Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Nicole Donnelly

Damon Pistulka  00:01

All right everyone, it is Friday. It is time for the manufacturing ecommerce success. I am excited today. I am Damon Pistulka one of the hosts here. This pretty gentleman over here, Kurt Anderson co hosts Kurt, take it away, man.

Curt Anderson  00:18

I’m trying to send links out. Hey guys, happy Friday Man What an absolute honor and privilege it is to be here today. Now first of all on kind of a bummer note our dear friend Constantina mace if you were here, if you’re from the New Jersey MEP if you’re expecting to see Rockstar Constantina she is under the weather today. Her son’s under the weather. We send our thoughts prayers for a quick recovery to Constantina. So, Constantine, if you’re out there, we’re gonna have you back on next month sometime and hope that you are feeling better. So, man Damon, How about how about this fine, wonderful, amazing, incredible young woman here is taking her place? How about the CO Donnelly’s in the house?

Nicole Donnelly  01:03

Yes. And we

Damon Pistulka  01:05

just we just informed her to that is karaoke day.

Curt Anderson  01:10

Yeah. So for anybody for those regulars on the show, whenever somebody doesn’t show up, and just the guest is under the weather, whoever plays guest host slips in, and it’s so cool. We’re are you? Are you ready?

Nicole Donnelly  01:24

Only if you call some of our audience members on the stage with me. Okay, I want to do a duet with someone who’s out there. Dan vaguer. Are you out there? You’re coming with me.

Damon Pistulka  01:37

We have to get there. We have to get there. Oh, yeah. It’s actually later in the day later in the day. Later in the night, actually really nearer than the midnight hour? I think. Well,

Curt Anderson  01:50

I you know, I just said a little link out. Alright, let’s let’s dive right in. So yeah. Hey, Dan, bigger. If you get a chance, check your check your inbox for? Oh, yeah. They’re just just you know, anybody else in the little gal? You know, check anybody else? Just checking that? If you are so obliged. Click a link. And so anyway, Nicole, let’s just dive right in. We’re here to talk about community. And yesterday, we had the absolute What an honor and privilege it was for me. We got to meet in person. We were at the industrial marketing Summit. And boy, it was high energy. It was amazing, incredible, great speakers, great camaraderie. We met our group, our community of industrial b2b marketers, who will talk about some of the folks that we met. Just share what was your thought we were we were in Damon. So here’s the funny thing. We were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame man, it was in Cleveland. And so what were they doing in

Damon Pistulka  02:48

rocks? Dude, they

Curt Anderson  02:49

were they were doing karaoke. But, but the karaoke at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a live band. So when you do karaoke, it’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You’re with a live band. So the band’s plan, and I was trying to get Nicole to sing and we it’s always too

Nicole Donnelly  03:04

late to get up there. It was.

Curt Anderson  03:07

It was phenomenal. It was absolutely phenomenal. So the call let’s dive in what was your some takeaways for the industrial marketing summit for folks that couldn’t be there? What are what are some things

Nicole Donnelly  03:18

and it was so so great. So MJ Peters, who is a marketing, Rockstar and manufacturing, she gave a really great presentation on what you can do to get leadership buy in to marketing and increasing your budget, because a lot of times in manufacturing, they’re very sales driven organizations. And it’s really difficult to get, you know, buy in to invest in marketing with the leadership team. It’s it’s a common problem. I experienced it all the time. It’s like an ongoing battle struggle. I have friends who experienced this problem. And she just had some really great advice and insights. I think for anyone who’s really struggling out there to like to get their leadership team to really get it to get marketing to get what how it works, that it’s you know, it’s a long game that it’s it takes time to build that it’s like an investment in your future. Right. And so she had some really great tips and advice. I think that was really helpful. Some of the things she talked about were showing the value by doing some really low budget, like things that don’t cost a lot of money. So like, for example, she said, You got to start with customer research, which I am a huge proponent of like you absolutely. Anytime you’re doing any sort of marketing initiative, you’ve got to talk to customers, and it’s not just like talking to them on a sales call. This means like, intentionally reaching out to top customers and prospects, a handful of them and really having conversations with them to understand what are the things that they love about your brand? You know, what are they what are the words that they use to describe you? What are their pain points, challenges and roadblocks and really understanding that and that’s a very low cost. It doesn’t cost anything to talk to your customers and understand and you can take that information and you can use Use it to update your website copy using their words, so that it will resonate with a larger audience. And so she mentioned that and I was just like cheering her on in the crowd. I’m like, Yes, this is absolutely right on. And the other thing she mentioned, which I think is so good is just investing in SEO by putting out regular blog posts every week. And that is just such it doesn’t, you know, it obviously takes time. But if you’re, you know, on staff, as a marketer, you’re already there, you can already do that. It’s not like you’re asking for extra budget to create this content. So and so those were the two big things that she did. And once she was able to prove the value there and show like, look, I did these things, we took the information we got from customers, we used it to build out this great, you know, content marketing plan for SEO, and we used it to beef up the content on the website, she used that as kind of like a way for her to get buy in, right and try to get more budget. So I love that I thought that was such great advice for anyone out there who’s struggling with a similar problem. And a nice, scrappy way to go about it. No, yeah. All right. It was

Curt Anderson  06:11

it was it was so good. And she did a great job. She started in 2016 as a solo marketer and a manufacturer and was really great, you know, young, you know, relentless marketer. And she kind of showed the progression of her growth and different companies that she went to now she’s leading the team with a million dollar budget. And so very ambitious, young woman. It was great, you know, industrial b2b. And you know, big thing. I don’t know if it was her session, a call but you know, we heard heavy about don’t put out content and ask what the CEO wants. Ask what the customer wants, man, it was just like, drop the mic moments. I’ve got some notes here. We’re gonna throw around the different names. I gotta, I have to go to Eddie Saunders man demon. Eddie Saunders, like what you saw online, multiply that to the 10th power. Yeah, that’s what you get in person. And I was, what a blessing it was to meet him in person, just his positivity, his humbleness. I mean, he’s a ball of energy. But I mean, he comes in he’s, I can’t speak highly enough about Eddie. What was his favorite word yesterday, Nicole?

Nicole Donnelly  07:23

I love that empathy. Empathy.

Curt Anderson  07:26

Yes. They so Joe Sullivan from Gryllus 76 was the moderator. And he said with one if you guys like one or two words, last parting, it was a last session of the day, one or two words, what are your parting thoughts? And I mean, this guy is so wise beyond his years. He stood there and he goes, one word, empathy. And you go, and I think he talked about it with us on Monday, he was like, you know, there’s a big difference between sympathy and empathy. The call that is totally your preach you love curiosity and empathy. L if you’re out there you are the queen of curiosity, and a cold talk about like, what are some of the things that Edie shared and just like and how you implement and how how critical this is for your, your strategies?

Nicole Donnelly  08:09

Yeah, I love what he said about empathy. He talked about the difference between sympathy and empathy. And he said, specifically, like, empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of someone else, and really trying to understand what they’re going through. So like, in this situation, right, right, where you are dealing with leadership team who’s maybe not bought into marketing, put yourself in their shoes, really, like walk in their shoes and try to understand what are they trying to accomplish? What are their challenges and roadblocks and the more that you can understand that too, the more you’re going to be able to help move the needle. Right. So, so yeah, I thought that was he always preaches that. And I think it’s awesome. So

Damon Pistulka  08:47

yeah, yeah. And and Dan, Dan, I got put downs coming up here. So as you guys are obviously big Michigan fans, huge.

Curt Anderson  08:57

And same with Jeff Long, you know, yeah, yeah. Jeff Leung sold me all sorts of pictures of his kids. He has a two year old son and he’s decked out in Ohio State, Ohio State gear and Eddie is just screaming go Buckeyes, you know, on the floor, and it was I just can’t speak highly enough about it. So Nicole Lux talked about Joe Sullivan did an amazing job. Moderated like back to back I think he did like four sessions, if I’m not mistaken. Did you know wonderful as great engaging questions. He commented a few times and things he was passionate about, let’s let’s and we actually had dinner with Joe, what a great guy, just shirt and he’s built Daymond he’s up to 21 employees now at Grace. We see a number of them on LinkedIn. And man, he shared a great story about you know, like his company was at a pivot. And he was like, we’re gonna this was in 2011. He they went all in on manufacturers. He’s like we’re in a lot of people were telling him not too bad, you know, bad move. He’s been committed for he and his partner for 11 years now have dedicated manufacturing In marketing, Nicole, what are some takeaways that you felt? You know, Joe for such a brilliant guy, again, mobility, Class Act integrity, great family, man. But just what are some things that you some of your takeaways for Joe?

Nicole Donnelly  10:12

Well, first, I think just his humility, I was really impressed with that, like, he was just a really down to earth really easy going. And I did appreciate and what I loved about that story he shared about them deciding to really niche down and focus in on manufacturing, I think at that point, his agency was what, maybe five, five years old or six years old at that point. And he’s working with a consultant who specially who worked with a ton of agencies. So this is like, someone who really knows and has a lot of experience, who is basically advising them against going this direction, who’s like, this is not a good direction, manufacturers don’t get it, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna struggle, you’re gonna have a hard time. And, you know, he said that they just really felt like in their gut. I mean, they had some long discussions about it, but they felt like in their gut that they really needed to go in that direction. And I just was really impressed with that, that he kind of like, just stayed true to what their experience was, and use that intuition to kind of like, guide them forward. And man, I mean, at this point, I think, what a great direction it was for them. And now he can go back and know even more like to trust his gut and know what, what that feels like going forward as to make other decisions like that.

Curt Anderson  11:26

Yeah, yeah. He they, and he did a great job chiming in on again, you know, you know, we hear a lot of these marketing cliches buyers journey and you know, but I mean, he just does such a great job of it, his team just comes in, takes a deep dive understanding very technical products, engineering products. And it was he was phenomenal. So let’s light speaking of engineering and technical. Damon, Wendy Covey was there. She and she was on a program a month ago. And goodness, again, like what you see in person, multiply that to the 10th power. And that is Wendy Damon, we we do a couple of webinars here and there, don’t we once in a while. Now by any chance, or do you? Do you have a webinar coming up next week? Maybe? Two weeks be?

Damon Pistulka  12:15

Yes, I do. Yes.

Curt Anderson  12:17

I think you I think you do, dude. Right?

Damon Pistulka  12:19

I do. We are I have to look at my calendar, because I honestly don’t know.

Curt Anderson  12:26

You have to ever live. Don’t say that live? No, no,

Damon Pistulka  12:30

no, seriously, I today I was still I was so inspired by the USA manufacturing our Twitter chat I did yesterday. We gotta talk about that. I forgot how much fun that was. And I was able to host yesterday we were talking about, you know, dry subject Business Valuation fundamentals, but it was, you know, the people that questions the interaction is so great with that USA manufacturing, our Twitter chat. That man, I just forgot how much fun it is. And it’s kind of overshadowing everything else that I’m doing. Right? Well,

Curt Anderson  13:02

let’s you know what, let’s hit what big weakness was, let’s share some of the comments that you were getting fired at you yesterday?

Damon Pistulka  13:08

Well, I mean, it was it was great. The questions that people were asking, were really relevant, trying to figure out, you know, does this make a difference? Does that make a difference? Do you you know, because there’s so many different things because, right, business value, honestly, the biggest thing that people get to read is all the public company junk that gets published in, you know, in whatever journal you’re reading, or something like that. And that has very little to do with how a, you know, down the street company is, is is valued. And that’s, that’s what was cool about being able to answer some questions and talk to people about you know, some of the things that that we get to do and and so they actually get some, hopefully, you know, I say this with a grain of salt coming from me useful information. But, you know, it’s it was just the questions. I mean, people are thinking about stuff on there. And you know, that’s not just yesterday, all these Twitter chats, they have great people doing it, great questions, great interaction, pushing the hosts, and, and educating everyone else. So I actually lost track of time I was sitting here I’m trying to respond to everyone you know, and I forget do I reply, do I tweet with refreeze? But you know, you go through all this stuff?

Curt Anderson  14:25

Just just a blast. And you posted a poll, right?

Nicole Donnelly 14:28

Yes, and you’re right Damon is like fast. It’s like the fastest and most curious hour you know what I love I love the gifts that people come up with the best gifts

Damon Pistulka  14:41

and I’m challenged you know, I give challenge I have no gift game. And you know, I’ve lucky to get text done. Yeah. Thrown out tax or these beautiful letters like Golly.

Curt Anderson  14:55

I’m like thrilled when I do an lol with a little smiley face, let alone like Dan bigger thumbs up in it. Yeah, and yeah Dan bigger does this you know crushes it. Katie is like the queen and do a great job. You’re getting some nice compliments here to Damon. But what can beggars compliment you Whitney’s complimenting you? So you did an awesome job? Fastest hour on the internet? Absolutely. It is. So let’s say so. So check your calendar. I think you have a webinar coming up. But we do a few webinars maybe one or two in our past right here and there on occasion, right. So we are I like to do we’re kind of webinar count of sewers, if you will. Would you do agree with that statement? Do you feel like we’re webinar Academy? We did. We’ve done a few. I tell you, Wendy Covey, sets the bar so high. So if I were to score her like, if I was like a movie critic, you know, the webinar critic, out of a 10 she’s a she’s a 10 Plus, she her her presentation was so amazing, so powerful. In what she does is she does she cooks up a global spec, and they do an annual deep dive research project. And man, they were going through like a whole buyers journey and naman, like, deep and her. Her first employee was Morgan Norris. And Morgan was sharing with us yesterday how she was hoping to have a son and you know what she was? She was gonna name her son Damon. But Chuck Chuck Norris. So Morgan Norris was going to she was like, pray that she was going to have a son. And she was going to you know, she was hoping she was going to have you know, but anyway, we might, you know, there had been like, you know, the karate lessons and um, shots. really challenging broken windows? Yes. So she doesn’t have Chuck Norris. So anyway, so Morgan Norris guide up she spoke. She was absolutely incredible. Wendy is lights out funny, engaging, entertaining. Nicole, what are your standards? It’s true marketing that they own t r e. W. What are some takeaways you had from from Morgan and Wendy?

Nicole Donnelly 17:01

Yeah, well, true marketing really focuses in on engineering specifically, which I think is so interesting, because that is a very like, and they do content marketing for for industrial manufacturers and really targeting engineers. And so I felt like there was a lot of really interesting things they pointed out from their report, that might be a little bit counterintuitive to what we hear and think that we should be doing like, or Hoopa, you know, how we should be reaching customers. Like, for example, engineers, the number one way they research products is through websites, vendor websites, and supplier websites. And the least common way that they research products was social media and podcasts. I was surprised that that was like the, you know, so. So again, it goes back to this whole, like, you’ve got to know your customer, right? You need to know where they are what you know, so that you can reach them in the channels that they’re at. So I thought that was really interesting. And then the other thing that was really huge for this audience was product demo videos, and instructional videos, and just like a lot of technical information is what the information that they really cared about. So I just love that she was able to share those learnings. And then to the, to your point about the buyers journey, she was just talking in great detail about how you should map out the customer journey, every single phase, and through each phase, you need to create content that speaks to the buyer for each of those phases. And I think that that she went into such great detail about, you know, like very organized way of like outlining each of the phases and the types of content that engineers care about at those phases. And I thought that was a really wonderful framework that you could potentially apply to any, you know, you could you could do the same customer research for any buyer, whether it’s, you know, an operations manager, whatever your target is, and map out the customer journey in the same way, using your customer research to figure out what they need to learn and know about those phases. So I thought I was awesome.

Curt Anderson  18:58

Yeah, it was very powerful. Because, you know, cool, I think you might have a client or two where they’re selling, you know, a quarter million, half a million million dollar pieces of equipment, right? And it’s very common to say, what content are we going to write? They’re very common, okay? And what how she laid it out, even like, you know, I’m in this game, and I felt I was I still had an epiphany yesterday of how she spelled it out. So safe. It’s a six month 12 month, 18 month buying process. They do step by step because it’s still going to be the same for that buyer. And now they in the session before and that session they talked about, it could be a dozen different buyers in the in the decision. Yeah. And how do you navigate all these different people because it’s not a you know, like in our personas, we call them our soulmates, right? Well, there can be like multiple soulmates within that one buying decision. Absolutely. And they did and so that was a session prior and then Wendy site Wendy Morgan did a great job of like spun out okay, well when they hit this point We drop this piece of information because everybody has that same problem, everybody has that same process, everybody’s going to be at that same stage of the buying process. You know, that was phenomenal. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  20:12

it makes sense to because in a large equipment purchase, you know, you you have maybe an engineer that’s going to specify and recommend, and then you have people that are going to want to look at the business case to buy it. And then you’ve got the final decision maker, that that may be different than those other two, and then you may have a committee or something that it has to have a different kind of holistic view of the whole thing. You know, it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of people that consider, you know, like, in manufacturing, I used to be if you’re going to buy a million dollar laser, to it’s going to do something or some other robotic welding. thing. It’s, you got a lot of people that have to understand it and agree that they’re going to buy it,

Curt Anderson  20:54

right. Yeah, absolutely. And you’ve got to win, you know, it’s, I think, Westling preaches this consistently. Get that internal cheerleader. Yeah, you know, is it the engineer? Is it somebody purchasing? Is it somebody in procurement? Like you need it? You know, and I think she actually I think it’s Wesleyan uses like that Trojan horse almost. Yep. Reference of like, somebody needs to be on the inside. With a big megaphone screaming, you’re the one you’re the right person, you’re the right choice. But even with that information, you have got to win the day with the CFO, you got to whoever’s gonna write the check. You have to let me know. So you went over the engineer. You went over purchasing you went over this, you went over sales whenever marketing, you still need to the gatekeeper, and I tell you, it was just so amazing. To call yesterday, we heard one of my favorite words over and over and over. I was like getting chills. Daymond you would love it. configurators Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I felt like I was in heaven. You know, Jeff Long and Eddie are screaming, you know, go Buckeyes, and these guys are talking configurators. But so cadenas parts, you know, heart solutions, that’s who hosted the in industrial marketing Summit. And they have, they’re gonna be coming on our program in November. And they brought up a client and it was a case study and I’m telling you to do this was so powerful on how they’ve implemented an instituted a configurator. And Nicole, what I loved was, she’s the marketing guru. He was the IT guy. Now thankfully, the IT guy he like he didn’t, he didn’t brand himself as like, you know, typical kind of starchy, IT person. He had a little bit of marketing in the background, and it seemed like they communicated extremely well. Okay. But a lot of companies you have it kind of like battling with marketing. Nicole, was that just amazing? Or what? How they were bridging that gap that marketing it gap? Where were your thoughts?

Nicole Donnelly  22:48

Yes, it was amazing. The part I caught I wasn’t able to catch the whole set.

Curt Anderson  22:55

out let me let me pick up a time back. Deal with a client and i Oh, my God,

Damon Pistulka  23:04

I tell you what, though. configurators Oh, my goodness, I think about them. And I was yesterday I was I can’t remember who I was talking to yesterday. And I was thinking back to nearly every manufacturing company that I was a part of, could have used a configurator. Because, you know, when you’re when you’re an OEM, there’s always things there’s color, there’s size, there’s all these different things that always change accessories. I was thinking of a truck manufacturer, I was thinking of some other OEMs that, that I was a part of that these configurators can make it so easy for your customers, as you say, Kurt, to buy whenever they want, right, exactly what they want. Right.

Curt Anderson  23:51

Nicole? What’s the term that you taught me this week that you pick up at HubSpot?

Nicole Donnelly  23:55

Yeah, they were talking about this when I went to inbound last week actually went to a really great session all about how the sales, you know, as we know, this, the way people are buying is changing, right? 85% of the purchasing process now happens online, you know, over the more time goes on, people don’t want to talk to a salesperson. So you got to move as much of that sales process to your website, that configurator is perfect for that. And the word that they used was digital self serve. People want to be able to pick themselves they don’t want you know, they want to be able to have control over the purchasing experience. So for now, for companies, it’s about letting go of the control and giving more control to the customer and letting them choose and decide. And he used this great example that the speaker that he has his company called the river pools if you want to google it, and you basically can go on it’s a fiberglass pool manufacturer, and you can go onto their site and basically pick out exactly what you know all the things that you want your pool what size pays, you know, shape all of that. And it’ll it’ll spit out for you, you know, a price range and all of that on so that you can kind of decide for yourself. I think he was saying that that configurator gets them cheap, hundreds of leads a day, hundreds of leads a day they’re getting from that configurator Yes. Oh, that’s a huge opportunity for, you know, for like complex items, you know, obviously, that require a lot of customization. I think there’s an opportunity there for these manufacturers to do something very similar. I’ve seen it work really well. For some of my clients. We’ve done the same thing, and it’s a great way to help them make the right decision.

Curt Anderson  25:38

So, Nicole, what was that term again?

Nicole Donnelly   25:41

Digital selves, or Thank you,

Curt Anderson  25:44

Damon. I call it a moment of silence. Right? Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly   25:50

I’ll give I’ll give all the credit to Marcus Sheridan. He was the one that’s

Curt Anderson  25:54

what you know what you take it, Nicole. We don’t know why. Like Alison afford with the Wii Wii syndrome. She’s like, I don’t think I came up with this. I’m like, Alison, you totally came out. Oh, Nicole, we’re on the record. We’re here on LinkedIn live, but just soak in that term, digital self serve. I like, bam, dropped the mic that Daymond configurators. Like you just like, can you eat? Can you think of an industry that couldn’t use configurator? Right. It’s just,

Damon Pistulka  26:29

yeah. Is it is they they are you know, and as we’ve geeked out on him before, Kurt, it’s I just think that when you look at, as Nicole said, how many people are buying now? And if you don’t have Yeah, she stayed your salespeople could be out selling the same item to customers, too. But that configurator living on your site just opened you up to so many other people, right? And if you’re configurator, as you show many times, Kurt, if the configurator can’t get you all the way there, it can get you to as you said, Nicole leads that you can go call and say hey, what are you really want?

Curt Anderson  27:09

Right? Yeah, exactly. You can do a thing. So I have a client, they call it the estimator. It’s very clear. Like this is not a quote, it’s not 100% But boy, we’re gonna get you there. We’re gonna get you started. Right. This is the estimator. And you guys both know, my dear buddy, Jason Deering, he does an amazing job with a killer, custom, Custom Configurator. We he also does what we call the quote builder. We’re like, this is a hard quote, we’ve got it down to a penny. And let’s geek out on SEO. Nicole, I don’t know if I’ve told you this. And if I have, but we’ll geek out anyway. So on the quote builder, Damon’s as my famous ground strap guy, right? You’ve heard this times, but you know, so. So for anybody out there configurator quote, builder, what are you talking about? It’s just going on? It’s like a step by step. How do I build this? Okay, you know, if I want to build this t shirt, what size what color? What print? Do I want on it right step by step. That’s basically that’s a configurator. So the thing is, Nicole, what they do, and so this is a quote builder. Every time somebody builds out, a customer comes on their on their site, time on site, that is a win for SEO, and more time, on the site, less time on somebody else’s aka competitors site, right. So as Google loves time on site, they go through the quote builder, when they hit submit, it creates a product page, on that product page that we’ve created, we have an enormous amount of rich content loaded with our keywords, and internal links going all over the place. So now every time that a customer, a customer is creating product pages for us, in the SEO juice is just phenomenal. So again, you know, the customer wins, the customer doesn’t have to call doesn’t have to email. And when they get their quote, there’s a big nice, juicy button that says what, by me now, they hit by pull out their credit card, they are done and they move on to the 30 other things that they need to do for the day, there was no phone call. There was no chit chat. There is no you know, and I know like the pushback could be like, hey, what about the relationship? We’re doing this we’re building the relationship because we just made their life so much easy. We close the sale. That’s what we’re here for, you know, build relationships, but boy, we have to make a living too. So anyway, that was just I was in Daymond. Then on top of it the last session with Edie that gentleman from he was from Rochester, New York, and name of the company escapes me Columbus, MC McKinnon. Maybe, and they were out of Buffalo, actually. And he was just like, I’m a configurator guy. I’m a configurator. guy. He must have said it. 10 times. Right, Nicole? I mean, when I’m on how like he’s teaming up. So he was the IT guy. He’s been a client and like teaming up with marketing and how do they bridge their configurator with the marketing team. So it

Damon Pistulka  29:59

is and you know it to me it’s a game changer. It’s a game changer.

Curt Anderson  30:04

It’s a game changer. I I couldn’t agree more so if your boy if you’re out there you want to have you want to geek out on a conversation while configurators reach out to Damon reach out to myself reach out to Nicole and we can get you. We have a number of subject matter experts that can help you with powerful solutions here. Nicole, let’s I know man we want we’re gonna keep this short now van bait we’re waiting for Dan bigger to get on stage because we’re gonna be as soon as Dan gets on,

Damon Pistulka  30:31

but Dan said he is not dressed.

Curt Anderson  30:35

This guy Elson afford you know Trailblazer shirt today? Just got up Allison. So, you know, the code she’s getting ready for her for her trip. I

Damon Pistulka  30:51

know my T shirt says under this thing. Everybody sees you always putting out a button up shirt. But most of the shirts that I wear people in public Oh,

Curt Anderson  31:00

it told me to be dressed up yesterday, Nicole right. I saw that picture of

Damon Pistulka  31:05

you. I was like, is that correct?

Nicole Donnelly   31:06

That currently I gotta tell you this story. Okay, so Kurt and Jeff Long picked me up from the airport. All right. And I was waiting on the curb to get picked up by them. And it was very crowded. There was a bunch of cars. You know, I’m waiting for them to come. And all. I see this guy. He’s like standing on on his like a car and he’s just like, all of a sudden just seemed shooting up and he shoots his arm up like this. He’s like, hey, and I’m like, Oh my gosh, that’s Kurt. All right. Standing on the

Curt Anderson  31:40

other all that there’s just cars everywhere. I couldn’t get there. So I throw up in my door. I stand on the legend my car. So I’m leaning over the hood and I’m waiting. I’m like, I’m like, we’ve never laid eyes on each other in person. I’m with Jeff long am I there she is right there. I’m like Nicole, and I’m waving their doubts runneth over. And Nicole what I just I might get teary what? What a privilege it was meeting you in person hanging out with you, Jeff Long Joe Sullivan, just my Addy Wendy just everybody that we had the honor and privilege of meeting just what

Nicole Donnelly  32:16

good. It was such great community and coming out of COVID to be in person at an event and see the people that we see online all the time. And you just like be able to connect with them. I mean, it was true community. It was really, really wonderful. And yeah, and just was really nice to meet you in person curd. Everyone was,

Curt Anderson  32:37

it was just awesome. So that’s what we wind down on this on this one. Good. Friday, September, you know, Damon, big football weekend. All right. So let’s find out. We were here and Constantina. If you’re out there, boy, we hope you’re feeling better. And we were here to talk about community. And this is exactly what we talked about. So we took on we went all of us together. And Damon I’d like Joe Sullivan was like, dude, How’d you meet David? And I’m like, LinkedIn, man. It’s all about LinkedIn. He was like, Hey, you guys met in person? I’m like, of course, man. We had we had like, a huge day together. And yeah, it was. So anyway. It’s all about building community. And if boy, if you think LinkedIn is a is a waste of time are nice to have. Boy, I don’t know, man, Nicole, like, pictures that we were taking yesterday. In those videos, we were saying like, here’s links, here’s a LinkedIn Success story right here, right? All these relationships, and we’re doing business together, we’re helping each other we’re rooting each other on. So that’s community coming together in person. Finally, you know, hopefully, this little COVID thing is getting put behind us. And so we can now come out and meet in person. Damon, you just absolutely crushed it at the Twitter chat group yesterday, you know, you’ve done an amazing job, you know, building your communities. I mean, like, just, Nicole, would you dropped the line? I think on Monday community is QingEr. What are some of the lines you learned last week about

Nicole Donnelly  34:01

how to spot it was so amazing, we’re talking about how people are on digital overload coming out of COVID. And for the last like, five, six years, it’s all been about like just content content content, right? Like companies need to be educating and informing their customers or prospects, which is great, awesome, right? Yeah, everybody’s doing that so well. But now it’s time to take it to the next level. And so now it’s all about community led growth. And so it was just really interesting to hear that, like, people are really feeling disconnected, more and more disconnected from their customers and from each other. And so the challenge is for marketers and for any businesses that really want to grow and truly connect with their customers, is to try to figure out ways to build that community with with their, you know, creating like branded communities with their customers and, and so now not only is it the company, educating the customers, but it’s the customers coming together and educating each other and helping each other and supporting each other. I think that’s what’s great about our community. You’re on LinkedIn that we found, like we all kind of like help each other in that way. And so I think it’s a great it’s just kind of exciting to be part of that and see how companies who can build that and create that are, you know, are really positioning themselves to really step up and lead the way when it comes to getting new business in the years ahead. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  35:22

if you remember Daymond on Monday, remember, Eddie was talking about the buddy system. And he was on stage yesterday going heavy talking about the buddy system. And and then as a matter of fact, and then the session before when they cadenas case study when they were talking to me about the configurator what they’ve done is aligned with their customers. And they even talked about like doing a case study with one of their customers knowing you know, so it was all about partnership it was about community Eddie man just dropped another mic moment he remembered Nicole he was talking about treat your sales distribution channels as if they’re part of your internal you know, go get to know them get to understand you know, treat them like a treat your distribution channel, like your own customers. He’s like the more you buddy up with them boy who’s gonna be front of mind and he’s just he’s wise beyond his years. So all right, any other demons. So what song are we doing by anyway by James but so

Damon Pistulka  36:18

it’s up to you, man I got.

Curt Anderson  36:22

So Nicole, we’re trying to figure out so she’s a big Fleetwood Mac fan. So we’re like we’re trying to find some work. So we’re in Cleveland at the industrial marketing Summit, and they had like this big wonderful thing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame boy, if anybody out there has never been to Cleveland or hasn’t been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Europe. Damon, you would, you’d be there for hours. This place is amazing. I’ve taken my family there and boy, we just love it. It’s a great place for their karaoke. They have a live band. And it’s an it was like fantastic and people are going up singing out and John and what the Yeah, what was the other song that we heard? There was the zombie by

Nicole Donnelly   37:03

we did we heard?

Curt Anderson  37:06

And so anyway, we had a few good songs and we were trying to get Nicole up there to sing and then landside see Dan bigger wants to hear landslide so there you go. Alright, so anyway, all right. Well wind down I know everybody’s super busy. We’re having a great time but boy you know, takeaways for today Dan, bigger thank you for being here. We have mic drop moment. Everybody out there first off, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you We deeply appreciate you more than you can possibly know but let’s let’s just recap on a couple of takeaways point build that community boy help other ways out there whether it’s somebody you know, look at this. We’re all doing a little something a little bit different. Damon comes in yesterday just absolutely crushes it on the Twitter chat group, educating, giving value helping people figure out this whole you know how to sell your business thing very daunting, overwhelming. I think Dan bigger dropped a note you need to talk to you about somebody, you know what that can be super, you know, you need somebody that you know, like and trust. That’s what Greg Michoud always preaches. Right? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  38:05

it is. It is.

Curt Anderson  38:06

You know, configurators Go ahead, Damon, what?

Damon Pistulka  38:09

Well in two, I’d give him some Greg Michaud, did you see what he posted about about case studies this week? Holy heck. That case study article he or newsletter article he put together on LinkedIn this week was awesome. I just gotta say that. It was it was incredible. Because we’re writing some more and updating them. I’m like, holy, boom, push that over to the right people.

Curt Anderson  38:32

You know what I got away from LinkedIn. I need to I need to check out that case study this week. That sounds Yeah, you need to.

Damon Pistulka  38:40

That’s awesome. He just like boom, boom, boom. It was awesome.

Curt Anderson  38:43

Yeah. Okay. So hey, next week, man, I next week, I’m going to another conference, man. I don’t know it’s like trade show season or something. So the MEP the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, annual conference on Monday through Thursday. I’m not I’m we’re going to try to be doing some LinkedIn lives at the actual conference grabbing some MEP rockstars and talking about what they’re doing in their state and their MEP center. Damon, I’ll keep you posted. It might be on the fly, though. So we’ll see how that happens. Yeah, I might try to do in between I have a couple of clients in the Chicago area and round there. We might try to do something on site and a couple of manufacturers. I will keep you posted on that. So we could have we could have a real fun week possibly possibly. So check out Damon has I believe Damon, I think you have a webinar on Thursday. If I’m not Yes,

Damon Pistulka  39:36

it is Thursday. I believe it starts at noon Eastern time.

Curt Anderson  39:40

Anyway, Eastern Time and what’s you know what it’s love. It’s 1230 Eastern 1130 Central. I think they are at noon. So just your what? What are you gonna be talking about it the web is

Damon Pistulka  39:52

gonna be capitalizing on online marketplaces for manufacturers.

Nicole Donnelly  39:58

That’s a great topic.

Damon Pistulka  39:59

It’s a great one. Something different. And we’re going to talk about some of the things we talked about today, you know, the digital self serve. Why? Because manufacturers they look, well, I’m selling my custom product to a certain customer and they don’t even you know, there’s a lot of things where they don’t see where ecommerce can make this digital self serve. Even better for existing customers that are already buying their thing from you. I mean, and really, we’re going to be looking at that, and how how these online marketplaces, some that you own, and some that are third party can really make the difference.

Curt Anderson  40:33

Right, more distribution channels, and I’ll tell you what you’ve done. Do I have the book? You know what you did for Kelly, and you’re actually in the book? Tiny? Was it tiny, tiny business? Big money, right? Yeah. Yeah, tiny business big money. And there’s a nice little case study about what you’ve done for a client of yours. So you’ve done amazing work helping folks.

Nicole Donnelly  40:55

I’m reading that book.

Curt Anderson  40:56

You read that book right now?

Nicole Donnelly  40:58

Yes. There’s a quote from you in that book, or I just read it the other day.

Curt Anderson  41:02

Yeah. So. So I usually have the book right there. I gave it away. There was a buddy of mine, his son’s, like, 19 years old, just like just starting college. And he comes to me, he’s like, Hey, can I talk to you about business and entrepreneurship? And he’s like, you know, it was such a thrill. And so I gave him that I go, Dude, you gotta read this book. And so I don’t have it here. But yeah, so Lane fulfilled is like Reiner Coronavirus. She’s been on the program. You guys are looking for a wonderful, incredible book to reach her. Her first book was million one person, million dollar business $1 million business great book. She writes for Forbes and she’s just an incredible author. Her second book, tiny business big money. I was blessed she Yep, she had a quote. She interviewed one of my clients and then she does this huge like a four page she dedicates like four pages to Damien’s client. So Nicole when you get to I don’t remember the page. But when you get to. I have it all highlighted when it’s like page 121 or something like that? Because when she came on the program, this was awesome. I’m sorry to go on a diatribe. This was awesome. Elaine comes on the show and I read the book and I knew that she was talking about Damon the entire time and because I gave we gave her the lead. We said hey, you need to talk to this guy Kelly Cudworth. He’s just absolutely crushing it in office supplies just killing it killing it in Dayton it’s in Damon is a big part of that success. So Lane doesn’t know about Damon Damon doesn’t know that he’s in the book. So even our LinkedIn live and I and I’m reading the quotes and I go lane I go Do you know who the CFO that Kelly is referring to that they change the prefers business you know what it was? It was that handsome guy right there man just That’s amazing. Yeah, so when you get to that section it’s Kelly and what’s what’s his business demon it new leave office solution New Leaf Office Solutions it’s like around page one something. And she didn’t she doesn’t mention Daymond by name but the whole section she’s talking about them and what it was the see those look at both of you. When when I put that together. I’m like well late. Guess who that was? Guess who his CFO is? That thing. Damon didn’t know she didn’t know what it was awesome. So Eric, anyway, I got asked for that little digression. So we will wrap up. Guys have an amazing week, Nicole, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom, any inspiration for everybody as you as we close out today?

Nicole Donnelly   43:29

Empathy, I’m going to reinforce exactly what Eddie shared yesterday and just say always lead with empathy wherever you are. In it will always lead you in the right direction.

Curt Anderson  43:43

Damon rather how about you any what’s your what’s your words of wisdom takeaway?

Damon Pistulka  43:48

Well, if we’re just going with a word is gratitude me? Oh, every day, every day, waking up for the

Curt Anderson  43:59

man How did I get so blessed to have these people in my life? So um, you know what? I’m gonna I’m gonna go with two words. Damon, you know I love that radical humility, man. How can we? So take that empathy? Take that gratitude, take humility, and let’s take it to the next level be in radical gratitude. Be in radical humility, be in radical empathy, boy, let’s just give everything we got to each other. And we’re just Man, what a better place this will be. Right? So yeah. Hey, let’s wrap up guys. We wish you an amazing, incredible, wonderful weekend. We’re going to be coming into fall next week. We’re gonna have some LinkedIn lives for you next week. We’re not sure what we’re going to do that call. You have an amazing weekend. You’ve got some big plans coming up. Damon, close this out, brother.

Damon Pistulka  44:45

All right, well, great. Great day today. And even though our guests had to sickness, that’s too bad. But it’s glad we got to talk about the industrial marketing Summit, talking about some of the people they’re talking about some of our people in our care immunity that we’ve had here before. It’s awesome. It’s awesome. Good to talk to Nicole and you about that and see the comments from everyone. So let’s wrap it up today from the manufacturing ecommerce success success. We will be back again maybe next week, maybe the week if but if not next week, we’ll be back the week after

Curt Anderson  45:17

you’re not Yeah, they’re not gonna move that fast. Next time. We’re just not positive one, so yep.

Damon Pistulka  45:23

So have a great weekend, everyone. Bye