skucast Hidden Gems of 2021: The Art of Brandmerch with Brittny Roller

Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. For the next few episodes of the SkewCast, we're publishing a few hidden gems, episodes we ran earlier in the year but they might have slipped under the radar. Today we're resharing our conversation with Brittany Roller, founder and creative director of LA-based company Brand Merch. Brittany is a speaker at SkewCon in Las Vegas on January 9th, where she'll be talking about her project, The Creative Collective, and how she partners with craftsmen, makers, designers, and more to build a unique brand. If you're not familiar with SKUCON, SKUCON is the conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the branded merch industry. And though the in-person event is sold out, you can still join us for the virtual experience. I encourage you, if you haven't done so yet, register your team to help kick off an inspiring year for a new season of growth. Virtual attendees will receive the official SKUCON t-shirt, really cool collab with legendary designer and SKUCON speaker Aaron Draplin. So hop on over to SkuCon.com to register today. Now on to hidden gem number 1, our chat with Brittany Roller. What skill sets do you think people need to refine to do this business well?

Design, hands down. Like good design and good UX equals brand trust. And I honestly don't feel like— I think that's really undervalued in this industry. There's only a handful of companies that I think that are really keeping up with that. Like we don't live in a time anymore where you can just show up at an office with a bag of goods and say, hey, I put a logo on this mug, work with me. Like now it's about how you present yourself online in your work.

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.

Brittany Roller is founder and creative director at Brand Merch. Based out of LA, Brand Merch is a full-service merchandise platform with a mission to bring the passion of artists and craftsmen to the multi-billion-dollar promotional products industry. They bridge the gap between meticulously handcrafted products and the brands that recognize the value of exceptional merch. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commscue, and you know that we love to bring new voices to the community because they bring such a fresh perspective, imaginative ideas, and a creative confidence that can inspire us all. So today, that's why I'm thrilled on the SkewCast to talk with Brittany about her innovative approach to partnering with unique artists and craftsmen. We chat about the future of shops.

In this industry especially, I think that the convenience and with my generation too, the convenience of ordering is going to be really important. So the shops are everything.

The secret to successful curation.

To curate well, it's less about having amazing, unique products, but just more about being able to explain the reasoning behind the choices that you're presenting. What's working in their marketing, taking the time to take really great photos of the work that you're doing, and a whole lot more.

This episode is brought to you by CommonsQ, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonsq.com. And now to my conversation with Brittany, where we began by asking her to share with us this idea of a creative collective, a concept she had to aggregate makers and artists and even international creatives to contribute their work and partner with her clients. You can find the link to this in the footer of her website at brandmerch.com. I begin by asking Brittany about the intent behind this creative endeavor. Brittany, I am fascinated by the creative Collective page on your website. Can you explain that to a listening audience? I mean, what's the intent behind that?

Sure, it's a really exciting idea that we just released, but the idea for it we had a long time ago, or I had a long time ago. Back when I was living in San Francisco, I had met a woman who was running this small engraving business out of her garage. And when I say small, it was literally just her and her partner running this thing. Yeah. And, um, I'd met her at the pottery studio that I was throwing at. She had encountered some tough years and she was thinking about selling. And at the time, I was considering possibly buying a business like hers. And so we had set up a meeting for me to come visit her space and her work. And what was supposed to be a quick visit turned into this entire night of us just talking. And it became really evident to me how passionate she was about her business and how painful it was for her to have to consider possibly letting it go. And, you know, she was twice my age. She had spent her entire life practicing this craft and she was very good at it. But, you know, technology kind of just passed her by. She didn't even have a website. I think she might have had like a Facebook page or something. And when I went home that night, that whole story just really struck a chord with me and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I honestly haven't really stopped thinking about it since. And so the intent behind this Bramridge Creative Collective is the idea that we could serve as a bridge between craftsmen like her in this multi-billion dollar industry. So one big project for a craftsman could keep them busy for months. It could keep the lights on, it could feed the family. And not only do the small businesses win, but our clients want this unique, exceptionally crafted product. And I really believe it's just a win-win-win. There's nothing wrong with a gray Patagonia vest, but trying to do some more unique ideas and offer the community an avenue to be successful in their entrepreneurship.

It's also not just for manufacturers, but it looks like for makers of all types, right? Artists, designers.

Yeah. So we have a lot of decorators and then we have a lot of small businesses starting out creating things. And so that could be potters. We have a knife manufacturer guy. It's just one guy. We have someone just reached out yesterday. He creates these bags out of Montana. It's called Buck Design. And they're incredibly well-crafted bags. He's an outdoorsman, and people like that are usually really meticulous about their gear. We're also working with a really exciting company out of LA. It's these two college kids that dye fabric, and they've done a really good job for us. So we started using them, and it's connecting us with a lot of just smaller people, really individuals that are wanting to get into creating something.

Well, it's also doing multiple things. Number one, it's building a portfolio of unique creative suppliers, if you will, manufacturers, makers, artists, artisans, craftsmen for you, and exposing, of course, their work and opening that up to the world and introducing that to your clients. What a very unique way to invite new ideas and fresh insights.

Yeah. And I really do, like I said, I think it's a win-win-win for everybody. Um, because it's, it's really, we're working with people that are exceptional at their craft, whatever it is. And it always turns out our clients are always happy with it.

After you've launched this, you had an initial idea for it. What was a moment where it surprised and delighted you because of the response or because of what someone submitted?

I mean, so we really just, it was a soft launch. We didn't really push it until this year. I mean, until January 26th now.

So we're only a month into that.

And I think I've been mostly surprised by the outreach. I mean, we get maybe 10 people a day when we post things on Instagram or whatever, reaching out, either wanting to work with these kinds of artists or wanting to be a member or sell their goods through us. And there's been a lot of people that are just like very, very inspiring. I was really shocked by— I didn't know how the community would react to it. And I really, I knew there were a lot of people like Roberta, the woman that I met who's running the shop out of her garage, but I didn't know to the extent the type of businesses that are out there doing really great stuff and they're just really small. It's like the overall, not one specific person, but I think the overall reaction that we've had to it has been wonderful. I love that. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's back up just a minute. You started Brand Merch in 2019, but you've kind of a new chapter or a new revision refresh of that as of just January of this year, right? Can you tell me a little bit about your journey?

Oh, sure. Yeah. Brand March, it was created in 2019, but I had been running this business for a few years before that under a different brand.

Okay.

So I've been in this industry for over 10 years. I think I first started out decorating in 2010 on the decorating side of things. I worked at a print shop in North Carolina.

Okay.

So I worked at a print shop in North Carolina and I did a lot of work for a local promo company there. And he ultimately ended up hiring me, which is how I got into this industry. So that's over, what, 11 years ago?

Yeah.

So then I went and worked in a promo company for years, left that to go work in tech, and the company I was working for in New York, this tech company, needed merch. And after a year I was there, I— so I just started my own company overnight, basically, just to specifically support them. And I was running this business on the side while pursuing design, and that was back in 2017. And I really wasn't taking the merchandising very seriously. I was just something I did that complemented my design career. I mean, brand merch and brand design kind of go hand in hand. And so within that time, I even went to school for development and design. Like, I really was not going to pursue this. So I did them both for years until I just ended up ultimately deciding to pursue this seriously full-time in 2018. So Brand Merch is new, 2019, but it's actually just another version of the business I had been running for years, which is why the dates are a little blurry for me. But yeah, the rebrand that we're doing now did start January. I think because of 2020, it really— our business really went down. We had a lot of time to rethink everything we were doing. When I first started the company, it was just go, go, go, you know? Right.

Right.

And so it was actually a blessing in disguise. We got to just slow down for a minute. And the launch in January was because of that. We just had time to rethink everything. Yeah.

What was important to you as you reimagined the company? What was the most important aspect that you were going to change? What did you not want to be anymore? And what did you want to become?

Oh, that's a hard one. What did I not want to be anymore? I think, yeah, I think that I, it had taken me a long time to figure out. I knew there was a gap in this industry somewhere on the distribution side and I couldn't figure it out. And I knew the answer wasn't like another 4 imprint and I knew it wasn't just another small agency. There was something in between that I wanted to carve out. And I think that's what it was. I just was kind of taking every job. I didn't know where we were before this. And so 2020, we decided we've made a model of where we want to be. We figured out our target audience and it's not everybody. And we're really trying to carve this path just right in the middle there.

Tell me about your favorite merch project.

I laugh because my favorite merch project is probably the most miserable project I ever worked on. But it was The fir— it was the first project I had received. It was so big that it was the reason I ultimately chose to pursue this career over the web design path I was on. And so it was the biggest one I had up to this date. And it was an order for 1,000 custom gift boxes, like not just mailers. These were like completely custom luxury boxes. And I designed this like beautiful magnetic fold box with custom foam inserts and it was layered and it was more of an experience in a box and everything in it was custom. It had an Echo Dot, a Camelbak bottle, and a Moleskine. And the catch was that it was, we had 2 weeks to design, manufacture, pack, and deliver these. And it was over Christmas and the new year. Yeah. And I think this is the whole thing that got me really catapulted us into this industry is because they probably just couldn't find another distributor to accept this job. And we were just like, sure. And so yeah, that was, that's my favorite job. I mean, I ended up, I flew back to Ohio. To pack this. And that's where I'm from. But at the time, we didn't have a facility. So I had to hustle and find some facility. We rented it, it was like $300. Everything arrived last minute, of course. And we had 1 or 2 days to pack all 1,000 boxes. I hired like 15 people, anyone I could find. And we were getting this all together. So we finally, like a miracle, we get this out to UPS. And it ships to San Francisco. To meet the right date. But then it gets to San Francisco and UPS— I can't remember what happened, but it just held it for some reason. And we had no days to lose on this.

Right, right.

So I had to fly to San Francisco, rent a U-Haul, and literally hand-deliver these packages to this company. And I look back on that and I still— this is one of my biggest clients still. We've developed— like, the girl that actually ordered this through me became one of my best friends. And I still give a crap about this. Like that was, yeah, but that, that's my favorite project because if it was, I think that's why I even really started to pursue this full time was because of that.

Some people would have an experience like that and walk away from this business. You embraced it. Why?

Yeah, I don't know.

That's okay.

Good question. I think I enjoyed it as miserable as it was. I enjoyed the hustle. I enjoy puzzles, you know, like trying to figure out how can I make the impossible happen. Right. Yeah. So that was just fun for me.

Yeah. A friend of mine says that really selling is about solving complex problems and that's really what you were doing at that point. Well, one project I noticed in your Insta feed, which is gorgeous by the way, was in collaboration with Baggu. And I love that brand. Can you tell me about that project?

Are you talking about the Quantcast, the full imprint?

Yes.

Yeah. Um, that is just one job. We, that is actually the client that gave me that awful order, Quantcast. But yeah, they, they love Baggu. Baggu is my favorite tote brand. I actually, it's my daily tote that I use. And so we worked with them to create this fully custom imprinted bag with their logo and everything. And it was beautiful. And that was a great project. I love that brand.

You tend to lean toward unique projects, unique makers, or brands that capture your imagination. There's a Lebanese glass product that you are promoting. Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, that project, we actually met her through the Creative Collective and they create these beautiful glasses and jugs and it's collected from the recent explosion in Beirut and they donate part of the profit to Live, Love, Recycle. And I thought that was really special. And so we've decided to put her in the network and we'll, um, advertise her stuff and start putting in our decks for people. But we haven't actually, no one's actually ordered it from us yet, but that's just one example of an artist that we're going to start advertising.

Yeah. I love that. I mean, why are you so passionate about connecting with local artists and local makers or international makers? And you seem to have a preference for folks who are emerging makers as well?

I think I'm impassioned by the struggle of the small business. I mean, like my own, really, especially during this time. I mean, the economic impact of these shutdowns has affected all of us. And so, um, I think that's just what I love— the hustle and the scrappy people out there just doing what they can to get by, especially if they're perfecting the skill and they're passionate about it. Um, I see a lot of myself in those people. And so I think that's why it impassions me so much.

Another project you mentioned was an Oracle shop. Is that a shop you're working on now, or what's a recent shop experience you've loved?

Sure. Up until January, this new launch, we've only done these internal shops and Oracle, someone we work with just specifically their sales team. But the special thing about our shop, our internal shops, is that when you're a member, say like Rakuten Ready is also a member and they have a shop for their marketing team and then they can have as many shops as they want, a specific one for their HR team, for their employee swag. Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy doing that. And it makes it really easy for us because any of the reorders, we literally don't even have to talk to the client. It sounds terrible, but it just goes through the shop and it organizes it for them across all of the offices, especially larger companies that have offices all over the world. They want to have swag that all looks the same. And it makes it really easy for them to do that.

Yeah. You have such a fresh perspective. What do you think the future of shops, experiences like that, e-commerce and digital experiences are? Are about?

I think that in this industry especially, I think that the convenience— and with my generation too— the convenience of ordering is going to be really important. So the shops are everything, and that's why that's the main part of what we do, because it completely streamlines the whole process for us and the client. And so I think it's just going to be more and more important for distributors to offer that kind of service.

One of the most important aspects of shops that I think is, is becoming vital is this art of curation. And you seem to have, and most folks in your generation seem to have, a refined eye for curation for these shops and these shop experiences. What have you learned about curation and what do you apply to these shops as you're looking at merchandising for customers?

You know, I think curating is my favorite part of this job. It's the fun part because you get to be creative and collaborative. And I would say there's probably two— there's a lot of things that go into it, but I think two really important things. And one is to continue to educate yourself and your team, and then to be comfortable with educating your clients. So to elaborate on that, I think to curate well, you need to educate yourself and your team on what new items are available. You do this by keeping a close relationship with your suppliers and utilizing their sales tools and what they offer. So if your clientele is like ours, which is mostly millennials or younger, they're probably people who want the ability to do things themselves, like add their own logo, to a product or browse products and choose for themselves. And many suppliers offer sales tools that can help assist with that. So first, I think developing and maintaining a good line of communication with your suppliers and keeping up with what new items they're offering is step one. And step two is getting comfortable with learning how to educate your clients. Like, I mean, it's really easy too. I mean, I think when it comes to curating, 90% of the time people are asking for the same things. It's shirts and hats and bags and mugs, and it really hasn't changed over the past 10 years I've been doing this. I mean, aside from like occasional fad, like fidget spinners or something, right?

Right.

I think what does change is you need to pay attention to whatever is important to people, like the society at the time. And right now I think it's really about being sustainable and transparent and eco-friendly and ethically obtained. Um, so long story short, I think to curate well, it's less about having amazing unique products, but just more about being able to explain the reasoning behind the choices that you're presenting. Because 99.9% of the time people will be really happy and satisfied, and they'll probably go with the option you suggest if you're just able to explain why that's a better option. But it's not necessarily about like finding the best, coolest, most unique item, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I agree. When it comes to the art of curation, also, you're likely training your eye in ways that we probably take for granted. So not only within the industry, you have these makers, you have artists. How do you personally refine your design eye as you're looking out at the world and that the things that you process, does that come into play with your curation as well?

It does. I mean, truthfully, a lot of the items that I will put into any deck that I'm presenting are items that I like to use myself.

Yeah.

And so I'm often, like I said, the Bagu tote, I use that every day. So I'm literally, if someone needs a tote and that's in their price range, it's getting, it's going in the deck, you know. Yeah. Um, the, those, the Lebanese glass, that's my new favorite glass. I, I use it every day. So it's, I think really getting the products and using them has been important to me. If I don't like it, it's not going in a deck. And also getting to know, having this relationship with your clients. And that's why I like, I want to keep Brand Merch as an agency and less of a discount mugs type thing. I want to be very one-on-one with them because the services that I can provide as far as curating goes really is all about me getting to know the individual I'm selling to. It's not even the company. It's just that individual.

Your website and digital tools and assets and social is all very well done. Other than your website, what marketing tools and resources are you using to grow your sales and get the word out about brand merch?

Oh, we've done it all. I mean, we've done Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, newsletters. I mean, I could do an entire podcast on marketing. I have a bachelor's degree in marketing. My teammate has a master's in new media and digital culture, and she's really opened my eyes to the importance of just is not necessarily the campaigns that you're running, but analyzing the data that you receive from the campaign and then adapting to reach your target audience. You know, sometimes just running a campaign isn't enough. You have to look at your website analytics and take the user journey, what's working, what isn't working, and how can you adapt to make these campaigns convert these visitors or viewers into actual leads? What I've found has been working is like taking the time to take really great photos of the work that you're doing. Not just like a phone photo, and posting it. That's made the whole difference from the difference from just taking a cell phone photo and actually setting up a scene and showing what we're doing. Those ads work significantly more than anything else. So really the design of it and the way you present the products, and then running ads— Instagram's been really great, LinkedIn's great. That would be my, I think, my two, my two favorite ways we've been advertising. That's been bringing the most people to us. And like I said, we've only been doing this in January.

So yeah, right, right. I love your comment about taking your time with the photos because that is something I think we take for granted. I'm real curious, what do you hope to revolutionize in the branded merch space? In other words, what do you dislike about our industry that you're rebelling against and want to radically change?

I'm not really here to revolutionize anything, but if I'm going to say something that I really dislike about this industry is this like race to the bottom, like this price over value thing. I mean, when you're trying to beat everyone else out for the lowest possible price, you're sacrificing your standards for quality, worker safety, a lot of different things. And so we decided a long time ago we weren't going to play that game. And I often have to refer people elsewhere who are looking for this impossibly low-priced good. And I think it's a good thing to try if price is the only factor that matters to someone, referring them to a print-on-demand service like Printful. Because these goods might be more expensive, but the client doesn't have to pay in bulk. So I think that's a really good option for them. And I always say, when you're ready and your brand's a little bit more defined, come back to us and you'll save money. And we can do really unique, wonderful quality goods. But as you probably know that you've been in this business for so long, that there's a lot of work that goes in on our end to make that happen. Right. And so between like the design, concepting, production, so we just can't maintain the level of service for those who are shopping for the cheapest possible price. And that's probably my biggest pet peeve about this industry is that when I first came into it, I really felt hostage to have to just, you know, go anywhere for any good just to have the cheapest price. And then we realized we don't have to do that. We don't have to sacrifice our ethics for trying to win the bid, you know?

Yeah. Where do you look? I kind of already asked this, but where do you look for inspiration? Like, who influences you or what folks influence you?

I mean, I look a lot at companies outside of the industry, well-designed companies. I really think that any company that's putting design first Apple's a great example of that, does really well. And no matter what industry they're in and—

Do you have a few other favorites you can name?

I think Squarespace is an excellent brand. And I think what they're doing, he, he designed the whole company with design-first attitude. And that's why they're doing so well. And I really admire their brand. Zapier, I don't know if you've heard of them. Yep. Their UX is great and they literally exist to help automate workflows and that's great. You got Commonsku, is great. I think what you guys do is a really wonderful, anything that like helps the average person or the average entrepreneur streamline their process. Yeah, in a really user-friendly way. I think those are companies that are really inspiring to me, and that's what we inspire to do with our shops and everything that we, we offer to our clients.

Thank you for that. You have a marketing and design background. What skill sets do you think people need to refine to do this business well?

Design, hands down. Like, good design and good UX. Equals brand trust. And I honestly don't feel like— I think that's really undervalued in this industry. There's only a handful of companies that I think that are really keeping up with that. Like, we don't live in a time anymore where you can just show up at an office with a bag of goods and say, hey, I put a logo on this mug, work with me. Like, and now it's about how you present yourself online in your work. We look at these analytics all day. They spend maybe less than a minute on your site if you're lucky. And so if you have bad UX, you're gonna get aged out, like it's not going to work. No one's going to work with you. So, it's really all about your online presence. And like I said, a company that puts design first is going to be successful. So, that's important.

Design and user experience. I love it. Brittany, thank you so much for taking the time out to visit with us today. I know you're getting this business up and going and ramping it. And I'm just so impressed with the fresh perspective you've brought to this business and you've inspired us.

Oh, thank you, Bobby. I'm really— I was really honored that you asked me to be on here.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SKU Cast. 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.

Mm-hmm.