Episode 362: From $13M to $32M with City Paper's Stephanie Friedman

[00:00:00] [Intro music]

[00:00:06] Bobby: Can a 127-year-old paper company transform itself into a $32 million modern distributor? Well, City Paper Company did just that. City Paper Company has been in business since 1897. Four generations. What started as industrial paper supply is now a full-service operation spanning retail packaging, promo, print, e-commerce, fulfillment, and experiential.

[00:00:30] CEO Stephanie Friedman and President Brad Friedman have doubled the company in size in a relatively short time through a lot of organic growth via referrals, but mostly a relentless drive to evolve. Welcome to the skucast, the podcast for innovators and maverick thinkers in the promotional product space.

[00:00:47] My name is Bobby Lehew. I'm glad you're here. Our guest, Stephanie Friedman, joined City Paper when the company was around $13 million, and she's since helped lead a transformation from a scrappy family operation to a diversified powerhouse with a motto borrowed from Brad's grandfather: a customer should last for life.

[00:01:05] Today, Stephanie shares a few things. One, a story about winning big but realizing a big win isn't always the right fit. Also, how vulnerable leadership isn't soft — it's the operating system behind her team's culture, City Paper's work with their clients, and a whole lot more. Today's episode is brought to you courtesy of us at commonsku.

[00:01:23] Over 900 distributors powering $1.8 billion in network volume rely on commonsku's connected workflow. Process more orders, connect your team, and dramatically grow your sales. To learn how, visit commonsku.com. Now here's my chat with Stephanie Friedman.

[00:01:40] Bobby: Stephanie, welcome to the skucast.

[00:01:42] Stephanie: Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[00:01:45] Bobby: I have heard from my team, "You have to talk to Stephanie at City Paper." So I'm so glad we're able to do this here today. City Paper's a crazy story. 1897, you have four generations of family. How does a company survive 127 years? That's unheard of.

[00:02:02] Stephanie: Easy. I think a big piece of our ability to last as long as we have is this constant drive to never stop growing. And it is truly the foundation that my husband, Brad, our president, who is fourth generation — his great-grandfather had a passion for when he got into the business way back in the day and eventually took over from his cousin in the early 1900s. And then Brad's grandfather, Paul Friedman Sr., just truly loved what he did. He loved it. He had so much passion. He has so many wonderful quotes that we pull out even to this day that resonate so much in terms of who we strive to be. It was really a radar for us to be able to live off of. And then Brad's uncle and Paul Friedman Jr. and his father just really extended that legacy.

[00:03:00] Brad grew up just walking the halls and pulling items off of shelves in the warehouse. And he just knew one day that he was going to be a part of this special place. And with that, you have to really understand where you were and then constantly be thinking about where you want to go. Never take the eye off of having goals and a vision and allowing that vision to evolve as life smacks us on the side, because you don't know what's going to come your way.

[00:03:36] Bobby: For sure. And to back up a little bit about where City Paper is at today — City Paper, obviously a foundational paper, print company, packaging. Explain now the expansion, just to give folks an idea of what you do now, the breadth of services that you offer now.

[00:03:54] Stephanie: Sure. So City Paper started off as an industrial paper supply company, hence the name City Paper. That was like toilet paper and paper towels and plain bags. And then over the years it evolved into primarily the retail packaging side. At one point we did school supplies. Then it was really just about the retail packaging goods.

[00:04:18] And then eventually we opened up — we had a paper goods store called Paper Works. There were two locations that were run by Brad's Aunt Sandy, and his mom helped with that when she was alive as well. And they did — it was like a Party City. They did invitations and balloons and sold a bunch of gift wrap and things like that. And it was a retail store that eventually closed when Party Cities turned into also Targets and Amazons, and it just was hard to maintain.

[00:04:51] But in the eighties, I think it was around the eighties, they really branched out into promotional items. We had clients who were working with us that just had a need for that — coffee mugs and things like that. So it was a natural transition for us. I think it was a natural shift, but it was one that felt very foreign in a way because it was still a different product and it was still different than the way that we were traditionally operating — all before my time, too.

[00:05:20] And really in the last 13 years, it's been a huge set of really taking our retail packaging customers and then really growing and evolving what we could offer to other customers within that sector, but then also just taking it outside of those industries and allowing ourselves to broaden. So now today it is retail packaging, it's promotional marketing, it's print, it is e-commerce, it is warehousing, it is kitting and fulfillment. It is experiential marketing. It's just a whole breadth of other things. We have our City Paper Studios, so there's also the art and design, and the list goes on.

[00:06:00] And it continues to expand as the need comes to us from our customers. So that's the most fun part about it — we don't know what we're going to end up having to be asked to do next.

[00:06:11] Bobby: It's a very complex model, and many distributors are finding success expanding into these categories, particularly when you get into a medium or large-size distributor, enterprise size. You became CEO in June 2023, if I have that right. And you and Brad structured your roles as CEO and President. How did you decide what to focus on? What is your focus versus Brad's?

[00:06:32] Stephanie: It's a good question. Traditionally — it's funny when people ask us what it's like working with your husband, and the promo industry, you see a lot of that, right? A lot of families working together.

[00:06:42] Bobby: Yeah.

[00:06:43] Stephanie: But working with your husband or your wife every day can be challenging for some people. It may not be for everybody. We are kind of yin and yang. I think of us as — he is sales driven, he is numbers driven, he is revenue growth driven. Not that I'm not — I am — but I am naturally, I'm an eldest daughter of four. I am a self-proclaimed people pleaser, and I would consider myself, if you were to ask me to describe myself in one word, empathetic would probably be the first word.

[00:07:18] So for me, I think the role of CEO was sort of a natural transition. Before he even approached me about the idea, I was helping set the vision, the culture, really identifying how to put the right people in the right seats. And Brad was really driven on helping our salespeople grow. He loves to be in the field. I love to be in the field too, but just from a different standpoint. I don't love the pressure of closing the deal as much as he does. So we were kind of falling into those roles as it was.

[00:08:00] And he approached me about the idea of us becoming women-owned and how I would feel about becoming a female CEO. It's a natural alignment for both our company and our clients. A lot of our clients are female-owned and female-dominant. Our company is female-dominant. We do have men, but there are a lot more females in the ratio as compared to men. So a lot of that just sort of made sense as it was, but also just from the standpoint of the role that I had inevitably been taking on.

[00:08:25] And it's not every day that your husband says to you, "I'm going to give myself a demotion so that I can put you in the role that I think that you belong." And it meant a lot to me because I never saw that as a trajectory for my career. But it was one that I was very eager and excited to take on.

[00:08:45] Bobby: Given your wiring, that makes so much sense from an ops perspective, for culture. I know you're very passionate about culture, both with your clients and internally. But when you joined City Paper — do I have the story right? You were around $13 million, but there were some struggles going on with the business. What was happening at that time in the business?

[00:09:02] Stephanie: It was just a tougher time. I mean, we were coming out of the recession, still feeling some of that. A lot of our clients are on the Gulf Coast, so the oil spill had happened and tourism was impacted. And then you also had the recession going on, and retail just wasn't as strong as it was.

[00:09:14] And we've been — 129 years old, there's been times where things were rocking and rolling and totally smooth, and then there's been times where things were just a little bit more difficult. And sometimes you have the right people in the right seats, and sometimes you don't.

[00:09:36] When I came in, I came from a very large distributor, very well-known distributor, where I had been the director of marketing for the promo division, and I had exposure to these really big accounts and these really big opportunities and these really big RFPs. I came over to City Paper where things were just structured differently. It was a family business. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be because — no red tape, right? But you also have to have the financials to be able to support the things that you want to be able to do.

[00:10:18] And so we really had to be scrappy and be creative with how we were marketing ourselves. I didn't have the self-promo budget that I have today. I didn't have the team that we have today. And yet, slowly but surely — again, this is all about constantly having goals, constantly creating that vision, realigning that vision when you start to see that it's kind of moving off track and not where you necessarily want to be.

[00:10:39] A lot of it was — and it was really after I had my second daughter. I was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at City Paper at the time. We had some transition happening and I really had to step into the role of understanding what our people needed. Not just our inside team — but I got out in the field very quickly after I had my daughter, by the way, and I got out in the field and I really sat and listened.

[00:11:00] I shut up and I listened, and I wanted to hear: What is going to make your job easier? What is going to make you more successful? How can I figure out the best way to go in and implement that? What's funny is when you go out and you really hear and you really listen, you start to understand that a lot of people want the same things. They're looking for the same things. They're looking for help. They're looking for resources. They're looking to know who they need to go to. And when you can start to deliver on that, they start to feel heard. They start to feel confident they're going to get the help they need. Everybody starts to get into this alignment, and we started to watch that happen.

[00:11:37] And as that happened, guess what else happened? The revenue growth came, because people were energized, they were motivated, they were excited. They saw the potential, they saw the hope of what could be done, and they also saw all of us getting down and dirty with them to make it happen. And then we were able to start hiring people, and it was just — that growth was very organic. We really haven't done any acquisitions. We've tried one or two and they were okay, but just not great. A lot of this is all organic.

[00:12:13] Bobby: Yeah.

[00:12:13] Stephanie: And so we're really proud of that. It's something we're really proud of, and it has not been easy.

[00:12:18] Bobby: Oh, I'm sure. The company — you've seen so much diversification in terms of what you do and what you offer and serve. So you went from this print, packaging into promo, and you're now at — do I have this number right? — around $32 million with a rough split 50/50 between print and promo. Is that right?

[00:12:37] Stephanie: Yep.

[00:12:37] Bobby: That's phenomenal.

[00:12:38] Stephanie: That just gets under Brad's skin because he is the bag man. It just pains him, I think. He's like, "What do you mean it's about 50/50?" And I'm like...

[00:12:49] Bobby: I know. That's great. That's fantastic. It seems as though — and I realize I'm coming in and looking at a history that has been very difficult and also rewarding to live, but I am coming in and trying to take a snapshot of what that looks like. But what drove that? What do you think drove that growth? Because that leap from — it's a big leap. $13 million to $32 is phenomenal. Did you end up working toward the right kind of client? What was the key factor there?

[00:13:15] Stephanie: I think there's several factors here, right? So number one, I know at some point we'll probably touch on the pandemic, but I think we really did the right things during the pandemic for us as a company. We got in the weeds with clients about how we could help support them. We got really creative with the way that we were able to support them, and then after the fact, we had proved ourselves and so we were gaining additional opportunities. Up until this past year, our biggest year in the history of the company was during COVID, and I don't know that I love to say that because obviously it was a very difficult time.

[00:13:53] Bobby: Sure.

[00:13:53] Stephanie: But it was something where we were able to help a lot of companies be able to continue to function and be able to continue to stay open and deliver for their clients. Not just in the packaging sector, but also our financial companies, our manufacturing clients. They were all able to continue to work and do what they needed to do because they were able to get the sanitizer and the gloves and the masks and the things that they needed.

[00:14:18] I mean, even for one client, we ended up doing an order of ventilators. I never thought we would be in the medical supplies business where we were selling a million dollars' worth of ventilators to a client. But I figured it out. Brad is a great salesman. He is not above looking at all of his resources. He's a great networker, and so he is very capable of finding the right resources to be able to help with the needs at hand.

[00:14:34] So I think that's a big piece of it. And then after that, we had established this credibility and we just really took that credibility and leveraged it as much as possible. As you're gaining new clients, the best thing you could ever do is ask them for a referral to somebody else that they know that they would recommend you to.

[00:15:01] Right? And leveraging — if you've had a good experience with us, who else would you recommend us to? Who else would you suggest we work with? And also, when you're having success in one particular industry, in one particular sector, leveraging that within the rest of that industry. So a massive on-market, but also siloing and making it very clear: we're going to protect your brand and the items and the products that we do with you — those are yours.

[00:15:27] And being able to have that trust, I think, is a big piece of it. I really feel — and again, I mentioned before that Brad's grandfather had a lot of quotes — but my favorite one, and the one that we use as the motto of City Paper, is that a customer should last for life. By that, it means we have to be honest, we have to be accountable. We don't oversell ourselves. We need to be truthful about what we can deliver. And when we make mistakes — and a lot of that lends itself to how we resolve issues and how we go the extra mile for clients at the end of the day.

[00:16:00] All of those factors combined, along with the astronomically wonderful team that we have built over time — all of those contributors together blend itself to how we've gotten to where we are today.

[00:16:20] Bobby: There were a couple of keys there that really unlock growth when you get to a certain size as a distributor. One of those, you talked about referrals — 85% of the business is based on referral. And then the other thing is you're expanding through markets or verticals that you know well because you're providing all these incredible services.

[00:16:37] But there's an interesting little story that you gave me just a little preview of. As you have refined your clients, you've learned what to say yes to and what to say no to, and it's an incredible leap. I think that happens in the life of a business when you do that. But there was one where you won a multimillion-dollar contract with a financial services company and then walked away from it. Can you tell us how that decision-making rolls up into factoring in and resulting in great net growth?

[00:17:05] Stephanie: I love the story so much because it's one that I think, as business owners — not just in the promotional industry — we all experience this moment of like a little bit of, we have a client and we need the client because we depend on those dollars. If we don't have those dollars, can we turn the lights on? Are we going to be able to keep everybody where they need to be and all the seats where they are?

[00:17:22] So at various points of City Paper, before my time and while I've been here, we've had to be boots on the ground and very scrappy with how we were able to make things happen. So there was a point where we kind of had to say yes to everything — where we took on business that wasn't really profitable or wasn't really great for us, or the client was very demanding and it was sucking up resources.

[00:18:00] At this point in time, we had been invited into an RFP and we were incredibly excited. It was a very well-known brand, well-known organization, and we participated in the RFP. We spent weeks putting together our responses. Our team was working around the clock getting the pricing. And about six of us drove out to deliver our RFP presentation and do a demo of the website, met in person, and they called us shortly after and told us that we had won.

[00:18:29] We popped champagne in the office and we were so excited. And then we started development. It was hard and it was not what we had signed up for, and the expectations were a lot. They were demanding. It was not to say that we probably couldn't have figured it out, but it was going to be above what we were really prepared for. Whether that was that we were not the right size for them as a client, or whether we couldn't really truly put the resources in that they needed from us as a client.

[00:19:05] Regardless, there was a feeling in our guts, collectively as a team, that something wasn't going to match up. Ultimately, I made a very difficult phone call, and I never thought that I would turn down an opportunity like that.

[00:19:23] Bobby: Right?

[00:19:23] Stephanie: And at the time we were like, "Are we making the right decision?" The sales rep was like, "I trust you. I trust you all." And lo and behold, it opened up a whole other pathway for him to have a much more profitable, much more smooth RFP that came along. It was just a greater opportunity, and I love to share that. I actually share that story with clients because today we do get to be selective. I'm not saying that we're just going to say no to anything that doesn't look exactly how we want it in the box, but —

[00:19:55] Bobby: Sure.

[00:19:57] Stephanie: We're adaptable and we're going to be flexible. We will always try to make it work, but there are times where something just isn't a good fit for you. And there are other accounts that we've walked away from where we've realized sooner rather than later that this isn't a good deal for us, and we can't continue to invest in this if they're not going to be the partner that we need, or if we're going to be upside down in our margins.

[00:20:18] That's not a good business platform, right? So it's really, really crucial to learn when to walk away. That's a very important lesson that I've learned in my career. That's not a normal thing for us to do, but there are certain situations where we have to, and it's nice to know that we can and that we'll be okay if we do.

[00:20:37] Bobby: Something we don't talk enough about in the business. And it sounds like this is a lot of the math you were doing at the time. It's just operational burden, the operational capacity you have with the team, where you're constantly weighing your ability to perform for a client. Even just the emotional scale of that and trying to decide where we invest our energy.

[00:20:54] But this is a natural segue into something that's become — now I see why — so obviously important to you, which is vulnerable leadership. Because you go through a period like that where it's sort of very public to your own company. You're wrestling with this together. That's a very vulnerable moment in leadership. What did that sort of teach you in working with clients and with your own team?

[00:21:16] Stephanie: Honesty is always the best policy.

[00:21:19] Bobby: It's easier too, right? It's so much easier.

[00:21:23] Stephanie: The lies — I have a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old, Emily and Zoe. I would say that the way that I present myself here at City Paper, what my expectations are of everyone in this company, are no different than what I expect of the two of them. Right?

[00:21:40] I've just found that over time, when we try to be something that we're not, when we try to live up to everybody's expectations, it starts to create sort of this little pit that can grow and grow and grow. And that, to me, is where people start to look for the grass being greener on the other side — like what else they could have — versus fostering what you do have and making it something great and special.

[00:22:11] So I really approach my leadership style with our team — and I hope they all feel this way — as one where I share pretty openly about what's going on in my world, what's going on in my life, what's going on in my head, what's going on in my heart, with the hopes that they will do the same. If they're having struggles, if they're having issues, I want them to be able to bring them to me, to their manager. I want there to be an open dialogue.

[00:22:30] And I want the same for our customers. If there's a concern about somebody on the team that's supporting you or the way that we're handling certain situations, I want to know about it and I want to be open about it so that we can address it. Because everybody — every business leader will tell you — you cannot fix what you don't know is broken. So if we can actually get people to say, "Hey, this is broken," or "This doesn't feel like it's functioning properly," then you have the ability to say, "Okay, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to fix it?"

[00:23:08] The biggest thing that everybody on this team knows is: if you come to me with a problem, the first words out of my mouth are going to be, "What's your solution?" And if you don't have one, "What can I do to help you come up with one?" And all of this lends itself to being able to protect what you're building and what you are creating and having the support system around you to help you do that.

[00:23:33] So my job is not just creating a vision or protecting the culture. My job is to make sure that everyone's pit in their stomach doesn't grow. That is what I try to do. And I do that by little check-ins. Sometimes people realize I'm doing them; sometimes they don't realize I'm doing them.

[00:23:53] Bobby: Yeah.

[00:23:54] Stephanie: But to me, they're so astronomically important. And I don't just do that with them. I also do that with customers. And I do that most commonly going out in the field with our reps when I'm able to, but also getting on calls and being a part of the conversations when they do their reviews. Wherever I'm needed.

[00:24:14] I'll be honest, I don't know that I do that enough. I wish I could do it more. I wish I was doing that daily. But it is something I do try to pay very close attention to, especially when we're starting to see that there are issues. If there's something that's coming up recurring, I want to be able to address that.

[00:24:30] Bobby: Yeah. Unless you've managed highly complex clients with very large volume, you may not realize that ethos that you've built around vulnerability and forgiveness and honesty is so crucial. Because you are handling so many transactions for a set of clients that are spending so much in revenue with you. And at any given day, something can be broken, something can go wrong.

[00:24:55] Stephanie: It's not yeah — it's when. And that is always what I'm going to say at the table. If you work with us, it's not if we're going to screw up, it's when we're going to screw up. We're going to make a mistake. We're human. We are not robots. And robots make mistakes too, by the way. AI makes mistakes, okay?

[00:25:08] So at the end of the day, it is what you do with that that matters. It is what you do after the mistake has happened that makes all the difference in whether or not they continue to trust you and they continue to put their faith in you.

[00:25:30] And that's both internally — what I do with information for one of my team members and how I help support them through something difficult — but that also has to do with when we mess up with clients. And so I just carry a very similar motto internally and externally. What you see is what you are going to get. And if I mess up, they're going to hear from me. I'm going to apologize. I'm going to own it. And that's just because I'm human too.

[00:25:56] Bobby: I want to ask you a few questions about commonsku. What was going on in the business when you decided you needed to look at commonsku and consider that? What was happening inside that made you think, "We need to change something"?

[00:26:09] Stephanie: I think that we were very fragmented. We had different processes and different systems, and it was a bit dated in the way that we were doing things. And we needed to streamline. We needed to have a better method to how we were creating presentations, how we were putting quotes in front of customers, how we were communicating internally.

[00:26:37] In full disclosure, we've got commonsku and we are also going through a full system migration from Great Plains to Zoho. All of this has been a year and a half, almost two years in the making. And all of it together will be to help us be able to have a streamlined mode of reporting, of inventory management, of invoicing.

[00:27:01] Over the years we had had an infrastructure that was really built for packaging, and we needed something that really supported the print and the promotional side because of how much that growth had happened.

[00:27:11] Bobby: Yeah.

[00:27:12] Stephanie: We needed something better than the PDF and Excel spreadsheets that were making up our order sheets. And commonsku has been a great blessing to be able to help support a much easier — just thinking, like, I did a t-shirt order yesterday and that was so much easier than what I used to have to go through. So we needed to really get into the next century, if you will, of how we process orders and how we manage that flow from department to department.

[00:27:45] Bobby: With a $30-plus million company, it sounds like simplifying as much as you can — because you run a very complex business with so many — I keep saying it over and over — but it's a very complex business model. Simplifying and then synthesizing that across your team, whether they're in support or sales, you now have a unified system. Salespeople love commonsku for this reason — a unified system. Speed has become so vitally important for the client. Now that you've been on commonsku and you've been able to see some results of that with your team, what have been the net gains for you?

[00:28:17] Stephanie: Well, speed is highly regarded as probably the number one. I mean, the ability to be able to quickly put together a presentation within minutes and send it off to a client where it looks pretty and presentable, and then they can comment and say, "I'd like a sample of this one," and then you can tag in somebody in marketing to say, "Hey, please order a sample." That alone — we're not having to have 1,700 emails going back and forth.

[00:28:40] Which then goes into my next point: reduction of errors. I used to have to type it in, and then if you wrote the number wrong, you had a whole slew of errors that could then come out of that. So I think we're going to see, as we continue using commonsku, a big reduction in order entry errors. That's going to be a huge help.

[00:29:02] I also love the fact that the reporting mechanism is there now. It'll be different for us in a lot of ways — the way that people use commonsku versus how we will use it — because of the integration that will happen with Zoho. But to be able to pull those reports quickly, and for me to have line of sight to what my reps are doing and what they're working on and how I can help bring those projects over the fence — or my team can — and just the collaboration. That is probably the secret weapon, I think, of all of it.

[00:29:31] The ability for the teams to quickly be able to pick up presentations — my team collaborates on so many different projects, and there used to be constant emails back and forth of links and this and ESP presentations and PowerPoints. And it's just so much easier. It's just a much smoother process in terms of how we add and subtract, get to the final result, which is making my team more agile and it's making them be able to deliver faster. It's all going to inevitably help us with growth in the long run.

[00:30:07] Bobby: Last question about that. As a leader, I think often when you look at a platform like commonsku, you make these objective decisions, right? You see cost, you see license, you see speed. You do factor in all the math, and you can realize quite quickly that it is worth the investment. But there's also what I would say for a leader is this emotional confidence that you gain from being able to see your business, see the clarity of your business. How has that been a boost to you and Brad as you've led the business? How has commonsku helped with that?

[00:30:37] Stephanie: I'm going to touch on Max here. Max is our CFO. And I'd say, for him, we weren't always able to see what projects were sitting in the works other than what was shared with us. And so for Brad, Max, and myself, we are all able to have just a better sense of exposure of what's in the pipeline and what's coming and where reps are having a lot of success, where they might need some support.

[00:31:10] So just that line of sight from the number standpoint — Max is phenomenal and incredibly smart. When he has the numbers and the data in front of him, he's really able to help us make very strong decisions about how we move forward and where we put our resources. And that's really valuable, I think.

[00:31:25] From a motivational standpoint, it creates a little bit of competition when they're able to kind of see what's going on and who's working on what. And that's cool. I love that. I like the competition. We are all friendly competitors, but they're salespeople — they like to sell, right? So they've got to have a little bit of that drive. A lot of it.

[00:31:40] But from that standpoint, Brad really loves that aspect of it. It's very motivating. And it also helps turn the ideas — having that exposure to what's going on. I think before, in our old platform, it was just a lot more difficult for us, unless we were having these one-on-one conversations and the reps were intentionally sharing with us. It was much more difficult to have line of sight to what was in the works. And now we have a better idea of the deals that are potentially sitting out there, and also what's closed. So, yeah.

[00:32:26] Bobby: Last two questions for you, Stephanie. One is about City Paper's future, the other — I'm going to ask you to wrap up and speak to other leaders who are in positions like yours and Brad's and your teams. Where is City Paper headed next? What are you looking forward to as you expand the business? You've had this massive growth. You obviously have a very aggressive strategy in terms of business and a very healthy client perspective when it comes to taking care of your clients. What's next?

[00:32:49] Stephanie: You know, for me right now, with any change comes sort of that rocky ground that you have to navigate. And we've had a lot of change in the last six months — really in the last year — bringing on commonsku, bringing on Zoho.

[00:33:06] When you have that change, you have to really be honed in on how to protect everybody in the process of that change. Right now, my focus is protecting the people and the way that they operate within the company. That is my highlight right now. Making sure that everybody feels supported, that they feel that sense of: we're going to provide the resources as they need them as we're going through our migration.

[00:33:34] And with that, I know Brad's focus is on some of that, but also really on the growth — just expanding business and protecting the business. And so really protecting all of those relationships is a high priority for me right now. Once we kind of get out of this — I don't know what you would call it — but this time that we're in where it's a bit of that change migration that's been happening.

[00:34:05] When we come out the other side, it is going to only propel us. I think that is where we are going to be more prepared than ever to really shine for our clients. Now, I say that — we moved into a brand-new warehouse this past year. That was a big change for us. We're about to make a bunch of big updates to our website in the next six months to a year.

[00:34:28] So things are happening while all of the other change is happening. But I will say, we've got a lot of really fortunate opportunities that are in the works to help us continue to see where we can grow. To me, it's also just about never being complacent. I want to always be looking for what's next and how can we continue to offer new things to our clients. How can we rise to the challenges and the opportunities that they're putting in front of us? There are some great ones that are sitting on the horizon, so I'm very excited and very hopeful that those will be things we'll get to bring to life.

[00:35:05] Bobby: Last question. Whether you're running a $5 million business as a distributor, or whether you're running a $50 million business, $30 million — it doesn't matter. Change is constant, particularly in this industry. We know that. We know that with clients. But there's also this constant theme running through the volatility of the business — growth, making decisions, being vulnerable, all the things we've talked about in this entire chat. What do you wish you would've known as a leader that you can share with others that are in a position like yours? Whether they're — and I realize I'm asking you to do this in a soundbite, and you're working on a whole concept for this — but how would you encourage others that are going through incredible change with their team?

[00:35:41] Stephanie: My Vice President of Sales and Marketing — she said this quote like once or twice, and now I've coined it with her because it just resonates with me so much. So she joked that it's now my quote because I've said it so many times. But Maggie once said to me, "Stephanie, growth happens in the uncomfortable zone."

[00:36:02] What I wish I had known then is that you're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to have difficult conversations. You're going to have awkward moments. You're going to make a fool of yourself at times. You're going to have failures. You're going to watch the people you love and care about that have worked for you for years also have failures, and you're going to have to figure out how to stomach that. It sounds a lot like parenting, right?

[00:36:19] Like, to me, it's just this — I didn't expect that I have to get uncomfortable as much as I do. And yet, every time that I do, I find that I'm a better version of myself five minutes after that's over.

[00:36:43] That would be probably the biggest thing I would tell somebody. Don't be afraid to get uncomfortable. Don't be afraid to keep learning, to admit what you don't know. Hire people that do know what you don't know, and that you can trust, that you can lean on. It shouldn't be a shame or a weakness to admit where you're not strong.

[00:37:08] That's something that we all echo well here at City Paper, because where I'm not strong, Max or Brad or Maggie or Hailey or Yolanda or Solomon are. So leaning on those people and allowing them the autonomy to be able to rise to the occasion and run with it empowers them. That is probably one of the best things as leaders we can do — learn how to empower the people that we are working with, because they are inevitably going to be carrying you everywhere they go. The more you empower all of them, the stronger the company's going to be. And honestly, the better you're going to sleep at night.

[00:37:59] So also, that's probably the other thing. I didn't know how hard it was going to be to get to sleep. You worry a lot. And as a business owner, you are the one that carries that weight, and sometimes it's nice to have somebody else just recognize the weight that you do carry.

[00:38:00] At times in this business, for Brad and myself and for Max, and Brad's dad Mark, who has been with the company for 50-something years — I can't even imagine what weight he has carried. Or Brad's uncle Paul, or Sandy when she ran Paper Works, his aunt — they've all carried heavy weights in different aspects of it. And it's not something that Brad or I today take lightly at all, that we're the legacy of that. It's really important that we protect that at all costs. It's also an honor. It's an honor to get to do it.

[00:38:48] Bobby: That's awesome. Stephanie, thank you for joining me on the skucast. And I can speak on behalf of our team when I say thank you. Your team is wonderful to work with. Thank you for being such an amazing customer. We love watching your journey and being a part of it.

[00:39:00] Stephanie: Thank you. This was a joy. I appreciate you, and happy to do it. So thank you.