Episode 96: The Flywheel Effect: Radical Transformation of a 3rd Gen Business

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. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

We have a flag that flies in our office now, and it says that comfort is a slow death. And we were experiencing that, you know, we were comfortable. In a lot of ways, all of us, you know, we get— you get tired of the grind life. So when you can kind of, you know, relax for a minute, it feels nice. But it also is something that before you know it could be a devastating thing.

Flywheel Brands is a creative print and promotions marketing company focused on generating momentum for today's brands. They are a third-generation business with a dynamic voice and an engaging and sophisticated social presence. I talked today with Flywheel's millennial leaders, Bart Simpson and Matthew Nutt. Bart is a third-generation leader for family-owned and operated Flywheel Brands, a career entrepreneur. Bart has owned several businesses, the first of which he launched as a teenager. Bart is the Vice President of Client Development for Flywheel. Matthew Nutt is the client development executive and a million-dollar producer annually. Flywheel's branding and energy is fresh, and I talk with Bart and Matthew today about how the experience of losing a major client threw them into an identity crisis as a business, which ultimately transformed their company and their strategy. On a robust trajectory, they are nearly doubling the size of their company for 2019. We talk about this, the power of mentorship, and we wade into some controversial territory around the subject of a faith-based business and their purpose. This episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. And by the way, we're thrilled to announce a brand new multi-city event called Commenscue Sessions, the promotional product industry's one-day conference for distributors dedicated to thriving in sales. From top-line growth to bottom-line profitability, all aspects of the sales process and relationship will be explored. Led by notable industry leaders and featuring some of the most successful sales pros in each market, Commenscue Sessions will be visiting Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. You can learn more at commonskusesessions.com. And now today's episode where we kick off the conversation talking about the impact of the impressive podcast that Bart and Matthew host for Flywheel called Marketing Momentum: Fulfilling Your Urgency to Be Great.

Matthew and Bart, welcome to Skucast. You guys have a podcast called Marketing Momentum. How has podcasting worked for your brand? Give us a little bit of your experience. I know there's some other distributors and folks in the business who have considered podcasting.

Bobby, thanks so much for having us on the show. This is Bart. So we started a podcast this year, probably 7 months ago or so, and we're really still kind of asking ourselves the same questions. You know, how has podcasting been a help to us and how are we going to use it going forward as a medium? And I think one of the biggest things, at least from my perspective, I know Matthew will chime in here in a minute, but it's been able to give us a platform that we can really share the heart of who we are as an organization. So a lot of our clients, a lot of our, even our team members, people we're recruiting, other salespeople out there that we would like to connect with. We want them to be able to understand our culture, our organization, the heart of who we are and why we do what we do. And the podcast gives us a great stage to do that and also kind of brings about these leadership topics, these things that we want to grow within ourselves and also within our team. So I think it's a good snapshot of who Flywheel is. Yeah, every little, every little session you hear.

Yeah, I, I would agree with that from my perspective. The interesting thing, and we have said this from the very beginning and it still remains true, that it has been a journey for us from the very first pilot. And hopefully even now, as we round out 7-ish months, there's a noticeable change in the quality of the journey, so to speak. But the title would lend itself to seem very technical. And I think that was our original intention, just by the nature of what we do, that it was going to be maybe heavily focused on the marketing and the sales, but really it's transformed very naturally to be hopefully an inspirational, challenging podcast that really reflects the culture of Flywheel and really Flywheel's desire to grow as not only a company, but as individuals and a team, and to kind of rally along with our listeners and hopefully impact them in a meaningful way as well.

Yeah, and you're right, there are 3 audiences at play here that are being transformed. That you have your own team or folks you're onboarding. So I've interviewed folks and they use the podcast interview as an onboarding tool to help introduce the company to them. And then there's, you know, of course your client base or prospects or folks that are interested in your brand. But then there's you. You guys are being transformed as you work on this podcast, and you're going to produce better work 7 months from now than you are right now. It's, it's a great evolutionary tool.

I, I 100% agree with you. And then also, I think it adds a level of accountability to your own team. And you could probably relate to it because as you continue to put out new content, you're continually, you know, seeking education, you're seeking people of wisdom, people that have been there and done that, and you're learning just as much as the audience.

Yeah, absolutely. That's the best part, actually. It's a fringe benefit, but it's actually the best part. So what do you— tell us a little about your distinctive roles.

So I'll start. I'm kind of leading the charge really alongside of Matthew of business development. As well as a lot of different elements of our business. So we're a third-generation family business and my grandfather started the company and we kind of had this whole thing at Flywheel that we don't like to tell our story because it's not about us. We've learned that through time and kind of this evolution of our brand. So when I say all this, I say it just to kind of give context of, you know, and answer your question. But my grandfather started the business as more of an ad agency back in '81. My dad worked with him through college and when my dad graduated college, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. And it wasn't but maybe a couple months after college that he passed away. And one of the things that he left my dad with was just kind of a comment that stuck with him ever since. And that was, flywheel has way more potential than you could ever imagine. And at the time, that seemed so ludicrous in some ways because he had $2,000 in a checking account and had bought some equipment, put it in the garage of our house, and would go out during the day and sell and come back home at night and print. And so That inspiration really, I believe, still fuels us in a lot of ways today. And so a little bit about our history, and I say all that to say, you know, we're still believing in the best is yet to come for Flywheel. Matthew is helping us greatly in leading the charge on the sales front, both personally and with our team that we're developing.

How has the business evolved? You were Agency, also direct printer. And you know, when I look at your brand online, and I love the statement, marketing momentum for your brand, we design and produce creative print collateral, promotional products, and digital content that connects with your audience. You guys are now have this broad product offering. How's the business transformed probably over the past decade or so, if we want to shorten that time frame?

In any business, if you don't seek to evolve, you're going to be left scratching your head asking yourself what happened, right? When my dad could go out and we did a lot of print, still do a lot of print, but he could go out and make sales calls to manufacturing companies even throughout Tennessee and be able to see a lot of them and sell to a lot of them. That's since changed, you know, with a lot of manufacturing going overseas, but then kind of up came the service industry and, you know, they need promotional products, they need things to get their brand's message out. And so we've shifted our focus as we've gone and always looked for green pasture in areas that we could grow in. But like most stories of growth, I think they come out of necessity and they come out of a place of hardship. And so it was probably like 4 or 5 years ago now that we had a big client at the time who, if we're going to be transparent, we were all about, you know, that's what we lived and breathed them. We got wrapped up in them. It was a very good thing for, you know, 14 or 15 years. And then all of a sudden, you know, they say, hey, we're going to do an RFP. We're not going to have any conversations about what we want to accomplish. We're just going to do blind RFP, and then they went with the cheapest person in the room, who honestly had a better mousetrap than we did. At that moment, a third of our business kind of disappeared overnight.

Right.

We—

it threw us into what I can say now was the best identity crisis we could have possibly had. At the time, it was very difficult. But again, you know, you can say to yourself, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit here and sulk in the corner. Or you can say, hey, I'm gonna go make this thing happen. And Really, that's what we did in Kira.

Right.

To add to that, we're really just advocates for our client. And for us, when this— we talk kind of like the sweet spot, but when we really get to the place where we feel like our client understands that nothing is off the table in terms of what we will try to prove that we are an advocate for them, whether that's on a level of creativity. So, you know, we don't, we don't want to be put in the stale camp, and we don't want our clients to be put in the stale camp. So we will do whatever we can from, you know, leveraging our creativity to advance their mission, whether it's a pure, you know, like Bart mentioned, meeting in hand state. We will leave no stone unturned to make sure that we're doing everything we can to set our client up for success. And I think once they realize that, it changes the relationship. You know, I don't want to use the term you become the guy, but they understand that these people are not just here to take my money, but they're here to see me be successful. Yeah, right. And when you get to that level, that's when it really starts to get fun because it's now this relationship built on trust and you can push the limits on both sides in terms of, you know, conceptual creativity or product selection. And so it just, it changes. The game, so to speak. And I think that's where we really aim to be with every single person that we serve, is at that high level of operation.

High touch, white glove service. I totally get it. Totally get it. You know, it's funny what B2B buyers want. You guys have probably heard this study before, but there's a study put out by CEB in partnership with Google called From Promotion to Emotion, and it asks the question, what do B2B buyers really want? And they interviewed, I think it's around 3,000 B2B buyers. And personal value trumped business value 2 to 1 in terms of what they wanted out of the relationship. They wanted professional benefits, they wanted social benefits, they wanted emotional benefits, self-image benefits. They wanted to improve their careers, want to improve their life. It's a study I've been mentioning over and over again to folks in this business as well as in others. It's just, you guys are doing it and kudos to you. I'm curious about this evolution of your brand from a marketing perspective. Folks are listening to this, they're probably going to go to your website and find out you've got this fantastic brand, this fantastic image. You've also recently moved into the 6,000-square-foot facility. How has that transformed the way you feel about the company?

Just to clarify, the building is actually being, being built as we speak. So we're okay, cool, just awaiting the time that we can get into our space. But, you know, we've been to so many trade shows and heard people come up to our products and say, oh, you guys sell trinkets and trash.

Yeah.

And as a salesperson or as a business owner or whatever you want to call it, that's not a very encouraging thing to hear about your business, right? That you're just in the crap business of selling. And I think there's this huge misconception, and some of it can be true from the quality of item that's out there,, but we have to repackage what has been known historically by some as junk, right? We have to be really good at presenting the product, the correct product, the right way. I think Apple is a prime example. People have been selling computers for a long, long time, but nobody will film a box opening like they would on Apple because it just feels right. It could be the same quality of machine, but the experience is, maybe has been missing a little bit in our industry. Our kind of initiative, at least internally, is that, you know, we don't sell trinkets and trash. We're not trunk sales, you know, salespeople. We are professionals that can bring along momentum-building products to help your brand take it to the next level. Yeah. And so with that thought, we're engineering our branding because we want our branding to feel like a company that one, you know, is not fly-by-night. We're selling branding, so we better understand branding and the idea behind it. And so that's why it's so important for us to build a brand that is respected, maybe, in, in our industry. Because how can we come to a corporate meeting and help a marketing team achieve marketing goals if we don't have any idea about what it takes to build a brand?

That's a great point.

It's a great point.

You've got your own working beta, your own in-house incubator, if you will, when you're working on your own brand, and you're competing for mindshare with other advertising executive, you know, other advertising companies. Forget other promotional products companies. And it sounds like you guys have a very strong conviction about what it is that you do and that you're making emotional connections happen. So kudos to you.

Appreciate that, man.

Thank you.

Can you give us an idea of your size, how many employees, gross sales, or so that we can sort of get an understanding of the scale of Flywheel?

Yeah, so as we sit now, we're about 17 team members strong, and, um, and next year we're looking to add another 12. Wow. And so we're— wait, wait, did you say 12? I did say 12. 1, 2, 12. So wow, we're really on a warpath. We want to grow because we know there is so much more capability within each of us on our current team. Yeah, whether that be in the sales area, the leadership development area, we have a very capable team. And so there is no reason why we should not be continuing our growth at double-digit growth for the years to come. And so we actually just got back from our company retreat where we talked about next steps for 2019 and how we're gonna accomplish it. We're super excited and just as far as growth goes, we've doubled our sales in the past 3 years and we're looking to do the same in the next 3. And so we have big dreams.

Yeah, yeah, seriously. Well, you don't just nearly double the size of your employee base without either some client momentum behind you that's gonna back that investment up next year or Or it's deep pockets that are allowing you to risk, or just pure risk. Is it all the above, or have you guys seen such a trajectory this year that you know you can sustain or surpass that? Or is some of this a gamble as much that it's keeping you up a little bit at night?

I wouldn't say it's a gamble. I would say there are some calculated risks being taken, but at the same time, we have had this trajectory being built of tremendous growth in a short period of time. Yeah, so we know that one, to accommodate current client growth, we'll need people. And then additionally, you know, we're really making a push to grow our sales team. You know, we want to help salespeople that maybe have been in the industry for some time and aren't happy with the culture of the company that they're at. You know, maybe it's too corporate, maybe they don't care about you, or you're just a number, etc., etc. We want to build an environment that we can build a sales organization on top of what we're doing. And so a lot of the growth will come by way of growing our sales team. Okay. But with that, we know that everything rises and falls on service, and so our service team is what we pride ourselves on. So we're going to continue to invest on that side of the, of the business as well.

It sounds like your team, and I know this from my own experience, gives you the confidence to bring on those kinds of salespeople. So it sounds like the higher— in that number of folks where you're nearly doubling your team, a lot of that has to do with sales, and then Based on what you just said, and what I'm guessing is that because you have a solid structure in place, you have the confidence to take those kinds of calculated risks.

You got it right. You got it right, man.

That—

I understand it completely. That only comes from just the silent heroes in this business, are typically the introverts of us that are in the support roles. And I hate using the word support because there's no such thing as a hierarchy in this business. It's such an interdependent industry.

Absolutely.

But there are folks in those roles that can just absolutely determine whether or not you can handle that kind of infrastructure load and grow. So heavy recruiting on the sales side, kudos to you. How has that process gone?

You know, as with all things, the Flywheel way is that we step out into the unknown with a humbleness but a hungriness, and we learn along the way. And so for us, we started that process in 2018. And brought some salespeople in and it's gone very well. And we're going to start again in January. So it's been a refinement along the way. And I think if you were pushing the limits, that's where you should be. Yeah. So you can't wait to have it all figured out, but it's gone really well. You know, for us, our heart behind the matter is really to find those people who are confident in their ability that are aggressive and hungry and maybe just need the opportunity and a little bit of nurturing to get there. You know, for me, as I go out and recruit, I can recruit with utter confidence of what's possible. One, because I have personally proved it. And then two, I know that when you enter the Flywheel family, you are taken care of. And so it's not this smoke and mirrors of, hey, you can make this and You know, it may be possible, it may not be possible. And so for us, it's we want to bring people in and we want to continue to change lives on the Flywheel side as well as on the client side. There comes a level of selectability maybe, you know, we're not just looking for any warm body to fit in a seat. But there are special people out there and that's who we are strategically looking for to bring in who can put a little pressure on us all to elevate our own personal game and then also You know, we believe a rising tide raises all ships, and the goal is to take Flywheel higher as well as everyone who chooses to partner with us.

It seems as though you're in a smaller market city. Is some of this expansion happening beyond your geographic location?

It's always been, I think, one of our challenges, but it's never been something to hold us back because we'll go wherever we need to go in order to secure business. But we are also very mindful that We are not in that type of area. So the majority of our business as a whole anyways doesn't come from our area. Yeah, but we're looking strategically to dominate the Southeast, and so we'll be, we'll be growing kind of in all those markets over 2019.

I totally get that. I'm, you know, especially with your stores model, print and promo, you've got so much, so many opportunities and growth categories and clients that your geographic locale isn't as necessarily important as it used to be. I can appreciate that. Do you have a favorite client story in your recent experience?

I think if we had time to think, we'd actually have a lot of those that kind of give us the warm and fuzzies, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

The most recent one that comes to my mind is we have a client in California. I have recently passed that account off to another salesman, but on a trip out there to see him, he explained our relationship, which he and I have had for probably 10 years. As I'm his second son. And I was like dumbfounded. I was like, what? You really view me in that kind of way? And that's obviously not my intention or goal is to get to that level. But when you can be a real human being with someone and know that the other person has feelings and things they're going through and etc., that's what it's all about for me is we can become so tight even though we're not you know, we're on different coasts basically, that he could say that about me to the sales guy and genuinely mean it. That's pretty cool.

That's cool. Bart, what's it like working in a third-generation business now? You have such a progressive outlook about where you're going. I'm suspecting that that didn't come without struggle as you have evolved and emerged from tradition to tradition to tradition, and now with this very hungry and vibrant outlook on the future. What's it like growing through that?

A couple of things. One, my dad Jay is— we call him the Oracle around here. So he's, he's kind of like the father of wisdom. And then, you know, we've got us young bucks out here hungry and ready to make a difference in the industry and ready to make a name for ourselves, basically. So we have this great culture of trying and being okay with failing. But we all know that there are no silver bullets. And I think that's one thing that we've learned, I've learned, is there are no silver bullets. There are no easy paths. There is the one hard path, but it's guaranteed pretty much to get you to where you want to go. And it just takes really hard work. It takes people that also understand and have a work ethic about them to come in and to grow this thing. A great deal of prayer. I'm just going to keep it, keep it real. I mean, yeah, we don't know where we need to be. We don't have all the answers. We'll be the first to tell you we're fallible people. But I have learned in my progression as a business owner, it's like I don't have all that I need education-wise, but I'm going to go out and get it. So if I feel like I have a bucket that I don't know enough about, then I'm going to go out and progressively be pursuing becoming better in that area and And I think a lot of people don't do that. I think you just say like, "Maybe I'm not very good at public speaking." And you don't push yourself into the uncomfortable because it's uncomfortable, but it's the very thing that spurs on new growth. So we've been very open about, be uncomfortable, get uncomfortable. You can't be in that spot because that means you're not growing like you should. Also, Matthew and I, we both have young families and a lot of our team members do. We feel the duty that we have to provide the best we possibly can for them. And, you know, being leaders in a company, you feel it not just for your own family, you feel it for all the other families. And so, yeah, if we're not doing the best we can do and we're not being all we can be, then we're doing a disservice not only to our personal families but to our work family. And it's something we take very seriously here at Comiskey, on SkewCast in particular.

We are not afraid to tackle topics that others might be concerned about tackling. Listening to your podcast episodes and listening to you talk today, there's this palpable undercurrent of a faith-based business. How central is that to your company, and what does that mean to your vision and outlook?

You know, our faith, you know, it is the undercurrent. It is the driving force behind what we do in a lot of ways. I mean, it frames how we treat people, how we treat our employees. It's a very key part of our culture. Not that everybody on our team would have to be a believer, you know, in Jesus to, you know, to be here or anything like that, I mean, make no bones about it. Again, that's where I would go to get my help is I would be praying for help, you know, and I'd be seeking wisdom that I know I don't have, and we have a lot of people on our team that feel that way, and it's encouraging because when you have all you need already, you got nothing to lose, and so we can go all out on the work front and just have a confidence about us that we know we're going to be taken care of.

From the outside the family looking in, for lack of a better term, that I have observed, and I know others in the office have also observed between Bart and Jay, and I think this may answer your original question some as well, is just the level of respect there is between Bart and Jay. And then, you know, it's Leadership 101, what is modeled at the top flows to the bottom, right? And so the level of respect that they have for one another whether it be Jay's experience and wisdom or Bart's progressive trajectory, and then just the amount of grace. And I think Bart alluded to that some with our culture of risk and trying new things and realizing that failure is only a bad thing if you don't learn from it. And so there is a tremendous amount of grace that is bestowed in the office for people who are putting it on the line and who are doing their best and are doing everything that they can. And like Bart mentioned, we all come short, but we know at the end of the day that we're all here for something so much more than really what the promotional product industry is or what Flywheel is. We're all here to reflect the one who created us and to do that to the best of our ability. So it really models how, like Bart mentioned, how we interact with people, how we interact with our clients, you know, times for grief, times for encouragement. Really, to be in the Flywheel family, I think, is to be loved in a way that perhaps you don't see in many businesses, which is a wonderful place to be.

Well, I liked asking that because it sounds like having a faith-based business already gives you and codifies a system of values that you as a default have, and that permeates the business. Even if you don't codify them and not print it everywhere, sounds like it's permeated the business and just human-to-human interaction.

So I—

and kudos to you for being brave enough to talk about it. We live in a culture where we're afraid to, and I think it's a shame because as human beings, we all have different things that drive us. And I love what you guys are doing. You're elevating not only the experience of the promotional products medium in the minds of customers, you're elevating not only Progressive branding and how to go to market, but you're also modeling a way of doing business that's maybe kinder. And it's something that we actually all want at heart. Don't get me started. I get all soft about this.

That's actually really challenging to me because I have been accused more than once in my life of having really, really high expectations. And that starts on myself and then as a byproduct flows out onto everyone that I interact with. And hearing you say the word nice, I'm over here self-reflecting on the many times that I have maybe let those high expectations and my communication about them come across unpleasantly. And so it is, I mean, it is by no means something that I or, quote unquote, Flywheel has figured out, but it is the goal. I will be the first to tell you I'm a major work in progress, but my ambition is tomorrow be better than I am today. And so It's just the journey, really.

Yeah, man. Well, it's a ridiculous misnomer that a faith-based business suddenly gives you superhuman powers to be better than the average person. And I know, boy, we're getting into some sticky territory here, but guys, my 3 brothers are pastors. So if this gives you a little background of why I might have some insight into your faith-based business, that's kind of why. I kind of tend toward more Buddhism, but that's all right. That's, uh, we each have our values. My point being, I just like it when you put it out on the line like that, when you're not afraid to go there these days when everyone else is.

It's refreshing to us as well because again we get to dictate, you know, and it could be in some ways to our demise, you know, someone could not agree with it. Sure. Not that we would ever push anything on anybody, right? But one of my personal challenges and my life verse is from Romans 1:16, and it's just basically saying that you should be unashamed of the gospel, and my thought is if you believe it, you know, why would you be ashamed to speak about it? It should mold your life and it should frame really every decision that you make. So it's definitely nothing we're ashamed of and we tell anybody we love Jesus.

Thank you guys for sharing that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So guys, thanks for joining the Skewcast. This has been a great conversation. I'm really encouraged and enthused by your energy and that has to come from somewhere other than you. So let me ask you both this question, Matthew. Who have been the mentors in your life? Who are they today and what have they meant to you in your growth as a professional?

Man, you know, one, Bobby, thank you so much for having us. It's with full sincerity that I'm honored to have been included and appreciate that you would even ask me on. And mentorship has been a theme that has either been a focus of a podcast, you know, episode for us, or always seems to be one of the underlying themes And because we're just in such a state of desire to learn. And from my mind, if I can find someone who's a bit further down the path than me and can say, you know, you should turn right instead of going left because left is going to be perils for you. I'm all about saving myself some pain and heartache if I can. And that's looked very different for me throughout my seasons of life. You know, in college, mentorship looked vastly different than it does today. Today, I have a 3.5-year-old girl, a 2-year-old boy, and a 6-month-old girl. So, my season of life is crazy. And, I am looking— my mentor today is a man who has also 3 kids, but they're in the later years of high school going to college. And so, for me, it's just having somebody in your life who can give you proper perspective. Who can say, you know, you are in the midst of this and you can't see out of it because you have no sleep and your life is crazy. You have 3 babies and all of this is going on. But here's what's on the other side. Here's what you should be thinking about. Or even just affirming that you're in a crazy time of life and having someone who can say you're not crazy for thinking life is crazy and have someone kind of walk you along the process and, you know, in air quotes, hold your hand and love on you and encourage you and challenge you. Just be really just a sounding board, a safe place to bounce ideas off of, to have some healthy level of vulnerability that you can, you know, talk about some things that maybe you don't have another safe place to do so. And so I'm a huge huge advocate.

Bart, how about you?

Again, just coming off our leadership retreat, I challenged my leadership team with having a mentor because there is nothing like learning from someone that's been down the road before you. And also choosing a mentor, having someone that doesn't have any skin in the game, uh, and will shoot you straight, it's just such a great life-giving thing to me and a way to learn without having to go through some of life's pains because you could to again learn from someone who's already been there and done that. So if you don't have a mentor, my encouragement to the listeners would be find one.

Yeah, it's good, it's good. Guys, this has been a great conversation. Again, thank you for joining and keep up the great work.

Thanks, Bobby.

Bobby, thank you for having us, man. Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkuCast. 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.