Sticker Mule’s CEO on his experience bringing politics into the workplace
Today we’re launching a project we’re calling “Office Politics.” At a time of increasing political polarization, we’re looking at how companies intensify or ease political divides by taking sides, taking stands and/or bringing us together. Ahead of the election, we’ll come at this from multiple angles, from companies that use their brands and their employees to push policies and candidates, as well as organizations that dial down the political temperature by promoting constructive dialog.
Today: a CEO who’s all-in for Donald Trump. Anthony Constantino is founder of Sticker Mule, an upstate New York-based company that does customized merchandise from t-shirts to stickers to hot sauce. He spoke to Marketplace’s David Brancaccio in a conversation recorded prior to Sunday’s arrest of a gunman near Donald Trump in Florida. (Constantino put out a statement in response to the second possible assassination attempt.) The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
David Brancaccio: All will remember that day in midsummer when the news came that a sniper shot at and hit the ear of Donald Trump, now the Republican candidate. A person in the crowd was killed; others wounded. What was it you felt the need to communicate when you went on the company’s account on X after that shooting?
Anthony Constantino: I like to move fast, and I also like to solve big problems. I’ve been in the business solving problems for a long time, not in the business of making business of making money. And for the last eight years, I’ve seen this issue of 10 million or so people just instinctively hate 100 or million or so Trump supporters that happen to be all over the world. It’s one of the bigger problems in the world today. And I thought it was to do something, to fix it. And you know, when I saw President Trump’s courageous reaction to what happened, I just said, “Now’s the time to stand forward and try and address the situation and fix it, really, for everybody.”
Brancaccio: And you’re quite candid for a CEO. I mean, part of what you had put onto X was “I support Trump. Many at Sticker Mule also support Biden” at the time. “The political hate,” you wrote, “needs to stop.” The first part of that, “I support Trump.” I mean, you took a position there.
Constantino: I run a company that happens to be in 39 different countries. I’ve got 1,200 employees, people from all perspectives and all different viewpoints. We all have a great time. We all get together and enjoy each other’s company. And I thought it was really important for people that run companies like me and have my background to let people know on both sides that Trump supporters are great people and really help calm the tension, because there’s been too much tension for the last eight years or so.
Brancaccio: Experts tell me that when one side or the other in an argument exhibits contempt, that really there’s not a lot more communication. It’s impossible to communicate. Is that something you’re concerned about?
Constantino: You know, I started the company, I did all the customer service on day one, and one of the first things I learned in customer service is people change their minds. People can be very angry at you, and I got intense hatred directed. I made people tell me really bizarre things, like, “go kill yourself” and whatnot. People change their minds. And somebody that can really dislike you can totally change their mind, especially if you stay calm and, you know, engage in a reasonable manner. And I think that’s what I did. And I think the temperature’s already changing with regards to way people view Trump supporters as a result of what I did, and other people like Elon Musk and now RFK and Tulsi Gabbard and, you know, even Mark Zuckerberg, who was a major Trump hater saying good things about President Trump now. So I think you see the temperature changing, but you got to address this situation in a respectful way, and I think that’s what I did.
Brancaccio: On that day, you did tweet “the political hate needs to stop,” but you also did say, “I support Trump.” What was the reaction to all of that within your company? Did you get feedback from the employees?
Constantino: When you run a company, you’ve got to constantly invest in goodwill with your people. So I guess over the years, I banked a lot of goodwill. We got a lot of exciting things happening at Sticker Mule. So Sticker Mule’s working on a lot of exciting things. We just launched white label hot sauce. We launched a stores platform that’s helping people make money online, which is one of the most important things you can help a person do. Obviously, people maybe felt differently or there was a mixture of opinions, but, you know, people at work were just focused on doing things that are fun and exciting. At Sticker Mule, we haven’t really spent a lot of time talking about this.
Brancaccio: You acknowledged in that tweet that many at Sticker Mule support Mr. Trump. Many at Sticker Mule also would support the Democratic candidate. If you support the other side — someone who disagrees with you politically — [are] they comfortable, you think, to keep working at the company?
Constantino: For sure. I mean, that’s just the nature of any company. Unless you’ve got five employees in your company, and you go out of your way to get all people that think like you, you’re going to have a mixture of people — some people like Trump, some people don’t, but we all get along. We all have a great time together. By and large, you know, I don’t think most people even know the political backgrounds of their coworkers. They just know that they like spending time with each other and they like working together.
Brancaccio: Now, what about your customers? I mean, some of the reaction that I’ve seen on X to your original statement — it went both ways, but not all of it was positive.
Constantino: Oh, well, for sure. I mean, like I said, there’s a situation where 10 million people are programmed to instinctively hate anyone that says they back Trump, and that situation is not going to go away unless people like me and Elon and other CEOs and other just successful people that can speak to both sides speak up and help educate both sides, really. Like, Trump supporters, they don’t got to be, you know, so fearful of expressing who they are. And also people on the other side, that you don’t have to hate Trump supporters. Trump supporters are people like me. And I did what I did to make more people comfortable; both sides are suffering as a result of it. You know, the people that hate Trump, they’re waking up scared and concerned that Trump supporters are these demons. And you know, the people that support Trump are not living in a great world where they tell their girlfriend or their friend or coworker that they like Trump, and you know, they’re ostracized. So, you know, this is a situation that’s got to get fixed.
Brancaccio: You gave your employees, I think it was, hazard pay to help them through this when all the complicated — shall we say — publicity was pouring in?
Constantino: This happened. I make quick decisions. I try to always do the right thing, and within an hour of the backlash, I think somebody called me and said, “Customer service [is] getting beat up with messages — ‘go kill yourself’ and whatever the case may be.” And the volume of just inquiries was up 100x from a normal day. So they were inundated. And I talked to our CFO, and we talked about doing something to help people and say “thank you” to people for dealing with what they were dealing with. And so, during the Trump years, we did a $1,000 bonus for the entire company. Nobody knew at the time, but we were 1,000 people, so that was over a million dollar cash outlay, but the economy was rocking. And I said, “let’s do something a little better than that.” So we suggested doubling it, and it went to $2,500, because $2,500 sounds better than $2,000. And that was really well-received, not only by the support team but by the company as a whole, because they saw that we take quick action to do the right thing. And you know, my No. 1 concern is always for the well-being of our employees. Obviously, I took a little bit of a risk here, but I think everyone at Sticker Mule that knows me knows that, you know, I’m the type of person that’s going to do whatever it takes to make anything I do a win — not only for the company, but for society at large. And that’s what I’m trying to do here, and I think I’ve been successful so far.
Brancaccio: So not Sticker Mule, but some other companies that have been outspoken in the past with either conservative or liberal points of view, I’ve noticed from my reporting here, have been keeping their heads down this election year. [They] don’t want to talk about it right now — not being outspoken. What would you tell them, given your experience?
Constantino: I think particularly if you’re on the Trump side and you see what I’m talking about, you understand the problem I’m referring to with 10 million or so people that are just instinctively programmed to just outright hate 100 million+ Trump supporters, I think if you see that — and you’re a successful person, whether you’re a CEO or an athlete or whoever you are in life — if you can talk to both sides, you should consider doing what I’m doing, because this is a big problem. And at any company, there’s people on both sides, and it’s tragic that the Trump people you know have got to hide because they’re scared that there might be a Trump-hating employee or two that could destroy their career, whatever the case may be.