---
title: "Selling Flexibility: How a Packaging Startup Markets Against the Old Guard"
id: "18355"
type: "podcast"
slug: "selling-flexibility-how-a-packaging-startup-markets-against-the-old-guard"
published_at: "2026-09-01T03:04:00+00:00"
modified_at: "2026-08-24T16:54:23+00:00"
url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/selling-flexibility-how-a-packaging-startup-markets-against-the-old-guard/"
markdown_url: "https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/selling-flexibility-how-a-packaging-startup-markets-against-the-old-guard.md"
excerpt: "Maria Birdwell came to industrial packaging from media and advertising, with no B2B background and no allegiance to how the category has always sold itself. At Franklin Mountain Packaging, a corrugated manufacturer that started up in 2022, she markets a..."
taxonomy_podcast_category:
  - "B2B Selling"
  - "Marketing Strategy"
---

#### Episode 406

**September 1, 2026**

Maria Birdwell came to industrial packaging from media and advertising, with no B2B background and no allegiance to how the category has always sold itself. At Franklin Mountain Packaging, a corrugated manufacturer that started up in 2022, she markets a young company against multi-generational competitors by refusing to fight on age or even on machinery. Instead she lets customer requirements drive the conversation and, in a recent pivot she credits directly to macroeconomic uncertainty, leans the whole message toward flexibility. She tells Jeff White and Carman Pirie why she downplays sustainability, why video of machines in action outperforms everything, and why marketing means nothing if operations can’t capture and convert the lead.

##### *Selling Flexibility: How a Packaging Startup Markets Against the Old Guard* Transcript:

**Jeff White:** Welcome to The Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White, and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how you doing, mate?

**Carman Pirie:** Look, I’m– I feel like we’re in need of a disclaimer as we start the show, Jeff, because, we have featured an awful lot of folks that are in the somewhat tangentially or right in the middle of the packaging category over the years. So people are gonna maybe begin to think we’re biased, and that’s probably because we are.

So that’s the disclaimer.

**Jeff White:** Not just the packaging, but the machinery and the design and everything that goes into it.

**Carman Pirie:** It’s a fascinating category and we have a fair bit of experience in it as an agency too. So it’s just, I guess it kind of fuels our interest. So I’m kinda, yeah, I’m interested to package up another edition of the Kula Ring for everyone today.

**Jeff White:** Indeed. I mean, as a young design student 30 years ago, there was no project more exciting than designing packaging. So, you know.

**Carman Pirie:** And, and now it’s all come full circle and nothing is more exciting to you than recording a podcast about packaging.

**Jeff White:** About packaging, yeah. Yeah.

**Carman Pirie:** Awesome.

**Jeff White:** Fantastic. So joining us today is Maria Birdwell. Maria is a Marketing Coordinator at Franklin Mountain Packaging. Welcome to The Kula Ring, Maria!

**Maria Birdwell:** Hey guys, thanks for having me.

**Carman Pirie:** Maria, thank you. It’s wonderful to have you on the show. I’d like to maybe kick things off a little bit by learning a bit more about Franklin. Now, to be fair, we did a bit of spoiler alert and actually mentioned the category a bit, but my guess is you have much more to introduce.

So maybe I’ll let you do it.

**Maria Birdwell:** We are a corrugated fiberboard manufacturing company out in southern New Mexico. We have been, up and running since 2022. So I’m not gonna say we’re exactly a startup, but in a lot of ways we are kind of a startup with, us being an innovator within the industry, within this region.

What makes us really different is the machinery we have. So we are very, advanced in the machinery from hardware to software, and we’re able to help our customers, whether it’s some of our larger brokerage customer or even some of our, smaller retailer customers on doing anything from long runs to short runs packaging.

One thing I do love about, the industry I’m in, especially cardboard, is the fact that it’s really set to y- your imagination. So you can make anything out of cardboard these days, and I love to showcase that on our side, what we’ve done for some of the trade shows.

We’ve actually created our own booths from scratch. So that’s something that not a lot of people are able to do, and it’s a great way to showcase one of the many, talents that we have from the creativity side of taking a simple structure and kind of blowing it up and then putting it in stores or in a trade show or even just to showcase some of our brands and the products that, that we hold.

**Carman Pirie:** Maria, how did you end up there? Can you give us a bit your path to getting there and, uh, what led you to Franklin Mountain?

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah. My background is initially in media advertising. I went to school, studying it for it, and I got my first gig right out of college, doing media sales. Media is where my, skill set comes from. But what got me to this position was just the previous role I had, though it was a great company and great experience, I was remote and, like other people where you get remote fatigue after a while.

I love talking to people. I love networking, so I was looking for something that could fit that as well. And, the opportunity came where, a manufacturing company, they were looking more for someone on the social media side to just really bring that content generation.

But, after having discussions with the owners and with some of the management, my skill set, though it’s in media, a lot of it is in digital media, so, very heavy in data analytics, in reporting, and when it comes to campaigns, just the strategy that goes behind that. So after a conversation, he’s like, “Well, I actually think that might be a better fit for the, the future that our company’s wanting to take.”

So, I jumped on board and, it was very new, the industry. I’ve never done B2B, but I think in media, you’re constantly learning about your customers, their needs. So I was very, experienced in being able to do a lot of research, and that’s where I took a lot of things.

Every time I’m learning something about this industry, I’m like, “Hey, I can use a campaign, idea that I had, a couple years ago and actually apply it to, you know, this company,” and it, and it still does make sense. And, you’re just having to tweak, who you’re targeting, the messaging.

For the most part, there’s a lot of similarities when it comes to, marketing and advertising, whether it’s, B2C or B2B. But this is seems to be a great fit, and a lot of it is also because of the direction in which this industry is taking, where it is becoming very heavy, uh, on, on the data side, on software, from a lot of software implementing AI to, even how as marketers, how we use AI and there’s a lot of mirroring, a lot of similarities on those two fronts.

So I am able to find the, the similarities on both sides and kind of bring them together.

**Jeff White:** It’s interesting too because most of the packaging companies that we’ve both interviewed on this podcast and we’ve worked with, they’re old enterprises, sometimes multi-generational family businesses. They’ve been around a while. They’re certainly investing in new equipment and things like that.

But where, Franklin Mountain is starting up during or after the pandemic kind of timeframe, you have the ability to envision it with a bit of whole cloth mentality and, invest in the machinery that’s going to drive the vision that the ownership had with that.

How are you leveraging that story in the messaging and marketing that you’re creating there?

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah. We’re not a small mom-and-pop, manufacturer. We’re mid-size. So when you’re looking at some of those, companies who have been around for generations, they start off small pop, and depending on their success, they’ve grown, and that growth has been slow and steady, just because of the indu- industry itself.

So when you’re looking at manufacturing, I mean, it’s very heavy in engineering, but when it comes to efficiency, it’s because of the newer technology and software that companies are able to leverage that information that they didn’t have before and make decisions, business decisions, production decisions a lot faster to affect the bottom line.

I think for us, that’s where I’m focusing our emphasis on the marketing side of look at these machineries. We’re looking at our machineries compared to, some of our competitors who might have aged, machineries and who don’t maybe have the software to say the efficiency of a run and how the cost savings that they can get from certain efficiencies within certain types of runs.

I’m just looking at the machines we have and saying, “Hey, we have this fast volume machine that can give you… save you time when it comes to, your volume per MSF,” or we have some of the machinery, our digital side, where we’re able to give you a really quick turnaround for those custom packaging.

So we’re able to do both sides, and that’s the conversation I have with our customers and prospects of whether you need samples just to show off to a brand or whether you need a full run. We’re able to be your partner on both sides because of the machinery and the technology we leverage.

**Jeff White:** That’s unique.

**Carman Pirie:** Hmm. Yeah. But I do wonder, Maria, if… Well, I think one of the hesitations that maybe some marketers would have in leaning too heavy on machinery capabilities that they, if it’s machinery that they didn’t themselves produce is they have it n-nagging in the back of their mind that i-if a competitor goes out and buys the same piece of equipment, then all of a sudden the competitive advantage has, has gone away.

Now, of course, for the type of machinery we’re talking about, that’s pretty hard for a competitor to just up and do. It’s not the kind of thing that you swap out every day, I appreciate. Have you calibrated your thinking through that lens at all? Is it just more like, okay we have some there’s barriers to entry around some of the pieces that we ha- equipment that we have that like maybe there’s some pieces of equipment that would be more difficult to purchase or more difficult for a competitor to integrate, and maybe you lean more heavily on them as a result, or does that factor into your thinking at all?

**Maria Birdwell:** Well, that really depends on the conversations our salespeople are having with our customers. I work very closely with our sales team. They’re the ones who are actually solving, problems for packaging needs, whether they need someone who’s able to produce something with a shorter turnaround time or being able to interchangeably, “Hey, we have a new art design.

I need this out by the end of the week. Can you guys do that?” So I look at, based on all the machinery I have, I talk to our salespeople and our customers and say, “What are you looking for?” And I will identify the machines that can actually help them for that. If they care about cost savings and they want those higher volume, then I’m focusing on the machines that have that capability.

If they’re needing something, “Hey, I just need a sample. We don’t do projects like this, we’re trying to gain this contract and this bid, and we need some samples that you guys can provide to us.” That’s where we step in. And the fact that we make our own sheets, so we have the ability to work very closely with our partners in saying, “Hey, well, now that we’ve converted from this flute size, thickness to this thickness this is where you’re saving. This is how we are able to solve your problems.” We have multiple options. It’s just talking through them what their problem is and where they’re wanting to focus on, if it’s efficiency, if it’s turnaround, if it’s costing, and then dive in from there.

So that’s the approach we take is… And that’s, a lot of that is based on my experience, being in sales too. So I was on the other side of the, the fence one time, you know, having those conversations and knowing what questions to ask our customers so that I can go back and say, “Oh, yes, we can actually meet those needs because we have X, Y, and Z.”

Or, “Hey, we can do this part, but let me partner you for some equipment that we don’t have, but we have other suppliers that can do that for you.” So being able to solve problems for our customers and our machines and with the software we have, we’re actually able to provide numbers for them.

“Hey, you run it on this, this is where the cost savings is gonna come from.” And people like looking at numbers, especially when dollars are behind it. So I can put a little spreadsheet of running it on here about with this amount is gonna cost you this. Running it on this machine with this amount is gonna cost you this.

What makes sense for you and what’s a better fit?

**Carman Pirie:** And to read between many of those lines, I think it’s really just, you’re– what you’re telling me is that you let the customer requirements guide the conversation more than the competitive distinctions around machinery. And frankly, if you could just drive that conversation faster and be more responsive to customer requirements, you don’t need to worry about the competition overall.

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah. So I’m not really saying, “Hey, our machine’s better than them.” I’m saying, “Look at the machines we have and look at our capabilities. If you have multiple problems, we have multiple solutions for you.” So it’s not looking at a machine that was made in the ’80s versus our newer machinery and saying, “Ours is faster, ours is gonna save you money because it’s newer.”

It’s more focused on look at our options and look how we’re solving our solution, the solutions for our customers what we bring on that front.

**Carman Pirie:** One curiosity I would have around, that kind of links a little bit to Jeff’s question earlier or comment around how many people in the space are a little longer in the tooth than that Franklin Mountain is. How do you go about navigating that conversation, the track record conversation?

Because in the space that you’re in, sometimes people like to know that not only can you do it, but that you’ve been doing it for a long time, or you’ve been doing it for a while, or you have this very long list of satisfied customers. And I would have to think as a somebody who started up in 2022, that you’ve had to navigate that in a different way.

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah. Well, luckily when we started, we’ve had some customers that have grown with us from the volume of MSF that we’re producing for them v- versus the type of projects we’re doing for them. We work with several brokerage companies who; they have a lot of designers, engineers on board and sometimes they’re testing something, and so we’re able to say, “Hey, well, even though we do this large volume run for you we’re willing to take on some projects for you because we have the ability to change our board combinations to meet your needs.”

So from there, I think it’s just that sort of relationship that has allowed us to extend, and we have, I would say, a good record of different types of projects we’ve already take on to say, “Hey, we have based on all these projects we’ve done, this is how we’re– well we’re able to perform. This is our strength, our weaknesses.

This is something we’re able to do, but maybe it’s not cost efficient.” We’ve taken on a lot of projects that probably, other companies won’t because it doesn’t fall within their suite or within their lane. But the fact that we can do it all, we’re always about growing and depending on really the market and our customers’ demand we’re willing to grow with them on that front.

So we’re not only focusing on RSCs your traditional, rectangular boxes. We’re focused on, if the market is leaning more towards custom shorter run packaging, because that’s just the, the emphasis on a lot of these brands, then we’re able to continue to be with- their partner on that front.

So that’s a real benefit which I use to share with my clients.

**Jeff White:** And you serve both customers that whose products that you’re helping package go directly to consumer as well as more in the more of a B2B sort of industrial space as well, yes? Like more industrial type packaging?

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah, so we have some salespeople who are really strong. They have strong relationships with certain brokers. We focus mostly within the Southwest region that’s where we’ve grown. But we do have some local customers or regional customers that, you know, a small brewery, they just need some trays for their cans.

We’re able to work with them and customize all their artwork for them. So we, we have the capability and the bandwidth to help the little guys, in our backyard, and then to help those bigger fishes that we’re honestly competing against, a lot of those like larger companies, which, pricing we can’t always compete, but when it comes to turnaround service and capabilities, that’s where we step in.

**Jeff White:** And is that the primary messaging that you’re using with all customers in, in that way, or are you differentiating how you represent the brand to those smaller, more niche or, shorter run type things as opposed to the larger

**Carman Pirie:** Like basically, Jeffrey, you’re asking does the brand promise stay the same or do you kind of… Yeah.

**Maria Birdwell:** I think when I first came into this role, I had an idea of I’m gonna have a plan and it’s gonna be a year, an annual plan, and I’m gonna go with it. But I think, one thing I’ve learned is, especially in this industry, a lot of changes have happened within this industry, within cardboard, within paper, within the economics of everything, in the last six months.

So, um, it’s more kind of pivoting and focusing on our flexibility. So I think, you know, kind of it based on everything I’ve read, that is what is in higher need right now. You know, people cannot get boxes because it’s stuck on a ship or because the cost of freight has gone up because of gas prices. I come in and say, “Hey we are within the region.

We have the capability of meeting your needs. Give us a chance and talk to us, and work from there. So it’s more of the flexibility is where I’ve been placing more emphasis, and this is a recent pivot, and a lot of that pivot has been just due to what’s going on in today’s economy.

**Carman Pirie:** That’s, I think you’re the first firm that we’ve talked to that has mentioned that as directly. The change in their messaging that’s been driven by the change in the macroeconomic, challenges, or just the uncertainty of it all and what that’s driven.

That’s really fascinating. As a marketer, are you at all concerned… One of the things I can think about trying to be that responsive to the environmental context you’re marketing within is that if you’re not careful, it feels like that could come at the expense of consistency, and brand consistency overall.

Any kind of comments on that or how you’re thinking about it?

**Maria Birdwell:** Well, I’m not necessarily changing, my messaging in the sense of what we can and can’t do. It’s more of of all the things we can do, I’m just putting more emphasis on what is, what I hear is needed, which is flexibility. So I’m just kinda honing in on that when it comes to my content and everything I’m doing within this role of what I wanna grow is.

I hear a need out there, and people need flexibility because of what’s going on today, and I wanna be able to respond to that. But at the end of the day we’re still have all these capabilities and machinery, and I am continuously growing there, but it’s just maybe not the focus of the conversation, at the moment.

**Carman Pirie:** Cool. And when we talk about producing marketing content, the idea of using the… leveraging the machine and its capabilities to help us drive marketing content, I’d be curious, what’s the… what would you say is the highest performing piece of content that you’ve created, through that, through that process? What stands out to you?

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah. So I think, the video aspect of things is really beneficial and creating content, video content, I think has always shown to receive the most engagements, whether it’s on social front or even looking at our Google Analytics. When I’m looking at our events seeing people click on certain videos, I’m identifying where on our website they’re landing.

I do have certain pixels in place and campaigns in which I can track to see what is that point in which it’s getting them to our website. And a lot of times it’s when I’m posting videos on our social front, they come to our social feed, they see us, and then from there they’re on our website, and sometimes they’ll take the additional step of reaching out to us.

But I think when it comes to educational space video is really where it’s at. And these days you don’t even have to have any audio or text to it. A lot of people are just really interested just to see it in action. So to showcase our machines in action is really where, it gets a lot of people’s attention.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah, that makes sense to me. It could be often some some of this machinery is pretty complex trying to talk about its, specifications, et cetera. It will resonate with one member of the buying committee for sure, but, showing it in action and the kinds of things that come that piece of machinery is producing, just that broadens the audience for that piece of content

**Maria Birdwell:** Yeah, definitely

**Jeff White:** One of, one of the things that is a recurring theme amongst those in packaging, of course is sustainability, probably more than almost any other industry on Earth. You folks are held to a, a different standard when it comes to commitments to sustainability. But obviously that’s not the way that you’re differentiating yourself in the market in terms of how you’re speaking to people, given what we’ve just been talking about for the last 25 minutes.

But does it still play into it, and is it more there because it’s important to the people buying from you or as a pillar of who Franklin Mountain is?

**Maria Birdwell:** When it comes to sustainability, I feel I don’t necessarily need to place that much emphasis because I’m not focusing on converting people from plastic to paper. I think people who are interested, there, there isn’t gonna be much of a differentiation for me to say, “Well, if you go with that packaging or corrugated, manufacturer versus us,” you’re still gonna get the sort of sustainability, moving from plastic to cardboard.

So the sustainability that I focus on is more, if for example, we can do corrugated pallets. If you’re needing to save some cost for freight, because your freight’s too heavy cost of gas has gone up, fuel efficiency is really important, I can tie it in there, “Hey, we have the ability to, make corrugated pallets and change out for wood pallets.”

I don’t think it’s a new conversation I necessarily need to start or bring up to people of converting from plastic to cardboard. But it’s more of when you’re looking at cardboard and you need to focus on the quality of the cardboard based on, the paper combinations, that’s where I step in.

“Well, we have the top machinery to give you different paper combinations and different thicknesses within your cardboard that will make the difference, and i.e. can be more sustainable in comparison to the cardboard packaging you had previously.” Um, but I, I don’t think right now just given with the market, it’s a, it’s not the hot topic.

It’s little more common knowledge. I think it’s a very interesting the direction that, that has, that initiative has taken. And I stand behind it 100%, but, I don’t think right now it would make sense for us to have, to focus on that conversation.

**Carman Pirie:** Yeah. You’re almost saying most of the people that you’re dealing with have already decided in some way, right? And they’re already picking a more sustainable option. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense to me. Maria, as we bring the show to a close, there’s a number of unique things about this conversation and about Franklin Mountain, but one of the things obviously is the age of the company.

So I’m just, I’m wondering, what’s the hardest thing for marketing, about marketing a company, that is that age? A start- almost a post-pandemic startup. What’s the most difficult thing?

**Maria Birdwell:** I would say for myself it was and I’m not from the industry, so learning about the industry was a difficult round for me. But I think with leveraging AI and technology, I’ve been able to teach myself a lot and a lot faster than I probably did before. I think when it comes to creating all these different pipelines and leads, at the end of the day, marketing is nothing if you can’t capture it correctly.

So I think that I work, uh, very closely with my operationals team on making sure, whatever marketing effi- efforts I’m putting out there, we are capturing it and have the ability to convert. I think when you’re looking at all these different pipelines from digital inquiries to phone calls to, emails to people coming into your facility, there’s a lot of different touch points.

And I think, most companies after they’ve already been up and running for a while, they know, “Hey, the best way to reach us is through a phone call or, through our email.” They have their pipelines, set in place and they have it easy to convert. For a startup, it’s a little different because I created a lot of those pipelines, but there was not necessarily a way to convert them, and so I had to connect, our marketing efforts to our operations to make sure that, it is streamed aligned and that we are receiving inquiries, as needed.

And I think, a lot of people who already have, their establishment set up, it’s, that’s not something they probably take into consideration ’cause it’s already set. Where I had to kind of do a little bit of backward thinking, which, I think is very interesting because as a consumer in the real world, if I call you and I’m interested and you don’t pick up your phone, there goes your business, you know?

So taking those things into consideration as I was building certain pipelines.

**Carman Pirie:** That’s really cool. Maria, this has been a lovely conversation. Thanks for joining us on the show. It’s been lovely to have you

**Maria Birdwell:** No, thanks guys. I appreciate the talk.

**Jeff White:** Yeah, that was great.

[Read Full Transcript](#podcast-transcript)

[« Episode 405: Feeling Like an Alien: Marketing Advanced Manufacturing by Finding a Common Language](https://kulapartners.com/thekularing/feeling-like-an-alien-marketing-advanced-manufacturing-by-finding-a-common-language/)

#### Featuring

### Maria Birdwell

Marketing Coordinator at Franklin Mountain Packaging- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaebirdwell/)

Maria Birdwell is the Marketing Coordinator at Franklin Mountain Packaging, a corrugated fiberboard manufacturer in southern New Mexico that started up in 2022. Her background is in media and advertising — she began in media sales straight out of college and worked heavily in digital media, data analytics, and campaign strategy before moving into B2B manufacturing. A University of Texas at El Paso graduate based in the El Paso region, she brings a consumer-marketer’s instinct for research, storytelling, and audience targeting to a highly technical industrial category. That outsider’s perspective shapes how she markets a young company against long-established competitors.

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The Kula Ring is a podcast for manufacturing marketers looking to enhance their impact and grow their organizations.

Hosted by Jeff White and Carman Pirie, it features discussions with industry leaders who share their experience, insights and strategies on topics like account-based marketing (ABM), sales and marketing alignment, and digital transformation. The Kula Ring offers practical advice and tips from the trenches for success in today’s B2B industrial landscape.

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Our clients sell within complex, technical environments and we help them take a more targeted, account-focused approach to drive revenue growth within niche markets.