April 27, 2023 • 45 mins
On this episode of Industrial Strength Marketing, James Soto interviews Kris Rudeegraap, the founder of Sendoso. Sendoso is the worlds leading sending experience and management platform industrial and B2B marketers trust to build authentic relationships through intelligent corporate gifting. Kris shares his story of how he started the company and the challenges he faced along the way, including a cease and desist letter from Starbucks. The two discuss the importance of personalized marketing and its impact on the customer experience. This episode is a must-listen for marketers looking to make a difference in their businesses.
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The Industrial Strength Marketing Show is a top manufacturing podcast that explores the personalities, cutting-edge strategies, tools, and technologies transforming the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Each episode, hosted by James Soto, covers marketing, sales, business development, and integrating martech and AI into industrial B2B strategies. Tune in to gain actionable insights to help you stay ahead in the industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kris Ruudegraap (00:00):
There's a few that stick out one when we were
(00:02):
starting with coffee Senator, wegot a cease and desist from
Starbucks. And so that was likea no crap moment where we're
like, well, we can't sendStarbucks like, what's the
point? So we flew up to Seattleto talk to them in person.
They're like, Oh, this is waycooler. We didn't even know we
just had some lawyer on payrollthat like, sends out cease and
desist. It's like, let's partnerup. And so that was a really
(00:24):
cool moment. We could have givenup that and just been like it's
over, but we fought through it.
James Soto (00:34):
Welcome to the Industrial Strength Marketing
Show. Hi, I'm James Soto. I'mthe founder and CEO of
industrial strength marketingbrands. We are here to help you
make marketing the strength ofyour industrial business. I am
so pleased to have Chris Rudigrap here with Sendoso. He's a
founder, he's a leader, andwe're gonna get into his story.
And we want to just give you anopportunity to get to know him
(00:57):
today. So you can learn abouthis career, his insights in
marketing that makes an impact.
Welcome to the show, Chris.
Kris Ruudegraap (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me, James. I'm
really excited to be here insideto chat with you and share my
thoughts, feedback and storywith the audience.
James Soto (01:12):
Oh, my goodness, I'm really excited. So we've had a
series of of martech leaders onthe show. We've had, oh, gosh,
John Miller from demand base.
And and we've had the head ofengineering.com, which has a
really great marketplace for elearning. And folks from
HubSpot, Nicholas Holland, theVP of product at Mark at
(01:32):
HubSpot, and so many others. AndChris, when we met at B2B MX, I
was very intrigued. And, andjust to kind of set the set the
the bar here for our audience, Ireally thought this would be a
great episode to feature youhere. Because we have an
audience of folks that have comefrom the physical have come from
(01:55):
the trade events who have comefrom the way of marketing and
selling, that it's really youknow, in person and people
first, and those things havechanged. So we're gonna talk a
little bit about our market, ouraudience, and why I thinks in
Dosso as a platform could befantastic for them, but so that
we can kind of set the set setthe mood for the audience, just
(02:19):
tell us a little bit aboutyourself and sendo. So, and just
so you know, audience, we willhave a point where Chris will
unapologetically talk abouttheir product and what they do.
That's what we keep hearing fromyou that you like, yeah, tell us
the product. We have him here.
We want to know everything aboutit. So Chris, yeah, this let us
(02:39):
get to know you a little bit.
And, and yeah, give us give usthe one on one on.
Kris Ruudegraap (02:44):
So I'll give you a little bit more about my
founding story. And I think thatsets this kind of the tone and
the stage for why I started todo so. So I started to nursery
about five years ago, prior tothat I spent about 10 years in
software sales myself in SanFrancisco. And while I was in
sales, I saw a couple thingshappen in front of me one was
just the overwhelming number ofemails that I was sending,
(03:07):
meaning my prospects weregetting, you know, quote,
unquote, spammed, and there'sjust a lot of digital noise out
there. And it didn't felt feelas personal. And so I was kind
of getting creative, as I thinka lot of salespeople do is like,
how do you break through thatnoise? And how do you really
connect with prospects in a morehuman way. And I found myself
writing handwritten notes andmailing them out, I found myself
(03:28):
going into our swag closet atthe time and grabbing stuff,
sending it out, I found myselfgoing on Amazon and finding like
a quirky gift based on aconversation with a prospect and
sending that out. And it allworked well. It was just manual,
time consuming hard to track,you know, expense report. And I
just wanted to do more of it.
And so I looked online to seehey, was there a solution that
(03:50):
allowed me to like, sendphysical stuff out in my sales
process, and there really wasn'tanything out there. So I asked a
bunch of colleagues and salesfriends and industry experts,
and got a lot of people like,Hey, I'd use that. And so that
was part of my inspiration of,you know, me forward seeing the
future that this was going to bemore part of people's kind of
(04:10):
sales, marketing, customer techstack, but also just the pain
point I experienced in thesolution that I needed. And so
that got me to start Sendoso. Sowe are sending platform that
helps other companies send outdirect mail, corporate gifts,
swag, handwritten notes,personalized gifts, you name it,
we can send it. And we're a mixof a software platform that
(04:32):
helps you orchestrate all ofthis have teams with budgets,
integrations into your techstack. We're a marketplace of
all the different things youcould send in one all in one
platform. And then we havelogistics and fulfillment to
actually help get these thingsfrom A to B. And so that's what
makes up Sendoso. So
James Soto (04:51):
And just to cover that, when he says it's true.
This is a real thing, andespecially today with supply
chain payments, we talked aboutmanufacturers and industrial
distribution and servicescompanies and that that that
critical inter dependence, whatis the scale of that supply
chain? What you know, what arewhat is the area your, you know,
(05:12):
the addressable market you'reserving right now
geographically?
Kris Ruudegraap (05:15):
Yeah. So geographically we service the
world, we have warehousefulfillment centers, our self in
partner three PLS, a few in theUS and Canada, the UK, the
European Union and Australia. Sowe're servicing mostly all
regions. from a companyperspective, you know, we're
about 700 employees, now, we'veraised about 160 million or so
(05:36):
in funding. And we have 10s of1000s of users sending millions
of items. So a pretty robustsupply chain that we've we've
really set up over the years,and founded what year 2016 is
when the idea happened. 2017 iswhen we really launched. And I
think 2018 is really when weraised funding and went to
(05:59):
market and more kind of fasterapproach. Wow. A lot of a lot
has happened in the last fewyears to say.
James Soto (06:07):
So we're gonna just pause here, Chris, how you
doing, man?
Kris Ruudegraap (06:12):
I'm doing great. I am loving it. So I
find, you know, so muchenthusiasm for my team, I find
so much just happiness in seeingour customers successful. And so
yeah, I couldn't I couldn't askfor a better thing.
James Soto (06:29):
And you know, and what's better than doing
something you love and gettingthis fit your vision turned into
reality? Right. Exactly,exactly. And that's just
intoxicating. And so I'll takeus back a little bit. So I had
the chance to meet Chris at theb2b marketing exchange in
Scottsdale, Arizona, a fewmonths back, and in, it was
(06:50):
interesting, in that you saw,you know, a strong exhibition
of, of marketing technologyrelated providers data,
everything from data analytics,experiential, and there was some
Dosia, you'll notice and so ifyou see them out in the wild,
because it's the coolest littledeal, it's all the coolest swag,
(07:10):
it's all about, you know, thephysical experience here, like,
you just feel like it's likeyour kid in the candy bar. So,
and I was fortunate enough to bethere with my team, you know, in
terms of industrial and we wereevaluating the technologies in
terms of, you know, who we wantto partner with? What are the
right tech stacks, where, wherecan we deliver client value,
ultimately, and helping theseiconic industrial brands,
(07:32):
leverage things like AccountBased Marketing, and, and these
great digital experiences?
Increasingly, machine assistantand data assisted. And there we
saw St. Joseph, and I'm justhanging out my team, they dive
into the deep stuff, I mayreally work more on the partner
program level, like, Okay, howdo we partners and it's a good
fit. And you're just likehanging out, man, you're just
(07:53):
hanging out, just in the sideback, you're just looking and
he's just thought that likePapa, papa, bear proud, just
like, chill, like, you know,you're at a phase now where it's
not like survival, you know, oryour payroll this week. And I
just kind of said, Who's thatguy, and I'm just like, hanging
out watching my team do itsthing, and they're checking you
(08:14):
guys out. And then you'rehanging out saying, Hey, what's
up, and we just started talking?
Yeah. And it just seemed to me,and I don't know if this was a
moment for you. But I've seenthat I've seen that moment
before we see someone who'sbuilt it. Or you just don't know
if that's part someone part ofthe team or someone who could
have founded it. And I just hadthat feeling about you never
(08:34):
met. And we just startedtalking. And it just sounds like
you're really excited. I wastalking about the manufacturing
sector. We're working with someof the biggest industrial shows
this year, like massive, youknow, over 2000 exhibitors, and
I'm like, Man, is there some waywe can like, connect here, like,
you think there's such anopportunity here and mark, and
we just started talking is justguys, you know, and yeah. And
(08:57):
you're sitting there watchingyour team, and I view when you
look at where you are today, youknow, whether it's a moment like
that, and you see this stuffhappening? 700 employees, like,
you know, like, What, do youhave any of these kinds of
things, these moments where youlet yourself absorb the success?
Kris Ruudegraap (09:18):
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm constantly grateful
for the success of the companyand of myself and seeing this
grow. And I think I'm also justcontinuing to look for the
future, and I love interactingwith our employees, our
customers, or potentialcustomers, our partners. And so,
you know, while on the show, Ithink, you know, I think that's
one Testament where I, you know,I love getting out there and
(09:41):
meeting new people as it relatesto this journey. And that is
part of the success for me isthat, you know, being there
meeting people and so, I do sitback and you know, and
sometimes, you know, smile whenI'm walking, just thinking about
it, but, you know, it's a longjourney. We're still on this
long journey. And so there's noOh, slowing down. And you know,
if I can be at a show and meetanother customer meet another
(10:03):
partner, I can help out in otherways and really inspire our
company to do better, then we'regoing to continue to have
success. So
James Soto (10:11):
Yeah, that's fantastic. So when you started,
it was around 2016. You know,what was it? Was it you? And
just a vision? Was it you plusyour you know, who's the
lieutenant? Yeah. How did thatstart? What was the zero to
first five people like.
Kris Ruudegraap (10:30):
So I had originally this idea of sending
Starbucks cards, that was kindof what I would call like, maybe
v one. And so it actually firstcame about by, I had to create a
site called Coffee center.com.
And so it was validating, and itwas a Salesforce app that
allowed you to set a Starbuckscard. And it was kind of a very
simple concept, something thatyou can easily grasp, and just
(10:51):
started working on it my nightsand weekends, found an engineer,
actually through Upwork to helpbuild it. And then one of my old
sales friends from college Ireconnected with and he was
like, This is awesome. Like, Iwant to use this as a
salesperson. And so he was like,hey, but I'd also be happy to
help, how can I help. And itjust so happened that his
(11:12):
company was getting an Acura,hired at the time. And so he was
like, Hey, I'm gonna have a freeagent, can I start selling this
and we became co founders atthat point, became like, best
friends kind of getting marriedalmost as a co founder, you got
to spend all your time togetherin the early days. And we just,
you know, started to sell it.
(11:34):
And I think in the early days,we then listening to customers,
and then my own experience insales as I when I was, you know,
sending things out to prospectskind of had this epiphany where
it was a mix of, okay, I cancreate a site that I can send
out Starbucks cards, how can Ido everything else? And we just
said, Hey, let's just keepbuilding this. And we figured
(11:56):
out warehousing, and we just,you know, my co founder, and I
just like, never looked backsince. And then we just started
hiring amazing people. And Ithink, in the early days, it's
like, you got to figure out whenyou should be working on it
yourself, when you should behiring people, and how do you
win if and when you want toraise money. And so it was
(12:17):
really just, but ultimately, Ithink our biggest advantage was
we both had sales background. Soday zero, we were selling this
to the world and talking tocustomers every single day.
James Soto (12:28):
So were there any belly of the whale moments
there? You know, a lot of a lotof founder stories have like an
extinction event. Or if thisdoesn't happen, you know, we're
going down. And you know, werethere any of those moments or
you were just out there sellingand just momentum? Oh, Momo.
And, you know,
Kris Ruudegraap (12:45):
I'd say like, as a founder, you have to be
like, kind of crazy, optimisticand insanely forward thinking
all the time. But you also, I'dsay every founder has a few of
these moments, no matter what ifthey don't, they're lying to
you. But you have to be crazy toget past them and not think that
they're, they're, you know,showstoppers, they're just, you
(13:05):
know, speed bumps. But there's afew that stick out one when we
were starting with coffee,Senator, we got a cease and
desist from Starbucks. And sothat was like a no crap moment
where we're like, well, we can'tsend Starbucks like, what's the
point? So we flew up to Seattleto talk to them in person,
they're like, oh, this was waycooler. We didn't even know we
just had some lawyer on payrollthat like, sends out cease and
(13:28):
desist. It's like, let's partnerup. And so that was a really
cool moment, we could have givenup that and just been like it's
over. But we fought through it.
There was also a moment when,when we were scaling our
warehousing, and that we ran outof space. And we ran out of
space, like, overnight. And sowe had to, like have a truck
full of stuff sit out in theyard overnight, we had to go
(13:48):
find a new space over theweekend and Monday move
warehouses because of thephysical constraints. And so
that could have caused somemassive bottlenecks. But we
quickly acted and found a newwarehouse space and expanded
over the weekend. And you couldalso say COVID was a scenario
that could have been a crazytime for us as it's like, Hey,
how are you going to send stuffto people's offices? And so we
(14:09):
quickly pivoted with this dressconfirmation feature and helping
send things to people's houses.
And we actually scaled fasterthrough COVID. But some could
have looked at that as a momentof, oh, no, like, how do you
send stuff to people in a timewhere everything's shut off? And
we use that as a thoughtleadership forum in a way to
(14:30):
help other marketers salesfolks, you know, get better and
solve problems that they neededto solve during those try trying
times. So definitely multiplethings to point back to but you
know, definitely ups and downsalong the way.
James Soto (14:46):
And in a sense that each one of those scenarios
actually made you stronger.
Kris Ruudegraap (14:52):
Exactly. It made the team come together
stronger. It made us can thinkoutside the box and it made us a
better company on the other end.
James Soto (14:59):
Oh, Absolutely and coming out of COVID, you can
think of every excuse or, youknow, potential threat to your
business and to see, you know,the innovators mindset, we can
F, yes, this is this, you know,this is a problem, it's just a
problem, you're always gonnaproblem exactly, and probably
(15:19):
wouldn't solve the problem,solving problems, and then
finding that these are problemsthat are repeatable problems. So
when you have a problem in themarket, and that's a lot of
people have it, there was achallenge and you overcome it,
you've delivered more customervalue at the end of the day.
And, you know, when when, youknow, a founders journey is not
alone. I know, you have your cofounder, but yeah, you know,
(15:41):
when you think about some ofthose challenging moments, you
know, is there anyone that comesto mind that helped you get
through those?
Kris Ruudegraap (15:47):
You know, aside from my co founder, we have an
amazing, you know, advisoryboard of different mentors, I
think it's important forfounders and leaders in or
anyone to have a sounding boardof different mentors, people
they can ask questions to. Sothat's important. I think that
there's also our investors, andthen just our executive team,
(16:08):
you know, they we all cometogether. And you know, maybe as
a CEO, I get credit for a lot ofthe work that happens behind the
team, but behind the scenes, buteach and every person at the
company plays a part in theirsuccess.
James Soto (16:20):
Absolutely. It. When you look at how you've grown the
organization, given, you'reproviding solutions that help
people sell better and marketbetter and create better
experiences. What's Where didmarketing play a role? Where's
that playing the role past andpresent and the growth and
survival and success of yourbusiness? You know, like, yeah,
(16:43):
so are you guys do to market andtotally, yeah.
Kris Ruudegraap (16:48):
So I love marketing, I actually was a
business marketing major. And somarketing was something that's
been close to my heart since DayZero, even though I went into
sales, early career marketing,and the creative aspects of
marketing has always beensomething that's intrigued me.
So I think a couple things standout for me in the early days,
and still to this day, and that,you know, we're creating a new
category, like, you know, fiveyears ago, or when I was in
(17:11):
sales, or six years ago, youknow, when I wanted to use a
solution, like so, so therewasn't, so we had to kind of
create a lot of awareness forthat. And so in the early days,
you know, marketing wasinstrumental, and, you know,
brand awareness. And, you know,we did a lot of event marketing,
which was really key to us inthe early days, because we got
our, you know, our booth next toanother booth that was like, Oh,
(17:32):
I know that, Oh, who's done? Oh,I want to hear about them. And
so there was a lot of, you know,investments in the brand and to
field events, demand gen. So ourmarketing team really, really
played a big part in puttingSonos on the map. We also
invested a lot in kind of ourSDR team, which demand which is
(17:55):
kind of an extension, I think,in some times in marketing in
terms of kind of outbound andtelling the world hey, so those
two exists, you should use it.
So I look at them sometimes asan extension of marketing as
well. We do a lot of sending,you know, our, you know, eating
our own dog food or drinking orchampagne, whatever you want to
call it. So that's something wedo. And to this day, we still
do. You know, marketing is oneof my key areas that I spend a
(18:16):
lot of time each week, workingwith our marketing team, making
sure that we can continue todrive pipeline and drive
awareness for what we'rebuilding.
James Soto (18:26):
Yeah, and maybe a gift and a gift here. They're
there. They're right,strategically, exactly. In the
right context at the right time.
Exactly. Those are all goodtips. And those are absolutely
great things that that we see.
You know, it's interesting tome, when you look at the
manufacturing sector, it's sofocused on, you know, there if
(18:48):
you can argue that, you know,manufacturers, distributors,
industrial services, companiesare probably the best at social,
marketing, experiential, butthey are fantastic at leveraging
their business networks. Yep.
And when you look at a sectorwith so much tradition, and you
know, when you're buying$100,000 million dollar capital,
you know, technology, rightcapital, equipment, technology,
(19:11):
it's big stakes, people go tothe conferences, they go to the
shows to see these things. Andthere's been that, that that
physical experience as a way of,of marketing. What I find really
strange, Chris, is when you goto these conferences, there's so
many enabling technologies. Youdon't see the organizations like
(19:31):
yours there. We're talking abouthow do they they're trying to
figure out how to do theseevents, how to write these great
experiences, but it reallystrikes me that there needs to
be a really big reset on thethought thoughts around sales,
marketing, how how theorganization's work together,
and we've been fortunate enoughto have some great guests and
(19:52):
some folks from McKinsey come onboard and they talked about
their their their, theirmarketing, Pulse study, and And,
and what that uncovered was,okay, what has happened here
over the COVID? Right during theperiod where you are pivoting
and trying to really adjust andsuggest features and find ways
to like, how do you get tosomeone's house, you know, their
place. And, you know, whatthey're finding is that there
(20:17):
are studies and data showingthat, that the way we're
marketing and selling isleveling off into these rule of
thirds. The first is that, youknow, we have this, this
personal, you know, in persontype interaction working with a
salesperson or an SDR, thesecond third of the way, you
start to see the processes, thevirtual, and you do a virtual
(20:39):
communication, of contact, and,you know, that's obviously
driven online. And the third isthey want now a self service
part where they just go get it,go do it themselves and go take
care of it, that convenience.
And so there's rule of thirds,we're finding industrials, have
(20:59):
to serve and readjust all three,you know that in person, that
that hybrid virtual, and that,hey, I want to go do it and self
serve, I want to buy a $200,000stamping press like, yeah,
putting now. So when you thinkabout that, how have you seen
the ways that you have to, youknow, approach physical
(21:21):
experiences and, and sending,and, you know, and gifting
whether it's, you know, based onintent and Account Based
Marketing, or otherwise, how doyou see the world shaping up for
you, in terms of the way you'repositioning this to all the
different ways that b2b, let'ssay industrial buyers, and
sellers are trying to connect?
Kris Ruudegraap (21:42):
Yeah, so it's a great point. So I'd say one
trend that relates to thosethirds is that, you know, as
there was a lot more field repsmeeting face to face in person
prior to COVID, there's a littleless of that. And there's even
more of like, hey, I can do thisthrough zoom. So let's keep
doing this through zoom, whichseems kind of, you know,
advantageous at times based onmaybe cost measures, timing, I
(22:05):
get to stay home with the familymore frequently. But you still
need to figure out how do youbuild those relationships in
inspire human connections,because people buy from people
at the end of the day. And sothat's where we come in. And we
can help with, you know, sendingthings out during that, that
buying experience to reallyimpact that relationship in a
positive way. So you can winthat deal. And I think that's
(22:26):
important, because, you know,you're spending less time face
to face, which is an easier way,at times to create that
relationship strength. So Ithink that's one way for
companies to offset it, too, iswhen you're going to these
events there, you need aplatform that can also help with
sending things to these eventsare sending follow up to these
events are driving people tothese events. And so I think we
(22:46):
help with that as well, in termsof just another aspect of
driving people to your booth orafter your booth as a follow up.
You also hinted on, like peoplewanting to have more self
service experience. And so Ithink in that experience, it's
how else are you going to,again, chime in and build
relationships? Again, with thatbuying experience? While maybe
(23:08):
it's changed from like a, hey,take it down, take a meeting,
hey, let me give you thesolutions consulting to where
you're, you're giving them somesort of self service path. But
along that journey, can youchime in with like, Hey, thanks
for signing up, here's a welcomegift, how are you building
rapport, because you're going tohave to let your product build
(23:28):
rapport and and you're going tohave to kind of pay it forward
with prospects at times. Becausethey're not going to be as eager
to jump on a phone call withyou. So how do you, hey, here's
a piece of content on how to usethis better. And here's, you
know, lunch on me through somedough, so I'm going to send you
a DoorDash gift card. And that'sbuilding that positive rapport
(23:50):
to make sure that they're, youknow, gonna buy are going to
convert as well.
James Soto (23:55):
So that's interesting. So, so when you
think about all the differentways you can send Yep, right.
You can send gifts andnovelties. But you can send
value. Yeah. So that's a wholedifferent stage. And obviously,
then you can also look atbehavioral, which is
(24:17):
gamification, about you know,there. So there's a nonlinear
arguably buying process,multiple stakeholders come
involved in the b2b andcertainly industrial buying
process, especially inindustrial, there's such
interdependency, they can't putthe wrong, you know, 100,000
parts in that vehicle, theygotta get that right, because
they're there, they're introuble if they don't. So,
(24:39):
supplier and buyer.
interdependence is so critical.
So making some of these,especially bigger industrial,
buying decisions takes one a lotof time there's a longer
velocity to get it. And there'sall of these stakeholders coming
in and out. So when you look atwhat you're sending is there,
you know, can you give someinsights into some creative ways
folks have been saying Sendingand is it all those things we
(25:01):
typically expect? What can yousend?
Kris Ruudegraap (25:04):
Yeah, so that isn't our platform is there's a
mix of kind of traditionalthings that you could send like
gift cards, which we make iteasier to do, we also offer up
more of like the ability to sendout like a gift card choice. So
you can say, Hey, pick fromthis, and this and this. And
this. So we offer that kind offlexibility. There's also more
like on demand, things that are,let's say, not branded, but just
(25:26):
gifts like wine, and flowers andcupcakes, and different things
like that. There's also brandeditems that you want to get
something cool and branded.
There's virtual experiences,like, hey, I want to have a wine
tasting experience, and I'mgoing to send some wine and
there's gonna be like a small a.
And then there's also just oneoff, you know, single
personalized gifts. Like maybe Iknow you're a New York Yankees
fan, and I want to send you somesome Yankee swag, or I know you
(25:49):
play golf. And so I want to sendyou some golf balls. And so
there's some kind of a myriad ofthat. And we will help along
that whole spectrum of saying,Hey, do you want something kind
of out of box, do you want tocome up with something super
creative. And I think the supercreative part is where marketers
really lean in, because they canspend their hours with thinking
about creativity. And then wespend our hours sourcing it,
(26:10):
getting it into the warehouse,kitting it shipping it. And so
they're not spending hours andhours, you know, we do all the
tracking behind the scenesthrough software, we can out we
can say hey, sales reps, you getto send this on behalf of
marketing. And that's allautomated through software. So
when it comes to what you cansend, there's, you know, themed
based things like we had somereally cool items sent for March
(26:31):
Madness and football wherepeople are in basketball where
people are sending things outbased on people's college on
monitors, there's, you know,people that are focused around
different trends that arehappening around, you know, the
world, there's, there'sinterest, like creative
individuals, like there's ascene where, you know, you
someone's got like a customizedadmin calendar over the
holidays, which was cool, orthey sent this like packet of
(26:52):
seeds. And then a week later,they sent a watering can and a
week later, they sent somecutting shears. And so it was
like a three part gift. Or wesee people sending these like
mini Lego figures that theycustomized like Lego kit, or,
you know, someone sending this,these really cool glasses where
you can like see it with withwhen you put on the glasses, you
can see this image on thispaper, but you can't see without
(27:14):
the glasses. So it createsinteractivity. So really,
there's just like an unlimitedspectrum of what you can send
and it really becomes around howdo you use this as just a
creative mechanism to grab theattention or to think somebody
or as a means of communicationoutside of just the normal kind
of email tenancies that mostmarketers have today.
James Soto (27:36):
So it's the physical, it's unleashing the
creativity background, lookingat whether it's an item or it's
more experiential in terms ofthe intent and the utilization
of it, right. And obviously,there's, there's so much more
you can look at in terms of howyou do that. And to the extent
that you can also put instrategic messaging, there are
ways that you provide thatvariable data input,
Kris Ruudegraap (27:59):
exactly the handwritten note or the printed
note or collateral that goesalong with it, so you can get
your message. I mean, you couldalso use like the handwritten
note as a way to kind of highlevel you know, have some, some
messaging that grabs theirattention, and then follow that
up with a phone call or an emailwith more in depth information.
(28:20):
And just using it as kind of alightweight touch point to
James Soto (28:22):
So you can really just find those light, like
those lightweight touch points,reinforcing a message, a little
bit of personalization, exactlyweaving it in there. To what
extent that I don't know ifyou've had to do this, because
it just seems to make a lot ofsense. But, you know, I think
from looking at, you know, someorganization that has a lot of
like outbound sales developmentreps to invest, you know, in
(28:45):
terms of a customer experienceinvestment, do you have to
provide or do you guys provide alot of data in terms of showing
the lift? Right, yeah, this muchmore engagement, this much more,
you know, outcomes are improvedthis much more? Is there any
high level data that ouraudience would find interesting
when it comes to leveraging aplatform like Sentosa?
Kris Ruudegraap (29:04):
Yeah, so we have data across all different
use cases, whether it's sales ordemand gen, or field marketing,
or customer marketing. So wehave a resources section on our
website on sindo.com that youcan go look at, like how
customers how companies areusing it, and how what are the
results they're seeing. So thenice thing is, is that with our
platform and software, weintegrate into your CRM and your
(29:26):
marketing automation tools, sowe can connect the dots for you.
So you're doing less kind ofmanual tracking, and we can show
campaign tracking and other waysto show the results of how much
you're spending and then the ROIon it. And that was a big part
of the software can play becausepeople are sending things out. I
bet most listeners, they've sentthings out in the past
themselves. They know their teamis but oftentimes it's siloed.
(29:49):
It's ad hoc, it's not anoperationalized process, so they
can't do it repeatable in astreamlined fashion, but they
wish they could. And so youknow, it's not Some. So being
able to kind of use software tomodernize this process is just
helpful in showing the resultsso that you can spend more and
use this channel even moreeffectively.
James Soto (30:11):
This is exciting. I want to go into some of the
making the sausage here, andI'll tell you about something
we're working on right now. So,and I think this is just for our
audience, I think any, what I'mgetting into here is the
customers experience. So youhave a customer, you've worked
your tail off to get them, youknow, arguably, according to
(30:34):
data out there, it's five toseven times less expensive to
organically grow your businessfrom an existing customer than
it is to create a net new one.
And so customers journey intheir experience counts. Yep,
retention, reducing rescissionrates, you name it, you can look
at, you know, there's a bigskilled labor gap in
manufacturing, across the supplychain, what can you do to like,
(30:59):
drive, you know, even your teamengagement and retention, right?
That's, I mean, this thing isamazing. So, and honestly, you
lose people, you lose customers,not often based on logic, but
how they're made to feel. And itreally seems to me there's a
huge opportunity. So when itcomes to the experiential side,
(31:19):
or these use cases, you'reseeing a lot, you know, the, you
know, the, the team engagement.
Kris Ruudegraap (31:26):
Yeah, oh, yeah.
We, HR teams, people, teams loveus for that reason. Because
it's, you know, you've got,you've invested in this
workforce, that a lot of it arestill maybe hybrid or fully
remote. And how do you keep themengaged? How do you make them
feel part of the team. So thatuse case is even more important
during COVID that we saw wherepeople were using us for, you
(31:47):
know, new hire welcome kits orgifts for, you know,
anniversaries, birthdays, andjust life moments are simply
just like, hey, it's summertime,here's a nice little summer
gift, take, you know, take thisas appreciation. So I think it's
more than ever important toappreciate your employees, and
we can help with that tail.
James Soto (32:08):
Chris, I would imagine you have a massive
opportunity in the segment, Iguess, skilled, just the labor
gap period, is so massive, andreducing churn is such a huge
issue. And you think, Oh, howbig of a deal with this be?
Those moments count, you know,up to a quarter of our business
(32:29):
as an agency has been at timesrelated to recruitment,
marketing, employer valueproposition, employer branding,
really messaging around howyou're going to create a great
place to work. And but how areyou going to be the marketing
sciences to engage, attractretain, folks, and it's massive
opportunity. I mean, it's huge.
And, and, and so when we seethat and the opportunity to, you
(32:56):
know, to be thoughtful, and andthe other thing is, recognition
programs. Yeah, folks are reallygood at recognizing people is,
that's got to be a great use.
Kris Ruudegraap (33:10):
Yeah, recognizing people. And I think
it's not just employees, butalso recognizing your customer
advocates, your referrals, yourpartners. And so I think it
extends beyond what people thinkof like, Oh, I'll recognize some
employees, but really creating away that you can meet
meaningfully think customerreferences, customer referrals.
And we can really help withthat, too. And, again, it's just
(33:32):
streamlining and so it takes,you know, one minute versus 20
minutes do you get time back inyour day to focus on on
important initiatives, otherthan like running a little mini
post office, at your house or inyour office?
James Soto (33:44):
I love it, we just show you know, we've been
talking about y'all to the wholeteam. And we form and I'll get
into our personal case, Iusually don't like to do this.
But I think it's important, andI hope my my team is listening.
You know, you know, for ourindustrial agency group, the
(34:04):
industrial it's a servicesorganization. And I think every
business really is a services,organization, manufacturers,
distributors, you name it,marketing tech software. And for
us, we have a vision to be thebest better than the rest as
perceived meaning felt by ourteam, clients, peers and
(34:28):
partners, be the best agency thebest service for its services.
And so, so I see technologiesand platforms like some Dosso as
as being very, very helpful inthat in that goal. And so what
we are working on is the firststage of the client experience
(34:49):
and we do this from time to timewe do it to ourselves. And I
think if you and I think anyonelistening, you're thinking about
this same thing, what is theclient's experience and you
know, from that first touchpoint How do you say hello?
Yeah? How do you recognize them?
You know, how do you really givethem the information they need
in order to do business withyou? How do you show gratitude?
And and to what extent do youreally kind of keep up on their
(35:12):
pulses? So what we're looking atis like creating our process to
work internally, again, we'dlike to reimagine it. But we're
also thinking about okay, nowlet's now once we're done with
this, let's write it completelyfrom the clients point of view.
So one of the things we'relooking at is, okay, let's start
doing an intake survey. So wecan get a formula. Who else is
going to be part of thisproject? How are we going to do
(35:34):
it? What do you like? What'syour what your birthday and
starting to bring in these thesethese types of discussions? And
it's not just what are wesending them? It's how are we
focusing on serving them? Andthen to the extent that you can
match it up with an amazingexperience, and those really
strategic touch points. It's notabout quantity. It's about
(35:54):
quality. So as you look at that,that's our first phase, right,
all the way and then how do youwelcome them? Like the welcome
kit? Right? Yeah. How do you dothe welcome. And then from
there, what happens is there'sthis period where there's
handoffs, you know, orintroductions, like we like to
say, and then new people comein, but you know, really, I
think the way folks look atservices companies, it's like,
(36:16):
okay, I trusted you, I kind of afeeling you can do what you said
you did, are you doing it and dothat first, like milestone, or
sprint, we see that as like theend of the first stage, right,
that first stage of like, wentthrough this journey said yes to
us. And now they've come onboard, there's been a good hand
off, they feel good about it,you know, there's a client
(36:37):
satisfaction survey at the end.
And it's really about their howthey're feeling. How have you
seen experiential typeinitiatives like that work in
terms of really goodintegrations, when you're really
attracting bringing someone onboard? And do you look at it
that way to the first stagewhere they like you've gotten
(36:59):
through that first milestone?
You know, is this just tablestakes for you guys? Now, as you
see that? Or is that just partof something like us, folks,
like us have to look at all thetime and, and really break down?
Kris Ruudegraap (37:14):
Yeah, so I think for us, you know, we
practice, we preach this, and wepractice this and that it's all
about the customer journey? Andhow do you map that out to where
there's certain milestones thatyou can create these, like,
really impactful moments thatmatter, these memorable
experiences. And so whether youthink about it, you know,
(37:34):
strategize on part of theonboarding experience, part of,
you know, when a new deal isclosed, during the handoff,
during, you know, you know,moments during their either
their their life moments, orproduct usage, milestone
moments, all those things arejust touch points that are going
to just build betterrelationships, and the name of
the game is like, you want tokeep that relationship forever
(37:57):
and retain that customer. And sohow are you doing more of that?
And so I think that there, asyou mentioned, companies are
seeing the picture much biggernow, instead of just as buyers
journey that, hey, what are weputting all of our effort into
this? You know, getting acustomer from a prospect to a
customer and then stopping it's,well, what else? What's the next
510 20 years look like? How dowe keep a customer that long?
(38:20):
And I think it's important thatyou can leverage a platform like
us to like, sprinkle thosethings in so that, again, you
have the ideas, you know, youwant to do it, it's hard to do.
So let us do the hard work foryou so that you can, in some
cases, even automate it throughyour CRM or through marketing
automation, where you could put,put the hard work in upfront,
which is planning that customerjourney, deciding what it is you
(38:41):
want to send, and thentriggering that off based on
data in your systems, so thatit's repeatable, and you can
continue to have success withit.
James Soto (38:51):
And that's, you know, I've once heard that there
you can create moments of magic,right? And moments of misery,
right and touch point, it's anopportunity to create a moment
of magic or a moment of misery.
I love that and anything inbetween, is forgettable. It's a
moment of mediocrity. Yeah, hey,hey, Chris, how are you doing?
(39:12):
I'm fine. I'm fine. Fine, isn'tfine, you know? And when you
really look at that, that thatmindset Shep Hyken, said this,
he's really lifted speaker andhe basically said that, you
know, when you really look atexceptional experience and
service, it's, it's the uses theword always when it comes to
(39:34):
service, they always, you know,mindful of us, they follow up,
they're always remembering thosemoments that are special to me
or those days. They always comeup, you know, commemorate, you
know, the number of years we'vebeen a client, you know, they
always call me back, you know,if it's, you know, yeah, before
noon, if you know the next day,and I think these experiences
(39:55):
and these touch points and thesethese emotional investments,
yes. Okay, because that's trulywhat they are. It's how they're
made to feel. And so for us andour journey is you know, as
perceived by felt by people, youknow, how do you really make
them feel like you're doingthat? You know, you're not
always gonna be in moments ofmagic, but are you going to be
in that sweet spot of like, youknow, consistently always being
(40:18):
mindful of the customer and howvaluable they are how important
the customer is that maybe orthe prospect that may be your
customer. And with that said, Ihave one more thing for you,
Chris. So y'all do this in DossoCindy awards. And I know when
someone says hey, after 19 yearsof industrial and all this stuff
you guys have done you know,what are some of your favorite
(40:41):
campaigns I don't even knowwhere to start, you know? Like
I'm just like, shuts me down.
There's so many things and sowhat was your favorite send that
you can remember whether it'sone of the you know, sin docente
awards winners or other rides?
What are some of your all timefaves?
Kris Ruudegraap (40:58):
Yeah, I mean, sending awards are true to my
heart because it's like bringstogether one Austin sends with
Austin customer experiences, andwe're reward and we're
celebrating our customersuccess. So one that I remember
top of mine, he's me as Zendeskdid a really fun campaign last
year where it was like a movie,movie night in a box kit where
you got popcorn, you got like aNetflix card, you got this
(41:21):
little blanket, but and candyand it really thought about the
whole family and play, which Ithink is a really important part
of marketing is being knowingwhat your, you know, end buyer
or end customer is. And at themoment a lot of people were at
home with their families lastyear. And so that was a really
fun campaign that didn't justtarget that persona, that one
(41:41):
buyer but that buyer and theirfamily and and had gifts for the
whole family. So I thought thatwas really unique. Gone to this
really fun like pinata unicornprogram where they sent out
these like, little unicorn pinJada's and I think that was a
really fun way to celebrate.
Ultimately, just like thingsthat you kind of, how can you
not smile when you receive apin? Yatta. So I think that was
(42:02):
really good. And then yeah,there's just there's so many
more, I mean, simple thingslike, like Uber Eats gift cards,
sending that out the right timecan make a big difference. And
so they don't, you don't have tobe crazy creative, like this
movie theater kid, it's justmore of a can you create a kind
of this meaningful experienceand send the right thing at the
(42:23):
right time with the rightmessage and have that hit home.
But if you want to see othersend the awards, we got it on
our website, you can see all thedifferent send the awards, and
and also the results for themtoo. So I think one of the
things we would like to prideourselves off on is sharing the
data behind the sending. And sowe offer a bunch of that see,
like, what was the results ofthese seven programs?
James Soto (42:46):
Yeah, I, I was gonna ask you the question, what's
your favorite piece of swag? Ihad even that I'm not even asked
because there's no answer tothat, like, I know, what's the
one you carry? Or you keep?
Right. You know, I, I'd love youknow, my son would love a one
wheel like. So I don't know,you'd have to be a very valuable
customer for that one. But thatthat's fantastic. And Chris, you
(43:09):
know, when we think about, youknow, our audience in the
manufacturing sector, they arelooking for ways to stand out
from the crowd. And I thinkabsolutely, dosa would be a
fantastic platform for them toconsider. And with that said,
where can folks find out aboutCisco? So you know, where can
they reach out to you? And youknow, you know, what's up, and
(43:32):
what's important next for youguys?
Kris Ruudegraap (43:36):
Yeah, so you can find us on our website, if
you want to look at moreinformation, that's Sindo
cio.com, you can email medirectly. And this could be
wanting more information onSonos, or just connecting as an
entrepreneur or founder. And youcan connect with me at Chris,
it's KR is at sendo cio.com. OrI'd be on LinkedIn. And I'm
always looking to connect withmore people. For us for what's
(43:58):
next, you know, we're justcontinuing to have a lot of fun
continuing to help our customersbe successful. And so, for us,
it's just more of what we'redoing and just continuing to
scale the company.
James Soto (44:08):
Wow. So you're, you're a person now with a
successful company, 700 peoplestrong, and you just get your
email to everybody. Yeah, that'sfantastic. That's a great
customer experience. That isabsolutely the way to do it. And
it's great to see that you'reout there. Thank you for doing
that. And for the audience.
Absolutely. We're going to haveall of these links in Chris's
LinkedIn profile and his emailin the in the exactly that last
(44:31):
name and in the show notes. Andso with that being said, Chris,
I just want to thank you forbeing on the industrial strength
Marketing Show. And for youlistening, I hope you just heard
one thing, one thing aboutsending in gifting and how
people are made to feel and thegreat experience I have, and how
do you make that as part of yourbusiness to make marketing even
(44:53):
more a strength of yourbusiness? So for more insights,
from industrial marketers ifyou'd like to reach out to us
visit us at industrial strengthmarketing.com Thank you Chris
for being on the show today allright and everybody we'll catch
you next time
There's a few that stick out one when we were
(00:02):
starting with coffee Senator, wegot a cease and desist from
Starbucks. And so that was likea no crap moment where we're
like, well, we can't sendStarbucks like, what's the
point? So we flew up to Seattleto talk to them in person.
They're like, Oh, this is waycooler. We didn't even know we
just had some lawyer on payrollthat like, sends out cease and
desist. It's like, let's partnerup. And so that was a really
(00:24):
cool moment. We could have givenup that and just been like it's
over, but we fought through it.
James Soto (00:34):
Welcome to the Industrial Strength Marketing
Show. Hi, I'm James Soto. I'mthe founder and CEO of
industrial strength marketingbrands. We are here to help you
make marketing the strength ofyour industrial business. I am
so pleased to have Chris Rudigrap here with Sendoso. He's a
founder, he's a leader, andwe're gonna get into his story.
And we want to just give you anopportunity to get to know him
(00:57):
today. So you can learn abouthis career, his insights in
marketing that makes an impact.
Welcome to the show, Chris.
Kris Ruudegraap (01:03):
Thank you so much for having me, James. I'm
really excited to be here insideto chat with you and share my
thoughts, feedback and storywith the audience.
James Soto (01:12):
Oh, my goodness, I'm really excited. So we've had a
series of of martech leaders onthe show. We've had, oh, gosh,
John Miller from demand base.
And and we've had the head ofengineering.com, which has a
really great marketplace for elearning. And folks from
HubSpot, Nicholas Holland, theVP of product at Mark at
(01:32):
HubSpot, and so many others. AndChris, when we met at B2B MX, I
was very intrigued. And, andjust to kind of set the set the
the bar here for our audience, Ireally thought this would be a
great episode to feature youhere. Because we have an
audience of folks that have comefrom the physical have come from
(01:55):
the trade events who have comefrom the way of marketing and
selling, that it's really youknow, in person and people
first, and those things havechanged. So we're gonna talk a
little bit about our market, ouraudience, and why I thinks in
Dosso as a platform could befantastic for them, but so that
we can kind of set the set setthe mood for the audience, just
(02:19):
tell us a little bit aboutyourself and sendo. So, and just
so you know, audience, we willhave a point where Chris will
unapologetically talk abouttheir product and what they do.
That's what we keep hearing fromyou that you like, yeah, tell us
the product. We have him here.
We want to know everything aboutit. So Chris, yeah, this let us
(02:39):
get to know you a little bit.
And, and yeah, give us give usthe one on one on.
Kris Ruudegraap (02:44):
So I'll give you a little bit more about my
founding story. And I think thatsets this kind of the tone and
the stage for why I started todo so. So I started to nursery
about five years ago, prior tothat I spent about 10 years in
software sales myself in SanFrancisco. And while I was in
sales, I saw a couple thingshappen in front of me one was
just the overwhelming number ofemails that I was sending,
(03:07):
meaning my prospects weregetting, you know, quote,
unquote, spammed, and there'sjust a lot of digital noise out
there. And it didn't felt feelas personal. And so I was kind
of getting creative, as I thinka lot of salespeople do is like,
how do you break through thatnoise? And how do you really
connect with prospects in a morehuman way. And I found myself
writing handwritten notes andmailing them out, I found myself
(03:28):
going into our swag closet atthe time and grabbing stuff,
sending it out, I found myselfgoing on Amazon and finding like
a quirky gift based on aconversation with a prospect and
sending that out. And it allworked well. It was just manual,
time consuming hard to track,you know, expense report. And I
just wanted to do more of it.
And so I looked online to seehey, was there a solution that
(03:50):
allowed me to like, sendphysical stuff out in my sales
process, and there really wasn'tanything out there. So I asked a
bunch of colleagues and salesfriends and industry experts,
and got a lot of people like,Hey, I'd use that. And so that
was part of my inspiration of,you know, me forward seeing the
future that this was going to bemore part of people's kind of
(04:10):
sales, marketing, customer techstack, but also just the pain
point I experienced in thesolution that I needed. And so
that got me to start Sendoso. Sowe are sending platform that
helps other companies send outdirect mail, corporate gifts,
swag, handwritten notes,personalized gifts, you name it,
we can send it. And we're a mixof a software platform that
(04:32):
helps you orchestrate all ofthis have teams with budgets,
integrations into your techstack. We're a marketplace of
all the different things youcould send in one all in one
platform. And then we havelogistics and fulfillment to
actually help get these thingsfrom A to B. And so that's what
makes up Sendoso. So
James Soto (04:51):
And just to cover that, when he says it's true.
This is a real thing, andespecially today with supply
chain payments, we talked aboutmanufacturers and industrial
distribution and servicescompanies and that that that
critical inter dependence, whatis the scale of that supply
chain? What you know, what arewhat is the area your, you know,
(05:12):
the addressable market you'reserving right now
geographically?
Kris Ruudegraap (05:15):
Yeah. So geographically we service the
world, we have warehousefulfillment centers, our self in
partner three PLS, a few in theUS and Canada, the UK, the
European Union and Australia. Sowe're servicing mostly all
regions. from a companyperspective, you know, we're
about 700 employees, now, we'veraised about 160 million or so
(05:36):
in funding. And we have 10s of1000s of users sending millions
of items. So a pretty robustsupply chain that we've we've
really set up over the years,and founded what year 2016 is
when the idea happened. 2017 iswhen we really launched. And I
think 2018 is really when weraised funding and went to
(05:59):
market and more kind of fasterapproach. Wow. A lot of a lot
has happened in the last fewyears to say.
James Soto (06:07):
So we're gonna just pause here, Chris, how you
doing, man?
Kris Ruudegraap (06:12):
I'm doing great. I am loving it. So I
find, you know, so muchenthusiasm for my team, I find
so much just happiness in seeingour customers successful. And so
yeah, I couldn't I couldn't askfor a better thing.
James Soto (06:29):
And you know, and what's better than doing
something you love and gettingthis fit your vision turned into
reality? Right. Exactly,exactly. And that's just
intoxicating. And so I'll takeus back a little bit. So I had
the chance to meet Chris at theb2b marketing exchange in
Scottsdale, Arizona, a fewmonths back, and in, it was
(06:50):
interesting, in that you saw,you know, a strong exhibition
of, of marketing technologyrelated providers data,
everything from data analytics,experiential, and there was some
Dosia, you'll notice and so ifyou see them out in the wild,
because it's the coolest littledeal, it's all the coolest swag,
(07:10):
it's all about, you know, thephysical experience here, like,
you just feel like it's likeyour kid in the candy bar. So,
and I was fortunate enough to bethere with my team, you know, in
terms of industrial and we wereevaluating the technologies in
terms of, you know, who we wantto partner with? What are the
right tech stacks, where, wherecan we deliver client value,
ultimately, and helping theseiconic industrial brands,
(07:32):
leverage things like AccountBased Marketing, and, and these
great digital experiences?
Increasingly, machine assistantand data assisted. And there we
saw St. Joseph, and I'm justhanging out my team, they dive
into the deep stuff, I mayreally work more on the partner
program level, like, Okay, howdo we partners and it's a good
fit. And you're just likehanging out, man, you're just
(07:53):
hanging out, just in the sideback, you're just looking and
he's just thought that likePapa, papa, bear proud, just
like, chill, like, you know,you're at a phase now where it's
not like survival, you know, oryour payroll this week. And I
just kind of said, Who's thatguy, and I'm just like, hanging
out watching my team do itsthing, and they're checking you
(08:14):
guys out. And then you'rehanging out saying, Hey, what's
up, and we just started talking?
Yeah. And it just seemed to me,and I don't know if this was a
moment for you. But I've seenthat I've seen that moment
before we see someone who'sbuilt it. Or you just don't know
if that's part someone part ofthe team or someone who could
have founded it. And I just hadthat feeling about you never
(08:34):
met. And we just startedtalking. And it just sounds like
you're really excited. I wastalking about the manufacturing
sector. We're working with someof the biggest industrial shows
this year, like massive, youknow, over 2000 exhibitors, and
I'm like, Man, is there some waywe can like, connect here, like,
you think there's such anopportunity here and mark, and
we just started talking is justguys, you know, and yeah. And
(08:57):
you're sitting there watchingyour team, and I view when you
look at where you are today, youknow, whether it's a moment like
that, and you see this stuffhappening? 700 employees, like,
you know, like, What, do youhave any of these kinds of
things, these moments where youlet yourself absorb the success?
Kris Ruudegraap (09:18):
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm constantly grateful
for the success of the companyand of myself and seeing this
grow. And I think I'm also justcontinuing to look for the
future, and I love interactingwith our employees, our
customers, or potentialcustomers, our partners. And so,
you know, while on the show, Ithink, you know, I think that's
one Testament where I, you know,I love getting out there and
(09:41):
meeting new people as it relatesto this journey. And that is
part of the success for me isthat, you know, being there
meeting people and so, I do sitback and you know, and
sometimes, you know, smile whenI'm walking, just thinking about
it, but, you know, it's a longjourney. We're still on this
long journey. And so there's noOh, slowing down. And you know,
if I can be at a show and meetanother customer meet another
(10:03):
partner, I can help out in otherways and really inspire our
company to do better, then we'regoing to continue to have
success. So
James Soto (10:11):
Yeah, that's fantastic. So when you started,
it was around 2016. You know,what was it? Was it you? And
just a vision? Was it you plusyour you know, who's the
lieutenant? Yeah. How did thatstart? What was the zero to
first five people like.
Kris Ruudegraap (10:30):
So I had originally this idea of sending
Starbucks cards, that was kindof what I would call like, maybe
v one. And so it actually firstcame about by, I had to create a
site called Coffee center.com.
And so it was validating, and itwas a Salesforce app that
allowed you to set a Starbuckscard. And it was kind of a very
simple concept, something thatyou can easily grasp, and just
(10:51):
started working on it my nightsand weekends, found an engineer,
actually through Upwork to helpbuild it. And then one of my old
sales friends from college Ireconnected with and he was
like, This is awesome. Like, Iwant to use this as a
salesperson. And so he was like,hey, but I'd also be happy to
help, how can I help. And itjust so happened that his
(11:12):
company was getting an Acura,hired at the time. And so he was
like, Hey, I'm gonna have a freeagent, can I start selling this
and we became co founders atthat point, became like, best
friends kind of getting marriedalmost as a co founder, you got
to spend all your time togetherin the early days. And we just,
you know, started to sell it.
(11:34):
And I think in the early days,we then listening to customers,
and then my own experience insales as I when I was, you know,
sending things out to prospectskind of had this epiphany where
it was a mix of, okay, I cancreate a site that I can send
out Starbucks cards, how can Ido everything else? And we just
said, Hey, let's just keepbuilding this. And we figured
(11:56):
out warehousing, and we just,you know, my co founder, and I
just like, never looked backsince. And then we just started
hiring amazing people. And Ithink, in the early days, it's
like, you got to figure out whenyou should be working on it
yourself, when you should behiring people, and how do you
win if and when you want toraise money. And so it was
(12:17):
really just, but ultimately, Ithink our biggest advantage was
we both had sales background. Soday zero, we were selling this
to the world and talking tocustomers every single day.
James Soto (12:28):
So were there any belly of the whale moments
there? You know, a lot of a lotof founder stories have like an
extinction event. Or if thisdoesn't happen, you know, we're
going down. And you know, werethere any of those moments or
you were just out there sellingand just momentum? Oh, Momo.
And, you know,
Kris Ruudegraap (12:45):
I'd say like, as a founder, you have to be
like, kind of crazy, optimisticand insanely forward thinking
all the time. But you also, I'dsay every founder has a few of
these moments, no matter what ifthey don't, they're lying to
you. But you have to be crazy toget past them and not think that
they're, they're, you know,showstoppers, they're just, you
(13:05):
know, speed bumps. But there's afew that stick out one when we
were starting with coffee,Senator, we got a cease and
desist from Starbucks. And sothat was like a no crap moment
where we're like, well, we can'tsend Starbucks like, what's the
point? So we flew up to Seattleto talk to them in person,
they're like, oh, this was waycooler. We didn't even know we
just had some lawyer on payrollthat like, sends out cease and
(13:28):
desist. It's like, let's partnerup. And so that was a really
cool moment, we could have givenup that and just been like it's
over. But we fought through it.
There was also a moment when,when we were scaling our
warehousing, and that we ran outof space. And we ran out of
space, like, overnight. And sowe had to, like have a truck
full of stuff sit out in theyard overnight, we had to go
(13:48):
find a new space over theweekend and Monday move
warehouses because of thephysical constraints. And so
that could have caused somemassive bottlenecks. But we
quickly acted and found a newwarehouse space and expanded
over the weekend. And you couldalso say COVID was a scenario
that could have been a crazytime for us as it's like, Hey,
how are you going to send stuffto people's offices? And so we
(14:09):
quickly pivoted with this dressconfirmation feature and helping
send things to people's houses.
And we actually scaled fasterthrough COVID. But some could
have looked at that as a momentof, oh, no, like, how do you
send stuff to people in a timewhere everything's shut off? And
we use that as a thoughtleadership forum in a way to
(14:30):
help other marketers salesfolks, you know, get better and
solve problems that they neededto solve during those try trying
times. So definitely multiplethings to point back to but you
know, definitely ups and downsalong the way.
James Soto (14:46):
And in a sense that each one of those scenarios
actually made you stronger.
Kris Ruudegraap (14:52):
Exactly. It made the team come together
stronger. It made us can thinkoutside the box and it made us a
better company on the other end.
James Soto (14:59):
Oh, Absolutely and coming out of COVID, you can
think of every excuse or, youknow, potential threat to your
business and to see, you know,the innovators mindset, we can
F, yes, this is this, you know,this is a problem, it's just a
problem, you're always gonnaproblem exactly, and probably
(15:19):
wouldn't solve the problem,solving problems, and then
finding that these are problemsthat are repeatable problems. So
when you have a problem in themarket, and that's a lot of
people have it, there was achallenge and you overcome it,
you've delivered more customervalue at the end of the day.
And, you know, when when, youknow, a founders journey is not
alone. I know, you have your cofounder, but yeah, you know,
(15:41):
when you think about some ofthose challenging moments, you
know, is there anyone that comesto mind that helped you get
through those?
Kris Ruudegraap (15:47):
You know, aside from my co founder, we have an
amazing, you know, advisoryboard of different mentors, I
think it's important forfounders and leaders in or
anyone to have a sounding boardof different mentors, people
they can ask questions to. Sothat's important. I think that
there's also our investors, andthen just our executive team,
(16:08):
you know, they we all cometogether. And you know, maybe as
a CEO, I get credit for a lot ofthe work that happens behind the
team, but behind the scenes, buteach and every person at the
company plays a part in theirsuccess.
James Soto (16:20):
Absolutely. It. When you look at how you've grown the
organization, given, you'reproviding solutions that help
people sell better and marketbetter and create better
experiences. What's Where didmarketing play a role? Where's
that playing the role past andpresent and the growth and
survival and success of yourbusiness? You know, like, yeah,
(16:43):
so are you guys do to market andtotally, yeah.
Kris Ruudegraap (16:48):
So I love marketing, I actually was a
business marketing major. And somarketing was something that's
been close to my heart since DayZero, even though I went into
sales, early career marketing,and the creative aspects of
marketing has always beensomething that's intrigued me.
So I think a couple things standout for me in the early days,
and still to this day, and that,you know, we're creating a new
category, like, you know, fiveyears ago, or when I was in
(17:11):
sales, or six years ago, youknow, when I wanted to use a
solution, like so, so therewasn't, so we had to kind of
create a lot of awareness forthat. And so in the early days,
you know, marketing wasinstrumental, and, you know,
brand awareness. And, you know,we did a lot of event marketing,
which was really key to us inthe early days, because we got
our, you know, our booth next toanother booth that was like, Oh,
(17:32):
I know that, Oh, who's done? Oh,I want to hear about them. And
so there was a lot of, you know,investments in the brand and to
field events, demand gen. So ourmarketing team really, really
played a big part in puttingSonos on the map. We also
invested a lot in kind of ourSDR team, which demand which is
(17:55):
kind of an extension, I think,in some times in marketing in
terms of kind of outbound andtelling the world hey, so those
two exists, you should use it.
So I look at them sometimes asan extension of marketing as
well. We do a lot of sending,you know, our, you know, eating
our own dog food or drinking orchampagne, whatever you want to
call it. So that's something wedo. And to this day, we still
do. You know, marketing is oneof my key areas that I spend a
(18:16):
lot of time each week, workingwith our marketing team, making
sure that we can continue todrive pipeline and drive
awareness for what we'rebuilding.
James Soto (18:26):
Yeah, and maybe a gift and a gift here. They're
there. They're right,strategically, exactly. In the
right context at the right time.
Exactly. Those are all goodtips. And those are absolutely
great things that that we see.
You know, it's interesting tome, when you look at the
manufacturing sector, it's sofocused on, you know, there if
(18:48):
you can argue that, you know,manufacturers, distributors,
industrial services, companiesare probably the best at social,
marketing, experiential, butthey are fantastic at leveraging
their business networks. Yep.
And when you look at a sectorwith so much tradition, and you
know, when you're buying$100,000 million dollar capital,
you know, technology, rightcapital, equipment, technology,
(19:11):
it's big stakes, people go tothe conferences, they go to the
shows to see these things. Andthere's been that, that that
physical experience as a way of,of marketing. What I find really
strange, Chris, is when you goto these conferences, there's so
many enabling technologies. Youdon't see the organizations like
(19:31):
yours there. We're talking abouthow do they they're trying to
figure out how to do theseevents, how to write these great
experiences, but it reallystrikes me that there needs to
be a really big reset on thethought thoughts around sales,
marketing, how how theorganization's work together,
and we've been fortunate enoughto have some great guests and
(19:52):
some folks from McKinsey come onboard and they talked about
their their their, theirmarketing, Pulse study, and And,
and what that uncovered was,okay, what has happened here
over the COVID? Right during theperiod where you are pivoting
and trying to really adjust andsuggest features and find ways
to like, how do you get tosomeone's house, you know, their
place. And, you know, whatthey're finding is that there
(20:17):
are studies and data showingthat, that the way we're
marketing and selling isleveling off into these rule of
thirds. The first is that, youknow, we have this, this
personal, you know, in persontype interaction working with a
salesperson or an SDR, thesecond third of the way, you
start to see the processes, thevirtual, and you do a virtual
(20:39):
communication, of contact, and,you know, that's obviously
driven online. And the third isthey want now a self service
part where they just go get it,go do it themselves and go take
care of it, that convenience.
And so there's rule of thirds,we're finding industrials, have
(20:59):
to serve and readjust all three,you know that in person, that
that hybrid virtual, and that,hey, I want to go do it and self
serve, I want to buy a $200,000stamping press like, yeah,
putting now. So when you thinkabout that, how have you seen
the ways that you have to, youknow, approach physical
(21:21):
experiences and, and sending,and, you know, and gifting
whether it's, you know, based onintent and Account Based
Marketing, or otherwise, how doyou see the world shaping up for
you, in terms of the way you'repositioning this to all the
different ways that b2b, let'ssay industrial buyers, and
sellers are trying to connect?
Kris Ruudegraap (21:42):
Yeah, so it's a great point. So I'd say one
trend that relates to thosethirds is that, you know, as
there was a lot more field repsmeeting face to face in person
prior to COVID, there's a littleless of that. And there's even
more of like, hey, I can do thisthrough zoom. So let's keep
doing this through zoom, whichseems kind of, you know,
advantageous at times based onmaybe cost measures, timing, I
(22:05):
get to stay home with the familymore frequently. But you still
need to figure out how do youbuild those relationships in
inspire human connections,because people buy from people
at the end of the day. And sothat's where we come in. And we
can help with, you know, sendingthings out during that, that
buying experience to reallyimpact that relationship in a
positive way. So you can winthat deal. And I think that's
(22:26):
important, because, you know,you're spending less time face
to face, which is an easier way,at times to create that
relationship strength. So Ithink that's one way for
companies to offset it, too, iswhen you're going to these
events there, you need aplatform that can also help with
sending things to these eventsare sending follow up to these
events are driving people tothese events. And so I think we
(22:46):
help with that as well, in termsof just another aspect of
driving people to your booth orafter your booth as a follow up.
You also hinted on, like peoplewanting to have more self
service experience. And so Ithink in that experience, it's
how else are you going to,again, chime in and build
relationships? Again, with thatbuying experience? While maybe
(23:08):
it's changed from like a, hey,take it down, take a meeting,
hey, let me give you thesolutions consulting to where
you're, you're giving them somesort of self service path. But
along that journey, can youchime in with like, Hey, thanks
for signing up, here's a welcomegift, how are you building
rapport, because you're going tohave to let your product build
(23:28):
rapport and and you're going tohave to kind of pay it forward
with prospects at times. Becausethey're not going to be as eager
to jump on a phone call withyou. So how do you, hey, here's
a piece of content on how to usethis better. And here's, you
know, lunch on me through somedough, so I'm going to send you
a DoorDash gift card. And that'sbuilding that positive rapport
(23:50):
to make sure that they're, youknow, gonna buy are going to
convert as well.
James Soto (23:55):
So that's interesting. So, so when you
think about all the differentways you can send Yep, right.
You can send gifts andnovelties. But you can send
value. Yeah. So that's a wholedifferent stage. And obviously,
then you can also look atbehavioral, which is
(24:17):
gamification, about you know,there. So there's a nonlinear
arguably buying process,multiple stakeholders come
involved in the b2b andcertainly industrial buying
process, especially inindustrial, there's such
interdependency, they can't putthe wrong, you know, 100,000
parts in that vehicle, theygotta get that right, because
they're there, they're introuble if they don't. So,
(24:39):
supplier and buyer.
interdependence is so critical.
So making some of these,especially bigger industrial,
buying decisions takes one a lotof time there's a longer
velocity to get it. And there'sall of these stakeholders coming
in and out. So when you look atwhat you're sending is there,
you know, can you give someinsights into some creative ways
folks have been saying Sendingand is it all those things we
(25:01):
typically expect? What can yousend?
Kris Ruudegraap (25:04):
Yeah, so that isn't our platform is there's a
mix of kind of traditionalthings that you could send like
gift cards, which we make iteasier to do, we also offer up
more of like the ability to sendout like a gift card choice. So
you can say, Hey, pick fromthis, and this and this. And
this. So we offer that kind offlexibility. There's also more
like on demand, things that are,let's say, not branded, but just
(25:26):
gifts like wine, and flowers andcupcakes, and different things
like that. There's also brandeditems that you want to get
something cool and branded.
There's virtual experiences,like, hey, I want to have a wine
tasting experience, and I'mgoing to send some wine and
there's gonna be like a small a.
And then there's also just oneoff, you know, single
personalized gifts. Like maybe Iknow you're a New York Yankees
fan, and I want to send you somesome Yankee swag, or I know you
(25:49):
play golf. And so I want to sendyou some golf balls. And so
there's some kind of a myriad ofthat. And we will help along
that whole spectrum of saying,Hey, do you want something kind
of out of box, do you want tocome up with something super
creative. And I think the supercreative part is where marketers
really lean in, because they canspend their hours with thinking
about creativity. And then wespend our hours sourcing it,
(26:10):
getting it into the warehouse,kitting it shipping it. And so
they're not spending hours andhours, you know, we do all the
tracking behind the scenesthrough software, we can out we
can say hey, sales reps, you getto send this on behalf of
marketing. And that's allautomated through software. So
when it comes to what you cansend, there's, you know, themed
based things like we had somereally cool items sent for March
(26:31):
Madness and football wherepeople are in basketball where
people are sending things outbased on people's college on
monitors, there's, you know,people that are focused around
different trends that arehappening around, you know, the
world, there's, there'sinterest, like creative
individuals, like there's ascene where, you know, you
someone's got like a customizedadmin calendar over the
holidays, which was cool, orthey sent this like packet of
(26:52):
seeds. And then a week later,they sent a watering can and a
week later, they sent somecutting shears. And so it was
like a three part gift. Or wesee people sending these like
mini Lego figures that theycustomized like Lego kit, or,
you know, someone sending this,these really cool glasses where
you can like see it with withwhen you put on the glasses, you
can see this image on thispaper, but you can't see without
(27:14):
the glasses. So it createsinteractivity. So really,
there's just like an unlimitedspectrum of what you can send
and it really becomes around howdo you use this as just a
creative mechanism to grab theattention or to think somebody
or as a means of communicationoutside of just the normal kind
of email tenancies that mostmarketers have today.
James Soto (27:36):
So it's the physical, it's unleashing the
creativity background, lookingat whether it's an item or it's
more experiential in terms ofthe intent and the utilization
of it, right. And obviously,there's, there's so much more
you can look at in terms of howyou do that. And to the extent
that you can also put instrategic messaging, there are
ways that you provide thatvariable data input,
Kris Ruudegraap (27:59):
exactly the handwritten note or the printed
note or collateral that goesalong with it, so you can get
your message. I mean, you couldalso use like the handwritten
note as a way to kind of highlevel you know, have some, some
messaging that grabs theirattention, and then follow that
up with a phone call or an emailwith more in depth information.
(28:20):
And just using it as kind of alightweight touch point to
James Soto (28:22):
So you can really just find those light, like
those lightweight touch points,reinforcing a message, a little
bit of personalization, exactlyweaving it in there. To what
extent that I don't know ifyou've had to do this, because
it just seems to make a lot ofsense. But, you know, I think
from looking at, you know, someorganization that has a lot of
like outbound sales developmentreps to invest, you know, in
(28:45):
terms of a customer experienceinvestment, do you have to
provide or do you guys provide alot of data in terms of showing
the lift? Right, yeah, this muchmore engagement, this much more,
you know, outcomes are improvedthis much more? Is there any
high level data that ouraudience would find interesting
when it comes to leveraging aplatform like Sentosa?
Kris Ruudegraap (29:04):
Yeah, so we have data across all different
use cases, whether it's sales ordemand gen, or field marketing,
or customer marketing. So wehave a resources section on our
website on sindo.com that youcan go look at, like how
customers how companies areusing it, and how what are the
results they're seeing. So thenice thing is, is that with our
platform and software, weintegrate into your CRM and your
(29:26):
marketing automation tools, sowe can connect the dots for you.
So you're doing less kind ofmanual tracking, and we can show
campaign tracking and other waysto show the results of how much
you're spending and then the ROIon it. And that was a big part
of the software can play becausepeople are sending things out. I
bet most listeners, they've sentthings out in the past
themselves. They know their teamis but oftentimes it's siloed.
(29:49):
It's ad hoc, it's not anoperationalized process, so they
can't do it repeatable in astreamlined fashion, but they
wish they could. And so youknow, it's not Some. So being
able to kind of use software tomodernize this process is just
helpful in showing the resultsso that you can spend more and
use this channel even moreeffectively.
James Soto (30:11):
This is exciting. I want to go into some of the
making the sausage here, andI'll tell you about something
we're working on right now. So,and I think this is just for our
audience, I think any, what I'mgetting into here is the
customers experience. So youhave a customer, you've worked
your tail off to get them, youknow, arguably, according to
(30:34):
data out there, it's five toseven times less expensive to
organically grow your businessfrom an existing customer than
it is to create a net new one.
And so customers journey intheir experience counts. Yep,
retention, reducing rescissionrates, you name it, you can look
at, you know, there's a bigskilled labor gap in
manufacturing, across the supplychain, what can you do to like,
(30:59):
drive, you know, even your teamengagement and retention, right?
That's, I mean, this thing isamazing. So, and honestly, you
lose people, you lose customers,not often based on logic, but
how they're made to feel. And itreally seems to me there's a
huge opportunity. So when itcomes to the experiential side,
(31:19):
or these use cases, you'reseeing a lot, you know, the, you
know, the, the team engagement.
Kris Ruudegraap (31:26):
Yeah, oh, yeah.
We, HR teams, people, teams loveus for that reason. Because
it's, you know, you've got,you've invested in this
workforce, that a lot of it arestill maybe hybrid or fully
remote. And how do you keep themengaged? How do you make them
feel part of the team. So thatuse case is even more important
during COVID that we saw wherepeople were using us for, you
(31:47):
know, new hire welcome kits orgifts for, you know,
anniversaries, birthdays, andjust life moments are simply
just like, hey, it's summertime,here's a nice little summer
gift, take, you know, take thisas appreciation. So I think it's
more than ever important toappreciate your employees, and
we can help with that tail.
James Soto (32:08):
Chris, I would imagine you have a massive
opportunity in the segment, Iguess, skilled, just the labor
gap period, is so massive, andreducing churn is such a huge
issue. And you think, Oh, howbig of a deal with this be?
Those moments count, you know,up to a quarter of our business
(32:29):
as an agency has been at timesrelated to recruitment,
marketing, employer valueproposition, employer branding,
really messaging around howyou're going to create a great
place to work. And but how areyou going to be the marketing
sciences to engage, attractretain, folks, and it's massive
opportunity. I mean, it's huge.
And, and, and so when we seethat and the opportunity to, you
(32:56):
know, to be thoughtful, and andthe other thing is, recognition
programs. Yeah, folks are reallygood at recognizing people is,
that's got to be a great use.
Kris Ruudegraap (33:10):
Yeah, recognizing people. And I think
it's not just employees, butalso recognizing your customer
advocates, your referrals, yourpartners. And so I think it
extends beyond what people thinkof like, Oh, I'll recognize some
employees, but really creating away that you can meet
meaningfully think customerreferences, customer referrals.
And we can really help withthat, too. And, again, it's just
(33:32):
streamlining and so it takes,you know, one minute versus 20
minutes do you get time back inyour day to focus on on
important initiatives, otherthan like running a little mini
post office, at your house or inyour office?
James Soto (33:44):
I love it, we just show you know, we've been
talking about y'all to the wholeteam. And we form and I'll get
into our personal case, Iusually don't like to do this.
But I think it's important, andI hope my my team is listening.
You know, you know, for ourindustrial agency group, the
(34:04):
industrial it's a servicesorganization. And I think every
business really is a services,organization, manufacturers,
distributors, you name it,marketing tech software. And for
us, we have a vision to be thebest better than the rest as
perceived meaning felt by ourteam, clients, peers and
(34:28):
partners, be the best agency thebest service for its services.
And so, so I see technologiesand platforms like some Dosso as
as being very, very helpful inthat in that goal. And so what
we are working on is the firststage of the client experience
(34:49):
and we do this from time to timewe do it to ourselves. And I
think if you and I think anyonelistening, you're thinking about
this same thing, what is theclient's experience and you
know, from that first touchpoint How do you say hello?
Yeah? How do you recognize them?
You know, how do you really givethem the information they need
in order to do business withyou? How do you show gratitude?
And and to what extent do youreally kind of keep up on their
(35:12):
pulses? So what we're looking atis like creating our process to
work internally, again, we'dlike to reimagine it. But we're
also thinking about okay, nowlet's now once we're done with
this, let's write it completelyfrom the clients point of view.
So one of the things we'relooking at is, okay, let's start
doing an intake survey. So wecan get a formula. Who else is
going to be part of thisproject? How are we going to do
(35:34):
it? What do you like? What'syour what your birthday and
starting to bring in these thesethese types of discussions? And
it's not just what are wesending them? It's how are we
focusing on serving them? Andthen to the extent that you can
match it up with an amazingexperience, and those really
strategic touch points. It's notabout quantity. It's about
(35:54):
quality. So as you look at that,that's our first phase, right,
all the way and then how do youwelcome them? Like the welcome
kit? Right? Yeah. How do you dothe welcome. And then from
there, what happens is there'sthis period where there's
handoffs, you know, orintroductions, like we like to
say, and then new people comein, but you know, really, I
think the way folks look atservices companies, it's like,
(36:16):
okay, I trusted you, I kind of afeeling you can do what you said
you did, are you doing it and dothat first, like milestone, or
sprint, we see that as like theend of the first stage, right,
that first stage of like, wentthrough this journey said yes to
us. And now they've come onboard, there's been a good hand
off, they feel good about it,you know, there's a client
(36:37):
satisfaction survey at the end.
And it's really about their howthey're feeling. How have you
seen experiential typeinitiatives like that work in
terms of really goodintegrations, when you're really
attracting bringing someone onboard? And do you look at it
that way to the first stagewhere they like you've gotten
(36:59):
through that first milestone?
You know, is this just tablestakes for you guys? Now, as you
see that? Or is that just partof something like us, folks,
like us have to look at all thetime and, and really break down?
Kris Ruudegraap (37:14):
Yeah, so I think for us, you know, we
practice, we preach this, and wepractice this and that it's all
about the customer journey? Andhow do you map that out to where
there's certain milestones thatyou can create these, like,
really impactful moments thatmatter, these memorable
experiences. And so whether youthink about it, you know,
(37:34):
strategize on part of theonboarding experience, part of,
you know, when a new deal isclosed, during the handoff,
during, you know, you know,moments during their either
their their life moments, orproduct usage, milestone
moments, all those things arejust touch points that are going
to just build betterrelationships, and the name of
the game is like, you want tokeep that relationship forever
(37:57):
and retain that customer. And sohow are you doing more of that?
And so I think that there, asyou mentioned, companies are
seeing the picture much biggernow, instead of just as buyers
journey that, hey, what are weputting all of our effort into
this? You know, getting acustomer from a prospect to a
customer and then stopping it's,well, what else? What's the next
510 20 years look like? How dowe keep a customer that long?
(38:20):
And I think it's important thatyou can leverage a platform like
us to like, sprinkle thosethings in so that, again, you
have the ideas, you know, youwant to do it, it's hard to do.
So let us do the hard work foryou so that you can, in some
cases, even automate it throughyour CRM or through marketing
automation, where you could put,put the hard work in upfront,
which is planning that customerjourney, deciding what it is you
(38:41):
want to send, and thentriggering that off based on
data in your systems, so thatit's repeatable, and you can
continue to have success withit.
James Soto (38:51):
And that's, you know, I've once heard that there
you can create moments of magic,right? And moments of misery,
right and touch point, it's anopportunity to create a moment
of magic or a moment of misery.
I love that and anything inbetween, is forgettable. It's a
moment of mediocrity. Yeah, hey,hey, Chris, how are you doing?
(39:12):
I'm fine. I'm fine. Fine, isn'tfine, you know? And when you
really look at that, that thatmindset Shep Hyken, said this,
he's really lifted speaker andhe basically said that, you
know, when you really look atexceptional experience and
service, it's, it's the uses theword always when it comes to
(39:34):
service, they always, you know,mindful of us, they follow up,
they're always remembering thosemoments that are special to me
or those days. They always comeup, you know, commemorate, you
know, the number of years we'vebeen a client, you know, they
always call me back, you know,if it's, you know, yeah, before
noon, if you know the next day,and I think these experiences
(39:55):
and these touch points and thesethese emotional investments,
yes. Okay, because that's trulywhat they are. It's how they're
made to feel. And so for us andour journey is you know, as
perceived by felt by people, youknow, how do you really make
them feel like you're doingthat? You know, you're not
always gonna be in moments ofmagic, but are you going to be
in that sweet spot of like, youknow, consistently always being
(40:18):
mindful of the customer and howvaluable they are how important
the customer is that maybe orthe prospect that may be your
customer. And with that said, Ihave one more thing for you,
Chris. So y'all do this in DossoCindy awards. And I know when
someone says hey, after 19 yearsof industrial and all this stuff
you guys have done you know,what are some of your favorite
(40:41):
campaigns I don't even knowwhere to start, you know? Like
I'm just like, shuts me down.
There's so many things and sowhat was your favorite send that
you can remember whether it'sone of the you know, sin docente
awards winners or other rides?
What are some of your all timefaves?
Kris Ruudegraap (40:58):
Yeah, I mean, sending awards are true to my
heart because it's like bringstogether one Austin sends with
Austin customer experiences, andwe're reward and we're
celebrating our customersuccess. So one that I remember
top of mine, he's me as Zendeskdid a really fun campaign last
year where it was like a movie,movie night in a box kit where
you got popcorn, you got like aNetflix card, you got this
(41:21):
little blanket, but and candyand it really thought about the
whole family and play, which Ithink is a really important part
of marketing is being knowingwhat your, you know, end buyer
or end customer is. And at themoment a lot of people were at
home with their families lastyear. And so that was a really
fun campaign that didn't justtarget that persona, that one
(41:41):
buyer but that buyer and theirfamily and and had gifts for the
whole family. So I thought thatwas really unique. Gone to this
really fun like pinata unicornprogram where they sent out
these like, little unicorn pinJada's and I think that was a
really fun way to celebrate.
Ultimately, just like thingsthat you kind of, how can you
not smile when you receive apin? Yatta. So I think that was
(42:02):
really good. And then yeah,there's just there's so many
more, I mean, simple thingslike, like Uber Eats gift cards,
sending that out the right timecan make a big difference. And
so they don't, you don't have tobe crazy creative, like this
movie theater kid, it's justmore of a can you create a kind
of this meaningful experienceand send the right thing at the
(42:23):
right time with the rightmessage and have that hit home.
But if you want to see othersend the awards, we got it on
our website, you can see all thedifferent send the awards, and
and also the results for themtoo. So I think one of the
things we would like to prideourselves off on is sharing the
data behind the sending. And sowe offer a bunch of that see,
like, what was the results ofthese seven programs?
James Soto (42:46):
Yeah, I, I was gonna ask you the question, what's
your favorite piece of swag? Ihad even that I'm not even asked
because there's no answer tothat, like, I know, what's the
one you carry? Or you keep?
Right. You know, I, I'd love youknow, my son would love a one
wheel like. So I don't know,you'd have to be a very valuable
customer for that one. But thatthat's fantastic. And Chris, you
(43:09):
know, when we think about, youknow, our audience in the
manufacturing sector, they arelooking for ways to stand out
from the crowd. And I thinkabsolutely, dosa would be a
fantastic platform for them toconsider. And with that said,
where can folks find out aboutCisco? So you know, where can
they reach out to you? And youknow, you know, what's up, and
(43:32):
what's important next for youguys?
Kris Ruudegraap (43:36):
Yeah, so you can find us on our website, if
you want to look at moreinformation, that's Sindo
cio.com, you can email medirectly. And this could be
wanting more information onSonos, or just connecting as an
entrepreneur or founder. And youcan connect with me at Chris,
it's KR is at sendo cio.com. OrI'd be on LinkedIn. And I'm
always looking to connect withmore people. For us for what's
(43:58):
next, you know, we're justcontinuing to have a lot of fun
continuing to help our customersbe successful. And so, for us,
it's just more of what we'redoing and just continuing to
scale the company.
James Soto (44:08):
Wow. So you're, you're a person now with a
successful company, 700 peoplestrong, and you just get your
email to everybody. Yeah, that'sfantastic. That's a great
customer experience. That isabsolutely the way to do it. And
it's great to see that you'reout there. Thank you for doing
that. And for the audience.
Absolutely. We're going to haveall of these links in Chris's
LinkedIn profile and his emailin the in the exactly that last
(44:31):
name and in the show notes. Andso with that being said, Chris,
I just want to thank you forbeing on the industrial strength
Marketing Show. And for youlistening, I hope you just heard
one thing, one thing aboutsending in gifting and how
people are made to feel and thegreat experience I have, and how
do you make that as part of yourbusiness to make marketing even
(44:53):
more a strength of yourbusiness? So for more insights,
from industrial marketers ifyou'd like to reach out to us
visit us at industrial strengthmarketing.com Thank you Chris
for being on the show today allright and everybody we'll catch
you next time
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