Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Nancy O’Leary

Curt Anderson  00:02

Hey Damon. Good morning. Good afternoon. Happy Monday. How are you doing?

Damon Pistulka  00:07

Doing great Curt

Curt Anderson  00:13

Glad you’re doing great Damon Damon, why are you doing so great on the beautiful, wonderful last Monday of October?

Damon Pistulka  00:19

You know, we had a good Seahawks win yesterday played like heck for the game and then pull it out. I don’t know how. But it was good. Got to go with my son to the game. Always like that.

Curt Anderson  00:31

Well, God bless you. Hey, happy Monday, everybody. So it’s just it’s a wonderful end of the month. We are talking we’ve been celebrating manufacturing month, a whole the whole month. And what a wet you know what? Don’t tell Damon don’t tell anybody this but we kind of we kind of saved the best for last right? We kind of saved the best for last. Just saying I’m just saying no notice. We had a great month. We had a wonderful, amazing, incredible month. And I’m just absolutely thrilled. I am honored to have an introduce reintroduce a repeat offender here. Only Nancy O’Leary. Nancy, how are you? Happy Monday.

Nancy O’Leary  01:10

Hey, good morning to both of you. Wow, repeat offender. You know, I think I fit into that category in a number of ways, but we’ll just stick to being on your show a couple of

Curt Anderson  01:20

times. That’s right. Hey, what goes on there at the Leary house who stays it? That’s what did keep it right there. So all right, for the record a couple of things. I just want to get every just a couple of housekeeping rules here. Damon I just want just to make everything straight. Okay. Nancy does not own a cow, nor has she ever owned a cow. Right, Nancy? Do I have that correct? My my

Nancy O’Leary  01:40

personally No, but definitely in the family on my mom’s side. They’re now in fourth generation dairy farmers in Wisconsin.

Curt Anderson  01:48

Okay. All right. But you are through through Chicago and so you know, you had no nothing to do with that whole little cow thing that happened a few years back but No,

Nancy O’Leary  01:55

Mrs. O’Leary did not so I was just a tiny bit Irish to start with. And then when I got married and got the very name my sound really Irish, and one of the requirements to me getting the name, according to my father in law was that I had to know the real Mrs. O’Leary story. So, Mrs. O’Leary, it was someone else. And Mrs. O’Leary was just somebody that was causing lots of issues in the city of Chicago really rubbing the mayor the wrong way. very outspoken woman. And so when the fire erupted, he decided to do the close proximity to where she lived. Let’s just blame it on her. And that’ll kind of shut her up and she’ll get out of the way. Yeah, who was to ever know that it was going to become this? larger than life. Ongoing tale,

Curt Anderson  02:38

right? This whole epic legend. So all right. So hey, everybody, we’ve got Jeffrey in the house. Jeffrey, we’re going to and your ears are gonna be ringing today. So Jeffrey, thank you for joining. We’re gonna be digging deep here. We’ve got a couple other friends. We got Robbie coming to us here, Damon, we’ve got my shoot here. So guys, let us know that you’re out there, drop a note. Let’s say hello. Let us know where you’re coming from. incredible, wonderful, a great conversation we’re going to dive into before we go there. Just share a little bit. You know, you’re a great boy, Mom, you’ve got four incredible amazing sons serving proudly in the military. Just I mean, like what your sons are doing are just, oh my goodness, just so good. Give us a little background on who Nancy O’Leary is we’re going to dig into custom director and then we’ve got something really fun to cover.

Nancy O’Leary  03:25

Me, come on, we gotta get to the good stuff. Yes, I’m a boy, Mom, I’m really blessed. They’re wonderful. They’re grown, that makes me really old. And, you know, they’re out living their lives, and could not be more delighted with that, you know, they are pursuing really exciting careers. And, you know, as a parent, I just love the fact that they love each other. You know, they’re just a really tight bond. And when we get on video calls together, oh my gosh, it’s just it’s loud. And it’s fun. Just a lot of laughing all the time. So the countdown has begun. Everybody’s coming home for the holidays. So we’ve all got our little, you know, hash marks going on the calendar till we’re all there you go. So, you know, that’s about it. Direct, customer direct Boy, am I excited to be part of the team accustomed direct. I don’t know what Jeff was thinking, you know, when he brought me on board, but God bless him that he did it custom direct, we really enjoy working with manufacturers. It’s our strong suit. We’ve got a tremendous track record. I’m gonna throw one really great stat out there. Last year with just one project that we ran with 28 Different manufacturers, we delivered bottom line impacts that were three and a quarter million dollars. And that’s 3.2 5 million. And that was not anything that was audited by us. It was actually by NIST, the National Institute of Science and Technology came in and took a look at the work we did and what those impacts were. And so we’re excited. We’re excited to be able to talk about that number. We should have a new number coming up real quick and I’m Let’s just jump into this conversation we wish. Well, real quick, as Jeff was listening to that, gotta be sure I cover all the bases, we work with manufacturers, how do we do that we, you know, we really just work with them to grow their business. We know this much about manufacturing. And we know this much about marketing. And so we work with manufacturers identify what their growth goals look like, and then what the best way is to get them there. And it’s a nice segue, I’ll just say working with manufacturers has been just a complete and total delight. My dad was a plastics mold engineer. So I grew up having to spell probably propylene, and probably stiring. Really before I could spell my last name. And really just that is Lou would call it my dad, that attention to detail, a TD. And so ironically enough, even though I was a marketing major, I actually started out my career right after college, working as a production scheduler, for manufacturer, which really makes no sense at all. And that really was the trajectory that my career went then. And so to bring it full circle back to custom direct, we really dig into understanding each and every client that we work with. And so while we could never run a manufacturing company, we can certainly understand where some of their growth challenges might be. And we do just really a great job of growing our business. And so having spent the last few years working primarily just with manufacturers, we understand that probably one of the strongest challenges that a manufacturer is facing right now is their workforce. You know, we’ve heard an awful lot about the silver tsunami, you know, there’s just so many current manufacturers that have either already retired or are planning to retire. And so a very common question we get asked from manufacturers that we’re working with, and those that would like to work with us. Not only are they looking to grow their business, but they need the workforce to support that growth. And I mean, it just goes on and on in terms of the challenges that manufacturers are facing. And so is we kind of put together our rocks for the year we follow Eos, this Entrepreneurial Operating System, it’s called and it’s a it’s a great template that kind of helps businesses really framework their goals for the year. So another way to look at a rock as a goal. And so one of the things that we had in mind was, you know, how are we going to celebrate manufacturing month this year, we do a lot of work for our clients for manufacturing month helping them celebrate either through social media, through blog posts, sometimes it’s a collateral that they’re going to be using, because they’re going to be hosting tours at their facility. But this year, we wanted to do something different. And we really wanted to do something impactful. And so we realized we needed to start talking about it before September since manufacturing month was October. And so we did so we started talking about it was late spring, real early summer. And the result of those conversations was this initiative that we kicked off this year manufacturing month called manufacturing Mavericks. And I don’t know which one of us hits the Share button. I think you do. Right?

Curt Anderson  08:17

Well, let’s alright, this. Let’s go here real quick, man. So we got a couple other people dropping Hello. So let’s give a shout out to a few people here saying hi. So Happy Monday to you guys here. Thank you for dropping in. We would absolutely love for you to drop a note. Say hello to Nancy. And so let’s let’s let’s unpack a couple of things super quick. There. Were a lot at us, Nancy. So like $3.25 million of impact through your company. And what I love is that you understand manufacturers and try to help them grow. So is it Kurt encouraged me welcome you invite you connect with Nancy on LinkedIn, or Cali here is chapter today, Jeff, Happy Monday to you we send in tons of support to you my friend. Let’s dig into some manufacturing Maverick. I’m gonna pull it up real quick. What inspired you to dig into this? Like this was a big juicy project? What inspired you guys to do that?

Nancy O’Leary  09:11

Okay, so really, it comes right down to this. In order for this next generation, let’s, let’s say right now for students that are currently in high school, for them to understand the opportunities that exist for a career in manufacturing. They need to be able to see themselves in that role. They need to understand what does a career in manufacturing look like? And so we went straight to the heart of it and said, Let’s find ourselves. Some young adults coming out of high school that have pursued a career in manufacturing. Let’s talk to them about what that career has meant to them. And we’ve portrayed them here, so on manufacturing mavericks.com Each day throughout the month of October, so we’ve got 20 of them up because I apologize. It’s just the business days that we’ve done this. We have profiled and celebrated, another manufacturing Maverick. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m going to see now I should be able to move the manufacturing Mavericks down, right, Kurt screensharing. Okay. Okay. And so here at manufacturing mavericks.com, you’ll see that we’re celebrating this next generation of manufacturers and man, I could just go on and on and on about it. So please stop me at any point. But I’m just going to quickly scroll down just so that you can see each of these Mavericks each. Each week, we’re celebrating. And we did some intentional things I’ve got to mention the the creative aspect of this, we intentionally are really spotlighting the maverick themselves. The background is intentionally ghosted out a bit so that you’re really looking at the face so that students and their parents who come to the site can really picture themselves can see what it means to have a career in manufacturing. And you can see it’s each person, we are respecting the degree of anonymity that they and their companies have asked for. So we’re not including their last name, you can see what they do, what their title is, and each of these, and then the companies that they work for, you can see these are all bouncing a little bit, well, those are hyperlinks, so you can go right to that company’s website and learn more about those companies. Also, for each Maverick, as I scroll down, you can see we’ve got information here about their education, we can see where they went to school. And we can see in terms of where they went to high school. And we can also see a little bit more of a backstory about the company themselves before you click through. And this is I think, honestly, my favorite part of the whole site for each and every Mavericks. Let me scroll up a little bit. So you can see what Matthew looks like. We asked each Maverick two questions, and they had the opportunity to answer either one or both. And the question was really straight. The questions were straightforward. One was Why did you choose a career manufacturing? And the other was what does your career manufacturing mean to you? How has it impacted your life, and the responses that we receive, were just so jaw dropping, and so incredible. Again, and again, and again, we’re hearing how these are young adults, who really had an indication probably in high school, but they wanted a career that was hands on a career that provided them an opportunity to grow into something more. And when it comes to what did make their career manufacturing actually bring to them. It was again, and again, opportunity and stability, and a family environment that they work in. So I’m going to not say you know, give anybody a headache, but I’m going to scroll back up again. And remember, there’s 20 Different Mavericks. And so the fact that in very diverse roles at very different companies, they had the exact same reaction, it was the their career manufacturing is just a tremendous opportunity for them. It’s where they get to really expand their skill set. They are learning how to problem solve in a way that they hadn’t before. And they really appreciate the family like atmosphere they have at the companies where they work. So you know, honestly, as a parent, what else could you possibly look for for your child, when your child is looking at what their career might look like? You’d love for them to be able to tell you all those things. And we’re here to say that can happen, especially with a career in manufacturing.

Curt Anderson  13:43

This, this is this is a bunch of questions here. So let’s let’s run through some of these folks. Let’s start with so as you I love what you said you mentioned the you know, being anonymous with you know, or keeping it low key and the name just talked about, like different titles here. So I see Control Panel builder, which is great fear QC leads to talk about the different aspects, but not It looks like a really diverse crowd of different cars.

Nancy O’Leary  14:11

Absolutely. So right here for David. So David is a control panel builder at simplex and simplex puts together wire harness systems that get used in probably every industry you can imagine. You know, and so, David actually joined the simplex team through an internship while he was still in high school. So he was identified by a manufacturing Teacher He had it was there was a manufacturing class he was taking and he identified David as just having an incredible problem solving skill set and said I really think that you should consider an internship. We’ve got a number of companies but I think simplex might be a great fit. And so David applied and was accepted. So he worked in tended high school and worked at simplex for The I’m trying to think the summer between his junior and senior year and then throughout his senior year, and then simplex, went ahead and then invited David to join the team full time. So David works there full time. He graduated from high school a year ago. And he is pursuing a an associate’s degree at the College of DuPage, which is a tremendous local high school. They have a program called Project higher ed. And it’s higher spelled H, I heard a and it was really robust program that’s there to help students really move forward in their career within the industrial sector. And so David’s got very, very big aspirational goals. When he completes his two year degree, he’s considered going on to get a four year degree. But again, he would take classes at night, and really has dreams of potentially running his own manufacturing company someday. Which I have to say, interestingly enough, is also a common thread among many of these Mavericks, many, many Mavericks are working full time or almost full time, maybe it’s 35 hours a week, and then taking classes at night. And I have to tell you, in every single instance, the classes that they’re taking at night, are being fully paid for by their company. So let me just repeat that because I’m not going to cast aspersions on anyone that chooses a different career out of high school, like maybe going to college full time, all of these Mavericks, the ones that are pursuing additional education, it’s being fully paid for by the companies, they work for them. And in many cases, the classes that they’re taking don’t have to direct direction be directly related to the work that they’re doing at their company, their company, so is so vested in their success, and to support their career path, whatever that may be, that they provide the tuition payment or reimbursement, whatever it is for these Mavericks. I think it’s just incredible.

Damon Pistulka  17:08

That’s, that is so cool.

Curt Anderson  17:10

We’ve got a couple of comments. Couple of questions coming in here, Nan. So let me let me pull up so few things here. We’ve got Ravi asking a question. Are these owners of companies whom you have helped? Sorry, that’s my first session with you guys. But sounds interesting. Ravi, great question. And so what we’re doing is we bring on different guests, we bring in different subject matter experts, these amazing incredible folks like Nancy O’Leary here from customer direct. She’s coming to us from Chicago. And what we’re doing here is she is featuring young people that are pursuing a career in manufacturing. So great question. Hey, we’ve got a dear friend Mike. Friends, Mike. Happy Monday, dude. Hey, guys, great stuff, Nancy. Let’s connect. I love manufacturing Maverick Mavericks. So he’s got a little mission behind coffee, shop for coffee for you guys need to connect. He’s up in Minneapolis. So he’s a great dude. Another great advocate, advocate for manufacturing. We’ve got a couple other folks here, jump in notes. comments. Please. Do you have any? Do you have any programs for people with disabilities? Nancy, did you come across any any of the Mavericks that are facing disabilities or any any response to that comment?

Nancy O’Leary  18:15

Not Not just yet. And I should I think this might be a great place to just give a kind of a quick overview of how How did someone even become a maverick? How did they get nominated? Good point. Okay, so So basically, this initiative is brand new, we literally kicked it off October 1. And so this is our first run our first manufacturing month. And so when we put the program together and worked really hard over the summer nights and weekends, because our clients keep us busy during the day, we realized that this had the potential to go really well. But how well and how fast we didn’t know. And so as an agency, when we’re working with companies, we strongly believe in an iterative approach, you know, start relatively small, relatively controlled, measure, see what’s working, tweak and fine tune the parts that are working, and then maybe alter the parts that are not working or just abandoned on and so we took that approach with Mavericks. So in order to ensure that the folks that we were celebrating this month, had completed high school, and were working on the shop floor, we had those two requirements. We wanted someone that had completed high school, hopefully within the last four or five years, we want to focus on the younger end of the spectrum, again, so that high school students could relate to who they were seeing up here on manufacturing mavericks.com. And then also, we really felt it was important to have young adults who were working on the shop floor. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with someone that might work in accounting or customer service at a manufacturing company, but those are job skill sets that you could take to another industry and probably all work the same. But if you are basically a control panel builder, you’re probably not taking the At anywhere outside of the industrial sector. And so those were the requirements that we had. So realizing that we had a pretty tight requirement, we went ahead and invited companies that we were familiar with, to nominate a maverick, we had a whole packet of information that we sent. And those companies ran the gamut of folks that we’ve worked with in the past that we’re currently working with, that we would love to work with in the future, or that we just know each other, because we’re all in the industry, and we meet it at different events. And so really, the the burden, I would say, honestly, was for the companies to go and check and see, okay, who do we have that fits this criteria. And so we heard many interesting stories of folks that didn’t quite fit the criteria. Some had had students that were still in high school. And while we celebrate that, that’s not what this is about. Because when you’re in high school, your career is a student. You’re not quite out there working as a career. The other thing was, sometimes they had folks that were just a little bit too old. And by that, I mean, you can both relate, you know, they were in their late 20s. So they were really old. We said, yeah, no, sorry, you’re a little too old. But those are great stories, we’d like to tell at some point. But for this kickoff month, we just want folks that fit this criteria. So to answer the question, no, we did not get anyone nominated, that we’re aware has a disability. And that’s not to say that they don’t, they’re not mentioned, and it wasn’t something that we specifically sought out.

Curt Anderson  21:28

And definitely, you know, and we’ll get into this because this has been a one and done that, you know, definitely, you know, you’re gonna be interviewing so many folks in the future. And hey, we get another comment here. So gentlemen, coming to its MD, so MD, thank you for joining us today from Bangladesh, and we get at Loubser. So Mike, thank you for the Wowser dude. So this is great. So again, guys, we’re with Nancy O’Leary, we’re talking about manufacturing Mavericks. And you know, when you and I talked about this, Nancy, you’re like, you know, hey, we’re really trying to get that Gen Z crowd. And like, you know, you know, somebody in their late 20s is a little bit old, you’re really just trying to shine a bright light on how amazing manufacturing is. You did you really went on a great little tirade. Last time you’re on the program, just sharing how you like me. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re like manufacturing this for anybody and everybody, if you could for folks that are just joining us, can you grant schools scroll through, so we can see all the folks and let’s pull up some different again, like you have a nice diverse crowd of a nice crowd of different talent and skill sets here. Talk a little bit about how you know you scratched the surface on your company selection companies that you knew what have you deeper, and then like, let’s let’s feature some more of the young people here.

Nancy O’Leary  22:43

So let’s talk about Cassie. So she’s a CNC machinist apprentice. And if you click on the read more, what this is going to show you for anyone just joining us, these are Cassidy’s responses to a couple different questions that we asked about why they chose a career in manufacturing and what their career in manufacturing has meant for them in their life. And Cassie just had so so much to explain and to tell us about really just incredible. I mean, when when you think about I don’t want to focus on the negative, we know sometimes you hear about the next generation, and they’re not. They don’t have a work ethic or that. Whatever I mean, we’ve all we’ve all heard

Curt Anderson  23:26

about us, right?

Nancy O’Leary  23:28

And I feel like it’s every generation says it’s average. And I’m here to say absolutely not. You know what, if you think that why don’t you come to manufacturing mavericks.com and start reading what these young folks said, you know, we didn’t embellish at all these are their words exactly within TriMet. We didn’t add anything. And then here’s Cassie said, you know, education story. So she attended a charter school. She’s been on an apprentice program through Harper. And now that she’s finished up her two year degree. She’s now pursuing a business management degree at night while she’s working full time. And I want to just click on news to the bottom. This is Cassie. Cassie is now going to be featured and a really cool opportunity. It’s an Amazon Prime TV series called the college tour, which which will be spotlighting Harper College and specifically the CNC apprenticeship program that she’s in. So you can click on this law peek to what it’s going to be here. David was that first Maverick we had, he was already spotlighted through College of DuPage and their students stories, so he’s being apparently featured again and something else. So here on our news tab, it’s just going to show you additional information about any of our Mavericks. And if I can just real quick Curt, I know we’re gonna go back and we’re gonna look at some specific metrics. But I also want to touch on what this Resources tab does. So for anyone that might be watching, you know, really hope that if you know anyone that In high school, maybe even younger, or you’ve got friends who are parents of kids that are telling you Yeah, I don’t know that my kid’s going to do and he doesn’t want to go to college or she’s not sure what she would go to college for, please send them to manufacturing mavericks.com because resources are here for you. So on these tabs, you can see what the different high school programs that are that are Mavericks have attended the community college programs that exist. I’ve been mentioning College of DuPage. But there’s so much information here on each of these. These are all community colleges that have tremendous programs for apprenticeships, internships, all within the industrial sector. And then furthermore, if we go back up to the top of our resources, oh, I was a little fast with that. I apologize. I’m going to give it there’s also associations and I do want to touch base, there are organizations that exist that are there to help. Both municipalities, companies and students all get to know each other to put these apprenticeships in place these internships, particularly when they involve providing high school credit, or college credit. So the Resources tab are vitally important. There’s a lot of great information in there. And we just continue to add content as we get it. There’s a fax here, this is going to be really beneficial for anyone that might have some real interesting questions about, for instance, what’s the annual salary of a manufacturing employee? Let me tell you something absolutely incredible. Look at this. Yep. So again, not going to cast shade on anyone that’s going right into a full time college careers that were coming out of high school. But for all of these Mavericks, they are currently working basically full time again, some of them might be more like 35 hours a week, making well above minimum wage, and in four years time, they will have an associate’s degree at a minimum, some certification, they may even like kisi be pursuing that that four year degree at night. They will be easily above this number here in four years. Yeah, they will be they will be at six figures, or very close to six figures within four years of completing high school. And I’m gonna pause. It’s hard for me, and I’m gonna say it one more time. Yeah, please, please do. Please realize these are real hard numbers. These are factual numbers. These Mavericks that you see are brilliant. They know exactly what they’re getting into. They are getting into the most robust career with so many opportunities, and they’re, they’re absolutely slaying the day, they are doing an incredible job. So, again, these companies, I just want to take a moment. I know this is about the Mavericks. But I’d also like to give a really big shout out to these tremendous companies. These Mavericks are in these great roles and having this tremendous opportunity, because these companies have welcomed them with open arms with tremendous company cultures, with incredible programs, whether it’s an apprenticeship or an internship, their onboarding process is second to none. All of these companies, and they run the gamut in terms of size, there are companies that have maybe 20 employees, and ones that have hundreds of employees, a couple of these companies are global. And yet they have a I want to say a family run small townfield to them in the way that they bring their Mavericks into the fold and onto their team.

Curt Anderson  28:34

All right, this is fantastic. And we just crossed the top of the hour. So again, I want to give a shout out to everybody joining us here today. Ravi says, awesome, thanks. I want to connect with you, Nancy. We’ve got another friend here coming to us. I’m glad to hear all the positive experience of the meeting today. And Diane says so excited for this information going great work here. Would love to support this program in any way I can keep up the great work. Diane, thank you. I knew that you would absolutely love this. So guys, we’re here with Nancy O’Leary from customer direct and Inc. and coming to you live from Chicago. And so they’re doing an amazing job. And what they’re doing is they’re focusing featuring young folk, they’re pursuing a career in manufacturing, and manufacturing. Mavericks is the place that you want to go, you can just Google it, you can go right to that website. Super exciting stuff here. Nancy, you mentioned some of the companies and we’re also hearing too he’s got entrepreneurs who are behind this in the young folks haven’t really strong entrepreneurial spirit, what we’re hearing right, taking business courses, why not own my own manufacturing company themselves? Or their little bit? Like what what were you what really juiced you up? What really got you excited about that entrepreneurial spirit, either talking to the business owners, or the young folks themselves?

Nancy O’Leary  29:50

Well, I’m gonna say it’s, it’s the, it’s the young folks. I mean, not that one is better than the other but to just see this entire generation you Each of these Mavericks knew that as they were leaving high school, they needed to make a career choice that was going to give them an opportunity to avoid. And some of them were very blunt to avoid some of the hiccups and hangups that they saw either family members or friends, older siblings go through when it came to the cost of college. And again, it’s just very real, it’s not anything that we want to give a negative spin to. But the reality of it is college a full time college education might be out of reach for many, many people. And if it’s not, it’s it’s very worrisome for their parents. And so what these Mavericks have decided is they’re going to literally take control of their own career, and they’re not going to wait to figure out what that might be in three or four years. They’re going to do it right now. And their willingness, I mean, oh, my gosh, their willingness to take on roles that they didn’t know anything about. And yet they felt so welcomed in each of these companies to learn and to try different things, and to see where they really exceeded. And for some of them, they were really honest, we’ve got a welder who commented he was the worst welder and his apprenticeship program, he was the worst like the bottom, his were terrible. By the time his training was up, he was sent to statewide here in Illinois competition, he came in second place out of all the welders that were sent. Whoo. So I mean, you know, at the end of the day, the the the Go get it, the positive attitude, the AI can do it, and the just get started, cannot possibly be overstated enough. Each of these folks have got such a strong work ethic. And the gratefulness you know, it’s one of those things Kurt, you know, that that you absolutely embody. And Damon you do as well, I mean, both of you just, you’re so grateful. Anytime we get a chance to talk, it’s such a refreshing last have fun. But it’s just it’s grounded in this gratefulness, each of these members and I’m not exaggerating, when I tell you, each and every one is so grateful for the opportunity that they have, that they really want to spread the word, they were thrilled to be part of this program. Because if if they can encourage some students that they’ve never met, who’s trying to figure out what they should do next, you know, they want to be there. They want to beat that example. So, you know, here we are. Your question, I feel like I’m just like going and going and going.

Curt Anderson  32:45

Yeah, this is what we’re here for Nancy. And I’m going to be truthful, you have I had high expectations. And just so everybody knows, I had the honor and privilege of meeting Nancy in person just a little over a month ago. And Nancy, we had a great time we were at the MPP Manufacturing Extension Partnership, annual conference, you know, represented all 50 states. You know, if anybody follows our program, we talked about the MVPs a lot. And I had the honor and privilege Nancy and I shared the stage that a little presentation together. Nancy, you are a true powerhouse. You are a leader, you are just a fierce advocate. I just my respect and admiration for you, just as a mom, as a friend, as a professional, just off the charts. And I had when you told me about this product, I’m getting chills even thinking about it. Tell me about this program. Because when you came on with Damon and I you know, months ago, boy, you gave a really wonderful speech about why young people should be going into manufacturing. And I know like this is really authentic and from the bottom of your heart. And my hat’s off, all of us are hats off to you and Jeff, for your vision to take on this project. Let’s go next steps were like that you guys. You’re in the you’re in the Chicagoland area is very heavy Chicago, where where do you see manufacturing Mavericks going? What’s your long term? What’s long game, we’re going to be your economic. Well, thanks for that. Thanks for that lead

Nancy O’Leary  34:05

up with it without even realizing it was the lead up. But I do want to do just a really quick stop. And and this is absolutely a team effort. I appreciate all the really nice sincere things that you said. But 100% a team effort. And Jeff is just a magnificent, magnificent man that really keeps all the rest of us corral that custom direct. And he had such a clear passion for ensuring that we were able to provide a representative look and feel for students to come and see and picture themselves. Yes, I can. I can have a career like that. And so while you know it’s somewhat like herding cats at times, because we’ve all got these great ideas. Jeff really honestly just kept coming back to the idea of let’s just make sure that everything we’re doing is spotlighting that representation so that someone visiting the site can easily picture themselves. So again, alluding back to that whole creativity and the idea that it’s the person that you really see. And that the background is is, you know, again, just kind of go sit out in the team as a whole. I, you know, I casually mentioned that. But really, this was nights and weekends. This was personal time that the whole team put in to make this happen. And we worked with a really tight deadline, there’s a tremendous amount of work that had to be done behind the scenes in terms of intellect, collateral that had to be provided to each company, in terms of the nomination process. And then what they’ll be getting afterwards on each company is getting a poster that has their Maverick on the Maverick was getting some manufacturing Maverick swag. I mean, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. But in terms of what’s happening with Mavericks moving forward, I think I teased last week on LinkedIn, that there was going to be this big announcement today. Well, the big announcement is manufacturing. Mavericks is not just for manufacturing month, we are moving forward with met with celebrating Mavericks all year long. Yeah, and we are so excited. I mentioned that, you know, there were some other stories to be told folks that didn’t quite fit that type parameter, folks that were really old that were like in their late 20s. Those are still incredible stories to be told. And we’re gonna tell them, there’s one sec about, you know, getting goosebumps. There are stories of folks that that may be manufacturing wasn’t their second career choice, or even their third career choice. But when they came into it, it was like they’d come home. And, and the emotion, the emotion that these folks have is they’re telling us their stories, those stories have to be told. And they need to be told loud and frequently. And if we can just ensure that not just this next generation, but even the generation out there right now that’s working. And if you’re just collecting a paycheck every week or every two weeks, and you’re not really passionate about what you’re doing, or you don’t really see any kind of career opportunity, we could not say it loud enough, and often enough, there is a career for you in manufacturing, I don’t care if you’ve never picked up a veneer caliper, or if you don’t know what it is, but you know what you can Google it and better yet, you can absolutely find a job within manufacturing. And sure, I’m not saying that they’re gonna let you work on a $5 million machine right out of the gate. But you know what, there’s a possibility that you might actually be able to get your hands on it. If there’s one thing that we’re really working hard to dispel is this notion that a career manufacturing means you’re relegated to some dirty, smelly shop floor that was very stereotypical from a previous generation or even decades ago. And while yes, there are still some shops, some smaller size shops, definitely have a ways to go in terms of being able to bring newer equipment in the industry as a whole. And I say this very sincerely, is on the forefront of embracing technology and robotics. And it’s ironic that so many folks are worried that robotics are going to replace people, nothing could be further from the truth within manufacturing, we have such a huge, huge hill to climb because we are going to be losing hundreds of 1000s of manufacturing workers over the next five years alone. And robotics is going to come in and add some incredible technology to some of those skills. But guess what, we need people who embrace technology in order to work with those robotics. I kind of went off on a little soapbox there, but

Curt Anderson  38:50

the mic preach my friend, miss. Oh my goodness, this guy, that was fantastic. I love what you just said. And again, if we were having a conversation in 1823, in 1923, there was always the fear always a threat of somebody, you know, taking jobs, and that technology in the automation, everything is just gonna It’s just enhancing new opportunities, you know, the jobs and a task that people thought of 56 years ago like that mundane, you know, over and over, that can be replaced but it’s creating new art and again, all you have to do is just look it out, you know, a special fabrication welder, you know, when these are welding builder and operator, these folks right here in front of us and look at the wonderful new opportunities. So Nancy, manufacturing Mavericks, they can anybody out here can connect with you on LinkedIn, but Akron mavericks.com Let’s start taking it home a little bit. How if somebody wants to reach out to you if somebody were to have an amazing Maverick, are you looking for suggestions are you

Nancy O’Leary  39:53

we are so you know I mentioned iterative and so you know one of the things about Iterative there’s a lot of great things out. And then probably the one thing is man, you got to get up to speed really quick and manufacturing Mavericks. I’m kind of chuckling. But I think probably everyday this week, there’s gonna be new content added to it in terms of how to get a hold of us how to go ahead and nominate a maverick, for about the program, you know, again, we started small. And the idea was, well, let’s kind of see how it goes, we think it’s going to be kind of popular. And it’s not just kind of popular, it’s wildly popular. And so we’ve just got to add that content. And so I would say, awesome picture mavericks.com. Be sure to keep visiting it, there’s gonna be a lot of information on there. Feel free to follow manufacturing, manufacturing Mavericks on LinkedIn, there’ll be lots of information on there in the days to come about how to nominate a maverick, feel free to to follow custom direct if you’d like you can connect with me on LinkedIn. But I’d really recommend everyone that’s listening. While we’re manufacturing Mavericks on LinkedIn, there’s just going to be a tremendous amount of information there in the days to come. Well,

Curt Anderson  40:59

Mrs. O’Leary, how about this come here for you? Yes, Nancy, advocate of Maine, advocate of manufacturing industry of the year capital Y e AR. So Nancy, that was absolutely wonderful. I want to I last question that I want to ask you is, so for companies out there, like you really cut this down on you. And again, you had talked to you Jack, the entire team accustomed direct, you took this guy and it’s just like a mission, because a great, you know, really a fierce belief that you have in the future of manufacturing. You know, you took this on, you said it was nights and weekends, other companies out there any advice or suggestions that you have for other companies that want to do something similar to take on something like this?

Nancy O’Leary  41:41

To celebrate? Yeah. Or just an initiative as a whole?

Curt Anderson  41:46

like kind of a non profit ish initiative, kind of a mission based initiative that you’ve done here? How do I how did it go from from Mike and I like, Hey, I have an idea to actually this fire? How did you do that?

Nancy O’Leary  42:00

Sure. So first and foremost, it’s a passion project. Obviously, we all really strongly believe in the opportunities in manufacturing. And here, kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit. Also, we’re a marketing agency, if I haven’t mentioned that already. And so as a marketing agency, we also want to grow our business. And we also want the opportunity to work with new folks. And so what better way to meet folks who may not be familiar with us, then to literally embrace the industry that they’re in and help them not only celebrate that next generation, that’s coming into manufacturing, but help them spotlight their company. So I mean, completely transparent. Sure, we absolutely believe with what we’re doing here. But it also gives us an opportunity to show what we’re capable of doing. So for anyone out there that might be thinking about this, you know, what is your passion, you know, depending on what your niche is and where you work, but you know, what’s your passion? And how can you shine a spotlight on a really vital aspect? You know, of that industry?

Damon Pistulka  43:06

Yeah, absolutely. So cool.

Curt Anderson  43:08

Girl. Yeah. And I just in as we start winding down, I just want to I just want to say, Man, I just want to really dig into the brilliance behind us. Because now what you’re doing is you’re showcasing with just true authenticity, and just high integrity. You’re showcasing different, you know, a vast array of companies, companies that may never be on Nancy’s radar at some point in time. So number one, highlighting that building that relationship. Number two, a new lead or a new client, a new customer comes in Nancy and says, Hey, not only are we looking for new customers, we’re also having challenges with on the recruiting side. Do you have any ideas, Miss Nancy O’Leary? Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I do. Let me introduce you to our dear friends at manufacturing Mavericks. Now what that manufacturer can do when they’re out recruiting, and they have a new Rockstar like Christian and Miko, and Jonathan, all these folks that we’re looking at. And now they can say like, Hey, we featured of manufacturing Maverick, would you like to be a manufacturing Maverick at our company? Let’s have a conversation. So I just love it up in a bow first, Nancy

Nancy O’Leary  44:13

Madigan are My Dimples showing because I mean, like, I’m just grinning from ear to ear. Like, that’s it? I mean, that’s the dream, you know, for companies to be able to proudly say I’ve got a manufacturing Maverick. Yeah. That’s it. I mean, that’s the that’s the goal. You know, just a celebration of manufacturing. You know, there’s, there’s such a tremendous spirit of camaraderie within manufacturing. That’s kind of hard to explain in some respects until you’re in it. And then like, wow, it’s It’s powerful. It’s really

Damon Pistulka  44:47

powerful. The, the other the one thing that we haven’t we mentioned a little bit, but these young people, we should be celebrating them because They’re taken off on a great career. Yeah, I mean, and that’s good. Because when you look at people that are outside young people outside manufacturing, that are working probably in a job that they feel is dead end, it’s not going where they want to go. The more people we can put into positions like this, the more we are helping our young people to really realize their dreams, to be able to, you know, the manufacturing will give you the, the career, and it will enable a lifestyle that you can get home, you can do what you want to do, you can do things outward, or you can raise a family, you can do the things that you really may want to do. And that is the, just the, the pinnacle on the top of this thing is these young people are on a good path.

Nancy O’Leary  45:48

And Damon, there’s even I think I can think of three off the top of my head, three Mavericks that are still within a handful of years of having graduated from high school, and they had tried other things right out of high school. And they just said, this is a dead end, I’m just getting a paycheck. There’s no future in this. And they pivoted and they said, Okay, what else could I do? And they stumbled upon this or they thought, you know, what, I really like working with my hands, what else is there? And, you know, we’re here to to really help make that just so much easier for students and for their parents to understand there are other opportunities

Curt Anderson  46:25

in you know, hey, and at what point in time, David, I know, it’s hard for people to believe, you know, we were 20 at one point in time, and what to 20, you know, early 20 Somethings, you know, like, hey, even if you’re not thinking long term family, and like some of the more adultAge stuff, hey, now I can afford a car payment, I can go buy a car, hey, I can actually take a vacation at 21. I don’t have to wait. So I’m in my 40s. You know, like, there’s, you know, again, it hit the replay button because I know he showed some hard numbers, as the these young ages to be making this level of income is just phenomenal. So let’s do Nancy, let’s start winding down. I want to give a big shout out. And thank you for everybody in the audience for sharing this wonderful celebration. Just what a great month of manufacturing month team and we’ve just had a great viewing just incredible people. I want to give a big thank you to everybody joining us today. And how about let’s give Nancy O’Leary a big round of applause for what her and Jeff and the amazing, incredible team and customer direct are doing. Let’s give another round of our manufacturing map. Yeah, fair question. And celebrating, you know, the future of US manufacturing, we absolutely love it. Nancy, we salute you, we applaud you, we commend you, we love you. And we support you 100% Any way that we can for this initiative. It’s just so exciting.

Nancy O’Leary  47:43

Hey, thanks. Thanks. And honestly, again, shout out to the whole team at Custom direct I mean, honestly, that I would say it wasn’t the blood, sweat and tears. I don’t think there was any blood that was shed, there was a lot of sweating. I don’t think any tears. But just thanks so much for the sacrifices that they made to to make this happen so that we could get this up and running in time for manufacturing, you know, and now the fun continues, you know, can’t wait to see can’t wait to be talking to you a year from now. And it’s you know how many different mavericks and we’ve got all these different categories. There’s a lot of really cool because we’re moving forward. So for anyone that’s wondering more about this, please follow manufacturing Mavericks on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn as well happy to do that. But really, all the information on the exciting new details about Mavericks will be up on on LinkedIn, as well as on the website manufacturing. mavericks.com.

Curt Anderson  48:36

Well, we appreciate it. Thank you, Nancy, for taking the time to join us. I know you’re super busy and Daymond man, this was just really singing our songs. This was awesome stuff early something. Alright guys, we’re gonna wrap up we have another great guest coming at you this Friday. We’re gonna talk about video marketing strategies with our dear buddy Jeff along with our first guest, Damon Graham, way back 100 years ago and so we’re super excited for this Friday we’re celebrating our three year anniversary together. So guys, God bless you and just go out and be someone’s inspiration just like our dear friend and fill areas. So Nancy, hang out with us one second. guys have a great amazing read everyone. We will see you on Friday.