Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Susan Otten. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Susan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
One of our clients, Hippy Feet’s (https://hippyfeet.com) founder, Michael Mader, called a couple years ago about a month before Christmas, when all CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) companies are working so hard to process and ship out their holiday orders.
Hippy Feet, who makes amazing, funny, sustainable socks from recycled Tshirts and has a heart to support the homeless. They was having trouble getting all their orders shipped, as they were having trouble with order delays, bottlenecks and less order accuracy as a brand attempting to “do it all” while experiencing amazing growth. We offered to help out and took over shipping their holiday orders.
As a result, Hippy Feet was able to donate 50% of their profits to non-profit organizations serving young people experiencing homelessness. It wasn’t only for that 1st year we helped out for the Holidays. Michael says, “By moving to Indie Do Good, I was able to focus on what I’m good at: selling socks. I’ve since sold more socks, and as a result we’ve donated more money, now $79,000 in total to charities working to end youth homelessness.”
One thing I didn’t mention is the one picture is when I & our daughter hiked the Appalachian Trail, almost 2200 miles from Maine to GA to raise almost $94,000 for Parkinson’s Disease research. See more info:
https://voyageminnesota.com/interview/meet-susan-otten-of-indie-do-good/
Susan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Indie Do Good’s mission is to help businesses who “do good” in our communities and our world. We let the client define their “do goodness” but if it’s not inherent in their product or a give back program, we will ask. We ask about their passion, their “why” and challenge them to “do good” in some meaningful way. We find everyone is passionate about something and sometimes they just need a bit of help or encouragement to connect this passion to a way they can help.
Indie Do Good supports mostly CPG and shelf-stable food companies with logistics (storage & shipping D2C and B2B), and also marketing and engineering services.
Any advice for managing a team?
The secret to managing a team is having a great mission the employees believe in and supporting a culture of caring. We have an amazing team that feels more like family than employee/employer. We truly would help, and have gone out of our way, to help each other. For example, our Warehouse leader helps everyone get to know each other, their families, their hobbies, their passions. He invites his team to bring in pictures for the bulletin board in the warehouse and add their favorite sayings, quotes, jokes or verses. He showcases a team member as Employee of the Month” and surprises the team with treats and celebrations of hard projects accomplished.
Morale is high because everyone understands the mission and the goals; the tasks and projects needing to accomplished. Communication is clear and camaraderie is high. We have fun together, laugh and take turns picking the music we listen to. we were a training site for adults with disabilities and have hired them as independent workers, being amazed at their reliance and commitment to excellence and growing in their responsibilities. We have a very diverse workforce and work hard to build a culture of inclusion, with multiple languages, faiths and nationalities, and respect is high for each other because we all believe in helping our clients be more successful, so they can do more good.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
We like to say we’re a non-traditional Logistics company. In a male-dominated industry, we are women-owned and women led. We offer a variety of services other traditional Logistics companies don’t offer, such as kitting, light assembly or packaging products for different markets or retailers. We also support our clients by sharing information on opportunities, such as grants, competitions, other service providers or educational programs. Being well connected in the entrepreneurial community as a mentor, guide, and speaker, I share my learnings with our clients as a way to help them succeed and grow faster. This is a way for them to do more good.
We are non-traditional in the area of sustainability. in an industry not known for being very earth-friendly. We work hard to recycle paper, cardboard, glass and plastic, plus thin-film/single-use plastic and even offer reusable boxes to our clients to reuse at a cheaper rate than new boxes and to use branded paper tape, which is more recyclable than traditional plastic packing tape. We also encourage our clients to add-ons such as Cloverly to their ecommerce platforms, so their customers can opt to add a carbon off-set fee to their orders or offer Thanks-a-Ton’s carbon removal greeting card add-on for a positive impact on the planet while celebrating life’s special moments.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://indiedogood.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indiedogood/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IndieDoGood
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/indiedogood/mycompany/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@indiedogood4568