[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hello everybody and welcome to Distribution unpacked. I’m Charles McLaughlin and with me today it’s Beth Child and John Bartel of Acco. Guys, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Good morning. Thanks for having us.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: Thanks for having us there, Charles. Thank you.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Of course, we got quite a crew here today. So why don’t you take a moment and just kind of introduce yourselves and the role you play in the distribution channel. And Beth, we’ll start with you.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Sure.
Well, maybe some of your listeners don’t know Acco brand, so I’ll start with that.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: That would be pretty impressive, honestly.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Fun fact is that Acco stands for the American Clip Company. And so we’ve been in the office products business for over 100 years and through acquisition and innovation we’ve grown to be a full service office supply, office core office supply provider.
And you may recognize our brands in your offices or at school. We have Quartet brand whiteboards. Swingline is a brand that you would know of ours as well as Five Star and Mead GBC Business machines. So a lot of brands that people use in their homes, in their office and at school.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: That’s awesome. And so John, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your role specifically within ACCO in the distribution channel here.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: Will do.
So my role is a director of sales and my primary responsibility is leading a team and we focus with the B2B channel. Right. So we’re dealing with a lot of customers that you are familiar with. Right. And those customers have an option of buying through you direct. I mean buying through you or buying through us direct. They make that call and then we work together.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: And trying to work with those customers.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. It’s a great partnership. So I’ll start off with the first question here around market trends. I mean Akko, a lot of brands covering a lot of verticals. But what are some of the most. What are some of the market trends most impacting the Acco business today? And where are you guys focusing?
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Got you, Beth, if you don’t mind. Sure, I’ll kick it off. So I’m going to make my comment based on the B2B channel.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Right. So what we do first is we look at where are the resellers focusing on. And the resellers are focusing right now on three primary groups. That’s furniture, that’s break room, and that’s Jansan. Right. So that’s where we see the trend going now. How do we work with those resellers within those trends? What we do is we call it maximizing your sales opportunities. So if you’re going after a furniture project, we have products that correlate to that furniture project. Right, right. Beth mentioned one of our brands, which is Quartet. Right. Whiteboards go in any type of conference room you’re preparing. Any type of office that you’re preparing from a furniture standpoint, they’re going to put whiteboards in. Right, right. Jan.
When you think of Jan sand, you can think of enclosed boards that go, that can go into like a warehouse, a manufacturing facility. Right. Break rooms. When you think of break rooms, you always go into a break room and you’ll see a laminated calendar that has certain events that’s occurring.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Right.
That’s our at a glass product. Right. So the way we are trying to shift with the market trends shifting is again, maximize your sales opportunity. Right, right. Not just that primary vertical that has the product correlating to it, but think of other products that you can add to it as well.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Right. So it’s not just winning that contract business in the first place. It’s taking full advantage of that contract by making sure you providing that full outline.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: You got it.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: That’s awesome. So now we’ve talked a bit about market trends, but Beth, I want to ask you a little bit about some of the vertical markets you guys play in. You know, education, enterprise, government, healthcare. So many different opportunities, but what are some of the unique demands of some of the key vertical markets you play and how are you guys adapting to meet those specific needs?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Sure.
One focus area of ours is education vertical. We have, through our five star and need brands, learned to be relevant with students and teachers. And we think that translates well into the education vertical. So we’ll be focusing our innovation on being able to serve administrators and school districts as well as students, parents and teachers. So education vertical is a focus of ours for sure. Another thing that we’re keeping our eyes on is the back to office trend.
And whether that is full time back to office or hybrid, however people are working wherever they’re working, we want to have relevant product and we want to have product available however they’re buying it.
[00:04:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Right. I see a lot of the product innovation you have in, you know, at a glance or even in some of the whiteboards you guys have or Kensington. It’s really focused around the flexibility of the space. Is. Do you see a lot of your back to office trends looking towards like seeing, you know, maybe not people in the office every day, same cubicle every day. Like what are some of those back to Office trends that you guys are
[00:05:12] Speaker B: looking at, definitely smaller spaces, smaller shared spaces in offices. We’re seeing trends in terms of people setting up two full offices.
[00:05:24] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Setting up a home office that has a different aesthetic need maybe than the their office at corporate headquarters.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Because I know a lot of our customers, those wholesale distributors would love to see everyone back in the office. But you know, as these trends change, there may be opportunity to, you know, they’re coming back, but more people are using that space. That’s more iterations of the product that you can sell. People are setting up two offices. Why can’t you provide twice as much of an opportunity? Right. That’s really interesting. So you know, John, on this, on the sales side, how can our customers, those wholesale distributors, how can they succeed selling the Acco product line?
[00:06:06] Speaker C: You know what I would say? Because your customers are so vast.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:11] Speaker C: And their customers are so vast is really understanding your customer mix. Right. Once you understand your customer mix, then you can start to really dial in on those products that fit what their customers are looking for. Right. So you look at the education market.
When you look at the education market, you are thinking about school districts, but then get a little bit more specific. Is it school districts that are purchasing the product or is it the opportunity based on bids?
Which is totally two different strategies.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: Right. And even if it’s school districts focusing on products, what are those school districts? Because if they’re a private school or a charter school, typically the funding is there for them to purchase the five star. They’re looking for that quality product. Right, Right. And the funding is there to purchase the five star. If your focus is primarily on the public schools, then that shifts your product focus. Public schools are going to focus on those large laminators, the laminating roles that go with it.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:15] Speaker C: Right. And then the bid opportunities, the bid opportunities are there, but on the back end, you have to make sure you have the resources to do a bid because it could get a little bit more complex. Yeah.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: So tell us a little bit more about winning that contract bid. What do you see as some of the high level tips that our, our customers can walk away with to win more of that business?
[00:07:37] Speaker C: The first step is the resources. Right. Because a bid is not just as simple as filling in the information and submitting it. Right. It’s the resources to do the bid. And then once you have the resources to do the bid, then that’s where you work with your different partners. Right. To make sure you’re coming up with a price point that gives you the Opportunity to be very competitive in winning that bid. Right.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And it sounds like Acco has the resources not just within the breadth and depth of the product line, but in the sales structure, in the sales team as well, to assist with winning those bids.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: We definitely do.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: That’s awesome.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: So. So, Beth, it’s kind of a tradition on the show, we always ask this question to our guest.
Our tagline here at SP Richards, simplifying complexity. And you guys know better than anyone how complex the wholesale distribution space can be. So I want to hear from your perspective, what complexity are you guys focused on today, especially in wholesale distribution, and how are you approaching it?
[00:08:43] Speaker B: There is a lot of complexity, that’s for sure.
I think that one of the things that I mentioned earlier, how we want to find the consumer where they’re shopping product and to provide a consistent experience. And so I think that the taking complication out of the distribution, out of distribution helps. And looking at ways to partner differently Acco with someone like S.P. richards could provide a lot of simplicity to marketplaces online selling.
Any channel. Yes.
Where consumer might be looking for one of our products. I think that there’s a lot of opportunity, for sure.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: And it’s a matter of as things are going more online and people are doing research and having those resources available, it’s still, especially in this channel, it’s those relationships and those connections, not just with, you know, us as the distributor, but you guys as well and your. Your sales team as well. So.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: And I can actually give you a prime example how we work together.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Let’s hear it.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Right? So recently, you know, we had a major customer that decided to go out of the OP product line. Right. Now we work with your team to ensure that they were going to be picking up that demand. Yep. Right. Now, once that decision was made, it was made kind of what we call it in our seasonal season, called the dated good season.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yo, big time period for you.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: Big time period. Right. So what we did is we used our resources. There’s a tool that we use called tableau, and we can look at tableau. And tableau was giving us the information to say, here is the demand that SP can pick up.
And then we work with your team to share that information with your team. Gotcha. Right. We did not want you to lose on that opportunity to capitalize on that demand. And again, in that prime season.
Right.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: So because it can, you know, if that demand spikes and you’re not there to meet it, you got to do it’s the business. Right. To someone else who can and if you’re able to forecast that and help someone so that they don’t have, you know, now they’re overstocked on 20, 27 calendars and.
Or understocked, you know, it’s. That it’s a critical time to get like. And talk about getting that inventory level, like, exactly right. You’re wrong on it. It’s. It’s not a product that you can hold on to forever like some of your other product lines.
That’s a big one. So, you know, Beth and John, thank you so much for coming on the show. We’re wrapping up here, but before we do, I wanted to make sure you guys had one more chance to, you know, bring anything up to our today to that distribution community that you’d want them to know about Acco brands specifically.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: One exciting thing is that we’ve just finished an acquisition of an audio accessory line, epos.
And so we’re really excited for the opportunity to complement our technology accessories that we have in the Kensington brand.
So wait for more information on that coming up soon.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Very exciting. We’ll have to get those in our warehouses. I saw that press release. Very exciting.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, you know, Beth, John, thank you both so much for your time. We really appreciate being on the show, and thank you all so much for watching, and we’ll see you next time.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Thanks for having us. Have a great one.
