Episode 284: The Astonishing Growth of Delegate CX, a Chat with DCX CEO, Craig Dunlap

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. DelegateCX, known as DCX, grew from 20 employees to 1,500 employees in 2 years, a trajectory that amazes even DCX's founder and CEO, Craig Dunlap. If you are not familiar with DCX, they are an outsource agency who who helps US businesses in the promo industry hire talent through their outsourced talent pool in the Philippines. Today we chat with Craig about this astonishing growth, covering topics ranging from their new e-commerce academy to tips on integrating new DCX employees with your team, plus the incredible cultural exchange happening between American and Filipino employees, plus our new DCX CommonsQ collab. But before our chat with Craig, If you're a new listener, each year in January we host an epic annual event experience called SKUCON. It is the conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the promotional products industry. And this year we are celebrating our 10th SKUCON, known as SKUCON X. SKUCON will be held on Sunday, January 14th at the Keep Memory Alive Center in Las Vegas. SKUCON is held the day before the PPAI Expo. And this year, I cannot wait to tell you about the lineup we have in store. But for now, I just want to encourage you to visit skucon.com to preregister because we're about to release our lineup of speakers and open public registration. SKUCon sells out quickly, but if you preregister, you'll be the first to know about it ahead of our public announcement. Visit skucon.com to preregister today. Today's episode is brought to you by CommonSki. 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 commonskew.com. Now here's my chat with our great friend Craig Dunlap. So Craig, where are you seeing an uptick in the type of roles folks are hiring for? Just like distinct for suppliers or distributor, is there distinction in those kinds of roles?

Yeah, there's, there's a little bit. Um, so, so On the uptick question, honestly, we're not seeing a big uptick from, from when we kind of first saw our rapid growth. CSRs, production folks, there are different names— inside sales support, everybody has a different name for it in the industry, as you know. A lot of bookkeeping, a lot of graphic designers. That still continues to be that way for distributors. One thing we're really, really excited about, and we've, we've starting to see more and more groundswell of excitement for it, is we just launched our our first, what we call our DCX eCommerce Academy. So this is the first batch of team members who, who are trained on the, the most common platforms in, in the industry and, uh, you know, are there to help set up shops and set up online store programs and, you know, really satisfy a need for a lot of distributors who want to sell in programs but they don't because it can be a heavy lift to, to set those up. So excited about that. We're getting a lot of excitement there on the supplier and side. Suppliers, we, our heavy focus there is on the inside sales support and executive admin type roles, support roles for sales folks on the supplier side. We saw a pretty big need there. There's suppliers in general have been using outsourced work for quite a while, but probably not as much in that sales and marketing support. So a lot of excitement there.

I love talking with you about trends in the workplace because you really do have your finger on the pulse of kind of what's going on industry-wide. And the fact that like e-commerce is a great example, I can— that's phenomenal that you're launching this e-commerce academy and training folks more on e-commerce. We saw a massive spike in July for our shops, and typically July is a very slow month for e-commerce. Um, and so that's really cool news. And I know distributors right now who are trying to ramp up support people specifically on the e-commerce shop side.

Yeah, it's one of those things where we can't train fast enough. Right. So, you know, we're so excited about it and we're bringing in new classes every single month. And yeah, that is definitely the biggest need out there that's not really being satisfied.

Okay, is the term outsourcing an outdated term? Is it too freighted with baggage? I mean, is there a connotation around it? And I was curious, I'm trying to help our audience not distinguish between an outsourced employee versus one of their teammates?

We use the term all the time because it's a term that people know. What we like to say is it can be a limiting term. And what we mean by that is if you've never tried kind of the international global outsourcing, it does come with some limitations, or at least in your mind it comes with limitations. So I've dealt with call center folks, and I'm talking to somebody that I don't even know. You know, there's no face with a name. That world has changed. Zoom, Teams, that world has changed. We intentionally, you know, push, get on a video call with your team members, get to know them. Everybody needs to get to know them, make them a part of your team. And so it becomes, you know, the world is flat. It becomes a whole lot more you know, the baggage, you know, goes away. We also— I also like to say, and you've heard me talk about this before, do what you do best and let other people, you know, take care of everything else. So if you're a distributor and you are so, so good at coming up with the latest, greatest creative ideas to win a project, let somebody else do what they do best. Let somebody else do the bookkeeping. Let somebody else— you know, employment is becoming harder and harder. And so let some of the— let let some of those, some of those difficult parts of employment, let somebody else handle them. So we, we don't mind outsourcing because outsourcing is not just, you know, dealing with people in the Philippines or wherever.

Okay. And staying on trends in the workplace for just one more question. The headlines love these back-to-the-office news stories, but are you seeing a countertrend in terms of hiring overseas? Have you seen— obviously through the pandemic we saw that, but post-pandemic, what are you seeing?

Yeah, first of all, I am the biggest proponent of in the office that you can, you can be because I think there's so much great idea share. We're just in a different world now. And so, you know, bring people back, hire people here as much as possible. But there's a shortage of labor and there's a shortage of people who are trained in the industry. And, you know, go find the best team member that you can. You know, the being able to work from wherever allows owners and distributors to find the best employees that they possibly can. So, so start there. And if you end up with a good team member who happens to be nearby, get them, get them in the office, you know, and have that collaboration. But, you know, don't, don't just stop there.

Yeah. For those that are not familiar with DCX and those might be new to the podcast, DCX employee base is largely based in the Philippines, and I know we've covered this before, but I don't know that people know the scale of how you've grown. So even folks that are familiar with you, can you share that growth trajectory with us? That's phenomenal.

It's pretty crazy. You know, I'll, I'll give a lot of credit in just a little bit to the, to the whole team that's built it. But yeah, I looked it up. I think we did a webinar back in April of 2021. So just over a couple of years ago, at the time we had 20 employees, you know, just kind of getting off the ground. And we have over 1,500 now, which is just nuts in, in, in 2 years. You know, we couldn't have gotten any better, you know, luck with the timing. That being said, a ton of credit to our team. I mean, they're just rock stars just to be able to handle the growth. And, you know, I like to, I like to think that the— yeah, it was difficult, but we really handled it well from, you know, minimizing burnout and that sort of thing. So, wow. It's just been so cool.

Craig, did you fathom that kind of growth back when there were 20 employees?

No, this is not— this is not— I tell you, I— and I tell a lot of people this— in no way, shape, or form did I ever think we'd be at this growth. That being said, I always knew we had a good offering and I always knew we had a really good team to build. So we get a lot of praise back that I'm so proud of, so proud of, and I can take almost no credit for. We got an awesome talent acquisition team, awesome customer service team, and just throughout the organization, just rock stars. So I'm not surprised by the feedback we get. I'm not surprised that other people are kind of telling other people about us. We really pride ourselves on that. But absolutely, you know, 2 years in, if you had told me we were at 300 employees, I would have given you a big hug and said, I'm done. It's been really fun.

Tell me about— I'm going to pronounce this wrong. Tell me about the Fun Day 2023. Saya— is it?

Yeah. Kasama. Saya Kasama. That's right. All right.

My short stint in the Philippines.

There you go. That's what I got it down better than I do. Yeah.

Yeah.

It, it essentially means have fun, have a great day in the Philippines. We a couple of times a year, we try to throw a big party and experience that, that brings everybody together. We're 100% work from home, which our employees love, but they also love getting together. We let— so in this case, it was in March and we rented out a water park, told them to bring their families and just have a great day. We actually had clients there with us for the first time, which was such a blast. That's awesome. And yeah, it was. Yeah. Just, you know, one of our roles is to You know, we want to retain the employees, and part of that is giving them some experiences that they wouldn't normally have. Treat them very well. Yeah, it's that simple. And it was, it was so much fun.

Speaking of, it sounds great. I love the video. We'll share a little bit of that. But what kind of impact does a US company— speaking of impact and, and just bringing joy into people's lives— what kind of impact does a US company have on employees in the Philippines?

It has the same impact, which is large, that the Filipinos have on the US, on the US company. It is a mutually beneficial relationship when it's really—

I love that.

It's— I mean, it's both. We just love the learnings, promo products, but just like cultural understanding and fun conversations. And our clients have absolutely loved on our team members far more than we ever imagined. We, we preach that— make them part of your team, treat them like you would any other team member, as if they were next door or in the office. And our clients have done that, and it's been really cool. At the same time, they've gotten to see how kind-hearted and generous and caring and thoughtful and awesome the team members are. So it really is just—

it's a, it's a cool, mutually beneficial I hear so much about the employees in the Philippines. I hear so much about how incredible they are. It's such an amazing, you're right, such an amazing exchange of graciousness between both, and I just love it. Now, for CommsCue customers, we have this really cool collab with us and you at DCX. Can you share the basics of that collab?

Yeah, I can just share the basics. I know the Grams and Rory and you have worked on it, and I'm thrilled to be a part of this partnership. It's really cool. Very, very simply, we are trying to remove as much friction as we can to be able to work together with some of the Common SKU members, some of the SKUmunity members. So very simply, if somebody wants to bring on one of our team members through this partnership, we make it really easy. Same process we normally go through, but to make it even easier, we cover the fee, cover the license for the first year of that team member. You know, it's that simple. And it really is about, about making it as easy as possible for a Cummins Q member to join up with us.

And a key benefit of that, which is also an incredible cost for a distributor, is just the training. They go through their own— they go through a university-type, promo university-type training, right?

That's right. That's right.

I—

that might be one of the keys to that, to that huge success is our promo academy that I think a lot of people know about. By now, but our head of talent acquisition came to me and said, Craig, everybody asks our, our candidates, do you have promo experience? And there's not a lot of promo experience in the Philippines. So we solved that by creating a promo academy. So for a month we hire the team members, give them 200+ hours of training, and then they're ready and able to go work with those, with the Commonsku members. So it's been It's huge. We've had over 500 graduates of the Academy and, and counting.

Love it. What's the one thing about DCX that you wish more people knew but kind of gets buried or lost?

Yeah, that's a great— that is a great question. This is new. So, so I want to point out two new things. One I've already mentioned is the eCommerce Academy. I hope everybody learns more and more about it. Similar to the Promo Academy, we've also, you know, one thing I talk about every single day at the company is how do we add more value to our clients? How do we continue to make their experience great? We've recently hired our first talent improvement manager, Amy DeLong. She came to us with many years of experience, and her role is to take all of the content that we have, continue to improve it, continue to improve all of our team members, you know, The two hardest things in promo distributor life is product selection and pricing, or two of the hardest. And so, you know, she can continue to make our team members better, and she will. In those categories alone, our distributors will just love the service we're able to offer.

So deeper education in those particular categories. Love it. Yeah.

You know, I think a lot of people don't think that maybe we just, we just hire and give a, give a great candidate, and that's That's a huge part of what we do. But we are day in and day out saying, how do we make our team members stronger in the promo world?

Yeah. Are you seeing more client-facing roles or the beginning of client-facing roles, or is that not a part of it?

You know, I think what we're seeing is more of what I experienced at Meyer Dunlap. They, they're not— the team members aren't hired for client-facing purposes, but over the course of 6 months and a year and 2 years, they know more about promo than a good number of people. And so our clients start feeling more and more comfortable. Then they start answering emails and they start answering phones and their end user client doesn't even realize that they're, that they're in the Philippines.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Let's help our customers with the last few minutes that we have here. Let's help our customers or anyone that's going to partner with DCX. About what tips you have hiring through DCX and bringing on team members. You've seen a lot of hiring, obviously, with 1,500 people. Are there best practices you can share that the most successful distributors use?

The most successful distributors are always asking us that question. It's one we're prepared for and we're always excited to get because when they're asking that question, that is the right question. So we kind of tell them the same few things. One, get prepared. Hiring is not easy. We make it as easy as possible. Training isn't always easy. Again, we've tried to make it as easy as possible and tee it up as much as possible. But those two things are difficult. So, you know, get prepared, make sure the right people are in the right— are in the room and are there and available for that. Have the proper expectations. So again, you know, there are team members who've been trained in promo, but just imagine what it was like when you first started in promo, right? You know, a month in, if you had some education. So they're going to know the terms and lingos, but there's always growth to be had. So just have the proper expectations. And last, we say collaborate with us. We've got a lot of promo experts on the team. We've got a lot of resources. We will always roll out those resources, but don't be afraid to ask and don't be afraid to say, you know, hey, they're struggling with this, or can we get them to learn this? What do you think? So yeah, that's good advice.

Greg, I cannot let you go without asking you at least one question, and the question that folks love to ask because you're such a smart guy. You're gonna hate that, but you're such a smart guy. You read a lot, you, you consume a lot, you, um, you're a great strategic analysis. What have you been reading? Podcast, book, video? What have you, what have you read lately that's made an impact on your thinking?

I, I don't know if anybody wants to read what I've been reading.

I know that's the best part. I love that.

I'm a, um, I feel like Mark Graham may be in this to. I'm a glutton for punishment when it comes to reading. Like, I, for some reason, I love reading the hardest possible books. Yeah. So, you know, Les Mis is 1,000 pages. Yeah, give it to me. I actually just finished David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's 1,000 pages and just loved it. Absolutely loved it. I wouldn't necessarily say I recommend it unless you, you really want to work out reading-wise. On the work side, I'm reading as much as I can about AI. Kind of crazy if you don't at this, at this stage of the game. It will certainly affect affect me, it'll affect Common Skew. I mean, I think everybody should be, you know, reading as much as they can. But yeah, yeah, I love it.

You know why I love that especially is because I always tell folks that when it comes to people and managing people, I think we can learn more from fiction than nonfiction. And, uh, it kind of fulfills a great example.

Empathy, if nothing else, they say. Absolutely. Highly increases empathy.

So yeah, absolutely.

I could use all the help I can get.

Craig, Thank you so much for joining us again here on the SKU Cast, man. I always love talking with you.

Oh, it's so much fun talking to you. And huge shout out to the whole, to CommonSKU and the community. But what y'all have built is, continues to be the envy of the industry. So love what y'all are doing. Great. Really appreciate you bringing me on.

Thank you, my friend. 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.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.

Mm-hmm.