Episode 340: Tariffs, Tech, and Building Teams: Gold Bond's Britney Godsey

Britney Godsey serves as the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Gold Bond, Inc. based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Prior to her role as CRO, which she has held since June 2021, Britney served as Chief Sales Marketing Officer and Vice President of Sales at Gold Bond. Her earlier roles at the company include Sales Development Manager and Strategic Account Manager, where she managed multiple outside sales territories as well as a National Accounts Executive, managing and nurturing relationships with top-tier accounts. In her new role as CRO, Britney oversees eight departments under the revenue team, focusing on all things sales, marketing, service.

In our chat with Britney, we discuss:

• Tariffs: The "China plus one" sourcing strategy some suppliers deploy, the challenge of pacing inventory levels and accommodating ongoing programs. We also unpack the US administration's logic around eliminating debt through levers like cutting spending, increasing revenue via tariffs, and more. And we explore a little-discussed topic: how tariffs could potentially help disintegrate the level of breakage in the supply chain as some distributors source directly overseas, potentially instilling more confidence in supplier partnerships.
  
  
• Tech: Gold Bond's implementation of enhanced ePOs with commonsku launched in March 2025, and is driven by the need for speed and transparency. Placing an order via ePO sends it straight to the factory floor! The ePOs allow distributors to access live product data, including real-time inventory, pricing, and production timelines, directly from Gold Bond's system. The system streamlines communication, automating updates, approvals, and proofs seamlessly with no human intervention, which frees up agents for more white glove service and eliminates errors. In addition to ePOs Gold Bond launched Brand Lab, an AI-powered podcast and they are also launching an AI-powered chat bot for 24/7 real-time product answers and plan to enhance SMS features for order updates. The goal? Simplicity and convenience!
  
  
• Team: Gold Bond underwent a rebrand in June 2022 and focused on four main strategic pillars: Tech, Golf Dominance, Green Gallery, and ZipShip, their same-day production service, which was launched in January 2024, allowing orders sent by 12 noon to ship the same day. This service has processed over 1300 invoices and is seen as a game changer!  But they also focus a tremendous amount of energy on their team, making Gold Bond a place for people to grow and investing in their team's well being.

And finally, we talk about the shift from sales to marketing: Britney noted that the future focus is shifting more towards marketing than sales due to changing age brackets and technology. Younger buyers, like Gen Z and millennials, are highly visual, do their own research, and expect personalized, digital-first experiences, influenced by the "attention economy" and "social proofing". Strategies now prioritize storytelling, content marketing, and social validation to be discovered, recommended, remembered, and shared, rather than traditional selling. 

Join us for an expansive and rich conversation with our friend Britney Godsey from Gold Bond, tune in!

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