Paul Jarrett is the CEO and Co-founder of Bulu, a company recognized for its expertise in handling complex shipping needs, including high-volume kitting, e-commerce pick-and-pack fulfillment, and multichannel logistics through its innovative Hybrid, Hub & Spoke model. Since founding Bulu with Stephanie Jarrett in 2012, Paul has distinguished himself as a forward-thinker in e-commerce and consumer packaged goods, earning accolades for his contributions to the industry. He is acknowledged for pioneering the subscription box market and for his role in developing and selling a software company that enhanced Bulu’s service offerings. With a career highlighted by launching programs for major brands such as American Express, BuzzFeed, Crayola, Disney, and GNC, Paul’s expertise has not only elevated Bulu’s status within the logistics and fulfillment sector but has also made him a sought-after keynote speaker and a reputable figure in media outlets like Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, PBS, Inc., and CBS News.
In an era where the speed and flexibility of logistics are paramount, how is Bulu’s innovative Hybrid Model revolutionizing the way companies fulfill their logistics needs?
According to Paul Jarrett, a trailblazer in the logistics and fulfillment sector, the game-changing aspect of Bulu’s Hybrid Model lies in its ability to combine the efficiency of traditional logistics with the adaptability of modern technological solutions. By integrating aspects of both 3PL and 5PL services at competitive rates, Bulu empowers brands to streamline their fulfillment processes, enhance customer satisfaction, and expand their market reach without compromising on cost or quality. This innovative approach not only disrupts the conventional logistics model but also sets a new standard for operational excellence in the industry.
In this episode of America Open for Business, Cameron Heffernan chats with Paul Jarrett, CEO and Co-Founder of Bulu, about how their Hybrid Model is reshaping the logistics landscape. They discuss Bulu’s journey of innovation, the importance of adaptability in business, and the strategic use of technology to solve complex logistical challenges.
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Narrator: 0:03
Welcome to America Open for Business, where we talk with high growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets.
Cameron: 0:13
Hello everybody, welcome to America Open for Business. I’m Cameron Heffernan, where I talk with high growth entrepreneurs and leaders who have found success in one of the world’s most important markets. Today’s episode, where we look at the founders and owners series of our program, is brought to you by your B2B marketing, a truly global marketing agency. We help founders and leaders understand what makes their products and services invaluable to customers and help them put that front and center. Discover how we can drive your expansion by visiting your B2B marketingco that’sco notcom. And past guests of the show include Brian Smith, the founder of the UG brand from Australia, the Sheetskin Boots that became a billion dollar consumer footwear brand, as well as Ben Teetja, Another and CEO of Earthly Wellness, a $21 million plus direct to consumer e-commerce brand that’s trying to change healthcare.
Cameron: 1:06
Naturally, For today I wanted to give a shout out and a thank you to Dr Jeremy Wise of Rise25 and the host of the Inspired Insider podcast, who got myself, as well as today’s guest, Paul Jarrett, into podcasting and the journey and helped us for me anyway, I shouldn’t speak for Paul is realize the power of this medium. Our website is rise25.com and, without any further ado, I’d like to welcome to the show Paul Jarrett, the CEO of Bulu Yo how you doing, Cameron.
Paul Jarrett: 1:38
Doing great man, how are you Good? Brian’s awesome from Uggs, super cool guy. I lucked out and snuck in and had a lunch with him and I still there’s just such a good memory and I’m so old. I think that you know, jeremy, and I would. Dr Jay, we’d have a good conversation about Rise25 and I think I started talking to him before they had started. I was like, man, you really just need to do. I forget how you know memories fit, but just glad to watch his journey and play a very tiny role in it and I absolutely love what Rise25 is doing.
Cameron: 2:13
I mean, it’s because of your sharing and talking and discovering things. It’s a very sort of intimate format and you get a lot of people listening and learning from it Fantastic.
Paul Jarrett: 2:24
I think that he’s really struck on and like all respect to him because I feel like he and I were both very much relationship guys from day one and you know every transition of spend your money in Google ads, spend your money, do this right and he’s just held steady with it and you know, 10 years later pick up the phone, tell them what we’re up to and just it’s awesome. I love what he’s doing. He is a great dude, great program.
Cameron: 2:55
Definitely Well. Paul Jarrett was born in a Nebraska trailer park, played football in Iowa, worked at the world’s largest ad agency in New York City, did some time as a copyrighter in San Francisco before launching Bulu, where he became the CEO. So let’s start with that. How did those different pieces come together? That’s a lot of movement within a short period of time.
Paul Jarrett: 3:14
Yeah, yeah, I think I’m a very restless human. I say I’m not just a kid that’s going to touch the stove, I’m going to touch it twice and then probably the third time we’ll get you and just hold my hand on the stove. But I think, just this you know a lot of, I think, growing up in a trailer park and seeing you know your best friends get evicted and I was actually hired out to serve a few eviction notices because nobody sees it coming from a kid, you know or selling door to door. We had a school and private, a little private school and we had to go sell magazine subscriptions. And when I got a little bit older I started getting recruited to kind of the nice side of town, the nice side of school for sports and I think a lot of even what I’m doing today, having a bit of a foot in both sides of you know the kind of. I mean this in all respects. But like the blue color and the white color world, you know, I’ve had days where I drove through my old trailer park on the way to the airport and then that same day I was in the Hamptons at a friend’s house. Right, I wish I had a place there. But I think, like you know, that juxtaposition of you know eating spam, right and eating whatever expensive prosciutto right, which to me it’s like the same thing, right, but yeah, I think it just allows a little bit of like weaving in and out of those waters and I think a lot of that.
Paul Jarrett: 4:46
You know my co-founder, actually the owner of the business, who happens to be my spouse, stephanie. I think she nailed it one day when she said she’s talking to me and she goes you know, paul, you’re the biggest nerd trapped in a jock’s body I’ve ever met, and it really confuses people and I was kind of like what are you? And as time has gone on, I was like wow, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better definition, right, like usually it’s the other way around, but you know, whether it was the locker room or what, I just kind of was always with that group of people. Like, if people are trying to bucket you and they can’t figure out what bucket to put you in, like I got the bucket for you because that’s kind of you know a story of my life. But also I would say curiosity is the thing that’s kind of got me into all those situations, right, like why can’t we do that? Why not, let’s try?
Cameron: 5:38
Right. So not assuming just because I’ve been told X or Y. But let’s probe a little further, let’s really dig into this. Is that a key to how you’re succeeding?
Paul Jarrett: 5:52
Being able to kind of weave it out of those worlds. Being curious? Yeah, absolutely, especially now. You know we started we are a consumer packaged goods brand selling directly to customers raised venture capital and we transition that into. At the same time building a software which we sold it became range mecom for some viewers that might know and raising it.
Paul Jarrett: 6:16
We raised the second round of capital and then working with some of the biggest brands in the nation, because my co-founder and I had done that, working in New York and San Francisco you know I say a queen Queens New York at times felt a lot safer than a trailer park in Nebraska, right, there’s just maybe a little bit more media and better drugs on these guys, right, and I think all of those things kind of added up and what it did create, I think, is, you know, probably our number one core value at work, which is fearless. And it’s like this attitude of you know I should start it off and say I I hit the genetic lottery right, big white guy Midwest, like let’s get that straight, right. That said, people still have different starting lines. Mine is probably better than the majority of the population, but also there’s levels to that and I think so much of what we do and that curiosity and that fearlessness is driven by wanting to even the playing field right, like we’re becoming a women certified owned business. We are because we should right, we should be when we have, you know, people on the forklift of all ages, sexes, genders, races, whatever it is.
Paul Jarrett: 7:33
And I think that being exposed to a lot of those in sports and, you know, having real big weight type people come to the locker room and talk to you, go like man, like we put people on a pedestal, and so many times we think if somebody has money, that equates to intelligence, and that is not true whatsoever.
Paul Jarrett: 7:54
And I think that ability to just kind of like walk into the room and treat everybody the same way, whether it’s like the server at your table, the janitor or the owner of a multi-billion dollar company, I think that really, you know, it takes a level of authenticity right, and it takes a level of curiosity and it takes a level of asking and that that has always definitely been something that’s driven and driven me. And I see, probably one of the things that I hope people take away, you know, whatever I do presentations, podcasts, whatever it is is that I think most of us probably just don’t have the appropriate level of value for what we do right, and I feel like so much of you know understanding the level that we can do and the work that we can do is taking time to understand where the value is and what you can provide to somebody right, because if you can solve a headache for anybody, they will invite you into their world. It doesn’t matter if they’re rich or raised whatever.
Paul Jarrett: 8:55
If they have a hard problem and you can solve that, they’re going to want to be around you, and I think that’s just things that I tapped into, thanks to sports really helping me get into those rooms right In the beginning. Yeah, Right.
Cameron: 9:12
I mean, that’s where the phrase came from in the first place. Literally, you know, a level playing field. That’s what sports is all about, and I like to see you know, I watch sports. And then we can look at the college level. The kids come from all over the country, whether it’s, you know, the University of Iowa or here in Ohio State, and there are people coming from not just across the country, urban and rural environments. Now they’re coming from overseas too and just thinking they all get the game, they got to all understand it and it’s a level playing field.
Paul Jarrett: 9:36
Yep, and it is. It is, even though you know our trailer park had quite a bit of diversity in Nebraska getting to college and I left early and I remember I was the, I stayed in the house and I’ll just say, like there was 10 of us and I was the only white dude that wasn’t from like the coast and you know, it was just such a great experience and learned so much and you really do. You just learn like man, like people are people and if you can provide that service and whatever, like you know, we had one dude on a team that all he could do was rush for one play right and he was 290 and he could jump and he was just couldn’t do anything else. And the dude made it to the NFL and had a great career and he just came in and third and belong.
Paul Jarrett: 10:25
You know, and you’re just like whoa, are these long snappers? And and it really just when you apply, you know what is innovation, more than taking learnings from other industries or other things in life and viewing like how is that applicable here? Right, like what is our version of that? And having that curiosity, I think, so many times, because our businesses transform so much and people are so impressed by it, I’m like no, no, no, no, like it wasn’t a pivot or anything else other than evolution, and that’s how you continue to do what you’re doing. You know that and a million other things, but yeah, yeah, it’s had a big impact.
Cameron: 11:03
You know, you brought up something when I spoke with Brian Smith and interviewed him recently for the podcast he talks about, and both in the interview and, more importantly, in his book, the difference between invention and innovation, right. So he brought in his case sheepskin boots from Australia or Slippers boots from Australia and very commoditized there, you couldn’t even trademark it because it’s so well known, everyone has it here, it’s new. And as soon as it had some success and some popularity, there’s two, three, four, six different, you know copycats. And so he said how do we, how do we stick? We got to run fast, stay in front of it and run faster. That’s how we, that’s how we said ahead and we got to keep. It’s not Enough just to invent, we got to keep innovating. How does that apply to what you’re doing?
Paul Jarrett: 11:46
Yeah, well, I think you know, as it is nowadays, our experience with launching our own subscription business, launching a Dual-sided platform for retail buyers and sellers, building full complex programs, subscription box programs for Disney, for Crayola, for GNC, for Clorox, for on its, you know, slash Joe Rogan stuff and In managing the finances, providing customer service, doing the technology, figuring out how to sell a subscription box in Disney global theme parks is pretty damn hard. And not only do you have to figure it out, but you got to get along with the people on the way, because you know it’s really easy in corporate to run into a hardcore tech or Security or legal and they just got met no, like that Not gonna work right, and you have to kind of be relentless and help them Understand that. And I I would say that when we bought the company recently, boo-boo, hundred percent, the thing that we wanted to do well, we actually I’ll tell you straight up what happened we said it okay, we have always kind of added more and more complexity to our business. Right, it was our own subscription box, then it was use the data for retail buyers, then it was build boxes for other people, then it was build gift programs. Do all this stuff If we hired a consultant and we paid them a boatload of cash, which we’ve done plenty of times before.
Paul Jarrett: 13:22
What is it actually gonna happen? And and sorry all consultants out there you know what my takeaway is is that most of them Tell you what not to do, right, they strip things out like the really good ones. The the bad ones just say keep paying me this way and we’ll keep doing whatever. But the really good ones, like, have a way of listening and actually not saying much and kind of whittling it down To things that are right in front of you that you don’t see. Right. And so we went through this exercise and we said okay, we got the company. We know that we want to work with growth minded people. We don’t care now if it’s a Disney or if it’s somebody in our backyard just getting started, but what is the thing that actually, like, holds people? What is the headache? What’s that?
Paul Jarrett: 14:11
I always say this when you hear the heavy breath of, when you hear that that is a billion dollar idea. And why do I think that? Because people have accepted the pain Right, they just accept it. That’s the way the world is. The other thing is whenever you hear a solution in a room or an idea and people laugh, go ahead and laugh but come back to it, because in my experience the best ideas are usually laughed at first because people it trips up their brain so they don’t know how to react, so they kind of giggle and usually people move on and like no, no, no, stop and come back right. And when you hear that, like some clients on the phone, they go You’re like no, no, no, go back to that even if it wasn’t about what we’re doing, tell me more, tell me more.
Paul Jarrett: 14:55
And so we went through this exercise and I usually get that by doing a lot of speaking, a lot of conferences and and talking with people and it kind of was one of the very few lightning bolt moments, because usually it’s a painful process, right, but we kind of like we’re all in a room and and hats off to my co-founder, stephanie, she’s she’s really the one that can kind of I could, I can bring all the puzzle pieces and get everything ready, but she can kind of pluck out the right piece at the right time. And it was Essentially. We said you know, whether it’s a subscription box, whether it is a kit, whether it’s a complex membership program, whether it’s an innovation thing going. You know, lulu, lemon, global people or whatever, all of these things Heck. Look back at our careers of advertising New York, san Francisco, everywhere Like what is the thing that we always like? Just, we’re not okay with.
Paul Jarrett: 15:43
And it was when the idea in the room is formed. By the time it’s actually delivered, it usually looks nothing like what the original concept was. And we just simply thought like wouldn’t it be incredible to actually like Take the idea or the product or whatever it is that is in the mind of the person that wants to grow something, and we actually deliver it where they want it, how they want it, when they want it, in as much different variations as possible, which seems super simple. But it’s a very simple idea and as much different variations as possible, which seems super simple, right. But if you think about 3 pl, the 3 store pack ship is kind of the easy way to think of it. A 5 pl deals with manufacturing and distribution, right. So we said like wait up, wait, hold up a second.
Paul Jarrett: 16:36
These subscription boxes for Disney and everybody else were already selling individual items. We’re already doing different types of fact. What if we just Ditch the whole subscription box thing all together, even though that’s kind of what we’re known for a pigeon holist for quite a while and we just said, like what we’re doing, what are we doing? We do a form of shipping called hybrid hub and spoke logistics. Why does that matter? Everybody lives in this traditional linear fulfillment world. We can bring them into this hybrid hub spoke 5 pl, 5 pl world at the same price as a 3 pl and the coolest thing is they have unlimited ways to distribute. So if they want to sell on tiktok, if they want to sell in target, if they want to sell in these Places and it looks that they want it packed and shipped a certain way we can actually do it.
Paul Jarrett: 17:26
So it was definitely scary to like strip out, like you know, kind of the lipstick but to get down to the core and just go 5 pl services at 3 pl rates. We kind of like we laughed and we’re like, well, nobody’s going to believe us and we thought, well, we got to get a couple of clients and go share their success and, you know, give the receipts and, um, that’s, it’s been a cool last couple months, because it’s really like catching fire and doing podcasts and then speaking and yeah, you know the old dogs in the logistics world are going to know you don’t, and I’m like prove me wrong, you know, so it’s. Uh, it’s been really fun lately to say.
Cameron: 18:01
How? How did you adding those other two elements meant the manufacturing part of most curious about, but like All of a sudden you’ve gone from a distributional logistics company’s a company that’s actually making things, has to deal with quality, customer assurance, all that. How’d you add those things without the price going up?
Paul Jarrett: 18:17
This is like the the the very transparent, honest answer. I’m turning a little red because of it. Um, we, we. We started 12 years ago. We crushed the first two fulfillment companies, fulfillment logistics. It was scary. We didn’t, we didn’t want anything to do with it. We had to get involved. We started shipping 60 000 of these boo-loo boxes, which was one of the very first sample boxes, and we had to start doing it ourselves while we were looking to find somebody else and we just finally kind of said to screw this like we’re doing it ourselves.
Paul Jarrett: 18:52
We’re doing it better, cheaper. And the reality is Um over, you know, an eight-year period of doing all of the things that the big brands wanted us to do. Like the true answer is like we didn’t know any better. It like never crossed our minds to like subcontract out the Retail store work to somebody else. That you know we just we did it. And then we kind of looked up and we’re like why do these brands sign up with us and never leave? And it was like really it’s being able to get it anywhere. Anybody wants it the way that they want it.
Paul Jarrett: 19:26
Okay, forget the customer service part, forget building websites, forget all that and other stuff. It’s great and it’s great revenue. But it like what we can do now is we can truly like scale with people and probably the proudest thing is If we find another company that can pack and ship better, faster than we can, we push clients out the door or like you need to go. You know we had a client change something and their product was almost like a direct mail piece, more like you need to go to a direct mail house, and they were shocked. But that’s, you know, we’re playing the long ball here, right, like we want to be known as I’m proud that nine out of ten of our first calls go nowhere.
Paul Jarrett: 20:05
Right, because we want to make it a good fit. You know what I mean. Right, it’s painful as it is to say no to some people like it’s, it’s what needs to happen more in this industry. I’m I’ll just say the quiet part. I’ll like nobody likes to talk to like a 3p l logistics firm. I didn’t, you know, you, you can feel it, but when you’re bringing something different to the table on top of standard stuff, like it’s really interesting for people because they just haven’t ever thought about it in logistics to like Expand sales channels and to grow the last place anybody thought to look. So yeah, I think that all kind of comes into play.
Cameron: 20:42
That’s what I want to ask you about. Is the reason 3p l. It’s seen, when I think of, I think of. It’s a very important aspect. You’ve got to get from a to b, but it’s also quite commoditized. Yes, right. So how do you absolutely that was a leap of faith for you to get to that point, to break out of that, right, yeah, successful logistical company. Now you’re certain something completely different.
Paul Jarrett: 21:02
Yeah, the. You know it doesn’t happen easy and it’s not like we go. This is what we’re doing and we snap our fingers and I would say, you know, we really a crud on our first attempt because we were thoroughly convinced that if we went to companies and said, hey, we will make your website able to sell subscriptions, all we ask is that we do fulfillment. And we’re only gonna make, you know, we store, pack, ship, we market up 10%. We’re in Nebraska and we can kind of get to everywhere. And we thought, for sure, we had a home run right, like yeah, yeah, I had subscription, auto review, all these things and just pay, like for fulfillment. And boy, I’ll tell you, I don’t know if I’ve ever been so sure and Ever had something fall so flat on its face and it drove me Bananas.
Paul Jarrett: 21:56
And you know we’re talking to ship out, we’re talking to flex, for we’re talking to our industry ties and Everybody’s going like, oh, yeah, you’re right, like more people should have Subscription enabled websites, they should have membership programs, and you know it boiled down to a marketing cost to kind of Share with people what you do was just like too expensive.
Paul Jarrett: 22:18
So we even dumbed it down, you know, for us like a level and just kind of went unlimited sales channels, packaging and packing options and it was a little bit of like man, that’s gonna be tougher or whatever. But I’ll tell you what. The thing that has paid off is the clients that we’ve signed on, asking them to go tell other people about us because it helps them keep their rates down and whatever, and and Asking them to post on social media so they can show. Look at the hundred sales channels I added. That has been the biggest difference. And you know, subscription just takes a little bit longer. So it’s a little weird to get paid the same amount of money for Something that is less costly than the thing that we were willing to kind of get. But that just shows like the message has to resonate with people.
Cameron: 23:09
You also had to do. I think of this every time that my kid I’ve got a 12 year old and a six year old met. My 12 year old is awesome. You’re more independent, doing stuff on his own. Yeah, and I’ll ask I want to get pop eyes, but I want to get it from DoorDash. I want to get chick-fil-a and I think about the brand equity, that’s at stake there.
Cameron: 23:25
So if, if, if he orders a sandwich or food and it comes and it’s bad, he doesn’t think of DoorDash or blame the driver, who’s not even an employee of DoorDash, he blames. Yeah, this chick-fil-a wasn’t good. Yeah yeah, and I’m fascinated with that dynamic and I want to know how do you handle that with the brands that you’re working. There’s these big you know big name brands. You’ve been talking about Disney and Crayola, gnc. How do you overcome that? It’s a trust issue. How did you build that trust with these big names? You?
Paul Jarrett: 23:53
know I would say that Before we started our company Stephanie our co-founder happens to be my spouse we had a really Solid good. We were, we were kind of sought after in the advertising marketing world. Mm-hmm, we were just known as like man that, you know, creative account. We, you know I was on. We were both on the account side and both on the creative side. At one point and you know to go, stephanie was a user interface designer at Pixar doing kids games and I was let’s see what was I doing. I was working, I think, at a play, I think it’s like gray in San Francisco and it’s kind of. I was doing Adobe stuff. It’s kind of boring, and that’s when we started the company. But by then we had just built up such a Rolodex where I mean we, we almost started our own ad agency because we were doing VISA, nfl and a couple other big clients. We’re just doing their Facebook pages because we couldn’t find anybody else to do them and we, we found like that, and so it was actually To get the meeting, I would say Like with a GNC because we had built things in the supplement world that did.
Paul Jarrett: 25:11
Well, we knew how to get there, but as soon as we got one in in our back pocket. I think it just gave us the confidence and and making it stupid simple for Disney, like everybody goes Mmm, how did you get Disney? I well, first of all, we went after GNC, who we’re, you know, pretty sure we could get in front of and we could offer him something of value. Yeah, and when I got rolling, how did we get Disney? We picked up the phone, we picked up the phone and we were relentless. How did we? And we, and then we made a list of five and it was like GNC, disney, crayola, lego which fries are a straining order against me and Truly truly. And then on it, which is like this alpha brand guys into this Joe Rogan podcast at the time.
Paul Jarrett: 25:59
Okay, and we got four out of five of those and you just learned that you know so much of. It is like hey, disney, here’s the time that I’m asking you to invest. Right, and if they filled out a form and Kind of, I’ll give away a little bit of our metrics for subscription boxes, but we knew if they had 60 retail locations and they were willing to advertise the box or put the box in those, that it would be a profitable program for what we’re setting up. And so I think, like a lot of fill in the blank, like, hey, disney, like next step, all you have to do is see this Excel document, fill in these things we attempted to on your behalf. And I think that in the ad agency world you learn that the phrase we are going to X Unless you say no by this date, like we’re gonna do this thing unless you say no, professionals, really other Kind of gratitude towards that right where we always stay one step ahead for our client. That’s like our goal.
Paul Jarrett: 27:04
And so I think when you just build that up and we did three programs for Disney and we did some for Crayola, and then it was kind of everybody else Was kind of everybody else, but the hard thing was nobody else would talk to us except for big brands because everybody’s like they must be expensive. I’m like yo, we spent 18 months not making anything on these brands Just to get the sale, like that, and that changed over time. That that was another thing, right? So yeah, you just pick up the phone and make it easy for them and you know, after 200 of them or you don’t know what to say, like you’ll figure, you know you’ll get there.
Paul Jarrett: 27:38
Yeah, I mean the, the magic of talking to your target audience and really listening and getting off the phone and calling up the next one and applying that and it’s just. I honestly feel like we and I am just more okay with eating bigger bowls of crap, right, like that’s where it is, like curiosity and grit, right, and make it easy for people and make it so they can’t say no. And it’s a hard process, especially when you’re a decade or so in and you’re like man, we got to do this again. But when you know what the other side is and what the wave is, you’re just always like let’s get back on that wave, right. I think I talked about that with Brian from Mugs Like just what do you got to do to get back on that wave? And you don’t view it as pivot, I view it as evolution and everybody should be evolving with what today’s technology is.
Cameron: 28:38
Constant reinvention, and technology is moving so fast.
Speaker 1: 28:40
now there’s a new channel we need to be aware of and I think, when we’re looking over your materials and getting ready to talk to you.
Cameron: 28:48
I think about your message being brand X or brand Y. You don’t need to master all of those channels. You don’t need to be fully omnichannel yourself. We are going to handle that for you.
Paul Jarrett: 28:58
We won’t take it off of your plate.
Paul Jarrett: 29:00
Yeah, it’s funny, we decided not to use the word omnichannel too much because it was so dang expensive to use. But if you actually look at like what this hybrid hub and spoke, mean like it’s basically true omnichannel fulfillment. But we know that’s red water at marketing. So, like you know, move a little bit to the left or right, you know, whenever we see we’re in red water or we’re headed there, it’s just how do you paddle a little bit to stay on the edge of that and be interesting and provide that thing. But yeah, it’s expensive to compete with anybody, you know, for anything with ticket, the key marketing dollars. I think it’s foolish to try to pursue some of those things.
Cameron: 29:41
So you’re talking about red water versus blue water?
Paul Jarrett: 29:44
Yeah, absolutely Blue strategy, baby yeah.
Cameron: 29:47
Second week in a row we’ve had someone mention that in a podcast, so I think it’s fascinating Like you want to go where the water is friendlier, where there’s less, fewer competitors there’s. You stand out a little bit more, yep, and you can be seen.
Paul Jarrett: 30:01
Yep, I’m doing a presentation in our industry called MAN2FS coming up. It’s the biggest one in the world and I’m speaking at it and so many of my team goes wasn’t that just the red water? And I’m like, yep, you’re right, I’m just kind of talking to the sharks, right, it was like a good wake up call because I’m like, what am I doing? Going to my industry, stuff. You know, given pay is one thing or whatever, but I always just find that fascinating that people would pay for booths in their own industry and trade shows. I’m like why would you do that?
Paul Jarrett: 30:36
But, yeah, spending money to impress people that you’re competing with.
Cameron: 30:39
So I find that fascinating. I’ve had the same. I say to my team I would rather go to it because we are a marketing agency who specialize on, you know, us new market entry and expansion. I would rather go to a conference of accountants than the contents of other agencies. I want to be deliberately as different as possible.
Paul Jarrett: 30:55
Yeah, that fear of embarrassment for people is real. You know like just having to go to a conference and people are like, well, what are you doing here?
Paul Jarrett: 31:03
You know we’re more tertiary, but we work with you, we want to learn your industry and that’s the only thing I can net out to is like people don’t want to do those things because it’s just not kind of socially done in the business world and it feels awkward and they don’t want to feel embarrassed. And yeah, I just, I don’t have a lot of that, I’m just like what, just get the job done. Who cares? We got to go to a conference for, you know, adult sexual wellness. Who cares?
Cameron: 31:31
Just go which is out before. Really, I didn’t know that existed. Well, I think you’re also. You’re asking different questions than they’re used to asking. You’re looking at things from a different perspective, a whole new industry’s perspective of looking at things. Simon Sinek talks about that. How he, the first time he was working in a company, kept asking why I don’t get that. Explain it. And the more that he kept asking that, more and more people said actually he’s got a point. What the hell are you talking about?
Paul Jarrett: 31:56
Yeah. So Simon comes from the ad agency world and I got booted as a keynote one time. I was really mad and it was actually Simon. I was like no, do eat. Yeah, he’s way, he’s way bigger. But I got to spend like the whole week with him and it’s kind of in a different level. It was cool because we were into it at the time. And him actually him he had. What I loved about Simon is he had a very technical approach to it and I forget what his number two guy is, but he was great. But yeah, you just I got to hang out with Tony Shea quite a few times from Zappa’s before he passed.
Paul Jarrett: 32:32
And man, when you can get into those circles and just lean those little insights and you can read all you want about Tony Shea and customer happiness and experience and whatever. But man, when you’re sitting there, I like two in the morning and it’s just like you and him and he’s like I’m like you know, man, like it’s not like BS, like I don’t you know, and and he just looks at it and he’s like it’s not just business, it’s not just whatever. He’s like life in the universe is about experience and curiosity and learning. It’s just what experience can you provide? And if you provide that to anybody, and he’s like every.
Paul Jarrett: 33:11
I mean he really was intense, like you know, like every single interaction is an experience, and he goes. I asked you for a lighter earlier and you cracked a joke and you, you know, I did a few things and he’s like, and that’s why I wanted to like hang out with you, because you gave me a different experience that I did not expect and I don’t know. I just I’ve always, you know. One other quick story that was kind of funny my parents had, unknowingly, a dinner with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill and they hung out with them all night and my parents could give two squats who?
Paul Jarrett: 33:49
they were. Mcgraw just kind of looked like my her brother and she wandered over and said hi, and they sat and they ate and they got photos and that was that. And you know, my parents were just like. You can just really tell that nobody had spoke to him at a level of just being a human, didn’t ask him for anything, didn’t whatever. And you know they’re, they’re bouncer and people are trying to chase him down. Same thing happened with me and Tony Shea. Of like it took his assistant to her two years, like find me.
Paul Jarrett: 34:20
But you know that goes through my head of like how do I just relate to this person? How do I just be a human? And I think, even in the sales pitch to some of those big brands, like you know, you’re just, you’re just talking to another person, you know, like they’ve probably had baby vomit on them too, they’ve probably gone through all those things. And when you can kind of connect with people and create that experience with them, like now you have something shared together, right? And I just think it’s such a basic human thing that people forget and like when somebody does trust us, like with their product, like it’s like a baby and then like everybody laughs about it. But I’m like dude, no, I’m serious Like this is, we are the babysitter, this is your livelihood. You’ve put your blood sweat into.
Paul Jarrett: 35:03
Some people worked harder, you know, to make a product than a baby. You know, yeah, yeah. And like I’ll be damned if they don’t feel how important it is to us and we want this thing to grow too, because it’s better for everybody. And I think when you really just get serious and get open and get vulnerable and get self-aware about it, I think it really kind of shocks people in a different way and they don’t know what it is, but they’re like that person can solve problems and I can relate to them and maybe I just want to be more in that tribe, maybe I want to be more of that group, maybe I want more of that in my life. And yeah, it’s just those weird moments with like Tony Shea and all these people along the way, where you just kind of pluck what works for you and yeah, I hope I never stopped doing that, but it’s I’ve been on the other side when you’re making a ton of money and it is hard not to remember those things and do those things.
Cameron: 35:56
So yeah, yeah. So at your core, you know. For Bulu, I think you just answered it right there. But what’s the core, fundamental problem you’re solving for people? Well, how are you helping them?
Paul Jarrett: 36:08
Yeah, I would say we are the place that helps people get their product into the hands of the person that they want by any means necessary and not go under paying absurd amounts of money. So the thing that they thought about originally right, usually it’s not I’m gonna sell a million of these on Amazon. Right, usually it’s like you can really get somebody to describe. It’s like well, I used to make these cookies and my aunt did this, and this, this, this, and I just want people to share like that experience. And you’re like so you want people to feel like they did on Christmas day. That’s what you’re saying, yeah, and then you just gotta start like you know what does that look like Now, how do we get as close to that as possible? And you know people are. You know people get emotional about it because they don’t realize how far their product has been dictated by Amazon. You know, or determined what it is or the packaging changes for you know target shelf or whatever it is.
Paul Jarrett: 37:09
And I see way too many people that have consumer goods try to just do too many things like retail direct to customer right and the experience. Arguably, in today’s technology, availability for logistics, I would argue the only thing that’s leftover is your brand experience and the experience of the product in their hand. So, like, why are you just doing Amazon FBA like everybody? Why are you doing everything the same way? You know, shopify, amazon, working my tail off to get into target? Like I get a hundred of those calls a day. Right, why not, if you envisioned your product, your healthy vitamin or supplement, for example, and you saw it in the corner store at your place growing up and you saw it in all these independent retailers, like why don’t you go that route? And the reality is that that hasn’t been available. And so now you know to get into 50 independent retailers and sell them one or two bottles of your stuff and to actually execute what they had in their mind originally. Like sometimes people are a little shook by it, you know, and it’s hard to you know.
Paul Jarrett: 38:24
And I just say, like the very first problem that Stephanie and I encountered when we started Boo-Loo Box, which was a sample of vitamins and supplements, the very first problem was we couldn’t get it and deliver it and sell it the way that we wanted to, and it took us eight and 10 years, whatever it’s been, before we actually figured out and learned, thanks to a lot of big brands, how to solve the very first problem that we experienced after crushing two, three PLs. And so the irony of you always hear that and I would say we reluctantly kind of went this route. You know, we always thought we’d be doing more software, but now the unfair advantage is, you know what is it? Steve Case’s third wave, right, like applying technology to the rest of you know, quote unquote boring stuff, right, and it’s pretty cool. Not a lot. It doesn’t take a lot to go pretty far in logistics If you understand how the physical nature of a warehouse works and I think that’s where most of the kind of pandemic you know pop up companies, softwares, whoever’s out there now ship, fill in the blank, I think that’s you know.
Paul Jarrett: 39:36
We kind of knew that’s where they’re going to get the myths of the boat and that’s very apparent now with the hangover pandemic is nobody really considered the people on the floor and we do this podcast and we do our work in the warehouse. We got rid of our corporate office because we want to see it all day, every day. We want to see if our account managers make a change. People here have to work late so they need to plan better and that that, I think, goes so far. And we have an open door policy with our clients.
Paul Jarrett: 40:07
Or just like come to the warehouse you want to. You want to onboard quickly. We’re going to need your help too, so go get your team and come on back and we’re all going to literally roll up our sleeves, we wear dirty clothes and we’re going to onboard your hundred million worth of inventory in the next three days, because we can all do it if we pull together. And that’s just people, you know. They don’t know what to do when you do that and they’re afraid they’re going to lose that. If you know, they ever try to work somewhere else and it’s just yeah, treat the product as if it were your own and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get to where you want to go, and it’s.
Cameron: 40:40
It’s so simple, but it’s very effective One of my clients refers to that as we got to open our kimono, you know, for our own clients and fully transparent and open and come and see the, the facility, come and see the warehouse, come and see import, export all those different things and they can see what’s gone into it and have that full faith that they’re in good hands.
Paul Jarrett: 41:02
Absolutely, and that’s where the gold happens. You hear, you know, you hear them on the conference. Call you, they’ll bring in a retail buyer friend and you ask them questions. And to me, walking around touring the in between moments of like hey, like I’m going to grab lunch, you want me to grab you something? No, I’ll come with you. Actually, hear these insane problems that they’re, you know, never going to come up into meeting. It’s those in between times, conferences, tours, wherever it is. It’s the in between times, and you catch that heavy breath. You go what is that? Tell me about that? And you just ask other people about it and it’s. It’s not hard to find really hard problems, and especially in logistics.
Cameron: 41:39
And therein lies your next solution, because I think a lot of companies make the problem of here’s what we’ve got. We’ve always done X. Let’s just do X better, versus going out and finding problems change over time. Right. So then, being truly innovative to find solutions for those problems. That’s where growth and change come from.
Paul Jarrett: 41:58
Yeah, I’m I’m fascinated with the Apple vision and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get it. And you know, just even a little bit of like we connected some chat GPT is what I started with and just applying a little bit of those I would I almost feel like shame on you If you’re not tinkering with those things in any industry, because if you know the technology curve and how fast things are changing, it’s not like it’s ever been and it’s just exponential technology changes and it’s almost that’s almost a whole nother job. And you, you have to do it, because if you don’t, somebody like Boole is going to go wait a second. We can actually do five PL for three PL rates. Yeah, yeah, we need to say that.
Paul Jarrett: 42:51
Nobody else is saying that. Probably a few other people are doing it, but we need to say that and put our flag in the ground because it’s true and we’ve like earned that privilege, right, and you, but you, just you have to push and you have to. It’s like it’s not just one of those things, it is all of those things combined. And the way I boil it down is I say the work, the work, the work, the people, the people, the people. That that’s what it is, you know, if you really want to bucket it as little amount as possible, that’s. That’s the way I would see it.
Cameron: 43:22
How do those values translate to who you work with, who you hire, who are less than you?
Paul Jarrett: 43:28
Yeah, I am Cameron. I’ve never been more terrified to hire full time people in my life. I’ve, you know, we’ve. We’ve had a saying of like you know, hire fast by a faster. Yeah, yeah, okay, thanks, you know, the people that we have here are here because they’ve, I think, our average 10 years, 8 and a half years. Right, they are here because they’re either former founders, entrepreneurs they’re all people that want and understand what it takes to grow something and we’re going way faster than I thought we’d be going.
Paul Jarrett: 44:05
But, yeah, to be able to hold on to that, I mean it’s not. It’s just not doable, right, when you start to get to hundreds of people. But I would say that we really push hard with like our core values and we ask people to like give us an example. People know like our decisions are based on it. The 5 way win. It’s like for customers, clients, coworkers, co-founders and community. And we understand there’s different levels where you know the community might not see as equal. You know positive responses, you know the co-founders or whatever.
Paul Jarrett: 44:44
But if any of those are ever damaged in a decision making process, we just won’t do it and the result of that is You’re actually giving up a lot of work and I think my wife and I would both agree like, oh, we’re at the stage now where it’s easy to make money, but can you make the right kind of money? Can you make good long term decisions? Can you go to bed at night, you know, being okay with the decisions, and that is incredibly difficult, right, and we don’t want to be Amazon, right, like I don’t want to, you know, at the risk of standing a little bit, you know, terse. You know we’re all worm food in the end. You can’t take it with you.
Paul Jarrett: 45:30
That’s what I think right. So, like, what do you really want? You probably want it on your death, but a lot of people say, hey, that person left it a little bit better than they found it, or they tried. You know, and I think, when you’re truly about the team and about success we’ve never had, oh, we’re super passionate about this project. We’re super passionate, like we almost feel guilty, that we’ve never had that thing. That we’re passionate.
Paul Jarrett: 45:55
But as time has gone by, I’m like the thing that we’re passionate the most about is the team succeeding, whether it’s our clients or where we really believe in that rising tide raises all ships and although you know there isn’t as much financial gain or maybe you just have to wait more until you see the bigger turnout, the mental gain, right, the all the other positive things completely outweigh that financial gain. And it’s like I go up. I always think to myself what do you do if you know that you can build a billion dollar company but you also, deep down inside, you know that it’s probably not worth it? And that’s probably just your ego and it isn’t about you and it’s about your friends and your family and your coworkers. That’s. That’s, I think, the part where you kind of decide professionally what type of people that you’re going to work with.
Cameron: 46:55
Rather than just some arbitrary number that someone else has set for you or feel, hey, you should be shooting for that.
Paul Jarrett: 47:02
Yep, everybody at our company is hunted down constantly by other companies and I’m proud of that and, honestly, like we’ll give somebody severance and a little bit more, no matter what, even if they don’t want to work here. But we’ve probably had the biggest production of entrepreneurs than probably the vast majority of companies, because I probably get a little bit excited when somebody’s like I found this problem, I’m like you did, I’m like go do that thing, you can have an office here. And I don’t know.
Cameron: 47:32
Like nobody did that for us, so I’m just going to embrace that, like some people say well, I’m worried about training my people up too much. Then they leave. Would you rather you don’t train them and they stay? Yeah, yeah.
Cameron: 47:44
And you look at say, like in football, it’s the coaching tree of, say Belichick, they go off and do their own thing. Have success, build a program with business. I like to look at all the other options people have. Now you can go rather than being in a factory or out in a field somewhere. You can go, set up, get by a microphone and an internet connection, bang. You’re often running to do your own thing, whatever it might exactly Exactly.
Paul Jarrett: 48:09
Yep, we have to find people.
Paul Jarrett: 48:12
We have people that have priors and coaching or whatever, but we have to find people that are like, even though we will work remote, like usually the people that do best is they say I have a work remote, I don’t want to work, I’m not a remote worker person, I need to be around people, right, I need to like move around, I need to like figure out hard problems.
Paul Jarrett: 48:30
Those are the people it’s like the biggest people that are kind of the pain in the butt, right, those make the best people at Bulu, because usually what that means is they’re not afraid to go get it and we realize the challenges that come with that. But I think we are truly that company where you just have to believe that if you get behind people and you do all the right things that you know it might not be how you think it should go, but positive does come back and the inverse of that. What we found in scaling if you don’t support growth for people in multiple ways, is this like level of animosity starts building and then people start to not act like they’re authentic selves, right, and that we get a lot of awards for culture. We get recognized at time, because you know, first I say we’re not at Amazon warehouse killing people, so that’s a big plus right.
Paul Jarrett: 49:24
The second is people really do feel like they can be themselves here, and why is that? Because we’re trying to do the best by everybody and they can see that right. And so, yeah, I think there’s just different approaches to different styles of business, and I really am proud and excited with where we’re at now and where we’re headed.
Cameron: 49:45
And employees are not stupid. They can see if it’s genuine right. And it’s like who’s going to be the best ambassador for your brand than a happy employee who loves coming into work, not just for future recruitment, future sales, for future growth, you name it.
Paul Jarrett: 50:00
Yeah, yeah, the amount of people that I hear that are like tell stories about oh, when I worked at Boolean, I’m always like cringe a little bit, but it’s always usually positive and actually a lot of times are like, oh, they said you did this, this and that, well, kind of, but that sounds a little bit cooler. They just wanted to do this thing and we supported it. But, yeah, definitely goes out in the community. And what’s nice is we have a lot of people that want to work here and I would say, at the end of the day, we don’t have any secret to hiring, I would say, most companies. If one out of seven hires is a good thing, you’re doing average. I would say we’re probably more like one out of every three hires, like it’s truly like a cultural, like hardcore, perfect fit. But, like I, we’ve done it all, we’ve done all the tests, we’ve done all the everything and people’s lives change over time. So if you’re, if you’re, hitting one out of three, you’re doing bad.
Paul Jarrett: 50:59
I have a pretty dang good.
Cameron: 51:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m going to ask you one last question before I go. I have a point people to your websites, plural. You’ve got both Boolean group, b U L U group dot com and Paul Jarrett dot com, and then you’ve got the second, more for your, let’s say, speaking engagements.
Paul Jarrett: 51:16
And your personality. You said that Cheat marketing cheap marketing.
Cameron: 51:22
And that’s Jarrett with two T’s. My question is your success, how much do you attribute in you and your wife, let’s say, your success of the company do you attribute to hard work, dedication, and how much is to just good, old fashioned good luck?
Paul Jarrett: 51:40
I would say 90% of our success is. I would classify it as grit, because I don’t care who you are there like, especially you’re doing this entrepreneurial thing or you’re starting something, or whatever. Decade in, you will have those days where you’re just like I can’t get out of bed, I can’t do this anymore. Right, like this normal right, like I’m here to say, like it’s okay and it’s normal. Right Now can you, you know, do what you got to do to get by and then still get up and you know, put one foot in front of the other and I’ll tell you what over the years, that is the one piece of the equation that is always a major part of success is just keep going and you can stop and you can quit, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Paul Jarrett: 52:28
Things change, people change Luck. I would say it’s not even luck. It’s creating those opportunities and knowing which ones to jump on and which ones to say no to. It appears like luck, but a duck on water. Right, the feet are going nuts, but it looks smooth. But yeah, I don’t buy into that luck. I just, you know, you got to, you got always be on, you know and you can. There’s luck around it, everybody. They just don’t see it. You got to be there to spot it and take advantage of it.
Cameron: 53:03
I do love that duck on the water metaphor. It’s fantastic, the water flapping like crazy, yep, yep. Well, paul Jarrett of Bulu, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, that was awesome.
Paul Jarrett: 53:15
Thanks so much. This has been America.
Cameron: 53:16
Open for Business, from your Beat to Be Marketing, and we are yourbeattobemarketingco. We’ll catch you next time. Thanks so much.
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