. It comes down to, they know that we're gonna execute it and get it done. And it's, go for it. Like, we tell them if we couldn't do it, we're not gonna— we have a relationship there now. We're not gonna go take it and like, oh my gosh, Lynn, fail. We are gonna go. And you know what, what we do, a lot of it is go to the screen printer, go to the, the embroiderer, and the this and that. We can source these things and find ways to bring all of these together, and they don't have to worry about it, and they're willing to have us be that lays onto them and say, have at it, and it's perfect and they get it done.

It does help that after we accepted the opportunity, that one of our designers said to us, you guys know that I studied industrial design in college. And we said, that worked out perfect. We should definitely do a better job looking at your resume.

You know what, that's actually not a bad idea to, you know, review your team's background and history based on those current projects. You know, it's Funny. I think most of us want a template for what projects we want to take, you know, because we're— we have clients. If you're doing good work for your clients, they'll approach you about all kinds of things. And this has always been an industry of not really sure how to do that, but we'll figure it out. And I think, Lee, I think I've asked you this before, and it's almost impossible to define, but that line of that's not what we do, it's too subjective, right?

Yep.

We're not media buyers. And I use that example when you and I had spoken in the past. Like a client at Amazon said, you're creating all this content for us, you're producing it, you're doing pre-production, production, post-production. I also want you to buy all the media, all the digital media for this. And I said, I would love to do that for you, but it's not what we do. So I will help you find and source the right agency who does this. That's their core competency, but I would just be wasting your money if if you use me to still like really go do that. Now when Robert says, hey, we source this, we source that, we know what we're doing. We understand apparel, we understand hard goods, we know our space, we know production, creative design, video, motion graphics, all that. To be a media buyer, that's a whole different ball of wax. So we're not gonna mislead our clients and just BS people and saying we can do everything, go figure it out.

[Speaker:ROBERT_LEONARD] Yeah, you could almost say using Catherine's phrase that creating brand expression, if it falls under that bucket, Then, because that— you're right, that's more— the media buying power is a little bit different than creating some brand expression. Let me switch topics to kind of just, if things have changed in your infrastructure, what has changed? The reason I ask this is most of us are going through growth pains, whether or not we're rebuilding mode or if we're growing, like in the case of you guys, there are growth pains that come along with that. And have you looked at your infrastructure over the past year or a couple years and reconfigured things? And you're both smiling, so The answer is yes.

I think he's leading us to plug CommonSkew. Is that what he's doing here?

If that happens to come up in this conversation, great.

Yeah.

But I ask it also genuinely because I know from my background that the more complex projects you get into, the more hands you have handling the projects. And it just, you know, you have to relook at your business every now and then to re-engineer it. I'm going to shut up and let you talk.

No, no, you're good. I wasn't smiling because of the CommonSkew thing. I was smiling for something which I'll mention in a second. But yes, the Common Skew kind of investment and change to your platform. And I know that you don't even— we've done conversations or podcasts before when we weren't even on the Common Skew platform. So I know this wasn't you trying to get me to have a plug for you, but Robert's right. I mean, it has significantly changed our business for the better, right? We're more efficient, we're more organized, The reporting, all the, all the things that you guys have created and built, we're leveraging, and we know that we're not even scratching the surface. So that was an investment and a change for us that has significantly improved so far our business. Now, the folks from Monarch who were on the platform longer, so now that they're part of Juice, the wealth of knowledge and experience that they have with Commonsku, it's kind of like we've got free tutoring, right?

It's unbelievable.

But the other part is, and why I was smiling, is because Robert and I over the last several months, like, we're having conversations where I'm saying, hey, I need my business partner back because he's been building a couple of accounts that are significant pieces of business. But we're lucky, we trust the people that we hire to work at Juice. But it's also time that we need to kind of give people the opportunity to say, hey, I'm going to bring you in and you're going to kind of manage and eventually take over this account. That's huge. But we were also missing that person, that operations person. Now, Robert has been kind of spearheading our operations throughout the entirety we've been around, and he's done a great job. But he and I have recognized while we're very different human beings, when we work together on business growth and strategy, that's when we're most effective. But we need someone to come in and kind of take on a lot of the moving parts from an operations standpoint. And that was that key hire with Anna recently, Anna Nguyen, who's been in a very short amount of time kind of wowing us every day where Robert and I are looking at each other going, she's amazing. Oh, we're actually growing up to become a big boy, big girl company. This is interesting. You know, like the value add that she brings is tremendous.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, Lee, when we brought on Monarch, one of the first things I said to them is, They wanted to get entrenched with our systems. I said, timeout. I go, you guys have things that you were doing, that you were doing really well, and we have our things that we're doing really well, and we're going to learn from each other. This is not Monarch come in and do what we do and that's it. Yeah, we want to learn what you guys did, whether it's within Common Skew and outside of Common Skew, to better our company in general. And that's what we've done, and the transition that way has been great. Fast forward a few months to Anna. Then opportunity came and we didn't have it in the cards. We weren't planning on bringing someone in operational. We're trying to keep this kind of tight as the pandemic hopefully winds down and we're in a nice trajectory. And I had a conversation with her and I hung up and I'm like, holy shit, Lee, this girl is legit. Yeah, and I go, you gotta talk, you gotta talk to her. And I was— and we just hit it off, and it made us realize when we're giving her the download of how much outside of sales that I personally— I won't speak on Lee's behalf— I'm doing. And I mean, I'm going through all these things. I'm like, yeah, the hell do I have time to do anything? And so having her now just sitting here just absorbing all of it On an operational perspective and a resource perspective, it's going to change everything about our company this year.

Yeah, that's part of the reason why I ask it is because if your projects have gotten more complex and if you were formerly in predominantly sales roles and suddenly you are doing ops as a leader, most folks are struggling because they picked up kitting, they picked up fulfillment. And if that's a part of your wheelhouse now and it is a big part of your profit center, then having an ops person might be a new experience for a lot of folks that are going to cross that threshold. In the upcoming year. Is there now for Juice this new evolution in terms of leader development? Like, what's on your plate in terms of priorities as leaders of the organization?

Anna's the first step, quite honestly. I'll go back to that. Like, bringing her on board as our VP of Operations is, in my opinion, has been the first step to us doing that. And Yvonne came in as a VP of Sales, As we continue to grow that, we're going to have someone involved in that like Anna— I'm sorry, like Yvonne— that's going to oversee our sales team. Her strategy in the way that she handles her business is only going to benefit our sales team. And so I don't love layers, like, because we are still a small company, and it's what Lee and I love about our company. We came from a, well, one of the largest companies out there And I want to make sure that we hold this, these values that we set out to kind of put on paper when we decided to do this. And yeah, so we're still, what are we, 17, 16 people now? And it still has that small— every time someone gets hired, they literally meet with every single person in our company in their first week of training. And I love it. And I think it's so great. And I, and there's going to be a time where that's going probably not be the case, but it's what we love. That's what I love right now about our company. Although we are a small company that, quite frankly, we act and perform big. Yeah, we're really lucky from our experience to have that ability to work with big brands on a worldwide perspective. And so there's a lot of growth opportunity here for individuals within this company in the next year or so, without a doubt.

That's awesome. Lee, did you want to add to that?

I think some of this, where you and I, Bobby, have kind of talked before, and, and I say this and it comes off as a joke, but it's actually sincere, which is Robert and I from day one have always said, if we're the two smartest people in the room, we've got a problem. And so like the people that we hire and the people that we have in certain positions, they're not just warm bodies. They're great at what they do and they offer so much value to us internally and externally to our clients. That's what's helping build our, our team. And, you know, one of the things we tell people, because as Robert has mentioned, being a small company, when, when folks are interviewing and we're kind of trending towards like, you know, hey, we think we're going to go on a second date here, we do say to them, there is an opportunity for you to kind of develop your career path. So, you know, a lot companies you go to, midsize, larger companies, you know, even some small ones, you don't really have that option. You kind of know what you're being hired to do, and you might change and do something else. But we're saying you're going to actually help kind of create our division. A recent hire we made in our design team is a gentleman who I said, not only do I want you here for your creative, you know, ability, but I actually want you to just develop this team. Yeah, we're going to be needing more creative people, you need to develop strategy and process. There's a book that I'm reading that talks about goals, and it says go away with the word goals, because if you don't have a strategy and a process, you'll never reach the goal. And so with Anna and other people coming in, it's not Robert and I telling them what to do, it's telling them that they have an opportunity to build what we need as an organization.

In interviewing Sarah White with Fareware, one of the things that I really love that she said about just culture and hiring in folks is that she's hiring folks to contribute to culture, not to conform to a culture that we have. And I always thought that was a fantastic thought. You know, because I wrote that down.

I literally wrote that down yesterday, right? Because I loved hearing that. That was during the session the other day, and I was like, yeah, emotional contribution versus emotional—

yeah, exactly.

I loved it.

Yeah. And that's how we grow. That's how we grow as individuals. That's how we're going to grow as organizations and businesses. So what is this going to free? I mean, this has got to be really exciting for you guys. You, you've been doing this a while. You, like you said, you've worked at big big organizations, you're trying to keep this scrappy, but also you're working with some of the biggest brands in the world. What's this look like for you guys? Like, what passion does this bring back to you? And what are you going to be able to focus on now that you're building out a stronger infrastructure? Robert, start with you.

I think it's, it's growth within our current client base. I mean, we really— this is kind of cliché, but we have barely scratched the surface with some of our clients.

Yeah.

And now it's time— like, we were talking the other day about marketing and getting out there and growing these clients. I'm like, we have it right there. Like, we're getting these general service agreements— master service agreements, I beg your pardon— with some of these big clients that we weren't even targeting to work with. So now it's getting those teams to get in there and infiltrate and grow this. And who knows where it's going to go? I mean, there's a There is— we'll hire more people this year, I have no doubt. We want great salespeople, we want a great project management team, and I think our infrastructure is ready to go. And so as we kind of build these clients out, I have no idea where it's going to go. Like, everyone's— Lee's in our accounting, like, let's get an exact budget for the year. I go, we could do X or we could do Y, and I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah, and that's what's so hard this year because we are so primed for some of these things and I just don't know where it's going to take us. Yeah, quite honestly.

Yeah, that's awesome. Lee?

Yeah, I think that's the most exciting thing right now is what is out there for us to explore. And so because when, you know, we're having these conversations with clients who know us from whether it's just video or just web or just merch or maybe a merchant fulfillment. And we start to kind of— because we don't want to, you know, overwhelm people like a tidal wave. We just casually execute a project, earn the trust, build a relationship, and say, hey, I think there's this opportunity. And watching them light up saying, wait, I can do all this with you? Yeah, that's exciting because we've been chopping a bit to talk to them about this but not feel like we're, you know, we haven't earned their, their trust yet. And so building from with our existing client pool to offer all of our services and execute is absolutely like very, very exciting.

So Robert, there's a lot of folks that are listening that are partnerships, and they, you know, you guys have had a long-term partnership. And you run a very strong business and folks really look up to you. And we really want to know what does partnership look like on the inside? So let me ask it this way. What strength does Lee bring to the relationship? And how does this help you?

And Lee may have said this in post podcast with you, but when we worked together at our previous company, Lee and Robert were polar opposites in our personalities and just the way we are. And if someone would have said 8, 9 years ago when we were at our previous company that the two of you are going to own a company together, to each other, in front of each other, we would say you're an absolute idiot. That's never going to happen. And I'm not even making that up there.

I mean, there's no—

we would have said there's no way this is going to happen. And it's funny how things transpire, because fast forward, you know, now 7, 8 years later, the partnership that we have is exactly why we're succeeding, is the exact reasons 8 years ago I would have said this was never going to happen, because we are so different. And I'm operational-minded. I'm very strategic in kind of how I think and what I do. Lee is very big picture, loves— like, I was first approached to do SKUCon a few years ago, and I said— by, I think it was Pierre over at Chameleon Mike. And I said, I so appreciate you asking me to do this, but my business partners biggest strength besides his good looks, as we all know, is to be in front of a crowd and to speak in those situations. Like, you just watch him and he's the most natural talk. And I get up there and I'm a conversationalist. I'm not a— I don't love presenting. And when we go into meetings, the exact thing happens. Like, we just play off each other. He kind of leads the charge and I'm the color commentary guy. Yeah, it just, it just works.

Right.

And then I never shut up. Once I get going, I'm good. I will be quiet now.

Lee, same question.

What about Robert? It's funny.

It's—

I had, I had told you that story. So now you know the authenticity of it, because we've shared it so many times of like, we were the, we're the people now that are married that in high school were like, I never would have dated that person.

Right.

And so it just works. I don't think that it is 100% the recipe for success. I think people can be, you know, similar and also have success, but I think Robert and I, our differences have made us very happy working and running a business together. Robert is very focused on operations. When there's a problem with a project within our company, you go to Robert because he remains calm and he really attacks something with like sense, not just reaction and thought. And so he— it really works. But he, you know, from a financial standpoint of our company, he's so dialed in to every aspect. If there's someone new to sales in our, in our organization, and, and he's trying to educate them on how profit margin works and how to kind of elevate your game, um, from a dollars and cents or organizational standpoint, like Robert is the guy to that. Like, we even joke, like, everything about our lives, my inbox compared to Robert's, how we run are entirely different, right? And we respect each other for that. Like, there's no— it doesn't mean that his way is right, mine's wrong, or vice versa. We— there's a value that I stole from Amazon when I was there that we've used a lot, which is it's okay to disagree, but if we decide on something, we're going to disagree and commit. And disagree and commit has been something that we've used throughout our tenure working together, running a business. I love that. You know, for us, I think fundamentally, I think our core values are the same.

Yeah, right.

We are adamant on how we treat each other and our team, how we treat our clients, how we treat suppliers, how we treat— we've said this again to you before, Bobby, like we treat the FedEx delivery person the same way. We used to have a FedEx person who would come in on his stop, we'd offer him food, coffee, he'd hang out almost like too long. But we were adamant on having this Yeah, we came from a place that's not— that wasn't the behavior, right? And so, like, our treating people with respect, acknowledging people's efforts and applauding their wins, working with them when they're not having a win or when they had, you know, a project loss or whatever it is, like, we are definitely alike there. I'm definitely more the sappy, you know, we talked about— I'm the Brené Brown guy for sure. Um, but, um, I think that some of those differences really work with our team because not everyone is just like Lee or just like Robert. We have a grab bag of people and personalities, which is great. And so they even know who and when to talk to. Right.

And I was going to ask how you reconcile differences, but you sort of answered it with disagree and commit.

Yeah. And I think also trust, right? Like, so I go to bed every single night knowing that when Robert is kind of controlling, um, the, the what's happening in our operations and our day-to-day, or our contractual obligations and looking over those contracts with the attorney. Like, I don't have any inkling of, oh shit, yeah, he's got it covered. And I feel, you know, and I think not, not to speak on his behalf, but I think when he says there's an opportunity for this project or this execution, whether it's, you know, managing the creative or the video or the execution here, that he has that same level of trust trust in me. Yeah, absolutely.

And then I go to bed at night worried, how much money is Lee going to spend on the next big juice marketing proposal plan we're going to build? No, I'm just kidding.

We do—

we complement each other so well. I don't— we have our differences and we talk through them, and like Lee said, disagreeing commit, and you go. And, and it's worked out really, really, really well. And I, it's— I would never have thought this would get us where we were 7, 8 years later, and it's I think it's the best position I could be in in my career right now. And who knows what the future holds, but it's been a really, really fun 7.5 or so years. And thinking about what we've been up against, like the world's been up against in these last couple years, I think it's probably brought us closer together.

Yeah.

That has allowed us to excel even and get tighter and to be more aggressive in our behavior and strategies. Aligns us for success. So it's been great.

Yeah, I was just gonna add, there's a line— I did not come up with this, but a friend who's in the industry-ish, he and his team came up with this, but I've used it 4 times in the last 12 business days. And I love it. I think it's relevant to where we are as an organization. And it's kind of taking out the return on investment and replacing it with return on emotion.

Yeah.

And it just allows us to not just think of things from a dollar and cents perspective, but from a relationship, from an emotional perspective, not only from what we're providing for our clients for them to execute, but also internally as an organization. And when you take away that, like, are we making money, are we losing money, and you add the other elements to it, you make more sound decisions and enjoy it a hell of a lot more. A lot more.

I was going to ask you about that too. Mark and I were chatting recently that there has— it's never been a harder time to be in the business, but I don't know that there's ever been a better time or a more rewarding time to be in the business as well. Would you agree or disagree with that? Maybe I'm setting that up and there's no way to answer that but agree. But how would you feel, Robert?

I agree. And it's funny because I sit here and I go, is all this business that we're doing now all because of our hard work over the last 7, 8 years? And that's what— now it's come to fruition and it's, it's all that, and we're boom, or is the economy in the world changing and we're just in the right place at the right time and we're doing well there? I probably think it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I think it's all of our hard work has prepared us for where the world is at right now and where the supply chain is at, and, and our experience with the supply chain and our experience with customer service and being able to work with our clients and the vendors to really deliver right now, which is It's tough. And so, but the business is there. Clients are, quite frankly, they're spending money and they're spending it with a level of wanting to spend with a company they can trust and build with. And I think that's what's allowing us to be successful. So I think it's a little bit of both have happened in my opinion right now to get us in this upward sales cycle we're in right now.

Yeah.

Lee?

You know, it's a loaded question, because I think, to your point, I think that it's, it is an exciting time to be in this industry, for sure. In some ways, it's a super frustrating time because of the issues that we're having with supply chain and our, what our vendors are seeing out there. But in other ways, it's kind of fascinating, because things are kind of changing in ways that have never been done before. And I'll share an example, which is We formed a contractual relationship with Staples recently in the last few months. We are their sales arm for their NFL license agreement, working with the teams in league. And when you, when you sit and think about that, interesting. Yeah, it's weird. Like, they're, they're right, obviously they're significantly larger than Juice Marketing, but based on a relationship that Robert had with someone at Staples, an ongoing conversation developed, and that's what came out of it. And so we kind of represent Staples with their NFL license. So, wow, execution. Wow. And so what, what the reason for me sharing that is because that's an exciting time to be in this industry because things are happening that we never even thought would have been a thing. Yeah, even a concept back in the day. But I think not only are acquisitions still massively prevalent in our space as they are in many other industries. People are getting creative with how they're doing business. I'm not gonna mention the other supplier, but we were recently asked to participate in an RFP that is ongoing right now for a large supplier within our industry as they're launching a new product, looking for the marketing production stuff that we do. And I kind of say tongue in cheek with our sales team sometimes, low-hanging fruit. Our biggest client list out there is our own industry, our suppliers who need photography, video, creative website development. Like, if you're someone who really wants to come cold call, I'll give you a list of 15,000 suppliers to call. Because the people— not to call anyone's baby ugly, but there's people that need work. Well, one of our suppliers recognizes what we do and reached out to us. And it's so smart. Now, Matt, you know, they're so smart for calling us. But how much sense does that make? It makes a ton of sense. We're your target audience. We know exactly what tools we need to help sell your product. Why wouldn't you?

Well, it's also a position of humility. When you talked earlier about the FedEx driver, John Mackey with Whole Foods talks about the ecosystem, and he talks about respecting the entire ecosystem, not just customers but the farmers that grow the food and the distributors. And he talks about this entire healthy ecosystem. And because of that respect, then you're opening your doors for opportunities that you didn't even think. We just think linear, like clients, but the clients or the people we serve are all around us.

Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, we have seen to it like we treat everyone the same way, and it's inevitable that what we're— it's relationships. And I think having that relationship with our friends at HIT to Sweetheart to whoever, and our clients literally treat them the same way.

Yeah.

And then because it comes down to friendships, and when you need a— your client needs something, they're going to call you. And if I need something, I'm going to call my friend too. And if my friend is hit or something like that, then we're going to see to it as friends and partners, we're going to get it done. And so that's why I'm saying right now in this crazy supply chain, those relationships that have been in the works for for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, I think are most prevalent now in succeeding.

Yep. We have time for one more question, and I want to ask you this. We have, over the past several years since you started Juice, you've been through at least one recession, you've been through a pandemic, you've been through— just on just those two alone are colossal in terms of the challenges that you would have. Robert, speak to a young Robert about to start Juice Marketing. What would you tell him?

Oh God, um, you know, it has been a crazy 7 years, and I would say it's the most rewarding 7 years of my career.

Wow.

And it takes a— I didn't realize it— well, the entrepreneurial spirit, you know, it's easy to say, and then when you're in it, you're like Holy crap, like, this is a whole different level. And you start looking at employees who are buying cars and buying houses and doing this, and the responsibility— I never realized how big of a responsibility it was going back 7, 8 years ago.

Yeah.

And I would suggest anyone owning your own business is the most fulfilling thing I could ever imagine, but it's also one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life outside of having kids. Yeah, I mean, having kids is a whole different story, but to own this company and to, to go do this has been an absolute joy. And I would just say to everyone looking to do it, just know what you're getting into and think it's going to be 10 times harder than what you think it's going to be, and that's what it's going to be. But if you can do it and you have the ability and the business partner and the support chain to, to help do this, it's the best thing ever.

Yeah, you can hold the difficulty and the reward in one— in two different hands, and then you still face that. Lee, how about you? What would you say to Lee starting Juice Marketing 7 years ago?

I would say think twice before getting that tattoo 4 years later in Austin at 4 o'clock in the morning. Um, okay, I don't hate— I actually like the tattoo, but, um, you know, it's, uh, I don't know what I would say. I don't have like regrets necessarily about things. I mean, there's definitely projects that I wish I— well, I mean, just like I wish there was probably some projects that I— oh man, I've watched some videos that we've done years ago. I meant I would have cut this differently. I think we needed, you know, what little things like that. We all do that. We all are in hindsight critical of our work. But I think Probably just tell myself to have more patience. I think early on we were definitely bullish because of the relationships of what we had in our prior lives working in this space. And I think we thought the success was going to come a lot sooner. And there's nothing wrong with the story we're telling over the last 7, 8 years. But if I could have prepared myself to be more more present— not more present, more patient. Excuse me. I think that would have served— would have served my, my mental health.

Yeah, that's great advice. That's great advice, guys. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about this. It's been a wild journey for you both, and, uh, really thankful on behalf of the entrepreneurs that listen to this because it's very encouraging talking to you two. And we appreciate you from the whole Commsky team. We appreciate you guys so much.

Bobby, thank you.

Likewise.

Really, my first big podcasts and this is fun. So if you ever want me to jump on without Lee, you just let me know. Okay, deal.

All right.

All right, guys, take care.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it as always.

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.