David Silbergleit

Episode 186 – Coffee N5 – Sip, Listen, Lead with David Silbergleit

In this episode of Coffee N° 5, Lara chats with David Silbergleit, CEO of PIMS, a leader in logistics solutions for the beauty and wellness industries. His leadership style is rooted in collaboration and a solutions-focused approach. Discover his journey, leadership philosophy, and how giving back plays a crucial role in his business approach.

We’ll talk about:

  • How rising through the ranks teaches valuable leadership lessons.
  • The role of custom logistics in transforming beauty and wellness.
  • The importance of giving back to build a purpose-driven company.
  • Why collaborative leadership fosters a positive company culture.
  • How to balance work and family for long-term success and well-being.

For more information, visit David Silbergleit’s LinkedIn.

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Also, follow our host Lara Schmoisman on social media:

Instagram: @laraschmoisman

Facebook: @LaraSchmoisman

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Lara Schmoisman (00:00)

Hi everyone.

 

You know?

 

to go to.

 

working, working, working. And it’s so nice when you walk and say, hi, how are you? And see someone that you can just chill for a little bit. And those are friends that you make along the way. And it’s a great thing about being around for a while now that you really get to meet with people. So let me introduce you to David. David is the CEO of PIMMS. They’re a 3PL company, but they’re

 

so much more than that and I’ve been learning and experiencing with him so welcome David thank you so much for being here today

 

David Silbergleit (00:55)

Thank you for having me and I second everything you said. It’s nice to, when you’re on the road and going to all these events, it’s nice to see those familiar faces that you just know you can work well with and that you get along with and you’re one of those faces. So I really appreciate that. And we keep running into each other all these events, the Inakas events, the Beauty Matter events, you name it. It’s just,

 

Cosmo Prof, it’s just great to see you and great to be on here as well.

 

Lara Schmoisman (01:26)

It’s all about creating that community of professionals that you respect and also you know that they will do it right for your clients. I’m a connector, so you are too. And it’s great to know that when you have someone and you want to recommend to someone that they’re gonna be in good hands. I never got those people say, don’t recommend people because you never know what can happen.

 

David Silbergleit (01:51)

Yeah, no, you have to know who you’re working with and who you can trust to represent you when you’re dealing with the clients because half the job is doing what you do and half the job is actually being a preferred partner, not a vendor, but an actual partner, a strategic partner for these clients. They know that you’re in the industry. They’ve got to understand that they can trust that you can get things done for them. You provide solutions. That’s what we do.

 

Lara Schmoisman (02:16)

Absolutely.

 

David, you do something that is super unique and I have several times to experience. I mean, you do it a little bit different for us in events. You make us create a box experience, which is really, really fun to see what people are coming with. And I can ask you what was, I want to start thinking about this. What was the most creative box that you ever seen that someone made and the most horrible idea and why.

 

David Silbergleit (02:31)

Yeah.

 

Hahaha

 

Lara Schmoisman (02:45)

because

 

there is a whole production on this doing boxing experiences there’s so many things that to keep in consideration and think that it could go wrong they will go wrong

 

David Silbergleit (02:56)

Yeah, you know, it’s funny before we go into the best and the worst, I don’t know if I’ll say actually the worst because they might be listening and then that’ll be another. But and the best might be a little too raunchy for this because of some of the ones that we’ve seen where people got really creative. But you know, there is

 

Lara Schmoisman (03:17)

about the wrong and the right. mean there is no wrong and right because it depends on your audience.

 

David Silbergleit (03:21)

There isn’t, you know, it’s, yeah, no, there

 

isn’t. It’s one of the fun things about the creating an unboxing experience is the fact that you can really start to tell the brand story. You know, a lot of people spend so, they spend so much time, so much effort, so much money on the production of the product that they sort of forget the last mile delivery. That’s what keeps the loyalty of the brand loyalty. That’s what gets the customers to come back.

 

So whether you’re doing an influencer mailer, which is what our real specialty is, or you’re doing e-commerce fulfillment, which is also something that we work with clients on, it’s really about getting that box in front of the right person and what their experience, the memorable experience that they have once they receive it. Because it’s easy to get a product in somebody’s hands and have them say, this is a great product.

 

Let me go back to you know Amazon and purchase this and and I’ll just purchase whatever you want to drive them to your website So they can see your entire product you want them to remember The brand not just that they bought it somewhere. You want them to go back to your website. You’re creating that that customer

 

Lara Schmoisman (04:33)

I love

 

what you said about the brand story but there is another part here that is execution and many people they have and I see it with marketing too like I remember someone like I have this idea for an ad and we’re have this angle with the camera we’re gonna see from an helicopter okay you know that all that costs money right so can we execute on budget

 

David Silbergleit (04:57)

Yeah, it’s true. And to go back to the workshop that we always do at these events, know, one of the fun things about it is for the first time in the exercise, we always say, pretend budgets, no, you know, it doesn’t matter. There’s no, there’s no, there’s no limit to your budget and everybody gets excited because suddenly they can really think outside the box. And, know, we’ve had, we’ve had fun things where people have created entire vacations around, around the pack, around the product, the, hero product in the box.

 

You know, with photo shoots and things like that. And I think we even had something where there was a helicopter or something that I think it was at one of the Inakos events that somebody came up with the idea of having a helicopter and they were tossing things out to the crowd below them. So there’s some fun stuff when you can lose the challenge of budget in there. When you’re thinking, in reality, when you’re dealing with it.

 

you have to think of what’s going to be most cost effective but actually get the most bang for the buck, right? So.

 

Lara Schmoisman (06:01)

So when you start brainstorming for these ideas, you start thinking of no budget and then you bring it down or you start.

 

David Silbergleit (06:08)

Then you narrow it

 

down. Here’s the wow that we want to create. Now how can we do it on this, this, this, this, and we shrink it down to what’s actually possible for the brand. And it’s always some back and forth trying to figure out what’s the most important thing. Do you focus on the packaging? Do you focus on the experience? Where do you spend the time? Where do you spend the money?

 

And we talk about sustainability and I bring this up because, you people talk about it all the time and they think it’s only has to do with the packaging, but it actually has to do with what you’re sending them in general, not just the box on the outside, not just the packaging materials on the inside, but do you know the person you’re sending to if this is an influencer package, do you know the person, are you sending them the shades and the product that they are interested in or are you just sending them?

 

all of your product line because you’re hoping that they’re going to try everything. So sustainability is are they going to keep and use the product versus throw it out or hopefully give it to a lot of people.

 

Lara Schmoisman (07:14)

This

 

boxing experience is everyone is familiar with it because we saw it online, but nobody is familiar how you execute that, how you send it. you say when as a brand, come to you and say, Hey David, I want to do a mailer of influencers. First of all, let’s debunk some myth. You don’t have the list of influencers. The client needs to provide the list.

 

David Silbergleit (07:42)

Yep, or we’ll work with, have several partners that we work with that can help them curate the list as well.

 

Lara Schmoisman (07:48)

Second, how many boxes normally are sent to influencers?

 

David Silbergleit (07:56)

So, very good question, very broad answer. There’s all sorts of influencers. There’s micro, macro, there’s major celebrities. there are some mailers that are called evergreen mailers, which is a brand that’s trying to just, on a monthly basis, they’re getting their brand in front of a thousand, two thousand people at a time. Then there’s the ones that really want to focus on specific individuals, and they’ll send maybe 20, 50, 100.

 

It does not have to be in the thousands all the time because what you really wanna do is you wanna focus on the personalization. That’s what we do best, is focus on the personalization. So it’s the shade matching when it’s beauty products. It’s the personalized handwritten note that goes into it. It’s the size matching if it’s a piece of apparel that’s going in there. You wanna get the most impact. So you wanna personalize it to that individual. You can send it to thousand or 1500 or 100,000 people.

 

But you want to make sure every single person thinks that they’re the only one getting it. They feel like they’re the only one getting it. It’s all about feeling.

 

Lara Schmoisman (08:59)

Absolutely, it’s all about experience

 

and the personalization totally. So for a small brand, example, because there is a basic cost, that is the shipping, it’s working with you, that cost, and then you have the cost of product and whatever else you want to put in the box. So what’s the basic cost of sending an influencer package?

 

David Silbergleit (09:04)

Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

You know, it’s a difficult question to answer. We work with all size of brands, all size lists, distribution lists, and all levels of customization. So we really don’t like to just throw out a price there, but what we do is we will work with the brand to figure out what their budget is, how they can best spend it, because our goal is not to do one-off projects, right? Our goal is to create a…

 

help them create campaigns, help them create programs moving forward. So we’ll try to take a look at overall, what is your marketing budget for this? What do you, know, how much does the product cost for you to send this out? Because a lot of brands have difficult times calculating that because it’s the non-saleable goods, right? So their e-com, their retail, they have a set value for those products, but it’s really the manufacturer’s value for the product that goes into the marketing side.

 

Lara Schmoisman (10:21)

This is one.

 

David Silbergleit (10:21)

So we work with

 

the brands to really focus on what can they spend and how can we do the best job for them.

 

Lara Schmoisman (10:26)

That’s such a good item to work with them because I’ve seen a lot of brands that are coming to me and one of the first things I ask them is what are your margins? A lot of people are not ready to talk to you about exact numbers and that’s okay but you need to know as a marketer and you’re a marketer too in another space that how, where is the waggling room of what you can do?

 

David Silbergleit (10:41)

Yep.

 

Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. It’s almost like taboo to talk about what the margins are and what the actual cost is. But if we’re going to do our job right for the client, we sort of have to understand that. And part of the reasoning for that is if we’re going to go and we’re going to suggest something that’s three times the cost of the product itself, well, they better have budgeted that because they’re trying to make a big impact.

 

Otherwise it doesn’t make sense for them with the custom packaging. So we might find another solution for them or what we can do for them. But it’s important to understand that information. part of the reason, I’ll just throw this out there, but part of the reason why we even exist in the way that we do is, and you brought it up before that we’re a 3PL, I always joke around we’re the anti-3PL. We got into warehousing because of all the things that the 3PLs.

 

couldn’t really handle for the non-saleable goods for the marketing and public relations and social teams. All of our processes, and we have a lot of processes in place, but all of our processes are based on the flexibility and the customization that’s needed for marketing teams. So our e-commerce fulfillment, even that area, that all came about because of the good work we were doing with the marketing teams, that when they wanted to go an extra mile and they wanted to figure out a way that they could make their e-commerce fulfillment look a little special too, they said,

 

Hey, why don’t you call panels? So that’s, that’s how we, we formed.

 

Lara Schmoisman (12:21)

Something

 

I want to put out there, when you work with someone like David or you work with someone like me, we are here to help you and we are here to partner with you but also we are not going to judge you. We’ve seen it all, believe me. We saw the brands that have absolutely no money. I talked to a darling person last week and she told me that she has money for marketing, $250 a month.

 

David Silbergleit (12:44)

Yeah, that’s a lot for some people.

 

Lara Schmoisman (12:47)

And it’s completely fine. I mean, but you cannot work with me at this point But I can give you some pointers of what to do with your hundred two hundred people and fifty dollars who knows maybe in a few

 

David Silbergleit (13:00)

because that 250

 

might equal 250,000 someday.

 

Lara Schmoisman (13:04)

Exactly and because of those tips that I mean I seen it and in my life the most generous people in the industry is what they’ve been there than that they are not afraid to share with you because they have their experience already

 

David Silbergleit (13:19)

Yeah, now you’re 100 % correct on that. some of the most fun projects that we work on and the clients that we have are those that are just getting started. And they have a little bit of budget here, a little bit of budget there, which is why we try to help them when it comes to the marketing side, as well as the retail fulfillment if they’re in brick and mortar, as well as the gift with purchase if it’s for retail and or e-commerce. We’ll try to help them with it all.

 

But you know, was years ago I heard somebody also in the industry talk about, they’re a 3PL company and they were talking about the fact that they won’t even touch a client unless they can guarantee $250,000 a year or more in fulfillment. And it hit me like a brick. I’m like, how can any brand get started with that kind of stipulation? I mean, we all want those that can pay it.

 

pay lots of money and help us elevate our own company at the same time, but nobody’s going to be able to have a shot at success if they can’t have the right film partner. So I always made it a point.

 

Lara Schmoisman (14:29)

that’s why we love you all

 

because we are in the same page on that.

 

David Silbergleit (14:33)

We’re

 

the same, we’re just on opposite ends, but it’s true. mean, how can you stop somebody from succeeding? And it’s by taking away their extensions. I I always say I love the Shark Tank accounts. They’re too big for their garages and basements, but too small for a huge Amazon fulfillment center. Let us help you get to that point where we can grow with you.

 

Lara Schmoisman (14:36)

Yes.

 

I’m the same with marketing. I’m not afraid to take those accounts that they’re just starting. Actually, I see it. I love it. I see it as a challenge and to partner together. There are so many people in this industry that they say, oh, I will not do your ads if you don’t have a minimum ad spend of 5,000. And I see it over and over again that maybe they start with 1,000, but because they’re making money, then we are at 10,000 soon.

 

David Silbergleit (15:29)

That’s right. But you know, I’ll also throw this out there that there are a lot of big companies out there that have the budget, that have the size, but they have lean teams as well. And so one of our, one of the things that we pride ourselves on is really getting in there with the teams to help them, to help them strategize. We have some, some companies that are very large, very large beauty brands that when they get new employees, they actually call up PIMS and say, Hey, can you help us train our people? Because they know

 

Lara Schmoisman (15:39)

Yep.

 

David Silbergleit (15:57)

the types of questions that we’re asking and the type that how we function with them is crucial to their business. So they involve us at that stage as well. And these are some big companies with lots of budgets behind training and getting people up to speed and they have, but they need the help. And it’s really because the teams themselves are lean. We can be a part of that team.

 

Lara Schmoisman (16:22)

great for companies to realize that they have the team. I always say that a lot of companies are failing to have a two-ling team in-house and trying to have that team to do everything because there is no expertise. So it’s so important for brands to recognize that they need to bring the expertise in.

 

David Silbergleit (16:36)

Yeah.

 

Lara Schmoisman (16:45)

so they can team. We’re here not as service providers, we’re here as to partner with you. Someone who’s a service provider will come with the lever and say, okay, sayonara, I’m done. Now you do whatever you can with it.

 

David Silbergleit (16:48)

Thank you.

 

Yep, and you know, one of the challenges a lot of the companies have is also, and this is why we’ve been really focusing on this for the past couple of years, is building our relationship, our network, as you and I spoke about, you know, building our network so we can offer that solution to these clients so that whether we do it ourselves or not, we know the right person to help them. But we’re also building our global network too. So we’ve been attending some global events. One of the…

 

one of the most difficult things that brands have these days is being able to provide consistency throughout the international markets.

 

Lara Schmoisman (17:39)

It’s what I call, well, in your case is to be able to deliver, but in my case, I call it loss in translation. Like one thing, and this is what I did when I started in distribution, actually, I was working on bringing international movies to the US. And it was really clear to me that if you don’t understand what culture laughs about,

 

David Silbergleit (17:48)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Lara Schmoisman (18:06)

you can never understand that culture. So you need to understand the core beliefs of that culture and see what will make that customer tick, which could be completely different than other customer.

 

David Silbergleit (18:22)

No, definitely. So there’s that, there’s the understanding of the local cultures, there’s the branding consistencies to make sure that the logo is correctly printed, the delivery is received. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Australia, if you’re in Hong Kong, or if you’re in New York City, when something arrives, you know that it’s coming from this brand because that’s their expectation and that’s how we deliver it.

 

Lara Schmoisman (18:36)

Yes.

 

David Silbergleit (18:51)

And then there’s also the ease of managing the process on the client side. They can have their global team here in New York where I am, or they can have their global team elsewhere and they know that they’re making one phone call to their PIMS representative and they’re making sure that it happens wherever in the world it needs to happen.

 

Lara Schmoisman (19:11)

Absolutely, absolutely. I was thinking about this story. don’t know if you know about this Japan came up with a brilliant idea for Pepsi There was this character called the Pepsi man That it was like a superhero with a very tight suit and they have a Pepsi logo and it was such a failure Not only in Japan, then they tried to bring it to it never took off

 

David Silbergleit (19:22)

Is that the… Oh. Uh-huh.

 

Why?

 

So, you know, it’s… And sometimes when people have brilliant ideas, if they’re not executed correctly and or just not accepted where they are, certain cultures, certain people are not ready for it, it sounds like a great idea, but it just doesn’t hit home. It just, those things happen, right?

 

Lara Schmoisman (20:10)

How important is for you to be successful the curation of the list of influencers?

 

David Silbergleit (20:19)

it’s.

 

It’s very important. It’s more important now than it used to be. I’ll tell you, it used to be where anybody just wanted creators, KOLs, influencers, wherever in the world you are and whatever you want to call them, when they were first getting started. I still remember when we used to have media lists and then suddenly there was a blog list. And then suddenly it started changing and now there’s hardly any media on the list. It’s really just influencers. And for a while it was…

 

how many people can we send it out to? Let’s just send it to the world. And that’s great, and that works for some types of products, and it still works for some types of products for people now, but…

 

Influencers are not trusted as much as they used to be since they started becoming paid influencers, right? When it first started, it was all organic growth. was, what do people really feel? Now it’s a quarter of them don’t get paid and three quarters of them get paid something, whether it’s from the channels that they’re on or the brands themselves. So there’s a trust issue in place. So you really need to…

 

You need to have that network of influencers that know your brand, that are ambassadors, brand ambassadors basically for your brand. They talk passionately about it. It does not look like they’re trying to just get every single free product they possibly can, but they really feel passionately about how great your product is. Those are the types of people that the brands wanna have a relationship with. So it’s very important.

 

You know, it depends on the program that somebody’s doing. They might be trying to reach the masses, but when they’re trying to be super focused on the success of a launch or making somebody feel special, they need to know who they’re talking to. So it’s gotten very important to do, to curate the list properly.

 

Lara Schmoisman (22:14)

Absolutely and then you can go into my next question that I have for you because they it changed completely even changed my perception of how to work with influencers in the last few years because the perception from the target audience became I cannot believe this person anymore because they have paid after paid after paid collaborations and it’s like they believe in every product they love every product

 

David Silbergleit (22:37)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, so you know that I haven’t heard it as much lately, but there was a craze a little bit, you know, about a year ago, maybe, maybe more, maybe less, I don’t remember, where it was the de-influencer craze, right? Where everybody was talking about this person’s a de-influencer. A de-influencer is just an influencer that’s talking about something else instead of the one that you want them to. So they’re still, they’re still influencers, right? It’s just, again, understanding who you’re sending to.

 

and a de-influencer is somebody that’s on your list that you probably shouldn’t have had on your list. They’re the ones that are not interested in your product. They’re the ones that are not, that are, if you’re a luxury brand, they’re the ones that are specifically trying to find a less expensive version of your product so that they can say, don’t spend $350 on this skincare product, spend $15 on this one. But it’s all about knowing who you’re reaching out to and,

 

for there to be, if you’re not paying attention to that, or you just, somebody changes their mind in how they’re gonna talk about it, or they have a bad experience when they receive the product, that’s what creates that negative impact. But that’s a de-influencer, just an influencer that you shouldn’t be sending it to.

 

Lara Schmoisman (23:57)

not knowing

 

Also you need to do your homework. If you have a product that is not vegan, you cannot send it to an influencer that is vegan. You are not going to get anything out of it. They have a bad experience actually.

 

David Silbergleit (24:02)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, no, you’ll get a bad, they’ll get a bad review, bad experience and it’ll go viral potentially.

 

Lara Schmoisman (24:20)

Yeah, so you need to be very very careful and but there’s a tricky thing on these influencers thing because you’re giving them product they’re using them when you’re not paying them you when you don’t have a contract with them you don’t know what

 

David Silbergleit (24:37)

You

 

Lara Schmoisman (24:37)

It’s not

 

like I just recently had an experience that was in face cream and someone used it as an eye cream. And talk about it like it was an eye cream. And it’s like, no, it’s not an eye cream.

 

David Silbergleit (24:50)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Well, you know, so I think brands are starting to catch on about with that as well. And they’re they’re really in these creating these unboxing experiences in these influencer mailers. They’re trying to tell the story for the person to make it as easy as easy as possible for the person that’s opening this to know exactly what to do and how to do it with the products. We’ve been talking to some of the some more of the tech and AI type companies.

 

in creating something that allows it to be uber personalized because somebody has access to virtual try-ons before or testing their skin so they know exactly what products to be able to get. if they go to attend an event, they can test out the product, they can know exactly what they’re get and then we package it beautifully and send it out to somebody. That’s, know, it goes back to the sustainability part, but it goes to sending somebody what they’re going to like.

 

and still wowing them with the presentation of it, but it’s about informing. So you want somebody needs to have a feeling, they need to feel emotional when they receive something, but they also have to know how to use it.

 

Lara Schmoisman (26:01)

Absolutely, absolutely. It’s so important. And sometimes, let’s be honest, people don’t want to read. So you need to be creative in the way you explain.

 

David Silbergleit (26:03)

The messaging needs to be clear.

 

Put a video

 

in the box and show somebody how to do it.

 

Lara Schmoisman (26:14)

Yes, so how like now that is changing this how what percentage you see of these gifts are sent to celebrities what to pay influencers and just as a gifting

 

David Silbergleit (26:26)

You know, it’s actually pretty evenly split still. They’re just different types of mailers that are going out to people. So you might have more of a luxurious type of gift with a high-end packaging or high-end gift that goes along with the product that’s going out to a celebrity, right? So it gets noticed amongst all the other luxury packages that are going to somebody.

 

then you have the micro influencer and they might be getting something that is a little bit more personalized so that they know that they’re special, right? They know that they’re getting something that nobody else in the world is receiving and it’s because they’re fans of the brand. So it really isn’t a nice even split between who’s getting it, but it’s a matter of what they’re getting and curating the deliveries for those individual types of people.

 

Lara Schmoisman (27:19)

mentioned before something that I’m super pro for each brand and each one of my clients is talking about brand ambassadors which I think it was very popular a few years ago but in my gut feeling is they’re coming back it’s something very strong it’s an influencer that really loves your brand and they’re willing to partner with you

 

David Silbergleit (27:29)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Lara Schmoisman (27:44)

So how do you see, mean, what’s your thoughts on this and how you create from the product side, from sending them products, how do you keep your brand ambassador excited about the brand?

 

David Silbergleit (27:53)

Yeah.

 

So I’m glad you asked. It’s actually something that we’re really excited about that we recently started partnering with another company that creates brand ambassador programs. So they actually work with brands to create something on their site that allows people to go on and request to become an ambassador of the brand. They’re not paid, but what they get their payment is the more we talk about, the more discount we might get at the brand.

 

Right? So we have to… Well, yeah, something like that if they’re selling it on their own shop, if they’re doing it. But the key and the program that we came up with them, which is a huge success so far with the brands that we’ve implemented it so far with, and we’ve gotten a lot of interest moving forward as well, is you can have a bronze tier, a silver tier, a gold tier, a platinum tier, right? But what makes it…

 

Lara Schmoisman (28:28)

Yeah, so they get the kickback, the commission.

 

Yeah.

 

David Silbergleit (28:54)

Even more special is imagine if you’re getting okay I get a 5 % discount a 10 % discount a 20 % discount and a 50 % discount Imagine that top tier suddenly you get a gift from the brand that only the platinum people get right nobody else in the world has that special packaging it almost creates a Think of travel retail people go to buy things at airports because they can get it at that airport They can’t get it anywhere else in the world. It’s like it becomes a collectible item

 

So imagine if you’re an ambassador and you’ve talked about the brand, you love this brand so much, you’ve hit that level, now you’re getting a gift that nobody else in the world, not even the other influencers are getting, but it’s just you because you’re proud of it. So that’s the program, it adds, I mean, then they get on and they’re not just talking about the brand because they’re getting a discount, but they just got a gift they weren’t even expecting. They weren’t even expecting a gift and the brand just celebrated them.

 

Lara Schmoisman (29:34)

I love that.

 

I love

 

lab. What we do in the agency is like every year at the end of the year we send little gifts. But it’s, you got it? good. But I think.

 

David Silbergleit (29:56)

Yeah.

 

I light it

 

up yet because it’s in here but there’s little pieces of wood that we’re gonna lighten and let things go. But I’m not gonna do it on my wooden desk. I love it though.

 

Lara Schmoisman (30:06)

This year is Palo Santo.

 

Every year is a little token of appreciation. And I think people really, I mean, I’ve been receiving the most amazing texts and emails of people being really appreciative. And there is something special about, in both sides, feeling acknowledged and giving to someone. It’s nice.

 

David Silbergleit (30:30)

Yeah, yeah. it’s, it’s, I’m excited for that, for that program that’s happening that we have with a few brands right now. And we were in talks about some others for the, for the early next year, but it’s, it’s such a, it’s such a simple concept when you, when you say it, you’re like, wow, yes, that makes sense. Everybody would like to get gift, get gifts. You have to have the right people that can execute it correct.

 

that have the, this is an international brand we’re doing it for, so you have to be able to execute it out of APAC and out of Europe and you have to get it out of the US. So that’s where we’re working with this company to do so no matter where in the world the ambassador is, they’re getting the same beautifully packaged one of a kind gift that only the platinum.

 

Lara Schmoisman (31:00)

Yes, and it’s about what…

 

And that’s amazing and that’s what it’s about being thoughtful about the gift. It’s not even the cost. It’s about what unique and what it means to the brand and to the ambassador and the connection that make between the both of them.

 

David Silbergleit (31:34)

Yeah, because again, it’s all about creating a memorable experience so that when the person sees the product, they think to either go right up to your counter at a brick and mortar store or go right to your website, not necessarily go to all of the other websites that take away from your margins. You want them to remember your brand and remember the experience they had at your website, your store. And you want them to…

 

want to tell their friends and it’s all about an experience that you’re gonna help them grow and build loyalty.

 

Lara Schmoisman (32:09)

Let me ask you a question because this is something that is come to me all the time How small is a brand to be small to start with a program?

 

David Silbergleit (32:24)

question. We’ve had brands that don’t exist yet. So we had a brand that had a concept and I actually introduced them to an industry friend that could help produce the product from them. They had an idea, they had a formulator, they wanted to work with the company. So they were actually producing the product and we said, once it’s produced, we’re ready to go. And they take their, they produce 500 pieces of a product. They say, okay, we’re taking

 

Lara Schmoisman (32:29)

Okay.

 

Bye.

 

you

 

David Silbergleit (32:51)

50 of the product and that’s going over to marketing. We’re going to send some out to some influencers. We’re taking 450 of the product and that’s going to be what we’re going send out for e-commerce. So what size? It can be the smallest of brands that have the dreams of being huge brands and it can be the largest companies out there. We work with them too. And we have for 25 years.

 

Lara Schmoisman (33:13)

See, your brain is not too small, so your

 

brain can be never small to think big.

 

David Silbergleit (33:22)

Exactly. just, they need to understand that one of the difficulties is getting a brand to understand the worth of working with the proper fulfillment house. Because it’s a cost that maybe they didn’t account for or if it’s a small brand that’s been doing things like I mentioned before, out of their garage, out of their basement, out of their studio apartment in New York and they just are growing out of space.

 

Anything more than a penny is more than they’re used to spending so you have to you have to work with them to understand what what they can afford how they would like to spend their money and Understand what their plan is because okay if we’re gonna hand this if they’re gonna hand this off to me Well, how are they going to grow the brand and that’s not really something that’s up to me but it’s something I like to talk to them about to to help talk them through it because

 

Lara Schmoisman (34:13)

Yeah, but

 

something really, really important that the brand should talk to someone like you or when they talk to me is being realistic. And it happened to me that there are many people that come to me and I find that they are not there, were not aligned of what their expectations. This marketing is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. So they are not gonna see unless…

 

They’re in unicorn, which happens sometimes, but they’re not going to see that return of investment immediately. They need to know that this is part of their seeding and their spending to create success at a later time.

 

David Silbergleit (34:41)

Sure, great.

 

That’s definitely that is that’s correct and and you have brands the worst thing for me to hear is for a brand to say You’re too expensive to to work with for a startup and that’s not necessarily the case It’s because we work with the brands We need to understand what their what their budgets are and what their goals are and what they’re looking to achieve But what what literally when that happens what really happened was exactly what you just described and it’s

 

Okay, we’re handing this off. There’s no real plan of growth and no understanding that what their activities are on the marketing side and on the brand building side is going to take more time than maybe they have the willingness to do or the budget to do. I go back to… So there’s definitely better fits than…

 

Lara Schmoisman (35:39)

their expectations. So what are the expectations? Yes.

 

David Silbergleit (35:47)

Not sometimes, but we work with brands of all sizes and we try to understand how what their growth plan is so that we can be part of it. Like I said, I don’t care if they’re the smallest or the largest brand, I wanna be able to grow with them. Because everybody’s, goal is to grow.

 

Lara Schmoisman (36:03)

And

 

there is another thing to be said here. These things that you do or what I do, we don’t work in urgency. We don’t work in, I need to fill up the last quarter. No, it’s not gonna do it. We’re not gonna be like risking you from the water of the middle of the ocean. It’s not gonna happen. We are just part of your strategy. They need to be a whole strategy.

 

David Silbergleit (36:29)

So to that, that’s the goal, but half the time we end up rescuing as well. And there’s solutions that can be done. It could be quicker production. could be quicker. We try to make it so that if somebody’s ready to launch and they’re not quite ready or it’s not enough time for us typically around Black Friday, mean, imagine what happens to a brand if they miss Black Friday and they’re ready to launch but the fulfillment house can’t fit them in.

 

So we do everything we can to make it work.

 

Lara Schmoisman (36:57)

No, in

 

that case we are the same, we try to get you there but don’t dream or have misalignment that this is going to change your business from day to night.

 

David Silbergleit (37:12)

Correct.

 

Yeah, no, no, no. It’s not an overnight thing. And I was thinking back to a, I was on a panel at one point and we were talking about Amazon fulfillment and selling on Amazon and somebody was talking about how it’s so important to sell on Amazon. I said, Amazon is super, it’s almost like the necessary evil and that’s gonna get me in trouble saying this on here. But people have to look at Amazon sales as…

 

Lara Schmoisman (37:16)

Yes.

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

David Silbergleit (37:40)

hey, it might be a lesser margin, but I need to look at this as part of my marketing budget because Amazon is just a huge search engine, right? So how do we build, you’re gonna, on the marketing side, you’re gonna advertise by selling on Amazon, you’re gonna advertise by selling in your own site, you’re gonna send out these influencer mailers, it’s really taking all these different aspects and doing it together.

 

Lara Schmoisman (37:46)

Absolutely.

 

Yeah,

 

it’s like not putting money in Google or methods. It’s part of the ecosystem. You need to be where consumer is. mean, if part of your consumer buys in Amazon, which I believe most of the brands will have part of their consumers buying in Amazon, you need to be there. Absolutely. Okay. Well, yeah. Well, David, thank you so much for having.

 

David Silbergleit (38:17)

Mm-hmm. Yep. So it’s just well roundedness to it.

 

Of course.

 

Lara Schmoisman (38:26)

coffee with me I didn’t see your coffee but I assume is there and see yeah I’m coffee and thank you so much you guys for being another week with us and I will see you next week with more coffee number five

 

David Silbergleit (38:30)

My coffee.

 

Good. Bye. Thank you.

 

GUESTS

Episode 28

With Nora Wendel

Today’s guest is Nora Wendel, a women’s relationship coach and feminine magnetism expert who is eager to teach the world about self-love and self-worth.

Episode 182

With Dr. Ofer Mintz

Join Lara Schmoisman’s podcast Coffee N°5, and guests, talking about the best strategies for luxury and emerging brands.

Episode 58

With Micaela Passeri

Micaela Passeri, Founder and CEO of Love Your Revolution, reveals some tips on how to be a successful entrepreneur.

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