Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Mary Keough

Curt Anderson  00:00

Oh hey Damon. Happy Monday, brother. How are you doing?

Damon Pistulka  00:04

I’m doing great Curt. How are things today?

Curt Anderson  00:06

i Goodness gracious life could not be any better, man. I just I Dude, are you excited for today or what?

Damon Pistulka  00:13

I am. I am I am am man,

Curt Anderson  00:16

this is gonna be exciting. Let’s just dive in. So it going my Damon, I want to reduce it to my dear friend Mary Keough, you did it and I closed name of all time I’ve been looking forward to this for like a month just to say your last name. Mary. How about that?

Mary Keough  00:35

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. I told them I told Curt before I came on here that, um, I kept my last name when I got married because it’s so awesome. That

Curt Anderson  00:44

is the you know what we need to talk to your husband about, you know, changing the name back. And so just like the kids, CEOs, you know, hey, here come the kiddos. So I just I love love, love that name. So, Mary, you are tough to keep up with we have a lot to unpack a Latin cover. You are an industrial marketing guru phenomenon all of the above. And we have lots of talk about it before we go there. Daymond I have a question for our dear friend Mary. Mary. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you prepared? I’m prepared to hurry. Hang on. Hang on for dear life. Okay, you ready? Mary? When you were a little girl growing up? Where did you grow up? Please?

Mary Keough 01:19

I grew up in the Chicagoland area. So like northwest suburbs of

Curt Anderson  01:24

Chicago. Nice. Okay, so little girl growing up in the Chicago suburbs. Okay, Bears fan something like that. Right? Oh, definitely. When you were little growing up, who was your hero? Who’s growing up as a little girl in Chicago. So

Mary Keough 01:41

you guys are gonna laugh? Um, she actually just passed away this week, sadly. But she had a very nice, long, healthy life. That would be Sandra Day O’Connor, the former Supreme Court justice. Wow. I know. I was I was absolutely convinced you guys that I was going to be a Supreme Court justice when I grew up. So we’re or President of the United States. So either way, you know, just one of those two small little rolls are

Curt Anderson  02:07

awesome. Mirror. You still have time? Yeah, you still have plenty of time. That’s

Mary Keough 02:13

true. You’re right. I saw myself short. I

Curt Anderson  02:18

couldn’t agree more. You have plenty of time. Damon first time of all time that we had. Sandra Day O’Connor. Can you please share why? Why was Sandra such a hero to you? Yeah, so

Mary Keough 02:30

she was the first female Supreme Court justice. And as a girl growing up, you don’t get a lot of like really big female figureheads in the national political space to look up to so she was kind of an easy one for me. I actually did like a fifth grade research report on her and her life is really cool, too. She grew up on like a ranch. She was like a cow girl. And she was the first female to attend Stanford’s law program. And she attended at the age of like, 18. She went to Stanford when she was only 16. She was super smart. So yeah, she just has a really really cool background cool life.

Curt Anderson  03:09

Wow, what an inspiration that is. Well, thank you. Good to answer that. That caught us off guard. That was a fantastic answer there. A Daymond. Paul’s here today, guys. Happy Monday, Johnson all Jackbox let us know you’re out there. If you have questions on industrial marketing, marketing for manufacturers, we have the authority, the expert on the subject here in the house. So Mary, let’s take it one step further. Okay. So, okay. You’re thinking, you know, could be a Supreme Court justice, you want to be the president and maybe law school, whatever. Why did you bring your passion, your expertise, all these wonderful things into the world of industrial marketing? What was the allure for you to bring your passion, your expertise into industrial marketing.

Mary Keough 03:53

So the passion allure in industrial marketing specifically happened because of the many challenges and obstacles I faced when I was in house at a manufacturing company, so at a b2b company, but I’ll go like one step backward from there if that’s okay, so, I graduated college, I was accepted into a few law schools accepted into some graduate programs for English, which is what I graduated in. And at the time, I don’t know why. I don’t really remember why but I decided I wanted to be a college professor. So I was accepted into a Ph. D. program, attended for part of a semester and I hated it. I was like, I cannot write these weird research papers that these I mean, no discredit to any college professors out here, but they write these very in depth articles. It takes them years, it takes them multiple revisions of peer reviews. And like 12 people read it, and it almost does nothing to like actually make the world a better place. So I really wanted I love Writing, I really liked communicating using the written word. So kind of after college after I left, the Ph D program kind of bounced around with some random like freelance jobs, and then found my way to a manufacturing company writing as a technical writer. So I was writing all of the onboarding content for engineers, so engineers will graduate with, you know, a mechanical engineering degree in electrical engineering degree. But they don’t know anything about the products at this company. So I was like that bridge between their mechanical engineering degree and the products that the company. So I wrote all of the onboarding material for that. And then I just had this really great mentor at the company I was at, he was just fantastic, and really encouraged me to take my talents and use them in other places in like sales and marketing specifically. So I was doing marketing for the longest time in just this really small part of the company. If you guys want to see what I did, you can go to spray analysis.com, I wrote most of the material on that website, if you ever want to tear it down for me, that would be very funny for me. So that’s where I kind of like built my marketing chops, and then went into corporate marketing for that same company, at kind of a larger scale. And then, during that time, just found marketing is not exactly the most respected division in manufacturing companies, I’m sure that’s not going to be a shock to anyone listening today. And, um, I think that was just like really hard for me to accept, I was just like, you know, I’m a strategic thinker, like, I know that we can be doing more with marketing, we can be doing more with communicating our value to our customers, and even just really bringing in customers into the conversation. So into the company conversation, because, again, for everyone listening here, if you’re at a mid market, b2b industrial company, I’m sure you can relate with this. Sales is really your only outlet to the customer. So sales is kind of responsible for managing accounts and bringing on new accounts. And that was true at the company, I was at two. So we didn’t really have a customer service department, because it was just kind of like, always sales, sales was always that middle ground between the company and the customer. So poor little innocent, Mary was trying to bring marketing into that conversation, too, and was just getting continually shut out, shut up, shut out. So just really, that’s where my passion and why I started posting on LinkedIn was just, hey, like marketing can be a strategic function like it can bring value to an organization. It doesn’t just have to be the trade show coordination department. If, if that resonates with

Curt Anderson  07:57

man, what do you got? Damon?

Damon Pistulka  07:59

Well, the first thing is, is spring systems is one of the first companies when I started working. Well, years ago, I was working with one of their competitors. And we had to look at their company to see what was going on all the time. And it was always kind of the race between the two. And that’s a it’s crazy that you said that. That’s so cool. Yeah, I mean, it’s a there’s so much stuff when you think about industrial application of liquids and whatever. But anyway, it’s and marketing though, like you said, especially marketing for that kind of technical niche companies, right. And then within that company, so many unique niches because you could be applying this or that or doing. I mean, we’ve had other guests where they they talk about same things, highly engineered solutions, or are solving highly in or technical problems and how marketing can really educate, answer questions about products, applications and everything that that really helps those customers, you know, begin to understand if your products or services are the right thing for them. Yeah,

Mary Keough 09:09

totally agree.

Curt Anderson  09:10

Yeah. All right. Hey, we’ve got a couple of friends here. So hey, Katie. Hey, here’s Katy Perry curtain Damon. And then we’ve got Whitney Houston in the house. Whitney, Happy Monday to you Happy Monday, Katie. So Mary, I man, I have like 1000 questions for all of them. So you start off with like academia, so anybody that just joined us? You’re talking about PhD? And anybody that missed it? What What were you thinking about for your PhD? What What career what field? Were you looking for your your PhD? Yes, I

Mary Keough 09:42

wanted to be a college professor specifically in like English Language Literature. And if anybody really wants to nerd out, it was like American Lit.

Curt Anderson  09:50

American Lit. Alright, perfect. So you’re thinking so if you’re just joining us, we’re here with Mary and she is just a marketing guru for manufacturers started out think cuz you’re gonna have a career in academia, you’re looking at law school than academia PhD. Now you’ve transitioned. How much of like that longing, like seems like like innately you have like this. eagerness to help educate and teach, right? Yep. How much you find that as your when you’ve put your marketing hat on that you are an educator for your customers? Do you find that at all? Or how do you? How do you feel? Yeah, absolutely.

Mary Keough 10:23

I think that’s been like one of my strengths as a marketer is just I try and filter every single thing I’m doing through the lens of why is this important to the customer? And honestly, like, sadly, that’s gotten me in a lot of trouble, because I Oh, yeah, I would like question. Because one of again, I’m sure a lot of b2b marketers will resonate with this, you get charged with like, we need to update this bulletin, we need to update the copy on this website, we need to update the catalog, we need more print materials for the trade show. And I wouldn’t be that person that was always like, why, like, what what is I don’t do you know what happens with these brochures that I get at conferences, right into the garbage, I was like, there has to be just a different way that we can communicate the value of a product to a customer. So as you might imagine, that would ruffle some feathers in the engineering department or in the sales department. So it both been my greatest strength and probably my hinderance to a lot of like internal growth at certain companies. But I I wasn’t going to stop. So I think that’s also one of my strengths is it’s not like been, it’s not been a deterrent to me when people like question why I’m like thinking of things that way. I think I’ve said it once before, in the kindest way possible to the entire audience into all b2b industrial companies. I just don’t care that much. So if you get offended by it, like, of course, I’m going to be like empathetic, I’ll be sympathetic to your feelings. But I’m also like, going to be unapologetically on the customer side. So I’m always going to bring the point of view to the customer to the table,

Curt Anderson  12:07

man. Okay. Drop the mic there, Damon. So that was how a lot of reminding, right? Well, and probably a lot of that resistance might be like, you know, might be a generational divide where, you know, might be folks like mine and Damien’s age, were like, you know, this is how we’ve always done it. So let’s go here. So Mary, we’re going to talk about you’ve done, you’ve had an amazing career industrial marketing in you now, you have a newer gig that we’re going to talk about right? position that that you have at a company called co lead. And we’re going to dive into that you’re also speaking at the industrial marketing Summit, with our dear friend Joe Sullivan and Wendy Covey, and the team at cadenas. And so that’s gonna be coming up in January in Austin, Texas. So we have a lot to unpack. So for our friends out there that are manufacturing that like, hey, you know, we want to get this whole marketing thing going. But it’s new to us, we’re just not sure where to start. What advice would you have for that marketer? Or that company that just haven’t really started their marketing journey? Where would you help them start?

Mary Keough 13:10

Yes, I think there’s like two big areas that where you can start. And the first one is like, super quantitative, qualitative, what are your business goals? Like? What do you want to do? Because they are going to be vastly different depending on where your company’s at in terms of revenue? So are you an SMB? Are you mid market? Are you enterprise? Are you like a really big company like a Ford? And then from there, it’s going to be where do you expect to grow? So marketing is usually used as either a growth lever or a retention lever. So you’re either trying to get new customers, or you’re trying to keep the customers you currently have and expand within that company. So I think that’s the biggest place. So where are you going to have the most impact in the next 12 months, and that will tie back to a business goal. And then from there, it’s going to be, of course, what I just said, which is talk to some customers. So let’s say expansion, you know, you really want to expand in the food and beverage market next year, and you have three products that you’re going to use to address the food and beverage market next year. So now you’re gonna want to go talk to some customers who use that product, what value are they getting out of it? How do they use it day to day, where does it fit? What problems does it solve? And like, how important are those problems? And it’s okay, like, you know, Damon and I came from spraying like, sometimes it’s just a little tiny little spray nozzle, like it doesn’t really affect their day to day too much. And that’s okay, as long as you’re communicating how that product fits into their day to day, what type of problem it’s solving all that good stuff,

Curt Anderson  14:47

right? I love it. Hey, we’ve got another comment here from Katie. She’s from American litsen industrial marketing. Love it. We’ve got a friend coming from Nigeria today again, guys. Happy Monday. Welcome to the program. We’re talking with Mary Keogh are the best last names of all time? We’re, we’re talking about industrial marketing for manufacturers. Let’s go here. Okay, you are absolutely killing it, in my humble opinion on Thank you hosts are just phenomenal. Tons of engagement. So what I love Mary is like, you know, a lot of times, you know, Dima, we can round about being the cobblers kid with no shoes. Like, you know, you preach something. But when somebody goes to check you out, you’re not really doing what you know what you’re saying, Maybe I feel like you’re not talking to talk you are walking the walk would share a little bit of secret sauce, or maybe anything that you want to share as like, what’s been really how have you heard what I’m gonna say? How have you grown your LinkedIn journey? And I know like, what’s been the key to success for your engagement on LinkedIn?

Mary Keough 15:46

Yes, I’m gonna answer it. And like, in two ways, I’ll do like a really fun one. Like, I’ll give you some super tactical advice. And then I’ll go I’m gonna go high level first. So high level, um, I first started like, kind of browsing LinkedIn, I think I like was looking to a webinar, it might have even been a girl 76 webinar, and then kind of fell down the LinkedIn rabbit hole, looked up, you know, gorilla 76. And people they were connected to found MJ Peters, who is now MJ Smith. She’s the CMO here at ko lab. And what I loved that they were doing is just giving really practical advice to marketers. And I found it at the same time that I was in that transition from like the smaller marketing role into corporate marketing. And it was just incredibly valuable information like it actually helped me do my job better. And so when I started posting on LinkedIn, all I wanted to do was like help past Mary. So help pass Mary, what does she wish she would have known going into marketing? What are some practical advice that can actually help b2b marketers do their job better every day? So that’s high level, like how I think about posting, yeah, and then three keys to success if you’re thinking about growing your LinkedIn influence, I would say, and that is quality, consistent consistency, and reach. So you have to be posting really high quality content. So like you said, Kurt, you got to show that you’ve walked the walk and talk the talk. Number two, you have to do it consistently. So I’ve been posting three to five times a week, every week for two and a half years. So just really, really consistent effort over time, and then reach, so you have to be able to reach a lot of people in your audience. So when I first like started posting on LinkedIn, I had 200 connections you guys like, and it was like, my college friends. You know, it was not important. It wasn’t enough like Steve Jobs in there anything. So the first thing I started doing was just go into people who I really respected and who were in my, in my segment. So in industrial and manufacturing, I started connecting with people and just like, hey, like, do you want to like be in my network. So I grew my network to like, probably like 1000, just by like connecting with people. And then what that does is it allows your message to get out. So if you’re going to be posting more, you want a lot of people to see it. So you need to have a big network so that more people see it. And what happens the LinkedIn algorithm is really good at this. If people react then so let’s say Kurt and I are first degree connections. And then but I don’t know Damon, but Curtin Damon know each other, right? So they’re first degree connections. If Kurt likes one of my posts, everybody in Kurt’s network is seeing that including Damon. So Damon is now seeing that in his LinkedIn feed. So he can now like that, and it just kind of becomes this big swirling balls. Oh,

Damon Pistulka  18:48

yeah. Well, yeah. And that’s that’s a great point because that that the funkiness of the first second and third degree connections on LinkedIn really changes the game for for people when you work at right. Totally, totally.

Curt Anderson  19:04

Daymond anything else? You want to chime in, you know, about LinkedIn, anything that you want to chime in about water

Damon Pistulka  19:08

quality and consistency? I think you’re I think you’re right on and it’s not always business, you know, on when we talk about quality. It’s, it’s, you know, I think a real mix of, even in the technical things, like you could be doing something super technical, but have some fun about what you’re doing too. You know, it could be a fun fun fact about life could be a fun fact about business. But that is so relevant to see that there’s real people behind this I think could to continue to engage with people over time.

Mary Keough 19:38

Yeah, absolutely. I used to do this thing. I don’t do it as much anymore, but people keep wanting me to bring it back. I really should. I used to do these marketing job post tear downs. I don’t know if you guys ever saw Yeah, that’d be awesome. So I used to do this. I used to take a job post that was either on LinkedIn or out in the sphere, like people would actually send them to me like Mary you need to tear it On this job post, and I would just tear it down like line by line. shreds. No, yeah. So like, again, just making sure there’s like a person, it really brings some personality. You know, like I’ve shown you guys on this episode today is just kind of like, I don’t care that much. And I’m just gonna like keep it real for folks and show them why they don’t have to, like, accept these terrible marketing job posts.

Curt Anderson  20:29

That’s when he says they were epic. And Gabe, he says, yes, do them again. It was awesome. Oh, wow. Mary always has the details I need thanks for your stellar content. Yeah, you all the time, Katie, again, thank you, my friend, Mary, let’s go here. So I piqued my curiosity, as you start out, it started with 200 friends, family, your college roommates, you know, buddies, all that type of thing. You got up to 1000 when you started, when did you? I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like you figured it out. But when did you feel like Man, I’ve got some momentum here, or I’m up to, you know, X number, like talk a little bit about your LinkedIn journey. Like how it really kind of catapulted

Mary Keough 21:07

you, I think it catapulted the most when I was at girl 76, because the great thing about working for an agency and for an agency like gorilla 76, that specializes in such like a niche area. So it only helps mid market manufacturing companies is you get exposed to a lot of mid market industrial companies go figure. So I would just take all of my learnings across the, you know, anywhere from five to 15 clients that I was exposed to at the time, and just kind of condense those. And I feel like because I was exposed to so much and doing so much with them. That really catapulted it. And that’s when the most people I think resonated with it. Like, not just marketers, I had like, sales people, engineers, like product developers, product managers, like, Yes, this is exactly how it is at my company, like yes, this needs to change. So I think that’s really when I leveled up the most was just at gorilla 76, being exposed to it and sharing my learnings,

Curt Anderson  22:08

nice. And for friends out there. If you’re not familiar, check out our friends, our friends at gorilla 76. They, they do amazing work, manufacturing, marketers, Joe Sullivan, his team just do wonderful work. And you had the privilege of being on their team Mary, let’s go here, because then I want to slide into kolab. But before we go to kolab, you work with all sorts of different manufacturers, different scopes, scopes, the life of products that they made sure, a little bit like some of like, maybe, you know, little humblebrag, but talk about like some of the really rewarding projects that you worked on. Or maybe some of the campaigns that you like, you saw some great success, where the owners or the team that you’re working with are just really thrilled of what you’re doing. Can you share a couple of examples there?

Mary Keough 22:53

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, one of my absolute favorite ones, was a medical device contract manufacturer, so somebody who would like help on early stage startup med device, guys, so they would maybe have like a prototype, or they might even be manufacturing like really, really small scale like less than 1000 parts. And they want to do like really level up like it was time for them to go to like 10,000 parts now, because that was the only way that they were going to reach their growth. So they would, you know, contract out this contract manufacturer to help them find other manufacturers, or they actually had manufacturing facilities that they would do for certain clients. So we like completely overhauled their website, including like complete website redesign, redid their libraries or their resource library added some really high quality content pieces, and that actually helped them get acquired by a much larger contract manufacturer so that was really cool. Yeah, man.

Curt Anderson  23:58

How cool is that? Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  24:00

Help them stop being the best kept secret didn’t

Mary Keough 24:04

exactly yes.

Curt Anderson  24:06

Secret night not only David my mother always appreciates when you do that but not only promoting the product, but promoting the company. Mary Do you think I’m really going I’m going off off script here do you really do you think it was like selling the culture the product the company the people all of the above? Like what do you think really helped when when the day on that that transit I

Mary Keough 24:29

think it really was like all of the above but I think what made the most like the highest impact was they’re definitely their about page. So if you go into your Google Analytics as a b2b manufacturing company, there’s probably a lot of people visiting your about page and it’s probably the one that gets the least amount of love or the least amount of updates to it. And we did like we went on site we did filming like we made an About Us video we did like the history where they’re going like future state like really, really high quality About Us page. And then the other I think High Impact page was like an our process page. So when you fill out a form with us, here’s exactly what you are going to get as soon as we receive that form in our inbox. Here’s what we were going to we’re going to do and here’s how we’re gonna get you into your next stage of growth.

Curt Anderson  25:23

Okay, Mary, we not only was that a drop the mic when it’s really really juicy, we call them moments of silence. So that was Damon. I’m talking I’m going to like so Mary, I take these little clips and I put them on YouTube shorts. This clip right here is like absolutely like a blockbuster, YouTube. So I’m shamelessly going to be promoting you. But just your manufacturer out there, do it if there’s nothing. If there’s nothing else you do today, go to your about page. And like hit the rewind button. Just listen to what Mary just said. And like really scrutinize your about page as if like you were like that dream customer landing on your website for the first time. And what I love what you said and what’s that feat with that Chris Voss what’s Chris’s book, but never never split the difference, right? Yeah. And Chris Voss, his book, he says, I give them the step by step, I’m going to do this, I’m going to call you at this time, I’m going to you know, like, when you engage with us, when you submit an RFQ, when you do whatever, this is what you can expect, man, Mary, that was just so

Mary Keough 26:31

nice. Thank you. Well, especially, I mean, if you are a contract manufacturer, or a custom manufacturer, if you do custom designs, like you have to do that, like it should be priority number one, a company like, you know, distributor, or they just sell like, you know, Stanley Black and Decker sells a bunch of hammers like probably not quite as critical, but definitely critical. If you’re like mid market, long sales cycle, highly consultative sale, I couldn’t

Curt Anderson  26:59

agree more and even for, even for our friends that are the OEMs of like, Hey, if you’re gonna buy this product, when can you expect it? What our ship times what our delivery? What a price into? Like, oh, yes,

Mary Keough 27:09

yes, absolutely. Oh, man

Damon Pistulka  27:12

can do it. And I can tell you even from our resource center, when people can look at those things that will step you through, you know, assessments, or guides, or the step by step, those are the most popular by far, when you look at it, you just look at your analytics, and it’ll show you what’s the most popular on your site. And the thing you’ll see is if your bonus pages good, they’ll stay on it longer. If your process pages, they’re good, they’ll stay on it longer. But if you have them and they’re crappy, those go above them. There’ll be in and out of them. They’re going through,

Curt Anderson  27:40

they’re going to your competitor. Yeah. So all right, before we lose anybody, because I know it’s top of the hour. Connect with Mary on LinkedIn, you absolutely want to connect with Mary on LinkedIn. And hey, when he gives a little shout out and can set grill somebody six is bringing the industrial marketing summit to Austin, Texas in January, I will be there. Mary, do you know anybody else that’s going to be at that conference? By any chance?

Mary Keough 28:00

I know a lot of people

Curt Anderson  28:03

are you gonna be there by any chance?

Mary Keough 28:05

I might, I might just be there. Yes. I might have a little tiny little speaking slot. Are

Curt Anderson  28:10

you very are you doing like little jam session workshop? Like we’ve talked to us? What are you doing at the Industrial Marketing Summit? Yes.

Mary Keough 28:16

So I’ll be talking all things marketing and sales alignment. So how I’ve seen it play out from my time in house to agency to back in house. Man,

Curt Anderson  28:25

you know what you’d like? You’re gonna be worth the price of admission, just leaving my family for a few days married, just to kind of geek out and hear all those wisdom bombs that you’re dropping here. Hey, bringing the heat right. Oh, my goodness gracious. So this is gonna be so good. So guys, you absolutely want to connect with Mary on LinkedIn. You want to catch the industrial marketing Summit? In January in Austin, Texas, man, is it gonna be? Oh my. Yeah, that’d be awesome. Yes, Whitney Houston, I’m going to be there. I hope to meet in person, man, it’s gonna make 24. Mary, let’s go here, who is CO labs? And how are you making the world a better place?

Mary Keough 29:06

Yes. So cool. Lab software is a software company. We are making the world a better place by reducing product development timelines. So if you are in a big manufacturing company, you’re probably doing product development for two reasons. You’re either trying to reduce costs on a current product. So you got this nice mature product, and you’re like, Okay, it’s bringing a lot of value, how can we either bring more value and raise the price of that product or reduce the cost of producing that product? So we help companies do that, along with new product development. So you have a brand new product you’re bringing to market, you have the initial concepts and you want to bring it through to prototyping and production. We shorten the cycles on both of those. So from the idea phase all the way to the new production phase. Our goal is to shorten that cycle.

Damon Pistulka  30:00

What are some of the key areas that you cover with it? Yeah,

Mary Keough 30:04

so we are a design engagement system. So you usually have a lot of stakeholders, and not surprisingly, in the product development process. So the old way, the way that it’s being done now by most companies is you’re downloading a CAD file, you’re sending a PDF via email, maybe you’re sending it in a PowerPoint, like, there’s just these all these little ways that people have doing it. And none of them are very good. And none of them are trackable. So we’re bringing all of that into a platform. So you can bring a 3d CAD model into our platform, and have multiple people commenting and leaving design tips and suggestions. Yeah. Nice.

Damon Pistulka  30:47

Yeah. Yeah, that’s where it always takes up, you know, because oh, what file? You know, even when you’re not, it’s just, though Yeah, we

Mary Keough 30:56

like we just did a survey of like, 250 engineering leaders, and I think the was the end result on one of the questions was, they believe up to 50%, of product feedback during the product development process is lost and will never be recovered.

Damon Pistulka  31:14

Is that crazy? Why? Yeah. How many good ideas are flushed down the toilet? We because of that, can you? Can you repeat that, please?

Mary Keough 31:22

Yes. So we just did a survey 250 engineering leaders. And one of the questions was, how much feedback do you feel is lost during the product development process? So from when that initial idea comes all the way to production? And they said up to 50%? of feedback is just poof?

Damon Pistulka  31:43

Well, yeah, just say, Okay, we’re building, you know, a trans new transmission for an automotive car, or we’re building a rocket engine, you know, for SpaceX or something, you just think of all the subsystems even, like, even like in the automotive, we, you know, you’ve got the seat assembly, just something that that looks that simple in a car, but all the components and all the stuff and all the reviews, and if you’re losing that much, how much quality improvement cost reduction, are you are you leaving on the table because of it? That’s exactly

Mary Keough 32:12

right. Yep.

Curt Anderson  32:14

So let’s, you know, Mary, if you don’t, Can I Can we take a minute, I’m gonna show I’m gonna show your website. Yeah. Be Awesome. Even you gotta check this out, dude. So this is alright, let’s go here. Let’s go here. And can you see my screen?

Mary Keough 32:29

Yeah, we gotcha. Okay,

Curt Anderson  32:31

so this. So here are the founders here, right? We’ve got Adam and Jeremy, if I had that correct. And so again, guys, we’re married from colabs software. And you’ve got the you know exactly what, you know, when I say earlier, Mary, you’re not talking to talk, you’re walking the walk. So if I’m like, you know, if I’m a manufacturer, and we’re struggling with prototypes, exactly. We just said things are slipping through the cracks. There’s communication challenges. People are frustrated. So now all right, who’s behind the curtain? And so we’ve got Adam, we’ve got Jeremy, there’s your buddy, MJ. Yes, go down. And what I love is, let me see. Let me go back. Let me go back to your me go back to your homepage, because you’ve got a great visual here on your homepage. David, check this out. Yep. Can you look at like, yeah. lived it before. Here’s design conversations, right, compared to better conversations. And so Mary, can you I know. Now you’ve been there for how many years? 1012 years? How long? Oh, yeah,

Mary Keough 33:30

15 years? A whole week.

Curt Anderson  33:32

I’ve been there a whole week. And so congratulations. And man, what a victory for Colette boy. They they have an eye for talent. So kudos to the team here for bringing you on their team. Talk a little bit about like, what’s going on on this that what are we looking at right here?

Mary Keough33:48

Yeah, so exactly what I tried to explain with my hands is doing much better in this visual. So your PLM is your product lifecycle management system, something like a windchill, it’s where all of your engineering data, your drawings are all stored. It’s just like a big database. And what happens is, you usually take something from that database, send it along for a design conversation or a design review. And that’s when you get that mess. So it might be in a spreadsheet and might be in a PowerPoint and might be in your email and might be a PDF, you have no idea. There’s no like file consistency, nothing. So you have this very nice organized way of structuring your engineering data, but not a great way of doing anything after that. So once that data leaves the PLM there’s no great way to kind of consolidate it and that’s what we’re doing with colab so we’re bringing in that very messy after process and bringing it into one platform.

Curt Anderson  34:45

Well, I absolutely love this this is yeah, just hysterical and just so you know, make better design design decisions faster. I absolutely love this is a great video here. And so again, like you guys are you know again I know you’re just starting out new. But MJ and the team here, I just do an incredible work of communicating and really trying to, you know, deliver that easy button for the manufacturers that are like, you know, stressed out to the max trying to figure out these new products. Mary, what attracted you to this new opportunity?

Mary Keough 35:16

Yeah, so two big things like I had been following colab for a while because of MJ mainly, so MJ was my number one reason I we had been in similar circles for a few years, and just always really wanted to work for her. She’s just an insanely intelligent person, really strategic, really, but still can execute really intelligently. So definitely wanted to have her as a mentor. And we had a couple opportunities to maybe work together. And it didn’t work out until this position opened up as Director of Product Marketing and content, and the rest is history. So a combination of MJ and the company,

Curt Anderson  35:57

well congratulations to you. And what I also love in any every manufacturer, I don’t care what size you are, if you’re a five person shop or 100 person shop, you know, you take a look at what they’re doing here at cole lab. And you know, they got these case studies, you know, a 30% reduction in lead time. Now, that is what four Pro is all about, you know, here, they’re given different examples. Schneider Electric, you know, and again, like you guys have like a who’s who, of companies that you’re given, you know, that you’re getting testimonials and case studies from. And so this is just, you know, again, this website is really a case study in itself, of how manufacturers could like, you know, Damon, as we love to say, stop being the best kept secret. Yeah, yeah, and most importantly, how do you build that trust immediately, you know, yes. So I’m gonna come back to you, Mary, I’m gonna stop sharing come back.

Mary Keough 36:46

It’s so funny that you said it’s like a case study in it because like, like I said, I’d been following MJ for a long time. So she’s really good about working in public too. So she’ll share her progress. And when I was at Matt, my customers, which is like a little brief stint I had between girls 76 and colab. I copied and J’s of design of her website almost for like the exact structure like I was like, I want to use everything that MJ is doing, because it was just like you said, it was just a really great case study and how a website should be structured to be customer centric. Well,

Curt Anderson  37:20

I love it. Now. I’ve had the honor privilege I’ve met MJ in person. I’ve heard her speak at a conference at the last industrial marketing conference and she is a powerhouse a few friends here, Dan, bigger. Hey, Damon, did you hear? I know if you heard there’s some really exciting news going on with Dan. He got Employee of the Month for the third month in a row. Nice. And his company third month in a row. Now, of course, his wife I think was the only one voting but anyway, we won’t. So hey, Inger says thank God, it’s Monday. Happy Monday to you. And hate. We’ve got Katie dropping more love here. We’ve got Whitney dropping more love. So alright, guys, we’re gonna start winding down. Mary, what couple of people just popped in, in case you didn’t hear the word you are? I think are you one of the speakers? Did I catch that correctly? Are you one of the speakers at the industrial marketing summit in Austin, Texas at the end of January 2024. You happen to be on stage? Do I have that? Correct?

Mary Keough 38:17

You hear it a crack? Do you heard it here? I

Curt Anderson  38:21

I just heard it through the grapevine. I didn’t know if that was confirmed or not. So what can people expect going? Why do they? Why are all the cool kids going to be at that conference?

Mary Keough 38:30

Mary? Yeah, so the cool kids are going to be at this conference because I truly believe like, this is the first and true industrial marketing conference I’ve ever heard of. So this is something I wish I had when I was in industrial marketing when I was in house and like executing in it day in and day out. So I think that’s why all the cool kids are going to be there is it’s the first time we’re doing it. It’s the first time we’re gathering as an actual group like putting our stake in the ground and saying industrial marketing is different and industrial marketing matters. Industrial

Curt Anderson  39:04

marketing matters may drop the mic. Hey, we’ve got more people are just hate. And then bigger says Professor catechins put up one heck of a cat. I didn’t know

Damon Pistulka  39:15

who was gonna when

Curt Anderson  39:19

it was like it was by a whisker. Daymond I apologize. I couldn’t help myself, Mary that was okay. All right, Mary, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with our friends out there as far as like marketing marketing manufacturers, they want to connect with you on LinkedIn. They want to catch you in Austin, Texas. They want to stop by colab software. What else? Any other last words of wisdom that you want to share with everybody?

Mary Keough 39:45

No last words of wisdom. But if you have any questions at all, ever, I answer all of my DMs on LinkedIn as long as they’re not pitches, so please don’t like slide in and try and pitch me your product or service. But if you have a legitimate question Allah Gentlemen struggle. Please reach out. I would love to help you. Absolutely.

Curt Anderson  40:03

So hey, man, Whitney. I am just man You made my day. We’re gonna get to meet in person. Married. One. Go ahead Damon, what do you want

Damon Pistulka  40:12

one thing from the comments. I gotta say Inger had her 100th episode last Friday.

Curt Anderson  40:19

I missed it, and I missed it and so can anger. Hey, let’s give a round of applause for anger.

Damon Pistulka  40:25

sharing videos still hates video did 100 episodes.

Curt Anderson  40:30

You know what theme is perfect. I have I have an idea for a jam session. I’ve taken you There you go. You deal with you and anger. I reached out to you guys. Married. Let’s go. Oh, cool. Mary, you grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. You know, they Damon they played baseball in Chicago, don’t they? Couple of teams I believe do Okay, so there’s a North Side team and a south side team. Mary. Which are you baseball fan by any chance? Yes,

Mary Keough :55

I’m baseball fan

Curt Anderson  40:56

in North side or sell side or what’s that look

Mary Keough 40:58

like? Okay, so you can’t tell my family this because my family grew up on the south side, like from Southside Chicago, but I prefer the Cubs. I’m not gonna lie there. Boy. I know. I know. It’s, it’s gonna be heated. Okay, you

Curt Anderson  41:11

what, what goes on here to live show save the last show. We won’t tell anybody. Just between friends. No family. So let’s, let’s go here. I have a hypothetical question. There’s just a pure asking for a friend. Okay. So the cubs are playing a baseball game playing against the hated St. Louis Cardinals, okay, playing against the Cardinals. It’s the bottom of the ninth. And there’s somebody on second base bottom, a ninth cubs playing the Cardinals. And it’s high score. It’s high score. Somebody’s on second base, bottom of the ninth. And they need the winning run. They need somebody come up and hit and hit the winning run. Okay. The manager turns down the bench and says, Hey, keel, join your helmet, grab a bat. And when you please get up there and hit the winning run. We need to get out of here. Right? We need to win this game. So you grab your helmet, you grab your bat, you’re striding up to the plate to hit in the winning run of this tie score against the hated St. Louis Cardinals as you’re walking to the plate. Mary? What is your walk up song? Oh, that’s

Mary Keough 42:16

a good one. Let’s see. Probably um Who Am I? What’s my name by Snoop Dogg? Who

Curt Anderson  42:27

am I? What’s my name my Snoop Dogg. That’s our first time for Snoop Damon. In bigger says I’m going with a baby elephant. Alright. Alright, so Snoop Dogg to close out the show today. Mary, that was a great answer. Thank you. We appreciate you. Damon, your takeaways today? What are your What are your thoughts?

Damon Pistulka  42:48

I just think that you know, Mary, you’re bringing a fresh perspective to industrial marketing and showing you know this the practical side of how you really can answer your customers questions with in and talk to the customer and understand what they really need. And that’s what marketing aim and then the most technical places can do.

Mary Keough

Yeah, thank you appreciate.

Curt Anderson  43:10

So Mary, I’ve been following you from afar for a long time and just for you. Absolutely. I had high expectations and you completely smashed them are such men. You have like that natural personality. You feel like I’ve known you my whole life. So anyway, Mary, thank you for spending your time your passion, your energy, your expertise, cannot wait to meet you in person. Catch you up in the front row, just hooting and hollering for you. Down in Austin, Texas in January. And so Hey guys, we want to wish you an amazing Monday and the rest of your week. We have a great guest is very, very big talking about the industrial marketing summit more on Friday with our dear friend Greg, Miss Chu. We’re going to be talking about a great research project that Greg did at his firm when bound. Mary We thank you we applaud you we commend you We wish you massive success Ecolab software, and Daymond like we always like to say right we’ll close out with this. Just be someone’s inspiration just like Mary was our inspiration today. Go out there and be someone’s inspiration the world be a little bit of a better place. So Mary, hang out with us for one second. We wish everybody a great rest of your Monday God bless and we’ll see every week