Five Minutes With Yvonne Lyngaas
Butterfly In The Sky
Yvonne Lyngaas, owner and CEO of Monarch & Company, shares her company’s secret to standing out
Prior to founding Monarch, Lyngaas worked as a sales rep at a distributor firm in Illinois, and prior to that as an account coordinator for a Colorado distributor. And even though her firm is tiny—just Lyngaas and two others—the company is making a name for itself as a creative machine with huge ideas.
PPB When you started Monarch in 2009, what were your big goals for the company, and what tools or practices did you put in place to accomplish those goals?
Lyngaas My short-term goal for year one was to sell enough to break even with the salary I was making working for someone else. I accomplished this by focusing my time on Monarch during the day, and bartending at night and over weekends to network and supplement my personal cash flow.
I founded Monarch with every intention of working with the largest brands in the world. I wanted to build a creative merchandising agency that pushes our employees and clients to view promotional items in a way that is meaningful and impressive. In order to sit in that room with those large brands you have to be just that, so that’s what I did. Everything about Monarch looks like an agency, and agencies are our largest client base.
Despite the company’s evolution, our mission has stayed the same, which is how I accomplished things in the beginning and what I hold on to when things get rough.
PPB You’ve billed yourself as Supreme Office Ruler and Beverage Director. What role does your company’s unique culture play in your approach to working with clients?
Lyngaas We designated office titles because that is what our employees wanted to do. I cannot take credit for that! As I am results-driven and direct in my communication, I sometimes forget about the culture aspect of running a company. Anna Nguyen, our executive brand director, came on board earlier this year and has done a fantastic job creating a culture and environment that employees can thrive in. I stand behind her methodology and sprinkle in my style when appropriate.
PPB In addition to your pop-up shops, where customers can shop for the latest seasonal trends and products in the industry, what other retail trends have you embraced to introduce consumers/potential clients to your brand?
Lyngaas Packaging and kitting! Anytime we can add a custom ribbon, a hangtag, a woven label or a custom box to a project, we view it as a tremendous opportunity. Not only does it make for more impactful promotions, it also makes you invaluable to your client. In order to do this, you need to have graphic design skills and strong vendor relationships. Everyone at Monarch & Company is required to learn Adobe [software] programs for this reason, and we have a standard for how we work with vendors. For kitting, you need to have a strong packaging partner and fulfillment center. We have also found that having a print partner that will also do fulfillment provides more flexibility.
Another retail-inspired tool we use is a rotating web store as our company “catalog.” If you go to our website [www.monarchandcompany.com] and click on “Brainstorm Ideas” it will bring you to this site. This helps us stay in front of our clients and show them a demo site for their company pop-up store. It’s a good resource for our clients to use when they want to see new ideas without having a timeline or budget.
One thing we want to explore in 2017 is presenting apparel similar to how [industry supplier] SanMar presents it. They showcase apparel as a lifestyle, helping buyers visualize themselves in the apparel. This was brought to our attention by one of my mentors, Fred Hickman. He is elevating the way we need to think about apparel as a lifestyle and tying it back to the broader picture. We intend to focus on this more in 2017 in our proposals and in our rotating catalog.
PPB Quaker, Netflix and Zagat are on your roster now; what is your team’s mindset when pursuing and working with nationally recognized brands?
Lyngaas When we receive a request the first thing we think about is how we can differentiate ourselves, and how we can be creative not only in artwork but also with budget. We ask ourselves, “Can we cut the budget here to add a woven label?” or “What mockups would allow them to really visualize and connect with the concept or items?” Every proposal that goes out has creative slogans, taglines, extra graphics, etc., to make a bigger impression with the client.
PPB What has been your favorite project to date, and why?
Lyngaas The Quaker Bring Your Best Bowl kits, which we created for the company’s oatmeal flavor-creation contest that ran in late 2015 through the spring of 2016. They reflect how our company works at all stages of a project—fine-tuning the concept, laying out and suggesting creative packaging, print, product, fulfillment and impact. We combined almost every area of our offerings to show how we can streamline the buying process from concept to delivery and offer a fully integrated promotional product delivery process.
