Episode 267: Projects in Europe? The UK? Steven Ward's Your Guy

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. SkewCast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

More and more distributors are faced with the challenge of serving international clients. Sometimes it's just one project, a client that requires merchandise dropshipped anywhere in the world. Other times it's an RFP opportunity that requires international expertise. Well, if you're a US-based distributor or an Australian distributor and you're trying to ship into the UK and Europe, Stephen Ward is your guy. Stephen is the managing director of Award Signs and Business Gifts based out of the UK. Stephen's become somewhat of a folk hero in the undercurrent of savvy promo distributors, helping distributors navigate the difficulty of shipping and sourcing into the UK and Europe. Today, Stephen and I chat about this, how he helps distributors both source and ship, and how collaboration over competition has created a win-win scenario for Stephen and many US-based common SKU distributors. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Commonsku, and this week we open registration for Product Summit Sustainability. Product Summit Sustainability is a fresh take on product education combining real-world learning with on-trend product ideas. And this year, joining us on the main stage is our good friend Danny Rosen, Co-President of Brandfuel, and Mel Hubner, Director of Social Impact and Sustainability at Brandfuel. And they're going to talk about how In 2022, they achieved a decades-long dream, achieving B Corp status. Join us as we chat with Mel and Danny about making branded merchandise a force for good. And also joining us on the main stage, I've invited Sadia Bryant with Gemline. And I don't know how much you know about Gemline's progress in the realm of sustainability, but they are leading in the industry when it comes to their commitment while not losing their creative edge. We'll talk with Sadia about how they make product decisions while minimizing their environmental footprint and how they think about impact. Product Summit Sustainability is not a big time commitment. It's only from 2 to 5 PM ET. You'll not only hear Danny and Mel and Sadia, but you'll see some of the most innovative product ideas in sustainability today from over 15 different suppliers. So invite your team and join us virtually on Thursday, May 4th. You can register at commonskew.com/productsummit. This episode is brought to you by CommonsKew, 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 commonscube.com. Now here's my chat with Stephen.

Stephen Warden, good to see you, my friend.

And you too, Bobby. Great to see you again.

Folks that are meeting you for the first time through the podcast might not know is that you are one of the most encouraging people I have ever met. You show up at our events all the way from England to join us, and you have just become such an integral and an important part of the community. And just thanks for just being a great example of what an entrepreneur looks like today.

That's very kind of you to say. I'm a big believer in if you're going to do something, then go all in on it and sort of give what you can and reap what, what comes back to you. It's, yeah, just making those connections and friendships has been, you know, for somebody who was on my own in the business for so long, it's— this community has been amazing for me to discover. Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about your market and what part of the UK you're in. You're a distributor and you are in—

where nearest major town to us is Manchester. So it's northwest of England. So pretty much in the middle of the UK. Right. But we work, you know, with clients all over the UK and EU, and we have some global clients. But yeah, it's slap bang in the middle of the UK, really.

Yeah. What's the main difference between the European UK markets and the US markets in terms of like consumer preferences and how's the competitive landscape? Would you just give us a glimpse of what all that looks like?

I think the biggest thing I've noticed is We're a little bit behind the US when it comes to sort of current trends. The biggest thing I noticed when I first joined Common Skew was collaborations with known brands and some of the big brands. Yeah, it just wasn't a thing. You couldn't even get the brands. They wouldn't sell to the trade over here. That's changing now. I was at the PSI show in Europe in January and there are suppliers now who are concentrating on getting those bigger brands together. So we're playing catch-up a little bit. And I think even the whole kitting, I think we were slow on the uptake with that compared to the US. But in terms of the market, it's changed a lot over here because of Brexit. Sending items over to Europe was just like sending it anywhere in the UK. That's been a big hurdle for us to get around. European and UK markets are similar, but they're— it's now changed a lot.

And yet the UK— so you've been far ahead of the curve, far ahead of the US in sustainability efforts though. Is that what I hear?

I think so. There's— yeah, I think for years there has been an eco-friendly, sustainable option for items, but the take-up on them wasn't great. So the prices were really high. So price— clients wouldn't go for that. But we work with some UK manufacturers doing like other recycled plastic or even using pre-consumer recycled plastic so that it's a fully recycled and recyclable product. And they're now starting to really take off and everybody's going on about bamboo and it's— there's a much bigger push on the eco side now.

Right.

Um, just talk about your business for a minute. How did you get started? What type of clients do you serve?

I got started 25 years ago this year. Okay. My background is from advertising agencies. I've worked in about 4 or 5 agencies, and as on what— on the production side, around the production departments. Yeah, so TV advertising, radio, and it's all about getting the content out to the stations. Or out to the press, or in the case of signage and merchandise, you know, into the hands of the end users. And with my last agency, I just got to a point where I wasn't particularly enjoying it, and I thought, I'm just gonna go and do something on my own. I just want— so I've got enough money to be happy and support the family. That was the life I wanted. So off I went and didn't start out with merchandise. I had a vinyl cutter and a computer, and I was going to go and do signs for local community. And it was great for a while, it just ticked along. And then people said, can you get me some pens? Can you get me mugs? Can you get me keyrings? Right. And then before you know it, that snowballs. And what— doing a signage job for a garage, which is a car dealership that's only around the corner from us, many years ago introduced us to a big media company in Manchester that had a local newspaper and TV station. That was it. So the merchandise side just took off massively after that. And most of our work comes by referrals. We do very little— well, we don't do any advertising at all, paid-for advertising. We're in a few networking groups. It's just the referral side, and that's grown And along the lines, we got introduced to some companies in London that had global offices. We're creating products and sending products all over the world, which isn't without its problems, as you know.

Now, you started working with all types of clients, but you've evolved your clientele and you're working for some more high-end verticals. What types of industries are you working with now?

One area that we, we got introduced to a client in the financial technology area, just, we worked with them for a good number of years, still do on a couple of projects. But as people come and go from that, moved into other companies, we seem to have now worked or be working with 4 or 5 companies that are in that industry. And again, or via referral. It's not an industry we thought, I know we can do that, we know exactly what we're doing for that market. But so we're now able to suggest items that people go, oh yeah, that'd be really good, and that would go down great with our clients. And we, we only have a few larger clients, and a lot of our business in the UK— another difference to the US is order quantities are much smaller. Right. Because a lot of companies that we work with are just UK-based, so they've got, you know, a maximum target that they're going to aim at. Um, but in terms of who we work with, the financial technology would probably sort of be one area where we're focused on, sort of, we got introduced and then it was like, oh, okay, so do something with that. Other programs We work with all industries. We work with local authorities, we work with the NHS, we work with media companies, and it's just a case of adjusting the products to fit the problems that they have. I've always aimed to offer solutions to problems rather than sell products.

So now you're developing expertise with fintech, and that's exactly what happens, right? When you start becoming, developing your businesses, you lean into a vertical and you keep gaining an expertise in how these clients work, what they need, where they're headed, and it just— it's easier to expand that way.

Yeah, it's— the expansion came, I mean, just going back to how I started, I was working from home, the business grew, I got an office, we had some part-time staff, and then we had the recession in 2008, and I had to close the office, make staff redundant, and it was— that was an awful thing for me, um, and I never wanted to do that again. So I, I sort of hunkered down and we just started slowly again. And they say, just again, by a referral, we get introduced to things, and to a point where we couldn't— I couldn't just do it on my own anymore. I, I just feel like I'm— I've got imposter syndrome with all these amazing companies that are in the US, and then listen to Scootcast, and it's like Wow. And now I spoke to Jeremy from swagbox.com last year, just trying to help him out with something. And then I saw the podcast you did the end of last year and it's like, it's, it's, I just feel crazy. I feel like, you know, a tiddler swimming in a shark pond almost. Yeah.

But if you know, it's funny, I hear that comment from folks, no matter what revenue they're running, whether they're running small business or whether they're running a larger business. A lot of folks feel that way. And I think it's— I think what it is is just the difficulty of the business makes you feel that way because it's— it can be complicated and you're aware of your own challenges, like, because you're working on all the time, you know. But speaking of this, you've also done something that, that, uh, we haven't really seen done before to this degree. It's ingenious. You've partnered with U.S.-based distributors to help them with European clients. Is that correct?

Yeah, um, that all started thanks to Mark Graham. He had an email from Adam at Commotion over in Santa Barbara. He introduced us and see if we could help with a challenge he had, and we did. And we've worked with him on a couple of occasions now, and we even actually got to meet up and go and have dinner with him after we did Skoo Camp last year. We've had a vacation on the West Coast, and that was just great. You sort of just drive down, have an amazing holiday, but to be sat with people in Santa Barbara that you've worked with and you do Zoom calls with and actually help them out, and it's just that connection you get with distributors over there. So we've now worked with probably about half a dozen distributors everywhere from Ohio, California, Florida, Texas, And it's great. And it's— I just approach it again from, you know, well, how can I help? What can I do?

Yeah. And how do you help them? I think that's what folks would be asking, Stephen. How do you help them?

Well, the biggest challenge is, I mean, we've had it shipping out to the US, identical products. One occasion we shipped some stuff to a board meeting in Austin and it was delivered within 24 hours and the client was amazed and it was great. Needed the same products going into New York, and they got stuck in customs and UPS for 10 weeks. It's like, well, how does that work? So it's just like, well, we're not doing that again. And it's the same, speaking to US distributors, they've had the same trying to get products into Europe or into the UK. So for me now, if somebody's got a problem like that, we tend to help them split the job. We run the equivalent product or the same product on some instances where we can, and we do the European and the UK arm for them. We've got— we've, as a result of Brexit, we can't just ship into Europe from the UK. So we actually went through a fairly painful process of getting set up with a European VAT and the EORI number. So we have fiscal representation in the EU, so I can buy as an EU company as well as a UK company. So we end up, you know, t-shirts are a good example of work that we've done. So we'll print t-shirts in the UK and in the EU, keeping close control on them, making sure it's the same garments, the same inks, the things. So we've got the similar looking products for the client, but will just take that side on for a US distributor and it takes the headache away from them of trying to ship from the US over to the UK and it being held up or in some instances sent back. So they still get charged customs and then it gets sent back and then the client's still off of the product.

So if I have a client and let's say it's a t-shirt's a great example. We had an insurance client one time that hit the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. Everybody in the company got a t-shirt. And, and that means in the US I can do that and then through you I can deliver that to European employees as well. So everybody has the same experience. Is that a good example of what you're—

Yeah, it's a perfect example. And we'll— we even split it down where we're dropshipping to individual addresses, we're delivering in bulk to offices or even into warehouses for logistics. So whatever the, the occasion or the need. The clients got that we can help out with them.

What would you advise? I kind of have two questions. Going back to Brexit a little bit, is that a good example of how it made things more complicated? You now had to get this licensing in Europe as well as in the UK?

Yeah, it changed the industry overnight. I think throughout the whole referendum as to whether the UK should leave or remain, I don't think anybody ever said in very clear terms that this is what's going to happen if you leave. I think if somebody had really stood up and said that, a lot of companies wouldn't have voted to leave. But what it did is, even though— even with Ireland, Ireland and Northern Ireland, we can ship into Northern Ireland without too much of a problem. We can't ship into Southern Ireland. Because it's still very much part of the EU. So for a t-shirt order, we're printing it over in Europe, it's then taking 7 or 8 days to clear to then get into Southern Ireland. Or if that's still quicker than us trying to do it and cheaper than us trying to do it from the UK, yeah, sure, it's an hour's ferry ride away, you know.

Yeah.

And it's just the whole, like, two sets of VAT and splitting all of that out. So it just put additional costs on. And I'm sure somebody is winning from the whole process, but I'm not quite sure who. Right.

Well, and I love that you outlined this process because this is exactly the kind of thing as a US distributor would say, I don't, I just suddenly just get my eyes glaze over. I'm confused. I don't understand the system. You do. And that's a big help. Is this, um, what advice we give to distributors with clients, you know, often they'll just shut down a project with a client. I think it's changing, but it used to be, you know what, we don't do business in the UK. Now though, with a partner like you, they can say yes to these kinds of things.

Yeah, very much so. And it's, you know, as I say, we've helped about 6 US distributors now with various projects, um, some very straightforward, just needed job to drop and delivering in bulk, one address in the UK, that was an easy win. Others are a lot more complicated if it's UK and EU and there's dropshipping as well as bulk shipping. But I've got it in reverse. We've got a project that we deliver that goes out to the US and they've now got, with all your different tax variations with the different states and everything that was causing us problems. But now, just simplified a little bit, I don't even try and do that. I've got a distributor helping me source all the warehousing and everything. So, right, once it gets delivered, it's just looked after over there. I don't need to worry about it. And when the client needs the next pallet of whatever it is, then out it goes. Yeah.

Do you split—

do you like charge a fee? Do you split just percentage of profits? How do you typically work? Or any of the— all the above?

The easiest way I've done it is just be completely transparent. I share my net costs, and I just say, you know, I'm happy to help you out in any way, let's just split the profit. And yeah, without exception, everybody's just gone, great, that's the easiest way, let's crack on. Right.

How would you respond to the phrase collaboration over competition?

That was a big eye-opener for me coming into CommonSKU and seeing just initially just the community feed that's on the platform itself. And then whilst we were in COVID, seeing all the Zoom calls and just speaking to other distributors and how you do help each other. And it, for me, it's, it's been the best thing I've ever done. And I, I do like to help people anyway. That's just nature. Uh, and working with US distributors, they're not just clients now, but they're friends. In, in the UK, we're much sort of denser population and in a smaller surface area because I've got my nearest sort of competitors are you know, just over a mile away from me. Within 10-mile radius, I've got many companies that do what I do, and we're all pretty much fighting for the same piece of work. And there is no issue for us in the UK sort of shipping to anywhere within the UK. It's the same VAT code. There aren't— so it doesn't really matter where you are. In the UK, you can just deal with another client in the UK and that's it. And there is a lot of competition for it, particularly since people have caught on to doing the kitting. There are many websites springing up like that, and Brexit's had a knock-on there because a lot of people lost their jobs. So they've set up on their own. So you've got a lot more smaller distributorships that, um, and now there's even more people going after the same work. Typically, if you go to a networking meeting and you see somebody in the same industry, not just promotional products industry, you'll see two financial advisors or two accountants, and they don't really talk to each other. They'll sort of go separate ways. You can literally see them go to the meals or go separate ways. That's the competition, and they're in this town, and they're doing the same work that I do. So I'd not really see it. There may be some collaboration with some of the bigger firms. I'm not sure. I haven't seen it myself. Yeah, but for me personally, to collaborate with US distributors, it's working well. It helps them, it helps me. I've got access into the US and it's, it's just fun to do.

Speaking of Common Skew, you've been such a great supporter of Common Skew. I mean, you were a supporter before realizing this was going to have an ROI for you, right? You were attending events, encouraging others. How has Common Skew made an impact on your business? We know from the side of this, from what you're doing with these partnerships, but how about in your operation?

From my operation side, I had to find a new software. The software I was using just stopped overnight for reasons that, you know, unfortunately somebody passed away and they were the brains and had all the information. So I was put in a situation where literally all our whole order processing system just ground to a halt overnight. So very quickly looked around, came across this Commerce SKU and just like, what is it? Had made a few inquiries about it. Long story short, decided yes, this was for me without fully realizing the benefits of the system. And even though in the UK we have no products to put on that we can just tap into. We have to put everything on manually. And it was such a good system. The clients commented on how they like the presentations, how they appear to them. Shops are just starting to come on board a little bit for me now. We're hoping to get one off the ground very soon, which we've used pop-up shops, but I've not been able to get a company to do a company store yet. Well, in the 4 years that I've had Common with SKU, I've doubled, more than doubled my turnover and doubled the staff. And in fact, the latest staff member started last week, and that was through Delegate CX, who I only found out about at SKU Camp last year. What is this DCX that people are talking about? Had a chat with Rory there just before Christmas and His team have just been amazing. Yeah, we had a new starter last week and it couldn't be going better.

That's great. How about your personal growth? How's it sort of changed you as a leader and just, you know, working, being able to work on your business instead of in your business? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how's it really impacted you personally?

For me personally, it's— I've got no formal business training whatsoever. I was just— I was fed up in the office one day, right? I'm going to go and do my own thing and sort of It was going fine, and then things start growing, and then you don't know about all the other issues that you get with growing a business, right? And trying to do everything from the sales, the production, the installations, then the invoicing, and then running all the accounts, and you just, you miss so much. You don't grow the business. It sort of gets tied down, I think. The mistake I made early on was not getting a good team. Even when I did have an office that had part-time staff, they weren't the right staff, I don't think, at the time. So for me, certainly in the last 4 years, I've listened to lots of SKUcasts. It's opened my eyes to lots of different areas. And as the business has grown, I have now got the right people in place. It's now making me feel like a more rounded person. And I think I can see issues before they become a problem now, or it's given me the confidence to go and tackle something that I might not have done previously.

Yeah, I was going to ask you that. It sounds like it, because it gives you sort of more confidence and energy to scale your workforce as you're already doing.

Yeah. I need to be able to work on the business because I can see that's what's making the business grow. Yeah, I've sort of all but removed myself from the day-to-day or the processing now. I'm still involved in all the projects, but once everybody knows what needs to happen, I just sort of maintain a watch over that to make sure that it does happen. Obviously, being such a small business, holiday cover and things like that, I'm there and sleeves rolled up and in the thick of it again.

Yeah. Um, on this topic then, how would you encourage another entrepreneur trying to do it all and grow like you? And what would you tell Stephen Ward, who just, who, who started in the business? What would you tell him now that you know what you know?

Try and get a good team together as soon as you can. Well, that, that's the hard part, is knowing what is a good team. I suppose with experience I've worked out what, what is for me now. Um, you know, but if you can do that right from the off, that enables you to, like we've said, work on the business, not in it. Um, because I spent too many years just in it, which were great, I enjoyed them, but to— for the— compared to the last 4 years, it's like chalk and cheese. It was just— I was a different person. I was just head down, not too much stress, just, yeah, you want one of those, or what sign doing, or that merchandise, I'm not a problem. I'm just, yep, I've got enough money to pay the mortgage, take the family on holiday, do what I want to do, and I was happy. It's getting those introductions into the larger companies and then looking at their issues and sort of trying to figure out a way to do that. I've really enjoyed that, and I like figuring out problems. It's, um, working out how best we're going to get around the situation. And there's a lot of people that just don't export into Europe now because— or deal with Europe because it was just such a hard thing to get into and get sorted out and expensive. I think now I've just got the confidence to go, well, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah, for many months it was just, nope, okay, can't get that way, right, find another way around. And, you know, eventually you get there and you make it happen. I think there's a lot of making your own luck. Yeah.

Did you use the phrase, this is, here's my Americanism that I didn't catch it. Did you use the phrase chunking cheese?

No, no, chalk and cheese.

Chalk and cheese.

What does that mean?

Well, chalk and cheese are so different.

Oh, chalk and cheese.

Okay, I got it. I love it. All right, great.

I was like, I thought this was just like some cool throwback phrase from the 19th century or something. I was, yeah, out of it.

I don't know what the American would be, but two things that are so different.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it's still cool. I love it better than apples and oranges. So what do you, Steve, what do you do when you're not working? What do you enjoy?

Well, I don't think I'm ever not working fully, but I, I'm in a golf business network, um, which I've always played golf, not particularly well, but I play it. Um, that's, it's been really good for my business, but I enjoy golf socially anyway. Well, the actual golf group we're in, they've now expanded into Europe and into the US. They're in Colorado, Arizona, and Florida now. Um, that's, that's been good on personal and business level. Um, the other passion I have is photography. I like just going out with my camera and just being on my own.

I didn't know that. Yeah, what do you shoot with?

Uh, well, I've just upgraded 2 years ago, went to a new Canon mirrorless system.

Nice.

Uh, now in a position where I can treat myself to the pro lenses, so I buy the best glass, and I've got a nice filter system, so, right, I can begin to start there, whether it's doing some astrophotography or long astro landscapes, or, um, we had a nice trip up to Norway in January and managed to see the lights, so that was really good. And that's amazing. But yeah, it's quite happy sat in a field or somewhere just with my camera and just let the time go by.

I love knowing that about you, but we can share some tips and, and things. What's a recent book, podcast, or a movie that's really had a big impact on you?

I think I mentioned it before, The Purple Cow by Seth Godin, in terms of book and podcast, I found that's really helpful. Read a couple of times the— I've mentioned to you before, but the Skewgast, that's just— I, I always listen to those now. It's like something's got to happen each week, it's the Skewgast, because I've picked up so many tips from the many great guests that you've had on there. Um, and now it's, it's not just that the guest, it's like I know that person, I met them, and oh, that's a good friend. And yeah, coming back to, um, when we went to Skucamp and met such great people. Yeah. And I met John Bowe, well, again on the road trip, you know, me driving down and just dropping for drinks with John on the way down. And it's right, just a crazy thing that I'd never envisaged would happen. Um, but yeah, I think other podcasts that I listen to, like Promo Kitchen and Promo Corner that only came, I heard about again through, by Common Skew. So very cool. So much to thank Common Skew for.

Well, we are continuing the great tradition of having awesome SkewCast guests because Stephen, you have been so generous with your time and your energy and your knowledge and helping make the connections for Common Skew distributors. And I just want, want to say thank you for being you. The team loves you. Thanks for being so generous with your time and intelligence. And how would you encourage others to be less competitive and more collaborative in the business?

That's a really difficult question.

Just be Stephen Ward, maybe? Is that what—

I don't try. That's the thing for me. It's, I'm not trying to be something I'm not. It's like, I've always been somebody that will try to help somebody. Yeah. And yes, in business you have to be ruthless sometimes and sort of defend your corner, but it's— I've not lost clients to other distributors because it's about building that relationship. So yeah, if two distributors working together can go and get a bigger client and work together on it and share then I would recommend it. And obviously for me, my focus with using CommonSkill and meeting so many great people is very clearly, if I can help somebody in the US that needs to help a job get cleared in UK or Europe, then I will do it. And I'm in a fortunate position that there aren't many others over here in my position with the connections that I've now got through this community. That they're doing it. So I'm an easy win for them because we've already done it and we've got a proven track record. And yeah, it's good for me. If there was somebody in my position that was uncommon SKU, I'd say, yeah, go and do it. There's a lot of great companies out there that need help.

Yeah, I would add, we haven't done any name dropping here, but you are doing it for some of the best brands in the US. And so my hat's off to you, my friend, and thanks for joining us on Skucast.

And I look forward to seeing you in September.

Absolutely.

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