How DIME Beauty Scaled Fulfillment Using Military Principles

I didn’t just go, that’s your guys’s job to pack that out. No, me and my operations manager was there until midnight packing that out. It’s that care of not just, hey, this isn’t a you problem. It’s your guys’ problem to fix. It’s it’s a we problem. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcast. Today we sit down with David Luna, the senior manager of fulfillment at Dime Beauty. You retired from the Army. Gotcha. So, what was your role in the military in the army? Well, I did logistics. My MOS was a 92 Yankee. When I say logistics, a little bit different out here in the civilian sector. Logistics is anywhere from transportation to finance, procurement, and

kind of like inventory control. Mhm. And here it’s really segmented like you either do transportation or you either do inventory control, you either do fulfillment or you either do X Y or Z. But in the army, if you’re a 92 Yankee or 92 alpha or in logistics, you can be in multiple different in all the disciplines. Yep. Depending over time, rank, position, and wherever you’re slotted. So, it’s kind of a little bit different. Uh, and so when I kind of retired, my resume could fit almost any job. It was super crazy. Um, I didn’t realize it was that segment when I segmented and till I retired and started applying for things. I was like, but

I’ve done procurement, so why is it different? Shouldn’t it be part of this? Yeah. Right. Have you have you transitioned that philosophy to the civilian side? I think that’s why I kind of uh love my role at Dying Beauty is cuz I’m allowed to do everything and that’s kind of what my role is is a senior manager fulfillment is I do all of that. Uh right uh I create and develop the P&L with our accounting team and stuff like that. Mhm. Um, and you know, it allows me to think on the levels that I did in the military and see those small little details that I would previously and raise that red flag and say,

“Hey, what’s going on with this?” And, you know, it kind of uh stimulated my my brain cuz that’s what I was used to for God knows how long, 20, 18 years. And when I first retired, I became a train conductor. Um, super random, right? You would never think someone in logistics would be a train conductor. Yeah. Did Did you have to Did you have to go to school for that or Yes. Probably let’s see May, June, July. So, a three-month school. It’s super um high score rate for you to pass. I think it’s like 90% somewhere around there on the final test. Um, and stuff like that. Um, and it was just something I wanted

to do different. I mean, I’ve been a leader since my first job at Burger King. So, it was kind of like this is just me myself doing thing, which was kind of nice uh in the military. It’s kind of more challenging than being a leader, you know, than uh out here in the civilian sector is cuz you’re responsible for people’s actions while they’re at work and out of work. And that’s a lot. Um, and it’s a lot of pressure and a lot of things, you know, besides being a dad and all those other things, a brother, son, father, you know. Mhm. It’s a it’s a lot added to it. So, I wanted a little bit

break and uh did that for about a year and a half. Then I went back to school cuz I found out when I wanted to get back into logistics, people were telling me no, they had less experience than me because I didn’t have a piece of paper. So, it was so interesting. Isn’t that crazy? It is. It really is. But I I think the world is now transitioning to, you know, where we are allowing people with experience um to elevate themselves, you know, because they have that experience. I think that’s more valuable than that. But also while at the University of Utah, I found it interesting that uh people with um were getting out of

the school, one of the first things when they were applying and having problems for when they graduated with a degree in operations management was, “But you don’t have experience for this role. So which is it right?” Yeah. Is it the paper or is it the experience? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, my business law professor had a really good point. He’s like, “It’s kind of backwards in this for business, you know, like they want to teach you the intricacies of business and business school, but really it should be about can you complete a project, can you do this, can you do that, all these other things and and he he he’s super right cuz you you

do and no matter what job you do, like there’s some unknowns going into it, right? Cuz like you’re going to interview, do you have experience doing this? Do you have experience do that?” Yeah. But you don’t have that particular experience in the moment. Mhm. Uh with anything in life. So it’s kind of super interesting. Yeah, it is. It is super interesting. I mean I think once upon a time physicians used to train under another physician like that was the classwork. Yeah. So it just realworld experience. Now I understand how uh utilizing other research and being in a classroom can amplify your experience but there really is no replacement. I don’t in fact as I’m looking

across if you think about going and earning an agree a degree what which degree do you walk off campus and you’re immediately qualified to to do whatever you’ve now trained to do without having that real world experience. Yeah. And maybe tech schools are a little bit different. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think trade schools there’s no question. Yeah. And I think there’s they’re a little bit undersold, right? To totally. If you don’t have four four year degree, you know, it’s not uh you know, tech school is kind of looked a little bit down upon, but I think those are the ones, like you said, that uh probably have that real world experience kind of getting into

that kind of stuff. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that’s great background. We want to we’ll want to we’ll want to dig into that a little bit more. I especially want to talk about your military experience and how you utilize that in your current role with with dime. But I also wanted to ask you about by the time you were done with your experience in the military as we’re kind of talking about your the physical fitness requirements. Were you burned out on that side of it or is that why you took a break or what was the or or or you just could you could take a break? It wasn’t it was that I could take a

break. Mhm. Right. Um I did keep up with it for like the first year I would go run, but I think part of it was the transitioning to the life of a train conductor. I don’t think people realize how brutal that job is. Being a train conductor. Yeah, it is. Cuz you are on call. Uh-huh. All the time. Um and you you can work twice in one day a 10-hour shift, right? as a train conductor. Yes. This is a world I have I have zero background, no knowledge of being a train conductor other than everybody as a kid wanted to be, you know, a train conductor. Like that was one of the things you wanted

to do. Ride around in a train, you blow the whistle, maybe throw some coal into the that that that is that is true. Uh and I had no idea either. Um but it’s demanding because like you can work I mean, you can work 10 to 12 hours and then you get in in one shift. In one shift and then you get 10 hours rest. Uhhuh. Right. And then you get a call to go. You have one depending on where you’re at cuz it’s all like union based and seniority depending on the two biggest railroads um at the time when I was there is Union Pacific and BNSF and I worked for BNSF way and you

could get called and then you have an hour and a half 2 hours to be to work. So that’s where within 24 hours you’re working twice. Yes. Um what what are some of the things that you took away from that experience? Hazmat like hazmat control. Um I mostly worked with uh you know coal trains so it wasn’t as in-depth but there’s a lot of oil trains uh up north and like North Dakota, South Dakota, stuff like that. and down south there’s some too is just you know paying attention to rules was also the thing understanding and that also goes back to my military training is like attention to detail um like there’s regulations in the

army just as well as um the go FRA federal is what the rail I think is the acronym for the railroads like federal administration but attention to detail in those rules um you know because like uh there was a time that I caught that uh a trainer train had already rolled through like a certain area. Well, the bridge wasn’t rated for that and so we had to get pre-authorization and it already went through there once at least. Um, and so it’s just attention to details cuz people’s lives are in danger plus people’s property or not in danger but at risk. Sure. If you don’t manage those things. So, a little attention to details and always

question and not be afraid to challenge your 20 year experienced engineer. And I challenged one um because in certain territories there’s different rules besides the normal rules. Mhm. Um and I can’t remember what the book’s called. Uh it’s it’s like a it’s a it’s a different book besides the rules. And you have to know your territories rules as well. And we were doing a certain speed and I was like, “Hey, we can’t do this because we’re rated this many tons for opa to break in this area.” He’s like, “Where does it say that?” Um, and the crazy part is is like when you when I challenged him and on that, um, I was wrong. Come

to find out, I was wrong because there was a secondary rule that he knew. But this is what he told me. He said, “You’re the only the first conductor that’s ever challenged me on a rule.” And Steadvi proved and tried to prove to me that, you know, you what you read was right. I appreciate that for you trying to keep us both safe, right? Um, and it kind of goes to like everything that I was ever taught in the military is kind of sometimes challenging someone with more experience than you is the right thing to do. But some of us aren’t willing to do that. And yes, sometimes people don’t react the way you want,

but at least you presented that idea or challenged that rule or did something and you can go back to yourself and say, “Hey, I did the right thing.” It’s such a good lesson. And I I’m curious your thoughts on how how to approach that. There there’s a couple sides to it. One is the way that you you’re you’re in a position to challenge a superior and so the way that you approach that is important because you want your message to get through and you want it to be received well and all those things. The other part is understanding the mentality of the superior and I’m sure you’ve run into this where you challenge something and

the person in charge is not willing to accept that challenge. So dealing with that, I’m sure you’ve dealt with that in the military. Maybe you dealt with that as a conductor. Maybe you’ve dealt with that in other areas of your life. But but th those those things are meaningful. One to be able to challenge and two to be able to understand the personality that you’re challenging so that you you have some good resolution. Have you had to deal with that in your career? Yeah, a lot. Um it’s and it it’s all like know your leader is what I can say. Um you know people say know your subordinates. Um which I I totally agree with

1000% but you have to know your leader as well. um you know and like you said I’ve had people with a lot of lot of experience um you know that deserve to be in the leadership roles and stuff like that but things change with time and um as I I think the best approach going into that situation is to be humble as a person yourself first and be willing to listen to what they’re saying first because then That opens up the window for them to listen to what you’re saying. Mhm. And then come with facts, come with evidence, come with reasons and a solution. Mhm. Right. I There’s one thing that like bothers me a

lot when it comes to certain things is if you’re going to challenge something, you should already have the solution. And I think when you don’t have that solution, and it’s okay to not have the solution, but admit that you don’t, right? Mhm. But when you come in to any situation where you have the solution or a proposed solution that it’s more easy to listen to. I’ve noticed that not just by challenging my leaders over time, but I’ve noticed personally looking in that when my team members, you know, supervisors, ops managers come to me with a problem, they have solution. it’s a lot more easy to digest because they’ve already thought through the whole thing. But

one thing that I will do and it’s not and uh you can ask anybody that works for me is even when uh you have the right answer, I will always challenge you. Not out of your idea is bad, but I want to make sure you thought of the opposite side of your problem you’re presenting or your solution presenting because if you haven’t and then I bring those things to your forefront, what if it changes your decision? Mhm. U because I like to look at things from all aspects. Um I never believe that I’m 100% right. I love when people prove me wrong. Um, I celebrate when people prove me wrong because it shows that you’re

creating the environment where people are willing to challenge you. Mhm. Um, and bring you new ideas. Cuz I promise you, Frank, I am not the smartest man in the room. I promise you. And I know that. But that’s the part of being humble when you create that environment that they’re willing to challenge you that uh brings greatness. It’s such a hard thing because there can be a lot of ego tied up in being a leader and not only that but feeling like as a leader there’s an expectation that you get everything right like everybody is relying on you to get everything right. So when you talk about being humble and accepting criticism and feedback and

even the willingness to accept that you may have been wrong, where do you think that comes from? Is that a personality trait? Is that something you learned with your experience in the military or elsewhere? I think it’s all of those. Mhm. Um, one of the things I used to do is command supply discipline program was running a program where I went and inspected other units of my subordinates. One of the things that I found so interesting about when someone else comes to inspect you for these things. And yes, I get it’s an ego thing that I want to be right and everything perfect at all the time. But there was always a scramble and I

learned I seen this through my whole career going through when one of those things come. There was a scramble of do we have everything right? Do we have this? Do we have that? Do we have this? Do we have that? So if someone that knows what the rules are coming to inspect you are, why is there this mass scramble to do something different than what you do on a daily basis? And I just never understood that because I would want you to point out what I’m doing wrong so I can improve instead of covering it up. and making it seem like I know what I do. Because what makes me better as a person, as

a leader, than to learn something new that I wasn’t doing right or to show them that I was doing something that I wasn’t really doing. And my peers were would always ask me why I was so like relaxed about stuff like that was because and and I say this in a way that uh I don’t want to be arrogant is that I didn’t care that people were coming to inspect me. I wanted them to see my daily operation. Mhm. Because Frank has different experience than David does. Frank has different life experience than David does. Frank’s life experience can add to David’s bucket on what he can use later in life to be a good leader,

good father, good son, good friend, all those things. And once you realize that, I think it’s a little bit easier to accept criticism because by far every single day, I promise you, I think about something that I did wrong in my [snorts] brain and say, “How could I do that better?” Mhm. And I think a lot of people do, but they don’t take that into their um work ethic in life and you know how they lead people. And it’s I’m always right. Um because there is, like you said originally, there is that ego and of course you have to have a little bit of ego and confidence in some things, but there’s a little bit

of humbleness you need to add to that and being willing to kind of let it go back and forth. It’s a really interesting way to approach it. Having someone look at your activity and rather than having the mentality of they’re here to point out my failure, the way that you approach it is I have an opportunity to improve. Correct. It is also important from the leadership perspective because a leader can help manipulate that mentality. If a leader is coming with a thumb on you all the time, it would be a natural reaction to say I have to cover up all of these mistakes that may he he or she may think I’m making rather than

a leader who says, you know, these are things that you’re doing really well. Here are some other things that you can do. We can help you improve or how can I help you improve? So the leader mentality is just as important as the person who is receiving the feedback. Yeah. Correct. And I think I always used to believe for a long time like how you explained it, I call the compliment sandwich, right? Yeah. Where, hey, Frank, you’re doing this and this and this this good. Mhm. And then, hey, by the way, you’re not doing this and this good. So, you have to be careful with that because one thing that I’ve learned is you have

to celebrate wins, you have to celebrate losses, too, right? And people tend to only listen to one side if you give them the compliment sandwich, right? They may only listen to Frank was doing this good, Frank was doing that good, Frank was doing that good. M but then when you get feedback sometimes they just only healer Frank did good. Mhm. Um which I’ve learned over time, you know, and it’s a unique experience in the military because I got to work with people from all over the United States, all their different backgrounds, people from different countries. And so you have to learn who’s going to take what Sure. at that time. But mostly what I like

to do is give you have a separate conversation of what the areas approves are and then also hey this is what you’re doing well. That way those two messages don’t get mixed up. Uh because you hate for that to happen and then they think they’re doing good. Next thing you know the person’s on a pip or something like that and because they disregarded the other portion of of a message. Correct. So you you would manage those things in separate instances depends right if the person person wasn’t getting both sides then of course I would all transition to that um and and I think because some people can understand and take feedback great as well as

praise at the same time and so you it just depends on the person it’s you know I have five kids and they’re all different and so I have to talk to each one than the other. That’s a lesson that you learn in parenting. Correct. And it’s a lesson you learn in leadership. Sure. Absolutely. There’s no question. Cuz uh one of the things my operations manager tells me is I don’t like compliments. Um and it’s not that I don’t like them or appreciate them. It’s just like um I just think I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, right? So giving me a compliment doesn’t maybe get the reaction other people would give. Um cuz I I

I really and truly a humble and I just feel like I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do. Mhm. I’ve been known to say that doesn’t motivate me. And it sounds like a joke, but there’s a little truth in it because messaging doesn’t apply to everybody equally. Correct. And so what motivates me can be and probably is a little different than what motivates you or Caleb or anyone else. And it’s all based on all of these different we don’t have the same life experiences. We’re all unique individuals. And so when we’re talking about leadership, uh it’s really important to understand just like you said, know your leader. All leaders aren’t the same. Yeah. All employees

aren’t the same. All individuals aren’t the same. So understanding how to tap into all of the potential is is really interesting and can be really challenging. Yeah. And I would say like [snorts] it’s so interesting to me because I work on getting to know people that lead me. Sometimes those leaders that people other people are like scared of or back officeish are different to me than they are to other people because I get to know them. And it’s so interesting. I have a lot of uh friends that people like thought they were difficult leaders but they just never got to know them. And come to find out like that’s why is they just have a

different leadership style and once you understand that it’s easy to kind of work with them. Well, how tell me tell me about that. I I’m at e-hub I work on the partnership side and what we call strategic relationships and and so I’m always you know fascinated about building relationships and how those relationships works and how they’re meaningful in a business setting. So, how how what is your experience in terms of of building relationships with the people you you work with? Every Monday, sometime within the first 20 minutes that I get to work, I go say hi to every single person on my team. Mhm. I asked them how their weekend was and all this other

stuff. And I’ve been doing that since I’ve been at dime for it’ll be 3 years. And like one of the craziest compliments uh from doing that I got is we had a team member her name was Paris. She went to go I think it was in Puerto Rico like she got some job position and that’s why she left. And she had only been there in like uh couple months while I was there. So I’d only been there a couple months before she left. Mhm. She wrote this card to me and said, you know, thank you for getting to know us. Um, and what that does is like, um, when I go out there to say

hi to the team, it’s not just hi, it’s hey, how is so, how is this, how’s school, how’s this, how’s that? I take these little bit of nuggets of information that people give to me and I understand what they care about and then I go talk to them about that. Like you were talking to me about running, right? That’s something that I care about. So, I listen very well and take signals of what’s important to the person that I’m talking to. And another thing is super interesting to me is when you go to a conversation now and you’re trying to say something important and so somebody doesn’t put their phone down and is listening to

you, how does that Yeah. How does that come off? How does it affect you? Absolutely. Correct. And so, um, I always when I’m doing that is I I make sure that I’m listening to the person. Active listening. Yeah. Not just hearing to respond. I’m active listening. Yeah. I I can think of a dozen occurrences in the last 3 days when I had my phone and I and I was trying to be engaged with someone and now I feel terrible about my It’s But it’s hard, right? Cuz we we have this busy lifestyle. Oh, it’s hard. But it’s not it’s not a great excuse. Yeah. Yeah. I also find myself on in the other chair where

I’m something is important to me and I want it to be important to the person with whom I’m speaking but that person has a phone or is engaged in something else. This is where the relationship part comes in. If I don’t have a great relationship with the individual, I dismiss it and I walk out and there’s a now there’s a wall. If I have built a relationship with the indivi with the individual and I’m experiencing this, I do say you’re going to have to pay attention. You’re going to have to put your phone down and engage in this. It’s important. And [snorts] I wonder if we can just start kind actively doing that. I I

I love that. Um and I’m going to share this story. I have a lot of going on in my life with my kids. I have um an 18 16-year-old um a few other personal things going life. My dad passed away um January of last year. Uh so it’s been a a lot uh recently. Um and so I have built this relationship with my operations manager. She might be mad that I share this story. I’m sure she won’t. Um but she I built the relationship enough as like during our sync she said this is my time with you. and she was honest and gave me the feedback. You’ve been distracted um this lately um this and

this and that. And you know what? I appreciate it. I really do because then it allowed me to go look back at myself and say, “Yeah, she’s right.” Instead of getting, you know, like most people get defensive and angry and say, “But I had this and this and this going on.” Mhm. But she’s perfectly right. This is her time. This is the time for me to have that one-on-one bonding relationship. Give her feedback, give her this, give her that, answer her questions. And so, I really do appreciate things like that. So, I that’s proof that I’ve built that relationship that she’s willing to be vulnerable in in that and say that. Mhm. M and she

had no fear of me one being angry, two being deflective or three being dismissive of her feedback. And so I uh it just goes all into the details with your your team and building that leadership relationship. Um, and it’s it’s always two-way communication and it’s um, one thing that I love to do too is I don’t ever just take credit for things that my team does. And if you seen a few things that I post about like the things my team does, it’s always we, not me. Um, and I try to consciously do that because they’re the ones that put in the hard work. Do I help set up the environment for that? Yes. But

they’re the ones that put in all that detail. And I think it’s all encompassing of all that. um to be able to do that. If I said to you, people are the most important asset in an organization, how would you respond to that? 1,000%. Um I think relationships allow you to execute things that you normally couldn’t in tough times. like this last uh peak uh I think we did Tik Tok shop tw uh 20 months of clone number one selling well I didn’t just go that’s your guys’s job to pack that out no me and my operations manager was there until midnight packing that out the team focused on what are their other stuff that

they had other orders that they had and there’s been times where we had to have a night shift because of our seasonality volume and all the leadership team got to go home. I took another shift and was there during the day and work night. And I think it’s that care of not just hey this isn’t a you problem. It’s your guys’s problem to fix. It’s it’s a we problem. And then that’s ex exemplified in actions not just words. So when you have a team member like your ops manager and you’ve built you you’ve done the work to build a relationship and that’s been meaningful for for both sides and then you have a situation where

that individual can say are you with me like you’ve been distracted how can we work through this when it’s operating at the best highest level but you don’t always have a team member who operates at that level and and there are some that maybe you just can’t ever find that connection to get on the same page no matter what the effort is on either side. So in those circumstances, how do you how do you manage that if someone is kind is not willing to get on board? I I I think like what you have to do is not just look at the individual is look as how it’s impacting your team. Right? Because if there

are you are right there are those cases um where there’s somebody that hey no matter what you’ve tried you tried you tried and maybe it’s the culture or whatever you have is not the best fit for them. And as long as you put in all the effort into trying to correct that, then you know maybe it’s time to go separate ways, right? And maybe the culture is not for them and they find something different. Um you know, not every leader is for every person um as much as you try. Um and it it’s so it’s so crazy. Um, but I I I’ve also come to experience where other people have told me that about people.

Um, and I’ve I’ve been given those people that were leadership challenges is what we used to call them in the army. And the crazy part is 95% of the time after I worked with them, people wanted to take them from me because they were now an asset to the team. And it’s because the people most majority of the time and you’re right there are those one offs but majority of majority of the time it’s because no one put the effort to listen to what was going on with them. And it may be personal right I had a soldier in Hawaii when I was stationed in Hawaii. Um he was given to me um and I

love this dude to death. Um and he’s such a great story but he was from Nigeria. Mhm. He’d been married 3 years. He worked in another shop. Um, and they gave him to me. Um, I got to know him, find out things. One of the things that I found, um, super interesting is he just talked super fast and people like didn’t listen to him or took him as being angry, which definitely wasn’t the case. He just talked fast. And like in the military, everything is about respect, right? respect their rank regardless of how you feel about the person. And so I could see how certain people would take that at a certain way and like,

you know, point the finger like, “Oh, he’s being disrespectful.” No, that’s just where he came from and how he talked. That’s just his who he was. So be a little be a little agile with that and don’t be a little bit rugged um about how you judge somebody. But then the crazy part was for me, like remember I said he was married 3 years is his wife was trying to get her visa for 3 years. He’d been married three years and hadn’t seen his wife for three years. I don’t know about anybody else. I would be mad if I hadn’t seen my wife for three years. I mean, I’ve been on deployments and hadn’t seen

my wife for 16 months um while deployed and that was horrible. Um, of course, I’m going to be a little bit angry. Mhm. Um, and then come to find out, I escalated this up the chain and come to find out like someone [snorts] in the leadership roles worked at an embassy, had some connections. All of a sudden, his wife got pushed through the process a little bit faster and his wife was now with us in Hawaii. I trained him and then everybody else wanted him um from me, which is great. I love that success. Um, one thing about me is I celebrate my team success more than mine. He ended up becoming a warrant officer

in the United States Army. Um, and a warrant officer for our field is uh, [snorts] you know, like in charge of inventory control. You have to apply be a technical expert. So going from a leadership challenge to a technical expert because somebody listened is super super interesting to me. is, you know, majority of the time it’s maybe no one listened to them. Yeah. And maybe people write other people off too quickly. I mean, that that can be for sure. That can be a downfall as well. For sure. For sure. I I’ve been written off too quickly before. Um, you know. Yeah. So, back to I mean, that is another really interesting thing. Back to that

experience. You’ve had to you’ve had to go through that. And so, like you said, pack it away. When you have the opportunity to lead, then you have that experience of working with someone who has value. It just hasn’t been explored in the right way. Correct. We could continue to talk about all this experience and this kind of thoughtful leadership that you seem to apply to your life, but I do want to get to dime. Yeah, for sure. and your current role at at Dime. So maybe we can maybe we can finish up up there. Um Dime Beauty local company started here in Utah and has done fantastically well. you joined three years ago and so

I’m really curious now that I mean I had a different set of questions I was thinking about but based on all of this experience that you’ve had in your life military and other other career opportunities uh I’m really curious how you apply those all those all of those lessons and experiences to what you’re doing at Dime and how that’s been meaningful. So, I want to get to those questions, but but maybe just give us a a highlevel overview of what what Dime is up to, what you’re working on, what does the future look like. Yeah. Um, right now, uh, Dime’s I I think the thing we’re working on right now is a lot of Ulta.

We sell in Ulta. Um, two years ago, we were in a few stores. Now, we’re in hundreds and hundreds of stores. Mhm. So focused a lot on um B2B. Um still have the direct to consumer portion. Still have direct to consumer. That is you know Dime’s bread and butter where they originated. Um and then also Tik Tok Shop. Um there was there was like a a thing a few months ago about Tik Tok Shop where you had to ship through them which they kind of went back on. Um which is super crazy. Yeah. threw the entire market into turmoil for however many days or hours or whatever it was. But correct. And that that’s where

that uh cologne number one kind of blew up on was Tik Tok shop. Um we do really really well in Dime’s fragrances. We do have a new fragrance. Um want to plug that stay in stay a while that launched a month ago. It’s doing very well. um super clean ingredients um and it’s doing very well on Tik Tok shop and Ulta. Okay. So, are the fragrances cologn are these uh are these kind of for everybody or how does it how does it work in the in the dime world? So, there’s the female fragrance and there’s one male cologne. Okay. And they are made with natural ingredients. Super, you know, great for your skin. Yep. Um

and then we also have the skin care that we do that is you know for everybody um you know it’s you know very all natural product and it’s a great product that we have and that’s kind of the basis of be of dime is clean all natural skin care our esthetician um our founder Bailey and Ryan Bailey is an aesthetician and uh that’s you know kind of their bread and butter is the all natural and that’s why we use glass for all of our stuff too is we don’t want any um BPA leaking into our product and stuff like that because you know then you’re putting on your skin and then it absorbs into your

body. So as we as we wrap this up I I I think all of the really interesting stuff about leadership and your experience how you apply that to your everyday job with with dime will be interesting for for listeners. So, so tell us about that. Is are those lessons and all of that experience that you’ve you’ve taken from your other adventures, can you apply that to the civilian world as a running a warehouse in a logistics space? For sure. For sure. Um it kind of goes with relationships, right? All the carriers um that we use. Uh I think that’s part of the most important part is you know not just relationships with your team is

relationships with external Mhm. support um which is kind of when I first started [snorts] with dime is like uh you know we had a carrier and then we’ve changed over time uh relationships. if I don’t tell you what I want from you, how do you know what to provide? And then next thing you know, I’m upset because you’re not giving me what I need when I never told you what I needed. Mhm. Um, so that kind of goes to where we were talking about willingness to be humble and, you know, take that risk of telling somebody what they actually need to hear instead of, you know, you know, just internalizing it and saying, well, they’re

not doing X, so that but I think that’s an important aspect of it is communication amongst our vendors to let them know what or want and some of those conversations aren’t, you know, uh, easy. Um, I I’ve had a carrier where I literally had to say, um, we asked them for X, Y, and Z, and then the very next meeting, like there was no action. And, you know, I was super nice about I was like, guys, if this is this way the relationship’s going to go, that we may not be great partners or a great fit when we ask for X, Y, and Z. If there’s no followup, then there’s assumption it’s not getting done.

And immediately after that, they’re like, “Oh, there was a status of each project or whatever we were working on before every meeting that we talked about all these other things.” And you know, it it created a great relationship because and they understood that when I was giving them feedback, it was because, hey, I wanted this to be a great partnership. Mhm. Um because I think that’s important. One thing like with any shipping is of course rates. Rates is always the first thing people like rates are rates rates. But it’s also the willingness. This is a we scenario, not a me or you scenario. It’s a us. Um cuz if there’s not that partnership, then you’re

not going to be communicative to me when something goes wrong and I’m not going to be communicative to you when something goes wrong. And then it creates this battle where we’re like um not against each other but like pulling in opposite directions, right? Um uh it’s like tugof-war. Now, if you have a tug like you’re pulling a rock uphill and you’re all pulling the same direction Mhm. it’s going to go super easy. Now, if you’re both pulling opposite directions, you don’t get anywhere. Exactly. And so I think, you know, being like those leadership experiences and principles has allowed me to be willing and say the things that needed to be said, take feedback for what

my team could do better. And we made those changes along the way to create better partnerships with everybody we’ve ever worked with. Yeah. And if and if they’re not working out and it’s unfortunate, then we we may not be good partners, which is fine because we all have different ambitions as a company. Sure. And certain goals, but it’s better to find that out than to continue on this miserable partnership that doesn’t work where we’re not meeting our goals, you’re not meeting your goals, and it just makes it rough. Yeah. And it’s not a fun dayto-day operation to go to. Yeah. I like what you were saying about communication, especially with your vendors. And we have

we have a someone around here who’s fond of saying feedback is a gift. And if you can approach it that way, then it is. Uh, and so that that that resonates. You talk about rates. I think that’s interesting because we want to help our our clients obviously manage costs appropriately, but we also want to make sure our customers are getting the proper support and meeting the transit time obligations and limiting claims and all of the things that happen when you’re sending packages around. And sometimes you have to weigh the cost between paying 20 cents less on a package versus ensuring that the package is going to get there clean and on time and not having

to deal with all of the customer support issues that go along with that. So, how do you do do you manage that and how do you how are you thoughtful about that? Yes. Uh that was that’s the first thing that I talk about when talking to any carrier that wants to quote me rates, wants to quote me this. I was like, it’s not always about the rates. It’s about those things that you stated, getting there on time, all these other things. Because a customer Mhm. they are super super finicky about a lot of things. Um, and to kind of let you know where dime stands right now is, um, with far as that meeting customer

expectations, according to our statistics of what we tell our customers where when they’re placing the order, they should receive the order, it’s about 97 to 98% of that time we meet or exceed Mhm. that estimated delivery time. That’s super important. I think industry standards probably 92 to 94ish. Mhm. So, we’re we’re doing super great in that. Um, but I think it’s important to understand all of those dynamics because I had a carrier that we did do that when I first started. Um, where we went all like rates the most important thing, but what some but sometimes what we don’t understand is the customer service side of it, right? One, does that increase the headcount we

need in customer service? Because where’s my package is the number one question I promise you every customer service gets right. Where is my package? Yes. Um and since you know we put in zip limits um you know saying if hey this carrier doesn’t meet I can’t remember the exact time days at the time. We don’t have those zip limits anymore because just statistically we beat them anyways. It’s pointless to put in that word. But if this carrier meets delivery to zone X or this address five five days or less 90s something percent of the time or more then they win. If not then we’ll move on to the next car regardless of the cost. So

there’s ways of putting in zip limits with your carriers. um and maybe they don’t have that functionality but it doesn’t ask her to ask right but I think it’s important to ask when before you onboard them is if they have that availability and this one other thing is like customers are super finicky about which I find interesting is sometimes they think that bigger like FedEx um UPS the post office will get their packages fast they’re faster when that’s definitely not the case And sometimes small small business believe that too because you do have like these, you know, smaller carriers throughout the network that can meet your delivery times because they do interesting things like zone

skipping all these other things. And we do use Dime does use those smaller carriers and they deliver it faster than USPS. But sometimes customers just want to see the name as FedEx, USPS or it’s so true UPS and they’re getting their packages faster. So you just have to manage those expectations like, “Hey guys, we wanted to get your package here faster.” So that’s why we chose to use X Carrier because they specialize in this. Yeah. Um, and so how I how I manage it is I I literally look into the data um and transit times all the time, once a week um and pull all that data together and kind of see see what’s going

on and what trends are and um if there’s anything that we need to do differently, we do um and pivot and go on and so forth. Well, it is frustrating as a consumer when I just had this experience, ordered something, it says right there on the screen, in stock, ready to ship, and then I’m getting notifications like it’s still in the warehouse. It labelled generate. This is like 4 days later, 5 days later, you know, total first world problems. But but it is, it is a little bit, it can be frustrating and you don’t want to create that experience for your customer. Yeah. And I I think one of the things that would what happens

in the fulfillment side and it depends on your pick pack and ship process too is um when you when I I know certain softwares like you generate the label to pick the pick list right and that generates the pick list and it generates shipping label at the same time but it that’s where those instances that you were talking about is label’s been generated for 2 days comes is it hasn’t even been picked And so I think us in this world need to be mindful of that and which you know that’s one of the things I changed is made sure that we the label is not generated till the packout process is complete for us. Mhm.

So that way Frank when he orders from dime his package is actually packed at that moment and ships the same day. Yeah. Cuz that is not a great experience and uh that’s happened to me quite a bit. Um and so I I’m very mindful of that and how I look at things is not necessarily of you know always um how efficient fulfillment can be how efficient X could be. It’s like how is this experience for the end user absolutely the customers the customer is who’s going to keep coming back. You want the Yeah. A great experience customer comes back. An average experience customer is looking looking elsewhere. Okay. Before Before I let you go, as

you look over your 3 years now at Dime and based on all of your past experience, what do you think is the most meaningful thing you’ve done within the warehouse to create efficiency or an experience for your team that’s meaningful or what is it that that you think sets your department apart? team culture without hesitation. One thing and I’ll be doing it here shortly is uh I’ll meet with the team members too um individually every quarter, you know, couple skip levels down and we we do a lot of fun things at Dime. Um we had a Lagoon day yesterday. Um we went to Lagoon. Um sometimes it’s great to get out of the office and

do things different. Um build team culture, bonding, um stuff like that. We’ve done Top Golf a couple times. Um those little things um mean a lot. Um we have a competition every quarter for the highest picker packer. There’s a prize um that they they went they win. Um if they do do that, those type of things. And like I said, every Monday and more more than just every Monday, go out there and yeah, see how everybody’s doing, listening to what they say. um talking to them what’s about interest, what their interests are and you just find out how they’re doing every single day. Um I think that’s the most important part because people drive the

numbers. The numbers don’t drive people and those guys are probably so like one of the most efficient teams that I’ve ever worked with that uh they do a lot of great things. um and you know why not celebrate them and have a great team culture. So I think it’s team culture is the number one thing um that I’ve done um since I’ve been at dime um along with it’s not what I’ve done, it’s what we’ve done as a team. Um and Bailey’s been there with me the whole time too. So don’t let that be um out of mind. There is now this is not the same Bailey we were talking about previously. No, this is

Bailey the founder and Bailey your operations manager. Yep. Two different people. Um but she’s been there with me this whole time and I think it’s an us. But also I don’t think it’s just a team culture amongst our group, right? I have the most amazing relationship with our customer service, right? Amazing relationship with our supply chain. we all like talk back and forth like the customer service um team manager sits right next to me and you know she she uh she said I didn’t know much about filament until we started sitting next together like right and so she knows what I need and I know what she needs because we have that working relationship right

and so when something’s not right um and before I I notice, she may notice um with fulfillment or vice versa with customer service. And so like there’s always this caring part of us that cares about the downstream and upstream effect that helps with everything. I I believe like with dime is like we care a lot amongst each other and amongst cross level groups because we have those relationships. So it’s not just individual on my team, it’s cross functional and you know that goes to our HR manager Jennica which is amazing too. Yeah. Well, it feels like you’ve taken all of like in the in the military maybe it’s it’s forced because it has to be

but but you have to be a team. You have to be a unit. You have to work together as one. And that’s part of the reason why people who fall out get extra discipline because we all have to be together. Correct. and moving moving up the hill together, all pulling in the in the same direction. And it feels like you’ve taken all of those lessons, especially I love the team culture answer and taken that team mentality and built it into a civilian circumstance in Dime and and Dime’s doing really well because it’s a great product. There’s great founders, but mostly because it feels like there’s really great people. you not not the least of them.

I mean you’re what you’re doing there drives the success at time. I hope so because it’s all I know is you know it’s uh team culture is super important to me and that’s all I know and I try to take that everywhere I go. Um and so I I hope I hope that I I’m one of the the main reasons for success. Not the reason, of course, but I I just hope that that type of culture um that they have is part of what drives our successful as a team. Wow, you’ve been fantastic. Leadership lessons with David Luna. We really appreciate your time. Hope you’ll hope you’ll come back and see us again sometime and

let us know what’s going on. I will definitely come back if you want me to. Um it it that’s totally up to you. Um open invite, no doubt. Not a problem. All right. Thanks, David. Thanks, Frank. Thank you for listening to the Know Your Ship podcast presented by EHUB. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.