Digital Marketing Strategies for Manufacturers with Sami Birch
Are you a manufacturer struggling to stand out online? Join us for this high-energy episode as we sit down with Sami Birch, Director of Marketing & Communications at Mission Design & Automation, a trailblazer with over a decade of experience in marketing, communications, and business development in the manufacturing automation space. Discover digital marketing strategies for manufacturers with Sami.
Sami is a 2023 Holland Young Professional of the Year, an award-winning leader who has helped automation companies boost visibility and build meaningful relationships with their ideal customers. From global CRM rollouts to content creation and sales enablement, she knows how to bring people, processes, and platforms together for serious growth.
We are diving deep into digital marketing that works for manufacturers, from SEO and content to CRM and automation. If you are ready to attract customers to grow your brand online and create content that sells while you sleep, this is your moment.
Don’t miss this chance to level up your marketing game and stop leaving growth on the table.
Sami’s strategies are exactly what manufacturers need to build digital trust, attract soulmate customers, and finally break free from being invisible online.
Key Highlights
• Introduction and Personal Updates 0:00
• Transition to Professional Discussion 4:17
• Mission’s Digital Marketing Strategy 7:24
• Expanding Digital Presence and Content Development 24:47
• AI and Digital Marketing 50:21
• Final Thoughts and Advice 50:34
Resources
Lastly, thank you for taking the time to read this post.
If you found this information valuable, check out some of our other blogs.
You might want to read these blog posts:
Creating a Robust Referral Network with Your Soulmate 100
SEO Strategies for Manufacturers: Out-teach the Competition
How Manufacturers Can Use Subject Matter Interviews to Dominate SEO
To learn more about SEO for Manufacturers, check out SEO for Manufacturers: Foundations, Strategy & Implementation.
B2Btail – Helping Awesome Companies with Digital Sales Growth Solutions
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You Have Only One Chance to Make An Outstanding First Webpression https://b2btail.com/webpression/
Stop Being the Best Kept Secret: Manufacturing eCommerce Strategies
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Curt on LinkedIn
Exit Your Way– Helping owners create businesses that make more money today and they can sell or succeed when they want.
Damon on LinkedIn
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Transcription of Digital Marketing Strategies for Manufacturers with Sami Birch
Curt Anderson 00:00
Hey, Damon, what is up, dude, how are you? Man, I’m great. Curt and ready to go for the week. Oh, my goodness gracious. Is this just an honor, privilege? We have a repeat offender today, man, I don’t know that’s maybe it’s not the most polite thing to say. But Sami Birch, happy Monday. How are you?
Sami Birch 00:19
Hi, uh, Happy Monday to you. I’m good. Um, thanks for letting me repeat offend.
Curt Anderson 00:26
You can repeat offend anytime that you want. So I’ll tell you, this is such an honor, privilege, yeah, uh, I’ve had, actually, you and I have met in person at the Industrial Marketing Summit, and just, we’ve done all sorts of programs together. Every time you’re on, it’s just pure gold. I have massive respect, admiration for the work that you’re doing at mission. We’re going to dive in some really fun things. Do you remember the question I asked you last time? Do you remember the first question I opened
Sami Birch 00:52
up with, oh, I should know this. The
Curt Anderson 00:54
answer it will do Jeopardy, Damon, ready? The answer was, Grandma Rose. So remember that I said, who’s your hero? And you told us just a wonderful, incredible story about Grandma Rose. And so now you’re telling us, so now you have another hero in your life. You’re talking about CC, right? Yeah, tell us, like, how is CeCe a hero in your life? What’s going on there?
Sami Birch 01:17
Oh, man, every day is a new day. So Susie is a five year old, going on 15 year old. You know, my mom was just visiting for the weekend, and she just kept laughing, like, yeah, oh, you’re in for it. She’s your child, for sure, you know. And she just smirks. So I know, like, I have, I love it. I’ve got, I’ve got, a very strong willed, self possessed five year old. So it’s wonderful, but it certainly as we were talking a few minutes ago, before we kicked off here. But it’s certainly like being a parent, it and a working mom especially, I think sometimes you think like, this is I don’t know how I can possibly do any more than I’m doing right now. And then you just get nudged into figuring out how to do it, and you grow every day. But she’s awesome. She’s loving gymnastics right now. Whenever there’s like, an idle moment, doesn’t matter where we’re at. Could be at the grocery store, could be at a company golf outing, wherever you’re at, she’s cartwheeling, just unapologetically, we’re on our hand, on her hands, feeling her handstand. So it’s hilarious and so fun to awesome to have her have found she really didn’t like dance class last year we tried dance and she was very bored. Like, yeah, she doesn’t like to stand still. So not intense enough, right? Not yet, yeah. So maybe older, but gotta use some muscle, jumping around, doing flips, all of that. She loves it. So doing that. And we live in Michigan, so swim lessons are, I mean, anywhere they’re obviously very important, but we’re surrounded by water here, so yeah, very important priority for us to make sure she’s a strong swimmer. So yeah, we stay busy.
Curt Anderson 03:01
That is awesome. Well, hey, you’re a wonderful mom, and thank you for sharing that. And what a what a blessing for Cece, that she has a great mom who’s just crushing it. We’re going to dive into that. What a wonderful role model. And it goes all the way back to Rose, right. Rose just kind of pass it down the line, right?
Sami Birch 03:15
Yeah, yeah. Rose and my mom, her name is Beth and and you know me and CC, it’s so fun to just kind of reflect on that. And Cece, middle name is Rose, which is, you know, a nod to grams there. So yeah, we’re so lucky to have strong women in our family and great role models.
Curt Anderson 03:34
Well, that’s awesome. So again, Hey, happy Monday. You guys are just joining us. We’re here stop being the best kept secret. We’re with our dear friend Sami Birch, and she is a marketing guru. This is going to be a master class. Get your your fingers ready to type. Get your pencil, pen, whatever you are, however you take notes. Get your Damon. You’re ready, right? So I get my pen ready to go. I’m be typing. I’m gonna be typing on this computer over here, Sami, let’s dive in. So mission, design and automation. I’m going to start here. You know what we our show is called, stop being the best kept secret. You have done an amazing, incredible job to help mission. Stop being the best kept secret. What when you when you started your project, your 2020, right? You came in during covid, if I recall correctly, right? Yep, that’s correct. Wasn’t like like, if I like, was it like, like, right? When covid, like, the road was shutting down. Did you start working that mission? Yes.
Sami Birch 04:23
Is that right? Yeah. I started in May. So I had been working at home. I had been, you know, working from home, sent home from my last job, which I had just returned from maternity leave, yeah. And then it was time to go back home. And I, you know, I was fortunate to have a professional relationship with a person who had moved over here as a as a CEO, and so he had nice, reached out to me, knew my life had recently changed, and was just curious if I had any any interest in maybe a change of pace from what I was doing. And so I checked it out, but it was. Oh, gosh. You know it’s so funny that we’re talking about covid. Because, I’ll be honest, there are days where I’m like, man, it’s unbelievable. We’re still talking about covid, but it was just such a strange time. Yeah, it’s almost like, gosh, I was at a West Coast our town Awards last week one evening, and we were like, it’s like, we have this collective trauma or weird experience that we had to all stop what we were doing and figure out how to live life in a shutdown digital, yeah, only stay at home world and, yeah, it’s wild. It’s wild now to be on the other side of it and think through like, how it’s changed people’s approaches to a lot of things. I think for a while, the trade show versus just digital strategy question came up. And I think of that often when I’m working on our strategy, like strategic plans for future years, like I swung the pendulum so far, at first, to say we’re never going to do an in person trade show. WHY would you spend money on that? To realizing I think there is a good balance between the two. And had we not, had been required to rethink that, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know that, I would have had the thought of like, well, why don’t you spend more on digital, or pay more attention to digital and what you can really do versus spending. I mean, trade shows do not come with a small price tag. So yeah, trying to figure out, like, how to spend, spend your marketing budget in the best way and stretch your dollars, especially for smaller businesses that have are challenged with that all the time,
Damon Pistulka 06:41
yeah, yeah, especially like in a trade show, when you’re going to take equipment in, we used to take equipment in, and some of the shows I would go to with the companies, and you know, by the time you’re into it, you’re into it for hundreds of 1000s of dollars, yeah, it’s just, it’s just nuts when you look at it, and then you go, okay, then the travel and the P lost time with people just being at a Trade Show there, it is a significant investment in realizing that and understanding your true ROI from that, or trying to is a huge
Sami Birch 07:07
thing. Mm, hmm. But I think there is an invaluable component to being at trade shows that is human connection. Yep. That is different in person than it is digitally, so it is not one or the other, it is some balance of both, depending on your business.
Damon Pistulka 07:27
Yeah, yeah.
Curt Anderson 07:28
Absolutely love that. So Alright, you guys are just joining us. We as a matter of fact. So Sammy, what I’m going to do, if you don’t mind, let me, I’m going to be pulling up your LinkedIn, your company, LinkedIn page. I’m going to be pulling up the website, but just if you could just share, you know, if you want to reflect back and like, it’s funny, covid, like, years now, CC is going to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mom, I get it like, covid was this thing, you know, that you know, you know, for so when we are us older people, the young folks, are gonna be like, you know, covid was like, what you know, but it was a big deal. What would you say when you came in five years ago, and the company exploded. You know, you guys have grown dramatically. You’re attacking new markets. We’re going to dive into that kind of reflecting back and so like speaking to, like, say, the Sami Birch that’s out there, you know, you five years ago, somebody’s coming into a new company. What are some of the strategies that you feel that helped you guys become, stop being the best kept secret. What were some strategies that you felt were really winners for you over the past five years?
Sami Birch 08:29
Wow, that’s a that’s a lot of spot. Hey, we’ll
Curt Anderson 08:33
give a little pause while you’re thinking I’m going to grab your website. Is that fair? Perfect? And actually, you know what? I’ve got your I’ve got your LinkedIn right here. So let’s go to the company first. And so again, mission, design and automation. Sami Birch here, connect with Sami on LinkedIn. Do yourself a favor, Sami. You’ve complete. Let’s just start here, if you don’t mind first, because I always just rant and rave anytime somebody talks about their company. LinkedIn page, you are my case study. You’re my example. What, what any, anything that you could attribute to that was such great success on what you’ve done here on your LinkedIn page,
Sami Birch 09:08
it really has been a couple of things. One, being consistent. And, you know, kind of everything is content. We take a people first approach to everything in our business. We say this often on our team, that the value of our business walks out the door every day, and really it all is about the people here. And so beginning, from the very beginning, it was, let’s, let’s tell, tell the stories of our people. Let’s introduce our team to the world. Let’s talk about what they’re doing. Let’s feature our people. Equipment is very important. Obviously, our technical capability to execute our customers, machinery goals certainly pivotal for our like the profound for our business. But um. Um, if it weren’t for the people on our team, we wouldn’t be able to do that. And if we’re not focused on our team, we’re not focused on the right things, both from our team here, our partners, our customers. So we our first digital strategy was, let’s talk about our people, and we’ve kept that for the last five years as a main pillar of our content. We celebrate things here, we tell people about that. It works towards our digital strategy, both for recruiting, for marketing and just who we are, one of our values, or part of our I guess, vision is to be of the community. And so telling these stories helps us just showcase our people and and tell people really who we are and what’s going on at Mission. I think when you’re in systems integration or custom automation, if you’re not used to what that is, or you’re not familiar with that, it is a little hard to understand. And so being able to tell these stories of what’s behind the curtain, and not just technical showcases, which are also important, um, helps people really get the feel of why they would want to work with a team, with our team and and who we are as people.
Curt Anderson 11:16
Well, I absolutely love it. And hey, you know, I gotta go back here. Check this out. Damon, look at this sunrise right here. Is this? Oh, wow. Is that? That is just awesome, right? Isn’t that beautiful? 113 likes likes right there. So, you know, again, does that necessarily sell systems? But you know, what a brilliant shot right there. You look at the state of the art facility, yeah, beautiful sunrise. And it just kind of gives you, like a, just a, you know, pun intended, a warm feeling about doing business with mission, right?
Sami Birch 11:43
I couldn’t
Curt Anderson 11:44
help the pun. Sorry,
Sami Birch 11:45
see, yeah, yeah, no, exactly. But, you know, like, and look
Curt Anderson 11:49
at here, like, here you’ve got the guys. Here, you’ve got folks at a trade show. And what I love is, you know, so one thing Sami Damon, I talk all about, talk about all the time, is, how do you as part of your marketing strategy, how do you out teach the competition, right? How do you out teach? Just be like fierce educators. And you look Curt, you’ve got this nice post here about helping navigate through tariffs. And down here, I see you know you’re at the you guys are putting on a little display here of so again. So for somebody that’s just starting out new on LinkedIn, for their company page, people first, right? That was just such a powerful statement right there, right? Yeah.
Sami Birch 12:27
And then, um, understanding what the problems are for your customers, and then answer the what those are. So if there’s opportunity to say, hey, we’ve got a lot of people asking this question, answer that question with content we have. This is a partner example. We had a lunch and learn here with one of our local, I believe, one of our local suppliers. And so we’ll have them in they will come tell our team, Hey, these are the newest things we have on our product line, and this is when you would use them. We host that stuff here all the time, and so it not only helps support mission and the team here in our brand, build in our marketing strategy, but also those partners of ours who we work with all the time. And we believe that, you know, strong partnerships really are what get you through difficult challenges and systems integration. It’s not just mission. We integrate a lot of different components from different companies. So you’ve got key ants and FANUC and you know, your feet, your bowl feeder company, all of these are different components that work together and different companies that are coming together to solve a manufacturer’s challenge. And so we want to tell those stories about how that how it works.
Curt Anderson 13:47
Love it, absolutely love it, and what so and I, and I can’t help myself, so let we had Jake Hall on last week, and Jake was talking, we’re talking about Grand Valley State. So I just saw that. So I just little, little shout out to our mutual friend, Jake Hall. He did. He did a great job. Sami, let me go here. I get asked this all the time, like, Hey, should I be posting, you know, as a small business owner, should I be focusing on my personal page? Should I focus in on my company? Could you talk a little bit about mission on, like, the buy in from like, the C suite, the executives owners? Like, How has that worked? And how does that work for you guys, like, what’s your personal strategy for like, Ryan or folks on your team compared to the company page?
Sami Birch 14:30
Yeah, that is a great that’s a great question. We all, we all meaning. Ryan is a VP at Mission. Scott Lindeman is our CEO. You’ll see him down there in the picture with FANUC at the automatic trade show. But we believe there’s value in both in developing your personal brand and developing your company brand. One thing that I. To encourage our any new team member is invite your networks to like mission. They know you as a person. You’re their connection to our business. And so if you have your team members posting, there’s just a little another layer of authenticity to it, obviously, and realness when it’s coming from a person and not a brand name, but you don’t want to retract from your brand name. So sometimes we’ll, if I post something out, repost it through the mission page. Certainly we have people reposting missions content through their page so it reaches more of more of their network. And because it’s, it’s content worth sharing. One thing that I wanted to touch on here, as I see you scrolling through there, the post from Diane and you just highlighted the GVSU thing with Jake mission was very fortunate to be awarded the the 2025, Co Op Employer of the Year for the engineering school at Grand Valley. So wow, that’s a huge accomplishment for us, and very cool. We’re so grateful to our partnership with Grand Valley, but it really does come down to people. I mean, we we lean in and we invest in our partnership with schools, not just GVSU, but other schools around the state, and Grand Valley has been an awesome partner of ours. A lot of our newer engineers, I guess on the team came from Grand Valley through their program, so they serve rotations here throughout their school years, and some they’ll do cross cross departmental training, so maybe a semester in or a rotation. They call it in mechanical engineering, then they’ll go to back to school for a couple of months, then they’ll come back, and maybe they’re in applications engineering, doing some concepting and cost development. So it’s, it’s really great what we’ve been able to do there. And then our team member Mandy, who’s our employee development manager here, she she really has been instrumental in continuing to strengthen our relationships with Grand Valley and some of the other schools around to make sure we’re understanding what are the needs of the students, and helping educate The curriculum on the curriculum at Grand Valley to say, here’s the challenges that we’re seeing, or here’s the new tech that your students are going to need to if you want to be the best, hit the ground running as soon as you get a school let’s make sure we’re finding ways to get exposure to these students about these different topics. Technology evolves so fast that you have to have that open dialog between academia and industry to make sure that we’re preparing students, and we take that personally as a personal responsibility that we’re helping invest in the next generation.
Curt Anderson 17:56
Well, that is absolutely awesome. Congratulations. So much to be proud of. Damon thoughts, comments, what you’re seeing?
Damon Pistulka 18:03
No, I mean, the fact that you’re leaning into your people is really, I mean, I think the fundamental I was last week, I was reviewing several, several LinkedIn company profiles, and I’m going to tell you the the approach you’re taking on your people, the overall community and, and the way you’re doing it is the approach that I saw, that that had by far the most success, as far as you know, getting good, good, solid community interaction and and really showing how your company is part of the community. That’s so cool. Thank you.
Sami Birch 18:42
Thank you. And we’re seeing too the match to our new, newer followership. You know, we track that, and as part of our digital strategy, let’s make sure we’re reaching the people, not just in our community, of course, in our community, but that may be a potential customer someday, and at the end of the day, it’s people working with people. So you want to have content that helps open those doors absolutely
Curt Anderson 19:10
and just and when you think about you know, like, say, we’re going to dive into your guys, you’re you’re expanding, doing some new strategies and what have you. Damon, can you hear my puppy barking? Sorry, about that. So Louie’s not happy with me right now, so I apologize if you guys can hear Louis barking so but anyway, Sami, getting back on track. You know, think about the companies. You know, there’s other there’s, you know, God forbid you have competition out there. But you know, if I take Company A, company B, and I’m going through here, and I see people first, I see these awards. I see, you know, the the building, the sunrise, I see all these things, yeah, like you guys are just relentlessly you mentioned CC is unapologetically at the grocery store, doing cartwheels, like you guys are unapologetically putting yourselves out there saying like, Hey, we’re competitive. We’re the best, and we’re proud of it. Look at what we’re doing, and you’re doing it a. Such a professional, humble manner. Now, Damon, we know how humble Sam is. Sammy, are you ready? I’m going to embarrass you. Are you ready? No, I’m going to embarrass you. So okay, man, are you so let’s I’m going to embarrass you. I can’t see me. I can’t help so outside of CC Rose, your immediate family, Beth, then you’ve got like, your your outer circle, then you’ve got like, your friends at work and everybody, right? Damon and I are like President, Vice President, of the Sammy Burch fan club, right outside of that, that inner circle, right? So, Sammy, I have a question for you right here. Okay, when you go to your about section, dude, look at this. How in your professional year, 2023, GVSU, you know, see, any internships? You know, you’re the West West Coast chamber ambassador, Kickstarter. Sammy, how are you doing all these things, my friend, and don’t be mad, how are you you are doing amazing work? How are you getting recognized for all these things?
Sami Birch 20:50
I’ve been so lucky to have mentors that coach me and just or or maybe just like, nudge me into spaces that I don’t know that I would have naturally sought out myself, and Ryan and Scott really recommended that I get involved with our West Coast chamber, that I start making more connections in the community. I didn’t grow up in Holland, and so I’ve had their support the entire time to get involved with the Holland young professionals, to partake in some West Coast leadership classes and get to know more people around the area. I became a West Coast chamber ambassador, which allows me to support our chamber. We’re part of the chamber, and we know so many of our businesses, you know, they the chamber really helps businesses in Holland and Zealand thrive, and so getting more I just community based, and being able to network through there allowed me to achieve these things. It’s not done by myself. Mission allows me to, you know, leave for a few hours if I need to, to support these organizations for Grand Valley, I’ve been so lucky in 20 the 2023 2024 school year, I have the best intern. She’s now on our team full time and and like I told you about Mandy a little while ago, she is an incredible mentor to young team members here at Mission, and she’s also been really helpful to help me identify my blind spots and help me figure out the best way to support people. She’s in employee development. She’s passionate about it, and I don’t think I could do these things by my I certainly not. There’s it’s not just me out there. It’s because of the team that I have here and the community that we have here in West Michigan that has allowed me to, yeah, get involved and and support in some areas.
Curt Anderson 23:06
So awesome. Awesome job. How about everybody? A round of applause for Sammy. Sammy, did I embarrass you? Did I
Sami Birch 23:12
I just don’t love talking about myself. But you know Emily, you know Emily Wilkins, she is, I believe, who introduced us long ago. Yeah, I’m so grateful for her. I think she actually Emily, I love you if you’re here, I love you so much. She and I joke about being digital twins. We didn’t know each other until a couple of years ago, but we’re both here. We have similar styles and interests. But she nominates. She was one of my nominators for the Holland young professional of the year. So always grateful to her for that. But she text me the other day. We were on a webinar or a live event together, and I said, Hi, I’m Sami. I’m in marketing at mission. And she text me and said, You’re the damn director. Introduce yourself as the director. You’re not just in marketing, which is funny.
Curt Anderson 24:03
So Sammy, guess who? Guess who our guest is on Friday? Is it Emily?
Speaker 1 24:08
Yes, that’s awesome.
Curt Anderson 24:09
So, and I’m surprised, she just used them. No, I’m just teasing. I actually, we got to go to dinner a couple of summers ago, and so she’s a dear friend. Just worship the ground she walks on. She’s also doing amazing work. Another Western Michigander, right? Utah. Michigander, last time you’re on the show, yeah. So, okay, so I embarrass you, that was my goal. So guys connect with Sammy on LinkedIn. She’s doing amazing, incredible work. Sami, let’s keep moving forward. So first, people first. So you’re taking notes at home. Gosh, people first and like, they’ve just really leaned into LinkedIn, the company page. And so, you know, here’s a perfect example of contract manufacturer, if you will. You know, automation experts growing like crazy, and they just really leaned heavy into LinkedIn, because that’s where they filled their market is, yeah. Sammy, let’s dive into the website I’m going to share. And you guys have a great website. Any tips, strategies that you want to share as we start our conversation here? How did you kind of, like really lean into the website? How did you help mission stop being the best cup secret Whitney website? Strategies that you want to share here from from this perspective,
Sami Birch 25:20
yeah, when we start, when I had started here, we had like, three static pages, which is, okay, that’s what the you know, that’s where a lot of people start. They have, they were able to tell people who they were and and what they did, or at the time, for what, you know, the resources that they had. I’m lucky that as soon as I got here, Ryan had already started kind of mapping out some ideas for the website, and I knew that that’s going to be kind of our first order of business is a comprehensive website that really tells people more about what mission does. And we’ve been through a few different iterations. We just stood up some new industry pages, and we’re it’s a continual work in progress the website, so redoing some of our capability pages to really talk about how we’ve grown and where we are now compared to maybe where we were when we first did it. But, and then especially, this the Learning Center. So we’ve got more people on our team to support content development, so telling these stories in a longer format and and really trying to be thought leaders. But I think if you are starting out and you’re working with a really small team, which so many people are at small businesses, the marketing team might be somebody’s side gig, or one of the hats that they put on and take off. And so I think just getting really clear about what it is that you do, who you are trying to sell to, identifying your target audience, and structuring your content in a way that answers their questions before they’re really asking them, can support building trust in your brand. Now, there’s a lot of automation integrators out there that’s and a lot you know, we’re not the only company that does what we do, so being able to I differentiate yourself from your competition is also important. We believe that the way that we do that best is telling the stories of our team, because it really is our team that makes us different. We have the strongest controls team. I put them up against anyone in the world, but having some other things, having a live way to for people to fill out a form or ask a question, open lines of communication. It’s something that’s on my goals for 26 is to have more points of of entry from our site to get people we also immediately or while we were working on the new website revamp. And this is a long time ago. It’s all evolved over time. A CRM, there’s a lot of different tools we use HubSpot here, but connecting a way to track customer behavior and journeys and where are they interacting, especially if you’re spending money on ads, on Google ads or other display ads, having a way to make sure that you can measure if that’s an effective use or what you What you should change. And so much of it is an experiment, and I will not claim to be the expert at Google ads, because it seems like it changes a lot, and it is, if you’re not full time on it as well. And especially now, it’s not even just Google Ad strategy. You really have to have generative ad not just search engine optimization, but generative search optimization that allows your content to be found by tools like chat, GPT and proximity and all of all of those. It’s a constant learning, I think, strategy on our team too to say, Okay, we thought it was just keyword based, but now it really has to be phrase based and and content based, and how shallow or deep is your content, and what does it need to be that makes sense for your team’s capacity, and also, and also, what is being found or searched for? Luckily, this all evolves with more tools too. So hub spots got a new tool that allows you to evaluate your website searchability on this is I think it might still be in beta testing, honestly, but it’s been cool for us, even just in the last week, to say, all right, test out our site on this and give us a score. And it’s a data point. It doesn’t mean change everything. If maybe your score isn’t great, or it might not this part might be great, but is that giving you the results that you want? I don’t know. There’s a lot to be evaluated there, but there are tools, I think, to help navigate the changing landscape of search engines and how people are being found, but if you. Are a small business, and we are only 155 60 people. So we would still be we’re still a small business, but we have grown. When I started here, I think we’re 48 people. So you know, if you’re a small but growing business, and you want to take advantage of digital strategies, which you should certainly starting with your site. If you can get ahead of like connecting it all into your HubSpot and interactions, it’s going to help you, in the long run, to make that map at least ahead of time and save a lot of headache down the road. Re like retracing your footsteps to see what you did and whether or not it was valuable. If you can map some like, learn from my mistakes that I’ve learned the hard way so many times. Of like, let’s put this stuff out there, and then, oh, we needed a way to track if that helped us, yeah. So some of those, I think I would start with, it’s free to post on LinkedIn. So do that, even if it’s just sharing your story as a building a personal brand or on your company page, telling the stories of your team, taking a picture of your equipment and talking about what it is if you have customer permission, we work in a space that makes some of our sharing of what we do here a little bit. There’s a lot that we can’t share, but there’s general stuff that you can take something that you don’t want to tell, the actual story of your equipment, but you could tell about how your team came to solve this challenge with the customer, I think. But it really does require I have a lot of support from our CEO and our Vice President, like I was saying, that allows us to they understand the value of marketing, they understand why you should be leaning in and telling stories. And so having that support has made it possible for us to do as much as we have. I worked with the team early on. It was just me. Now I’m so lucky. I have a team of three full time people who are focused on marketing, and then I’ve got Mandy, who’s in employee development and documentation, but she also supports on some of the stuff that we do here in the marketing realm. And we’ve grown enough to have more of a support structure, but when I did not have the bandwidth to do it all, we worked with Gorilla 76 which is an awesome industrial marketing company, and they really helped guide us on how to set a lot of this up years ago, when we were just putting up the building I’m sitting in now and and how do we tell people not just where you are, but kind of where you’re going, or what the vision is for your future. Gosh.
Curt Anderson 32:43
All right, so much the impact there, like you sparked like five questions. Sorry, Damon, what do you got?
Damon Pistulka 32:52
I’m just, I’m just soaking it in. Because, you know, you talk about some things that a lot of people, when they might be watching today, and they go, Well, Wow, they’re so they’re here now, right? And we are. We could be that one. They could have the three static pages, you know, with equipment on it, or whatever a team page, or whatever they’ve got. But it is one of these things that you you just have to start. You have to go, what is step one, and what is step two? And realize, I think, as as you agree, you are going to make mistakes every step, but just try to minimize them. Learn from them and go to the next one, because you’ll get better every every iteration through.
Sami Birch 33:35
Yeah, absolutely I couldn’t have said that better. And I will say, if you would have told me two years ago that we would had consistent blog posting and content development to the level that we do now. It would have been a light at the end of the tunnel, but I didn’t have that. Like, if I’m speaking transparently, and I think people get into this, I think it’s natural to be like, how can I get from here to here? Like, if we could only do this, and some of it is like, you got it, you know, patience. What’s going to be nice to have? Need to have. What can we do now within our capacity? Yeah, is there an outside source that can support through the peaks and valleys of business? And you know, I’m so fortunate for the team that I have here. I can’t shout them out enough. Virginia, Connor, Brenna, Adisa, Mandy, all of you like, they are really a powerhouse team, and I’m so lucky that I get to work with them well.
Curt Anderson 34:24
And I think the results, we always give you credit, Sami, and I know you always decline it, but I’m giving you 100% of the credit. You know, 48 employees, Damon, when she started during covid, yeah, now we’re over 150 you know, tell Ryan that it’s in, you know, it’s all you I’m just teaching. But you know, for a company that grew 300% it’s just, it’s wonderful to see, you know, from a staff, from a staffing standpoint, and obviously revenues match those. But what I love, what you’re doing here, is that you you bought in, you dove into, like, the Learning Center. And so, again, mentioned it earlier. How do you out teach the competition? And here you guys have committed yourself to. For putting this content out and, like, just blogging relentlessly. And, you know, again, like educating your customer, hey, like, you know, they might be the expert at food or whatever, the whatever you know, whatever the their manufacturing, they’re relying on you to be experts. Like, Hey, how can I manufacture it faster, more efficient, more profitably, right? That’s, the only reason I’m coming to you just make the magic happen, right?
Sami Birch 35:24
Yep, yeah, that’s a lot of it, for sure. So we’re still kind of getting our footing. I would say, like it’s been awesome to do this. We’re working on our plan for 26 and how we might structure under Content pillars and what, and a little bit more clean than maybe we’ve done it in the past, but it’s really been an incredible journey. And just like you said, Damon, like, it has been a lot of lessons learned, and a lot of like, Oh, I’m not going to do it that way again, or if I only had the, you know, hindsight, I guess, to, yeah, doing it this way the first time, and really, like the team has made me better to to say, like, this is how we’ve gotta do this and and learning how to delegate as a person who had it all under your own, you Know, that is also part of growing as a leader and and as you move from the doer to the setting direction, there’s a lot of lessons to be learned in that too, and especially in digital marketing. We say digital marketing strategies, there’s so much that is such a wide large like it is huge. There’s so much under it and educating that’s another lesson learned for me this year was like, there’s people who don’t even know what that means, or have not given a thought to how a Google ad is made or or why it’s important to tell stories online, and so even just educating on like, why it’s important internally, like, hey, I need a subject matter expert on AMRs. And can we meet with a, you know, let’s meet. And I want to do a digital like a download of what are the things the customers are asking about AMRs, and what are the problems they’re trying to solve with this? And how can we then tell them so they don’t have to spend time asking us those questions. They can go find it, because we know buyers are finding information online. They’re not just calling up the guy. They know some of them, maybe, but that’s just not the future. And so how do you get ahead of it? Or I wouldn’t even say, Get ahead like this is the way we need to be doing it now, because it’s the way buyers are buying, and maybe they’ve heard of you. But if you can’t prove what whoever has said, you could do to them through a good website, content building, I guess, trust or confidence within this buyer before they pick up the phone, then they’re not going to pick up the phone. Probably they’re not seeing. What would make them convert?
Curt Anderson 38:04
Yeah, absolutely. You know our dear friend, Wendy Covey, from you know, Industrial Marketing Summit. She says, What 60 she does the high level engineering, you know, marketing study every year, 66% of the buying decision is already made online before they pick up the phone or send out an email. And Sammy, a dear friend here, says, Sami is awesome. How about that? And then they say, hire Emily for help. So we agree 100% Sammy is awesome. Definitely hire Emily. She is a rock star. I know I’m keeping you, Sami, we’ll start winding down here a couple questions. You mentioned AI a couple times. Any secret sauce there do you want to share? Like, what’s AI doing for you your team? How are you incorporating any without giving away the secret sauce? Is there anything for your digital marketing strategies? Anything that you want to share?
Sami Birch 38:52
Um, I don’t think we have a magic AHA about it. Our team is
Sami Birch 39:01
using some of our team uses it for like, how do I reword this in a different way? Or get me started out with these content pieces? I use it mostly for research. I use it as a starting point for research. I think that is where the magic is and and I’ll tell you a cool story about AI and how it relates to HubSpot, or your digital strategy that we saw this come kind of for full full circle, or is the future. So for HubSpot users out there, and if you’re not familiar with HubSpot, it’s a CRM so it tracks activity on our website when somebody fills out a form, then we have their contact info, and you can see prior behavior interactions on your website because of cookies, if they’ve accepted them. We had a lead come through our website. We were familiar with a customer name. We’ve worked with them before, but this was a new contact at that company, and I was sitting down. With the account manager on it, and he was kind of scrolling through the message, and I was trying to he was a newer to the account management team, and so just walking through what the different blocks are in the HubSpot interface for the sales engineer, and what these different things mean, because sometimes there’s more info there that you don’t use every day, that I don’t know furious about. And I noticed when I was looking at that one that said this content, it always tells you how your contact was created. So if you created it through Outlook, or you did it organically through the HubSpot platform, or if they converted through your website, or you uploaded from a trade show list, all the above this one said this contact was created through chat GPT. And that really made me like a really a light bulb went on. I was like, I have never seen that before. That’s just not something that HubSpot must have done it in my mind, I’m like, Okay, this was created by HubSpot because we don’t have a parameter set that says this is created through here, like we would for our website or some of the others. And so I my door was open. I called Virginia. Come here. Virginia is awesome, and she handles a lot of our HubSpot stuff, and she’s kind of in charge of making HubSpot work. And I was like, have you seen this before? Do you know how this was created? And she’s like, No, I’ve never seen that before, but I’ve gotta. Actually, I have a call with HubSpot this afternoon, so I’ll ask about it. And so she had her call with our, you know, success manager for some other thing, but was like, Hey, I wanted to ask, like, how does this happen? Or, like, what’s the criteria for a lead or a contact to be created through chat? GBT, and she our success manager, like, I’ve never seen this this. This is a brand new thing, and we’ve dug into it a little bit and continue to talk with the HubSpot team member about it, because we want to know, obviously, and what had happened was the person searched about on chat GPT for automation integrators, and with whatever parameters they search with. We don’t have that information, but Chad GBT came up with our link, a link to our website and maybe some others, but they clicked on ours and converted into a lead. Wow at that point, and then super cool through. So that’s one way I think that if, but if your content on your website is not enough to crawl if it’s not deep enough thought leadership content that’s proving what you do, or even with enough substance there to talk about how you’re solving problems that’s being that are being searched for, then that there’s just not an opportunity for that conversion to happen that way. And I think as more people move to chat GPT, I just said it myself. I use it mostly for research. I know tons of people that use it for content development. I really, I shy away from that a little bit, maybe for outlines and stuff to speed up your speed up your workflow on those areas. But I think an authentic approach to voice content, what you’re saying really is important. Now, I know you can, like, well, use this voice and I’m just not personally there yet, and I but I know there’s value there, but I really see it almost as a reflection of how well your content on your website is answering the questions of your customers, if you can then be shown as a result for what they’re searching for on chat, GPT or these others.
Curt Anderson 43:25
Yeah, absolutely. How exciting. Congratulations. Yeah, super thrill. You know, it’s like you do this, you know, for a long time, and you know, and hopefully 10 years from now, you’ll be like, Hey, check this out, you know. So, alright, we’re going to start winding down Damon thoughts, comments on what she just shared for.
Damon Pistulka 43:39
No, there’s so, I mean, just, just go back. I would to me, I’m just listening to the progression, like you said, Three static pages to okay, we’re generating content. We got a learning center, and we got a CRM behind us. That’s that’s tracking the interactions and how people get to know us digitally or even in real life. If you’re tracked like you’re saying, if someone just puts an Outlook contact in, and it’s so cool to understand that, because that is so valuable, like that contact that you mentioned came through chat GPT, clicked on a link, got you turned into a lead. I mean, now with your CRM, you know all the other leads you have in that same company and and how they you know what this person was looking at, how they were interacting with your company, and that’s so valuable to help answer their questions and get them the information they need to potentially, first of all, just educate them, get them what they need. Then, second off, it makes sense you might do business with them.
Sami Birch 44:39
That’s right. It’s so cool. Yeah, it really is. Yeah, it’s been quite a journey, but it really is awesome to see how far it’s progressed. And yeah, yeah, we’ll just keep going. A lot
Curt Anderson 44:51
of changes. Hey, our dear friend Timmy. Timothy is coming from across the pond. Timothy having money too, my friend, he’s a few hours ahead of us. Says using AI to augment and save time. Time not replace your brain. Agree with you 100% Sami, we’re going to start finding down here, anything What didn’t I ask you? What any questions I didn’t ask you, any words of wisdom that you want to share as we start winding
Sami Birch 45:12
down? I would just say, like, if you know I’m I’m grateful for the reflection of where we where we started, and where we are now. Because sometimes it can feel when you’re in the middle of it, like, how am I ever going to get to there? And it is just to like, I know Megan Jamba says this and and it is like, just, how can you be 1% better every day? Like, what can you do to make progress daily? I think it’s important to zoom out too and ask yourself the question of, why, why are we doing this? And make sure, like, you’re checking in to make sure you’re roughing out at least some strategy, or if you have a clearly defined strategy that the activities around your strategy support it. But yeah, if you can just incrementally get better post on LinkedIn, that really allowed me to build my network of amazing people who I didn’t know before, like Emily and like Jake and Chris and you both who I’ve been so lucky to be able to talk to here.
Curt Anderson 46:11
But well, Sami, this is phenomenal, and what’s great. So Damon, our dear friend Diane Byer, she just dropped that line on our show. Like, how do you get 1% better? So, yeah, well, instead of like being overwhelmed and like drinking from the fire hose, just like relentlessly, just keep moving forward. If you’re just starting out like Sammy described, you know, maybe you’re just building out a new website, or maybe you’re a three page you want to just start, you know. So instead of like, you know, seeing where you’re at here, how do you just kind of get into that, that one step at a time, Sami, you know, I asked you, remember the another question I asked you last time? Remember I asked you your walk up song? You remember that
Sami Birch 46:46
one? Oh, what did I say?
Curt Anderson 46:50
I go, I go through like, a whole, like, diatribe, like, hey the Tigers or somebody on second base. And, you know, you had two answers. You know, it was all I do is win.
Sami Birch 47:00
Remember that all I do that’s such a hype song. That’s such a hype song. And then you
Curt Anderson 47:06
said, fly by Rihanna. So you had great one too. You had two. So I’m not going to be as exciting here. I have, I have two last questions, okay, plus business advice. Okay, what’s the best business advice that you’ve heard or that you’d like to pass along, maybe, like Sami coming out, you know, college or younger self, what’s best business advice that you’d like to share that you’ve that’s really resonated with you on your journey?
Sami Birch 47:36
I think putting people first, it’s really like everything is about you have your business goals 100% but you’re not going to get there without a team. You don’t, you certainly don’t know everything, even if you think you do, coming out of college with your degree, like there’s always so much more to learn. I think maybe this can be summed up as, like, never stop learning, because every day you will learn something.
Curt Anderson 48:00
Yeah, drop the mic. Never stop learning. That is just such phenomenal advice. You know, that is so, you know, soon as you think you’ve you figured it out, man, like, that’s when that’s,
Sami Birch 48:12
that’s, I have this. I have a leadership coach. He’s great. He’s, I can’t remember what it is exactly, but it’s basically like, you think you know everything, and then you realize you realize you know nothing. There’s like the peak of stupidity in the valley
Curt Anderson 48:24
of Yeah, yeah. I’m like, Yeah, I’m on the other side.
Sami Birch 48:30
It’s like, oh yeah. Of learning it is so funny. How true that is, though
Damon Pistulka 48:36
it is, it is. And when you understand, when you get past, like you saw that peak, I know I’m good, yeah, I’m good. But then you realize, no, I’m not. And you go, ooh. You go, Okay, where do I start? Yeah, yeah, cuz I’m never going to get there, because I was a fallacy before. But what am I going to do to get that 1% better? That is so cool.
Curt Anderson 48:56
Here’s my Sammy. Here’s my last question for you. If I were to, if I were to ask, CC, hey. CC, what does mom do for a living? What would she say?
Sami Birch 49:02
She would probably say, play with robots.
Curt Anderson 49:06
There we go. That’s awesome. Play with robots. I absolutely love it. So alright, we’re going to wind down. Sammy, dear friend, we thank you. We appreciate you. We applaud you, commend you, admire you. You just keep crushing it. Next time, when you’re CEO of mission, design and automation, we’re going to have you back on the show. How’s that? So that’s good boy. It’s a pleasure. I think that’s next. Next year you’re going to be CEO of the company. Just tell Ryan, we’re you know, I’m just teasing. So, um, Alright, hang out with us for one second. Damon, closing thoughts. Your words of wisdom. What do you got?
Damon Pistulka 49:38
Just thanks for being here, Sami. It’s always a pleasure to be able to talk with you and just see where you guys at Mission, and everyone at Mission is going, because it’s it’s so cool to watch your journey and how it’s moving. Yeah, thank you so
Curt Anderson 49:50
much. Yep. So a couple of things, guys we close out for, as Damon mentioned, do yourself a favor. Hit that little rewind button, such a thing as a rewind my show my age, like, just hit that Curt. I would have go back to the beginning and catch Sami. She dropped us brilliant, uh, suggestions please follow Sami on LinkedIn. Follow mission their company page. If you’re trying to grow your company page. As a manufacturer, she’s definitely the person to follow if you’re looking for automation. Guess what, guys, there’s no I don’t think there’s you don’t you have no competition. I know you said you have competition earlier. I don’t think they have competition. Damon, so if you, if you want to improve your, streamline your processes, you want to start automating, reach out to Sami, the team at Mission, and they will absolutely take care of you. They’re expanding and growing. Guys, have a great rest of your Monday. Have a great week. We will see you Friday with Emily Wilkins, we’re going to
Damon Pistulka 50:39
have Emily, yeah, it’s going to be great,
Sami Birch 50:40
amazing. All right, guys, thanks everyone so much. Bye.