Speaker 1 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Mararchi and we're here today. We have a special guest with us today, tracy Margol, who is a colleague of mine and works for a company called Pactif, who sells all kinds of food service supplies, and they are a good supplier of RJ Schinner, and Tracy and I work together very closely and I felt it would be a great first guest for the Toilet Paper Salesman podcast to have Tracy on board, and so I'd like to introduce you to Tracy Markall. Tracy, how are you today?

Speaker 2 0:56

Great Thanks for having me on your podcast.

From Medical Field to Manufacturing

Speaker 1 0:58

Well, the way this started out was we were talking about gardening, which is something that we're going to get into today, but I also wanted to talk to you, tracy, about your career path, where you started from, how you got to where you are, some of your philosophy on success and some things like that. So why don't you just give us an idea of how you got into this business and how you got started?

Speaker 2 1:23

Sure. So let me start way back at the beginning. When I came out of college, I was actually in the medical field, and in the end of my days in the medical field I was a traveling trainer and I would set up our ERP systems and I would travel and train people. They had me on the road and it was at the point where I had two little kids at home and I would drive an hour to work every day to these locations. I got to the point where I think I probably couldn't get home to one of my children when they were sick, and so I decided to take a look at getting off the road and doing something different.

Speaker 2 2:04

And I had been with this company for about eight years, so I thought I would do a practice interview. And so, way back when I decided to do this, I actually went through the newspaper and found a couple ads of something I thought would be safe to go in and just do a practice interview. One of them happened to be a local company called Fabrikal. I went in and I loved the company so much that I took a leap of faith, changed industries and went into manufacturing. That's where I have been for the last. Let's see, I think this is my 25th year, so that's kind of my story.

Speaker 1 2:41

That is incredible because when I started my first position out of college with a company called Mainwright Steak Company, I already had a job locked up in food service management and my professor convinced me to take this interview. So it was a practice interview. She said you could take the interview for practice, it'll be good for you. And I ended up going to work for them, and so it's crazy how that works out, right.

Speaker 2 3:08

Yeah, it's funny how that happens and you know, I like the people so well and I think even in this little practice interview I interviewed with seven different people. I just wanted to work there and it was a big change for me, but you know, it worked out very well. At Fabricale I started out managing and customer service and pricing. That was a great experience. It was a smaller company and so we were able to wear a lot of hats. We interacted with quite a few people. After that I went into product management. For about 14 years. I was able to.

Speaker 2 3:42

What's product management? So product management in a company like Fabricale I manage the product, all of our food service product lines, and so I took things from business case to commercialization. On new items, I ran all the projects for all of our custom corrugate programs, from the, you know, the ProPak for IMA to Firstmark to Companions brand. I was able to or very fortunate to go out with our national account team and show new products to customers and that helped with commercialization. And then I ran all the product line strategies, price strategies for all of our food service items.

Speaker 1 4:19

You know what's interesting about interviewing when you're practicing? You really have no pressure right, so there's no neediness on your part. You're going there just to practice and you're probably interviewed incredibly well, because to you you're just practicing.

Speaker 2 4:36

Yeah, you're exactly right, it takes the pressure off and it's easier to kind of control the flow of it. And yeah, that's a very good point.

Speaker 1 4:45

So how did you get into sales?

Transitioning to Sales and Cold Calling

Speaker 2 4:46

Further on in my career, after 14 years of product management, my kids were. I had two kids in college and one getting ready to go and I decided it was a time to make a bit of a change. I had the opportunity to go out so often with our sales team. I figured I'd give it a try. They created a position for me without a territory which was a little intimidating the opportunity to go out so often with our sales team I figured I'd give it a try. They created a position for me without a territory which was a little intimidating, and it took out everything I knew about food service. They put me in Canada. I didn't know the Canadian market. We didn't have any of our food service management programs, any of our national programs to kind of fall back on, to work on growing that volume up there. And it worked out quite well. I did a lot of cold calling, I did a lot of flying into Toronto and, yeah, it was a great experience until COVID hit.

Speaker 1 5:36

So is it accurate to say that you greenfielded Canada for Fabrikal?

Speaker 2 5:41

I did. I did in national accounts, yes, and I had success and I think I opened up. We didn't have, I think we had a redistributor up there and that was it. We didn't have a Gordon Food Service program, a Cisco program, but I opened three Cisco houses through business and we were allocated on greenware items at that time so I couldn't sell that up in Canada items at that time, so I couldn't sell that up in Canada. Yeah, it was a good way to get into sales and to get through the pains of true cold calling. It was a fun experience and at the end of that they also gave me the Texas market too, of all places. So I call them my two countries, texas and Canada.

Speaker 1 6:18

That's a pretty big difference between calling in Canada and Texas, correct?

Speaker 2 6:22

Yes, but at least I was familiar with the national accounts in the Texas market. But Canada, yeah, there was a lot of learning to be had.

Speaker 1 6:30

That's incredible when you're making cold calls. What did you find to be your biggest challenge?

Speaker 2 6:35

The biggest challenge was not having any distribution up there and trying to open a business where we did not have distribution relationships and trying to to figure out how to get those cases to flow with enough volume to make that happen. That's quite challenging.

Speaker 1 6:50

I mean, it's one thing to Greenfield, you know when at RJ, when we Greenfield at the Northeast, it's a little easier because we had distribution centers in Columbus, in North Carolina supporting our efforts.

Speaker 2 7:03

And then we opened up in Bethlehem.

Speaker 1 7:05

That's a lot easier than opening in Canada.

Speaker 2 7:08

Yeah, I didn't have any foundationals, and so that was a challenge. And the other challenge I was also calling on BPG or Consumer Package Goods accounts too, and I called on one of their largest yogurt manufacturers in Canada and it was in Quebec, and so then you add a language barrier because I don't speak French, and that was a bit of a challenge, but that was a fun one too. That was exciting.

Speaker 1 7:34

That's a great story.

Speaker 2 7:35

Yeah, so no, those are very, very good experiences, definitely.

Company Acquisition and New Challenges

Speaker 1 7:39

Awesome. After 2020, Fabrikow was sold to Paktiv. When did that actually happen? Do you remember?

Speaker 2 7:45

Well, I remember when I got the news it was in September, because we had just sent our daughter off to college, so it was September 1st. I think it was final in that October, and then we started transitioning in that December I think it was 21, just coming into 2022.

Speaker 1 8:00

Yes, so, moving in from Fabrikow, where you had a rich history for 25 years, right, yes, into a brand new organization which was definitely more corporate, how was the transition from family owned company to corporate and what did you find your biggest challenges there?

Speaker 2 8:16

So for me it was interesting because I was transitioned into they put me on a I don't know almost a task force team to help other sales folks transition. I had a lot of experience at Fabrikal and they put me on as a go-to person. But it also took me out of a direct sales role and so it put me in a position to learn systems and it put me in a position to start to write some training documents, which helped. I think one of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out who to go to when you needed support. I definitely spent some time doing that.

Speaker 2 8:51

I did that I'm trying to think about six months and then I went out as a territory sales manager in the Chicago market. When you go from less than 1,000 products to 14,000 products, it's just very, very intimidating to try to obtain that knowledge quickly about those products, learn a new system as far as pricing is concerned. So, yeah, it was a lot but fortunately for me, being in the role that they put me in, I was able to learn all the systems quickly because it was something I had access to all the time when I did go back out into a sales capacity. It kind of put me ahead of the game a little bit, which was very helpful.

Speaker 1 9:33

Because you were able to work in so many different departments within Fabrikow. How did that help you when you transitioned over to Pactif? Did you go back to some of those things that you've learned at Fabrikow and how did that help you in your transition?

Speaker 2 9:48

I mean that was very, very beneficial. I knew how to get around a pricing system, you know, and without list pricing, you know how to actually create a price structure or a price plan. It gave me a leg up on just being a product manager forever. You know, once you understand products, once you understand resins and capabilities, you can apply that across all kinds of product lines. That was very beneficial. Again, being inside for a little while, I got to know a lot of people and this company has a lot of amazing people, and so once you start to understand who your go-tos are, that is helpful. And then, taking that knowledge that I had from being very cross-functional at Fabrikil, again you can apply that across many companies, and so that was very helpful.

Speaker 1 10:36

The lesson is especially for people who are younger and just starting out in their careers. They might be in a career spot or in a position where they're thinking to themselves what the heck am I doing here? Where is this going to lead me? How is this going to help me? What's the benefit of this position? And I think the fact of the matter is that every position that you have along the way is certainly beneficial, because you're learning different aspects of the business, no matter what you're doing. The message is no matter where you are, learn as much as you can about that position, because you never know how that's going to apply later on down in life, Because if you become a CEO and you're running a company, it's really important to understand all the positions really well. And even though it seems like you're toiling right now in a certain position, that doesn't mean that that's where you're going to end up.

Speaker 2 11:25

Well, it's time and patience too. And sometimes young folks come in and I've got three kids in their 20s now and they want to keep moving quickly, quickly, and I keep telling them just, you have so much to learn where you're at. I mean, you think about our business, even understanding, food service management, redistribution, group purchasing there's so much to learn and there's so many layers. So much of that just comes with time and exposure and experience. You know we make mistakes along the way and we certainly. You know you take those learnings and apply them and you're right the next time.

Speaker 1 11:58

It's true. And the younger generation? There's no doubt they want to move quick.

Gardening as a Passion Project

Speaker 2 12:03

Yes.

Speaker 1 12:04

I think a lot of companies have challenges with that because the younger generation tends to jump. You know they'll go to somewhere else to try to get to a better position if they don't feel like they're moving fast enough for them. So there's a balancing act that companies really are challenged with right now of keeping younger people and giving them new things to do and keeping them engaged, but yet not putting them in a position where they're really not ready for it yet. And I think that's why a lot of people say well, you can't find good people anymore. You can't find good young people who are willing to work. I completely disagree with that. We have multiple and you know who they are on our team who are young and do a tremendous job. They're really hard workers and they're great workers. But there is definitely a difference now in the employees. You know I sat in a position for almost 30 years. You were at Fabrikal for 25 years. That really doesn't happen now. It's much different.

Speaker 2 13:02

Yeah, you don't see that very often and I think so many times too. You know it's important to give folks cross-functional opportunities which gives them exposure, and sometimes just being a part of some of those groups or projects it's learning, it's exciting and it seems like you know opportunity too, and I think that that helps to keep people motivated to stay, to feel like you know they're doing some different things, and so I think that helps too.

Speaker 1 13:30

Let's talk about some hobbies. We talked about gardening a little bit, and I know you like to garden and I'm into gardening as well, although I'm probably newer than you are at it. Help me to understand how you got into gardening and what that's like for you.

Speaker 2 13:44

Five years ago we decided to move out of the suburbs into the country, so we've got about five acres of land out here and I inherited some amazing flower beds Out of necessity. And it's not that I didn't know how to garden, you know, I definitely needed to learn how to take care of these beautiful flower beds that I did not want to wreck and that would be pretty sad. And so, on top of that, when I grew up, my dad always had a garden. I decided out here we had so much land we wanted to put in a garden, and so we started with raised garden beds. I've got about 12 of them, and so it's not a huge garden, but it's fun. This is my third year with it, and so I am a new gardener when it comes to vegetables, definitely, but it was kind of fun.

Speaker 2 14:33

We built up those garden beds with. We took logs just short logs we stood them off and you put those in your garden beds and they act almost like a sponge. They keep the moisture underneath your garden bed and then you start to build it out with. We mulch our leaves and we put them in a pile. So when we're ready to get the beds ready, we use that, and we also have a small bucket that we put all of our compost in, and so we utilize that too. I don't know if it's putting all that together, but I certainly had some very, very. These last three crops have been very fruitful, if you will, so it's fun. I get really excited and my kids laugh because I get all my seed packets out and it's too early to plant, but I love going over them.

Speaker 1 15:15

Yeah, I agree. When you were young and your dad had a garden my dad had a garden as well Were you involved in that? Did you help him, or were you just kind of an observer?

Speaker 2 15:25

I did. I always liked to go out and he was never real particular. Some people love to get every last weed out of there. He just he let things go the way they did and he always had a very bountiful garden and he taught me how to can too, and so he would can a lot of fruits and vegetables, and so I have all of his equipment now and I've carried that on, probably can way more than what we need, but I also love to give it away. It's just, it's fun. I think it's a dying thing. You know, not a lot of people do that anymore.

Speaker 1 15:55

Yeah, it's actually starting to gain more popularity. I think more people are starting to do it, which is great, but for a while you're right. I mean, it was almost dead, I think.

Speaker 2 16:08

Now did you help out in your dad's garden. You know what's funny, is I?

Speaker 1 16:12

remember, my dad always had a vegetable garden, but I was younger, you know, I was probably five or so, so I did a little bit, you know, but I certainly wasn't able to help. And then, for me, I've been doing it three years as well. I never thought much about gardening since I was a kid. And then I was able to get some Calabrian chili peppers and get the seeds from them, and then I decided to plant them, and I did it from seed, which it was really cool, because YouTube is amazing, because you can learn a lot, yeah Right.

Speaker 1 16:49

So there's there's a certain YouTube channel and was watching and showing me how to plant peppers from seed. And actually I'm right in the middle of it now. I just I planted them March 15th this year and I just transplanted them two days ago into their four inch pots, and then, you know, now I'm gonna grow them up and then put them into my. I have raised beds as well, although mine, my raised beds, are actually on legs, so I have two raised beds so far amazing. I mean, these peppers just grow and I've had great success, and I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to just go out and watch them and tend to them and I don't know. There's something about it, that to take something from seed and grow it up and get fruit and then actually enjoy that fruit and then it goes back to seed again. Something really incredible about that.

Speaker 2 17:43

Yeah, I, you know, I find I'll leave early in the morning and I'll go to the Y and I'll come back, I'll get a cup of coffee and I walk down through my garden beds and I'll do that every day just to see you know one day to the next what, what's going on out there, and it is, it's. It's extremely gratifying. I've got a adirondack chair that sits out in the middle of it too. I'll go sit out there and finish my coffee and for work it's great and I I call it my, my wife.

Speaker 1 18:08

She humors me, you know like I say, come on, come on, we got to go do a pepper tour, you know, and we go out and we take a look at the peppers yeah, so it's something that um surprising to me how much I enjoy it.

Speaker 1 18:22

Now I've tried certain other vegetables. Tomatoes I haven't had a great success with Last year was really hard because of the moisture. I planted cucumbers last year. Those worked out really well, green onions really well, so a few things, but the peppers really. And then this year I planted garlic in the fall.

Speaker 2 18:41

Okay, I didn't, and we were, we were going to do that, and I didn't get my garlic in, and so I think that's on. That's on the to-do list next, too. So when will you put your peppers outside?

Speaker 1 18:51

Right now they're in their four inch pots. It will be somewhere, probably after Labor Day for in the Northeast, so what I do is I have. There's a bunch of people around me who have gardens, and so I wait to watch for them and when they put their time to go. They've been doing it a long time, you know.

Speaker 2 19:09

Yeah, yeah. So I usually get impatient and I'll put mine in before the holiday and take a chance. I've been okay so far, but one of these years I'll yeah, I'll regret it.

Speaker 2 19:20

But you get excited to do it and it is exciting to watch them grow and it's incredible how fast and they grow up and how big they get yeah, we all of a sudden I'll be overrun with things, and you know you get so busy and you try to. You know I give a lot away too. I just enjoy growing it. But when you try to make time to, you know can tomatoes, I found that I would take a big bunch off. I would just blanch them and throw them in the freezer until I was ready to actually make sauce out of it, because I couldn't keep up with it and I needed to get enough at a time to make sense of it. So that that works out real well too any other hobbies?

Speaker 2 19:59

oh goodness, boy, trying to think of what my hobbies would be. I love to be on the boat. You know how, about you I?

Speaker 1 20:07

mean well, I have a new grandson that's true, of course that is uh really amazing and uh we're, we're definitely enjoying him. So that's, I would say, my best hobby right now.

Speaker 2 20:17

Other than gardening.

Speaker 1 20:19

But there's really not a lot of time. And then I do the podcast, of course, you know that's.

Speaker 2 20:24

I would consider that a hobby. That's a hobby. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1 20:27

So that's been fun to do and you know written books how long have you been doing your podcast?

Speaker 1 20:33

So my podcast started July of 24. So my podcast started July of 24. So this is probably the 12th or 13th episode. I've been putting one out once a month because that's manageable for me, because the editing and everything takes some time, and then I try to keep them generally, when it's just myself, between 10 and 20 minutes, and once a month is manageable. And then what I started doing as well is I'm able now to do little soundbite clips. I post them a podcast episode on Tuesdays at 530 in the morning once a month.

Speaker 1 21:10

So, it'd be the first Tuesday of the month. And then, every Tuesday, I put in between, I put in a clip so that there's consistency, because it's all about consistency. Sure, and that was the thing. Once you make a commitment to put out podcast episodes, if it's every month.

Speaker 2 21:27

You got to keep it going. You got to keep it going, right.

Discussing Tariffs and Market Changes

Speaker 1 21:29

Right now I've got two in the can, which is good, and then this will be my third, so I'm ahead of the game and I try to keep ahead of it, because things get crazy in our business and you just never know what's going to happen. We're going to talk a little bit about tariffs, because that seems to be a topic of the day right now. So, from your perspective, what are you seeing on tariffs and what do you think is going to happen here with the economy and with the tariffs in general? What's your take on it?

Speaker 2 21:59

Oh boy, that's a big question. It seems like everyday changes. We are definitely getting calls Earlier on customers would say we're going to wait, we've got a backup plan, we're okay right now. But now we're getting a lot of phone calls for domestic supply. We're getting calls from people that we have not done business with yet, and so making the right business decisions right now of what direction to go is kind of a big one for us. We've got a tool, we've got a tariff tool now, so we can, you know, plug in some what-if scenarios to help us to have those conversations with our customers of what you know these increases could potentially look like on some of our products, which helps to drive that conversation forward. You know, I think there's a lot of people concerned about domestic supply and having enough of it out there to serve us, and so our position is to, you know, take care of our partners, and so that's the approach we're trying to take with it.

Speaker 1 23:00

I think we're the same. Obviously, we haven't seen the amount of large pulls in inventory that we thought, but we also think that people our customers generally are sitting on the sidelines right now to see what's going to happen, which is a smart move, because you never know where this thing's going to end up. It changes every day. We think we know what's going to happen, which is a smart move, because you never know where this thing's going to end up. It changes every day. We think we know what's going to happen, and then there's a different scenario that comes up.

Speaker 1 23:25

We are also taking care of our customers and, of course, when a new customer comes to you, you want to try to do whatever you can to accommodate them, if at all possible, because we're not short, we're not short-sighted, you know. We want to develop long-term partnerships, and if a new customer comes to you and it's one that you find strategic, you want to try to do whatever you can. And so that's where we're at. To me it feels like it's going to be chaotic, which it is now, and then at some point it's going to equalize, because there's only so much domestic production at this point, and to put in new domestic production takes years.

Speaker 2 24:02

And so.

Speaker 1 24:04

I think it's to some extent. Imports are still going to be important, whether it's Canada, mexico, asia, you know wherever, but it's just going to be an equalization at some point where the price levels because the domestic manufacturers, you know, once they get to capacity, the prices will go up naturally, yeah, I mean it's supply and demand. And so you're right.

Speaker 2 24:26

It's going to have to, and I'm not sure what that equal out. You know looks like, but yeah, there will need to be a point there.

Speaker 1 24:34

Fun times ahead, yeah that's right, chaos equals opportunity. Absolutely, if you're agile enough to take advantage of it to be able to pivot, you can really succeed during these times.

Speaker 2 24:48

Yes, yes, and to be smart about it too, and you know, pick the right partners. We just, I mean, we're literally getting calls from people we've never heard of, and so I find myself Googling a lot of companies to find out if they're even legitimate.

Speaker 1 25:02

Yeah, we do as well Same thing. It's so funny. Great conversation, tracy. Yeah, I really appreciate you joining us and being our first guest on the Toilet Paper Salesman podcast. That's all we have for today. Who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous?

Speaker 2 25:18

Thanks, a lot Tracy.

Speaker 1 25:19

Yeah, have a great day.