You’ll never meet a more likeable narcissist than Bobby Lehew.
Of course, only Lehew would consider himself a narcissist—that’s what makes him so likeable.
“One of his most valuable assets is his ability to go into a room and, by the time he leaves, have everybody thinking they’ve made a new friend,” says Larry Sharp, Lehew’s mentor and colleague at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Robyn Promotions and Printing (UPIC: ROBY0001). “He knows how to be polite and friendly to people.”
Lehew, CAS, director of operations for Robyn, exudes a humble, by-his-own-bootstraps mentality that’s instantly endearing. Better still is the fact that it’s not an act; he earned it. From second grade on, Lehew grew up at a home for troubled boys in Amarillo, Texas. Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch taught lessons in hard work and a “yes, sir/no, sir” attitude that Lehew still practices today.
“A large part of what I’m doing today stems from where I grew up,” Lehew explains. “How do you keep 350 boys out of trouble? You work them. I’m super proud to be from there.”
Lehew compares his time at Cal Farley’s to growing up in the 1950s. (It was really the 1980s.) He recalls waking at 6:45 am every day to wait tables. “That place was so important in making me a worker and making sure I understood work,” Lehew says. “The promotional products business is so challenging. You can be dealing with so many areas of the business in a day.”
Rise To The Top
The facets of a promotional products business are varied, and Lehew has dealt with them all. After graduating from Cal Farley’s, Lehew attended different colleges while working odd jobs—sometimes three at once. Eventually, at age 21, he accepted a position at Robyn that had him packing and shipping boxes in the warehouse. “It sounds a lot fancier than it was,” Lehew jokes.
Lehew was new to the industry, and so was Robyn—he was the company’s second employee. “I’m extremely fortunate that I started with the company when I did because it allowed me to cut my teeth in the business,” Lehew says, lending a nod to another mentor, Mervyn Hackney. “He really gave me opportunity after opportunity.”
Lehew took those opportunities and rose from warehouse worker, who also emptied trash cans and made coffee, to customer service rep to salesman. “Since we were a growing company, there weren’t models we could copy, and the internet wasn’t around,” Lehew recalls. “We had to figure things out on our own. I was hungry enough that it allowed me to create things I didn’t know a thing about.”
Lehew took over as director of operations in 2001—right after the dot-com crash. Lehew, a techie through and through, saw it as yet another opportunity and made technology-based fulfillment solutions Robyn’s star offering.
Since its start, Robyn had offered warehousing and fulfillment services to clients. Yet, it billed itself as a promotional products shop. Once Lehew came on as director of operations, and the dot-com bust made technology more affordable, Robyn refocused on company stores and fulfillment programs and pushed product sales to the background. “Technology really let us center on what we did best and take it to other companies,” Lehew says.
Realigning its priorities also helped Robyn secure its future in the marketplace. “Bobby took over in 2001, and up until that time we were pretty much a one-customer company,” says Sharp, controller/CFO for Robyn. “We had one customer who paid all the bills.” This customer used Robyn’s fulfillment service, and Lehew decided that if the company’s fulfillment template worked for one, then it could work for many.
Five years after Robyn put its fulfillment-focused strategy into place, its revenue grew from $3.7 million in 2001 to $6.5 million in 2006. Two years later, in 2008, revenue nearly doubled from the 2006 numbers after two clients enlisted Robyn to carry out their rebranding campaigns. It was during this time that Robyn was named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.
“We were on a rocket ride,” Lehew says. “People in this industry don’t like to hear this, but it was hard not to make money in this business in ’05 through ’07. We didn’t know it at the time, but there were a lot of low-hanging fruit.”
Following 2008, Lehew says Robyn felt the economic collapse like the rest of promotional products businesses, only it fared much better. “We’re in the Oklahoma City market, which is fairly healthy and growing,” he says. “Last year we scaled back, but now we’re having a hard time keeping up with demand.”
Tech Savvy
While refocused branding, Oklahoma City’s healthy economy and a stellar staff that knows how to work in harmony as a team had a lot to do with Robyn’s success over the past decade, early adoption of technology also played a role. And few, if any, championed technology in the company more than Lehew.
Lehew has a reputation among colleagues as a social media and digital guru, eager to learn and adapt to the newest gadgets. He has delivered entire client presentations on an iPad and is currently campaigning to get one for every member of Robyn’s sales team. He also chooses to use collaborative, web-based scheduling software over Outlook. A quick web search on Lehew reveals his presence on typical techy spots such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. Scroll down, however, and one will find listings for him on Google Profiles, Vimeo, Gowalla, Plaxo and a host of other sites too numerous to list. Add to this the fact that Lehew writes one of the industry’s longest-running blogs, Branded Matters (www.brandedmatters.com), and his techie status becomes even clearer.
Such internet connectedness isn’t unusual in today’s hyper-wired culture, but Lehew says he was one of the first to jump on the trend. His blogging goes back to the beginning of the medium, when, he says, blogging was considered weird. Lehew began blogging in 2003 when medical crises in his family prompted him to go online seeking more information. “The web became a friendly place,” Lehew says. “We took to the web, and we met people looking for therapies and cures.
“After that season of life was over, I was left with these tools—how to blog.” Lehew was blogging about his personal life before blogging was a cool way to gain instant clout; however, those who knew him weren’t buying it. “The first time I wrote about myself, friends and family gave me a hard time, saying, ‘Who wants to read that?’”
He was undeterred, however, and decided that “If my friends and family don’t like what I write, then fine, I’ll write for strangers.” Believing that there was an audience out there for him, Lehew began writing about his experiences in business and the industry in Branded Matters. “The blog process is also an incubator,” he says. “By formalizing it in writing, you’re able to think through business processes or challenges better.”
The Branded Matters blog often touches on subjects such as marketing, social media and the industry, but really nothing is off limits. “In order to keep my interest in it, I just write about whatever I want,” Lehew says. “I realized I wasn’t going to stick with it if I told myself I was just going to talk about koozie campaigns or something like that.”
Not only is Lehew the author of Branded Matters, but he’s the face of it too. A self-portrait serves as the logo and resides on the homepage. “I am a narcissist,” Lehew insists. “It goes back years ago, when people said, ‘You’re going to go online and talk about yourself?’
“Personal branding was a phrase that people hated when it first came on the scene,” Lehew adds. “But as we now know, buyers are making their purchasing decisions and qualifying who they work with through the web—no longer through the phone or face-to-face, so it is important to make a voice online.”
When asked, Lehew reports that Branded Matters only has about 200 subscribers, but adds that he’s not counting. “It doesn’t matter how many readers you have,” he says, “it’s what kind of readers you have.” Lehew says he’s discovered a network of professionals—technically competitors—with whom he can discuss and exchange ideas. “I’m proud to say there are some really cool people in the industry who subscribe. And that means a lot to me, because these people are smarter than I am.”
How many real narcissists would say that?
Get To Know Bobby Lehew, CAS
How You Say It
His last name is pronounced Lee-hue, but he’s not fussy about it. “You can call me whatever you want, just call me,” he often says.
Time In The Industry
Lehew entered the industry when he signed on with Robyn Promotions and Printing in July 1991. This month marks his 20th anniversary working for the company.
How He Plans To Celebrate
“I’ll probably write a blog post about it. That will be good enough. Maybe I should go back and ship an order of pencils.”
Other Associations
Lehew sits on the Board of the American Marketing Association.
Celebrity Lookalike
Lehew is often mistaken for The Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne, also from Oklahoma City.
Advice To Those Starting Out
Get organized. “You have clients calling every day for something you know nothing about and asking for specifics on things like safety,” he says. “Our industry is really unorganized, but if you spend a large part of your energy on marketing and organization, it will help you in the long run.”
Children And Family
Lehew and his wife, Audra, have five kids, which range from ages five to 17.
Favorite Blog Post On Branded Matters
It’s called “Get Real (An Unconventional Guide to Goal Setting).” “It’s one of those gut-wrenching posts you throw your life into,” he says.
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