Manufacturing Monday Motivation

Curt Anderson 0:02
Hey here, man Damon. It’s Monday already dude, it’s it’s actually August already. How the heck is this happening?

Damon Pistulka 0:09
This is crazy. I woke up thinking the same thing. I mean August is is is a bittersweet month it’s nice weather for summer but you know you’re, you know you’re on the downhill slide as

Curt Anderson 0:20
well. You know, summer just needs to take its little time here. Just slow down just a little bit. But David, I am absolutely thrilled. Honored is such a great event today. We look at the stage, we’ve never had this busy of a state or look at this beautiful look at all these beautiful people. So I Damon we’re gonna do some introductions here. We’re talking with our friends and great city of Chicago. How’s that? Man? We’re going Chicago today. So we’re talking louvers international led manufacturer, they are absolutely just total rockstars. Let’s do some introductions here. So I’m going to kick things off with the President. The one and only a president a of louvers. We have Devin wall, I like to call it the Wall Street brothers are in the house. Devin, how are you doing?

Devin Wall 1:02
Kurt feeling pretty good on this Monday. Like you guys said, August 1 woke up and I’m just like, man, it is August already. You know, it’s like, quarters here. Let’s just start ripping and rolling. And, you know, keep on using what we’ve learned from you guys and iMac and you keep on bettering ourselves and get more out there. It’s, you know, it’s exciting time. Definitely different times in the world. But everybody’s moving through it. And we’re working together as a team to keep on a cat accomplishing these tasks and goals that we have set.

Curt Anderson 1:37
That is awesome. You know, and what’s good about August is you know, hey, since we’re in the wonderful city of Chicago, it’s bear season right around the corner, right? Yeah, throw that out. And how about this little shout out to Derek and Devin right here. Hey, man, I like this one. Derek and Devin are amazing. So a little round of applause there. So we’ve got we’ve got the CEO of Louvers in the house for today. We’ve got Derek Wall, Derek, how are you my friend?

Derek Wall 2:00
Good, man, thanks for having us on. I can’t think of a better way to start any week than a conversation with our buddy Curt who always brings a fire. I mean, this guy can get you more excited than anybody. So yeah, we’ve learned a lot. We’ve worked with you over the past four or five months. And yeah, what a great team we put together and, you know, built some behind the scenes stuff with your tips and tricks. We’ll get into that later. But yeah, it’s pretty interesting. Obviously, the times are changing. So the more we can collaborate and you know, become more of a presence online and display our solutions packages. You know, there’s quite a number of capabilities we we engage in over here. So thanks again, Curt. And looking forward to keep keeping the discussions going here.

Curt Anderson 3:02
Absolutely. That’s a momentum and I thank you, thank you for the praises. Thank you for your kind words, and it works out 100% both ways. You know, it’s, we have a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm here with this, this motley crew of ours. So you know, talking about putting together a rockstar team, you have a digital marketing goddess on the team, we like to say here so, Marsha, how are you my friend? Happy Monday to you?

Marcia Herrig 3:24
Yeah, happy Monday. I’m glad to be here. I’m excited to be on this presentation. And I have taken the information that Derek and Devin have given me and I’m trying to speak to our soulmates on our website.

Curt Anderson 3:39
Awesome. In March, I’d say it’s absolutely Joy privilege privilege. Working with you, we’ve had a lot of fun together. And we’re gonna go through we’re gonna show a case study nicely example on how Marsha is working with a wall brothers and just pulling out some phenomenal information. Damon, we have a great gig coming up on Friday on our LinkedIn lab. It’s like how to be as lazy as humanly possible. Man, I’m trying to teach these guys let’s be we’re working hard to be lazy. In other words, we just want to be as efficient with our time and we’re gonna go through a nice little case study, Marcia put together we call it a killer pillar blog posts, man, it is just awesome. So we’re going to dig into that. So hey, last but not least my cleanup hitter of the day that big St. Louis Cardinals fan of ours here, Damon, we’ve gotten a shelf asset from IMEC Michelle’s house. Michelle, Happy Monday to you.

Michelle Fossett 4:26
Happy Monday. Thanks for having me today. And you couldn’t set it any better. He’s like getting on with Kurt on a Monday. It’s a shot of caffeine right away. There’s no need to worry about your energy level. Later in the day. That’s what I always said. I would tell my teammates that I have a meeting with Kurt at 8am Central Standard Time. They’re like you’d be fired up for the whole day and they were right. It’s how it goes. It’s a great energy. I love working with you guys. Well,

Curt Anderson 4:52
thank you, Michelle not-i. It’s been just an absolute joy privilege. You and I have tag team on multiple manufacturing clients through IMEC this year. And boy, did we have a good time and just, you know, in all seriousness, you know, like for Damon myself, it’s like it’s not even a mission. It’s really like our crusade just trying to help you. And I’m not trying to sound like, you know, Mr. Selfless, like we’re just on a mission and a crusade to help manufacturers, you know, this digital marketing thing. It’s new, it’s daunting, we’re all learning on a daily basis. So we might as well have fun and come into it with high energy. And so it’s just, it’s just wonderful chemistry here. So let’s take a deep dive. So we’re going to talk about iMac and if you’re wondering like, Hey, what’s that because I met that’s the Illinois MEP you got to stick around for as with a minute for a few minutes, we’re gonna come back to iMac but Devin, I want to come back to you, brother. Let’s talk about louvers International. Tell us the background. What’s the story here? What’s going on at louvers international every good.

Devin Wall 5:48
Well, our father started this company back in 1986, as an OEM lens manufacturer, supporting other light fixture manufacturers, and then selling into the aftermarket through electrical distributors, getting lighting lenses louvers out there into the marketplace, going from there. And ever since we’ve started off with just that now we call it kind of our legacy business with all the lens and all of this older stuff we’ve adopted when Derek and I first started back in 2006. Working here, we started making our first two lamp th vapor type, which enclosed and gasketed fixture or like washdown applications, parking garage, food grade, lot, a lot of applications Derek and I were in the back of the warehouse setting up saw sawhorses throwing four by eight sheets of plywood on there and just banging out fixtures at night until you know we we crept up so much demand from our customers asking us like, hey, this fixture is really nice. Can you do a two footer? Can you do an eight footer? Well, now we’ve got like eight different body styles that one fixture and branched off into Hey, can you guys make fluorescent high bays so we started manufacturing those as well. And a lot of our product comes from listening to our customers and then developing something that fits their applications and has a lot more bells and whistles and features that some of the other big guys out there misinterpret or don’t think about for these guys in the field actually installing the product. So we kind of just listened to our customers work with our team and keep on developing more and more product out there for the marketplace. So people can benefit from all of our hard work, dedication, knowledge and design features in these products to make it not aesthetically only aesthetically pleasing, but have great performance and the ease of use of install from the electrical contractor side. So it’s definitely fun every day, we’d get new stuff thrown at us and see if we can overcome these obstacles and provide the solutions that our customers and we sometimes we don’t even know that’s out there until we start putting our heads together and thinking yeah, we’ve got a pretty sweet product right here. So it’s always fun developing new stuff but we love service and old stuff and just kind of branching out from there and creating more and more products that are you know needed in the industry coming from our aspect

Curt Anderson 8:18
oh that’s phenomenal and I think the big takeaway right there I love your kept saying Devin we listen to our customers you know, we talked about that a lot. You know what are you guys providing? You know, it’s that that level of trust you know, so man, you’re lighting up the market we see all sorts of products over your shoulder behind you they’re great products here that you guys manufacture. Derek I’m gonna slide into your background a little bit so now if I’m not mistaken in Southern Cal Do you are you Southern Cal college guy? Where do you go to college?

Derek Wall 8:45
Yeah, I went to school at University of San Diego. I love it out there spent you know, amazing four years out there. Move back home. You know, summertime is great here but november december Yeah, what am I doing? What did I do

Curt Anderson 9:00
a you know, anybody could live in Southern Cal it takes you know, a little thicker skin to live in Chicago for the winters but I’m going to talk about this. So for anybody out there, maybe there’s there’s younger folks, any younger folks, you know, we talked about how wonderful other cool kids are going into manufacturing. So even though you found yourself in San Diego for college, you found your heart your mission, your purpose, your passion, coming back home and taking your taken dad’s company to a higher level. What was that thought process of like you coming back into manufacturing

Derek Wall 9:31
and I just like the opportunity to get real hands on with solutions working in the back in the warehouse with all the production guys coming up with prototypes. You know there’s such like a family and team orientated group hear that it’s it just feels like home. And that’s what we kind of like to display that in welcome others to join in that feeling that we like to portray because we’re so passionate like, the first time I met Kurt, he’s like, man, these guys are awesome. Yeah, like they can do so much over there. And, you know, we were just trying to always get to the next level. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 10:13
Yeah, absolutely. I love it. So and I, I love what you guys are doing this really ties in with a person. I want to say like the message that you’re trying to portray on your website. So you know, here’s a longtime manufacturer 1986 Damien that was you know, that was a famous year. You know why that was a famous year. Michelle. That’s the year I graduated from high school. So how’s that one? That was a great year. 1986 lot of good movies came out of Chicago 1986. But not to say

Devin Wall 10:36
when the bears won the Super Bowl.

Curt Anderson 10:38
Hey, the bears. They squeaked by the new New England Patriots that you’re right. That was a squeaker

Devin Wall 10:44
already six to 10 Go Fridge,

Marcia Herrig 10:47
they danced there with a Super Bowl shuffle their whole

Curt Anderson 10:53
goal shuffled before this program is over today, just for Walter Payton. And so McMahon and all those great players from the bears. But you guys stepped up your game. And you brought in a digital marketing expert, our digital marketing goddess as she was just going. So Marsha just shared a little bit about your background and what attracted you. What did you know with your skill set your expertise, your experience, what attracted you to manufacturing? And most importantly, what attracted you to louver?

Marcia Herrig 11:20
Well, I’ve been working at a community college teaching this stuff or helping to teach this stuff and and now this is my chance to prove, you know, kind of put my money where my mouth doesn’t actually put it to use and working with Kurt, like, you’ve kind of emphasized things that we show at, you know, in some of our classes. And so it’s really cool to see that what we’re teaching is what’s actually out there. So it’s fun, and it’s fun to be in the man in manufacturing. And everyone’s kind of like Derek, Derek said, get your hands on. I feel like I’m getting my hands on kind of website design. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 11:54
Awesome. And we’re, you know what, and we’re gonna pull up some of your examples here, Marsha, in a couple minutes. Michelle, I’m going to slide over to my friend. So anybody out there, boy, drop us a note, please connect with Derek and Devon, President and CEO of Lewers, international led manufacturer in Chicago, we have Marcia, their digital marketing guru. And now we’re going to slide over to Michelle Michelle. Well, you just landed a new gig project manager. Diva, as we like to call you on this program, but you are a project manager at IMEC. So for any manufacturers, number one that are in the great state of Illinois or even outside of Illinois, please share a little bit of what is the MEP manufacturing extension partner partnership network, and more specifically, what is IMEC?

Michelle Fossett 12:39
Well, what the MEP is, it’s the National Institute of Standards and Technology, manufacturing enterprise program. But we actually work with all Illinois manufacturers here at iMac. And we are the part of this larger public private partnership that exists out there. That is federally funded. We do great things for manufacturers all across the United States. And here in Illinois, we have about 50 employees on board. They they go anywhere from full, they’re all full time staff members that are either they deliver locally training, we also do what we did here in this particular project and reach out to offer grant funds to companies such as livers and help them with their growth pieces where we bring in companies such as you, Kurt and all the other great TPRS that we worked with third party relationships that actually helped them where we may not have internal training available. But we know we have experts out there that we can connect them with. So we are here to do great things with Illinois manufacturers and anywhere that they need help. We’ve helped over 1100 manufacturers just last year. And then we in this whole process, we’re excited to say we’ve shown about a 19 to one return on investment for the with these manufacturers. So we want to see them excel. That’s what we’re about. And it’s exciting, my new gigs exciting because I’m able to even do more communicating and making sure that we’re getting those returns and that we’re reaching more manufacturers. So that’s our goal. We we’ve only we’re only at the tip of the iceberg we have so how many more that we can reach. So we’re excited to be part of this. And it’s been a it’s been a fun ride for me coming up on three years now. And my role has just evolved more and more as I’ve been here. So love it. Well,

Curt Anderson 14:23
that is absolutely awesome. And I know we need to talk offline because you just took a nice little little trip that we need to talk about. amazing, wonderful vacation, we’ll talk about that. Yeah, but again, so for any manufacturers out there, if you’re like boy, this this MEP thing is new, we’re gonna dig into a nice case study of here of how MEPs around the country as Michelle just said, there’s an MEP in all 50 states. So if you are in Illinois, you absolutely want to reach out connect engage with Michelle. She has a huge tool chest of opportunities to help you as a manufacturer, if you’re outside of Illinois To contact and reach your local MEP, and they can help you with all sorts of Michelle, before the program is over. We’ll talk about the other things on the IMEC or MEP menu. This program here you offer the Grow your future, we’re going to talk about what a great name that was. So Devin, let’s come back to you, my friend. Let’s take back into louvers. Okay, so you said I want to circle back and we listen to our customers. Absolutely love that. I’m going to I’m going to pull up your website in a minute here, but just share what’s so awesome about louvers if I’m looking for LED products and and, you know solutions, why louvers, what makes the movers such a dominant force in your field,

Devin Wall 15:41
the ease of doing business with us and that comfort that you have working with a company like ours, and that’s the most of feedback we get from our customers, the ease of doing business, and they’re just comfortable to do business with us. We’re knowledgeable, we’re upfront. And we just were able to provide a lot of solutions. And that right there just keeps on opening up the door. And the opportunities keep on getting fed our way and we keep on delivering and you know, helping out our customers provide those solutions to what they’re looking for with a lead time issue, or they don’t have a product for this application. They’re looking for a special feature on a light fixture that their mainline doesn’t offer their regular stocking doesn’t have. So we’re able to, you know, be a smaller manufacturer, I put it to these guys this way. My customer bases like look, these other big publicly traded lending companies, they’re out there driving a big ol ocean ocean liner. And we’re sitting here in a speedboat just slapping around I got the red tape, I look over at Derek I said, What red tape we have? Yeah, so that kind of just like right there that the attitude were very positive or upbeat. We’d like to have fun on the job. We have customers come in here and they’re just like, Man, this place just feels awesome and cool. And you know, they’re always asked to say you guys accept them applications? Yeah. Yeah.

Marcia Herrig 17:08

deeper work. And louvers. One of the things that I think is really cool, like kind of to piggyback off of what Devin said, they people walk in you, there’s no like chain of command up to the top, you walk in and say I want to talk to Devin. That’s the chain of command. What do you want to talk to you? So that’s really cool.

Damon Pistulka 17:27
Yeah, and that being nimble, like you guys are I mean, you can truly listen to the customer, and debit you and Derek and go, Hey, this, we should try this. Yeah, then you just go do it. Whereas they can take committees and everything else and other companies, and especially in the big publicly traded, nobody wants to make a mistake, you know, okay, you guys can do what you need to do to solve problems. And that’s there’s always going to be a market for people who solve problems,

Curt Anderson 17:51
man, and this is so good. I mean, we have a ton of talk about, you know, Marsha, we love to talk and we might run to me tough fit and everything in here. And so two things I want to talk about culture dive and you just hit like culture. And Derek, if you want to chime in, you know, maybe there’s some back to dead in 1986. But talk about like how, you know, like, it takes intention to build a really prominent healthy culture like, you know, Marsha here, you’re relatively newer to the company and attracted you to this business. You know how for a company out there that may be either new and or struggling with culture. Any tips or advice on how you guys have been able to create this wonderful culture louvers?

Devin Wall 18:33
Well, it all starts with the employees if you can’t do anything without a good workforce behind you. And I mean, the guys that we’ve had here have been here longer than Derek and I basically combined. Yeah. And they’re still very young, all things considered. So just having, you know, the right team established and treating your employees well, and taking care of them. You know, we have a pretty generous 401k in health insurance policy for employees. So that’s really something is, you know, these guys are like family, we’re spending 40 plus hours a week with these guys, I’m gonna probably spend more time here at louvers than I do at my house, or maybe if you cancel out sleeping, I definitely outweigh the time here than at the house. So, you know, it all starts with the, you know, the co workers, the open door policy, listening to people and trying to come up with, you know, reasonable expectations for everybody. And then, you know, we just have fun at work because no one wants to go to work. And you know, that there can I don’t even call it work anymore. We’re just like, Let’s go have some more fun tomorrow. Seeing that, as I’ll talk to you later tonight. So, yeah, that’s the thing is the atmosphere that we provide here. And then kind of laissez faire. The management skills that Derek and I put on there is we entrust our employees to you know, know their role in complete their task and also bring us different ideas. and rely on them to say, hey, what about doing it this way or that way. And we’re always listening because some of the best ideas come up from a guy that you wouldn’t expect it. So we’re always down to listen, listen to everybody see what their ideas are and how we can take that and put it to our advantage to help more people out in the industry looking for whatever product that is.

Curt Anderson 20:20
That’s awesome. So hey, we got a couple of Katie’s here, Katie. Happy Monday, man. She’s phenomenal, great advocate of manufacturing. We’ve got Ronald here today. Happy Monday to do thank you for joining us. We’re here today with louvers international led manufacturer in Chicago, we have our dear friend Michelle from iMac the MVP of Illinois. Derek, let’s let’s dive right into this. So Devin was just describing like, you know, hey, we’re nimble, we’re flexible, we were agile, right? How in your opinion, so those those are great attributes, but you’re still competing with major, you know, publicly traded companies, monster companies, as a small family manufacturer, how are you able to stay so competitive, and sustainable Oh, my goodness, since 1986, any other factors that you want to contribute that kind of led to your great success here with a family business,

Derek Wall 21:08
I mean, our our suggestion box is always open and never fall in always welcomed and appreciated. And we can just build as a team collectively, you know, through collaborating bi weekly teams meetings, just being here in the office, shooting ideas off each other, you know, problems arise, I call them opportunities to improve a situation just really working together to get to the bottom of things. And, you know, keep keep moving along. You know, there’s always going to be challenging challenges with pricing situations, I can get this for that. Good luck. There’s a lot of race to the bottom in our industry. Oh, yeah. Then there’s a huge value sell. You know, when we when we talk about installing our our liberty strip extra, for example, that we can ship bulk packed and job packed. So some guy doesn’t need to take apart a fixture to install it and put it back together. Yeah, yeah, we’re working with all these little screws to drop the screw. So even from from nuts, to bolts to, you know, putting together spec sheets that make sense, and how customers want to see things. We take a just a holistic approach it literally everything we do over here, putting quotes together, getting quotes back to customers, with all the right information, asking the right questions. We do continual sales, train sales team training here, that’s really important, putting investing back in the employees. Yes, I’m going on a tangent, Oh, dude,

Curt Anderson 23:01
that’s your, this is great. I’m like hanging on to every word. And this is a great thing. Michelle, what we have 13,000 manufacturers in the state of Illinois. Great thing is like when, you know, we hear about, you know, oh, manufacturing this or manufacturing that. I mean, this is just a perfect example of a team that’s just dedicated to just crushing it with manufacturing here in the States. And this is just so inspirational. So Derek, that was absolutely perfect.

Michelle Fossett 23:26
I was thinking that I was really thinking that as I’m listening to you guys talk, the culture that you guys have established there is what is driving your success. And it’s fabulous. I mean, what you know, like Kurt, we’ve talked about, you know, what we can offer and we go in and we have to help companies that are struggling because they don’t understand that and they don’t know where to begin and you guys have really got a great handle on it. And it’s awesome to hear the success that you guys have and how you treat your customers and your in your employees and the respect that you give them that so much can be learned from what you guys are doing right now. And others need to listen to your message for sure.

Derek Wall 24:09
Like this is probably the only hour the week that my door is closed. Just because I don’t want to interrupt such such a great time we’re having right

Marcia Herrig 24:19
that’s very true. Like even if I you know even if I have like an idea. Yeah, I just I kind of rudely don’t even knock on the door. Just walk right in. So sorry, you guys. But I do walk in and say hey, you guys, what do you think of this? Or you know, so? Yeah, and they’re always open. You know, sometimes I get just a second I’m typing an email, but they always listen. So

Curt Anderson 24:41
listening to customer open door policy, intentional and dedicated to building that company culture employees first. I mean, like this is a masterclass on how to build a successful business. Daymond Don’t you think?

Damon Pistulka 24:54
When you listen when I was listening to you, Derek talking about the way that you package things Thanks to your customers, that is a great example of what you can do at louvers that a large, publicly traded company can’t all they’re worried about is lowest cost of delivery to that customer, right? And, and yes, you want low costs on your products going out and everything, but you can make it so the overall the total cost of using your product is much lower. Or they’re, they’re just looking at to the edge of the door to the customer, what it costs to get to the customer. And you guys can get so much more innovative. Because I was thinking exactly what you’re saying, Oh, now I gotta take it, I got this great fixture. Now I gotta take it apart to put it up. And you know, you’re losing screws or whatever is going to happen if you’re going to put 100 fixtures in. It’s just those kinds of things that you guys can do in your processes and methodologies that you get to your customers make it so much easier for

Derek Wall 25:50
them. Right. Even like let’s talk about packaging, for instance. Sometimes we’ve had customers, they’re like, What about packaging? And I’m like our products really not meant to sit on a shelf it you know, in a retail center? Yeah, it’s meant to we ship most to a job for installation. So I’m not going to spend 1015 20 bucks on some fancy box. Yeah, that’s an end up in the garbage. Yeah, I’d rather is less likely to make it. You know, for all the plastics that we sell. We sell a ton of plastic over here. We have to use a lot of cardboard and stuff to get it there and one piece a lot of parcel shipments. But for larger shipments I’m not going to wrap each thing in a box because it doesn’t need to survive the parcel gauntlet of these guys thrown boxes into their truck. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 26:48
Yeah. All right. So a couple of things, man, we need to keep this party rolling. So Damon, we’re getting your friend Pavan your great conversation give us Let’s send some love and shout out to me or be. And I’ll tell you Paul does an amazing job. You talked about an advocate for US manufacturing. He’s the founder owner of pro shop and Paul, God bless you, brother. You’re doing amazing work up and manufacturers love what you’re doing. Michelle, let’s slide in to the Grow Your future project. Because Damon a week ago we had bus these guys know West lean, they know Nicole Donnelly. And what we through training, what we talked about is like understanding customer listening to the customer empathizing with the customer. And Derek, that’s exactly what you’re talking about. And what I love Damon, you just said Wesleyan. And Gail, our dear friend Gail on the program a week ago. And you guys Gail is our curiosity, Goddess diva, whatever. And she’s always talking about curiosity. Here’s a manufacturer founded in 1986 second generation, they could say, Hey, we’ve kind of had this figured out, they still raise their hand out of curiosity and say, Hey, we want to get better from a website standpoint. And from a search standpoint, we kid around about, hey, let’s stop being the best kept secret, right? So they raise their hand we met at a webinar that we conducted at an iMac because we have one coming up tomorrow. We’ll talk about Michelle at the end of the program. But these guys attended a webinar. Damon we have we have webinars coming up the iMac in the fall, we’re doing all sorts of things with iMac. But what they raise their hand to participate in a grow your future project. Michelle, can you just share with everybody again, this is just a small little tip, a little taste of what the MEP network does for manufacturers. Can you describe what the Grow Your Future program was?

Michelle Fossett 28:27
Sure. I mean, it was actually their grant. It was a grant funded program. So all the manufacturers that participated, were able to get any of this work done via grants, they could do anything from building a website, SEO boosts, they were learning how to do their sales pitches, social media, marketing was part of it as well as I’m forgetting one.

Curt Anderson 28:49
We had an E commerce, little commerce, e commerce game.

Michelle Fossett 28:53
Yeah, it was a fun one. Anything girls related, we were there to try to help we had structured programs, but then make the manufacturers get to choose where they thought they best fit. And the cool part was is we took in applications and in a very short amount of time, because it was a very fast hit. Quick hit Program for sure wasn’t it? It was like four weeks, here we go. But we put it together with the good network of TPRS third party resources, such as b2b tail, and they just ran with it. And what they did is we worked with about 130 manufacturers in that short three month timeframe and help them get a launch into their growth. And the SEO booths that louvers did was a great one because it was able to be really he listened to what they want their message to be and who they want to have find them. So I think you guys did a great job. It was fabulous. But we were excited at the number that we were able to help and we’re looking forward to what’s to come in the future for other initiatives that we can continue to help manufacturers like this.

Curt Anderson 29:58
Yeah, that’s perfect. So that slide into this, Devin. So what we did, so we came in, you guys chose the SEO boost. And it was like be found online, that was a whole intention stop being the best kept secret. And we tackled a four prong approach. And I’m just going to I’m going to run through those real quick. So we talked about how do we find that ideal customer? We call that David Devon, what do we call those ideal customers? soulmate? Soulmates, right, dude. And you You did a phenomenal job. You identified two right? I think it was maybe contractor, Carl, maybe distributor Dan, but talk about like is we you know, in the first part of the program here, you’ve listened to the customer packaging solutions. That’s the legacy that companies like really digging in understanding that soulmate talk, why is it so important for you, for your company for louvers or any manufacturer out there to really take a deep dive and understand that soulmate?

Devin Wall 30:55
Well, just as you know, we don’t want to sell anything, we want to create that atmosphere where our customers want to buy, and you can’t really sell them or create that without knowing them to find out what their actual wants and needs are the dudes busy. So you know, Derek and I are thinking you got to put yourself in your customers shoes, you got to get inside their head. And that’s why Kurt’s exercise over here with the soulmate is kind of like, Hey, I’m thinking about a couple of my customers, I know what they like. And I’m like, Alright, I’m going to do a deep dive in there. But you know, things of like, sending a quote with the spec sheet, not like so you get the the guys to look at and say, Hey, can you send me the spec sheet? No, everything’s done up front, we’ve all that package up so nice. And sitting on a tee, where they see they look it over, they read the price, and they mark it up and give it to their customer. So you know, just by putting yourself in your customers shoes, and giving them the information that you want to receive, if you are in that spot, you know, just helps them better, you better understand them and getting them set up for success where they’re so busy inundated with emails and emails and emails, and they gotta get deadlines done for projects. So the simpler you can make things for your customer, by understanding them, the more business you’re going to retain in Game Over the time. You know, sometimes it takes longer than you want to. But persistence definitely plays a key factor in that. And by knowing these guys, and, you know, conversation after conversation, that gets better and better. And then they become friends, not just customers, which is happened in the last 16 years of doing business. I got more friends in the industry than I do outside. Because I love what I do. And all these people that we deal with guys, girls, whoever are just so fun, you know, just to hang out with and talk and do business and learn more about each other. It just that’s the best part of being here at work.

Derek Wall 32:54
Yeah, just a little tidbit. Like, somewhere along our discovery process. I was introduced to this phrase, and I love it. You know, even though I believe in it so much. It’s just so profound that marketing to everybody is marketing to nobody. So just a little on top of what Devin was saying. You need to understand who your market is right? To develop the message to the to that party or individual. Yeah,

Marcia Herrig 33:23
and Derek and Devin are really good also at like knowing their customers challenges like what is what are the things that they’re facing? And how can we answer those questions or resolve those issues? So that’s really good. Good on their part two. All right,

Curt Anderson 33:38
guys. Well, this is what we call if you have if you caught any of our programs. We call this the moment of silence time right now like those were just such profound value bombs that you guys just dropped Devon. Put yourself in your customers shoes and it’s one thing to say it it’s one thing to talk to talk it’s a completely different thing to walk the walk and you guys completely do that. And Derek like you just said we love you know, if you remember Westling, boy she preaches it to you she’s blue in the face she’s like, if you preach to everybody you’re preaching to no one right? So I love what you guys are saying here this like put your if you guys are out there anybody’s sales marketing if you’re finding yourself challenging, finding challenges, take a step back. It was like how do we niche down? Damon we call it niche down until it hurts, right? Hurts. Focus on that soulmate and really dig deep. Okay, so let’s, let’s do a recap here. So number one last.

Damon Pistulka 34:34
Yeah. Evan, you started off did I have to go back there because we don’t want to sell we want to create the situation where people want to buy from us. I mean, that is that is are the exact words you use were spot on because that’s what you get to do when you do this. Right. And it’s a lot more fun when people are coming to you to because they think that you’re the right people to help them.

Curt Anderson 34:58
That’s right. Look Katie says here here, I think I have more friends of manufacturing than I do in real life. And you know what, Katie, there is no real life outside of manufacturing, right? It’s just it’s all manufacturing these days, right? And I was thinking, Oh, that’s my flesh quote. So, Devin, that was absolutely phenomenal in what you and as you just said, dedicating yourself to like, you know, these clients, your customers are friends, and you’ve just like dedicated yourself to solving their problems again, guys, if you’re catching us on a replay, just you know, hit that rewind button and just have when Derek was with Devin was talking, just hit play, right? Yeah. So So discover your ideal customer, we call it how do you find those soulmates? Number two, how do you make a great first impression? So how about this Marsha, I’m going to share my screen man, I haven’t done this in a while. Let me share my screen. Marsha looks like you’ve done some really nice work in a website. I want to go there for a second I pull that up. Do I have your blessing? Sure. Sure. Okay, let’s talk about how do you make a great first impression and how is this look? Can you guys see my screen? Yep. Okay.

Marcia Herrig 36:08
Yeah, so we we used to always have like a Chicago skyline which said you know, spoke to the fact that we’re in Chicago but we just kind of redid our header image we now have a slider that highlights some of our products and also highlights our location and what we can do for people

Curt Anderson 36:30
yep, I absolutely love it. So again, man, look at this look, I love this this is a fantastic shout of the company. So again, so what you’re doing is you’re trying to resonate and speak to that ideal customer that soulmate make that great first impression, right? We have one chance to make a great first impression and you are absolutely doing it. So David, I want to come back to you for a second. Do you remember we talked a lot about a term called Rick’s or maybe I’ll put out to anybody does anybody remember what Rick’s are? Those are ik

Devin Wall 36:58
seriously important key words? Come on, Kurt.

Curt Anderson 37:01
Those ridiculously important key words. All right, brother. So all right. Number one, we want to find that soulmate. Number two, you want to make a great first impression. Number three, as we work together, we want to start dominating search and we had a great time digging in. We started off discovering your, your your ideal customer, but then those Rick’s those ridiculously important keywords. Those are also going to slide into what you guys are absolutely best at some of your core products. Devin, what are some of your Rick’s talk to us about some of these products here that we’re looking at?

Devin Wall 37:34
Well, the first one’s got to be our vapor type fixture, we call that the advantage. I mean, that was the first fixture that we actually got through you all, and we’re manufacturing ourselves. So that one, a lot of lighting manufacturers sell something similar to that. And, you know, we kind of looked at it from the approach of like, okay, we know what all the other people are using. And the problems with that diversity based on the feedback we’ve received from everybody in the chain that uses Fisher’s like this guy’s in the warehouse, stacking it to the contractors installing it, price points ordering ease. So we kind of just said, we’re going to make the best fixture with all the the additions on there, the polycarbonate lenses, stainless steel latches, those are going to be all standard by default. So there wasn’t, you didn’t need to order all the extra stuff and pay a higher price to get that. And that’s where our value came in is just developing a product that was priced, you know, well within the other guys. So actually, our distributors were making more money. Then you look at the exit sign retrofit kit. These guys were the customers around here in Chicagoland were begging us to make something. So we worked with our engineer team developed the driver and LED board and module. So we can get this exit site and retrofit kit into all these Chicago approved in New York City city and building approved signs. They’re not your cheap thermoplastic ones. Most code in Chicago in New York City require a steel Stein with a glass lens on there. So this retrofit kit is about four and a half watts, compared to about 30 The something else so you really get energy savings great here in Illinois, or the comment area, they give a $20 incentive right at the counter when an end user buys this so they get $20 off this kit. So really something easy that we wanted to develop to get out there in the marketplace and you know, put features in there that our customers like to make the install easier. Some other competitive units use clips that they got a screw into the housing and you know mount these clips in theirs. We use a VHB tape and just peel it off and stick it in there. So really saving the guys a lot of install time. Paul, that is not A coworker of ours used to be a customer, he said he had a customer down in the city. And this dude did 80 of them in one day. So when when you got one guy granted, he was like six, four and only needed a little stepladder. So his setup time was a lot less than normally. But, you know, once you start going in, that’s a lot of our products that we do is we just set people up for the first one’s gonna take a little bit of time. And then after that, when they know what they got to do in the fixture, it just becomes repetition, they know how to set themselves up for a really quick install, in completing the job ahead of schedule on time than they budgeted for. So that’s why the contractors love us because they’ll budget out, you know, two days, and they’re done in one. So they just made all that time on their estimation back, you know, improving their profit line as well. So it’s just fun to come up stuff like that, and, you know, provide these little nuances and features in these products to help deliver this, you know, the end user great result for a very fair value.

Curt Anderson 41:01
That is absolutely awesome. And I look, you know, check this out, you know, made in USA does. You just said Devon, installs installs in eight to 10 minutes. How you know, and again, if your contractor you know, Carl, no bulb replacement needed for five years, five year warranty. I’m like, You’re just crud, you’re just you’re singing his song. You know, like, Hey, you’re telling Carl Hey, Carl, dude, we have your back. We were trying we’re coming up with every solution that’s going to make your job your life easier. Here you go. I mean, it’s just a perfect example. Derrick, any when we’re talking about Rick’s anything else that you want to share as far as like high bays, or any of these other core key products that you guys have here?

Derek Wall 41:43
I mean, they’re also great. Which one should I pick? AVR Husker that post up the Husker? Yeah. This is a ornamental postop retrofit kit for streetlights, municipalities, mostly, some, something like the cookie cutter housing developments have postop style fit fixtures, and we can make any color temperature with any of the three CRI is 7080 90. That’s that’s a separate topic. But our mission on this, we call it the Husker to shuck the corn cobs out of the marketplace for this in a corncob has just led screw and lamb. Yeah, it’s typically really heavy compared to what it’s replacing. So everything inside the fixture is meant to support a really super light halogen lamp or metal halide. Where if you shake that stuff with like that, what’s the word?

Devin Wall 42:54
vibration? Low frequency vibrations.

Derek Wall 42:57
There you go. Oh, yeah, that new lamp, you’re gonna see that thing leaning on the side of the the big plastic globe that it’s inside. Nice. So we make a dedicated, will custom make a mounting plate for your fixture, we can even do a free photometric report on it. And that thing’s not shaken up.

Curt Anderson 43:20
That’s awesome. Absolutely awesome. And again, have all your benefits right here for the product. And in you’re just speaking right to that. That buyer, like you said, Devin, you know, trying to help them make their life so much easier on right down the line here. And so this is absolutely fantastic.

Devin Wall 43:38
Like the one the first major job we did up in Milwaukee, our sales guy was like, Hey, how was the install, like the two samples and he goes, he goes, it was quicker than the corncob style lamp. And we’re just like, what? And he goes yeah, so that like we really set people up for success on the ease of install. And we were both kind of like man, I thought that was easier because you still have to do some even with the screw and lamps you still have to cut wires and do all this other stuff inside the fixture to make it work. So the way we had it set up it would just wait easier for the guy to get it done.

Curt Anderson 44:16
That is absolutely awesome. So alright, guys, so Alright, so So anybody out there listening any manufacturers and you’re like, Okay, I’m trying to I’m getting this process down. I want to speak to my ideal customer. I want to make that great first impression. So again, whether it’s your LinkedIn profile, maybe it’s your website, maybe it could be a YouTube video. You want to dedicate yourself as Devon’s describing, help your customer by make their life easier, demonstrate that you’re dedicated to those solutions. Now, Marsha, my friend, I want to pull you in. Let’s talk a little bit about content, creating blog posts. You did an absolutely amazing job you hit a homerun if you guys check out this blog post here Marsha created this from scratch. Check this baby out. Look at this. Marsha can go through the process with IMEC. Can you describe like, what went on here? Like, how did you how did you create such an amazing piece of content here?

Marcia Herrig 45:15
Well, obviously I did not do it by myself. So, Nicole, so I worked with Kurt Nichol. They talked about hub and spoke as Hub and Spoke activity. And we were doing it up. Do what? What do you call them DWI do with you. Yeah. Right. So we had an assignment homework, which I love homework. So we had to do a hub and spoke activity at the same time that these guys were launching this new product. So I thought this would be a great way to. So I put together hub and spoke, which is the product in the middle and then a bunch of questions around. And then I sent all the questions to Derek or Devin. And I made, I didn’t make Deb and I asked Devin to just speak to his, you know, answer these questions and record himself using otter AI, which is a tool that you guys have showed us it creates a transcript of whatever you’re speaking. So all I had to do was take his answers, cleaned them up a little bit and added some pictures and added right there, ordered list and put together this blog post. And I really did minimal typing. I did not sit down and think how am I going to respond to Derek or Devin just answered all the questions and I just cleaned him up. And he even referenced a government website. So we could get that backlink in there. And yeah, it worked really easily.

Curt Anderson 46:41
So Devin, talk about from your perspective, would you’ve ever had time? Could you have typed up something like this?

Devin Wall 46:48
Yes, but it would have been like a year from now. Yeah.

Marcia Herrig 46:54
The timing on this was perfect, because he was practicing a pitch. So it worked great.

Curt Anderson 47:00
Right. So Devin talk, so just talk a little bit about you know, this process, from your perspective on how rewarding or you know, like how, you know, working together with Marcia, as a team that you are able to put this out in now, if distributor, Dan, or contracts or Carl needs this product, and they’re like, Well, I want a little bit more information. And these will be common, like frequently asked questions about this product anyway, talk about this, from your perspective on how it was working with Marsha on this project?

Devin Wall 47:28
Well, you know, the email hits my inbox, she’s like, I need you to answer and talk about all these questions. I’m just like, Oh, boy. All right. And so you know, I’m like, alright, you know, we’ve done the otter AI Kurtz, like if you’re in the car by yourself, turn it on, and just start talking. Except every time I do that, like my dad will call me and I’m like, Where did I leave off in the speech. So this one I was doing in my office, and I just look at these questions. And what helps is actually knowing your product to get this stuff done. Because there was only a few notes I looked at, when coming up with this. And being a blog post, not like something you’d send out, you can talk a little bit more like, you know, that people are, it’s easier to receive and less terminology out there than doing like a full on boring presentation, putting people to sleep. So that was my approach is like, hey, kind of talk about this on like a regular person would understand it. Not in the lighting industry. That’s what I meant by regular person there. So providing the terms and knowing the product, it’s just easier to talk about it when you know your product, there really is no studying pen to the paper or, you know, turning on auto AI and just start talking and going through and just have your sections on there. And just kind of expand on those ideas. You know, obviously, there’s a little editing after the fact. But it’s a great way to get this down. Even though I’m a fast typer it’s easier to talk than to type because you can talk a lot faster than you can type or at least I can. So it’s a great feature to have. And then we end up with a sweet looking blog post on our UVC err panel sanitizer.

Curt Anderson 49:12
Exactly, there’s your Rick rate there UVC air purifier. And so again, I that’s a big round of applause to you guys for doing such an awesome job. I was so proud. You guys put out this great content. So I’m going to stop sharing. I’m going to come back to you guys. And so I’m

Derek Wall 49:28
alright. Hey, where was otter AI when I was a student? Yeah. Imagine sitting in class and being like, putting your pen down and just hitting a button and then being able to go back and look at the notes from directly from your professor.

Michelle Fossett 49:44
I agree. The best

Derek Wall 49:48
church before because one of one of our pastors, he’s talks really fast and it captured every word and I was able to revisit some of the stuff I wanted, you know, couldn’t Yeah, couldn’t process.

Curt Anderson 50:02
Isn’t that like you can use Damon use otter basically every day, don’t you? Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s hard to imagine even not having it. And now like, Man, I even thought about that you can use it at church. So instead of taking notes at church, you can just have auto rate on your phone and just record everything. So Alright guys, I know Mike, we’re keeping you I know Devin, you’ve gotta you’ve gotta run you’ve got things to do. So as we let’s let’s wind down on we’ll start winding down on this. So Michelle, let’s talk about iMac and the Grow Your Future Program SEO boost. When a manufacturer caught knocks on me and MEPs door and a project as this kind of just talk about, like, how does that pride like, you know, they’re completely brand new to you for the first time knocking on your door? What would they expect when they reach out to someone like you?

Michelle Fossett 50:49
We actually we help them through this process. It’s step by step, they’re not alone. So if they struggle, or they don’t know where to begin, or they’re curious, it’s a conversation communication, it’s been seems to be the theme. Communication is the key, we need to listen to what the clients looking for what they might have for struggles. If we don’t know we go right back to you Curt, the expert and pull you in and say, here’s what we have, are they in the right direction, and the client appreciates it, it could be a step back, it could be other way it beyond this. So we walk them through that and make sure that this is really truly a good fit. It’s a simple application. And then we run from there and communicate with them along the way on the steps they need to take to launch a project with the party that they’ve been that they’ve been partnered with. So it’s a partnership amongst all of us to make it really work and communication.

Curt Anderson 51:41
Yeah, that’s perfect. So Devin, when you knocked on IMAX door to come in, like what were expectations? When you picked up when you selected? You know, there was Michelle described there was a option, a menu of options to choose from, what was going through your mind or what were your expectations when you are darker? You got that one?

Derek Wall 51:58
Yeah, I’m gonna steal this one from you. So, if you’re a manufacturer, and you’re not engaged with IMEC, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Do yourself a favor, and get on their email list. Something is gonna come up where it stands out and you’re gonna register for a webinar and want to learn more, then you’re gonna get assigned. You know, somebody that helps you directly. Big shout out to Amy Clary, if you’re listening. Thank you. Yes, she’s awesome. Same kind of little thing. She came in here. I gave her a tour. She’s like, You guys are awesome. I want to help you. Right? In nice. She She watched she gets a notified when I watch webinars. So she’s like, I see really like all this web stuff. She’s like, we have a program coming out. And she emailed me saying make sure you sign up for this webinar. I’m like, already, I was planning on it. Thanks for the reminder. And they’re just genuinely trying to help you. Right? There’s no cost to being part of iMac. And when she came in here, I was like, Hey, Amy. Like, I don’t remember signing up to be a member. Um, like, is there? Do I owe you something? She’s like, No, this is all free. Okay, so manufacturers out there. Just get on their email, please.

Curt Anderson 53:31
Right. Man, how about that one? That was

Michelle Fossett 53:34
amazing. Yeah. If he’s right about Amy, Amy knows her stuff. She’s got a fabulous background. She’s one example of the regional managers we have out there that go face to face you know, you get me virtually you get me on the phone, but you need that face to face interaction and those that want to they want to come in, they want to see your facility and be there. And yes, there is no membership with us nothing at all. If someone wants project work that’s beyond what we can offer for free. We talk about it. And we talk about what that training looks like. Of course we have them we do the leadership strategy, customer engagement workshop workforce operations, but we we talk about what’s that path, that strategic plan, where do you want to see yourself What’s your goals? So we have experts out there that have been in the shoes of all these manufacturers have worked right in those factories just like them and been out in those plants. And that’s the nice part. Most all of us have some kind of manufacturing background. So this is fabulous. Thanks for the shout out and that’s what makes it fun is just to work with great manufacturers every day. So thank you. It’s awesome.

Curt Anderson 54:41
That Michelle, let’s let’s run with that for a second. You have you are blessed with an amazing incredible team of subject subject matter experts. Amen. We had no wine a program recently of course we had so we our friend Melissa Zerbo. Your director is phenomenal. Dr. David belay Simone own Paula, Christy John’s, I’m probably leaving out 40 Some other people, but talk about like just the wealth of talent and expertise on the IMEC. Team. And again, not just also, like you said, lean operational excellence, you guys have all sorts scared a little bit there,

Michelle Fossett 55:16
we do it. So the operational excellence, the nice part is is, before I rolled over completely to project manager, I did a large amount of outreach myself and talk to manufacturers across the state of Illinois. And one of the things is sometimes manufacturers just don’t know where to start. And so it’s just talking about what’s going on in their business. In so we will come in and do an operational excellence assessment and just walk through your facility with you and do an assess a complimentary assessment on what’s going on, what do they see, what are they observe, it could be lien, it could be strategy that may be with the workforce through questions and answers, we do pulse surveys just to hear how those employees are feeling you know about things there. You may think that even in small businesses, because we focus on small to mid size manufacturers, and we really want to hear and help you continue to thrive. So the experts we have have worked have been presidents of organizations, they could be, they could have men managing shop floors, they their engineering background. So it’s a real diverse group. And we’re excited because we just Paula, that you mentioned, she’s our D AI expert. And she has been fabulous. She’s all she’s brought this program up in such a short amount of time. And it’s exactly what was needed at the time and talking with her is educational for us in we internally learned a lot in a recent mentoring part that I’m part of a mentor for our new people. And she taught us in our training, so many things. So we’re excited to have her and her approach, just like with our, you know, customer engagement and things like that. So we’re really have a lot of exciting things that are happening. And we’re trying to grow with the industry, and what the manufacturers wants. So we are always asking, you know, what’s going on? What do you what do you need? And we all know we need workforce. But what can we do to get to that point? Could it be automation? Do we need to look at automation? And what does that look like and educating manufacturers on what that is? Because we’re doing automation assessments all the time in there’s some very reasonable ways to automate and still maximize what your current employees are doing. So we’re excited at what we’ve been able to take those next steps and help manufacturers with,

Curt Anderson 57:36
well, hats off to iMac because I’ve been working with Paul and Simone we’ve lined up we have like a 12 part webinar series. And we’re playing our part, you know, we have a nice lineup of diverse speakers. And kudos to iMac for really leading the charge to take bring on somebody on the team, leading that the DEI and so Paul is just just a winner, a leader and Damon we’re interviewing Simone and Paula the day after Labor Day, so we’re going to be taking a dive with those two ladies. They are dynamos Oh, that’s going to be super exciting. Marsha, I want to pull you back in. Can you just share boy, you are phenomenal. Just it’s again, just love working with you. You’re just a breath of fresh air, you tend to all sorts of different anything that we threw out there or you were in attendance. What was your experience working with iMac and like communication? What just share with the folks, what was your experience going through this?

Marcia Herrig 58:27
Well, I kind of to piggyback off what Derek said, I still get emails, you know, I subscribe to right get emails from my iMac. And I always look for the things that I feel like pertain to me. But I’m amazed at how many things that I don’t really feel like pertain to me that are offered. So that’s really awesome. And working through IMEC. I we were introduced to Kurt, we did the SEO boost. I’ve done some LinkedIn lot. LinkedIn workshops. I’ve done some like more technical kind of workshops where we talk about header, alt tags and headers and h1 tags. And so that’s been really helpful to kind of the nitty gritty stuff too. So I feel like I’ve learned a lot in the couple of months that I’ve been, you know, working here and manufacturing and working with this group of people that I met and perfect.

Curt Anderson 59:20
Thank you and it’s just an absolute joy working with you. Devin let’s take it home. I know Tara and a while are waiting for you. We’ve got a little things going. So big shout out to Tara man, we send our love to Tara, just a few could take it home, your experience expectations, your thoughts of going through work and your experience of working with IMEC and going through this program.

Devin Wall 59:43
Well, these guys are like the best employee you don’t have to pay they actually pay you. So looking at looking at all the things that they offer and even if they don’t offer that service, they’re going to line you up with the people that do handle it with like the US government In small business, and then they’ll they’ll follow up for you, on your behalf while you’re still engaged on these people saying, Hey, we don’t handle the out of country trade shows, but this guy over here, he’ll do it for you, Oh, you want to find another grant will then help pull down and get someone lined up with you to access funds to help pay for some of these things overseas. Or, there’s just so much out there that these guys can help manufacturers like us better themselves, without like, really the only thing you got invested your time, and how important is your business to you very important to us. So that’s what we’re taking the time and working on this stuff after hours. So it doesn’t pull through our daily activities, but still chipping away and working on getting all this stuff accomplished to not only better ourselves, but provide a better atmosphere for our employees, co workers, and customers and everything that it touches from here to when it gets installed into the ceiling. And it just kind of fun, that these resources like, Man, how long I’ve been doing this, and we’ve just started getting engaged, like this year, it’s like, man, we’ve been wasting a lot of time not getting these guys engaged. So it’s, you know, it’s like, Man, I wish we would have found out about it sooner, or just that there. But like Derek said, Get engaged, sign up for their email list. And just ask them because they’re here to help everyone outlets like us, help us out. And, you know, it’s kind of the fun thing is, and they love seeing that too. And they get excited, you get excited. And you know, there is work to be done. But that stuff is only going to make you better in the future. And currently, you’re going to learn to grow yourself how to better yourself in what things are going, you know, some of this stuff I didn’t know. But now I you know, learning more about it and how it gets done. I appreciate Marsha’s work, because I’m like, well, it would have taken me forever to kind of help figure this out. So you know, that’s why we call her the digital marketing goddess, because she makes us look really good online, with when I get these ideas in my head and say, We gotta do this and make it look like that. And here we go. I’m like, I don’t know how it’s gonna look like, but I know you’re gonna make it look pretty. So it’s just a lot of fun. And, yeah, I mean, the IMEC in groups like them that are out there that they work with, and they don’t handle it, they’re also bound to help us out because that’s what the our taxpayer dollars are at work. So I guess we do kind of pay for the taxpayers hands. But you know, you got to take advantage of it, because it’s here, and they’re here to help you out. And, you know, we felt nothing but great success coming out here and getting lined up with Kurt and, you know, helping us better ourselves, and, you know, being more reachable on the top hits on Google and all this backend work you got to do, you know, just to make it appear better online to all these guys and the tips and tricks that we’ve learned. You know, and just keep on keep that playbook and you just keep on updating, you know, as you breath in your products and services and whatever else.

Curt Anderson 1:02:59
Yeah, that’s Devon, thank you, man, that is absolutely awesome. And Damon, we talk a lot about you know, for manufacturers out there, we always say this, you’re not alone, not in a silo, sometimes it feels like it, you’re just so you know, head down and, you know, nose to the grindstone. But you have an incredible resource, like I met with 50 other subject matter experts in if somebody’s not on their team, they have 50 other states to choose from, they reach out to third party resources, team in any any takeaways, we’ve talked to dozens of MEP folks that we program, anything that you want to share, from your perspective,

Damon Pistulka 1:03:32
that is just to restate what’s been stated, I mean, and Paul said this as well, because I know Paul Van Meter use the MVPs a lot as he was growing his machine shop business and, and, and, and SBDCs, as well, but the MVPs are such a good resource for manufacturers. And, and how when I was running manufacturing companies I didn’t know about the MEPs and I sure could have benefited a ton from it. And you know, you just don’t, it’s such a good place to go to get trusted resources, you don’t have to bet on you know, you can just and and to their focus on organizing around the current challenges of the constituent manufacturers in their area. So they can be very geographical too, because if you you know, there’s pockets in the US where labor is not as much a concern as other places or, or the you know, could be environmental concerns that we’re running into because of recent regulations in an area. There’s just so many different things that can help you with that, that just get out and find your MVP get out and get on and find out.

Curt Anderson 1:04:36
Absolutely. So we have a great lineup we have like Allison to Ford is doing a webinar raise a gun Oh, you’re doing a webinar next month we have doing a webinar on LinkedIn. For iMac tomorrow. 1130 Central time I dropped in the box. So Michelle, take us home any last parting thoughts? Anybody out there they can find you an iMac. Anything that you want to share less less thoughts?

Michelle Fossett 1:04:59
Yeah, I mean If you’re out there and you’re in a different state, feel free to contact me connect with me on LinkedIn. And just ask and I’m glad to get you connected with an MVP in your state, that’s sometimes even easier. Because we always say, we’re one of the best kept secrets, and people don’t realize what’s out there. And, you know, the services that are provided, we did like, you know, like you said, Damon, we try to find you the grants. And if we don’t have them, they’re out there. But you know, and if it’s if it’s something that needs to be paid, we talk about it because there’s a trusted resources. And that’s Damon, you couldn’t have said it any better about that we have already vetted them, we know that they’re going to be true to how they perform and but if they’re not, we need to learn. And so we are constantly testing ourselves and making sure that we’re doing the work good things that we’re supposed to be doing for you as manufacturers. So definitely just reach out to me, I’m glad to connect you with whoever you would like to have talked to in your state and get you started. But we definitely want to see manufacturers continue to survive and thrive here in the US, not only in Illinois, but across the entire United States. For sure.

Curt Anderson 1:06:05
Manufacturing is where all the cool kids are hanging out. So let’s take it home. Derek Devin, any last words, we want to encourage everybody to connect with you guys on LinkedIn, please connect with Marsha. You’re just starting things out on LinkedIn. Connect with Michelle of course on LinkedIn, check out the louvers website, they have a lot of new exciting things going on. Derek Devin, any parting thoughts anything that you want to share as we close out

Derek Wall 1:06:31
I just want to thank you again for having us on. I think you know sharing our story, hopefully some some people can take advantage of of our momentum and I don’t know Have a good day and great week.

Curt Anderson 1:06:48
Absolutely. Devin any words of wisdom you want to put out on a part as we close out here?

Devin Wall 1:06:54
Nah, I just say enjoy what you do love what you do and don’t worry about making money focus on the customer and you know the the problems and make those problems aren’t problems are just you haven’t found the solution or answer form yet so the glass is always half full and when it’s when it gets to half full, we just grab another beer and pour it in there. So that’s what you do and you know just use use relationships and groups like I make and other MVPs out there to your advantage are here to help and they have been a great help to us. And you know we’ll continue to work with them down the line and take advantage and stuff you know make us better.

Curt Anderson 1:07:37
How about this over here manufacturing his life we got schanberg lino here today and of course our dear friend Dan bigger cut the line. So guys, we’re gonna close out Derek Devin Marsha. Thank you thank you thank you thank you it’s been such an honor and privilege as being part of your life part of your journey or your business over the past few months. Michelle thank you for your trust I just it’s such a joy and privilege be on your team was unite boy we make a good duel I think so we do. I’ve just speak for myself but anyway, I love Okay,

Michelle Fossett 1:08:07
I agree.

Curt Anderson 1:08:10
Amen. Thank you What dude, I don’t know how we’re so blessed to have such folks on on this program week in and week out. So David, thank you brother. appreciate you sharing this stage with me. So guys go out have an amazing incredible week boy if you’re not fired up right now, if you’re not ready to go up and light things up like they are doing that louvers International and an iMac. Boy, we need to we need to talk so guys have an awesome week. Damon has phases of business on Tuesdays and Thursdays at three o’clock Pacific six o’clock Eastern time. Damon we’re back here this Friday with our program. So guys have a blessed week and we will talk to you soon hang out everybody for one second.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
We’re gonna close up. Here we go.