Episode 239: Marketing, Procurement, and RFP’s with Harper & Scott’s Kate Hallett

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 special podcast of Common Skew. Our guest today changed my mind in two areas I didn't think possible. Number one, she convinced me that procurement can be your best friend. And number two, that RFPs are fun. I asked her to explain. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Common Skew, and my guest today is Kate Hallett, the Chief Marketing Officer at Harper Scott. Kate has over 10 years of integrated marketing experience with a proven track record for growing businesses. She's a passionate storyteller with disciplines across multiple industries for enterprise and late-stage startups in both B2B and B2C environments. Prior to Harper Scott, she led go-to-market programs for companies like Sutherland Global Services, Yahoo!, and Time Inc. Kate is a powerhouse. This is one of those episodes where you should strap in. You're about to get a masterclass in client development, marketing, purchasing, and RFPs. And she does it all with a simple reframing of each opportunity. But before we chat with Kate, a few quick announcements. First, registration is open for Product Summit Holiday and Gifting. Product Summit is a fresh take on product education, combining real-world learning, on-trend product ideas, and stories from pros in the trenches. The purpose of Product Summit is to elevate how we think about product experiences in the industry, as well as equip you with innovative ideas. And the best part, it's designed with your busy life in mind. It's jam-packed with fresh insight, examples, and the latest in product trends in only 3 short hours. So invite your team to join us for this virtual experience on September 14th from 2 to 5 PM ET. You can register at commonskew.com/product-summit. Productsummit. Also, you might have heard that we launched pre-registration for our incredibly popular event, SKUCon, which is held in Las Vegas on January 8th. Now, if you're new to the business or new to SKUCon, SKUCon is the industry's one-day conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the promotional products industry. It's a live all-day experience meant to kick off your year right. And we are about to announce the lineup and open registration. Now SKUCon always sells out quickly. So I encourage you to hop over to skucon.com to pre-register. Register so that when tickets become available, you'll know immediately. I hope to see you there. Today's episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commenscue.com. Now here's my chat with Harper Scott's Kate Haller. Share a little bit of your background and how you arrived at Harper Scott.

Yeah, sure. I actually started in magazines, so I've been a longtime reader and writer growing up. I grew up in a family of publishers. My dad was a publisher, and I've always, always, always, even in school, believed that stories make the world go round. But I really— and so while I started in magazines, I knew pretty early I didn't want to be a writer. I just— or a journalist. I just didn't want to struggle that way, if I'm being candid. That's good. But after college, I moved to Australia. Australia, and I got an opportunity to be sort of the bridge between magazines and the digital environment down there. So the digital landscape was very underdeveloped at the time, and I ended up working at Yahoo. And my job at Yahoo was to bring across all of the print personalities and brands and digitalize them and create something of meaningful value, but also revenue, but also audience, um, for them in this new space, which was quite a scary space at the time. Um, speaks to how old I am, but, um, So that's where I started. And then most recently I actually spent 5 years doing, I built an entire go-to-market program for a B2B outsourcing company. 40,000 employees, never had a marketing team. I really loved that. No marketing team. So they never needed it, which is super interesting to me. They always had sales by handshake and they were a $1.5 billion company that no one had ever heard of. And I learned really quick that marketing meant to them leads, leads, leads, leads and revenue. And so the last 5 years prior to Harper Scott, I really focused on how do you balance that storytelling in a B2B environment? And what I realized is that most B2B companies are really terrible storytellers. So they do really amazing work, but they really struggle to know how to tell the right story for the audience. They can tell stories well for themselves, And this is not specific to this company, but specific to every, pretty much every B2B company and every person, you know, the story you tell best is the one about yourself. But my job and why I like the opportunity at Harper Scott is Harper Scott's really always been oriented around its customer. But similarly, like, they've never really taken their brand to market. Hasn't— they've never really needed to. And so that's really why I joined is this idea that there's this amazing business doing really cool work with really impressive brands and they've, they just most recently with, and I got to be part of that, took the brand to market. So that's a huge opportunity to me. So that's sort of where I've been.

I don't know if that was a very long-winded answer. That was really cool because you were at the beginning of the digitization of the media industry. And so that was a really cool inflection point for media. But then did you learn a couple of things in terms of how B2Bs can tell better stories? Was there one or two things? Because you're coming from a journalistic background. Was there one or two things that you realized, you know what, B2B either just doesn't do or they don't do, not just don't do well, but is there, was there a couple things you realized?

I think a lot of it was that they tell, so in my, in my experience, they tell stories. I think it's really hard to expect a customer to care about a story they were not part of. And I think it goes back to like just simple things like first person versus third person. Yeah. Right. And, you know, nobody likes that person on Facebook that talks about themselves in the third person. Brands are pretty similar. Yeah. So I like to think that way, which is that when I came into the company, I just thought about brands like people and saying like, someone's gonna read this content, this case study, this piece of this blog as a person, not as a brand, as a customer. They are a person and people make decisions. We all think it's very objective and we can be factual, but we all are basing, you know, the day-to-day and how we experience things on how we feel. So what I did is I basically made everyone think about the brand through the first person. So anything you were doing, whether you were writing a case study or you were writing a social post, I really asked them to orient themselves in the environment for which they were producing something. And so for case studies, what I realized is they only ever told stories about how much effort it took, and no one ever oriented the story around the results. And I'm like, no one wants to know how hard something is. Good thing you did it. That's the expectation, right? The whole point is to to start with the results and orient it that way. And that was a game changer. Um, because most companies do amazing stuff, they just overcomplicate the story, and no one needs to know the full details of every single step you took.

It's really about finding the right way to storytell, and that I learned through magazines. Yeah, totally agree. It's perspective, point of view. And when you ask folks, like in the, the merch industry, if I ask them a client story, I say, tell me your favorite client story, they'll start to tell a story But then they won't tell it from the client's perspective. They'll tell it from the perspective of the sourcer or the sourcing agent who had to go find all the— and which is fine. That's their experience and their journey. But what I was asking was, what's the end client's project and what, you know, what was that about anyways?

We could go on and on about that one. Keep going. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say that I think a lot of that is because we are very— and this is not specific to the industry, but I do think that we don't do enough of this as a I know our company, but I've seen it across other companies as well. We don't want to ask the question because it's another question and we don't want— I think we are nervous to sometimes ask client questions. Right. And I've noticed that, you know, my first question is always, who is this for? Like, who is going to be the end receiver of whatever the item is? And sometimes I think we— because everything moves so quickly in this industry and it's very, very go, go, go, which I think is great. But also there's a huge opportunity to go, you know, I say to my team, which is quite a younger team, a lot of our projects, they're the end consumer. And so I kind of sometimes go, would you wear it? Right? Would you buy it? Would you use it? Does it have utility and value to you? And I think we don't ask enough questions. So sometimes I think that's partly why, is because we don't often get to that part of the conversation, ask the client about that experience. So we kind of do it based on how we experienced it, which makes sense. But, um, yeah, I do think there's a huge opportunity to tell stories in this space. With a little bit more color and context as we go.

So that's the goal. Totally agree. I always love hearing an outsider's perspective of our industry. What were your impressions coming in prior to being involved?

And then what are your impressions now? How'd they change? That's a good question. So I come from obviously a different side of this organization, but I was, you know, in my own way, the client. So I managed in my last role all of the things, all of the programs for which we buy for now. So I'm now on the other side of the work that we do, but I bring sort of a lens of, you know, everything from the timing of buying and when I'm thinking about budgets and when I expect my budgets to be cut and how I work around that and who I work with to make sure that my programs don't have that kind of disruption. But I think my first impression, this is probably not the right answer, but it's messy. It's very, And messy is probably not the right word, but there's just a lot going on. And I'm very used to an operational environment, and that really doesn't exist in this industry. It's very much— it is an always-on industry, true and true. Like, there is no stopping. There's no quiet time. There's usually a part of the buying cycle that quiets down. And I think that that's both a blessing but also a challenge. And now I still think it's messy, but I think it's super interesting. I think I had definitely had some preconceived notions about just stuff I think every consumer does these days. But when I joined Harper Scott in particular, you know, everyone says they're amazing at everything and that they do the best of the best. And I am a cynic, but I rarely think, you know, it's really hard to do that by email. But when I came in and started meeting the team and seeing the work, I know because I used to again buy these things, the level of quality is of another kind. And I do think that that's a hugely remarkable part of this business, but also the industry. Like, there is really powerful stuff coming through product, and I think I underestimated that before I joined.

Yeah, it's a great point. When it comes to working with clients, since you come from the client side, something you shared with me that really struck me based on your background, um, you talk with your team about single channel in a multi-channel world.

What did you mean? So I think it kind of goes back to that lens of storytelling. You know your own experience. But I, I like to remind the team that we are, as a business, what we offer clients is single channel. And it's the context of remembering that every client we work with, particularly in a marketing environment, is thinking about this channel amidst 10 others. So when we're running a campaign like an influencer mailer campaign, that mailer is not a single thing that's driving an entire campaign. It is part of a much larger network and program that involves a lot of different customer touch points and the coordination of every single one those touches is so, so, so important. And it's typically so remarkably hard to make those coordinated touches for the customer make sense in space. There's just so many variables. And so I think the attention to detail is so important from a partner like Harper Scott, who's taking a brand's logo and their initiative and a brief and putting together something that's going to work for them. That's one part of about 50 other things that I'm doing to try and get this campaign off the ground. So I just remind people that one channel is not every channel, but, you know, there is a lot to be found in working well with the other partners that might be part of a program because most companies work with other partners as well. And just keeping in mind that, you know, there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to a campaign and a single channel is a necessary part. But, you know, we are an extension of a client team in the same way that their goals are our goals, and we should know those goals before we start. And ask them those questions about, you know, what else is involved? What are you being measured on? How can we help sort of hit that success for you, with you, and with the other partners that may be playing?

You indicated this, you indicated this earlier. You said, we kind of get afraid to ask those questions. But really, it's so insightful to say, hey, how does this impact what else? Like the question you had there that you sandwiched in the middle that's so powerful. What are, how are you gauging the success of this? Or how are you getting measured?

In terms of the success of it? That's a different question. That's a huge question though, because that tells you everything. And I think if you don't ask that question and you're not aware of it before you go into the meeting, you run the risk of speaking to a procurement audience about the value of creative. And I can tell you because I, you know, budgets and things are really— marketing procurement work really well together if they, you know, it's hard relationship, but it's important. But procurement's not measured on creative value. They're measured on budget. And consolidation of spend and staying under certain thresholds that are completely, they don't live in the same galaxy as creative metrics. So it's sort of like going into, you know, an English class and speaking like, you know, bringing up a math problem. It just, they're not gonna, it will never matter more than a certain budget in the same way that a creative team is never gonna have the same level of attention to budget considerations. It's just, you have to know the room and read the room. And I think, but also all marketers, I come from a marketing background, obviously, but all marketers are always trying to prove the value of the work that they're putting out. And it's very hard to measure. So anything we can do to make, show the value that we're thinking that way and want to help them solve that problem and make that business case, that's a game changer in my view.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get back to procurement here in a minute. But another comment you made to me that I love, on-time delivery is not a metric, it's table stakes. Influence on our revenue. Was the biggest ROI. And the reason why I bring this up now, there are two things happening. One is we do— I think the base level service says, I'm going to get you good ideas and I'm going to get them to you on time. That's just table stakes, as you said. There was also a real challenge of the supply chain struggling and just getting things on time is hard to do. But I love your reminder because we got to remember on-time delivery, it may be excruciatingly hard for us sometimes, but it's not a metric.

It's just table stakes. Talk more about that. Yeah, I think, and I think I've been a bit humbled by some of that of late because I think we are living in a world in which there are variables beyond ones that we would normally see. So I will say that I do think, I mean, I do still stand by the fact that delivery is expectation. It is not surpassing. It is not like, to me, the thing that you break out in applause for. You did it. You delivered it. Though in this market, I do think it is, you know, there are remarkable challenges. But what I do say is that knowing those things and thinking that way then allows you to be smart about how you approach the variables because you suffer through, like, there are those market forces, the supply chain problems, the delays. Those are happening to me, they're happening to you, they're having everyone. So they're not specific to a certain client. But I think that's when you go, okay, delivery is in this program and is something that we have to make sure we hit the money on and we have these other variables and forces that are beyond our control. What's the next step? Communication. It goes back to the client. And I think being upfront about here's what's happening, here's how we're changing, or here's how we're pivoting or managing things. And I think that's a thing we also don't do enough of, which is leaning into not always having the answer. I'd rather know that you are aware of the challenges and address them. That's like facing it head on. And then I feel, okay, cool, thanks. I know what I can say to my boss now to explain or give them caution that something may be delayed because of something well beyond anyone's control. But I do think normally in normal world circumstances, I do think it's important for people to remember that delivery is what you're paid for and that there will always be some way to stand out in value because value is something you can't put a cost on. You can't price out value and subject matter expertise. So I do think that that will always matter more.

So that answers the question. Yeah, it did. What I love what you said though is that we need to make sure we don't have an overreliance on delivery and not enough impact, not enough emphasis on impact. So that it doesn't over-index on delivery where that's 90% of our value prop to a customer and we're not even concerned about the impact.

Yeah, in fact, I stand by that. I do not think it's a metric of success. I think it's just a metric of, you know, it's a program, it's an element of the program. I think it also is the missed opportunity. You know, the other thing is, you know, there's so much value in feedback and delivery is not the end. It's just a step in the cycle. The relationship with the customer should never end. It just goes through different touches and you have to be okay and be comfortable in the fact that that's really where the best programs come from is an ongoing relationship of value sharing, like give and take. That's like every friendship, but business is the same way in my experience.

And not, you know, asking, how did we do?

Yeah.

I've heard it put this way and I'll need to find who said this to give attribution to them, but they said there's an evolution for businesses. First, you're doing everything as a business owner. You're the chief everything officer. You get what you get paid for what you do. Then as you and your business matures, you start getting paid for what you know. And then ultimately you get paid for what you grow.

And I thought that was a great way of putting the different evolutions of a business. You should have just said I said that.

No, but that's true. I completely agree with that. Your role is in marketing, but as we all know, marketing is also very carefully woven in with client work. And what, what does the marketing role in the merch business has typically been under utilized and has been honestly overlooked. Now, it's a powerhouse of a role in this business because for the one— for one part, we sell marketing resources to marketers for a large percentage of the business. So it's vital that we have marketing expertise and marketing discipline under our roof. But you have two different kinds of things you're doing. You're working with clients, which is always marketing, and then you're marketing Harper Scott business. When you come into a business like Harper Scott, it's the amazing brand and they're working with these amazing clients.

As a marketing professional, what are some of the first things that you end up doing for a brand like that? That's a really good question. Um, so I think I spent— I mean, when I joined, so I joined in September, and I, I spent— I always think the best marketers are your employees. So I spent, like, the first thing I did is actual internal marketing, which is I spent time with the the team. So every— I sat down with every single person at the company and got to know them, introduced myself, and then I tried to sit on as many calls and meetings as possible. Good. Because you can't market a business you don't understand, right? And there's so many nuances to every business. But so I would say the first thing I did was not go to market. I just— I tried to calibrate where we were to get a sense of where we wanted to be. And I think I'm a more, my background as a marketer is that I have a brand side of me, but I also have this revenue side where I see marketing as your opportunity to create both value and revenue that didn't exist for you before. I think it's like a lifeline in the best way possible. So not in a dire situation, but it is your opportunity. It's your pipe to the future. It's the pipe to the consumer. It's the thing that never stops. There's no roadblock. You always have the ability to connect with the market through a strong marketing department. So I always like to say that I brought— I spend time listening, but then I think I brought the client into the business in a way that I don't think that, you know, beyond, you know, on a brief or in a client meeting, I bring a perspective that we just haven't had in that, in little, in truly down to the words that our clients use and the way they speak. I speak that language and You'll be actually surprised, I think, by the amount of confusion that comes from words that we use as marketers, that language is so important. But I think in conversations I'm hearing a different thing, and I think that's been valuable for the team to have is someone in the room who comes from the client's side, understands it, but speaks it, and then builds trust. Like, if you speak my language, there's just an— that has helped a lot. I think I joined those client conversations for that reason, and that's helped us sort of foster brand.

But as a Harper and Scott organization, you know, now you're making me feel like I haven't done that much yet. This is fantastic. Great. What great advice. No, no, no. Let me, let me just say this. What great advice to anyone coming in because marketing typically gets undervalued because some folks relegate it as to a cosmetic department that actually makes a brand look good. And that's not what it is at all. It makes things happen. And so the fact that you would, would say that, that. That, you know, it's a special discipline, and you understand that by talking with others. I love your advice because there are folks that are listening, they're going to either be hiring a marketing person, or they're new in the role, or they're doing a shared role. And it's great advice for them to say, you know what, stop and spend some time with clients and with your colleagues.

It's true. I do think the two things marketing gets the worst rap for is they— everyone assumes marketers love to spend money. And that my old boss used to call marketing arts and crafts. And I laugh now. Arts and crafts for adults is what he used to call it. And I was like, until it makes you money. And the beauty of marketing is that— no, and then I realized like that became my goal at my last company was to show him, not by proving through my words, but showing him with data and actual, you know, and this is a conversation probably for another time, but I went full send, you know, modeling. We built a whole system where I could tell you how much revenue came from that webinar you did. I could tell you, I could tell you how many steps it took to get us to a close. And then I could start looking at that data at such a macro level that I could go, okay, cool. Webinars actually really work for us. So I'm gonna invest the dollars that I'm getting from my business so that I can show them in return on influence on revenue. So marketing is not sales. They will not, you can't do a trade show and expect a return on immediate investment in that you're gonna have a million things. Cause that's not marketing. It's relationship oriented. It's not project oriented. So you play the long game and you understand that it is your influence on revenue that makes marketing successful. It will never succeed at generating sales because that's not its purpose. And I really do believe that it's one of those things that creates utility that you can feel and experience, but you probably can't put, you know, you just, the expectation that you're going to get a lead and that lead's going to hand you a million dollars is just ludicrous. I think like no one reads a white paper and it's like, oh, I'm going to give them $1 million. This is great, right? It's just like, but it is an added tool that continues over time that gives you a reason to have a conversation, to be in touch, to show value.

Yeah. And that's the beauty of marketing, I think. Yeah. But I'm going to— let's talk about one tactic because there's so much we could talk about under the umbrella of marketing. But let's talk about one tactic. One, something you did recently. Luxe Pack is the premier show in the world for luxury packaging. It's held in New York City, which you attended this year. Um, for some, for some context for folks listening, it is the go-to event where creative packaging companies showcase luxury products for the international brand community. The largest meetings for multi-sector packaging professionals, beauty, cosmetics, perfumes, skincare, fragrances, makeup, wine and spirits, fine food, fashions. But here's, here's the thing. There's 25,000 attendees, 800+ exhibitors. It's a really big show, a big investment. And a big opportunity. And you built this really cool kick-ass experience at LuxePack.

Can you tell us what you built? I can indeed tell you what we built. So I guess the other important context is that Harper Scott's never been to taking the brand to market. So we've never done a trade show. We've never done— we don't do social ads. We are all marketing and all that Harper Scott's really driven has been word of mouth. Which has been hugely successful for us and organic. And, but they've obviously, we're also a younger company. I mean, we've been around for 8 years, but we are at a new level of established maturity. And so the next step is to take the company into the places and spaces it's never been. And so this trade show is a huge opportunity, but was also, so this is the first thing I've done, I think actually to answer your earlier question is that we decided that, you know, post-COVID we were coming back and we were gonna bring the brand to life at this trade show. And the good thing about Harper and Scott is that we've got 8 years of work behind us, really, really, really amazing work that I think we all get so familiar with because we see it every day and we work in it and we, we don't have time or perspective to take a step back and actually look at how much we've achieved across every single vertical that exists. So, you know, any major capability as it pertains to brand and merchandise, and we do it and we do it across every industry. So whether it's healthcare, whether it's beauty or CPG, we do it. And I think that's the breadth and depth that I really wanted to bring to life in our, in our booth. So instead of getting one booth, we got two. And we built, you know, we're headquartered in New York, which is a super important part of our brand. And so I think part of this was a little bit selfish on my end, but we're obviously a B Corp company, and we focus really heavily across everything we do in sustainability. And so sustainable product development. So what better way to bring that to life than do a New York City summer park theme for our booth? So we had a full, I think it was 10 by 20, 10 by 20, I think, I believe it was 10 by 20. And we built a New York City park inside the Javits Center. So the idea was that we are a really sustainable company in an industry that I think has historically been quite sort of archaic is probably not the right word, but I think in an industry that is often, you know, very go, go, go, I want Harper Scott's differences to be the reason people work with us. They're not a side, they're not a part of our story, they are the story. You know, we are not the biggest and, you know, most established company, and I love that about us. We're smart, small, and super nimble and creative, and those things are all things that I think bring our value to life. And so I wanted to create similar experience at the Javits Center. Like most things, I took it full send and we went hard on that theme. So we did, we brought in plants, we brought in trees, and we did, you know, a water station, and we did a whole creative, the team did such an exceptional job coming up with this whole visual identity around Harper and Scott and the New York City Parks theme. So we built it off their original, you know, they've, I don't know how how familiar you are with New York City parks, but they've got really beautiful visual identity all over the city. And so our creative team did a fantastic job reimagining that in a Harper Scott branded fashion. And so we built our own park in the city, and that was very nerve-wracking because it's bold to be marketing like that. Well, we had a basketball hoop in it, and so we had a full basketball court, which I think was probably as a marketer my most nervous moment because that's a risk. Obviously it was a creative packaging show, so it was a bit random to have a basketball hoop there, but you either go full, you go fully into the theme or you don't. And so we did, and it was a fantastic success. You know, it reignited conversations with existing clients, but also put Harper Scott on the map in a way that we haven't been before.

It was a really great, um, really good moment. It seems like a time that people have pulled back from doing more physical shows, and that was obviously because of COVID and the pandemic. But you, you decided obviously to jump in and do this. Was that, was that a hard decision to make? Was this an easy decision to make? Did you say, no, this is, this is still a—

maybe it's partially to do with the show, that the show's back on and there's a lot of energy back for it again? That's a good question. I think, I mean, I was very nervous just because trade shows truthfully are huge investments and they are typically very top of funnel, which per my earlier points around revenue, they, it's a lot of money. It costs a lot. And the return on investment in anything in marketing is always going to be challenging with your leadership team or helping them understand that you're in it for the long game and that the return on investment comes in time. Truthfully. So that made me slightly nervous. But I think the reason I wanted to do it so badly is because the company is fantastic. And I know that from the client side, like, there just isn't a company doing what we do. I would know because I would have worked with them. I just, I feel like this focus, and that's why I was really eager. I guess the thing that I would say there's a lot of things you can do in a digital world, in a social world, but all of that stuff is very temporary. There's something very different about establishing your brand in a physical space with physical product and letting people interact with your team who are subject matter experts to share insights about the work they've done, but also to hold the products. That's a game changer. And that reflected kind of my first day at the office, which was that I got to come in and I was like, oh my Oh my God, it actually is. But the weight, all of those little elements are so important.

So it was the only way in my mind we actually could, you know, it was the best way to debut the brand was to put it in physical space. Yeah, that's a great point. I've been in your showroom space, the conference room space where I walked in and saw these amazing campaigns all along the wall for brands that you go, oh, I would kill to work with that brand, right? They're amazing brands. So What you did too was you showcased these and had even existing clients, because we, it's a very broad industry. There's so many different things that we do, but you had even existing clients come by.

And when you have an existing client that already trusts you and sees that creativity and then sees something that they haven't done with you before, that investment can pay off real quick. Yeah, and I didn't actually think of that until I was watching it in real time. We had existing existing clients, a lot of them come by. And what occurred to me, and this is probably on me, maybe it occurred to other people as well before it happened to me, but I was watching a conversation and, you know, we are so oriented around clients that we work with that, you know, after a capabilities conversation, it's all of their brand. And the amount of conversations we had where our clients were like, you do all of this? Which was that they hadn't seen all the other work that we do for all these other clients. Yeah. All these other verticals and services, that was a game changer because we've spent 2 years doing everything virtually. So for them to see it, it was another, you know, it was an eyes wide open conversation because they just, and that speaks to how humble the company is, I think, in so many ways is I think that we really underestimate because we just haven't, the world hasn't been alive in the same way prior that, you know, and that was important too, is about showcasing that it's not one space we do it in. It's not one thing we do. From the full gamut, like all capabilities across all verticals. And that's real expertise. If you can do something for healthcare that you can do for enterprise or technology and you can do the same for QSR, that shows a command of the space and of the work that you do that I think is really unmatched. But Hartford Scott does really well, and that really resonated with clients at the show. And, you know, every product there is there for a reason. So that was another thing is like we didn't— we were not there to bring everything. Right. The Harper Scott story, actually, our showroom, when I started, one of the things I did with the wider executive team is what are the most important projects for the company's story and its evolution in time? You know, from our first mailer with L'Oréal, which was a ball hitting with a hammer. Yeah, this was well before this was a thing on social media, was about sending out these balls that had this new product inside and people could smash it. So we, we have one of them. So we brought that to the show because that's such an important product for the company's story.

And so every product we had in our, in our booth and in our showroom is there because it serves a purpose and tells an important part of our company story. Yeah. First of all, people need to understand, wait, I thought you were in marketing, you're doing RFPs, and you educated me on this, that RFPs are uniquely tied to the brand story.

So it's not a shock that RFPs would belong in the marketing camp. Yeah, I think everyone's scared of RFPs. RFPs because they're hard and long and usually take a lot of— they can take time and they require you to slow down and sit down and go through them and go— I think we so immediately jump to what do we have to say to win it. And we said, I love RFPs. It's like the only chance you ever have to be proactive and put your best foot forward. And if it's not your vibe, you don't have to do it.

It's like, yeah, that's a great point. And the best way to do is Yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, you— I want you to keep going. You changed my mind in two areas I didn't think was possible. Number one, you convinced me procurement can be your best friend. That shocked me. And number two, that RFPs are fun. Um, go back to RFPs, and you just said you have your choice.

First of all, two questions. One, why does RFPs belong in the marketing camp? Because it's a channel for storytelling. It's a storytelling channel. So RFPs are just the story that you tell in the— and the customer tells you, they tell you exactly how they want you to tell the story. And you can either choose to tell that story in a way that it's just the one time you get to like see the cards of the customer, the prospect. And also, but that's why RFPs belong in marketing. It's a storytelling tool. And most people, I think again, it goes back to my first point. Most people are not great storytellers, right? Especially when they're at work. Work because who has time for stories at work? And I love that. I think it's the most— and it's like huge nerd, but I do really find them like super fun. I think that, um, to answer the first question about procurement, I think procurement is, you know, if you think about what procurement does as an organization, for an organization, it's a super important function. And, um, You know, as a marketer, most procurement people, marketing people traditionally do not get along super well because marketing spends money, procurement needs to save money. And it's like, what do we need to do to get around procurement? That's always the traditional approach. In my experience, the best success I've had is working well with procurement, bringing them into the fold to work with them on the parts, either the parts of an RFP that we are sending out or an RFP that we're completing and really getting into the understanding that, you know, the best partner we can be is one that's respectful and works well with both functions. Like, that's the value, which is that can you understand the importance of cost consolidation and quality control and all those things that are so critical to procurement and process? Like, process is going to be your best friend in procurement, and you have to follow it, and you should follow it. Your job is to work well with them to make that function, and that will make that for a healthier organization. And then it's also on the marketing side, how do you live in that space? So you understand the spend and you work to create magic within that spend. And if you can balance procurement's objectives with your own, you're in a great spot. And procurement has a tough job. I think they're the people that are chasing people to not spend money or tracing invoices and things like that. It's a hard job. And I think marketing is, in my experience, I've had the best success when I've gone and made, instead of competing, have found complement with that function because You know, it traditionally is just not one that people work well with as marketers because we again like to spend money. But I do find them fun because I will also add, I think they're hugely important for company culture as well. They break down silos without even realizing it. Prior to this, I was just on a call with everyone from our CEO to our coordinator, and we're all working on a specific RFP, and that's a huge opportunity for everyone in the business to understand how other people work and how to work well with others. And, um, yeah, you've got—

I always think, you know, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. No, please. No, no, no, go ahead. Well, you're bringing up a really good point there. Before we leave the procurement, making friends with procurement is a different set of values for them than it is marketing. And I think often what happens is we use broad brushstrokes and we think, well, marketing is where the fat margin are and procurement is where the thin margins are. So we're just going to not play well with procurement and we'll play well with marketing.

But you're saying is get in there and understand, get in their heads, understand what it is they want, what drives them, what drives their motivation, what their purpose is, and ask them. Yeah. And also, you know, who doesn't like a partner in an organization that makes their life easier? Like, yeah. And works well to understand. But if you under— I also think like If you're a marketer and you are not educated on the ways in which a function like procurement works, then you shouldn't be in a— you definitely shouldn't be in a position of leadership in marketing. Yeah. But you definitely have a lot to learn about marketing because the challenge of marketing is not— anyone can go do amazing things and spend a ton of money to make amazing things and look good and be pretty. And none of that stuff matters if it doesn't have weight and it doesn't have strategy and thinking. And part of that is price and cost. So I'm always like, none of it matters if you're going above and beyond on what you want, like constant long-term return from marketing. And the best way to do that is to make sure that the procurement side of marketing, which is super important, is part of that. And if you don't value it, but your organization does, then you're not— your department as a whole will always sit on this outside lack of trust, lack of credibility. But if you wanna be a marketing team that they take more seriously and don't call just arts and crafts, You have to be really tuned into how to best work within the objectives of procurement so that you're hitting them together. And you can always do, like, if you give someone, you know, $1 million, they're gonna spend $1 million. You give them $50,000, they'll make magic out of $50,000. You all work within the environment. But I think making sure that's just healthy organizations, I think. Yeah. But I think traditionally marketing, you're just a big spender, but you have to know where you're putting the money and where—

and you have—

yeah, I just think it's—

I don't know, it's made my life easier at least. Yeah, there's a lot to learn from them too. Yeah, I think I love that part too. Constraints fuel creativity is what I always say, and that's part of what procurement does, right? Very well said. Yeah, you, um, the, the other thing that you were chasing a train of thought there on what RFPs do with teams, and this was also enlightening to me, is that stop viewing RFPs as a siloed function and start looking at it as an incredible way to involve your colleagues, to respect what it is that each person's role brings to the table and to maximize that opportunity.

Yeah, it's like a basketball game. You can't win with one player. You have to have— and it goes back to expectation and experience. So I love and have found success in RFPs not by saying everything they want to say or answering them to, you know, it's really easy to write an RFP that has no thinking. Actually, it is remarkably easy. It's much harder to put a crafted, smart story down about your business that allows you the chance to speak to what you know really well and what you do really well and to bow out where you don't. But I also think, you know, we are a company that's very collaborative. All of our functions are. They were— and our success in projects and with clients comes from when every single function is involved. And RFPs are that. They touch every part of your company, from your finance team, your accounting team, to your executive team to create everything. And I think that working that way in both the strategy and in execution is the best way to work. And it's really, really— but, you know, and that teaches people how to best work with other people. But also when that— when you win that RFP, if you win it, you then have a team that you've just worked really hard to put something on paper for, submit, and then you now have the experience of executing it, which is really meaningful, I think, and creates a really important part of a company's ability to, you know, build a culture that it's proud of, that is very organic, and that I think seamlessly works better together from an operations standpoint when you have that comfort and confidence working with teams that are in spaces that you aren't in.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this though. How have you learned to simplify RFPs? Is that too broad of a question? No, it's a great question because everyone also assumes that you need to do every single RFP you get. And I think the beauty and the challenge— and this is especially true for salespeople— they say yes to everything. And I don't mean that at my company, I just mean generally there's always a yes. And you have to also understand how much work goes into it. So if you're not— and this goes back to knowing your wider resources and teams— like, you have to understand how many other legs are involved in pulling together a successful one. So you better make sure that you're you're going into the right ones. But the best, the hardest work is saying no to an RFP. Yeah. Because you know, you're not the right partner. And I would say my sage wisdom for this topic is that everyone loves a win, but it doesn't matter if the expectations don't meet experience. So if you win it because you wrote the right words or you put the right deck down and you just destroy it because you can't actually deliver to Moscow like you were said you could, or you don't have that sourcing key, like whatever it is, no one wins. You actually just lose. It's the worst place to be. And so the real challenge is writing to your strengths because you know your strengths, and then shooting your shot and acknowledging where you're not strong or where you're not going to be your biggest partner. And we— I am always like, we don't— we're not good at that. That's not our strength. We have a lot of them, but I think articulating that, and I think people are nervous to do that because no one— obviously it's a little bit hard to say, hey, this is— we'll bow out. But I actually would say that from a client side, that sort of transparency I respect a lot because it means that that person understands that my neck is on the line. What I'm doing, my success is dependent on my partner's success with me. And so if you can recognize that you may not be the perfect to partner for this, I appreciate that because that means you are taking into consideration the things that I'm being measured on or trying to achieve. Yeah, you've actually said that the honesty through that process is when you business outside of the RFP simply because they love that process. Yeah, so we, it was a hard breakup, but we had, we were doing one, we were actually pretty well into it and we just got to a session and sort of this come to— we just— it just became clear, it's like, we are not the partner for this. It just is not our wheelhouse, and we should just own that. So we reached out and said, you know, as much as we wish we could, we're just— you know, there are going to be partners that can do this in a way we can't, and we, we are going to withdraw. Yeah. And, uh, a couple weeks went by and we didn't hear anything. I was like, oh, that's kind of sad. Um, and then we got a really, really thoughtful response about their appreciation of that acknowledgement and communication. And then an opportunity to— they asked us to work on opportunities outside of that RFP within their business that were much more in line with some of the amazing custom work we do in capabilities that were in our wheelhouse. So I would say that a loss in an RFP is still worth it because you get an opportunity to tell your brand story. To an audience that may not even know about you with your own and in your own words. And then second, that there is something humbling about acknowledging when, you know, you learn your strengths and your weaknesses when you do, when you admit them honestly. Yeah. And they can still lead to wins down the line.

Like a no to a project or an RFP is not a no to your business. It's just a no to the project or the RFP.

Yeah. Yeah. What percentage of RFPs still have a market basket? You know, I would say, I don't know, percentage.

Here, see, here I told you I know, I know colors and I know words.

But I mean, would it be like half of them have a market basket, or do you think it's more than that or less?

It really, I feel like it really depends on, I mean, what do you think? No, you're the expert. Let me ask you it this way. Here's my question. I'm sort of curious, sort of a two-part question. What people really want to know is that in this industry where there's there's so many different thousands of products, millions of products. Yeah. A client comes to you or a prospect comes to you and they send you and 50 other vendors an RFP that has a market basket of the same 20 products. Now everybody's quoting it. So I have a two-part question. Do you see that in more RFPs today or is it far more about capabilities?

And my second part is, is cost plus ever a good idea? Uh, it depends on your business. Like, I think it is if your business makes sense in that model and the client is looking like cost. I think so. Let me answer the second one second. But the first question I would say is that there is a story and a strategy in pricing. So I think that you— the way you do— we do get a lot of those exercises, and there's a real— you can easily quote out those, like, that's That's easy. The hard work is in actually doing— taking into consideration all the other elements of an RFP, which is like timeline or delivery and location and ultimate end user. Like, those things all matter. Um, there's a difference between submitting pricing for a retail RFP than there is an employee gifting program, like a web store. Good point. Those are very different products. And my, my— the best thing I— my favorite thing to do is to tell in an RFP is to write what they need, not what they're asking me for, but what they need. So if they're telling me to price something at the lowest and then they expect it to sell, right, we'll do the exercise, but we'll also do the exercise that they need. And that value delivery, I always say it just doesn't matter what they're asking. You always have to deliver value. So we'll always complete it the way it's asked. But I also write it into the pricing strategy that you are— the best recommendation is this, and this is why. Um, so that would be my answer, is that pricing is all about telling a story in its own way. Um, and that has won us RFPs before, um, doing it the way that they needed, because that's the expertise they know.

Because also, we also assume that someone that's issuing an RFP knows the answer, and they don't always. Great point, right? I know this is a really big question, but what differentiates a good opportunity from a bad one? When it comes to an RFP? That's a hard question.

It's come down to more so your capabilities than it is the actual document you're holding in your hand. Yeah, I mean, the biggest opportunity is when you get an opportunity. I mean, I guess like the document to me, it's, they write a lot of words. There's a lot of questions, but you have to understand what they're trying to achieve. So there's always an objective behind an RFP. RP, they're trying to solve a problem. Yeah, my first thing would be understanding what is the problem they're trying to solve, and can we, within our current capability, solve that problem well or better than other people? And there are a lot of times where the answer will— that to that, no matter what job, like, this is not just in my current role, in previous RFPs as well at other organizations— if you can't answer that with confidence, you probably do not have the best opportunity. If you know it's in your wheelhouse and you because you've spent the time to know your business, its wins, its, its strengths, its weaknesses, its areas. And that comes from really knowing your brand because you spend time meeting the people that have built it. That's the best place to be, is knowing— if you know yourself well, this is like life. If you know yourself well, you know where you're strong and you know where you're going to struggle. And there are times to do both of those things. There's times to push yourself into places you're weak because it makes you strong. Similarly, there's times where, you know, this is in our wheelhouse and it's ours to win, and you should lean into those because those are fun too, and you deserve wins like that. But I think the biggest opportunity is identifying that the RFP is a, is a means, it's a vehicle for solving a problem with the help of somebody else, understanding where they may know they have a problem and where there may be other problems that your capabilities can solve for. So there's usually more to it. That's, I think, the, the how I would start in determining the opportunity is like, do we solve this problem really well for clients? And is this, I mean, it's just really, is this our, is this our wheelhouse? And I think the fun part of Harper and Scott is that we have, and I am sure lots of people say this about their companies, but we have so many wheelhouses and so much of it is untapped. We didn't play in RFPs prior. We just didn't have the scale. Now we have it and we have a level of credibility and capability that makes it so much fun to be able to like pull those things in. And the way this business has been built is it doesn't have silos. Like nothing is the way it should be or is in other places. And the value we bring, it's just a lot. I really value that. And I love RFPs for that reason because, you know, whether it's a huge enterprise-level RFP or it's something super custom, we do both. And we do them really well.

So that is, it's really easy to, you know, put strategy behind incredible capabilities like that. That's the easy part. An RFP process always has like a questioning moment where you can ask questions of it. And something you tactically shared with me is you always take full advantage of the questions moment and come fully prepared for those because I think some people just ignore those. You know, RFPs typically have hard lines. So do you color out of the line, outside the lines?

Yeah. How creative can you be? You do. Is that part of the strength? Well, we're as a business, we pride ourselves on doing things that other people don't do. So if a company is like, this is a hard line, then we're not that. That's going back to that knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. And we are a company that I always say like our differences are our strengths, which is that we are— I love being small. I love being lean. That's our value. And being big and bulky, not saying everyone else is, but it's just not our immediate strength. So yes, we absolutely color out of the lines and we work well with people that, and I will say I am a marketer who colors outside of the lines within a controlled environment. So flexibility within a controlled environment. So yeah, I will say I always complete the assignment, but it goes back to that earlier point around like pricing, for example, which is that, yeah, I can do the pricing exercise, but that pricing exercise is just meaningless. Like, yeah, you're gonna get the same thing from all of us. So I'm gonna give you the pricing exercise you need to do this to solve the problem that you're asking us to solve. And this is the value I'm giving. And I'm not doing it because I have to, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And it shows them that we bring that kind of coloring outside of the lines approach because nobody needs a person that just tells them what they want to hear, right? We're a partner that's going to tell you what you need to hear to get you to the place you want to go. And I really believe that starts at the beginning of an RFP and the questions you ask and response you submit. And I have gotten lots of client feedback after RFPs that that is the reason we win is because they don't know what they don't know. And so they know the partner. Part of the reason you go external is, you know, you need solutioning that you might not currently have.

Great point.

Yeah. And I also say it helps you sleep at night at the end because if you lose, you know, you lost with your best foot forward and that no matter what, you still injected your brand story into a business. That a lot of different teams saw and read.

And, you know, you're not going to be everyone's jam, but, um, yeah, it does help me sleep at night to think that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Last few questions are about you. Yeah. Where do you go for inspiration? What brands or companies do you follow? I, I still am a very big reader and consumer of— like, I still think stories make the world go round. Um, for better or for worse, I still— I really follow and admire the New York Times, not for the content necessarily, but for their ability to do what no one thought they were going to be able to do. And I remember when I was, you know, years ago, they were on the brink of, you know, complete collapse. Yeah, there was no way they could survive the future. And they've created a brand for themselves that is so much more than the print edition. And I think probably that's part of my bias in magazines, but they've learned to work within the world that exists. In terms of channels, content consumption. And I think sometimes brands have a really hard time doing that because they haven't been that before, and they lean into— and it's really hard to lean into being someone you have never been. But I, I would say I admire that brand for that reason. They've really adopted every technology, every— and, you know, you don't have to agree with the stories, but that's a super important part of a brand, is being able to be humble about the fact that you need to stay relevant and keep up. And then I also really think NASA does a really fantastic job. I would say as a marketer, like their content, their way in which they educate and entertain, I think is something I used to bring that into. I do talks at financial services conferences and I bring in social media from NASA and I just talk about how the power of a story can be in one single photo with 3 words.

So I would say that I also really like. Yeah, that's cool. Or admire. Yeah. Two great brands that I love. And I've spent, you know, a couple hours this week, as a lot of people have, on NASA's websites watching the videos and watching the stories. Oh, yeah. It's so stunning.

You found yourself in this wild and chaotic but interesting industry. What do you hope to change in the business? I would say what I hope to achieve is that I think, you know, I really do, it goes back to this brand story that existed before I came, you know, the Harper Scott story. Story. I really, you know, I think it's so important to remember context of timing and what John and Michael did here is, you know, 8 years ago, well before anyone thought that like personalization and specific custom, you know, less is more, quality over quantity mattered, they started that. And if you think about the world that we lived in in 2014, and obviously they were building the business before it went, you know, before they launched it. But if you think about that time, it was a time of mass scale, be everything to everyone.. And I think there's something really admirable in choosing to be something to someone and doing the thing that no one else was doing before it was, you know, really cool. And before personalization was a thing, like personalization is a thing now, but it was not a thing even sort of. Yeah. In 2014. And so what I really hope to do is sort of bring that to life, a brand that, you know, they've already built this brand that's built on differences. And I think I really do go back to that, which is that those are our strengths and they always will be. And I really want to help. That's what I hope to change is to see, you know, to bring that to life in the market so that, you know, I think a lot of brands can learn from that. You do not need to be everything to everyone. And John and Michael knew that far before I did. But they built a business at a time when that business model was not the most popular one and they still did it and it's standing for a reason. Yeah. So I have a lot of respect and admiration for that, and I think bringing it and keeping it in the market and keeping true to those values is a super important part of me and I know a part of my success.

Going back to that former journalist, all the question we started with about who you were coming into this business, how your perspective changed about the business, what have you learned to love about this business now that you've been doing this for a little bit?

I mean, you strike me as someone who loves complexity. Complexity, for one thing, but I don't want to feed the answer to you. No, no, no. It's funny. I, so that's both my, like, I am an analytical person. I do love complexity. And, um, there are two things that I've learned to love, and one is more personal, one is probably more professional, which is that sometimes it's not complex, actually. Sometimes, um, no, and truthfully, you know, I think what's great about this industry is like the best, you know, products don't need a story when they speak for themselves because of the quality that they've brought to life, either in the quality of the product itself or whatever the utility of the thing is. So there's that part, which is there's simplicity in that, like a really good product doesn't need a lot of fluff. Same with marketing. What I've, and I will say that I think this company, you know, Heartburn Scott in particular, it's really hard to take some industry that doesn't really have a ton of structure and bring structure to it. So I've learned to appreciate— love feels like a stretch, but I've learned to appreciate the fact that there is a different cycle of business here where if you're taking something from the outside and it's always kind of— there's no strategic buyer cycle or sales cycle or sales window, you know, up downtime, that doesn't really exist. I've learned to appreciate the fact that it might be a little bit messier on the outside from what I've known before, but there's something quite fun about leaning into that a little bit and just working within that space. I think I, that's not, I'm a quite structured person, so that's been challenging, but also something I appreciate. And the second thing is that I traditionally have not been someone that has been fully immersed in working with other people. I'm a very type A oriented human being. I grew up being like, I'll just do it. And I have learned truthfully, why would I have someone else do it if I know I can do it and I'm going to do it the way I want to do it? I think that's a lot of people, but I have learned— this has surprised me— as I have learned to really love being around, working with other people and really working with them at a level that I don't think— I think maybe that's age, I don't know. But I do think I think that's part of what I've learned to love that took me by surprise is how much I really enjoyed the, the fully like team-oriented, let's do it together, let me help, like I can be an advisor and not do it. I think that's been at a personal level probably one of the more enjoyable parts of this new journey is, um, not being the person who's like, I'll do it myself, I don't need help, right?

I don't know if that's a good answer, but it's a great answer.

I love it because it's very, very collaborative industry. I mean, it's nothing if not collaboration. Yeah. And that's the other thing about RFPs is you literally cannot do them alone. Yeah. So you find the people that are right, and I think it's a great way to like pull in a bunch of different people, make them feel valued, have them be part of something they're not normally part of. Um, and it's above—

it's not self-interested. It's always oriented around the business winning, not a salesperson's specifically winning. It's about— Yeah, yeah, I love it. Kate, thank you for spending time.

Every time I talk to you, I am like, I need to talk to Kate more. Thanks for challenging me.

I love it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for challenging me. These were hard questions, but I appreciate it. You bet. It's a great conversation.

Talk soon.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SKU Cast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com.

Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening. Mm-hmm.