No matter what industry you are in, swag is everywhere and, when used correctly, can be a very effective vehicle for marketing. Today’s guest is a leader in this field and has made it her mission to create a human-centric ecosystem in her business. Tara Milburn joins us today to discuss her career, her business, Ethical Swag, and the importance of putting people first in leadership. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about her career, what drew her to swag, what Ethical Swag has looked like from opening until now, and so much more! Our guest goes on to talk about how she manages and prioritizes people and relationships before discussing navigating having employees all over the world while still bringing love into her leadership. We even discuss some of the biggest errors she sees when companies try to create a human-centric culture, how she keeps her mission, vision, and values alive in her company, and why being ethical is prioritizing progress over perfection and being entirely transparent. Finally, Tara tells us about her incredible father and what he taught her about leadership. To hear all this, and even be reminded that it takes time to build a sustainable business, press play now!
No matter what industry you are in, swag is everywhere and, when used correctly, can be a very effective vehicle for marketing. Today’s guest is a leader in this field and has made it her mission to create a human-centric ecosystem in her business. Tara Milburn joins us today to discuss her career, her business, Ethical Swag, and the importance of putting people first in leadership. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about her career, what drew her to swag, what Ethical Swag has looked like from opening until now, and so much more!
Our guest goes on to talk about how she manages and prioritizes people and relationships before discussing navigating having employees all over the world while still bringing love into her leadership. We even discuss some of the biggest errors she sees when companies try to create a human-centric culture, how she keeps her mission, vision, and values alive in her company, and why being ethical is prioritizing progress over perfection and being entirely transparent. Finally, Tara tells us about her incredible father and what he taught her about leadership. To hear all this, and even be reminded that it takes time to build a sustainable business, press play now!
Guest Bio:
Tara Milburn is an accomplished business executive with expertise in building partnerships and driving strategic initiatives. She has played key roles in high-profile projects, including co-writing the successful bid for the NBA's first international expansion and contributing to Vancouver's bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics. With a focus on social and ecological sustainability, Tara founded Ethical Swag to promote equity in the corporate merchandise supply chain. She is also an active volunteer, having held leadership positions with the CIBC Run for the Cure, Celtic Colours International Festival, and Cape Breton University.
Key Points From This Episode:
Quotes:
“I sort of see swag as almost a far more economical sponsorship of what you stand for as a brand.” — Tara Milburn [0:14:32]
“It’s a technology-driven, human-centered company that we’re creating.” — Tara Milburn [0:21:37]
“[Being Ethical means] progress over perfection and – transparency.” — Tara Milburn [0:47:54]
“It’s not what you say, it’s what you do that matters.” — Tara Milburn [0:51:48]
RESOURCES:
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[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:08.0] Laura Eich: Welcome to Love in Leadership, the podcast where we explore what happens if you bring a little or a lot of love into the workspace. My name is Laura Eich, I’m joined as always by the one and only, Mike McFall. Mike, how are you doing?
[0:00:17.6] Mike McFall: I’m great, I’m great, I’m great. Yup.
[0:00:20.2] Laura Eich: That’s good. You’re wearing a frog today.
[0:00:20.7] Mike McFall: I am wearing a frog. I’m very, very proud of my frog.
[0:00:26.1] Laura Eich: Will you tell me about it?
[0:00:28.3] Mike McFall: Well, my love affair with frogs goes back, right?
[0:00:31.1] Laura Eich: It does.
[0:00:31.7] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:00:32.2] Laura Eich: You are known for loving frogs.
[0:00:34.5] Mike McFall: Yes, and I am on a very long, very deliberate journey to bring the frog back into the ecosphere, biosystem of BIGGBY Nation.
[0:00:49.2] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:00:49.9] Mike McFall: And for many years, I was hellbent on making it like, you know, our mascot or you know, something cool.
[0:00:56.2] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:00:55.7] Mike McFall: Because frogs are amazing. I don't know if you know this, but frogs are known in the scientific communities being extraordinarily adaptive.
[0:01:06.9] Laura Eich: Yes, that’s true.
[0:01:08.5] Mike McFall: They thrive and they’re always striving, they’re one of the most diverse species on the planet, and they are also the sign of a very healthy ecosystem. So, if you have a pond or rivers or whatever, and there’s a lot of frogs, that’s a sign that it’s a really healthy ecosystem. Yeah, yeah. So, that’s another reason why frogs are super cool but then also, on top of it, in many cultures, they are like a symbol of fertility and good luck.
[0:01:40.3] Laura Eich: Okay, were these nuggets of knowledge, were they always part of your love of frogs or did you just like frogs and then discover the knowledge about them?
[0:01:49.1] Mike McFall: I just thought frogs were funny and cool, right? I mean.
[0:01:53.4] Laura Eich: I was going to say, I don’t think I’ve ever heard this argument for bringing a frog.
[0:01:57.3] Mike McFall: Mike’s done a little research on frogs, you know? Like, so I’m building my case around the frog and – but anyway, the sweater that I’m wearing, the hoodie I’m wearing is my son’s hockey team, they’re The Bullfrogs, and so I’m one of the coaches, and so when this mom put together all the hoodies for the kids with the bullfrog on the front, their name, and number on the back, I also got one.
[0:02:27.0] Laura Eich: Very cool.
[0:02:27.2] Mike McFall: And so, I’m wearing it very proudly.
[0:02:29.9] Laura Eich: That’s awesome. Did you get a name and a number on the back?
[0:02:33.5] Mike McFall: I got not my name and number. My son’s name and number.
[0:02:37.0] Laura Eich: Oh, very good.
[0:02:37.8] Mike McFall: Yeah, yeah. So, I’m also learning though that I got scolded by a friend of mine for disclosing in the social medias my children’s names and ages, and she’s very worried about me from a social engineering perspective, and also a safety perspective for me to be disclosing my children’s names and ages. I know, I know, scary, right?
[0:03:03.0] Laura Eich: Considering my entire personality for the last year has been my daughter on the social media that’s –
[0:03:09.6] Mike McFall: I know, I know.
[0:03:11.7] Laura Eich: What’s the concerns?
[0:03:13.4] Mike McFall: Well, that like, it’s such an awful topic but –
[0:03:18.1] Laura Eich: I don’t know how we got here but it’s okay.
[0:03:20.3] Mike McFall: Yeah, sorry, because I was being sort of like guarded around my son.
[0:03:23.9] Laura Eich: Oh, got it, got it, got it.
[0:03:25.3] Mike McFall: His age or his name and so on and so forth but the worry, the concern is that someone could approach one of my other children with information about their brother who is X years and be able to build a relationship with them.
[0:03:38.4] Laura Eich: Oh, act like they know them. Okay, yup, that’s fair.
[0:03:43.3] Mike McFall: Yeah, I know, it’s such a horrible thing we have to be thinking about but anyway, back to frogs. So, I am excited and I would say, within a decade, now give me a decade and I will have the frog re –
[0:03:59.6] Laura Eich: Integrated somehow, okay.
[0:04:02.1] Mike McFall: Yeah, a decade. I think that’s a fair timeline, I’m not going to try to do it next month or next year, I’m going to take a decade but I’m going to get it done, I promise.
[0:04:09.1] Laura Eich: I have never seen you state something like that and not achieve it. So, I believe it will happen.
[0:04:14.7] Mike McFall: I know, I know, it’s a lot of pressure, it’s a lot of pressure. You know, the frog deserves it.
[0:04:19.7] Laura Eich: Does that mean you have a hockey game today?
[0:04:22.6] Mike McFall: No, I just got this yesterday so I’m super excited about it, yeah.
[0:04:25.5] Laura Eich: Oh okay, got you.
[0:04:26.6] Mike McFall: Yeah, and I actually, partly knew that you would be engaged in the frog for it, so –
[0:04:32.7] Laura Eich: I think it’s fun. I think we spend a lot of time on screens together so I notice when people wear something new.
[0:04:39.2] Mike McFall: Right? Right, right?
[0:04:40.0] Laura Eich: That’s fun.
[0:04:40.8] Mike McFall: What’s going on for you?
[0:04:42.3] Laura Eich: Oh, gosh. I get to go to Lansing a couple of times this week, that’s kind of exciting.
[0:04:46.9] Mike McFall: I think to get to see you both times.
[0:04:48.6] Laura Eich: That’s great. I was wondering if you're going to be there tomorrow. So yeah, we’ve got our leadership team quarterlies tomorrow, and then we’ve got our holiday party on Friday. So, it should be kind of a fun different kind of week, hopefully a little festive. I finally started Christmas shopping last weekend, like two days – what day is it? Is it Monday?
[0:05:06.3] Mike McFall: It’s Monday, yeah.
[0:05:07.5] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh.
[0:05:07.9] Mike McFall: I know.
[0:05:08.3] Laura Eich: Yesterday? Yesterday I started Christmas shopping.
[0:05:12.4] Mike McFall: You know, gosh, I love the holidays. I am not a huge fan of the pressure we put ourselves under, in terms of gift buying, like, I don't know, like, I know it’s supposed to be loving but oh, man.
[0:05:27.3] Laura Eich: You never seem to love-love gift buying for any occasion.
[0:05:33.7] Mike McFall: I don't know. Anyway, it’s like, I don't know if it’s just because I’m busy. I mean, everybody’s busy so that’s not an excuse but like, it’s just when it starts to feel like a chore, then it’s like, it just doesn’t seem right.
[0:05:46.3] Laura Eich: Yeah, yeah. I really enjoy the ones where I have the inspiration for it. Like, the ones where I write the note down months in advance because I’m like, “Oh, I’ve noted that they wanted this,” and like, blah-blah-blah, and those ones, I’m always excited to get. I do struggle when it’s like, “I got nothing.”
[0:06:01.2] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:06:01.6] Laura Eich: I’m just, I’m just looking through the gift guides on the Internet and that kind of thing to try an idea so that feels like a little bit of a chore but mostly, I buy for kids these days, all the nieces and nephews and stuff. So, it’s mostly fun. It’s like, “Oh, they’re going to get a kick out of the fairy lights,” or whatever I just found for one of the nieces.
[0:06:23.9] Mike McFall: Yeah, okay, so give me something top of mind in relation to your job.
[0:06:28.3] Laura Eich: My job, I actually, ironically am connected to the guest that we have this week. Logistics and supply chain, I know that’s not like the coolest, maybe like the sexiest part of my job. Happily, our stores are doing really well right now and what that means is, “Oh my gosh, the supply chain is stressed out.” And so, technically, my job this morning has been pretty stressed out about some supply chain conundrum that we’ve got going on right now, which is interesting, considering the guest we have to talk to you today, Tara Milburn.
She runs a swag company that’s got to be deeply ingrained in like, logistics, supply chain, making sure those connections continue. It’s a whole beast. I’m relatively new at this world. I really only took over a direct interest in this world about six months ago, and so I feel like I’ve had a crash course in it, which is awesome and fascinating. It is huge. Like, I have never contemplated the things moving around our country, the way that I do now.
Where it’s like, “We need sugar to get to the sauce creator, to get to the distributor, the primary distributor that gets to our local distributor, that gets to our stores, that gets in the baristas hands, that gets in your cup, that goes out the drive-through window. Like, “Oh my gosh” And then the sugar gets delayed, and then everything else is delayed, and it’s just wild. It’s a trip and I don't know how to solve all those problems yet.
[0:07:57.7] Mike McFall: No.
[0:07:59.2] Laura Eich: But maybe our guest will.
[0:08:01.4] Mike McFall: No, but thank you for engaging.
[0:08:03.5] Laura Eich: Yeah, of course. I’m going to try to help. ‘Tis the season. Oh, that’s the other thing is, you know, occasionally weather and natural disasters show up and that makes it all very, very exciting. I’ve never cared so much about like, porch strikes and things like that as I do now but like I said, that’s not super-super exciting. Do you have anything going on work-wise this week other than you’re taking a couple of trips to Lansing too?
[0:08:25.6] Mike McFall: Oh, yeah, I had a lot of really cool things going on. I mean, I’m living in a space of 10 years from now, you know, in a very good way and you know, that’s awesome, you know? It’s great, I love it. It does make today complicated, you know?
[0:08:40.9] Laura Eich: Sure.
[0:08:42.2] Mike McFall: When my brain is wrapped up in what could be in 10 years or what will be in 10 years, and then you sort of get out of the time machine and step back into today. Today is complicated because when you’re living in a fantasy of 10 years from now, it’s all perfect.
[0:08:57.6] Laura Eich: There’s no issues, yeah.
[0:08:58.2] Mike McFall: It’s all working fine but then, you know, you get out of the time machine, you step back in today, it’s like, “Oh man, is there a lot to do to make that a reality.”
[0:09:09.4] Laura Eich: So much, yeah.
[0:09:10.9] Mike McFall: Oh yeah, yeah.
[0:09:11.8] Laura Eich: But we’ll get there.
[0:09:13.5] Mike McFall: Yeah, and I worry about articulating the 10 years out vision too much today because it is a fantasy, and it can make me appear and sometimes I feel like I’m completely lacking reality.
[0:09:28.4] Laura Eich: Yeah, I think people can respond poorly if they’re like, “That’s great and all, but I have this burning problem right now.” to like, me, being, “I can’t think of anything other than our supply chain problems,” you know? Like, I don’t usually live in that space where I’m worried about the thing that’s happening immediately right now but immediately right now, I need to be because there are stores that are waiting on these things landing in there and stuff.
So, I’d much rather live in the future, dreaming, visioning, goal-setting space, and I love, thankfully, that like, days like tomorrow when we do our quarterly meeting and stuff, we get to do that but it’s true that we have to also be aware when there’s real stuff on fire in the moment.
[0:10:10.2] Mike McFall: Real important stuff on fire in the moment.
[0:10:13.8] Laura Eich: Yeah, but that’s okay. I’m hoping today’s conversation leaves us with a little bit of inspiration for the future too and I think it will. We have the pleasure, the honor, the privilege, of talking with Tara Milburn from Ethical Swag.
[0:10:28.4] Mike McFall: I am so confident that it is going to be great.
[0:10:30.9] Laura Eich: I’m so excited, I’m her biggest fan and we’ve never even met. So, this is going to be great. Let’s get into our conversation with Tara Milburn.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:10:39.2] Laura Eich: Tara Milburn, welcome to the Love In Leadership Podcast, it’s so nice to meet you, how are you doing?
[0:10:45.0] Tara Milburn: I’m doing awesome, thank you, thanks for having me.
[0:10:47.3] Laura Eich: That’s great. Of course, to get us started, we could try to introduce you, but I always think, people do a better job of introducing themselves, and so real quick, just give us the rundown, who are you, what do you, and where you come from in the world?
[0:11:03.3] Tara Milburn: Yeah, so, I am Tara Milburn, I’m the founder of a company called Ethical Swag, and we put logos on pens. Not really.
[0:11:13.1] Laura Eich: I mean –
[0:11:14.1] Tara Milburn: We do, actually. Swag, I think is ubiquitous, everybody probably knows what swag is but a real quick description is we take branded merch, your company’s logo and we curate products based on something a little different than most people within the industry. I am coming to you from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia Canada where I live in the middle of a UN biosphere reserve. Yeah.
[0:11:41.0] Laura Eich: Oh, Cool.
[0:11:42.9] Tara Milburn: It’s pretty spectacular. I think National Geographic has listed Cape Breton Island as the number one island in North America. So, people come here and love it and we love to welcome them. So, love to see you guys here anytime. We’ll roll out the red carpet for you.
[0:12:00.3] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh. Okay, wait, now, I have more questions that I wasn’t intending to ask but I need to know more. You live in a biosphere?
[0:12:08.2] Tara Milburn: Well, it’s the UN Biosphere Reserve, they’ve sort of designated this area of Cape Breton Island, and so it’s just a beautiful place and we have an inland sea, they call it. So, it’s salt water, the seals come and say hello and the lobster fisherman catch their lobster right there and have a chat with them but it’s just – it’s absolutely spectacular, it really is.
[0:12:32.7] Laura Eich: Okay, putting this absolutely on my bucket list of places to visit, it’s Cape Breton Island, is that how we say it?
[0:12:40.3] Tara Milburn: Cape Breton Island, yup.
[0:12:41.8] Laura Eich: I will be googling that immediately following this recording. That’s very cool, thank you.
[0:12:46.5] Mike McFall: When the stakeholder business society gets its act together and goes to visit Tara, we’ll get a special invite, Laura.
[0:12:52.0] Laura Eich: Oh my gosh, please take me with you, yeah. I really would appreciate that.
[0:12:55.4] Tara Milburn: Absolutely.
[0:12:56.7] Laura Eich: Because this sounds magical.
[0:12:57.8] Tara Milburn: Yeah, and it’s an open invite, and what they say here is, we’ll put the tea on but we’re going to put the coffee on. We’re not putting the tea on.
[0:13:06.9] Laura Eich: I actually like both. So, we can work it out. How did you get to Ethical Swag? So, we – I’m – I was saying this before Mike, you even joined, I’m a very big fan of Tara, I’m a very big fan of Ethical Swag. We’ve been using them for Life Lab swag for the last couple of years, and I just love that because I am someone who attends conferences and I just hate the waste associated with these swag bags.
That you know, I’ve got 15 million stress balls and pens and whatever else, and sometimes, I just leave it behind because I don’t even, I don’t need it and anyway, how did you get there though? Because I don’t think you’ve been doing Ethical Swag for your whole career. So, you can pick a starting point but what’s the journey point from what sort of got you to where you are now with Ethical Swag?
[0:13:53.4] Tara Milburn: I definitely didn’t wake up one day saying, “I want to put logos on pens.” That’s not what happened, there’s a lot of folks that do that, and they do a great job of it but what I did find in my 30-year career is there was a disconnect between what people were saying about what their brand stood for, and what they were putting their logo on, and so, it was really interesting to me.
I actually started a sponsorship back in the 90s, and folks spent millions of dollars with us. I was in professional sports because they wanted to associate their brand with our sports team because there was positive rub-off that happens with that. So, I sort of see swag as almost a far more economical sponsorship of –
[0:14:38.2] Laura Eich: Yeah, totally.
[0:14:39.6] Tara Milburn: What you stand for as a brand, right? If you’re going to put your logo, and so you know, I’ve had a 30-year career, I’ve done everything from private sector to startup, to government, to all kinds of different things, and the one thing that I did find was swag is ubiquitous. It doesn’t matter if you're not for profit, it doesn’t matter if you’re government, it doesn’t matter if you’re a startup.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an established Fortune 500 company, swag is everywhere because it’s a very effective vehicle for marketing but somehow, the industry sort of lost its way in my mind, and it picked up some more negative connotations along the way. So, you’ve got this really powerful marketing medium that can tell your story and yet, we weren’t necessarily harnessing that in a way that was effective.
So, that’s where Ethical Swag was born. I’m a marketer by – that’s what I love. I love sales and marketing and you know, that sort of thing, and it’s sort of been a part of my whole career but I wanted to create a business, and in my 30 years in business, I’ve seen a lot of things that I didn’t like and I saw a lot of change in 30 years, and I feel like businesses are a fabulous vehicle, and it’s kind of, I thought, “Let’s do Ethical Swag and let’s use it as a vehicle for change.”
Let’s use it as a way to demonstrate in a mature industry that we can do things differently and be wildly successful and profitable.
[0:16:04.7] Laura Eich: And can you talk about starting up Ethical Swag? When did you start it, when did this get launched, and like, how did you launch it? Or were you just like, “Here, I have an idea, here’s a website, ready, go.”
[0:16:15.9] Tara Milburn: Yeah, no, nothing’s straightforward with me. So, I had the idea actually, back in 2010 and I incorporated but I didn’t think it was actually going to be my full-time hustle, to be honest. Like, I live, as I described in the introduction, not where there’s a lot of industry and a lot of business, to be honest, and I have two daughters, and my husband’s a teacher, and if you ask them “What does dad do?” They got it because they went to school.
I also have a son but just I’m specifically calling out my daughters because you know, it’s hard to be what you can’t see, and what they saw with my husband was, “Oh, okay, teacher, yeah, I go to school every day, I know what that looks like,” right? And if people asked them, the kids, like all three of my kids, “What does your mom do?” “Uh, she kind of sits in front of a computer and talks and types.”
Like, they just as kids, didn’t really understand it, and there was, where we live, there’s a lot of professional women but there wasn’t necessarily women in business, and so I was at a presentation with a community college principal through my other job. I was working in foreign, direct investment, and they were talking about the new campus that they were building, and they talked about the geothermal and the carbon offsets.
And everything that they were doing around sustainability, which I thought was really cool and interesting, and then I was invited about three weeks later to the local campus to do something with their business class, and the gift that they gave me, in no way represented, what I heard and what I understood that they stood for from a sustainability standpoint, and I’m like, “Wow, you’re spending tens of millions of dollars on this beautiful lead certified building, and yet, this USD 20 gift that you’re giving me as a speaker, doesn’t tell that story.”
What a lost opportunity, and so in my mind, I went, “There’s an opportunity here.” And so, I literally came up with the name, Ethical Swag, and I incorporated it. I called the CEO where I was working and said, “I’m not going to give up my full-time job, I just wanted to show my kids.” You have an idea, you can do it, right?
[0:18:25.1] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:18:25.8] Tara Milburn: But I got kids with braces, I got mortgages, and I also had an entrepreneurial father and I know what being an entrepreneur is, and I know it’s hard to do one thing really well, and I was busy sort of with a full-time job and three kids and a very full life. So, I just sort of pivoted over to the side, to be honest, and then I turned 50 a few years later and my father passed away.
Actually, not a fun story but around the time that I incorporated my parents who were in their 80s, their house burnt down and they were living in Montreal, and so I had just a lot of family, responsibilities. I wanted to get them settled, I wanted to make sure they were okay, I had my kids, I had my family. So, I just incorporated and kind of left it there, and then my dad passed away in 2015 and I was in my 50s, and the kids were a bit older.
And I said to my husband, “Okay, my turn.” It’s now time for me to use this vehicle for change that I’ve been talking about, and do it.
[0:19:22.7] Laura Eich: Wow, and how has it grown from idea to now? Like, in team members, in size of what you’re dealing in. It seems pretty major when I’m looking when I’m shopping on your website. It seems like you're dealing with a lot of suppliers and that kind of thing, and I imagine it didn’t start there. How have you taken it from that seed, that idea, to where it is now?
[0:19:44.2] Tara Milburn: Yeah, it was super interesting the sort of the process that I went through, honestly, because what I thought and what reality were, were completely different. So, when I came up with the idea, I was like, “Oh, this is going to be easy.” Because like, I have a fairly large network of folks, and people were talking about sustainability, and I went to a couple of senior leaders and said, “Okay, silver platter, I got a solution for you.”
Like, this is just – and I didn’t get the reaction that I expected, and I went away and went, “Ooh, I don’t want to actually sell swag, I want to provide alternatives to the swag that people are already buying.” I want to harness the buying power of governments and business into supply chains in a way that is impactful. I want to create a business that cares about the people that are working there. I want to create a business that hires for talent, not for locations.
So, I made decisions around technology from day one, before COVID, that allowed folks to be able to work with us no matter where they chose to live. So, there was all this stuff in the background, and I got this glazed look from the senior leaders that I knew well, and I was like, “Ooh, I don’t think I want to do this.” And then I did research, kind of backwards.
[0:21:04.7] Laura Eich: That’s okay, it happens.
[0:21:06.3] Tara Milburn: I had a gut feeling and I did research, and when I did the research, what I really realized was we need to be more grassroots. We need to meet people where they are in their journey of sustainability because there was two main objections that I heard when I spoke to people and they said, “Oh, the products are crap, or it’s too expensive.” So, I’m like, “Okay, how do we address those objections in our business model in a way that’s meaningful and can get us on the route for change?”
And so, I decided it needed to be an E-commerce, it’s a technology-driven, human-centered company that we’re creating.
[0:21:40.8] Laura Eich: I love that.
[0:21:41.9] Tara Milburn: And so, I spent a lot of time. So, when I resigned from my golden handcuffs and decided I was going to jump into this, I spent a lot of time around who we are, like, if you ask 10 people what ethical means, you’re going to get 10 different definitions, right?
[0:21:59.4] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:21:59.3] Tara Milburn: And so, needed to be super clear about who we were and who we weren’t, and what we did and what we didn’t do, and at its foundation, we wanted to just make it easy to find and buy the kind of products that aligned with folks’ brand because it was kind of hard to find and buy those, and we live in a world with bogus reviews and greenwashing and everything else.
And so, I was like, “Okay, let’s get really sort of clear on what ethical means, let’s get really clear on what we stand for, let’s get really clear on all those things.” And that’s really where we started, and I launched the website in March 1st, 2018 once I sort of figured out and I was like, it was just me, and that was – that was like, “Okay, we’re going to do this,” and that was great, and all of a sudden, it was like, “Oh jeez, okay, and I need somebody to help me because I just can’t do this.”
And so, I had a lot in my head. The first person, she got to – I hired her in the fall of 2018, and on Friday I said, “How did it go? How was your week?” And I was all excited and she burst into tears, she’s like, “I can’t do this.”
[0:23:08.5] Laura Eich: Oh no.
[0:23:08.5] Tara Milburn: I was like, “Oh no.”
[0:23:12.4] Laura Eich: Well, that’s a learning opportunity.
[0:23:15.1] Tara Milburn: Well, I realized it was like a fire hose, everything that was in my head and all the things that I was like “blah-blah-blah-blah” and it was just overwhelming. So, in the fall of 2018 to January 1st, I literally got everything out of my head, and I created an internal, we call it our internal wiki now, and it’s our internal website that is all things Ethical Swag. It’s our mission, our values, what we stand for, how we do business, what we do, what we don’t do.
All the things that are so important as you onboard folks to understand who you are as a company so it doesn’t go sideways because I wasn’t doing it to sell more pens with logos. I was doing it so that we could use business as a vehicle for change and the only way to do that is to make sure that everybody is on the same playing field when you’re bringing people on, and so I got that done.
I gave myself an internal deadline of January 1st, hired my first employee in January, she’s still with us, she’s awesome. She was here today chatting with me. So, that was 2019. 2019, we doubled sales, things were going like amazing, the pipeline was amazing, and then COVID, and it’s like, “Okay, every event on the planet has been canceled.”
[0:24:24.7] Laura Eich: Yeah, no one’s having an event.
[0:24:26.5] Tara Milburn: And nobody’s in their offices and what do we do now? And so, I’ll jump to the end and you know, we’ve had amazing growth. We’re a certified B corp, our certified B corp status came through in May of 2020. So, we had start the process before COVID. We’re kind of unicorns in that front, you know, there’s not a lot of us, so the timing was very good. We were always a remote-first company, we were set up for that, so that was really good.
We were really clear on who we were and what we were, so that was really good, and so COVID actually was not a bad thing for us. We now have 14 employees all over the world, we use a lot of technology, we’ve invested heavily in technology. We’ve approached the industry very differently than most people in the industry, we’re leveraging technology, we’re very – like if you phone us, a person will answer, that sort of thing. We’re very much around the people.
[0:25:25.2] Mike McFall: So, Tara, if I can, the theme of our podcast here is Love in Leadership. So, I want to take us into that space and I’d love to know more about what you took away from your career that you wanted to implement in an organization that you own. So, you learned a lot of things, I’m sure that you wanted to do, and a lot of things you didn’t want to do in your career.
So, you brought that into your organization, and I know you, I have a feeling where this answer is going to go and somewhat but I think it’s really amazing for you to talk about how you approached the relationships in your organization, the people in your organization, and how you set that stuff up with the, you know, in the last five years or six years, in terms of – and then where you are with it.
And so, maybe some lessons that you learned post-starting that surprised you or – anyway, I don’t need to make it too big of a question. Let’s just go with like, what did you really want to do with Ethical Swag and your employees when you started the company? And the corollary to that would be have you been successful and what have you learned?
[0:26:40.5] Tara Milburn: Absolutely. Well, I’ll start with the latter question, “Have you been successful?” It’s still a journey, right? It’s still a journey, and I learn every day and I have a learning mindset and I know I’m not the smartest person in the room and I’m always, always looking to learn from the folks around me but the journey did start, honestly, over 30 years ago, and you know, I guess one of my first "aha moments” was when I had my first daughter who is now 27, and I remember being on the playground and I was finding really meaningful work.
I was very, very fortunate, this is almost 30 years ago, we did not have the technology that we have today to work remotely. We did not have anything near to what we have today. However, I was able to carve out really meaningful work on my terms when I had my daughter because of my previous experience that I had done prior to starting my family, where I had sort of some expertise that people wanted, and when they called me up and said, “We really want you to help us with X, Y, and Z,” it happened to be around the Olympics.
I was like, “No, sorry, my family comes first.” And they said, “Well, come and talk to us and let us know on what terms we could sort of get you involved in what we’re doing.” And so, I went to talk to them and I said, “Yeah, like, three days a week, the other two days, I will have a cellphone on on-field calls but I’ll come into the office three days a week and hire me a full-time assistant, and if you do those things, I can get it done.” And that’s what they did.
So, I had amazing work, and it was really exciting, it was around Vancouver. I was living in Vancouver BC at that time and it was around the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This is 1998, a long way away from the Olympics, and so I’m there with my daughter, I’ve got really meaningful work, I’ve got a thriving family, everything’s really great, and I see this brain trust on the playground, honestly.
And generally, women but not always, but back then it was generally women saying, “How did you be it? How were you able to do this? How were you able to have the family and the work?” And I’m looking at lawyers, accountants, like really smart people that have basically been given a “all or nothing” ultimatum when it comes to their careers, and so we were leaving on the sidelines of brain trust of amazing folks.
And I’m like, “We’ve got to change how we show up at work.” To allow for that to come into our work lives because that is to our benefit as corporations and governments. So, the seed of that idea started back in the 90s, and then you add layers and years and layers and years of things that I loved, and I literally, it’s like, “Oh, I like that, I remember that one. Oh, don’t like that, never going to do that.”
And I literally, for 30 years, like just did a, “Yup, I’m going to put that in the “To do” pile. Ooh, I’m going to make sure I don’t do that.” And I did that over 30 years and Ethical Swag is sort of the – it’s that, to answer your question, Mike. It is a combination of all the things but at the foundation of it is the people, and the people that do the work, and the people that want to be a part of something that is so much more because we spend a lot –
Like, our families give us purpose and I think families can fuel business growth, not detract from it but how do we define the parameters on which we’re going to have people come into our businesses in a way that they’re heard, in a way that they can lead, in a way that they can really affect change. How do we do that? And that’s one of the work I –
[0:30:24.8] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:30:24.8] Tara Milburn: Do with Mike is learning from the best and Mike is amazing and Mike is amazing.
[0:30:30.0] Mike McFall: Oh.
[0:30:30.8] Tara Milburn: You know, that’s really what fuels it. Does that answer your question, Mike? Sorry, you asked me a question, I’ll keep talking, you know me.
[0:30:36.5] Mike McFall: No-no-no. You did but this is what I need, this is what I want people to hear. What are the things that you're doing with your people? Like, how is the 30 years of experience manifesting itself within your group, and what are you doing differently than the standard? You know, the standard engagement with employees, what are you doing differently? how are you treating people differently? How are you bringing love into your world in terms of leadership and so on?
[0:31:07.6] Laura Eich: And will you speak, especially, this is coming from a mom of a one-year-old, the how are you doing this, especially with family? That was the big first story that you told there was supporting women at the time but parents into the workplace. Like, what do you got going on? Because I don’t think people could hear how loudly I was nodding my head but I was nodding my head very loudly over here.
[0:31:31.6] Tara Milburn: Well yeah, and to go back to how I first started answering this question for Mike, it’s a journey, right? Like, I haven’t got all the answers, I’m not claiming to have all the answers. We are definitely thinking about the people first, and I think that’s the same with Mike and BIGGBY® COFFEE and I think that that’s why we’re so aligned and that’s why I really enjoy when I get a chance to spend some time with Mike because it is a journey and we’re trying to figure it out.
So, I had sort of my foundational stuff, so how do we leverage check in a way that people can show up? So, my vision was if you have a one-year-old and they decide it’s time for stomach flu and you're supposed to work the next morning and you’re like, “Oh my God, I haven’t had a wink’s sleep.” So, how do we create an environment where everybody’s got your back, and you can literally log in and just say, “I need a minute. Like, I got to go back to bed” Like, you’re nodding because like, we’ve all been there.
[0:32:31.6] Laura Eich: Yup, I feel that, yeah.
[0:32:32.1] Tara Milburn: I’ve got three kids, right? So, how do we create an environment where everybody’s got everybody’s back and it’s not like, “I’m going to show that I’m going to be the best.” So, we don’t have commission-based sales, which is really typical within this industry because I’m like, everybody’s important. So, there’s one sort of example of where we structure it. We structured it with technology first as a way for people to be able to log in and it’s you know, we’re really fueled by family but not to say that we are a family.
We kind of are, like we’ve got great relationships with the team but it’s kind of family first honestly. So, I’ll give an example, so I won’t mention any names but one of my team members came forward and said, “I think I’m going to have to go, like I’m going to have to resign, I’ve got a lot of family stuff going on and I just don’t know how I can do both.” And she actually, I got a resignation letter, and I was like, “I accept but let’s talk. Let’s just talk about this before we make any sort of rash decisions.”
And so, we got on and I said, “Listen, you’re a value to this company. You have competing, you know, your kids are young, you’ve got some stuff going on. So, let’s take a look at your job roles and responsibilities, let’s look at our team, let’s look at where we’re going, and let’s see if we can make something work.” And I very instantly went back and I looked at our org chart. I looked at all the different things and we’re a growing company and we’ve been growing quite quickly in my world.
You know, we’re not hundreds because I don’t want like growth at any cost. We’re very measured in our growth but I was like, “Okay, we have team members now that have been with us for two years, they’ve got more experience. How do we sort of reshift things so that her roles and responsibilities are not time-sensitive and they can be part-time?”
[0:34:20.3] Laura Eich: Oh, brilliant.
[0:34:22.5] Tara Milburn: And so, I went back to her with a proposal, like literally drew a org chart and I’m not very good at drawing, they’ll laugh at me, and our work chart is not top down. Our org chart is actually concentric circles because I don’t believe in sort of the traditional top-down, we’re more like an ecosystem as an organization, so if something’s out of balance. So, it’s you know, I just feel really strongly that we’re not a machine.
We’re an ecosystem and how do we change things within the ecosystem to adapt to the changing environment, which is what we did, and she is still with us. She’s actually working with somebody I promoted because they are now putting job descriptions together because our team is larger. They’re putting sort of guardrails around big time off and you know, all those kinds of things and she said, “Like I know you talk about it but I didn’t realize that this was really an option for me.”
“This was just a conversation we had recently. I know you talked about it but I didn’t see how it was going to work.” And I said, “Well, we didn’t know how it was going to work. We just talked it through” and we –
[0:35:31.5] Laura Eich: It worked.
[0:35:32.6] Tara Milburn: But I said, “You have a lot to offer.” So, she went to part-time and I said, “But I am not touching your pay at this stage.” Because one of the worst things that happens is people, especially folks that want to have some more time at home, they go down to three or four days a week but they still do five days’ worth of work but they just do it at different times. So, I said, “We’re not going to cut your pay at this stage. I trust and I’m telling you go part-time.”
[0:36:01.3] Laura Eich: That’s really amazing.
[0:36:02.3] Tara Milburn: “But I trust that we’re going to be able to have an open conversation about this as we work through it because it’s a journey. I don’t know what it’s going to look like but the last thing I want to do is all of a sudden cut you down to part-time pay and find that you’re actually getting stuff done but just on your own schedule.”
[0:36:18.7] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:36:19.4] Tara Milburn: And so, I said, “We’ll have that conversation later.”
[0:36:21.7] Laura Eich: Yeah, wow, that’s beautiful. I think that’s something I love to highlight is when people are doing really ordinary things that have extraordinary impact and I think this is an example of that where you’re like, “This just feels like the right thing to do. This feels like the right thing to do is to reduce the number of hours and not cut your pay. You probably will still do the same amount of output.”
I mean, there’s plenty of new research coming out about people working fewer hours and actually having the same or more output and that kind of thing. So, that’s just beautiful, I love that so much. I am curious because I know you mentioned it right off the top in the intro and it was something I had to actually look at on your website because something I love to do is creep on people’s websites and see what I can learn about them.
And I had noticed in your “meet the team” or meet, there is a page where we could learn more about you, and I noticed that there are people from literally all over the world. Like, someone from the Philippines and folks from Nova Scotia, and how do you lead a team who’s in such different time zones? I mean, that’s something we’ve struggled to even hire someone from the West Coast because we struggle with the time zone kind of thing.
And I wonder how you do the same sort of you’re describing really personal care, personal leadership, and being invested in people’s lives. How do you do that across the world?
[0:37:39.1] Tara Milburn: We’re figuring it out.
[0:37:40.6] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:37:42.4] Tara Milburn: I’d love to say I’d got like the magic bullet for you, Laura but you know we are figuring it out but it is partly sort of the roles, right? So, our team in Nairobi, amazing, amazing people that I remember talking to Liz and saying, “Why were you attracted to this job?” And she’s like, “Oh, I got sick of sitting in traffic going to work. I wanted more family time.” Like all the exact same reasons a lot of us are doing the things that we’re doing.
It’s just on the other side of the world. She’s got a computer science degree, she’s got 12 years experience, she’s sharp as a whip, and she has an amazing amount to offer, and so she is from our backshift person as orders come in through the website and everything else. When our folks login in North America, she’s already done all night time with the work so they’re not starting from like, “Ooh, inbox-like overload.”
[0:38:37.7] Laura Eich: That’s true, that’s nice.
[0:38:39.4] Tara Milburn: Right? But we don’t have her in key accounts talking to clients in North America because we don’t – we want her to be able to sleep at night.
[0:38:49.3] Laura Eich: Sure, sure.
[0:38:50.6] Tara Milburn: So, we just shift the work based on that and so that’s kind of how it – and we’re figuring it out. We have Slack, people put in their Slack their office hours so you can sort of see, “Oh, it’s nine to five Eastern. Oh, okay, it’s nine to five Pacific.” We say to folks, “Don’t feel compelled to answer messages outside of your working hours. You’re going to get messages from all kinds of you know, to day and night but don’t feel compelled to answer.”
Some people do because they don’t want to wake up the next morning and have like this many, and other people are like, “No, I completely shutter down and when I start, I start my day.” And so, we’re just figuring all those things out. We have a team meeting and now that we’re a bigger team, we’ve sort of changed our team meetings work and so I ask our Nairobi staff, “Could you please put together a presentation for our team and what it’s like to live and work in Nairobi?”
“What’s the economy like? What is it like to you know, like just give us some insight into your world.” And then another presentation I said you decide, like I said, “Can I have a volunteer for the staff meeting?” And Torsa, one of our team members again, “I’m going to volunteer.” And we had no idea what she was going to present and her entire presentation very, very thoughtfully searched and presented was around happiness at work.
[0:40:09.8] Laura Eich: Oh, I love that.
[0:40:11.8] Tara Milburn: Tools, tricks, things to think about, like happiness at work, and then the next team member the next week did a presentation because we talk all the time about remote work and how can we make it better and how can we improve. She did a whole deep dive into remote work and practices and principles that we can – and she’s like, “What I found is we’re kind of doing most of them.”
[0:40:34.9] Laura Eich: Okay, that’s good.
[0:40:38.4] Tara Milburn: Right?
[0:40:38.9] Laura Eich: Oh, yeah.
[0:40:39.9] Tara Milburn: But just really interesting and so it’s bringing the human element, making sure that people who get to – we have a team chat Slack channel where we see the land that Alice has in Nairobi and she was planting her sweet potatoes and she’s posting pictures. “This is what I did on the weekend, I was planting my sweet potatoes” and then Liz’s son is going off to school in his uniform in Nairobi.
She posts pictures and then our folks in BC, “Here is like the bear out the backyard, you know?” Like it’s kind of fun, right?
[0:41:11.1] Laura Eich: Oh, my gosh.
[0:41:12.7] Mike McFall: What do you see as the biggest mistakes and/or impediments made in the traditional environment to creating a human-centered culture?
[0:41:24.0] Tara Milburn: One of the reasons I started Ethical Swag is I think we just need to really look at how we’ve evolved as businesses. We’ve somehow normalized making a handful of people rich. Somehow, folks don’t even question it anymore. When I was a kid, I’ve said this before, a barber with seven kids could afford to buy a house and support their family and now, you have two well-educated well-paid young people that can’t even dream of buying a home.
Like, where did we get lost? Like isn’t home like something that we all need more than anything? If we have stability and we have a good roof over our heads and we’ve got – we feel we have psychological and physical safety and food security, doesn’t all the other stuff sort of start to take care of itself? And we have lost that and we’ve lost trust, like I think trust is at an all-time low and I come from a place of trust.
You have my trust at Ethical Swag until you lose it. When you lose it, it’s not good but I come from a place of trust, and I think we lead people, we manage projects, and we’ve got to remember it’s people. How do we give them the tools as leaders to be able to lead their area? I was an intrapreneur long before I was an entrepreneur and I used to drive my husband crazy. He’s like, “You’re always like we, we, we.” Like, I can’t help it, you know? Like, I’m just all in on anything I do.
[0:42:53.0] Laura Eich: I feel that.
[0:42:53.6] Tara Milburn: But how do we create an environment where people are safe to make mistakes, make decisions that aren’t always right? I’ve empowered our team, “You have the power to fire customers anytime, you don’t have to ask permission.” If they’re not in alignment with us, we can unpack it later, and we can help to just identify ways that maybe we might have handled it differently.
But one of my proudest moments was I noticed and this is a year or so ago, a client was really upset and they blasted the team in an email saying, you know, something had gone wrong, and I saw the response and it was, “We’re really sorry that it went wrong but we don’t talk to people like that and we won’t tolerate being spoken to like that here.” And the fact that that team member was empowered to write that in an email just made my day.
[0:43:46.5] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:43:47.5] Tara Milburn: I was just like, “That’s what it’s all about.”
[0:43:49.5] Laura Eich: Oh, that’s awesome.
[0:43:50.9] Tara Milburn: Bottom line, it’s not me, it’s them knowing what we stand for. It’s them being empowered to protect the people around them or themselves.
[0:44:02.6] Laura Eich: Yeah, and you mentioned earlier something I wanted to ask more about as far as knowing what you stand for. You mentioned having a Wiki page or somewhere that you keep sort of all of your philosophies, your beliefs, your values, your vision, everything like that. How do you manage to those things? This is something we talk about internally a lot is things like our core values, our vision, our purpose.
How often are you reassessing those things? How often are you, I don’t know if it’s teaching or reinforcing or trying to, I don’t know, bring them back to front and center because we always worry that you know, if things get put down somewhere, maybe no one will ever look at them and maybe no one will ever act on them. So, how do you keep things like your mission-vision values part of the everyday conversation to help reinforce this idea of people knowing exactly who they’re representing and what they’re standing for?
[0:44:56.3] Tara Milburn: Absolutely and it’s like a daily honestly. When I decided that I was going to make Ethical Swag the way I paid the bills, I was like, “Okay, I really got it dialed in, sort of what we stand for, what ethical means, and all those kinds of things, and I did a lot of work, and I had a lot of people that loved me worry about me because I seemed like I was just in this exactly where I’m sitting right now with this.
But for hours and hours and hours and hours and we didn’t even have any customers then. It was just me doing research and I remember it was the fall of 2017 because there was a lot of little chocolate bars involved and my husband would come in and I’d have a friend, he’s like, “Can I order takeout and bring it and can we just have 20 minutes? What are you doing in there?” And I was just researching.
I was talking to people, I was doing all this stuff, and it was just what I decided and learned honestly through my research is when you have mission and values and all that kind of stuff, it’s like, “Oh, wait, wait, let me look on the back of my business card. We have one of those things called the mission statement, let me read it to you.”
[0:45:53.7] Laura Eich: Right, right.
[0:45:54.3] Tara Milburn: And it is a bunch of gobbly-goop jargon, then you’re done, right? Like, ours is really simple, it’s just we’re in the business of improving other people’s lives. It’s kind of simple, it’s easy to remember, and it’s easy to activate daily, and I’m like, “Just be the best part of the customer’s day.” We’re not going to get everything right, like sometimes, things go wrong and it’s outside of our control.
It might not be our fault but it is our problem and just we’re not dealing in kidneys here, like no one is dying. So, if something goes wrong, like wear it, get over it, move on, and if there’s customer is just that hung up on it because UPS didn’t get it delivered or it was decorated incorrectly and we’re going to replace it but like if it – then they’re not our people anyway because at the end of the day, come on folks, right?
And so, we’re in the business of improving other people’s lives. We do that by working with suppliers and clients that put people and planet first. It’s simple and so along with answering your question is if you keep it simple and relatable and you get it every day, whether it’s an email you’re sending or whether you’re talking to a supplier, like we had one of our suppliers, like the key account rep that was dealing with us, she sent an email saying, “I’m leaving the company.”
And I, like immediately devastated, just went, “Oh my God, we’re going to miss you.” And she said, “If all my customers were like Ethical Swag I wouldn’t be leaving.” Because she said, “I like working with you guys you treat me.” She’s on the supplier side, she’s like, “It was always really interesting conversations and respectful dialogue. That’s not always the way in my world.”
[0:47:41.6] Laura Eich: Right, totally.
[0:47:43.1] Tara Milburn: And it’s just who we are no matter who we’re dealing with.
[0:47:47.6] Mike McFall: Yeah, that’s beautiful.
[0:47:49.2] Laura Eich: It will keep me up tonight if I don’t ask you what does ethical mean.
[0:47:54.8] Tara Milburn: It’s progress over perfection and it’s transparency.
[0:47:58.5] Laura Eich: Okay.
[0:47:59.0] Tara Milburn: So, have we got it all figured out? No, you ask us. So, we have little emojis beside every – so if you look on our product, like any product page on our website, and it’s kind of funny, we have emojis, good, better, best. One smiley is good, two smileys is better, and three smileys is best, kind of simple. The reason that –
[0:48:21.0] Laura Eich: So simple.
[0:48:21.7] Tara Milburn: Happened that way is because the technology on our first MVP website didn’t allow us to put stuff in and we figured out that it allowed us to put emojis. So, that’s how the emoji system –
[0:48:30.5] Laura Eich: Oh, that’s hilarious. I love it so much.
[0:48:35.2] Tara Milburn: But it was like –
[0:48:37.7] Laura Eich: Happy accident.
[0:48:38.8] Tara Milburn: We tailored that – it is kind of hilarious, that’s how it ended up, and now it sort of at the root of everything, these emojis that we do but we were like, “We need to meet our customers where they are and if they can’t afford best, they shouldn’t say, “Oh, I can’t afford best, therefore it doesn’t matter” and just I’ll buy whatever from whoever.” So, we have sort of a baseline in our goods.
And so, you’ll find those products everywhere but we do a deep dive on the supply chain, we make sure that we sort of have a handful of things that are really important to us around social compliance, environmental stewardship, product quality, product safety, and supply chain security. So, we do that stuff at good, so you have a baseline. Now, we’ve got better and we’re really clear and transparent about what better is.
And then, you get people like, “Oh, but what if like end-of-life cycle of products, and what about the carbon emissions of that?” And it’s like, “You know what? We’re not going to solve every problem and we’re not going to claim to.”
[0:49:32.3] Laura Eich: Right.
[0:49:33.3] Tara Milburn: It’s literally progress over perfection, giving you transparency into what you’re buying from who and how and we will layer on and layer on and layer on as we move through this with you. So, we are now about to implement in 2025 what I’m calling crowd-sourcing for impact. So, we’re adding pennies to every product price and then we are going to – we’re not going to say, “Oh, would you like to now donate over here” or whatever.
We’re actually going to add it to the price of every product and then we are going to be making donations, so even good is going to have an impact. What we really want to do is amplify the impact of your spend. So, how do we take the dollars that you’re spending and amplify them so the sum of the, you know, two plus two is equal five here? It’s really that simple and then how do we keep layering on that?
So, the first layer was let’s get a really great team that feels good about coming to work every day, that can show up for their families at the end of the day, that have benefits, that just feel good about where they are. Let’s do that first, so that’s what we did first. Next, it’s like, “Now, how do we layer on the crowdsourcing for impact?” Okay, now what can we do next? Now, what kind of partnerships can we have that can even amplify that spend even more, right? And so, it’s I haven’t gotten it all figured out, Laura. I’m literally –
[0:51:04.4] Laura Eich: What?
[0:51:04.8] Tara Milburn: We’re just layering, we’re layering. It’s all coming from a good place. Did I answer your question?
[0:51:11.0] Laura Eich: I can tell. I can tell. I am so curious, so you strike me as an ambitious and enthusiastic person, which I love. So, I love an ambitious and enthusiastic people, and bringing love into leadership isn’t just being a leader for your team but maybe being a leader in the industry. Do you have ambitions to like, change the full-on swag supplying industry? Are you going there?
[0:51:34.8] Tara Milburn: Bigger.
[0:51:35.5] Laura Eich: Good, fantastic. What’s your goals? Talk to me about this, what do you see as possible for the future?
[0:51:44.3] Tara Milburn: Oh, so much, there’s so much possibility but I really do believe that it’s not what you say, it’s what you do that matters, and so I want to do so I can talk about it. I’m in the process of doing and really, it’s within the industry that I think that we can have the impact but quite frankly, I think it’s business at a larger scale, and so for me, how do we demonstrate that you can be wildly profitable while thinking about your people and while thinking about your stakeholders, not just your shareholders?
And that’s what Mike and BIGGBY® COFFEE is all about as well and that’s why I’m so aligned and loved when I get a chance to spend time because a lot of people try to do this in their respective industries. Now, imagine if all of us were doing this at scale and it was just the way we did business and I feel like the things that we’re learning in our business schools, the things that are being taught in the incubators, the mentorships that’s going on is, “Hurry up, make a lot of money, get your money out before it all crashes and burns.”
And for me, it’s like, how do we create honestly, I’ve been around for 30 years and speed seems to be the number one word in everything. “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.” Well, you know what? It takes time to build sustainable business. If we’re just trying to build business to get our little bit of money out or our big bit of money out and that money comes at an expense, that success comes at an expense if it is this rush.
So, for me, it’s yes within the industry. I’m trying to demonstrate that there is another way within our industry but what better platform than at an industry where there’s zero barriers to entry and it’s a mature industry? If we can show that you can change that, then we can show that we can change any business for good.
[0:53:37.9] Mike McFall: Yeah, mic drop, right?
[0:53:40.0] Laura Eich: Yeah, that was really good.
[0:53:42.8] Mike McFall: There’s a Gary – yeah, I don’t know if you know Gary Vaynerchuk is but he’s you know, a social media influencer in the entrepreneurship space. He’s hugely successful, he has a whole bit about I think its speed is the devil, and you’d love it. So, check it out. I mean it –
[0:53:59.9] Tara Milburn: I am going to.
[0:54:00.5] Mike McFall: I am so aligned with this concept you bring, it’s like entrepreneurship is about start it, scale it, sell it, be rich. There’s so much more, right? There’s just so much more meaningful work to be done than to try to make yourself wealthy, you know? And so, I mean, thank you, that was a really beautiful and articulate way to state all of that.
[0:54:25.7] Tara Milburn: Thank you.
[0:54:26.5] Laura Eich: I wonder on that front, on the entrepreneurship front in particular, you mentioned your dad was an entrepreneur, and so when you were first tickled with an idea, you were like, “Oh no, I’m not going there. I know exactly how hard that is.” How does it compare to what you thought?
[0:54:41.6] Tara Milburn: That’s exactly what I thought, my father went bankrupt when I was 10. He was a pretty spectacular human being, I am exceptionally lucky in my life that he was my father and mother is my mother and that I’ve ended up where I have been, and he was very humble. He was just a hard worker, I have this thing on my wall right beside me here that says, “Press on” and it’s basically, you just keep going, and you press on.
And I have his picture right there with my mother that sits beside me every day and he was moderately successful in the end. He provided for his family very well, he was in the II World War as a radio officer, he came from absolutely nothing. He was an Irishman born in Ireland and after the war was very sick, almost died, had TB, just everything against him, and you know when I was in high school, he came home, and he’s like, “Do you have any extra textbooks?”
And I’m like, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Oh, I had a guy in today interviewing for a job and I said you should be in school and he said I have to take care of my family.” And so my dad said, “Well, I’ll hire you if you finish school.” And so my father paid for him to go through school and so this is something – you know, I remember being in a restaurant in Montreal and some business associate came over to my dad and he was joking.
And this is you know, this is 40 years ago, 45 years ago, and he’s joking around ha-ha-ha and he’s like patting my dad on the back and I remember, I’ll never forget it, I remember where we’re sitting and he said, “It’s like walking into the United Nations when you walk into your father’s office. He hires everybody.”
[0:56:21.8] Laura Eich: Oh, amazing.
[0:56:22.4] Tara Milburn: And what a strange thing but it struck me even at you know, 45 years ago and yeah, my father did but he also like helped educate them and promoted them and he was just a really humble guy and he was all about other people. So, you know he was successful, who’d been super successful? I won’t get into it here but he invented stuff that we use every day.
[0:56:49.6] Laura Eich: Oh.
[0:56:50.2] Tara Milburn: He was quite a brilliant man but he did it as a way to make other people’s lives better.
[0:56:58.3] Laura Eich: Oh.
[0:56:59.2] Tara Milburn: Namely, myself and our family and then the people that work with him and he was doing this 50 years ago, and I just look at that and say, “Okay, I was given something.” I was given an opportunity, if I can take that just make it a little better for the people around in my sphere, and if all of us take what we’ve been given, whether it’s here, or down here, or up here, and just make it better for the people in our world, imagine the impact that we can have.
[0:57:29.5] Laura Eich: I mean, that’s all I need. Mike, do you have any other questions over there? I feel fully inspired to go into my day.
[0:57:38.5] Mike McFall: I mean, take a picture of the –
[0:57:40.1] Laura Eich: The “Press On.”
[0:57:41.5] Mike McFall: Press On.
[0:57:41.6] Laura Eich: Yeah.
[0:57:42.4] Tara Milburn: Yes, please, yeah. I will.
[0:57:44.3] Laura Eich: I’d love to see that.
[0:57:45.6] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:57:46.1] Tara Milburn: So, I’m going to add to that. So, back in the day, my father faxed it to me, okay? And it went everywhere with me but it’s still with me.
[0:57:58.3] Laura Eich: Oh, my gosh.
[0:57:59.4] Tara Milburn: It’s got coffee stains, you can see where I’ve put it on my bulletin board. There’s like pinned yellow, look, there’s cola, see?
[0:58:07.7] Laura Eich: Perfect, oh, I love it.
[0:58:09.1] Tara Milburn: So, I have through university, through every job, I’ve had this with me, right beside me, and when my dad passed away, my mother had my daughter printed out and framed it, and gave it to me for Christmas.
[0:58:23.0] Laura Eich: Oh, so good.
[0:58:23.5] Tara Milburn: And so, this is the original.
[0:58:26.9] Laura Eich: Wow.
[0:58:28.1] Tara Milburn: And on my wall, I have the framed one, and it’s really about family.
[0:58:33.5] Laura Eich: Yeah, I can very much see how you became the person you are, and the person you are is like a really wonderful human being. I’m so impressed by you, I’m so impressed by your ambition to make the world better, and make it just a little bit better, and to press on, doing good for people. Mike, did you have anything else for Tara, before we wrap up?
[0:58:52.7] Mike McFall: No, I’m great. That was fantastic.
[0:58:54.7] Laura Eich: Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much, Tara. If people want to find out more about you, more about Ethical Swag, where should they visit?
[0:59:01.3] Tara Milburn: Jeez, thank you, first of all, thank you very much. We’re Ethical Swag everywhere, we’re not on Twitter but we are on Instagram, we are on Facebook, LinkedIn, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m easy to find and I love to hear from everybody. So, I really appreciate you know, the opportunity to sort of dig in a little bit here today.
[0:59:21.7] Laura Eich: I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. I can’t wait to come visit you when I tag along for the stakeholder business society trip, don’t be surprised.
[0:59:32.5] Tara Milburn: Absolutely, and I love that Mike’s wearing swag today.
[0:59:36.3] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[0:59:36.2] Laura Eich: Totally.
[0:59:39.1] Tara Milburn: It’s everywhere.
[0:59:40.0] Laura Eich: It’s everywhere.
[0:59:41.1] Tara Milburn: Thanks, guys, I really appreciate it.
[0:59:42.6] Laura Eich: Thank you.
[0:59:43.6] Mike McFall: All right, thank you, thanks Tara.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:59:54.0] Mike McFall: I love that you were more animated than usual.
[0:59:57.1] Laura Eich: Oh, my gosh.
[0:59:57.9] Mike McFall: And normally, normally, you're pretty animated. So –
[1:00:03.3] Laura Eich: Well, does it – Oh, I told Tara before we logged out, like before we started recording that I’m maybe her biggest fan. So yeah, I was maybe amped up for that conversation. Was I too animated?
[1:00:16.2] Mike McFall: No, it was great. No, it was great. I was just sitting back, enjoying it. At one point I thought maybe I should just not say anything the whole time.
[1:00:25.7] Laura Eich: No. I did note, I don’t think you said anything for the first 20 minutes or something but I’m just like, I love her story. We couldn’t even get into half of it but like, her career pre-Ethical Swag is so impressive, and like, I want to know what impact she had on the world in that career, and like, she just like, casually mentioned that she sort of helped with something to do with the Olympics. There is like a whole story there too. There’s so much to talk about but –
[1:00:52.8] Mike McFall: Yeah.
[1:00:53.3] Laura Eich: I think, the idea, what I’m going to be mulling over is the idea that she essentially has created this very tech-forward, tech-driven company that’s completely human and I know that lots of companies try that, or sometimes they even make it like a marketing tagline that that’s what they are but like, she’s doing it and that’s very cool to me.
[1:01:17.8] Mike McFall: Yeah. I also just love the, you know, it aligned so amazing with what we’re trying to do, her perspective on, “Let’s build a company that’s like, really good to people and really responsible, environmentally, socially, and so on, and oh, by the way, build a super successful business.”
[1:01:40.8] Laura Eich: Right.
[1:01:41.1] Mike McFall: In sort of like the traditional sense of what that means and prove that out, right? And again, the more companies we can get taking that approach that once we can start to prove out, then there’s going to be no choice but to do it because people won’t want to work for any other kind of company at the end of the day.
[1:02:00.4] Laura Eich: Yeah, they’re such a humility to her approach of just like, “We’re figuring it out, we’re figuring it out.” I think by the third or fourth time she told me that that was her answer, I was like, “Okay, I get it, like yeah, you’re not claiming to have all the answers, you’re not claiming to do a 180 on anything but you’re saying we’ll just make incremental improvements over time, that will leave the world a better place, basically.” And I think that’s how we should all be approaching this because no one of us have it all figured out.
[1:02:30.1] Mike McFall: Yeah, and anybody that says they do, come on, you know? I think if you talk to anybody, I mean, you talk to the other people we’ve had at this podcast, I think they would – they say very much the same thing that we don’t. You live half your life thinking you're screwing it all up, you live 40% of your life thinking that maybe you’re doing something reasonable, and then you got 10%of your life where you’re like, “Oh, wow, we’re actually maybe doing some good things,” you know?
Like, it’s such a mixed bag of influence. I mean, I don’t – I don't know. I just have a lot of respect for her also just from an attitudinal perspective. Like, you don’t hang out with too many people that are just so engaged, enthusiastic, and like all in, and it’s one of the things that I love about her.
[1:03:17.8] Laura Eich: Yeah, I could fully picture when she was describing, like, “I got the idea, and then I did the research, and then my husband was just like bringing me takeout to like, keep me alive, basically.” I was like, “Oh yeah, you are awesome, you are my kind of person.” When you get an idea and you go for something, you go all the way for it. I think that’s such a cool attitude, and I really loved the tie from her dad’s story of essentially wanting to hire the best people.
I don’t care where they’re from, to how she’s operating her company now, and how she seems to have taken that as like, there’s the obstacle is the way type philosophy where it’s like, the hard thing or the thing that isn’t simple to overcome is actually advantageous to us, like talking about the folks in Kenya and the folks in the Philippines. Like, they basically have someone awake at all hours of the day.
And I bet it’s not super convenient for like, tax purposes but I bet it’s super convenient for customer service and caring for people throughout the night and everything. So, I just – I just thought that was a really cool story.
[1:04:21.7] Mike McFall: Yeah, yeah.
[1:04:23.5] Laura Eich: We may have to have her on again and I keep saying that though, and so now, I don’t know if we’ll ever have other people on our podcast because we have so many people we need to repeat.
[1:04:32.0] Mike McFall: Well, remember, remember, I think this is like 16, 17, and we’ve got a long way to go.
[1:04:32.0] Laura Eich: Yeah, we’ve got a ways to go, it’s true. Maybe the next one, we could record live from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
[1:04:43.3] Mike McFall: Cape Breton Island, yes.
[1:04:44.7] Laura Eich: Cape Breton Island.
[1:04:45.7] Mike McFall: Cape Breton Island, yeah.
[1:04:47.5] Laura Eich: Because I got to go there.
[1:04:48.1] Mike McFall: Let’s do it.
[1:04:48.5] Laura Eich: Yeah, let’s do it.
[1:04:48.7] Mike McFall: I mean, that’s a hike, just so you know. So, you're not talking about going to Toledo here, you’re talking about Cape Breton Island.
[1:04:55.9] Laura Eich: I’m in. It looks magical.
[1:04:58.9] Mike McFall: Oh, yes, I don’t know. That is a whole magical part of the world.
[1:05:00.9] Laura Eich: Awesome. All right, dear listener, to make sure you don’t miss an episode of Love In Leadership, be sure to hit that follow button wherever you find podcasts. While you’re there, do us a solid and leave us a rating and a review, tell us how we’re doing. To follow along with Mike and I as we explore the world, follow us on our social channels @LifeYouLoveLab and @MikeJMcFall.
And if you have an idea for a guest you think we should connect with, please email LifeLab@Biggby.com, to learn more about BIGGBY COFFEE’s purpose of supporting you in building a life you love, please check out Biggby.com. Love you, Mike.
Mike McFall: Love you too, Laura.
Laura Eich: And we love you for who you are too, listeners. We’ll see you next time.
[END]