Episode 300: Unforgettable Stories and Invaluable Insights

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.

When we began our podcast adventure over 300 episodes ago, we had no idea the number of incredible people we'd meet along the way and the impact they would make on us and of course, the Common Skew community. Today on the SkewCast, we celebrate our 300th episode. By digging into a little backstory, but mostly we share the lessons we've learned along the way and perhaps a tip or two that you might be able to use as you seek to share your own story or your clients' stories.

Hi, friends.

I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Commscue, and I'm joined today by Mark Graham, Commscue's President and Chief Brand Officer. In celebration of today's 300th episode, Ronnie Wright and the team at the book company have generously offered to send a very special book to the first 25 people to respond. It's a book called Out on the Wire. It's about storytelling secrets by the author Jessica Abel, and it's a graphic novel that explores the makers of some of the biggest podcast shows today, including Ira Glass with This American Life, Planet Money, and more. It's a great primer on storytelling, and it's one of the books that helped us start our podcast journey. If you're interested in a free copy, email ronnie@thebookco.com. That's ronnie@thebookco.com. And let her know you'd love the storytelling book Out on the Wire, and the folks at the book company will get it sent right to you. Thank you, Ronnie, and the entire team at Book Co. for your generosity and support. Also, did you know that overall distributor network growth on Commonsku has soared to over $1.8 billion in annual revenue for 2023? And in addition to network sales growth, over 800 distributor companies now power their businesses using Commenscue. That's up from 715 distributors in 2022. E-commerce shops growth hit an all-time high with a 75% increase in shops adoption, and the total number of sales projects created on the Commenscue platform swelled to a 23% increase over the previous year. All of these details and more are part of our 2023 year-end recap, where we highlight the growth and numerous workflow enhancements built for you by the Commenscue team. And also includes a letter from founders Mark and Catherine Graham. You can check it out at commonskew.com/2023recap. Today's 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 commonskew.com.

It's hard to believe, that in 2012 was the first time you and I ever sat down to record a podcast together. And who would have known back then that later, not including the Promo Kitchen podcast episodes, through the SkewCast alone, we are now hitting 300 episodes. But who would have known back then? And I'm sort of, as I mentioned in the intro, want to unpack a few things as we chat here. One is how we came about the evolution of content, how AI fits into all of this. Some— I look back on some of these episodes and what we've learned through it, what we've learned about the industry, how it's changed, just lots of things like that. But Mark, going back to that 12 years ago, what do you recall about what was happening at that time so that we can encourage others who might be also trying to grab a hold of a zeitgeist? Because to me, there was something interesting happened. This was the beginning of the creator economy, but we didn't have words for it then. Because back then, blogs, podcasts, everything was built around how not only individuals, but businesses could then create this own media journey and create their own form of expression for them, either as individuals or as a brand. But what do you recall about that time that's sort of salient for us today?

Well, it, it felt like back then blogs were pretty new and revolutionary, but there was software available that made it relatively easy to publish the written word. And so as a result, you, you saw this early rise of blog content. Social media had also been in pretty much mainstream by that point. It certainly was a lot more consumer years prior to that, right? But our industry which is, you know, not known for being necessarily early adopter in any of this stuff, was starting to wrap its head around social media content, photography, the written word, as I mentioned, with blogging. But there wasn't really a lot of good technology around podcasting. If I recall correctly, I'm not even sure whether Apple had released its podcast app by that point.

Yeah, I don't think—

I could be wrong. We go back and, excuse me, take a look at that. So I think, I think that was the world that we were operating in, is that social media and blogging was a little bit more mainstream and accessible for people. So there was a lot of experimentation, but, but podcasting was sort of this world that was a bit unknown. It kind of felt like the radio, democratizing radio, but the tools were still really janky and there wasn't great publishing software. And I give you a ton of credit, Bobby, In this particular instance, because you're the guy who showed up, I remember it just like it was yesterday. You showed up, there was an NALC happening in Colorado, I believe is where it was. You showed up with these funky snow globe mics, kind of these weird looking things. And you showed up with two mics and you're like, hey, Mark, I'm thinking about experimenting with podcasting. Do you want to sit down and riff a little bit? And I was honored that you'd asked me to do it. It's like, all right, let's go and do this. And, and we were completely complete amateurs back then. And I think we pulled in a couple of industry friends to go and be interviewed. And, you know, some of them were excited to be interviewed. Some were, forget it. I'm scared. You guys look weird. I'm not going to do that. And it kind of birthed the revolution really. So that's what I remember.

And it started this sort of journey where we enjoyed talking with people. You know, it's funny. I was listening to Hourglass just this past week on a recent episode. I'll try not to drop his name too much, but this this last week on a recent episode where he was talking about how— this is probably way too, um, way too revealing— where he said, do you know, most of the people who actually have a problem with intimacy are great at developing intimacy on the radio. And I was like, oh wow, that's powerful. I was talking about this, but my point being, not to go down a rabbit hole there personally, but more speaking to you.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, more professionally. I remember it gave us an opportunity to have pretty in-depth conversations pretty quickly. I remember Lon McGowan walking by for one, for one, as one person who was somebody you really wanted to explore their journey. He was a really creative entrepreneur. And it dawned on us that we suddenly had this tool to open up a whole world. Like, it was kind of that way and it had that excitement. We couldn't have defined it that way back then, but I think that was what was happening.

That is such a great point. And you're right. I don't think that we necessarily knew it at the time, but I think to what you're saying, the the fact that it opened up so many of these conversations with people that quite frankly were like way above where we were at the industry at the time. And, and it was— and, and they were curious too. And, and certainly to our guests' credit, they were open and generous and were willing to kind of go on this ride. And, and I think in those early days we developed some comfort in having these conversations. And I, and I'll I'll always say, I think I said this several times back in those days, that it was like we were the students. We were in the front row students having these great conversations with these business leaders, industry leaders, heads of state in our industry, so to speak. And what a crash course it was for us in developing ourselves in this industry. So, Well, I think the people who listen to the content, I think certainly benefited. I, I know we were the first in, in line, and I think that that curiosity coupled with the generosity of our guests made for a really great partnership back in those days.

How did the podcast journey change you as a professional and as a person? Because the reason I'm asking this is not just so we can keep going down this nostalgia trip, because I want it to be relevant to folks today, but there Content is still a fascinating way to create a very unique brand experience today, still, probably even more so now. But how did it change you?

I think it improved my listening skills. I don't, I don't, I wouldn't say that listening is at the top of my, top of my superpowers. I think to be a better listener, I think is to be a really good leader. And it's a daily struggle for me, for sure. That said, I know that in my journey over the years in producing content, particularly on the podcast front, it really allowed me to make room for the guest and to be curious about the guest's journey and their expertise. And surprisingly, I will say it surprised me, that I think it really opened me up to being a better listener, at least in those moments. And I really credit that. And it just goes back to what I was talking about before in terms of being the student is that I think that if you're— I think the best students are the best listeners. They're the ones who just shut up and listen to what their teachers are telling them. And so for me, that was a pretty profound journey.

Yeah.

How about you?

I would say I would echo everything that you said there, and I would extend that to our listeners today just as a sidebar, because I was going to mention this through this podcast anyways. Danny Rosen runs one of the most successful distributorships in the industry. He is one of the most faithful listeners of the SkewCast, and he already knows virtually everything about the business. So when you talk about like it's a position of you being the student, he puts himself in a position of humility to learn something from anyone, whoever, no matter who the guest is. I always admired that and I always loved that.

That.

And, and that's the kind of audience we have, people that put themselves into that position. So I want to echo your thoughts and say I felt the same way. I'm learning from everybody. You think about it, Mark, you and I both had a very unique perspective on how distributors look and run until we started talking to people.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden we realize, oh my gosh, there's so many different ways to do this business. And that has been our journey along the way. So of course, your journey, especially as developing the software platform, but how it changed me, I will talk more on just from a production standpoint. Again, Ira said, you know, you should as a creative professional always put yourself in a position to be imposed by deadlines. And having those deadlines and a cyclical process, it sounds mundane, but it has been huge in terms of learning how to whittle away the preciousness around your creativity, understanding the difference at how constraints fuel creativity, how they make you better, understanding that deadlines and how to reduce friction, all those things can contribute And after 300 episodes, to entire ouvrage, that is, or is, that is substantial. But, and I say that not to say that everything we've done is substantial, is to say when you look back at a body of work, you can go, okay, I learned so much through this. So that those that might be trying to start a journey, we'll make this part brief because not everybody's on this journey about podcasting. Mark, what advice would you have for them? Like, how's the tech changed? How have things changed things change for those that want to embrace this as an option?

So it's so much easier now to record. I mean, we use a software platform called Zencastr. Zencastr has been around for a number of years, but they've dramatically improved their offering. It's web-based, it's straightforward, it splices the interview into separate audio tracks so that whoever is helping you with your production and editing, it makes it easier for them. And then of course, the distribution and publishing of the content has never been easier. So back in 2012, when I'm not entirely sure that Apple had its podcast product out, we'll have to go and take a look at that. We should, we should probably know that. It's a totally different ballgame today where you've got so many different places that people can consume the content, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or all sorts of other options that are out there. So I, I think that the, the, it's never been easier. To produce. But as I say that, it's still hard to produce even though the tools are straightforward and it's highly democratized in a way that it wasn't in 2012. I still believe, and I think you know this way better than I do, the most difficult part of it is being consistent, showing up week after week, And being consistent in actually publishing something as opposed to someone that comes out and produces 4 episodes, they get bored of it or they get uninspired and they don't continue. And so I think consistently showing up, I don't think there's any technology out there that'll ever make that easy.

No, I think you're totally right. And consistency is the key. It sounds mundane, it sounds, you know, pedantic and everybody knows it, but that is where people quit, is in the consistency part, because the tech is easier now. It's still a lift. I often say that content of any kind, whether you're writing a newsletter, whether you're starting a blog, is slow work executed quickly because it's still kind of slow work. So for example, to give folks a little behind the scenes, we also use a program called Descript for our audio editing. We've used multiple tools for audio editing, but the production side has gotten easier. So we may have been able to take the time from an 8 to 10 hour commitment per episode from the time you invite someone to an episode, by the time you think about it, create questions, have them on, fix your tech problems, record, post-production, then promoting it, you're probably in the 8 to 10 hour per episode. But technology has probably reduced that to somewhere between 4 and 6 now, which is phenomenal. Yeah, but when you think about it, it's still 4 to 6 hours a week, right? It's still a lift. And so that consistency around it, but it's slow work executed quickly. And the thing about AI, I have to throw in a side about AI, is that I think a lot of people initially were threatened by AI. I have never been more excited about AI as a content creator. I have actually, every time there's some new evolution in a tool that I love, I'm just excited about it. And one more comment about production. Using a tool like Descript, let me give you an example that's way too meta, but those who are into this will really love this. The fact that Descript can take the ums and ahs out when what I call removing roadblocks and can do that in a mouse click, what used to take an excruciatingly long time.

Amazing.

Amazing. Um, and the fact that, uh, per episode on average we're reducing 300 or 400 of these moments in a single episode is astonishing, right? So that tech has never been easier. It's the consistency. I would agree with you 100%.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and, and we could have a, a separate episode on AI, but I, I completely agree with you that— are there threatening elements of it? Maybe. But I think AI, if you look at it through the lens of technology eliminating or reducing low-value work, yeah, then that's a win for everyone, right? Like, we talk about that at Common Skew, right? Common Skew eliminates low-value work so that existing staff can be that much more productive. That's a great deal as opposed to replacing. It's, yes, it's replacing low-value work, low-value things like editing out ums and ahs, so it allows for people to do things that are that just drive more value. So, yeah, I'm very excited about that.

There's a great episode that I would encourage everyone to check out with Scott Belsky, the CEO of Adobe, who talked at the How to SaaS conference, and his topic was on creativity is the new productivity. Yeah. And he talked about what AI is doing is creating— giving us more evolutions as artists. It's giving us more chances to create. It's not reducing things. It's actually creating more opportunities. Okay. So AI and another issue down the road. Mark, the industry has also changed a lot, I think, from when we first started this. How do you feel like the industry's changed? How How's it evolved from when we first started prying people open to try and share their secrets to today where we're at, where we have suddenly not just the podcast, but we have guests, we have folks that are willing to write and talk about it. We have community gatherings. It's an interesting time. It's never been a better time from a learning perspective to sort of be in the business.

Yeah, I think that where the industry has evolved in the last 10+ years is that it's it's night and day different from the standpoint of how open the industry is to sharing and collaborating across the supply chain. Of course, that's been, that's been a dream of ours at Common Skew right from the very beginning. And, and to have seen that just through the lens of the podcast and content world is nothing short of inspiring. And I think about, I think about how a new person in our industry learns about how to be successful in this business, the resources that are available, not just from Commonsku, but certainly across the industry. Lots of our peers in the industry produce fantastic content as well. That to, to, to be a practitioner in our industry in 2023, It's like a, you have all these superpowers that are available now, whereas you didn't have that in 20, like the information was closed and guarded and protected. And, and now I, it's just, it's just that much more open and there's, it's, it's there for you. You could almost say that potentially you could say that there, the, the, the, you've got the opposite problem now. Where you've got so much content and so little time, how do you prioritize that? So maybe that's the next opportunity is finding the signals in the noise.

In fact, that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up because that's what AI will end up doing, right? Is, is that the threat of AI is not the fact that it's taking jobs. It's that there could be a proliferation of really bad content. And so the more authentic we can be, the more specific we can be. And this is probably the key that we've learned. The salience, the fact that we can find and pick out what's salient for an audience or what's important in a story and share that is probably one of the most important keys. Okay. So that listeners can check it out and look up some other episodes that we love and we'll link to these in the show notes. What were some of your favorite episodes and why?

I'm going to— I'm going to mention a couple. I'm going to have to give a shout out to longtime friend of the show, Seth Godin. We've been really fortunate to have had Seth on the podcast, and he also spoke at SCUCon at home. So in total, he's been, he's been in the Common SCU community several, several times. And just those podcasts have just been so special because he's so eloquent, he's so generous, he's so smart, he's so irreverent. He's so offbeat that it's just, it's incredible to be a student, as they say, when you're sitting in that front row with him. I also want to give it— there was an amazing episode that you did with Andrea at Touchstone and where she was unpacking this concept of their brand EQ and what they've been able to build at Touchstone. And what I loved about her perspective is that she didn't come from the industry. She came, I believe, from the agency background, if I recall correctly. And it's coming into the industry and working at a place like Touchstone where she's able to bring this non-industry perspective, but still part of the advertising industry, but not the promotional products industry. And I always love those perspectives because you kind of get the best of both worlds. You've got this advertising professional's outside perspective, but then it merges with the reality of what it's like to be in promo. And, and, and so how she unpacked their whole approach to brand EQ, I thought was absolutely fascinating. You did a great job of interviewing there, by the way, Bobby, props to you. So those are two that I want to pull out.

Those were one of those, also two of my favorites. Of course, Seth, I'll comment about Seth is the fact that the off-mic conversations with Seth are so rich. Like, it's like you start, you show up and talk with Seth and you start learning the minute he starts talking. It's not like he's like, let's get ready for the podcast. He's like teaching the minute he lands. So it's always fun. Andrea, of course, is phenomenal. She's exactly the type of guest that I love the most and probably some of my favorite episodes because she represents this perfect type of guest that's open, wicked smart, willing to share, vulnerable in that sense. And Kate Hallett with the CMO at Harper Scott has been that way too each time she's come on the show. She's been on twice. We'll link to all these. Sterling Wilson of PopPromos was also one of those who was willing to share out of their successes and their failures. Allie Ward Delgado with Merchology. Jonathan Isaacson and Jeremy Lott are always interesting because they're both in very high pretty powerful positions in the industry, and yet they're pretty vulnerable. They're pretty open, and meaning they're willing to go to any topic and talk about it. And that always makes for a great ride. And I have to say this, the producer in me has faves for a completely different reason. Someone once said that, like, I'm not comparing myself, I'm just— it's a great example. Ansel Adams had favorite photos that he took, but they were never the popular photos. And the reason why they were his favorites is because he had to haul hundreds of pounds of equipment up a damn mountain to get the shot. And so his reason for a favorite was a different reason than someone else's who just sort of received it. So the producer has different favorites. So some of mine are those that are like what we call a heavier lift. For example, getting the CMO or the former CMO of Adidas, one of the greatest, biggest companies in the world, on the podcast was a heavy lift. And that was Eric Liedtke episode. Emma Rouse with London agency, the London agency Butterfly Cannon. Delightful. Their whole team is delightful. But we had to go through some cycles to try and get her on the show. Same thing, Gavin Mathew with Supervision Studios. Any of these agencies that have like teams and folks, you know, there's a lot of opinions. And so sometimes you don't know the inner workings of what it takes to get someone. Journalist Adam Bluestein was another one who sort of created this iconic moment where he talked about merch. We'll link to all this again. Jorge Herrera with Hirsch. Remember that episode? That was so much fun to walk into the factory.

The live episode. That was so great. That live tour. I loved it.

Again, the producer in me was like, we have this audio, how do we make a story out of this? And that was the part that I loved. Lastly, I'm going to say this— Davis Smith with Cotopaxi. Because Davis had spent— yes, Davis— when I interviewed Davis, the interview was 30 minutes long. I sent him the list of questions, and we were done with the interview, we hung up, and Davis goes, I can't believe you did it. I can't believe you got through all those questions. I thought when I got your questions, there's no way you're going to be able to do that. And then he got into the story of how on How I Built This that it took them 4 to 6 hours to get his story to print, to publish. And that was because it takes 4 to 6 hours. And I always say in podcasting, you're either pre-editing or post-editing. You're going to spend a lot of time in the pre-editing process, a lot of time in the post-editing process. And so there are some episodes, not all, that require a little more research. And so I really did my homework with Davis and knew that I would not get another 30-minute shot with him. This was gonna be it. And so that was, that was part of it. It was like, spend time in the pre-editing with those ones that, you know, you might not ever get again. And then your post-editing not only gonna be easier, but it was, you know, so the producer in me likes all kinds of episodes for those sort of mechanical reasons that were hard to get 'em across the finish line.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to think that what he's doing now, you know, that we captured that interview and he's no longer part of Cotopaxi or he's not the CEO anymore in terms of what he's doing right now. So that's kind of an amazing time capsule.

Right. Yeah. I want to add some final thoughts as we close here. If you're thinking of getting into this, if it's something you're thinking about doing, a couple of things I would suggest. Number one, one of the keys that I learned was that storytelling is editing. Easy reading is hard writing. Easy listening is hard production. And I think this applies to podcasting also. I always used to say that everyone has a story to tell. I think what's more important is that every story has an audience. And what has astonished me about the Skewcast after so many episodes is that I will produce an episode, will publish it, send it out into the world, and someone will hate it. And someone might hate strong, but someone won't like it as much and someone will love it. And it always surprises me because often I get that opinion from two people that I respect and admire, and they'll have exact opposite reactions to it. So my point is that everyone has a story. And every story has its own audience. The rhythm I talked about is crucial. I think there's also something, Mark, you and I have done that has probably kept us in the game a lot. And this applies to a lot of things, applies to platform, it applies to content, and that is that flexibility and playfulness is really important. Like, we'll take a flyer, we'll try something, and our events try some things. We're like, oh my gosh, this could be awful or it could be amazing. You say that all the time. And it reminds me of the phrase, we were born to create, not produce. So give yourself permission to experiment a little bit. And those are just a few of my tips. I've got so many more, but I'm not going to bore everybody with all of them.

And I think my maybe final point as we close this out is I think the most successful organizations are organizations that are committed to learning. And that might sound like a bit of a cliché, but here's what I mean. And, and, and I maybe just talk about our own journey here in terms of how it is that we've justified making this commitment to, to producing content. And, and I think for us, this industry is changing fast and we want to be changing with it. And by producing content, particularly around the SKU Cast, it allows us to be on the front lines of that change and reporting on that change and sharing what it is that we've learned. And I think that what that has allowed us to become is an organization that's constantly learning. It's, it's like part of our DNA in terms of how it is that we expose this information, how we share this information, and, and how some of that information makes its way into our product, how some of that information informs our team members as to how they understand the industry, how it is they understand the customers. And I think, I think there's a little bit of osmosis that happens there.

Yeah.

Even though that's not the very first intention when we're doing this, we're producing content because we're looking to generate value for our customers. But there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of information that gets internalized and allows us to grow and mature and prosper as an organization. And if there's any justification for this, if you're listening to this going, I don't have the time. I don't have the money. I don't have the resources for it. What I would argue back is think about it as a learning opportunity. Think about it as a, as a way to make yourself better in addition to using it as a marketing opportunity or a way to create value for your customers. And, and, and so it's, it's been very valuable for us.

Yeah. And to that point, the tangential benefits and anyone who's been a guest knows this. That you can come on and share your story and suddenly have a piece of content that you can share with anyone who future onboards with your company, with anyone. So the podcast is interesting because it has had benefits far beyond what we initially imagined. As we close, I want to say thanks because this is a team effort, even though Mark and I are often seen interviewing guests or talking with folks. But we have a whole team behind us that is helping with this. And so Ksenia, to give you an example of the amazing production work that she does, Just last week we decided at the last minute that we wanted to record the Promocare story about Dave going to Mexico because it happened just a few days before. He was just there the week before and we're like, hey, I messaged Ksenia, I was like Slack. And I said, do you think we can pull this off? And she said, I think we can. And she's always that way. So shout out to Ksenia for always turning things on a dime. And her production skills are amazing.

Amazing job. I totally agree.

Yeah, yeah. Sarah and the social team for taking really big complex topics and trying to break those down and share those in micro pieces to the industry and to pick out what's salient and beautiful. They do a phenomenal job. Obviously, the amazing guests that we've had. I mean, I have learned something every time, and that is no exaggeration. And then lastly, the people who have responded, who reach out and share. You have no idea how much your advice, correction, encouragement, all of those things are feedback that we absolutely love and need. And to that point, I would love to hear from you if you want topics on future ideas for future topics, guests, email me bobby@commonsque.com. I would love to hear from you. But Mark, what a journey.

And hey, I'll close it out if you'll give me the last word. Okay. And I hope this isn't edited out, but Bobby, a big thank you to you in all seriousness for being that weird guy, you know, in 2012 to show up with those snowball mics. And to, to be patient and generous as, as, as you kind of shared your curiosity with me. And, and it's been a ton of fun to go on this journey with you and just to see what you've been able to do over the last 6 years in building this content program at Commonsku has been nothing short of incredible. So thank you, dude. Thank you to you.

I'm gonna shut up and take it. Thank you, Mark. Yes. And we won't cut it out. So there, it's my chance.

Take it for once.

Right.

Take it for once.

Okay. Thank you, my friend. It's been— what a journey. What a ride. And thank you, friends, for listening. You encourage us so much.

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