Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Amber and Tim Wilborne

Curt Anderson  00:02

Hey Damon, happy Monday. Good morning to you my friend. It’s afternoon here but Good morning to you. How are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:07

I’m doing great. Curt. Do you have a good weekend?

Curt Anderson  00:10

Oh my god, Damon, if it was any better, I would have had to call the police. It was just so much fun. You know how crazy you know. I’m over 50 You know crazy again. So anyway. Hey, we have an amazing, incredible program today. God dude, you look great. Daymond you know that just ever you just, man you just I don’t know if I’m gonna be on the show with you anymore. You look better like every sheet. Alright, anyway, that’s another simple talk about that later. But anyway, Man, am I excited with our guests today? Man. This is like long overdue. And this is why we had a married couple. I don’t think we’ve had a married couple. I

Damon Pistulka  00:41

don’t think we have this is gonna be fun.

Curt Anderson  00:44

This is our first official married couple on the show. We have Tim and Amber Wilborne. Tim and Amber. Happy Monday. How are you?

Tim Wilborne  00:53

Doing? Great.

Curt Anderson  00:56

All right. I’m not gonna be able to keep a straight face for any

Amber Wilborne  01:00

we will be either.

Curt Anderson  01:04

Gonna be great. Hey, guys, you’re out there. drop us a note. Let us know you’re there. Big Hello. You got to drop a note with Tim and Amber. First off, you need to connect with them on LinkedIn accurate are ready because you are going to just adore and love what they do on a weekly basis promoting their business. TW controls we’re going to dig deep into this theme and I you know, I was debating whether I should do this or not today, but I’m gonna go ahead and do it. Do you mind or cool? The?

Damon Pistulka  01:30

Let’s do it.

Curt Anderson  01:31

Let’s do it. Okay, all right. Tim. Amber, I have a question. I have two different questions for you that I’d like to open up with. Okay, but they’re gonna be completely different questions. Right. Are you sitting down for this? Are you ready? Amber, I’ll start with you. Now, Tim, I’m gonna hit you with a totally completely different question. Amber, I’m going to come at you first. Are you ready? Okay. Okay, Amber, when you were little girl growing up. Did you grew up in Virginia by any chance?

Amber Wilborne  01:52

I did. Okay. I grew up together.

Curt Anderson  01:56

And I’ll tell you my mother lived for I don’t know like 2030 years in Lexington, Virginia. Right up the road you guys live is just absolute paradise where you live. I love that whole central Virginia area. So God bless you live in in Roanoke. As a little girl growing up in Virginia Amber, who was your hero? Who was your hero as a little girl growing up in the great state of Virginia.

Amber Wilborne  02:18

I would have to say my probably my PaPaw mill or my grandfather.

Curt Anderson  02:23

Oh, what a pop a Miller. Is that what you said pop pop pop

Amber Wilborne  02:26

Miller. Yeah, he was. So he was a traveling welder. And when he was trying to support this was on my mother’s side when he was trying to support all of the family. Anytime there was work, he would travel to it. And so usually when I’m with other family members, and we’re driving, traveling through Virginia, there’s this one huge tower off of this old old manufacturing building. And at that time, you didn’t have safety harnesses and all the safety gear. He climbed up there and welded everything. So I always look at that tower thing and think of him.

Curt Anderson  03:02

Wow, what a man’s talking about steel courage on grandpa there, right? Oh, yeah. All right. What a great, thank you. That was we’re gonna give a shout out to the program there. Tim. Are you ready? I have a different level for you. I have a different question for Damon. I don’t have a different question for Tim. Tim, who’s your hero is a little guy growing up?

Tim Wilborne  03:27

Who was my hero? I think it was probably my parents. Honestly, I probably don’t go that far at all. Especially as far as we’re talking about automation. Really following my bad along he was always say he was a mechanical genius. Not great on the control side. That’s why I kind of balanced them out. And I got into controls. I wasn’t very good at mechanical part. But yeah, probably Hill.

Curt Anderson  03:51

All right. Well, perfect. Mom and Dad’s name. Let’s hear it.

Tim Wilborne  03:55

Dennis and Shirley, then isn’t

Curt Anderson  03:57

sure Alright, so we’re giving a little shout out to Amber’s grandfather, Dennis. And surely. So just a little dedication and all you got the kids there today. So just hopefully so you know, when they get asked this question, hopefully they have the same answer. Right. So I hope so. Alright, so let’s, let’s dig in. So okay, we’ve got heroes, you kind of grown up with Virginia guys grew up together. You guys get married, you start a business, Tim, what was your career? What was going on pre entrepreneurial journey before you started this just powerhouse business? TW controls? What were you doing with your career?

Tim Wilborne  04:31

So I grew up in a machine shop. And I always say I wasn’t a great machinist. That’s how I got into controls. But really, people were starting to want turnkey equipment. And you know you before then really, you get your machine mechanically built and then you take it to an electrical company and get it wired. And then you take a control company and they would program it and when it didn’t work, everybody pointed fingers manufacturers were starting to say hey, I just want to buy a piece of equipment and it work. And that’s it. So we didn’t have anybody to do control. Oh, and so I would go in if my first job which actually was very complicated, I went in at night, that way they wouldn’t know, I didn’t know how to program and I went in there with the Allen Bradley programming reference manual. And I read that thing. And I managed to program this machine. And that was kind of my start into it. And it kind of clicked, you know, that’s one of those things, let’s say, you know, you know, that I worked really hard trying to be a machinist is wasn’t that good. And so this one really clicked and I felt like I could compliment my dad shop. Later, I went to work for a manufacturer, and I loved it. I was a corporate man through and through, and I mean, I would, I would have stayed there the rest of my life. And then they went through a buyout. And I always say there are winners and losers and buyouts, and I was one of the losers. And about at the same time, I fell in love. Man, you want to talk about a buyout and fallen in love just flipping your whole plan upside?

Curt Anderson  06:02

In, which was which, where was the buyout? Where was the fallen in love? Let’s, let’s, let’s hear that.

Tim Wilborne  06:08

Literally. They were within a month of each other. Oh, yeah. I mean, I got I was, I had the perfect job when I got married. And really, if you can call the honeymoon or that first few weeks was over, and I was in turmoil at my job.

Curt Anderson  06:30

In that call, easy. So Amber was going, what was going through your life?

Amber Wilborne  06:34

Almost a year when all that started happening? Okay.

Curt Anderson  06:40

So let’s put it so let’s put up so we’re in 2005. Let’s put a little pause right there. So Amber, yeah, we’re gonna go back before let’s go pre Tim, if you can remember those days. So let’s go pretend what was what was going on in your life, your career predicted? And let’s and then we’ll get we’ll start the journey back up there.

Amber Wilborne  07:05

So my history or my work history was I did banking right out of high school, worked my way through college, to be a paralegal which after I graduated with that, I was like, Nope, don’t want to do it. And ironically, Tim and his dad were my construction loan customers at the bank. I got to see don’t quite often. But I wanted to switch into something else. I had a girlfriend that was like, you really ought to come into marketing, you have the skill for it. I really did. I loved it. I loved every aspect of marketing and the people I worked with, and it took me to Charlotte, North Carolina for about three or four years, and I loved it and family stuff happened, I had to move home and then was out about and ran into this one. Like this,

Curt Anderson  07:59

to go to the bank every day, like we can’t understand why like, he wants to make the deposits and like using cash and checks like,

Amber Wilborne  08:06

Oh, yeah.

Curt Anderson  08:09

Roll of dimes, I gotta go to the bank real quick.

Amber Wilborne  08:12

I’ll be back in a while. And it was nice, because, you know, I got to see his family a lot. And so it was, I don’t say it was easy when we started dating, but I mean, it just kind of fit. You know, it was just, it was not stressful at all. But yeah, so I did marketing and then after we got married, I had a switch over in management and it wasn’t great. And I was also pregnant with our son.

Tim Wilborne  08:43

Let’s clarify there. It was not a shotgun wedding. No, no, no, no, we did get married and then there was there was about six months before she was pregnant. Well, he’s right.

Curt Anderson  08:58

Jim, thank you. And your I know your son Michael is sitting right next to you right is Michael turning the little red right now. Michael? How you doing my friend?

Amber Wilborne  09:06

Yeah, he’s just like, I’ve heard this story. He’s just

Curt Anderson  09:10

mom and dad. Yeah, well, when I

Amber Wilborne  09:13

was you know, being pregnant and change of management and the stress was just a little bit much and my doctor was like your blood pressure is through the roof and so we decided it was like within a week you will let go

Tim Wilborne  09:27

or we go in there. He just asked before

Amber Wilborne  09:35

I don’t remember my life before you tell him.

Curt Anderson  09:38

Alright, let’s go here. So hey, we got Whitney’s in the house. Then Happy Monday. Here. Order here gal. She says oh my god such great guest we’ve got Kathy Rathi. Yes.

Amber Wilborne  09:52

So it’s been our another married business.

Curt Anderson  09:55

Kathy, we might have to have you and your husband on the program. She has a great commercial I just I love watching the other day. And so Gail saying, Hey, I love these stories. Alright, so Amber, we’re alright, so we, this is really juicy Damon, I told you that I Tim so like who I who wants to take the lead here? We’re 2005 2006 downsize. And Tim, I would I would say you said there’s winners and losers. I think in the story, it sounds like you might have been a big winner in this story, right? Well,

Tim Wilborne  10:23

well, it took it took about five years. But it was yeah, you’re building a business? It is no, we definitely looked like losers coming out of this even after that. But no, you know, when when when there’s an acquisition, everybody’s kind of jockeying position for position. And really, I found out that wasn’t me, I’m not one of those that can really get in the ring and really push my way through. You know, that, that wasn’t it. So really, I got pushed around quite a bit and decided, you know, I can do this on my own. I know how to do this stuff. Now when I say I knew how to do this stuff. And I knew how to build control panels. I knew how to program PLCs Yeah, I never said in that sentence. I knew how to actually start a business, sell a job. Any of that stuff. I knew none of that. But yeah, so I quit my job. And I’ll never forget actually, I’ve never told this way about the story there, but ever sends me a text and I knew her. Her job was getting kind of a similar situation. She’s like, can I quit too? And I never had such a pause in my mind of man. If she quits. We’re gonna be in trouble with it. I’m like, Who am I to tell her she can’t quit because I just quit my job. Right? So literally, yes, she quit her job. Yeah, over there.

Amber Wilborne  11:47

Well, I quit my job and then we I was eight months pregnant with our son Mike our oldest so we we actually it’s got its cute story Ken So we enjoyed that time together. It was stressful. We were living a good life of being

Tim Wilborne  12:10

Euro we were living on love and that means

Amber Wilborne  12:14

Yeah, love family. Yeah, thank God for family that’s all I can say. But we I went when I was in labor with Michael don’t gets his first real call for the first real job. And so he had to take it while I was in active labor.

Tim Wilborne  12:33

Yeah, now let’s roll that back slightly. Now. She goes into labor. And yeah, I’m out in the hallway negotiating with insurance. So actually cover so delivery. You know, I’m sitting there asking the doctor Okay, now how much is that epidural going cost? No, I’m just like no, let’s go and say it. We’re not perfect if you hadn’t figured it out. Yeah, we were not prepared to have a kid or on a business. Nope. Have that day we would have less than $100 in our account. It was we’re really girl here but we did we landed our first customer within 30 minutes. So Michael being born.

Damon Pistulka  13:12

Oh, wow. Michael, you

Curt Anderson  13:14

brought him good luck my friend. Yeah. Yeah, is goodbye. Alright, so let’s do a quiz. I like we’d like, like people.

Damon Pistulka  13:27

You got to go back.

Curt Anderson  13:28

Like, let’s like, the level of like, the scope of what’s happening here. Right? Okay, so 10 You lose your job quit your you know, whatever, right? You leave this job and you’re a corporate guy. You’re gonna stay there. You’re gonna ride that to retirement right as a young man, you loved what you did. Okay? Amber, you’re kind of like I’m not really digging this whatever but your husband comes home says hey, I’m I don’t have a job. And oh, by the way, we’re expecting now what do we do? So then Amber, you decide to leave your job, Tim, you’re in the hallway. Your wife is delivering, negotiating your first like, like, who could make this up right? I mean,

Amber Wilborne  14:11

somebody should write a book about music

Curt Anderson  14:14

and write a book so let’s let’s dig in. So you guys you start your business $100 In a checking account thank God for family like I’m sure your spirit 1000 Other details but like this honeymoon is like, I mean, if you make it through this, you’re making it through anything, right? Ever, like what was going through your mind? You know, like, you know, you’ve come home with Miko, you’ve got this newborn and you’re like you’re trying to get this business off the ground like what can you put yourself back what was going through your mind at that time?

Tim Wilborne  14:43

Well, I’m getting a lot of doors slammed in my face because yeah, I did. I mean, I didn’t know how to sell but I knew how to show up. You know, and eating. But you know, one thing I will say about that first three months is really that first three months was pretty good. That was a really really intimate time between the three of us. Just kind of I mean, that’s why I’m so for paternity leave now. Every father and every mother should get a good amount of time off. As you did we really we just hung out, we were just hanging out because we couldn’t go do anything. We didn’t have any money. We could afford formula. And I mean, like, we weren’t stopping the convenience store grabbing a coke on the way home, bro. You know, it was like, you know, there’s no money in one, there’s no gas and one car, I gotta take the other car to go see this customer to see if I could sell a job. Yeah, to get gas type of situation. But it was a really sweet time looking back on it. I didn’t get that with my daughter. I mean, it was gives a whole different feel that

Amber Wilborne  15:45

you traveled. So when window was born, which was 18 months later, she, that’s when things started kicking off for us. And that’s when you couldn’t say no, like, if you were even if you didn’t have the time you made the time, because we were still, you know, just kicking off the business, we still had bills to pay. And we needed to keep the roof over our head to two very tiny humans alive. And so he was very much at that time on the road quite a bit. So it was really just me and the kids for a while. And I really I mean, I did very little for the business at that time. Because I don’t know how mothers do it now. Like, I don’t know how they actually like, leave in the morning, leave their child in the morning and go work a job. I mean, I had Mom Brain for like 10 years.

Tim Wilborne  16:35

Well, but speaking of being on the road, yeah. And we just to keep the pace at the pace that it was. Yeah. So Michael turns three months old. And I finally I finally we’re starting to get some traction. So I’m not on the road. I’m in the air doing my first job in El Salvador. So three months later, we’re an international company working. Yeah. Oh, wow. Good.

Amber Wilborne  17:00

stuff up.

Curt Anderson  17:01

We got a couple of comments are going up. So Kathy says, Man, that sounds so familiar. Ain’t no one’s here today. No, I haven’t traveled. And someone who got married in 2016 started a business with my wife and 17 at our first kid in September of 17. This is very cathartic. And hey, we’ve got Lauren. Hey, my dog’s name is Lauren. Kathy Ryan, this reminds me so much of you and dad when I was a kid, so I hitting home with their family. Okay, so man, I mean, like, Daymond You bet we had a guest that you guys are gonna love this. We had a guest on Daymond night. We’re up in Alaska, working with manufacturers, and we had a guest on the program. His definition of entrepreneurship is this. He’s a war hero Army veteran was injured in Iraq. He says entrepreneurship is a knife fight in a ditch. Worship was a knife fight in a ditch and man like, I know that sounds a little rough. But like the way you guys are describing, I mean, this is bare knuckle survival of the fittest. Right, Tim? I’m like, what I mean, did you did you picture? This is what business ownership is like?

Tim Wilborne  18:04

No, no. I mean, really, there was major, major, major, major regrets because we’re sitting here we are, we are as broke as broke can get. Yeah. And I’m hearing from my former employees that they decided to just give everybody a $2,500 bonus for sticking it out. And I’m like, Oh, my God, first of all, I mean, I took a huge pay cut starting tomorrow, because it really you know, you’re you’re working for $1 A day when you’re starting up, nevermind what you’re making an hour. And then I’m hearing they’re getting these bonuses, and it’s good this year, and I’m just like, then, you know, and then there’s, you get those highs, you know, all of a sudden, it’s like, hey, things are looking good. Well, right behind that there’s a crash because I didn’t know how to keep cash flow going. I didn’t know how to, you know, I didn’t know how to think about that. You need to look at the next job while you’re doing that one. So I would be focused on this one job making sure it’s the best it could be. And we get to the end of it. I’d be like, Oh my God, we have nothing to do. It just never occurred to me that you know, yeah, you. There’s so many things that I knew how to do automation. Yeah, I did not know any of that. It’s fine from

Amber Wilborne  19:13

a marketing perspective. You know, I love starting new accounts, or starting from the ground working its way to the ending of the project. But at the same time, like Tim said, you know, in my line of work, I always had jobs behind me so I knew I needed to finish the next one and the next one so this was odd for me too. It’s like we would get done with one we’re like what do we do

Curt Anderson  19:38

Alright, so, guys, if you’re just joining us, I want to I want to introduce you welcome Tim and Amber they own TW controls. We’re digging deep into an entrepreneurial journey. If you’re just joined us, you have to catch a replay, throw that rewind button and catch what’s going on here. So I guess 2000 678 You know, the economy’s not really not in anybody’s Favorite at this point in time, but Tim did like, so a lot of hiccups, you know, gee, I’m starting to do good. But when was there a point where you’re like, Okay, I think I’ve got some momentum here. Like, Were there a lot of days? Like, would you look at Amber Amber, would you look at Tim and say like, Hey, should we go get jobs? Or like, what was that you got to the point where like, I think we’re over the top.

Tim Wilborne  20:19

Really? You’re right. 2008 wasn’t great for anybody. And that was definitely horrible for us at that point. Yeah, that would really ruin the buzz on this podcast. We really weren’t that hard on that way right now. But let’s just let’s just say that was a horrible time

20:34

to pretend it didn’t happen. Right? Well, this was,

Tim Wilborne  20:37

yeah, well, we would love to pretend it didn’t happen. But But I learned a lot in that. Yeah, I learned a lot about you can, um, you can overextend yourself, you know, over extend what you say you can do. And, and I learned a lot about you know, you’ve got to find customers of vendors that really have the values that are really looking out for you not just look not just be looking for money. In about that time, I started realizing, Hey, okay, this isn’t working, US hitting, you know, hitting this project crashing, hitting this project crashing. And I remembered something a former boss had told me, he he came in when they hit a, this was, this was a first acquisition I went through was an awesome X acquisition, not the second one. But he came in and he looked and that we had the same issue. And he told me, we’re going to start selling their soldiers. I’m like, why would we sell air cylinders? We do projects, he said, well, because you need to pay your daily bills. And then you can use the projects to really pile on a profit. And so I started thinking along those lines, and really, we started trying to sell everything. We tried to sell PLC cables that went okay, we tried to sell safety glasses that didn’t go good with battery batteries to be so cool gloves, we, you know, and just trying to get some money just to pay for the gas pay for the groceries. And that kind of started us down the line of where we are tonight. Because, yeah, we sold cables. And then we needed you know, how do you use this cable, you know, so the next thing you know, we’re making instructional videos. And then we realized, okay, hey, we can make some small products. And so we we made our analog simulator. And then next thing, we got to make a video on how to use the anoxic simulator. And really, with the cables, especially initially it was you sell a cable. So you got one view, but also an analog simulator, we’d sell we sell an analog simulator, and we got like, 100 views or like, What were these other guys coming from? I mean, you know, people asked, how did we get into YouTube? It was totally an accurate Yeah, it was accidental. Yeah. So all of a sudden, people are watching this stuff for you know, they’re like, hey, I need to do the same two wire thing, but I’m not using your device. And so I was kind of like, well, first, why aren’t you using our device? But okay, let me help you out. And I kind of got the ball rolling starting. Yeah, I guess our YouTube Yeah. And training.

Curt Anderson  22:59

Perfect. Alright, so let’s, let’s go here, if I’m not jumping too far ahead, because we’ve got two things that we’re going to talk about. We’re talking about surviving entrepreneurship and marriage. But I want to talk I want to dig into like TW controls and like how you kind of like niche down, created your business model. share with folks, let’s I’m gonna fast forward to Happy Days, happy days right now. What is TW controls? How do you make the world a better place? Let’s describe your business. Everybody who’s joining us today.

Tim Wilborne  23:26

nutshell, we help we help you become a better technician. So we focus just on the people that keep manufacturing running. I know there’s a lot of people that do how to do PLC programming, how to, you know, you know, build equipment, but we’re just how do you keep what you have going and really a kind of spurt out of? We were selling cables. And then people started asking, Well, you know, I’ve been using this trainer here and it doesn’t work that good. I mean, what would you recommend? And honestly, the trainers are reasonably I really sat there took a piece of aluminum and kind of drew it out, and and marked it and drilled it and that’s almost to try to reuse it today. But I really sat there said well, what would I want to pull off the shelf and do a test and figure out how to use so we kind of started selling those. And then we started making our lesson series. And then people started asking us Hey, can can we just come hang out with you? Then we’re like, Nah, he can’t come. You know, because really up until we built the training center we we worked out of our house. A little building there. Yep. And

Amber Wilborne  24:32

started at our kitchen table. Yeah, and then that went to another building and then we outgrew that building went to another building on our property outgrew that built onto that built onto that we’re out of room pretty much and so when COVID hit that was another thing that when COVID hit we were very actually we were very blessed. We had supplies so we knew at that time like after COVID spine to be He was little iffy. And this one here, I don’t know if he got a gut feeling or what, but decided that we needed to have supplies on hand. And as we were building these trainers, I have always seen him in like, a mentorship or instruction and instructional, you know, type of whatever, because he’s very good with mentoring others, especially through their small business startings. And especially when we used to get those two or three o’clock in the morning phone calls, and their machines were down, and he had helped walk them through it. So I knew he was met, excuse me, I knew he was meant to be an instructor of some sort. I mean, he’s already a mentor. So we took a leap of faith again, and found a place and now we have our training center. So yeah.

Tim Wilborne  25:54

Backing up to COVID that was, yeah, you know, we, you know, we talk about marketing and how to do marketing. And I always say, you know, there are companies that hit the bull’s eye, we’ve never hit the bull’s out marketing, you know, we’re usually we’re aiming for that next outer ring, we’re pretty happy we can get it. But um, COVID shifted the entire industry, and put us right in the bull’s eye. And that was a blessing. Because, really, it seemed temporary at first, we all thought we were gonna be off for a few weeks. And so a company started calling, they’re like, Hey, we’ve been wanting to do this upgrade on this control panel. Can you go ahead and build this out for us? Yeah. And I swear, I think for a while we’re the only control panel. That might have been an operation because it’s all we did was build control panels from the time the world shut down until August. And then all of a sudden, the schools started calling. They’re like, Hey, man, we’re not gonna be able to open school back up. Can you we need trainers, and it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna hammer and I literally woke up in the morning, we’d lay us we’d lay trainers out. We build trainers, we packaged trainers, like 20 or 35 a day, we would get them shipped we could wake up the morning was exact same thing. More ordered, and it was like, Oh my gosh, this is getting insane. But then then schools did. That’s where all the sudden they’re like, alright, we need to understand how we can actually train these guys now. When can we come see you? And it’s like, oh, man, we are working out of this little small building. We’re not pulling this off. Yes. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  27:22

So that’s when he moved into the bigger building. And now you got it sort of people can come in there. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Such a great story.

Curt Anderson  27:29

Anybody jumping off your next call? You want so I have Tim’s website in the chat box. We have his YouTube channel. So you absolutely want to check that out. Learn all about Tim and Amber about their training center. All those superpowers that they have now in Bing and go here for a second when you on your LinkedIn profile you have dreamer. Do I did I see that correct that I maybe you haven’t done industrial sorcerer? Do I have that correct that industrial sorcerer dreamer? How do you so so we’re hearing the combination, the pure marriage of the industrial sorcerer combined with the dreamer. Were let’s let’s go here. Like how did how did this happen? How did like ambered like through this whole process where you’re gonna? Was this going to be temporary? Like, I’ll help you for a while and then like, I’m gonna go a dreamer was like, can we go there for a minute? I am going

Amber Wilborne  28:25

we can’t go there. So I would I have ever thought we would be where we are now. No. Would I have ever thought that I would be doing what I’m doing now? Because no, because I didn’t have the skills but I will tell you that don’t will come to me and say I have an idea.

Tim Wilborne  28:49

And immediately her guard goes up. She’s like a full bulletproof armor at that mall. Yeah, don’t say that.

Amber Wilborne  28:54

But I am a dreamer when it comes to that, because, you know, he’ll he has, you know, mentioned a couple times about a certain thing here or certain thing there. And I’m like, I bet that can happen. That when it came to the Training Center, though, I did not hesitate one bit on that. Did I?

Tim Wilborne  29:11

Actually you’re the one that post. Let’s put a ratio to this. I fail probably at least 20 times for every one good idea. However, I’m not scared to fail. On average. Yeah, better. That’s

Damon Pistulka  29:23

good. That’s good. You have to be ready to go.

Amber Wilborne  29:27

I’m I am a big dreamer. So I think that’s what helps balance Tim and I out because I mean, when we started dating, we were exactly what we weren’t looking for. Like we were totally opposite.

Tim Wilborne  29:43

You still upset her? She was looking for that romantic response. And now she’s like, Honey, why did you fall in love with me? And I always used to tell her because you’re everything I wasn’t looking for.

Curt Anderson  29:56

The best line on this show, Damon Oh, nice. You were Exactly what I wasn’t looking for. Is that what you just

Amber Wilborne  30:04

paid off though? Because I mean, look at us now.

Tim Wilborne  30:07

I mean, it’s a severe balance. I mean, we are not we are not two peas in a pod we are. And we’re not always this

Amber Wilborne  30:13

giggly and happy.

Damon Pistulka  30:15

Yeah, yeah. Well, TomorrowWorld two,

Tim Wilborne  30:20

not scared to be like, No, this is the stupidest idea you have had in a long time. She’s not afraid to say that. It’s not, you know? Yeah, I’m pretty good.

Curt Anderson  30:32

So let’s, let’s, let’s go here. Let’s throw in our marketing hat. Oh, Amber, you’re the big marketer. Tim, I’ve you know, you and I connected years ago through our mutual friend Chris Lukey. Big networker, I just I’ve loved and admire your work since the day we’ve met, just love what you’re doing. Let’s dig into marketing a little bit. So guys, if you check out if you haven’t, you’re new to Tim and Amber, you absolutely have to check out their YouTube channel. If you’re a manufacturer, you’re a marketer. And you’re like thinking, I’d like to get a YouTube channel. And these guys have over 60,000 followers, 60,000 subscribers, over 700 videos. Who’s going to take credit? I know, Tim, you said it was kind of an accidental thing. Who’s talked to us about this, the success in you don’t need to be modest. Talk to us about the success on YouTube. Like when did it really get cranking? You’re like, Man, I think this YouTube thing’s working.

Tim Wilborne  31:19

Well, and that is interesting. Because, you know, I do say that I’m the accidental marketer, accidental YouTuber, really, people ask us, How do you get to first five, you know, the first 1000 subscribers, everything says something magical. If you’re watching this, it’s not magical. It is a steady, long, long game. But we had 5000 subscribers before I ever even realized that we had that subscribers mattered. I mean, really aren’t, you know, I was still working out in the field. And so we were building devices, we were selling devices, we had to support these devices. So I could stand there by a loud, loud machine and try to explain to them the difference between an four to 20 milliamp two wire and four wire circuit, or I can have a video to do it. And so really, it was where I could post a video and be like, hey, go check out this video, and answer those questions. And then then all of a sudden, kind of the storm happened there behind it. But then I started getting comments. Hey, how do you do this? How do you do this? And then okay, at answering questions that I guess at that point, I made that they had some lady video so so I had no idea how to edit a video. If you look at my early wins, really, it is hit the record button, talk it out, hit the stop button halftime, you can see my finger moving up to it. I mean, I didn’t know how to do any of this stuff. And so I decided to try to figure out how to cut clips in and paste stuff on. And so a guy asked me, Hey, can you make a video on control panels? That isn’t so boring? And, and so literally, it was my attempt at making this video, I made it for one person, it was a joke between the two of us. And here’s why I always say don’t look at them. Even now, I’ll tell you don’t look at the metrics. Early on in your videos. It’s three months in this video that 17 views. And it just ticked over 400,000 views. Oh my.

Curt Anderson  33:22

It just went over 400,000 views.

Amber Wilborne  33:26

But people would be like, Oh my gosh, that’s wonderful. We just sit there laugh for like,

Tim Wilborne  33:33

Canada, finally I did things because I’m severely camera shot. Like, I may go home and take a nap after this is done. I mean, it just sucks the life out of me to do any of this. And so, you know, before I would have been like, oh, okay, you need to hook a wire here and do this. But it kind of just like, Okay, let me just roll through this. And through a little really horrible, terrible humor in it, you know, to try to make people realize I’m a human because you know, at the time it’s Isiliye everything was very stiff and very engineering. Yeah, industry. There’s some good people out there and I do it a lot better at it and but but yeah, so it kind of defined how I started doing video. And so I tried to make it just like I’m sitting here talking to you how you’re gonna do this particular thing as opposed to being in front of everybody trying to talk down to him.

Curt Anderson  34:26

Well, you know, there’s several points that I want to unpack there first of all, yeah, this thank you guys for like I had such high expectations for this this interview and this conversation as long as you’re absolutely crushing it. But Tim I love I love your mind to see love your humility, your self deprecating, but, you know, a couple of things that you said that I think were very profound for folks out there. Number one, the long game, right, like we had 17 views, but you just stuck with it. You know, you’re like man, I might have to go take a nap after this. But you know, you’re putting it out there and you’re dedicating yourself to helping the customer are, you know, Damon, we use that line how to out teach the competition. And I feel like you guys have done that. So instead of like, hey, sell, sell, sell, you know, like, look at me look at me like you, Tim, you’re just out there just relentlessly, you know, with just great humility of like, just trying to teach people like your tagline is helping you to be a better technician. Yeah, I mean, like, it’s really pretty simple, right? It’s not complicated, right? How to be a better technician t shirt. Was that a QR code? AMA? It was that

Tim Wilborne  35:31

QR code.

Curt Anderson  35:33

Alright, guys, so hey, you might have to go back and pause and hit that QR code. So let’s what other so marketing you bet when you started getting all momentum with YouTube did you just tend to at one point time you’re like, I like this is our go to this, I need to like I need to be doing this consistent. I mean, like after 700 videos, some point in time, you’re like, hey, I think this is working.

Tim Wilborne  35:54

You know, I, I got I got off path, like you do with everything. Because all of a sudden, I’m like, Oh, this is working. Let me let me put out a video. And then immediately, I would watch Oh, man, it doesn’t have any views. It doesn’t have enough views. Oh, man. And you know, and I got caught up in all that for a very short time. It was like six months. And but then I was like, why am I making these videos? I got I was steering videos towards views. This might tell everybody you know, and even now you will, you’ll rarely see me get excited about a view count. But I tell everybody, don’t worry about views worry about, you know, are you actually engaging with someone? Yep. And you know, are people why are people actually watching the video? Actually, I put out a short, short series on our second channel. You know, one of the big things we do look for is, how long are people watch the video great that they’ll click on it? They’ll watch 15 seconds and hit the back button? Is that actually engagement? Yeah, you know, are they watching to the end of the video? You know, where are they going after that video? Are you helping them? You know? Or do they feel like you’re sitting there talking to them personally right? Now? And that’s, yeah, so

Amber Wilborne  37:08

you want that retention, because, you know, you’re engaging, you’re having that, because he’s so, you know, such a normal guy, you know, you could see that they’re watching it all the way through, because he’s, it’s like, he is individually talking to a person.

Tim Wilborne  37:25

So about three years ago, I got back on track. And that’s where I think, honestly, you haven’t grown nearly as much, but I feel like we’ve had a lot more connection with, you know, people. Yeah, that’s another time I ever had to talk me down, there was another channel not really want, I could have passed them. And I really realized that, uh, laid out, you know, and I’m like, here’s what I’m going to do. And this is how we’re going to, we’re going to pass this particular one. And she looked at me, and she’s like, Well, what do you want to do that for? Yeah. And I was like, just because I want to be better than that. You know, but then I realized, okay, better is not does not mean more subscribers, more views. It is, you know, how many people you impact? Yes, how many, you know, in any got talking to niching down, that’s what I ended up doing is instead of trying to get a bigger net, you know, try to narrow down to where, okay, no, really, we’re only going to help people that are trying to keep equipment going, we’re not going to really, you know, it was great that you can get benefit from us, if you are, you know, engineering a new system. But that’s not where we’re gonna sit out.

Amber Wilborne  38:29

I would much rather see individuals like on a trade show floor or whenever we travel, and they come up to us and talk to us and say, does a simple thank you for a video that was made like 10 years ago. And they’re saying, you know, thank you that helped me I was in a bind, I would much rather have that than look at the numbers on YouTube, or look at how many people are following me or I’m connected to because I like that human element of seeing their faces. And then we can have a conversation, even even furthering what they need.

Tim Wilborne  39:02

Well, that is a cool moment when you go and I’m trying to learn about a clip that when I’m at a trade show, so I go up to to the expert, I’m like, Hey, I’m trying to understand how this works. You know, when they’re, you know, they explain it and he’s just gonna go ahead and do the typical explanation as I’m walking off with like, Hey, by the way, thanks for your videos. I couldn’t get through college without you’ve actually had an impact. It’s yeah, the that you’re learning from what you told him you got him to where he is. So that’s what it’s called,

Amber Wilborne  39:35

you kind of walk away instead of you’re kind of like, that’s like our, like our

Curt Anderson  39:40

little kids are grown up that guy’s like back when you go back to 2005 Tim, and you said like, boy, there’s losers and winners. I mean, just you know, in Ambit there’s so much unpack right there like Amber, kudos to you for being the voice of reason. Don’t chase the competition, just focus on delivering value, you know, and it’s And trust me, I know it’s very hard to do, right? And how do you separate that, but when you can come into a rational and like you did and be like, hey, heck with those guys that whatever they’re doing, this is our jam. This is why people resonate with us and then be on a trade floor and a half people patting you on the back like that. Boy, just you know, what a great journey it’s been 18 was 18 years by doing math, right? 1817 years of

Amber Wilborne  40:21

18 years are now 17 years now. 18 years married 17 years in business.

Curt Anderson  40:29

Alright, so let’s, let’s type Time flies. Time flies. And I know I know the kids are so proud of you. I know they have their kids there. But right by their side, they’re somewhere right Michaels within earshot. Right. Hey, Michael. Yeah, so let’s dig in. I have a couple of married questions for you guys. Okay, you ready?

Amber Wilborne  40:52

Right. It’s gonna be great.

Curt Anderson  40:58

during stressful times, and I would say this is entrepreneurship ever is stressful. I know, dude, you never know. Amazing head of hair. Look at him. Damon, like, entrepreneurship that didn’t go well for me. But look at how well it did for you, Tim, you got. But Tim, when entrepreneurship is just a little bit stressful, and you’re trying to figure out man, I got to do my own accounting. Nobody told me about that. Or I’ve got to figure out cash flow, I got to figure out that, how do you guys keep it? How do you prevent it from impacting your marriage? How do you keep those stressful entrepreneur business growing

Tim Wilborne  41:30

quarterly when we were early? That pretty much we would say yes. Well, I tell people in you know, I actually I will give some really sound advice. It doesn’t matter if it’s a husband, wife company, just anybody out there entrepreneurial wise, is you’ve got to talk to your spouse about what’s going on money wise. You can’t be like, Oh, I can’t, I can’t tell Amber about it. Because you know, one out to hear a bunch of stuff. I don’t want to stress her out. Now you have to be on the same page. If you’re going in the hole, you go in the hole together, if you succeed, you succeed together. And that’s the biggest thing. I would say there are but early on. I did I mean, this is a risky industry. Now let’s just face it, it is. And Amber did not come from this industry. You know, so for me to make you know me to take a risk. It’s especially before kids wasn’t a big deal. And I mean, before we got married, I probably lost everything a couple of times, you know, it wasn’t you didn’t build right back from it. Yeah. But, you know, when all of a sudden, she’s gotten more used to the really having that stability. And me, you know, I’ll risk it all and she doesn’t know about it. That’s when tension gonna happen. And yeah, I definitely caused a lot of tension in our marriage that way. Oh. And so, but you know, we, I’m not saying we take as big a risk as we used to, but we still take risks, but we talk them out together. It takes

Amber Wilborne  43:00

us a long time to I mean, to discuss it over and over and over again. But I mean, I do agree with Tim communication is super key, whether you’re business partners, or married, you’ve got to be able to communicate with your partner, you’ve got to be able to say, hey, that business decision you made yesterday didn’t feel great to me. So we need to discuss it or in also in your personal lives. So

Tim Wilborne  43:29

I have made some impulse decisions. She still rides me on. I still say they were good, but I didn’t discuss them with you better believe in their good decisions. I will get road for them for the next 20 years. But that’s okay. I accept that now. And I realized that that’s the consequence of me to make it a decision without her.

Curt Anderson  43:48

Got to win. One question. I apologize if I win, you guys. When was was there? Was there a turning point where you felt like, we this is this is working? Like we can do this, like you mentioned earlier, like five years, you know, was there a particular point? Like was there a time where you woke up? You’re like, man,

Amber Wilborne  44:11

we’ve got, I think for me, I think it was when we started building the trainers. Like when we started when we started

Tim Wilborne  44:21

and I gotta be honest, I’m not gonna I won’t go to that when I do you know, the moment but it’s a little emotional. So no, I do know the moment on that. But yeah, there is there is there. You’re right, there is a point where all the sudden you can look back and be like, okay, all this was worth it. Because I’ll tell you until that moment, from day to day, sometimes you can be like, This is awesome. And this stinks. Yeah, same time. I like yeah, it was it did take probably I’ll say it was about five years really we were stable. Probably about seven years. I could look back and be like, Yeah, this this this was cool. This was a great decision.

Curt Anderson  45:01

And in Tim, the thought of working for somebody else, like good, like, could you, you know, could you leave entrepreneurship? Or are you just, you know, what would that look like? You know,

Tim Wilborne  45:15

if the right opportunity came up, and I mean, then here’s where I’m, I think I’m at a point, I could find the right opportunity. I mean, but really, you know, money wouldn’t be the big one, you know, it’s, you know, what are their values? Like, you know, how are they about family? You know, how, you know, what all you know, how do you even though we’re not going to have kids anymore, I really do. Look, I do kind of look at those things. Now. It’s, what is their maternity policy? Like? Do they have paternity policy? You know, you know, are they truly family oriented? Are they just trying to, you know, use somebody to get a product?

Amber Wilborne  45:52

Or can you tell the difference between a manager and employee? If you can’t tell the difference, then that’s the right place. Yeah. Because if they’re in it with their employees and working side by side with them, then I think

Tim Wilborne  46:03

I am, I gotta admit, I the thought would not I mean, I’m not saying it wouldn’t cross my mind. I think it would be really difficult for somebody to hire me because yeah, I’m pretty opinionated. To be a good hire. But but, you know, as we get older, knows, I’m not you know, I don’t want to I don’t want somebody to be like, Hey, I’m Curt Anderson podcast, you said you’d never. What are you doing over there, but I can’t envision myself doing it. I think I’ll always do something though. Right? So I don’t know. I could be the grumpy old man and electrician at Lowe’s one day, or I may be working somewhere or I may be pedaling. I keep I would drive an Uber insane, though, if I ever just stopped.

Amber Wilborne  46:50

Dream of the day where we do stuff.

Tim Wilborne  46:53

You’d think, well, we got it. And then we go to the beach, and I drive her crazy.

Curt Anderson  46:58

Diane Byers here, Diane, happy Monday, my friend, how are you making an impact makes the world a better place? Pure gold? If you can’t tell the managers from the employees absolutely love that. Amber, any folks out there that are currently husband, wife teams that are thinking about possibly going into entrepreneurship, words of wisdom advice, what would you have to share?

Amber Wilborne  47:19

Um, I would say he’s given me the eyes.

Tim Wilborne  47:25

No, no. I have one just in case

Amber Wilborne  47:30

I got a little weak, all of a sudden I would say you have to be intentional with your partner, business and marriage. You have to have to have to have to communicate, no matter if you’re saying the same thing. You said the day before, if you’re repeating yourself several times, you have got to communicate. And I think always just try to have a moment where you consider what they’re saying. And don’t put yourself first you know, let them be first.

Tim Wilborne  48:06

I was gonna say communication. So I mean, we said we got that communication, right.

Amber Wilborne  48:13

That’s always a working in

Tim Wilborne  48:16

what when you know, and I guarantee you every husband and wife company, there’s at least been out there 10 years now, you know, there it’s not like it’s an uphill you know, it’s sometimes in all of a sudden the communications just shuts off. And, and honestly, sometimes it can be because monotony. Oh, yeah. I mean, really, it’s like, Alright, I got another one. If you are. If you are a couple printer, can we call it a couple? Renewing go? Don’t forget about date day. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, like, day day, I do. Unless we do have some things discussed. I do my best just to out can I just call it study? Just study on her besides work? There’s what is she feeling? What is she dreaming about today? And just kind of, you know, remember that, you know, and we have to actually parents have to remember that. So remember, you were married before you had kids? And oh, and you gotta remember we were married before we started this business. Right? So yeah, that part can be difficult because you can you can get in the grind and all of a sudden you realize that oh yeah. What do you mean Amber? You haven’t got the IPS ready yet. You need to work Saturday.

Amber Wilborne  49:30

Usually he’s talking me out of working on the weekends. I’m like I have to go to work today and he’s like why

Curt Anderson  49:35

to tough tough boss now Damon you deal with tons of family businesses and family can be it’s sometimes it’s not a good combination very stressful. fathers, children, parents, grandparents, different generations, let alone husband and wives what any, what are your big takeaways from our conversation today

Damon Pistulka  49:53

was no I just it’s like you guys have worked your communication right and making those decisions because I can I totally vn sees people in your shoes, Tim, where you’re out in the moment and you maybe have some and then Amber, you and the same thing, but then not the not discussing that when it comes to the flip side is where it’s really fun. But no, I think it’s cool hearing you guys talk about it and being open and honest about the struggle, because you know, how many people do you see now that are showing the glamorous life of being an entrepreneur, and most people don’t realize, as you said, it’s five to seven years of struggle, you know, just just get ready for it. Because it’s gonna you’re going to rethink your life, you’re what you’re really doing and, and everyone else around you, your your spouse, your parents, everyone else is gonna think the same thing. And I’m just so grateful for you sharing it today.

Amber Wilborne  50:49

And Tim, I know some of the entrepreneurs that Tim has mentored over the years, he has had to put pretty much a hard stop on them going. Well, I think I’m going to give myself three or four weeks of vacation this year in terms like, Nick,

Tim Wilborne  51:04

you know, when I talk, I am so happy that I have helped a lot of companies start now that are doing way better than I am. But I’ve also I’ve had some, they’re, they’re like, hey, I want to start a business. And their next thing is how much time should I block off to take off and I’m like, don’t get me wrong, it’s important to take time off. But if that’s why you think you’re starting your business you’re not is you’re not even gonna make it you just heater. That’s why I always smile at them. There’s usually my next thing is why are you starting this business? What makes you think you want to? And usually it’s because they’re not happy with their boss and, okay, I wasn’t happy with my boss either. Maybe that is a good reason. But yeah, it’s definitely there’s, there’s a lot of sacrifices early on. Well, completely wrong on

Curt Anderson  51:53

the two of you have great bosses right now. Right? So that’s, that’s

Tim Wilborne  51:57

just like they’re sitting out here though. Those are the two kids

Damon Pistulka  52:01

the two kids right? Answer is

Curt Anderson  52:04

date day, you know, can’t be all work. And our friend Gail says communication is absolutely key. So guys, first off, as we wind down, I want to give a big, huge warm, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was just such an amazing conversation. And such a great topic because there are tons of husband and wives out there that are working together. And you know, I’ve had family man, I’ve had family members where their marriage didn’t make it. You know, so I commend you guys. I kudos to you guys. You’re just such an inspiration. Michael, your mom and dad are just so awesome. So how’s that? So I want to say this anybody sitting out there that’s been watching us for past we’ve been going for a little while man, if you want to stand up, get a little stretch. Good time to stretch. Let’s give a big standing ovation for Tim and Amber for just being such an amazing couple.

Damon Pistulka  52:55

So much fun today. A couple printers I liked as

Curt Anderson  52:59

we wind down I have one last question before I do. Tim, any last words of wisdom parting thoughts, anything that you want to share about TW controls your journey? Anything else that you want to share?

Tim Wilborne  53:11

No, I can’t think of an end. Can you think of anyone really ready for that? Because yeah, I was. We were we didn’t hold anything back. I don’t think.

Curt Anderson  53:19

I don’t think so. Amber, how about you anything that you want any parting words of wisdom for spouses, wives, husbands entrepreneurs, any last words of wisdom that you want to share?

Tim Wilborne  53:31

Go ahead. I don’t have a sunny day. Oh, she gave me that grin. Like she’s gonna say stuff that I may not like. I’m gonna

Curt Anderson  53:38

sneak in one more question. And then if you guys have any parting thoughts, words of wisdom again, guys, we dropped the website is in the chat box, their YouTube channel, you definitely they are funny. They are hysterical. They are informative. They do all sorts of training anything that you need to know these guys have covered it. And so again in Tim, you’re a big advocate for the skills trade. And that’s an thank you for being us. Awesome. Passionate ambassador there. We absolutely love that. So are you guys baseball fans by any chance? Because baseball

Tim Wilborne  54:09

live locally, we like to go to the games but I don’t follow on anymore. I didn’t when I was younger, but now okay.

Curt Anderson  54:14

So let’s let’s go here. Alright, so we’ve got a million we have a little fun baseball question. We get a theme and I’m going to I’m going to transition it to the wedding. Oh, there you go. When you guys got married,

Tim Wilborne  54:25

if you guys Oh, do you need a whole new podcast for the wedding? We

Curt Anderson  54:31

got married so I so it could be I’ll give you I’ll give you two options here. Either when you got married or if you’re getting married today. What’s your married song? What’s the marriage song? What was marriage song then? Or if you’ve got a new one today? What would be your What was your marriage song?

Damon Pistulka  54:49

Oh my goodness. This is gonna be great.

Tim Wilborne  55:00

Oh, that was good. And she is always good with coming up with a song there. Oh, yeah.

Amber Wilborne  55:10

Yeah. Our song

Tim Wilborne  55:15

number one I really don’t know

Amber Wilborne  55:18

of a music fan than you are. I don’t really?

Tim Wilborne  55:23

Why not? Listen to him? Michael coming in in the background? Honestly, I don’t know what song it would be I don’t I tell you this much. I wouldn’t do it any differently. And we did. We did. We were going for a traditional wedding. And he left. Let’s just leave it and we eloped. And it was awesome ways. And I promised her a year later that we would renew our vows to make up for a loop. And it was nine years later. And it needed to be nine years later because we had the two best guests that we could have had our wedding and that was our two kids. Yes. Any other way on that?

Curt Anderson  56:02

Well, that was fantastic. So get Hey, and I eloped as well. So maybe that will be our next podcast will give advice for entrepreneurs that want to elope so hey, we’ve got a we’ve got a couple of printers. That’s a great hashtag and Amber. You introduced me to that one. That was I love that you dropped that this week. Diane says Celebrate good times. So hey, that might be a good one. Good times. That was a disco song. So look that one up. So here, we’re going to wind down so first off, thank you guys, we appreciate you just You’re such an inspiration. Thank you for being friends on LinkedIn, and in social media. Keep spreading that good word we want to Michael we want to wish you just monster success. Yeah. He’s been a little little travel transfer to Finland for his junior year. Is that his junior year of high school? Yeah, junior year. So we’re gonna miss you. So okay, we’re gonna wind down, Damon. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you too, man for hanging out with us for one second. Thank you guys. Boy, let’s go here, Damon. If you business marriage, personal life Boyd this was just a great dose of inspiration here. Tim and Amber just really just laid it on the line for us today just brought their whole story, vulnerable inspiration, all the above, just go out and be someone’s inspiration. Just like Tim and Amber and you’re gonna keep crushing it. So guys, hang out with us one second. Thank you. God bless. We’ll see. Thanks everyone, so much

Tim Wilborne  57:29

for having us.