Episode 296: How to Merge Successfully with Kyle Gibson and Manuel Saez of Premier Press

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KG Specialties is a Portland-based distributor who this year merged with Premier Press. Premier employs over 200 people and they handle a wide variety of print fulfillment and logistics management for clients. Today we're talking mergers, how to merge successfully with another company, how to integrate teams, how to handle the technology transition, and when and why it makes sense to merge with another company. Our guests today are Kyle Gibson, the owner of KG Specialties and now director of promotional merchandise at Premier, and Premier's vice president, Manuel Saez. Before I chat with Manuel and Kyle, you know, the SkewCast is brought to you courtesy of Common Skew. And you know that moment when you are in the middle of working on half a dozen hot projects for clients with pressing deadlines and the shipping changed again for 2 out of those 6 projects Well, we just made that a lot simpler. Now you can notify your client of any shipping changes directly from Commskeet's production report while you're in the app. No more playing bouncy bounce with a dozen emails back and forth with clients. Just add a tracking number or ship date change and click notify, and an email is sent from the app to your client, and you get to go on about your business. We also just released EPOs for StormTech plus a brand new shops theme. Lots of changes all the time at Commenscue. It's just another way we obsess about making the work-from-anywhere platform the easiest and fastest way to do business. Gain back your sanity and grow your sales at commonscue.com. Now here's our chat with Kyle Gibson and Manuel Saez.

Glad to have you guys here. Thanks for joining us today to talk about this story.

Yeah, thanks, Bobby.

Kyle, tell me a little bit about the snapshot of your business history so that we can sort of have some perspective on your decision to partner and merge with Premier. Like, when did you start? What were the primary big seasons? Like, what led to you saying, hey, I think it's time for us to merge with someone else?

Yeah, I mean, the business started in 1993, mainly out of a necessity. I was— it was a hobby for a while, screen printing t-shirts, and then, you know, just kind of grew. And then I was diagnosed with arthritis in an early stage and had to do a career change, right? And so at that point I was like, you know, I had this hobby I was doing and, and I thought, well, maybe I can make a go at screen printing t-shirts and didn't really know a whole lot about the industry at that time. I was just raw, but I was fortunate enough to be introduced to some distributors in the Pacific Northwest. Okay. And we started out as a contract screen printer or, you know, a few of those folks and then evolved into us doing embroidery with them. Okay. And then, you know, after time went on, you know, we, we just kept growing that for a few years. And then in 2001, I believe it was, I, I sold the business because I, I wanted to get out. I was like, contract work is difficult. And so, right. As, as you know, so I, I sold the business that lasted about a year. And then ended up buying the business back at auction in February or March of 2002. Okay. And we, we went back in as a contract decorator. And it was interesting because a friend of mine had us help him with a project for one of the big swimming events at one of the universities. And it was a sweatshirt order. It was like 400 sweatshirts. Okay. And we were printing these sweatshirts. It was a direct sale, it wasn't a contract job. And I'm standing out there by the auto and they're pulling a sweatshirt off every 8 seconds. And I'm standing there doing the math. I'm like, $12, $12, right?

Versus your $1 screen print. Right, right.

Yeah, exactly. And it was like a green light. And then Bobby, from that day on, I mean, I, I walked in the office and said, We're going in a new direction. I mean, it was like that obvious. Yeah. And we joined NW PMA and PPAI and started meeting some really great people and some great mentors. I'm very, very fortunate to have, you know, some amazing mentors in the industry in my life. Yeah. That's cool. And yeah. And so, and, and then here we are today where, you know, we did this with Premier.

Yeah. Fast, fast forward to that. Uh, what, what changes were happening in the business where that led you to think about partnering with Premiere?

You know, we were picking up larger corporate accounts and we didn't have the bandwidth to really make that happen, right? Yeah. And Premiere had a facility with fulfillment, creative planning. All right. You know, they have creative designers on staff. So and I was honestly, I was at a point where I'd been doing it for a long time. I was just, I was just servicing my clients. My team, they were still hungry. They were still wanting to make things happen. Yeah. And so at that point, I was like, you know, something's got to give. And, and we, we had this opportunity come up with, with Premier. And, and I have to say, I think it's really reenergized the team. It's given them a new sense of belonging. Yeah.

So I want to get— yeah, I want to get to that part of the story in a minute. Manuel, tell us a little bit about Premier. Give us a snapshot of Premier. I sort of shared it in the intro, but I kind of want to hear from you.

Yes. So Premier will be next year will be 50 years they're in business. Okay. And Premier was, you know, founded from Arnold where he was unhappy with the, the service that was being done in the printing industry back, you know, 50 years ago and decided, hey, let me start a company where we're gonna take care of the client. Ultimately, you know, if we do good work, we take care of the client, you know, what could go bad? So that's kind of the evolution of, you know, how Premier started. And to this day, we maintain that, right? That is like, The most important part of our business is making sure the client is serviced, delivering on time, good quality, and everything else should work itself out afterwards.

Yeah. Premier is a company with over 200 people. You've invested more than $4 million in equipment, 180,000 square feet in size. Much of your production is in-house. Why do you feel it's important to build a vertical company and bring as much production in-house as possible?

Well, there's definitely been a growing trend in the last decade where people are tasked to handle certain parts of the business. And they don't necessarily have the background, the education, you know, to take care of print. And a lot of people view print as a dying industry, which it is not, but they're tasked with this, like, and they don't understand it. So when they can come to one company like ourselves and just say, hey, I've got this problem, can you handle this? Can you take care of it? It makes it a lot easier for them. So that's why we wanna be a one-stop shop. We just want people to come to us It doesn't matter if they're doing banners, if they're doing t-shirts, if they're doing, you know, brochures or direct mail or whatever it may be, they can just one-stop shop. They know we're gonna take care of them and we have everything under one roof.

Yeah. Kyle, I'm curious what changed with the client. Like what changed with the client that required more high-touch service? Like what you were, you said you were being asked things like fulfillment and what other kind of things were you like, you know what, this is getting a little bit beyond the scope of our expertise.

Yeah. I mean, it was a lot of the fulfillment was a big part of it, right? 'Cause so many corporate accounts now want stores and they want you to have everything. I mean, we went through that years ago, right, where stores were huge and then they kind of faded and now they're back again. Right. And so that was a big part. It was the fulfillment and, and plus the creative side. We just, we didn't have that ability to have engineers on staff to help us create custom, really high-end touchpoint product. And, and Premier has all of that, right? And, you know, we're— so as we continue to grow and get referrals, we started getting these larger opportunities. And so that was a big part of that transition to go to Premiere.

Yeah, you and I have been at this long enough. I know Manuel has too, but we've seen the demand for the physical high-touch, physical part of the business grow, but also just the design side, just in terms of the buyer sophistication and what they need. Manuel, what other— like, I know printers love to— forgive me, I know printers love to talk about their amazing equipment in-house, but give our listeners an idea of what are the primary sort of components when you look at manufacturing? What I'm trying to piece together is what is it that other distributors are struggling with in terms of working with their clients and being expanded to ask for services that, that Premier found?

Yeah, well, I guess if we want to talk a little bit about services or equipment, if you want, just to give a broad knowledge here, we, we have the whole gamut. So we do wide format, we do offset, we do digital, web digital, and obviously now, you know, into the, the screen printing and retouch side. But We just have so many different services that we offer that we wanna make sure that if we are working with a client, we can offer that, that vast, you know, scope like I just mentioned earlier. And actually I have, I have the list in front of me cuz we offer so many services, you know, that I kind of have to like read 'em off, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. And then that's just after, you know, 50 years and, and the company, you know, embracing always that, that feel. A lot of companies go out to market and they say, we're gonna be good at one thing.

Yeah.

And, and that's kind of their MO. They want their clients to fit in that box, right? Like, this is what we do. We want you to fit in that box and do this. Right. And what we have discovered is we have a lot of clients that they, they're a little bit, you know, all over the place. They're a little bit chaotic, right? And they, they want somebody to take that chaos away from them. They want somebody to just, hey, take all of this, you fix it, you give us solutions, you take this on board for, for us, and You know, that's where we feel we thrive. And that goes for large billion-dollar corporations. You know, they're great, they're strong, they're big companies, but they have so many things going on. They're so fast-paced. They need somebody to just kind of, hey, we'll take care of that for you. You know, we'll handle that side of it. And that's where, you know, we've put together this arsenal, if you want, of tools. And I'm going to kind of just read them off real quick. Just, you know, everybody there, you know, we have a 5,000-square-foot photography studio and retouching. And that's fantastic for our clients because, you know, we're servicing that part of the business where social media, online presence or so forth, we can take the photography of the product, retouch it and help them, you know, go to market with it. We have a team of 10 creative people on our team. We have research development, structural engineers, you know, on staff because we do some really intricate packaging and environmental graphics for our clients. We do direct mail. We do boutique packaging, apparel embroidery. We do fulfillment distribution. So you name it, you know, we pretty much, you know, can do it all in-house.

With that type of broad service offering, do you have an ideal client profile?

We really don't.

You wish you did or you don't wish you had that problem? No.

Actually, I, I think it's great. I think the fact that we can, you know, open it up to so many different people, our service, you know, it just makes it easier. Now it does cause a little bit of a pain point where our sales team, our project managers, they have to have a vast knowledge of so many things, right? So we tend to— I would say we tend not to be necessarily experts on the sales side, whereas we have enough knowledge to talk to a client and then we bring in our expert, you know, be it a, you know, a packaging or a creative person or direct mail. But at least having that broad knowledge to be able to go and talk to clients on a broad scale, you know, is something a little bit challenging for a lot of people.

One more question for you, Manuel, about Kyle's business. What about Kyle's business model made sense to you? Typically when a merger happens, it's about more than revenue. It's about opportunity. What do you see would be an opportunity for Premier with, with Kyle's team and their expertise?

Well, you know, we, we say this a lot of times, right? A lot of people can buy equipment, but it's really who can run that equipment, the expertise that are there. And when we had an opportunity to meet up with Kyle and his team, it was very apparent that there was a lot of knowledge, a lot of years of experience, and they seem to value the same thing that Premier does, right? Is let's take care of the client. It doesn't matter at what cost, we're gonna take care of the client and then we'll figure, you know, things out afterwards. And that resonated with us, right? It's, it's almost, you know, like that's what we do at Premier. His team seemed to be on board, you know, with that. And that definitely, you know, now that we've, you know, merged together, you know, it is very apparent that, their team, you know, just wants to take care of that client, end user, and their expertise, right? We're learning so many things right now, even though we've been in the apparel industry for, for several years now. We're learning so much about merchandising and embroidery and what we can and can't do and why we do things. So it's just been so invaluable to have that expertise on our team.

Yeah. Let's talk about merging teams for a minute, because I think that's what a lot of folks are facing when they, they deal with something like a merger and acquisition. Obviously, they're dealing with two cultures coming together. So this question's kind of for both of you, Kyle. What's been the most important aspect about bringing together two teams and cultures? That would make anybody nervous. So I'm sure that's been a part of the equation.

What's been really important for you? Absolutely. It's open communication. That's one thing I felt from the first meeting with the executive team at Premier is very open, very honest, very transparent. And I think if you don't feel that, if you don't have that open communication to where you can collaborate with one another, listen to one another, value each other's opinions, it's going to be a hard road, right? And we've had opportunities over the years to do things with other companies and it just never felt comfortable. The minute I walked into Premier and met them, it just felt good, right? Like everything about it. My team also had that same sense of feeling and belonging. So for me, it's really It's good communication, open, open and honest.

Okay, Manuel, how about you integrating a team into a pretty fixed, a larger team?

Yeah, I, I think we have quite a bit of experience doing that. This is not, you know, the, the first time we've done it. It really does always boil down to, you know, how can we be one team? And, uh, I think that's, that's the hard part, right? Because as you mentioned, you know, we're a much larger company than KG was, so now it kind of might feel a little awkward and weird, you know, that they're not, you know, part of the family. And that's what really what we strive for is, you know, everybody has to feel part of that family. Everybody feels, you know, right from the beginning that they can walk into the president's office and have a conversation about anything. So that's what we're really fixated on is just making sure that the KG team, you know, feels like they're part of this premier team.

Yeah. You know, Bobby, I want to add to that for just one second, you know, we, we host a backstage event and what, what Manuel just shared is we had clients come to the backstage, right? And they are now, you know, so intrigued. We're doing print services with some of our clients.

What do you mean backstage? You took 'em into the factory?

Oh, so we do a big event every year to where we have about 10 to 11 preferred partners come, and then we have about 120 of our top clients come out. And have one-on-one time with our preferred partners, right? Touch and feel. It's— it was really developed back when, you know, everybody was hitting you up December 1st for holiday stuff, right? And you're like, yeah, good luck, right? And so we started doing this event to offset that, right? To get them thinking sooner and quicker. And so we had these clients come out, and they— you know, Manuel, the executive team gave a lot of them tours. So, you know, we've already Some of our clients have already moved over into the print side to the photo studio. We got one client's really interested in us taking over their photo shooting. And then likewise, you know, the account directors there at Premiere brought some of their clients and now their clients are all excited about, you know, merch, right? So it's— so just to piggyback on to what Manuel was saying, there's just that everybody seems to be gelling pretty well right now.

That's great. I think, Kyle, you intuited this really, but Mohsin Hamid, the writer, wrote an article for Fast Company that talked about The most important times we need story are when there's been massive change in the organization, or particularly when there's change in leadership. And he said, that's when we kind of need the story to compel the organization forward. This is why we're doing it. This is where we're going is what probably most people want to know. Was there anything you learned through this process that you would do a little differently? Kyle, start with you.

No, honestly, I wouldn't do anything different. It's been a very transparent deal.

Yeah. How about you, man? Yeah.

Yeah. I think, you know, so far, obviously, you know, it's, it's early on. We're here in an infancy of working together, but what has been really nice is, you know, with Kyle and his team is what you see is what you get. So yeah, there hasn't been, you know, any, any big twists or anything, you know, that we didn't anticipate. So, so far I think, you know, my, I'm, I'm agreeing with Kyle, you know, I really wouldn't change much of how things have transitioned so far.

Yeah. Kyle, you know I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about how the Commscue platform has impacted your business through the years. You've been through a lot of changes, you've done a lot of innovation, you've been one of those leading thinkers in the business. How has the Commscue platform made an impact on your business, and how did it help you sort of get to this place?

Yeah, you know, if we didn't have Commscue during the pandemic, we would have— we probably would not have made it through the pandemic, honestly, since we joined, I believe, 8 years ago now.

I know it's been a while.

Yeah, it's been a while, but it's been overwhelmingly powerful for us as a team. You know, we, we've embraced it. It's helped us with efficiencies. In fact, it's so powerful that during negotiations with this merger with Premier, I made it really clear, like, we need to have Commons View on board because You're so integrated, right? And it's so streamlined, like, you know, until you see it. And then once the executive team saw it and they started playing around in it and learning it, they were like, okay, yeah. And I believe we've added maybe 4 more licenses since this merger. And so, yeah, I, you know, I was hesitant, Bobby. I was like, technology, no, no, I like my spreadsheets.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know the feeling. I know the feeling. Manuel, any thoughts before we move on?

Yeah, actually, I, I did want to add to, to that about the common SKU. I mean, we did see that, you know, in negotiations with Kyle, and we were really impressed. We were like, wow, we've been looking for a tool like this on our end. And we actually started, you know, digging in and adopting it even before the, the whole transition, you know, happened. Then obviously having the team come along and help us, you know, navigate and, and work the software. Was fantastic. But what it's done for us is our side, our sales reps weren't maybe as comfortable, certain, some of them selling merchandise and just, you know, they're a little bit more print-oriented. Now having that tool, seeing the presentations, seeing how slick and how great, you know, it looks and have the whole process of invoicing and everything going through it, they were like, wow, I can get on board with this. You know, this is something that I feel good about. So it's really in a very short amount of time, brought in several of our team members to really embrace and want to get into this segment of the market. So it's been fantastic.

We love it. You know how much we love to hear that. And I also love the psychology of a salesperson or someone embracing new technology. They're already busy. They're going crazy with taking care of orders within a deadline-driven business. And then just the comfort of seeing other people work in the platform, the transparency has been something that I've seen a lot. And we've heard this a lot about mergers, that this has been a fantastic tool throughout the process. Absolutely. All right. Final, final advice, Kyle. What advice would you have for other distributor principals as they consider the landscape of merging or selling their business? Not that you did that. You, you, this is a clearly a merger, but what, what advice would you have for other distributor?

Yeah. Uh, you know, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think each person's environment's a little different, right? But make sure the culture fit is, is there. That's, I mean, you know, I really feel that our cultures were so similar that made this really smooth. Okay. And that's one of the biggest things. And I think you got to be really patient. You can't rush anything, right? I mean, we spoke for close to a year, right? Just with, you know, opportunities and how would this work and, you know, how's the team going to adjust? How am I going to adjust? I've been, you know, I haven't had a boss for 30-plus years. So it's like, hello, you know, so patience is a, is a real, real thing. And then confidentiality, you have to keep it confidential. Yeah. I mean, I, I, it was driving me nuts not sharing with my team what was going on, but I couldn't because I didn't want people to panic and, you know, you know, and, and, you know, honestly, you got to have legal advice too. You can't do this stuff on your own. You've got to have. Help, right?

So, yeah. Really great point. Manuel, how about you? What, what advice would you have folks who are considering this as well?

I think they have to look at it long-term, not as instant satisfaction. I'm going to add X amount of dollars, you know, to my bottom line. It's, it's something that really has to fit in into your DNA.

Yeah.

You, you can't, you know, just take a company and say you're going to fit in here. Like, it's just, it won't work. People are gonna leave, they're gonna be unhappy. And just, you know, why have you now done this merger, right? If, if people just aren't feeling gelled. So my biggest advice is, you know, look at it long-term, not as a quick, you know, satisfaction. What is your long-term goal in this merger? Are you adding, you know, a service? How, how is this, you know, helping you grow as a company? And definitely for us, you know, it's helped us now get to a different level on this side of the, the business, if you want.

Congratulations to you.

Go ahead. One more thing in there. Yeah, go ahead. You know, honesty is a huge factor. Okay. And you cannot go into something like this misleading in any way. And I feel both parties have really lived up to what we've honored and, you know, spoke about. And I, and I, and I have to say honesty. I mean, I feel the honesty from the ownership at Premier all the way down to the executives, you know, to the individuals working there. And, and I, I just, and I'm not trying to say people are trying to be dishonest, but you gotta just be transparent about what's happening.

So, yeah. Well, congratulations to you both. This has clearly been a very successful merger and fantastic for the teams. You know, Kyle, how much we think of you and your team. So, so thank you for being such a loyal CommonQ customer, for introducing us to Premier. And guys, this has been a fantastic conversation.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thanks so much for tuning into 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.