How Small Retailers Can Win Big With Industry Support With Brandon Gale From Retail Shipping Associates - Ep. 59
In This Episode
In this episode of Unboxing Logistics, Lori Boyer sits down with Brandan Gale, CEO of Retail Shipping Associates (RSA) and Package Hub Business Centers. With decades of experience and 38 stores under his belt, Brandon shares how RSA helps small businesses succeed through training, resources, and a powerful sense of community. His big takeaway? Small retailers don’t have to go it alone!
The Power of Listening to Your Customers
Brandon’s success story started with a single store and grew into a network of nearly 40 locations—all because he listened closely to his customers and responded to their evolving needs. He shares how this same mindset is essential for retail store owners today.
“The most successful people love their customers and want to know everything they can know about them to fill their needs,” he says. Knowing their needs helps because, as he says, “[O]ne new idea, one new product, one new service, a different way to approach marketing, can change the entire trajectory of how you're making money.”
Being attuned to their community helps businesses stay both relevant and profitable.
Industry Support Makes All the Difference
RSA provides members with tools most independent operators wouldn’t be able to access on their own: certification training, in-person bootcamps, regulatory updates, business insurance programs, website templates, webinars, and exclusive discounts through vetted supplier partnerships.
“I’m a giant fan of overwhelming my customers with value,” Brandon says. And the resources RSA provides are designed to take pressure off of owners wearing too many hats and help them shift from working in their business to working on it.
Networking Can Change the Game
While RSA offers plenty of formal training, Brandon emphasizes that peer-to-peer learning is just as powerful. Events like the RS Expo and regional bootcamps give store owners the chance to connect, share strategies, and learn from one another.
He loves talking to conference attendees about their experience at the conference. “They walk away with a renewed enthusiasm for this business because they talk to people that have figured it out,” Brandon reports. Many longtime operators leave their first RSA event wondering how much more successful they could have been if they’d joined sooner.
Links
Transcript
Lori Boyer 00:00
Welcome back to Unboxing Logistics. So glad to have you. I'm your host, Lori Boyer from Easy Post, and I am really excited today to have the one and only Brandon Gale with us. We are gonna be talking to retailers today. The retailers, this show is for you. I'm gonna have Brandon introduce himself and give you all the, the scoop on who he is and why you should care about what he says. So, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience here.
Brandon Gale 00:30
First of all, Lori, thank you so much for the invite and, and hosting this. I'm excited to do this. I hope I do a good job for your, your viewers and listeners on this, and I, I am excited about. So my name again is Brandon Gale, and I'm the CEO of actually two companies that we may talk about today.
One of 'em is called Retail Shipping Associates, so we'll refer to that as RSA. And the other one is called Package Hub Business Centers, which is a franchise system within our industry. And I've been in the industry for a long, long time, longer than I wish to admit. But when, when you spend this much time doing this kind of thing, you tend to get really good at it. And I think I'm pretty darn good at it. And that's one of the reasons I'm sitting in the chair I sit in.
Lori Boyer 01:14
You are pretty darn good at it. So I am thrilled to have you here. We are gonna be talking exactly what you said about RSA today. We're gonna be talking to our retailers to kind of get a, an idea on how you can kind of work together to be more competitive, to be more productive and, and more profitable.
So that's gonna be a great topic. But before we do that, we always like to have a couple of fun little segments. So the first one, Brandon, I'm putting you in the hot seat: AI reality check.
So, we've been having a lot of fun with AI this year. Everyone loves AI. It's great. But, sometimes its answers are a little off, and I like to ask the experts. You're an expert in retail. You know more of what's really kind of going on.
So I've been asking a question to chat GPT, seeing what it says, and then getting just my expert's take on it, you know? Did you feel like it's accurate? Do you feel like it's not? So, are you ready for this?
Brandon Gale 02:13
I'm ready, I think.
Lori Boyer 02:14
Okay. Awesome.
Brandon Gale 02:15
Now, to suggest I'm an expert on AI at this point, I think it's pure overstatement.
Lori Boyer 02:20
Hey, you are an expert on the industry, so that's good enough. So, okay, so I asked chatGPT, what are the easiest ways and the most common ways that small retailers are implementing AI today? So basically, what are the, what are people actually doing? What's the easiest way? So it gave me three. So I just want your take on this.
It says, number one is AI customer service, so things like chatbots, help desk. Number two, AI personalized marketing. So using it for your marketing. And number three, AI for your inventory or your demand forecasting. So that's where it thinks are the easiest ways and the most commonly used ways. Do you agree, disagree?
What are your thoughts on that?
Brandon Gale 03:08
I do. And where we are with AI today is, we know that this is gonna be a key component to how we win out there in the marketplace today. And I think anybody, including your audience, is probably trying to figure out how to fully exploit the capabilities of AI. And for us, it's a, it's an additional challenge.
I don't wanna say it's harder for us than it is for anybody else, but how do we get it down to that granular level? To help our members and store owners use it to their advantage? So, the three things that you named are, are spot on incorporating chatbots into our communication with the customers down at the edge, that's a challenge. We have to figure that out.
I think the inventory controls, that should be the easiest thing for AI to do because we know what we've got. We know what we need. Allowing AI to look at how we sell at the pace we sell it at. When we need to refill, that seems like an easy one.
Lori Boyer 04:07
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Gale 04:07
The difficult part of that is to give AI access to the point-of-sale systems that our stores use.
Lori Boyer 04:13
Right.
Brandon Gale 04:14
So that they can pull the data out and then tell us what we should be doing. Because, in that realm, they're probably smarter than we are. And then the localized marketing. Now, you know, if you're a big organization and you're out there pushing things nationally, we can do that on my behalf of our network.
But, what I'm particularly focused on is on behalf of our members and store owners, how can we show them how to use AI down at the—right at the edge where they need to go out and identify prospects, new customers, drive new traffic, create interest. And it covers all of the different things you, you know, their store website, their email, their communication, but then you gotta get into the socials. How can the socials be leveraged using AI?
So, we're deep in the weeds trying to figure that out so we can know what we're talking about and then explain that to our stores in an easy way to understand and implement. That's really what our, our challenge is.
Lori Boyer 05:10
I think it's, you are so right on in trying to give that advice, because, in many ways, I think smaller businesses sometimes think like, "oh, AI is for, or is for huge organizations." But the truth is, the smaller you get, the more important it is that you have help to automate things, to, to hand some things over, because really you do have so many hats that you're playing and that you're wearing and, and so I think that AI can be. It can be great. We're all figuring it out. But I love that you said that inventory is a great, easy way to start.
Brandon Gale 05:39
It, it really is. Now how we plan on using it and the plan, put big brackets around the word, because getting to that point is part of our challenge and, and burden overcome. But sometimes optimization. We have some stores that do local delivery in their marketplace, so we can use AI to optimize delivery routes and pickup routes and things like that that already exists out there.
Again, getting it in the hands of a store operator so they can use it effectively. And then doing real time price comparison is, I think, where a large chunk of our industry is going to end up. And, and the reason I say that is because the carriers are changing how they do things on pricing.
They're raising rates, they're changing accessorial fees, they're changing dimensional weight issues that all have an impact on pricing. And this is really important for our stores because they're trading with a customer over the counter, and they have to get it right at that moment.
Lori Boyer 06:39
Yes.
Brandon Gale 06:39
They can't. Go back and fix anything.
So getting real time analytics on what that pricing is and you get into surge pricing, demand pricing, whatever you wanna call it. So using AI to help us make a good decision on behalf of our customers over the retail counter is, is also a component we think is gonna help
Lori Boyer 06:58
Makes sense.
Brandon Gale 06:58
Into our, into our automation tools. Is is, is is a goal.
Lori Boyer 07:04
Yeah, exactly. Okay. So what would you give the grade we're grading chat, GPT. How did it do? Was it an A plus? Was it an A, A minus?
Brandon Gale 07:12
I give it a hard B plus. Pretty good. And I, I think we've all been had that little thing with, with chat GPT, where we put a, a question and it comes back and 90% of it pretty good. But then there's that 10% where you go, huh? Didn't quite get it right. But I give it a lot of credit. It's pretty darn useful as a tool. I would encourage everybody to use it.
Lori Boyer 07:35
Yeah, I, I, I do as well, and it is helpful to have experts be able to ,take an eye in and give us that input, who know and say like, oh, this is a b plus level.
We're doing pretty good, so, okay. Awesome. Another little thing I'm doing that has been just my favorite thing this season is asking everyone to share somebody that you admire in the industry. Could be that they're currently in this, in the industry. It could be that they used to be that they were a mentor of yours.
Who is somebody that you really admire?
Brandon Gale 08:04
You know, I, people refer to how many years they've had in a particular industry. I stopped doing that. It's now decades and they're a lot decades and o over a long stretch like that, you meet some amazing, inspirational people. And I've been blessed with getting to know some people that are real visionaries, and, and I could probably name you four or five, but I, I might even cheat and name two.
Lori Boyer 08:28
Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. I love it.
Brandon Gale 08:30
One of them is a gentleman named Jimmy Cochran. And, and Jimmy's a guy that I've been known for about 10 or 15 years now. And he had about 35 years in at the US Postal Service when he took a, a retirement from there. He headed up and is now the CEO of a for lack of a better term, an industry lobbying and advocacy advocacy group called the Package Shippers Association.
Differing from what we do, we're down with, you know, small micro business mom and pop store operators, and Jimmy has to corral all of the big shippers, you know, the UPSs and FedEx and DHL and, and Easy Post and Amazons and all those guys. And Jimmy's done a remarkable job of running that organization, and he has the ability to because of his experience with postal, to have insight on how USPS works, how that works with the private, private business community.
And he crosses that fence all the time. So he is a great communicator. He was a visionary at postal that really got them away from mail and got it into parcel, which was a big win for a lot of businesses. Towers included. So any, and, and he's one thing that I really lean heavily on. Somebody that I, I, I trust when they say they're gonna do something, they do it.
When they say they know something, I rely on that being factual. When Jimmy says I understand stuff, he really does. We've actually had him as, as a keynote. We, we put a large trade show for our industry, and we asked him to keynote a few events back. And he really understands our community and he knows how to talk with all groups of people.
So he's really been an innovator and somebody that I really admire.
Lori Boyer 10:17
Oh, I love that. I love that you said he was such a great communicator, a visionary, he's trustworthy, and he really understands people. I, I've been kind of doing a little personal project where I'm seeking out high performers and trying to learn from them and, and characteristics, so that's, that's great to have kind of that list.
Who, who's your second person?
Brandon Gale 10:34
A guy named Amine Khechfe. And, and Amine is a guy that recognized the need for digitized postage out in the marketplace, and he created a company that provided that service and he was there on the bleeding edge. It was when nobody knew what online postage was or how to deliver it to people, how they can leverage it and build their business and part off of that. And you talk about a super bright guy and a visionary in our industry, just about everybody knows Amine and spectacular guy.
And again, people that can talk across fences, he can talk with the technology guys, he can talk on the business side, he can talk on the strategy side, and he really understands it. And he, and he's passionate about our industry. He actually loves what he does. And when you love what you do, you tend to be really good at it.
Lori Boyer 11:31
Oh, I love that. I absolutely, I just admire people who can speak to everybody at a different level and in a different way that it makes sense to them. You know, whether it's a 3-year-old, or whether it's a super high-tech engineer, whether it's you're talking to investors. There is kind of a different language and, and that is just such a talent.
Brandon Gale 11:50
Really do, it's an entirely different language and you really have to understand how those groups think, act, and behave. And guys like Jimmy and Amin are really good at that.
Lori Boyer 11:59
I love that. Okay, so you are one of those guys I admire too, Brandon, so let's hear a little bit about you.
How did you. You know, just yesterday, we won't say you've been in the industry so long, but how did you get into the industry? Tell us a little bit about that background and then tell us a little bit about kind of what RSA is.
Brandon Gale 12:18
Sure. So I think it's a really interesting story.
Lori Boyer 12:22
Okay, good.
Brandon Gale 12:22
I, I can give you the Reader's Digest version of it.
My wife and I moved from Detroit, Michigan, to Dallas, Texas, back in 1980. And I'm, I've been an ent a serial entrepreneur. I learned enough about myself at an early age that I, I performed better when I was responsible for all the decisions, good, bad, or ugly. So I didn't want to keep pushing a chain uphill working for somebody else when I always thought I was the smartest guy in the room, even though that was wrong more often than right.
So back in the early eighties, there was this thing that I stumbled across in one of these trade magazines that says, hey, here's a new thing that's going on in California. It's called private mailbox stores. And I thought it was interesting. So I built my first store in in Dallas and ran it myself for the first six years. Then I built a second location.
And of course, in order to be good at this, in this industry, you have to listen to what the customer demand is and respond to that. So it wasn't just a one thing business. And it was a constant evolution. You had to be nimble, you had to pay attention to what the market needs are.
You had to listen to the consumer and then fill those needs for them and then figure out a way to do that and make money. And I was really good at that. I'm a great listener when, when I love to listen to people, I love to hear their stories and I love to build that one-on-one relationship and that's what, what our business is all about.
The most successful people love their customers and wanna know everything they can know about them to fill their needs. So I was good at that. So I built a second store. Then my third and fourth store were acquisitions. They were businesses in the same industry, but I felt that they were underperforming. And I walked in and said, Hey, have you ever thought about selling your store?
They said, yes, I bought it. And then one of my customers asked if I would help them do his own store. So I had a licensing program. So fast forward, I kept building and acquiring stores. So I actually operated 18 locations in the DFW market, and then I built another 20 locations under a licensing program.
So all in, I've done 38 stores in the industry and, and that is an anomaly. And it. It, it calls into question my sanity for sure.
Lori Boyer 14:35
I was gonna say, how did you have time to do all this?
Brandon Gale 14:38
It, it, it was, it was a struggle raising four children and
Lori Boyer 14:41
Oh goll.
Brandon Gale 14:42
All of those things. But, you know, you raise to the challenges when, when they're put in front of you, you can either turn your back and become complacent or you can just go for it.
So I decided to go for it. So. Back around 2006, 2007, after doing this for a long time. I thought there's a time for me to transition. And I also always told myself that when things started to get a little bit old for me look to do something else.
Lori Boyer 15:08
Yep. It, it's that entrepreneur spirit of yours.
Brandon Gale 15:11
It, it was. It was.
Lori Boyer 15:11
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Gale 15:11
It was, and I was really good at running stores and I had proven that over and over again, but I saw a need in this industry for some type of a trade organization. Because there are about 11,000 stores in, in my, in my business space. And some of 'em are part of franchisees. Everybody knows the UPS store franchise.
Back in my day, it was the mailboxes, et. cetera, and they convi converted to the UPS store. But aside from that, there were thousands of independent mom and pop operators out there that set up their own business, had a fairly low barrier of entry on cost to stand one up and just about anybody could do it.
But what, what I figured out right away was I was really good at it and there were a lot of people that could be way better than what they were. And I knew a bunch of people that had a great knowledge base because of their experience. And I put together a good team and we launched Retail Shipping Associates in 2007.
Now, we did that in 2007, right before the market crash on real estate. So my timing is is highly questionable, but we survived. We survived. Right?
Lori Boyer 16:19
That's a, that's a big thing.
Brandon Gale 16:21
And, and we grew rapidly and we decided very early on who we were and what we meant to the industry and, and our, kind of, our company tagline illustrates that. I didn't want to go into one of these long, flowery mission statements that, you know, sounds really good on paper, but can you really execute on it? And, and our answer was no. So what were we? And we distilled it down to three words. And it was train, profit, learn. Those were our things. And that was our, that was our mission, kind of our shorted, shortened mission statement.
And that seemed to resonate with everybody because we went from zero members to thousands of members in less than a couple of years. And, and it's only because we knew what we were talking about, that kind of resonated with the industry. So taking that fast forward, we constantly added things that we knew were valuable, interesting, and necessary for somebody to win in the space and then we figured out a great way to communicate that out to them.
So we have multiple ways that we communicate, we have multiple ways of getting in front of people and, and we built a really interesting business off that. So we have over. 8,000 numbers now out of the 11,000 universe. So if you're doing the math, we have a couple of UPS stores that are actually affiliated with us, even though they're part of the largest franchise model out there.
And it's because according to their feedback to us, it's because they get a lot of things from us that are different than what they get with their franchisor. I mean, the UPS stores do a great job. They got a great network. But we do some pretty interesting things too, and the smart people know that they can learn from a variety of sources, and that's what they look to us for.
But our, our key focus are the independent mom and pop store operator. That's who we really have an opportunity with.
Lori Boyer 18:14
Okay, so let's talk a little bit. I want, I did wanna make a point. I really loved. Well, there was just a big aha moment for me that you talked about in your own career. But I think it's really applicable to our, our retail, you know, shipping businesses out there as well, that you loved your customers. And that you listened to them, and I think that is just so critical for success in business is finding that, you know, when you're out there: Who are your customers? Who is coming in and seeing you? What are their actual needs? As you mentioned the industry so diverse that you know, the needs are a very complex at times, and so, okay.
What do you feel like, you know, how have things changed? You've been obviously now working in this space for a long time. So for these independent, specifically retail shipping businesses, what, you know, what are their biggest challenges right now and how, you know, how has that changed and, and I guess how do you see it changing as we're moving forward?
Brandon Gale 19:16
Yeah. There, there's a lot in that question stream, Lori. Our industry and, and we don't own the space on this, but it's been not just one evolution, it's a constant state of flux. And in order to really succeed at this, you can't just, it's not just a shoe store where you're sh selling shoes, socks, belts, purses, and accessories, and you do the same thing over and over again.
It's adjusting to the needs in the marketplace, and a real easy example for people to understand is, our industry was one of the first places you could go and pay to fax something somewhere. That was like the big deal, right? Because,
Lori Boyer 19:53
Back in the day.
Brandon Gale 19:54
Because back in the day, equipment cost a lot of money, a fax machine was a couple of thousand dollars, so it made a lot more sense for small businesses to go to one of our shops and pay them to do that. Well, that it's still a thing we do, but it's not nearly as important what it was. So we had to adjust. We knew when to take advantage of it. How to exploit it. And then we watched how it proceeded, did our analytics on it and decided when it was less important.
But there have been dozens, if not more products and services that we've rolled in. Used them as they were relevant and rolled them out when they weren't. And it takes a lot of focus to know when to hold them and when to fold them on stuff.
Lori Boyer 20:35
I was gonna say, that gonna be my question Brandon. How can our viewers who are in this space, how do they stay ahead of kind of, when to hold, when to fold. What are your recommendations?
Brandon Gale 20:46
Yeah, I mean, being selfish here, if they're part of RSA, that's part of our job. To, to constantly monitor those things out in the marketplace. And the relationships that I built over the years and the knowledge base I have with my management team here and my customer success team is all about keeping them informed on what they should be doing, what they shouldn't be doing, where they should put their focus.
Because in a small mom and pop business, they do everything. Yes. They, they have to do everything. And, and that means that there's always a distraction getting away from some of the things
Lori Boyer 21:19
Yes.
Brandon Gale 21:19
They should be focusing on. So part of our challenge is to teach them how to work on their business, not in the business.
Lori Boyer 21:26
Yes, yes.
Brandon Gale 21:28
And that's, that's a nuanced thing. It, it takes great deal of focus to do that the right way. So the, the portfolio, what our resources are for these stores is very deep and broad. We try to cover all bases. So if they come to us with a what if or why should I question, we know the answer to that.
Specifically, we can point 'em to a resource, we can hand it to 'em right then and keep in constant communication. So some of our tools, we produce a magazine that goes out on a quarterly basis. Anything that's new, interesting, a new profit center, regulatory legislative issues. Part of what we do is advocacy on behalf of our industry and be watchdogs.
What should we be looking for? What's a threat? How do we assess that threat and manage it? What are our risks? All of those things we have to think out about on a daily basis. I, I think as an organiza, a trade association type thing, we do a lot more than what nor normal people. Normal people we're not normal.
Think about associations, they're kinda like, oh, you're a nonprofit and you send out a little newsletter and, you know, do this and do that. But we do far more than what the expectation is. I think that's one of our challenges as trade association is to get our constituents to, to avail themselves of all of the resources that we do provide.
That's a often a, a frustration for it. They could be so much better than what they are if they would use everything we provide.
Lori Boyer 22:58
Yeah, it's, it can be so hard and easy to feel overwhelmed. I think at all the resources and even where to start. Do you offer, don't you have some training classes as well?
Brandon Gale 23:09
Oh yeah. And this is kind of a, a foundational point of what we do.
Lori Boyer 23:15
Okay?
Brandon Gale 23:15
People tend to look at our business and they'll say, oh, that's gotta be easy. How hard can it be to ship a package?
Lori Boyer 23:20
Right?
Brandon Gale 23:21
Lemme just,
Lori Boyer 23:22
Oh, little do they know!
Brandon Gale 23:23
Lemme just get a bathroom scale and throw something on there and go to a chart and figure it out. Well. At what point? If you went back 20 years, that was kind of accurate. You still had to know a lot, but you have to know far more now than you ever needed to know. The complexity of accurately and efficiently moving stuff from one place to the other requires a huge knowledge base. Now we use automation to help us get over that, but back to your original point.
One of our, our, our offerings is what we call the Retail Shippers Academy or RS Academy. And we have built certification classes that we've trained live in person for many years, but now we do it online, and we're moving all of that content from a live online. Access to a on demand online because we can reach more people. It's more accessible for them. It's more efficient. They can get all their tra, their staff trained.
But our courses are all of the blocking and tackling things that you've gotta know these things just as a starting point. And, and we can see that it's at some point in the near term where it could be dozens of certification classes.
So as you pass those and, and it's not just a— running through a PowerPoint. They actually test on this. They have to prove that they've accepted the knowledge and then they get a certificate. They can put it on the wall behind their counter, brag about it to their customer, but importantly, they can prove that they know what they're talking about and they are true experts.
People say they're experts, but they're not. We wanna make sure that they have full faith and confidence when they put that out there. I know what I'm talking about. They can prove.
Lori Boyer 25:06
I love that.
Brandon Gale 25:06
So our training is a key component. Now we, we've done things beyond that. We also have a bootcamp owner seminar. It's an eight hour intensive that we treat. We, we do that and, and present that log.
Lori Boyer 25:18
Is that an in-person thing or that's.
Brandon Gale 25:20
That's, that's an in-person thing because
Lori Boyer 25:22
Cool.
Brandon Gale 25:22
It's really a, an overview on how to make this business successful. The training classes get down into the granular weeds. Knowing dimensional weight and where you can ship and when you can ship, and how one carrier works versus the other.
The bootcamp class, just like it sounds like it's bootcamp. Drink through the fire hose. Here are all of the different things you have to think about every day to be really good at that. And I trained, I have a training partner with that, Rajan Dorasami. He's our, our VP of operations and he still owns a very successful store, so he can speak to it real time. How he deals with these things, how he approaches these things, and that resonates.
I haven't run a store for many years. I've, I've sold off all the stores that I've owned. So between my years and decades of knowledge and Rajan's real time, day in, day out knowledge, it's a great thing. And, and we've done over 2000 stores in this format on the bootcamp.
We go around the country and do it in different regions, and then we have a national trade show and convention that we do called RS Expo. That's, that's just like you would see any other conference, convention. It's got breakouts, it's got training, it's got a vendor show, it's got keynote speakers, and it's a great way to network and you get, it's one of the most valuable things people can do.
Lori Boyer 26:39
I, I'm glad you brought up the networking because that's also there with the bootcamp and, and. Really just being part of an association is so huge. I feel like in our industry, relationships are massive and really important, and we really can learn from each other. We don't have to think of each other as competition.
You know, there are so many things we can learn, and I just really admire that. I think that's really critical element.
Brandon Gale 27:04
Well, you're, you're right, a hundred percent. And when we do our surveys post event. We ask that, that question, what are the the most important and valuable elements of attending one of our events?
Doesn't matter what it is, and networking with other owners is always in the top five. And, and they explain when, when we give 'em a format to do that, they say being able to discuss my day in, day out business challenges with somebody that empathizes, they really do know what I go through. That's invaluable in learning how to navigate the minefield of running a small business.
So we can have keynotes and breakouts all day long and vendors show, but when you can sit down with four or five of your peers, having a cocktail and just talking about what they go through every day, and, and they walk away with, with a renewed enthusiasm for this business because they talk to people that have figured it out and know how to win.
And I always had an a an approach to, and I still do this today, I attend a lot of industry events because that's part of my job. And there's a cost to doing that. But I see it as an investment in growing our existing business. And all I have to do is learn one or two really big things, and it makes the investment worth it.
And that's what we try to encourage them to look at. Well, what I, what'll I get out of the show? Well, one new idea, one new product, one new service, a different way to approach marketing, can change the entire trajectory of how you're making money out there. So, big fan of going to shows and getting people to attend.
Lori Boyer 28:38
Yeah, and I, you know, even beyond the, the one idea, like I found when I attend shows, it's exactly what you say. You come back with the renewed motivation and an excitement that, you know, you kind of start to get in the doldrum sometimes of everything's just coming at you. But it, it's a, it's invaluable really.
That sort of just new excitement of like, yes, okay, I'm gonna go try this, I'm gonna do this, get you back in the mood. And, and, and that's kind of one of those things that's hard to, to measure, but is really so important.
Brandon Gale 29:08
When, when I, when I walk the show floor or I'm sticking my head into a breakout session or I just get into a group of people, the first question I ask them is, how's the show for you?
Are you getting your money's worth out? And I gotta make sure I get the right answer from that. They go, eh, then we're, we need to do something different now. Fortunately. And, and I always get the answer I want. Like, this is amazing. I had no idea. And of course, the people that go to the shows every single year know they've already quantified the value.
So that's an easy sell. It's the new ones, and it may be an operator that's owned a store for five or 10 years and they've never attended one of our events, and we finally convinced them. And their biggest negative-positive statement is, "Oh my God, what have I been missing all these past years? How much more money could I have made if I started attending when I first opened the doors?"
So it's always a good news thing.
Lori Boyer 30:03
I love that. Okay, so we've covered a few of the things. So we've got your training academy. You've got your regular boot camps that you do, we've got, you know, trade show, the, you know, the big old trade show, your expo. What, what other resources do people get, you know, as being part of a, the association?
Brandon Gale 30:22
Yeah, so, sure. So one, one of the things we think is, is a huge value point. We have a, a supplier program, we call it our premium suppliers. And we go to people that, that have products or services that we've already established, are important pieces of every store out there. Everybody does 'EM type things.
And then we identify the best provider for that, and we interview these people and we vet them very heavily. And then we make them give us something on behalf of our members that the members can't get on their own. One of the, one of the reasons to engage with RSA. So we have an entire stable of suppliers, carriers, equipment providers, all of those things. And they have to provide what we call the premium advantage to our users.
So if they would normally pay a hundred dollars for something and they they're a member of RSA, they'll get that thing from the same provider for $75 for instance. So we, we stack up the value proposition. So what we charge for membership becomes minuscule by comparison.
I'm a giant fan of overwhelming my customers with value. So when they say, "Why are you charging me this amount of money, I have a great answer for that. 'Cause that amount of money that I'm charging you allows you to net this many thousands of dollars. Way over and above that it becomes an undeniable decision.
I have to be part of RSA if I'm gonna really succeed out in the marketplace. So that's a big thing that we've done. And this might surprise a lot of your, your viewers here. We created a a templated store website program 12 or 13 years ago. That is unique. Many people that are website developers that do this as one-offs, look at the way we've done this and the economics behind it, what it costs the store to do, and are simply blown away.
It's a genius program. So we have 1600 stores that use that system as their primary web presence, because it's so, it's, it's, it's very well optimized, number one. And it allows them to offer all of the different products and services they use at a very high level. And the cost is nominal. So that's one of the things that only an RS store can get from us. Those are amazing.
We do webinars. Training web, how tos, so we use that to introduce our suppliers so they can talk about their product and the value proposition, but if there's a new service or if there's a threat.
Lori Boyer 32:53
I was gonna say, what about risk management? I'm getting a lot of questions obviously. Is everything in the political environment, everything going on with shipping? People feel a little bit nervous about knowing.
Brandon Gale 33:04
Always.
Lori Boyer 33:04
What to do.
Brandon Gale 33:06
Always. So part of my job is to be on the lookout and understand what those risks are and what we can and should do about those things. And then we have to communicate that out to the store. So as you can imagine, we have a very robust digital communication network out there. When they get something from us, they know it's important. It's not, they're not getting spammed. It's part a key component of their communications. Through our website, we have a, a newsfeed where we go through hundreds and hundreds of articles every week and post the ones that are specific to our industry.
So, we do all of the calling of those things for them. Anybody could do what we do, but it, they would spend hours doing it. So getting the information in a timely basis, and then we'll do communications where we'll say, Hey, there's a risk out there and here's what it is. Here's how we think we should assess it, and here's what we think you should do about it.
They always make their own decisions, but awareness of the risk is the first part of it. And, and we have saved businesses from what we call extinction level events. There's a risk out there and they're not aware of it. We make them aware, they respond to it, and it, and, and it's literally saved their business out there.
Now they have daily diet things. These are, they are getting all kinds of stuff over their calendar. Personal effects to brand new stuff. Everything you can imagine and everything in between. So as you could guess, there's occasionally stuff that shouldn't be shipped and they have to do a, an analysis on just about everything they touch to make sure it can go through the system, that it's legal, allowable, and not restricted in any way.
Well, we have resources within our website that shows us all those things by carrier, by governing agencies or oversight agencies to make sure that we limit. Their exposure on the risk side. And then we have, we have providers that help them mitigate that. We have partnered with one of the largest business insurance underwriters, Chubb, to tailor a business owner, insurance pol policy specific to our industry.
And you say, well, what's specific? Well, we handle a lot of stuff that is not ours. So property of others is part of what we do every single day. So having coverage. If you've got a bunch of packages sitting in your store that's waiting to get picked up, you don't own those things if your store burned down, you have to have the right coverage for those things.
Errors and emissions coverage on the risk side, so we've created policy. So if they go with these providers that identify where the risks are, they're getting the proper amount of coverage that they should have. There are some stores out there that try to, you know, book something through their local auto guy or homeowner, and they don't understand business coverage the way they need to.
So. I, I think we do a really good job of helping them understand what the risks are and, and how to mitigate those.
Lori Boyer 36:02
Fantastic. As you talk, I can literally see playing out in front of my mind what you talked about before about how everything evolves and changes, and how, when you are listening to your customers and you're hearing, we have this need, or we have that need that you're putting that into place through RSA and that's exactly really what we need is to be able to have somebody to turn to.
And my guess is even if you didn't have a program, if they turned to you and said, Brandon, I need, I'm, I'm worried about this, you would at least have somewhere to point them.
Brandon Gale 36:34
We would, and I, I, that's kind of an overlay on how I built my retail stores. If I had enough customers say, "Hey, do you do this?" My answer would be, well, I don't. How often would you need that?
And if there's a need, we're gonna fill the need and figure out a way to make money doing it. And, and as long, that's always been my attitude. And we kind of cascade that down through the organization. That we, we kind of have a, well, no, but we can attitude or, yes, we can do that. And in many cases, when I was over the counter, somebody would say, "Hey, can you ship this for me?"
And it was outside the scope of what I was used to doing. My answer was yes. And then I'd go figure out how to do that i, make a little money on it. And, and I became educated that way and then I did it over and over again, and then it became part of my normal offering. So, you're right. If, if one of our stores come to, to us with something unique from a risk side or an opportunity side, we wanna take a look at that and see if everybody else might want to be doing that, or they're concerned as well.
Lori Boyer 37:35
It's such a great thing for small businesses, 'cause small businesses often feel like they have no one to turn to. Because there's such a small piece of the pie that nobody's listening and, and they don't have help. So I love that. In terms of, we're about out of time, I feel, I feel like I could keep asking you like 20 more questions, but is there anything else we've missed that you feel like people should know about, you know what, what it's like joining an an association like yours?
Brandon Gale 38:01
I hope I've done a reasonably good job of giving the view that we are welcoming. We want everybody in our industry to be part of the organization. And it's because we know we can help them. And some people are reluctant to ask for help because they think that that, that says something about them and, and I've been, I, I've been part of, or, or tried to approach other organizations that I, I felt like they were condescending to me and didn't feel and made me embarrassed that I didn't know something.
So we want people that are thinking about affiliating with us, give us a chance to show you how good we are, and I think we'll blow your mind.
Lori Boyer 38:41
So Brandon, if people do wanna learn more, if they wanna find out about joining your association, or if they just wanna connect with you, follow you, how can they do that?
Brandon Gale 38:50
So to join your organization, it's fairly simple. If they go to rscentral.org, not.com, it's dot org. And that's the best way to learn a little bit about us and, and we have two different ways they can engage with us.
We have two different me layers of membership. One is called a basic member, where it allows you access to every area of our website. So you can see what we do, how we do it, but we want them to convert to what we call a premium member. We have premium suppliers. We also have premium members, and that's a paid service.
The basic member doesn't cost you anything to see if we're interesting. If you think we're interesting, then we want you to engage with one of our success experts via phone or email so they can actually walk you through the benefits. And how we can help you make more money, add value to what you do for your customer, and get fully engaged with us.
That's the best way to learn who we are and what we can do for you. If you wanna follow me, best way to do it is on my LinkedIn. Just go look me up on LinkedIn and if it makes sense to to engage with me directly and happy to do that. I love talking to people about what we do, what they need, and if we can help them.
Lori Boyer 40:02
Yeah, I, I love it. Thank you so much for sharing this. I know that there are a lot of people out there who aren't even aware that these associations exist. Please, please, there are ways, it's not just about Brandon making money. It's about everybody helping each other and being able to make everybody successful and more profitable in the end.
So you just are doing incredible work. I admire it so much. So thank you so much for sharing.
Brandon Gale 40:29
Thanks for inviting me. I hope it's helpful and useful and interesting and all of those important.
Lori Boyer 40:34
It's been fantastic. And for everyone else, we will see you next time.
Brandon Gale 40:38
My pleasure. See you.