Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Michelle Jones

Curt Anderson 0:01
Here we go, man live happy Monday. Damon, what an amazing weekend is it? It’s like football crazy. Wow. Alright, so for our friends in LA congratulations. They are off to the Super Bowl. But more importantly, let’s talk about our dear friends and the Buckeye State the great state of Ohio. Yeah, bangles are off to the Super Bowl. Damon, I want to introduce oh, by the way, what a coincidence. I mean, introduce you to my friend, Michelle Jones, who happens to be in well, maybe not this minute, but she’s from the great state of Ohio. Michelle, happy Monday. How are you?

Michelle Jones 0:33
Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon from wherever you are. I’m great. I’m doing great. Yeah. Guys go Ohio. Unfortunately, I live a little closer to Cleveland. So more of a brown

Curt Anderson 0:44
browns. That’s what I figured I figured my browns. But you know, for our friends down in southwest Ohio. God bless him. We were super excited, Joe. And what is up with Joe, bro. So anyway,

Damon Pistulka 0:54
that was an amazing game board. And

Curt Anderson 0:57
we are here to talk about manufacturing with Michelle. Michelle. Man, we have so much to cover in such a short period of time. I’m going to kick off things. You had a little exciting news a few months ago, I believe maybe October ish. Once you tell everybody I know like I noticed Michelle Miller Jones, what’s going on with the name thing? Did you have some big news in October?

Michelle Jones 1:16
I mean, maybe just you know, kind of like one of the biggest life changing things you’ll ever experience. You know, I got married. So you got

Curt Anderson 1:23
married. Congratulations.

Michelle Jones 1:24
Thank you. So um, I read in end of September and spent the beginning of October on my honeymoon. So for now, my whole life I’ve been Michelle Miller went from I think the sixth most common last name in the United States to the fifth movie. So that’s why you see that little parentheses there with Miller get there. That way people can still find um, but it’s Jones Michelle Jones moving forward. So yeah,

Curt Anderson 1:52
and this is because Damon like we’ve had like, total like brutal names for this past month or like I was practicing them for a week. Yes. See, when I was preparing for Michelle. I was like, I think I know Miller. And I think I know Jones. So this is like the two of the easiest. So like, you didn’t have like my wife had like a really goofy maiden name and she was so glad to have Anderson. So God bless you. Congratulations. How a newlywed world treating you

Michelle Jones 2:14
it’s fun it’s an adventure we did we did all the things you do you know you read the books you go to premarital counseling, you do all the things and there’s nothing diving right into it though. So it’s it’s fun. It’s a journey and it’s it’s an incredible blessing. So yeah, it’s exciting.

Curt Anderson 2:29
Well awesome. Well let’s take let’s take a deep dive you are a just an inspirational entrepreneur, you have a great business that I want to dig into and kind of Lo and behold, dear to our heart for Dave and myself. We love connecting with folks in the manufacturing space and that’s boy you are just a relentless marketer for contractors construction roofers, man of all things manufacturing. So I want to talk a little bit about yourself today because we’re going to we’re going to go back in time, but share a little bit about your your I love the What’s New in your business. I love the name of your business. Please share that with everybody

Michelle Jones 3:03
creative eight, so that would have been the thing to pronounce. I guess if you had to pretend to print I had to create something a little bit more difficult since my name is so easy I guess. But it’s a blend of create innovate and cultivate all smashed together into one word so creative eight. That’s yeah, I started I officially I’ve been doing marketing consulting on the side for a couple years now which you know, you’re you really love when you’re doing it for your full time job and then you’re doing it for fun on the side is that when your main hustle and your side hustle are the same thing. It’s like alright, I’m definitely in my life calling you know, so. So yeah, so that’s what I do. So I made the leap and my goal has always been to, to go out on my own. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, a family of manufacturers, and a family of really, really construction types of people and so this has always been my goal so it’s really exciting to finally be living things that you’ve wanted to do your whole life I don’t think I’ll ever be able to cap like their top 2021 with getting married and officially starting my business and all that in the same year. Um but yeah, let’s let’s go for who knows what 2020

Curt Anderson 4:07
It’s running. We’ll throw caution to the wind and I want to give a huge shout out our dear friends with Damon we’d love Jeff Long who’s done in date. Yeah, of course maybe he’s a Bengals fan. You might be excited today. So Jeff Long made this connection with myself and Michelle and again Michelle boy we just instantly hit it off on the phone and great Conversation rate around that that wedding honeymoon time. And so I want to take a let’s let’s go a little bit backwards. So MBA from Case Western. So folks outside of Cleveland or Ohio Case Western elite college, one of the top colleges in the country, great business school. So MBA from Case Western, you’ve done nonprofit work, you worked at a hospital you’ve had a nice little career seaman. I believe you worked at Siemens corporation. So talk a little bit about your path from from, from college on and how like what tagged you in in a marketing and then you have a great family, sir. We’re gonna I’m gonna save that for a minute. Let’s talk about you moving forward, and then we’ll take, we’ll go take a road trip back to your your folks and their business.

Michelle Jones 5:07
Sure. So yeah, college on I knew well, initially, even before college, I thought I wanted to go into the medical field. So I hit nuclear medical technology. Or, and then I realized that for someone, I don’t like rules, I don’t like, you know, like super routine day to day stuff. And that’s kind of what it would have been. So I look back to my roots and what I was naturally drawn to, and it’s more of the creative side of things. And it was more of the business side of things. So marketing was a great fit for me, graduated, and I think the second worst year to graduate and with my marketing degree, but the power of networking is really been heavy. On my mind, I guess recently, I was at a networking session yesterday. And through my networking, I was able to land my first job. And it was actually created for me through Alliance Community Hospital, which is a small hospital in Northeast Ohio. But the CEO liked me my ambition and created the role. So that was really how I got started. So I’m really, really big on networking. And I’m really big on giving back and helping to get others started with their careers since I feel so blessed to have had someone invest in me in that way. And I’ve been really blessed to have a lot of fantastic mentors throughout my career who you know, are lifting me up and lifting others up. So definitely paying it forward is really important. And then just northeast Ohio and pivot and go to Washington, DC and work in government relations, where I advocated for small and women owned businesses. And so what’s funny is I actually one of my clients was women, construction owners and executives, which you want to talk about a group of Bulldogs? Yeah, yeah. Dogs. I mean, those women, they don’t take crap from anyone they like, yeah. So I did that for about a year. But politics wasn’t really my thing. And so I moved back to Ohio. And I think I’m probably one of the last people in the millennial generation to claim that they got a job through a classified ad. Thought ad in the paper for this company. School, didn’t know what they did. Started my job, still didn’t really know what they did. But they I knew they made they were in manufacturing. So they make a high performance industrial coated fabric. So a lot of roofing membranes, geomembranes, architectural fabrics, literary fabrics, you name it, it’s all kinds of really high performance, industrial fabrics. And so that’s really, where I really cut my teeth on a lot of the b2b marketing jobs and skills that I have now. And simultaneously went and got my MBA at Case Western at the same time, as I voted from marketing specialists up to running the marketing department for a few years. And then built, built that and then got recruited to go work for an industrial pump manufacturer for a division of a $1.2 billion company called IDEXX. And they’re called Warren rep. And I was there for about two years. And then I spent some time in Columbus, building another small marketing team for a company that makes enclosures for HVAC that go up on rooftops, and then got engaged and had to make the decision between a fiancee or moving to Columbus, Ohio, which was about an hour and a half from where I was, I picked love. But actually, I picked I picked my I picked my that in my future, just all ever quote about when you get into the flow of things like what you’re doing, doors start open and things happen. So it was the right time to make the leap and my fiancee at the time was incredibly supportive. And so here we are. Nine months.

Curt Anderson 8:51
That is, man there’s so much uncover right there. So Michelle, would I absolutely and you know what boosters us you know, you jump jump on 71 in your rate and Columbus rate downtown in no time at all. So short you know, in marriage best decision you ever make, you know, so we are thrilled we are excited. Congratulations. Great career great choices that you’ve made. Now. What was that major? Again? The medical, new killer medical What was that again?

Michelle Jones 9:14
Nuclear medical technology. It’s like yo, S and stuff like that in the hospital.

Curt Anderson 9:19
What a crazy coincidence. Daymond and I we were going to do the same thing, but we couldn’t spell nucular so we skipped it we went in a dash right so Damon you know what, so what a coincidence we were all gonna go that direction but so just kidding. I never heard of it. So I Michelle you have I it manufacturing entrepreneurship runs in your veins you just can’t even help yourself. You have an awesome story about Mom and Dad, can you please share a little bit what’s going on with mom and dad and their entrepreneurial in their past?

Michelle Jones 9:48
Well, I am who I am because of my parents and I am unbelievably blessed to have the parents that I have. So Gary and Victoria Miller also easy to spell and pronounce names are I’m living my life. close to my hometown. And they my dad and my mom have high school diplomas, and they have a mindset of continuous improvement. They’re hustlers. They’re always like figuring out another way to do things or do things better. They always growing up around dinner, we always had all these business ideas bounced around at the dinner table, we talked about work, my dad bought a wholesale millwork business in 99, or 2000. And grew it. And then unfortunately, when the economic crash of 2008 happened, a lot of his business was going into construction types of materials and products. And in projects, which just took a nosedive. I think their business dropped something like 70%. And they went from 10 full time employees to a small handful. They really felt the effects heart of that crash. And so my dad, who is he’s an engineer by trade, like the, you know, the school of hard knocks makes him like the best engineer in the world. So he was looking at, he was looking at all this sawdust that they were creating as a byproduct and that he was paying to have someone take away. And so he said, Well, what what can I do with this, I need to be doing something with us. So he figured out that you can take sawdust, pure sawdust, and compress it into blocks that you can burn as heat source or firewood replacement, and chimneys and fireplaces and campfires, you can use it for home heating. So he spent a few years tinkering with this, figuring out what’s the right blend of hope and woods. So it compresses the right way. So it has the optimum, most consistent burn. And eventually they ended up liquidating the whole side of the wholesale millwork business to pursue this full time. So when the CIO during that time period, though, when my dad was doing all this development, my mom had gone to work for an insurance company and my mom and dad have always worked together. So she came back and did sales and marketing. And she’s truly an inspiration. She figured out how to do everything, everything, it always on the bookkeeping, but the sales and the marketing side, she figured it all out from she now coordinates all the shipping, she figured out how to get into Ace Hardware. She went on Ace Hardware corporate without a buyer without anyone representing Yeah, went out got and got the account, you can now buy their product at Ace Hardware as well either and I think all the distribution center so all the store option to stock their products. And yeah, they sell they sell all over the place all over the United States. And they get requests for international they sell to restaurants actually really love their products like the woodfired pizza places, as they don’t get all the creosote and all the national debt and it burns very consistently. Yeah. Um, so yeah, my mom and dad, they work together. They’re best friends. They enjoy spending all their free time together. They’re just they’re wonderful, wonderful people and they have a really a wonderful, it’s like the American Dream type of story. Right? You start with that’s kind of nothing and you turn it into something amazing.

Damon Pistulka 13:01
Yeah. Oh, that’s cool.

Curt Anderson 13:04
You’re gonna love this story man. told me that story. I was just on fire of just what an inspiration in look at several things there. You know, when you think of entrepreneurship, like the true Mom and Pop, and here’s a mom and pop were like, you know, best friend’s head over heels in love with each other and just fierce entrepreneurs, manufacturers. You know, little thing happened two years ago, if you guys heard about this, this little COVID pandemic thing kind of like, turn everybody’s lives upside down. A your mom and dad get you, Gary in Victoria, was it? Is that what you said during Victoria? They get hit with, you know, just like the rest of us 2008 night a pretty time. And what do they do? You know, instead of like, Oh, what was me we wait this out? No, they take a great pivot. And mom gets an Ace Hardware guy. So again, man, if you’re not inspired by that, then I don’t know what we need to do today. But that is a great, great story. And just in it’s wonderful to hear your your when you just you how you light up talking about mom and dad. So I’d love like on your LinkedIn profile. And I know when you and I spoke, you have a bunch of great quotes, and I want to get into your marketing process and how you work with manufacturers. Michelle, when I say this phrase, this is how we’ve always done it. What’s your response to that?

Michelle Jones 14:17
Like, well, then that’s why we need to break it.

Curt Anderson 14:19
Yeah, that’s why we need to break it right? Because a pandemic might come along 2008 might come along, but take a little deep dive and not necessarily you know, we’re not being critical. Because, you know, God bless, you know, like, entrepreneurs were a little bit stubborn, do things we forgot it works, and hey, let’s keep running with it. But when you hear that, how do you tactfully or how do you approach your clients? I’m like, Hey, can we see a different way? Can we take a different approach, but when you hear that response, what share a little bit of like your insight or how do you tackle that?

Michelle Jones 14:46
I mean, if we if we go back to the examples and the parallels between 2008 and what happened with the COVID pandemic, especially as it affected manufacturing. We saw some manufacturers kind of shelter in place, hunker down and just kind of, like, keep the lights on. And yeah, but then we saw so much innovation. And I think if you know, we’re not we’re not done with the pandemic yet. But I think I believe we’re on the tail end of it, hopefully. But there’s if you look back, and that the manufacturers that have really adopted and adapted super well, they become flexible, they become agile, they release new products they’ve gotten into new businesses, I am sure you guys have heard all kinds of really cool stories as I about manufacturers who took their products, and they they use them in different ways. I was actually at at Warner up in IDEXX. When this happened, and, and we stayed open, because we were in a central business, so many of our products went to food processing, manufacturing, and hand sanitizer, all that stuff. And we had another business unit that actually developed the spray system to quickly sanitize a hotel or another hotel hospital. And so and it took off like that, and they went they just they pivoted their whole, their whole focus towards that, and they made it happen. So when I hear when I hear clients, they’re like, well, we’ve always done it that way. I’m like, Well, if you do it the way you’ve always done it, you’ll get what you always got. So yeah, you know, why am I here, we’re here because we want to grow, we want to shake things up, whether it’s we want to deepen customer relationships, we want to acquire new customers, whatever it is, if we keep doing it with the same mindset processes, materials, we’re not going to get different results.

Damon Pistulka 16:30
Yeah, yep. And that’s so true in that because you know, you’re going to get what you’re going to get and I think a lot of people don’t realize to on the other side of this is that they’re losing business now, because they’re not adapting. They didn’t see it, it’s moving little teeny increments, and over time that builds up. And there are competitors that are not standing, still waiting to be able to do whatever face to face, or however they sold before. They’re really taken the taken lead on some of these things. And you’d like you said, you saw people pivoting, you saw people looking at different ways to connect with their customers, potential customers, and really move forward. And other people are like, well, we’re going to hunker down and wait. And when we get back out, we’ll start talking to people. And it may never happen the same.

Michelle Jones 17:25
No. And I think it affects not only just the materials or the services that are produced to the products, it affects the mindset to have. I mean, we look at labor, like labor is such an issue right now within the entire base. And so the companies that have been able to say, You know what, we can be flexible, or we can work with you on this, or we can, the ones that are able to do that also the ones that win. So it affects how you treat your customers, it affects products that come out, it affects retention, employee retention. So I work with a with a business coach, so shout out to Christine Hawkman, because she’s awesome, but named her She named her business one degree shifts. And it’s because we I mean, these stories, these incredible stories that we hear of these huge radical pivots, like I just mentioned, they’re awesome, but they’re definitely the exception. They’re not the norm. It’s those tiny things that you do every day. Yeah, one degree at a time, that change the entire trajectory of where your ship is headed. And I think that’s really

Damon Pistulka 18:25
bad actually, because it’s not big, huge things you have to do its little improvements every day to keep moving towards the end goal.

Curt Anderson 18:33
So good, you know, Daymond and I rank we’ve had a couple of guests where they preach about like the 1% better. That’s common in motivation books. I personally have never heard that one degree and I love that Michelle, man this is fire. I knew this was gonna be good. This is so good. So Michelle, you know it’s not you know, when you hear about your folks, it’s not you know, you’re dedicated to continuous improvement, dedicated to change, marketing acumen, so on and so forth. So let’s do a little roleplay Okay, so Damon and I don’t know if you noticed, we’re not we’re not we’re not so young anymore. Right? Well, Damon is but I’m not. So you encounter a couple entrepreneurs who are you know, we’re Gen X we’re digital immigrants or older crusty. We’ve kind of done it this way. So let’s let’s take a deep dive into the manufac into the marketing for manufacturing scope. Okay, so you got a couple of dudes like us and you’re feeling a little resistant on like, you know, I don’t like social media people are posting what they had for dessert on Facebook and that added up talk a little bit about the pot like our relationship right here alone Damon i are through LinkedIn talk about So for folks out there a little bit resistant share like How do you tackle that and what advice do you have for people on how to better network market themselves through social

Michelle Jones 19:45
their social specifically, or

Curt Anderson 19:48
just in just in general just online internet marketing however you want whatever direction you want to go, you take the ball and run with

Michelle Jones 19:54
it. Um, I definitely experienced this in a very personal level within my career within companies that have been just they’ve just been very resistant to it, and I tried different things. So this is coming from experience, you can try to make them think it’s their idea. It’s obviously on Facebook, they’re not on Instagram, like, they’re not ever going to convince them that it’s their idea. I mean, never say never, but rarely you will convince them. Um, the thing, the thing that I’ve found, has worked for me is to say, just what do we have to lose? You know, we can stay here, and we can analyze all of these things that could go wrong, but what about all the things that could go right? So let’s test it, let’s trial run it, let’s give me 30 days, and you can approve, if it’s social media, for example, I will give you a bucket of posts, and you can pre approve all of them, we can weekly, I can let you know what’s going on. This is something that I am willing to stake, my reputation, my career whatever on because I believe so strongly in it. The other really cool thing that we have as marketers that we have never had before in the last, you know, until the last decade is data, we have data actually drive our decisions now, across every platform, and the data is getting so much more robust with all the different Google tags, and all the integrations that you can do between different platforms. So you can actually start to connect these dots. Whereas before you could never connect a billboard, you know, that’s maybe someone called us because they saw our name on a billboard. But also, that’s not really where our target persona hangs out. So it’s super, super granular, and super pointed with, Hey, here’s where our exact ideal customer hangs out. Here are the things that we need to do if you create a customer persona. For example, one of those things based on this persona, which if you know, Damon, disagree, there’s I’m showing you this, this evidence, here’s our persona that we all agreed on, well, this persona hangs out on LinkedIn, they’re on LinkedIn, rather than trying to hit them with a direct mail or do a paid ad or something and hope they see it, let’s go directly to where they hang out. And let’s speak to them in their language. So I know that’s a lot of different things kind of all. But really, hopefully, there’s some if anyone out there is struggling with this right now, hopefully one of those types of one of those nuggets will be useful to you in some way. And if if something doesn’t work, try another method. But I’m also a little bit relentless. That was so so very persistent. So if someone isn’t not in favor of something, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s the right thing. I’m, you know, I double down on it. It’s something that’s done.

Curt Anderson 22:41
That is perfect. So eight and John dropped a hello, hello, John, Happy Monday to you. So Michelle, let’s do this. We’ll flip the script a little bit. So thank you. So guys, you know, look what we’re talking here. So inspiration, you know, entrepreneurship runs a Michelle’s blood, heavy duty on targeting manufacturers, contractors, construction, roofers, you name it, she’s passionately going after it. So I’ve just done a little bit of roleplay, that may be playing a little bit of devil’s advocate of like, targeting a different generation. Let’s talk about the folks if someone’s listening to this right now they are head over heels in love. And Michelle, and we need some Michelle on our team. And so there is no resistance, they are just ready to rock and roll. Talk a little bit about your company and I and I love how you, you know, for so we’re gonna dig in Persona posts, so on and so forth. So folks that are raising her hand, say, Michelle, please help me. Let’s take it. Let’s go. Let’s keep running with this ball right now. So talk, walk everybody walk us through your process and how you help folks, and how you make them look like rock stars?

Michelle Jones 23:40
Well, first of all, if that’s the point, you’ve gotten to I applaud you, 100%. Because even just recognizing that you need to be doing something differently, especially within your marketing is a huge first step. So I absolutely fantastic. So in my case, if I have someone come to me and say that and they will say they’re a manufacturer, I like to sit down with them and talk through their goals. Tell me about your business. Tell me about the background. Tell me about the history. What is your customer base look like? How many customers do they have? How often do they order? What’s the average size of the order? I mean, we go through, it’s all about No, I want to learn as much about it’s kind of like a date, right? I want to learn about you as I possibly can. And then what I do is if if there’s no plan in place, or not a lots been done, or it’s one of those situations where it’s Michelle, I know we need to be doing something but I don’t know what I take all of that information, especially what your growth goals are, which markets you’d like to target which products you’d like to see additional growth in. And I build marketing around those. So I don’t have a checklist of like, oh, every every every potential client I work with is exactly the same and gets the same is very, very custom for what your specific goals are. I have some clients that they want to deepen their customer relationships, they know they can grow their business Just by engaging with their existing already, that’s your goal, we’re not going to go out and start randomly. Doing Google paid ads, we have a group of knowns, you know who your people are, you know where your business is coming from. On the flip side of that, if you’re, hey, Michelle, I have this awesome product, and we want to get it out to the world, or, Hey, we just want to see our business grow. And we need to identify more prospects, you have a bucket of unknowns. So we got to find those unknowns, and we got knowns. So there’s different strategies that you put in place that and so then I love putting together these plans, because they’re, they’re so custom, and they’re so specific to each person and to each client. So and then we work together. And sometimes it’s me overseeing and making recommendations on different vendors, I work, I have my approved network of vendors that I personally have worked with, as a client with them before. And I brought them along with me. So whether it’s graphic design folks, or search engine optimization, or whatever, cherry pick, then who you work with, and you work with the best of the best. Yeah, you don’t have to get you know, you’re not getting an Asia typical agency. Where are you? You’re paying for all these things you don’t need. It’s very specific and very targeted. So that’s my, that’s how my business is structured. And that’s, it’s been a lot of fun that way, actually, because it is, rather than just doing a lot of things and hoping results. It’s a very targeted way. Kurt, we talked about niching and then niching. Down again, it’s from a client perspective.

Damon Pistulka 26:35
Yeah. Can that’s, that’s, it’s funny, you say that, and that’s how we set our business off of eggs your way as, as we have tons of specialists that we work with, because you just don’t know what every business situation is unique. And you have to be able to adapt to the unique situations rather than trying to fit that situation into your agency model. Right? I really think that’s a that’s a definite downfall of the agency model is like, you know, we we need something different, and, and custom for us. And it might be a little bit, it might be a lot, but you can bring the right pieces together.

Michelle Jones 27:14
There’s no one size fits all. Yeah. When I worked for manufacturers, I would have other vice presidents or leadership team members coming to me and saying, Hey, our competitors are doing this or Hey, so So is doing that. Why aren’t we not? And I say cuz? Because we’re not them. Like, yeah, know what their goals are. That’s compare, you know? Yeah. Right. People and say expect to get the same outcome. Yeah.

Curt Anderson 27:36
Comparison itis it’s awful disease. Right? It is it is.

Damon Pistulka 27:40
So I was thinking about and I’m a Business nerd. I’ll just say that right out. Over the weekend. I was thinking about this. Do you think that marketing has really become a part of sales? Because it is so necessary?

Michelle Jones 27:58
Marketing? Yeah. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 28:01
Yeah. Well, I just people call us marketing. But I’m just saying, a lot of people think of marketing as optional. And I’m thinking, and I was thinking of it in the context of successful companies don’t view marketing as optional. They view it as part of the sales process. Yes, it’s not the same thing. But it is necessary if we really want to grow like we want to grow.

Michelle Jones 28:26
Yeah. And that’s why terms like sales enablement are out there. And that’s why it’s a huge part of marketing Account Based Marketing. One of my colleague Dave Loomis wrote a book called Marketing is everything we do. And it’s so true because it is either you intentionally put energy into your brand or not, that’s still your brand. But Summit, I’m actually in New Orleans right now at the International roofing Expo. And yesterday was National Women in roofing shout out to all my women roofers out there. But I was talking to one of a very large roofing company actually and for years, they didn’t have a logo, they didn’t have a brand. They didn’t have any of those things. And we were just talking about how even your no brand is still a brand, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s when I define marketing, it’s literally from before someone hears about you in the first encounter they have all the way through finding your your people that are your advocates and your writer, your di clients, they would you know, they support you, or you they refer you marketing is everything in there. Because it is its brand its sales. It’s it’s it’s yeah, it’s literature, its materials and stuff like that, but it’s all those softer touch points to that make a big difference and and how you find your voice and how you talk about yourself. So whether that’s a sales pitch, or it’s the recording on the phone, or it’s the automated emails that go out your brand is everything and brand aligns with marketing. So yeah, if you’re, if a company isn’t embracing marketing, I mean They’re kind of their last bit, I guess you’d expect a marketer to say,

Damon Pistulka 30:05
Man, I was I was just I was thinking about it. From a practical standpoint, though. I mean, I don’t know how you’re going to compete long term over the next, say 10 years without some sort of marketing. And like you said, everything is marketing. And I just don’t I don’t see it in many businesses being able to survive long term if you’re not.

Michelle Jones 30:27
Yeah, and I think we’re at a really pivotal point here, too. I mean, we are right at the cusp of, I’ve heard so many conversations. And I know Kurt, this is also kind of your specialty. E commerce for b2b. It hasn’t been completely figured out yet. There’s yeah, there’s a lot of different models. There’s a lot of different vendors that are getting into it. There’s a lot of businesses that are exploring it. So if you’re already behind right now, on your business model, you’re still keeping, you know, writing great notes. I mean, nothing against paper, I love handwriting notes. But if your CRM, for example, is still in an Excel sheet, and still like making copies of things, you’re a little behind right now, what businesses figure out how to do b2b e commerce, the ships gonna sail and you’re going to be back at the court. I mean, it’s just so yeah, right now, I think is a really pivotal time to make sure that if the factures actually get up to speed, and start to embrace the digital revolution, or whatever you want to call it, but really start to embrace how these tools, they’re not another burden. If they’re used properly, and you get the right tools. They can really, really power your business and help you grow.

Curt Anderson 31:36
Yeah, we need we need to get this. Good. And we need I have to recap a couple of things here, Michelle. So first off demo, we’re gonna get T shirts that made that say, What could go right, what a absolute half full positive outlook, what a great way to spin that, you know, hey, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Right? What could go right? I just love that Michelle dropped the mic on that one. You had, you know, no, brand, is a brand. Yeah, he’s like, alright, they when we do this, you know, it’s lunchtime and east coast here. Savor it, let’s take a moment. to savor that one. No brand, is a brand by Michelle Jones, Michelle Jones, what a great you know, so in you know, and that’s, you know, as marketers, it’s so easy for us, you know, I was, I hope I never come across like I’m pointing fingers. Because I say if I had a persona and Avatar, who’s trying to find me on Facebook, or on Twitter, or Instagram, I’m not on those places, I’m probably missing an enormous amount of business by not being there. But I would have a really bad presence there. So what my point with this no brand is a brand. Michelle, if you have a website from 2005, if you are neglecting your website, I see all sorts of websites that don’t have an SSL certificate. They still are showing Google Plus Google Plus went out of business in what 2018 or something like that, you know, if you are showing yourself data you are that is your brand. I know we’re running over time, but that was man, kudos to you for that. That was so good.

Michelle Jones 33:12
Thanks. I know I feel like we could talk for hours about Yeah, we could talk.

Curt Anderson 33:18
So let me hit you with a couple things because I don’t mean you’re down in New Orleans. You’re done in the big stuff talking to me and Damon here so we need to get you on we need if I just

Damon Pistulka 33:27
say something if you’re a World War Two, if you like any of that go to that museum is absolutely fantastic. Yes.

Michelle Jones 33:35
The reception there tonight that I’m going to go Yeah. Oh, it’s incredible.

Curt Anderson 33:39
Just make us more jealous. Michelle. So yeah, no, no, she’s alright. What we’re going to wrap up on a couple of things. What is roofers coffee shop? Roofers coffee shop? Please enlighten us.

Michelle Jones 33:51
Yes. refers Coffee Shop is a fantastic community. It’s it’s a community basically for for roofers to discuss all types of business issues, from hiring, to succession planning, to marketing to whatever it is, but it’s a place to connect. Manufacturers get engaged consultants get engaged. It’s owned by a dear friend of mine, Heidi Ellsworth, who is another amazing woman advocate and roofing. And she’s really grown it over the last 510 years, but it’s a great place to be so. So I do a little writing occasionally for them. Nice,

Curt Anderson 34:25
is awesome. So in Glamis demon, our director, our bestie Glamis, Manhattan, she is a fierce women. female entrepreneur. Michelle, she’s with the Small Business Development Center at Columbia University. year in year out she’s always voted like top advisor of New York State, so Glamis, my heart, you know where my heart has always goes out to you. Thank you for joining us today. Michelle. I’m a huge Damon Gnosis I’m a huge dog lover and my big Rottweilers usually lay next to me snoring snoring and like disrupting my programs. What is big wolf treats for goodness sake? Yeah,

Michelle Jones 34:59
big wolf. treats is a pandemic baby. I got restless during the pandemic from sitting at home on my computer I love talking with people I love engaging with people. And my now husband and I were going through the drive thru at Dairy Queen and every other car had a dog in it and I’m getting dogs and the dogs are going to eat it and all that cream and all that sugar and all that dairy is not good for dogs. So I said are there dog friendly ice creams out there. And there’s some like super, super processed really really, by like Petsmart or Petco. They’re really a good alternative for dogs. So I started looking into the ingredients, and I created this formulation with pumpkin, coconut milk and peanut butter. I roasted the pumpkins myself and got him from a local pumpkin farmer and started just setting up shop at farmer’s markets and dog events. I connected with a local vineyard that has pups on the patio on Tuesday night. Oh, wow. Oh, go set up shop there and serve up little dog treats. And I’ve had to put big wolf on hiatus last year. It’s you know, planning a wedding and launching and all that stuff. But yeah, I’m looking at different. I’ve gotten the itch again, to keep going with it. And it’s in different formulations. At one point I made little pumpkin pies so they were a little pumpkin pies. But UPS though, I’ll say I can resurrect big wolf here in the near future.

Curt Anderson 36:28
Well, I just I absolutely love that. So, Michelle, I know you’re busy. We’re gonna wind down on this parting thoughts to share with anybody for 2022 What advice do you have? For anybody going out there just so you don’t try and make this pivot trying to make a deep change? What advice do you have for everybody as our takeaway today,

Michelle Jones 36:47
just get started, you can create the most grand plan in the world. And if it’s sitting there on paper, it doesn’t do an ounce of good. Make that post change that piece of literature update that one page on your website, just do one thing your one that’s

Curt Anderson 37:03
one degree one degree better, you know, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming doesn’t have to be daunting. Like you know, we’re not saying hey, scrap your Excel spreadsheet or you know, so and so forth. But boy, just start taking those little steps one degree at a time. Michelle, this was so this was better than expected. I know like it was like it was like, man, we just hit it off our first conversation we’re like just Damon. We were just on fire. We were like hey, what about this? What about this? What about this and we’re connecting each other with people Allison afford like Laurie Hi be a bunch of great nice that we would love for you to connect with. So Michelle, thank you. Thank you and Damon I have a new line Dan Dan bigger gave me a new line. He’s always pushing it crushing it. I’m not a Gary Vee guy. So here’s the new hashtag for today Michelle consider it crushed. Crush and you just if we are talking past tense you just absolutely crushed it today so thank you guys. Again takeaways no brand is a brand what go right this is how we’ve always done done it please don’t ever say those words. As long as especially if Michelle’s in the house because it’s gonna be pretty right Michelle so hey, we send our we send our best to mom and dad. We send our best to your husband. Everybody down a big easy get some great food down there while you’re hanging out. Damon, take it away brother. What an awesome way to start the week. Ah,

Damon Pistulka 38:24
yeah, thanks hurt. So we’re out. Have a good one.

Curt Anderson 38:29
We’re out. I’m closing out the broadcast hang out with this one second. Michelle guys have a fantastic Monday and this Friday Damon we have Michelle we have we have the manufacturing millennial. We have J call on our Friday program. So we’ll see you guys back this year. So have a great day guys.

Damon Pistulka 38:46
Thanks so much.