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Hi everyone. I'm Tiffany Raffi, co-founder and CEO of UpSpring, a PR and digital marketing agency dedicated to the design industry. Today we're going to explore the ecosystem of sales and distribution channels between manufacturers, sales reps, and the designers they support. I'm excited to kick this conversation off with Tom Buck, James Cull and Teddi Guilfoy.
Tom Buck's work as an independent rep for interior design product manufacturers has spanned over two decades. Since starting the Buck Agency in 2010, Tom has set himself apart by curating his product offerings to expand designers toolboxes of materials, helping make their projects extra special.
James Cull is the design director at Rottet Studio in New York. He leads a talented team of creatives designing innovative luxury interiors for leading hospitality, residential and retail clients around the world. He is passionate about establishing a compelling narrative and devising immersive design experiences that enthusiastically embrace an authenticity of place.
Finally, we have with us Teddy Guilfoy with over a decade of experience, Teddy leads design teams in M Moser's NYC office as a senior associate. Her vision for spaces stems from her passion for storytelling and artistic expression, leading to bespoke and creative solutions across residential, retail and mixed use public spaces.
Welcome everyone. I'm so excited to have you here.
Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you for having us.
Awesome. All right. Well, as we all know, architects and designers specify billions of dollars in products and materials annually. Bringing a product to market in a way that gets into a designer's consideration set is quite complex, to say the least. So let's kick things off with the basics for our listeners. Tom, do you mind giving us an overview of the role in independent rep plays in the A&D ecosystem?
Well, it's not too much different from a typical manufacturer rep, but I would say that between the love of product and love of design that I have, I think of myself as sort of a bridge between the clients that I know and have relationships with and the manufacturers that are out there trying to kind of connect. So I often bridge the gap between what they need and what they want and what they can get. I'm also, I guess I consider myself a source as well for information, whether it's technical or details or how best to use the product. We help assist creating a specification that's going to be viable on a project that will actually go through and perform properly. And then of course we sort of handhold when it comes to custom samples and custom products that would be more bespoke for a project.
Yeah, I'm sure bridging that gap, understanding the need and the want, right? And what might actually make it through all the way through specification is really important. I know so many products get sampled and specified and then they don't actually make it into the project. So having someone who has a pulse on the viability I think is definitely valuable. So let's say we were to draw a map. What steps would be needed to launch a product into the market start to finish?
Well, I have to first see a value and a purpose of a product and see that it really has a place in what I consider my knowledge base. That would be something that would be something clients would want to use. It needs to be something special. It can't just be the same old me too product. For me as an independent rep, it has to be special, it has to be something very different and it could be a combination of price point and design. It could be US manufacturing versus international, the speed at which they make it or even the originality of the product. And I like original product. I also like people who make their own things, so manufacturers that are really producing what they offer. I like having that direct relationship with products.
A lot of more control over quality. Right, exactly.
Exactly.
For sure. Getting what you think you're getting exactly
Too many steps between, then it gets a little muddy.
Totally makes sense. I'm going to throw this one over to James and Teddy and whichever one of you feels inspired, I'd love your thoughts. So what are the resources that your design and architectural teams are using to discover new products? The landscape is ever-changing as we all know, and I'm sure through COVID even more so as a catalyst for the way that we're finance sourcing things. I'd love to hear it from the two of you and what that looks like today.
I think what I noticed during the pandemic is just everything had to be virtual, digital and we had already been on this trajectory of social media influencing kind of how people see product and there's kind of a mix of your personal interest on social media with your professional interests, especially with Instagram is a good example. You constantly are flooded with new imagery and new product. I mean now you can click right through and go directly to the manufacturer's website. So I'm seeing a lot of my young designers sending me information directly within the ecosystem of Instagram, and we even have team accounts within group chats essentially within Instagram that people are using to just circulate ideas in a really kind of casual and really abstract kind of way that I find really collaborative and fun for the team and not really being in front of reps like we used to, although we're getting back into that now.
Yeah, I definitely am seeing the same thing and in the pandemic, I think more and more the teams also really utilized Material Bank, to be honest, a lot to see a lot of new product too because we were so siloed at home and it was something that they could easily see new products and then get it ordered directly. That was probably just a really seamless way for them to do it. I will say I have noticed beginning this year more than ever though, how antsy the team is to be out and to be meeting with different vendors and to have the vendors coming in. So I am definitely seeing some more of that in person, like physical content.
Great. So Tom, how do you really work to find new products to bring onto The Buck Agency and really sort of identify and assume and understand what products are going to resonate with the A&D market?
I try to meet with my designers quite often. Every day I'm seeing somebody and I'm trying to keep a pulse of what people are looking for. Obviously if I don't have it in my bag and someone asks me for it, then I know there's a need. So I look around, I talk to different vendors and manufacturers to see what is out there, but honestly vetting process is huge because you've really got to make sure you're able to support these designers and these products just will show up on a shelf and if they're not vetted with testing and durability and flame codes and all these different requirements, then it's not worth even talking about. They need a strong social media presence. They need imaging because everything's so digital as we just discussed. And really it's got to be something I could take into the biggest firms in the city and not get bounced out for a certain technicality. It can be a big hurdle for a lot of smaller companies, but it's definitely worth the investment if they're into this for a long term gain.
What are the certifications you find are most requested?
The STM ratings, fire ratings, durability testing, those are the major ones and they just have to fit these requirements and they're not going to match whatever European or Asian requirements are. They have to be based in the US testing system, otherwise we're not going to be able to play.
Absolutely. Totally makes sense. James, will you tell us about some of the projects you're currently working on? Where do you go to find out about new products and what certifications do you value and need to have in order to move forward?
Tom just mentioned a couple that certainly are really important. Fire retardancy is a big one. I do a lot of hospitality work and so I typically come across fire retardancy is a big one. UL listing for lighting and kind of flow rates on plumbing fixtures seem to be big ones that get triggered often. I do quite a bit of corporate commercial work and multifamily work too. So I'm kind of seeing across the spectrum different types of, these are all really important certifications that really are applicable to almost any project category or type.
Teddy, how about you? Is there anything that your unique vertical needs that has been overlooked or that you often look for?
I think that it's funny because I am working with him on a couple of projects right now where we have been using some of his products in a really unique way. I think in general when it comes to a lot of the standards, obviously as both James and Tom mentioned, we look for kind of all the same things, but I think we're always looking to also push the boundaries of what we can find in standard products. And I think being able to make something that maybe it even evolves into something that's a completely new type of materiality based off of a base point or a new way of how it's being produced or things like that, we're always looking to, I think sometimes the idea that it's new product or something, it doesn't have to be just a fresh spec. You can actually build it off of something that might be already existing. And I think being able to have that availability and malleability within your lines is really exciting and I think is also how it keeps it fresh and so people keep using them.
That's great.
I was actually just going to piggyback on what Teddy was saying and just talk about relationships a bit because her and I have a friendship and so we're constantly asking each other and sharing sources and specs. And I think when you have more friends in the industry, that becomes even more fluid and it's kind of conversational and part of our friendship now.
But even with people like Tom, I mean, he's become a friend as well and he's really nice and easy to talk to. And I think that for me, that's a huge thing when I'm specifying product as I really care about who I'm specifying it with and having a relationship with them and someone that you can call it any hour and hash things out and work through things is really important. I think we talked a bit on the front end of this podcast about stuff on social media and kind of finding stuff in isolation on your sofa during the pandemic, but I think even more so coming out of this pandemic, what's going to be really important or reestablishing those relationships that you have with people in the industry.
I think it's very important, especially in a city New York where we're kind of working on top of each other to have that kind of open line of communication.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean the A&D industry has historically always been so relationship based, so seeing and hearing that a lot of that still exists is I think really important and makes me quite happy
For sure. And I find one thing really myself personally, very interesting is I tend to follow my reps around. So we do a lot of custom carpet and so there's a lot of different people that have different technologies, whatever, that they can kind of tote that their product is better than that product. But at the end of the day, it's such a complicated thing to design and such a time-consuming thing to design that I typically find myself going back to the same reps even if they've changed companies because it makes that whole process that much more streamlined and easier and fun honestly, at the end of the day.
Would you say you're more likely to specify something when the context numbers in your phone versus having to reach out or go through a forum or a service or even finding it on Instagram? Do you feel like that is a catalyst for you specifying something more?
For sure. And I think, I don't know, I'm probably not the only one who's overwhelmed with emails these days that this post-pandemic kind of digital crush is overwhelming sometimes. And so I think the ability to just be able to pick up a phone and talk to someone and have that conversation and then if you got to memorialize it in an email, go ahead. But I think that that is definitely a great way to get your foot in the door.
Absolutely.
Yeah. And I feel like it is really interesting. I think as people, this industry is so relationship based, right? In so many different ways. It's even our clients, we have relationships to help build a project and build a vision. But like James was saying, it is, I follow also reps around too if they go just too, because if I get really clear information that I can trust from a vendor, it makes the process so much easier because ultimately everyone is kind of moving a million miles per hour. And so it's just one of those things that I think anything that makes the process easier and more efficient and so you can get what you need and get that unique vision embraced and executed with different vendors I think is really something that's critical as you're going a million miles per hour in probably every city that everyone's working on design in.
So I'd love to chat a little bit about sustainability. I think that's a buzzword we hear a lot, all of us I'm sure, and there's a ton of greenwashing going around. So what actually makes a product sustainable so that you want to use it and can use it, and it's not just something that we think is doing good but rather sort of fits in the box of actually being a sustainable product. How do you vet those products? And Tom, how do you decide, and as designers, how do you decide James and Teddy whether or not something is actually sustainable?
Well, that's been a real drive for me in the last say five to six years about just really thinking about where my products are going to be and how they're going to last and what they're made of. And so I've made a concerted effort to get away from particular products that have toxins in them, chemicals in them. I'm really geared towards recycled materials or materials that are going to have a long life cycle or that just are made with pure product and pure materials. So it's a big focus for me and I've been really narrowing down that to show to my clients. And I think different industry types go for more sustainability, others less so, but I feel like it's important to have that as a push for my clients.
Absolutely. James, Teddy, do you have any thoughts?
Actually, I feel lucky because my company has actually a pretty robust sustainability department, and that's definitely one of their cornerstones and passions. So our library is vetted, which I'm sure Tom can most likely attest to all of the different certificates that they always want to see or everything that comes through there either gets labeled with the level of how sustainable it is. And then in most of our projects we are going for some kind of whether it's well or it's lead. So we have a team that also properly vets all of our materiality that then maybe wasn't caught in that net. So it's something that I think we're programmed to kind of suss out at first, but ultimately I feel lucky that then we have a whole team that has all this amazing information that I feel like I can kind of tap into as well.
Yeah, I feel like we probably, since we work on so these different typologies, I feel like I don't see it as much. I mean obviously in corporate commercial world, clients are typically more willing to spend the money to get the lead rating or whatever they're kind of sustainability efforts or goals are for the company. I think I get a bit of it in residential as well. Certain developers and certain projects seem to want to use that as a marketing tool. And so if you can market it, you can monetize it, I guess in a way. When it comes to hospitality, I think there's a long way to go. Certain brands and certain resorts and certain properties do make efforts to do it, but I think the biggest hurdle is really just at the end of the day is cost. And I think awareness. As these products are specified more and more and the cost can come down. I think that there's not really a huge reason not to do it. I think it's just a slow trickle at this point till we reach that tipping point where it becomes kind of commonplace or second nature.
Tom.
Yeah, I mean it's different industry types. Again, to that point earlier that I think workplace and healthcare are the leaders in sustainability right now. Also the institutional field where they're having children in schools and classrooms and things, those environments really are pushing sustainability. And to James' point, the manufacturers are listening and they're pushing to make things differently or come up with new product offerings. There are clients in the city that I call on that are really trying to delete particular product categories that have toxic chemicals in them from their pallets and from any of their projects going forward. So we've been charged as reps to find alternates for them and come to them with again, vetted product so they can use something else besides the typical, less expensive, run-of-the-mill products.
Are there any brands that any of you are using or interacting with that you feel like are really doing it right?
Well, it's not a huge brand, but I just went to a factory tour recently in Michigan for a carpet company that produces rugs domestically, which is pretty kind of crazy to think about because almost nothing's produced domestically, especially something that's so labor-intensive. But they work with a really, I mean, one of the top fashion brands in the world. You can probably guess who it would be with their pearls and their tweeds and stuff. But this company essentially twisted the arm of this manufacturer, just said, if you want to be our exclusive producer for these area rugs, then you need to bring all of the standards of your manufacturing facilities and basically become waste zero or net zero, whatever it's called. And so I thought that was kind of an interesting way that the client actually had the power and forced the manufacturer to essentially clean themselves up a bit. And I think that that's kind of cool to see it kind of work. It can cross pollinate in both directions.
And I love that you were on the ground sort of seeing it for yourself.
Oh my gosh, that's my favorite thing. I'm kind of like a nerd when it comes to factory tours. I love going to see how something's made. I feel like it makes us as designers and people that are working with directly with our clients and selling them on these things, especially if it's like comes in at a premium, you can really sell it in a better way, in a more honest and realistic way if you can really talk from firsthand experience about what you saw.
Absolutely. So as we all know, gen Z is rising and throwing a wrench in most things. Just kidding, love you, gen Z. They don't always see the value in using a sales rep. How can sales reps build their relationships with this generation? Tom, any advice?
You have to come to them where they're existing. So there's a lot of the social media interaction. You've got to have a presence on social media. I think first and foremost, any manufacturer coming into the market now has to have a strong website of course, and then really pick a platform to really represent your product. And usually it's Instagram these days, and then your sales force out there just has to be active. You've got to be able to support them if you're hiring them as an employee to go out there and just be active with your clients and going out there to meet them in their spaces, either their offices or where they're hanging out or if it's an industry event, it's really just about getting back out there after COVID to see people face to face and shake hands. And it is a challenge with Gen Z because they're more definitely apt to sit at their desk and specify. So for me, anytime they ask for a sample from me, I'll include other little tidbits from my other product lines, which is an advantage of being an independent rep to just feed them a couple little things under their nose in a real tangible way, a card or another sample so they can just see some other things and hopefully that sparks a conversation or an interest.
So sort of piggybacking off of that, where does transparency fit in? What do you need to know about availability, pricing? What do you feel the designer, Tom, from your perspective and James and Teddy, from your perspective, what helps make it easier to decide for the designer? And then really from there, what can help protect the specification process? Let's say you're chosen, how do you actually make it into the project?
What I find typically nowadays is just everyone's moving at a million miles a minute and things get cast aside for whatever reason, and it's not really a legitimate reason. It could be cost, and if you go back to the rep, maybe you can work on a number that will make everyone happy, but if someone really junior or inexperienced is doing that and it's moving really quickly and it's easier to just pick something else that's going to fit the budget or whatever and cut a step, I think that that's where I see specs maybe falling apart, is just not enough communication or not enough knowledge to know that maybe there is a way to make it work. Maybe it's through cost, maybe it's the way you're detailing it or some other kind of technical hurdle that you have to overcome. I think that that's where I'm seeing maybe changes coming at the last minute, is just not really having enough time to work through it properly.
For my own curiosity, do custom products tend to make it all the way?
To be honest, it's kind of a split. I mean, there are some, I'm interested to hear what James has to say because I feel like honestly a lot of the products that we start out with our, and then it's funny because then when you're kind of at another phase of the project and I'm catching up with the designer and they're like, well, we value engineered that out. And I'm like, really? That was so cool. Why did we had to? It came down to cost or it came down to lead time in the pandemic, a lot of it was lead time more than cost. It felt like everyone was so desperate with the material supply kind of chain issues that it was almost like it didn't matter how much it cost just as long as it was going to be there within the year or something. It wasn't an obscene lead time.
So I think it is a bit of a split, but I would say a lot of the things that start off custom say it's 40% of the things that we're specifying are 40 to 50% are custom. Probably at the end of the day it's probably somewhere around 25 to 30, so it's almost half.
I find that certain product sticks around probably just because it's so complicated to design custom carpeting, for example, you might go through 10 or 20 strikes before you get something that the brand and ownership and design team and everyone's approving. And at that point, typically by the time they're purchasing carpet, and a lot of times it's like OFCI, so it is coming at the end. It's impossible to re-specify it and get the same look like you'd have to completely start over or have a significant delay. And so I find those types of things. Tom actually has a really beautiful product too that's kind of felt, and I kind of almost think of it as carpet or tapestries I use a lot, and it's so choreographed and so specific that you can't just substitute something really easily. It's not taking one person's wood veneer flinch and substituting oak for oak. If it's that choreographed or that custom. It's hard, I think to VE, if anything, it almost would just get eliminated before it's substituted.
Yeah, a hundred percent. I agree. The carpet specifically I think is one of those things that always sticks around. Some of the other stuff might fall to the wayside, but carpet is, it's one of the, it's such a labor of love. I'm sure Tom can also attest.
Yeah.
It's a labor of love on their side too.
Well, I wonder too, because you need it for acoustics. It's not like you can just remove the carpet and have the space perform the same way you could if you, I don't know, changed from your wall covering to plaster or whatever.
Exactly.
So for me, a lot of the lines that I have are really made to order. They're bespoke. So really everything we do is custom and it does help me hold a specification because it's created for a project and that ability doesn't really affect the cost on my end, which it allows me to hold a specification more. But I think there are product categories that are suited for custom and others are suited for switching out. More commodity goods, definitely switched out for a lower number, even if the aesthetic changes. But then when you're doing something very bespoke for a project that's going to hold, typically. It's a much higher hit rate. For sure.
Do you VE, Tom, within your own product lines?
I do. Yes.
I find, with carpets is a good example. The number of rows or the number of yarns. There's certain ways to build in a potential future VE with your design, knowing that if push comes to shove and you got to trim cost that you could still provide a similar item through the same manufacturer.
Definitely.
That's awesome, really.
Definitely, especially if we're getting notice from a junior designer or a senior designer like, "Hey, the budget's tight, what can you do?" And then we go back to the drawing board and see if we can alter the product enough or even just look for a better price from the manufacturer, especially if it's a volume project. Certainly I'd like to VE myself and just hold onto the spec as much as possible.
Well, and I think that's also such a big part too, of what we were talking about in relationship holding with your vendor too. The ability you can do that too makes it so... Like, ultimately it as a designer, and I don't want to necessarily take the spec somewhere else, I'd love to be able to work with you. And I think that's something that's really interesting about the lines that you specifically carry because you're able to do that and not compromise the overarching aesthetic, and you have a lot of options within that. But it is once, I think for a lot of different designers as they are growing in their careers, the more that they find different products and different vendors are able to do that, I think that's also a huge piece of that relationship building that starts to happen. It makes it a little bit more fluid for everyone because it is always heartbreaking when you have to cut out cost or something like that.
Well, I think part of that too is like Tom, I mean, it forces him to educate these young people. They need to know what potentially could happen if push comes to shove, how could we simplify this or reduce cost down the line? And then for me too, in talking to my staff and training them, I mean, I spend a lot of time explaining the why. Why are we doing something or how it's done or how it's detailed or what's really driving the cost with these decisions that we're making, which I think if you don't know how something works, the inner working of something, then it's just an aesthetically driven decision. And then I feel like that's when it's arbitrary, you kind of have to know for our clients, we have to do our due diligence and basically make sure that we're spending their money responsibly, that we're not being wasteful with it. And I think seeing the forest through the trees and really understanding what is the important part of your design or for Teddy and I like when we're doing a space and you do have to have those kind of serious conversations like trying to figure out where to allocate your money in a way without just diluting the design too much where it's like, what's the point?
No, absolutely. Tom, to bring it back to you, what advice would you give younger professionals looking to a career in sales?
Well, specifically in the design industry, you have to love product and you have to be self-motivated to be out there pushing every day to meet people and connect them. And then you have to be a great communicator because you're really translating the language of a manufacturer to the language of a designer. I feel like I learned so much over the years. I'm not an educated designer. I don't have a design degree, but I had to learn how designers think, how they speak, the verbiage they communicate with, and then also kind of translate that into manufacturers and how they speak, and they're very, very regimented, but very in their own world, so to speak, and not be aware of how to really get that product out there or deliver what's needed. So you have to be willing to be very flexible and negotiate between those two entities to make it work.
So what you're saying is we're kind of kooky and hard to talk to.
No, not at all. Not at all. You need what you need. You know what you want, and our job is to get it for you at all costs. So yeah, I think our salesperson also has to not be in it for the money so much. That's counterintuitive a bit, but there's a lot of rejection in sales, like a lot, and it can be very defeating, so you just have to look at your odds and know that it's not going to be a win every day, and it's going to be, if you get two out of 10, that's great. It's like baseball hitting records. That's how it was compared to me, and I didn't know what that meant, but now I understand what that means. Another analogy I'd like to make is we are not on stage every night. This is not a Broadway performance. We're not getting applause every day, the standing ovation. We're making movies, and this is a long term, basically long payoff for what we do, and we're just looking for some Academy Awards once in a while. So expect to work on a project for 1, 2, 3 years and really not see anything, especially in the long-term commercial projects.
I love that analogy.
Yeah, me too. I'm totally stealing that.
Yeah, you just released it to the masses to know where it came from.
Right. I love Broadway, don't get me wrong.
Yeah.
No, but it's crazy, the payoff and the time that we invest. I think that's the other thing too, is like you can't take it too personally, like Tom said, because design is inherently personal. We designers pour so much emotion and time into these things. It's not the most glamorous. Despite all the pretty glossy photos in the magazines, it's not really the most glamorous job. And I think that you have to see the long game, right, that you might be doing these projects. I have some projects that go on for eight or 10 years before they finally open and it's like, oh my God, am I even going to like what I did when they finally opened the doors? But you got to, yeah, you stay persistent.
Yeah, tenacity.
All right. Well, thank you all so much for spending some time with me. This has been really incredible. I've learned a lot from you all, so I know our listeners will too. If you have any other thoughts you'd like to share before we sign off, please feel free.
Thank you so much for having us. That's some of my favorite people to get to talk to and with, so thank you.
Yeah, I agree. I echo that. Thank you for having us and get out and specify.
Thank you guys so much for joining today. It was great.
Thank you Tom for bringing this group together. I really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
All right. Awesome. Thanks guys.
Bye-bye.
All right. Take care.
Thanks.
Thank you so much for listening in with us today. We hope you leave inspired by the ideas in today's episode. For more follow UpSpring on LinkedIn and Instagram, and don't forget to check out the amazing lineup of shows brought to you by the SURROUND podcast network at surroundpodcast.com.
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