Imago Manufacturing Teams Up with IMEC and B2Btail

Damon Pistulka 00:01
Like, Alright, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means? It is time for stop being the best kept secret. Well, we’re going to be sharing great stories of manufacturers working to improve their businesses. When today we’re doing SEO success for manufacturers. We’re going to be talking about Imago manufacturing teams with IMEC and B2Btail. Let’s go, Curt. I’m your co host, Damon Pistulka, and that pretty gentleman right over there, I can’t get my finger right? It’s Curt Anderson co host, and he’s going to take it away. Damon,

Curt Anderson 00:37
happy Friday, dude. How was your week? It was great, man. What a great way to cap off the week with these two devils. My goodness gracious. So alright, let’s start with it like, you know, he’s gotta, like, totally show off. He did this on purpose. He’s, like, he’s just firing up the Mohawk just because I’m here today. So look at that bad boy. Ryan Bankel, dude. Imago manufacturing, Founder, CEO extraordinaire. How are you dude? Good,

Ryan Bankel 01:01
good to see you guys. Always a pleasure. Yeah, Chris, Chris, Chris, I can even say it got the Mohawk nice and crisp today for you guys. Man,

Curt Anderson 01:12
it just looks it does. Man, that thing’s just rocking Doug. Where’s your Mohawk today? Yeah,

Doug Pennington 01:18
man, I tell you what, I don’t have enough hair to be a mohawk.

Curt Anderson 01:22
Yeah? My, my, mine would be like a, you know what? Mine would just be a mo. Yeah. Alright. So Doug Pennington from IMEC Doug, Welcome, dear friend. How are you today? My friend?

Doug Pennington 01:35
Oh, I’m doing great. Thanks for inviting me to this. I tell you, I’ve been a fan of these podcasts. For a while, I’ve been watching these things. You and Damon put on some great shows, and I’m really happy to be a part of it this time.

Curt Anderson 01:47
Well, thank you, man, I know you’re a busy guy. It’s helping manufacturers all over the great state of Illinois and you know, and it’s long overdue, right? Doug, because I’m my goodness gracious, we’ve had enough of your colleagues, your teammates, your co workers, so it’s just an honor, privilege to have you on So Ryan, I’m going to open things up. There’s a little question that I have for you. I don’t know if you’re prepared for this one. Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this?

Ryan Bankel 02:08
I was born prepared. Man,

Curt Anderson 02:11
there we go. Ryan, let’s go here. Man, before you got into manufacturing, let’s go way back, or even like before, like before, before the Mohawk even, right? Yeah. So when you were a little guy growing up, when you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who did you admire? Who was your hero when you’re a little guy growing up?

Ryan Bankel 02:34
I don’t think I had one. Honestly. I

Curt Anderson 02:38
sports hero coach, teacher, uncle, anybody who? Anybody come to mind the Fonz, you’re probably too young for that. So,

Ryan Bankel 02:48
no, I’m fonds. Era, when I was really little, I don’t honestly have much of a recollection of, you know, like, I don’t remember a single teacher I’ve ever had so and it wasn’t because of childhood trauma or anything. I remember it the one guy I always looked up to, you know, I was pretty, pretty into surfing when I was in high school. So I always, I always like Kelly Slater. He’s, I think, a year older than me, 11 time world champ. And I always thought he was, he was pretty cool and good style, obviously, the best surfer of all time professionally. So, so that’s probably my, the only guy that I’ve really looked up to. And then, you know, now that I’m an adult, I don’t look up to anybody. I just try and look up to myself, you know, so just

Curt Anderson 03:54
and, and Carrie, right? Just so you look up to, we gotta say, give a shout out to Carrie, right? It’s only

Ryan Bankel 03:59
like, five one, so I kind of looked down at her. So, you know, foot taller in there, it’s kind of hard to look up to her,

Curt Anderson 04:06
that’s right. So you’re a big dude. So alright, so well, great answer. Thank you, Doug, we had a wonderful conversation. So I don’t know if this our conversation from the other day. We’re going old school baseball. When you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to?

Doug Pennington 04:21
Oh my gosh, you know. I mean, I guess most people would say, you know, their dad. And they did, but probably, probably I was. It was a cross between my grandfather and and Bob Gibson of the old St Louis Cardinals, right? I, you know, I grew up when I was a little kid in Missouri, and my, my grandparents lived next door, and my, one of my first memories was sitting next to my grandfather in his rocking chair listening to Cardinal baseball game because he was a, he was an avid fan. And, you know, he had a, he had a rocking chair. With a little table on it and with a little table in front of it and a radio on top of it. And that was his entertainment center, you know, back in the day, yeah. And, oh my gosh, I used to listen to the games. And so all my heroes were cardinals, and, you know, Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and Ken borier. And you know that, it kind of dates me a little bit. But, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s what I remember. That’s what I remember looking up

Curt Anderson 05:25
to, I knew you’re going to so Doug shared that with that. We chatted the other day, and he shared that story with me, and I, you know, I just love that story, man, I

Damon Pistulka 05:33
can remember that there’s something about when you grow up, you know, older and watch and listening to baseball on radio. Yep. And you know, it is something because, and I’m really lucky, my son’s 26 and I pass it on to him, because we would do it in the car when we were driving around, when he was playing baseball younger. And there is something special, because, like, you’re sitting there thinking, I remember laying in, laying in my bedroom, I had an old am radio listening to the twins and Derby Puckett was playing back then and listening to them. And just use those memories are just like in stone in your head.

Doug Pennington 06:09
So absolutely, absolutely. And you know, I know that a little little tidbit at that time the Cardinals, their announcer was Harry Carey. Oh, my goodness, yeah, Harry Carey was the announcer, and the backup announcer was Jack Buck. There’s like two legends in the business, and that’s, that’s who I grew up listening to. So, yeah, it’s awesome. It’s kind of a high bar,

Curt Anderson 06:33
yeah, and just legendary teams, and just Bob Gibson. So man, so Doug, thank you for sharing that big shout out to grandpa and so, Alright, wonderful. Thank you guys for sharing that. Just a little question that we’d love to ask Ryan. Let’s come at you, my friend, so you get out of high school, what attracted you to manufacturing? You just long time you’ve been, you know, you’re just guy with your hands. Why did you pursue a career in manufacturing?

Ryan Bankel 06:58
Yeah, I mean, I’ve always been a hands on kind of guy I liked, you know, putting stuff together, building stuff, tearing it apart, seeing how it works. And I was kind of not the college bound kind of person at the time. And so I was working at a plastics place, doing machine changeovers and stuff, and hanging around their tool room where they’re building the molds and stuff. And they it just, I like, the guys are all fun. And you know, good group of guys. And I just like the idea of, instead of, you know, they seem like they enjoyed what they did. And so, you know, and back then, this was, you know, probably early, 2000s No, I’m sorry, this would be early 90s. Forget how old I am sometimes, but this was early 90s, and it was kind of one of those things where, you know, everybody said, Hey, if you’re a journeyman machinist, you’ll always have a career and a good paying career. You can move anywhere in the United States and get a job, you know, and that that appealed to me, you know, I didn’t really have a lot of direction or a particular career path at that point, so it was appealing to me. So I found an apprenticeship in as an injection mold maker, and quickly realized that it was a mistake. I hated it. I swore that I would never once I got out of it, never touch a machine tool, ever again. And, you know, it was unfortunate, because what I figured out is that I didn’t, you know, I didn’t hate machining. I hated the place I worked. My boss in that particular place, it was, it was very small shop, similar to mine, but from day one, I was working on production mold, so as an apprentice with no machining experience, I was not allowed to make mistakes. And as you guys probably could corroborate, that’s where you learn if you don’t make mistakes, that’s where all the valuable lessons lie, you know, so, so it was very pressure packed, and the in the way it was handled was not great. I wasn’t given any encouragement. It was just kind of like, what are you doing? You know, he made me feel stupid, incompetent, just not a very good environment. To foster, you know, growth and development in somebody. So, you know, imagine coming to work every day and just being scared shitless that you’re going to make a mistake on everything, and then it’s going to set back a tool, you know, a week, two weeks a month, because they have to either, you know, depending on where you made the mistake, order new material or have it welded, whatever. So it was just not a great learning environment. And I guess it is a good learning environment because I know what not to do with my own employees and my own and myself and understanding that there’s a great learning opportunity in the mistakes. So, so, yeah, I kind of shifted gears and swore off machining, and it ended up going to college and, you know, getting an associate’s degree, and then eventually a bachelor’s degree. And it kind of just, you know, sucked me back in, because the end of the day, I loved it. It was just I found a different outlet for it that I was able to excel at. So, so, yeah, that’s kind of, that’s how I got into it. It lasted about a year and a half there, and then got a job driving a truck while I put myself to school. So and, you know, took me seven years to get a four year degree, but I worked full time. I live by myself. I paid for my own education. I supported myself at a very young age, you know. So, so, yeah, it was not your traditional path. But I can say with certainty that I’ve not done anything the traditional way. I’m just one of those people that has to do everything the hard way. Just ask my mom, you know, she’d be like, when I was a kid, don’t touch the stove. It’s hot, and I would touch the stove. Just, you know, yeah, right, she was, she wasn’t lying, yeah, just kind of how I’ve always been. I need to make the mistakes, to learn from them, and being in a place where I was forbidden to make mistakes, this wasn’t conducive to my learning or my success. So so yeah, fast forward, finished school and then ended up working for my stepfather and his machine shop and got an opportunity to wear a lot of hats there and figure out, you know, what aspects of the business that I liked and didn’t like. I did like creating some of my hands, but I also liked working with people. I liked growing the business. I loved the marketing aspect of it. I mean, that was what my emphasis was in college was in marketing. So I got a business administration degree with a marketing emphasis, it minor and in, you know, so, and that’s kind of really what I think of myself as, is I’m not necessarily a machinist. I’m a good machinist. I’m an entrepreneur that just happens to be in the machining business, you know. So that’s kind of how I’ve always looked at it. There’s a lot of really good machinists out there that aren’t great at running businesses and vice versa, you know. So I’ve really tried to bridge that gap between the, you know, competency in machining. I’ve always found, and I hope people aren’t offended by this, but the more the better the machinist, the less that they can relate to humans, the more they relate to machines that that’s I’ve worked with a ton of them, and like the more anti social and machine oriented they are, the better the machinists they are. But that’s those aren’t good skills when you’re trying to run, grow a business, manage other people, talk to customers, you know, earn their trust. So that that’s, I think, where I recognized, you know, at the beginning, that’s where I wanted to go. I wanted to be able to grow the business to the point where, you know, I could do stuff like this, and, you know, talk to people like you, and get my message out there and grow the business. And that’s what’s exciting to me, is that that the thrill of the hunt, finding new customers, getting those new orders, running them through the shop. And, you know, just winning like that. So

Damon Pistulka 14:44
nice,

14:47
yeah? Alright,

Curt Anderson 14:48
absolutely love it. So one of my favorite lines is your entrepreneur who just happens to be running a machine, yeah? You know, and, and, right? You just in that, you know, it doesn’t seem like you’re a guy that marches to a different beat. A different drum, right? Damon, you know, not whatsoever, right?

Doug Pennington 15:04
So, alright, what’s the clue?

Curt Anderson 15:07
Yeah, just what I’m, you know, I’m good thing. I’m not a detective. So Doug, let’s come over to you like so Alright guys, thank you for joining us today. We are here with Ryan Bankel, the founder, CEO extraordinaire, of Imago manufacturing. We have Doug Pennington from IMEC, the Illinois Manufacturing Extension Partnership. We encourage you, we invite you. We welcome you. To follow both these wonderful gentlemen on LinkedIn. Check out their websites. We’re gonna be checking out their websites. Doug, you have a incredible, illustrious corporate career manufacturing, just really, you know, kind of the Who’s, who’s that you’ve worked for. How did you get into manufacturing? Oh,

Doug Pennington 15:43
you know, it’s interesting. I went to college to be an engineer and and I was your typical nerdy engineer. I’m being honest with you. And I, I took a job in the summertime, selling books door to door, and I and I did that for four summers and in and who would have thought it I ended up being pretty good

Curt Anderson 16:11
at what kind of books are you telling mostly

Doug Pennington 16:16
religious and children’s books down in the south I did it I did it for summers, and actually made more money in four summers and going to college than I made in my first two years. Once again, the industry. But anyway, the bottom line of that reason why I brought that up is that when I got out of college and was looking for positions, I found that a lot of manufacturers.

Damon Pistulka 16:45
Oh, he’s gotta froze just for a second, run an edge. So he’s coming back. I hear it.

Curt Anderson 16:56
Oh, we lost you. Doug man, left us right on the cliffhanger. So alright, well, hopefully he’ll come. Hopefully he’ll Yeah, what you mentioned selling books door to door. So that would be that that would be challenging for me. Yeah, it

Damon Pistulka 17:10
would be. It would be definitely something that, I mean, yeah, my summer jobs were much more labor intensive than that, I just tell you. So I went that way. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 17:21
So, alright, let’s go back

17:22
to Ryan, right

Ryan Bankel 17:24
south, door to door, sounds kind of like an easy sell. I’m just saying, Yeah,

Curt Anderson 17:31
you have a different what it is, man, right, calling it what it is. So, alright, Ryan, let’s go here, as you started your entrepreneurial journey. Did you did you have a tipping point? Was there an aha moment? I know you mentioned, you know, and I tell you another thing that I love that you shared is sometimes we get into situations, not so much to find out what we want to do, but to find out what we don’t want to do. And I love why you’re saying like you had bad leadership. So it was a great learning experience for you how not to treat other people, or how not to run your business. But just share a little bit about what was the transition? What was the tipping point when you decided to start the module?

Ryan Bankel 18:06
So the whole motivation for doing it is, I worked for my stepfather for about 14 years, and it was a great experience, and I had an opportunity to try a lot of things. Like I said, it was cool to work with my mom every day so see her and, you know, and we all got along fairly well for the most part. And, you know, he kind of got to the point where he was looking to retire. And I was gonna buy the business, and we just really, we’re too far apart, on, on the price, on it, you know? And so I just kind of said, Hey, I would say Doug’s back. Got Doug back?

Doug Pennington 18:57
Hey, I think my internet dropped. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Bankel 19:02
So, yeah, I just kind of decided right then and there that I was gonna, you know, I’ve said this before, but I’d rather, I’d rather fail on my own and succeed for someone else for another single day. You know, you know, fortunately, Carrie was on board with it, and, you know, gave me her support to to pursue it. And so that was the tipping point. That was the beginning of it. And, you know, I had the luxury when I started of having a full time job. So, you know, whether I made money or not was profitable. I had time to build up the business. Yeah, one thing that I did do that I think was instrumental to my success is I always bought brand new machine tools. I never bought anything used. And it finds finance. I’ve always had killer credit. So, you know, just with a signature, I could buy anything that I wanted. And the reason I did that is twofold. Number one, I didn’t want to ever have to tell a customer that they weren’t getting their parts because my machine was down, because it was a piece of crap, you know, so and, you know, no knock on people. There’s a lot of people that believe, Oh, I got to pay cash for stuff. I’m going to buy used and fix it and fix it up and build it from there. It’s like, I don’t I’m not in the machine or the business of repairing machines. I’m not in the business of, you know, salvaging these things back from the dead, keeping them going. I’m in the business of selling time on machine tools. That’s my that’s my business the very beginning. So I wanted quality stuff that I could count on. But the number one reason I bought it is they’ll train you how to use it. So if you don’t know necessarily what you’re doing, this, it’s a little bit different. Now you can go online and take, you know, Titans got classes that teach you how to, you know, be a machinist, how to program. There’s tons of YouTube videos out there. There’s inexpensive software like fusion. And you is a business, if you’re doing it less than 100,000 in revenue, you can get a free seat of that. Which is, which is awesome, because we didn’t have that necessarily back then. So I said, Hey, I’ll buy your machine tool. You got to teach me how to use it. And, you know, I had taken through G code. I programmed some stuff here and there. But, you know, when I was an apprentice, it was all manual equipment. We didn’t have any CNC, so manual, mill, wave, sinker, EDM, so we’re grinding electrodes. So it was, you know, it was this guy was kind of a late adopter to the CNC world, but, you know, so I had, I had a good, solid, traditional foundation of machining, but I didn’t have the T code aspect of it, yeah. So, yeah. Lo and behold. You know, if they want to sell you a machine tool, and all they got to do is teach you how to use it, then they’re more than willing to do that. So, so that’s kind of the number one reason I always bought brand new stuff because there’s a learning curve. Unless you buy an identical piece of equipment, there’s a learning curve associated with all of them. You know, one control to the other. More complexity we added, you know, more capabilities to our equipment, like live tooling and sub spindles and stuff like that. It got more and more difficult. So having a partner with all these machine tool vendors was essential to get, get me off the ground so that that was, that was my mentality, that was a route that I took and, you know, so, yeah, I had a, you know, this one car attached garage at my house, and I put a little house chucking wave in there. And you know, I’m standing in my garage on a Saturday, and the guys standing there training me how to use it. And, you know, it was, it was, I think it fast tracked, instead of trying to teach yourself, you know, a little less frustrating. And you know, it helped me to get it off the ground faster in so, yeah, every, every machine that I bought, same thing, too. Once, you know, fast forward to when we started having employees. You know, I’ll buy a new machine, but you got to train everybody here how to use it, you know. Now I don’t have to do that, you know. So I think, I think that was one of the big benefits of buying a new and that was kind of my philosophy from the very beginning, yeah, you’re paying a little bit of interest. I did start my business, you know, like we’ve talked about in the past, you know, right during the great recession. So I was able to get some really good deals on on the equipment, the tooling and all that stuff. So, you know, yeah, it cost me a little bit money, but I’ve always thought, you know, what are you missing out on by not bringing that piece of equipment in and saving your money to to pay cash for it? Yeah, great. You don’t have the debt, but you’ve got all that lost revenue of opportunity and so my job was to I liked it because it put pressure on me to go out and fill those machines full of work, you know, which I wasn’t always successful on, but it was if I had paid cash for it, you know, maybe, maybe you wouldn’t have that. Uh, that pressure, can you work for? It’s already paid for. It’s like, no, I got a $2,500 payment. I was saying, I better go out and get some work. And so that’s what I did. So, nice, awesome.

Curt Anderson 25:16
Alright, Damon, what do you need? Anything

Damon Pistulka 25:18
you’re gonna add? We’re gonna need you. Hit nail on the head there with people and equipment, you find people that only buy new equipment. There’s reasons why. And I think, as a startup, if you can do it, it does, as you’re saying, it helps a lot with the training, getting people up to speed, making sure that you’re going to be real efficient in your production process, right from the beginning, rather than, you know, if you sitting there with old equipment, and you gotta fix it up to get it going like you want, or it kind of works. And like you said, You’re the new the new machine shop on the on the street, and you get your first order from somebody, and your machine goes down, and you can’t do it because your machine’s down. Well, how’s that going to look? Yeah, and it just takes one of the variables out of

Curt Anderson 26:02
it. Yeah, yeah. So, alright, Doug, let’s, let’s see how things are going on your end. Are you? Are you with us? Is Doug with us? Looks like he’s not. He’s stuck, stuck on

Ryan Bankel 26:13
very, very still, or he froze again. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 26:16
he’s right, very still. Ryan, we’re going to dive into Imago. And the question is, as you’re describing Imago, do me a favor, and I’m going to pull up the website here in a second share with folks Imago Manufacturing, how do you and your team? How do you guys make the world a better place? What exactly do you guys do?

Ryan Bankel 26:34
So our word, you know, I think in the traditional centers are considered a job shop. What we like to do is, we like to run turn parts with milled features unattended. That’s kind of our forte. So we like to specialize in production, obviously based on my website video loop here, you know, we do plenty of milling work. We have five axis milling capability. We do, obviously, some trucking work. But we like to, kind of, do you know, more complex parts that you know would be considered like a mill turn part. So like on this example here to the right, you know that that part there. We’re dropping that off complete. And we’ve since even updated the process where we’re dropping that off with the broach keyways in it, right off the machine. So it’s kind of where we like to dwell, is in that that that that volume production of CNC mill turn parts. And, you know, I don’t know if we’re making it a better place by that, but some of the things that we’re doing that are a little bit unique. You know, like I said, we’re doing the lights out manufacturing, our philosophy, I’ve challenged my guys this year to no matter what, no matter the volume, the the order, quantity, the workload, if a part can be run unattended, we’re going to run it unattended, and, and, and we’ve got a whole process where, you know, I did another podcast recently where we talk all about that, so I won’t go into the weeds with that, but that’s kind of where we are. Are different is no matter what, if that machine could be running, even if the machine’s done and there’s not another job for three weeks after it to fill it up. We’re, we’re we’re living in the lights out world. 24/7, here. So we, we, no matter what, will always go that route and run it lights out. One of the things that we’re doing that that’s fairly unique, you don’t see it a lot in manufacturing, is that we are, we do have a solar array that is attached to the shop. It’s 40 kilowatts and it offsets a good chunk of our our usage here. So, you know, it’s something that we did for a bunch of reasons, mostly economic. Yeah, it’s good for the environment. But let’s face it, if it wasn’t economically, if feasible good, you know, relatively short ROI, you know, most people are going to spend 100 grand out of the kindness of their heart. So we did it to kind of, you know, yeah, offset some of our, you. Uh, footprint on the planet. Um, you know, with that said, we’ve got 6c and T machines here. You can see from this video that they’re, you know, top of the line, pieces of equipment that were all purchased brand new. Um, we’re running everything off of 200 amps of power. We have 200 amps of three phase power. It runs all six CNCS simultaneously and all the support equipment that goes with it. So you know this idea that you need, you know this huge amount of electricity to power modern machine tools? It’s not true. And we have 800 amps available to us, you just don’t need it at this point. So in the sense, in that sense, I think that this industry, especially with the weight model equipment, it just like sips energy, you know, we’re not using all this crazy amount of power. So, so yeah, and then when we originally installed the system, you kind of have to make a decision, of like, how big of a system are you going to do it? We chose to offset 105% of our our usage at the time. But as you know, we’ve continued to grow that we’re not offsetting, you know, nearly as much as when we started. You know, the temptation is to, well, let’s put a giant panel up and offset all of our energy for, you know, eternity. The problem is, is that the way it works is, if you don’t consume it, you don’t get a check written back to you. Just sits on a bill credit. So all you’re doing is giving comed free energy at that point. So we decided to do, you know, like an offset of that. So, you know, in a, in a way, to, you know, we’re saying, Hey, we’re making the world a better place. That’s one way that I feel that we’re setting ourselves apart from most machine shops out I know there’s some other shops out there that are doing it, some have some pretty large scale solar arrays, but it’s still fairly unique in this industry. So,

Damon Pistulka 32:13
yeah, yeah, I’ve heard of a couple, but not many, that’s for sure. And it’s cool, because you know, it, like you said it, it helps to just offset cost. And once you got the ROI, the the equipment’s paid for, that’s a cost benefit for you down the road,

Ryan Bankel 32:29
yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, that’s a sunk cost too. When you pay for electricity, it’s, yeah, it’s not sexy, it’s, it’s not, you know, romantic. It’s like, cool. I just spent two grand on electricity this month. You know, where, you know, if you spent two grand on a, you know, new chalk or cutting tool or something, you know, people get excited about that. So, yeah, yeah. So, you know, being energy fit efficient, and then having some, you know, solar offsets, really, I think in my mind, it just made good business sense. So that’s why we did it, yeah, and then all the other things are just bonuses. So, yeah, cool.

Curt Anderson 33:12
Makes good sense. Sen, se and good sense. C, e n t, s, how’s that? So both times, right? Yeah. So I Doug, let’s see if we can get you back in the game here. How are you, dude?

Doug Pennington 33:24
Oh, man, sorry. I’m having a little problem. My internet’s a little unstable. I I’m glad I get the chance to finish the story, because you asked me how I got in manufacturing, and all I talked about was selling books. And you probably figured out

Ryan Bankel 33:39
the edge of our seat. I what I

Doug Pennington 33:44
was going to say was that when I graduated college, when I was interviewing, I found that a lot of companies were looking for engineers who knew how to sell. And now it’s kind of a it’s kind of a hard mix. You don’t usually see that so much so I had I also found out that those jobs are about twice as much was paying, were paying twice as much as the standard engineering job. So so I took one of those and I went to work selling electrical equipment for the square D company and and then from there, I just kind of fast tracked up through management and got into marketing management and got into operations and in, you know, so it might my track to manufacturing was really kind of from an odd angle, but, you know, it got me in and and like, like I said, I’ve got a lot of experience in a lot of different areas, from sales to marketing to operations. So it actually puts me in a pretty good position to be able to work in this job, because all those pieces come into play with the manufacturer. I want to tell a story on Ryan. Can I do that? Yeah, yeah, please. Do you know? I hope he doesn’t mind. You know, I have to tell you, I talk with a lot of manufacturers, and a lot of them are small, and I find that more often than not, leaders at small manufacturers are working in the business and not on the business. And I get it, I do. Resources can be scarce. You know, owners wear lots of hats. Bills have to be paid and not getting product out the door. You know, can be a business threatening event. And Ryan faces a lot of those same challenges every single day. But one of the first things I picked up about Ryan is he has this burning desire to be better and to do whatever it takes, extra hours in the evenings, weekends, whatever, to invest time in working on the business to make it better. So I have a ton of respect for this guy. And, you know, I just, I just, I just wanted to get that out there, because I think he mentioned that he’s, he has that attitude. He wants to, he wants to be an entrepreneur. But it is. It is a rare commodity for small businesses where the law, the owners want to get better all the time, and they’re willing to do what it takes to do it. And this guy does it. So I just want to, I just want to say that about it.

Ryan Bankel 36:22
I appreciate that. Yeah, that’s nice. And I think it’s, I think it’s an honest assessment, you know, so, yeah, I think there’s a lot of people that are so mired down and it’s hard to break free of that, you know, it is step out and say, All right, well, this is what I got to do. I look at it as like, Hey, I gotta, I gotta. I got guys that are counting on me. I gotta keep them busy. That’s my main focus. Is like, how do I keep those guys out there busy with work? So, and by working on the business, that’s the only way you’re going to do it. If you’re always constantly putting out fires, it’s very hard to focus on that stuff. So, and, you know, shout out to them. I don’t have to babysit them. They’re all really, really good guys that do a really good job. So, you know, I worked hard to assemble a good group, and you know, now I can take advantage of that, and in, you know, take that time. I don’t have to micromanage them. I give them the tools they need to succeed, and I step away and do what I need to do. So, you know it is, but it’s important. You’re right. It’s not something that you can just hope that it’ll take care of itself, because it just doesn’t. So yeah, I appreciate the kind words. It’s nice to hear. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 37:37
that’s a great observation. Damon, I know you and I had front row seat to what you met with Ryan as well. Ryan, what would you kind of piggyback in on that? What would you attribute your your leadership, success or just like building a team? What? What do you contribute that success

Ryan Bankel 37:54
to? Um, I mean, obviously, some of it’s luck, some of it’s, you know, I think my attitude and my vision for the business, I think it’s attractive. You know, we’ve talked about this a lot, but, you know, we all have things that we’d rather be doing. You know, in all honesty, yeah, works great. It should be fulfilling when we’re here, we’re working our asses off, right? I don’t ever have a problem with guys taking half an hour shits. I don’t have is

Doug Pennington 38:37
that a first? Yeah,

Curt Anderson 38:40
that might be a first on the show.

Ryan Bankel 38:44
So I don’t have to say it, but, you know, I don’t have to yell at them to get off their phones. You know, if they’re ever on their phones, because they’re using a calculator. And so, you know, it it helps that those guys make it easy. Yeah, I’ve set some expectations from the very beginning. We get new, you know, especially kids nowadays, and they come in, they’re married to the phone. And I just, you know, I’ll pull them aside. So listen, I don’t see that phone unless it’s an emergency, you know. And, and, you know, most people, I haven’t had anybody that’s had an issue with that. But, you know, we have interesting, engaging work here too. Then the time you wake up and you come to work, and it’s like, why can’t we the the day is gone already, you know? So, so, yeah, it helps that they make it easy. But I also try and lead by example. You know, I at this point, yeah, I asked people to do stuff that I no longer do. But, you know, I, up until this point, never asked anybody to do something that I was unwilling to do myself or haven’t done myself. But I think, you know, we’ve established. Culture here where working is a is a means to an end. It’s it’s not our entire lives. We’re working so we can do the things that we would rather be doing in this world. And so with that said, we really only work 40 hour work weeks here, you know, on the off chance that we work overtime, it’s on Fridays. We work four nines and a four on Friday. So if there’s overtime, we can, we can backfill five hours in. They’re still working at nine. They still have their entire weekend with with, you know, available, yeah, and you know, so that’s kind of in my philosophy all along, is like, hey, let’s get in, bust our asses, get out and go do the stuff that we want to do, and that, you know, that that’s been my mentality, and I’ve yet to find somebody that’s like, No, I want to work more, you know, like this. This is not enough work. You know, in, you know, and then having a good work environment, you know, it’s a modern shop. Like I said, machine tools are all bought brand new. They’re all late model. And then, you know, we’re constantly challenging ourselves with, you know, new technology, new software, new training. And so it doesn’t get boring either. Yeah, there’s some times where you’re, you know, chucking some parts for, you know, five days, but the rest of the time it’s pretty, you know, it’s pretty, you know, mentally engaging to the point where, you know, it doesn’t, it still work, but we try and make it, you know, like when people visit my shop, or like, wow, this is a cool place, you know. And I my response, my canned response to that, is, yeah, beats working for a living, you know. And that’s really the mentality that we want, you know, to have here. Yeah, we’re all highly skilled. The parts that are going out the door are the best that money could buy. But we leverage unattended machining to continue to grow. In that way, we don’t have to physically be in the building to be making money. And that’s really the genius of the whole thing, you know? So so you get buy in with the guys and and, you know, they’re like, hey, you know, we get these parts up and running, we dial it in, get it running unattended, and we can go home. They, they love that, you know. So, you know, I My goal when I used to drive a truck, and we get paid for nine hours no matter how it how long it took to finish the route. My goal every day, I was to get paid to drink beer. That was my goal. So, and it was a great incentive. You know? It was like, hey, that’s hustle. Bam. Every day I was done in seven and a half hours. I was getting paid to drink beer for an hour. And I was a professional beer drinker for that stretch,

Curt Anderson 43:04
dude. I absolutely love that. So let’s stop. I know we’re gonna be coming into time so real quick. So for folks that are not familiar with iMac and or the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, just share real quick, what, who is IMEC and how are you guys making manufacturing better in Illinois?

Doug Pennington 43:21
Yeah. You know, IC is a public private organization and an extension of the US, Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST in NIST oversees a network of organizations across the US that are dedicated to helping manufacturers improve their operations, increase their profitability, maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace and and so IMEC is the Illinois piece of this national network. There’s one in every state. IMEC is the one for Illinois. And you know, we’re a team of professionals with a wide range of expertise and manufacturing operations, leadership, strategy, marketing, technology, workforce development, and, you know, we’ve helped literally 1000s of manufacturers across Illinois, you know, to improve their operations and achieve sustainable growth. So that’s the thumbnail of what we do. I don’t want to spend too much time on it, because this is, this is Ryan’s show, but that’s, that’s kind of who we are.

Curt Anderson 44:33
Well, thank you.

Ryan Bankel 44:38
Can I speak on my experience with iMac? Yeah,

Curt Anderson 44:40
that was going to be the next question. So,

Ryan Bankel 44:45
so, you know, this is where, you know, I feel like there’s, there’s not enough people taking advantage of it, what they have to offer. I probably done, I don’t know, at least half a dozen. Grant funded programs so far through iMac. And basically what they do is they facilitate the the grants that are out there. They not only make you aware of them, but they help you, you know, apply for them, and then they hold the people on the other side of the grant receiving money accountable for the project, and then at the end of it, you know, they check in to make sure, hey, were your tax dollars spent properly? Did you get the value expected out of it? And what do you expect out of it, too? And so, you know, I, whenever I have the opportunity, I tell everybody about this. And the Who was the guy who was my iMac rep right before you Doug,

Doug Pennington 45:53
Dean, Dean, Dean,

Ryan Bankel 45:57
he came up to me is like, you know, we’re, funded by the governments. It’s like, I legally can’t, but he’s like, I’d love to take you out for for dinner and drinks one of these days, because of all the people you’ve told through the years you know about this. I mean, we got ISO certified through IMEC. They offset almost all the costs for that, we’ve done a bunch of marketing stuff. One of the best things that IMEC did for me is they established a relationship with my local county manufacturing partner, and now I don’t even have to go to IMEC to get training grants. I have a relationship with Pete Hall from McHenry County, and I just go to Pete and say, hey, you know, we just, we bought this new piece of equipment that we need training on. He’s like, here, you know what to do. I fill out the grant, and he approves it, and we get training. We just have to keep training logs from the guy that did the training or and, you know, and we’ve done probably half a dozen of those training grants as well, on top of the programs that I’m at. So I’ve been a huge cheerleader for them. They helped me out tremendously. And so, you know, I definitely am grateful to them for helping people like us out. Because, you know, it’s me. I don’t have a grant finding arm of Imago manufacturing. You know, that’s what IMEC is there. They’re my partner in that stuff. And so yeah, I Dean, if you’re watching this, you can buy me dinner on your own nickel one of these days, but you’ll have to be Yeah. So yeah. Well, that’s kind of been my experience. And what I wanted to say about iMac, and I would encourage anybody that’s watching this to you know, if you’re not taking advantage out there of these programs, they’re going to go away. If you don’t take advantage of them, you know, it’s, it’s one of those things where they get reviewed every after every project and every year, and if no one’s taken advantage of it, then, then it goes away, you know? So I try and get as many people to to get involved with this, because, you know, let’s face it, I’m anytime I can get some of my tax dollars back in any form, I’m all for it. So this is a, you know, this is money you’re paying, in your opinion, you’re paying in we’re all paying into it. Take advantage of it, because it’s there for the taking. And, you know, there’s actual tangible results that you can get from this stuff. So that’s what I would say about it. Appreciate

Speaker 1 48:57
the kind words, but I tell you, I re emphasize it takes, it takes someone who wants to learn, who wants to get better. And I know you have, you have that inquisitive mind, you have that that the desire to make your company better, and you seek out all possible opportunities to do that. So you know, a lot of the credit goes to you. We’re just, we’re just a resource, but you know you’re the one that makes it happen. Yeah?

Curt Anderson 49:25
Justice, Stewart, Doug, that’s awesome. And Ryan, thank you. Thank you for the kind words to IMEC and again, you know you’re doing an amazing, incredible job. I know we’re we’re coming into time. I just, I want to ask you a quick question. So for folks that are following us, you’re catching it live, or you’re catching us on a replay. We encourage you. We invite you, welcome you. Join catch Ryan on LinkedIn. He’s got all, a ton of YouTube shorts, yes, all over social media now, Ryan, just for manufacturers out there. How do you like, you know, like we’re working on, stop being the best kept secret. Just talk a little bit about like, how you’ve been enjoying kind of that transition. I. Of marketing. What’s that been for you?

Ryan Bankel 50:03
Yeah, I mean, the this, you know, working with you guys, it’s, I’ll share a quick story. So I recently just did a podcast the making chips guys. And you guys know them, they have a podcast under that umbrella called lights out. And one of the first things we did with this project was kind of, you know, dial in my my LinkedIn page, you know, just kind of had a picture of me. Didn’t have a banner, really did. It was short on content. And, you know, I hadn’t really been very active on LinkedIn, one of the things used, you guys recommended was, hey, let’s change your title. Under your name, it just said CEO before. And, you know, CEO at this level, completely arbitrary. Nobody cares, you know? It’s like, who are you? Yeah, I’m the guy that, you know, cleans the bathrooms and write some paychecks, you know. So we kind of said, You guys said, hey, well, let’s put like, what do you do, you know? And I’m like, why I run everything? No, like, what, what do you do? So we kind of honed in on, you know, running a precision CNC machine shop. Lights out. Okay, yeah, there it is, decision. CNC machine company running lights out with modern equipment, which, you know, it’s like, well, you know, the end of the day, who cares? So I reached out to Nick from making chips. And I just, you know, was trying to build my network. Wasn’t trying to get on his podcast or anything. And you know, he’s very active on all this stuff, and I’ve been listening to making chips from the very beginning. So I just, I sent him a connection request with a note and said, Hey, Nick, been a fan of making chips from the beginning. Would you care to connect? And we’ve been doing a lot of that with just people, like minded people, people in the industry. And he read, he, you know, clicked through on my profile, and the very first thing he read, what? It’s right there under your name, you know, you saw the lights out, they said, Hell yeah, I want to connect. And, oh, by the way, we have a podcast called lights out. Maybe, maybe we should talk, you know. And it’s like, you know, it’s just a it seems arbitrary. It seems, you know, kind of silly. Like, why would it matter? That’s why it matters. That’s why stuff like that matters. You know, you never know who you’re talking to and what you’re putting out there, you know. So I think stuff like that, you know, we could, you know, there’s other wins that we had on, on, on that whole thing, but that that was one that, you know, opened up an opportunity to do that podcast, and because of the podcast, is able to connect with some other people. And you know, if nothing else, you meet cool, like minded people that you can, you know, have something you know, relatable, that to talk about with, you know. And really, that’s you know, kind of what we, you know, the three of us in the rest of your team, we’re just about telling the story of Imago, telling the journey of me and what we’re all about. And, you know, if it resonates with people, kind of like, you know, my experience with I met, you know, I have a good experience that I met. I’m telling everybody that I run into about it, you know, people like what I have to say and what we’re all about, what we’re doing here, you know, maybe they’ll share that message with somebody who needs machining one of these days. And if not, we’re still going to keep putting that message out there. So I think that’s really the importance of it. You know, people feel like, Oh, I gotta do marketing. I gotta sell, sell, sell. It’s like, you know, what? How about you just take some time out of your day, you know, here and there, you don’t have to babysit it, and just tell your story. And you know, maybe it’ll resonate with somebody that you know, you never know who is going to be watching or listening or seeing what you’re putting out there. So, so that’s kind of, you know, the direction that we took with this so, and I think it’s, you know, we’ve seen some results, which is, has been, it’s exciting. So,

54:29
yeah, I absolutely love

Curt Anderson 54:30
it. And so very inspiring. And just, you know, for small and, you know, it doesn’t matter what field you’re in, you’re, like you said, you know, hey, I’m an entrepreneur that happens to be in machining. So for those small manufacturers out there, and like you’re saying, Doug, you know, like, work on your business. Get yourself out there, you know, because, like, I don’t know about you guys, nobody’s ever knocked on my door. Just said, Hey, can I give you money? Hey, can I do business with you? You know, unless it’s like, Doug knocking on my door trying to sell me books, right? So Doug, let’s we’ll start winding down. I know. I. Could keep you guys all day. We’re coming into the bottom of the hour. What? What are you excited about moving forward at iMac manufacturers, like our friend here, Ryan at Imago, what are you excited about for manufacturing in Illinois, going for the rest of the year?

Doug Pennington 55:14
Oh, gosh, you know, we’re, we’re just, we’re growing so fast. I mean, we’ve, we’ve got, we’re developing experience in areas that we weren’t able to cover before. We’re expanding into supply chain. We’re enhancing our ability to work with technology and help clients implement technology. And you know, there’s just, there’s so many things we know. In the past, IMEC was kind of a an operations centric organization. We did a lot of Lean stuff, but over the years, we’ve expanded to cover, you know, the six major pillars of of manufacturing. And that’s what excites me, is I see, I see stronger and stronger people coming into our organization every day, and also, we have a tremendous list of partners like yourselves that we work with. If we don’t have the experience internally, we we have some of the best in the business that we can that we can tap into to to provide that for our clients. So, you know, that’s, that’s in a nutshell. I just, I’m just excited about being here. I love this. I love the work. I think it’s good work that we do. And you know, that’s my that’s my story. I’m sticking to it. That’s

Curt Anderson 56:35
your stories. And again, you know, I’d be remiss if we start listening off all the people on your team, because I know I’ll leave out somebody, but you know, huge Jacqueline did an amazing job with your website. So if you’re out there, you’re manufacturing Illinois, check out the iMac Illinois, manufacturing iMac Illinois website, and I’ll tell you, just go on there, put in an inquiry, connect with the folks on LinkedIn. Again, like huge list. Melissa. Melissa Jacqueline. Dave belay, raise agano, Paula, we could, you know, I’m Michelle Fauci, Jeannie, Mike Flynn, we could go on and on and on. So, anybody I forgot, I not forget. I’m just, you know, I’m with you. There’s probably only about 40 or so. There’s about 40 or 50 people, right there, right? So, alright, lots of love and big shout out to the entire team at iMac. I tell you what you guys do. Cassie, Noah, I got a couple more there. Damon, but you know, the whole team is just going up and down the state helping manufacturers. And it’s just so inspiring. And what you every time we bring somebody on the show, Doug, it’s just the common thread is just their unapologetic passion for just helping manufacturers like Ryan and so Ryan, I have to say, Dude, manufacturing is the heartbeat. Is the really the heroes of our economy. So we applaud, salute you for what you’re doing. What as we wrap up, what are you super excited about moving forward in Imago manufacturing? So

Ryan Bankel 57:54
our goal this year, in addition to, you know, adopting just the white top mentality on every single job that we run is to increase capacity without adding any more CNC machines or people. So that’s our directive. So we’re looking to automate quality control so some sort of either vision system or CMM or a combination of the two, that we can offload some of the more tedious QC jobs that we’re currently using or doing. And then another big thing that we’re looking to do is add robotic machine tending to our mill, our mill he knows under utilized compared to our bar fed lays, we do a lot of milling on our ways. So that’s, you know, kind of our focus has been to do as much milling on the ways as possible, and then only do true milling jobs on the mill. But I want to, I want to grow that side of the business. So those are two main areas where we’re going to be, you know, bringing in some new technology, new equipment, challenging the guys to learn and implement that stuff. And then, in addition to that, our big focus is to build on the momentum of the social media marketing that we’ve we’ve got, we want to keep that rolling, and we’ve got some traction now. So we want to keep pushing, you know, stuff out there that tells our story, shows our quality, our commitment, our innovation. Those are all the things that we want to continue to showcase. So those, those will be the main focus of of my attention this year. And so we’ve got a clear cut path to do that. So

Speaker 2 59:50
awesome, man, I’ll tell you, yeah, gaming. You ready to run through a wall? Yeah, let’s go. Let’s do

Curt Anderson 59:56
it. So I we’re going to wrap up Doug, last question for you guys. Doug. Best business advice that you would like to share with anybody out there. What’s the best business advice that you’ve received or that you’d like to pass along, that you share with clients or anybody else that’s listening?

Doug Pennington 1:00:11
Oh boy. You know, stay curious. Stay stay. You know, it’s like I was saying before. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day. It’s really easy to get, you know, in, yeah, I always, I say to some people, you know, ask yourself, Am I getting better at getting better and and that, I mean, that is, I mean, if you can’t answer that question with a yes, then you know, you’re, you’re probably in that, in that hamster wheel loop, you know. So try to, try to jump outside like Ryan does, you know. Try to learn about how you can get better. Bring people in, talk to them, you know, get involved in networks, whatever it takes to learn what people are doing to get their business better, and don’t get caught in the day to day.

Curt Anderson 1:01:03
Awesome. Drop the mic. Man, are you getting better at getting better? Man, we might have to make T shirts to that one. So Ryan is as we close this out, that’s your next tattoo. I don’t forget. Much real estate left for tattoos? Do you have any special

Ryan Bankel 1:01:20
you know, I’ll do it on my my left butt cheek, or something

Curt Anderson 1:01:28
in a big heart with Doug, right So, Brian, how about for yourself, my friend? So as a just a really incredibly inspiring entrepreneur, best advice that you would share, either with your younger self or an entrepreneur out there, what’s best business advice that you’ve received? I

Ryan Bankel 1:01:46
don’t know. I hate that. I hate to go out on a negative tone, but I just kind of, I always think of jokingly. I always say, Hey, if you can sleep at night with you know, a million dollars in debt, absolutely no work on the horizon, employees that you still have to pay, and a family that needs, needs supporting, then you should definitely get into the manufacturing space. Yeah, so if you’re gonna stay out at night, do not do this, because it’s not all pizzas and cream. There’s definitely really, really high highs and really, really low lows. And that’s my business advice. Because, you know, I think a lot of people get into it think, well, yeah, it’s great. I’ll just make parts. And it’s like, well, they don’t really understand, you know, what it takes to get there and grow it and be successful. So it’s a cautionary tale, but that’s kind of what I what I think of. I did have one guy that told me, and he didn’t come up with this. And maybe you guys have heard it, but owning, owning your own business is a lot like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you get tired. You quit when the gorilla gets tired. I had that framed and put that up in the old shop, so,

Curt Anderson 1:03:21
man, I tell you some best, best lines right there to both. So I tell you from the bottom of both of our hearts, I’m speaking for myself and Dana Damon and everybody listening. Thank you both. Man, how about a big round of applause for our friends here? This was just what a great conversation. So awesome. Doug, thank you for everything that you’re doing for manufacturers at iMac. Keep the fire burning. Ryan, thank you for everything that you’re doing, dude, and thanks for not being the best kept secret anymore, dude. Like you’re all over the place on LinkedIn, you’re on social media. You’ve got YouTube videos going so again, commend you doing just awesome work. So, Damon, are you ready to close Should we close this baby out.

Damon Pistulka 1:04:01
I’ll close it down here. I just want to say thanks everyone that was listening out there. We can see we had the listeners out there. And thanks for you that were dropping comments today, everyone out there, we appreciate you stopping by listening, listening to the replays, all the comments we get throughout after the show. If you got in here late and you didn’t catch us from the beginning, you’re going to want to go back to the beginning and listen to Ryan tell his story, Doug talking about IMEC Illinois, and really learning how we the topic today we’re talking about is SEO Success for Manufacturers, how Imago manufacturing teamed up with IMEC and us here at B2Btail to you know, just see what we can make things happen. And it was awesome. So have a great weekend. Everyone. Doug Ryan, hang out with us for a moment. We’ll shut down and finish up offline. Alright? Thank you.