Episode 277 – Alex Burdge

Richard Matthews: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have the pleasure of having Alex Burdge on the line. Alex, are you there?

Alex Burdge: Yep. Hey, Richard.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Glad to have you here. I know as we’re getting started on our show, I always like to start off with people know my audience.

We travel full time and so they always want to know where we’re at. We are currently in Orlando area hanging out for the winter. Where are you calling in from Alex?

Alex Burdge: I’m in Utah, just south of Salt Lake City.

Richard Matthews: Nice. Has it started to get a cold out there yet? Do you get in the, get in the snow for winter time?

Alex Burdge: It’s freezing at least by most people’s standards. So last night it was about probably mid to low 20, 25 degrees, 22 degrees, probably got colder after I went to bed, but it was very cool.

Richard Matthews: We’re hanging out in Florida for the winter, which I love. And since we’ve been here for a little bit traveling around the state, you know, I realized that like, you know, water is freezing temperature might be 32 degrees, but Richard’s freezing temperature is about 65.

Anything lower than that. And it’s too cold for me.

Alex Burdge: I [00:01:00] share that sentiment and people wonder, you know, like you’ve grown up in the snow, why does it bother you so much? But, and I’ve tried to, you know, go into it with a positive attitude, trying to rewrite my feelings towards winter, but I think I’m losing that battle, but you know, for years I ski and snowboard, but I don’t do it religiously like a lot of my friends.

And for them, you know, at least have this, the ski season to look forward to. But I’m going to pick it back up a little bit, but the worst is when it’s just cold and then there’s no snow. Like right now the snow is terrible.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So, there’s no reason for it to be cold. You’re like, at least if it’s going to be cold, there should be snow on the mountains and I should be skiing.

I feel that I grew up in Southern California and so I was blessed with the, like when it’s cold and you want to go skiing, you can drive up to the mountains and go skiing and then when you’re done, you can drive down the mountain and go hang out on the beach for dinner.

Like you visit winter. That’s how I feel about winter is it’s something you visit, not something you live in.

Alex Burdge: I love that.

Richard Matthews: I actually learned to ski in Utah. I learned to ski in a St. George on Brinehead [00:02:00] mountain. So

Alex Burdge: Oh, nice.

Richard Matthews: So that was my home mountain I guess, because it’s only about an eight hour drive from Southern California.

Alex Burdge: Yeah, that’s great.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So what I always like to do at the beginning of these interviews is just dive into your bio. So our audience knows a little bit about who you are.

So I’m going to go ahead and do that real quick. And then we’ll dive into your story. So Alex Burdge is a native to Utah Valley. He obtained a degree in supply chain management from Brigham Young University and has spent the majority of his career as an entrepreneur.

Alex is the owner of several businesses, most notably shift global. In his career, Alex and his team have helped several hundred companies develop, manufacture, and deliver to market an estimated 1 billion in physical products, $1 billion. Alex has been awarded a spot on the UV 50 under 40 list and shift is on the Inc 5,000.

Alex carries a deep conviction about the impact. That global trade and manufacturing makes in our world at large and feels driven to continue to build companies and solutions that promote healthy trade and product creation.

So with that intro, Alex, what I want to do is dive into what is it that you’re known for now, right?

What’s your business like? Who do you serve? What do you do for them?

Alex Burdge: Yeah, it’s a good question. We ask [00:03:00] ourselves this question regularly because like any young company, you know, you continue to learn more about your customer, what’s working, what’s not.

And so, where we’re at right now is we service physical goods, brands. or companies. Generally, this is actually very interesting timing to ask me this because I had it dialed until recent discoveries. And so I’ll tell you what we’ve been saying and then the evolution to that recently.

So what we’ve been saying is, you know, product brands that are between two and $100 million in their revenue often in hyper growth or looking to relocate or just looking to maximize profitability.

And what we do for those brands is we help to audit and optimize their supply chain, everything from product ideation all the way to delivery at the customer’s doorstep.

So we’ll help them find new factories and manage them. We’ll help them get better logistics contracts and manage them. We’ll help them make sure that their 3PL operations are optimized. We’ll help them design new [00:04:00] products to improve revenue, really everything from design to doorstep.

Now the only iteration to that statement is that we’ve also found a highly successful avenue wherein we actually pair with much larger corporations multi location often multi hundred location retailers either digital retailers on online platforms or physical retailers.

And we are a plugin to provide design to doorstep for them. So that’s the only caveat is that we do have both segments, kind of the enterprise. And then we also have the DTC brand channel. So that’s what we do.

Richard Matthews: That’s fascinating. I used to worked with a candle company for a number of years. It was one of their key people that brought them from about $2,000 a month in sales to about $2 million a year in sales. And it was glass candle manufacturing and the fuels that go inside them.

And it was an interesting business. There’s so many pieces that make that kind of business work. Everything from like, you know, we couldn’t get glass manufactured here in the United [00:05:00] States.

So we had to get it manufactured in India I believe is where we’re getting the glass manufactured. Cause like the only glass manufacturer in the United States is Corning. And unless you’re Apple, you’re not big enough for them to talk to.

Alex Burdge: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: So, like, there just wasn’t opportunities to get glass manufacturing United States. I know, hopefully some of that’s going to be shifting over the next couple of years.

So you help with everything and everything from sourcing the manufacturers to, you know, product packaging to getting the 3PL and for our audience may not know that 3PL is the distribution channels that fulfill the orders when they’re taken on e commerce sites and whatnot.

Is there anything you don’t do in that process or is it just all of it?

Alex Burdge: No, we do all of it. Now the parts that we, if you say kind of the heartbeat of what we do is around the manufacturing portion.

We have highly talented designers and we’ve helped launch for some really, you know, global brands. We’ve helped design and launch products and we’ve got some right now that’ll hit the market early next year.

So we do design and we do it well, but what we’ve focused on and really where most of our unique kind of our secret sauce, what we’ve invested in is around the actually making the [00:06:00] product.

When it comes to that, we have somewhere in the vicinity of, you know, 700, 800, a thousand factories around the world that we’ve worked with in over a dozen countries.

And then our, kind of our one, two punch there is that we also have boots on the ground. And so, we’ve got offices in Vietnam. In China and in Mexico and then headquartered in the U S.

And so it makes us a unique offering in that we’re not just finding factories, but we’ve developed relationships. We’ve vetted them. We have history with them. We have aggregate buying power with them, but we also have boots on the ground to manage in person the efficacy of their output.

And that’s something unique we offer to the market. Now on the logistic side and the 3PL side, we have partnerships that are you know, intertwined with ours.

We invest significantly in those ecosystems so that they feel uniform for our customers if they’d like to use them. But we don’t own at this point, at least we don’t own any buildings, you know, facilities. We don’t own the fulfillment centers. Those are partners. So [00:07:00] that’s the scope.

Richard Matthews: That’s really interesting. And I know, like, because we’ve done a lot of manufacturing, or at least I’ve been involved in manufacturing, both in China, India and here in the US, that one of the problems I ran into is that, like, you’ve got language barriers from different countries and particularly things like, we want to do a small run or something like that to test something out.

And they’re just not interested in helping you do a small run because you don’t have the the buying capacity or whatever. So I imagine that you can help with a lot of those things because you have larger buying power.

You have people on the ground in those areas. And so if someone like me, I could talk to just you and you guys could handle all the relationships with the manufacturers and the other things.

Alex Burdge: Exactly. Yep.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that’s fascinating. That’s a cool business model. And how long have you guys been doing that?

Alex Burdge: This is our eighth year.

Richard Matthews: And so eight years, how long did it take you to get on the inc 5000?

Alex Burdge: Well, I think we probably would have gotten on whenever we applied, we just applied for the first time. We’ve been really lucky to have positive high growth each year relative to our [00:08:00] size. We bootstrapped the company.

So, relative to where we started, we’ve had the way the ink works, you know, as it’s percentages of growth essentially.

And so, I think we got it, we applied for 23, I think is when we got it and we’re told this last year at some point that we got it. And so yeah, that’s an honor.

And again, not to sound in that it’s more just to say we have had a good growth trajectory and that’s been really kind of kept us excited about what we’re doing.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about your origin story, right? Every good comic book hero has an origin story and that’s the thing that made you into the here you are today.

And when we hear the story, were you born a hero? Were you know bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into logistics and fulfillment and product design?

Or did you start in a job and eventually move to become an entrepreneur? Basically, how’d you get here?

Alex Burdge: That’s a good question. Hero in the making. I hope certainly not a hero yet, but I would say to get to this point. I was supply chain specifically was not on my radar.

So, I’m not one of those individuals [00:09:00] that grew up with this propensity for operations or supply chain or manufacturing or a passion for those things that’s certainly developed.

As I look back on my earlier story, I definitely see traces of strong entrepreneurialism in my nature. I was lucky to have a dad that I have always seen as an entrepreneur.

So, that to me was a bit of the secret to the superpower, I guess, is that it was always commonplace to start businesses.

That’s the only way I saw.

Richard Matthews: That’s just how you solve problems.

Alex Burdge: Yeah. And I’m very lucky to have that. And I know a lot, that’s a leg up for sure. And then the other part of it. So, as I look back to things that I did as a kid, I can see tendencies and, you know, summer projects and baseball card stands on the side of the road, things like that point to this desire to be a part of something entrepreneurial, but it didn’t really solidify in a way that I understood it until I was in my early twenties.

And that’s where it started to become apparent to me that was something that I really enjoyed. But as far as supply chain in [00:10:00] general, this was more of a like falling into a vat of magical goo.

You know, I had no intention or even understanding of supply chain. The term was something I wasn’t in my lexicon at all.

And I was offered an opportunity to get an internship. And that’s really where it started. And the first day of the internship was, Hey, this is a rapid growing startup. Here’s a stack of paper and you know, here’s 200 pieces of paper and they were labeled things like commercial invoice and bill of lading and perform an invoice.

And none of these terms had I ever heard of. And it was, Hey, we’ve got a big problem. We’ve got light bulbs that are delivering to Walmart and we can’t reconcile what’s happening. You got to figure it out. And that was my first day.

And so, that was the falling into the vat was like, okay, we’ll see how this turns out. And it grew from there.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So did that internship eventually become shift global?

Alex Burdge: No, the internship was for another company. And I grew from intern into an actual employee, a W2 employee over there. And I grew in my [00:11:00] role and that certainly was a training ground for me to be able to feel capable of co founding shift global.

But it was a nice chapter in my life. It lasted a few years and then that company unfortunately went bankrupt and left me with the decision to either go get a job.

I was a junior at university and it was the time to get internships. And so everyone was getting an internship and the program really prides themselves on a 100% placement of their students.

And so, there was this natural path of, Hey, I have all these big companies offering supply chain internships with the whirlpools and the Bobcats and the, you know, John Deere’s of the world that are looking for students to come into their programs.

So I can go that path. I can go get a job. I had a couple of other associates that wanted to start companies with me because they knew that was a desire that I had and that they shared that.

And then I also had my father who also had a connection to that old company. It wasn’t his full time focus, but he was connected [00:12:00] to the company and he was aware of what was happening as well and in the mix.

And so he, and I also kind of had this idea of what if I can satisfy my desire to go start a company and you can satisfy, you know, your desire to do that as well.

But we kind of do it in this new format. And so that was the, ultimately the decision that was made. And we jumped off and started the experiment at that point.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So that was, you said eight years ago now?

Alex Burdge: Yeah, well, seven years in this last October. So we’re just starting our eighth year, I guess, or.

Richard Matthews: So we always talk on this show about your superpowers, right? So, you know, every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s, you know, your fancy flying suit made by the genius intellect or the ability to call down thunder from the sky.

In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with or you developed over the course of your career that really energize all your other skills.

And the superpower is really what sets you apart. It allows you to help the people in your world, slay their villains, come out on top on their own journeys.

And so, the way I like to frame it for my guests is if you look at all the [00:13:00] skills you developed over the course of like your previous career and I’m building this company, there’s a common thread maybe that ties those skills together with what do you think that your superpower is with that framing?

Alex Burdge: To good question. I think I have a unique ability to solve problems. There are a host of weaknesses that I am aware of that I’ve been able to compensate for by putting good people around me.

I think the thing that my team looks to me and can consistently count on me for is that when there is a challenging problem, my brain is effective enough at solving those problems.

And so, I think I pride myself on that ability and it allows me to always have a fresh perspective on how to accomplish the next chapter and to orchestrate the right people and resources to be able to accomplish the vision and the strategy.

So I would say if there is a superpower or something, that’s helped me the most, I think that would be it.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I love that. And problem solving is such a useful skill. And, you know, it doesn’t really matter what business you’re in. So my audience knows this. We’re in [00:14:00] the podcast post production business.

So, we do podcasts for businesses all the time. And like, one of the problems we’re currently working on is making the publication of all the assets that we create for every podcast, like push button simple, and we have to develop a whole bunch of like software to make that happen, but it’s like, it’s going to take what about four to eight hours of work and turn it into about 10 minutes of work.

And so it’s one of those problems that like, it’s going to take a whole bunch of effort to get it there, but you know, getting the the right person in place to make all those things happen is a, it’s a big deal.

And I don’t think people who aren’t entrepreneurs don’t realize that like most of your job is just problem solving. It’s putting out fires. I call it being the chief bottle washer.

Alex Burdge: Yeah. I heard a quote yesterday. I think it was from former president Obama and it was something to the effect of like, once the problem reaches my desk, everybody else has already tried to solve it.

So that was obviously in a very micro way, that’s what any leader is attempting to do is to be that person that once it’s passed through the hands of all the other [00:15:00] very capable people, somebody has to make a decision.

And you don’t make it in a silo, but that’s kind of the mantle you try to bear the best that you can. And if you can think that way and say, how much, if I can spend the majority of my time making an impact in that very specific way of being that person to make some of these big decisions, again, with the help of others.

And if I can be effective at that, then a lot of the other things tend to solve themselves. And a lot of people around you, frankly, do most of the work that your company is credited for is not. It’s not the CEO. But you have your one role to play in that or a few roles to play in that equation as well.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. One of the things that we started working on implementing this year is specifically on the problem solving thing is, you know, when problems make it to me, we were finding something that’s called the they call it the one, three, one, right?

So it was one problem. So we’re not talking about multiple things. They’re like one problem. What are three solutions that you guys think might work or you think might work to do this? And what’s of those three, the one that you think we should pursue and why?

And that makes my job a lot easier on the decision making part because a lot of the thinking has been done ahead of time [00:16:00] for what’s going to happen.

And that’s very helpful to start training your team to work through that and, you know, the problem solving, like, okay, we know what the problem is and we know what some potential solutions are and we have an ideal solution that we think will fit here. And it’s just like a yes or no.

And like, let’s put the resources together, make it happen.

Alex Burdge: Yeah. I love that.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, so I want to talk the the flip side then. So if your superpower is one side of the coin, the flip side of that coin is always the fatal flaw, right?

And just like every Superman has his kryptonite or Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelet to victory without going mad. You probably had a flaw or something that’s held you back in your business.

For me, it was things like perfectionism that get me from shipping you know, products. There’s always be a little bit better before you shipped it and you don’t make any money or lack of self care.

That meant I let my clients walk all over me you know, and didn’t have good boundaries of my time and stuff like that.

But I think more important than what the flaw is how have you worked to overcome that flaw so that you could continue to grow and hopefully sharing a little bit of your experience here will will help our audience.

Alex Burdge: One of my flaws that has been a consistent journey to try to overcome is that I feel materially more capable when I’m comfortable in certain settings [00:17:00] that you often confront as a CEO. I’ve really had to work to become comfortable.

So, I would get really nervous speaking in front of people. I’d get really nervous and I still do to some degree. And in certain settings, I’d get very nervous, you know, for working with a $500 million company and their CEO is in the meeting, the level of articulation and the thought process and the ability to be personable.

We’re all hindered because I have fear. And you know, it really affects my efficacy, I think, as a leader. And so, I’ve had many times, especially early in my career, when someone would ask me a question or turn turn the mic over to me. And I would just blank, you know, I would say something, but I’d often think, man, that was a dumb answer, you know, or that wasn’t really, if I could just feel comfortable, I feel like I have a lot to share.

And in the confines of my own business and in the confines of people that I know and trust and customers that I have rapport with already, I feel like I’m able to unlock that strategy and that emotional [00:18:00] intelligence.

But until I get to that point, I’m really a little bit handicapped and I’m not the bold bulletproof, you know, confident CEO that can lead with with rhetoric, I think a lot of the times my hope is that I can lead another way in written form is one way that I feel strong.

But again, in verbal impromptu leadership is, it’s a weakness I’m trying to work on always and get more comfortable so that my team can look to me in a difficult meeting and know that I can be that courageous leader to back them up in the middle of a very tough situation.

And so I do feel I’ve come a long way. And I have a long way yet to go. But I would say the way that I’ve overcome it is well, two things.

One is just sheer repetition. You know, a lot of people think that great leaders are born that way, some are born in a way that is just their magnetic. And they can command a room. But most I think have to grow into that through the, you know, 10,000 hour rule or some variant of that where you’ve put yourself in enough situations and you’ve been beat up enough and humbled enough [00:19:00] to kind of wash away any perception of your invincibility.

And then once you’ve accepted that and you’re just real with what you are and what you aren’t, and you keep working on it and you keep presenting yourself with tough meetings, tough situations.

So, one thing I’ve done is I’ve committed to myself to never shy away from uncomfortable things. And so, if there’s an opportunity to join an awkward meeting or if there’s an opportunity to back up an employee in a very tense situation, even if I’m not required to be there, I’ll seek out the best that I can to be there because I think that it’s in those moments that you can forge the ability to do that over and over.

And so through that, I have seen great progress and I’m going to keep working on it. But I’ve also taken great comfort in the fact that great leaders don’t always have to be that person.

A lot of the time you can be quiet and you can be a quiet leader that’s powerful through your actions and through the way you treat people.

And so that’s been another area that I’m trying to focus on to make up for my weakness in other areas.

Richard Matthews: I love the language of you know, when you’ve washed away your perception of investment invincibility. [00:20:00] Because yeah, you know, running a company can humble you quite a lot. And, you know, I was just listening to a book by Cody Sanchez the other day. And like the opening line of the book is like, if you haven’t had your head in between your knees, crying your eyes out over what you’ve been doing, like you probably haven’t done entrepreneurship yet.

And when you realize that, like, no, they’re like, it’s a hard game. And there’s a lot of things that you’re going to get into and realize that you don’t. You don’t have the skillset yet, right?

Like, you don’t have the leadership. You don’t have the speaking capabilities. You don’t have the decision making of, you know, like, I don’t know how to make the scissor. You’re just going to, but someone has to make it.

So you’re gonna make it and it’s either going to work or it’s going to not. And I think part of the confidence for me at least has been screwing up enough and knowing that I can still get back from it. That we can still figure out how to take the next step, even if I F it up royally, that has helped to give me more confidence.

So I said, I’m not there yet either. But I don’t know if there is such a thing as there yet in that world, yeah.

Alex Burdge: I think part of it is ,as you understand that the, at least for me, the reality is that nobody really cares in it, for better and [00:21:00] worse, meaning people don’t have time to worry about your inability.

People don’t spend their day thinking about, you know, Alex Burdge really, he wasn’t the most charismatic and presenting that they just don’t think that way.

And they actually don’t care, you have a close circle of people that care deeply about you and you care deeply about. And then the rest of the world has their networks and that pretty much fills up their ability to care.

You know, and most of the rest of it just kind of is what it is. It’s life and so, the other thing that’s real liberating is when you realize that you don’t need to worry about what other people think.

You don’t need to worry about what you think about yourself, you need to worry about what you think people that you are responsible for and vice versa will say about you. Those are responsibilities that matter.

How are you as an employer? How are you as a friend? How are you know in those settings as a husband as a whatever your roles are that is actually the entirety of what you should care about and as soon as it extends beyond that, it really doesn’t matter.

And so, if you believe that and you’re trying to build a company, you’re a [00:22:00] lot more patient with your journey and you’re okay with the germination process, taking the time it needs to take because the outcome you’re after isn’t necessarily, or certainly at least entirely a financial experience.

Richard Matthews: Hmm.

Alex Burdge: It’s at least fully, if not more about who you become as the entrepreneur, because that’s the liberation.

It’s a feeling that you have confidence that you could do it over again. And it being creation of value. You know, if you can be a human that can create value and experiences and do things and you have confidence, you can do that. And it wasn’t just a one time fluke. That’s the liberation I think that entrepreneurs seek and that’s the fulfillment.

And sometimes we lose that in trying to pursue selling a company or making a paycheck because it’s anyone who’s done that. As soon as you have a certain amount of money from an experience, it doesn’t actually do anything for most people because you don’t change the way you live.

For the most part, you go back to work and if you keep making money, but you don’t do the other half, which is refining you as a human [00:23:00] and growing and becoming more, it’s just, it’s not there. The equation’s only half written.

And so that’s where my kind of maturation of thought has gone over the last few years. And it’s helped me to be calm in the presence of being inadequate and being okay with that, because I hope I’m on this earth for another 50, 60, however many years.

And that’s a lot more time for me to keep taking one weakness and refining it and getting better. And as long as I’m doing that, I am winning at this race that we’re all a part of.

So, that’s just a perspective, at least, you know, that’s kind of helped me.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, just getting a little bit every day. And I like the idea of being like the kind of person who can create value. And we actually do exercises with that, with our children. We walk around, I’ll point out, it’d be like, Hey, there’s a guy on the side of the street, spinning the sign.

What’s the value he’s providing, right? A moving pole, right? You know, what’s the value that the waitress at the restaurant is providing. What’s the value that the restaurateur is providing. Right?

And so we start looking at like what’s, you know, because you get paid in you know, commiserate value to like the value you provide to the world. And, man, like, you’re never done learning all the [00:24:00] pieces that go into what does it mean to create value for people?

Because you know, for you, you’re creating value for your team. You’re creating value for your clients. You’re creating value for the manufacturers that you’re working with.

And the three PL partners like, there’s so many avenues of value that you’re putting into the marketplace. You know, that makes sense that you guys are growing the way you are.

Alex Burdge: No, I love that. That definitely resonates.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, so if we skip on from the superpower and fatal flaws, I want to talk a little about your common enemy and this will put into the context of the clients that you actually hire you, right?

So every superhero has an arch nemesis. It’s a thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. It takes a lot of forms, but like I said, generally speaking, we like to put in the context of your clients and it’s a mindset or a flaw that you’re constantly have to fight to overcome.

So you can actually get people the results that they came to you for in the first place. And so in this world of, Helping people get their design products, you know, manufactured and put onto the marketplace.

What is that arch nemesis you guys have?

Alex Burdge: Hmm. I would say the arch nemesis is a, what we believe to be a, not always, but often [00:25:00] a misguided belief of the importance of control. What we’ve seen is there’s a large constituency of customers that the natural path and in or the natural progression of thought is, we engage with them.

We help open their eyes to new opportunities. We build better, you know, we get them into a new factory and even if we’re highly effective in these things, the time kind of entropically always occurs where they have a meeting and they say, it’s time for us to do this by ourselves.

And, you know, shift has been great, but you know, we need to do this in house because we need to be like, the big boys and, you know, I’ve heard those exact words and that’s not to disrespect what’s been said, but there’s this common evolution of thought in a brand that, hey, once we’re big enough, that’s a signal that we need to take this and do it on our own.

And we need to go direct to all the sources and we need to manage it directly. Now there are certainly instances that is an intelligent decision. [00:26:00] The common end though is that is significantly more prevalent than I think is merited.

Oftentimes it’s premature and oftentimes it’s seen with a lens of over optimism and it’s easy to say, well, if we could get rid of their fee, we could take all of that.

It’s much more difficult though, to actually calculate the other side of the coin, which is what is it that we would have to take on from a liability, from an overhead, from a technology, from a relationship, from a buying power standpoint, and is that an obvious no brainer to exchange for the percentage fee that we pay shift?

And so, that’s the company I would say and again what’s interesting is as you break you see that at a certain level and then once you there’s this chasm and then once actually you get to the bigger customers they don’t think that way.

So the multi billion dollar companies we work with actually embrace somebody being in the middle of that because it allows them to extend their resources in a multiplying way.

But in a brand often it feels like we need to control [00:27:00] this and we have to be in charge. And so again, I say that delicately with high respect for brands. And I don’t fault anyone for having the thought process, but what we’re trying to do is educate on the full, the net effect of this partnership.

And our job is to make sure it’s always a net positive. And I believe we do a good job at that.

So, that’s a mindset. I think it’s not unique to us. I think it’s unique to anyone.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. I was writer. I was going to say, cause we’re in a service providing business as well. And I was like, I recognize that again, it’s slightly different. Right?

But we have a tremendous amount of processes that we run for our clients that have taken us years to develop. And you know, it was like our output is designed to look and feel simple to our clients.

Alex Burdge: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: Right. And so, and like, that’s intentional. That’s part of the customer experience that we’re trying to build.

And so the thought process comes up. They’re like, okay, they make this look easy. I should be able to bring this in house and that we actually, we admit openly that like, Hey, we fit in the middle of the market where we’re at.

And there’s a size beyond which it’s not, it’s probably not [00:28:00] smart to hire us. You should probably hire these internally. And we have a service offering. That’s like, Hey, we’ll actually help hire and train and put these systems in place in your company. Because it makes more sense at a certain size to do that.

And so we can like license our systems that way and help people do that. But it’s funny to me how often we hear they’re like, okay, we’ve been working with you guys for six months or a year or two years now. We think we can bring this in house now. And I’m like, you can but have you looked at all the math, right?

Like, do you actually know what you’re signing up for? Cause you know, like we five people assigned to your account that are all specially trained in these areas to do these things in this way that make these things happen.

Are you hiring five people to do that? Because just hiring one of them would cost you more than than your service fee with us. And yeah, it’s an interesting thing and it’s very common. I’ve noticed the same thing that you have, like the bottom of the market that can’t afford to do it themselves or the lower end of the market, they’re like, no, we need someone who’s trained to do this. And that’s really easy.

And then they get to a certain size where they’re like, they start questioning, should I bring in that percentage back home without doing the marketplace? And then they get larger. The larger companies are like, Nope, that’s not what we do. That’s what you do.

Alex Burdge: Well, and it is the [00:29:00] other part of it is it’s an opportunity cost decision.

So, every brand, every company has finite resources. So sometimes we look at things as if it’s an infinite scenario where in a perfect world, yes, you have all the money to hire infinitely. You have all the time to allocate infinitely.

And sometimes that again, as part of that lens, and if we can help brands understand, you are a company that sells X, Y, or Z, and you do it really well, and you are the creative genius behind your brand and your culture and your people and your audience and your social and all of these things are whatever it is that makes them uniquely special.

But you’re not supply chain people. And that is not to say that you couldn’t be, of course you could. You could hire the teams. But those are oxygen choices, right?

So to speak. That is you. You are choosing them deliberately to spend the 2025 roadmap on building out a world class supply chain team. With money, time and resources that you could continue to double down on the thing that gives you the [00:30:00] highest profit per X. That is your secret sauce.

And so, those are the situations for us, at least when it makes sense. If supply chain is at the heartbeat of their unique value proposition, it’s a different conversation.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Alex Burdge: For a lot , it’s a critical but ancillary function. And so we often advise people, Hey, if we’re driving value and there’s a net gain here, and you can see that net positive effect. This is good as long as that equation stays upside, you know, the right side up.

But again, we are very biased. We’re a service provider. We are very cognizant of our weaknesses and we’re cognizant that we’re not a fit for everyone, but that is the common enemy. If there is one is trying to align in those instances.

And I think we do a pretty good job of it, but again, we can always do better.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. I’m struck by how similar problems are in one business to the other, even though, like, we don’t do anything similar at all as far as like the output for our clients, but we have the same types of discussions.

So let’s talk then a little bit about the flip side, right?

So if your common enemy is what you fight against, then you’re driving force is what you [00:31:00] fight for. Right?

So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. We want to know what it is that you fight for your mission, so to speak.

Alex Burdge: That one’s easy. And that’s to maximize profitability for companies. So, that is our actual written North star. It’s our our driving force in all of the decisions that we make. Our goal is to internally as a company, and we go over this, we have a meeting every single month, where we quiz the whole team on what is our purpose and how do we accomplish it?

And it always starts with, we exist to maximize brand profitability, company profitability. And we do that through optimizing their supply chain.

And that is when we say, should we hire this? Should we build out this division? Should we bring on the software? Should we do any of these things?

We run it through the filter of, will that, can we see a direct connection to that impacting in a positive way brand profitability? And if it doesn’t, we really question if it’s worth doing.

And that is what every brand needs, every brand needs [00:32:00] to maximize their profitability. And if they have partners that share that common goal, you are always on the same side of the table in negotiations as your brand.

And we had to make a deliberate switch to that a few years in where we used to, that was always a given, obviously we existed to create value, but we had never articulated to ourselves or our customers that was our purpose for being until about two and a half years ago.

And at that point we revamped our whole mess. Our messaging on our website now is there’s money in your supply chain. Let us find it.

We measure our success by how much money there’s a counter, how much money we’ve saved brands this year. You know, these types of things it changed the way we thought and it changed the way we positioned ourselves in our elevator pitch and it changed the close rate, frankly, with customers because it wasn’t a black box service provider.

It was a bolt on to supercharge, you know, the engine that they own and that they have. So that’s our common, I think that’s our common mission.

Richard Matthews: Your mission. So I ,love that. I love [00:33:00] that clarifying your mission helped increase, you know, your close rate and improve a lot of things for your company. And especially that you guys talk about it at every every meeting. We try to do the same. Ours is to democratize storytelling, by the way, ’cause I think storytelling is one of the foundational elements of humanity and how we actually pass value to one another. So

Alex Burdge: Not to cut you off, but funny enough, our North star is to maximize value or profitability. Our mission statement is to democratize enterprise supply chain capabilities to emerging brands.

So again, another parallel with what we’re trying to do here, the kind of democratization of something,

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. And so, I’m curious because you guys are in the world of increasing profitability in the supply chain. I know a lot of our audience here probably doesn’t even know how you might optimize profitability and supply chain.

What’s like one of the big low hanging fruit things you see regularly with clients that if they just, you know, did these things or some of the things that you guys do regularly, they would see an [00:34:00] increase in profitability if they’re selling physical products.

Alex Burdge: I would say the first thing that we go after is where and who with are you making your product? That seems obvious, but that’s often the biggest bang for your buck. Most companies are with factories and in countries that happened to be where they started. And that’s natural, you know, but things change.

And a lot of the time what happens is you build an infrastructure that makes sense for a startup. And then you’re three or five or 10 years later and the infrastructure needs have changed, but you’ve remained in the exoskeleton, you know, that you started with and you’ve outgrown that.

And so what we do is we often come in and we have a probably a 90 plus percent hit rate of being able to immediately bring their costs down and their profits up materially by just analyzing who are they making their product with and in what country and the country matters for a number of reasons. But the most obvious is because every country has a different tariff implication.[00:35:00]

So building a backpack right now in China is a 43.5% tariff. Which means that if you bought the backpack for $50, you’re paying another, now you’re going to test my math on this, whatever that is. 20, $21.

Or 20, is it 21?

Richard Matthews: I don’t know, I’m just guessing, but it’s right that.

Alex Burdge: Somewhere between like twenties.

Richard Matthews: Us on podcast.

Alex Burdge: Yeah, some audience now that I’ve just lost all credibility, but you know, another 20 some odd dollars in tariff. Whereas if you make that backpack in Vietnam, it may be 10 or 12%. Or 20%, but not 43. And so right there, anyone who’s sold physical goods knows a 10 reduction in your landed cost. That means you can sell it in retail for three to five times higher, or it’s three to five times impact in your MSRP.

So, you know, now you’re talking a 30 to $50 impact on what you can sell that product for profitably, which may mean you can capture more market share, which, you know, so there’s a domino effect tied to that.

So [00:36:00] you, what country are you in? And we have the ability to globally analyze. Should you be in Mexico? Should you be in the U.S, should you be in Europe or China or Vietnam or Bangladesh or wherever?

And then who are you manufacturing with? There are 50,000 backpack manufacturers in the world. How on earth as a startup or an entrepreneur, are you supposed to pick the right one? Well, we don’t know the right thing, but we do have a headstart.

We’ve been working with some of the best bag factories, for example, in the world for a decade, and we’ve spent time with their ownership and we’ve built rapport.

And so we bring you into that ecosystem. And again, nine times out of 10, we can come back at a margin for ourselves and still give you a reduction in what you’re paying and a better experience, hopefully.

Richard Matthews: That’s really fascinating. And I know I like, you know, because we did the candle stuff. I know that’s true and in multiple countries, you could, you know, just the tariffs, but also it wasn’t just tariffs. It was also the shipping costs and the shipping time because the amount of time it takes to get your product from where you made into your 3PL facilities.

[00:37:00] That’s cash in the bank essentially and whether or not you had the opportunity for land based transportation versus water, versus air transportation based on where you’ve manufactured it, all of those things play into the manufacturing costs and, you know, the labor costs in that country versus, you know, here or there. And I know like a lot of that started to shift.

So, especially more recently that you’re not necessarily getting labor costs savings in countries like China, like you might’ve gotten 15 years ago.

Alex Burdge: Yeah, that’s exactly and that’s so we do a supply chain audit. And that’s usually the tip of the spear in terms of getting an introduction to shift as we’ll say, let us audit each of the facets of your supply chain and we’ll audit them against our database and our networks and our knowledge and our experience.

And we’ll basically come back and say, okay, let’s look at the five pillars of your supply chain starting with your product, you know, going through manufacturing and shipping and duties and 3PL and we’ll kind of come back and say, Hey, these few stakes are these few legs of the stool or whatever the metaphor is are actually really firm and reliable.

And you’ve done a fantastic job and there’s really not a [00:38:00] lot more to do right now, but these two or three have real opportunity. And these are our proposed suggestions. And here’s if you hire us, what we would do to maximize your profits.

And that’s kind of where we look at everything from you know, location to what’s happening in the government. Are they friendly to the US? Is there geopolitical risk? Is there you know, is there a risk of logistics congestion? Is there whatever it is?

We try to consider the best that we can, the global, all of the global considerations that a brand should be thinking about to make sure that they’re not only set up now, but in the future, in a way that is optimal.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Cause you know, at the end of the day, profitably getting your product into the hands of your customers is the only way you get your value into the world. So,

Alex Burdge: Right.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, so I want to switch gears then and talk a little bit about your heroes tool belt, right? It’s a practical portion of our show.

And just like every superhero has a tool belt with, you know, awesome gadgets like their batarangs or their web slingers or their laser eyes.

I want to talk about the top one or two tools you couldn’t live without in your business today, it could be anything from your notepad, your calendar, to your marketing tools, to something you use for product [00:39:00] delivery, anything you think is essential to getting your job done as a CEO of a, you know, global logistics and supply chain coordinator.

Alex Burdge: I would say from a more practical standpoint, our software systems are quite powerful and important to us. Our ERP, MRP data dashboard, project management tools were constantly perfecting.

We’ve got some exciting things on the road map, but I would say that the visibility that they give us to be able to do the work that we do to be able to manage the number of factories we manage the amount of raw materials efficiently.

There are some customers we manage 25 factories for.

Richard Matthews: Wow.

Alex Burdge: And we actually procure raw materials and we do all the MRP planning and we convert it and we ship it to different facilities to be converted.

And so, the level of complexity is not only high, but the risk is very high if we mess up, if we add a zero, that could be the year’s profits gone, you know?

And so those systems are certainly a heartbeat function for us. And then the more.

Richard Matthews: You guys [00:40:00] develop a lot of that?

Alex Burdge: Yeah. I mean, none of them were built from the ground up. All of them have had significant molding and perfecting and custom code added to them to make them what we needed. Cause what’s unique about, for example, a normal brand, we’ll have an ERP or an MRP system, but they can design it for their brand.

Try to design an MRP system for and dozens of

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Alex Burdge: All have very unique functions and needs. It’s a monster of a project. And so, that’s been our challenge, but we think we’ve done a decent job. And it’s taking time. But like I said, we’ve got some fun things on the horizon to add to that.

And then I’d say the more esoteric or non technical answer would probably just be the people. I mean, any service agency knows and any company, but any service agency knows that the people that represent your company internally and externally are actually the secret sauce in a lot of ways for better and for worse.

And we’ve tried really hard to preserve the culture here and to create a place that is warm and [00:41:00] inviting and is truly a place that people find fulfillment in working at and associating with.

And again, we want to continue to work on the areas that we need to, but I think that is something, if I were to start the company over again today, I would say that when I started the company, I under indexed on the importance of those things and not intentionally, but you think that it’s the solution or it’s the tech or it’s the offering that’s going to change the world.

And it’s certainly half of the coin, but it’s only half of the coin and the people, I was reading a book this morning and it talks about this principle. it’s something to the effect of a great products without great people are basically do nothing for the world, because the people, you deploy the products and maintain the longevity of the product.

And so, that’s, I think the tool belt would be those two things. I’m probably missing something, but those are the two that come to mind.

Richard Matthews: I feel that a lot because you know, we’re not doing logistics and supply chain, but you know, we’re managing like, we managed 32,000 social media posts last year.

[00:42:00] Right. Which is a tremendous amount of assets, everything from, you know, written assets to video assets, to audio assets and whatnot.

And, you know, across seven or eight different social media platforms for 40 different shows. Like, it’s the software aspect of like, and custom developing our you know, we’re using project management tools that exist, but like sort of molding them into what we need in order to manage that at that level.

It’s huge, but to your point, it only works if the people who are working it are good people, right? I remember, it was probably maybe two years ago when I started to really realize that the whole who not how conversation Is super important, especially as a CEO that your job isn’t necessarily to figure out how to do something.

Your job is to figure out who is the right person to figure out how to do it.

And you know, put the right people in place who are bought in, who know what your vision is and who you want to help you get your value into the world.

Alex Burdge: Yeah, that’s it.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So I got one more question for you here as we get to the end of our interview, and it’s about your guiding principles, right?

One of the things that makes heroes [00:43:00] heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum.

So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles that you use regularly in your life. Maybe a principle you wish you had known when you first started out on your own hero’s journey.

Alex Burdge: The first one that comes to mind is that success. And this is one of our principles as a company. Success is the combination of relationships and outcomes.

I say that because there is for anyone who’s really been able to immerse themselves in the business world. There’s a lot of good happening and then there’s a lot of not so good happening.

And there are a lot of people who will put money above relationships. And I don’t know that I’m wise enough to know exactly what instances, you know, you just need a ruthless leader to accomplish an unbelievable outcome.

And there’s probably a place for that in history. But for the majority of us, a good example is, I don’t know that Steve Jobs was known for his relationships.

I’ve learned about him is that he was brilliant, [00:44:00] but at sometimes at the sacrifice of relationship often. And that’s not to say anything negative about Steve Jobs, but just to summarize the reality that most of us aren’t like Steve Jobs though, either. Most of us are a little bit more human in terms of what we’re probably going to accomplish in our lives.

And I think, for me, I’ve kind of, I’ve just had enough experiences to know that, outcomes without the relationship at the end of the day feels like you didn’t win.

And so for us at shift, we’re try really hard that, and I tell my employees, if there’s ever a question between a relationship and a financial outcome, you pick the relationship, we’ll do it to our detriment.

And I tell people, I will sooner go out of business than flip that equation around. And it doesn’t mean that we have a perfect track record. It doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes, but we are deliberate and we try really hard.

Because we truly believe that. And it goes back to what I said earlier, the bank account’s nice, but the rest of it really makes it the magic happen. And so that’s [00:45:00] one.

And the other principle I would say is that happiness in entrepreneurship or in life is about being able to embrace the whole thing.

Think we spend a lot, and I spent a lot of my early years in entrepreneurship. Thinking again about the eventual outcome or I can’t wait till we get to the day when I don’t have to stress about payroll and I can’t wait.

And then it was, I can’t wait until the day that I have this much money in the bank account. And then it was, I can’t wait until we do this and I can’t wait until we sell the company. I can’t wait until and every what you realize is that you can spend your whole life waiting until that next thing happens.

Because anyone who’s lived knows that as soon as that thing happens, you find the next milestone to focus on and you kind of ruin the hole in between.

So, there’s a real magic in that. And just being able to say today kind of sucked and I’m thrilled that it sucked. And if you can actually become that human and something we’re working on, you just unlock the secret to life because your life, then your happiness isn’t [00:46:00] reliant on what happened that day.

It’s not reliant on how successful by measures of money your business is. It’s this ability to like truly find joy in the journey. And as cliche as that is, it is amazing if you believe it.

And so that’s our journey that we’re trying to become those people every day. And again, lucky we have a lot of years to work on it, but we are finding the fruits of that are really rewarding when you can.

Richard Matthews: I’m a huge fan of trying to figure out, find the joy in the journey. Cause you know, I am currently like, as of today, we’re still in the stressing about payroll stage of our business.

And I’m looking forward to the next stage of the business where we’re not. But like, man, every one of these challenges that we run through and you realize like, no, this is a part of this journey of providing our value to the world of figuring out how it’s the journey of becoming I guess that’s a good way to put it of the person that you’re becoming along the way and it just a funny example from earlier this week.

We had a bunch of you know, this is not business related, but we had to bug bomb our [00:47:00] house, which meant we had to you know Take all of the laundry and stuff.

And we did like 11 loads of laundry and like on the way over to the laundromat to do 11 loads of laundry, we like the headlight is out on the car. And so we go over to auto zone and get a headlight.

And then, you know, I tried to put my hand in it, get a headlight. My hand doesn’t fit, but my wife is like, my handle fits.

So she sticks her hand in there and then she can’t get it out and stuck. She’s like, dang it. So I had to go buy tools to get my wife out of the car. She got her hand.

Alex Burdge: Oh.

Richard Matthews: In it. Yeah. busting up laughing. And the other thing was, we had you know, they mentioned you should turn off all the power. And I forgot that, you know, the refrigerator also requires power. And we probably should have, instead of turning off all the power, turned off all the power, except the refrigerator.

So we lost like a thousand of food. So it was like this one day, I’m all these things happen. And you’re like, we get to the end of the day and we’re just, we’re giggling. Right?

Because you have a choice in that moment, right? to, I guess, be defined by your circumstances or to enjoy them no matter what. All right.

And I was like, and it’s not even that the circumstances themselves are enjoyable, but like, we’re still alive. We’re still moving forward. We’re still getting to do the things we want to do in our lives.

And sure, certain things are [00:48:00] hard and whatnot, but it’s a whole, you know, the journey and the person that you’re becoming along the way. You’re never going to get there. You’re never going to arrive. You’re never going to be at the place where you’re like, yep, we’ve done everything right.

We’ve officially finished with our business. Here’s the stamp of approval or whatever and now it’s done like that’s not the way entrepreneurship works.

It’s not the way business works it’ll always be bigger goals and more people to serve and you know the world is going to change and you know, all your customers that have your you know, have manufacturing in some country might have, you know, some geopolitical issue and there’s tariffs on it now that everything has to shift and change.

So there’s always going to be new problems to solve.

So yeah.

I’m I’m through of this message.

Alex Burdge: Well said.

Richard Matthews: So, I think that’s a good place to wrap our interview, but I do finish every interview with a simple challenge that we call the heroes challenge, which you were actually a result of you know, Jeff Holmes actually recommended you come on the show.

But we do this to get access to stories that we might not otherwise find on our own because not everyone is out doing the podcast rounds.

So question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First [00:49:00] names are fine and why do you think they should come share their story with us here on the hero show? First person that comes to mind for you.

Alex Burdge: Colby he’s a friend. He’s a owner of a really cool consumer brand. The reason I think he’s a good fit for this is because he exemplifies a lot of heroic attributes and his story is inspiring and he’s been through some real challenges and always risen to the top and brought other people with him.

And so I think that he would be a good candidate.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So we’ll reach out afterwards and see if we can get him to say yes. We don’t always get a good yes, but sometimes the introductions lead to interviews like this one which we appreciate, by the way.

But, you know, in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism.

So our analogous to that as we close is where can people find you if they want your help in the future? Where can they light up the back signal?

And say, you know what. I would like to get help with my supply chain, and if you know, we can get rid of our profitability increased there, but I think more important than where is who are the right types of people or [00:50:00] companies to reach out and ask for that assistance?

Alex Burdge: Yeah. So, I mean, my personal email is always open to anyone. And so it’s Alex@ShyftGlobal.com and that’s shift with a Y S H Y F T. That’s the easiest way, something I check more than I should.

So I’ll see it hopefully if it doesn’t go to spam or something. But always available.

And I would say anyone, I’m a big believer in, you know, our, if you asked us, who’s your core customer, it’s a brand that’s doing at least a couple million a year in sales and up from there.

But I often take phone calls and meetings for brands that are not there yet. And that are starting or somewhere along the way.

And don’t feel shy to reach out if there’s something that we can do to provide value to you. Pro bono or otherwise, we’d love to do it. We find a lot of fulfillment in helping offer kind of our expertise. And so, reach out.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thank you very much, Alex, for coming on and sharing your story with us today. I appreciate the time that you took to to do that.

I know not everyone has freedom in their schedules to do this. We appreciate that. Do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience for [00:51:00] hit this stop record button?

Alex Burdge: No, I’d just say, for those who are building, I guess, yes. For those who are building something you know, the biggest secret, I’d say, is just keep moving forward.

And the famous Steve Jobs quote, you can only connect the dots looking backwards, so try not to get overwhelmed when things don’t go the way you think.

So, again, words from someone who’s trying to learn it himself. But thanks for having me on, Richard. It’s been a pleasure. And yeah. Hope to hear from you again.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thank you, Alex.