Marketing in the distribution world often feels like a constant battle for budget, attention, and sales team buy-in. How do you bridge the gap between building brand awareness and hitting targeted revenue goals? Kyler Nixon sits down with Jasmine Widmer to explore how a century-old business stays culturally modern while serving the heavy industries of the Intermountain West.

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They discuss the realities of running a marketing department as a one-person team. Jasmine explains why securing the ground-level trust of the sales team is the absolute foundation of a working marketing strategy. She reveals a highly effective media play: trading traditional TV commercials for hybrid audio-and-video streaming campaigns on platforms like Spotify.

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The conversation also highlights how B2B companies build dedicated customer e-commerce portals to simplify the buying process. If you want to learn how to stretch co-op funds with major suppliers while keeping your brand highly relevant, this conversation delivers exactly that.

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👤 Guest Bio

Jasmine Widmer is the Marketing Manager at Industrial Supply Company. She has spent the last eight years climbing the ranks within the Intermountain West's largest privately owned MROP distributor.

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Jasmine specializes in modernizing industrial marketing through digital campaigns and tightening the crucial relationship between sales and marketing teams. She holds an MBA from Western Governors University and is a strong advocate for advancing women in the heavy industry and wholesale distribution sectors.

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📌 What We Cover

1. How Jasmine built mutual respect and open communication between her marketing department and the boots on the ground sales team.
2. The surprising reach and targeting power of audio and visual streaming ads on platforms like Spotify and iHeartRadio.
3. Strategies for pooling co-op marketing budgets with major suppliers like 3M Company, DeWalt, and Milwaukee.
4. Why custom e-commerce catalogs and dedicated customer portals are massive revenue drivers that relieve pressure from sales reps.
5. How Industrial Supply Company uses tool allowances to bring direct value to large customer accounts.
6. Preparing for a 110-year company anniversary while navigating massive local infrastructure projects and the upcoming Salt Lake City Olympics.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Jasmine Widmer on LinkedIn
2. Industrial Supply Company Website
3. Affiliated Distributors
4. Spotify and iHeartRadio
5. 3M Company, DeWalt, and Milwaukee

Distribution companies often rely on legacy relationships and a 20-year-old logo to drive sales. But what happens when the digital age brings fierce competition right to your doorstep? Host Kyler Nixon sits down with Mordy Kurtz, Marketing Director at The Boxery, to explore why a packaging supplier needs a distinct personality.

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Mordy explains how branding goes far beyond a simple visual identity. He details how an effective brand operates as a medium of connection, driving nostalgia, trust, and even excitement for something as straightforward as corrugated cardboard. From creating engaging unboxing videos for third-party logistics companies to understanding why a strong brand must be backed by exceptional customer service, this conversation lays out the reality of modern distribution marketing. Listeners will hear exactly why consistency builds trust and how to align visual design, written tone, and leadership vision to stay relevant in a highly competitive space.

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Guest Bio

Mordy Kurtz is the Marketing Director at The Boxery, a premier provider of packaging solutions founded in 1998 and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Since joining the company in June 2018, Mordy has shaped their organic marketing, visual design, and social media strategy, proudly adopting the tagline, "Keeping corrugated cool since 2018." Before dedicating his creative talents to the corporate sector, he co-founded the award-winning Hasidic folk-rock duo, Rogers Park Band. Mordy believes in building experiential brand connections and famously states that designing ads is his happy place.

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What We Cover

1. The Power of Unboxing: Why The Boxery launched unboxing videos for their own boxes to capture the customer experience for creators and ecommerce sellers.
2. Defining a Brand: Mordy explains why a brand is much more than a logo and acts as a direct medium of connection to build emotional trust with buyers.
3. Branding in Distribution: The shift from relying strictly on long-term relationships to using visual identity to fight off cheaper digital competition.
4. Passing the Squint Test: How colors, fonts, and patterns combine to make your brand instantly recognizable from a distance.
5. The Fyre Festival Effect: Why selling a highly attractive image will ultimately fail if your company lacks the actual customer service to back it up.
6. Aligning Tone and Design: Why your written copy must match your visual aesthetics to keep the brand accessible for everyday buyers instead of coming off as rigid.
7. Getting Executive Buy-In: The practical importance of looping founders into the rebranding process early to ensure your goals for staying relevant are perfectly aligned.

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Resources Mentioned

1. The Boxery
2. Fiverr
3. Alan Peters' book on branding
4. Building a StoryBrand

Most distributors view a fifty-dollar online order as a transaction. Kristin Livesay views it as a handshake. As the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Component Supply, Kristin uses a "starting point" strategy to turn small, urgent R&D orders into long-term custom fabrication partnerships.

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In this conversation, Kyler Nixon asks Kristin how her team bridges the gap between raw manufacturing and the engineers who need "onesies and twosies" to prototype life-saving devices. Kristin breaks down why their e-commerce platform functions primarily as a lead-generation engine and how personal follow-ups help customers transition from standard parts to volume production.

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They also discuss the counterintuitive approach Component Supply takes to trade shows. Instead of glossy, intimidating displays, they build booths that look like workshops to attract hands-on engineers. You will hear why "trick or treaters" at trade shows are a distraction, how internal branding builds culture, and why just because you have always done something doesn't mean it isn't stupid.

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👤 Guest Bio

Kristin Livesay is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Component Supply, a specialized supplier for the medical device industry based in Sparta, Tennessee. With over a decade of experience, she focuses on removing supply chain friction for researchers and engineers.

Kristin ensures that R&D teams have fast access to critical components like hypodermic tubing, wire, and Nitinol. She champions a philosophy where online efficiency serves as the entry point for deep engineering support and custom fabrication.

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📌 What We Cover

1. E-Commerce as Lead Gen: Why 60-70% of initial online orders are viewed as introductions rather than final sales.
2. The "Starting Point" Strategy: How a single piece of tubing leads to volume fabrication contracts.
3. Trade Show Strategy: Why building a booth that looks like a workshop attracts more engineers than a polished corporate display.
4. Internal Branding: How the Bits and Pieces podcast and newsletter foster team camaraderie and ownership.
5. Handling Logistics: The challenges of shipping 72-inch wires and absorbing the manufacturer's minimums for R&D clients.
6. Marketing for Retention: Using content to educate customers on capabilities they didn't know existed.
7. Strategic Partnerships: Expanding reach by placing products on other platforms without sacrificing service quality.

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Component Supply
2. Bits and Pieces Podcast
3. Kristin Livesay on LinkedIn