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Bonus Episode: Purpose & Brand with Social Good Promotions · Promo Perspectives by SAGE

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  Welcome to Promo Perspectives, a podcast presented by SAGE,
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  dedicated to giving promotional products suppliers and distributors tips, tricks,
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  and insights to help grow their businesses. I’m Gabe Gotay, senior marketing coordinator here
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  at SAGE. Recently, we’ve been talking about sustainability and responsibility in promo.
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  In our live-streamed episode this month, I shared some clips from an interview that I did with Kara
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  Keister from Social Good Promotions. Today, I’m going to be sharing that full interview with you.
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  Hi everyone, I’m Kara Keister. I am the owner at Social Good Promotions. We are a distributor
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  in Ohio. I started in the industry actually 15 years ago. I did have to go do that math really
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  quickly. Fifteen years ago, I started as a sales rep in, actually, it was a direct sale uniform
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  business. I’m super thankful for my time there. It taught me everything that I needed to know about
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  this industry and all of the loveliness that is there. I’m one of those people who fell backwards
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  into the industry. I always make the joke that you either were born in or fell backwards in. I
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  definitely fell backwards, but I love it here and I’m very thankful that I took that leap. In 2018,
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  I made a decision that was for myself and my family at the time, and I actually decided to
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  take a break. I was actually going to leave the industry. However, that only lasted like a hot
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  minute. I spent some time volunteering during that time period. I met Roger Burnett, who had this
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  amazing idea to take what Promo Cares was doing and make a distributorship that was profiting
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  from this exact idea that promo superpowers could be utilized for good. I’m thankful every day that
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  I took those calls and I took those meetings. In 2019, we launched The Little Engine That Could,
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  Social Good Promotions. Five years later, through the pandemic, we are surviving and thriving.
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  I’m currently sitting on the PPA board as the regional relations liaison to the PPAI board,
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  so I’m still volunteering and my hand always goes up in the air, and I’m really excited to
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  see what our business and our industry can do to keep shaping the world that we’re living in.
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  Like Kara just said there,
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  using their promo superpowers for good is the vision behind Social Good Promotions,
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  but I asked her to expand on their mission statement and what all it encompasses.
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  Yes, so when Roger and I originally started the business way back when, we were very,
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  very specific about what we wanted to do. Now that our values have definitely evolved since then,
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  our vision has always been to use our promo superpowers for good,
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  and our mission is to connect commerce with purpose to make the world a better place. I am
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  so thankful that we have grown a team that buys into that and lives and breathes it every day,
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  so much so that every year on the third week of January, to celebrate our incorporation date,
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  we actually produce an impact report. So we’re walking the walk as much as we possibly can.
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  She said that part of their mission is to connect commerce with purpose, and on their website, they
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  talk about the importance of storytelling with promo. I asked to expound on those ideas and whose
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  purpose and whose story was it: the suppliers, Social Good Promotions, or the end users?
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  Yes, it’s all of those. It’s every single one of those. So promo with a purpose really
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  means that – merch is great, we all know that, right? Merch is great, we live and breathe it,
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  it’s our favorite thing to do – but there are options out there now that allow us to make
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  choices where our dollars are doing more than just purchasing merch, whether it’s giveback,
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  eco-conscious product lines, if it’s sustainable manufacturing, if it’s a company that’s just doing
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  really good things in the world. That’s what we’re out there looking for, and what we’re looking to
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  do is connect that commerce and the purpose. So what you’re buying with the purpose that you want
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  to fulfill. So marketing, first and foremost, is the goal, right? We want to fulfill the
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  marketing need, but we also want to know about our client’s values. What do they value? What’s really
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  important to them? And how can we find a product that really meets them where they are? Right? For
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  us, it’s the fact that this is what we are doing all day, every day, right? So this is our bread
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  and butter. We want to pick from those defendable suppliers and those lists and those catalog pages
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  that are doing something more in the world. And for our suppliers, we want to tell your story.
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  I am blown away by what Promo Cares started years ago in this space to start telling
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  stories of what our suppliers are really doing out there in the world, and it’s not just about
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  eco or sustainable. It is about what they are doing to make the world a better place.
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  Their mission statement also mentions transparency. I asked her to explain
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  what that looks like and why it’s so important.
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  One of our core values is transparency, and I’ve learned that throughout my career,
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  and I think every salesperson has probably learned that throughout their career. I think
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  it’s really important to be upfront with your people, your clients, and your suppliers. So
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  we tell our suppliers from day one, this is what we’re about. We want you to be about it
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  too. We understand if you’re not, but we’d love to partner in this way. We tell our clients who
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  we are on a regular basis. What’s the phrase? You know, when someone shows you who they are,
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  believe them. We want to live and walk by that. We hope that they understand that, but we also are
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  really in tune with making sure that especially our clients understand what’s going on throughout
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  the process. So if something goes awry, we’re not going to hide it. We’re going to tell you. I had
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  one this week where we thought everything was on track, right? And lo and behold, it’s stuck in
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  transit. It’s not getting here in time. Right? The first call that I made was to the client,
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  and I said, I don’t have a solution yet. I’m working on the solution, but I needed you to know
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  about it. Right? It’s that important to us. It’s also really important to me that my supply chain
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  understands where this product is going. So I’ve had conversations with our reps, our local reps,
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  that said, hey, I’m using this product because it fits this value alignment with the customer.
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  Help me help them meet their marketing goals. And with my team, I think that, you know, transparency
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  is key with your team. That’s how you build trust. It’s how you grow leaders within a space.
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  A key takeaway from some of my earlier conversations with Kara was that eco-friendliness
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  was just one consideration among many when it came to sustainability and responsibility. I
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  asked her what other things is she looking for when determining defendable suppliers.
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  We have like a three-prong kind of approach to it. First and foremost for us is giveback.
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  So we’re looking for product lines that have a giveback associated with them. So if the supplier
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  has committed to earmarking a dollar amount to go back to XYZ, we’re always looking for that.
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  We are absolutely looking for eco-product and sustainable manufacturing practices. We have
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  to usually dig and ask those questions, though. Some of our suppliers are getting really, really
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  good about coming forward with that information. You know, as part of their marketing strategy,
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  which I thank you all for doing that. And third, and the one that I really love,
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  is we do some digging on corporate social responsibility and what our suppliers are
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  doing to make the world a better place. We have uncovered things as grand as sponsoring
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  a village in Guatemala or building a Habitat for Humanity house on a weekend as a group, right? To,
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  hey, we had some overruns that we sent to California to rebuild schools with, right? To fill
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  backpacks so that kids can go back to school as soon as schools are available. We’re asking those
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  questions because we want to know what you’re doing to fulfill that goal within their own walls.
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  Now that I knew a little bit more about what they were looking for in a supplier,
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  I was curious how they went about finding those suppliers and how they invested
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  their supply chains. Was that information readily available, or was it things she needed to ask for?
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  So, two ways – we do it. Let me put this disclaimer, you know, transparency is key here,
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  so let me throw this out there. We are a small distributor for sure. We are still growing,
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  so we are not asking for, you know, down to the molecule of gasoline that was used to get us here,
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  right? We’re not asking for that, but we are asking, and we are researching. Many of our
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  suppliers are really good about publishing the information now. Some of our larger suppliers,
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  you can simply just click through their website and you can find their corporate
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  social responsibility mission. Shout out SanMar, shout out PCNA, shout out Goldstar. You’re talking
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  about it on a regular basis, and we love that. Not everyone is doing that yet, and that is okay with
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  us too, but we’re asking. It’s the first question that we’re asking. If we are jumping on a call,
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  if we are meeting you at a trade show, if it is, especially multi-line reps are really great about
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  this for us, we oftentimes have to ask them, hey, can you go back to your supplier company and find
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  out what this is, what this means to you, so that we can add you to what we call our defendable
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  supplier list. And again, that defendable supplier list is giveback, eco-sustainable, and CSR.
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  Next, I wanted to know what Social Good Promotions was doing to mitigate their own carbon footprint.
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  So Social Good Promotions, as a whole, part of our initial onset is that we are a fully remote
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  business. So we don’t have intentions of being brick and mortar. I can’t say that that’s never
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  going to happen. My goodness, things change so quickly, but our intention from the onset was to
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  be a fully remote business. I make this joke all the time. One of our employees lives a block away
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  from me, and we oftentimes jump on Zoom rather than jump in the car and run over to our house.
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  Things like that, that are that simple. We also have implemented that a lot with our clients and
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  a lot with our suppliers. So yeah, we still are road warriors, but not to the extent that I was 15
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  years ago when I started in this business. I spent so much time behind a windshield. I think if COVID
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  taught us anything, it’s that business can still be done. Yes, I agree. I hear everybody that the
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  personal interaction is still important, and I do agree with that, but I do think that business can
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  be done while really keeping in mind how far you are actually physically going to do that,
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  right? In addition to that, one thing that I’m really proud of is two years ago we implemented
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  a no new packaging rule. So we do some internal decoration, and our rule is it either goes out in
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  Better Packaging, which is the brand name Better Packaging compostable sealers, so mail mailers,
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  or we reuse cardboard, and then we use a compostable sticker on that cardboard that says,
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  hey, this is why your cardboard looks like it’s been used before, so our clients understand why
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  we are sending it to them that way. That was something really small but really simple.
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  I was curious if, on top of selecting defendable suppliers and doing what
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  they can internally to minimize their own carbon footprint, did Social Good Promotions
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  also help their customers make decisions to minimize their impact on the planet?
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  Maybe by guiding their order volumes to help minimize waste from shipping?
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  We do, probably not to the extent that I would like to, quite yet. Most of our clients aren’t
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  ready to have those conversations yet, right? They oftentimes we are still working within
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  budgets. We don’t know what we don’t know quite yet at this point. However, I do ask my team to
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  position themselves as the expert and have as many of these conversations as we possibly can.
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  So if that means that we’re trying to get a bulk order in, but not everybody placed their order,
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  maybe we’re using a SurveyMonkey or an online web store to correlate your orders, right,
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  or aggregate your orders. Maybe we didn’t get everybody’s size right. We’re not going to do
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  a second run of one or two jackets. We’re going to pad that order a little bit. Let’s think about
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  this. It’s going to save your pocket as well as the shipping costs and shipping energy that
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  it takes to get that to us. So we are having those kind of discussions. Something else that I thought
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  of that we are actively working on, we’re getting more into the awards and recognition space, and
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  glass is heavy, right? Glass is heavy, and it’s expensive to ship. We were at a show last week,
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  and I said, okay, our goal today is to find a glass supplier in the Midwest
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  that would reduce the shipping time to our client so as short as it possibly can. Not just because
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  we want it to get there in one piece and quicker, but because we know that it can go on a truck bulk
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  packed with other items to that supply to that client, and it’s not getting on a plane to fly
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  to UPS in the Midwest to get on a truck to get on a van to end up at our supplier or at our client.
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  So far, Kara has shared with us how they achieve their mission at Social Good
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  Promotions in regards to the suppliers they choose, what they do, and how they work with
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  their customers. So I asked her what would she like to see from the tech and services
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  side of the industry to help make a better impact on responsibility and sustainability?
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  We’re already starting to see some of those options available. We do have the carbon footprint
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  calculator. If you are not aware of that, that does exist now. Now again, we’re not tracking
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  the gasoline molecules as a small business, but the option for it to be there is really awesome.
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  What I do know from that is that if a supplier is doing it, they have that traceability for us,
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  which means they absolutely are doing it internally. That puts them right smack in
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  the defendable category for us, and it allows us as a small distributor to play with the big boys,
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  right? So if I have a client like, I don’t know, let’s throw something out there, like a Google
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  or a Microsoft, who says, hey, I want to buy from you, but I need to know this information,
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  you know what? I know where to go. I know what supplier to use. I know what product to use. I
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  can actually pull that information really easily, whereas I don’t know that we could
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  always do that in the past. I love the drill-down capabilities within SAGE, being able to search by
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  women-owned supplier, being able to search by eco-conscious product, being able to search by
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  minority-owned. I think that those are really important, and it creates a space where we as
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  distributors can in fact meet marketing goals for our clients while also addressing their values.
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  I asked Kara if she had any particular goals where would she like to see Social
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  Good Promotions or the industry at large in the next five to 10 years?
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  Yeah, I do. I sure do. I talk about these a lot. The one for our company has always kind of been
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  the guiding light and the star. I mentioned our impact report. This year, we are at 87% defendable
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  supply chain. So the suppliers that we have deemed as defendable under our three categories, we were
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  able to point 87% of our spend back to those suppliers. I know that that already sounds big,
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  but I really want it to be 90. So I really want to live at 90%. It’s not, I can’t say that we’re
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  ever going to be 100%. There are instances where we have to use a different product or it doesn’t
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  fulfill the marketing goals, and lo and behold, we still are a distributor working for our clients,
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  so we are, you know, we do sell things that don’t fall right under our categories, but I
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  want to live at 90%. That last 3% is going to be a really heavy lift for my team, and you know,
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  revisiting our mission, vision, values on a regular basis, I think will help us get there.
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  For the industry, this is the one most have probably heard me say before. I love seeing the
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  face of this industry change. I love it. I want to see more of it. I am so excited to see some young,
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  fresh talent join our pool. I was pleasantly surprised walking around PPA Expo earlier this
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  year, just seeing different groups, different faces, fresh takes on what it is that we do
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  as an industry and as a marketing medium. Drew Homegreen, he has said that, you know, his whole
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  mission is joy, and I’m starting to see that, and I really, really like that. It’s, you know,
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  the last five years have been rough. I don’t think that anyone could say that living through that set
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  of unprecedented times was easy, and I’m excited for what feels like a new leaf and a new page.
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  Outside of just how they sell merch, Social Good Promotions also encourages corporate
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  responsibility by incentivizing their team members to volunteer. I asked her to explain a little bit
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  more about that and if there were any causes in particular that were important to her personally.
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  We are a small team. I will start out by saying then that we are less than
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  five as a total business right now. It’s important to me that I grew up
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  with a sense of service above self, and I have volunteered much of my time over many,
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  many years of my life. It was important to me that I have people surrounding me that
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  are also interested in doing that. I point back to our impact report. With less than five of us,
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  we donated 422 hours of our time in 2024. That is everything from coaching Little League teams to,
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  you know, spending some time at an animal shelter to, I volunteer for Special Olympics,
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  it makes my heart so happy, to sitting on boards, you know, volunteering with regional associations,
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  helping to better the industry. Anything that we can do to get our hands on, we’re really happy
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  with. One thing that I would love to mention is we do partner with DCX. We love, shout out Rocky,
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  we love you. We, I love what they do with their group of employees as well. It’s built
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  into our DNA. We share that with everyone down to our DCX employees. In our handbook,
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  we actually offer 40 hours of paid leave a year for our team to go volunteer however they want to.
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  Lastly, I asked Kara if she had any final messages that she wanted to share with the
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  audience. Before we get to that, just want to thank her again for coming on the show.
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  She makes a great point that eco-friendliness is just one of many factors when it comes to
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  long-term sustainability and responsibility in our industry. Thank you so much for listening
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  to this episode of Promo Perspectives, and make sure to go subscribe wherever you get
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  your podcasts. We have one more episode coming out on the topic of sustainability
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  where we’re going to share the supplier side of what it means to be responsible
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  and sustainable. Thanks again for listening, and now here is Kara’s final message to bring us out.
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  Yeah, you know, I think final thoughts wise, I’ll say, anybody who’s ever heard me on stage before
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  or on a podcast before, I say it all the time, just start. You don’t have to change the world
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  today, but little effort, small efforts add up to a larger whole. So you don’t have to change your
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  whole business model to add eco-friendly product into your line. You can change one pen on your,
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  you know, template presentation and just see if it works, right? You can change one mug. I love
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  what Goldstar has done. Pick something out of the Goldstar catalog and put it in your,
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  put it in your next presentation. It’s, you know, it’s excellent. It’s retail, it’s retail savvy,
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  it’s gorgeous. Just throw it out there. Change one thing at a time. Use recycled cardboard. Try
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  it. See if anybody even picks up that maybe your cardboard wasn’t brand new. You know,
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  there are little steps that we can take, but start somewhere, start small. But please start today,
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  because we can’t, we can’t get better if we don’t try. And please,
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  feel free to reach out to me at any given time. Our website is www.socialgoodpromotions.com,
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  and my email is [email address removed]. We, I don’t know everything by any stretch of the
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  imagination, but I do know what we are doing, and I’d love to share some best practices with
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  it with anybody who would listen. You know, those little things all add up.