Darn Good Distributors

They Spent $18,000 on a Mailer and Got $39,000 Back (with Mark Ryan from Plush in a Rush) | Ep. 37

Most distributors spend a lot of time talking about retention. This episode goes the other direction. Kyler Nixon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/] and Mark Ryan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmarkryan/] break down a direct mail acquisition campaign that Plush in a Rush ran to find new florist customers before Valentine's Day. The numbers are specific: 22,000 mailers, $18,000 all in, 130 new sales, $39,000 in revenue, and a gross profit of nearly $21,000 on the campaign alone. Not a loss-leader. Not a bet on future LTV. Profitable on the first swing. The conversation also gets into how Plush in a Rush blends D2C-style tactics into a strict B2B wholesale model, why keeping your minimum order quantity up is a feature not a bug, and where AI fits into a 30-year-old stuffed animal distributor's roadmap. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Mark Ryan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wmarkryan/] is Founder and CEO of William Ryan Group, a Dallas-based B2B brand strategy and research consultancy. His career includes over 30 years working with companies like Exxon, Texas Instruments, American Airlines, and McDonald's. He serves as fractional CMO for Plush in a Rush, a wholesale distributor of stuffed animals founded in 1992, and led the development of their "America's Plush Headquarters" brand positioning. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * How Plush in a Rush built a direct mail campaign targeting florists for their biggest season (Valentine's Day), with a full cost and revenue breakdown: $18,000 spent, $39,000 returned * Why they buy a list of contacts that haven't heard of the company yet, and how they scrub for overlap with their existing email list * What's in the mailer itself: an eight-page, 8.5" x 11" product catalog focused on 50 to 60 Valentine's products, not the full catalog * The first-time buyer offer ($30 off) that doubles as an email opt-in, feeding new customers directly into a Klaviyo welcome series * Why B2B wholesale companies can apply D2C tactics like discount opt-ins and monthly giveaways without losing their B2B identity * The discipline of holding the $150 minimum order quantity and why Plush in a Rush has never broken it to chase retail volume * Todd Steinberg's roadmap for online logo uploading and visual approval for custom-printed t-shirt orders * Kyler's take on building a custom B2B popup tool using Claude Code and Lovable, and why Klaviyo's popup limitations frustrate B2B marketers ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Plush in a Rush [https://www.plushinarush.com/] — wholesale distributor of stuffed animals and plush toys * Klaviyo [https://www.klaviyo.com/] — email marketing platform used for Plush in a Rush's welcome series, seasonal campaigns, and popups * Shopify [https://www.shopify.com/] — e-commerce platform powering the Plush in a Rush website * Lovable [https://lovable.dev/] — AI-powered app builder Kyler used to build a custom B2B popup tool * Claude Code [https://claude.ai/code] — Anthropic's coding tool, also used in building the popup tool * William Ryan Group [https://w-ryan.com/] — Mark Ryan's B2B brand strategy and research consultancy

What Are You the Best in the World At? (with Shane Hollenbaugh from ARCH Cutting Tools) | Ep. 36

When a company grows by acquisition, the obvious risk is fragmentation. Fifteen cutting tool plants, each built by an entrepreneur who spent decades doing things their own way, don't automatically speak the same language. The challenge isn't the products. It's getting every part of the business to pull toward the same outcome. ㅤ That's the problem Kyler Nixon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/] and Shane Hollenbaugh [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-hollenbaugh-a907594/] dig into on this episode. Shane joined ARCH Cutting Tools in October 2025 as Chief Revenue Officer, five months in when this was recorded, and has already added eight new sales reps, established weekly plant-to-salesforce alignment calls, and built a system around one repeating question: what are you the best in the world at? ㅤ The conversation covers how Shane is deploying a salesforce across 15 manufacturing facilities, how platform-based load leveling cut carbide lead times to two to three weeks against an industry average of ten to twelve, and what actually separates a sales hire that wins from one that doesn't. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Shane Hollenbaugh [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-hollenbaugh-a907594/] is the Chief Revenue Officer at ARCH Cutting Tools [https://www.archcuttingtools.com], a U.S.-based manufacturer of high-speed steel, tungsten carbide, PCD, and CBN cutting tools with 15 manufacturing facilities across the eastern United States. Shane brings nearly 30 years in the cutting tool industry, including 14 years at MAPAL and 11 years at YG-1 as Executive Director of Sales before taking on the CRO role at ARCH in October 2025. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * How ARCH's acquisition model created a multi-plant alignment challenge and what Shane built in his first five months to address it * The "best in the world at" framework: why "we're good at everything" is a non-answer, and how pushing business unit managers to name one specialty changes how a salesforce gets deployed * Platform-based load leveling across ANCA, Walter, and Rollomatic grinding plants and how that gets carbide lead times to two to three weeks when the rest of the industry runs ten to twelve * The one interview question Shane asks every sales candidate, and what their body language tells him before they even finish answering * Why a candidate who asks about after-hours time during an interview is already raising a red flag, and what questions signal someone who actually wants to learn * The two rules Shane's first mentor drilled into him thirty years ago, including why being good at golf is grounds for termination ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * ARCH Cutting Tools [https://www.archcuttingtools.com] - ARCH's website, products, and rep locator * Shane Hollenbaugh on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-hollenbaugh-a907594/] - Kyler specifically calls out Shane's LinkedIn presence as worth following

Why 10,000 Products Doesn't Mean You Start with Products (with Amanda Clark from Barron Equipment) | Ep. 35

Most distributors know they need better SEO. Very few have actually built a process around it. This episode goes deep on what it really takes: the wrong moves that cost money, the weighted analysis that told one distributor where to start, and why knowing your products is a prerequisite for any of it to work. ㅤ Kyler Nixon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/] sits down with Amanda Clark [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-m-clark-a75a03136/] of Barron Equipment Company to trace her journey from copying manufacturer content onto a new website to growing organic traffic by nearly 3,000% in seven years. They cover the weighted analysis framework Barron uses to prioritize which products to optimize first, how to build internal buy-in for SEO investment before the data exists, and why the relationship with your manufacturer vendors is a direct competitive advantage. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Amanda Clark [https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-m-clark-a75a03136/] is Marketing Manager at Barron Equipment Company, a material handling distributor headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, founded in 1979. Barron serves Iowa and parts of Illinois and Nebraska, supplying everything from casters and dock equipment to industrial overhead doors. Amanda has been with Barron since 2018, driving the company's SEO, e-commerce, and content strategy. She holds a degree from the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why copying manufacturer product descriptions onto your website is a duplicate content risk, and what to do instead * The weighted analysis Barron built to decide which of their thousands of products to optimize first, factoring in margin, sales cycle, and keyword opportunity * How optimizing the industrial doors category page took Barron from one contact form per week to 12 per day * Why category and collection pages are lower lift and higher return than individual product pages for SEO * How Amanda built internal buy-in for SEO investment before she had hard data to back it up * The vendor relationship strategy Barron uses to stay ahead on new products, co-op funding, and content differentiation * Why product H1 naming matters, and how to use Semrush and Keywords Everywhere to find the name your customers actually search * Why web personas drive better content structure, from spec tables for engineers to different image types for safety managers * Why SEO principles carry directly into AEO, GEO, and LLM-driven search ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Barron Equipment Company [https://www.barroneq.com/] * Semrush [https://www.semrush.com/] * Keywords Everywhere [https://keywordseverywhere.com/] * Screaming Frog [https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/] * Ahrefs [https://ahrefs.com/] * WooCommerce [https://woocommerce.com/]

The Loyalty Program That's Been Running for 11 Years, And Nobody's Copying It (with Nick Haertel from SupplyHouse.com) | Ep. 34

Most B2B distributors hear "loyalty program" and think DTC. SupplyHouse.com built one anyway — and it's been running for over a decade. Kyler Nixon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/] sits down with Nick Haertel [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-haertel-b6a11821/], Director of Growth Marketing at SupplyHouse.com, to break down the TradeMaster Program: what it is, who it's for, and how it powers retention across every owned channel the company has. ㅤ The conversation covers TradeMaster's core benefits — free shipping, free returns, SKU-level discounts, and a dedicated customer service line — and then goes deep on the multi-channel strategy SupplyHouse runs to keep TradeMasters active: email, SMS, direct mail, surprise-and-delight gifting, and a brand-new inside sales team. The big idea: when a customer gets 10x as many touchpoints as they'd get from a competitor, there's really no contest for who wins the repeat order. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Nick Haertel [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-haertel-b6a11821/] is Director of Growth Marketing at SupplyHouse.com, a pure-play e-commerce distributor of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical supplies serving over 7 million customers across the U.S. Before joining SupplyHouse, Nick spent several years at Uline as Director of Digital Marketing — one of the most sophisticated catalog and direct mail operations in the country. He holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * What the TradeMaster Program actually is — and why it's built for trades pros, not typical B2B buyers * How SupplyHouse uses first-party loyalty data to show TradeMaster-specific pricing in Google Ads — and why paying to retain existing customers is a calculated call, not a mistake * The two-track email strategy: a longer welcome journey for new members who haven't purchased yet, and a faster re-engagement sequence for customers showing drop-off behavior * Why SupplyHouse measures TradeMaster success as a rolling one-year unique buyer file — not just opens or clicks * How Nick thinks about SMS in B2B: start with transactional texts, let customers opt into what they want, and accept that the timing and cadence rules from email don't apply * The direct mail playbook: predicting lifetime value from a customer's first order (SKU type, order size, cross-category behavior) to decide who gets a TradeMaster invitation piece * Why SupplyHouse launched both a dedicated loyalty team and an inside sales team in the same year — and why those two functions are designed to work together * Kyler's synthesis of the full strategy: retention is about touchpoints, and distributors sitting on large house files are already holding the advantage ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * SupplyHouse.com TradeMaster Program [https://www.supplyhouse.com/trademaster] * Darn Good Distributors Episode 11 - Kristen Dean, Universal Companies [https://www.darngooddistributors.com] (SMS in B2B — referenced in conversation)

Do What You Say You're Gonna Do (with Jeff Buster from Buster's Industrial Supply) | Ep. 33

Most sales playbooks tell you to follow the script, hit the cadence, and move to the next number. Jeff Buster did it that way for a while, too - until he stopped, started just being himself, and became one of the top sales reps in the nation at one of the world's largest industrial MRO companies. ㅤ Kyler Nixon [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/] sits down with Jeff Buster [https://www.linkedin.com/in/busters/], Owner and President of Buster's Industrial Supply in Fort Worth, Texas, to talk about what it actually takes to build relationships that last 20 years. Jeff walked away from a corporate career, started his own company in 2015, and has been taking market share in the DFW industrial market ever since - without a big ad budget or a national account team. ㅤ The conversation covers the founding moment Jeff describes as getting fed up making the right call for a customer and getting reprimanded for it, why VMI now makes up 70-80% of Buster's revenue, and how Jeff approaches direct sourcing and building a proprietary product line on top of a distribution business. ㅤ 👤 Guest Bio Jeff Buster [https://www.linkedin.com/in/busters/] is the Owner and President of Buster's Industrial Supply [https://www.bustersindustrial.com], a Fort Worth-based MRO distributor he founded in 2015 after nearly two decades in industrial sales. Buster's serves fleet, automotive, construction, manufacturing, and government customers across the DFW area, offering 50,000+ line items, VMI programs, custom product development, and a proprietary branded product line. The company was voted "Best of Industrial Equipment Suppliers" Fort Worth 2024. ㅤ 📌 What We Cover * Why Jeff ditched the corporate sales script - and how going off-book turned him into a national top rep * The moment he told his employer to get bent and launched Buster's Industrial Supply the same day * How showing up to a customer who said "we can't buy from you" ten times eventually turned into running their entire department with several thousand SKUs * Why VMI accounts for 70-80% of Buster's business and why that model still wins against national competitors * The stair-step approach to deciding whether to one-off a product, stock it for one customer with a purchasing agreement, or bring it into the full lineup * Quarterly warehouse turns as the core inventory health metric - and why that discipline protects profitability * Going direct to overseas factories for sourcing, preferring DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) to sidestep customs complexity, and why product knowledge is the real barrier * The Buster's Industrial private label product line - including a reverse-engineered non-acid concrete dissolver built to solve a real customer problem ㅤ 🔗 Resources Mentioned * Buster's Industrial Supply [https://www.bustersindustrial.com] * Jeff Buster on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/busters/] * Kyler Nixon on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylernixon/]