Podcasts about commonsku

Today, we have a really special sneak peek episode featuring Charlie Moscoe, commonsku's VP of Product Management. Whether you're an OG client, a new client, a supplier, or even just someone who is commonsku curious, today, we'll unpack some exciting new developments coming up in June and for the remaining year.

Kate Masewich's team calls her the glue, the conductor, the creator of magic, and the secret ingredient behind all our marketing and events. As commonsku's VP of Marketing, Kate has not only guided the marketing efforts but orchestrated the ops behind every event: skucon, skucamp, commonsku University, and now, successfully hosting thousands of people through their virtual experiences. Commonsku was designed and created by people who understand the challenges of the industry. It continues to create community around professional development and helps distributors and suppliers grow the promo industry efficiently and sustainably. We talked about Kate's journey to becoming the VP of Marketing, the importance of building a brand and sticking to brand guidelines, and how narrowing in on systems and process is vital in the promotional products industry. Enjoy!

It's crossover time on Ep. 164 of the Promo UPFront #podcast! That's right, Mark Graham and Bobby Lehew from commonsku join regular hosts Kirby Hasseman and Bill Petrie to discuss the value of the new position of Director of Sustainability and Responsibility at PPAI, take a deep dive into the power of merchandise to identify beliefs – and whether distributors have a moral obligation regarding what is imprinted on products, examine the interesting ASI statistic of growing sales for large online distributors while there is a decline at smaller, boutique operations, debate whether malls are back with a rise in sales, Bill asks everyone to weigh in on his most recent Top Three/Bottom Three, and so much more! A BIG thanks to our friends at Tervis for sponsoring this once-in-a-lifetime podcast! If you follow Tervis on both commonsku and LinkedIn before August 31, 2023, they will waive the set-up charge on your next order! You can also check out all their legendary drinkware at tervispromos.com.

Frontier, based in Charlotte, NC is a private equity growth firm with $1 billion in active funds focused exclusively on software. Frontier Growth was listed on Inc Magazine's inaugural list of “The 50 Best Private Equity Firms for Entrepreneurs,” a list of founder-friendly private equity firms. Join us as we chat with commonsku co-founders Mark and Catherine Graham about this chapter in the commonsku journey!

My guest today is the one and only Mark Graham; Founder & CEO of commonsku - a software company specifically designed for the promotional products industry. During our fun conversation Mark and I discuss everything from building communities to building connections.Other topics we cover include:The value of story tellingHow to give people a reason to buy from youWhen to incorporate a mascot into your brandingAnd so much more!I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too.  And hopefully, you'll learn a few things to help you with your branding.

The most encouraging part of CEO Summit? To hear how humble beginnings led to incredible growth, humility, challenges, opportunities, and seasons of overcoming and winning.

This month, we explore the creative process with Bobby Lehew. Bobby is the head of content at Commonsku and is also a speaker and teacher on topics like creativity, branding, content, and story. Bobby is known by many within the industry, but they may not have seen this side of him that embraces his vulnerability and weirdness. He left us with a lot to contemplate after recording this episode, and we hope you use this opportunity to challenge your own beliefs. Wanna know more from Bobby? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobbylehew/ (@bobbylehew) Twitter: https://twitter.com/bobbylehew?s=20&t=xK2DMaMCckxPx8TrqNGaJQ (@bobbylehew) Email: bobby@commonsku.com FOLLOW US OR GET IN TOUCH! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flywheelbrands/ (@flywheelbrands) Email: https://www.instagram.com/flywheelbrands/ (bri@flywheelbrands.com) Website: https://my.captivate.fm/FlywheelBrands.com (FlywheelBrands.com)

Catherine Graham, commonsku's CEO, and Mark Graham, commonsku's president and chief brand officer, join me to talk about their entrepreneurial journey, the struggles, the low moments, how the industry has changed, what they've learned about building a team, how leaders evolve and adapt, and, we explore what it takes to build a bold, future-forward business.

In this weekly podcast, industry professionals Jeff Franklin of Headwear USA, Stephen McFadden of Perfect Promotions & More, and Meg Erber of S&S Activewear, discuss, dissect, and debate one topic that impacts the promotional products industry from every angle. This week they talk with David Shultz from CommonSku about "Sleep In For Good" from PromoCares.

If this conversation doesn't just scream empowerment (through a plastic megaphone with a one-color imprint) on all levels, we don't know what does. Listen in as Samantha Kates, VP of Sales, and Ashley Colautti, Senior Account Manager for industry service provider commonsku, about what it's like being two of the women behind the company whose community of distributors have achieved $1 Billion in network volume as of April 2021. They also talk about the inspiration they get to be a part of daily, working for the powerhouse that is Mark and Catherine Graham, the power in empowering each other in all things we do, and they even get real about the effects the pandemic has had on them, their families, and their careers. This is one you do not one to miss, friends.

In this episode Johanna Gottlieb, Axis Promotions, and Ashley Colautti, Commonsku talk to Meg Erber, S&S Activewear and Glencora Twigg, Fairware about selling sustainability in the promotional products arena. They tackle some great topics on what you can and should be asking your clients and suppliers.

Today our community of distributors achieved an incredible milestone: $1 Billion in network volume. Together, we achieved this in less than 10 years. While we did some virtual high fives around the virtual office, this milestone is not about us, it's about you, the skummunity.

Virtual events have received mixed reviews as a replacement for in-person conferences. For some companies, virtual events have provided opportunities to connect. But many people have complained about the lack of interactivity and engagement. For commonsku, which sells software to promotional product companies, in-person events have been a key part of its marketing and sales efforts. As important, events have propelled Commonsku's community. With in-person conferences off the table, commonsku has successfully leveraged virtual events to stay connected to customers and nurture prospects. In this episode of Marketing Spark, Mark Graham, commonsku's co-founder and chief brand officer, talks about why and how virtual events have worked so well.  

On this episode we talk with Mark Graham from Commonsku about creative ideas on how to provide value and go to market during this time...and taking events online.

Today we're getting to know Rachel Minogue, Senior Account Manager with Monarch & Company. Monarch & Company. Founded in 2009, Monarch is a woman-owned, creative merchandising agency with offices in Chicago and Denver. Their mission is to create innovative merchandise solutions that provide unforgettable brand experiences. Rachel got her start with Monarch more recently and in this episode she talks with me about what she loves about the promotional products industry, what challenges she is facing, who she considers to be a badass woman of promo, and more. As always a big thank you to Allmade and Commonsku for their support of the Badass Women of Promo Podcast. We appreciate all you do to make this podcast possible. #gratitude

It’s a new year, which means it’s tradeshow season! At the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas, Lisa Terry and SanMar’s social media writer Josh Storey spoke with industry experts Bobby Lehew and Kate Plummer. Bobby is the Chief Content Officer at Commonsku, a comprehensive sales and marketing tool. Kate is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at customized awards manufacturer Clearmount.   In this episode, Bobby discusses the role of storytelling in business and dispels myths about the power of spontaneity, while Kate talks about her early start in business and explains how she’s effectively built a community in her company, the industry and on social media.    THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS EPISODE   Bobby explains what storytelling means to him. How has the nature of storytelling changed, especially in regard to the development of technology? What you people do to make your story stand out when everyone has their own platform. Bobby’s advice for creating empathetic bonds with your customers. How Kate defines community and why it’s essential to any successful company. Why it’s important to keep your viewpoints open and keep expanding your horizons. What’s your differentiation point? The relationship between education and mentorship in building a community. Finding a community that fits your needs.   QUOTES   “Every major religion, every major thought, every major philosophical idea has been carried on the back of a story.” -- Bobby Lehew “If you know your audience well, then you’ll know what they come to expect from a story.” -- Bobby Lehew “We make our decisions emotionally and justify them rationally.” -- Bobby Lehew “Ingenuity is taking any product that anyone can get and then transforming that into an experience which no one else can emulate.” -- Bobby Lehew “You’d be surprised at how many people are very open to sharing their secret sauce.” -- Kate Plummer “I am like a pirate: if I can pillage your brain for information, I am going after it.” -- Kate Plummer “Reach out; be part of it.” -- Kate Plummer   LINKS   SanMar U homepage: http://www.education.sanmar.com/ SanMar’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sanmarcorp/ SanMar’s Twitter: @sanmar_corp SanMar’s Instagram: @sanmar_corp

People always tells you to create a business idea out of a personal pain point. Have you ever been running a company and been frustrated by an industry pain point and decided to solve that? That's exactly what Mark Graham of commonsku did. During his days running Rightsleeve, he faced challenges and needed a workflow management platform. That workflow management platform became what commonsku is today and it's made for the promotional products industry.Mark gives a bunch of tips on balancing two companies, going through a successful acquisition, and running the company with his wife and co-founder, Catherine. He shares how they balance and integrate work and family life and their love of bringing work home as well as sharing success and solving challenges together.Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/our-sponsors.html)

On this episode of Delivering Marketing Joy, Kirby talks with Catherine Graham from Commonsku about how her recent sale of Rightsleeve and how to scale a company. Kirby Hasseman is the host of this show and the CEO of Hasseman Marketing. You can find more information about him and his company at hassemanmarketing.com.

Ashley Colautti is an account manager at @commonsku - an industry solutions provider. Prior to her role at commonsku, Ashley spent time on the distributor side of the industry, and before that worked teaching English overseas. In this 30 minute episode, you'll learn about Ashley, her views on women in tech, her advice on how to find your inner badass, and hear who she considers a badass woman of promo. Listen in and get your learn on! ---------------------------------------------- The Badass Women of Promo Podcast a.k.a. the #BWOPpod was created to spotlight the powerhouse women of the 25 billion dollar promotional products industry, highlight their achievements, provide a platform for their voices be heard and their ideas be shared. Are you a woman in promo? If you haven't done it already, it's time for you to #findyourinnerbadass. Welcome to the #BWOPpod! Big thanks to our friends and sponsors, commonsku and our brand new supporter and apparel manufacturer, Allmade! Please find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @commonsku and @allmade, like and follow, and to show your appreciation for their support of both the Badass Women of Promo podcast, and badass women of promo in general. As a special incentive from Allmade, you have an opportunity to take advantage of FREE SHIPPING from now through 10/31 using a secret promo code just for listeners of the #BWOPpod. The code is featured on our Instagram feed and mentioned in this podcast! Visit www.allmade.com to learn how you can purchase apparel that does great things for the planet and the people that help manufacture these products.

The Inbound Success Podcast launched on August 28, 2017 and today marks the 100th episode, and 100 straight weeks of publishing interviews with high performing marketers. On this week's Inbound Success Podcast, I'm taking a break from interviewing guests to share with you 13 trends that I've observed from the 99 interviews I did throughout the last two years. Listen to the podcast to learn more about the 13 things that the world's top-performing inbound marketers are doing, and get links to the specific episodes where you can dive deeper into each topic. Transcript Welcome back to the Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth. I'm your host, and this is the 100th episode of the podcast. I thought this was a great opportunity for me to take a break from the usual routine of interviewing some of the incredible marketers that I get to speak to every week and look back on the last 99 episodes and try and digest some lessons learned. I've had the incredible good fortune of speaking to some really amazing marketers in the last two years as I've done this podcast. It's given me an opportunity to meet people I otherwise never would have met, to learn some things that have really kind of made a difference for me in the way I think about marketing, and have prompted me to take a second look and reevaluate the way I've been doing some things. So, thought it was a great opportunity to share some of those lessons learned with all of you. How The Inbound Success Podcast Got Started But first, I wanted to just take a moment and tell a story about why I started the podcast. It was about two and a half years ago that I had my own marketing agency, Quintain Marketing. I had had the agency for 11 years. I'd gone to a lot of marketing conferences and listened to tons of podcasts, and watched webinars, always looking to make myself a better marketer. I had a lot of clients that I wanted to help. I also wanted to market my own agency and do better every day. I always would listen to these folks talk about the marketing work they were doing and the incredible results they were getting, and so infrequently felt that there was anything really tangible that I could take away from it and immediately use to improve my own marketing. This podcast was really an attempt to solve for that. It was me trying to scratch my own itch, and in doing so hopefully helping some of you. The interesting thing about this has been that it has certainly done that for me, and it has also done so much more. I already mentioned that it's enabled me to meet so many people I otherwise would never have met. There are a lot of people in the marketing world that I really admire and respect. And having the excuse of saying, "Hey, would you like to come on a podcast?" is a great way to meet someone new and to meet and to form that relationship, so that's been great. I've also met some really incredible people that I didn't know about through my guests when I ask them who else is doing a really great job with inbound marketing. And those relationships have been amazing. One of the most amazing and incredible things about this is that it changed the entire course of my career. One of first people I interviewed when I started the podcast was Bob Ruffolo, who is the founder and CEO of IMPACT. Now, I work at IMPACT. The reason is that before we started to hit the record button for the podcast interview, we were just talking about how things were going. I was telling him that I thought I might be ready to make a change, and that led to me selling part of my company to IMPACT and joining the team. That's been a really major shift in my life and a great one. I've learned so much. I get to work with some really smart people every day and do very, very interesting work. All this has come out of this little podcast. And most importantly, I've learned a lot about marketing. As I said, that was my original goal. 13 Lessons From Interviewing 99 High Performing Marketers So without further ado, I looked back through the 99 episodes I've done before today and really saw 13 themes emerge. That's what I'm going to share with you today. 1. There Is No "Secret Sauce" The first one ... And some of these, by the way, are going to seem like no-brainers, but they're important because it's important to remind ourselves of the things that we kind of already know. First one is, in most cases there really is no secret sauce to being an amazing marketer. The folks that I interviewed who were the most successful have a few things in common. Number one, they are voracious learners. They're always trying to improve their knowledge. They're always hungry for more. And they're consistent. That's huge, the consistency. A great example of that is Goldie Chan. I interviewed her. She's often referred to as the green-haired Oprah of LinkedIn. She has the longest running daily channel on LinkedIn. She's posted a new LinkedIn video every day for I think it's about two years. It's incredible. It doesn't matter where she is, what's happening, whether she's feeling well, whether she's traveling, what her access to Wifi is, she finds a way to do it because consistency is so important for her. And it's really paid off. They also do a few things and do them really well. A great example of that is Rev Ciancio who I talked with about Instagram marketing. Rev has an incredible Instagram presence. Which by the way, do not look at it when you're hungry because his pictures are all of mouthwatering hamburgers, french fries, pizzas, chicken wings, nachos, essentially everything that's bad for you, but that tastes so good. But, Rev has a fascinating strategy for how he approaches Instagram and has built an entire business around it. He does one thing, and he does it really well. Alex Nerney talked about Pinterest similarly, just a platform a lot of inbound marketers overlook, but he's really figured out a way to make it sing for him. The hungry learners who are consistent and who pick a few things and do them really well, that's really the secret sauce, which essentially isn't so secret. That's number one. 2. Listen To Your Customers And Prospects And Use What You Learn in Your Marketing Number two is they really listen to customers and prospects and use that in their marketing. Again, sounds like a no-brainer. We always talk about the need to do persona research and to build buyer personas, but I think what happens is we get very often so caught up in building the actual persona that we forget the big picture, that it's not about having this fictional profile of a person. It's really about understanding the way our audience thinks, what their real pain points and needs are, and the language they use to talk about that. A couple of the interviews I did were great examples of this. Barron Caster at rev.com who uses their own transcription product to transcribe all of the conversations they have with customers and then pull actual words that customers have used out and feed that into the copy on their website and landing pages, and that's gotten them amazing results. Val Geisler and Joel Klettke, two of the most accomplished conversion copywriters out there, both also talked about this type of research and understanding deeply, deeply the needs of customers and prospects. Paul Blamire at Atomic Reach, who is head of customer success and makes it a point to speak to new customers shortly after they've onboarded and really understand what brought them to the company and how the product is solving their needs. And he feeds that back in not only to marketing but to product development, to every aspect of the business to deliver a better customer experience from first touch in the marketing process all the way through the experience of using the company's product. 3. You Don't Need Fancy Tools Or A Big Budget Number three, you don't necessarily need fancy tools or a big budget to get incredible results. There are some really great examples of this. Oli Billson who I recently interviewed about the small events he's doing that are delivering tremendous amounts of revenue to his business. Chris Handy who talked about marketing for a Pre-K school, really small campaigns, but they just really ... They understood their audience, and they used the available tools that they had and got terrific results for the school. Adam Sand, who's using direct mail in conjunction with inbound marketing, super old school, but very effective for him. And Harry Campbell, who's The Rideshare Guy, and he's probably the top content creator in the ridesharing space. So think Uber, Lyft, Lime, Bird. He just started blogging and has created some great content and a big following. You really don't need fancy tools or a big budget. You can do it on your own with what you've got, if I go back to the first thing, if you're consistent, if you pick a few things and do them really well, and if you're a hungry learner who is willing to roll your sleeves up and apply what you're learning. 4. Connect With Your Audience On An Emotional Level Number four, the best marketers connect with their audiences on an emotional level, another thing that might seem obvious but that I think a lot of marketers get wrong. We tend to put our marketing hats on and make our marketing all about ourselves or we fall back into that comfortable place of corporate jargon, and kind of robotic speech, and use words like leverage and synergy. Nobody talks like that in real life, or not at least the people that you want to hang out with. The people who talked about this were Kieran Flanigan of HubSpot who shared their hearts and minds strategy for creating content with two types of content, content that solves a person's problems and tells them how to do something, that's really that mind's content, and then the heart's content, which taps into a pain and emotional need that the audience has. Then, Katie Stavely from Mautic. This is ironic that these are the two examples I'm giving for this one because HubSpot and Mautic could be considered two different sides of the same coin, HubSpot being a paid marketing automation, CRM, customer service platform, and Mautic being a completely free open source alternative to it. Katie talked about how important it was to be authentic in your marketing, especially with their audience, which it's all about community. It's opensource software, so your community is helping you develop your product. But regardless, the idea is to really make that emotional connection. 5. Sometimes The Biggest Wins Come From Content That Is Not Related To Your Products Or Services Number five, with content marketing, sometimes the biggest wins happen when you don't create content about your products or services. We as marketers, as inbound marketers, think a lot about top-, middle-, and bottom-of-the funnel strategies. We're always brainstorming what are the questions that our audience is asking as relates to our product or service. That often leads us to create content that is very much about us and not so much about our audience. But, I had two interviews that I thought really highlighted how successful you can be if you flip that script and talk nothing about yourself. What I mean by that is ... I'll start with Stephanie Baiocchi, who was actually Stephanie Casstevens at the time I interviewed her. She hadn't been married yet. And funny enough, she was not working at IMPACT. That's another great outcome of the podcast. Now she is. But, she talked about a campaign that she was running for a client that sold solutions for medical waste from physicians' practices. Originally, they were creating a ton of content around medical waste, and it just wasn't working. The reason is that their audience, which is really the office managers for physicians' practices, already has a medical waste solution. You can't be in business if you don't, so they weren't out there searching for any information about medical waste. They didn't even realize they needed to switch providers or that they had a problem. It was when she kind of took a step back and thought, "What are the biggest problems that office managers have? It doesn't need to have anything to do with medical waste," and she realized it was patient no-shows. They created a patient no-show policy template that office managers could use. That was a total home run. What it did was it opened up the conversation with their audience so that eventually they could begin talking about medical waste. But at that top-of-the-funnel level, they needed first to really open that conversation, and product- and service-related content wasn't going to cut it. Another person who did that really well was Ryan Bonnici, who is now the CMO of G2 Crowd, but at the time was working at HubSpot. HubSpot's a company that has a huge audience. Of course, trying to broaden the top of the funnel at a company like HubSpot is challenging. All the low-hanging fruit is gone, and so you really have to get creative. He was trying to target a small business audience. He really asked himself, "What are the problems that small businesses have?" And, again, doesn't have to have anything to do with HubSpot. He realized when you're starting your business or when you come to work at a small business, one of the first things you have to do is come up with an email signature. You're usually either copying one that somebody else in the company has created or you have to create it from scratch, and it's kind of a pain. He built an email signature generator, an online tool where you could type in some information about yourself and it would spit out a really nice-looking email signature. That tool generated a ton of traffic, leads, and revenues for HubSpot, and it cost them only $6,000 to build it, but the impact was enormous. So, great lesson learned about getting out of the habit of creating only product- and service-related content and thinking bigger. 6. Paid Ads Are An Essential Part Of Any Inbound Marketing Strategy Number six, the old myth that paid ads are not inboundy is dead, or it should be dead. This one was woven throughout almost every interview I did. It's funny because when I first started working with inbound marketing, it was back with my old agency. I had discovered HubSpot. We were following their original methodology of attract, convert, close, delights, for those of you who've been in the HubSpot world for a long time and all. I remember many times going to INBOUND and seeing Brian Halligan stand on stage and talk about how the old way, the old interruptive way of marketing was paid ads, and people didn't like being interrupted. I think we all read that as, well, paid ads are not acceptable if you're an inbound marketer. That myth started dying, I think, several years ago, but it's worth repeating that paid ads are, I would say, not even just inboundy, they're essential to an inbound strategy in this day and age. I'll just list off a bunch of names of my guests who've talked about it. This isn't even a complete list, but Mark Rogers, who at the time was with Carney and grew The Daily Carnage newsletter using Facebook ads; Sterling Snow from Divvy who's used ads to drive leads for their platform; Moby Siddique who has his own inbound agency and does some incredible Facebook ads work with Messenger bots; AJ Wilcox, who is a LinkedIn ads expert; Ali Parmelee, who's one of my coworkers here at IMPACT who does incredible things with Facebook ads; Anthony Sarandrea; Rick Kranz. The list goes on and on. All of them attribute the success that they're getting and the incredible results to some form of paid ads. Let that be the final nail in the coffin of that old myth. Let's really embrace ads, and not just checking the box with ads and promoting our posts, but really taking a full funnel approach to advertising. Because that's the other thing that these folks talked about is it's not about boosting something on Facebook. This is about really digging in and getting good at ads and thinking how ads can be used at every stage of the funnel. 7. Content Distribution Is Critical Number seven, it's not enough to create and publish your content on your website. You've got to promote it and distribute it. This is one that I've heard time and time again. A lot of the best marketers I've spoken to say you should spend twice as much time promoting and distributing your content as you do creating it. I think for a lot of us that equation is backwards. One person who talked about that was Kipp Bodnar who is the CMO of HubSpot, probably one of the companies that is the best at inbound marketing. He talked about what a game changer it was in the last year when HubSpot really threw some muscle behind content distribution and how that impacted their traffic. This is a company that already had amazing traffic, by the way. Then, Phil Singleton. I loved my interview with Phil who is an SEO expert and an author. Phil talked about this great strategy he uses for clients where he's creating e-books, just like lots of inbound marketing agencies do. But then he takes the e-books that he makes for clients, or he takes a collection of blogs, for example, and compiles them into any book, and he publishes them as Kindle e-books on amazon.com, and also in some cases as hard copy books through Amazon direct publishing. It is so simple, and straightforward, and inexpensive. It blows my mind that more marketers are not doing this. It was a cool episode, so definitely check that out. But yeah, the lesson is don't just like write those blogs, create those e-books. Think about what are you going to do with them once they're published. How are you going to get them out in front of the world? 8. Original Research Can Drive Tremendous Results Number eight, original research can have amazing results. I had several interviews where people touched on what has come of original research. One of the people I think that that is most famous in the marketing world for doing this is Andy Crestodina. He has been doing a blogging survey for several years and really credits that with bringing a lot of attention to his agency, Orbit Media, out of Chicago, giving him a ton of backlinks and press. It's a pretty simple survey. He does put quite a bit of effort into promoting the survey itself so he can get a lot of responses, and then once he gets those responses into packaging that content so that he can turn it into things like infographics and articles, et cetera. But, it's not just Andy. Michele Aymold from Parker Dewey uses original research and data to boost her marketing results. Clare Carr from Parse.ly, they actually don't even have to do that much research because simply by the nature of the product that they sell they have access to a lot of proprietary data. She's really productized that and used it to get a tremendous amount of press. In fact, she was able to dramatically cut back the amount of content she was creating while getting better results because the data itself was so attractive to their audience, and it also helped her reduce their PR spend. Then, Rebecca Corliss at Owl Labs. They produced the state of remote work, and that's gotten them quite a bit of traction. 9. Community Is A Powerful Tool To Fuel Growth Number nine, community is such a powerful tool for marketing. This is an interesting one because here at IMPACT we've been working really hard over the course of the last two years to build our own community called IMPACT Elite, which is on Facebook. We've learned a lot about community in the course of doing that. I would say it has been a game changer for our business, certainly. We now have over 5,000 people in that community. It's a delicate balance how you run it. You can't make it all about yourself. It has to truly be about helping the members of the community and getting them to the point where they're almost running it, if you will. I spoke to several other people who have built communities and had similar experiences in terms of the community being a fundamental tool in the growth of their business. One was Bill Faeth who is a marketer who specializes in the limousine and transport business. He has Limo University, and he has a big community around that of limousine companies. Frank Gruber, who started Tech Cocktail in the beginning and turn it into Tech.co, which was then acquired, he now has a company called Established. But, he began this grassroots community all over the country of startups and people interested in the startup ecosystem and wound up building a tremendous media business from that. Nikki Nixon who at the time I interviewed her was running the FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus. Ameer Rosic who has a community focused on blockchain called Blockgeeks. And Mark Graham, who is an old friend of mine doing amazing things, he's up in Canada and has a software platform called Commonsku and has built a great community around that. All of these folks doing incredible things with communities in very different niches, I should say. For Bill, it was limo companies. For Frank, it was startups. For Nikki, it's people who are ABM practitioners. For Ameer, it's folks in the blockchain community. And for Mark Graham, it's people in the promotional products world. All of these different niches need communities and people are hungry to connect with others who have similar interests as they do. 10. The Quality Of Your Content REALLY Matters Content quality. I had a couple of great interviews on this. This is one that I'd love to talk with more people who are focused on this. In this day and age, you can't just be creating content and checking the box. You have to really create great content that is better than anything else out there if you really want to get amazing results. One person who talked a lot about this was Oli Gardner and how he is putting a lot of effort into really making the content that they create be the best that's available on the Internet. Emily Maxie from Very talked about this, too, really digging deep and creating unbelievable resources for your audience. Both of these folks are getting great results in terms of traffic, and that traffic ultimately turning into leads, because they took the time to create in-depth pieces that really added value for their audience. Seems like it should be obvious, it's another one of these, but it's really not too a lot of us. I mean, you might think your content's really good, but is it the best? When you Google that topic that you created content about, is your piece the best thing that you can find in the search results? If not, go back and spend the time and make it better. I think one of the lessons I've learned is it's better to make less content that's better content than it is to create a high volume. 11. Creating A Podcast - Or Being A Guest On One - Is A Good Way To Build Your Brand Another theme that came out was podcasting. It's sort of ironic because we're on a podcast talking about podcasting. But a lot of my interviews, as I went back and reviewed, had to do with podcasting, beginning with George B Thomas, who I've had the privilege to work with over the years here at IMPACT. He's now at Impulse Creative. George is a prolific podcaster, and he's ... It might seem easy when you listen to him. It just seems like, "Oh, there's a guy that just has a great rapport with his audience," but he puts a ton of thought into how he does these podcasts, how he structured them so that they not only deliver value for the audience, but that they have naturally built-in incentives for people to share them and to grow his audience. That's really worth listening to if you're somebody who wants to start a podcast. Andrew Dymski is another person who's been podcasting for a long time and who I've been a guest on his podcast. He's been a guest on mine. He's got some great insights. Ryan Hawke, who has The Learning Leader podcast, Ryan blew my mind just with how prepared he comes to everything. He talked about this, too, how before he does an interview the amount of preparation he does, the amount of preparation he does when he even just invites somebody to come on his podcast. This guy is serious business, and that's why he's so successful. He really has put the thought into it and turned his podcast into a business. Dan Moyle came on the show and talked about podcast guest interviews. So not necessarily starting a podcast, but if you want to get the word out, going on other podcasts as a guest. At the time, he was with a company called Interview Valet. What's been really cool for me is seeing the other side of that. I get pitched a lot by companies like Interview Valet, and there are certainly other ones as well. They'll send me an email and say, "Listened to your show. Thought it was great. Here's a guest that I think would be really good for you." That's how I've gotten a lot of my more interesting guests. There's something to that podcast guesting strategy that really I think can help you get traction and raise your profile if you're trying to build a personal brand or trying to get the word out about a product or a service. There are plenty of companies like Interview Valet that, for a fee, will take care of that for you. It's kind of like having a talent agent. I also talked to Jay Acunzo about podcasting. He is actually a consultant to other companies and helps them create, produce, and get the best results out of their podcasts. One of his clients is Drift, which comes up a lot on my show. People love Drift, always cited as one of the best examples of a company doing inbound marketing really well, and they have a couple of podcasts. Then, Jeff Large of Come Alive Creative. Lots of folks talking about podcasting. It really stuck out to me that it's not just about, hey, everybody should have a podcast, and I don't think everyone should. It's not right for everybody. But, podcasting can play a role in almost everybody's marketing strategy for sure. 12. Video, Video, Video Number 12, video. Can't have a list of trends and things that are important in marketing without talking about video these days. Some of the guests that I've had that have spoken about this are some of the more impressive people that have been on this podcast. In 2019, I opted to kick the year off with an interview with Marcus Sheridan, who is an amazing man that is a big role model for me. I currently get to work with him at IMPACT. But, he's somebody that I followed for years and I have so much respect for because he sees things about marketing and about customer behavior that a lot of other people don't, even though they're staring us in the face. One of the things that he has really seen and committed to is that when it comes to marketing and selling, we can't just tell people something. We have to show it to them, too, and we show it to them using video. He talked about how important video was going to be in 2019. I know that he's out speaking at conferences and talking about video all over the world. Also, Eric Siu. I kicked off 2018 with Eric Siu doing predictions for last year. He talked about video as well and was like, "Video's going to be huge in 2018." So in both of my kind of yearly prediction episodes, the guests that I've had have cited video as one of the biggest things we should be paying attention to. And then, of course, I already mentioned her, but Goldie Chan, who is a LinkedIn influencer and creates a new LinkedIn video every single day, has made a career around those videos. She's amazing. She travels all over the world and is sought after as a speaker because of the LinkedIn video she creates. And Dennis Yu who has turned video into a formula for building people's personal brands. It's really impressive what he does. They're these short little videos that he films. Using that medium has helped countless people create brands for themselves. 13. Lead With Brand Which brings me to my 13th and last lesson learned from 99 interviews with incredible marketers, and that is that all of these strategies, and tactics, and approaches are powerful. But at the end of the day, the most important thing in marketing is brand. Brand is paramount. Without it, you can have some quick wins but you'll never have a true success that will last over the long term. I'm only going to cite one example here because it's the one that comes up the most. And if you listen to this podcast with any degree of regularity, you know that at the end I always, always ask my guests, "Company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?" There is one company/individual, the company and the marketer who's spearheading it for them, that by far comes up more than anybody else, and that is Drift and Dave Gerhardt, who I was very fortunate to have as a guest early on. I can't tell you the number of times people have mentioned Drift, and it's not just people from the marketing world. It's folks that have come onto this podcast from all different industries, and they all cite Dave Gerhart and his work building a brand at Drift as the one succeeding the most with inbound marketing. It's not for me to say what that brand is or to really try to encapsulate what Dave has done, but I think it's fair to say that they've built a brand that's incredibly authentic. There's no artifice. There's no fancy tricks about it. They, of everybody, really reflect everything I've said about the past, you know, this list of 12 to 13 trends I just spoke about today. When I look back through this list, they are doing a few things and doing them really well. They really listen to their customers. It's not about fancy tools or a big budget. The things that make them successful don't have anything to do with that. It's about connecting on emotional level. It's about creating content that sometimes doesn't have anything to do with your products or services. They do paid ads. And it's not enough to create and publish your content, you've got to promote it. They are so good at that. They've got a tremendous community, really high-quality content, a bunch of podcasts. They use video better than almost anybody else, especially on LinkedIn. Checkout Dave Gerhart's LinkedIn presence. And they just have a really strong brand. So my hat is off to Dave Gerhart and the team at Drift for ... If I had to give out an award for top inbound marketers, I think it would go to them. Thank YOU For Listening But really, everybody that I've interviewed over the course of the last two years has been so impressive. It is just my absolute privilege to get to do this every single week. I also wanted to say thank you to you for listening. Podcasting is a funny exercise. As I record this, it's Sunday morning, and I'm sitting in my home office, which is a tiny little room that actually had to be permitted as a closet because it's so small. There's chaos happening around me in my house. I'm by myself talking into a microphone. I'll go away, and I'll turn this into an episode. It'll go live tomorrow. You'll be hearing this Monday, if you get the episode right when it comes out or sometime after, and you're out there listening. But when I create these things, it's just me in a room. To know that there are people who choose to listen to this every week is just an unbelievable honor and a privilege to me. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this content. I hope so much that you've learned something from it and that, even if it's in a small way, it's helped you get better results from your marketing and feel like a smarter marketer. If that has happened, then I feel like I've succeeded. With that, I will say I would love to hear from you. It's been a hundred episodes. If you are a regular listener, please take a moment and contact me. I always say at the end you can tweet me @workmommywork, which is my Twitter handle, but you can also message me on LinkedIn. You can email me at kbooth@impactbnd.com. You can send a carrier pigeon. However you want to do it, I would love it if you would get in touch and let me know what you like about the podcast and what's something that I can improve because I'd love to make the next hundred episodes even better. With that, I won't belabor it. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next week. Or not see you, I'll be talking to you next week for episode 101.  

On this episode of Delivering Marketing Joy, we talk with Mark Graham from Commonsku and he tells us how to stick with a vision! Kirby Hasseman is the host of this show and the CEO of Hasseman Marketing. You can find more information about him and his company at hassemanmarketing.com.

Welcome to the third episode of the #promotionalproducts industry's newest pod -The Badass Women of Promo podcast a.k.a. the #BWOPpod. Hosted by promotional products professional, Charity Gibson, the #BWOPpod was created to spotlight the powerhouse women of the 25 billion dollar promotional products industry. In this series we will highlight achievements, provide a platform for voices be heard and a way for ideas be shared. Are you a woman in promo? If you haven't done it already, it's time for you to #findyourinnerbadass. Welcome to the #BWOPpod! Our latest guest is Alyssa Inkrott from supplier company, 3M. In this episode, Alyssa talks about a typical week in the life of a supplier rep. We also discuss who she considers a badass woman of promo and why. Big thanks to our friends and sponsors, Commonsku. Please find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @commonsku, like and follow, and to show your appreciation for their support of both the Badass Women of Promo podcast, and badass women of promo in general. Thank you commonsku!

Welcome to the second episode of the #promotionalproducts industry's newest pod -The Badass Women of Promo podcast a.k.a. the #BWOPpod. Hosted by promotional products professional, Charity Gibson, the #BWOPpod was created to spotlight the powerhouse women of the 25 billion dollar promotional products industry. In this series we will highlight achievements, provide a platform for voices be heard and a way for ideas be shared. Are you a woman in promo? If you haven't done it already, it's time for you to #findyourinnerbadass. Welcome to the #BWOPpod! Our second guest is Taylor Borst from American Solutions for Business. Taylor is a true dynamo and up-and-comer in the industry. In this episode she shares her history, how she got into promo, and who she considers a Badass Woman of Promo. Huge thank you to our newest sponsor, Commonsku. Please check out our Instagram feed, @badasswomenofpromo, to read our shout out and thank you to them for their sponsorship. Feel free to add a heart + robot emoji in the comments of the IG post to show your appreciation for their support of badass women of promo.

Buying, selling, filling orders and keeping it all streamlined. In a fast-paced and high-demand market, you can't afford confusion in your workflow. Mark Graham, the co-founder, and owner of commonsku, a CRM order management and workflow collaboration software tool, offers an answer to this crucial need. Join co-hosts Bart Simpson and Matthew Nutt as they sit down with Mark Graham to find out what it takes to brave uncertainty and serious risk, to pursue what you are most passionate about.

Join Anil Paul as he interviews Rob Kerton who shares his experience attending the Rod Brown Seminar at a very insightful CommonSku event. Part 2 of 2.

Join Anil Paul as he interviews Rob Kerton who recently attended a very insightful CommonSku event. Part 1 of 2.

On this episode of the unScripted podcast Bill and Kirby chat about David Shultz moving to Commonsku, Customer Service being the face of an organization, entrepreneurial movies...and so much more! Listen in now!

commonsku collections is a brand new in-app tool that allows suppliers to create beautiful collections of product that can be easily shared by a distributor with their customers. In this episode, Mark Graham, commonsku's co-founder and Chief Platform Officer, and Samantha Kates, commonsku's Vice President of Sales, sit down to share how collections can save distributors time and how this new tool can make sales happen quicker for both distributor and supplier.

On the September 20th, 2017 episode of the YourLIVINGBrand.live show we talk to Mark Graham about what it takes to create a technology company based upon internal needs and requirements. The show is all about what makes you different and valuable to your audience. Want to know more about us, please visit www.yourbrandmarketing.com.

Recorded live at commonsku University at The ASI Show Chicago, we discuss what it takes to climb the path to success, and we chat about key factors that contribute to growth: net profit, mentorship, sales persistence, margins, and more.

For anyone who has been trained on the commonsku software platform, they will be very familiar with our guest this episode. Aaron Kucherawy is commonsku's Customer Success Manager and is responsible for training distributors on the platform, fielding support questions and offering comic relief to anyone in need.

PromoKitchen Podcast #35 - Mark Graham Commonsku by PromoKitchen

Join chefs Dale Denham and Danny Rosin in a conversation with guest, Catherine Graham. Catherine is known for her passion about the modern workplace and what it takes to run a successful business in 2015. She is the President of RIGHTSLEEVE and CEO of commonsku. Prior to joining Rightsleeve, Catherine had a variety of roles including several years of financial planning at TD Bank. She pursued an MBA at the Rotman School of Management during which time she joined the fledgling eBay Canada as employee #4. After leaving eBay, Catherine worked as a management consultant at A.T. Kearney, working with Fortune 100 companies in a wide variety of areas including merger integration, marketing strategy and operational efficiencies. Catherine has been named PPB’s Best Boss and an ASI Rising Star. Outside of work, Catherine is a mother to 3 children ranging in age from 11 to 6 years old and sits on a variety of boards and committees in the non-profit space. She is also involved in a variety of initiatives and organizations in the entrepreneurial space, including serving on Dell’s Global Entrepreneur in Residence Advisory Board and acting as a mentor for Futurepreneur.

In this episode of the PromoKitchen Podcast, PK Chefs Mark Graham of CommonSku and Robert Fiveash of Brand Fuel Promotions chat with Jim Martin of Kolder Incorporated. Kolder is the parent company of industry icon Numo Manufacturing. Jim talks to us about what it takes to create a much loved supplier brand, how to compete with a Made in USA product line, and how he’s been able to move beyond Koozies and into a diverse collection of unique and innovative products.

In today’s episode, Chefs Mark Graham of CommonSku and Danny Rosin of Brand Fuel, are going to explore the new and exciting world of 3D Printing. 3D technology has been getting a lot of play in the media these days, but many of us in the promotional products industry are waiting for 3D tech to make an impact within our professional day to day lives. Presently, 3D printing represents an intriguing, yet very small niche. However, this is poised to change. Suppliers are increasingly using 3D printing to create inexpensive prototypes and marketplaces are being setup to sell 3D printed goods to end customers. Immersed in this vibrant world, we find today’s guest, Kevin Maloney. Kevin Maloney is the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ZVerse, a 3D printing platform devoted to “Making the World’s Content 3D Printable”. Kevin is chiefly responsible for developing relationships with many of Zverse’s key partners and customers. He’s a sales rock star as he has presided over the company’s rapid growth trajectory over the past 2 years. Prior to ZVerse, Kevin was a sales executive with Fortune 500 medical device manufacturer, Boston Scientific. And prior to this role, Kevin was the first sales representative hired at a startup called Fine Line Technologies. Welcome to the PromoKitchen Podcast, Kevin Maloney.