Bottom Line Up Front: In one of the most full-circle stories we have on company record, Gretchen Rath, our newest Account Manager, was slinging InkSoft solutions long before she (officially) joined the InkSoft team. Check out how we got to make her InkSoft-family status official below!
If you know InkSoft, you know that we’re all about the customer experience. The community experience. All of our products, all of our services, and all of our educational offerings are oriented around helping you do that thing you love even better.
So how do we accomplish that? How do we keep improving what we offer day after day, month after month, and year after year?
We rely on our people. Our dedicated team of customer-focused, community-loving, growth-obsessed staff. Whether it’s the team members who’ve been with us for years and years or the newest additions to our flock, we are motivated by — and learning from — the dedication of each and every one of them, each and every day.
But you already know that we’re proud of our team. You already know that we’re propelled forward by the creativity, the innovation, and the genuine care they bring with them. What you don’t know — or, we should say, what you don’t know yet — is the story behind our newest hire.
And folks, let us tell you: it’s a good one.
Gretchen Rath is an industry veteran — an expert who knows her way around just about every element of the decorated apparel business — and we’re lucky enough to have her as our newest Account Manager. Ready to hear about how she was working with InkSoft technology long before she was officially working at InkSoft? Keep reading.
Account Manager Extraordinaire: Gretchen Rath
Gretchen’s professional road started at the University of Missouri. After proudly graduating from the institution — “Go Tigers!”she made sure to cheer as she was sending us these details — she got her hands dirty in a variety of different creative roles.
First there was home interiors. Then there was merchandising. Then there was marketing, education, children’s ministry, and photography. The one through-line? Getting to use her imaginative and innovative problem-solving skills to help wherever she was working flourish.
In 2013, Gretchen was hired by a print shop in Florida. Her job? To implement InkSoft technology in a way that brought the most productivity, and the most value, to the business. Gretchen tackled her role head-on, brainstorming new uses and creative ways to market the value of the software for different types of customers.
With her background in education (and the local school system), she suggested using the solution InkSoft offered to pitch schools — with Online Uniform Stores at the center of the idea. The result? Just about every school with uniforms in the county agreeing to work with the print shop, utilizing InkSoft’s Online Stores to cover their uniform needs.
But Gretchen wasn’t just relegated to coming up with knockout ideas for InkSoft use-cases — she was also put in charge of managing the Design and Marketing Department, which, yes, included social media and production art. If you’re getting the feeling that Gretchen can handle anything that comes her way, you’d be right on the mark.
But then 2017 came — and something substantial happened. Gretchen reached out to InkSoft directly, explaining her skillset and her years of working with and promoting the technology…
And that was it. That was the start of a powerful partnership.
At first, Gretchen became an Authorized InkSoft Consultant, helping InkSoft shops from a wide variety of places find solutions for success. She’d recently moved to Michigan, and quickly began serving as the point-person for more than 20 different apparel decorators looking to up-level the value of their InkSoft technology.
And then it was the early winter of 2020. Gretchen found herself moving back to her hometown of St. Louis, cats in tow, and she also found herself in talks with InkSoft. Talks to take their partnership to the next level. When she was offered a full-time role as an Account Manager, she couldn’t say “YES!” fast enough.
Because for Gretchen, the job wasn’t just a job. It wasn’t just a position that felt familiar, or a series of tasks that she could, very probably, execute well in her sleep.
What the job was was something special.
An opportunity for her to come in-house and show our team a wide range of pieces to the customer experience puzzle. A chance for her to take all that she’s learned — from her work at Social Media Agencies and with schools, at her Florida print shop and as a consultant to decorators near and far — and craft it into something new.
Something valuable. Something that glimmers with the limitless possibility of an offering that’s always in-flux.
She knows you, our InkSoft community, because she was one of you for so long. She knows where your needs lie, and she’s poised and ready to start developing new uses, new answers, and new hypotheses for meeting them.
“I am thrilled,” she exclaimed, unmistakeable passion radiating off of her words. “I know my experience from both sides of the equation will offer a unique viewpoint, benefitting InkSoft users as well as the whole InkSoft team.”
We couldn’t be more excited to have Gretchen and all of her unique, well-rounded insight officially with us, and we know you’ll feel the true impact of what she has to offer in no time at all.
And in the meantime, if you’re looking to become your community’s go-to for school uniforms (and the selling of them), be sure to get to know our Online Stores system. It removes the need for your school customers to worry about inventory or distribution, and it gives you a way to stand out from the other decorators nearby.
