Episode 344: Too Fast to Ship with Joel Freet (Cutter & Buck)

Six minutes. That's how long it takes Joel Freet's team to go from order entry to truck.

Most companies would kill for that speed. Joel had to engineer slowdowns because customers couldn't keep up.

Welcome to the wild world of Joel Freet, CEO of Cutter & Buck, where robots are so efficient they had to be throttled, where AI predicts demand better than humans ever could, and where 26 years of experience has taught him that the best automation amplifies relationships instead of replacing them.

Joel started as an intern in 1999. Today, he's running a company that's posted 75 consecutive months of digital growth while somehow maintaining a mystical 50-50 split between corporate and retail sales. No matter what they try, it always balances out.

His secret? Understanding that technology without human insight is just expensive noise.

We dive into:

• The Robot Revolution (That Had to Be Slowed Down)

  Joel's AutoStore investment turned their Seattle fulfillment center into something out of a sci-fi movie. Robots deliver products directly to workers at peaceful stations. The result? Orders move from click to truck in six minutes flat. Too fast. Customers were getting whiplash when they'd place an order, realize they needed a size change, and discover their package was already speeding down the highway.
  
  

• The Digital Multiplication Effect
  

  Joel discovered that digital customers don't just order more efficiently. They order twice as much. When 5% more customers go digital, orders jump 10%. It's not linear growth. It's exponential. Ditch the paperwork shuffle and suddenly everyone's got time to actually do business instead of managing chaos.
  
  

• AI That Sees What Humans Miss
  

  Machine learning now helps with Cutter & Buck's inventory forecasting with almost supernatural results.
  
  

• The Content Time Warp
  

  Product updates would take months through annual planning cycles. In the future? Joel's team can refresh thousands of SKUs in hours using AI instruction sets. What used to be next year's massive project now happens while you're grabbing your second coffee. Planning cycles have become planning minutes.
  
  

What our chat with Joel  Reveals

The transformation at Cutter & Buck is about preparing for constant change.

When tariff discussions started heating up, his team didn't panic. They cracked open "Great by Choice" by Jim Collins and spent six weeks studying leadership through turbulent times. By the time challenges hit, they were ready.

The promotional products industry is splitting into two groups: those who embrace transformation and those who resist it. Joel's approach shows what's possible when you stop fighting change and start surfing it.

Whether you're processing 50 orders a week or 5,000, the principles remain the same. Use technology to eliminate friction, not relationships. Prepare for turbulence by focusing on your core. And remember that the best automation makes humans more human, not less.

Show Notes: Key Timestamps & Topics

[00:03:22] AutoStore robotics and the 6-minute fulfillment challenge
[00:05:56] Digital customer multiplication: 5% more customers = 10% more orders
[00:19:13] AI inventory forecasting: 100,000 vs 6,000 unit predictions
[00:20:35] Content management revolution: annual cycles to real-time updates
[00:15:38] Tariff preparation and supply chain strategy
[00:24:40] Leadership lessons from "Great by Choice"