Episode 276: How “Brand EQ” Drives Smarter Sales (A Chat with Touchstone's Andrea Stoll)

Well, thank you for joining us.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm so glad. Yes. So glad. The brand engagement director. Can you share more about your role? I love the title, for one thing. I just love the title. Do you work both on Touchstone's brand as well as with clients? Tell us what that encompasses.

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, we were. It was kind of a creative collaboration on the title, but the spirit of it is that, you know, Touchstone really is all brand first, and so we really wanted to lead with that and make people know that, like, their brand is everything to us. So it is somewhat in the spirit of championing the Touchstone brand as well. We haven't done a lot of marketing per se in our history. We've been fortunate enough to grow organically and do some, you know, things to that end. But, yeah, so working with our clients, I'm really responsible for making sure that we're doing everything possible within our capabilities and our partnership network to ensure really, you know, fully create brand engagement for them to inspire their customers and fanatics to really follow the brand and engage with it at every level. So, yeah.

Okay. So you find yourself not only working on the brand, but working with clients directly for this?

Yes, I work with a lot of clients directly. That's sort of something that I love to do. It's been my passion throughout my career, and I love to just kind of vibe with the company and understand, you know, their sort of genuine authenticity, what they come from, what they stand for, and then being able to figure out all the ways that we can help monetize and engage people through merchandise.

So we're going to unpack this a little bit because Derek Block, founder and CEO, who is also going to be speaking at SKU Camp, and when we have an interview with Derek there, he created a pretty unique concept. I loved it when I first saw it. It came across my screen, I think, on LinkedIn called brand EQ. What is brandy Q?

We love Brandy Q. So I think it is a really interesting concept. Again, I tell people I pretty much look good for my age, but I'm old and I've been around the block, and so I worked for. I've been fortunate to work for so many great brands, you know, from Nike to American Express. And, you know, the idea of really understanding your brand and having that inform everything that you do in a. In a way that feels really genuine to people and. And I think it's more important than ever. So what Derek and the team had created and evolved over the last 10 years is in order to even think about a merchandise solution or, you know, what would be the right product or process for an organization. We really need to understand their brand first. So you know, like emotional intelligence. What Daniel Goldman came up 25 years ago, the idea that if you really understand your brand and how it interacts with people, people and kind of take that personality of the brand and extend it in different ways, you're going to have the most success. People are going to really respond to you. And so if you're really considering and putting that intent into your merchandise solutions, you can really have a very powerful intentional connection with people.

I love it because it also helps your team start out on the right foot with the client to understand them. It's a very comprehensive aspect and then it also helps the client put everything in context.

It sounds like 100% and we're building it into, you know, we used to really talk about as it related to the merch process, but we're building it into every capability that we have. So now we have a fully robust program around brand EQ merch and like how to really help understand the brand, the consumer profiles, the archetypes, segmentation, who is the merchandise for to, to create those solutions. Then we're doing the same thing from a digital e commerce perspective with their shop experiences and making sure that the user experience and the interface and how we the, the cart conversions and everything that we do related to the E commerce experience makes sense for the brand. And then down to, and then we have Ops, which is our brand EQ fulfillment experience. So what does the unboxing experience look like and how does that fit with the brand? If you're, you know, a sustainable brand, what is your packing tape and you know, how does that extend through every aspect of the company? And we, we do use that, like you said, from an internal point of view, so, so that all our employees are on the same page. Like this is what this brand is about. So if you go into our warehouse, you see everything related to, you know, one of our customers because it's really important that the people who are packing up the products are understanding who it's going to.

It's also somewhat of a sales roadmap for, for your team, I would imagine, because then you're looking at all the touch points that the brand can exhibit. You're almost unpacking sales opportunities while helping the client at the same time.

Yes, I mean we think so. I mean we like to say, you know, add value along the way. Of course, some of it is like selfishly, we're growing business, but we do feel like people just expect that Amazon experience today. Right? They want, they want the right product, they want at the right time, they want at the right price. And so, you know, we, we don't want to think of promotional merchandise the old way when it's just kind of like, you know, put together, not as thoughtful and in each piece of this, including the delivery experience, and we just know that everybody has that expectation and every brand should be delivering on that. The capabilities exist. So why wouldn't we kind of connect the dots for them and help add value as much as we can?

Right. Does every new client go through, you know, how clients come to us, especially new clients, they come to us with a project typically. Not, not typically. They don't come prepared to go, I'm ready to review my entire brand. So do they, do they, does every client go through this?

Not every client. You know, we have kind of different phases of it based on if it's like, you know, just a project based opportunity and more of like an enterprise client. So we can kind of, we can condense it, you know, based on what the, what the opportunity is for the client. We can do a lot of the work internally. Ideally we like to engage them and not just the person that's talking to us from the client, but someone from their sales team and someone from their HR team because everybody within the company has a little bit of a different perspective. So yeah, we can go all the way from, you know, a quick internal session for a project based opportunity where we go through our own rigor that way or you know, we have people come in for two day, you know, full on workshops where we get teams together and we have it very structured out so that we can kind of get on the same page. And just so you understand too, it's not to dictate the brand at all. Like some brands, you know, going through this exercise, there's a lot of learnings for them. Some they're like, we're dialed like our brand is everything. And so then we just want to be educated on what their brand is so that we're making sure that everything that we're doing, you know, reinforces that it's bigger than just a brand guideline deck. It's like the essence and the personality and the people and the culture and you know, all that stuff really matters.

What kinds of things does it encompass? I would, I think I saw like market position, competitive landscape, brand personality, target demographic and more. Can you, can you talk A little bit about how that not only the criteria that you have, but how then that informs a better merch experience.

Yeah, I mean, we start all the way from, like Simon Sinek says, you know, what's your why? Right. We start all the way from the process of understanding a customer's why, you know, to just try to tease out from them not what do you do, but why do you do it? And that also, that often brings up a lot of, like, interesting conversations that, you know, again, give them a unique positioning, like in the market, so that everything that we do for them isn't. If you have three insurance companies, they should be doing three different things, you know, even if they're going to the same, you know, event. Right. So it's important that it sticks back to that DNA of why are they in this business and why are they differentiated and what's their point of view? And then we take that straight to, yes, their market landscape positioning. Okay, how do they sit? You know, are they, you know, a higher cost provider? Are they more value added and for everybody. So really kind of understanding how they sit within the marketplace and then looking at their archetypes. So every brand, you know, falls within 12 archetypes. You know, are they a joker? Are they, you know, and defining that again, each step of the way, we're getting new insights. Again, some they might totally, you know, be dialed in on and they're educating us, which is awesome because it's great to work with brands, right, who really understand and are excited about what they have. But you, you're usually getting, you know, some interesting conversations that maybe they haven't had before. Once we get through all the brand work, which is like kind of the first part of the process, then we dive into consumers, like, who is the product for? You know, is it for their internal employees? Is it, are they selling it? Are they selling it? Are they giving it away? Is it for events? Is it for, you know, there's a million, you know, a million different things in our industry that people use the merchandise for. So what is that? And, and then based on that, how do you want them to interact with it? What's the day in the life? Do you want them interacting with it at the office? Do you want them interacting with it on the weekends? Do you want them in, you know, in their car? You know, what are the different things? Where do you want your brand to come top of mind? So then we go through all the consumer stuff, and then we start segmenting it out and getting to what we call the visual Line planning process, where based on all the information that we've gathered, we'll build out one of those brand books, brand guidelines, and then start to try to inform some ideas around how to bring that to life.

I saw a visual line process or visual line plan on your website. And what does that look like?

So it really is just like a SKU map, basically, of different ideas. You know, some that could happen tomorrow, and then some could be more that we build towards. But the idea of it is to kind of see, okay, on one snapshot, this is what our brand looks like. To make sure that there's no things, there's no outliers. Like, usually a company will come to us and they'll have 200 different things that they've done. You know, 50 of them are still sitting in a closet. Some people have this, you know, it's kind of like a hodgepodge of stuff. So we want to get it to a point where we can look at everything in one holistic view and say, okay, this is what it looks like. Does this all make sense? And how are we talking about it? And if our biggest market is our internal, you know, customers, why are they only have four options, but the external place, you know, has 27 options for Apollo? So it's. It's a way of organizing the information and then making sure that it's. It reflects the business that it deserves and the customers that are using it and, you know, kind of thinking about how it could grow and evolve in a future state.

I see. So it's like a visual infographic of the brand's merch experiences and how they impact each audience. And you can see it in one snapshot.

Correct? That's probably a better way of saying it.

No, I love it. I love it. No, you can tell I'm used to radio, right. Or podcasts, so I'm like unpacking it in my head, but I love it. Do you have a client experience that sort of. That you can share a story around this that exemplifies either one or both of these processes, the EQ or the visual line plan, and how that may have impacted how you work with them?

Yeah, I mean, I think about an account like Progressive as an example. Like Progressive Insurance is one of our big clients, and we do a lot of cool stuff with them because they are very brand first. Right. I mean, that's one of the reasons that we work with them from the jump, is because they. They understood how much we loved and appreciated all the cool stuff and their brand. But it Goes in many different directions. You know, they do have, like, you know, internal teams that are there, you know, on the desk every day selling insurance. And then they do have all these cool events that they do. And they have different targets based on the type of insurance. So I think about, like, motorcycle insurance, you know, they're going to. What's that motorcycle event in Sturgis. Yes, Sturgis.

Yeah. Right.

And events like that. And we can't show up with, like, flotata heads, like, for certain other people.

Right.

So, you know, we have to kind of kit it out in a way that makes sense for that audience. We did temporary tattoos and we did haircuts and, you know, like sort of a barber chop shop, we called it. And these different kind of event activations that felt very progressive but were, you know, visually they look very different. And culturally they, you know, made sense for that audience. So those are the kind of things that we do. We can kind of tune it in different ways depending on the customer experience. But it all comes from the essence of who that brand is.

I love how you're. You're also really giving your team a pretty sophisticated tools toolbox as opposed to. Yeah, I can source that for you. It just elevates the whole. The whole selling process to it to another level.

I mean, that was one thing that Derek has. I mean, that's why he founded Touchstone, you know, because he felt like there could be a better way, you know, this kind of more agency, like, brand approach to our industry. And that's our point of difference. You know, I think we're not right for everybody. And, you know, customers that really do understand and believe that brand engagement is real and the merchants marketing, which is. Is something like that I stole from Gary Vee that I just absolutely love. I mean, if you. If you believe that that's true and you really care about it and put intention into it, it can be very powerful. So I forget where I was going with that.

I know. I love it. I love it. Merchant as marketing. I saw that, too. I saw Gary talk about this. He just had a little snippet about it, but it was like the phrase was perfect.

Yes. And I love it. And we use it on everything now because that's it. I mean, that to us, that's Brandy. Q. It's. Yeah, it's not merch as a tchotchke or giveaway or, you know, at an event. It's. It's. It's the most personal connection that you can have to a brand. Like, you give somebody Something and it could sit on their desk for like 10 years.

Yes.

I mean, can you think of a more intimate one to one relationship?

Yes.

So if you don't think of it in that way, it's just, it's just a missed opportunity, you know, so we, we really believe that it's, it's a, it's one of them. I mean, I think other than digital marketing, it's the one medium that continues to grow because people love to get merch. I remember at my first, I think it was Seth Godin did the keynote speak. I don't know if you remember that.

I do, I do remember that.

About Paul McCartney.

Yeah.

The T shirt being in a T shirt. Being in a Knicks game.

Right.

You know, jumping over people, free T shirt billionaire.

Trying to get the free T shirt.

Trying to get the free T shirt. But that happens all the time. Like you bring something cool to an event and people will like line up for like, you know, this Rubik's Cube and you're like, okay. Like, yeah, so we know that it works. So yeah, right.

I love it. Merchants market also, you know, we're at a time I think in our industry, which is really exciting to be a part of this industry. It's really fun. It's, it's popularity has never soared as high as it has now and it just continues to grow. But talking about Touchstone a little bit, Touchstone as a company is really amazing. One of the industry's leading distributors, ASI, reported 92 million in revenue in 2022 in their top, top distributors list. How has your year progressed compared to last year?

I mean, it's good. We like, you know, as we were going into, you know, the pandemic, everybody was kind of like nervous, like how is this going to affect things? Events are down. I know a lot of people picked up in PPE and stuff to kind of weather that. We really leaned into E Commerce because E commerce was, you know, everybody was shopping and buying from home and that allows us to grow pretty significantly during that time. And since then we've really gone out, you know, tried to partner with more content creators and drive that E commerce part of our business. Because we really optimized and tuned our, you know, E commerce program based on that success. We always are willing to build in and invest in customers that are like, you know, growing in those areas and really, you know, increased our SLAs and our turn times on different types of products that, you know, again to deliver on that experience that customers are expecting especially from, you know, Just an E commerce company and then also the fulfillment piece of that. So, you know, in addition to all the success and business that we had in the merch side, I would say this, what we call now Brandy Q Shop and Brandy Q Ops are the two areas where we're bringing in a lot more new customers. Some people who just want us for that. You know, in terms of the E Commerce experience and our fulfillment operations, we just brought, you know, new facilities, broader facilities, facilities in Ohio to service those clients. And that's been a really big win for us.

Touchstone has received all kinds of accolades. But what can you tell us about Touchstone that you wish more people knew?

I think touch the entrepreneurial nature of the people at Touchstone. You know, I think that we don't follow the industry formula. Derek really challenges each and one of us all the time to think differently, to, you know, do everything that we can to support a customer's brand in, in the way that we know that we're capable of and to even challenge the custom that way. And then if a customer wants to take something somewhere, figure out a way to do it. I mean, again, I said like, there's so much technology and, and things happening in the apparel industry, sustainability, you know, whatever those things are that are out there. And so maybe if we haven't done it before, we're still very, you know, capable of doing it. So really just challenging us to make sure that we are doing absolutely everything we can for our customers. And, and the company shows consistently that they're willing to build out the capabilities to support those customer experiences. So I think that's something that makes us really unique and special and it comes right from the top, which is pretty cool.

Yeah. Touchstone is a CommonScue client. Are you in the platform?

I don't personally work too much in the platform, but I did, I did survey the troops and because we were on commonzu, then we weren't and then we came back.

Right.

And they are thrilled, thrilled to be back on.

Oh, that's great.

Yeah, just the user experience, the feedback from the clients and they're able to engage with them. And then one thing that they noted that we've been using a lot recently, which has been very successful, is kind of the pop up shop opportunities.

Yes.

And really being able to give customers the ability to have choice in their variation, to aggregate their orders to get them excited about just new ways of looking at opportunities and events. And I know that that's been driving a lot of new business actually by being able to Kind of show different ways of being able to use the platform. So the team is super stoked.

Awesome. Thank you for that. Let's talk a little bit about Andrea. You've had notable experience with some major brands, including Nike. You mentioned, by the way, I'm almost done with Shoe Dog. I know everybody's read it, but I'm finally getting around to it. Because of the movie. Yes, I'll admit, but you've worked with some really cool brands. Vans, Reebok, Converse. How does this inform your. You. I can tell you have this. You. You come with sort of a brand level of understanding, and it fires you up about this business. How does it. How else does it inform your work at Touchstone?

Yeah, I mean, I've. I have been fortunate to, like, work with some amazing brands and amazing leaders. I think to. You know, my boss at Converse is now the chief Creative Officer of Nike. My boss at American Express went on to be the CMO of Visa. I mean, these are people who, in my formative years were, like, so inspiring in terms and really in terms of brand and vision and, like, what's possible and engaging customers. And so it's definitely stayed with me. The other part, I think, of my experience has been so powerful was my experience at Babson College. I don't know how many people know about that, but it's actually the number one school for entrepreneurship. So that's where I went to get my graduate degree. And what's so unique about Babson is every professor there is an entrepreneur. So, like, the head of Babson, and my entrepreneurship professor was Steve Spinelli, who was the founder of Jiffy Lube. So, like, back in the day.

Yep. You know, Jiffy Loop was a very successful franchise.

Very successful franchise. The founder of the entrepreneurship school was Arthur Blank, who founded Home Depot. So every conversation, every project, every experience is being discussed amongst real entrepreneurs. And not to take anything away from academics because they bring a whole nother level. But I think that's what makes Babson so exceptional in their work. And the network and the relationships and the people that I gained from there, they're just. They're with me all the time. So I think it's just been. I've been fortunate to, like, just have amazing brand experiences. So that's what I love and that's what I know, and that's why I vibed with Derek so much, because that's so much his passion. So it's been really fun to be, you know, a bigger part of the company and be able to help help the People that are there kind of understand the power. Like, we have so much power with their brands to really be able to be grateful that we have that opportunity and how to really, like, covet it and leverage it.

By chance, was the creative director you referred to at Nike, Hoka?

John Hoke.

John Hoke. I got the name wrong. So I just, I'm not familiar with him. I just read an article this morning in Fortune because he has dyslexia and he. And it was a brilliant article, actually forwarded onto my daughter because. Because we were just talking about this last night as she was saying she's an artist and drawing and the things that. That dyslexia gave him as a gift. Anyways, I didn't mean to get off on that tangent.

No, but he, he is. He is the best. Like, he was. I would go into his office and leave, like, on cloud nine because it was just, he's such a visionary and so creative and talented and such a good person. I mean, he's the one who introduced me to yoga because he was like, you're way too stressed. Let's go to Bikram. And we went to the Bikram Yoga studio.

That's great.

We get there. This is so funny because he. He is like, dyslexic, whatever. Like, he's a little bit add.

Yeah.

We get to the yoga studio and she's like, oh, hi, John. And she goes back and she gets a towel and clothes for him because he never would show up with anything. He just, like, would have all of this stuff. And it was like. That's the other thing that, you know, lesson I learned from all of these leaders, like, throughout my career was the, the balance of, like, life and work. You know, it wasn't all work. To them, as successful and talented as these people are, like leaders of Fortune 100 companies, they all, like, had this really, like, peaceful approach and perspective. There was not anxiety. There was not. I mean, I'm sure they had it at some level. They're not sure people. But it wasn't brought out in the workforce. There was no, like, you know, pitting people against each other or, you know, kind of any, like, bad vibes. It was always, like, really calm and like, what's. What's happening in your life? And it was the whole person, which I think when you, when you feel that way, you bring that to the work and then everything is just better.

Yeah. What an influence on others, too. And speaking of a question the community loves for me to ask and you sort of touched on A little bit. What's a recent book or podcast or article that's inspired you or challenged you recently?

Yeah, I mean, I'm into that whole, like, health and wellness stuff. So, I mean, I do read the business book every, every once in a while, but, like, my new is Jay Shetty. I don't know if you've read anything.

Yes.

But, like, think like a monk and love rules and yes. Eckhart Tolle is still somebody that I always.

Oh, yeah, that's brilliant. I love that.

Pima Chaudren just wrote a new book and. Which is incredible.

That was, by the way, that was a phenomenal book. She talked about something I learned from that is just the, the two sides of the same coin and forget the phrase for it in Buddhist thought, but the, the positive and the negative and how they can actually be, they can be influences in your life in a good way if you look at them from the right perspective.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's like the obstacles are not in your path. They are your path. You know, being able to, like, move through them in a way that you're learning and growing, you can almost make it feel like an incredible, you know, gift. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. What brands? I know you came from some amazing brands, but what brands do you follow now for inspiration?

I mean, I love all the, you know, the, I'm a sneaker head, I guess. I love all the kind of things in the footwear space and Hypebeast and kind of following on that.

Okay. All right.

I, I, I really appreciate. And I love companies that come out and are very bold about their brand. Like, one new cool brand I'm following is, like, super side. Have you seen those guys?

Yeah, I have.

I just, I love everything they do. I love their business model. I love just the way they're trying to flip the agency model on its head. I think everything is so consistent and, like, well done and, and I met with their team and just very thoughtful.

Oh, that's cool.

I love how brands can just come up and kind of disrupt an industry like that. And I love to watch that, whether it's in agency world, tech world, footwear world, whatever it is.

Andrew, I got one last question. Thank you, by the way, for joining us and spending time. This has been amazing. What do you enjoy doing when you're not working? I think we got a clue and some of the things that you mentioned. But what do you enjoy doing?

Yeah, I mean, I love just new experiences. I was also kind of fortunate through my jobs to travel the world. We went to Asia for development trips in Europe. And so I think traveling and sort of, you know, yoga and wellness and meditation, I found, like, through my life and now doing it more like, how important it is. And I try to, like, instill that with my kids because you never really get taught those tools when you're younger or like that and how. How powerful it is. And until you get it, like, I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, it wasn't until 40 till I even started to think or talk about kind of these things, and you realize what a game changer it is. So I just. I try to, you know, have some of those routines in my life that build that into each of my daily practice so that each day is great. You know, I just try to have, like, the presence of mind and, you know, have this more holistic view.

Yeah, you can. You can sense that Eckhart and Pima Chaudren influence for sure. Andrea, thanks so much. I really enjoyed chatting with you. I learned a lot. And what a great experience, what a great company you've built, you and Derek and the team at Touchstone. And, you know, our entire team loves you guys and respects you so much. So thanks for coming today. Awesome.

It was so much fun. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you again sometime.

You bet.