Episode 331: From Promo to Transforming Culture with John Henry at JH

What began as a simple distributorship expanded to web design and development, enterprise e-commerce, digital recruiting services, and more. When John Henry of JH started in 1998, little did he know that JH would soon expand to culture and recruitment services for businesses, consulting, and digital services. Now, many of us in the industry consider ourselves strategic advisors to our clients, but when I got to participate in JH's Expand Your Brand event virtually earlier this year, I realized that if there's one thing that JH is exceptional at above all, it's expanding their own brand to serve their clients. A great example is their Business Culture Crute, which helps businesses create a better culture so they can attract and keep top talent. Today, I talk with John about his evolution from promo to strategy and a few lessons he's learned along the way. Welcome to the Skewcast, a podcast for innovators and maverick thinkers in the promotional product space. My name is Bobby LeHew. I'm glad you're here. Two quick notes. If you are going to SKUCon and the PPAI Expo, we've got a host of activities we'd love to invite you to, and we've made it simple for you to find them all at commonsku.com/expo. We're hosting a breakfast club, happy hours, and members of our team are leading sessions. I'll be leading a session on how to map bold merch trends to a killer sales strategy. Charlie Mosco and Aaron Couturier are leading a session on connecting your workflow, so you can bring your team to that. And you can also find a handy list of all the CommonsQ suppliers and their expo booth numbers at this page, commonsq.com/expo. And for our breakfast club and happy hours, you'll need to RSVP. So hop on over to commonsq.com/expo and register, and we will see you in Las Vegas. And last thing, as you listen to this, we're wrapping up the year and we always love to do so by both looking back and looking forward. This year in 2024, over 856 distributors on the CommonsQ platform created a million projects. You heard that right, a million projects on the CommerceHQ platform with a 140% increase in shops and a 30% increase in EPO volume. We have all these stats and snapshots of future releases at commonsq.com/2024-recap. Now here's my chat with John Henry. John, welcome to the Skewcast. Thanks for being here.

Hey, thanks for inviting me.

John, you have expanded to more than just promo. I mean, including consulting, web design, API integration, digital marketing, business intelligence, digital recruiting. It's almost like, what do you not do? I'm sure it's a very defined category of lists. But how would you define where JH today is? And the reason why I'm starting with this question is, rather than start with where you come from in the world of promo, kind of where you're at today is a very interesting perspective.

Yeah, no, so I guess the best is when I meet somebody that maybe I don't know, right? Yeah, I, I say that we're a solutions provider, right? We help business owners and decision makers solve problems. Typically those problems involve branding, marketing, communication, and technology. And then I usually add, your, your company probably doesn't have any problems in this area, right? And, you know, that typically gets the conversation going, so I know which way I can talk about ourselves.

It's both very marcom-centered, so very marketing communications, but then also you have this HR component. It's a really strong component of what you're doing there. What additional services do you provide that I missed?

I think that's a pretty comprehensive list. I guess the only thing that's kind of came in recently, which is kind of cool, is that we have people who have a concept but they have no idea how make it a reality, right? So I've had an influx of people who have an idea and frankly capital, but they don't know how to take this from concept to completion. So we actually have a path that we can take people on to define what an MVP is, a minimal viable product, and then we walk through, you know, what does development look like, what does design look like, and then what does it look like post-MVP.

So you really come at it as a strategic consultant viewpoint rather than, hey, we're just here to sell you this one-off service.

Correct.

Is 50% of your business still promo, or how's that changed?

Yeah, no, top line is still 50% of our gross revenue is promo. We continue to invest in that space, both people and technology, and don't see that changing anytime soon.

And do these services overlap and integrate with some of your clients, all of your clients? Is that a mixed bag?

I mean, it's a mixed bag, but our core customer, we're solving in multiple ways. Many times agency work comes from an initial promo order, right? I'll tell you a story probably later as it relates to, you know, 500 balloons that turned into to a multi-million dollar client, right? And the other way around, where agency work, they get to know us and, oh my gosh, I didn't realize you did that, right? But it's still an area that we continue to look at is how can we make sure that we're cross-selling and the right people are cross-selling to make sure that we're maximizing that, right?

You spoke on another podcast about a franchise customer, about a 650-unit franchise customer. Do you, do you serve prominently franchise market, or is there a market segment you focus on more? What kind of clients comprises your book today?

I'd love to say that we've refined it, that we know exactly that, that part of our ideal client. We don't, right? Um, you know, looking for clients that have a similar problem but then also don't compete has been an issue for us. So today our customer base is very diverse— mom-and-pop, mid-market, Fortune 500, franchise, co-op. Really, it does come— do they have a problem we think we can solve and make it a win-win? We got to make money at the end of the day, and they have to see a value or return on the investment they do with us.

I can see why you might not streamline industries if you're a strategic consultant getting involved in strategy. They might not like that you're doing that for other competitors, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

How many employees do you have now?

Uh, we're just north of 50, I think 54 today.

Okay. And as you look back at your history since 1998, what were like 2 or 3 of the most significant growth years for you? So we started— for the listeners that are listening, you know, we link, always link to websites, so we link to JH in the show notes. But we started at this 50,000-foot view of where you're at today. But when you look back back. You started, I think, as a promo company. When you, when you look at your past, what are 2 or 3 major evolutions for your company where you saw a jump?

Yeah, so I guess let's start a little bit at the beginning. So I was selling t-shirts to fraternities and sororities as a sophomore in college, right? So not only is it fun on who your buyers are, but I actually had a strategic advantage because there was actually an Alpha Distribution Center in my hometown of Fort Wayne, which was 3 hours north of Bloomington where I went to school. Yeah, so I could order t-shirts, have my screen printer in Fort and pick them up and deliver them next day. So while my competition in Indy or Bloomington was getting blanks, I already had finished goods. So that did allow me to kind of have fun, pay for school. At the same time, I'm going through digital marketing. It was also part of my path in college and met some really cool people along the way, right? So now graduated early 2000s in Fort Wayne, Indiana, or Northeast Indiana, trying to sell digital solutions. I had clients that told me they didn't know if this World Wide Web thing was really going to stick around. So luckily my, my knowledge of promotional products, we started leveraging technology and started building microsites, right? So looking at going after certain segments of people who were looking to buy promotional products. So in the early 2000s, as a young entrepreneur, I had exciting orders like ESPN Game Day ordering 30,000 full-color coolies. Before that was really an easy thing to do. Getting the Thunder Six being in the NFL. Cool story. Not great on revenue. You know, the White House orders, you know, their Fourth of July cups from us every year.

Wow.

Custom neoprene seats for the PGA, and we've gotten really deep into country music. That all started with one artist that we did coolies again for their wedding, and their mom was the buyer. So it's really— that really allowed us to really get going and really marry technology and promotional products at the beginning. And then from there, you know, I mentioned earlier, as we get later in the 2000s, you know, a 500-piece balloon for a regional wireless provider turned into a great run with that company. They they were $1 billion in revenue. So while regional, still a lot of money, right? They had about 650,000 subscribers in 2009. One of the big guys bought them up, right? So when that happened, we managed their website that we custom built for their 650,000 subscribers. Like I said, their intranet for their 3,500 employees. We did all their point of purchase for their 150 locations, which was in the Midwest and also in the Southeast. We did all their direct mail and we used to spend over $1 million with Uncle Sam doing that stuff. And, you know, again, all their point of purchase and their promotional products. So the reason why that company used us is because they felt they had to be faster in the market to compete with the 800-pound gorilla, right? Those guys, it took a long time to turn the ship. So literally, I'd be sitting in a C-suite and saying, here's what our marketing initiative is going to be, we're going to roll it out on Thursday, the website needs to be updated, our call center needs to be updated, we need printed material here, we need to do that. And I had some really great people when I would come back to the office and Okay, here's what we got to do. They would run through walls. So that was a really impactful time for us to grow as an organization.

That's an amazing full spectrum. It sounds like you were providing basically service support to the marketing department for this massive— but it also goes to show, you know, these small projects that come in, if they're tied to the right accounts, the right opportunities, then they can really grow, right?

And I mean, I could have just stopped at a $500 piece, you know, sure, in order, right? But it's how do you take that and get to know somebody and do those things, right?

And did that evolve? Was that part of that, the, the luck of, of the timing on things, or did you go— is that— was that also strategic where you said, you know what, we've got to get— do more business with these guys and we're going to really penetrate into this account?

It's a little bit of both. Luckily, I had some ins with this particular one. I always have believed to give back to the community that you're in. So through some boards that I was in as a young guy, I brought down the average age of a lot of boards. So I was invited to a lot of boards where I was able to come in and really participate there. So I used that as an opportunity to do it. But it really was intentionality, you know.

Yeah, that's a good word for it. Yeah, let's talk about CultureCrude a little bit. You've developed a niche, a niche in recruiting, the recruiting industry of all places, and you're helping businesses retain employees. Merch is a part of that. There's a lot going on there with that particular business, but can you explain a little bit of what CultureCrude does?

Yeah, so CultureCrude is a great example of how we've identified a problem that we can solve, and it's large enough for us to productize. What that means is we give it its own name, we give it its own website, we come up with its own pitch deck, we do all those things. But what that boils down is that we saw that employers could not find good new team members, right? They— maybe people were applying, but it wasn't the right people. And it appeared that they're all fishing in the same ponds, and they were really marketing to people who were looking, who were in the job market, right? So, we thought, what if we could really get to the bottom of why people work for an organization? And that's not necessarily asking the CEO like you are right now, right? So, we found diverse reasons as we started to you know, talk to these employees. We use videography to capture these responses, and then we leverage digital marketing to tell that story to like-minded audiences, right? As you can imagine, a single mother or a single father may have, you know, different things they're looking for in their next employer than a new college graduate. So it allows us to really market to future employees before they even know they're in the marketplace. A byproduct of that is that these stories are shared within the organization. It increases morale, and it even, you know, makes some local celebrities. Hey, I keep seeing you on YouTube. Can you really tell me about what it's like working for XYZ company? You know, it's pretty cool when we get that, right? And then, as you say, we marry that digital solve with merch, right? Making sure it's not just getting them to the interview, right? Once they're hired, an awesome onboarding package. How are we using merch throughout their career and including anniversary gifts, right? Doing all these things. So not only getting them there, but how can we help leverage merch and the power of merch inside of, you know, what it means for a good culture.

It's fascinating. Sounds like you really work with companies to develop an internal campaign and you just keep that strategy moving. What has doing that for other companies taught you about building culture in your own company?

Yeah, so we spend a lot of time on culture. It, it gets harder as your staff grows, as your building size grows, as, you know, your workforce may be more remote now because of COVID right? So we have specific committees at JH to ensure that culture is always top of mind. We conduct annual surveys and then make commitments from those surveys on what we're going to do based on what that is. So we pride ourselves in our culture, but we also know that we can't rest on our laurels and we have to continue to look at that.

You had an event you attached to CultureCrute and kind of what you're doing overall, calling the Expand Your Brand event, and I had the privilege of recording a presentation, being a part of that. That was cool that you let me do that. Why did you decide to host your event, and how was that received by clients?

Well, you get a lot of credit for this. So at a Premier Group event, right, you started talking about the power of merch. And the other thing that came out of that is that our buyers are changing, and that buyer could be the buyer who's buying promotional products, could be buying agency services, or could be a future employee, right? So looking at how the different generations look at merch and just how they want to be spoken to, we see a lot of that in some of the recruiting that we're doing as well. So We've done the pop-up stores before and had events where people came in, but this one we really wanted to make it bigger. Yes, thank you for having recorded keynote. That went over really well. We really went all out, had a DJ going to really make sure that had the right vibe. We created our own Expand Your Brand merch that was for sale. It was for sale too at a, at a deep discount that allowed us to show, you know, our best clients who have company stores, they're giving some kind of discount, right? So it allowed us to practice what we preach.

Yeah.

And it allowed us to say, hey, if this was an experience for you, not just walking around and talking to vendors, then maybe this is something that, you know, you want to be a part of it. And overall, we got a ton of really great, um, feedback. We've had, you know, sales that we can directly relate from it. And it really just, you know, the feedback that we got is, we didn't realize you do all these things. Because inside of the, the promo suppliers that we had there, we also had booths for each one of our service sets. So people walking around who may have known us for promo would walk around and say, well, let me— tell me about CultureCrute, tell me about your agency services. So it was really great.

That's such a great idea. It's a good takeaway for everyone here that's doing those kinds of clients events. Do you have your own service lines represented at those events, not just supplier partners? That's a really cool idea. Let's switch gears just a little bit. You have a very tech-forward company, a very tech-focused business, so you've always sort of been on the cusp of technology.

At what point did Commitscue enter the picture for you, and why did that Yeah, so I think it's a fun story because pre-CommonSKU, we built and lived in our own software, right? So we had our own order processing system. I originally talked to Catherine, I think it was in 2019, 2020. I said, this is awesome what you guys are doing. I'm already kind of got my toe in and moving pretty far in promo standards, right? So I'm not sure if it's a good fit, right? So I said, well, let's stay, let's stay in touch. Fast forward a little bit and my team's starting to say, hey, you're not exactly keeping up with the industry as far as some of the things that we need to Right. And frankly, you know, because we have the agency services, it was probably harder than it should have been for me to justify working on internal systems as opposed to a paying customer, right? So I told Catherine one time, I said, if I don't have this fixed in a year, I'll sign the deal. So within that period of time also, we had a committee that was looking at, well, what are our options in doing those things, also came into Common Skew. And I would say pretty firmly told us that they thought this was the way we should go. I had a laugh with Catherine that I'm back, let's do this. Again, from a cost perspective, the licensing is less than what a full-time developer is. So not to mention really excited on the path that it is right now and the trajectory of the change. So it's been a really good change for us.

That's cool. How did Commenscue initially enable you and your promo sales team in particular to drive client sales forward?

Yeah, so the software in itself is great. I love the trajectory that it's on. The, the— what I really enjoy is you have a really solid foundation and great training material. We had little to no training material, so onboarding people and bringing people into the industry, Commscue does a great job because it walks people through this is how you do it, as opposed to us having to do that over and over again.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, keep going.

Yeah, so even though that we're, we're 2+ years on the platform and we're still making changes on how we can leverage some of the tool set that's in there, now again, we built it exactly on how we thought you had to go to market. We love of the kind of creative think tank that there is as things change within Commscue and should we be taking on some of these new initiatives to make sure that we're meeting our customer where they want to be met.

That sort of dovetails into a question I was going to ask about how your leadership team, you know, how does it help with transparency for you and your leadership team and that visibility into what's going on in the business?

Yeah, so again, I didn't have time for a developer to make new features and benefits. Reporting was not one of the top ones either, you know what I mean? So the reporting is great in CommonSkill. I think the biggest one that I can say made an impact was this year from our commission guys, we went from quarterly to monthly, right? We wanted them to feel the good and the bad, frankly, when, you know, on a higher frequency. There's no way we would've been able to do that before the way that our systems were built. So CommonSkill having the commissions module already built and just a few tweaks, it did exactly what we wanted to. Extremely smooth for us to do. And I mean, that made an impact on our sales folks and our accounting team too. You know, you can't forget about those guys and gals that are doing this behind the scenes that, you know, we don't want them losing their hair when it comes to trying to do it and doing it accurately. These are— this is people's pay. So it does a great job of the reporting that's there. And I love that you can get to the raw data so that we can do even some extra reporting that we want to do. It does a phenomenal job for our leadership team.

That's cool. Thank you. Thank you, John. Let's talk a little about leadership in the future and your strategy and how you think, because you spend a lot of energy on strategy and it really does show. How do you and your, you and your leadership team approach strategy for your own business? Strategy and execution. Do you have like a formal 3-year plan, 5-year plan, like that kind of roadmap?

Yeah, so we put out kind of the 5-year plan about 2 years ago, and what we did is for each one of the divisions, we came up with a BHAG, right? A Big Hairy Audacious Goal. And, you know, we've changed them a little bit along the way. We always want to make sure that it's relevant. We have leadership meetings a month we're reading books together to do stuff to make sure that we're on path. We've identified our core customer on each part of the business and how we're going to get there and what metrics we're going to do as it relates to that. So we have, you know, quarterly strategic meetings that are saying where are we at on all these cadences, doing all these things. And, you know, for everything that you say yes to, you have to say no to something else. So we're really making sure when we say yes to something, it aligns with our strategic planning and that we're spending the right amount of time, which we're continuing to look at on, in the business and on the business as it relates to strategy. So, you know, we have software that helps us keep score. We have routine meetings, annual meetings with larger groups, but it's really came to the forefront for our organization.

Since you have a strong focus on future targets, what are some of the greenfield ideas you see for an agency like yours? Are there industries or there are like, but like particular categories?

You know, the big thing that we're looking at is recurring revenue, right? And we're working on a lot of ways to remove the hurdles to start a relationship with someone. So that comes in multiple forms and facets. It could be software as a service. It could be discounting a website so that we can do digital services afterwards. It could be what are the costs to our company store, right? What is the cost to warehousing? What is the cost of bringing something in? So trying to, as we're looking at, you know, how can this customer, we provide value, return on investment, they, they're going to spend that type of money with us every year. So that's really been our focus, is how can we turn one-hit wonders into recurring revenue.

It's a great way to look at— such a great way to look at it, because even, even merch can be recurring revenue. There's a lot of recurring projects. Maybe it's not the same product, but it's a lot of recurring projects.

Yeah, no, definitely. It's understanding when their big products are, or when they need product, right? The trade shows, their big employee events, what those types of things— being ahead of that. I mean, people are still wearing multiple hats. So we got to make it easier for these folks in HR or buying or procurement or whatever that is. Again, eliminating the hurdles of making it easy to do business with us.

Yeah. Since you're speaking to a promo-specific audience, what do you think has been the biggest change for promo for your clients in our industry that you're excited about?

So part of that strategic planning is identifying who our ideal promo client is, right? And what that is— I mean, we have our values, our book, I mean, that has this stuff printed, and we identify an ideal customer in the promo is a company who proactively and consistently uses promotional marketing, who values our knowledge, creativity, and innovative solutions, right? So it doesn't say anything about how much you spend, doesn't say anything about what a margin is going to be, right? Doesn't say anything about all that stuff. It's like, are they looking for an order processor? Are they looking for someone who's, you know, a partner, right? So I think that there's plenty of space for people who are looking for more than order takers and just want to browse online catalogs. And, and let's face it, you know, part of the presentation that you gave at the Premiere Group event and you did for us. I mean, merch and promo is a powerful marketing medium, so we got to help people use it to its fullest.

Yeah, such a great point. I love looking through your business at that lens because you can get so distracted by revenue piles. That's a very transient sort of moving target. But the fact that starting with the people that value your services the most and investing energy in those, that's such a great takeaway.

Yeah, we really— we start our meetings with that and sometimes we have our annual meetings like that with our clients, right? Like, are we living up to this? Is this still how you see us? So yeah, you know that we're really standing behind that.

It's really good. Let's talk about John, John Henry, for a minute about what do you enjoy doing when you're not working?

Well, at home I'm married and have 7 kids, so my oldest is 23 and my youngest is 4. So that keeps me busy. Family is very important, so love spending time with, with family. Also enjoy spending time with friends, so making sure that that's a priority and making sure there's plenty of time with my spouse as well. You still gotta, you know, work on professional development and I do enjoy chasing a white ball around a golf course for approximately 4 hours. That's a good way of spending time.

Yeah, yeah, when you can find time for that, or I'm sure you try— have to make time for that. It's going to get taken from you.

Yeah, that definitely doesn't happen on the weekends anymore. So I love it when I can take a client or a customer out, and then it's a win-win, right? Yeah.

Well, there's a question the community always loves. So what's a book, podcast, movie, or something you've seen lately that's had the most impact on you?

Yeah, so for the past 3 years, my entire leadership team, we've been reading books, and then every month we go over the chapter. So we just read a chapter a month. How does it resonate? And then how are we going to use that in our organization? And so I think just sharing those books— we've had 2 from Liz Wiseman. Multipliers is great, and so is Impact Players. And then another one is Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes That Matter Most by Robert Anderson and William Adams.

Oh, great. Thank you for that. And, and back to how you and your team do that— do you read a book a month or chapter a month? How does that work?

Yes, we have a chapter a month. I have a business coach that kind of brings this to us, so he sends out questions 2 weeks in advance. Oh, that's great. That way we all know, kind of know what the questions are. And that's just part of a leadership meeting. So we start off with the book— how are we going to leverage the book to make us different in our one-on-ones, whatever it is— and then really just get into brass tacks. What's going on in the organizations? What are some things that we should probably know? What's going on maybe around the water cooler that we should know? And are we on track with our strategic plan?

Yeah, I love it. John, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to join me. I'm so glad we got to do sort of a swap with some events. You spending time on the SkuCast, me spending time with you and your clients. It's, it's been amazing partnership there with you and your team too, and Common Skew. So thank you, my friend, for joining us.

No, I can't thank you enough for what you guys have done for us. And so it's the least that I can do.