Go Live & Thrive: Live Stream Strategies for Manufacturers

Curt Anderson  00:21

Okay, welcome everybody. Happy Thursday few people rolling in I’m going to go over here Damon if you want to grab your LinkedIn and jump into the chat box and so shall do that, let’s see how our friends are popping in. And if you are interested if we were in person today we’d be high fiving, handshaking, all that stuff handing out business cards, trading LinkedIn profiles. So if you want to drop your LinkedIn and the chats a great opportunity to make some new friends here might be a new customer sent here in the crowd, right. So there we go. And, Michelle, if you have anything if you want to drop any events, any up anything coming up from for Purdue, feel free to drop that in the chat for our friend. Okay,

Michelle Macy  01:15

thank you.

Curt Anderson  01:20

And okay, let my dear friend Lisa in and so good morning. Good afternoon. It’s officially afternoon. So hello, Rodney. Casey, Tim, Shawn and Josh. What we have here Dasha wrath my seen that correctly. So happy. Happy Thursday, happy Friday. If he’s I’m not sure what side of the world he’s on and then go. Okay, I think we’re at time, Michelle. So if we want to go ahead and get rolling, and then I’ll just let people at least Lisa’s here today. Happy Thursday, Lisa. So, Michelle, do you want to kick things off? Just do like a quick little intro for the Purdue MEP? Well, sure, um,

Michelle Macy  02:04

Purdue MEP. I’ve been with Purdue for over 17 years now. And our MEP Center is one of many across the nation. And we work with small and medium sized manufacturers to assist them in becoming more efficient problem solving them through process issues, or up training their staff. So there’s many things we do for them. We just problem solve whatever issue they need us to do for them. So that’s us in a nutshell. Well,

Curt Anderson  02:36

excellent. Michelle. Well, thank you for hosting the party today. It’s always an honor and such a privilege. If you have not connected engaged or had any activity with a Purdue MEP, we strongly encourage you welcome you and invite you to do so. They are 4050 I think plus strong team of just subject matter experts all over the state, helping wonderful Indiana manufacturers be your best selves. So reach out to the Purdue MEP, they have all sorts of wonderful programs. And just like your, you know, they love putting on these little education shindigz, if you will, and so it’s an honor and privilege for us to join you today. My name is Curt Anderson and I’m coming to you from I’m live from Lakewood, New York and Damon Pistulka is here today to join us. demons come from Seattle, Washington. Damon, good morning to you. How are you?

Damon Pistulka  03:21

I’m doing great. Ready for this? All right, so

Curt Anderson  03:24

let’s dive in. So guys, what we’re going to talk about is live streaming in, you know, we’ve got a small intimate crowd. I would love to make this interactive. If you guys have specific questions, man, we would love instead of just listen to Daymond I drone on we have a good time. But we would love if you have questions, raise your hand, drop it in the chat box. We’d love to make this interactive. Again, we want to make this as fruitful beneficial as possible for you guys. We got a couple more people popping in. So Ken, happy Thursday to you. I think Luis joined us here. So guys, drop your LinkedIn or your website or just let us know where you’re coming from. Drop that in the chat box. And again, my name is Curt, this is Damon. And we are going to dive in. So Damon, what the great thing about working with our friends here in manufacturing is that little made in the USA. Michelle, we might have to get a little meat in USA chant going throughout the program just to warn you so let you know. So I, Damon, the name of our program is we want to help manufacturers stop being the best kept secret. My mom’s favorite book right here. Michelle, I know if you knew that we’re going to showcase my mom’s favorite book stop being the best kept secret. Her favorite son wrote it a few years ago and it’s really a guide or resource guide, if you will, for manufacturers to kind of figure out this whole digital transformation as E commerce thing. Well, we have really are super bullish on Livestream for a number of reasons. We’re going to dive in Damon let’s dive into some of the reasons that why we love live streaming, especially for our friends in manufacturing. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  04:53

it’s this is one of the main things the reasons I like to use live streaming the way we do is because in I think it’s beneficial for manufacturers because I don’t think anybody loves making cold calls.

Curt Anderson  05:05

Cold calls can be challenging. Michelle, I used to have hair then all sudden, I had to do bunch of cold calls and liquid happen. It’s a very stressful job for our sales friends out there. We’re gonna dive into some different examples. Now, Damon, we’re always hearing content content for our marketers out there. Our friend Lisa’s here, other folks are solo marketers. And it’s just it’s all about marketing, right? Or, you know, creating content blogging, I don’t know, do you know many manufacturers that love blogging? Not really.

Damon Pistulka  05:35

It just says it’s, I mean it, get it, you know, let’s be let’s be realistic. If you’re a writer, blogging is pretty easy. But if you’re not a writer, it’s difficult. And most of the world is not writers. Right?

Curt Anderson  05:47

It’s well, especially in manufacturing. So, you know, again, like pinning down a manufacturer to sit their belt out a blog, probably not going to happen is very daunting, very challenging. And so the big thing is for, you know, for our marketing friends, solo marketers, manufacturers, you know, you guys make and manufacture incredible widgets, just awesome products all day, every day. In the past, maybe you’d go on the road, or you’d go to trade shows that type of thing. The world has completely changed. And so we want to show you just a great way of how to create awesome content. Aidan Good morning. Happy Thursday. I guess it’s afternoon Happy Thursday. So again, guys, if you just just popping in drop, let us know we were coming from dropping your website, great opportunity to network with each other drop in your LinkedIn profile, if you so desire. So Damon, the big thing is manufacturers are super humble. They keep things close to the vest. But there’s a great scene, closed mouths don’t get fed, why is it so important to like, just get that message out there? Well,

Damon Pistulka  06:44

because you know, your best customers are out there, they just may not know you. And that’s one of the biggest things that we all face is our best customers. Do they even know about us? I mean, how many how many times and this is this, I know MEP, see this all the time, you may have one manufacturer in your state that needs something and they don’t even know that someone two towns away makes the products, right that they need. And they’ll go all the way around the world to find it and find that that you know the pain in the butt the cost to get it there. And all these other things make it way more difficult they have to. And it’s just because of this very thing that they don’t know that that person and that company is there that can help them.

Curt Anderson  07:25

That’s right, you’re the best kept secret. So guys, the program today, we’ve got the best kept secret for you to help you to stop being the best kept secret. Now we’re going to talk about going live. So I’m so sorry to show this, like seamless picture of myself and Daymond I’ll replace what we did Damon let’s just share a little bit with our friends here. Our background. So during COVID I don’t have anybody here about this thing called COVID. Michelle, did you hear about that thing called COVID Diner, anybody, anybody escaped that or hit me pretty hard. Anyway, during COVID You and I started this little thing, you know, the world shut down. And we’re like we’re trying to stop being the best kept secret. LinkedIn offered a LinkedIn live, people can go on Facebook, live YouTube, live Instagram, all these wonderful social platforms, you were really a pioneer, you dove into LinkedIn live early, what inspired you to jump on to LinkedIn live?

Damon Pistulka  08:13

It was it was initially is because I won’t COVID started, we wanted to be helping people in business. And that’s, that’s what we do day in day out is how people run their businesses. And it was just to share information. And what I what I realized over time, is it was a way to build a community of like minded people that really care about an industry that care about helping each other and, and wow, such an education that you get from doing it. And and then it really became more about just because of the friends you make and the resources and just the the knowledge you gain. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  08:53

and again, when we’re talking about like those cold calls, or like making that those, that engagement, those relationships, like what you’re looking at here, there’s a number so Michelle, you’ll love this. There’s a number of MEPs up here, we’re actually going on site and manufacturers we’re on the shop floor at manufacturers. Just in what we’re doing is we’re just highlighting and showcasing you know, your area of expertise, that type of thing. And so this is what live streaming can do for you, as a manufacturer is just getting that message out there. super affordable super cheap. Damon let’s go here you what you and I have discovered we’ve been doing this for four years, we literally have done hundreds and hundreds of episodes. I feel this is one of the best methods for business development. What’s your take? Oh

Damon Pistulka  09:36

yes, I just you know, being in sales and and for many, many years. The the way you can meet people the way you can talk with them about their area of expertise and really get to know them is just unparalleled. With a with a live stream format. You get whatever it is if your show is 30 minutes long, you get 30 minutes to let that person explain to you how they’re, they’re, you know, sharing their gift with the world, whether it’s making circuit boards or doing some other kind of service that’s really beneficial to maybe you maybe your customers, maybe your industry. And along with that you get to be part of that industry that are part of that sharing of that information with your industry. And man, it’s just really incredible what it does.

Curt Anderson  10:25

Hey, I love it and people are dropping their notes in the chat box. A sci fi Thank you Happy Thursday. We’ve got Rodney we’ve got Josh, we’ve got Dasha wrath if I’m saying that correctly, hopefully I am Aiden’s here. Luis. So, Louis or Luis might say that right. So, Louis, Louis Louis, happy Thursday. Yeah. So for folks that just popped in. What I would love is any questions? All right. How about a show of hands if you want to put a chat box how many people are considering doing live streaming? Anybody? Aiden Lewis. Are you guys considering it? Your teeth are yours curious? Is that why you’re here? What’s the goal today? If you want to jump down to chatbox? Or if anybody wants come off a mute? Does anybody who’s thinking about going live stream anybody? We

11:08

have never even thought about it? Until right this second.

Curt Anderson  11:14

Louis, if I looked as handsome as you, dude, I would be on national TV. They may be streaming me live on Netflix, man. So like, yeah, you’re Aiden. You guys have got to do a live stream. Michelle. I don’t know what your connection I think these guys need to definitely do. Live Stream Casey. Any takeaway from your rant anybody else thinking about live streaming? Or what’s your takeaway? what’s your what’s your goal with our workshop today?

11:35

Yeah, so I recently started a podcast industry specific podcast for just other sign Robert franchisees and you know, live streaming is kind of a it’s a different ballgame. So just looking for the opportunities. Awesome. Love it

Curt Anderson  11:52

Well, again, thank you for joining us and feel free you know, eight interrupt us I don’t mind you know, just listening. We want this as beneficial fruitful for you as possible. Damon, let’s go here. Time and money. I don’t know about you. I’ve tried a little bit. I had an eCommerce business 100 years ago, I tried everything I’ve done. I’ve spent, you know, man a fortune on paid ads. And this that the other thing, your takeaway for the time, money energy efficiency for live streaming? What’s your what your what are your thoughts here?

Damon Pistulka  12:20

Well, I think that the it is, for me, it is the best option for me. I mean, we’re not talking about and and the clients that I’m helping that are that are actually doing it because the the time you spend on video then creates a blog post, it then creates a podcast, then it creates, you know, not to mention the relationships and the and the and the business at all that the creates, but it creates the content in one sitting. Right? It really does. So it’s and when you talk about money, it’s relatively low cost to do it. Right.

Curt Anderson  13:00

And hey, Aiden drops a note, we are not marketing much at all looking for any experience through others and how we can best do that in a manufacturing industry. Awesome. Great comment there again, guys. Keep the comments come in. Love to hear it. Now, guys, what we’ve done, we’ve come up with 39 and a half reasons benefits of why you need to be live streaming, KC, we’re gonna go through each and every single one of these one by one. I’m just kidding. We would not do that to you. I’m just kidding. These are the two that we’re going to cover for a little workshop today. Exciting, amazing, tremendous, wonderful, exciting sales, growth opportunities. And just for the record, like we’re not selling you guys a thing, like we’re not big hype used car salesmen. We’re just here at the Purdue MEP. This is purely an education place. We have no skin in the game, per se. We’re just here to just show you guys kind of like what the you know, we’re just so passionate about this. And feel this is such a powerful tool. And the big thing is like what are we selling? Daymond let’s talk about the H two h you I love when you do this dude, you give me chills? What does h h two H stands for? Well,

Damon Pistulka  14:00

it’s that human to human relationship, right? We’re Yeah, we’re doing b2b sales. But really, we’re doing we’re doing business with other people. They want to know who the heck they’re doing business with, they want to know what you stand for how much you know. And and when you use the live streaming format. They can get to know you. You can in your best customers, you can highlight your best customers, it just helps to build that trust and and they can decide if they like you because let’s be honest, not everyone’s gonna like you. You know, it’s

Curt Anderson  14:33

it is it’s Damon you’re making a great point, even though my mom thinks I’m for everybody. Michelle, I’m just not it’s just not possible. It can’t be for everyone. So you know, and that’s a great thing about live streaming is sometimes you know, I know as manufacturers out there you guys get those leads, or that opportunity that maybe isn’t like the best fit for you guys. This is a great opportunity not only you know, embracing and welcoming those wonderful, incredible opportunities, but also taking a peek at what are not such the great opportunities really late. Laser focusing on what you’re best at just showing you like another example here. These are success stories, you know. And again, Michelle, all these are through MEP network. These are all manufacturers. So we have found that our live stream is just really the golden ticket for testimonials. Every single one of these folks that you’re looking at, these are clients of ours that we’ve worked with, when we get done working with them, we bring in a teammate, like our friend, Michelle, here at the Purdue MEP, and we’re just doing a wonderful celebration, I’m talking about how wonderful they are. And in the same regard, you know, they’re going to share the experience of working with ourselves. So I want to encourage you plant that seed, what a great way to showcase your clients, maybe your manufacturing clients if you’re selling direct to consumer or in a b2b space, and just capturing that on video game. And let’s go here for another example. This is a wonderful manufacturer, a dear friend of ours, we were actually on site with her. She is in Alaska. So Michelle, this was through the Alaska MEP, she manufactures women’s clothing, like who knew that someone on this planet and in Alaska, the great State of Alaska is manufacturing women’s clothing? Well, Dave and I had a great opportunity. We’re doing our live streams from Alaska. We connected with this woman here. And Dana just talked about like it was almost like a little QVC show where like she’s showcasing this awesome product that she makes.

Damon Pistulka  16:17

Yeah, I mean, this is a great example. She she really, really is using this type of format to get her product out there to the world.

Curt Anderson  16:27

Absolutely in case he hears one thing we’re going to cover this little bit one thing I love about live streaming is on a podcast, I can tell you how awesome agents vacation is or how awesome these This clothing is. But man with live stream now I removed my imagination. Now I can see the awesomeness and I’m telling you like Damon, I’ve seen this clothing firsthand. My daughter loves her clothes, her clothing. This is great stuff. So that’s the benefit of the visual. Now, you know, Damon, we’d love talking about like that blue ocean strategy. Anybody familiar? If you guys haven’t read that book, man, I encourage you guys read that book, Blue Ocean Strategy. Yep. The red ocean is where the sharks are swimming, and it’s all bloody. You want to slide into that blue ocean, I feel strongly that a live stream gives you that blue ocean opportunity. Damon, what for our manufacturing friends out there? How could this help them beat the competition? Well,

Damon Pistulka  17:17

it’s because you’re going to be seen, right? You’re going to be seen with others in the industry, you’re going to be seen giving educational advice to potential customers, you’re going to be seen with other industry professionals that your customers might be looking at as well. Depending on your your show format and who you’re interviewing. This is this is this the way that you can stand out because most people honestly, let’s be honest, most of us as manufacturers, we’re worried about manufacturing our product, not building our industry relationships and our and our customer relationships. It’s more about what we’re doing inside. And this is a way for us to easily get outside with customers in the industry that we couldn’t otherwise.

Curt Anderson  18:00

That’s you know, and again, like to Aiden’s point, you know, just many many manufacturers have been around for decades, even even a century. And they built this wonderful, illustrious business with no, you know, marketing wasn’t a thing. We went on a road, we went to a trade show and just you know, branding, and his whole marketing thing wasn’t a big thing. Now with COVID. And now internet, e commerce, the channels have completely disrupted and so Damon, one of the big lines and again, you know, we’re here at Purdue University, and what a great year you guys had in basketball. How about hear it? Let’s hear it for Purdue for you know, man, yeah. Oh, yeah. Quotes, right. He’s in they have really good. That’s right. So I go Boilermakers. So what we love to say is how do you out teach the competition? So instead of like, you know, when it comes to, especially our friends here, you know, Aiden, and Lewis, you know, you’re new to marketing are some of the manufacturers, our friend Lisa. Lisa is a client of ours through the Purdue MEP. You know, Lisa, you know, marketing was new for your company. And you know, you’re just, it’s daunting, it’s overwhelming, you know, it’s, you know, they say 50 cents of every dollar is wasted in marketing. And it’s trying to figure out which one is which right, which 50 cents of every dollar is. So the thing is what we love to say instead of wasting money, time energy, how about teaching the competition? Damon, what are some examples? You know, we’re doing it right here, right? We’re practicing what we preach. We’re doing a webinar at one of the best you know, engineering schools in the country at Purdue. Why is it so important to out teach the competition?

Damon Pistulka  19:25

Yeah, because because your your customers want to learn so they can make informed decisions. And if you haven’t read the book, they asked you answer by Marcus Sheridan, he’ll convince you why that needs to happen. And you know, this is what you really can do with your live stream shows is you can bring in people to answer the questions that your customers are asking every single day or prospective customers and existing customers X every single day and answer them teach people how that how the you know what those answers are. Are why they’re that way, you know everything from you know how to it could be how to design an injection molded part or why am I a street sweeper? You know what you want to look at to make sure your street sweeper is running the best way it can I mean, it works in any industry with any product or service you’re doing to be able to better educate your customers, then when they need those products or services, where are they gonna go? They’re gonna think you’re the people that know? Right?

Curt Anderson  20:27

Exactly. It’s, you know, closed mouths don’t get fed, we look. So now, Damon, you know, I don’t want to put you down. We’re not the sharpest tool in the shed. So we, so we do a live show twice a week, we do it same time, every Monday, every Friday, we’ve been doing it for four years. And the wonderful thing is, we never need to be the smart guys in the room. I never want to be the smart guy in the room. I just want to be the guy that has smart people in the room with us. And so what we do, you’re looking at all these subject matter experts in what in Michelle, there’s a number of our friends here that Mbps around this page right here. And so what we love to do is like what are topics? What are questions that our ideal customers are facing? What are their struggles, problems, frustrations that they’re dealing with on a daily basis? And I don’t have all the answers, but boy, we try to go out and find these subject matter experts that are going to address those challenges those problems, those frustrations? And again, David, I think we had a slide back here. It’s about this, like what are what are all of us trying to sell on a daily basis, right? Whether it’s a product, a service solution, whatever it might be. It’s one word, one word only. It’s that trust. And so that’s what you get, you know, I want to think I want to encourage you think about how do we do that? David, we’ve and I love this slide right here. We had we had a subject matter expert come on our show, she showcased her expertise. I got a text message a week later. What happened here?

Damon Pistulka  21:54

Yeah, well, let’s see you as on the show explaining something and somebody contacted her after the show and wanted to do some business. He’s got a nice contract, right?

Curt Anderson  22:02

She landed a $60,000 contract with a client by coming on our show, showcasing her expertise. And she landed she man I almost got a trip to Bermuda Damon about that. It didn’t happen. But it was just nice getting that text message anyway. So yeah, anyway, now here’s another example. So we’re here at the Purdue MEP. This is how we make a living. We, you know, Damon, I know these people my house they need to eat and and I gotta pay for bills and stuff. So I need them. Right. So what we do is we align and partner with wonderful folks at MEP networks, there’s an MEP in all 50 states, if you’re coming to us from outside of the great state of Indiana, there’s an MEP near you. So what we do is we actually we utilize our live stream show as business development. Here’s, here’s an example right here. I sent a note to somebody, and I just said, Hey, would you like to come on our live show? Hey, Kurt, It’d be an honor to have our MEP featured on your live show. Let me have our center director. Now, Casey pop quiz. If I call this agency who I want to align with, and I say hey, man, my name is Curt. I’m just awesome guy. I might have my mom’s favorite book. Would you want to do business with me? Probably not. But if I call up and I say hey, would you can we showcase you? Can we feature you on our livestream show? And we’re genuine. We’re doing this with integrity. We have like, you know, we are very passionate about what we do. And so now Hey, on a separate note, I’d love to have you as a third party solution. That’s how we make a living. So that’s the thing is like we’re trying to practice what we preach. Damon, here’s another thing. There’s some amazing people on this page. Like we’ve actually we’ve punched above our weight. Yeah. What are How about talking about the guy the founder of Reebok? How did we get the founder rebuy?

Damon Pistulka  23:40

Yeah, that was That was crazy. Joe Foster was an incredible, credible person be able to interview you think that, you know, coming from his roots of his family, being in shoes and then moving off into athletic shoes and then starting a whole category basically. And, man it was it was quite a story. But you know, you look at anyone out there Carrie Smith with the big the big fans company and you look at even Dr. Yeoh, heroic eight how many times you’ve seen him on Discovery Channel, in you know what it made in America. I mean, he just so lucky to be able to talk to these people, and our community, our listeners really enjoyed it as well. And it really does. It’s just amazing what it can do to to be able to reach out to someone in your industry or that you really feel would be great for your listeners. And go wow, it I’m just so honored if you would come on and these are nice people. They’re nice people. And they you know, they’ll come on and you’ll get to talk to him and just share. It’s so much fun. Yeah, Louis,

Curt Anderson  24:47

this page was just for you. We’re just name dropping. That’s I don’t know if anybody recognize these names, but we’re just named droppers. That’s all we’re doing. But anyway, I’m just kidding. But this is it’s it’s such a privilege. I almost feel guilty these people Yeah. Oh, Look, and it’s like it’s a coaching session. Like we’re just we’re just learning from these awesome people. You know, they’re showcasing books Daymond we just had an exchange with a woman this morning. She’s an author, you know, Elaine, who I’m talking about? Yeah, just send us a note she has, she has a book called Million Dollar, one person, business, million person business. She writes for Forbes. She features these, this anomaly of folks that she found this whole undercurrent of entrepreneurs that have built seven figure businesses and they end up by themselves. She’s been on our show multiple times, dear friend, she just dropped us a note this morning. But she works. She writes for Forbes. You know, that’s just a great connection for us. You know, let’s talk about your industry opportunities again, like so. Hey, Michelle, we were just talking about that picture up to the left that was at the Chicago me MEP conference in Chicago that you and I were both that. Here’s Carol Thomas. She’s the the director of the entire MEP networks program a couple of times. And again, what we’re sharing here, you know, it’s eight and through this whole program, one thing I’m gonna carry out, it’s not about me, it’s not about Damon, it’s about you, we just want you we just want to like that fire just sparked some energy on how you guys could be doing. So unfortunately, no, I’m not trying to like, Hey, me, me, me, are all about us. We just want to spark some ideas on like what you guys could be doing? Because we want you mind, sir successful. Daymond? Let’s talk about let’s let’s dive into it. So see our friends out here. You know, we’re in a steel business, we’re bending metal cutting steel circuit boards, whatever we manufacture. Let’s talk about your internal expertise. Yeah, important, is it? I know Lisa, here is on the program from Steel City Steel’s She’s done an amazing job doing this. David, how important is it to do this? Well, you

Damon Pistulka  26:40

might have internal experts in your company that are you know, they might be designed and they may just have a ton of experience. It could be in CNC machining, it could be in building a certain product or service, or could be about how to use something correctly, that there are real experts in this. Get on there. Let them come on and ask them questions about if I were doing this, if I’m going to design a metal enclosure, what are the things I need to understand, you know, if I’m going to be bending the metal and making it or whatever? Yeah, or, you know, it could be how do I develop the the right thing, just whatever your customers would want to be learning about? Those internal people that have been helping them for so many years? Can give them the answers they need.

Curt Anderson  27:28

I’m gonna put my buddy Lisa on a spot, at least I don’t know if you’re out there, if you can come off mute or whatever. Are you there? Are you there? Lisa, can you hear me? Hey, can you just you’ve done an amazing job interviewing your internal subject matter experts, and then you’ve converted them into blog posts? Would you are you comfortable just sharing just a little bit of what you guys have done is still cities.

27:48

Sure, um, we have a wonderful gentleman who heads up our sales team. And he has been instrumental in sharing his knowledge. He’s been working with us and in the steel industry for upwards of 30 years or so just a basket full of integral details and knowledge about the products and services that we do. So we have just created a content calendar, kind of based on each of our customer personas. And we have laid that out so that we have some variety in our content. And he drafts and we talk about, you know what we want to highlight whether it’s a product or a service, and then we also try to position it so it’s not just about us as a company, but how we can educate the consumer. And as a result of that, we’re able to put together some videos which he tries to keep relatively short and then we turn those into a YouTube post, we send out an email blast to a customer personas that we’re uniquely speaking to. And then we follow it up a week later with a social post across you know, all the platforms. And that has worked out very well for us we get a lot of great response have a lot of great, you know, engagement. And so we’ve been at it for about a year did take some time to kind of get into sync but we’re doing we’re doing pretty well with it, I think. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  29:12

I’m Hope I’m not embarrassing. I’m gonna put you on the spot here. So this is this is awesome. This like, I think this is so wonderful. What Lisa and her team are doing US Steel City Steel’s and look at all these blog posts. And again, Lisa, when you first started you had you had no blog posts, no content up here, right?

29:31

No, it wasn’t a nice shout out to the Purdue MEP. They were instrumental in getting me contact with Curt and he worked with us what maybe for one skirt, I don’t know for a little bit of time, we got to really get to know each other had a lot of fun through that exercise. But no, we had nothing. We actually created a blog because of the things that we learned in working with Kurt and I’m actually had to have it added to our webpage or website and everything. So it was definitely from the ground up after working with Kurt. Well,

Curt Anderson  30:08

Lisa, thank you. And I appreciate that. And again, we’ll give all the credit the Purdue MEP and about a round of applause for Lisa at Steel City Steel’s for cool stuff. So and look at and again, as we’re thinking of ideas, a What did we livestream about? I can’t you know, like here, they’re showcasing, you know, Ally, here’s Dylan, and I believe these are brand new sales reps that you guys hired. So now you’re you’re featuring your internal team, you’re showing your subject matter expert, and what again, what I love out, teach the competition, how do you how to

Damon Pistulka  30:36

look at these guides, you know, just there’s so much information in here.

Curt Anderson  30:42

Yep. Awesome. All right. Let’s we’ll get back. Lisa. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know I put you on the spot. But I appreciate you so. And thank you for your kind words. I didn’t do that for that, for that reason. But thank you. Thank you. Thank

30:53

you. Okay, Casey, here’s

Curt Anderson  30:55

another one for you that I’m not trying to put down podcasting, because we’re going to talk about podcasts in a minute. But one thing with the live streaming what it does, man, so Damon Damon’s a little bit, he’s got a few followers on LinkedIn. So we get a crowd. And the cool thing is people are actually commenting live, while we’re having these conversations. So you see these comments, you know, hey, thanks for the great conversation. Nice to see it. Jordan loved what you shared at the industrial marketing conference, you know, blah, blah, blah, it gets the It Gets the person juiced up. So David, just share a little bit like, you know, we could do a video, we could do a podcast, but man, sometimes that live just gives like that, that yeah, where juice, right? Sometimes

Damon Pistulka  31:30

you just the the topic, the people speaking the conversation, how it’s flowing. I mean, you can get such great interaction. And this is where you’re going to go beyond the topic and build community. And this is something that’s really I think, in the can because you have a two way interaction with a live stream where you don’t want the podcast. And podcasts are great, because it’s a different time that people can list on these live streams, building this community of two way interaction during that video is, is really pretty powerful.

Curt Anderson  32:02

Yeah, and the cool thing is from a live stream, I can convert the live stream to a podcast, you know, in the reality of like, hey, you know, like, however many people sign up for this program today. And then life gets in the way, busy lunch, whatever. And then x number of people show up. So the reality of catching people at that time is difficult. The nice thing is it’s evergreen content. Because now you can take that video, we’re going to show you a couple of different examples. But you can convert it to a podcast, you can put it on YouTube, you can convert them into YouTube shorts. So again, you can just get a wealth of you know, eight, let’s say this word together. Repurpose, let’s do that. And 123. Repurpose. All right, let’s be as efficient with our time as possible. So that’s great. Thanks, Damon. More shameless, you know, man, we’re just really patting ourselves on the back. But the great thing is, people get really juiced up coming on the live show. And these are the types of notes that we get, you know, man, thank you. This was awesome. We had a blast. Thank you for showcasing our company. Thank you for showcasing our employees. And so again, like we come into it with like, pure, genuine enthusiasm. You know, we’re just so passionate about this. And it’s just wonderful when we get these coats these notes, you know, hey, Kurt, thanks so much. It was so much fun, you know, so on so forth. Let’s talk about YouTube. So now let’s see if you did a live stream for 20 minutes 30 minutes or whatever. And you know, who’s going to watch up Damon other than our moms right? In, you know, maybe a person or two watches 45 minutes worth of content. But when we slice and dice it, we’re in his tic tac, Instagram, real YouTube short world that we’re living in, we get hundreds and hundreds of views when we take our clips and then we post them on YouTube. So that’s another great way to kind of stretch stretch or spread your reach out there Demond any takeaway on this one?

Damon Pistulka  33:43

Yeah, the shorts definitely get you a lot more a lot more views. And they also then drag people now I shouldn’t say drag people, they encourage people to go into your long form video and you’ll get more long form video play because of that. So yeah, okay, so go ahead. Good way you ask anybody this short form video is where you can really get engagement. It’s getting so many people watching Get your highlight reels, get those things on there because it makes a big difference.

Curt Anderson  34:12

So now we have started we’ve added so Damon, you’ve been doing it for a long time we now are our show is called manufacturing ecommerce success. Damon has another live stream show. It’s called Faces of business. They are both now on podcasts or they’re on on your favorite podcast, you know, brands that you that you can use. So let’s talk about the power of SEO. So any of our friends out there SEO search engine optimization, search engine optimization, if that’s new to you, that’s a free rankings on Google. We have discovered so I’ve been doing SEO for like, I don’t know, Damon, like 100 years. It feels like right since the 90s. So it’s constantly daunting, challenging. Have you heard about this thing called AI? Does anybody is anybody heard about this AI thing? It’s kind of like if you like No, Casey it’s not right. So, man, this whole AI thing is a little disruptive. We have discovered man that Google loves authenticity. There’s a term for you guys. Alright, we’re gonna have a pop quiz later. So I’m gonna I’m teeing it up right now. So you guys get your pen ready, Louis, you got your pen. Okay. Google is looking for good eats. It stands for E A T S. Now just to make it a little bit more confusing. They added a new E. Okay? It stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trust. Those are the four criteria that Google is ranking our key words, right, where our keywords are our core strengths? How do we make the world a better place? I bend metal, I cut steel, I make circuit boards 3d print, whatever you do, right? What we’ve discovered is Google really loves video content. So this is one of our keywords that we were going after. So we intentionally are putting our keywords and a phrase of a of one of our live stream shows. So one thing that we do for living like Lisa was describing, we do b2b e commerce training. That’s a great keyword for us. Okay. So it’s perfect. Daymond look, you know what? Hey, guys, you ready? I don’t know, if you need permission slips. We’re gonna go on a little road trip, Damon, we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re going off presentation, we’re gonna go on a little road trip. So let’s go here. Okay, so if I go, if I do a Google search for b2b e commerce training, here is big commerce, you know, multi, publicly traded company, huge brand. All these are big brands up here. These are paid ads. They are. These are Google Pay Per Click ads up here. Okay. I come down here. Daymond. Do you recognize anybody? Do you recognize any of these three guys right here, but I’ve seen a few. You’ve seen those. You recognize that bald guy in there? Yeah. So what we’ve discovered is by putting our keywords in the titles of our live stream, we now are coming up on different search. Okay, so the name of our program is manufacturing ecommerce success. If you Google econ, manufacturing, e commerce success, all you’re gonna see is our show, okay? Now the thing is, you’re like, Okay, well, who’s googling manufacturing ecommerce success, but what I want you to think about, so Aiden Lewis, you know, what is a key word? What’s a phrase that you would want to come up on over and over and over? This is an opportunity for you either name, your lives, your livestream show, tied in with, you know, you know, circuit board, you know, fun filled circuit board manufacturing, that could be the name of your show. Now, you’ve got your keyword in your show, using that over and over and over again, Daymond. John, what do you want to tag on there?

Damon Pistulka  37:32

i This is this is the it’s amazing how this works. I guess that’s all I can say. It’s amazing how it works, because we were just on at a show, was it last week, where they were talking about how Google or yesterday, earlier this week, I mean, where they were talking about this eats and Google and how the algorithms are changing. So the AI plethora of AI generated text based information is really not getting the bang for buck that it is now. And what you can do is, it knows this is not AI content in over time, because you’re going to be on the social platforms with this live, you’re going to be on your blog posts with this, you’re going to be on on your website with this. It really does help to improve improve your trust ability in terms of what Google thinks they should show to give people the right answers. And it’s not how this works.

Curt Anderson  38:30

Okay, so this is hysterical guy. You guys ready now. Mad demon. You know, I don’t want to hurt my arm patting ourselves in a backyard and everybody’s like, alright, it’s

Damon Pistulka  38:40

you. Okay, let’s, let’s be honest. We stumbled into this stuff. Yeah, we let’s be truthful. We Yeah, cuz I mean, it’s, we thought it might work. And it has and the advent of AI is only made it more effective. And it’s just one of these things that you, you know, a clock is right, a broken clock is right twice a day. That’s right. Well, we’re

Curt Anderson  39:00

that good analogy. I like that. We’re going to go I’m going to geek out for a minute. So forgive me if anybody out there like Kurt what on earth your time. So I’m gonna, you know, Michelle said that this is the advanced class Damon. So we’re gonna go a little advanced right now. Okay. This is a tool called Google Keyword Planner, Google Keyword Planner. It is one of my favorite words, free, free, completely free doesn’t cost a penny. It’s from our dear friends at Google Google Keyword Planner. What I encourage you to think about like our friend Lisa, you know, she’s in a steel business. So we were geeking out we spent a lot of time lease memorize, you know, jamming on our keywords on Google Keyword Planner. One of our keywords is SEO for manufacturers, SEO for manufacturers. So I put that in here. See my mouse? Hey, Google, how many people are searching SEO for manufacturers? I come down here and if I slide over, do you see where this says 100 to 1000 average monthly searches. So again, not about about us, it’s about you. And you certainly encourage you welcome you invite you think about what are your keywords, you could use this free tool and you pop in here, like, hey, Google, how many people are looking for this keyword? Because Damon, you see this all the time. You know, if we’re selling pens, man, I need to sell a lot of pens and make a living, right. But if I’m selling steel, like our friend, Lisa, she could, she could land one customer. And it could be it could make the year it could be getting, they could land two or three customers in like, just crushed there. You know? Like, it’s not like manufacturers need 1000s and 1000s of customers? Just a handful, right? Yep. So on here on the searches, I see 100 to 1000. I’m like, Well, hey, man, that’s a keyword that I would love to rank for. I want to come up for SEO for manufacturers. So check this out. We did a live show on Wednesday. Thursday. We did a live show on Monday, on Monday, and we intentionally I called it SEO for manufacturers. It’s right here. If you do a search, I don’t know. And I’d be curious if you guys want to do a search wherever you’re at and maybe be like Hey, Curtis knight coming up on my page. But if you do SEO for manufacturers, I clicked videos. Our video is showing a number three and we just posted it two days ago. Casey, you are you proved somebody proved me wrong. Somebody said Kurt, you’re you know, anybody want to test that out SEO for manufacturers? Click on the videos and see if it’s coming up.

Damon Pistulka  41:28

Third, thumbs up third. Yeah. See, it’s it’s, it’s

Curt Anderson  41:33

it’s so Damon said the clock is right twice a day that that that’s been David. So anyway, this is just a pure exposure. We did this intentionally two days. The two days ago, this was an experiment. And now we’re coming up in this, you know, we’re going up against these, you know, and there’s a lot of competition on this page. So what my point here is, is if you were to go live stream, or if you’re in a competitive space, or even more, so you know what, a lot of our manufacturers are AV pages. As a matter of fact, if there’s a lot of keywords for manufacturers, where it’s not, I have a client in reverse logistics. And so let me just show you example, real quick, okay, if you take your keyword and you do reverse logistics, or do your keyword, and if it looks something like this, where there’s just like, there’s not a heck of a lot going on. I’m like, man, like, that’s a great opportunity to get a video in there so you can start ranking quickly. Okay. So anyway, I threw a lot at you guys right now. And I apologize because I get really fired up. Any questions that any of that makes sense. Did you guys was that? Louis? Your give me a nod. Casey, your Give me nod. Anybody else? If you want to drop that in the chat? I can only see a couple people. I see Aiden. So if you guys ate into that make sense. Did you follow that? Clear? It Clear as mud? Right? Okay. Yep. All right. Bottom line search we want you at from the Purdue MVP. We want you guys crushing your search terms. So nobody else has been found. We want you to be found Damon, any takeaways there? Well, in

Damon Pistulka  43:01

this thing in search, it’s free traffic. Right? This is free traffic. This is not paid traffic. And that’s the thing that really, really, really is nice about this. Over time, you can build your free traffic an awful lot. Absolutely.

Curt Anderson  43:16

And here’s here’s

43:19

a question about the keyword planner. Please do. So that’s just a tool to to figure out how you want to like you want to find phrases that are highly trafficked. And then yeah, there’s no yeah.

Curt Anderson  43:35

If you guys don’t mind, we have a couple of minutes do you? Louis? Do you have what do you guys do? What’s your court? Do you have a keyword?

43:42

Yeah, we’re I was I was messing with it while you were talking. And I wasn’t getting a ton of searches, but we manufacture surgical cases and trays.

Curt Anderson  43:53

Sure. Now you’re going to test my spelling surgical. What is it? Yeah, cases? And trays. Yeah, okay. All right. So let’s learn a lot. Well, all right. So here’s the thing, okay. Here’s, like, if I know if you’re comfortable telling us, you know, in public, but if, hypothetically, if you’re like, hey, our average sale we sell by the pallet or truckload or whatever, if your average sale is like, Hey, we’re trying to sell to, you know, ABC hospital, right, my mic right.

44:24

Now we sell to OEMs.

Curt Anderson  44:26

Okay, you sold Oh, Young’s, but they’re so they’re buying by what truckload? Um,

44:31

no, not not. Exactly. It’s more like, they’re very custom. So they’re, they’re buying buying, like these custom sets, I guess. So it could range from five of these sets to 100 you know? Here’s

Curt Anderson  44:46

here’s the thing. If you guys are in a niche and again and again, you know, understand you understand your your, you know, your supply chain, your customers inside and out. Even like this right here, Louis C versus zero to 10. Yeah, I’m no math major, but you know, 12 times 10 is 120. There’s potentially 120 people searching that per year. And if you’re like, you know, man, if I land like just a couple leads, yeah. So don’t be discouraged by that number whatsoever. Like when I, when I had my SEO for manufacturers, you know, there’s like SEO for manufacturing companies SEO, you know, so there’s a lot of variables of that phrase. So what I would encourage you to consider play around with us take this phrase, go to Google, Google will give you different ideas or different suggestions. But even

45:32

even the one above it, the keyword ideas, sterilization cases, and trace, that’s the same thing. So yeah, it may people are just freezing. Okay. Yeah, that’s helpful to know, to kind of play around with that.

Curt Anderson  45:45

Perfect. Okay. So again, I wanted to go through that, you know, it’s all about Lewis today, Lewis eight. Let’s give a round of applause to Louis for participating in class today. Thank you, Louis. I just wanted to show that example it though, it is all about Louis, that that’s exactly what you can do for your product, your industry, go to Google Keyword Planner, and just kind of experiment with that on how you’re, how that’s gonna be beneficial. Okay. Let’s get back to the program. Damon, all right. If anybody goes to trade shows, what we discovered CRC, here’s, here’s the keyword right here b2b e commerce readiness training. And that’s how we started coming up on a that’s how we’re like, you know, crushing it on that particular page. And that’s a good search term for us. We also discovered Daymond, I sponsored a wonderful conference this year, it was called the industrial marketing conference. I’m sorry, industrial marketing Summit. It was in Austin, Texas in January. What we did is we, we partnered with the the folks that were putting on the conference, and we took a bunch of their speakers. They came on our show during December and January, helping hype up the show that was coming at the end of January. So let’s say you know, Luis, you’re going to go to the surgical Trade Association conference in Las Vegas, right? What you could potentially do is like interview people or do live streams building up to that conference. Check this out. If you Googled industrial marketing summit going to the summit. Here’s Daymond myself and Damon are number one number three number four on the videos I put in it again it did now are we going to convert a client there but again, we’re just building that street cred and that that light that that viability. Okay, Damon, let’s go here. We did. We mentioned the AI word right, that AI thing I guess it’s going around the world a little bit crazy. How does live streaming help our friends here AI proof their business? Well,

Damon Pistulka  47:33

it’s just like, it’s a content that you can’t recreate yet with AI and and it’s is so authentic. That’s the other thing. You people are going to see your mannerisms are going to understand the changes in your voice that just can’t be recreated yet with AI. And it’s it’s going to help you really build that human to human connection.

Curt Anderson  47:57

Absolutely. So hey, and Damon, how about me? It’s all about a curtain. Daymond today, it’s all about us, Casey, right. So because of our live stream show and again, like just going being to anybody watch the Muppets? anybody? Anybody is their kid you guys watch them up. Casey, you know where I’m going? Right? They mean Daymond like, we’re the two dudes in the right. I know. You knew what I was going. Okay. So here we are in Alaska doing our live stream show. It was just such you know, David, like we were like two kids, right? We’re like, Yeah, teenagers hanging out together in Alaska. Michelle, you will love this. So again, if you guys haven’t engaged connected with the lat with with the Purdue MEP, the Alaska MEP, our dear friends of ours, they started doing a live stream show on their live stream show. A client of theirs came on this woman in the far right, right up here. She’s a tea manufacturer, pop quiz, who knew that they were made invention tea in Alaska. I had no idea that they’re manufacturing Daymond I got to meet this wonderful woman. Her name is Megan. She started a tea company. She connects with the Alaska MEP. She had to buy a piece of equipment machinery it was going to be $90,000. She’s starting up brand new 90 grand. Brand new, Louis, think about that. Right? She connects with the MVP. The MVP found helped her find a new piece A used piece of equipment. That was for $30,000. They saved her $60,000 She talks on the show in a live interview, how she was able to launch and start her business debt free. Thanks to the last MVP. So too, I’m sharing this story for multiple reasons. Number one, get those client testimonials on video just like they did here at the last game apt. Number two, if you haven’t connected with a Purdue MEP man, I strongly encourage you because these are the opportunities that he offers for folks came in. Let’s wind down here. I’m going to go back in and you guys ready for one last road trip before we wrap wrap up? Let’s go. Okay, here is our website. So here is this the episode we just did on Monday. Here’s the keyword SEO for manufacturers. Okay, right there. Now this is what I want to show you what we do with the content. We do a live stream show so we go we go we’ve both i, i You guys know I talk a lot. So we here we went for 40. We went for 54 minutes. So it’s supposed to be 45. But we ran over. So we’re interviewing these for our SEO subject matter experts for manufacturing and industrial companies. Name and I don’t need to be the experts. These guys. And they were it was mind blowing how God God.

Damon Pistulka  50:27

Right?

Curt Anderson  50:28

My guts. So now check now Google is looking for what is it pop quiz, good eats, right? experience, expertise authority trust. What we do now we take that content, we put this little cut, we put this little description here, we have all the highlights. So we use a tool that highlights all the other timestamps. So now if somebody you know, I don’t want to listen to Curt ramble for 54 minutes, I just want to hear about leveraging video content for SEO and marketing. Why can go to the 39 minute mark, we come down here. Now check out this content. Remember, we showed showed you Lisa’s blog how she’s doing a great job with all that blogging, what we do is we take the transcription, and we put the entire thing on our website. Now, I can’t sit here and type this whole thing out. Dame is not going to sit there and type this whole thing out. But now we’re just putting a ridiculous amount of content on our website. Now here’s the cool thing is let me go down here. You go to YouTube. We take all of our videos and we put them on YouTube. How much Damon how much What’s it cost to be on YouTube? It is free. It’s free. Now the thing is, you know, for some reason, Dale only got 17 views but you know, here 340 442 So it’s always hit and miss. I can’t you know can’t I haven’t quite figured out Michelle, I’ve got your I’ve got your colleague art is on here somewhere. Here he is right there. There’s our Thomas from the Purdue MEP. But the thing is, when you can you take little clips, and these are really fun, cool clips, and you put them on for less than a minute, we’re getting hundreds of views. And again, a great opportunity for to get your message out there to help you stop being the best kept secret. Let’s go back to the program. And we’re going to wrap up on this bottom line guys. We strongly encourage you to consider live streaming, it’s just been such a blessing Daymond i I’m in New York, he’s in Seattle, we’ve become great friends. We’ve gotten together multiple times. And it’s all because of this live stream show. And Damon our moms are just really proud of us. Isn’t mom? Isn’t mom proud of you? Yep. There’s, there’s there’s good old man right there. So I guess we’re gonna stick around. I’m going to be mindful of everybody’s time. I know you’re super busy. And I want to be respectful. Any questions that anybody has I welcome you chat. We’ve got a small crowd, take yourself off mute. If you have any questions I’d love to dive in. Or Damon’s go going to start singing so I’m really I’m pleading with you guys. I’m warming up. Because Damon singing is not David, you do have a good voice but I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But you know, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  52:53

not that good. Not

52:57

so if if this specific webinar Rishi string that we’re on right now as part of a bigger series, or was just kind of would be like, I guess to learn more, do we just dive into like, podcasts videos, those that you should?

Curt Anderson  53:15

Hate? Great question. So yeah, so this is a webinar that we did here. So ironically, Daymond, I we’re building out a course. And so it’s gonna be coming out in a couple months. But we will have, and we’ll have that out there. But if you guys have any questions, I you know, this is what we do. We would love to if you want to jump on a one on one call with us. Again, we’re you know, we need to make a living, but we’re not here. We don’t have anything that we’re trying to sell. Everything that we do is through the Purdue MEP. So we we partner in line with our friends here, Michelle, if you guys know Jean, or or any of the amazing, Renee, the wonderful folks at the Purdue MEP, so we’d be happy to connect with you guys there. But um, yeah, so there’s my email right there. Guys, I’m Damon and I are all over the place on LinkedIn. We put our LinkedIn in the chat box, we would be honored if you would connect, follow you love to learn more about what you guys have going on. But yeah, Louis, if you want to reach out I would love to geek out or just any more questions that you might have. Thank you. Okay,

54:12

well question about loose his particular situation. So he has incredibly niche products. Very, very small amount of potential customers. What should his expectations be on building an audience building that that community? How should How should he be setting is you know, he’s not going to get millions of views and he’s not going to get mail millions of clients from this where how should he set his expectations? You know, case that’s,

Curt Anderson  54:41

you know, what he meant me for Justin it earlier? That’s a fantastic question. So, if I was in your podcast, or there’s a guy, John Lee Dumas, the entrepreneurs on fire, if anybody knows that, you know, and so he does a great job and he sells courses on he does advertising he makes a fortune with his podcast. If somebody We’re out there like, hey, I wanna I wanna I want, you know, 1000 followers, and you know, on my live stream show and I want advertisers, you know, I’m not the best fit for that, what our goal here is really strategically, how do you build relationships? How are you creating just wonderful content? And how are you showcasing folks? So let me use I use Michelle, for an example at the MEP. So how we how Damon I make a living is by aligning with MEPs around the country. So what we do is we’ll bring on, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had multiple of her teammates on our show, or their clients, and we’re, we’re piggybacking and partnering. Now what we’re doing is we’re building business development with Purdue MEP with that relationship. Okay, so if I’m Louis, for example, you know, Louis, just bear with my ignorance here, though, who is? Are you comfortable sharing? Who is? Who’s an ideal customer of yours? Who, who’s calling you today?

55:57

Are six, who, all right, they’re called Arthrex are the

Curt Anderson  56:02

OEM. They’re their OEM, and what do they manufacture?

56:08

So they don’t manufacture so they would be the ones. They’re like the the medical engineers that are designing these tools and the systems for surgeries, and then they would reach out to us say, hey, we need trays for this system, and they reach out to insurance manufacturers. And so everything’s kind of out sourced from them. They’re just kind of the development, I guess. And the brains behind it when we’re just kind of contract manufacturing.

Curt Anderson  56:38

Perfect. Okay. Excellent. Damon, do you have anything because I’m going to pull up, I’m going to pull up something to hit dress Casey’s answer here?

Damon Pistulka  56:44

Well, I think that even in a niche market, right, you’re there might only be, even if you’ve got 100 People that in the US or globally that would would be potentially reach out to you. What have you. We’re number one on everyone’s list mean, because you’re, whether you’re in a market with a million people that you could, we’ll be your ideal customer or two, if those two people looked at Lewis, and you’re the company, you’re in and said, that’s the only place to call? Because that’s what you want to be. I mean, because you’re we’re all in different size markets. And it doesn’t, you really just want to be because you want to be the one for the right people. And you don’t want to be the one for the wrong people. And it’s it’s really, it’s a great question, Casey. Because, yes, you may only have 100, or 50, or 20 potentials. But if you are the one that has developed relationships with each one of them by by calling them up and go into that engineering group and saying, listen, what’s the coolest thing that you could share us share with us on our show that’s happening in the industry? Because we want to talk about it? Or what’s the biggest problem that you think that we need to address in the industry that we’re not addressing? You can just build relationships with them and share that out to the industry. And they’re gonna say it’s you doing it every time with all the people? Yeah,

Curt Anderson  58:13

absolutely. So here’s so Casey, here’s I’m giving you guys a little secret sauce here. So when we work with our clients to the MEPs, we have this little worksheet program, we call it the digital game plan, okay. And what we do is we dive in, I don’t have any baseball fans out there. So what we do is we take our, we encourage our clients, and they have a lot of fun going through this process. We talked about, okay, who like Louis, think about this, if you’re a baseball fan, who are your singles, what clients are your singles, you know, like, Man, I take these all day every day, if one goes away, I’m bummed out but doesn’t devastate the business. Then like let’s go to the next space like Who are those doubles? Man? Don’t we love those stand up doubles. Those are fantastic. Then we get into the triples, Michelle looked at your a triple for me, I should put you as a homerun. Then I get down here like right her who are my customers, think about the you know, people that are completely going to change the trajectory of the business. Okay. So our clients love going through this process. We have a lot of fun here we talked about who are existing singles, doubles, triples, homeruns. Who are our prospects? Okay. Now, Lisa, who was just on here, and I don’t I can’t I don’t know if she’s still here. Then what we do is we create that buyer persona. We call them soulmates. This is Lisa, right here from from Steel City. She’s one of our ideal customers. So with this diatribe here, Casey, what we do is, here’s the candidates, these are the people that I would encourage you to consider interviewing. Who are your singles? Who are your doubles? Who are your triples? Who your homeruns. then more importantly, what information do those folks need? illustrated with today? What problems do they have? What what what are they trying to conquer? Man, if I could get this off my plate or if I knew how to do this, what would make my life better? That would be a great thing for your for your, for your network. Last thing I’m going to share we do this fun exercise. It’s called the soulmate 100 The soulmate 100. Damon, you love talking about that one of many? Yeah, this is where you can really develop a great referral network Daymond explained this here,

Damon Pistulka  1:00:11

well, if you’ve got some people that are working in your industry, but they work with everyone in the industry or multiple people in the industry, because they are selling a service that goes into a complementary service that goes into everyone’s product, or everyone’s business or everything like that, those are the people that you want to focus on, because they can get you a tremendous amount of referral business, by you helping them be very known as well for what they the problems they can solve. And again, you’re just highlighting them and you’re getting known alongside them as someone in an industry that’s helping people. So

Curt Anderson  1:00:46

for example, so say, Louis, just bear with my ignorance, thank goodness, I’m not in the hospital. I mean, I should have said, even better knock on wood, right? So let’s say you have one of our surgical trays, okay, who would I want to potentially line with and again, just, you know, bear with my, my ignorance, we’re just running through a funnel exercise. Well, hey, maybe I could connect with the gods guy. Maybe I connect with the needle person, or I can connect with like, what’s every person that sells something around the tray right? Now, the example Damon, I always use like, I have a lamp right next to me, right? Think about if we were manufacturing lamps, who do I want to connect with? Who would be on my soulmate? 100? Well, hey, what about the lampshade person? What about the light bulb? Woman? What about the end table? What about the bed? What about the bedsheets? What about the you know, everything that would go round or support the lamp who’s selling to the same ideal customer, the same soulmate? Those are great opportunities to interview. Damon, I just didn’t. So we have a client in Chicago, who’s going into going all in on this whole livestream concept, right? So he has a piece of machinery, you know, I’m talking about that. It’s like, the industry will the President of the company that manufactures that piece of machinery was visiting him last night. So we interviewed the president with the our client, the president of the manufacturer that we deal with. And then what we did is we interviewed the president of the piece of machinery that he has on a shop floor, and we just geeked out, and all we’re doing is we’re talking about industry, we’re talking about sustainability, talking about like, what best practices branding, mean, we just geeked out for 30 minutes had a great session. And now that’s going to live on their website. And we’re going to do exactly what I showed you guys, we have the full transcription, we’re building out YouTube shorts. And so it’s just it’s just an enormous amount of content. And this guy is starting to get a lot of action. He had no social media presence whatsoever. And this was through the Illinois MEP. And so now he’s getting traction, and he’s thrilled. So that’s the concept as I think of those subject matter experts that just going to make you look like the smarter person in the room. Right. Damon, how was how was that? Well,

Damon Pistulka  1:02:48

and and to be clear, this person is is printing branded apparel. Right. I mean, this is not a special thing. This is a on the other end of where Lewis says that this is on something for just virtually any business. And so you can use this in multiple places. And it works well. If you just focus on helping those people in your industry. You know, make better decisions, have more information, just be a good steward of your industry and help the people around you and your customers. And it does pay off. It does. It does come back and the knowledge you gain the relationships you build, and ultimately the business you get from it. Last

Curt Anderson  1:03:32

thing I’ll share, Louis would I shamelessly love to do is get your vendors. That’s what our client did just last night. It was it was five o’clock and 530. Eastern time in New York eastern time last night. You know, get your vendors because the thing is they want to they want to highlight themselves. And shamelessly get your vendor come on and talk about how wonderful you are and how amazing you are and what breaks, you know how wonderful it is to do business with you. So you’re kind of getting like a reverse testimonial. It’s great. You know, it’s wonderful when we can get our customers on, I strongly encourage you to do that. But boy, get those vendors on. And again, you’re just building street cred for them coming on and just talking about what a privilege it is to do business with you. Right. So I, man, Michelle, we are just so fired up. I know we’re like two minutes out or run it over. Any, any and I don’t mind sticking around. Any other questions. I want to be mindful of everybody’s time. Any any other questions I would love to tackle and this is fun. Louis Young fun. I am dressed. Aiden, you had a good time. Got a thumbs up, man. Where does it show up? Okay, any other any other questions that you guys want to hit on that service? Yeah. Yeah, thank you, Kurt. Alright, Michelle, we’ll we’ll wrap up. Michelle, do you want to hate? How about a round of applause for Michelle and the team at the Purdue MEP for hosting the party today? Shell. Thanks

Damon Pistulka  1:05:00

for that.

Curt Anderson  1:05:01

I want to thank everybody here today. I have the recording, we recorded this. It’s going to be it will live on my website. I’ll send it over to Michelle. I think Michelle, you guys send it out probably next week. And if you guys have any questions, please reach out to the Purdue MEP reached out to Damon myself, we would be honored to help you.

Damon Pistulka  1:05:20

Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

1:05:25

Thank you guys. Thank

Curt Anderson  1:05:25

you, Michelle. Thanks, Casey. Thanks, Aidan. Josh, Sean Daz Earth, Rodney Steve Fritz britches out there. Thanks for it’s Sure. All right.

Damon Pistulka  1:05:38

All right, Damon. Thanks, dude. All right, dude. See ya.

Curt Anderson  1:05:41

Thank you, Michelle.