"Just because you can doesn't mean you should" actually understates a bigger issue. It should be:
Just because you can, and you do, it's costing you.
It's actually crazy how quickly things can get cluttered.
One minute you're a small startup and you know exactly where every tshirt you've ever printed is located (your basement, maybe) and all your prospect and customer data is in one google sheet that you parse through quickly and often.
Then you catch some steam. And next thing you know, you've got who knows how many tshirts living in three different warehouses. Shirts you can't even use anymore because you iterate too quickly on your brand, btw.
AND you've got 560+ properties per contact that you store in your CRM.
Storage isn't free. There's a real physical, resource, and mental cost to keeping the clutter.
You'll never actually need those shirts
I've been that girl at several companies who was tasked with swag. From the ground up, with a very minimal budget.
Storage for swag with fulfillment companies can be quite expensive. So, I took it upon myself to use that budget toward the swag itself, not storage.
I've taken this to extremes. I once drove a Uhaul full of swag to a conference because shipping would have cost 5x more. And, there's never going to be a 100% guarantee that it'll show up on time (or at all). A real conference organizer's nightmare, honestly.
As revenue grows, so does the swag budget.
Instead of storing all my swag in my garage, I decided to move it to a $75/month storage unit. The issue with me owning that storage unit was that it also meant I had to be in charge of fulfillment. Which isn't a great use of my time.
So, we added a warehouse in Utah for the swag that needed to be regularly shipped. Then we moved our online shop from print-on-demand to bulk orders (because it's better quality) and that store is run by some folks in Georgia.
Before we knew it, we had three warehouses full of swag.
Then I realized: why am I holding on to all this old event swag, like a hoarder? Because...ya never know?
But we do know.
We iterate so quickly on branding and messaging. And these particular shirts were for specific events you had to attend to get so they weren't useful for just anyone. So I donated them and closed the unit.
This had me thinking: what else are we storing that we don't/can't use anymore?
Since warehouses charge per pallet per month, it was possible we were paying a lot for stuff that we couldn't even use.
Tbh, the Utah warehouse didn't even know what we had on those pallets. Which made something very obvious: the Georgia warehouse was better.
Why pay for storage when you don't even know what you're storing?
It took me some time, but I finally got all our swag that we can use to Georgia. And they keep a live inventory for us so I know what we have, how many we have, and can easily ask them to fulfill orders. (shoutout Slingshot).
I told my local UPS goodbye. We'd gotten on a first-name basis.
Isn't it funny?
I originally started this whole thing by trying to save money. I didn't want to pay for storage, so I kept swag in my basement. Then, the company grew. The swag budget grew. The number of events grew. And before I knew it, I was paying for multiple warehouses while still spending my own time moving boxes, going to UPS, figuring out where things were, and tracking down swag.
The storage wasn't the only cost. My time and energy, too.
The clutter was costing us.
I think this can happen really easily when companies grow quickly. You start with a simple system because it's all you need. Then you grow, but of instead of rethinking the system you just add another layer.
Another warehouse, another tool, another field, another process. And eventually you're spending money and time maintaining a system that nobody intentionally designed.
Digital warehouses cost even more, honestly
I've been writing a lot about my beef with HubSpot. To be fair, I've always had beef with every CRM.
As your team grows, and marketers coming from everywhere get their hands on the CRM, processes, and systems, sometimes (oftentimes?) the err toward:
"Yes, I want that data."
But why thooooo is my question.
If that question can't be answered (and answered well) it ends up cluttering your CRM.
Which then clutters your workflows and automations. Which then distracts your ops people from building things that will actually contribute to meaningful pipeline.
Just because you can store the data doesn't mean you should. Because digital storage isn't free either.
Neither is clutter. It costs money, time, attention, and eventually, opportunity.