The Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote
Welcome to The Promo Playbook, your backstage pass to the world of promotional marketing. Brought to you by Cubic Promote (https://www.cubicpromote.com.au/) Australia’s award-winning supplier of branded merchandise, this podcast is your go-to guide for making marketing and promo products work harder for your business. In each episode, we unpack real campaigns, talk to industry insiders, and share practical strategies to help you boost brand visibility, engage customers, and stand out. From trade shows to onboarding kits, we cover it all — with no fluff, just real insights that convert.
The Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote
When the Client Needs 10,000 Items Tomorrow, This is What Happens
Wendy Lee shares her journey from junior account manager to general manager and co-owner of Cubic Promote, revealing what it's really like to run a promotional products company in Sydney Australia.
• Wendy's approach to daily operations: 30% customers, 30% website management, 30% staff support, and 10% for unexpected challenges
• Company philosophy that "staff are the wheels" that must move in the same direction for maximum efficiency
• Behind-the-scenes process for handling large orders including extended production hours and multiple staff rosters
• Story of delivering beach umbrellas to Bondi Beach within 24 hours using a tow truck company when standard couriers refused
• How the team handles mishaps, including replacing 4,000 worth of missing banners "no questions asked"
• The all-hands-on-deck culture where everyone, including management, helps with production tasks like packing boxes
Please tune in for upcoming episodes that will continue to explore what really goes on behind the scenes of running an effective promotional products and uniform company.
Find out more and visit our website: https://www.cubicpromote.com.au/
Welcome to today's episode of the Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote. Today we're going to talk about an interesting topic. The topic is what is it like to run a promotional products company and a uniform company in Sydney, australia? And with me we have General Manager Wendy Lee. So, wendy Lee, thank you for joining us at the show today.
Speaker 2:Always a pleasure.
Speaker 1:So, Wendy, can you share with the audience a bit about your pedigree, your background?
Speaker 2:Sure, I joined the company back in 2010, so a good 15 years ago as a junior account manager, and then I worked my way up to become a general manager, with a lot of sweat and tears.
Speaker 1:Nowadays a co-owner of the business. What is it like, from a day-to-day perspective, for you to share with the audience on what it's like to run a promotional products company? Is it easy, is it hard?
Speaker 2:It's hard for me. So my day-to-day I don't call myself really a general manager, more like a helper, a general helper. So my day-to-day will look like start in the morning, look at my inbox, do sales role, because I still got a few clients I dealt with so I would make sure my client are happy with me, all their orders are looked after, make sure people are happy with the company. And I always say to Charles and to my staff in order for a company to grow, it's like a racing car Staff are the wheels and all the wheels need to be moving forward in one direction in order for the vehicle to run at the fastest speed. So the job of talking to staff, listen to them and listen to their feedback, is very important and I dedicated quite a bit of time on that part as well.
Speaker 1:So how do you balance our operations? So we distinctly have customer service elements, we have the products that come into the website. We also have to balance operations to make sure that our team runs smoothly. What are your priorities on a day-to-day basis?
Speaker 2:Priority, always customer first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, given a percentage 100% would you say 50% customer experience, or would you put it less? What is the balance for you?
Speaker 2:So if my day is like a 100% job, then I would say because I handle less customer. So my day about 30% is spent on customers and then 30% on websites, 30% on staff and then the 10% because, you don't know, here and there there will be some odd questions that are outside of these three scope and I reserve my 10% capacity to deal with those as well. All right, got it.
Speaker 1:So we work with a lot of purchase orders, some of them are small, very easy.
Speaker 1:For example, if people come to us for 10 t-shirts, that's water off a duck's back. We can handle that very easily On the odd occasion on any given day. It could be right now, it could be in an hour's time. We might get an inbound inquiry or an inbound purchase order for 10,000 or even 20 or 50,000 t-shirts. Could you share with the audience out there what happens behind the scenes Once we have a large purchase order? What happens? Do we all go frantic? Do we need to onboard new stuff for our suppliers? What happens behind the scenes?
Speaker 2:That's a very good question because it happens quite a lot. A client always wants things tomorrow and it's virtually 10,000 units All wanted tomorrow. Once the client is happy to proceed, we will produce an artwork to them to show them how the end product will look like digitally within an hour, because it's an urgent order.
Speaker 1:Even non-urgent order.
Speaker 2:Within 24 hours they will receive an artwork from us to confirm they're happy with the final results. Before proceeding, and once that, while we are waiting for confirmation, I will need to make some phone calls and also checking on our system, see what's the production capacity like for the day. Because although these clients are definitely important to us, we've got always we have two or three jobs lining ahead that are equally important as well. We have to hire extra staff, ask them to stay overtime sometimes, or even ask external capacity to help to make us deliver jobs on time. So all jobs are important, 10,000 coming in. I will have to make a lot of phone calls in order to make that delivery on time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we certainly do have some really large purchase orders that do come in from time to time. And for us ourselves, I can share with you my experiences on how we go about handling large purchase orders. So this is unveiling the curtains. This is what happens in the background. So once our team goes about confirming the purchase order, a series of events happen.
Speaker 1:It inevitably means that the print machines need to run overtime. Now, normally the print machines from ourselves and our suppliers they run between the hours nine to five, but when orders come in, typically they need to extend those hours. It could be 9 to 7, 9 to 8. At times it could be even 9 to 9. And at times we've even done jobs where it's gone through midnight and over. And what happens with staffing is that we roster ourselves to have multiple rosters coming in just to pick up the slack for the first roster. That goes off and the second roster comes on and all is in the name of production, keeping the print machines running. Once the print machines have run, we need to allow time for the products to dry. The only exception is when we do embroidery. That is when products don't need to dry before.
Speaker 2:And also labeling.
Speaker 1:And labeling for every print, the screen prints, the transfer prints. They do need to dry and cure and during this process, once products are produced, they go through quality control, testing, and at the end, once the entire job is finished, a final inspection is done. A manager, line manager, goes in, inspects all the products and only once everything is confirmed it is in good condition, good quality, then the thing begins. All the products get packed, yield, and then we book a courier promptly for the products to be sent out. So quite a bit happens. So for the customer, all they see is the words no problem For ourselves. That's when day one minute one, that's when the work really begins.
Speaker 2:So, Wendy, Before you jump into the next topic, I can share an interesting story about production, because production staff is not only a dedicated staff. Sometimes, me and Charles, and even the account manager team or people that are not in the production team, will become a product, will be work on production, yeah good point.
Speaker 1:I pack boxes every single week. That's exactly right. I always mention that to customers. I tape them up, I fold up clothes. A hundred percent. It's a hands-on experience.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. You remember a year ago, a couple of years ago, we worked till 12 o'clock. We helped a customer label 8,000 boxes and I still remember just tearing off labeling labeling until about 12 o'clock. Like we said, customer is number one. So whatever it takes to get goods delivered on time, we will do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so. Next question, wendy, is could you share an instance where we worked on a campaign for a fly and it was just brilliant. Everything went well, everything was delivered on time, the customer received the product and not only that, but he got the feedback from the customer where it was a success. The use of our products led to positive outcomes.
Speaker 2:Oh, I remember this one that was a couple of years ago. The monster stick in my memory is always the one that delivered on time, delivered urgently, with a very short turnaround time, and I have to make magic on that.
Speaker 1:So what products were you talking about?
Speaker 2:That was a beach umbrella, so the umbrella itself coming from interstate and I have to engage like we have to print ourselves. It only left about within 24 hours. We have to print them and deliver it in Sydney.
Speaker 1:So print them with our client's logo.
Speaker 2:Yes, of course. Printing with client's logo, dry them and deliver it in Sydney. So print them with our client's logo. Yes, of course. Yeah, printing with client's logo, dry them, deliver it in Sydney within 24 hours. A point receipt of good, and I remember beach umbrella being so bulky. No standard same-day courier would accept that job.
Speaker 1:So end up, we found In a ute something that size.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know what I did. We finished the printing at about 5 pm, at night time. We were calling a tow truck company because it's too bulky. A tow truck company, yes.
Speaker 1:I must have been on vacation. I don't remember that, but carry on.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we called up a tow truck company because it's so bulky and they were like, is it possible to put in these boxes in a tow truck so you can send them to the location in Sydney? I got turned down quite a lot and then another. Finally, one tow truck company was kind enough to offer a bulk same-day delivery courier for me that can deliver the job on time, and that courier arrived at client location at 11 pm.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised the client's even awake to receive the product, it's a marketing company. So it's not just our industry that really pulls out all the stops in order to make things happen. It's industries like the marketing company they do that. They really go over and above and beyond for that.
Speaker 2:Because the event is tomorrow. They can't afford to have this location not set up so they don't have a second chance, exactly right. So at 11 pm, staff are still there and they open courier, deliver the goods. They're opening the box, setting up all the beach umbrellas on the beach, and open it and take a photo for me the next day with sunsets, with sunrise, sorry, and I was like, wow, they stay overnight to decorate the sites with our beach umbrella and we pull magic, pull things off like that Within 24 hours, print, try, deliver. That's not happened regularly but definitely was stuck in my mind.
Speaker 1:I assume that was a Sydney company that plays a precious role yes. I'm assuming the conference was in ICC.
Speaker 2:No, it's Beach Umbrella, so it's actually they're using it on.
Speaker 1:Bondi At a location in Bondi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's around the beach area. Set up all the beachside to an outdoor event. It was a great success.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. Now, on the flip side, things do go wrong Because when we stretch our supply chains to such a degree, things inevitably break. So, wendy, was there a time when something went wrong, and how did we respond? I could actually answer that Things do go wrong. It means us replacing products. That's exactly right In order to make things right.
Speaker 2:Even though the mistake is not from our end, we will replace it with our questionnaires. That's just recently happened. We delivered 4,000 words of banners to a location in Queensland. The courier just dropped off the box in the location. They took a picture, but no one can identify that location at all around the building and the boxes went missing. I remember that, Alda yeah.
Speaker 1:And we called. I believe what happened was. I ended up calling up the neighbor of that building. Yes, I did a Google search. I called up all the neighbors to find. We called up the security To find out if they took hold of the boxes. The security To find out if they took hold of the boxes.
Speaker 2:None of them, none of them can locate a box. So, ended up, we replaced a few thousand dollars worth of banner for the client.
Speaker 1:No question asked. It also means that some other company is now in possession of four thousand dollars worth of banners.
Speaker 2:That are not being owned to them and printed with someone else's logo. So I will feel that, or maybe they can use it for other purposes, you know. Restructure the banner to make who knows what Of course.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot to talk about in our industry. The honest truth is our industry. There's a lot of complexity. We're going to be creating a part two and a part three what really goes behind the scenes of running a promotional products and uniform company. Behind the scenes of running a promotional products and uniform company. We have lots of stories to share with the team, but appreciate you tuning in to this episode and please tune in for upcoming episode two, three and possibly even four on how we go about running a company in a strain that is effective. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
