The Synergy of Company Culture and Leadership

Curt Anderson 00:00
Oh, hey, we’re closing together. Hey, happy Monday. My goodness gracious. What an extraordinary opportunity here. We’ve got the No, the one and only Jim Mayer in the house. Jim, how are you? Man, I’m

Jim Mayer 00:11
fantastic. Curt, this is so much fun. I I’ve I’m a huge fan of just the energy that you bring to your conversation. So I’m really looking forward to this day, man. Well, right

Curt Anderson 00:23
back at you, brother. And so the cool thing, you know, I’ve got a ton of questions. We got a lot to talk about. So first off, please connect with Jim on LinkedIn. Anybody any remotely in that manufacturing space? You absolutely is a manufacturing connector. So we have to stop his by his LinkedIn profile. Connect with Jim. First and foremost, we’re going to be talking about this incredible leading the change tour that you’re putting together. Man, this is a powerhouse, incredible event for 2025 but Jim, before we go there, first and foremost, are you sitting down? Man, you ready for this one? I’m ready, buddy. Let’s go. Let’s go. All right. First question for you, Jim, when you were a little guy growing up? Yeah, when you’re a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who would you look up to? Who would you admire? Who was your hero when you’re a little guy growing up? Alex

Jim Mayer 01:10
P Keaton, from family ties, man, like I Alex,

Curt Anderson 01:17
I asked I’ve asked that question hundreds of times. I’ve never asked so anybody under the age of what, I don’t 40. Who’s

Jim Mayer 01:25
Alex P Keaton was Michael J Fox’s character on family ties. He was the oldest child in this somewhat hippie ish type family in just middle America, and he idolized Ronald Reagan, and he would wear a suit to school. And I’ll never forget, I we were living in the mountains of Colorado, and I was when I was little. We I grew up in Steamboat Springs before moving down to Denver to the front range, and I asked my mom if I could wear a suit to school. And she’s like, Yeah, snow suit, not like a three piece suit like that. That just didn’t exist in our world, right? But I wanted to carry a briefcase to school. I wanted, I wanted to be Michael or Alex Peke, that that was the guy, the person that I looked up to growing up, which is super ironic and hilarious now looking back, yeah, because he’s just such an awesome dude, and that, that fan, the love for, you know, those Michael J Fox movies, Back to the Future, all that kind of fun stuff,

Curt Anderson 02:39
yeah, and talk about hero what? And he’s a wonderful hero today as well. Absolutely what he’s, what he’s challenging, you know, challenged with what he’s going through. But what, uh, dude, phenomenal answer. Family Ties, and I think we’re, they’re in Columbus, Ohio. I

Jim Mayer 02:54
think we’re, yeah, they sure were absolutely

Curt Anderson 02:56
COVID Ohio. And so I was, I was living in Columbus, when

Jim Mayer 02:59
that, no kidding. That’s awesome. That’s even better. True

Curt Anderson 03:03
story. So, alright, so anybody under the age of 40, go back and checked it out. Hey, Greg. Misha is here today. He’s my age, so he remembers Alex P Keaton from family house, Greg, you remember that one? So, alright, great answer. And what a wonderful show. Man, it was just they had three kids, and, man, you brought back some good memories there. So, and it was always, there. Was always like, a lesson from the dad, right? Absolutely, great lesson from the dad. Yep, I don’t know if I’ve ever, you know, I have one daughter. I don’t think I’ve ever been a great job doing the same as he did. But he always had like that, you know, that, that logic and like, you know, hey, you need to do this, right? Nevertheless.

Jim Mayer 03:36
Yeah, absolutely, well, and I, I mean, I fondly remember Thursday nights growing up because you had family ties, you had the Cosby Show, and you had a different world, and those were like three super wholesome, family friendly TV shows that you could literally get around a TV that may have three channels on it and watch it as a family, and everybody took away a different lesson. I loved it, man. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 04:02
So, all right, so once again, anybody under the age of 40, that is correct, you heard Jim Curt, we had three channels to choose from, and that’s what you know. And so we it was must see TV. Remember that that’s what they call

Jim Mayer 04:13
is dating up myself here, this is great.

Curt Anderson 04:16
I’ve got you by years, and so I’m right there, right there with you. So, all right, great answer. Alex P Keaton, like the ultra he was like he was going to conquer the stock market back in the cities right now. Awesome. Okay, great answer, you won my day there. Alright, so let’s say that you’ve had an incredible career, man. You’ve had companies like Fastenal, MSC, NCMA and so that’s really impressive. I want to slide up. Okay, so, grew up in Colorado, and you know Alex B Keaton, who, like, the ultimate, like, you know that that dude was going to go conquer Wall Street. How did you find yourself in, like, kind of the B to B industrial manufacturing world? How did you how? How did you bring your skills, your passion, into that? Yeah,

Jim Mayer 04:56
so, uh, just a little transition. Uh. I went from idolizing Alex P Keaton to loving fish, the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, all the jam bands, wind panic, all that kind of fun stuff, right? And when I got to high school, I was a good student, but I didn’t apply myself. I was one of those kids, right? I didn’t put in the homework. I absorbed the information. I showed up every day. My dad was my high school. Was a high school teacher at my high school, so I could not not go to class, because my dad would find out about it, right? There was no skipping school for me. And so I just my rebellion was I just didn’t do the work outside of class. I would go, I would absorb everything. So I would, I would get great grades on on tests and on papers, and so they funneled me into shop class, you know, because that’s in the 90s. That’s what they did with they. They took the burnouts, the losers, those kinds of people, and they funneled us into shop class because they didn’t know what else to do with us. And shop class was a place where I felt like I was at home. I mean, I would show up there. I could create something. I would be able to walk away at the end of a project and literally feel a sense of pride, because I had created something. Leaving high school, I had in my mind that I wanted to go to university. You know, a lot of 18 year olds don’t know what they want to do, so I came, I’m in Arizona now. I came down to Arizona State as an 18 year old, recent high school graduate, and I made it an entire semester at university before I realized that I was spending way too much money to not know what I wanted to do with my life. So I stopped going to school. I moved back to Colorado. I worked retail, restaurant jobs and construction jobs. I was a carpenter. I built custom log homes for a company up in northwest Colorado and all over a couple of different states, and moved around. Enjoyed myself. My 20s were for me. I always had that pact with myself where I wanted to experience as much as I possibly could. So I would take annual road trips on a Greyhound bus. And just like I’ve slept in every state except for Alaska at this point, Curt, so I just experienced life and everything that that had to offer. And one day I was building houses in northwest Colorado, and fell off a roof, and I was freezing and didn’t I fell into a snow bank. I did not injure myself, but I was cold, and I’m standing around a protein propane stove that we use to warm up. And our Fastenal rep came in and said, Hey, how do you how do you feel about selling these things? I was like, that sounds interesting, but I’m not a salesperson. He goes, I’ve seen you at a bar. I just need you to, you know, act like you do there. You’re not selling a product. These are products that people already are buying. You are selling yourself. You’re selling the company. That was some of the best advice I ever got. And so I made that switch. I applied for a job. It was in Long Beach, California, in Wilmington, California, to be exact. And I packed up my pickup truck and went out to California and started slinging tools for Fastenal. And that’s when I walked into my first machine shop and a place called West Coast aerospace, and it took me back to those high school shop class moments, the people in there, the smells, the sights, the sounds, right? It was just an amazing place. I felt like I was home. So we started focusing more on manufacturing. We had companies like Fox that makes mattress foam and couch foam all the way to machine shops. And I just, I fell in love with that industrial world. Not that I don’t love construction. I still love the built environment. I still admire it. I still can go up to northern Colorado and and point out to my family on a very repeated basis, which annoys my wife. I think at this point, all the places that I’ve worked on, that’s just a sense of that pride. But this industrial manufacturing space was was just something magnetic, and it drew me to it. And so I left Fastenal after four years, which in those days were was a really long time for a Fastenal employee to stick around. They well, they used to and Fastenal. If you’re listening, please don’t judge me on what I’m about to say, because this isn’t true now. But back then, it was a 2424 24 club. They would hire 24 year olds, pay them $24,000 a year, and they’d stick around for 24 months.

Curt Anderson 10:21
I’ve never heard that. Has

Jim Mayer 10:22
since changed. They’ve, they’ve done a great job of of compensating and keeping people and doing things the, you know, culturally, doing the things that they need to do. But in the the 2000s that’s where they were, or that’s how they were known, at least. And I went and learned factory automation supplies. Worked for keyance for a year before going back into industrial distribution, working for MSC. Was with MSC for quite a long time, had a lot of different roles there, project management, individual contributor, sales leader, and then went to the NTMA. Was really tired of that corporate life, that rat race being a number of multiple 1000s of employees, and I wanted to do something good for the industry. And the NTMA had a spot open up business development role, and that business development role quickly turned into a director of communications role, working on different projects and programs, leading the events team, the publication, the Marketing Team, really was able to hone my skills in the world of communications, marketing communications, at that point, left there to go work for BIG Kaiser, which is now big diosho, was there for for two years, and then started my company. So it’s, it’s been a wild ride, man. It’s been a lot of fun. Alright, so

Curt Anderson 12:02
couple things I want to unwind right there, which is phenomenal, and then we’re going to lead up to the big tour that you have coming up. But when just, you know what’s fascinating, I always say this, like, you know, you know, today’s Monday. It’s just a Monday, but, you know, it takes one conversation or one proposal or one suggestion that completely changes the whole trajectory of your life. And you think back to like, dude, like, I just caught you live at the industrial marketing Summit. I know Greg was there at the industrial marketing Summit, and you had a packed house as matter of fact, we’re going to show a picture of it. And like, you, I’m not saying it because you’re here. Like, dude, you completely slayed your workshop. Or, I don’t know how many people were the room. There was, it was packed. Matter of fact, there was standing room only, like we were all standing around in the back and you just absolutely crushed it. But like, if that guy from Fastenal doesn’t say that to you, like, who knows where your where your path goes, You know what I mean, absolutely and

Jim Mayer 12:56
Curt. There have been a couple of those moments that I can pinpoint, and my dad’s been a big influence on on a lot of those moments, where as I got older and started listening to my father again. Because, you know, we all go through that phase. I

Curt Anderson 13:15
mean, it’s amazing how smart my father got when he, like, left at 18 and came home at 22 and how smart your father got. You know, exactly you’re gone, yeah,

Jim Mayer 13:23
exactly. But there, there have been other people, you know. Chris Kaiser has has had a massive impact on on my career. Dave tillstone, former Kenneth metal executive in TMA president that that took a chance on me. But there, there have been quite a number of people who have, who have gave me moments of wisdom from their past lives, from their experiences that have really shaped the trajectory and, and, yes, the the guide from Fastenal, absolutely. But there have been so many I’ve been really blessed Curt to have been surrounded by some really smart people smarter than me. Let’s just put it that way. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 14:22
well, you know, it’s awesome having those mentors, and a lot of it’s the maturity to what do they say? You know, when the student was ready, the teacher appears, right? And absolutely, what did your dad teach? What subject did he teach? So

Jim Mayer 14:36
he was, he was a sixth grade math and science teacher before I got to high school. And quick, funny story, he got a job at my high school my freshman year, and I thought I was gaming the system. Curt by registering for staff, which was this unknown person, right? They hadn’t identified it didn’t say Mr. Merrit. Just said staff. And I was like, Oh, I’m going to get the new team. Teacher. They’re not going to know anything. This is going to be great. Blah, blah, blah. I walk in the first day of class. My dad didn’t tell me he had taken this job. I walk into the first day of class, and it’s my dad in the science room. I’m like, oh, and so he taught freshman Earth Science. He’s master’s degree in earth science. I come from a long line of very science minded individuals, both sides of my family, Dad, if you’re listening, which I doubt you are, because I don’t even know if you have LinkedIn, lots of science on that side. But the first day of class, I said, I raised my hand to ask a question. I said, Dad, Frank shit, Mister Mayor, and he kicked me out of class on the very first day of class.

Curt Anderson 15:48
Oh, it’s classic, dude. That’s miracle bed. Alright, hey, we got a couple comments here. So Greg says, Yeah, I was in the next room. I could hear the audience roaring, the laughter and applause. And I have, I have first, first hand testament to that, Harry man, happy Monday, to my friend. Happy Monday. Curt and Jim and Mark is in the house here. Mark, sending you lots of love, brother. Awesome to see you both today and at the industrial market. So So hey, thank you guys for dropping comments. Appreciate you and drop if you’re out there, drop a note and let us know you’re out there. Any questions for Jim. We’re gonna be diving into company culture. And he is the authority. He’s the expert. And please connect with Jim on LinkedIn. Jim and dude, I could keep you here all day, couple couple quickies. So you go from, hey, I want to work with my hands, you know, that type of thing, to awesome like and you really have a natural ability. You make people feel like you’ve known them your whole life, like you just give the gab. You’re very charismatic, you’re very caring. And again, like, the way you work the room, I’m gonna, we’re gonna, don’t think I’m gonna let you get away with we are gonna talk about your presentation you had, how you engaged everybody was like, just absolutely brilliant. And I want to give you kudos there. What was it like? So here’s where I want to go. Okay, what was it like, sliding from like, working with your hands to like, now you need to be the people person your sales, you know, fasten all. MSC, I mean, like, some of the not like the leading companies of the industry, of B to B industrial, you know, distribution, you’re in sales. What was that transition like? And then I want to lead up to when you kicked off your entrepreneurial journey. Start with, like, what was it like transitioning into the your sales career? Well,

Jim Mayer 17:23
I think we’re going from, you know, physically making something too fast and all first was the best transition for me, because Fastenal, at the time, in the early to mid 2000s the branch employees. I don’t know if it’s the same way now, but the branch employees were the delivery people. We were the warehouse people. So I was lifting 50 pound boxes of nuts and bolts every day. I was loading them into the back of pickup trucks. I was doing I was huffing them into progress rail out on Terminal Island, right? And just dripping sweat, I used to have to carry multiple shirts with me every day. Oh, just because I was so wet, I had a bar of deodorant and multiple shirts in my Fastenal truck at all times. Man, um, so that transition of still doing something physical, doing something active, and being able to connect with the customers that I served, to feel like I was part of their team in what they were making, helped that transition right. And so I’ve always looked whether it was Fastenal, keyance, MSC, NTMA, BIG Kaiser, I’ve always felt with the companies that I’ve worked with that I’m part of the team. I may not be the one physically machining or physically welding apart, but those parts don’t get made unless I bring them their nuts and bolts, or unless I’m bringing their cutting tools or their factory automation supplies, or a, you know, their their tool presetters With with BIG Kaiser, or now helping their leaders. You know, lead better. None of this happens without the contribution, and that’s part of what I try and bring to all of the people I work with, is you don’t have to be the one actually making the thing. There are so many other people that are needed in that facility to make that widget, that part, and they’re all part of the team. Everybody who has a contribution. Should be proud of that thing that’s made at the end of the day, so that that’s how I and maybe it’s, you know, an asinine way to look at it. I don’t know if I can repeat this on your show, but to me, that’s you. Maybe it was naive, but that’s just how I’ve looked at it. I’m part of the team in any of these organizations, so I may not be the one physically making it. I don’t have the skill set to machine or to weld. I can build you a house. I cannot make you a rocket, right? But I’m part of the team because I am contributing.

Curt Anderson 20:22
Alright, absolutely love it. So alright, during your journey, but prior to your launching or your your business, your entrepreneurial journey, when did you also, like, kind of, like, start paying attention to culture and, like, talk a little bit about, When did all sudden culture become your passion, like, your purpose? Yeah, walk us through, like, when, like, maybe some points through your career, and then we’re going to, we’re going to dive before we get top of the hour. I want to get into that tour of yours they have coming up.

Jim Mayer 20:47
Yeah, yeah. So I, I left companies, and I’m not going to specify which ones here publicly, right? But I left companies because something wasn’t there. There was something missing. There was every job I’ve ever left was because of culture in some way, shape or form. In 2010 I decided to go back to school. I went back to school, got my bachelor’s degree. I was 30 years old when I started. 34 when I graduated, rolled that immediately into an MBA, and I focused my MBA, it was through Ohio University, and in Athens you’re

Curt Anderson 21:29
a bobcat, a bobcat baby,

Jim Mayer 21:32
which is a wild school. And we could talk for about an hour just about stories from that school. But I’m sure, yeah, that anyway,

Curt Anderson 21:39
just for the right for people that aren’t aware of this. Biggest Halloween party in the country is at Ohio University. I was there once, and so

Jim Mayer 21:50
that’s all you need.

Curt Anderson 21:52
My bucket list. I was like, 19 years old. That’s the last one and done. So I’m sorry, go ahead. No, no,

Jim Mayer 21:58
that’s perfect. So I did. I was part of one of their inaugural cohorts. That was hybrid program, and my focus was on executive leadership and organizational development. And so this was 2014 2015 2016 and in that time period, there were a lot of companies that were coming out with online employee engagement platforms, right? So we had all this litany of platforms. And what the common theme was, though, is these were platforms built and designed for desk employees. These were people who sat behind a desk all day long. Nobody was measuring how our skilled trades employees felt right, how our skilled workers are the people who make this country what it is. Nobody was measuring our sentiment, the desk less employees. And so I really wanted to design something like that, and that’s what I did. I designed it as my project. There my graduation project, Capstone, whatever you want to call it, and did a lot of research, read a lot of books, man, beyond even what was just required for the program, and I just all of a sudden why I had left jobs, why people I knew had left jobs, was making sense. It was the culture, it was the values. It was a lack of things that were cultural. And I knew that at that time, we were hearing a lot, and we’ve heard it for multi generations, that nobody wanted to work anymore. People were having a hard time finding employees, and so I wanted to take what I had learned, what I had experienced, and mesh that together and then with what I had built in help the industry as much as I possibly could, try and get to a place where we lead better we have better retention. We are able to create capacity that we had lost when we offshored. We’re able to rebuild that middle class that is so vital to our economy here and there are way smarter people than me Curt when it comes to the technology of manufacturing, my my skill set lies on the human side, and so I figured that that’s my contribution.

Curt Anderson 24:52
Awesome. Well, hey, let’s before people. In case anybody has a hard stop at the top of the hour, I don’t, and we, if we lose anybody, I want to. I. I want to dive in here, so I’m jumping into your website. So again, you know, welcome, encourage everybody stop by the manufacturer connector.com. That’s the MFG connector.com. And and Jim, I was way in the back. So if you see a shiny bald head way, way, way in the back, man, I’m back there. So here you are at the industrial marketing Summit. But uh, talk a little bit. Let’s, start with a tour, and if anybody’s cutting out, you know, we strongly encourage you go to Jim’s website and you’re going to learn more. Let’s dive into the tour, and then I’m going to backtrack, because I do have more questions or but talk a little bit about the tour that we have coming up real quick.

Jim Mayer 25:33
Yeah. So we’re going to hit 20 cities with two different workshops between the April 23 so two weeks from tomorrow, two weeks from Wednesday. Sorry, I forgot what day it is. We’re going to be in Cleveland at Ellison technologies. Thank you, Ellison for graciously hosting and taking a chance on this guy launching a tour and not really knowing exactly what he’s doing, but having a lot of fun trying to get butts in seats. So Ellison technology said, yeah, we’ll host you. Akuma said, We’ll host you as well. So the first two stops are one of each of the sessions we’re doing, leading the chair, leading change in digital transformation in Cleveland and 15 other cities. So that’s a one day workshop. We talk about the concept that people, people really, actually like change. The idea that people hate change is typically told to us by people who are trying to force change, but when we invite our employees to help author change, they love it, and so we’re going to talk about agile cultural methodologies to really lead change in digital transformation. This workshops all for your operations leaders, your top line leaders, your HR leaders, all those kinds of people, the becoming management material. We’re doing that in four cities. That is a three day workshop. That’s something special. So one of the things that I’ve heard over and over again is we have this leadership gap in the industry, and so this is a workshop that’s designed to help take those individual contributors and make them into leaders, give them the skill set that they need to lead, so that when that person in front of them dies, retires or quits, you’re ready with somebody on your leadership bench to move them into those leadership positions, those are going to be a lot of fun. Like I said, we’re there three days long. The Wednesday of each of those, we are actually having a in person recording of the manufacturing culture podcast, where we’ll not only interview, you know, in Charlotte, Jim King and some of his leadership team, but we’ll also interview some people from our audience, from the workshop, they’ll be able to get up and tell their stories as well. So it’ll be a lot of fun. These workshops are priced to be very competitive. But Curt, you and I were talking right before, and it’s I had an idea, and I can’t believe I have this idea before. I’d like to offer anybody who’s listening a 20% discount to any of these stops. So if you’re in Cleveland, great, but if you’re in Hartford or Philadelphia, further on down, in the any of these other places, and you’re listening today to this live or on any of the future playbacks, I’ll have a discount code. It’ll be a fun play on words or something, and we’ll, you’ll have a little discount code. So appreciate you letting me plug that before the top of the hour. There

Curt Anderson 29:08
absolutely. So, you know, strongly encourage, invite, welcome you to number 120, different cities here, and we’re going to cruise down the list. I mean, it’s just, and these are all manufacturing powerhouses, you know, you know, let’s go back up here. We’ve got, you know, I saw buffalo here. We’ve got, no, that’s Michigan, Phoenix. We’ve got Omaha, Indianapolis, Philly, you know, again, becoming management material three day workshop in San Jose coming up. We’re back in Nashville. We’re leading the digital transformation. Minneapolis, Atlanta, Chicago. Man, you’ve got Heidenheim. I’m very familiar with that company, great company, phenomenal company there back in management material in Boston, coming up in October. And then San Diego, leading the change in digital transformation again, and Denver, closing out with Denver. So Tom. A little bit about, you know, are these now I again, like I caught like a little sliver, like 45 minutes of in, dude, again, you are, you are phenomenal public and I study public, I study people that do public speaking. And so I just, I love your demeanor. I love how you got people engaged. I love your humility. I love your your sense of humor. Talk a little bit about, you know, what would people expect at the digital transformation? Let’s start. Let’s start there. What? What are they going to expect? Yeah,

Jim Mayer 30:30
so what they can expect is about 15 to 25 minutes of me talking the way we talked at IMS, right at in, in each section, in each segment. But then the majority of these workshops are hands on. So one of the workshops I do we we have a paper airplane flying contest, but it’s all about, how do you create, how do you identify team roles to create the best paper airplane. I love it brilliant. And so there’s a lot of hands on. There is a very, I hate to toot my own horn, a very robust Participant Guide, and I just wrapped up a workshop last week. And one of the things that came up on the evaluation over and over again was this is now my leadership Bible. So every time people are coming to my workshops, they’re adding the different sections from each workshop, and they’re creating these these leadership resources, these encyclopedias. I told one woman, she’s got to stop photocopying my workbooks and reproducing them internally, or I’m going to have to start charging her a licensing fee or something, because she’s just taking these and, you know, making them part of their training, which is great. I joke with her about that. This is, this is why I do this. I We, we can make this amazing. We can make manufacturing a place where we look at the leaders and we’re like, this is a no brainer, so they can expect a lot of that kind of humility, that kind of interaction. I work very hard Curt to make sure that everybody speaks during each session, whether that’s your comfort zone or not. I’m not going to force you to but by the end of every workshop, everybody’s spoken, so I just love that. Well,

Curt Anderson 32:46
kudos to you, dude, and what a great testament. And ironically, Chris was our guest on Friday, so she was just, she was just on a show Friday. So everyone in the room connected with you and your insights. As a leader, you inspired me to take action on a few things. Thanks for the push. So again, we just, we couldn’t encourage people enough to stop by Jim’s website. And just, you know, if not, if you’re not within any of those striking distance of those cities, man, you know, connect with Jim. Connect with Jim on LinkedIn. So let’s go here. Alright, I’m going to, I’m going to Is there anything else on the website that we should pull up before I close out the website?

Jim Mayer 33:24
No. I mean, everything else is, is pretty self explanatory. Thanks to Emily Wilkins, she helped me get this thing actually user friendly. So it’s nice to see somebody else using it and and that it is as user friendly as I see it being. But she, she was great in helping me get this up and running to this play point. Emily Wilkins from marketing metal, if she’s on, thank you,

Curt Anderson 33:52
dear, yay. She’s a dear friend of the show. And so lots of love to Emily. So Emily, we actually got together. We went to dinner together, but two summers ago. So she we were, we were close enough in proximity, and she’s, I’d say, very passionate for manufacturers. Yes, she did an amazing job for your website, manufacturing culture, manufacturing connector. So all sorts of good things. Jim, let’s go here. I want to come back, Greg. I skipped over a question that Greg asked. I want to come back to that. Yeah, big misuse says question for Jim, how can an organ, how can organizational leaders use content to influence their culture? What a great question coming from the content guru himself. Yeah,

Jim Mayer 34:30
that’s a great question. Greg, and we talked about this at the IMS. I know you weren’t in the this session. You make it made a different choice, and I’m not going to be upset with you. You can, you can ask your questions here,

Curt Anderson 34:46
little FOMO Jim. He is FOMO man,

Jim Mayer 34:49
absolutely so. Greg. We talked in in that session about something that I called the industrial brand death cycle, which is super. More dramatic and but it’s a lot of fun, and it’s 100% true and research based when your leaders are invisible, when they’re weak, when they’re not using their own authentic culture, they aren’t steering their employees in the direction that they want to steer their employees in. So organizational leaders can use content to influence their culture by communicating the vision. It doesn’t have to be that you have a vision meeting once a month or once a quarter or once a year or twice a year, or whatever it is your employees. When they follow you on the the on whatever platform you’re posting on, they’re going to understand what your vision is for the organization. Right? When you see people like Phil Knight is one that that you see a lot of, and he’s one of my favorite books of all time. Is Shoe Dog. Yeah, he when he posts, it’s a very authentic post about the vision and direction of their culture or and of their organization. So I think that that’s how they can use that content to influence cultures, is just be authentic and shape the vision from that point.

Curt Anderson 36:29
Yeah, great answer. So, Greg, thank you for the question. And so Mark, thank you for he dropped the link in the chat. So again, everybody manufacturing connector.com, check out the tour. Love to have you there, Harry. I Harry has a great question here for you, Jim and I think you and Harry should absolutely Jim Harry, post a lot about company culture. Song title from Billy Joe. Do you agree and engage culture has always been a matter of trust.

Jim Mayer 36:58
That’s a great, great question. I’m just reading Greg’s response. I’m always distracted when I do these lives. I apologize because I’m like that dog from up the squirrel, squirrel. Yeah, that’s me, yeah, that’s me, Harry, yeah, I think, I think, trust it. I mean, you go to Patrick Lencioni, you know, five dysfunctions of a team. You go to other leadership gurus, right? You look at the foundation of what they’ve built, their cultural pyramids on whatever those look like, trust is always that foundation to me. I take it a step further just because I, I don’t know I’m I’m me. To me, it’s based on values and and if you have to build your your culture on an alignment of values, which comes with an element of trust, but if you have

Curt Anderson 38:05
people who work for

Jim Mayer 38:06
you that don’t believe the same things you do, then you’re not going to have a healthy culture to be able to build that foundation of trust. And I hope that makes sense. Does that make sense? Curt, it

Curt Anderson 38:19
made perfect sense. Dude, yeah, you know, it’s, it’s very challenging. I caught, I was reading a little bit about the gentleman that founded Uber, right? Travis pronounces that same. There’s actually, like, a show on Netflix about, like, how brash and like the culture and just, it was very not pleasant, right? No, yeah. So I think, you know, in, you know, I’m old enough to go back to, like, the Enron days, or like, you think of like, so those are, like, the the extreme, you know, like the ultra extreme, you know, for our folks out there, those manufacturers, 510, 1520, employees, you know, it is, it’s challenging. People have different views, different religion, different politics, different sports teams, you know, like, you know, like, trust can be broken over sports. You know, absolutely, you’re in Chicago, you’ve got some North siders and South siders. It’s a, you know, it can get clubs

Jim Mayer 39:09
and White Sox. Man, that’s a big and I said clubs, I meant cubs, cubs and White Sox. But yeah, it can be broken very easily. And, yeah, that that show on Netflix. I think it was Netflix that was a great show. Uh, scared me from ever working in the software industry, though. Yeah, right.

Curt Anderson 39:30
Very, great. Hey, Greg’s going to jump. So Greg says, Hey, I gotta jump. I thrill enjoy. Here’s his comment, awesome answer, Thanks, Jim. I will watch the recording of your presentation. He says, with tail between his legs, I will, and I also read Shoe Dog, same here, phenomenal book. And that’s the thing is, like, when you think of, you know, I don’t deem myself culture guru, trust guy, but, you know, like Warren Buffett, I think has one of the most brilliant, simple philosophies that he was preached. It’s a front page, you know what? I’m. I’m going the front page. You want to share people?

Jim Mayer 40:01
No, no, no. This is your thought process, man, I want you to run with this.

Curt Anderson 40:06
So, I mean, it’s just like, like, I’m a simple guy, like, I need things like, you know, dumb it down for me. He just says, like, if it’s something that you don’t want to be on the front page of the paper for. And I’m going to tell you, like, I’m, like, I’m on a quick I’ve been I’ll be married 27 years next month. Like, I’m trying to apply this, like, to my marriage as a father, as a person, like, even, like, if I’m having a bad day, like, you know, if I’m a little defensive or, like, do I want to be in the front page being defensive with my spouse in the car? Like, you know, Hey honey, there’s a red light. I see it, you know. Like, do I need to respond that way? You know what I mean? So I

Jim Mayer 40:39
agree, and I tell my 14 year old, don’t post anything on social media that you wouldn’t be proud for your grandma to see. It’s the same concept, right?

Curt Anderson 40:52
It’s just and, like, warm and when Warren Buffett took over, remember the 90s, there was, like, there was a Wall Street firm, collapse, absolutely, he came in and he has a line where, like, you know, if you make a mistake of billions of dollars, I’ve got your back. If you lose one ounce of trust for the for the business, you’re, like, you’re, you’re, you’re, yeah, you’re in trouble. So, yeah, it would just get if you from, from what Greg said, and just kind of, like, you know, talking about, like, the Warren Buffett, just take it a little bit further. Like, for our small manufacturers out there, there’s somebody out there. I’ve got, you know, 510, employees, like, I’m a widget maker, and now also I’ve got 10, 510, 1520, employees. And I need some help with leadership. I need some help with managing these folks. What’s like a one on one that you help with people on some leadership

Jim Mayer 41:35
skills, the well on, on leadership skill. Well, the first thing I do, and this connects to what we were just talking about. The first thing I do with leaders, and it regardless of their size, is we talk about the vision, the mission and the values, right? Because those values are so very important. And once, once we have those identified, once we have those solidified, and have brought the team in to help define those right? Because that’s a super important part of having the vision, the mission, and the mission and the values is you have to have those your team help craft those once you get there, the rest is just soft skills building. Man, it’s, it’s learning how to lead with empathy and emotional intelligence and and something you just said about, you know, do you really want to be on the front page? You know, getting defensive about, you know, pointing out your wife, pointing out a red light, right, that emotional intelligence side of of leadership is so very important. We have to understand how our emotions, emotions are a good thing too, by the way, but we have to understand how those emotions that we are having and experience, how they impact the teams that we lead, because they do, whether you’re a happy person or a grumpy person, that impacts the team that you have. So it’s understanding that it’s holding yourself to the same level of accountability that that you hold your team to, it’s it’s listening to people, and if somebody walks into your office, shut your laptop, put your phone down, don’t try and multitask. There are so many studies that say that those are that that just can’t happen. So you know, those are some of the one on one soft skills, stuff that I work with companies on. I’m working on a delegation workshop right now for a company that I’m working with here in Arizona. And the latest one that I’ve made, and this will be part of next year’s Tour is on coaching and mentoring. And how do you coach and mentor versus train and command? I guess is the way I’m looking at it, right, right? Absolutely,

Curt Anderson 44:18
I love that. So all right, for full disclosure and little little embarrassment moment I had a business in my I vividly remember my 20s. I was like, such an idiot. I was I was the I was horrible. My my staff would, when they would come in, the they would be, they would ask, how’s the weather and the weather was? I was my mood? No, yeah. Like, I’m embarrassed to say that on a live stream, but they would say, Hey, how’s the weather today? You know, it just like, you know. And the thing is, when you’re running a business, I don’t have any hair left. Man, when you’re running a business, man, it’s stressful. It’s, you know, like you’re your own HR department. One minute, your finance department. Hey, no, now I gotta market something. Now I gotta sell something. Now. I just lost a customer. Like. I mean, it’s all the things when you you know, if that’s what you sign up for and you need to be, you’ve I didn’t have the maturity, I didn’t have the ability to maintain myself in my 20s, you know, right? Train wreck, you know, like, you know, absolutely

Jim Mayer 45:15
right. It just, and very few people are occur, right? And that’s, that’s a great thing about emotional intelligence, it, it’s, it’s a skill you develop. You’re not born with it. And that’s how EQ differs from IQ, right? IQ, you’re born with, EQ, you develop. And it takes a very aware person to say, Yeah, I fucked that up back in my 20s, right? But here’s where I’ve gotten to now. And so I love that moment of vulnerability out of

Curt Anderson 45:43
here. Yeah, it was so Alright, so we’re going to start winding down, yeah, folks, let’s go here, your vision, your dream, with the tour, man, like, I’m like, I don’t take this lightly. And I don’t know if, like, anybody, if any, is anybody out there put it, put together a tour, because you have, I’d love to know, Jim, where did the tour? The vision you were talking off before we went live, you shared a little bit share with folks like your vision, your dream, like you’re trying to change, massive change. Thus the name leading the change. Please share your vision, your dream for this tour. Yeah.

Jim Mayer 46:16
So a about 18 months ago, I realized that the work that I was doing was awesome, and I was having a lot of fun and a lot of impact, but could the impact was was fewer than I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be able to scale this and impact more people every time that I was working with people, and I so I talked to all my my clients at the time and asked them, what, what is the power that I have? What is the value that I bring to your organization? And without hesitation, every single company Curt said, it’s when you’re in front of our teams, it’s when you’re talking to us, it’s when you’re training, you’re doing lunch and learns your trainings or your workshops. And so I, at the time, I had created a couple 100 now I’ve got 300 trainings that I’ve created. I’ve got 15, one and three day workshops that I’ve created. And I knew I needed to do this. I just didn’t know how logistically to make it happen and talk about those moments, those single conversations, those moments in time. I was talking with a guy from hexagon, Phil, and he and I originally had talked about putting these workshops in all of their hexagon locations nationwide. Logistically, it didn’t work out with them, but it gave me the confidence that these companies, like Akuma, like Ellison technologies, like GBG and horn and hide and hide, etc. They have these training rooms strategically located in very manufacturing, heavy metropolitan areas and and they have the they they’re looking for content to go out of there. So started reaching out to the people in my network. That was the easy part. Talking to people about, Hey, can I host something in your facility? That’s the easy part. The challenge has been getting butts in seats in this economy, and it’s a tough, tough moment to try and get people there. But this is something that we’re over halfway sold out of Cleveland, which is fantastic. So we, we’re, we’ve got 16 registrations. That’s, you know, we I want to sell this sucker out. I want to sell out every single one of these. And, yeah, I want to, if I can do that. Curt, that’s 600 P people that will go through this over a seven month span of time, and that that creates real change in the industry, and that’s us doing this together and taking a note off of my friend Chris Luke is notebook. He, he’s the one who showed me it was possible to push out a tour. I mean, he’s he we asked who’s done this? He’s done it, and I’ve leaned on him quite a bit, and he’s taught me that I need a community page for this as well. So those will be coming, where we’ll have community pages built out for each subject, and people can bounce ideas off of each other and really learn from each other post workshop, because we’re going to have great content in each one and every conversation. What I’ve learned from doing these here in Arizona is in. Each workshop has very different questions, very different content comes up, very different problems come up from each of the participants. And so to be able to not only learn from me, learn from the content, but also learn from each other in the workshops and then ongoing is going to be a powerful thing, and I’m so excited for it. Well,

Curt Anderson 50:23
God bless you, dude. I just, I think this is absolutely phenomenal, in the the respect admiration I have for you to pull this thing together, man, this is just nothing short of of phenomenal. You are such an inspiration. And the thing is, again, I got first hand taste of what, of what that workshop is. And like you just, you like the fire, the room on fire, dude. It’s just, it’s fun. It’s engaging. You’re it’s not provoking. You challenge people like in, like, in how you think of things on the spot. Was like, that was really impressive as well. So

Jim Mayer 50:56
thank you. Yeah, I I have another self limiting belief, and it’s that I perform better in person than I do in these digital formats. I’m great when it’s one on one like this. I can ignore all these chatter and comments over here, which is why I enjoy doing the podcast stuff. But when I do like workshops, digital workshops, I freeze Curt like and it’s a self limiting belief, but I am. My power, as you saw, was walking through the crowd with that microphone and engaging with people. I find that really hard to do in this digital space, so that’s why I’m doing it live and not on the digital I don’t believe in myself to do this on a digital format, so looking forward to him and so excited.

Curt Anderson 51:41
Well, I, dude, I’ll tell you, because I and you, you dropped a line that I would never forget. You were about halfway up the so again, if everybody, I’m going to give you a visual. And actually, it was on Jim’s website, but I close it out, so it’s, you know, there, I don’t know how many people were in the room, like, a lot, right? A lot. And the room was, I mean, packed standing room. Jim’s like, walking down the aisle of like, all these seats, and halfway down he says, hey, just keep asking questions. You guys are like, don’t have me doing all the talking. Remember, you said that I my

Jim Mayer 52:11
my goal Curt is to not make it through any of my presentations that I do. I if I can get the audience going and I don’t get a chance to make it through my then I’m doing my job, and I said I had somebody ask me afterwards, well, why don’t you just have one slide as your your presentation? Because maybe it’s not going to happen that way, Gary. And it wasn’t Greg or Gary. I’m just making up that name, but sometimes it doesn’t work that way, where you get that engagement, this group of people just so happened to be an amazing group of human beings that really were bought into the topic. And so, yeah, it was great. It

Curt Anderson 52:56
was great in your you mentioned word empathy, being empathetic earlier, your empathy and your compassion. Because, like, multiple times you were like, Well, tell me more. Tell me more. And so I could keep you here all day, dude. I know you got a tour to plan. And so you know what? What’s funny, what goes in full circle? What did you tell us earlier? Like, however many minutes ago you said, like, Hey, I was following jam bands of dad and the fish. Well, guess what? Jim’s now, he’s got his own jam band, and he’s going around the country, and he’s going to be jamming at a city near you. So, I mean, there’s really no excuse. You know, go to Jim’s website, manufacturing connector com, and MFG connector.com and you have, there’s cities all over the country. No reason not to to stop by and catch Jim. So Jim catching you on LinkedIn, your website, anything else, anywhere else that they can find

Jim Mayer 53:46
you that those are the easiest places to get me. I mean, I’ve given people my email address on the here before, but the easiest place to get me is the website and on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, just look for the guy in a bath tub of orange ping pong balls. Nice,

Curt Anderson 54:01
awesome. Yeah, well, Jim, we’re going to have to have you back, dude, and so we’ll catch you like in the middle of the tour. Maybe we’ll even catch you when you’re on the tour, you know. I’ll check with the cities, you know. So maybe I’ll pop in the city and we’ll do a live from, from, that

Jim Mayer 54:15
would be awesome. I would love to do that. Curt, that would

Curt Anderson 54:17
be great. Okay, you know what I got? I got one last question for you, right? Let’s do it. Okay, all right, you baseball. Fanny Chancellor, I love baseball. Who’s your team? Rockies? Your Rockies guy? Okay, so let’s say, I’m going to give you a hypothetical. That’s where the Rockies are playing. Who’s like The Rock Show me, let’s say the Dodgers, because Dodgers win everything you know. So the the Colorado Rockies are playing the Dodgers. It’s a bottom of the ninth, or they’re playing a rocky state in in course field. So course field is it? Yep, still. Coors Field, right? I took my family there a few years ago. Beautiful stadium. Yeah. So first field, and it’s bottom of the ninth, and there’s two outs, and there’s a guy on second base, but it’s Ty score. Okay? Ty scored bottom 90 with me, right? And the manager. Is sitting there, and he turns on the bench. He goes, Hey, Jim, grab your helmet, grab your bat, get to the plate. Like dude put in the winning run. Like, I got dinner reservations. We got to get out of here, right? So you grab your helmet, you grab your bat, you’re walking up the plate, hitting the winning run for the your favorite Colorado Rockies, yep. As you walk up, what’s your walk up song?

Jim Mayer 55:19
Put me in coach. John Fogerty, great

Curt Anderson 55:22
answer, dude. Great answer, man. And the dog is barking right on it,

Jim Mayer 55:26
so absolutely, yeah, my bad on that one. But I’m a dog fanatic.

Curt Anderson 55:30
You could have had your dog on the show the whole time. So all right, dude, thank you. Put me great answer. So Alex P Keaton, dad was a scientist. Your teacher kicked you out of the room on his first day. And just, you are, you’re a gem. Man, you are a gem. You have a gift of making people feel like you’ve been friends with them for years. Keep spreading that passion, that enthusiasm for manufacturing. Man, we applaud you. We salute you. Thank you for joining me today. Man, just hey, thank

Jim Mayer 55:58
you for having me Curt and thank you again for what you do, man, like, I saw you host that panel at IMS, and the entire time, like it was a great panel, but the entire time I was like, Damn, he is really good at this. Like, the way that you are able to perpetually keep your energy up, and you bring the energy up of the people that surround you. Was amazing. You did a phenomenal job. So thank you, and thanks Damon, even though he’s on vacation this week, but thank you to both of you guys. What you do here, this is a lot of fun, and I’m glad to grateful to have finally been on it

Curt Anderson 56:41
absolutely and I wish you massive, massive success, dude. I hope you just crush every goal, every dream of this. And I just, I can’t wait to hear about it. We’re going to have you back on. So hang out with me for one minute. And guys, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for the comments, anything that you missed. Go back. Hit the replay button and just catch everything that Jim’s sharing. Go to MFG. V MFG. Connector.com, check out the tour. And I’ll tell you what, if you just follow Jim man, you too will be an inspiration to others and make the world a better place, just like our friend Jim is. So Alright, hang out with me, Jim for one second, and everybody have an awesome rest of your week. You.