June 11, 2025 โข 23 mins
How can manufacturers turn technical complexity into a competitive marketing edge? In this 187th episode of The E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff sits down with Merv Campbell, Director of Sales & Marketing at Omni Cubed, a manufacturer revolutionizing the stone fabrication industry with engineered tools and solutions.
Merv shares how a deep understanding of your customers, even in a highly specialized B2B space, can lead to smarter strategies, more effective product development, and a stronger brand identity. From trade show tactics to channel partnerships, Merv breaks down what it takes to market niche products with massive impact. Whether you're in B2B, manufacturing, or just tired of playing it safe in your marketing, this episodeโs packed with perspective.
What You'll Learn:
- How Omni Cubed turns customer feedback into product innovation, and how marketers can do the same
- Why storytelling still matters in industrial and technical spaces
- Smart ways to market products in high-complexity industries
- How to align sales and marketing for long-term growth in manufacturing
- The power of demos, trade shows, and physical presence in building trust
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Merv Campbell (00:03):
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're
a product development company,so we have a number of
engineers. We always keep ourear to the ground. So like trade
shows and even these forums arevery vital for us to like,
listen and learned that's ourI'd say that's one of our
greatest assets online, islistening.
Sponsor (00:26):
I would like to take a break from today's episode to
thank our sponsors. Ship4wd, ifyou run an E commerce business
that ships products from Asia toNorth America, you know how
stressful the journey can getwith too many suppliers, emails,
quotes, customs delays, it's alot Ship4wd makes it simple.
It's a digital freightforwarding platform built for
small and mid sized businesses.
Think booking a shipment likebooking a flight, just search,
(00:47):
compare and book done inminutes. Instant quotes, express
shipping options, real timetracking and 24/7 human support.
Add services like customsclearance and cargo insurance
for the full end to endexperience. You can try it for
free today at Ship4wd.com
Andrew Maff (01:55):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
the E comm show. As usual. I amyour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingMerv Campbell, who is the GM
over at Omni Cubed. Merv, howyou doing, buddy? You ready for
good show?
Merv Campbell (02:06):
I'm ready for a good show!
Andrew Maff (02:08):
Super excited to have you on the show. I already
love your attitude, which isgreat. That always makes it that
much better. I love startingthese off. Yes, I love starting
these off relativelystereotypically. So just get
tell us a little bit about yourbackground, where you like,
where you started your career,how you got into Omni Cubed,
where you guys are at we'll takeit from there. Okay?
Merv Campbell (02:27):
So probably by my accent already, I'm not from
America, so I actually, I'mborn, I'm born and bred in
Northern Ireland. Lived therefor 34 years. Started my career
as a aeronautical engineer withBombardier there. Obviously, we
all know what happened withSeptember 11, and sadly, a lot
(02:48):
of people lost their jobs, and Iwas one of them. And then took a
kind of dark career change intowelding fabricating, and then
ended up building double deckerbuses for 12 years. So did that.
My wife's originally from theStates. She's from placebo here
in California. So we had twokids in Ireland, and we thought,
(03:10):
hey, let's make the move. Socame over here. We've been here
now over nine years, which ishard to believe. Love it here.
Had a third kid. Just absolutelylove California. The weather is
fantastic. People complain aboutlike, hey, when you've lived in
rain for 34, years, you'reallowed to cry out a little bit,
for sure. So no. And then aboutnine years ago, was approached
(03:35):
by the company here to come. Hadno idea why, but then was
offered a job through somefamily, friends and stuff, and
I've been here over nine years,and absolutely love it, an
absolutely fantastic company towork for. Great family feel
wonderful core values, allmoving in the one direction.
(03:55):
And, yeah, that's basically mybackground of where I came from
and why I'm here.
Andrew Maff (03:59):
So, tell me about Omni Cubed. What, What is it
that, you know, tell us someinsight into the product line,
why you guys kind of got startedin there, and then let's take it
from there,
Merv Campbell (04:10):
So there's four owners. They are two married
families. So there's one familythat's got a husband wife, and
also another husband and wife onthis side. And they came
together about 22 years ago,they've been friends. They'd
went through the two men hadbeen through college, different
things, and so they came, theystarted working together, and
then they're like, Hey, let'sstart a business. And so they
(04:33):
saw a need in the market for acertain type of product. They
made that product, which at thattime was the lamp lamp. So we
make products for the stoneindustry. Now we do it for glass
and tile, but then it wasprimarily stone. And so they
made what was called a lamplamp. They made it in their
garage, or their garage, as Ilike to say, and started
(04:56):
fabricating, making them. Andthen they would get in their
truck, and they would driveeverywhere, across as much of
California as they couldpossibly hit trying to sell this
product. It was a slow burner.
And then they had a kind ofeureka moment when they went to
a trade show in Las Vegas, andit just exploded from that. And
so we now are the beneficiariesof that 22 years later, we're a
(05:20):
thriving company. We're growing,not without difficulties in the
last number of years, obviously,with COVID and all that good
stuff, but we are growing, andwe just hired a couple of new
people last month. We're lookingto hire some more this month,
and so the company's definitelymoving in the right direction,
thank goodness. But yeah, we areso grateful for our four owners
(05:44):
for sticking it out those thosehard and difficult years, and
now we get to reap the reward.
So.
Andrew Maff (05:52):
So how are you finding like your target
customers? Obviously, you're notgoing door to door like you once
were, but sounds like you didsome trade shows. But what's
what's the other approach?
Because I know it's primarily aB2B, E-commerce play, correct?
Merv Campbell (06:03):
So we have, we have what's called distributors.
Andrew Maff (06:03):
Interesting. So usually you kind of see that,
So we have guys and gals who weship product to, and then they,
they kind of, obviously, theyget a cut of it, they get their
share. But then they are theones who have all of the
insight, all the context they'vegot their their little black
not exactly 100% flipped around,but usually you see it, it's,
(06:23):
book that's full of people,they're able to call them up.
And so that's, that's about 90%of the business they do. Like
it's a little bit more D2C, andthen you know, the supplemental
just a shout out to them. Theydo a phenomenal job for us. Our
distributors are amazing. Wecannot be where we are without
them. And so we're very thankfulfor them. We always push people
(06:43):
that direction simply becausethey have that relationship. And
of it is the distributor side.
So why? Why lean in so much onwe kind of just fell in the
cracks wherever it's needed onour website, so people call up
they're looking for something.
We normally send them out to thedistributor, and if they're
like, well, there's no one in myregion who do I talk to, then
we'll we'll take that up. Butyeah, it's, it's primarily
distributors.
(07:18):
the distributors, as opposed tokind of go in the D2C route?
Merv Campbell (07:23):
Simply because we actually don't have a dedicated
sales team. We have. We rely onour distributors. We rely on
their sort of area that they canfill out. And they're like,
United States huge. Like, I'mlike, I'm a little guy from
Ireland, and it takes me sixhours to go from top to bottom.
(07:45):
I can do that in California,like three times over. It's
still not at the bottom. Sothere's just just a wider range.
There's a lot more people there,well established, and with being
in the stoning industry, a lotof people will buy consumables.
So they'll buy, like theirtapes, their polishing pads,
(08:06):
whatever else. Well, that's awonderful time to say, hey, you
need a new cart? Do you need anOmni Cubed, Aqua Jaws, any sort
of stuff like that? So they can,they can help facilitate that.
So they do a really good job atfollowing up so they get a lead,
blah, blah, blah, they'll followup with it. And so, yeah, that's
beautiful, really, how it works.
Andrew Maff (08:27):
What? What would you say is, like, kind of that
big struggle, like, what's theif they're the ones doing a lot
of the lifting, they're the oneshandling most of the sales, you
really need relatively limitedmarketing, because they're,
they're the ones that are prettymuch boots on the ground. So are
you doing anything in terms ofbuilding that brand awareness to
help them make the sale? Andyou're just funneling them
(08:48):
leads? Or what's, what's thatprocess?
Merv Campbell (08:53):
So how we, how we do it, as we look at it, as
we're the marketing team, so noone knows the tools like we do.
We we make them like we. I havea machine shop just the other
side of this wall. We have anassembly department that's
everything together. So we knowhow the products are built. We
know how to market them. So wetake that portion upon
(09:14):
ourselves. Not to say those guysdon't do their own thing, but
for our products, I'd say like90, 90% of it the marketing is
done by us. We do LinkedInposts, we do social posts, we do
email blasts, and we do as muchmarketing as you possibly can.
And then that generates things,then for the distributors so on,
(09:37):
like an email blast that goesout, there'll be a tab on it,
find your local distributor, putit in, obviously, to your zip
code, and then you're good togo. But we do a lot of the
marketing ourselves. One thingwe are pushing out at the minute
is training for all these salespeople. So we're setting up
webinars. We're setting up oneon one times where we can use
(10:00):
our knowledge to help thembecome more omnified, and then
in due course, then as they goto different installs, or they
go to different customers,they're able to use that
information and sell theproduct.
Andrew Maff (10:11):
So oddly enough, this space I'm wildly familiar
with. Not really sure how I gotinto it. Mine is, it's been in
the flooring space. I've workedwith like commercial HVAC
companies or vacuum companies.
I've worked with commercial likeconcrete grinding companies and
things like that. So veryinteresting space. The one thing
(10:32):
I always learned about it, atleast especially with the
concrete grinder guys, it,they're, they're like, it's
like, a the camaraderie in thegroup is, it's like, hanging out
with the guys where they'relike, they're all like, oh yeah,
nice job. Who did that for you?
Like, it sucks. Like, they it'shilarious to stay in like, one
(10:53):
of their Facebook groups orsomething like that. Is there,
is there something like that,similar to this audience that's
still kind of like in the tileside, or like in any of the
glass or stone or anything.
Merv Campbell (11:05):
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different, I'm
laughing, but there's a lot ofdifferent forums and a lot of
different like chat rooms andthings you can go into. There's
the SFA, there's all Slavfathers, there's the NGA,
there's laser nation, there'sthere's a lot of different areas
you can go to, and a lot of itboils down to, what I find
(11:28):
really encouraging in thissection is they want to help
each other, and a lot of otherdifferent areas. It's all like
hidden say, for instance, youlearned how to do something.
Let's cut a piece of granite.
It's difficult, it's hard.
There's feeds and speeds,there's blades, there's all of
that. A lot of times on thoseforums, they'll actually just,
(11:51):
hey, I cut this. Here's whatblade I used. I messed up, but I
found out this was a betterspeed. And they actually help
each other, which coming from,where I'm from, and even
building the buses, there was somuch like, hidden stuff. There
was so much secrecy. Don't tellanyone how you do it, in case it
(12:12):
gets out, like, all right,whatever it's, it's, it's a bus.
It's not a rocket ship. Butanyways, but at least in the
stone industry, there is thatit's like, brothers in arms. I
see that a lot. I'm seeing withblazers. There's a lot of
Blazers who will just freelygive up information, like, even
(12:33):
where they're like, buyingthings and getting good deals,
they'll happily give that up.
Tile. Tile guys are the same.
They're like, hey, Floor & Decorhas a sale on X, Y and Z. Go
check it out. Or maybe they buysomething. They get a coupon.
They don't need it. They'll putit up there, and someone else
can use it. So yeah, there's,there's a lot of, a lot of
(12:53):
camaraderie. They do like to ripeach other quite a bit. So if
there's like, if there's like,seams or something that's a
little bit off. They'll alwaysbe like, who in the world did
that seriously, guys, this is adisaster. Yeah? So no, it's,
it's a lot of fun. It can get.
There are times where it gets alittle hot and heavy, but
especially one thing at theminute is machines, like CNC
(13:16):
machines that go down and tryingto get an attack out to service
them. A lot of them will get onthere and then at whoever the
saw manufacturers, and then justroast them. That's, that's funny
to watch. I get my little bucketof popcorn to start watching to
see what are these commentsgoing to be? But no, for the
(13:38):
most part, it's, it's really,yeah, it's a good humor.
Andrew Maff (13:43):
It's always, I've always found that, like, if you
can get into an industry thathas groups like that, it makes
it so much easier, because onceyou can get in, you can prove
out that, you know, we sellquality product and things are,
you know, there's nothing fishygoing on here. It's guys like
that that are in these groupsthat will all of a sudden, the
next thing you know, you'reselling hundreds, 1000s of units
(14:05):
or whatever, just becausesomeone made the post about it,
and they're in one of thosegroups. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's
the, what's the move goingforward, right? Like, obviously,
you mentioned you kind ofstarted off in glass, you
expanded from there. But, like,what? What are you guys doing to
keep Omni Cubed moving?
Merv Campbell (14:21):
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're
a product development company,so we have a number of
engineers. We always keep ourear to the ground. So like trade
shows and even these forums arevery vital for us to like,
listen and learn. That's our I'dsay that's one of our greatest
(14:41):
assets online, is listening. Sothere's a concern, there's an
issue, there's a Hey, doesanybody have a tool or know
what, how to make this? Or blah,blah, blah. And then we'll kind
of be like, Hey, give us acouple of months. Let us try to
prototype something. Yeah, andso at the very heart, we are an
(15:02):
engineering company, and sowe're constantly innovating. Me
and the CEO this morning, we'rejust talking about, you know,
it's, it's such a there's such arange of our tools, and they
keep getting, like, tweaked andchanged for the better, because
we listen to the installers,which is like, so, so important.
(15:25):
So that that is, that's a greatasset to have in a company. And
so at the very heart is that, soto push on from that, then
you're making new products.
You're listening to people.
Everything is getting heavierand heavier. So stone, they're
going bigger, they're goingthicker, it's heavier, it's the
(15:46):
same of glass. Actually, some ofthe glass that's going into
buildings is made overseas,simply because the US won't
allow them to make such bigpieces in the States, just
because of the facilities andthe factories and things like
that. So a lot of it shipped infrom Germany. So it's getting
(16:08):
it's getting ridiculous the sizeof some of this stuff. And so as
that change, we have to adapt.
Okay, our carts, they're ratedfor 1000 pound. Well, that's
labs now 1200 so what are wegoing to do about it? So that
that's how we that's how weadapt. We have to be able to
kind of move and jive with thetimes, because if you get stuck
(16:28):
in something, yeah, a little bitof trouble.
Andrew Maff (16:33):
Yeah I guess I can see that. Did you do you guys
have issues with I mean, as ofthis recording, which is, we're
doing this in what mid May, bythe time it goes out, who knows,
but tariffs, were they an issuefor you? Did it cause any
problems? Based on that face,I'm assuming, so
Merv Campbell (16:52):
It caused, it caused sleepless nights. Let me
tell you. It's like you'regoing, what's happening? Like,
seriously? Can someone, cansomeone like set me down and
just explain and go, Okay, justcalm down. Everything's going to
be all right. It did hit ushard. We worked through it. We
have really good vendors,because we have a good supply
(17:15):
chain. That's one of the greatbenefits, that COVID was
everything else sucked, but thatmade us as a company try to find
multiple depths of vendors,which was very important,
because sadly, some people wentout business just with
everything, not because thetariffs, but this last year and
(17:36):
kind of the six months previous,just a dip that the economy took
and how hard it wasn't peopleand so, yeah, tariffs were fun.
Very fun because we shipInternational, so we don't just
do the US. We're in Canada,we're in the we're in Europe,
we're in the UK, we're inAustralia. So that was fun.
(17:56):
That's a lot of fun, times, alot of phone calls. But we were
able, we're able to get throughit. And, you know, thankfully,
as we do this recording, thingsare starting to ease off a
little bit, and there seems tobe light at the end of the
tunnel.
Andrew Maff (18:13):
By the time it comes out. What, um, one of my
favorite things, obviously, totalk about, because my own
background the marketing side.
So you mentioned, obviously, youguys are kind of basically like
the marketing company for it.
What do you lean in on? Is itmostly social? Is it SEO? Is it
email, Google advertising, likewhat? What do you see? Tends to
work the best for you.
Merv Campbell (18:32):
I think all of them. I wouldn't it's hard for
us to pick one out. I lovesocial posts, just because we
can do, like, a quick video, wecan do a picture, it can be
uploaded, and boom, it's outthere. Email blasts. You've got
to be, you know, make sure thateverything's correct and how it
(18:52):
should be, spelling and grammarand all the rest, which is fine,
but that's kind of more timeconsuming. Seo, vitally
important, vitally important,constantly looking at that,
tweaking it, and thencorrelating that to like a blog
post, like, what are the words?
What are the keywords we'remissing? Let's make sure that
that's working on there. I findthe algorithms with a lot of
(19:17):
like, especially LinkedIn at theminute. It's like, it's frying
my brain. I'm like, I thought Ihad it cracked, but then they
changed the rules. And you'relike, Well, I'm starting from
ground zero, but a lot of that'sgood, but I would say social
with kind of more videos likequick, you know, 30 second in
and out, done. Tech tops the bigthing, obviously, at the minute,
(19:41):
but for sure, definitely, thosequick informational here's why
you would buy it, here's how youbuy it, and done, and then move
on.
Andrew Maff (19:51):
Are you doing advertising on any of those
channels?
Merv Campbell (19:55):
We do, we do, we do Google ads. We had paused a
little bit. We're going to takethat back up. Obviously, on
Facebook, we have differentstuff, but it's so hard because
there's certain times whereyou'll put an ad up, and the
next thing Facebook wants toclose you down, and you're like,
there's nothing to help people.
It's to keep them safe. What inthe world is going on, but you
(20:16):
just said the wrong word at thewrong time, and so you're like,
Ah, come on. But no, it's, it's,that's, it's interesting to see
just how things change, evenwith different platforms, and
then just sit back and watch.
But
Andrew Maff (20:35):
yeah, no, we've seen in similar industries
yours, the meta ad side can workreally well. It's very
interesting. Like, you wouldthink that it's not because a
lot of brands think like, oh,it's B2B. This has to be
LinkedIn or Google or somethinglike that. But the that whole
like, kind of gated contentconcept of like, here's, you
know, download a checklist orPDF or whatever, and get their
(20:56):
contact and then work them astime goes on. Love that. So I
assume you're creating your ownvideo and stuff, probably in the
back room there is that whatyou're talking about? Awesome.
Merv Campbell (21:07):
Yeah. It's called a iPhone 16 on a video on its
Merv tells a story of tools.
Andrew Maff (21:13):
Love it.
Merv Campbell (21:14):
So, the classics, absolutely. Yeah, no, they
actually work the best. We havegone away from them from a
while, and kind of done morelike voiceovers and they were
kind of polished for us in ourindustry. That doesn't work. You
got, again, a show. You got toshow the tool and operation, the
grittiness off it, how it works.
The guys don't care if it's allshiny, brand new and polished
(21:36):
and dirty. Exactly, first timethey bring it out of the box,
it's like, oh, my, watch thisthing. It's not so, yeah, it's
cool.
Andrew Maff (21:47):
Merv, this was awesome. I really appreciate all
the time you spent with us. I'dlove to give you the opportunity
let everyone know where they canfind out more about you, and, of
course, more about Omni Cubed.
Merv Campbell (21:56):
Awesome. You go online, you can find us
@omnicubed.com that's ourwebsite. Everything's on there,
information, all of our tools,where to buy. Everything lives
on our website. If you're onthere, you can find me. You can
find my number. If you eversomeone wants to call talk, if
they have a predicament they'retrying to figure out, how do I
(22:18):
install with this type ofmaterial on here, just hook us
up, give us a phone call, andthen following on social
platforms like find us, likeit's just Omni Cubed. So we're
on LinkedIn, we're on Facebook,we're on Instagram and Tiktok,
so on YouTube Shorts, I alwaysforget about we're on there too.
So, yeah, go. Go check them out.
We have a lot of pro overviewvideos that muggins hears on
(22:41):
that kind of in more depth aboutthe tools, so you get to learn a
little bit more. Those are onYouTube, but yeah, go on our
website. Check us out. See whowe are. We'd love to talk to
whomever it may be.
Andrew Maff (22:55):
Merv, thanks so much for being on the show.
Really appreciate it. Everyonethat tuned in. Do the usual rate
review, subscribe, all that funstuff and whichever podcast
platform you bring, platform youprefer, or head over to the
Ecomm show.com to check out allof our previous episodes. But as
usual, thank you all for joiningus. See you all next time. Have
a good one.
Narrator (23:12):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to Ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The Ecomm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
accelerate their growth. Go tobluetuskr.com now for more
(23:35):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show!
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're
a product development company,so we have a number of
engineers. We always keep ourear to the ground. So like trade
shows and even these forums arevery vital for us to like,
listen and learned that's ourI'd say that's one of our
greatest assets online, islistening.
Sponsor (00:26):
I would like to take a break from today's episode to
thank our sponsors. Ship4wd, ifyou run an E commerce business
that ships products from Asia toNorth America, you know how
stressful the journey can getwith too many suppliers, emails,
quotes, customs delays, it's alot Ship4wd makes it simple.
It's a digital freightforwarding platform built for
small and mid sized businesses.
Think booking a shipment likebooking a flight, just search,
(00:47):
compare and book done inminutes. Instant quotes, express
shipping options, real timetracking and 24/7 human support.
Add services like customsclearance and cargo insurance
for the full end to endexperience. You can try it for
free today at Ship4wd.com
Andrew Maff (01:55):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
the E comm show. As usual. I amyour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingMerv Campbell, who is the GM
over at Omni Cubed. Merv, howyou doing, buddy? You ready for
good show?
Merv Campbell (02:06):
I'm ready for a good show!
Andrew Maff (02:08):
Super excited to have you on the show. I already
love your attitude, which isgreat. That always makes it that
much better. I love startingthese off. Yes, I love starting
these off relativelystereotypically. So just get
tell us a little bit about yourbackground, where you like,
where you started your career,how you got into Omni Cubed,
where you guys are at we'll takeit from there. Okay?
Merv Campbell (02:27):
So probably by my accent already, I'm not from
America, so I actually, I'mborn, I'm born and bred in
Northern Ireland. Lived therefor 34 years. Started my career
as a aeronautical engineer withBombardier there. Obviously, we
all know what happened withSeptember 11, and sadly, a lot
(02:48):
of people lost their jobs, and Iwas one of them. And then took a
kind of dark career change intowelding fabricating, and then
ended up building double deckerbuses for 12 years. So did that.
My wife's originally from theStates. She's from placebo here
in California. So we had twokids in Ireland, and we thought,
(03:10):
hey, let's make the move. Socame over here. We've been here
now over nine years, which ishard to believe. Love it here.
Had a third kid. Just absolutelylove California. The weather is
fantastic. People complain aboutlike, hey, when you've lived in
rain for 34, years, you'reallowed to cry out a little bit,
for sure. So no. And then aboutnine years ago, was approached
(03:35):
by the company here to come. Hadno idea why, but then was
offered a job through somefamily, friends and stuff, and
I've been here over nine years,and absolutely love it, an
absolutely fantastic company towork for. Great family feel
wonderful core values, allmoving in the one direction.
(03:55):
And, yeah, that's basically mybackground of where I came from
and why I'm here.
Andrew Maff (03:59):
So, tell me about Omni Cubed. What, What is it
that, you know, tell us someinsight into the product line,
why you guys kind of got startedin there, and then let's take it
from there,
Merv Campbell (04:10):
So there's four owners. They are two married
families. So there's one familythat's got a husband wife, and
also another husband and wife onthis side. And they came
together about 22 years ago,they've been friends. They'd
went through the two men hadbeen through college, different
things, and so they came, theystarted working together, and
then they're like, Hey, let'sstart a business. And so they
(04:33):
saw a need in the market for acertain type of product. They
made that product, which at thattime was the lamp lamp. So we
make products for the stoneindustry. Now we do it for glass
and tile, but then it wasprimarily stone. And so they
made what was called a lamplamp. They made it in their
garage, or their garage, as Ilike to say, and started
(04:56):
fabricating, making them. Andthen they would get in their
truck, and they would driveeverywhere, across as much of
California as they couldpossibly hit trying to sell this
product. It was a slow burner.
And then they had a kind ofeureka moment when they went to
a trade show in Las Vegas, andit just exploded from that. And
so we now are the beneficiariesof that 22 years later, we're a
(05:20):
thriving company. We're growing,not without difficulties in the
last number of years, obviously,with COVID and all that good
stuff, but we are growing, andwe just hired a couple of new
people last month. We're lookingto hire some more this month,
and so the company's definitelymoving in the right direction,
thank goodness. But yeah, we areso grateful for our four owners
(05:44):
for sticking it out those thosehard and difficult years, and
now we get to reap the reward.
So.
Andrew Maff (05:52):
So how are you finding like your target
customers? Obviously, you're notgoing door to door like you once
were, but sounds like you didsome trade shows. But what's
what's the other approach?
Because I know it's primarily aB2B, E-commerce play, correct?
Merv Campbell (06:03):
So we have, we have what's called distributors.
Andrew Maff (06:03):
Interesting. So usually you kind of see that,
So we have guys and gals who weship product to, and then they,
they kind of, obviously, theyget a cut of it, they get their
share. But then they are theones who have all of the
insight, all the context they'vegot their their little black
not exactly 100% flipped around,but usually you see it, it's,
(06:23):
book that's full of people,they're able to call them up.
And so that's, that's about 90%of the business they do. Like
it's a little bit more D2C, andthen you know, the supplemental
just a shout out to them. Theydo a phenomenal job for us. Our
distributors are amazing. Wecannot be where we are without
them. And so we're very thankfulfor them. We always push people
(06:43):
that direction simply becausethey have that relationship. And
of it is the distributor side.
So why? Why lean in so much onwe kind of just fell in the
cracks wherever it's needed onour website, so people call up
they're looking for something.
We normally send them out to thedistributor, and if they're
like, well, there's no one in myregion who do I talk to, then
we'll we'll take that up. Butyeah, it's, it's primarily
distributors.
(07:18):
the distributors, as opposed tokind of go in the D2C route?
Merv Campbell (07:23):
Simply because we actually don't have a dedicated
sales team. We have. We rely onour distributors. We rely on
their sort of area that they canfill out. And they're like,
United States huge. Like, I'mlike, I'm a little guy from
Ireland, and it takes me sixhours to go from top to bottom.
(07:45):
I can do that in California,like three times over. It's
still not at the bottom. Sothere's just just a wider range.
There's a lot more people there,well established, and with being
in the stoning industry, a lotof people will buy consumables.
So they'll buy, like theirtapes, their polishing pads,
(08:06):
whatever else. Well, that's awonderful time to say, hey, you
need a new cart? Do you need anOmni Cubed, Aqua Jaws, any sort
of stuff like that? So they can,they can help facilitate that.
So they do a really good job atfollowing up so they get a lead,
blah, blah, blah, they'll followup with it. And so, yeah, that's
beautiful, really, how it works.
Andrew Maff (08:27):
What? What would you say is, like, kind of that
big struggle, like, what's theif they're the ones doing a lot
of the lifting, they're the oneshandling most of the sales, you
really need relatively limitedmarketing, because they're,
they're the ones that are prettymuch boots on the ground. So are
you doing anything in terms ofbuilding that brand awareness to
help them make the sale? Andyou're just funneling them
(08:48):
leads? Or what's, what's thatprocess?
Merv Campbell (08:53):
So how we, how we do it, as we look at it, as
we're the marketing team, so noone knows the tools like we do.
We we make them like we. I havea machine shop just the other
side of this wall. We have anassembly department that's
everything together. So we knowhow the products are built. We
know how to market them. So wetake that portion upon
(09:14):
ourselves. Not to say those guysdon't do their own thing, but
for our products, I'd say like90, 90% of it the marketing is
done by us. We do LinkedInposts, we do social posts, we do
email blasts, and we do as muchmarketing as you possibly can.
And then that generates things,then for the distributors so on,
(09:37):
like an email blast that goesout, there'll be a tab on it,
find your local distributor, putit in, obviously, to your zip
code, and then you're good togo. But we do a lot of the
marketing ourselves. One thingwe are pushing out at the minute
is training for all these salespeople. So we're setting up
webinars. We're setting up oneon one times where we can use
(10:00):
our knowledge to help thembecome more omnified, and then
in due course, then as they goto different installs, or they
go to different customers,they're able to use that
information and sell theproduct.
Andrew Maff (10:11):
So oddly enough, this space I'm wildly familiar
with. Not really sure how I gotinto it. Mine is, it's been in
the flooring space. I've workedwith like commercial HVAC
companies or vacuum companies.
I've worked with commercial likeconcrete grinding companies and
things like that. So veryinteresting space. The one thing
(10:32):
I always learned about it, atleast especially with the
concrete grinder guys, it,they're, they're like, it's
like, a the camaraderie in thegroup is, it's like, hanging out
with the guys where they'relike, they're all like, oh yeah,
nice job. Who did that for you?
Like, it sucks. Like, they it'shilarious to stay in like, one
(10:53):
of their Facebook groups orsomething like that. Is there,
is there something like that,similar to this audience that's
still kind of like in the tileside, or like in any of the
glass or stone or anything.
Merv Campbell (11:05):
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different, I'm
laughing, but there's a lot ofdifferent forums and a lot of
different like chat rooms andthings you can go into. There's
the SFA, there's all Slavfathers, there's the NGA,
there's laser nation, there'sthere's a lot of different areas
you can go to, and a lot of itboils down to, what I find
(11:28):
really encouraging in thissection is they want to help
each other, and a lot of otherdifferent areas. It's all like
hidden say, for instance, youlearned how to do something.
Let's cut a piece of granite.
It's difficult, it's hard.
There's feeds and speeds,there's blades, there's all of
that. A lot of times on thoseforums, they'll actually just,
(11:51):
hey, I cut this. Here's whatblade I used. I messed up, but I
found out this was a betterspeed. And they actually help
each other, which coming from,where I'm from, and even
building the buses, there was somuch like, hidden stuff. There
was so much secrecy. Don't tellanyone how you do it, in case it
(12:12):
gets out, like, all right,whatever it's, it's, it's a bus.
It's not a rocket ship. Butanyways, but at least in the
stone industry, there is thatit's like, brothers in arms. I
see that a lot. I'm seeing withblazers. There's a lot of
Blazers who will just freelygive up information, like, even
(12:33):
where they're like, buyingthings and getting good deals,
they'll happily give that up.
Tile. Tile guys are the same.
They're like, hey, Floor & Decorhas a sale on X, Y and Z. Go
check it out. Or maybe they buysomething. They get a coupon.
They don't need it. They'll putit up there, and someone else
can use it. So yeah, there's,there's a lot of, a lot of
(12:53):
camaraderie. They do like to ripeach other quite a bit. So if
there's like, if there's like,seams or something that's a
little bit off. They'll alwaysbe like, who in the world did
that seriously, guys, this is adisaster. Yeah? So no, it's,
it's a lot of fun. It can get.
There are times where it gets alittle hot and heavy, but
especially one thing at theminute is machines, like CNC
(13:16):
machines that go down and tryingto get an attack out to service
them. A lot of them will get onthere and then at whoever the
saw manufacturers, and then justroast them. That's, that's funny
to watch. I get my little bucketof popcorn to start watching to
see what are these commentsgoing to be? But no, for the
(13:38):
most part, it's, it's really,yeah, it's a good humor.
Andrew Maff (13:43):
It's always, I've always found that, like, if you
can get into an industry thathas groups like that, it makes
it so much easier, because onceyou can get in, you can prove
out that, you know, we sellquality product and things are,
you know, there's nothing fishygoing on here. It's guys like
that that are in these groupsthat will all of a sudden, the
next thing you know, you'reselling hundreds, 1000s of units
(14:05):
or whatever, just becausesomeone made the post about it,
and they're in one of thosegroups. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's
the, what's the move goingforward, right? Like, obviously,
you mentioned you kind ofstarted off in glass, you
expanded from there. But, like,what? What are you guys doing to
keep Omni Cubed moving?
Merv Campbell (14:21):
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're
a product development company,so we have a number of
engineers. We always keep ourear to the ground. So like trade
shows and even these forums arevery vital for us to like,
listen and learn. That's our I'dsay that's one of our greatest
(14:41):
assets online, is listening. Sothere's a concern, there's an
issue, there's a Hey, doesanybody have a tool or know
what, how to make this? Or blah,blah, blah. And then we'll kind
of be like, Hey, give us acouple of months. Let us try to
prototype something. Yeah, andso at the very heart, we are an
(15:02):
engineering company, and sowe're constantly innovating. Me
and the CEO this morning, we'rejust talking about, you know,
it's, it's such a there's such arange of our tools, and they
keep getting, like, tweaked andchanged for the better, because
we listen to the installers,which is like, so, so important.
(15:25):
So that that is, that's a greatasset to have in a company. And
so at the very heart is that, soto push on from that, then
you're making new products.
You're listening to people.
Everything is getting heavierand heavier. So stone, they're
going bigger, they're goingthicker, it's heavier, it's the
(15:46):
same of glass. Actually, some ofthe glass that's going into
buildings is made overseas,simply because the US won't
allow them to make such bigpieces in the States, just
because of the facilities andthe factories and things like
that. So a lot of it shipped infrom Germany. So it's getting
(16:08):
it's getting ridiculous the sizeof some of this stuff. And so as
that change, we have to adapt.
Okay, our carts, they're ratedfor 1000 pound. Well, that's
labs now 1200 so what are wegoing to do about it? So that
that's how we that's how weadapt. We have to be able to
kind of move and jive with thetimes, because if you get stuck
(16:28):
in something, yeah, a little bitof trouble.
Andrew Maff (16:33):
Yeah I guess I can see that. Did you do you guys
have issues with I mean, as ofthis recording, which is, we're
doing this in what mid May, bythe time it goes out, who knows,
but tariffs, were they an issuefor you? Did it cause any
problems? Based on that face,I'm assuming, so
Merv Campbell (16:52):
It caused, it caused sleepless nights. Let me
tell you. It's like you'regoing, what's happening? Like,
seriously? Can someone, cansomeone like set me down and
just explain and go, Okay, justcalm down. Everything's going to
be all right. It did hit ushard. We worked through it. We
have really good vendors,because we have a good supply
(17:15):
chain. That's one of the greatbenefits, that COVID was
everything else sucked, but thatmade us as a company try to find
multiple depths of vendors,which was very important,
because sadly, some people wentout business just with
everything, not because thetariffs, but this last year and
(17:36):
kind of the six months previous,just a dip that the economy took
and how hard it wasn't peopleand so, yeah, tariffs were fun.
Very fun because we shipInternational, so we don't just
do the US. We're in Canada,we're in the we're in Europe,
we're in the UK, we're inAustralia. So that was fun.
(17:56):
That's a lot of fun, times, alot of phone calls. But we were
able, we're able to get throughit. And, you know, thankfully,
as we do this recording, thingsare starting to ease off a
little bit, and there seems tobe light at the end of the
tunnel.
Andrew Maff (18:13):
By the time it comes out. What, um, one of my
favorite things, obviously, totalk about, because my own
background the marketing side.
So you mentioned, obviously, youguys are kind of basically like
the marketing company for it.
What do you lean in on? Is itmostly social? Is it SEO? Is it
email, Google advertising, likewhat? What do you see? Tends to
work the best for you.
Merv Campbell (18:32):
I think all of them. I wouldn't it's hard for
us to pick one out. I lovesocial posts, just because we
can do, like, a quick video, wecan do a picture, it can be
uploaded, and boom, it's outthere. Email blasts. You've got
to be, you know, make sure thateverything's correct and how it
(18:52):
should be, spelling and grammarand all the rest, which is fine,
but that's kind of more timeconsuming. Seo, vitally
important, vitally important,constantly looking at that,
tweaking it, and thencorrelating that to like a blog
post, like, what are the words?
What are the keywords we'remissing? Let's make sure that
that's working on there. I findthe algorithms with a lot of
(19:17):
like, especially LinkedIn at theminute. It's like, it's frying
my brain. I'm like, I thought Ihad it cracked, but then they
changed the rules. And you'relike, Well, I'm starting from
ground zero, but a lot of that'sgood, but I would say social
with kind of more videos likequick, you know, 30 second in
and out, done. Tech tops the bigthing, obviously, at the minute,
(19:41):
but for sure, definitely, thosequick informational here's why
you would buy it, here's how youbuy it, and done, and then move
on.
Andrew Maff (19:51):
Are you doing advertising on any of those
channels?
Merv Campbell (19:55):
We do, we do, we do Google ads. We had paused a
little bit. We're going to takethat back up. Obviously, on
Facebook, we have differentstuff, but it's so hard because
there's certain times whereyou'll put an ad up, and the
next thing Facebook wants toclose you down, and you're like,
there's nothing to help people.
It's to keep them safe. What inthe world is going on, but you
(20:16):
just said the wrong word at thewrong time, and so you're like,
Ah, come on. But no, it's, it's,that's, it's interesting to see
just how things change, evenwith different platforms, and
then just sit back and watch.
But
Andrew Maff (20:35):
yeah, no, we've seen in similar industries
yours, the meta ad side can workreally well. It's very
interesting. Like, you wouldthink that it's not because a
lot of brands think like, oh,it's B2B. This has to be
LinkedIn or Google or somethinglike that. But the that whole
like, kind of gated contentconcept of like, here's, you
know, download a checklist orPDF or whatever, and get their
(20:56):
contact and then work them astime goes on. Love that. So I
assume you're creating your ownvideo and stuff, probably in the
back room there is that whatyou're talking about? Awesome.
Merv Campbell (21:07):
Yeah. It's called a iPhone 16 on a video on its
Merv tells a story of tools.
Andrew Maff (21:13):
Love it.
Merv Campbell (21:14):
So, the classics, absolutely. Yeah, no, they
actually work the best. We havegone away from them from a
while, and kind of done morelike voiceovers and they were
kind of polished for us in ourindustry. That doesn't work. You
got, again, a show. You got toshow the tool and operation, the
grittiness off it, how it works.
The guys don't care if it's allshiny, brand new and polished
(21:36):
and dirty. Exactly, first timethey bring it out of the box,
it's like, oh, my, watch thisthing. It's not so, yeah, it's
cool.
Andrew Maff (21:47):
Merv, this was awesome. I really appreciate all
the time you spent with us. I'dlove to give you the opportunity
let everyone know where they canfind out more about you, and, of
course, more about Omni Cubed.
Merv Campbell (21:56):
Awesome. You go online, you can find us
@omnicubed.com that's ourwebsite. Everything's on there,
information, all of our tools,where to buy. Everything lives
on our website. If you're onthere, you can find me. You can
find my number. If you eversomeone wants to call talk, if
they have a predicament they'retrying to figure out, how do I
(22:18):
install with this type ofmaterial on here, just hook us
up, give us a phone call, andthen following on social
platforms like find us, likeit's just Omni Cubed. So we're
on LinkedIn, we're on Facebook,we're on Instagram and Tiktok,
so on YouTube Shorts, I alwaysforget about we're on there too.
So, yeah, go. Go check them out.
We have a lot of pro overviewvideos that muggins hears on
(22:41):
that kind of in more depth aboutthe tools, so you get to learn a
little bit more. Those are onYouTube, but yeah, go on our
website. Check us out. See whowe are. We'd love to talk to
whomever it may be.
Andrew Maff (22:55):
Merv, thanks so much for being on the show.
Really appreciate it. Everyonethat tuned in. Do the usual rate
review, subscribe, all that funstuff and whichever podcast
platform you bring, platform youprefer, or head over to the
Ecomm show.com to check out allof our previous episodes. But as
usual, thank you all for joiningus. See you all next time. Have
a good one.
Narrator (23:12):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to Ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The Ecomm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
accelerate their growth. Go tobluetuskr.com now for more
(23:35):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show!
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