Episode 220: “The What, Why, and Wow of 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.

As a creative, you show your value by understanding how your creativity helps the business grow or makes a meaningful impact to the business.

From pixie dust to promotional products, Shelley Williams has tackled a wide range of creative and marketing challenges over her 20-plus-year career. Shelley joined SanMar as the VP Marketing in January 2020. Prior to her time at Sandmarc, she previously led brand and creative teams at Disney Parks and Resorts, Expedia, Alaska Airlines, and Rover. Her experience brings together a really unique combination of marketing strategy, creative direction, and user experience design to build distinct and memorable experiences across the entire customer journey. Now, what makes Shelley fascinating to talk to is that not only is she the VP Marketing for a multi-billion dollar, highly respected brand, But her experience has given her a unique command over both sides of the creative marketing brain, the creative side of marketing and the functional side of marketing, or what she calls the what, why, and the wow of marketing. We chat about that today, as well as some amazing tips on building an effective apparel program for your clients. Her advice, by the way, comes from the client side of that. Then we talk about the structure of a large marketing department, the key to a creative director's role, career advice, and lastly, we talk about a brand she's obsessed with, and it's the same brand our friend Brian Pappe from MIR is obsessed with. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Common Skews Chief Content Officer. Before our chat with Shelley, I have a very special announcement I want to share with you. I invited your friend and ours, Dave Schultz, Common Skews Vice President of Supplier Partnerships and board member at Promo Cares, to join us to let you know about an incredible industry-wide movement currently underway to support Ukraine. Here's Dave to tell us more.

I think everybody in the industry over the last month or so has just been feeling a bit hand-tied and wondering how they can help and what's actually going on. And, you know, what are some ways that we as an industry of people who make and sell promotional products, like, what on earth can we do to help? And, you know, we as a board, the Promocares board is, you know, myself, Danny Rosen, Roger Burnett, Kerry Cowden, Mandy Rudd, Meg Erber, Scott Pearson, Denise Tashero, you know, a group of great people with big hearts. And through a few phone calls over the last few weeks, came up with this idea to kind of leverage a promotional product, a t-shirt, a limited edition t-shirt, to help raise money for something. And that something came out of a conversation with Jonathan Isaacson at Gemline, who, you know, as everybody knows, is a on par as an amazing connector as you and, and Mark Graham are in that respect. But he just— he's, he's able to, to bring people together to have these conversations and actually helped vet the various charities out there that are working in Ukraine right now. We really wanted to work with something that was kind of boots on the ground. We decided to focus on kids, so we were partnering with Save the Children, which is a group that has a group on the ground in Ukraine actually working to provide children and families with lodging, medicine, all these kinds of things. And that's kind of how we decided upon the beneficiary. Okay, so the way it works is, you know, we're asking for donations. If you donate $50 or more, you get this limited edition tee, super cool t-shirt to kind of, you know, show off your support of this event. And what it really has turned into is sort of a compassion over competition among industry players. So we have all the, all of the costs for this have been backed out. So 100% of your donation is going directly to Save the Children in Ukraine. The t-shirts were donated by S&S Activewear. The printing is being done by Vantage Apparel. The fulfillment shipping is being done by AlphaBroader Prime. The packaging was donated by Chameleon-Like. So you have all of these competitors in the industry rallying around this, coming together to help support this event. And then in the last week, we've had, you know, half a dozen people jump in and say, well, we want to do a match. You know, Jonathan and Gemline have committed $25,000 to a match for donations for this. Hirsch jumped in, Chameleon-like, Zoom Catalog, Maple Ridge Farms. I think next week we're having Cap America and Headwear USA, again, two competitors coming together to do a match competition on a given day. So it's just, it's really turned into this neat way for the industry to just to do something, anything.

Yeah.

And I understand this is going to run for about another week, maybe 2 weeks at the most. So where can we go to find more information and to contribute?

Yes. So we, um, we wanted to run it through this week and next week. Um, as we're recording this, I just literally got off a webinar that Jonathan hosted. He had, um, Vitaly Klitschko, I believe his name is, the mayor of Kyiv, on the call, who was Essentially giving a firsthand account of what is actually going on on the ground. And it is, it's heavy. It's heavy to listen to what's going on over there. So you can go to promocares.org where you can make a donation. Again, if you donate $50 or more, you get this amazing tee. And keep an eye on the social channels for Promocares because you'll see over the coming days various suppliers in the industry that have jumped in and are offering a match on any given day so you can double your donation.

Great. Well, Dave, thank you. Thanks to you and the board members for setting this all up. I know you're just a part of this big initiative that's going on, but thanks for all your work and we'll continue to get the word out.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for, thanks for chatting about it.

Once more, that web address, you can donate at promocares.org. Today's episode is brought to you by Commenscube, 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 commonscue.com. Now here's our chat with Shelley Williams, VP of Marketing, SanMar. You ascended the ranks at Disney, a real rare feat by anyone, particularly someone coming in at such an entry-level position. How did that ascendance and rise in your career impact how you saw the world of both marketing and creativity?

Geez, ascend kind of sounds fast, but truthfully, It was a long, slow movement through kind of the different roles at Disney. And starting from kind of a production artist to a designer to an art director to a creative director, 7 or so years it took to kind of get to the creative director role. Really what it did for me, I think, as a creative, it helped me. And as a leader, it helped me kind of be able to earn the trust of my team because I've done all the roles. I spent time at each role. I really know the roles well. I've spent time time there. And so I think when you're, when you're leading a team and they trust that, like, you understand what they do and you can kind of defend their work or be an advocate for the time it takes to be creative, I think that helps a ton. I think from the marketing side of things, my experience at Disney was interesting because I was so early in my career, I don't think I realized that I was even doing marketing. I mean, I was creating, you know, cool creative that you know, that really was trying to tap into kind of an emotional connection and tell a story. And now, obviously, in hindsight, I know that that's like the, the foundation of great marketing. But at the time, I was just a designer and a creative director who was like doing great creative work.

I think one role that's growing in the industry is this idea of a creative director. So what skill— since you've done that, you've also probably hired creative directors— what skill or talent should a creative director possess? What does that role look like in this Yeah, it's interesting.

I actually, we just hired a new creative director, so I've been through this recently. But to me, there's kind of two key sides of a creative director. There's first and foremost the people leadership, being able to recognize and develop talent and bring out the creativity and the big thinking in your creative team. And I think if you're a really great people leader who understands your creative team, you can get bigger, better ideas out of being a great leader than you could ever just have on your own. So the people leadership side of it, I think, is often really overlooked in the creative director role.

Great point.

But then there's that ability to solve problems with what I call the what-if factor, like pushing people beyond the, the sort of obvious idea. And so it's, you know, being able to kind of take the ideas that people have and say, oh my gosh, what if we did this? What if we went here? What if you did that? That's like the best technique I think a creative director can apply is how do you get someone to just take an idea and, and take it a little bit farther or make it a little bit more unique. And so it's really balancing people leadership with kind of pushing the ideas and being able to like think bigger than just kind of what your first idea might be.

Yeah, you started teaching classes to others based on your experience at Disney. So you've been speaking on this topic of around creativity and marketing for a while. What was most memorable about those sessions that you were teaching back then, and how is it applicable to today?

I think the thing that I, um, some of the biggest lessons I took away from Disney and that I've shared in either guest lectures or the opportunity to speak, um, in classes is that, um, it really is about how do you create that emotional connection. It may, it may get redundant because Disney, that, that's truly what it is. It's what is the story? How do I connect emotionally? And one of the big things is about how many senses have I engaged in this creative? There's, you know, the 5 senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. And the more of those senses you activate in a creative experience, the more memorable, the more emotion, the more engaging that that experience will be. And it doesn't have to be that you make someone You literally, you know, put a scent in front of them so they can smell it, but how do you describe what it smells like? How do you create what it sounds like? And so the more you do that, the more memorable the work is and the more it kind of gets someone into that story mindset.

Let's talk a little bit about science of marketing versus the creativity in marketing, because one really powerful aspect of your journey is how you learn to embrace, embrace both sides, both the creative side as well as the marketing side, but the financial side, all of those things, the design style craft, and then the financials, analytics, commerce, user experience optimization, all of those kind of fall in different categories. How would you describe those two sides of the marketing world?

Well, I do, I think a little bit about like the art and the science, or maybe the functional and the emotional. Again, so I think that when you think about kind of the creative, like the creativity, that's really the, the art of it. And then, you know, you still have to understand the business, you have to understand I need the message to resonate because I'm trying to get this point across. And this is what's going to make someone buy a product or engage in a service. And so it's really about putting the two together. You can't— if you're wildly creative, but you don't understand how it helps make an impact in the business, or you don't understand the science behind the creative, I think that's really where Sometimes creative creativity gets underappreciated or doesn't get recognized for the value it can add.

Sometimes it seems like in the business world that these two areas of creativity and the science side of marketing clash, but how do they really complement each other? What impact does both bring to the business?

I think of marketing as the science, and I kind of talk about it being the what and the why. Marketing is really defining kind of what's the opportunity, who's the audience, what are the insights, What are the product or service benefits? You know, it's kind of defining what it is that we're trying to tackle. And then the art, the creative side of it is the art or the wow. So I talk about the what and the why and then the wow.

I like that.

Marketing is kind of the what and the why. And then creative is like bringing the wow. It's taking that information, applying that creativity, whether it's imagery or motion or masterful copywriting, engaging the senses, again, and then expressing, um, that to your audience. And so I think of them kind of hand in hand. If you don't have great definition of the problem, you're not going to come up with a creative solution.

Yeah.

Or your creative solution is just superficial, it's not really delivering on the business.

I love that example. I'm going to be using that, by the way. It's a really easy one for me to remember. And thank you. And the other phrase I love, it, it's almost like, uh, the what and the why. And then the wow equals this— the business of creative. You used that phrase with me before, and I loved the phrase itself because it seems that's where creativity sees its full fruition, is in the pure business of creative— the what, the why, and the wow.

Yeah, I mean, I think the business of— when I think about the business of creative, it's not like selling creativity as a business. I think more of it as, um, as a, as a creative You show your value by understanding how your creativity helps the business grow or makes a meaningful impact to the business. And so, you know, I, when I was purely kind of a creative director and not like the leader of the marketing organization, I would often have designers on my team kind of bring solutions to the table and, and it was clear that they didn't understand the business. So I'll give you a more concrete example. When I was at Expedia, In the travel industry, at Expedia specifically, selling air travel is not how the company makes money. Selling hotels is how the company makes money. But selling air travel is like the milk in the grocery store. Like they put it at the back of the grocery store because they want you to walk through the grocery store and back to the front of the register and buy things on your way back. So air travel brings people into the store, but buying a hotel is how they make money. So if you're a designer and you're you're working on a project and you need to kind of add emphasis, you need to understand that air travel is important, but hotels are where we make money. So the hierarchy of kind of that information is important from a business standpoint, and that should inform how you approach your solving your problem from a creative standpoint as well.

It's a great analogy. Um, speaking of— we talk about airlines. Last night I was flying back from Toronto's HQ back home, and I was on American Airlines and this brand new gorgeous plane, and everyone had brand new uniforms. And once you're in the merch business, you notice it everywhere. You know, you're like critical and you see what people are wearing and you sort of analyze it. And so I looked at these cool uniforms and I thought of the story you told me that you worked on the Alaska Airlines program, which included even a fashion designer. And again, some of these experiences in your career, who, you know, who, how did you— you never knew someday you would end up at Sandbar, like this massive company that would be actually architecting a lot of these things. What did you learn about that experience that impacts your role today at Sandbar?

Oh gosh, well, I think the thing that was exciting and interesting and overwhelming all at the same time about working on an airline industry, an airline program, fashion uniform program, was the complexity of the program. And so, you know, it kind of again goes all back to the, the needs of the audience. So, you know, if you're, if you're putting a program together and you have mechanics and you have pilots and you have flight attendants and you have customer service agents, you have to understand kind of like what each of them are doing, what their, what their clothes need to be able to deliver. Like pilots pack for a 4-day trip. They are not going to go to the dry cleaners on their 4-day trip. So their dress shirts need to be, you know, able to not have to be ironed and not have to be sent to the dry cleaners. And it's the same thing you need to understand about putting a uniform program together as you do about putting a banner ad or an email. Who's your audience? What are their needs? And how do you apply creativity to solve it in a way that meets their needs? And so it was fascinating because who knew that flight attendants, really what they care about is pockets, or, you know, pilots do not want to go to the dry cleaners and customer service agents, you know, they want to be able to, they have to lift a 50-pound bag and put it on a conveyor belt. And so The functionality has to meet the needs of the, the audience. And really that's kind of the lesson over, over again in creativity. How does it help me at Sandmarc? I mean, I think it, it applies across the board in every problem you're trying to solve, whether you're, like I said, you know, creating a new navigation on the website. How does, what does someone need to find? How are they looking for the information?

I, I love that. Such great tactical advice on, on the pro— on the program business that you just mentioned, because I've been involved in program business my whole career, and that's such great advice around that. Let me switch over to another topic because this is something that you created that I absolutely love. So speaking of brand strategy, brand expression, all of these things, um, behind the scenes, you created a video called This Is Not a T-Shirt. We showed this at one of our events and we'll put this in the show notes as well, but it's a brilliant video that talks about SanMar's mission. I absolutely love it. I've shown it to everybody I can. Can you take us behind the scenes on that, like the visioning for the message and everything? It's a brilliant campaign.

Yep, for sure. Let's see. So when I, when I joined SanMar, one of the things I realized is different than some of the other places I've been, SanMar was actually already living its purpose, but it wasn't really connecting the dots and telling the story in a way that made it clear. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of different phrases that we use across SanMar. Business is personal, we create a canvas for good, we have family values. And all of those have a role to play, but they ladder up to something bigger and more meaningful, which is the company's purpose. And so what I tried to help us do last year, and Jeremy and I partnered on this, and we, our marketing team spent some time trying to just articulate the company's purpose, which is more bigger and, and more than the t-shirts we sell. And in doing so, we came to the purpose statement of we create meaningful connections that elevate Elevate Live. What we mean by that is when you wear one of our shirts, you're part of a team, you're part of a club, you're part of a charity organization, you're part of, you know, a group of girls getting together to, you know, have a purpose, walk a breast cancer walk or something. And so the meaningful connections that are made with the apparel that we create is, is part of our purpose. The elevating lives is everyone who touches that apparel throughout the process, whether it's the, the factories, the employees from the factories, our employees, the communities that our customers are part of. The elevating lives is a really important part of that. And so when we took those two things, we created a tagline called Together for Good. Together is the meaningful connections. The for good is the elevating lives. And we wanted to be able to do— to express it in a short video. And so that's really where that video came from. You know, a t-shirt is more than— a t-shirt is more than just the t-shirt. It signifies all of these different emotions in people's lives. And so that was the work that we did. There's actually more chapters of that kind of video to come. We're working through You know, this is not an employee, this is not a customer. And so there's kind of an extension that, um, that will be bringing out through kind of different, um, different ways as we develop more.

I love that. The other thing I love about it is that when you see a piece of work like that that's been done, there has been a ton of thinking and strategizing going on behind the scenes, like you said. And then coming into Sandmarl, you know, I love what you said about their values were already there. And often, I think this is probably the case with a lot of businesses, they're already doing great work, they just need to figure out how to package this in a way that delivers the message in a more potent experience.

Right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting, I've been at places where they didn't really have a purpose, they just offered a service, or they were very transactional. And you have to try to manufacture like the company's purpose. And that's the— those are the hard jobs. Um, but coming in and the company already is doing all of these things, you really just get to help them see what the purpose is and understand the value of expressing it that way. Yeah, that was the best effort out there, you know.

Yeah, and codifying— you were— you spent your time codifying that as opposed to just trying to manufacture it. Yeah, I see your point. One of the projects that's really important to you is digital transformation. What do you mean by that?

So digital transformation is a little bit like storytelling. I think a lot of people are talking about it, and it can sound huge and overwhelming, but really it's about how do you take every interaction that you have with your customers or your users, make them as easy as possible, understand kind of their pain points and barriers, and, and remove them to make it a frictionless experience. And I'll give you an example. I was thinking about the other day, I had a knee injury a few months ago. And so I've been seeing all these different providers, physical therapy, imaging, et cetera. One of them sent me a paper bill with an envelope where you have to take the little piece off and put your credit card number. In this case, I think I actually had to write a check. So I had to find a checkbook. I had to go buy a stamp to be able to mail my payment back to this provider. The other provider sent me an SMS text message with a link that says you have a, a bill available at our patient portal. So I clicked on the link on my phone. I went to the patient portal. It said pay with Apple Pay. I clicked a button. I double-clicked the you know, the thing on my phone and my bill is paid. To me, that's like no better example of digital transformation. I didn't have to go to the post office and buy stamps to pay my bill. Like, that's just not how I operate these days. And so understanding, again, understanding your audience and, and making incremental improvements to the experience that help them transact in a way that's seamless for them. Is really what we aspire to do and what we're continuing to invest in.

Well, you're speaking to the right audience here because that's all, that's all that we're about at CommsCube. And we had, we recently launched client portals and project portals, and those have been really important for making that transformation for our distributor customers from interruption-based techniques where we're spending all our time communicating back and forth with the clients on projects and where they're at, and instead creating these experiences where it's automated and you don't have to, you can spend all your creative time focusing on something else. Let me, let me ask you about this. You have had such an amazing career. You have had different roles, but they all have fallen under this creative and marketing umbrella. Um, given that you've had such vast experience, you mentioned to me one lesson, because I'm curious what you would advise other marketing professionals or creative professionals. You mentioned one lesson was to not get boxed in by your title. What do you mean by that?

I think that so many people are motivated by their title, or they seek a certain title because they think there's an— it comes with, it comes with an expectation, or it comes with kind of a perception about who you are and what you do. And I never set out, set out to be the VP of Marketing. I didn't even— marketing was not really even on my radar. I was a very creative person who liked to, you know, draw and learned how to use Photoshop and found my way. I was a chemistry major in college, and I found my way from chemistry to visual communications before graduating. But I think the important thing that I learned along the way is to, to be open to new opportunities and experiences and to do things that I find challenging that I may learn from. Whether the title sounds like something I should be doing because I'm at this or that is the thing that has helped me kind of move from one role to the other. I was a creative director who was asked to join Alaska Airlines to help transform their brand. It turned into being a brand strategy and expression leader of brand strategy and expression. I had no idea what brand strategy was. I was doing it without knowing what I was doing. If I had, if I had seen the title of brand director, brand strategy, I would have been like, oh, I'm not qualified for that. I, you know, I probably wouldn't have put myself out there. And I think a lot of times people will either overshoot because they really just want a title, or they will not allow themselves to be considered because they don't think they're qualified based on what the title is. And so it can, it can be, it can be challenging in both directions if you just are shooting for a title. So I try to find what, you know, what's the role, what's the opportunity, am I going to learn, can I add value? Great. Let me go do marketing, you know. So that's not to, not to, of course, minimize anyone who spent their life, you know, learning marketing in a very academic way. I didn't learn it that way. I learned it by being open to moving and trying things.

And yeah, well, it's great advice because so much hiring that's happening right now, you could see a title and, and say that, well, that's not for me, but you really don't know what the organizational— the organization's goals are, which can be different. That role can function differently in those organizations depending on what they're aiming at.

That's right. I think the VP of Marketing role at Stanmar is very different than the VP of Marketing role at Google or, you know, somewhere else. And so here, I have the opportunity to bring all of my years of experience as a creative to an industry that is really in service to many customers who are creative. And so that my, my creative career has helped me be successful in this role as much as my knowledge of marketing that I've gained throughout kind of other experiences.

Yeah, speaking of SAMR, let's talk a little bit about structure. Like, can you give us a glimpse into your marketing department? How do you structure— how do you structure a department for such a large organization?

So our team, our marketing team, is divided into 4 different kind of individual teams or departments. We have an integrated marketing team, which is a team of marketing managers defining the what and the why, creating the briefs, the priorities, the strategy, the planning, etc. Then we have a marketing operations team that is comprised of project management, analytics, trade show, and our creative studio that's shooting all of our e-commerce photography. We also have a digital— our digital product team, which is developing kind of the digital experiences, sandbar.com most prominently, but other kind of digital experiences like our media library and things like that that are customer-facing. And then the last team is our creative team, obviously, which is art directors, designers, and writers, and production teams that are putting So bringing all that together to create the wow.

Got it. Where, as a leader, where do you focus most of your time? Like, what's on your desk right now? Give us a glimpse of your day.

Oh gosh, I, my day can go anything from where we're building a new e-commerce studio. So I'm working with our ops team on, you know, the, the requirements of the studio and who's going to be in the building and all of that, to what is the marketing calendar and the prioritization of the messages to our customer and working with our integrated team to understand that. Just hired a new creative director who will start with us in a couple of weeks. So there's a lot of kind of hiring and helping to kind of cultivate the talent on our team. And then, you know, so I'm kind of across all four of those intermittently, but working with our digital team on the plans for continual optimization of our website. But any given day, I'm all over the place on any of those.

Let's talk a little bit about your influences and joy. Where do you find joy in the work that you're doing today, different than what you've done in the past?

Um, what I, what I love most about the work I'm doing today is seeing the, the progress that we're making. And it's interesting because you think of SanMar as, you know, 50 years of experience and, and kind of the, the leader in the industry, and we are, we're also kind of trying to make sure that we're prepared for the next 50 years. And what is— we're at that place where what is it that we need to do to be ready for whatever's coming or changing? The world is adapting and changing so quickly. So what I find joy in is seeing the team evolve and learn and grow and kind of being ready for the next big challenge. What can I do as a leader to help the team create more skills or understand the objectives or develop a skill that they haven't had before. So really watching the team grow and progress is what I find joy in. Yeah.

Being the vice president of a $2 billion-plus enterprise with over 5,000 employees, what's the hardest about running a marketing organization at that size?

I think that the hardest thing for us right now is evolving from what we've always done to being ready for what's coming. And in a company like SanMar, we have so many employees who have just been here for a really long time. And there's great value in having that longstanding kind of experience with the company. But when you, when you bring in new people like me, and we're like, well, what if we did this? And what if we did that? You know, how do we, how do we go from being the company that produces the full line catalog every year to being ready to double-click the side of your phone to do a transaction with us. Like, that's the hardest part is that change management and the setting us up for the next thing while still serving customers who love the full-line catalog. So you've got to find that balance and you've got to be ready for what's next and finding that balance in a way that isn't making everybody crazy.

Right.

And is productive and is meaningful. That's really the hard part.

Yeah. Where do you find your influences? What brands do you follow? People do you follow? What do you keep an eye on?

Gosh, way too much of just Instagram in general, I would say. Um, one, one brand I'm just fascinated with is Rivian. I don't know if you've seen the electric truck. Yeah, I have.

Yeah, it's on my— it might be on my wish list. I haven't quite put it there yet, but I'm just observing.

Aside from a really big kerfuffle they just had in announcing a price change, which was, which was something to, to go back and look at what they did and how they handled it in terms of just communicating. Aside from that, which was a pretty big, pretty big bump for them. They have been a flawless brand in terms of how they've announced the vehicle, their marketing is very emotional. The— my husband put a deposit down really early on because he's a car aficionado. And we were invited to an event where they brought like production vehicles and had a, you know, had an experiential activation in Seattle.

Yeah.

And it was flawless from the sweat, from the, you know, they were wearing, you know, sustainably, sustainable brand. And they have, you know, they have great swag. Branded merch is the new term I think I read on.

Right.

So they had the, the merch was flawless. The experience was flawless. The website is amazing. The mobile app is great. Just like every time you, over the 3 years of waiting for your car to finally be produced, anytime you're like, oh, about to like cancel it, you get an email or you get a social post or you get something that just keeps you like on your toes. So it's one of those brands that I've been kind of enamored with for 3 years now. But there's just so many. I mean, everybody from Patagonia to Allbirds to On sneakers. I'm any, any sneaker brand I'm loving.

So same. I absolutely love following the sneaker business. Yeah, there is Rivian. Brian Pappe with Mere, some folks will know because he's been a guest before with us, is a Rivian owner. So he's a big fan as well.

I saw, I follow him on Instagram. I mean, I think I first I first found Mir through that event in Seattle where they gave away Mir branded merch. And so that's— I started following Brian then, and then I just saw a couple days ago that he just got his truck.

So yeah, that's cool. Um, I know I am too, actually. Who's influenced you the most in your career?

There's been so many great influences in my career. I, I do have a really long-standing, uh, connection with the a gentleman who was my— the VP of creative when I worked at Disney. He's kind of become a lifelong mentor for me. His name is Roger Holzberg, and he actually came via Zoom and gave us a talk to my marketing team at SanMar last year. And he's just a really inspirational guy. He's done a lot of things in his career, but he always pushed us to be a team that thought about what's the story. And he's, he's definitely a storyteller.

That's great. Last question for you, Shelley. What does Shelley enjoy doing when she's not working so hard?

Oh gosh, I, I have so many— I have way too many things I like to do, but I have, I have dogs, so I'm a big dog fan, um, and they take up a lot of time. Um, 3 dogs, by the way. And then, you know, I, I love the outdoors, paddleboarding, what— anything in the water. And then a nice, nice glass of red wine. So those three things together, spending time with my family.

Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us. You have such an amazing career, and you're doing such amazing work there at SanMar. We, of course, are obsessed with SanMar, and we love what you're doing, everything about it, the messaging. And for someone like me to follow along with seeing what you're doing in terms of the messaging and the brand, and how you're building such a creative experience for those that interact with the brand now, as opposed to before. I think it's, it's a fascinating transition to watch. So thanks for all your hard work.

Thank you. Thanks for having me today, actually. This has been a really fun experience.

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