Marc Schulze: CEO at Neuland GmbH & Co. KG

^{Joe Fox (00:00.868)}
Hey everyone, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Retain Grow Thrive. I'm your host, Joe Fox. Today I'm very excited. We have a very special guest for you today and we're very lucky to have this gentleman and this company as one of our customers here at Grow Wave. So I think there's going to be a couple of really interesting points for the audience here today. I'm not going to give too much away because there's a very, very cool story behind this company and Mark's background. So without further ado,

I'd like to introduce Mark Schulze of Neuland, one of our customers out of Germany. Mark, how are doing? And welcome to the show.

_{Marc (00:36.578)}
Hi, Joe. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm doing fine. I'm also a little bit curious and also maybe a little bit nervous to speak to you today because it's my first international podcast. I must say also in English, it's not my mother tongue. So it's there might be some, some typical German pronunciations and probably my dialect or my, whatever sounds harsh or maybe not harsh, but typical German English. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I think it will be a great conversation hopefully.

^{Joe Fox (01:07.064)}
Absolutely. No, Mark, your English is perfect. So thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it. And Mark, I'd love to dive in a little bit. You know, you've got a fascinating background, I think, you know, in terms of everything that you've done in your career to date. But specifically today, I really would love to dive into Newland. You know, being a customer of Growwaves, I think it's a really good way to tell that story. But second to that, I think what you guys are doing is incredibly unique. I love the fact

that you're very focused on sustainability. I love the fact that you're manufactured and based in Germany and very focused on that side of things. But also I think for the audience, way the products that you have are very relevant to our audience, I think is really important now more than ever with a lot of people working remotely and doing offsites and all of those sorts of things for their important meetings. And this time of year, there's always those meetings.

But I really would love to talk about Newland and the products and how you help drive better conversations and outcomes in the workplace.

_{Marc (02:15.575)}
No, happy to talk about it.

Yeah, maybe I can just give a short introduction to the company and then maybe a very quick one to myself. So Neuland is a company that is already 60 years old. We started 60 years ago and we are somehow the hidden champion, I would say, in communication tools. And what we are doing, we're actually producing beside this typical marker that probably everybody has seen who had a workshop, right? That is our unique product.

^{Joe Fox (02:22.871)}
Yes. Yep.

^{Joe Fox (02:45.409)}
Yes.

_{Marc (02:48.781)}
We are also doing flip charts, pin boards, white boards, tools for moderation, trainers, and people who are actually even on sea level, sea suite, who are actually facilitating presenting every day in front of teams. And this is what makes us unique and the really important, let me say what is really important about Norland, we have been sustainable and we didn't even talk about sustainability, we just did it.

You know, like over the last 10, 15 years everybody was talking about sustainability, ESG regulations and all these kinds of stuff. We have been the first company in the world who had these kind of refillable markers and we didn't really make a big game about it or a big fuss about it. We just did it because we felt it was necessary. We felt it was the right thing to do. And as we are doing everything and produce everything here in Germany.

^{Joe Fox (03:33.345)}
Yes. Yes.

_{Marc (03:45.278)}
This made in Germany is a promise as well as something that has been valued all over the world for a long period of time. think the German economy right now is in big discussions. At the end of the day, we are a small global player. We have customers all over the world. We are selling all over the world. And for sure, most of our business is done in the...

German speaking region of Europe. But we try to Growave. We had a partner in the US who unfortunately closed down some 10 years ago. So if somebody is interested, we are looking for partners and resellers in the US who are willing and who are interested in investing into these kind of tools. And yeah, we see a big trend back to work. Yeah, this new way of working, I think at the end of the day with this whole

^{Joe Fox (04:29.122)}
Hehehe.

^{Joe Fox (04:38.743)}
Yes.

_{Marc (04:41.581)}
Covid pandemic situation, people went digital, they work from home. But especially in Europe, see a trend that people and CEOs actually ask teams to come back to the office at least two or three days per week. And I've seen also, I think, some announcement from Amazon, Apple, whatever they want the people to come back. At the end of the day, think communication, and this is what Neuland is all about, we are communication, right? We are...

Classical communication. We are really like face to face, facilitation in teams, in big groups. I think it all started like 20, 25 years ago, was World Coffee's. We had like big sessions with several hundred people working on that facilitation method. We have built up this whole flip chart communication with partners actually that was built up here at Neuland. So a lot of these standards which people are using today has been developed together with Neuland.

as one of the players in the market, right? We are small compared to companies like adding or whatever, but at the end of the day, our products are seen as the products, right? We are the original. And I think that is really something that is worse to tell it. And at the end, the company was never strong in speaking about what makes it unique.

What is really, let me say, the story behind it? What is about this history that's made in Germany, the sustainability, the quality especially? This is something where we need to be a little bit louder. We've never been very loud company. We just did our job. did good. Let me say we delivered good qualities. People trusted us. The community of coaches, trainers, everybody is loving our products. But we've never been in the B2C market so far.

^{Joe Fox (06:08.012)}
Yes.

_{Marc (06:33.753)}
We want to expand into this region. But at the end of the day, we've never done it before. So we did our job. We delivered good quality. If you go to any hotel in the German-speaking Europe, you will probably find our products there. And they last for decades, which is a good thing and the other bad thing. I would love to sell a little bit more. But at the end of the day,

^{Joe Fox (06:55.275)}
Yes, yes, absolutely.

_{Marc (06:59.405)}
Sometimes customers send us products which are 20 years old and we are just replacing screws and specific things or the surfaces of the product. This is really a product that I made to last. And even some coaches, they tell me they have 20, 30 year old markers, which they still use, refill. And at the end of the day, you can replace every single component of the marker, right? You can refill.

^{Joe Fox (07:06.463)}
Wow.

^{Joe Fox (07:16.895)}
Wow.

_{Marc (07:26.657)}
the top here, can refill here at the end, you can replace everything. So at the end of the day, we are really reducing the waste. The people love this, but we've never told the story. And this is something which I'm starting now to tell the world how good we are and what we are all about.

^{Joe Fox (07:38.495)}
I'll... Yes!

^{Joe Fox (07:45.448)}
Absolutely. I love that. And I mean, there's so many good points you brought up there. And there's a couple that I kind of want to dive into because I think it's super relevant, you know, for for the e-commerce side of things and the e-commerce journey and storytelling and everything like that. And obviously, you know, I know how good the products are. You know how good the products are. The customers that are very loyal and have had these products, you know, for up to 20 years.

30 years even know how good the products are. But I'd love to know Mark, like how are you translating that in a digital environment and, you know, moving over to Shopify and focusing on those sorts of things from an e-commerce perspective. Have you found it, have you found it a really good way to be able to, you know, kind of present this product to more markets and to more people or are you finding you get a lot of loyal customers? How does that typically look?

_{Marc (08:40.684)}
No, think, let me say, we have been very early to e-commerce because our, let me say, sales strategy in the past was really just direct business. let me say, before the whole digitalization happened, we had catalogs which we were sending out to customers and they were ordering via fax, via whatever initial emails. But we had our first online shop already in 1996. So really, really early. And then we did several technologies and then I think

^{Joe Fox (09:03.775)}
Wow. Yes, yeah.

_{Marc (09:09.974)}
Three years ago, we actually shifted to Shopify. And then we actually started also talking about, let me say, the loyalty program. Then Growave Wave came on board. And we really see that the average order value, for example, since we are working with Growave Wave, has been increasingly positive. So at the end of the day, we've seen positive impact. And we've seen that our loyal customers are actually the most important source of our income in a way.

^{Joe Fox (09:38.73)}
Yes, yep.

_{Marc (09:38.764)}
right, because they are coming back. If I'm speaking to agencies, for example, because we are now shifting our agency because we want to do something new, a little bit more innovative, whatever. And they asked me about what is the conversion rate of the website. I said, our conversion rate is so high because we just have fans coming to the website. And if I tell them, tell them our conversion rate, they hardly believe it. But like the traffic, to be honest, is quite, it's not huge.

^{Joe Fox (09:57.886)}
Yes, yep.

_{Marc (10:06.957)}
But the people are buying because they love the products, right? So this is what it's all about. We are live from our loyal customers and that's why we have that loyalty program and that's why we have Growave of helping us with it. This is something that really works totally well. So it's something that made us stabilize our sales, grow our sales, especially after the COVID phase. Our sales dropped almost by 60%.

^{Joe Fox (10:07.497)}
Yes.

_{Marc (10:35.135)}
This is really, let me say it was really, you can imagine, right? You have tools which are used in groups, which are used face to face, then COVID hit and like all of a sudden the business more or less stopped, right? All our hotels, all these kinds of conference centers and all the offices were closed down. Nobody needed these kinds of tools. And it was really a very critical phase for the company as well. And...

^{Joe Fox (10:35.528)}
Wow.

^{Joe Fox (10:46.334)}
Yes.

_{Marc (10:59.519)}
Now we recovered. We are growing again, right? Even so, the economy in Germany is weak. We are coming back. We are growing, which is very positive. And as I said, these kind of tools and Shopify helped us. And we are making around 50 % of our total sales via Shopify. We are the shop. We still have some catalog customers or digital catalog customers. still have, let me say,

^{Joe Fox (11:18.547)}
Nice.

_{Marc (11:27.149)}
whatever, ministry, official departments like the mayor of the city, whatever they are ordering stuff on a classical way because they are not allowed to use credit cards which are somehow needed sometimes, right? So sometimes in Germany, the bureaucratic things are still very old school. That's why we still have customers coming from whatever, from the fire workers, educational center, whatever they need, this classical order.

^{Joe Fox (11:29.458)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (11:36.303)}
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

^{Joe Fox (11:44.85)}
Yes.

_{Marc (11:53.582)}
coming in via fax or via email, right? So even sometimes we are phone. So we still need this. What is really making us unique? We still have a customer service team where people really know the product, which are in the company for all, for 20, 30 years. So if a customer is calling us, we can really reply and explain everything. And this is, I think, something when I joined Noylant.

^{Joe Fox (12:08.513)}
Awesome.

_{Marc (12:19.341)}
It is really that makes the company so unique. We have people here working here for 30, 40 years, right? They started their career here. They stayed with the company and they are like real experts. And at the end of the day, the funny thing is even so we have so many long-term employees. We are a super innovative company. We are coming up with new products every year. We are really coming up with really cool product innovations, which are sometimes coming from the market from our coaches and trainers, right?

So at the end day, we're working very closely. We are listening to what those guys need and want. And yeah, it's impressive. So once you are here, please come by. You will be impressed. It's really nice to see.

^{Joe Fox (13:00.916)}
Yeah, Mark, I love this. mean, my, obviously I'm, you know, heavily involved in the technology space and e-commerce space, but nothing makes me happier than hearing businesses that are having these transformational journeys and really embracing technology and innovation. And I love to hear, you know, my, my family in Australia, my mom in particular has only ever worked at two companies in her whole life. And so

She's always been the most longstanding employee. And I really love to hear stories like that because I think it's really, really cool. And also the fact that, you you were able to, you know, keep that moving forward through COVID, survive COVID, like overcome those challenges, work with the team to keep pushing forward. I absolutely love these stories. And these are the things that make me excited to do the podcast, to be honest. I just love to hear these really cool stories. And I think...

You it's amazing to me, you touched on a couple of points there about the B2B side of things and some of the bureaucracy that still exists and having to, you know, some people having to use fax and email for orders and things still. And I'd be very curious because I would love to do a part two conversation of this, you know, in the, in the future, I would love to hear, you know, how Shopify is helping you with some more of that B2B side of things. Cause I know that they're

so heavily invested in innovating in that space. you know, obviously we can't speed up how quickly government departments move. But it's interesting just to see that evolution of behavior as well. I think it's fascinating. So awesome work, Mark. I mean, you know, telling this story is fantastic. I love to hear these stories. Mark, on that note.

With Newland, like you touched on innovation. We know that there's this big resurgence happening with, you know, people doing hybrid models of go back to work. I'm seeing on the tech side of things, even if a lot of people may be working from home, they're doing a lot more off sites and in-person kind of facilitatory meetings and using products like yours and, you know, wanting to do more with coaches and advisors and all of those sorts of things.

^{Joe Fox (15:20.391)}
You know, to the audience who are listening today, you know, we have a lot of C C suite, you know, at tech companies or leaders in tech companies. What do you think? You know, obviously with Newland, there's a variety of products, but what do you think is a good starting point? You know, if you're a tech startup and you want to do one of these, you know, facilitatory meetings and you don't know where to start.

you know, what products would you recommend, you know, from Newland that could get that initial journey started?

_{Marc (15:53.583)}
I think it really doesn't depend if it's a startup or any kind of business in the world. At the end of the day, if you have people who are managing teams, people who are presenting to teams, people who educate people, you need to be able to have these kind of, let me say, combination out of these digital tools which everybody is using. But having also the ability to facilitate in front of maybe with a classical flip chart.

to be able to really easily explain and draw little paintings and little explanations to people because you have different people in the team. You have young people, the Strenzy, which are, let me say, super digital native. But at the end of the day, they sometimes need very easy explanations. And you can really, if you are able to facilitate with some of our markers, with some of our flip charts, whatever, with all the tools that we are developing and which we are, let me say, offering, you will be able to really speed up communications.

speed up decision making, let me say really get people on board, onboard them, find compromises, really let me say document documentation. What is really fascinating as a startup and we actually did this exercise ourselves. We created new strategy picture for Neuland 2030, right? We had to, let me say somebody, let's say graphic facilitator who actually took our strategy and painted a picture for it. And at the end,

I would recommend to use these kind of strategy pictures as a change management tool. Because at the end of today, what we will do, we will put that picture with our vision for Neuland 2030 in all our production site, as well as in the administration office, whatever. So everybody, every employee is walking by and looking at the picture of what we are going to do in the next five years. And with this graphical element, with...

with pictures. Sometimes in Germany, have a saying, a picture says more than a thousand words. If you look at that picture, you understand where we want to, what I as a CEO expect from our people, what kind of partners we are looking for, what kind of customers we want, what kind of level of customer satisfaction or customer service we are planning. These things are captured on one picture.

^{Joe Fox (17:47.364)}
Yes. Yeah.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

_{Marc (18:09.686)}
And the people you're standing there, you're looking at it and you can really feel it. And these things are painted with our products, are painted with our markers, they are painted on our flip charts. And you need to have people who are doing this live recording of meetings. This is really giving the whole group, whoever attends this kind of meeting, will remember the process. And I think looking at artificial intelligence and all the processes which are shortened and optimized and whatever.

^{Joe Fox (18:38.278)}
Hmm. Yeah.

_{Marc (18:39.466)}
and the artificial intelligence actually just you put in what you want and you get the result. What we our tools are used in the process of coming from A to B, right? At the end, you need to explain people why A leads to result of B. You need to have A1, A, B, A2, A3. You need to explain these little steps in between. And if you don't have the people on board and the people don't commit

^{Joe Fox (18:55.918)}
Yes.

_{Marc (19:05.358)}
And the people don't feel that they are embraced and that they are heard and that all their, let me say, critics or maybe their meanings, their opinions are somehow reflected and they are honored, or whatever you want to call it. Maybe it's the wrong English word for it. But at the end of the day, you need to impress the group. And especially in startups where you have a high engagement rate and the people are anyways motivated, right? It's even easier, yeah? But even there, you need to have the group commitment.

^{Joe Fox (19:27.843)}
Yes, yeah.

_{Marc (19:34.07)}
And if you are talking about established companies, it's more difficult. Looking at my background, I started in a company which has more than 100,000 employees. I was just a number. I never wanted to be there. Then I started in sales. I was in different roles. But it was very established kind of companies. And to get this change management done, you need to be able to facilitate in groups. You need to combine.

^{Joe Fox (19:44.089)}
Yes, yes, yes.

_{Marc (20:02.573)}
have a hybrid kind of working model, not just digital tools, but classical face-to-face off-sites where people really learn. The people, even the new generation, they are very keen to learn. And when I was at Merck, which is like a global player in different kind of areas, they have like 70,000 employees, I was responsible in hiring talents in our internal consulting group, right? And looking at these talents and seeing how good they are and looking at their CVs, yeah.

^{Joe Fox (20:14.809)}
Yes.

_{Marc (20:32.501)}
I was always impressed at their CVs because they were at super reputational universities like Cambridge or whatever like Harvard. And looking at my CV, I was always like, my God, I would not hire me. then, but yeah, yeah. So like, and I was like, my God, what an impressive kind of CV. But if they are onboarding,

^{Joe Fox (20:32.707)}
Yes. Yep.

^{Joe Fox (20:41.187)}
Yes, yeah.

Yeah, I'm the same. I'm the same. I'm guilty of that too.

_{Marc (20:57.889)}
They've never worked in a real environment. They've never worked for a company which is changing, where you have decisions which are probably impacting specific business groups, business units, where they close down, sell off business units. You know, at the end of the day, it's an ongoing change and you need to make people aware that they will feel being part of it. Yeah, you need to tell the story, right? And therefore our tools are actually perfect. you need to, yeah, at the end of the day, you need to manage humans.

^{Joe Fox (21:01.04)}
And...

_{Marc (21:27.977)}
Even if we have artificial intelligence, we still work with humans. We still love to talk. We look into the eye. We actually, let me say, we even fight with each other in meetings, right? And you have critics there, you have negative people there, you have people there who are super motivated, you have people who totally not motivated. But using these tools, which we have built for over 60 years now, is helping any kind of manager, C-level people, CEOs of huge companies.

^{Joe Fox (21:28.579)}
Yes. Yep.

Yes.

^{Joe Fox (21:39.439)}
Yes, yeah, yeah.

_{Marc (21:57.806)}
really getting the message to those people and trying to, let me say, have them on board and get the organizations the right way. And I think this is what we are all about. It's really about communication for and with people and between people. And that's what we are standing for. And it might sound a little bit boring that we are actually doing flip charts and whiteboards and whatever, but these tools are actually part of every single communication in a lot of companies all over the world.

^{Joe Fox (22:15.022)}
I that.

_{Marc (22:27.317)}
And from my personal perspective, every single office, every single law firm, every single physician, every single dentist, every single engineer, every single blumber who has a team needs to have these products because they need to explain whatever updates on laws, they need to explain specific mechanics. being able to facilitate in front of these tools is helping people to understand problems and solve problems. And this is what we're all about, I would say.

^{Joe Fox (22:40.014)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (22:56.772)}
Absolutely, Mark. I think to that point, you know, working through these kind of workshop, facilitatory kind of settings and doing that together as a collective overcomes any boundary that could be existing between any different teams, any different team members, overcoming hesitations for people to, you know, because there are some people of all different generations who may not necessarily feel comfortable speaking up about certain things. But I think to your point, it's like,

If you're all kind of like almost problem solving together and doing this exercise together and coming together and understanding what from point A to point B looks like everyone has been a part of figuring that process out together. And I think that's incredibly powerful what you guys do and the fact that you're able to facilitate that. And I love the fact that, you know, you're working to continually

innovate and bring out new products based upon what is working and what you're hearing from the facilitators. And it's, it's perfect. I mean, you've got the perfect business in my books. I love it. You've got the heritage, you've got the sustainability down pat, the amazing culture and team that have been around for such a long time, that patriotic, you know, made in Germany side of things. It's, amazing. So Mark, thank you so much for sharing this journey.

and sharing this story with us. And thank you again for being a customer of Grow Waves. I'm really, really, really happy to hear that we're a product that's really helping you on your journey and helping you facilitate growth in e-commerce. So I absolutely love to hear that. And that conversion rate, you'll have to tell me what that is offline, because I'd be very, curious to hear what that is. Over the years, I mean, I've seen some websites that you think.

would have really good conversion rates that have some of the worst conversion rates ever. And then, you know, on the flip side, I've had some sites, you know, where you just like, wow, I can't believe that, but it's really cool to hear that you've got so many loyal customers and that when a customer does become a customer of Newyland, they're, you know, a loyal long-term customer because of the quality and the experience.

_{Marc (25:12.204)}
No, and this is, and this is where you are helping us and actually really helped us a lot. And we are actually, we already had like a discussion about really intensifying our, our, let me say partnership, right? Really going and growing further. So I think there are a lot of ideas which we are going to realize. And I will tell you the conversion rate after our, our podcast.

^{Joe Fox (25:27.455)}
Yes. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (25:36.321)}
Yes, yeah, Absolutely, absolutely. I love that. Mark, look, I could chat about this forever because it's such an interesting topic and you have such an interesting business that you're leading and growing and I love to hear these stories. But we try to keep these within 30 minutes. So I do have a question that I love to ask because we have lots of founders, CEOs, we have partnerships people on here, we have super tech focused people.

customers, brands, know, sustainability experts, everything. But I do think one thing that's relevant to all of us is travel. And so I love to just sort of ask the one question. I'd be very curious as to what it is from your perspective, but what is the one thing that you cannot travel without? And you can't say a person.

_{Marc (26:28.718)}
No, let me say from a personal point of view, it's really just openness and curiosity. I honestly, I was traveling to a lot of exotic places. I've been, let me say in South America, I've been in Australia, I've been to Far East Asia. But what I also like is like, for example, Eastern Europe, it's a great place to visit, but you need to be open.

^{Joe Fox (26:36.15)}
I love that.

_{Marc (26:51.886)}
You need to be open to talk to people. You need to be able to connect. You need to go into a bar, pub, whatever, drink a beer, and then at the end start chatting with people who locals, which are then actually giving you the hidden treasures of the city or the place you're traveling to. So at the end, it's not a tool. would say without my mobile, I would not be able to travel. But let me say just from a few personal point of view, I think it's about being open and being curious about what's happening in

^{Joe Fox (27:02.678)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (27:09.215)}
Yeah.

_{Marc (27:20.246)}
in the spot you're traveling to because this is giving you total new perspectives.

^{Joe Fox (27:22.401)}
I love that. I love that. And no one said that before. So that's a really, really good one. I love that. And I couldn't agree more. think that in my experience, you know, I've been very lucky to travel in the technology space and all of those sorts of things for work over the years. And I think I've kind of always tried to adapt that mindset, you know, because the travel I've always enjoyed the most, whether it's

_{Marc (27:29.44)}
Okay, cool.

^{Joe Fox (27:48.866)}
you know, Scandinavia, Europe, Southeast Asia, et cetera, et cetera, has always been the things that I didn't find on Google. It's always just been these little kind of random adventures that have popped up along the way. So I couldn't agree more, Mark. That's, that's a really, really, really good one. Really good one. Well, Mark, thank you so much, you know, for, coming on. Thank you so much for being a loyal customer of Growwaves and I'm really, really excited to continue to watch the Newyland journey.

_{Marc (28:02.24)}
Exactly. No, no, no, definitely. Definitely.

^{Joe Fox (28:17.855)}
and all the growth and see the 2030 vision come to life. I think that's a really, really cool thing. And audience, please, I really encourage you to check out the show note links. Go check out Noylund, go check out these products. I know for a fact, you know, all of my tech friends and colleagues have been talking about how to connect more about when you're doing offsites and all of these sorts of things. And Noylund have these products that can facilitate that and to Mark's points earlier.

bring everyone along on the journey and be aligned on the vision and have input into those future growth plans. So thank you all so much for tuning in. Mark, thank you so much for coming on board. And I look forward to doing a part two of this and talking more about how things are evolving along the journey on B2B e-commerce and how things are going with the Ramped Up Loyalty Program, and also hearing about how you're actioning this 2030 vision.

_{Marc (29:12.59)}
Perfect. Thank you very much for having me. I hope the people enjoyed it and I'm very happy to speak to you again. It was a big pleasure for me.

^{Joe Fox (29:20.565)}
Thank you so much, Mark. Really appreciate it. Thanks audience for tuning into another episode. This was a really, really cool one. I love it when Grow Wave customers come on board and come on the show and we can talk about these things. And I love hearing nothing more about businesses that have been around for, you know, 50, 60 plus years and are really evolving into the e-commerce journey. So I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Be sure to check out the show notes and you can get all the links that Mark and I spoke about.

and I'll see you again on the next episode of Retain Grow Thrive. I'm your host, Joe Fulks, president at Grow Wave, and I'll see you around soon.