Industrial Marketing Summit 2025 with Joe Sullivan

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hey guys, hey, happy Friday. Welcome to Manufacturing, e commerce, success. And wait a minute, there’s something a little off right now, somebody like Damon, did you would you do like, Grecian formula, or like, what’s like? How did like, Dude, you look like 20 years younger? You’re not Damon? Oh,

Jeff Long  00:17

you’re right. Yeah. I was gonna blame it on the time machine I invented because I’m so smart clearly, you know, it’s the AI,

Curt Anderson  00:25

young version of Damon. That’s where we go,

Jeff Long  00:28

young, it’s an honor. Any any comparison to Damon, I’m in, count me in.

Curt Anderson  00:33

Well, I you know what? And so Damon had lost a loved one, so we’re sending tons of love. Our deepest condolences Damon and his wife and his family in this tough, difficult time. So Damon, our thoughts and prayers are with you, brother. So send that to your wife. Jeff Long, was Johnny on the spot to fill in, you know, I just, you know, I just don’t like going solo, Jeff, you know, I just don’t, you know, and like, I could go rogue. And so I need you here to kind of keep the rails, the bumpers on. It’s like we’re bowling. We get me the bumpers. Jeff, long, quick introduction to yourself. What’s going on? Mr. Dayton, Ohio, yeah,

Jeff Long  01:05

thanks again for having me on. Thanks for thinking of me and including me. I’m super excited to be talking with you and Joe, of course, about the industrial marketing Summit. Some little bit about me. I own a marketing agency called true focus media. Do a lot of video marketing and web design, and every everything in between, some some fun other projects we can talk about another time, but excited to be here. Thanks again. Well,

Curt Anderson  01:30

awesome, Jeff. And the reason I wanted to pull you in is the three of us had the honor and privilege we did dinner together a couple years ago at the industrial marketing summit in Cleveland. And so with that, here’s an introduction with the man of the hour, Joe Sullivan, founder of Gorilla 76 Joe, happy Friday, how are you dude

Joe Sullivan  01:47

doing well? And, yeah, awesome to be back. Curt, it’s been been a little while since we’ve done this, but I think, I think I’ve been on your show one other time. You’ve been on mine a couple times, and it’s fun to do this. I

Curt Anderson  01:59

you know what? I got bad news for you. I think you’ve been on like, four or five times, because it

Joe Sullivan  02:03

hasn’t been four or five like a double once, I remember. So

Curt Anderson  02:09

we had, we had you on solo, we had you Wendy and Adam on a year ago. That’s right, we went live in Cleveland, and you were on site, and we were live in Austin, and you’re on site, so I know of at least four. I think this is at least your fifth. I’d have to look back in the archives, but I’m going to say this is at least your fifth time. So how’s that?

Joe Sullivan  02:29

No, it’s good to know at 42 that my memories already failing. Well, it

Curt Anderson  02:33

just, you know, what? If you’re like my wife, you know, I’m just, I’m not very memorable, you know, my wife says the exact same thing. So we’ll dive in. So hey, we’ve got a friend here today. So Bob feathers. Bob, happy Friday says, Good afternoon, gents. Jeff Long, Joe southern looking forward to the conversation. Bob, thank you Happy Friday. God bless your brother. So alright, Joe, let’s just dive right in. Tell us a little bit of background. First, I want to dive into gorilla 76 and then we’re going to do a super deep dive. We’re going to totally geek out about the industrial marketing Summit coming up next month in Austin. Who is gorilla 76 and how do you make the world a better place?

Joe Sullivan  03:08

Yeah, so gorilla 76 is my marketing agency. My business partner, John Franco, and I founded the agency about 18 years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long, but we’ve, you know, kind of started by taking checks from whoever would write one to us to do anything that could be considered marketing. And you know, it was probably about 1012, years ago where we really niched down into our we’re doing our best work, which is in B to B manufacturing. And so we kind of made that, decided to own that, to go all in on that. And so, you know, our clients are OEMs, contract manufacturers, custom manufacturers, you know, industry 4.0 technology companies running, you know, software, hardware and production lines and and we help them, you know, kind of build revenue focused marketing programs through positioning content, you know, a lot of distribution of content and making sure the right people are consuming it, etcetera. So that’s kind of our world. But yeah, we’re 2027, person agency based in Saint Louis, where people are kind of all over at this point. So that’s so

Curt Anderson  04:15

alright. And you also have a wonderful podcast. Just share with share your podcast with the folks. Yeah.

Joe Sullivan  04:20

So the I’ve been running the manufacturing executive for about four and a half years. I’m proud to say I have not missed a single week. So it’s running, I think, about 240 straight weeks now, or something like that. Every Tuesday morning comes out, they’re not live shows. So if they were live shows like yours, well, one, I wouldn’t be, they wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have the following because I can’t do it the way you do it. I can’t think on the spot like I’m a planner, and I need to edit stuff and everything. But so I have a lot of admiration for people like you who can run a live show, but, yeah, the show’s been focused really on putting the spotlight on people who. Leaders in manufacturing, or people who are can, you know, offer some perspective to help leaders in manufacturing from a variety perspective. It’s not a marketing show. It’s a show about really, the things from supply chain to labor to, you know, sustainability to technology and robotics and automation, and all the things that manufacturing leaders deal with I find experts to talk about those things as a resource to manufacturing leaders.

Curt Anderson  05:24

Well, I love it, and I’m going to show my age. I don’t know if anybody remembers this guy. You’re like, you’re, you’re the Cal Ripken of podcasting, right? They’re just going on and on and on. I don’t know if any, Jeff, are you even holding up a million you guys remember when

Joe Sullivan  05:37

he bought Yeah, I grew up. I grew up watching Cal Ripken. Alright, alright. I gotta give that one to like Nick golner with making chips and like those guys and Chris Luke, he’s got me beat too, for sure, but I’ve been at it for, you know, four and a half years isn’t so bad. So,

Curt Anderson  05:53

you know, keep it going. I love it, you know what. And hey, Jeff, while you’re on the stage here with us, you just launched a new podcast. Share with the folks your podcast

Jeff Long  06:01

while, yeah, yeah, thanks so much. So it’s called the industrial marketing leaders podcast. And like I said to you guys before we hit, live here, you know, I’m just trying to catch up to you guys as the experts and and just like Joe said to you, Curt, you know, the you do live so well. And I think maybe for people like Joe and I like we just kind of need more structure or whatever. So I’ve thought about experimenting with, like, a live podcast that’s recorded that I put out later and all that. But for now, it’s a pre recorded thing, and loving it. You know, talking with other marketing leaders in the industry, and we talk about a lot of video content, Sammy Burch talked about how they use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in their marketing. I mean, I’m just like, I’ve been doing marketing for like, 20, almost 22 years, and that was the first time I came up in that way, right? Like, so it’s just so cool how you learn new things and meet great people well, and leave it

Curt Anderson  06:59

as Sammy Burch, man, God, I love her. And so here, you know, having two, you know, it’s really difficult be on stage with you, too, guys, you know? Yeah, you’re rocking like these, you know, good for you guys. These great heads of hair. And look at what Bob says, you know. Plus, if you want to go live, you go either gray or both. So Bob, that is absolutely hysterical. I love it, so don’t go. And only reason I go live is I’m just too lazy to edit. That’s the only reason. So don’t give me any credit. I’m just way too lazy to edit. So, alright, Joe, let’s go here. You know what I’d be, I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on this. You said 18 years I’m no math major. That was, like, right around, I think there was something going on in the country, like, was there like, a maybe, like, this little recession thing going on, like, right before you started. And what I love is you’ve shared with us multiple times on your pivot where, like, maybe, kind of like, you know, you’re young, you’re getting things out, you know, if I recall, fresh out of college, just anybody that’s willing to cut a check is going to be a customer. But just, I have to, I’d love for you to share with folks how you made that pivot and you went all in, like, when did you have that aha moment of like, there’s really B to B. So talk to us about, like, getting through the recession. Get how you got through as a young guy, through the Great Recession, and how you made the pivot in the B to B in industrial marketing.

Joe Sullivan  08:09

Sure, yeah. So, you know, I graduated college in oh five and found a job at a marketing agency in St Louis, where I worked for about two years. But it was like, literally a week into that job. It started in June of 2006 and and, well, the 76 and gorilla. 76 comes from seventh month of oh six. So literally, one month into my first job, we John and I founded gorilla as what was really nights and weekends, you know, kind of freelance gig. And again, just, you know, like, branding for I grew up as an art kid, and so, like I was, I do logos, and we started designing websites, and, you know, seeing the emerging need for that. John was a writer, so we complimentary skill sets. So we, we some of our first clients before we were able to about two years and we were able to quit our jobs. It took about two years before we were, like, making enough money to sustain ourselves for the, you know, like, $300 a month of rent I was paying splitting in a cheap apartment with three guys at the age of 24 or whatever. It was like lit, it was, it was bootstrapping. It my my computer from college. That was, like, my only asset I needed to, you know, run in an information business, but, but anyway, we, you know, wait, we started full time. It didn’t take long before, you know, like, a lot of our first clients were in construction, actually, and we so we kind of got our foray into working with industrial sector companies, guys who made stuff with their hands, was like, Really, where we had this kind of gritty design style. And John grew up in Granite City, Illinois, like steel mill town, and we So, I know we just kind of found our niche there and and it didn’t take long before we were. Like the, you know, we had clients who were the barber shop down the street, and we had clients who were like professional services and, but we really loved working with, you know, the companies that we at the time called Blue Collar brands. And it was, but it was really what that meant, was like manufacturing and construction and, and we wound up making the decision to go all in on manufacturing because of just, you know, you’ve got this whole supply chain from OEM down through their tier, ones and twos and threes to, you know, the these niches you never would know exist as a regular, just person on the street, for people making stuff all around you. Whereas in construction, we were running into lots of conflicts of interest, like, I’ve turned down 100 GCS like general contractors over the years, because theoretically, they could bid on the same job as our one GC who’s been, who’s been our client for 15 years, and and in manufacturing, there’s just so much, there’s so much opportunity and they need, there’s much need for it. So, so that we made this conscious pivot. It was probably around, I know 2012 something like that would be my guess, where we said, like we’re going to be an industrial marketing agency and we’re going to cut off 95% of the people we could work with, but own this, and it was best, best choice we ever made. So

Curt Anderson  11:14

well, I love it. Rich is earning niches, as they say. Jeff, your thoughts, I know, like you made a pivot. Went all in on B to B. What are your thoughts as what Joe saying here?

Jeff Long  11:23

Yeah, I mean, we share a similar story, you know? And I found probably like you Joe and Curt, like people in manufacturing, in the industrial space, like they’re good people, you know, they’re not pretentious, they’re hard working, they’re making cool stuff. And every time I, every time I go into a shop or talk to a manufacturing leader, whoever it’s like, I just get pumped because they’re, they’re just doing cool stuff, you know. And so Joe Was it, was it hard to make that transition, kind of all in, you know, you mentioned kind of putting maybe 80% or whatever of your clients in the back burner, or whatever, to go all into manufacturing. Was that hard at

Joe Sullivan  12:02

first, you know, it was. I remember being like nervous, you know, not like terrified, but like a little nervous. You know, we knew we could always revert back if we needed to. And at that time, you know, probably half of our clients were would have been classified as industrial B to B, and it’s not like we, you know, I still have some clients. From that time. I’ve got like, two remaining who would not fit B to B manufacturing that we were working with then they’re still, we’re still working with, I’m not going to broadcast as a company that they literally do, like dairy trade, commodity trading in the dairy space. It’s like completely different, and they’re an amazing client, awesome company, but I’m not going to go put that in our positioning, that we will also work with the dairy industry, because it’s now all of a sudden your positioning becomes kind of a mess and but, you know, they know we work with mostly manufacturers, but we do great work for them. They know great relationships. So we maintained other clients, but to the outside world, you know, I think so much of it is about, you know, just what you say about who you want to work with and where, and and then it starts to snowball, because that becomes, that messaging becomes attractive to people like that, and then you work with more of them, and you get experience, and you start to do all this pattern matching, where you see that, you know, OEMs that are selling capex equipment that cost over $500,000 and have nine month sales cycles with engineers selling to engineers and plant managers and CFOs and procurement and like, they experience a lot of the Same stuff. So you get really good at being able to say, I’ve seen this before and this before and this before, and I know how to apply that. If I could just learn about your business, you know, I know, like, what things are. So you kind of give your clients the gift of of not going first, I guess, as I describe it, when you can get down into that niche. But it was, you know, to answer your question, Jeff is more simply, it was, it was a, maybe a nervous time. But, you know, we can’t, we approached it cautiously. I think, yeah, yeah. Well, I

Curt Anderson  14:13

love that. And for Seamus plug, we do, hey, we have our monthly jam sessions. And next Thursday, we’re doing a jam session my dear friend, Allison, afford and Wesleyan, and it’s all about, like, really diving into that buyer persona. And you know, Wesleyan preaches that all the time. Joan, I love what you’re saying. When you try to be everything to everybody, what do you become? Nothing, nothing to nobody. So we’re going to be doing we’ve got a fun jam session. We’ve got the MEPs are sponsoring us next Thursday. So just a little plug there. Let’s go. I’m going to fast forward. Let’s go into the industrial marketing Summit. So now the three of us had the honor and privilege. We had a wonderful, delightful, little Mexican dinner together in Cleveland at the industrial marketing Summit. Joe, was that the first summit that you’d been to, it

Joe Sullivan  14:55

was the first one I had been to. So the history of the summit was. Is, it was Adam back from cadenas parts solutions, who, I think it was kind of his brain child. And this was, like right before COVID, and he, because he had asked me it was, it was a part of Content Marketing World. So for anybody who knows that event, that Joe Pulizzi, who’s, like a famous, you know, Mark, who’s written five books, and is the guy who dubbed the term content marketing, or at least, claims to be, I don’t know if that’s actually true, but I think it is. But anyway, you know, so he runs this big in Cleveland every year, and Adam’s idea, Adam back, was, we should run a track inside a content marketing world that is just for manufacturers or, you know, industrial marketers and and then COVID came along, and he had asked me to be the moderator for it. I think they may have done one prior to me being aware of it, but it didn’t happen for a year or two. Then it came back around, like, two and a half years ago or something. And that’s the one that we were at, and I got to be essentially, you know, the embassy for the event, which was really just four sessions. It was like four half hour sessions, so it was somewhat limited and and it was, it was, it was great. They did a really good job putting it on. But I remember walking home from the event that night. Is me and Adam, and then Wendy COVID from true marketing, the three of us were, like, walking home together or back to the hotel and talking about, like, this was cool, but like, the breakfast sucked, and there wasn’t enough food. And, like, the and, you know, there were only four sessions. And like, we could, and Wendy had a bunch of event experience. We’re like, we could do this thing on our own, right? And we’re like, Yeah, I think so. And, and that’s sort of when it was born. And then, you know, a week later, run a conference call planning the first independent, standalone version of this, which is what happened last year in in Austin. So, yeah,

Curt Anderson  16:54

isn’t that why? And I, you know what? And you’re I forgot about that Wendy’s previous life. So I’m talking about Wendy COVID, the founder of true marketing that’s confused true focus media, but from true marketing. And she, her previous life was booking events. Jeff, so you and I, we came together. We attended Cleveland. What were your thoughts attending the industrial marketing Summit? It

Jeff Long  17:15

was, it was amazing, right? It’s like, it wasn’t just the content. And yes, the content was great. The sessions, you know, Joe, you mentioned, there were only four Totally agree. I’m like, I could, you know, we need to blow this thing up and make it better and bigger and all that. But it’s also the people, you know, the people that were there, you know, like, obviously, we got to grab a meal and got to meet other you know, practitioners, aficionados, you know, people in marketing departments within you know manufacturers as well as service providers like the three of us, and just just meet good people, and a lot of times people that we’ve seen online and interacted with and maybe even on podcasts, but to actually like see people, there’s magic that happens When people you know meet in person, and there was truly magic, for sure, there. Yeah, yeah. So

Curt Anderson  18:06

Joe, let’s go here. So you’re busy, guy, father of three, you know, family man, you’ve got this business. You know, 20 staff. You know, you’re saving manufacturers all over the place. You know, what was it like to sit back and say, you know, did you have like, Were you just all in immediately? Like, yes, I’m doing it. Did you, like, sit down with the your with John? Did you sit down with your wife? Like, was there a moment of pause? Like, you know, what am I doing? Or, like, how did you how did you go in, all in on the conference? Yeah, it was

Joe Sullivan  18:33

one of those things where, like, we’re walking home that night and we’re, you know, there’s this adrenaline rush from like, oh, this was a really cool thing, and, but we could do better. And, and then I remember a couple weeks of like, Oh, do we really want to, like, like, with, yeah, so much work. And it was like, to play. It was a lot of work. And like, what if we sell 20 tickets? And, you know, we like, it was risk there too, because you lock up. And we did this last year at the at&t Center on the UT campus in Austin, which is where we’re back again this year. But it was, you know, there was some big investments there that were, you know, we had to sell some tickets to, like, just break even. And we did, and there was a little bit of profit on top of it last year. But it was, you know, yes, there was a, it was probably a month there of, of just, you know, am I do I really want to do this? I think Wendy’s event experience, Adam’s event experience gave a lot of confidence, because we gorilla, we do a lot of digital events, we have had very little, if any, experience. It had been like a decade since I’d put on a live event with more than, you know, 30 people or something like that and so. But once we decided we were in, which was pretty quickly like we’d start planning it like fast. So it was, you know, weekly meetings and put. And cruise together on from all of our teams, because there’s just so much to facilitate

20:04

well, so go ahead,

Jeff Long  20:05

Jeff, please. Yeah, I was going to say So thinking back from last year I wasn’t able to attend, had a conflict, a scheduling conflict. Was super bummed. So you know, how would you summarize what all I missed? What what the viewers missed that weren’t able to attend last year. I’m sure there’s a lot of FOMO, you know, but yeah, what was your kind of impression from last year? Yeah,

Joe Sullivan  20:27

I mean, honestly, I was prepared for anything. You know. It was one of those deals where, like, this could bomb, this could be we’re gonna run into problems. We don’t know what they are yet. And then we didn’t like the biggest thing that happened was, like, we forgot one of the banners that had to, like, hang in the lobby. That was nobody would have noticed anyway. And I think it was actually in somebody’s car, and then we put it up an hour later. But it was literally, I mean, it was everybody we worked with was on all three teams. Like we did have kind of an all star crew between the agencies and the people at the AT and T Center were, like, super accommodating. The, you know, their either IT team was like, just took care of everything. But what the event was, you know, the it was, it was basically like, played out over three days, where the first night there was a welcome party that we did off site. I’m forgetting the names of the venues, but you know, we did. We found Wendy being from Austin. And then Moby, one of my teammates, who also lives in Austin, they, they, and then I know Adam flew in from Ohio to do they like, figured out where, toured some places, but so there was a, there was a sort of a party, a welcome party that first night. The main day was just speaker sessions. And we had two tracks going side by side for about half the day. So I think there were about 10 sessions, or something like that, where we were running them basically on the hour. Food was great at 18 T Center, like, you know, sometimes you go to these places and there’s not enough to eat, which was the case in Cleveland, I feel like, the year before where. But so we, we, like, made sure there was gonna be lots of food and good food, and so that, so that was cool. And then that night, there was a, you know, post summit Soiree. I think we called it off site also. So we had kind of, like two nights out, you know, those were social events. So I stayed out way later than I should have, as did many people. And then the the following morning, on the final day was two separate workshops that were, like optional add ons, which we’re doing again this year, this year, they’re on the front end of it, as opposed to the tail end of it. So that was, that was kind of the setup. A lot of, I’d say, probably half to three quarters stuck around for the workshops as well, on on that day, which my agency put on one, and Wendy’s agency put on one. But it was, it was such a cool experience, because, like, you know, at gorilla, we put on this event called industrial marketing live that we’ve been doing for like, three years, and, you know, twice a month, and there’s usually 50 or 100 people who show up that are all industrial marketers. And we knew all these people because we see them every week or every other week, but we’ve never been in a room. So it was that, and it was like people like, you know, well, Curt and Jeff, I’d met you two years before, but there’s a lot of that too, where it’s like, you have these people that have become, you know, acquaintances as friend friends, in a lot of cases, digitally, that you know, being in the same place was such a great experience. So, but that, yeah, that’s kind of what it was last year. And the feedback was great. It was a no brainer to do it again. We’ve like open with same venue, but much bigger space inside the venue that we’ve rented this year for to accommodate as many as 400 whereas last year 200 attended. So yeah,

Curt Anderson  23:52

yeah, that’s fantastic. And course, Bob feathers says, you know, and if Chris Luke is there, you know, good beer, right there for sure, right? I had a great time with Chris Lukey Greg, Miss you his son. And just, yeah, it was just, you know people that I’ve known for years, even people I’ve known Chris Luke I’ve known him before. COVID, yeah. Finally, meeting people in person. Bob has another a great question again. Thank you guys. Thank you for your comments. Drop a note. Connect with Joe Sullivan on LinkedIn. Connect my buddy, Jeff Long on LinkedIn, you’ll be thankful that you did. Do you have an effective way to know if the event was successful? Roi, beyond the event itself, phenomenal question. Bob, what are your thoughts? Joe, that is

Joe Sullivan  24:32

a great question. Bob, and you know, we so I look at an event like this the same way I look at probably 90% of the marketing that I believe in, which is long we are playing the long game here, at least, how we do it for ourselves, how we do it for the clients that are willing to do it this way, right is, as opposed to, let’s run direct response. Months ads and see if $1 in pulls $2 out, you know, like to, you know, within a few months or something. I’ve always been a huge fan of, you know, becoming the best resource for your audience. Like that is that has always been our objective at gorillas, like, can we be the best resource for industrial marketers and make everything revolve around that? So from, you know, our agency running three podcasts to industrial marketing live to we run a community of industrial marketers called industrial marketing collective that’s got like 300 people in there was where we just facilitate conversations. And you know, people publish content and ask questions like this. Is another piece of that, from my perspective, is, how do you, you know, just make yourself who people think of when they think of industrial marketing, and how to learn and do it differently. So, you know, how do you measure ROI? Or, how do you, how do you measure success? Like, yeah, there’s an ROI component, if, like, Wendy and I had a conversation about that a month ago. Like, what’s our long term vision for this? Like, this, this will hopefully become a meaningful part of gorilla and true marketing’s business models into the future. Right now, we’re just trying to break even and, like, get people there. And, you know, we’ve got 250 tickets sold already for this year, which is 50 up from where we finished last year. And we got six, you know, six weeks ago, which, so that’s great, but, but I think really, it’s about creating a space to bring together industrial marketers be the facilitators of that, like, you know, it’s kind of a all ships rise situation here. I think if you can, you know, bring amazing people together and have a lineup of speakers, we’re going to create tons of value for, you know, people who are all fighting the same challenges in their organizations. So, you know, and then naturally, you know, I’ve people call us up after the event. Hey, I was at your event and and I listened to podcast, and I watched, I follow, you know, whoever on LinkedIn, Aaron burrish or Brendan Forrester, whoever from my team. And, you know, we’re looking for an agency. So I think it all plays together to just kind of put, put you in a position of leadership in the space.

Curt Anderson  27:23

Yeah, I love that. And as we’re, we’re coming to the top of the hour real quick before, if people have a hard stop, I just want to, I want to grab the industrial marketing Summit website real quick. Can you guys see my screen? Yes. And, Alright, perfect. And so, you know, take a look when you get a chance. You know, go to industrial marketing Summit. It has its own LinkedIn page. Go to the website. It’s February 26 through the 28th it’s in Austin, Texas. Wendy guarantees it’s going to be beautiful weather. As Joe said, the food is phenomenal. It’s just an amazing boy. If you’re if you’re a music fan, it’s a great place to be, Joe. Let’s just talk a little bit about what folks can expect at the summit, for those that are going to attend, yeah,

Joe Sullivan  28:05

sure. So we’re doing things a little bit differently this year, in the sense that we’ll have, you know, the the workshops, which are sort of an optional add on that you can buy, are happening at the on the front end as opposed to the back end. Had that suggestion given to us from a few people who you know attended other other events. So Wednesday, as you can see there, Curt got up on screen eight to 12. There will be two workshops that are each two hours long. Gorillas putting on one. We’re going to teach our road mapping process, which is like how to build a marketing strategy and the process we take our clients through, we’re just going to really just teach it and provide a bunch of assets for how to do that. And then Wendy’s team is putting on one as well. And I feel bad that the topic is slipping my mind, because there’s so much we’ve been talking about, but so her team at True is putting on a workshop. Then we will have a keynote on that day, after the launch from Paul reitzer, who is a name that if you’re in marketing, you probably know, maybe not if you’re in manufacturing, but he he owned an agency for many years. They were the first ever HubSpot partner agency. He kind of came up with that idea and and he was also the founder of the the marketing AI Institute, which is, like, in my opinion, the leading that it’s like, who I want to follow, like, he’s his weekly podcast is teaching everything that’s going on in AI, and it’s expanded even outside of marketing a bit, but he’s a big name guy that, like, we are really excited to have here. I can’t wait to shake his hand and listen to him speak. So that’s one difference, is we’ve got, like, a really serious sort of keynote speaker that, you know, we’ll kick things off that night. We’ve got our. Marketing mingle, where we’re going to that one will take place at in, at the actual hotel the next day is sessions. All day we’ve got like two, two tracks running, so you’ll have kind of an option, do I want to go to this session or this session? Those will all be published very soon, like what the actual schedule is, the speakers, the sessions are all down below, but what the actual schedule is will be published pretty soon, and then on the following day, we are running another day of sessions. And that’s really the difference between last year and this year, is we were doing two full days of speakers. In addition to the the workshops kind of go deeper. So yeah, and then the price is about the same. So we, you know, more for more for the, you know, for what you’re paying this this year around. But we got, you know, Curt, scrolling through here, we got some, a lot of names you’ll you’ll recognize, probably, as people in manufacturing. We got a few coming back. Chris Luke. He’s going to be running live shows with his with manufacturing happy hour on the spot got like a room reserved for him. He’s gonna be doing some live interviews. So, yeah, really, really good lineup, all all geared around, you know, helping marketers in manufacturing, like everything is catered to that audience. A majority of the speakers come from manufacturing, or at least, understand that audience really well. So this is not a generic conference. This is made for industrial marketers,

Curt Anderson  31:37

couple folks, I want to point out is, I mean, in my everybody is phenomenal. You know, our dear friend, Jake is a, you know, friend on the show. Dale is absolutely incredible. I think, yes, everybody’s worth it. I think Dale, just in itself, in himself, is worth the price of travel and to attend the show. I believe he’s doing two different sessions, but, yeah, he’s an absolute powerhouse. I think he’s going to be coming on the show between, between now and then, if you anything AI related, the guy’s an Ivy League graduate, I think master’s degree from Bernie. Was he Brown? I think he’s a brown guy, if I’m not mistaken. And just, you know, mass bachelor degree, master’s degree, he was doing AI, like, before AI was even a thing, you know, like, it’s just, it’s phenomenal just to hear what he talks about. And then coming down here, Carla was on the show last year, Joe, she was actually, she came on with Damon myself. She was showing us, like, live examples of how she’s using AI. She’s taken, like, a Google spreadsheet and, like, converting it to HTML. And she’s doing it on the show. She’s taking like she showed us how she created like this, like this, robust Buyer’s Guide, and how she’s with high level engineers, but she’s using it through AI. So just, I’m telling you guys, like this is just mind blowing. Dear friend, Paul. Kisha, we could go on and on, Jeff, any your thoughts looking at

Jeff Long  32:59

the line? Um, I know, just hearing the feedback from last year, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there again, but it seemed like, you know, AI was a big focus and things last year. I know there’s some sessions on that this year. What are some of the other, maybe themes or or emphasis emphases that, that as a whole of this, this summit is kind of focusing on this year. Yeah, it’s,

Joe Sullivan  33:22

you know, it’s really, it spans a wide range of things. AI will be a hot topic, obvious for obvious reasons. So, you know, you hit that one. You know, some things we’re getting into this year that we didn’t necessarily last year are some things like employer branding and, you know, making yourself an appealing place to work for. You know, there’s gonna be a panel that Jennifer Dawkins from truesleading on, you know, branding for recruiting the next generation, which we’ve got an all star crew lined up there of people who like, know how to reach and influence this next generation. And so how do you bring that into the way you project your business to the outside world, which is marketing. It’s just not customer acquisition, it’s it’s, you know, people you know Curt, this Curt Anderson, guy you may have heard of, is leading a great panel called taking the friction out of the buying process. And what I like this is we got, you know, four people on here who think of that from different perspectives. And so we’re going to, you know, hit that topic. I don’t know if I can say that there are, you know, a whole lot of themes, because we’re hitting on so many different things we’re going to do, we’re going to get into, into, into, you know, the essentials of like web design for manufacturers, which is something we didn’t cover last year, a cookie list future and how that affects advertising. I’m excited about that one with Devin Webb, which I don’t know, and excited to meet him. So it’s really Jesus is just it’s an advantage. Of having that extra day here is we could sort of expand the agenda to touch on, I mean, there’s stuff in here for anybody who’s a marketer, so yeah, that’s good.

Jeff Long  35:09

And, like I mentioned before, you know, like, there’s one thing with a summit like this, like, the information looks phenomenal, but then the people, you know, the connections, the all of that. Like is, is a powerful one to punch that. You know, somebody’s on the fence of coming. It’s like, of course, come for the content, but don’t forget, like, the people, the connections, the their masterminding and all that is invaluable as well. Yeah, 100%

Joe Sullivan  35:35

that, I mean, that was the most fun part of this was just like, you’d lead this day of learning and be like, oh, man, that was like, I’ve absorbed so much here, and I’ve got notes. And, you know, attendees will get the videos later to be able to go revisit them and see the sessions that you didn’t get to see because you sat in the other ones, but at night to unwind and, like, spend time with people you know, and meet people you didn’t. That there’s something special about like when you’re a soul, especially like when you’re a solo marketer working inside of manufacturing, and you feel a little bit isolated. And now here are all these other people who are feeling that same thing. I think that connection was something that that, like I saw, you know, just bonding people, because it’s, it’s tough, it’s like it is a marketing is a tough job. And being an industrial marketer in a sales driven world where companies are operating like it’s, you know, 1995 and just doing trade shows and cold outbound and, you know, hoping people find them through Google searches. To have to, like, you know, if you’re a strategic marketer trying to change the way marketing works in this space and inside your company, and to have all these other people who are fighting that same fight, it’s a, it’s a natural bonding experience. And, yeah, so, just a lot of fun. So well.

Curt Anderson  36:59

And Joe, if I’m not mistaken, I remember, I distinctly, I will and correct me if I’m wrong. I remember the line that you kept hearing over and over and over was, I found my people, yeah. Did you remember that line? And so it was

Joe Sullivan  37:11

kind of the tagline from the the unofficial tagline that emerged, like throughout the event I heard, I heard multiple people say it in, in those words are similar, you know, yeah,

Curt Anderson  37:22

yeah. And we just, and we just, we kept hearing that over and over. And I know, I remember when you shared that so, so again, you know, strongly encourage everybody out there, check out the industrial marketing Summit. Man, just, you know, put it on your wish list. Go buy your plane ticket. Don’t even think about it. Throw it on your credit card. You pay for it next month. So Skyler says, Hey, startup company, discounts would be great. Hint, hint, wink, wink. How about that? So Skyler, dude, I’m, he’s, he’s been a friend of the show. He has a powerhouse kind of a 3d rendering e commerce solution might be a great guest for you guys to consider saying. But Skyler, definitely pop into Austin. Dude, that those are your people at the at the at the industrial marketing Summit, Joe, let’s go here. So for the the solo marketer that that you’re just hitting on the head, like, Man, I’m in a silo, kind of just doing my grind and like, you know, as a solo marketer, like you’re trying to convince you’re you’re trying to justify your paycheck, right? Like, get that return on investment, stay on top of all the latest and greatest, what’s going on on social, what’s going on LinkedIn? What’s going on with AI’s changing daily for them to convince the powers of B executives, someone’s going to pay for that solo market or go to the show. Any on the spot? But any thoughts suggestions for that sole marketer that can convince the boss, like, hey, yeah, they should go to that conference. Any thoughts there?

Joe Sullivan  38:39

Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. I mean, I guess I just watch, you know, so many manufacturing organizations, not, you know, blink, and I at shipping all their equipment across the country and sending 10 people to a trade show, and when you come back with stack of business cards, is what I hear half the time, and maybe a few follow up calls and, and I’m not to bash trade shows. But like a lot of you know, I see so much investment in that and like, how about investing in your internal marketer to help them become a strategic part of of business development here, and to go learn from, you know, the ones who are leaders in this space, like a lot of the guests, you know, you’ve mentioned, the the Dale Bertrand and the, you know, the Jake halls and the all the people on this list who are like figuring out how to do this stuff. You know, it’s not, it’s not a cheap event, but it’s not the most expensive event either. Austin’s fairly accessible for most people. And, you know, couple days out of your life. So I don’t know, I think, for companies that are serious about marketing, like there’s nothing like this for the industrial sector, unless I just am unaware of it, there’s nothing like this going on right now. And so, you know, there’s plenty of marketing stuff you can attend, but there’s a lot of nuance, I think, to B to B marketing and and all the content is catered, you know, to people in that role in manufacturing. There’s also, for what it’s worth, there’s a you’d buy the digital pass, and that’s, you know, half the price and no travel. So it’s an option too, for those who may maybe working on a tighter budget or can’t, you know, make the trip for one reason or another. But I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve got a great pitch Other than that,

Curt Anderson  40:35

that was good, Jeff, what are your What are your thoughts?

Jeff Long  40:38

Yeah. I mean, I think for those you know, one person marketing teams, like Joe said, it’s challenging, right? And so just having you know, our people, you know, in one place, you know, because I talked with a lot of you know, marketing managers, and they’re, they’re paying attention to other, you know, marketing experts outside of manufacturing, right? And that’s fun. You know, some of that is transferable in manufacturing, but I just find that manufacturing obviously has such a unique set of challenges and opportunities and use cases and needs that, you know, why not come to an event that is specifically geared for the industrial and manufacturing space? So to me, it’s a no brainer, you know, and we all know the challenges that marketers have in their solar departments, so, you know, I’m confident they’ll learn some some important things and make some good connections and make it worthwhile. Yeah, I love it.

Curt Anderson  41:37

So I Joe will say, I know everybody’s busy, man, you’ve got a conference to put on. So give, give us a little nugget. You said, like, you know, you don’t have to go super deep on what you and Wendy were talking about. So we, when we bring you back five years from now on the show, right? Five of us, man, I’ll be like, I’ll be in my 60s when you guys come back on the show, and you guys are still be rocking these great heads of hair that you have so but when we come back five years now, what does the conference look like? What’s give us a vision?

Joe Sullivan  42:04

Yeah, that’s a great question. That’s that is kind of what Wendy and I talked about. And, you know, I think the you can try to keep it a little niche thing, which there’s, there’s a lot of value in that, and it’s a little more intimate and smaller venue. And the other thing is, you try to blow it up into the some massive conference. And I think, like some of this, we just want to let happen organically. You know, I think I’d love to see the crowd keep growing a little bit every year. You know, do we do 200 last year? We’ve, I think I mentioned earlier, we’ve got 251 I think tickets sold for this year so far, and with about six weeks to go. So we’re probably expecting to get into the three hundreds, but, you know, we can do 400 next year, and five or six the following like, there’s a lot of industrial marketers out there, and would love to see it turn into something that, you know, keeps growing. I don’t, I don’t envision this being a, you know, 5000 10,000 person conference, but I think it’ll remain niched and, and, I mean, it will remain niched, but I think it’ll, it’ll keep it gonna keep that somewhat intimate feel. But you know what, the more people that are in this space trying to solve these problems that can be there? I think that’s a positive for everybody. So I don’t know that’s, that’s how I’d answer that, I guess. Well,

Curt Anderson  43:22

good, good summary. Well, and we’re going to pull you back five years from now, you’re going to crush it, dude, like, you’re going to be in 1000 it’s going to be like, you know, like the, you know, one of the biggest shows of all time, right?

Joe Sullivan  43:31

We’ll see, we’ll see

Curt Anderson  43:34

Quick, quick question. Just hit me. Your your current clients, you feel like this, like, you know, Jeff Roy’s branding, like, you know, thought leadership, out teach the competition. You know, podcasting, what you guys have, we’ve done webinars together. You know, what has this done for you? For, like, the street cred perspective, with your current clients, do you feel like this elevates you, or when you’re, when you’re bringing on a new prospect since you’ve started doing this? Is it? How has this helped elevate kind of, like your, I don’t know if you’re comfortable that term, but like that, thought leadership in the industry, current clients and prospects,

Joe Sullivan  44:10

and you’re asking about the event, yeah, it’s, I think it’s been, it’s been a talking point for me to say, when I am talking to say a new prospect, and talking about how we have embedded ourselves in the manufacturing sector. And, you know, I’ve my podcast has been running for 240 straight weeks, and my business partner, John’s running one for, for, you know, culture and recruiting the manufacturing employers. His show, like culture, recruiting, hiring. And my team puts on a teaching podcast that comes out of a live show. And we put on this thing in Austin where we bring, brought 200 people together last year. It’s kind of a talking point to, you know, proofs in the pudding here, like we are doing this. And. We want to help you become that in your world, right? And that would be the goal. So I think it’s, it’s just been a good way to, you know, not just talk about industrial marketing, but to, like, demonstrate the commitment to it, and the fact that we’re we’re doing things to help elevate the space. So awesome.

Curt Anderson  45:23

Great answer. Jeff, closing thoughts, comments, questions,

Jeff Long  45:27

no, for some reason it just made me think, Joe, of like, you know, obviously you’re practicing what you preach. And I’m excited for the the times where our clients do similar things, and I know somewhere in a little bit, but like they’re building their communities or of of experts and things within their their niche, and, you know, kind of building that trust circle and and putting out podcasts and books and summits and different things. I just, I’m excited for what you’re doing. I think, you know, looking five years and beyond, I think it’s just gonna elevate you, but also improve the whole manufacturing sector in ways that we probably don’t even foresee at this moment, you know, which is exciting. Yeah, cool. Well, I appreciate you saying that. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  46:11

awesome. All right, so, hey, we’ll wind down. Everybody’s here is busy. So first off, Hey, Jeff, long Thank you, dude. I appreciate you. I’m giving you a round of applause for our esteemed guest today. How about a big, you know, if you’ve been sitting with us, and what are we at? 46 minutes, how about stand up? Give a big stand in ovation to Joe Sullivan gorilla 76 for just crushing it and just man Joe, I cannot express you my respect, my admiration, commending you for you. Wendy Adam, the whole, your whole team at gorilla 76 the team at Cadiz, the team at true for putting on this event for us to really have a good time. So man, thank you for throwing the party. We appreciate it. So

Joe Sullivan  46:47

oh yeah, thanks for all the kind words. You’re always too kind. Curt, but I appreciate you saying all that. And yeah, we’re really excited, excited to see both of you guys there too, and Curt, to have you leading a panel too this year, which is going to be really awesome. So I

Curt Anderson  47:02

can’t wait. So alright, guys, we’re going to close out. So everybody give a little shout out to Damon for he he lost a loved one this past 24 hours. So Damon, sending you our love. Brother. Appreciate you. And so Jeff again, thank you. Joe Sullivan, thank you, brother. Connect with these guys on LinkedIn and just do me a favor. Just Just, just go to the industrial marketing Summit website. Get out the credit card. Just don’t even bet an eye. Just do it. Let’s just do it. And we want to see you in Austin, Jeff. We’ll even we’ll buy them. What are we going to buy? We’ll buy them, like ribs, or, I don’t know, something,

47:35

Barbecue, barbecue. That might be really

Curt Anderson  47:37

expensive, but I don’t know. We’ll figure

Jeff Long  47:40

out something. Don’t worry about it. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  47:43

we’ll take care of it. So anyway, we’ll see you guys in Austin. Joe, Jeff, hang out with me for one second, and guys do just go out there be someone’s inspiration, just like these guys right here. Hey, last question, who’s winning the national championship Monday night? Joe Sullivan, who’s winning the national championship Monday

47:59

night? Well,

Joe Sullivan  48:00

my wife is a Notre Dame alum, so we, there’s nobody else we could be cheering for

Curt Anderson  48:08

Jeff Long who’s winning Monday night. So there’s

Jeff Long  48:10

a reason I call my podcast the industrial marketing leaders, because the Ohio State Buckeyes are gonna win.

48:18

Well, hey, you heard right now. It should be a good game, great game. So

Curt Anderson  48:23

alright, guys, God bless you. Thank you. We’ll see you guys on wait. We have a great guest on Monday. You know what? I don’t know if I should say that. She lost her house, she lives in southern she lives in Malibu, she lost her house, and she’s going to be on the show on Monday. So that’s my show on Monday. I don’t know if I was supposed to say that, but anyway, I did. So alright, we’ll see you guys Monday. Joe, Jeff, hang out with me one second.

48:42

Thanks. Curt, you.