Crafting Success: The Family Formula Behind Rise Up Label

In this episode of Verify Infield, host Jacob Edmond sits down with the family team behind Rise Up Label—founder Brad Klingman and his daughters Kalli and Hannah—to explore how a simple but powerful solution is changing how cabinet and millwork shops manage labeling.

With decades of experience and a heart for service, Brad shares the story of how Rise Up Label was born from a real need in the woodworking industry: finding labels that stick when they’re supposed to and come off clean every time. Alongside Kalli and Hannah, who are bringing modern marketing energy to the business, the Rise Up team is showing how a small family company can make a massive difference.

About Our Guests

Brad Klingman started in the paper and forms business in the 1990s, supplying everything from office products to labels. Over the years, he became a trusted solutions provider for cabinet shops and millwork companies needing better label performance—especially for wood surfaces that require clean removability for finishing. In 2019, Brad launched Rise Up Label, focusing exclusively on creating high-performance, residue-free labeling solutions for the woodworking industry.

Today, with his daughters Kalli and Hannah leading marketing, customer engagement, and business development, Rise Up Label is expanding rapidly across North America and beyond—while staying true to their small business values of integrity, service, and relationship-building.

Where to Learn More

Explore Rise Up Label’s solutions, request samples, or connect directly:
- Website: https://www.riseuplabel.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riseupenterprise/
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557645572567
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/riseuplabel/

- Tiktok: riseuplabel (@riseuplabels) | TikTok

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Transcript

Rise up Label: 0:00

Our, our, our joke, but not joke is one of our customers one time when I asked him, we, we were kind of doing a little interview. I was like, why do you use our labels? Why do you use Rise Up Labels? He goes, well, it's pretty simple. He says, your labels stick when they're supposed to stick, and they come off clean every single time. So I'm like, oh, well there's, there's your commercial.

Jacob: 0:25

Welcome back everybody to Verify in Field. Today I have a special guest Rise Up Label. We have Brad Klingman and his, uh, daughters and partners in crime over at, uh, Rise Up Label. We have how, Kalli

Rise up Label: 0:38

Mm-hmm.

Jacob: 0:38

and Hannah. Thank you guys for joining us.

Rise up Label: 0:41

Thank you. Thanks for having us. For having us on.

Jacob: 0:44

To get started, could you give us a little bit of an introduction, an origin of Rise Up label, so you know, what is your story, Brad, and how Rise Up Label was founded and what inspired you to start the company?

Rise up Label: 0:55

Awesome. Thank you. Um, so I, back in the nineties, I got into the what I would call the paper industry, uh, where there was lots of forms back then and, and everything had a form. Today everything's digital obviously, so a lot of those forms are gone. But labels was a part of, uh, the product categories that I was selling to, and it just happened to be to, cabinet shops. Namely it, uh, they are now one of the bigger, uh, cabinet companies in the country here, but. I, so I cut my teeth on labeling processes way back in the nineties and learned a whole lot over the years as, um, we would work with the engineers and figure out different solutions. You know, in the bigger companies they're, they're always, they got process engineers and things, so they're, they're always trying to be better and more efficient. So I, I ended up labeling wise, learning a lot about efficiencies and how to, how to master labels, uh, to be efficient and, and, and bring benefits instead of, um, not benefits to the company. So, as time went on, the engineers at that particular company would go to different plants throughout the country. You know, they'd get hired to different places and they'd bring me with, because that's what we, what we did well, and so. Fast forwarding way past the nineties, early two thousands, um, my, my base of clients in the woodworking industry grew and, um, suddenly I, I'm, I'm working with dozens of, of cabinet shops and, and the more I was working with them, as we all know how life works, the more we do, the better we get at something. And the more knowledge we gain, the more, um, consulting we can be and to help. So I started helping more and more companies, and about five years ago, I decided that this was a very, uh, I, I really enjoyed it. I wasn't just selling a product, I was supplying a solution to an industry that had a need. And, uh, particularly the, the main product that is now our mainstay solution. Um, if I call 10 cabinet shops, about seven or eight of them have an issue with residue being left behind from a label that is what we call not so removable. And so our solution, the Rise Clean label, which takes all the way back to the nineties. I, I went through and tested many, many products for these labels to come off of the different types of wood products and substrates that the cabinet and millwork world work with. We dialed that in a long time ago, and that solution to this day is now what we're offering. And again, those seven or eight companies that have the residue problem, uh, all of a sudden the value of what we have, to their company becomes great, because the labor and the, all the different things that you have to do to clean off a label, off of a piece of wood that you shouldn't have to be doing, uh, before you assemble or even after you assemble the cabinet or part or whatever you're making, goes away. It's an instant value that you can't even really put a price tag on in a way. So we love what we're doing because we have something to offer that's not just another sold product, so to speak, in this wonderful industry where we have met so many, uh, family businesses, which we really enjoy. And, uh, because we, we really relate to'em'cause that's what's going on here at Rise Up.

Jacob: 4:25

Awesome. So you originally started in paper products and through that got introduced to labels in the woodworking industry and, and it sounds like at prior to Rise Up Label, back in the nineties you were working at a paper products company where you got introduced to the need really for wood products of having this, this problem, which is, we need a label, which labeling is, you know, across all manufacturing. But what's unique for woodworkers is they're needing to label parts that are wood veneer, wood products that need to go through finishing and, and that need label ultimately needs to come off, needs to stay there while you need it, but you need to be able to take it off and not leave the residue behind, which, I know so many companies that still to this day. Well just on their wood parts that need to go through finishing, they will either, they'll try to find creative solutions, don't put a label on it at all. They'll use marker in the hinge cups or on the edge or things like that. Right. Can you talk a little bit about though, because you didn't start in the woodworking industry in labels specifically for it, but you found a solution, found a niche through your previous career. I don't know if you, obviously you're not sharing necessarily the company name, but the broader product you were working at before was just paper products, and this was a niche within that. Right. How did it come about that you really happened upon these, they were just clients of that company that, that needed this solution and you, you did some research and development to make this ultimately adhesive. Is that correct?

Rise up Label: 5:51

Kind of. The particular cabinet companies that I was working with, they knew we were doing paper products in, in which, you know, we supplied everything back then. Office supplies, which labels are a part of. So they would come to me and say, well, hey, can you help us in, not just in our office supplies, in our address labels that go on the envelopes and things like that. So we got, we got into that and we said yes, and then I learned, as I got in back into the plant, I learned how that all worked. And little by little we just started coming up with better solutions to the problems that they were having. And so, yeah, so it, that's how it kind of morphed into, being that's all, that's all we're doing. Because I, I could, I could supply office supplies to the world still, but this is a lot more fun.

Jacob: 6:40

So you were a part of creating this solution, which now you've leveraged for this specific niche. Right. Which, you know, uh, and I, I want to, we're gonna get to talking about your products more and more, but I think it's important, it's interesting to people to hear a little bit about the origin story. You said five years ago you started Rise Up Label. Is that correct?

Rise up Label: 6:59

Five years ago, we, we decided to, to totally put all of our marketing, all of our business development energy into this particular niche. In this particular industry. Yeah.

Jacob: 7:10

Okay. And obviously it's'cause you saw, hey, there is a, a dire need here and a, a large enough need and you guys had the solution

Rise up Label: 7:17

for it. Correct.

Jacob: 7:18

Because, you know, probably some people listening, you know, there are other products on the market that, you know, call themselves ultra removable or removable or just about any label company offers something that they market that way. Right. And say, hey, this is more removable than our normal label. Right. Can you talk about a little bit about the differences that makes what you guys, your Rise Clean technology that is unique from the other options on the market.

Rise up Label: 7:42

Yeah. So, um, I, I would never, ever go out into any market and say, we are the only ones. However, what one thing that we have discovered is all the different things that that one would ask in this industry, a label to do, and this, this is just the truth of our research and I mean, right behind me, we have a table full of pieces of wood and doors and drawer fronts and all this kind of stuff that we test and, and we have put our label up against literally every other label that we've ever been told they're getting ultra removable labels from. And of all the different things that the wood industry would expect the label to do. Our, our, our joke, but not joke is one of our customers one time when I asked him, we, we were kind of doing a little interview. I was like, why do you use our labels? Why do you use Rise Up Labels? He goes, well, it's pretty simple. He says, your labels stick when they're supposed to stick, and they come off clean every single time. So I'm like, oh, well there's, there's your commercial. And that, that is literally what this, this particular formula of what one, what the industry would, the label industry would call ultra removable labels. They literally work. I, I hate using the word, but they work perfectly. They stay on, there's enough tack on this label to stay on through all of the processes unless one doesn't get all the corners done. You always have to, placement is really important, important, so all the different things that I've learned. Being in all the shops and seeing people actually apply, remove, reapply labels. I've learned all this stuff in this industry, so, so I always am, I'm always teaching and, and consulting with the customers. Okay. That is not a label issue, that is an operator issue. This guy needs to get these labels down because any, any label or piece of tape, or anytime you're using a glue or a residue type of of material has to be down first. So all these things that I've learned, along with the, the formula for this particular adhesive. Ours is like, it, I, I say this. Imagine a, a sticky note, which we all know 3M sticky note. That's the best quality sticky note in the world. And if you put, if you took and took that sticky and, and put it all, uh, over the whole entire three by three area and laid that down, say on a countertop or something, smooth. You can imagine in your head that that would be hard to get up. You'd have to peel at one edge or two edges to get that up, but once you get it up, you're gonna take that off completely clean. Yet it adhered as it needed to. Our label adheres through the label processes, if applied correctly, and gets all the way through to the point our label- I have taken labels off of glass plastic wood, MDF, HDF, three years later, and there's not an ounce of anything left behind. It's like you just put the label on. So ultimately it is an, it's an incredible product, uh, that we found, and that's why I really wanted to bring that, uh, to the industry.

Jacob: 10:45

Awesome. And I, I saw, you know, some of your, your sample and your demos at, at the conference we were at together and, I learned a little bit something as you were, you were giving your demo that a lot of the problems we have with most typical labels is, on wood products they start to really fuse basically with the wood to some extent.

Rise up Label: 11:02

Yes.

Jacob: 11:02

And so everybody knows that experience of I needed to take a label off and it tears and it, and you leave some behind and then you're in that endless, you know. But even if you get the whole label off, there's an adhesive and things like that. Can you talk a little bit about the science behind, how does that work? What does, you know, because it's a paper product that's somewhat fusing with a wood material, right?

Rise up Label: 11:20

Yes. Yes sir. So, so that is literally all about adhesive. A, a standard removable adhesive, which if, if these guys go online, if, plants go online to find labels, most of the stuff they're gonna find is what we call a standard removable. If you go on Amazon or the big, the big name online companies, that's what's there. Um, so they're gonna bring that back. That is an actually what I call an activating adhesive. That is actually going to interact with the wood. And, and the, the, the more porous the material, you know, if you put it on, if you put a regular removal label on a countertop, for instance, it's gonna take several days before you're going to get quote unquote residue, or it's gonna be locked onto that countertop and you're gonna peel it up and it's gonna rip. So, so there's two different kinds of residue, the actual adhesive that's kind of like when you peel it up and you got that black left behind, you gotta use your Goo Gone. But then there's also the residue that's actually the label, because the adhesive adhered to whatever it was, and that's what standard removal does. After time it, it just gets more and more and more settled and it wants to grab on. It does not wanna let go after time. And then your, your label, your paper will rip and, and, and it will literally separate. So that's another form of residue. But either way, both things require all of this labor, in the plant to clean it up. And we have been told, this is amazing. I, I, I wish I'd have done this years ago, but just recently I started asking plants. Can you give me an idea of what kind of a problem we're talking about here? And I had a few of them respond and I, here's what I got. It took anywhere from two to up to five to six minutes to deal with the residue. And then we started throwing the numbers around of$25 per hour, which is 42 cents per minute. And the turpentine, the amount of turpentine that was used, the rags, the heat guns. And, and, and all of a sudden we got to the point where we, we got some numbers together. It was anywhere from a low end of$2 to up to$7, it would cost a plant for one bad label. And I said, okay, guys, does this just happen once a day, twice a day? The guys that I talked to, the lowest number was 75% of their labels did this. And the other guy, the other guy said they were, it was a hundred, it was every single one. So, so you multiply this out. All of a sudden, the value of this label is, like I said, you can't put a price tag on it.

Jacob: 13:56

Right, because I'm sure, uh, you know, a lot of people are price shopping your product against other options, and that's a lot of time I would imagine how people end up with these problem labels, right? Is there, well, this, it's cheaper.

Rise up Label: 14:08

Yeah,

Jacob: 14:09

Right?

Rise up Label: 14:09

yeah.

Jacob: 14:09

Which is a valid reason, but are you really saving money?

Rise up Label: 14:13

Yeah.

Jacob: 14:13

Are you saving time, labor, all these things.

Rise up Label: 14:15

Yeah.

Jacob: 14:15

You talk a lot about the adhesive, and that seems to be the key ingredient here, but is there anything as far as the, the label itself, the paper part of the product that, that matters in the equation?

Rise up Label: 14:26

Yeah, it, it is funny. We, we have a, um, one of the, our social media hits and we, we just kind of chuckle, but he, he has, he has, how do I say this? His posts and he has a lot of followers. He, he keeps posting our labels and, and he goes in and he is like, these labels are absolutely incredible. Everybody needs'em. And everybody responds. We get, we get multiple calls and, and website hits after he posts, but he goes in and he, he starts tearing'em off as fast as he can. He goes, you know, and, and all of a sudden he's ripping all of our labels. We're going, ah, don't go so fast. But, but he's showing how efficient the process is. I actually called him up. I actually just got on the phone this morning and I actually got one of his coworkers together and I said, Hey. I said, I'm really glad. I said, how are the labels? He goes, these, these are the best things since sliced bread, blah, blah, blah. He saved us so much time. He goes on and on about the labels. I said, I got one challenge. I said. I watch him pulling these things off and he is just ripping'em like crazy. He goes, yeah, that's not what we do. He said, he said, no, we, we, we tear'em off and we, we almost never have'em rip because, because we we're ta we're taking our time.'cause we, you know, we don't want to like grab three pieces of labels at a one. So, long story short, the reason I'm saying that is because it is a paper product that the label faces made out of. If we, if we made that a vinyl or a poly label. It, it would be a really great product. It would never rip. But we have not found anybody to, to actually tear the labels like that. But we did have to pull that out of our marketing that they will never tear, because here we're watching this guy, you know, he's ripping him off as fast as he can. So anyway, it is, it is a material thing with the face, what we call the face document material of the label as well. But in all cases, except him, there's no issue.

Jacob: 16:24

So your primary products, because I know you have multiple different labels, multiple different products aside from the core one we're talking about, by and large, the value add for woodworkers specifically is you have a product which is a label that they can put on wood parts. They can take them off when they need to finish'em. They do not leave residue behind, and I believe you can even restick them.

Rise up Label: 16:46

Yes, yes. They're actually repositionable. There's a lot of reasons in a plant to take a label off and put it back on. In the past, the, the hack was to print another label, like for instance, when it, when it goes through stain or it goes through sanding or it goes through a process where that label has to come off. But our labels actually will come off, and then if they don't collect a bunch of dust or whatever, if they get placed back down. That's another one where our label outperforms literally every single label in the industry is, is in the repositioning, part of it as well. It, it goes back down and it stays down.

Jacob: 17:20

So, you know, you said you do a lot of consulting and kind of like teaching your clients of, Hey, here's how. how to place it. But have you found that there's kind of a, a general workflow that your customers use that are most successful with this in, in that, hey, we put the label on, it goes through finishing, we take off and we put it back on. Like, what is kind of the, the common workflow that you find your, your customers using your labels, that's different than you know, what they were doing before and reprinting a label or, um, just struggling.

Rise up Label: 17:51

Well, so number one, uh, all the different things that, that these guys have done over the years to, to cover up the problem, so to speak. They put'em on the back or they, or they use a smaller label so they don't have so much to deal with. All of this stuff goes away, and when I tell, they're like, well, how big a label should I use? I'm like, use as big a as you want, because the bottom line is this label's coming off. So you can, if you want a bigger label and you want more information on there, now because the adhesive is not an issue anymore and they don't have all this scraping and cleaning and turpentine and stuff, they can now basically go back to do what they wanted to do with the label. And so we've, we've, we've found that that a, a lot of these hacks just go away because the label works the way it's supposed to work, if that makes sense.

Jacob: 18:43

Yeah. Yeah, so it basically allows them, they used to have to create workarounds or compromise really what they needed from the label. To kind of work around the limitations of the products before.

Rise up Label: 18:55

Exactly.

Jacob: 18:56

And now they don't have those limitations.

Rise up Label: 18:57

You literally can put this, this label on the face of a finished product and never have to worry about it.

Jacob: 19:03

Awesome. So you have some other products I saw, um, one in particular that I think was like a layered clear label. Can you talk about some of the other products you guys have have brought out as well?

Rise up Label: 19:15

Yes, sir. So first of all, we, uh, we are a, a custom label manufacturing plant. It may look like if you go to our website, we only make one product in multiple sizes. We're only doing that because that's where all the demand is right now. And we are producing more and more, uh, volume of labels. And, and the goal as, as we continue, I mean, we're adding, we're adding 10 to 15, sometimes 20, new partners a week. With all of the social media and the, and the, the trade shows and stuff that, that the girls are helping me with. These guys don't get enough credit on these podcasts because, um, they're doing amazing things with getting, getting the word out there. So we can custom produce a label any which way that a client would need. So in other words, let's say we see this a lot, like, can you put color on a label? Uh oh, sure. What are you using the color for? Well, all Monday production is red. All our Tuesday production's green or Wednesday. And in different ways that these plants are using. All the different kinds things that we could do to a label between sizes, putting extra perforations in, uh, putting color on them, uh, putting multiple colors on them to help them be more efficient. Literally, we, we could put color on a label that could add say, just 1 cent per label, but. You got 20 guy, 20 people looking at this label and because of the color, they can see it from, you know, from 50 feet away instead of walking right up to it and having to read the whole label to see which day that was produced. There's efficiencies that make everything work better. So there's tons of things that we can do. The paint mask label is another product that we produce that allows, it's a multilayer label, all clear. You print on the backside of it, and without getting too detailed, basically you put the print printed label on say on the edge of of a frame or the edge of a door, or on the front of a door, wherever it can be, it can be permanently stayed.'Cause this is a permanent label. And then you, you throw, you get it through stain and paint and it comes out the other side and you'll see the little lip. Where there, there, there's a top clear layer and you literally just tear that up and now you've re-exposed all of your information below. You don't need to print another label. You know exactly where that part goes and which cabinet goes and where it's going on the truck. So that's a, a huge benefit. Um, and we're, we also stock those labels as well. But again, we will custom produce a label for whatever, and that's where our consulting comes in. Again, I, I, and I'm not, I'm not tearing apart any, any of our competition or anything, but the online companies don't understand the world that we're in all together. And that's my goal is to learn more and more and more from all of you, from everyone, so that we can be better and smarter, stronger and faster, uh, to supply those efficiencies, solutions to this, this woodworking world.

Jacob: 22:20

I think that's interesting.'cause I mean, ultimately that's really how you got into this business. At its core was you started by helping your customers, it sounds like in the nineties. By solving their problem with, Hey, we don't have the solution yet, your customers were saying, Hey, can you help us with this? Actually? Yeah, let, let me help you find a solution. Let's create a solution together. And that's still today at the core of what you're doing, like you mentioned that yes, you have a lot of demand of people buying your product that you already have, but ultimately you're consulting and your customers calling and saying, can you help us solve this problem? Maybe we don't have a solution today, but we can help you figure out a solution. Maybe it's something we already offer or it's something we'll create together. I think that's the, obviously to me, the, the big value add that you guys have that um, is not, like you said, some of those online businesses, that this isn't their core business or they're not understanding just what their customers are doing with their products necessarily.

Rise up Label: 23:13

I will add another great example that's really clear and, and I'm sure some of your viewers will really relate to this. Probably if I call, again, back to the 10 shops that I would call. Over half of them, probably seven or eight of them are using thermal transfer printing on their printers. What that is is that's a printing process. Both of the thermal printing processes are thermal transfer, which uses a ribbon. So you actually have to put a ribbon inside of your zebra printer, and that ribbon is used to transfer the image onto the label. But then there's direct thermal printing. Direct thermal printing takes out the ribbon and it applies heat through the printer on the print head and allows your image to go through. Well, there is big efficiencies of getting rid of the thermal transfer ribbon and not having to deal with inventorying them, buying them, dealing with them. One more problem that goes wrong, and all these companies that I talked to said they, they're just like, whoa. I thought that's what we had to do. We didn't know. They don't need to know about labels. They don't need to know about label processes. That's my job, and so my job is to bring them that solution that says, get rid of the ribbons. You don't need'em anymore. All of our labels, unless you absolutely insist on it, our direct thermal because of the benefit.

Jacob: 24:37

Yeah, I've, I've gone through that process myself and it is such a life changer to go from those big, huge, if you have a big printer that looks like the size of your computer tower and you have to open it up and you've got that big black ribbon in there. And you hate it every time you have to deal with it. Your saw operator maybe is out there having, with his dirty hands, trying to troubleshoot that. It versus like a small like receipt printer, you can get down to even. It is, it is so much simpler and, and, and makes life so much easier.

Rise up Label: 25:06

Yes, sir.

Jacob: 25:06

um, Kelli and Hannah have been, uh, I'm interested in getting more into their roles and how they've changed your business. I, I, myself, I have, I have two younger daughters, that are, uh, 10 and eight right now.

Rise up Label: 25:18

Oh.

Jacob: 25:18

Um, and I always am trying to think like in the future, you know, what it would be like to have them. So I'm curious to hear your experience of, as you've evolved,'cause you've done business. In what we're doing. You know, you mentioned in the nineties and I'm sure as not only, um, having a family business that you're running yourself, having your daughters get into the business, but also with, you know, the change of the internet and the advent of the way we share information and do business now and on more of a virtual international basis. I'm curious about you guys' journey and how your daughters have helped you modernize, um, both with marketing and your processes and stuff. What has that journey been like and, and how have they, changed the way you do business?

Rise up Label: 25:58

Um, I think a big start was I've kind of brought the social media aspect to the company. Um, something I kind of resisted for a while thinking that there's no way the woodworking industry is on social media, like during their workday. Found out that I was very, very wrong. Um, and so, you know, more than likely if you're in contact with us on social media, I'm the one you're talking to. Um, but that has opened a door for starting to get our label solution overseas. Um, and that's something we're working on right now. But we've gone from, you know, only being able to work locally and in the United States to starting to broaden that and being able to, you know, we have companies from all over the world that are messaging us, asking us, like checking in with us back and forth about whether we can get our labels over to their country, which is amazing. You know, being able to be connected with people that aren't just in the United States. Um, and so I think that's a big piece as well as, um, just sourcing more opportunities for like events and shows. And obviously a lot of those are only talked about online, or maybe it's not, you know, that event's not happening within our small community that we know, but we find an event on social media that we wanna be at, and so we're able to put ourselves in front of that audience because we found that opportunity online. I think that's been a big piece.

Jacob: 27:17

So it's interesting that you mentioned you were kind of I, apprehensive or maybe just, uh, skeptical.

Rise up Label: 27:23

Yeah.

Jacob: 27:24

Of, you know, I would've guessed, and a lot of times this is the way it is, is, you know, young people come into business and the first thing they say is, dad, why aren't we on social media?

Rise up Label: 27:32

Yeah.

Jacob: 27:32

Um, and so one, what sparked that, that kind of, Hey, maybe we should explore this, but I'm not sure if it makes sense. Like, what caused you to explore that? And two, what was that conversation like or what was that journey like with you, Brad, of, of, hey, I think we need to get on social media, dad, and what do we do about this? And, well, that's not how you, I assume, did business before, like was that journey tough? Did it open up a whole new world or what was that like?

Rise up Label: 27:57

Uh, so oh, for me, I had no clue that, that that world would have, would, would be there. I I'm your, yeah. I'm 57 years old and, and my, my history of sales and, and growing business and what have you has been literally knocking on doors and building relationships with companies. That's how business used to be done. You know, I was even there, I was even in business before cell phones existed. So it all of this, when I went to Hannah, I said, Hey, I heard that, um, you know, the social media thing and woodworking actually maybe, maybe something. And I don't know, I think I sent her something and what I sent her had a hun, the, this guy had 147,000 followers and she goes, no way. And that just opened the door. And then I, I was like, ever since then, I'm, I just be quiet and, and do what they tell me to do.

Jacob: 28:51

And so, uh, how, how long has that journey been for you, Hannah, that you, you know, you've been involved in the company and started getting on social media.

Rise up Label: 28:59

Yeah.

Jacob: 29:00

Uh, like what are we talking a year, two or three years?

Rise up Label: 29:03

So, um, I actually started my own digital marketing agency about six years ago. And so I did that with my own clients, who some where from his network, you know, tapping into the people dad knows. Um, and a lot of them were on my own that I sourced through social media. And so I did that without having any real involvement in Rise Up. You know, here and there, obviously growing up in the company he'd, you know. Hired Kalli and I, for little jobs when we were young, paid us 12 bucks an hour. Um, but for the first five years of my company, I really didn't work with Rise Up until, you know, we kind of, we had this conversation multiple times actually before it became anything. You know, I did some research online seeing if this was actually something we should put our energy towards, like putting Rise Up on social media. Obviously Covid, you know, kind of pushed that conversation a few more times. Um, just being the fact that we couldn't be in person for a while. But I would say I didn't really get involved until, I think it was the beginning of 2024, so a little bit over a year now that I've been involved a lot more like, you know, closer to full-time, realizing that, you know, Rise Up does need to be on social media and there are people in the woodworking industry looking for these solutions online. And just that it was a better way to, kind of a better thing to focus on moving forward instead of like resisting the change of like, do we need to be on social media? Well, even if we don't need to, like these people that need us are on social media and that's another way we can connect with them as well as connect with a wider audience. So, long story short, a little bit over a year, I would say that I've been very involved.

Jacob: 30:38

Okay, but you've been working in marketing for many more years.

Rise up Label: 30:41

Yes. Yep.

Jacob: 30:42

So are you've been working with clients.

Rise up Label: 30:44

Yes.

Jacob: 30:45

are those clients and have you worked with business to business clients or business to consumer direct? Or a mix?

Rise up Label: 30:50

Yeah, definitely a mix. Um, obviously more of a mix When I was in the beginning of my, uh, business,'cause I kind of, you know, at that point I was, um, figuring out who I wanted to work with. I had a variety of companies coming to me. Um, and I ended up kind of focusing more so on women that were in the coaching industry. So business coaches, life coaches, therapists, people like that. I really enjoyed working with, uh, that type of client and that type of message to their clients. And so obviously switching to the woodworking industry was a little bit different, um, and, you know, a different approach, different strategy, different people that I'm talking with. But honestly, I have so grown to love this community. I think that, you know, one of the things we mentioned is that there are a lot of family businesses, so that's one way I can connect with people on that. People's kids are getting involved. So I'm connecting with people my age in the woodworking industry as well through Rise Up, which is really cool. Um, but yeah, definitely a change coming to the woodworking industry.

Jacob: 31:48

No, and, and I, and not to go to totally off topic, but I think that that's, that why it's interesting to me is one, you're leveraging experience you had outside of Rise Up, outside of just working for dad.

Rise up Label: 31:58

Yeah.

Jacob: 31:58

And leveraging it for, for the family business. And I think that there's a lot of people listening that have similar experience

Rise up Label: 32:04

Mm-hmm.

Jacob: 32:04

Um, and so it also, there is a big difference in marketing for direct to consumer businesses and

Rise up Label: 32:11

Yeah.

Jacob: 32:11

business to business right.

Rise up Label: 32:12

Yeah.

Jacob: 32:12

I think a lot of the woodworkers, most your clients and my clients are, are business to business, right?

Rise up Label: 32:18

Mm-hmm.

Jacob: 32:19

Woodworkers provide a product for other, uh, other GCs and things like that, right? And so a lot of times I think mentally, those business owners, we struggle with the idea of like, well, I think of Facebook and social media as marketing to consumers. And so I struggle with, as a business to business person, how do I leverage marketing? Like all my relationships are people I call people I know, right? And, and from sales. And it is a relationship business. And that doesn't go away. There is still knocking on those doors, they're still developing relationships. But it creates another avenue, like you said, for your customers to connect with you to see what you're doing and, and also to build rapport with people that maybe you don't get a chance the first time to meet in person like we used to. But growing up with your dad in this business, has your whole life, has it always been dad with labels with paper? Like, you know, I always wonder of like what my, my daughters are gonna think when they get older, of like how they experienced the things, uh, I've doing. Is that your memory of your dad work has always been this?

Rise up Label: 33:16

no.

Jacob: 33:18

No.

Rise up Label: 33:18

Um, when we were much, much younger, I think. It was hard to explain what Dad did because he was kind of like, providing lots of different solutions. Like he wasn't just niched down into labels at that point when we were much younger. And so it's a lot easier now to explain what Dad does and especially being a part of it. Obviously Kelli and I have learned so, so much, even just in the last year. But I think the biggest thing I remember growing up with, you know, a dad who was a small business owner, was not just what he was providing, but more so like the values that go into being a small business owner. You know, one of those being just customer service, like the relationships, the serving people, was a huge theme. That is, you know, ones that, one that sticks out to me is that you always serve people, you help people, you build relationships with people. Like he was always so people focused, and I think that's what makes him a really great business owner, is that his company isn't focused on making sales. It's, you know, like he said earlier, it's about the people you're connecting with and what you're helping them you know, achieve in the end result. So that's the biggest thing that sticks out to me is just what I learned, and what I was able to take from him to be my own business owner as well. Yeah, I would agree. I think the biggest part that I remember is him, he was always talking to his friends, and his friends were, in fact, his clients and people that he worked with. But like growing up, he was always on the phone, always talking to his buddies and just creating these relationships. And then come to find out later when we're older, like they're actually clients and they're people that he's helping and working with. And it's just like, it's cool to grow up with that and see how important like friendships and relationships are, especially in business and how that like helps you in the future and grow connections and yeah, it, it was cool to see that growing up.

Jacob: 35:03

Do you feel that, you, now that you guys are working in the business and you're learning, you know, the technicalities of it, like actually about labels, the stuff your dad's teaching, you now hands-on that maybe you only saw from the periphery. Is it like there's an aha moment? You're like, oh, this is what you've been doing all this time and, and a newfound respect for. That experience your dad has and what he's learned and what he's been doing with this career. Obviously everything you just shared about it, it's more than just the product, right? It's about the relationships. But I imagine you guys are also starting to learn a lot of the technical stuff now. You know, my wife started re working with me in the last few years, and it was like after over a dozen years of struggling to explain to her what it is I do, it was like,

Rise up Label: 35:40

Yeah.

Jacob: 35:41

now she understands and there's a different level of connecting with each other. Do you find that with your dad now?

Rise up Label: 35:47

Yeah, I definitely think like the conversations about work specifically are a lot deeper. Um, and I also think that I have a new respect for how much knowledge he has about not only just the labeling process, but all of the other things that go into it, like the printers, the cncs, the software. Like there is so much more that goes into the labeling process than just the little paper sticky note. You know what I mean? Like it truly, he asked us actually right before we hopped on this call, if, you know, if he were gone tomorrow, would we be able to answer all the questions people have? And I immediately was like, absolutely not. Like there's still so much more to learn and you know, just being in the field and being out in the plants is how we're gonna learn that. But that takes time. Like he really has learned a ton over, you know. The last however many years of focusing on labels. Yeah. We told him he can't retire yet.

Jacob: 36:38

Yeah. Yeah. Needs a little more time. And so Callie, I got to see you in action at the trade show. You were there with your dad, um, talking with clients and stuff, and obviously I think. You're newer to working with your dad than, than Hannah. It sounds like. You wanna talk a little bit about your role? Obviously you're learning more the hands on the sales and things like that. And what has that been like?

Rise up Label: 37:02

Yeah, so that's been super fun. I have kind of always done like little things for dad, just like Hannah said before. This past summer and now obviously I've really like taken it more seriously. I would say I wear a lot of different caps in this job. Um, and Hannah does as well. I think the coolest part is how, how much variety there is in this business, um, including marketing, sales, all of that kind of, we, we all kind of do together and we work on it together. And so I get to learn a lot of different jobs, which is super fun. And I think I can take those skills, further and develop those skills even more as I work with them. And so I'm kind of like the role of like business development, I guess you could say. And then also I joined dad at the trade shows. Um, Hannah does more of the social media, but I really enjoy in-person. The activities and events and stuff. And I really enjoy just talking to people and I like the in person better. So him and I like to do the shows together and get out there and, um, yeah, that's been awesome. Um, another thing is just like the marketing, I have learned a ton since that. And like I said before, we all work together and do that together. So that's been super fun to learn.

Jacob: 38:18

Awesome.

Rise up Label: 38:19

Yeah.

Jacob: 38:19

No, I appreciate you guys sharing, uh, so much about the dynamic because I know, um, it's not, the core of what you're selling is your product, but it is the core of what you, who you guys are as a, as business owners and and as a family business. And I know that so many of our listeners that are in a similar situation, um, relate to that. Talking a little bit about the future now, we talked about how you guys got to where you're at. We talked about who you are today. What is the future of Rise Up Label in the woodworking industry look like? Obviously, you know, there's so many people you said reaching out to you from all over the world, trying to get their hands on this product as they've seen, and I've seen raving fans on, on Facebook in different places talking about how great your solution is and recommend it to other people's. But are there, uh, new products you guys are working on the horizon or what do you see in the future for you guys?

Rise up Label: 39:07

So I, I, I would say, you know, just being involved in it every day and, you know, fielding all of the calls and all the things that happen on social media, all the outreaches on our website, um, all the emails that we get daily. If we stay in the game, all of this is gonna happen. I haven't purposed, you know, throughout all the, these years, and especially in the last five, uh, it wasn't like I went out and said, oh, I was gonna do, I'm gonna do this, this, this, and this. It's something that happens. It, it's something that, I, I personally believe that, again, I, I give the credit to God. God is ordering our steps in this business. We can make our plans, but he orders our steps. And so we're just, we're getting up each day and we're taking on the things that we're taking on. And if we find a, a new need or something comes along, or someone comes along and says, Hey, how about this? It's a lot of, it's just being open and, and it's being involved in all these different things. I never, I never dreamed that we would be doing trade shows, that we would be, that we would be involved in all these associations. I never dreamed that we would be on all these, uh, social media, uh, online forums and I mean, we're getting on TikTok now. All, all these different crazy things that dad knows nothing about and these guys are ushering into the business. It's just, it's, it's half the battle is just being there. And I also always, if anybody asks me what, what the most important thing that I believe about businesses is, first of all, business making money, selling product. Is that's the backseat. The, the front seat is being true to who you are. Doing business with the kind of values that are important to you and, and to me, integrity. Treating people as you would expect to be treated. Um, loving on people that are sometimes not lovable, right? Doing things, and, and being more outward focused. I just believe the more that you can do that, the more things then, then the stuff flows your way, right? Things are gonna come your way. They're gonna say, well, we have a problem. We have a potential issue. My goal and my hopes is that they will remember that Rise Up, our company, our family business, whatever you wanna call it, was there the last time. And we performed a good service. We provided a good product and, and we did business with integrity. We're the kind of people that people want to do business with.'Cause as we all know, that's not true of every company. And that's not true of all people out there. So that's going forward. I, I could predict all I wanted, what's gonna happen and how this, the industry's gonna change and whatever. Honestly, that, that would be a little bit of a waste of my, my, my positive energy. And, and, who we are. Let's deal with what we got and the industries as they change, as the technology changes, we roll with it and we keep doing what we need to do to be that company and to be that solution and to be that company of integrity. To everyone and anyone, no matter how big or small. I, I've been told, well, you're taking, you're taking too many small clients. You're, you're, you shouldn't do the one. I'm like, what? That? No, no, that's not true. Everyone, everyone is as important as the, as, as the next customer. So that's just, I think that's the most important thing personally. Yeah.

Jacob: 42:31

Awesome.

Rise up Label: 42:32

And I think too, just to add onto that, like we can sit here and talk about our five year plan, our 10 year plan or what this, you know, what the next 30 years of this company looks like. But really what our focus is, I feel like even in the next year, just one year, is bettering our company for the betterment of our clients. You know, that looks like we're working on a new online store right now so that it's, um, it runs more efficiently and is easier for our clients to order from us instead of, whatever that looks like for processes that used to be in place, like we're improving our backend systems, we are figuring out where each of us, you know, works best to be the best support for our clients. Like, I think the next 12 months of our work behind the scenes is bettering us for our clients. And so that's, that's kind of our focus right now. We'll, we'll deal with the five and 10 year plan after this one.

Jacob: 43:21

Yeah,

Rise up Label: 43:21

Mm-hmm.

Jacob: 43:22

I imagine there's a, a never ending, you know, need to to educate, you know, the industry and, and clients on what exists today. You know, I'm know,I'm sure for, for me, as I've gotten further and further into trade shows in this industry, realizing one, it's so much bigger realized. There's many more people out there, woodworking businesses just in the us, much less in, in Canada and around the world. And so.

Rise up Label: 43:46

Yeah.

Jacob: 43:46

Yeah I think realizing the opportunity there to, to help more people with the solution that you guys have and finding ways to to connect with people that need what you already have basically. Um,

Rise up Label: 43:57

Another thing, uh, can I add something? So, one, one really, really key thing, and I, I, again, this was not anything I would've known before because of the way that I used to just do business, like I said, door to door relationships, et cetera. But we, we call it the upstream. And what the upstream has become for us is partnering, coming alongside of the, the different parts of the process that labeling is involved in, in a plant. So you, it all starts at the CNC, right? So that's where all the parts are cut and that's where the labels get put down. But that's also a software. You know, all the different softwares that tell the label what, tell the machine what to print on the label. That's a part of it. And then in addition, all of the associations, the influencers in the social media, it is partnering with all of these companies and saying, Hey, there's a broken part of your process. And, and you might not even know it because when, when, when these guys all get the calls about the, Hey, the labels don't work, they're like, well, we don't know anything about labels. We don't do labels. Okay. So our goal is to to stop that gap, that issue that when that brand new you, you know how much these CNC machines cost, shows up at the door and all of a sudden day one, they're, they're, uh, having to scrape off residue. Well, they're like, uh, that's not a good thing that they're, they're, that is not a positive thing. So we want to, to, uh, educate the, all the upstream companies, enough. Not that they have to supply labels or sell labels, but give'em enough information to say, Hey, there is a solution out there and here's where you need to go to get it. Obviously that's a, a benefit to us, but that's, that's our goal, is to get that word out there and partner with these people, especially when you ask about the future. That's an important part of the future because, so we can stop that, that issue, right at the beginning. So now what we're getting is we're getting multiple calls a week saying, Hey, I got a machine coming in. It's gonna be here in two weeks. I heard that you can have a label that's gonna work on day one. We're like, yep. And they go online and they place an order for labels and, and they don't have that gap issue, uh, day one. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing about you guys a story sharing about Rise Up label. For the people who are listening and want to find out more about your product or about you guys, what's the best way for them to do so? Go on. Rise up label.com as well as we are on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So any of those social platforms as well. And maybe, maybe in the next couple weeks, TikTok, but rise up label com. And from the old guy from the old guy, we still have a phone number and email.

Jacob: 46:44

Yeah.

Rise up Label: 46:45

And you can find that on our new website.

Jacob: 46:49

Well, we will link those in the show notes, so if you're listening, you should be able to go right down and, uh, and get to those things really quickly, and go see these great products that they have. So, I look forward to seeing you guys, uh, in the future, uh, at the, some of the conferences and trade shows. I'm excited for our listeners to be able to, to hear this episode here, not only about the products you guys have, which I think are gonna help so many, but, you guys' story, it was really great and I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing with us.

Rise up Label: 47:13

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jacob: 47:16

Thank you.