#141. Set Your Business Up for Success with Accelerate 23 | Podcast

Vira: 0:41

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to Flowium Podcast. I’m your host, Vira Sadlak, and I’m a marketeer an agency called Flowium. And here at Flowium, we really love what we do. We really love ecommerce. We really love email marketing. And because we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. Delivering the right message to the right person at the right moment. That’s what we do here at Flowium. And today I’m joined by a very special guest. His name is Mike Penrod. He’s the head of partner marketing at Pattern. And we’re going to talk today about this amazing ecommerce event that Pattern will be doing on May 10th to 11th in Salt Lake City. And for those of you who don’t know, Pattern is the first e-commerce accelerator to help your company grow faster, protect your brand, and sell globally on e-commerce marketplaces, D2C, and other digital channels. We will definitely talk a bit more about Pattern and about this amazing event that they will be doing on May 10th, 11th in Salt Lake City. In the meantime, Mike, say hi. We are really excited to have you today on this podcast.

Mike: 1:48

Vera, thank you. Thank you. Really excited to be speaking with you today. Thank you for the invitation.

Vira: 1:53

Yeah, yeah, awesome. Before we go and discuss all of the juicy questions that we have about your event, let’s play a little Q&A game, just like an informal this or that kind of questions, just like to get to know you better. Okay, Mike?

Mike: 2:06

Sounds great.

Vira: 2:07

Cool. Okay, shopping online or shopping offline?

Mike: 2:11

Do I expound or just a one-word answer?

Vira: 2:14

One word is fine. Up to you, honestly. If you want to say a few words, feel free. Yeah.

Mike: 2:19

Yeah, I better say online. We’re doing e-commerce here.

Vira: 2:22

Yeah, same. We might be biased, Mike, but definitely online. I’m the online person as well.

Mike: 2:29

That’s right.

Vira: 2:29

Cool. Paper book or ebook?

Mike: 2:31

This is kind of weird, but no book. I’m not really into books. So, yeah, I would go— I’d pass on that question.

Vira: 2:40

Okay, cool. Android or iPhone?

Mike: 2:44

iPhone.

Vira: 2:44

Okay, cool. I was hoping you’re not going to say I’m not a phone kind of person. Cool. Cool. Okay. Sort by price or sort by rating?

Mike: 2:56

Rating. I do go for the higher ratings.

Vira: 2:59

Same. Same. Okay. Instagram or Twitter?

Mike: 3:02

Instagram. Instagram for sure. How about you?

Vira: 3:06

Same. Honestly, I have Twitter account, but I’m just there for watching. I never post anything. Yeah, but yeah, I’m an Instagram person. Cool. Cool. So tell us more about this event that you guys will be doing, the Accelerate 23 conference. What is Accelerate? And why should I attend?

Mike: 3:25

Yeah, well, I guess why should you attend? You are sponsoring. Flowium is going to be there in full force and we are really excited to have Flowium there. So, so yeah, that’s why you should attend. But for the listeners, it’s an e-commerce event and I know there are so many e-commerce events out there. We go to a lot of them as a company. And as we went to a lot of these shows, like we felt like there were things missing. You know that people are paying to have the stage and you’re getting pitched to all day. Another thing with a lot of shows is, is there are so many exhibitors and so many vendors that you miss that brand-to-brand connection. And so last year was our first year doing the event and we set out to address those things. And we’ve created an e-commerce event that’s not a Pattern user conference. It’s not a Pattern sales pitch. I was actually disappointed in how little we talked about ourselves at the show. It’s really about e-commerce acceleration and what brands need to do. What are the new technologies, the trends? What are other brands doing to accelerate in the e-commerce space?

Vira: 4:26

That’s so cool. And thank you so much for mentioning that we’re actually one of the sponsors of the event because we do have a special discount, Flowium discount that you guys can use. It is flowium-friends and it will get you 20% off all of the tickets. And we will share the link in the description box. In fact, that link that we will share, it will automatically apply 20% off to the tickets in your cart or to the tickets that you will add to your cart. So in case you are in the area or in case you want to travel to the conference, check out that link that we will share with you. And yeah, Mike, you’re right. I mean, there is now like a wide range of e-commerce events and webinars and conferences you can attend. Like whether you choose to go to like a real-world event or take part in like a short lunch break webinar, I’m sometimes guilty of that, or like attend a multi-day conference. There’s like a lot of things to choose from. And you already mentioned that the biggest difference like with your event versus the other ones is that they are like less salesy and most more focused on like business acceleration. And when you’re saying like business accelerations and business accelerators, let’s go back to the basics. What are they? Like, what is business accelerator? And like, how is it different from all of this other organizations that are on the market?

Mike: 5:49

Yeah, so I would say 2 different definitions with this. One, we look at ecommerce accelerators, people who are accelerating ecommerce as any technology, any topic, any trend that is helping businesses to succeed in the e-commerce space. So that can be anything from, you know, new advertising technology. So this event drives all of those topics, all those discussions, and we could talk more later on about what those different topics are that we’ll be discussing at the event. But that, that’s the first definition.

Vira: 6:17

Yeah.

Mike: 6:18

Just acceleration in general. And I think that spans a lot of different solutions, a lot of different topics. The second definition is, is an e-commerce accelerator And that’s, that’s what Pattern is. That’s, that’s what we do as a company. And it’s a unique business model that comes in and helps brands to sell on marketplaces and even sometimes their D2C sites in ways that they haven’t done before. It’s a unique business model. And yeah, we can dive into that if there’s more interest too.

Vira: 6:45

Yeah, cool. We’ll definitely talk more about this because I personally do have like a lot of questions about like your, your business models and how you can help brands like seize that opportunity. Right. But yeah, let’s, let’s talk more about the Accelerate event, who’s the ideal attendee of the Accelerate’23? Who is it for? What people I can expect to meet there? Who is it for, basically?

Mike: 7:10

Yeah. Yeah. So just some helpful stats. Last year, 57% of the attendees were director and above titles, primarily in sales, marketing, C-suite, and operations and logistics. And so that’s kind of the makeup from last year’s show. And this year we’re seeing the same, the same demographics of attendees. I think to help answer your question though, too, I’m just going to list off the 8 topic tracks that we have at the event. And that if those topics are of interest to you and you are a decision maker, a leader in the e-commerce, in the e-commerce space for your business, or an owner of your business, and then I think that, that, that’ll help answer the question if this is right for you. But the topics that we have are Marketplace acceleration, technology, brand experience, trends, social and influencer marketing, brand control, digital marketing, and logistics.

Vira: 8:10

I see. I see. So there will be like different sort of like topic-specific networking groups or how does it work? Can I like attend multiple groups? Like how does it work?

Mike: 8:22

Yeah. So each of those topics, there is a breakout track dedicated to that Some of them run concurrently, but yeah, you can pick and choose sessions from any of those topic tracks. You don’t have to commit to one. But as you mentioned too, another cool component, we really emphasize networking and building valuable relationships through this event. And everything from the mills to other experiences at the show are built around those topic tracks. So like if you go to lunch, there are table tents on the tables where if you want to, if you have questions about logistics, want to see what others are doing in the logistics space, you can go to logistics section of the meal hall. And people will congregate there as they’re eating to have discussions around that topic. So it’s just a lot of things that we do to kind of build learning and networking into the show.

Vira: 9:11

Yeah, yeah. Last year, actually, our COO, Amara, she attended the conference. I think it was your first event or something, but she loved it. And her favorite part was actually that like networking component during the event. She like absolutely loved it. And she was like personally wondering if you guys will be doing this again this year. She’s from Salt Lake City, so she will probably be coming to the event. And in fact, like a lot of people from our team will be there as well and some of our clients as well. So yeah, we’re going to see you there, guys.

Mike: 9:43

Looking forward to it.

Vira: 9:44

Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s really interesting. What about like the speakers? You have a lot of like big names, honestly, advertised on your website, and you have a a lot of key speakers at this event, including Michael Phelps, Neil Patel. I think you will have Spanx president as well, like people from Supergoop. What can attendees count on learning from these people? And like, what speakers are you most excited about?

Mike: 10:45

Yeah, no, yeah, you mentioned some great names. And it’s really exciting that they’re able to come to the show. We also just announced Jessica Alba, actress and founder of The Honest Company, who’s going to be keynoting as well. But yeah.

Vira: 10:59

Oh my goodness. That’s amazing.

Mike: 11:01

Really exciting. So cool. So, but yeah, I think it’s really unique. And I think the biggest challenge for me last year was that there are concurrent sessions and you kind of have to pick and choose. And that’s kind of hard because there are a lot of interesting things going on at the same time. But from some of our bigger headlines, like Jessica Alba, like it’s going to be so cool to hear about her journey with The Honest Company from founding that to their e-commerce presence to what they’re doing today to drive success for that company. Just the starlight around her as an actress. and founder of this amazing company is really exciting. Another thing, a big component of the show is just general inspiration for success. And I’m excited for Michael Phelps on that front, being the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time. I just am so excited to be inspired by him and learn from him. One thing we do like to talk about at the show is kind of the people behind the people and what it takes for an executive or leader to succeed and all of the different components behind them that are making that happen and also shining a spotlight on those people. So that’ll be a really interesting component of the event as well. But yeah, you asked what I’m most excited about. It’s such a loaded question. Like you mentioned, there are a lot of brands who will be there and I really love hearing real-world experiences from them. So there’s Panasonic, you mentioned Supergoop, Liquid Death, Cotopaxi, Thorn, Camp Chef, Spanx, GNC. There’s just a lot of different executives from a lot of different industries that will be speaking about specific experiences and actionable takeaways on how to, how to take into practice what they’ve been doing in their businesses in the e-commerce space.

Vira: 12:41

Yeah, that’s so cool.

Mike: 12:43

Yeah. And just one more thing, the exciting technologies and solutions, like everything from AI technology for image optimization on our e-commerce sites to Flowium. So I got an email from Flowium this morning advertising the event and your presence at the event and forwarded it to our whole marketing team. And everybody is raving about this being one of the coolest emails they’ve ever seen. So I’m excited to learn from you and from your company and what you’re doing to be successful on the email side as well.

Vira: 13:12

Thank you so much. Yeah, emails are our bread and butter. So I’m really glad you liked our newsletter. We just like launched the newsletter not so long ago, believe it or not. Like I think a year ago was when we launched the emails. And the company has been around for like a few years now. So that was about time. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Uh, well, yeah, there are obviously some guests that I’m like really, really excited about, but, uh, let’s talk more about Pattern, like just like in general, what Pattern is and how do you guys help e-commerce business owners?

Mike: 13:49

Yeah.

Vira: 13:50

So like in general.

Mike: 13:52

So I’ve, I’ve been here for a year and a half and I was at Amazon prior to coming to Pattern. And what really attracted me to Pattern is their business model. It’s, it’s very unique in that we don’t charge agency fees. We don’t charge a percent of ad spend. We don’t charge, you know, a SaaS fee. Our business model is such that we go into a company and, or a brand and purchase products from them at wholesale price and then resell their products on marketplaces like Amazon or Tmall internationally. Mm-hmm. Or Target.com, you know, all the different marketplaces. And we live off of the thin margin that we get from reselling the product. So there’s no additional fees outside of that. And the cool thing that brands get by partnering with us in this way is we have 1,400 employees across 20+ offices globally. And you get scale and expertise and an e-commerce team that would be impossible to build internally. And technology, we have over 150 people on our technology development team. that are developing our ad tech and helping with our ad strategies and how to help these brands succeed on those marketplaces. And the cost is selling us products at wholesale price. And you get the benefit of that continual stream of revenue, weekly POs coming in, and we take care of everything from there on out, the logistics, advertising, SEO, to help you succeed on those marketplaces.

Vira: 15:14

That’s really interesting. And thank you for explaining that because I had a hard time understanding like the difference between like ecommerce aggregators who purchase brands in order like to grow them and like accelerators. So like aggregators, like correct me if I’m wrong, aggregators, they purchase brands in order to grow them and accelerators, they more like collaborate with brands, like to like supporting their growth and like in exchange for the share of profits, correct?

Mike: 15:42

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And it works with all different sizes of businesses. Like we have customers as big as Panasonic and Nestlé down to, you know, smaller companies that are maybe doing just$4 or $5 million on marketplaces. And, and we can represent them as well. There’s a lot of different iterations of the model that works, but, but our focus is partnering with brands to help them succeed on these marketplaces. Cool.

Vira: 16:08

No, I really like this business model because it basically like still gives you the power of your like brand strategy and everything. But at the same time, like this accelerators, they’re like motivated in a way they’re motivated to help you succeed. Because that’s what they live off of. So that’s a really interesting, really interesting business model. Yeah. Okay, cool. A few more words or a few more questions about the event. So obviously this is your, I think, second time, right? Doing this event. This is only the second year of Accelerate. How do you guys, how are you growing your audience? I’m just like curious as an email marketing specialist, like, do you use email marketing at all? Like, how do you grow your audience? How do people learn about you? What are your methods?

Mike: 16:56

Absolutely. Anything under the sun, we’re doing it. We do want to have a big volume of people there. Last year we had 1,200 people and this year we’re hoping for 1,600 to 2,000 and every tactic in the book we’re using. So, so that includes, you know, email marketing, nurtures, and it even includes internet TV and advertising commercials to targeted groups just in their own homes on internet TV. to influencers and finding people who are influential in this space and, you know, giving them the materials they need to promote to their email lists and promote socially as well. So yeah, a lot of different tactics and techniques and it’s working. We’re excited to see all the people who have signed up and excited for those who are still going to sign up and come.

Vira: 17:46

Awesome. Awesome. So where can our listeners learn more about this event? Where they should go to like learn more about Pattern and the Accelerate’23?

Mike: 17:56

Sure. So it’s the website for the Accelerate event is accelerationsummit.com. An easier URL is just to go to pattern.com. That’s our company’s website and there’s a banner there for Accelerate as well. But, but yeah, again, remember Flowium’s discount code to get a good, good price on the tickets. Prices do go up at the end of the month. So, so right now is the time to register for the event.

Vira: 18:18

Yeah, guys. So our discount code is flowium-friends or just like use the link that we’ll share in the description. Description box, and that link will automatically apply 20% off the tickets. And just a quick reminder, the event is going to be in Salt Lake City, Utah, May 10th to May 11th. So if you haven’t checked their website yet, definitely do that now because the prices, they will go up eventually. So check it out now. And yeah, there are a lot of exciting speakers that I’m personally really interested in. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming to this podcast and sharing everything about the summit.

Mike: 19:02

Yeah, it was a pleasure speaking with you, Vera. Thank you so much for the opportunity and hope to see your listeners at the show.

Vira: 19:08

Definitely. Definitely. Yes, guys, again, the link will be shared in the description box. Our team and our clients will be there. So if we could meet some of our listeners there, that would be amazing. Thank you so much, Mike, for coming to the show. We hope to have you on the podcast this again someday soon. Maybe we can talk more about like, um, business accelerators and stuff like that. Thank you.

Mike: 19:29

Absolutely. Thanks, Vira.

Vira: 19:31

Bye guys, talk to you next week. Take care.