From Field to Factory: Tools Built by Feedback with Omni Cubed | EP. #187

Merv Campbell 00:03
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're a product development company, so we have a number of engineers. We always keep our ear to the ground. So like trade shows and even these forums are very vital for us to like, listen and learn that's our I'd say that's one of our greatest assets online, is listening.

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Andrew Maff 01:55
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the E comm show. As usual. I am your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the amazing Carmit, who is the CEO over at Ship4wd. Carmit, how you doing? You doing? You ready for a good show?

Merv Campbell 02:06
I'm ready for a good show!

Andrew Maff 02:08
Super excited to have you on the show. I already love your attitude, which is great. That always makes it that much better. I love starting these off. Yes, I love starting these off relatively stereotypically. So just get tell us a little bit about your background, where you like, where you started your career, how you got into Omni Cubed, where you guys are at. We'll take it from there. Okay?

Merv Campbell 02:27
So probably by my accent already, I'm not from America, so I actually, I'm born, I'm born and bred in Northern Ireland. Lived there for 34 years. Started my career as an aeronautical engineer with Bombardier there. Obviously, we all know what happened with September 11, and sadly, a lot of people lost their jobs, and I was one of them. And then took a kind of dark career change into welding fabricating, and then ended up building double decker buses for 12 years. So did that. My wife's originally from the States. She's from placebo here in California. So we had two kids in Ireland, and we thought, hey, let's make the move. So came over here. We've been here now over nine years, which is hard to believe. Love it here. Had a third kid. Just absolutely love California. The weather is fantastic. People complain about like, hey, when you've lived in the rain for 34, years, you're allowed to cry out a little bit, for sure. So no. And then about nine years ago, was approached by the company here to come. Had no idea why, but then was offered a job through some family, friends and stuff, and I've been here over nine years, and absolutely love it, an absolutely fantastic company to work for. Great family feel wonderful core values, all moving in the one direction. And, yeah, that's basically my background of where I came from and why I'm here.

Andrew Maff 03:59
So, tell me about Omni Cubed. What, What is it that, you know, tell us some insight into the product line, why you guys kind of got started in there, and then let's take it from there,

Merv Campbell 04:10
So there's four owners. They are two married families. So there's one family that's got a husband wife, and also another husband and wife on this side. And they came together about 22 years ago, they've been friends. They'd went through the two men had been through college, different things, and so they came, they started working together, and then they're like, Hey, let's start a business. And so they saw a need in the market for a certain type of product. They made that product, which at that time was the lamp lamp. So we make products for the stone industry. Now we do it for glass and tile, but then it was primarily stone. And so they made what was called a lamp lamp. They made it in their garage, or their garage, as I like to say, and started fabricating, making them. And then they would get in their truck, and they would drive everywhere, across as much of California as they could possibly hit trying to sell this product. It was a slow burner. And then they had a kind of eureka moment when they went to a trade show in Las Vegas, and it just exploded from that. And so we now are the beneficiaries of that 22 years later, we're a thriving company. We're growing, not without difficulties in the last number of years, obviously, with COVID and all that good stuff, but we are growing, and we just hired a couple of new people last month. We're looking to hire some more this month, and so the company's definitely moving in the right direction, thank goodness. But yeah, we are so grateful for our four owners for sticking it out those those hard and difficult years, and now we get to reap the reward. So.

Andrew Maff 05:52
So how are you finding like your target customers? Obviously, you're not going door to door like you once were, but sounds like you did some trade shows. But what's the other approach? Because I know it's primarily a B2B, E-commerce play, correct?

Merv Campbell 06:03
So we have, we have what's called distributors. So we have guys and gals who we ship product to, and then they, they kind of, obviously, they get a cut of it, they get their share. But then they are the ones who have all of the insight, all the context they've got their little black book that's full of people, they're able to call them up. And so that's, that's about 90% of the business they do. Like just a shout out to them. They do a phenomenal job for us. Our distributors are amazing. We cannot be where we are without them. And so we're very thankful for them. We always push people that direction simply because they have that relationship. And we kind of just fell in the cracks wherever it's needed on our website, so people call up they're looking for something. We normally send them out to the distributor, and if they're like, well, there's no one in my region who I talk to, then we'll take that up. But yeah, it's, it's primarily distributors.

Andrew Maff 06:03
Interesting. So usually you kind of see that, not exactly 100% flipped around, but usually you see it, it's, it's a little bit more D2C, and then you know, the supplemental of it is the distributor side. So why? Why lean in so much on the distributors, as opposed to kind of go in the D2C route?

Merv Campbell 07:23
Simply because we actually don't have a dedicated sales team. We have. We rely on our distributors. We rely on their sort of area that they can fill out. And they're like, United States huge. Like, I'm like, I'm a little guy from Ireland, and it takes me six hours to go from top to bottom. I can do that in California, like three times over. It's still not at the bottom. So there's just just a wider range. There's a lot more people there, well established, and with being in the stoning industry, a lot of people will buy consumables. So they'll buy, like their tapes, their polishing pads, whatever else. Well, that's a wonderful time to say, hey, you need a new cart? Do you need an Omni Cubed, Aqua Jaws, any sort of stuff like that? So they can, they can help facilitate that. So they do a really good job at following up so they get a lead, blah, blah, blah, they'll follow up with it. And so, yeah, that's beautiful, really, how it works.

Andrew Maff 08:26
What? What would you say is, like, kind of that big struggle, like, what's the if they're the ones doing a lot of the lifting, they're the ones handling most of the sales, you really need relatively limited marketing, because they're, they're the ones that are pretty much boots on the ground. So are you doing anything in terms of building that brand awareness to help them make the sale? And you're just funneling them leads? Or what's that process?

Merv Campbell 08:53
So how we, how we do it, as we look at it, as we're the marketing team, so no one knows the tools like we do. We make them like we. I have a machine shop just the other side of this wall. We have an assembly department that's everything together. So we know how the products are built. We know how to market them. So we take that portion upon ourselves. Not to say those guys don't do their own thing, but for our products, I'd say like 90, 90% of it the marketing is done by us. We do LinkedIn posts, we do social posts, we do email blasts, and we do as much marketing as you possibly can. And then that generates things, then for the distributors so on, like an email blast that goes out, there'll be a tab on it, find your local distributor, put it in, obviously, to your zip code, and then you're good to go. But we do a lot of the marketing ourselves. One thing we are pushing out at the minute is training for all these sales people. So we're setting up webinars. We're setting up one on one times where we can use our knowledge to help them become more omnified, and then in due course, then as they go to different installs, or they go to different customers, they're able to use that information and sell the product.

Andrew Maff 10:11
So oddly enough, this space I'm wildly familiar with. Not really sure how I got into it. Mine is, it's been in the flooring space. I've worked with like commercial HVAC companies or vacuum companies. I've worked with commercial like concrete grinding companies and things like that. So very interesting space. The one thing I always learned about it, at least especially with the concrete grinder guys, it, they're, they're like, it's like, a the camaraderie in the group is, it's like, hanging out with the guys where they're like, they're all like, oh yeah, nice job. Who did that for you? Like, it sucks. Like, they it's hilarious to stay in like, one of their Facebook groups or something like that. Is there, is there something like that, similar to this audience that's still kind of like in the tile side, or like in any of the glass or stone or anything.

Merv Campbell 11:05
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different, I'm laughing, but there's a lot of different forums and a lot of different like chat rooms and things you can go into. There's the SFA, there's all Slav fathers, there's the NGA, there's laser nation, there's there's a lot of different areas you can go to, and a lot of it boils down to, what I find really encouraging in this section is they want to help each other, and a lot of other different areas. It's all like hidden say, for instance, you learned how to do something. Let's cut a piece of granite. It's difficult, it's hard. There's feeds and speeds, there's blades, there's all of that. A lot of times on those forums, they'll actually just, hey, I cut this. Here's what blade I used. I messed up, but I found out this was a better speed. And they actually help each other, which coming from, where I'm from, and even building the buses, there was so much like, hidden stuff. There was so much secrecy. Don't tell anyone how you do it, in case it gets out, like, all right, whatever it's, it's, it's a bus. It's not a rocket ship. But anyways, but at least in the stone industry, there is that it's like, brothers in arms. I see that a lot. I'm seeing with blazers. There's a lot of Blazers who will just freely give up information, like, even where they're like, buying things and getting good deals, they'll happily give that up. Tile. Tile guys are the same. They're like, hey, Floor & Decor has a sale on X, Y and Z. Go check it out. Or maybe they buy something. They get a coupon. They don't need it. They'll put it up there, and someone else can use it. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of, a lot of camaraderie. They do like to rip each other quite a bit. So if there's like, if there's like, seams or something that's a little bit off. They'll always be like, who in the world did that seriously, guys, this is a disaster. Yeah? So no, it's, it's a lot of fun. It can get. There are times where it gets a little hot and heavy, but especially one thing at the minute is machines, like CNC machines that go down and trying to get an attack out to service them. A lot of them will get on there and then at whoever the saw manufacturers, and then just roast them. That's, that's funny to watch. I get my little bucket of popcorn to start watching to see what are these comments going to be? But no, for the most part, it's, it's really, yeah, it's a good humor.

Andrew Maff 13:43
It's always, I've always found that, like, if you can get into an industry that has groups like that, it makes it so much easier, because once you can get in, you can prove out that, you know, we sell quality product and things are, you know, there's nothing fishy going on here. It's guys like that that are in these groups that will all of a sudden, the next thing you know, you're selling hundreds, 1000s of units or whatever, just because someone made the post about it, and they're in one of those groups. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's the, what's the move going forward, right? Like, obviously, you mentioned you kind of started off in glass, you expanded from there. But, like, what? What are you guys doing to keep Omni Cubed moving?

Merv Campbell 14:21
So we are at the very heart of what we do. We're a product development company, so we have a number of engineers. We always keep our ear to the ground. So like trade shows and even these forums are very vital for us to like, listen and learn. That's our I'd say that's one of our greatest assets online, is listening. So there's a concern, there's an issue, there's a Hey, does anybody have a tool or know what, how to make this? Or blah, blah, blah. And then we'll kind of be like, Hey, give us a couple of months. Let us try to prototype something. Yeah, and so at the very heart, we are an engineering company, and so we're constantly innovating. Me and the CEO this morning, we're just talking about, you know, it's, it's such a there's such a range of our tools, and they keep getting, like, tweaked and changed for the better, because we listen to the installers, which is like, so, so important. So that is, that's a great asset to have in a company. And so at the very heart is that, so to push on from that, then you're making new products. You're listening to people. Everything is getting heavier and heavier. So stone, they're going bigger, they're going thicker, it's heavier, it's the same of glass. Actually, some of the glass that's going into buildings is made overseas, simply because the US won't allow them to make such big pieces in the States, just because of the facilities and the factories and things like that. So a lot of it shipped in from Germany. So it's getting ridiculous the size of some of this stuff. And so as that change, we have to adapt. Okay, our carts, they're rated for 1000 pound. Well, that's labs now 1200 so what are we going to do about it? So that's how we adapt. We have to be able to kind of move and jive with the times, because if you get stuck in something, yeah, a little bit of trouble.

Andrew Maff 16:33
Yeah I guess I can see that. Did you guys have issues with I mean, as of this recording, which is, we're doing this in mid May, by the time it goes out, who knows, but tariffs, were they an issue for you? Did it cause any problems? Based on that face, I'm assuming, so

Merv Campbell 16:52
It caused sleepless nights. Let me tell you. It's like you're going, what's happening? Like, seriously? Can someone, can someone like set me down and just explain and go, Okay, just calm down. Everything's going to be all right. It did hit us hard. We worked through it. We have really good vendors, because we have a good supply chain. That's one of the great benefits, that COVID was everything else sucked, but that made us as a company try to find multiple depths of vendors, which was very important, because sadly, some people went out business just with everything, not because the tariffs, but this last year and kind of the six months previous, just a dip that the economy took and how hard it wasn't people and so, yeah, tariffs were fun. Very fun because we ship International, so we don't just do the US. We're in Canada, we're in Europe, we're in the UK, we're in Australia. So that was fun. That's a lot of fun, times, a lot of phone calls. But we were able, we're able to get through it. And, you know, thankfully, as we do this recording, things are starting to ease off a little bit, and there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

Andrew Maff 18:13
By the time it comes out. What, um, one of my favorite things, obviously, to talk about, because of my own background, the marketing side. So you mentioned, obviously, you guys are kind of basically like the marketing company for it. What do you lean in on? Is it mostly social? Is it SEO? Is it email, Google advertising, like what? What do you see? Tends to work the best for you.

Merv Campbell 18:32
I think all of them. I wouldn't it's hard for us to pick one out. I love social posts, just because we can do, like, a quick video, we can do a picture, it can be uploaded, and boom, it's out there. Email blasts. You've got to be, you know, make sure that everything's correct and how it should be, spelling and grammar and all the rest, which is fine, but that's kind of more time consuming. Seo, vitally important, vitally important, constantly looking at that, tweaking it, and then correlating that to like a blog post, like, what are the words? What are the keywords we're missing? Let's make sure that that's working on there. I find the algorithms with a lot of like, especially LinkedIn at the minute. It's like, it's frying my brain. I'm like, I thought I had it cracked, but then they changed the rules. And you're like, Well, I'm starting from ground zero, but a lot of that's good, but I would say social with kind of more videos like quick, you know, 30 second in and out, done. Tech tops the big thing, obviously, at the minute, but for sure, definitely, those quick informational here's why you would buy it, here's how you buy it, and done, and then move on.

Andrew Maff 19:51
Are you doing advertising on any of those channels?

Merv Campbell 19:55
We do, we do, we do Google ads. We had paused a little bit. We're going to take that back up. Obviously, on Facebook, we have different stuff, but it's so hard because there's certain times where you'll put an ad up, and the next thing Facebook wants to close you down, and you're like, there's nothing to help people. It's to keep them safe. What in the world is going on, but you just said the wrong word at the wrong time, and so you're like, Ah, come on. But no, it's, it's, that's, it's interesting to see just how things change, even with different platforms, and then just sit back and watch.

Andrew Maff 20:35
yeah, no, we've seen in similar industries yours, the meta ad side can work really well. It's very interesting. Like, you would think that it's not because a lot of brands think like, oh, it's B2B. This has to be LinkedIn or Google or something like that. But that whole like, kind of gated content concept of like, here's, you know, download a checklist or PDF or whatever, and get their contact and then work them as time goes on. Love that. So I assume you're creating your own video and stuff, probably in the back room there is that what you're talking about? Awesome.

Merv Campbell 21:07
Yeah. It's called an iPhone 16 on a video on its Merv tells a story of tools.

Andrew Maff 21:47
Love it.

Merv Campbell 21:14
So, the classics, absolutely. Yeah, no, they actually work the best. We have gone away from them from a while, and kind of done more like voiceovers and they were kind of polished for us in our industry. That doesn't work. You got, again, a show. You got to show the tool and operation, the grittiness off it, how it works. The guys don't care if it's all shiny, brand new and polished and dirty. Exactly, first time they bring it out of the box, it's like, oh, my, watch this thing. It's not so, yeah, it's cool.

Andrew Maff 21:47
Merv, this was awesome. I really appreciate all the time you spent with us. I'd love to give you the opportunity let everyone know where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about Omni Cubed.

Merv Campbell 21:56
Awesome. You go online, you can find us @omnicubed.com that's our website. Everything's on there, information, all of our tools, where to buy. Everything lives on our website. If you're on there, you can find me. You can find my number. If you ever someone wants to call talk, if they have a predicament they're trying to figure out, how do I install with this type of material on here, just hook us up, give us a phone call, and then following on social platforms like find us, like it's just Omni Cubed. So we're on LinkedIn, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram and Tiktok, so on YouTube Shorts, I always forget about we're on there too. So, yeah, go. Go check them out. We have a lot of pro overview videos that muggins hears on that kind of in more depth about the tools, so you get to learn a little bit more. Those are on YouTube, but yeah, go on our website. Check us out. See who we are. We'd love to talk to whomever it may be.

Andrew Maff 22:55
Merv, thanks so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Everyone that tuned in. Do the usual rate review, subscribe, all that fun stuff and whichever podcast platform you bring, platform you prefer, or head over to the Ecomm show.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. See you all next time. Have a good one.

Narrator 23:12
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