The Manufacturing Executive (Joe Sullivan)

Traditionally, marketing teams in manufacturing have depended on CRM supply data to get a picture of their customers.

However, there’s an untapped well of customer insights that many overlook: IoT data from manufacturing facilities. 

Using this data, marketers can target specific campaigns to specific customer bases and create messaging that truly resonates with customers.

In this episode, I sit down with Jan Pingel , Product Leader of Digital Solutions at Ingersoll Rand , to talk about how IoT is opening up new opportunities to get a deeper view of customers and learn valuable things you don’t normally learn about them.

Join us as we discuss:
-Industry 4.0 Club 
-Using IoT data in marketing
-Data privacy and data security concerns

Resources we mentioned during the podcast:

- Industry 4.0 Club 
- SME.org 
- Arcweb.com 
- Isa.org 
- IEEE.org 

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Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Sometimes it's easier to follow the status quo than switch things up, especially when running a second or third-generation family-owned business. Listen in as Michelle Acosta, Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Acosta Sheet Metal shares her experiences as well as her vision for leading this family business into the future. Join us as we discuss:

• Things that commodity-driven businesses can do to make it about more than just price when talking to prospects and customers
• Taking a proactive approach to looking for process efficiencies in the business
• The impact that modernizing Acosta's technology stack has had on the business

If you were to interview a variety of successful manufacturing leaders and analyze their respective approaches to effective leadership, I think you'd find a lot less directing than you would enabling. In this episode, Jason Riley, COO of the additive manufacturing company Fabrisonic, draws on his experience both as a military leader and a manufacturing leader to break down what he refers to as "5 Key Principles for Creating a Culture of Initiative". We'll talk about what it means to lead with intention, delegate, empower decision making, maximize collaboration and create meaningful process documentation.

Manufacturers love trade shows. But for a year, we've had to do without them. Plus, shows may never come back the way they once were. How can manufacturers create content, build relationships, and generate leads without shows?
In today's episode, I talk with Chris Luecke, podcast host and community builder at Manufacturing Happy Hour. Chris offers a full plate of both strategic advice and down-and-dirty tactics about how sales-focused organizations can think more like marketers.
Here's what we discussed:

Why videos and podcasts are great ways for manufacturers to build relationships
How sales professionals can improve results with micro marketing
Ways manufacturers can leverage LinkedIn in a meaningful and impactful way

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Twenty years ago, we barely had enough info to measure our impact. Today, manufacturing marketers are overwhelmed with data, and everyone wants to sell us software to find, store, clean, surface, and use that data. Why is data such a big buzzword in business, especially manufacturing? On this episode of the podcast, I invited Jon Thompson, co-founder and senior partner at Blue Margin Inc, a company of 38 consultants and engineers who help mid-market companies with an emphasis on industrials use their data to create growth. Jon and I talked about: Why data needs to go from the c-suite all the way to the frontline worker The idea of numbers as a motivator The biggest challenges manufacturers face when controlling and using their data Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast: The Dashboard Effect To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Some of the best conversations we have on this show are with Presidents and CEOs leading midsize American manufacturing companies. Listen in as our guest provides his insights into running a company that is a leader in innovative tooling and casting solutions.


Mick North is the President and CEO of Anderson Global Inc., a full-service supplier for the design and build of complex foundry tooling. In this episode, Mick talks about his experiences leading a midsize American manufacturing company.


Join us as we discuss:

• How Mick and his team have been able to de-commoditize themselves at Anderson Global
• Why manufacturing is misunderstood by most of the general public
• Traits that every leader should have

Are trade shows worth it? That seems to be a divisive question these days. But here's the truth: Like with many forms of marketing or sales activities, it comes down to execution. 
Today’s guest, Jake Hall, Keynote Speaker and Content Creator of The Manufacturing Millennial, details how to connect the physical world of a trade show with the digital world that exists before, during and after that event.  
Join us as we discuss:
How to create value and content from trade shows
How building relationships with other companies strengthens your marketing
The importance of developing personal brands 

When I hear the word "service" in a business setting, my mind goes straight to CUSTOMER service. But the concept of serving becomes so much more powerful when it finds its way into all the other aspects of running a business. In this episode, business coach Fred Reggie talks about about building what he calls a service culture. Specifically, he touches on the importance of two-way communication, clearly articulating your organization's mission and achieving universal buy-in throughout your organization around that mission.

In any manufacturing operation, quality matters.

Andrew Steele, the founder of FactoryQA, is an expert in quality management systems. After starting on the manufacturing floor and years of experience auditing, Andrew brings excellent insights into what quality management systems mean inside a manufacturer's operations. 

Join us as we discuss:
 What does quality mean in manufacturing? 
 How to know if you have a sound quality system in place? 
 The future of quality management in an increasingly digital world

Rather than our typical interview, in this episode, we syndicated an episode from our second podcast, The Manufacturing Marketer, a show focused on marketing for B2B companies inside the manufacturing ecosystem.


In this episode, our team of strategists at Gorilla answer questions that they have received from our recurring live event, Industrial Marketing Live, from marketing folks working inside manufacturing companies.


Join us as we discuss:

• Trade show strategy and how trade shows can be used to build a community
• Digital advertising for manufacturers
• Using data and interviews to formalize customer personas

In this conversation, Vice President of Product Management and co-founder of Configit, Henrik Hulgaard, talks about moving from a custom-engineered to configuration-based product offering. Specifically, he unpacks the benefits both to the customer AND the manufacturer of making this shift.

The more manufacturing leaders you talk to, the more opinions and perspectives you'll hear about why we're struggling to pull young Millennials and Gen Zers into the industrial sector workforce: – General awareness issues – A perception of dirty, dark and dangerous jobs – Negative associations among youth (and their parents) with a career path other than "go to college and get a white-collar job" In today's conversation, you'll hear directly from the source. Jacob Sanchez is a Gen Zer whose energy and passion alone make this episode worth listening to. He's been in the manufacturing workforce since he was fifteen years old and his perspective about why we're missing the boat with Gen Z will get you thinking.

When you make the investment in a sturdy digital backbone for running your manufacturing operation – your ERP, your QMS, your MES.... – You protect yourself from loss of tribal knowledge – You create efficiencies through process documentation – You set yourself up for smoother compliance audits – And ultimately, you create an environment that can foster scalable growth In this conversation, Co-Founder of ProShop ERP, Paul Van Metre, breaks it down.

Manufacturing is the backbone of the modern world…
But the manufacturing sector has been lagging severely in the marketing department for a long time.
The good news?
This only creates opportunity for you to get out ahead of your competitors.
Today, I’m joined by Allison DeFord, Founder and Trailblazer at FELT Marketing for Manufacturers, for a discussion of 5 key concepts every manufacturer needs to understand about their marketing — from common missteps to untapped opportunities.
We cover:
Humanizing your brand
Finding your unique selling point (or, rather, your “unfair advantage”)
Aligning your marketing strategy with execution
Meeting your customer where they are in the buy cycle
Measuring indicators that actually matter


Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

What is Voice of Customer? How can Voice of Customer be used to curate tailored content across your industry? Why is this important?
These are a few of the many questions answered on today’s show with industry expert, Dave Loomis.
In this episode, Joe Sullivan of Gorilla 76 speaks with Dave Loomis, President of Loomis Marketing on episode 28 of The Manufacturing Executive podcast. Our dynamic conversation covered...

How do you facilitate a voice of customer meeting?
What are the benefits of a voice of customer meeting?
Understanding the pain customers feel and ideal outcomes

Want more resources and information?
For more ways to serve others as an individual or business, Dave has written a book called Marketing Is Everything We Do. Dave also suggests checking out New Product Blueprinting by Dan Adams and Jobs to Be Done by Tony Ulwick.
To hear more interviews like this one, subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Video- and- audio-based content humanizes the people behind the information. You can see someone's face in a video or hear their voice in a podcast. They suddenly become a real person to you. Yet, manufacturing marketers are slow to embrace content that moves outside of print.
We're missing out on a lot!
In today's episode, I talk with James Carbary, founder of Sweet Fish Media, about why podcasting creates powerful marketing experiences and tools.
Here's what we discussed:

How audio content can humanize your company
Content-based networking, how to reverse engineer the exact relationships you want to develop
Why podcasting is not all about audience growth (and what it IS all about)

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here. 

It's 2010. Apple has just released a new product called the iPad. The Lakers just won their fifth championship under Phil Jackson. And the BP oil spill was all over the news. In the marketing world, a trending movement started to take hold. It was called inbound marketing. Today, inbound marketing has exploded, and B2B businesses are taking the next logical step to inbound selling. Brian Signorelli, senior director of sales at Hubspot and author of the book Inbound Selling, joined this episode of the podcast to discuss the history and future of inbound.  Brian and I talk about: -Why inbound marketing's popularity spread so far -Great resources to learn more about what inbound is and why it works -Extending inbound marketing principles into the sales side of an organization Resources we talked about: -Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs -StoryBrand -Inbound Selling: How to Change the Way You Sell to Match How People Buy -HubSpot To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

If you sell big-ticket, heavily-engineered, CapEx equipment through a long, consultative sales processes, e-commerce couldn't possibly be for you. Right? If you're a contract manufacturer custom designing products for your customers, e-commerce couldn't possibly be for you. Right? If you're a manufacturer selling anything other than a low-price point, commodity product, e-commerce couldn't possibly be for you. Right? Well, if you stick around for this conversation, my guess is that 40 minutes from now, you might feel differently about any of these three scenarios. Curt Anderson, founder of B2BTail, is an e-commerce expert – specifically in the B2B manufacturing sector. He's got a new definition of e-commerce for you, and a bunch of applications you might not have considered.

This ex-Navy Seal, turned manufacturing CEO believes the future of workforce development and training falls not only on the shoulders of the trade schools, but also the employers themselves.

Any business owner has his or her own unique vision for the trajectory of the company. There are lifestyle businesses, high-growth businesses, and plenty that fall somewhere in between. But moving from a lifestyle business to a growth business in manufacturing requires a mindset shift. It also requires a set of very intentional transformations to accompany that new mindset. In this conversation, Jason Pace, a manufacturing COO who's one year into this journey, will unpack the five key transformations he's leading Diversified Metal Fabricators through right now.

To quote Dave Chrysler, Founder and Principal Consultant at The Crysler Club, "In the fast-paced world of operations, leaders are often looking for the silver bullet that can solve all their challenges." He'll tell you that although there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution, there are some fundamental tools that any manufacturing leader should consider putting in his or her tool belt. From SOPs to Kaizen Events to Strategic Planning, he'll break down some of these tools that together can put your organization on a path to operational excellence.

More than ever before, it's not just a stable job plus a paycheck that motivate people, but also the opportunity for growth and career advancement. In this conversation, Patrick Curry, President of Fullerton Tool Company, talks about designing intentional career paths for your people.

Are you prepared to exit your company?
Many business owners haven't thought about transitioning from their position of leadership. But it's inevitable that you'll hand over the keys to your business one day.
When that day comes, will you know what your options are?
In today's episode, I talk with Chris Redmond, Senior Vice President at Capital For Business, about transitioning ownership or leadership of an industrial enterprise.
Here's what Chris and I discussed:

Three different approaches to private equity investment
How to differentiate your company for prospective buyers
Where owners seeking outside investment should start

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Abby Smith, President and CEO of Team Pennsylvania, has figured out how to bring together the public and private sectors to move manufacturing forward in her state. She'll talk about exactly what they're doing and how they're doing it. My hope is that some of you listening today will walk away feeling inspired and triggered with ideas for what similar things might be possible in your own region.

Risk management isn't an accident. If we're going to survive, then we have to plan for unforeseen events. Like 2020… and 2021.
But you can't insure everything, and rate increases seem to be hardening. What can manufacturers do to manage risk more effectively?
In today's episode, I talk with Van Carlson, founder and CEO at Strategic Risk Alternatives. Van brings to the conversation more than 25 years of experience in insurance. He focuses on solving client risks through risk alternatives and management.
Here's what Van and I discussed:

What manufacturers can do about the increase in traditional insurance premiums
How to prevent gaps in risk management strategies
The risk management tools available to manufacturers

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here

There is no reason manufacturing needs to be dominated by men — even if it, historically, always was.

Yet today, as other sectors become more representative, one look around most manufacturing sites and you’ll notice the lack of women immediately. 

Why are we lagging behind? And more importantly, what can we do about it?

My guest today, Lesley Ledwell Dukelow , Company President at Ledwell, is a 4th-generation female leader of a family-owned manufacturing business and she has some ideas about how we can tackle the gender gap in manufacturing.


In this episode, we discuss:
-Supply chain issues in the wake of COVID
-Why the labor shortage demands we hire from more underrepresented groups, including women
-Why women are less represented in manufacturing and what we can do about it

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Don't think. Just make parts.
Ever had a manager tell you that when you offered a suggestion for process improvement?
Leaders' words carry weight and affect people. They can affect how you think about your employer and even change your career forever.
In today's episode, Joe Molesky, vice president of operations at MultiSource Manufacturing LLC, discusses why people feel the way they do about your company and the simple keys to changing it.
Here's what Joe and I talked about:

Why canned lean tools don't work
Listening to your customers and to your team
What people-first leadership really means

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player. 

When people talk about you years down the road, what will they say? "Oh yeah, he (or she) was a good manager or employee?" Or will there be something more? In this conversation, manufacturing leader and author, Mosongo Moukwa, talks about how to leave a meaningful and lasting mark on your organization. Or in his words, how become "a leader of significance."

Over the past few years, we've all seen and experienced the effects of rising labor and material costs. But as John Abplanalp, President & Principal Consultant at Tight Lines Advisors, will tell you today, alongside these challenges, productivity in US manufacturing is at it's lowest point in 75 years. Put all of this together, and the recipe for profitability becomes pretty a challenging one to make. This episode is all about productivity, and why it needs to be a core area of focus as we look ahead to the future of American manufacturing.

Technology has brought us to a place where mobile phones have better cameras than the most advanced manufacturing lines had ten years ago. Vision inspection technology has come so far that the barriers to entry in terms of investment and technological feasibility have made vision automation accessible to all manufacturers.  
Austin Appel is the Co-Founder of Overview, an AI deep-learning vision platform for manufacturing. At Overview, Austin is responsible for leading product development and operations. Previously, Austin spent four years at Tesla in battery manufacturing and research and development roles. In this episode, Austin talks about the advancements in vision inspection technology.  
Join us as we discuss:
The underlying problems within manufacturing facilities
How is technology helping to alleviate labor problems
What’s different now vs. 20 years ago in vision technology for manufacturing
How Overview fits into the overall picture of vision technology

In its earliest stages, most technological innovations are reserved for those with the most capital. In manufacturing, when you add the scalability of digital products to this, you end up with what our guest calls “the great equalizer.” 
Raj Batra is the President of digital industries for Siemens USA, where he oversees all development, engagement, marketing, sales, r&d, vertical industry, and manufacturing activity for the automation business. With over 25 years of experience, Raj is a thought leader in smart manufacturing, digitalization, and industry 4.0. In this episode, Raj talks about digitalization in manufacturing.   
Join us as we discuss:
The most potent movements happening in digitalization right now
How the scalability factor of digitalization changes the outlook for smaller and mid-sized manufacturers
What is happening with additive manufacturing now, and how it can change things in the future
How digitalization and automation fit into the picture for manufacturing

If we want to balance America's $800 billion trade deficit, we need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. — 5 million manufacturing jobs to be exact.
The ancillary benefits would be enormous. We'd reduce CO2 emissions 40-50%, slash the budget deficit, improve unemployment, and bolster national defense.
What's stopping us?
In this episode of The Manufacturing Executive, Harry Moser, Founder of the Reshoring Initiative, talks about his mission to bring 5 million manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
Here's what Harry and I discussed:

Why the U.S. needs its manufacturing jobs back
What Harry's Total Cost of Ownership calculator can tell executives about the benefits of reshoring
How reshoring can help eliminate the trade deficit

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

I asked listeners what topic they wanted to learn more about on the podcast. 
You said "expanding into international markets."
So I put the word out among my network and discovered today's guest. He founded a gas company in 2002 that now does business in many foreign countries.
My guest on this episode is Ashley Madray, executive vice president of Gas Innovations, a producer, purifier, and packager of specialty gases.
Ashley and I discussed:

Who he is, how his company began, and how it expanded internationally
Common challenges to international expansion
The impact of doing business globally

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Lack of trust. Lack of goals. Lack of skill. Lack of risk tolerance. In this episode, industrial marketing consultant Julian Schaaf explains why these are the four biggest problems that plague slow-moving marketing teams in the manufacturing sector. He also explains how to overcome these barriers so you can blow your competition away.

By 2022 online videos will make up more than 82% of consumer internet traffic. That's 15 times more than in 2017, according to a recent study by Cisco.  
Video is how your buyers want to consume information, so it's exactly how you need to deliver it to them. 
On this episode of The Manufacturing Executive Show, Danny Gonzales, CEO of both Industrial Sage and Optimum Productions, talked about driving growth through video production in the industrial sector. 
Here's what we discussed with Danny:  

How some industrial companies are using video to their advantage already 
Shifting your message from traditional marketing to the way buyers buy now 
How salespeople can make one-to-one messaging videos using their webcams and distribute them via video cards 
The way to get started in video marketing right now (and now's the perfect time!)  

Resources Mentioned in the Episode: 
Industrialsage.com 
Monique Elliot of Schneider Electric 
Malika Waller of Landis+Gyr 
To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Quite a few manufacturing leaders that I talk to – whether through interviews on this show or in marketing consultations that I conduct – are leading second or third-generation family-owned businesses. They've built successful companies, but have struggled to let go of responsibilities, to delegate and to empower their people to play a role in shaping the company's future success. As lean manufacturing consultant Matthew Rassi will remind us, what got you here won't necessarily get you there. In this conversation, Matthew talks about the intersection of servant leadership and lean manufacturing practices, and how together, they can help you build a loyal, engaged and self-directed workforce.

It's gonna cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's gonna require a whole team to maintain it. And MAYBE we'll see some benefit by year three. This isn't exactly a compelling value proposition for making a major technology investment in your manufacturing business. Yet it's the overwhelming feeling the manufacturing leaders often feel when contemplating whether or not to do so. Jared Knecht, founder of AI quality inspection software KonnectAi, has a different philosophy. He'll tell you that a technology investment shouldn't mean all in or nothing. And the parameters he gave his team before they set out to develop their ai-based quality inspection software were: Immediate benefit. Right now. Or forget it.

I've had a lot of conversations on this podcast about bringing manufacturing jobs back onto American soil. But my guest today, John Gardner, goes a layer deeper – asking us to rethink the idea of free trade altogether. John, the author of "How to Make America the Manufacturing Super Power of the World", passionately shares his thoughts about: – The national security risk posed by an American supply chain that's so heavily reliant on offshore manufacturing – How higher tariffs can protect our economy – And why we need to reposition manufacturing in the minds of the next generation

You know you need clearer insight into your customer to build better products or deliver more valuable services. One way to get that insight is by listening to your sales and customer service teams. What are they hearing firsthand?
But there's another source of insight that you might not have thought about — search data. What can you learn from the words your prospects and customers type into Google or YouTube before they decide what to buy?
In this episode of The Manufacturing Executive, Derek Mabie, former president and partner at Evolve Digital Labs, talks about how real human beings search for and buy products online.
Here's what Derek and I discussed:

What you can learn from the search confessional
Tools and tactics you can use to process search information
How to marry qualitative and quantitative data to get fresh insights

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Welcome to a new era of robotics!
Robots of the past were defined by their tasks. They went through pre-planned motions and they weren’t able to adapt to changes in their environment.
Today’s next-gen robots, however, are hyper-intelligent, able to differentiate between people and objects, and adjust to changes in real time.
Nan Li, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures, has spent a lot of his career watching the evolution of robotics, and in this episode, he explains what this new era of robots means for the manufacturing industry.
Join us as we discuss:
- The differences between the robots of yesterday and the robots of today
- What autonomous vehicles have to do with advances in robotics
- How robot systems are becoming more financially accessible 
Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

It is easy to do the same thing repeatedly, but there is no better time than now to start thinking differently as a manufacturing leader.  
Nikki Gonzales is the Head of Partnerships for Quotebeam, a collaborative marketplace and workflow platform for the industrial automation industry. She helps buyers cut their sourcing time from weeks to days by building partner relationships with distributors and manufacturers in the space. Nikki is also the host of the Automation Ladies podcast, where girls talk about industrial automation. In this episode, Nikki offers her perspective on how manufacturing leaders can begin to shift their mindset.  
Join us as we discuss:
How the Automation Ladies Podcast came to be
Why is manufacturing such a male dominated industry and what needs to happen for that to change
 What is Quotebeam, why it’s important, and what are some of the unique challenges that come with working in a startup
Nikki’s perspective on the supply chain crisis and where it is headed

It’s no secret why so many companies have sent their manufacturing overseas: It’s to save money.
But are you really saving when the hassle costs you your ability to innovate quickly?
Today’s guest, Martin DeBono, President at GAF Energy, joins the show to share his insights on how colocating R&D domestically can ultimately save you by helping you get innovative products to market faster than your competitors.
Join us as we discuss:
- The difficulties with overseas manufacturing
- Why reshoring (and specifically, colocating R&D domestically) can help address both the supply chain challenges and the labor shortage
- How Martin is putting his advice into practice 
Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Christopher Nguyen, CEO & Co-Founder of Aitomatic, explains why we need both the IIoT data coming off the assembly line and the knowledge of our front line workers to build an effective AI model.

For years sustainable business practices have been a plus in manufacturing organizations. But when forced to make a decision between profitability and sustainability, most leaders will choose profitability. Our guest today will tell us why the link between profitability and sustainability is closer than ever.  
Lauren Dunford is the CEO and Co-Founder of Guidewheel, a company whose mission is to empower all the world's factories to reach sustainable peak performance. In 2022 Guidewheel was recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the 100 most promising companies globally poised to significantly impact business and society. In this episode, Lauren talks about how GuideWheel's plug-and-play FactoryOps platform makes the power of the cloud accessible to any factory.  
Join us as we discuss:
Trends that Lauren is seeing across the industrial sector 
Why manufacturing leaders should care about sustainability in their operations 
How sustainability can affect market penetration resulting in revenue growth 
What does sustainability mean to private equity firms or other potential investors in manufacturers

What was once a manufacturing process reserved for low-volume prototyping has found its home in various production applications. Our guest today breaks down post-print processes and lets us in on what he refers to as the dirty little secret of additive manufacturing. 
Jeff Mize is the CEO of PostProcess Technologies, the international leader in automated post-printing solutions for additive manufacturing. He has a proven track record of scaling startups in new markets and driving growth. In this episode, Jeff talks about pioneering connectivity of the post-print step for industrial 3D printing. 
Join us as we discuss:
How additive manufacturing has evolved and is being used in new ways
How to integrate additive into manufacturing processes that are already being used 
The barriers to using additive manufacturing at scale 
How automation fits into additive manufacturing 
Additive manufacturing’s role in helping to future-proof businesses from labor and supply chain challenges

The days of posting a job and watching candidates line up around the corner are now in the past. We’ve quickly shifted into a candidate-driven market and many employers are being affected by it, but most don’t know how to handle it. ` 
Today we talk to Ann Wyatt, founder and agency owner of Ann Wyatt Recruiting. An expert recruiter in the manufacturing sector, Ann shares her insights on what you can do to make your workplace more appealing to prospective candidates.  
Join us as we discuss:
The current state of recruiting in the industrial sector
How the current unemployment rate impacts recruiting and ways around it
Why culture fit is so important, and how a recruiter can make the perfect match between candidate and company

If you have a defined sales process, you're ahead of 50% of the manufacturing companies out there. But without one, you can't measure efficacy or deliver maximum value to your customers. Your organization will suffer.
Why is it so hard for manufacturers to draft a sales playbook? And what's the right solution to this problem?
In today's episode, I discuss creating a sales playbook for manufacturers with Kevin Roach, President at Harpak-ULMA Packaging. He's the first Gorilla 76 client I've ever hosted on the show, and I loved it!
Here's what Kevin and I talked about:

Ways to align your sales process with the buyers' journey
Why OEE and TCO need to be part of the sales conversation
How to overhaul the way you go to market with your sales team

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

What comes to mind when you think of a great business leader?  Someone with all the answers? Someone who grinds away working long hours? Someone with such deep experience and expertise that you don't need to question his or her guidance? Or is a great leader someone who leads by empowering the people around them? On this episode of the podcast, I invited Kevin Snook, CEO of both Saxagon and LUCIDi4 and author of the Amazon bestseller Make It Right, to talk about leadership in the manufacturing sector.  Kevin and I discussed: Empowering the frontline employees to make decisions A 5-step framework for leading a manufacturing organization A leader's 2 roles Avoiding the slippery slopes of manufacturing leadership To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Large amounts of data are only helpful if you can make it all actionable. In today's conversation, Founder and CEO at IndustrialML, Arjun Chandar, will tell you that as IIoT technology continues to advance, so much of the data being pulled off manufacturing floors is being holed up in the back offices of factories. Arjun will share his perspective about how to harness this data and put to use in ways that address some of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers today – especially for workforce training and retention.

It's hard enough to get a business of the ground and sustain it across one generation. But it's another to grow and evolve a business across three generations. Market needs change. Technology changes. The people inside of your organization (and your customers's organizations) change. There's so much to balance between staying true to what got you where you are today and being willing to evolve and adapt. In today's conversation, Greg Hartwig, a third-generation manufacturing business owner, will take you through his family's version of this story.

Video messaging is not just a new technology to learn, it's a way to connect with human beings that aligns better with how people prefer to communicate these days.
It allows you to lead with your very best asset — yourself.
In situations where face-to-face sales meetings are not always possible, recording a video allows others to take in your message when it’s convenient for them, builds a feeling of psychological proximity, and offers more personalized interaction than a wall of text.
On this episode of The Manufacturing Executive, we connect with Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at BombBomb, author, and host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and discuss all the ways in which using video messaging in your business can increase trust, make complex issues more digestible, and boost customer relations with humanization.
Here's a sneak peek:

Getting into the routine of utilizing video messaging helps you develop a healthy habit of gratitude.
A video message is the modern day handwritten note when used as a thank you or encouragement message.
The Video Adoption Guide is the fastest way for you and your team to get going (and keep going!) with personal video messages.
Overcoming the initial technology barrier can be challenging, so begin with simple, heartfelt messages like thank you, congratulations, and job well done.

OPTIONAL: Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Rehumanize Your Business: How Personal Videos Accelerate Sales and Improve Customer Experience, but Ehtan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli
Joe Sullivan, Gorilla 76 Thinker & Founder

You can find this interview, and many more, by subscribing to the The Manufacturing Executive Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on our website, or on Spotify.

We all know that we need to find ways to engage the next generation so we can build the manufacturing workforce of the future. And it's no secret to anyone listening that this next generation uses technology differently, interacts with people differently and collects information differently. But they also have different core values and care about different things. In today's conversation, Meaghan Ziemba of Mavens of Manufacturing, talks about how we need to put in the work to truly understand what's going on inside the minds of those who will become our future manufacturing workforce. We can't simply brush aside the nuances of how they think and feel. Because if we do, we're putting the futures of our businesses at risk.

Somewhere along the way, we all run into that guy...
The customer's procurement guy...
The buyer.
And with supply chain disruption fresh in all our minds, it's time we talked to that guy.
In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Aaron Brimer, a supply chain leader and founder of the Manufacturing Procurement Guy podcast. We talked about mitigating risk through smart procurement practices.
Aaron and I discussed:

Second sourcing
Inventory management
Negotiation
...And the role engineers play in the buying decision

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

When a lot of industrial companies start out, they're lean. Nimble. Close to their customers. But as business scales and becomes more complex, they lose the opportunity to be in constant contact with the market. Often, when you go into an industrial company as a new marketing hire, you have to rebuild strategic marketing as a core competency. Know what your customers care about, how the industry is structured, and how you are positioned. Then, tell a story with that information. On this episode of The Manufacturing Executive Show, MJ Peters, VP Marketing at Firetrace, a $35 million business with approximately a hundred employees, talked about creating sustainable growth for your manufacturing company. Here's what we discussed with MJ: Three key areas where marketing impacts the business Using tangible metrics to sort out what's working and what's not in marketing How to create sustainable growth when you sell in a cyclical market To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here. 

It's never been more costly to watch your people walk out the door.
Today’s guest is Dan Johnston, Co-Founder and CEO, WorkStep
WorkStep is a software platform that empowers companies to find and keep frontline employees for the long run. Dan has seen first hand how workforce retention can make or break a company and I’m thrilled to have him on the show.
Join us as we discuss:
How supply chain disruption and labor shortages are connected
Why the manufacturing labor force looks different today than it did a decade ago
The opportunity cost associated with turnover in workforce populations


Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

If your content strategy starts with whether there’s keyword search volume around your SEO terms, you’re starting at step five.
Here’s step one: conduct customer interviews to learn what they value and prioritize.
In this episode, I interview Gorilla 76’s own Grace Wright and Aaron Weekes, both Thinker and Strategist, about creating winning content that starts with customers, not keywords.
In this episode we discuss:
-Making your customer’s success the object of your content
-Getting the right messages to the right people
-Providing one of these three qualities: best, first, or different
-Starting your content strategy with the right questions (lots and lots of them)
-Forecasting the future of SEO tactics
Grace Wright can be reached at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-wright-76940312a/ 
Aaron Weekes can be reached at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmichaelweekes/
To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Show in your favorite podcast player.

MJ Peters joins us two years after her first appearance on our show to talk about the evolution of workforce collaboration among engineers in manufacturing.  
Currently the VP of Marketing at CoLab Software, MJ brings a mix of industrial and SaaS experience to her role. Before CoLab, MJ worked with 50+ venture-backed b2b software companies on their demand generation strategies at Refine Labs. And prior to that, she spent six years working at FTSE 100 Halma PLC, a group of mid-sized manufacturing businesses focused on medical, environmental and safety technology.  
Join us as we discuss:
How the way teams communicate and collaborate (especially engineers) has started to change
How digital transformations are impacting modern manufacturing and engineering
Steps that MJ has taken to uniquely position CoLab in its market

We’re at the threshold of an information revolution around cloud-based hardware, and our guest today will explain why moving to the cloud can save your business.


Michael Corr is the Founder and CEO of Duro Labs, a cloud SaaS PLM platform enabling the utilization of hardware development for the next generation of hardware teams. Listen in as Michael explains the need for cloud based hardware in your manufacturing business.


Join us as we discuss:

• Some of the biggest problems caused by manual processes around transferring data
• The pushback that Michael sees around hesitancy to move things to the cloud
• Why security is now a commodity for data
• Why the most prudent managers protect themselves from financial ups and downs by investing in processes and technology
• The business opportunity of using the cloud to find suppliers

I like working with people who get dirty building stuff. That's why I'm committed to serving the industrial sector by producing resourceful, helpful, and objective content. In the past two years, I've written 50,000 words of content, or about a whole business book, to help manufacturers figure out how to grow their businesses. (That was just my writing; my team of 18 people in St. Louis produced a lot more.) So it's a natural transition to ask: What other media could we explore to publish these insights? That's how we came to launch The Manufacturing Executive, our podcast to help leaders of manufacturing companies grow their businesses. We bring in voices from outside our company to talk about their successes, their struggles, what they've learned, and what's working and what's not in industrial marketing and manufacturing sales..  Got an idea for the show? Go to gorilla76.com/learn and click "connect." To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

The industrial sector's labor market has shifted over the past decade. From the emergence and adoption of recruiting technologies by Indeed and LinkedIn to the widening manufacturing skills gap, most manufacturers face stiff challenges on the recruiting and hiring front.
On today's episode, I talk about solving the problems in hiring with Patrick O'Rahilly, Founder at FactoryFix.com.
Here's what we discussed:

Recruiting and hiring mistakes manufacturers make today
What it costs to make a hire
The future of hiring in the manufacturing sector

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here

The past decade or so in the manufacturing sector has brought lots of hype about robotics along with it. But sometimes the flexible systems that many small and medium-sized business leaders were promised have been too complex to effectively deliver on the jobs to be done on the plant floor. Colin Riggs and Diane Abruzzini Riggs, Co-Founders of Rigorous, have set out to change that. They're passionate about local economies and helping smaller manufacturers access the robotics technologies that will let them stay competitive. And one niche manufacturing application at a time, they're working to make that happen.

Imagine the power of standing next to a piece of machinery and answering a prospect's questions on a sales call. Or leading a product training session for a new customer, right there inside of your manufacturing facility, on camera. Our guest today has figured all of this out. And it's changed his business forever.

When it comes to improving your company's ethics and compliance…
Any changes you make will only be as good as the culture supporting them.
And today’s guest, Emily Miner, Senior Advisor in LRN ’s Ethics & Compliance Advisory Practice, joins the show to share the best ways to cultivate that culture.
We discuss:
The evolution of E&C
Why ethics and compliance and organizational culture are inextricably linked
The importance of understanding the differences in the experience of culture for various individuals across your company 


Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

At first, his entry into the manufacturing industry was out of a need for survival.
But it quickly grew into a passion to encourage those who want to become a better version of themselves to embrace the hope, pride, and success to be found in manufacturing.
In this episode, I interview Tony Gunn, General Manager at MTDCNC Global and Founder and CEO at Your Tea of Life, about his amazing career trajectory from being kicked out of three colleges to entrepreneurship.
In this episode we discuss:

How manufacturing equips us to create our own futures
Tony’s discovery of his passion for learning and creating
Why manufacturing is such a welcoming and uplifting career
3 stories about struggle, success, and advocacy

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Tony’s podcast is The Gunn Show

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

People often worry that technology and automation will replace human workers.  
But what if the most powerful path forward is empowering workers with technology for better effectiveness and efficiency, instead of replacing them? 
In this episode, Dr. Prasad Akella, the Founder and CEO of Drishti, shares his view on the future of manufacturing. A future where video data not only improves the quality of a product, but also empowers workers on the plant floor and strengthens employee retention. 
Join us as we discuss:
 How technology empowers humans to be more effective
 What using data can do for your productivity
 Why using technology leads to better employee retention

Imagine an engineering design environment where AI does 60 to 70% of the work, and humans finish the rest. Tasks get automated. Things happen faster. Productivity increases. As Milan Kocic, Founder and Head of Sixth Sense at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence will tell you, in some places, we're already there. But looking into the future, Milan doesn't see an environment void of humans. Instead, he pictures one where humans are effectively... superhuman.

When you're leading a manufacturing organization that's thriving (or even growing bit by bit), somewhere along the way you're likely to run into a problem you can't ignore. And that is: We're out of space. In this conversation, Alex Garland and Christopher Yows from Burns & McDonnell will talk about the different layers of complexity involved with manufacturing facility expansions and what you should be thinking about if you know an expansion may be on the horizon for your business. They'll dive into everything from location, incentives and space planning to risk mitigation, automation and labor.

Try describing a mechanical thing with a blog post. It's not easy. It's not the right format. But try taking a 3-D model, making it photorealistic, and then doing animations of how it works. Now, you're on to something. So when you think about content marketing, do you think blogs, social media, and podcasts? Or do you think, "What's going to help my audience?" On this episode of The Manufacturing Executive Show, Nick Goellner, sales and marketing leader for Advanced Machine & Engineering and managing director of Making Chips, talked about content marketing in the industrial sector. Here's what we discussed with Nick: The role content marketing should play inside a manufacturing organization Why content is your job even if you are not a marketer (it's all about the function of content) The reason you shouldn't be scared your competitors will rip off your content The books Nick's reading this summer To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here. 

Baby Boomers are retiring. Manufacturing is booming in 2021. And emerging generations aren't considering careers in the field.
There just aren't enough people to do the jobs that need to be done.
How will manufacturers fill the skills gap Boomers are leaving behind them?
In today's episode, I talk with Matt Guse, President at MRS Machining Company, about an actual manufacturing operation happening within the walls of a Wisconsin high school.
Here's what Matt and I discussed:

How Matt launched, funded, and supported his competition
The benefits of inserting a manufacturing operation into a high school
Why interest in manufacturing has declined among young people and how to change that trajectory

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player. 

What are the best manufacturing executives doing to combat labor shortages and supply chain issues and thrive in this industry?  
Today’s guest is Dan Burgos, President and CEO, Alphanova Consulting, knows the answer. 
Dan and his team have over 15 years of experience helping manufacturers in various industries, including aerospace injection molding, construction projects, chemicals, fiberglass, furniture, electronics, consumer goods, oil and gas, and medical devices, among others.  
Dan's approach is to partner with leaders to uncover and eliminate the problems hindering business performance, while coaching leaders to create a culture of collaboration. 
Join us as we discuss:
Quantifiable metrics that affect business performance
Leadership when facing labor and supply chain issues
Improving on-time delivery and reducing scrap   


Take Alphanova's Business Self Assessment to receive recommendations for your manufacturing operation here: https://alphanovaconsulting.com/self-assessment-form-manufacturing/
Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website. 
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.  

Imagine not having a home owner's insurance policy when you live in tornado alley. This is the analogy today's guest makes to a manufacturer without a strategic inventory plan. Harrison Wells, VP of Professional Services at LeanDNA, will tell you that in today's "Disruption Economy", supply chain management and specifically, inventory optimization, are more important than ever before. And in this conversation, he breaks it all down.

When you hear "Great Depression", what comes to mind? Mobs of frantic people outside of banks? Dried out farmland and dust storms across the Great Plains? Dorothea Lange's famous "Migrant Mother" photo? When you say "Great Depression" to Jackie Greene, VP of Economics at ITR, her thoughts go NOT back in time to the 1930s, but instead forward to the not-so-distant 2030s. This economist's firm has been analyzing economic data and trends for decades. And in this conversation, she'll tell you what they see on the horizon – both in the short term and six to seven years out, as we head toward the 2030s.

There's nothing easy about being a leader, whether you're leading a marketing agency like me or a manufacturing organization like many of you. Founder and CEO of Rafti Advisors, Jim Vaselopulos, is an advisor to business leaders and host of a leadership podcast that's been running since 2016. In this episode, he'll draw on his experiences guiding B2B manufacturing leaders as we talk about: – Letting curiosity drive smart business decisions – Applying principles of root cause analysis across different parts of your business – Changing your relationship with time

Advancing sustainability. Reducing downtime risk. Creating a more profitable future through energy efficiency. These are positive side effects of implementing a modernized energy system. And in the manufacturing sector, where incredible amounts of energy are consumed every minute from a century-old power grid, it's time to start looking toward to the future. In this episode, Gareth Evans, CEO and Founder of energy transition platform VECKTA, shares his wealth of knowledge on the subject. Veckta's Company Website: https://www.veckta.com Veckta's Company Podcast: https://www.veckta.com/renewable-rides-podcast/ Gareth's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-evans-41015726

If you're looking into the manufacturing sector from the outside, the numbers will show you how underrepresented women are in this sector. And if you already work in manufacturing, you know this just from looking around. But Alicia Gilpin is working to change all of this. A business owner, non-profit founder and podcast host, Ali G is a source of inspiration for women currently in manufacturing who are struggling to find their voice, as well as for young women whose careers lie on the horizon.

In most companies, experts are hired to do a specific job. Engineering does engineering. Marketing does marketing. Sales does sales. And so on. But what happens when each of those departments does their respective jobs in silos, without a common mission, and in the absence of collaboration? In today's conversation, Jeffrey Abell (engineer) and Adam Beck (industrial marketer) of Cadenas PARTsolutions talk about how to bring together the engineering and marketing functions of a manufacturing organization to drive growth. Because when the silos come down, opportunities emerge.

Remember fax machines? They were going to revolutionize the way we did business. Then came dial-up modems and email. Now, our customer gives us a CAD file. We can create a toolpath in a snap.
Like technology, organizational culture has completed several revolutions in a single lifetime. The speed of those revolutions is increasing, and manufacturing transforms every five years.
What's coming next?
In this episode of The Manufacturing Executive, Jim Carr, President at CARR Machine & Tool, Inc., talks about how manufacturing is evolving in both culture and technology.
Here's what Jim and I discussed:

Jim's family history in the manufacturing space
The effects of culture and technology changes on manufacturers
How to get everybody in your company working toward the same goals

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

There’s this perception that manufacturing jobs are dirty and dangerous.
But in the modern era of manufacturing, that perception is changing as jobs are becoming more and more rooted in technology.
In this episode of The Manufacturing Executive, I talk with Dr. John Mitchell, President & CEO at IPC, about the move from “dirty and dangerous” manufacturing to high-tech manufacturing.
We also talked about:

How IPC is using education to transform the negative manufacturing perception.
How manufacturers can realize the benefits of AI.
What manufacturers need to be thinking about when it comes to scaling.
What's going on with semiconductors right now.

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

About IPC
IPC EDGE Training

Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

A very small percentage of manufacturing organizations ever get to the point where they're consistently publishing truly exceptional resources for the people they need to influence from the companies they want to do business with. And for the few that DO get it right, that content will often just sit in a resource center on their website collecting dust until it's eventually buried and never seen again. In this conversation, we tackle two critical subtopics of content marketing that so many companies miss. The first is how to take these amazing content assets you're working so hard to create – the blog content, the case studies, the videos – and get them out if front of the people you need to reach, at scale, time and time again. We call this content distribution. The second subtopic is how to give those content assets more legs – so they can reach more people, in more formats and in more places. We call this content repurposing.

Following a few decades of sending manufacturing across seas to drive down costs, big reshoring movements are in full force throughout the American manufacturing sector. But meanwhile in Germany, much of that manufacturing never left in the first place. Through strategies that have included embracing automation, localizing manufacturing operations and focusing on quality, German manufacturing has remained competitive throughout. So what can we learn from the German manufacturing model? Jon DeSouza, the CEO and President of HARTING Americas, a German-based global manufacturer, is here to unpack this topic.

What does the word "brand" mean to you as a manufacturing leader? A logo and a tagline? A color palette and collection of images or graphics you use on your website, in your sales decks and at your trade show booth? Or is brand something more than that? And as a B2B manufacturer, why does all of this matter anyway? Paul Kiesche, President of Aviate Creative, is a seasoned branding professional working inside of the manufacturing sector. And in this episode, these are the types of questions he'll be answering.

Automation cannot replace human labor. Rather, the key is to augment the workforce by equipping humans with the technology they need to be more effective, more efficient, and safer. Tracy Hansen, president of North America and global CMO for ProGlove, a German maker of wearable digital interfaces and operations analytics for industry, joined this episode of The Manufacturing Executive Show. She talked about the ways manufacturers need to pivot with technology as they look at how to emerge from this pandemic in one piece. Here's what we discussed with Tracy: How wearable solutions can augment the human worker Examples of the ways wearable technology improves safety, efficiency, and productivity The wearable technology solutions executives should know about ...And what excessive automation looks like and how to avoid it. To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Does technology have to be all or nothing? Is it possible that in our increasingly data-driven manufacturing environment, we're losing sight of the value provided by human input?
In today's episode, I talk about those questions with Martin Cloake, CEO at Raven.ai. Martin is an experienced executive and award-winning technology entrepreneur with a background in manufacturing, data science, IT, and operations management.
Here's what we discussed:

How Martin merged his varied background experiences to create Raven.ai
Creating balance between data and human insight
Real stories of how Martin's clients blend the best of both worlds

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

I did something a little different in this episode. As opposed to bringing in an outside guest and interviewing them, I did a solocast. It's just you and me talking about things I've learned while serving the industrial sector for the last eight-plus years as a sales and marketing consultant. Today, I discuss how to stop giving away engineering and consulting services for free. Here are some of my thoughts from this episode: How to package your expertise so you don't go down these long time-suck paths where you give away free insight and engineering work Examples of how paid engagement can work, including a site audit, a second opinion service, a research report, and a product sample An idea I call "the spectrum of value creation" ...And how your buyer's mindset changes when you approach them this way (and why that's a great thing for your business!) To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

On the surface, there are many forces driving the sustainable manufacturing movement in our world today – from government initiatives to consumers to corporations. But as Mark Remmert, CEO of Green Dot Bioplastics, will tell you, at the core the sustainable manufacturing movement is simply the human need for survival. In this conversation, Mark offers his perspective on why sustainability matters, where bioplastics fit into the picture and what the future may hold for sustainable manufacturing.

You know the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But do you practice that philosophy as a manufacturing leader? Does it influence who you hire? How you manage your team? The way you interact with your stakeholders?  On this episode of the podcast, I invited Dan Erschen, the owner of Wisconsin Metal Parts, a contract manufacturer of metal parts and assemblies, to talk about servant leadership. Dan and I discussed: Dan's personal battle with MS and how it has shaped who he is today What servant leadership is and the benefits and challenges it brings to manufacturing companies Dan's advice about how to start shifting culture through servant leadership To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

What manufacturers should do is stop moaning about the lack of skilled talent and start partnering with grade schools (yes, as young as eighth grade) to show young people, especially young women, how amazing it is to build a career in manufacturing and engineering.
But how?
In this episode, I’m speaking with Meaghan Ziemba, Owner, Copywriter, and Copyeditor at Z-Ink Solutions and Host at Mavens of Manufacturing, about her calling to create an educational network to inspire youth to pursue manufacturing.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Meaghan’s career journey into marketing for manufacturers
- Strategies for attracting youth to manufacturing and engineering
- Creating a work culture to support women and parents
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- Meaghan’s podcast
- Meet the Makers tour
- National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
- Technology & Manufacturing Association (TMA)

...
Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

It's no secret that the Boomer generation is pouring out of the manufacturing workforce. And as they go, we're not only losing their hands, but also the years of knowledge tied up in their brains. Pair that with an increasingly transient younger generation of workers and what you have is an institutional knowledge problem. In this episode, Yushiro Kato, Founder & CEO of CADDi, talks about the role of digitizing our data inside of manufacturing facilities – for accessibility, for security, and to protect that invaluable tribal knowledge.

The term thought leadership has gotten tossed around a lot the last few years. But what exactly does thought leadership mean? Does it simply imply that you write a blog or that you spoke at a local Chamber of Commerce event? Or is thought leadership something more than that? How did you become a thought leader anyway? On this episode of the podcast, I invited Bill Sherman, COO and thought leadership practice lead at Thought Leadership Leverage. Bill helps clients who want to use thought leadership whether it's to fill a sales pipeline or influence how people think and act. Bill and I talked about: The four elements of thought leadership How thought leadership can impact your organizational and personal brands Why people struggle with content insecurity  Sponsored by Cadenas Partsolutions To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

From skills to work ethic to understanding chain of command, veterans bring so much potential to the manufacturing workforce. In this episode, Lt Col Kathy Lowrey Gallowitz will talk about how manufacturing leaders can go from unaware how to tap into the veteran community to being veteran-friendly to being veteran-READY.

Back in May, I wrote an article entitled Summer Reading 12 lessons from 12 books for 12 weeks. The author of one of those 12 books, Ian Altman, is my guest on this episode of The Manufacturing Executive! A bestselling author and B2B growth expert, Ian started, sold, and grew his prior companies from zero to over $1 billion in value. He has since spent years researching how executives make decisions. Ian's modern approach has helped many businesses turn marginal growth into explosive growth and thrive where their competitors struggled merely to survive. Ian and I talk about: Why you should flip your sales message The three questions you need to ask to make an informed decision How to weed out wrong-fit clients How to pivot away from in-person meetings during COVID-19 Resources we talked about: Same Side Selling on Amazon Same Side Selling Academy Ian Altman's Website Growth In Crisis Course To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

The way our customers collect information and look for products has changed, and in order to keep up with demand, manufacturers have to change the way that they approach sales and marketing.  
Today’s episode is very unique. This is a conversation that was originally recorded on Chris Grainger’s podcast: EECO Ask’s Why.    
Chris Grainger joins us from EECO, an industrial automation and power solutions company. Chris has been running the EECO Ask’s Why podcast for over 2 years and offers valuable insights on manufacturing as well as starting your own B2B podcast. Chris executed a fantastic interview with me on the go-to-market transformation in manufacturing.  
Join us as we discuss:
 How sales and marketing have changed in manufacturing
 How VOC plays an important role in GTM strategy and direction 
 How to clearly define your audience and figure out what matters to them

Data collection, automation, robotics — these are things reserved for the budgets of the biggest companies out there, right?
Wrong. Anyone can do it with one simple trick:
Just get started.
That’s the simple advice shared by our latest guest, Aaron Prather, R&D Evangelist for FedEx Express, who is deeply passionate about both topics — and if you don’t believe me, just check out his LinkedIn.
In this episode, we discuss:
- The benefits of data collection, automation and robotics for your business
- Why you don’t need to fear robots stealing your jobs
- Why success in either involves getting started and employee input
To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

Manufacturing got left behind as the software industry progressed rapidly over the years. It’s time to catch up, and innovators like Adam Keating make it possible.
As the Co-Founder & CEO at CoLab Software, Adam embraces the engineering approach of problem-solving. His team enables 2D and 3D CAD collaboration which has changed the game for manufacturing businesses, especially in the last 18 months.
What we talked about:

Adam’s Hyperloop adventures and the emergence of CoLab Software
Manufacturing is catching up on the 20 year lead held by the software industry
Examples of businesses that are thriving since embracing collaborative manufacturing technology
Digitization strategy for the sake of it vs. the intent to solve tangible problems

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Adam’s LinkedIn profile
Adam’s Twitter profile
CoLab Software’s website

Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Over the years, I’ve talked to a lot of manufacturers as a marketing advisor. When I ask them what their ideal customer looks like, I usually get a response saying that they deal with many types of customers in many different industries.  
While there’s nothing wrong with targeting different customers, channeling your marketing energy into lanes where you have the best chances of winning will assure you don’t spread yourself too thin. 
Join us as we discuss:
Making intentional decisions about which audience segments to focus on
Identifying the buying process influencers and what matters most to them
Frameworks for crafting a customer-centric brand narrative

I've consulted well over 200 B2B manufacturing organizations throughout my career on marketing strategy. And without question, one of the biggest problems I've observed time and time again is a lack of alignment between sales and marketing. In today's conversation, Founder of Brjr.io John Joyce will talk about why these silos emerge, what dangers and missed opportunities they create, and the role your marketing and sales technology stack can play in tearing them down.

15 years ago, Mike Weinberg had a bold perspective on sales which was to stick with the fundamentals and don’t fall for the ‘shiny new toys.’
His bold perspective paid off as he now consults some of the largest sales teams across the globe on fundamentals that have stood the test of time.
On today's episode, I talk about sales strategy with Mike Weinberg, Consultant, Speaker and Author of three Amazon #1 Bestsellers.’
Here's what we discussed:

Sales discovery, learning, strategy and implementation for customers
Answering ‘What do the people you're trying to reach care about?’
Timeless principles in sales that remain true and new-age fundamentals

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

The workplace is experiencing a massive transformation.
I thought we should start at a high level and talk about that.
So we did.
In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Jon Franko (I just call him "Franko"), my co-founder here at Gorilla76, about how to grow a great team rooted in relationships.
Franko and I discussed:

What employees value most in an employer right now
A little thing we do called “Retention Brainstorming” and how it can help you
How to use Glassdoor to your advantage

To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Show, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

If you want to build thought leadership around a product category, you need to create a community. The longer your sales cycle and the more complex your product, the more critical your community.
But how do you build a community around your product and not around yourself?
In today's episode, I talk about the keys to success on social media with Sam Gupta, Host, Community Builder, and Founder at WBSRocks.
Here's what Sam and I discussed
- What an online community is
- Different platforms for building community online
- Focusing on your audience's problems – not your product
To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player. 

What if your engineering bonuses were tied to blog post writing? 
Today’s guest, Chris Grainger, Podcast Host and Engineering and Services Manager, Electrical Equipment Company (EECO) believes that content marketing is so important he gives bonuses based on how many blog posts and how- to videos each employee produces. Chris is passionate about content marketing because he knows that it works. 
Join us as we discuss:
How to get your employees involved in content marketing 
The benefits of podcasting as a medium in the manufacturing sector
The long game of content marketing and the snowball effect
Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.