PPB November 2020

Diversity In Promo The Secret Sauce For Stacey Steele, diversity is embedded into the foundation of her community, business and family. By purposefully integrating diversity into every aspect of her work, Steele has found the “secret sauce” to success. W hile how and where we work continue to transformbusinesses as they look to rebuild during the pandemic, incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion will remain a major goal. It’s been shown that these qualities add a competitive edge as workplaces that are more diverse continue to outperform competitors. According to Harvard Business Review, companies with higher-than- average employee diversity had 19 percent higher innovation revenues. Organizations with above-average gender diversity and employee engagement outperform competitors with below-average diversity and engagement by 46 percent to 58 percent, according to Fast Company . Before businesses began to recognize diversity as a tool tomake workplaces smarter andmore successful, Stacey Steele saw diversity as a way to not only expand her business, but to find untapped potential and shake up the promotional products industry. “Over the years, watching distributors who have succeeded and who have failed, those who have succeeded have had the most diversity,” says Steele. “And [diversity] not only in the people they sell to, but the types of clients, and it’s just across the board, having a mix is the secret sauce in this industry. For me, I have a lot of diversity so that helps in my success.” As an independent salesperson running her own business, LogoLab, under distributor Proforma Albrecht & Co., Steele found her way into the promotional products industry 25 years ago through her mother who worked at a promotional products business. For her first job in sales, Steele worked for a Black-owned company whose owners, deeply involved with community outreach, tasked her with reaching out to supplier diversity organizations to build the business. With a few clients and the lessons she learned, Steele began building her business in 2009 in the San Francisco Bay Area. “If you’re in the Bay Area, it’s almost impossible to not have a diverse group of clients,” says Steele. “It has givenmy life so much that I wouldn’t choose any different. I have chosen to live in a location that allows me to, without effort, be around people from all around the world.” “In order for our industry to keep evolving, we need to evolve with the rest of the culture.” Steele’s business has found its stride as a company that’s diverse in every way. “It’s diverse in the type of companies that I go after, but it’s also diverse in the type of people that I work with,” she says. “People from every culture, every country and every ethnic group— from entry level to people with more decision-making power. It’s the way you want to see a group of people working together.” Steele says diversifying your client base makes for a better result in the end. “First of all, we are inmarketing and advertising, and if you can’t reach out to all sorts of people, your message is not going to resonate, and it’s not going to have the vibrancy of the American economy,” she says. “I also think that helping people improve their economic power throughmarketing diversity is better for our country in general, and anything I can do to contribute to that makes me happy.” Steele volunteered with women diversity organizations, helping to review paperwork that recertifies women-owned small businesses (WOSB), and supplier diversity organizations, creating events to bring together small minority-owned organizations and large corporations to build partnerships. “Just being involved with those organizations and getting to Third In A Series: Diversity In Promo by Kristina Valdez CONNECT 96 | NOVEMBER 2020 |