Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Mike Franz

Curt Anderson 0:02
Hey, happy Friday. Hey, Nicole. Nicole, what’d you do with Damond? I like Where’s Damond today? Dude? What’s

Nicole Donnelly 0:09
going on? No, I don’t know he took off so I’m taking over for him. He’s been. He’s been okay.

Curt Anderson 0:15
Now Nicole Donnelly from the Donnelly Marketing Group Happy Friday what? Wally pit? Who is Wally pit for goodness gracious doesn’t have anything to do that Luke Gary guide with what’s a small PIP thing?

Nicole Donnelly 0:28
You know better than I hear the baseball guy curt. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 0:31
Okay, so here’s, here’s the story. So Damon, if you’re out there, brother, Hey, God bless you. Hope you’re enjoying the family. So we have Nicole Donnelly here, filling in the seats here. And so there’s a story back. Lou Gehrig, the famous baseball player has an awful disease named after him. But one of the greatest baseball players of all time, great Yankee first baseman, there was a gentleman by the name of Wally PIPP. And he decided I’m going to take a day off, he took a day off Lou Gehrig went in and never sat down again and what he broke a record 2000 Some games or whatever it was. And so Daymond Nicole claims that she’s going to Wally PIPP you So how’d

Nicole Donnelly 1:07
you know I have big shoes to fill. I’ve been channeling Damon, I’ve been listening to ZZ Top of the show. I’ve got my like Mandarin candle here getting the you know, nice, nice Mojo going on here. So Damon, I’m gonna do my best.

Curt Anderson 1:22
Awesome. Okay, well, hey, everybody out there. We this is such an honor such a privilege to introduce our guests. So I don’t know if anybody remembers, I’m probably the only one old enough to remember this. So guys remember little remember hands in front. So I’m Hans. And we have Mike. And I’m friends. And we are here to call you guys that’s like reference, I think late 80s, maybe early 90s. So we have Mike Franz, CEO and founder of manufacturingpower.com. Michael, how are you my friend?

Mike Franz 1:57
Oh, fantastic. Pleasure to be with you guys today. Really looking forward to it. Damon, you have no worries or issues. I’m not here to pimp you or anything like that. But it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Curt Anderson 2:11
So David, if you didn’t just catch the whole intro and sort of close playing ZZ Top for you. And so anyway, you got the whole thing going. So Mike, let’s take a deep dive. Let’s just go right in United connected we actually connected years ago, pre COVID. So it’s fun, like how life is like, you know, pre COVID Post COVID You’re not connected years ago, I’ve been kind of following your work. Huge fan of what you have going on. And we’re going to take a deep dive into manufacturing power today. But I want to back up a little bit. My first question for you today, my friend. You’re a young man. I’m gonna even go back before young man you’re a young boy growing up, you know, you’re just a relentless entrepreneur had. You’ve had an illustrious career as a little boy growing up who was your hero? Who was your hero growing up as a little boy.

Mike Franz 2:56
Oh, man. That is a really tough one to hit me with it.

Curt Anderson 3:02
I know. I came in talking baseball who gets it right off the bat

Mike Franz 3:09
boy. Really growing up. Okay. I had a couple. So I was I was big into sports. Yeah. And she was keeping with the sports theme. I wasn’t much of a baseball player. But as a matter of fact, as a vertically challenged youngster, I was actually really into basketball nice. And Michael Jordan he was kind of in his prime when I was really in the into that and that in golf. So Jack Nicklaus was kind of tailing off at the end of his career. But those two I think they were probably as far as me being into sports. They were the pinnacle of both of their respective sports. And I would say that those were my idols, you know? But then, you know, in the family, my grandfather was both my grandfather’s were really big influences on my life. They were huge as far as being idols of mine, how they were as just as men as how they were as family men. It was. They were huge influences on me.

Curt Anderson 4:12
Oh, that’s awesome. So I you know, I concur. 100% You know, what a privilege watch Michael Jordan play, man. He was just grace on the court. What’s that?

Mike Franz 4:24
Unbelievable, unbelievable.

Curt Anderson 4:26
Just, you know, it was just it was truly a gift and a blessing just to watch him in action. And of course, check. Nicholas the great golfer that he’s an he’s an ex Buckeye so you know, he’s a he’s an Ohio State guy that of course, both your grandfather’s What are your grandfather’s names?

Mike Franz 4:43
i Well, we’re there. Yeah, Albert and Homer.

Curt Anderson 4:48
Nice. Albarn. Homer so awesome. So hey, we’re give a little shout out to grandpa’s today. So, hey, I want to take a deep dive in Okay, so we’re going to jump ahead a little bit mike so you kind of kick starting your career Let’s walk through like younger might post college days, what did career look like in your 20s? And like, we were going to lead our way up to how do we got here?

Mike Franz 5:07
Yeah, so it’s it’s kind of, I never really thought I would get involved in manufacturing, I never really had any dreams or aspirations necessarily to go into manufacturing. But just kind of fell into it out of college, had a couple of college, you know, jobs that were actually I was heavy into golf in college and worked at golf courses, you know, just kind of to pay the bills. got interested, speaking of sports, in athletes and idols and people like that, that was that was right when Tiger Woods was just at the very top. Yeah, so at the time, Nike was coming out with their clubs, and Tiger was being endorsed by them. And I was getting done with college, and I thought it would be great to get involved with a manufacturer of golf clubs, I applied for everyone under the sun, never got hired, never got an interview never got hired. So it was kind of a, it was a little disappointing, but things have panned out. And going on from that I went to school in South Carolina headed back to the Midwest, to to be with family and friends more or less, and was a little little bit lost as some people are coming out of college and found a job in industrial distribution. And that led into working for manufacturers that led into working for more industrial distribution that led into working for a fortune 500 company that was a was a wholesaler that sold through distribution. So I kind of tell people that I was getting into manufacturing, I’ve seen it kind of from all different sides of it working for originally working for an industrial distributor, and then going into an OEM and making of all things crank shafts. For the for the power sport industry, it was it was it was pretty exciting, pretty interesting. I got to I got to travel quite a bit, it was an Italian company and got to travel the world a little bit. And that was that was kind of it. It hooked me. And it’s it’s hard to kind of believe, but it’s been 20 years of being in and around manufacturing. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 7:38
is that it’s amazing how you blink and also like 20 years goes by, and I just I love how you’re, you know, you cut your teeth, teeth in manufacturing, you know, didn’t necessarily you know, wasn’t a you know, intentional but kind of a calling and found it attractive, brought your talents, your skills into this into this space, which has been phenomenal. You mentioned OEMs you mentioned a fortune 500 company did I see Kimberly Clark in your background is that? Yeah,

Mike Franz 8:03
that was that was after I’d worked for the OEM and it was it was small world type stuff, but it was through a it was actually through my mom that I got introduced to Kimberly Clark, and it was a good fit at the time. And that’s when I kind of started to get the ideas of of manufacturing power of trying to see that there was a need in the market for a particular product and an idea and that’s what kind of led to led me down this path.

Curt Anderson 8:41
Awesome. Well, hey, Nicole, we got a couple of people here you know David Chrysler is giving a shout out to Damon says hello everybody. We’ve got our dear buddy John Buck Leno’s in the house here today. So Happy Friday guys. Hey, feel free please let us know that you’re out there and drop any questions here for Mike France so Hey, today we’ve got Mike France CEO of manufacturing power and what I love mike on your LinkedIn profile you have read on their family values Nicole that sings our song and Graham you’ve talked about your both your grandparents today talked about mom helped you with this connection and Kimberly Clark, you want to like you piqued my curiosity there what was what was the connection? How did mom introduce you to Kimberly

Mike Franz 9:21
Well, it’s kind of a funny story. Okay, so we’ll we’ll tell this let the world all of your millions and millions of people story but so my mom she worked down in in Alpharetta, Georgia at one of the facilities and she was in QA. So quality control. QC quality control don’t matter. I guess they call it but she would. She always told me that her primary job was to rub diapers on her face.

Curt Anderson 9:57
Rub diapers on her face now and she that practice I’m sure like you don’t change many of your diapers Of course. Alright, so let’s

Mike Franz 10:05
alright. Let’s let me clarify because that might confuse some people out there.

Curt Anderson 10:11
So putting diapers on Tuesday yes, yeah

Unknown Speaker 10:13
I’m sorry.

Mike Franz 10:19
So she had to she had to test for basically how soft and how how they felt on skin and whether or not they they gave any sort of rashes or there was any sort of reactions that came that came up and she would say face but she would chest them on the backer. Yeah. And she was Yep. So she was in quality control down it down in Alpharetta at. Casey,

Nicole Donnelly 10:47
did you ever get any rashes?

Mike Franz 10:49
Nothin? No, there was a good product and it was it all it all turned out. But yeah, so she, she was there. And then I was, you know, at the time, you know, it seemed like a good idea for me to explore that. So So she, here’s, here’s another kind of funny story is that and I don’t mean to take up too much time here. As part of that, when I had found out that there was an opening at Kimberly Clark. And I’ve told the story kind of many times, I guess. But when I found out there was an opening at Kimberly Clark, and I applied, I told her, and I said, Hey, you know, Mom, is there any way that you would take my resume and maybe hand it off to somebody down there? And see, you know, maybe that could help out? And she said, No, I don’t want any part of that. I don’t want any part of it. Who knows what’s going to happen? I am so nervous. I don’t, I wouldn’t know who to do it for, you know, you’re not even going to help on sign up. And it became a big joke in our family. But eventually, things panned out. And I ended up getting the child there. But it was it was kind of a funny, funny situation.

Curt Anderson 12:12
Well, that is hysterical. What’s mom’s name? I’ll fill us Yeah, fill us well, hey, God bless Phyllis for a great son that she did. And what a great sense of humor. So you know, for all of us of James, how many diapers call me diapers have you changed in your last two or three

Nicole Donnelly 12:28
years and hundreds and hundreds of girls. So in? Behind me.

Curt Anderson 12:34
Kimberly Clark is best in class. And so we have Phyllis to thank for that. And she was. So hey, tell Phyllis, thank you. For all those parents out there that have changed diapers, we send our love and our eye hugs to Phyllis for diaper for all of us parents out there. So Mike, I just want to share a few things. You know, so Nicole, I don’t even know this about Mike. So people say great things about Mike, if you might want to give a few shout outs to that on your LinkedIn profile, disrupter and that we’re going to slide right into manufacturing power next. He is inquisitive, sincere in the trenches. He knows the business that you need to know he’s dedicated customer focus goes the extra mile in his hard working

Mike Franz 13:20
don’t get motion Nam combined.

Curt Anderson 13:22
And that even come from Phillips or Homer. These are like people

Nicole Donnelly 13:28
love that disrupter. That is awesome. All

Curt Anderson 13:31
right. Let’s do it. So you’ve had this great career fortune 500. Kimberly Clark, Mom, you got the job, even without filters help. That was just awesome. She probably did a big favor. But now 2017. If I have that correct, you decide to launch manufacturing power. Okay. For anybody out there that’s been working, you know, large companies big. I know. David Chrysler, you took the plunge in entrepreneurship. We just talked about that on the show a few weeks ago. Mike, for anybody out there that say, Man, I My dream is going to entrepreneurship. Talk about what was that transition? Like is pre COVID 2017. How did this brainchild come about? And what was that plunge like going into entrepreneurship?

Mike Franz 14:15
Well, to say, you know that to start with kind of the idea that I can kind of get into the taking the plunge Porsche Yeah, but the idea stemmed, actually, while I was at Kimberly Clark, I was sitting at, there’s a corporate office here in the Twin Cities of a large retail brand. With that hat looks like a big and there’s a big circle and then a little circle in the inside of it. It’s all red, you know, store, I know. You may know them. But I was sitting in there with some colleagues and we were talking about being part of a consortium and being part of a buying group. And, you know, they they were talking about But I, my, my, my background was in manufacturing and that industry and industrial distribution. And they said, you know, if there was a way to figure out how to incorporate some of those concepts and ideas like they have with on the more on the retail end of Kimberly Clark’s sales and through wholesale, if there could be a way to democratize that a little bit more on the industrial side, that would be a very good idea. So my brain started thinking about stuff and how we could do that. And at the time, computer servers and server space was all going into the cloud. And things were much more accessible as far as gathering up big time data. So you could gather up big time data in a cheap and a more affordable way. I started thinking about that, and how we could really hone in on that idea of gathering the data necessary to more democratize not only the, the part numbers associated with industrial suppliers, but also the pricing, and kind of came up with the idea of manufacturing power. can get into that a little bit more detail, but to take the plunge to do that. It is scary. It’s like, what do you do, I knew nothing about entrepreneurship and like taking a plunge had a had a decent job. And it was really scared about how to do it, when to do it and things and to be, you know, just perfectly frank, at in 2017, there were in the sales side of Kimberly Clark, there was some layoffs and I got laid off, I got laid off. And prior to that, I had this idea for manufacturing power. And I thought, okay, if I’m ever going to do this, now’s the time, now’s the time. So Thanks for Thanks for having some reorg. And getting rid of me because I, I finally took the plunge into entrepreneurship, which is it’s been I you know, I know my my father is probably my dad is probably so sick of hearing me saying the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship, that it’s driven him crazy, but it’s really a roller coaster ride. It’s not easy. It. I had a big afro, five years ago, big, thick, luscious head of hair. Oh, and now like, No, I’m kidding about that. But no, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s very stressful, there’s a lot that goes into it, you have to be pretty resilient. And, you know, if you think you’ve got a good idea, there’s, there’s so much support out there that you need to seek out. But when you seek it out and ask people for help and get help along the way, establish we’re on LinkedIn right now you establish a good network, people are willing to help out more than you think. I mean, like, like you guys right now. I mean, you’re helping me out by by talking about it. So it’s really, it’s a scary thing to take that plunge, but it can be it can be worth it.

Nicole Donnelly 18:37
What a cool, happy accident that it ended up that way. I feel like you know, when you take advantage of opportunities like that, it’s pretty remarkable. Kurt and I were just talking about this yesterday, like, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Oh my goodness. Right about that. There’s like so many ups and downs. But in spite of it all, like I was telling her, I was like, I would never want to do it any other way. Well, rewarding things that come with it. That’s just, it’s just so great to be to be able to see and build something that helps us.

Mike Franz 19:08
That’s one of the things to call us, like in one of the things that I like the rewarding part is that I can have the relationships and the people that meet and all these different the networks that you build, excuse me, but the learning process of just learning about business about every aspect of things that go into trying to make something successful as that’s, I get up every day and try it. I’m like, Oh, what am I what are we going to learn today? What’s going to happen today? There’s going to be something that hits the fan. There’s going to be something that is exciting. There’s going to be something that makes you angry, there’s going to be something that is you know, just like oh do I have To do that, it’s all over the board. But it’s, it’s it’s a great experience, if you can, if you can deal with it.

Nicole Donnelly 20:08
If you love a challenge, it’s totally you know, it’s the greatest way for you to learn for sure and to develop like an incredible resilience, you know, so,

Curt Anderson 20:18
for sure. Well, Mike, first off, God bless you. We salute you. We applaud you, man. What? What, uh, you know, and even though I love that word, nickel, happy accident. Are you kidding me? What a happy accident, Mike, like, I know, probably might be the Dumb Question of the day in total hypothetical. Okay. Like, had they not pulled the trigger for you? Do you think that you would move forward?

Mike Franz 20:44
Ooh, that’s a good. That’s a really good question, Kurt. Because based on my reaction when it happened, I would say no, because I was sad and then upset. And then it took about three days to really be like, or maybe it was 20 minutes, I can’t remember. What are the three days or 20 minutes when I was like, Oh, this is a good thing, because now I can finally do this. But no, you know, it’s a, would I have done it? I, you know, maybe not, I don’t know, it’s maybe the stars aligned? Who knows? Yeah.

Nicole Donnelly 21:27
So cool that you were able to pull yourself because you know, to be laid off emotionally, that is very taxing, but to be able to pull yourself out of that and say it because you have to have a lot of confidence to start a business like, a lot of boxy. So the fact that you were able to pull yourself out of that and just say, Go, you know, like really go for it says just a tremendous amount about you, I think and your resilience, and

Mike Franz 21:47
well, you guys are too nice, but it was seriously. Well, I will say this, I’ve had a ton of support from family, friends, and just the network of people that I’ve met that it’s not, it’s not like, you know, you pull yourself up a little bit, but you can’t deal without other people and the generosity of other people. So I’m completely grateful for every day, all of that. So,

Curt Anderson 22:19
right. Alright, you know, man, I we could talk all day, just strictly on just this, this lead this transition again, for folks out there, you know, man might just, you know, millions of people during COVID lost jobs scaled back stuck at home and had, you know, a lot of you know, like you’re calling happy accidents led a call. I love that line. A lot of folks were forced entrepreneurship, or maybe just out of, you know, I need to provide for my family. So Mike, again, you know, I know you’re very humble, and you’re very modest. We’re giving you a lot of credit here. But I mean, boy, please accept it. Because it is extremely inspirational that under a tough emotional time you made that punch, I’d like to take a deep dive, let’s go right into manufacturing power. You’ve talked, you know, you kind of you’ve kind of throws the latest up for us, talked about a lot of Industrial Light of solutions, fortune 500, Kimberly Clark, and you kept seeing these problems over and over. Let’s slide right into what is manufacturing power, power, what solution you guys provide? Sure.

Mike Franz 23:17
So the way I break it down is, and the easiest way to explain it is that considering industrial supplies, so anything that you buy, and I’m going to throw out a couple of names, and I hope it’s alright, but that’s great. Granger Fastenal, MFC. Anybody involved in manufacturing knows those names and understand that they provide everything from tooling to toilet paper, which was kind of my life. But those type of products always seem to get maybe a little bit overlooked. It’s tough to manage, because there’s 1000s of part numbers that are involved with that spend. So what we do, and there’s, there’s not a lot of price transparency when it comes to that. So they can have, they can either buy a product from Fastenal or from Granger. But there, there’s not, there’s not a lot of market information that shows what the true market cost of those are price is of those of those items. So what we do first of all, is we go in and help a company small to midsize manufacturing companies are the ones we would target. We go in and we try to help them organize that data first and foremost. So we try and get rid of any duplication. And the majority of the companies we deal with still have spreadsheets that that track all that information. That’s where it’s stored in spreadsheets, the data for those those items is all stored in spreadsheets. So we go in and help organize that data first of all, then we analyze it I’m against the market. And what we do is we collect not only book or list price data off the internet for those items, but then we also from our other customers, we gathering customer invoice data, we anonymize that, and then we compare it against our our customer base. So what that does, it gives you a true picture of what the market pricing is for those particular items and that spend. Now the advantage to that is they really see how they stack up against the market for that, again spend. So they can take that information and that data back to their distributor partners and really negotiate for the best pricing possible.

Nicole Donnelly 25:44
I love that curtain. I have a mutual client that sells filtration equipment, so Granger all that so familiar to me and I, I talked to the sales team all the time, and they have such a struggle, because there’s so much back and forth between the procurement side of things. They’re like, literally come to the sales folks and say, I have a picture of this part, can you help me figure out what it is they don’t even have a part number. And it’s just like so much back and forth. And when you’re dealing with these operations of where like literally this equipment or this, you know, these these filtration products, like their operation depends on this, like they need it to run their plant, like any way that you can shorten that and speed that and create some efficiency in that process. I think it’s just such a tremendous value.

Mike Franz 26:23
Well, that’s that’s one of the huge things to Nicole that you just touched on is the back and forth and trying to determine in that list of 1000 part numbers. Okay, we have these Is this the item that you’re talking about. And if your part numbers off in your system by one number one letter, one character that can screw kind of everything up. So when we organize that data, not only do we verify part numbers by manufacturer and by distributor part number, but we also provide picture information and links to that actual distributor URL. So you can verify it right there on the spot. You can take a peek at it and make sure that looks and not feels but looks exactly like what it is. So there’s a it’s a real apples to apples comparison.

Curt Anderson 27:14
It’s awesome. Hey, this comment goes a while back, but David says accurate. I’ve toured those city blocks and skywalks might. It’s an impressive campus. That was back when you were mentioning, I think that one company with the circles. But then here’s our dear friend up in Alaska. Here’s done and I think Dan, I think Dan, you’re actually from Minnesota. So we have a fellow Minnesota. We’ve got holy smokes Mike, you got that right, trying to get a decent cost comparison information. On high end, I can pronounce that word, Don. So Don is a Don’s a career guy and then took a plunge into entrepreneurship. And Dan, Happy Friday to you my friend. So Mike, a couple of things on your website. And again, guys, if you’re just joining us, we’re with Mike Franz, the CEO of manufacturing power, strongly encouraged welcome, you invite you check out his website, lots of great information, my kind of website, you’ve got price and delivery data for industrial supplies, Power Pack business intelligence, peer to peer transparency. So you kind of answered it by just I like to go a little bit deeper on that peer to peer transparency.

Mike Franz 28:16
Yeah, so the the idea there is that I’ll just give you a scenario. So Company A buys. You know, they buy a particular widget number, part number 12345. And they buy it at a particular volume. Let’s say they buy 100 at 100 a year. And Company B buys that same same product widget number 12345. And they buy it at 110 per year. Okay, so there’s not a huge volume difference, but Company A is paying 10 bucks for it and company B is paying 12 bucks a pop for it. Okay, well, that’s the type of information that we collect, we anonymize. And then we share that back. So company A and company B can see really that their peers in that part number scenario, they’re paying too much. So they’ll take that information back to their distributor and say, Hey, guys, we need you to sharpen your pencil a little bit and give us a better pricing. You know, there’s a lot of things that go into that. Okay, we provide the data. Now, it’s, you know, there are procurement teams, obviously, for a reason. Some are better at negotiation, some aren’t. There’s a lot of variables that go into that. And we are strictly providing that data organization and price comparison, where it’s up to those professional procurement teams to really take that information and that data that knowledge that industry, and market knowledge and use that the best way that they can.

Nicole Donnelly 29:49
I have a question, how often is the pricing updated, you know, with inflation and all of that happening? Like how frequently do you update all of that pricing information?

Mike Franz 29:58
It kind of that’s a great question and kinda depends on the club, it depends on any activity that we have with that part number. So if there’s if there’s not activity, and we have backend, when I say back end our computer programming and all the smart people that work on that, do a great job for that. But what that what that is, is that, and not to get into this too specifics, too, specifically into it, but it’s updated as needed. I’ll say it that way. If there’s no activity, and then somebody looks at it, we have mechanisms in place to, to look at it, and to get that information updated. But it’s not a constant thing in our back end programming. That’s always happening. But it is as needed.

Curt Anderson 30:47
That’s awesome. So Mike, I have my little cell phone here, you know, so I was checking out some of your case studies. I want to talk about that for a second. And then of course, I know you have some really exciting news, speaking of cell phones, and we’ll get into that in one second. But talk about some of your case studies. Like when you and I have talked in the past, you’ve shared some really powerful examples for companies, you know, companies are saving time saving money. And again, guys, if you’re out there, I strongly encourage you check out manufacturing power.com, check out these case studies. But Mike, just share some of the examples that you’ve seen, just these aha moments, or just when customers are like, man, Mike, thank you, for all this great savings. Can you share any of those? Sure.

Mike Franz 31:28
And I mean, the the bottom line, really Curt is that we, in all cases, it’s really a combination of two things. And the combination is giving the or the organization season, the organization of the data is a huge help for a lot of the companies that we deal with. Because as I mentioned before, the spreadsheet information, fat fingering of data entry, it’s always it’s bad data in bad data out, it’s always a challenge for companies that don’t necessarily put MRL and industrial supply at the top of their priority list. So just getting that information organized is a huge time savings and efficiency improvement. The second common thing is once the data is entered into our system, we have what we call the power potential, which the power potential identifies as the data is entered, it takes a little bit of time to process, usually a few minutes, but it runs through our back end system identifies any part numbers where there’s cost savings potential. So we manufacturing power, we call it the power potential, it gives the potential of cost savings opportunities, then we have what we call the hit list, it’s it ranks those items, so we have the highest cost saving opportunity or power potential opportunities, ranked at the top on down. So you’ll see if there’s one item where somebody else in the market paid, you know, $200 less than you did, okay, that one’s that’s a big, that’s a bigger ticket item. And then it ranks them on down. So those are, those are the ways that we’ve shown companies a huge huge advantage, huge savings, you know, our, our savings range, but it’s usually dependent upon the size of the company and the amount of part numbers that have been entered. There’s a couple of variables there. But yeah, those are the those are the couple of common things that happen into virtually all the case studies,

Curt Anderson 33:42
right. And so for larger companies, or even smaller companies that are using like, you know, a particular SKU, or you know, like just, you know, a disposable or some type of product that they’re going through a ton taking advantage of now, power, manufacturing power is fantastic. And that was actually one of my that was gonna be my next question. And I love that power potential man. Just I kind of love that phrase that you that you guys have come up with. Now, Mike, when you and I spoke you were talking about, you know, like many folks out there, they use the travel sites, you know, Nicole, you’re an avid traveler. You know, there’s Expedia, you know, some of the different travel sites, I think, is there a comparable of kind of like, we want layman’s terms? Or like if somebody still like, and Mike I’m kind of getting it, but would any of those travel sites are the comparable there are?

Mike Franz 34:26
Well here, this is such a, here’s the softball. And this is this is exciting. This is exciting. Super exciting for us. And I appreciate you leading me to this one. But we have a new mobile app that’s going to be released just before IMTS which IMTS show is coming up here on the 12th i The name is called in supply. And it’s a mobile app that is designed? Well, I’ll use the example that you’re leading me to Kurt.

Curt Anderson 35:06
Okay. So for the record, Mike, that that really wasn’t planned was it. I threw that softball inadvertently.

I’m excited to hear this, this new product

Mike Franz 35:23
that you have. So the analogy, the analogy that I use is with kayak. So kayak is a travel website. And basically what they do is they aggregate all I’ll just use flights as a as the example. So they aggregate all the flights from all the different carriers. And they show that information to the end user, and let them decide where they’re going to shop, and who they’re going to reach out to. That’s exactly what we do in the industrial supply space. But we’re focused more on local distribution. So the what I tend to tell people and simplifies is we show you where locally to buy and how much it’s going to cost. And then are the end user, the user of the mobile app can make that decision based off that information. And I can get into some more details on that if if you’d like me to

Curt Anderson 36:18
I’m, I’m all ears if you want to if you want to keep it rolling.

Mike Franz 36:21
Yeah. So thank you.

Curt Anderson 36:27
Let’s get right out. Because you know, what might just let’s do another pause. We’re here to pump everybody up.

Unknown Speaker 36:37
I’m ready to start playing with top. All right.

Curt Anderson 36:43
That’s right. Yeah. I was gonna fill up my shirt for you today. Please don’t.

Mike Franz 36:53
So, over the past two years, we had some requests to we all know, you know, what’s been happening over the last two years don’t need to do that. But something happened. I didn’t know about that. A lot of supply chain concerns. And there was one common thing that we heard was from customers and from potential customers. And I am pretty active in the local procurement committee with some organizations and associations. And I just ask questions all the time. But they’re probably annoyed with me. But anyhow, the there was a common thing that could be narrowed down to two things and people are looking for, up up here, the ones that I’ve talked to you, we’re looking for price and availability, where can I find items that I need? Locally, or that I can get super quickly? And, you know, we thought we could build something based on data that we’ve already collected. And also turned it into a super simple, easy to use mobile app that shows just that, if you’re looking for, excuse me, if you’re looking for a mouse, you need you need this particular mouse, instead of in here’s here’s part of the marketing portion of it. Nicola says, I hope I hope you not yes, this sounds like a good idea. But we want to show the end user where they can get it locally, for the most part, and how much it’s going to be and show the different options that they have. And the marketing portion of it is sure they can go on Google and Google, I need this mouse. But it’s going to show that to break it down a little bit more, it’s going to show the highest ranking companies that land on that first page, right? So there may not be a local distributor for that mouse that somebody finds and is aware of and has an account set up with an all those different factors into to grind through distribution. So our goal was to collect local distributors and give them more eyeballs on their sites on their ecommerce sites by showing if if I’m here in the Twin Cities, if I look up this mouse, I want to find who’s in a 25 mile radius where I can get it how much is it going to be and then I can make my buying decision based off that.

Nicole Donnelly 39:46
Oh, I love that because I mean small businesses I love first of all, I love small businesses and it’s so hard like for them to compete and that you know, the big pool gets the big guys. So I love that it’s such a great way to level the playing field and really be able to give the Awesome small manufacturers and companies, more visibility and transparency so people can see.

Mike Franz 40:06
It’s just two days ago, well, yesterday, I think I was listening to a podcast. And it was a super successful venture capital guy. And he was talking about, he was an older gentleman in his 80s. And he referred back to newspapers. And if you know, there’s a lot of people in the audience who may not remember that newspaper. But anyway, he said that in in local towns, you used to have to go to the newspaper to find advertisements, and you had to go to the newspaper to find things that you’re really looking for. And I think, I think it’s like, bringing back a little bit of that local newspaper to it, where yes, you can go on Google and see the globe, you can see wherever you can do it. But for somebody who needs a part now, who’s looking for the different options, we think this is going to be a quick and easy resource for them to use. And I just want to add one more thing too, because there was there’s been an is and continues to be a skills gap of it, especially in manufacturing, the skills gap, but also us a need for skilled labor. And there’s skilled labor on the shop floor for sure that’s an issue but there’s also a skills need skilled labor in the rest of the facility. And there’s a lot of turnover. In speaking with procurement professionals around here for the last two years. There’s a lot of turnover that’s happening in procurement. And what I’ve found is that when a new person comes into it might be a lower level role or a more junior role. They get handed the MRO and the industrial supplies that as their as their job. And they might not have the knowledge or the Rolodex here we go Kurt the Rolodex of information or the knowledge to know that there’s 10 different distributors in the area that all offer that information.

Nicole Donnelly 42:33
They just need a curt that’s what they need.

Like I curse all over the

Mike Franz 42:50
world to change the name to Kurt Yeah, yeah.

Curt Anderson 42:52
So Mike, I mean, it’s my if I’m understanding correctly, and then we have a question I want to pop up from Don, our dear friend in Alaska, but it almost sounds like it’s like you’re creating like a nice little search engine or you like my, yeah,

Mike Franz 43:07
I mean, it’s, it’s kind of sorta, I it’s, it’s more of there’s, when, when I saw kayak, business model, yeah, it’s more of it’s more of an aggregator of that information. And then just pointing people in the right direction. We don’t we don’t sell anything on the site. It’s just giving them the information, that aggregation of that information to to go out and use how they want but yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, kinda sorta, but from a marketing standpoint, I think just distributors the smaller distributors who don’t rank on the first page of Google Yeah, could could find it very, very impactful so holy,

Curt Anderson 43:48
yeah. What a huge advantage and what Damon i constant preach about as niching down right Nicole niche down, in like, what I love, what you’ve done is like, you know, okay, I’m going in this space, I’m going to industrial, I’m going down local. I mean, like you just you’ve niched down to really solve a major problem. And let’s jump in this pool. This question of Mike, I’m working on a new lower head design. So Don, is a lower manufacturer product is this just

Mike Franz 44:13
it’ll scare the fish away to standing in

Curt Anderson 44:17
the process needed to make them as plastic injection molding? The milling of the mold is a showstopper for me, does the does your company help and solutions in situations like this? When you think of that question?

Mike Franz 44:30
Well, I can easily answer it. We don’t do any machining. We don’t do any milling. So unfortunately, I can’t help with that. Now there’s, I can, if you want to reach out to me, I can probably maybe point you in the right direction. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know the kind of people up in Alaska that might be able to do it. But that maybe I can put you in touch with somebody that can help out with that.

Curt Anderson 45:00
But don, so has family in Minnesota. So maybe you guys can get together for folks that you definitely need to connect with Mike and we can take this deeper. But Mike, that’s it. Man. I know we could chat all day I want to. I want to be mindful, respectful of everybody’s time, manufacturing power. So okay, like I’m a manufacturer out there or, you know, you’ve really caught my attention and my ears are perked up, my eyes are wide open. Mike, how can I connect engage with you? I like let’s walk that through that. Let’s walk through the process of how somebody engages with manufacturing power. Yeah.

Mike Franz 45:33
reach out directly to me, anybody listening, please reach out directly to me, they can go to the they can either go to the website, but more direct path is going to be to come either go through LinkedIn, Mike Franz, on LinkedIn, Fra, NZ, or you can just direct email me at Mike at manufacturing power.com.

Curt Anderson 45:56
Perfect. Okay, so I’m not done with the Yeah, so don’t go don’t go anywhere. So when it comebacker? So when somebody engages with you, Michael, it’s like, like, what? Walk us give us like a manufacturing power of 101? What does that engagement like? How, you know, talk about your business model? Like how does somebody engage with you? What does a relationship look like? Take us therapy? Yeah?

Mike Franz 46:19
Well, every, I guess every company might be a little bit different. There’s not really a structured format to that. But first of all, we try to be as we, as customer has customer focused as possible when digging into their needs. So if there’s in and other areas, but if you’re talking specifically about okay, if they if they come to us, and they want to talk about engaging manufacturing powers. First of all, we’ll we’ll talk to them primarily about their spend, what is their spend on industrial supplies? How are they keeping track of the data, what are their operating systems look like, who’s managing it, we try to talk directly to the people that are, are in the trenches on a day to day basis, see how they could use it, make sure it’s a good fit, if, you know, sometimes, I’ll be honest, if they don’t have a huge spend it or large enough spend, I would say, it might not be a great fit, you know, if they don’t spend a certain amount with on industrial supplies, hey, thanks for reaching out, we can provide you that value. But we try to engage them on a level where it’s talking directly with the person who’s managing that portion of of the product, but then also, we try to we try to engage the people that in a specific scenario, like somebody who’s on the shop floor, to see if that that increase in efficiency and cost savings can help that. But it really depends on the org chart to as far as who we talk to. And so per conversation.

Curt Anderson 48:19
Right? Absolutely love it. So powerful solution as we wind down mike on it, sir. I want to Dan has a note here. He’s got he’s gonna be in the Twin City mid October. So he’ll shoot you a connection and you get into Sure. Dan is one of the greatest human beings on the planet you actually love, Don, so a great connection here. So Mike, I want to go. So again, guys, if you’re out there, please stop by manufacturing. power.com. Mike, I’m gonna throw throw back on our entrepreneur hat for a minute. It’s been five years. So man, what a great five year anniversary. Congratulations. You mentioned to dad how it’s, you know, it’s a big roller coaster. Talk a little bit about you know, was there a point in time where you felt like this? I’m like, in Nicole, you kept using the word, you know, resiliency, tenacious, relentless, you know, as an entrepreneur that requires all those traits, right? Is there been a point in the past five years where you’re like, Yes, I’m sick, like, you know, maybe in the first six months, you’re like, Man is you know, like, is this the right thing? Was there a turning point or a point in the business where you’re like, I’m doing good work. I have a nice customer base. Customers love the solutions. Was there a tipping point through your journey in entrepreneurship for you?

Mike Franz 49:32
That’s a really good question and tough to answer because my mindset is that we can always improve so it’s, it’s really it’s really a difficult one to answer Kurt and I apologize, I’m gonna screw over. Just because, you know, I’m kind of never satisfied and that’s, it’s It’s, it’s, it’s challenging for me because I’m not a technical computer person. Yeah. And that took a huge amount of time for me to learn how to not only speak with software engineers, but to understand more. So I’m nowhere near like, any sort of expert or anything like that. I think I know enough to be a little bit dangerous. But there’s the constant improvement part analysis striving to do better for the customers and trying to striving to do better for, for the problem we’re trying to solve is a constant, you know, it’s, it’s always out of reach. So always out of reach. I, I don’t, like I said, I don’t want to skirt the question. But it’s, you know, there’s, I don’t know if I’ll ever be, you know, be at a point where it’s like, time to relax and chill.

Nicole Donnelly 50:56
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s actually a really great answer the question. So

Curt Anderson 50:59
in the meantime, I’ll spin it one second. And I again, resiliency, you’re seeing it right here firsthand. So not even so like, you know, the word satisfied, per se, or like, Hey, I made it, you know, in that capacity, but a point like, Nicole, you and I were just talking yesterday, you know, like, you know, that moment when you get chills, because like, you know, and maybe it wasn’t about money whatsoever, but just a customer were like, Mike, thank you, I can’t tell you like you made me look like a rock star to my boss, he made me look like a hero to my supervisor or you just saved my I’m an entrepreneur, you know, fighting in the trenches, just like you are you just saved my company. I think I’m one of your case studies was like that, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars, you know, any, like, those rewarding moments where you feel like, Yes, I’m doing good work.

Mike Franz 51:47
There’s so many men, I’m gonna generalize here to care, because there’s the this is, it’s really hard for me to answer these questions. Yeah. I have a hard time talking about myself. But like that, like that, but there’s, it’s, there’s so many aspects of being an, I guess, an entrepreneur that are like, the roller coaster words, like, little tiny things can be so satisfying. But even getting, even getting, you know, like you mentioned, the customer reaction is, that’s like, that’s the best if that’s right, that’s the best. But also, like, internally, when, when there’s when we when we have a new little feature that’s been been made, or there’s something that actually pans out. That’s, that’s exciting, or there’s, you know, you can see some progress with somebody. That’s, you know, I think that like one of the, one of the most rewarding things for me has been, I’ve been able to, you know, establish these, these connections and relationships with people. And that’s, for me, that’s, that’s kind of the best thing. It, you know, I don’t know how to answer that.

Curt Anderson 53:13
You did a great job. dropping the mic moment right there. It was all about the relationship. So that’s the answer. I’m looking for that like this. Is, this is what it’s all about. So like, I’ve kept away too long, my friend, thank you for dedicating your time, your energy, your passion, your expertise. Thank you for what you do for the manufacturing community, making us you know, sharpen our tools, making us a little bit better, saving time saving money. Again, just everybody out there, connect with Mike on LinkedIn, you can stop by manufacturing power, you’re going to be blown away. Mike, the new app is coming out in a week the name of the app again,

Mike Franz 53:53
that’s called in supply. We haven’t launched the actual excuse me the app for the landing page yet? Yeah, that’s that’s coming up very shortly. Be on the lookout for that. Excuse me. And let me just say please, Kurt Nicole. Damon, I know if you’re out there. Please. Thank you so much. You guys do a great service to the community. It’s been a real pleasure. I really appreciate it. And I really enjoyed talking with you. I mean, it was it was super easy if

Curt Anderson 54:25
it went by went by like that. So as we wind down, Mike, thank you, brother. Appreciate you appreciate your taking the time. And how about let’s give her a big round of applause for Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. You guys do like give a big shout out to Phyllis. I know, Homer. What was your other grandfather’s name? Albert, Albert, you know, so hey, what’s your great family man? And so we just we’d love hearing that. Hey, how about a huge, huge, huge round of applause for our guest host today? Our decimal system come back come I’m connected to that new Gary t shirt now Nicole. I will wear it. as we wind down a couple of things I want to give a shout out. So no LinkedIn live on Monday. Everybody go out there and spend quality time with a family loved ones. Relax. Just don’t worry about work for a few days. watch a little football, baseball, whatever, cookout whatever you got going on. I know Nicole, I think you’re going hiking. Have a great weekend, everybody. On Tuesday. We have two amazing dynamic women from IMEC that are going to join us we’re going to talk about how to build a diverse culture and workforce at your manufacturing operation. On Thursday, I Mack is putting on a program. It’s Mike, you love this. We’ve created a panel. It’s a it’s all women in supply chain. So it’s a supply chain panel I met on Thursday. And then we have Anna McGovern, back here on Friday. And we’re also going to be talking about supply chain so we think every single person out there John, David Dunn, anybody out there we thank you for joining us week in week out. We appreciate you, Nicole, any parting words of wisdom for everybody on this wonderful weekend.

Nicole Donnelly 56:10
And this has been like an ice cream sundae was sprinkled was a great way to close out summer and welcome fall to get to talk to Mike and you I’ve just really enjoyed it. And Mike, I just think what you’re doing for manufacturers is just so awesome. I can think of tons of clients that would really benefit so keep up the awesome work and have a great weekend.

Curt Anderson 56:30
Absolutely. So hang out with me one minute. So on that. God bless everybody have a great holiday Labor Day weekend. Thank you. Thanks