Monday Manufacturing Motivation the MEPs – Matt Holjes

Curt Anderson  0:01

Hey, happy Monday everybody so October 25 not sure we’re Rocktober when it’s just rocking out and we’re coming in November next week Halloween and all sorts of fun things. So, guys today I am absolutely thrilled and honored to introduce my dear friend Matt Holjes from catalyst connection. This is the MEP in Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh and southwest Pennsylvania. Matt Happy Monday my friend

Matt Holjes  0:23

Happy Monday Kurt and quite frankly, when I saw the promotion for this I was really excited to be tuned into it then I realized you were talking about me and it was a rip off. They over sold me completely.

Curt Anderson  0:36

Oh, dude, you are so that’s why we love you Matt, your your modesty humble. And man, I have to give a shout out so I understand you’re a big pit. You’re a pit grad big fan. Maybe. My mother was a she went she did grad school pit. What an awesome game over the weekend. Sorry for our Clemson fans out there. But congratulations on a big win. I was listening to it on radio. I was traveling over the weekend. So big win for Panthers. So

Matt Holjes  1:00

it was a great win for us. We’re really excited about the future. The Panthers at least for this season. Anyway, they are

Curt Anderson  1:05

looking very good. So anyway, so we have a ton on cover lot in a short period of time. So we’ve got Mike Womack. Oh my goodness. Matt, you’ve got to connect with Mike Womack is on the call today New Jersey MEP or just monster millennial, Mike, good morning, or good afternoon. Sorry, Matt. Let’s just dig right in. So for any of our folks out there, you’re with the catalyst connection. That’s a manufacturing extension partnership out of Pittsburgh. Anybody that’s not familiar with this MEP network thing? What are you guys talking about? What is the manufacturing extension partnership?

Matt Holjes  1:36

So the MEP is a national network funded a part through NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology. Basically, what this does is it funds these, these centers, there are at least 60 centers across the United States, every state has at least one center location, you’re never more than a few hours drive if you’re a manufacturer to your local MEP center. And although we all do things a little bit differently, we’re charged with helping manufacturers within our regions become globally competitive. Here in Pittsburgh, we focus on four pillars, right. And we focus on product process, people and technology. And our goal is to help manufacturers become globally competitive, and we’re lucky here in the Commonwealth because of the 60 MEP centers across the states. We have seven of them here in the Commonwealth.

Curt Anderson  2:26

Yep, Yep, absolutely. And we had the honor and privilege of we interviewed your director Petro Mitchell several weeks ago, about a month ago and just a lot of dynamic things going on in Pittsburgh, long history of economic and entrepreneurial explosion. You know, going back centuries in Pittsburgh, we’re gonna dig into that. But what I like to do what, you know, we interviewed we’re blessed and fortunate we had Mike Womack on a few weeks ago, we interview someone from MEP every Monday manufacturing Monday motivation, here’s what we call it. And, you know, it’s just amazing all the tools and resources that the MEP Network offers to manufacturers, and unfortunately, a lot of manufacturers, even folks that we’ve interviewed from internally from MEP network, until they came on board to the MEP, they’re like, Man, I never knew the MEP is out there. I wish I would have known sooner. So we want to uncover that. But what I want to dig into is your background and why we love interviewing folks from the MEP network is just everybody brings such a wealth of talent, all sorts of different walks of life. You’re having your background heavy in communications, technology, communication, customer engagement. Share a little bit about your journey, your story, like how did we get here?

Matt Holjes  3:34

Yeah. So when people look at my LinkedIn profile, they’re kind of freaked out by it, right? Like how are you working with manufacturers? You know, I started after college, working in radio, as a radio sales rep in and I did that for several years in Harrisburg and a few other places and found myself even doing it in Greenville, South Carolina. Nice. From there, I pivoted towards publishing and custom publishing and I was working for middle in a country magazine and doing that for years and running the Northeast Regional Sales and that was a unique opportunity. And then from there, I found myself in economic development, publishing and producing magazines I was a publisher for the Pittsburgh Technology Council and and catalyst connection back in the mid 90s. And you know, not many people realize this, but the Pittsburgh Technology Council is the largest technology trade association in the United States. And we were producing an award winning magazine for them. And then I jumped from there to go to Orlando, Florida and Tampa and I was again working in economic development producing magazines that tell the story of a region and why it’s successful. And I did that for a couple years and then found myself back in Pittsburgh working at catalyst connection again.

Curt Anderson  4:53

That is oh man so juicy right there. Absolutely. I love that story. And sort of thing is and again, so please connect with me. On LinkedIn, all sorts of information that Matt has available to, especially for our manufacturing friends out there. But you know, again, heavy communication heavy on tech, you know, Pittsburgh, or you know, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, always on the cutting edge forefront, and you shared with me, you know, hey, I was down in Orlando, why would I stay in sunny Florida? You came back because, you know, cutting edge things going on in Pittsburgh, you know? Sure. You know, and again, like you just hit it on the head, like, why manufacturing? Why have you brought your skills, your talents, your expertise into manufacturers here in southwestern Pennsylvania?

Matt Holjes  5:33

Well, look, I often say, you know, I loved working with the technology industry. And it’s been exciting, because the growth in technology has been so monumental, especially here in southwestern PA, where we’ve kind of repositioned where we’d like to say we’re a 30 year old overnight success story, right? Yeah. We’re a year to kind of repossession an economy. And it’s been exciting. But what I often realize where the gap was, is that we had this strength in history in manufacturing, and this growing burgeoning tech sector and where there seemed to be a gap was really connecting the two. And I often looked at that, as one of the greatest roles that the MEPs can be providing is if they can not only connect those economic development, resources together to help foster the growth of both industries. We can make manufacturing better by making sure they’re deploying the latest in technology at the same time. Yeah. Oh, man, that

Curt Anderson  6:35

is so good. Let’s, let’s dig into that. You know, we’re both we’re history buffs. And when you look at Pittsburgh, all the way back in time from, you know, the three rivers were a big trading post, and spark entrepreneurship and economic growth, then, of course, we all know, you know, leading into coal into iron into steel. And, you know, and you just hit it on the head, you know, you know, the United States took a little hiccup with steel and, you know, say 6070s and Pittsburgh, you know, reposition itself came roaring back, you know, but when you look at, like the legacy of, you know, Carnegie Mellon, Heinz, you know, sure, share a little bit about like, the why the history is so important here.

Matt Holjes  7:12

Yeah. So I mean, I heard somebody wants to describe this in a unique story. And I’m not sure exactly how true it is. But the timing seems about right. That’s, you know, it wasn’t, you know, when you look at the confluence of the Three Rivers, and there was a gentleman that sat there and saw the the growth of the Iron Horse and the railroad coming into the city, at the time, they were using wooden brakes, and wouldn’t brake systems that would often catch fire as they, the greens were pulling into the rail station, and he realized there was a better way. And that better way was through the Westinghouse air brake, which became the standard equipment on on railroad. And there was a gentleman that was working in the rail house, that was also the US telegraph office, who realized with now with this new technology expertise, that there could be a growth of rail across the United States. And that young man by the name of Andrew Carnegie, began to invest money and pull investors together to invest in the growth of steel. And then with the growth of the steel, there was a gentleman on the north side that was looking with all this rail, I now have somewhere I can move my pickles that I’ve been behind, and bottling in in glass box. So we have a unique history. And it’s the confluence of manufacturing, and right now it’s alive today. It’s a confluence of manufacturing and technology, what we can pull from at Carnegie Mellon University in the University of Pittsburgh, and leveraging those technology assets that we have, along with the fortune 500 centers that we have here in r&d at places like Kobe Estro and Pittsburgh, play glass or PPG. And Alcoa and others that weaken and US Steel, that we’re here and we’re constantly finding better ways to leverage technology to support the manufacturing community here,

Curt Anderson  9:04

man, that dude that is just so good. You know, it’s lunchtime here and Eastern Time Zone, we’re talking Heinz you, let’s just savor what’s going on here. And just even when you look at these entrepreneurs that completely change the footprint and the landscape, and we can I know we can talk all about that, you know, and the cool thing is what’s going on now in Pittsburgh, you just mentioned Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, Duquesne University, some of the most cutting edge universities, colleges in the country. And you’re seeing tech companies now coming to Pittsburgh, you know, Google, Amazon, Uber, zoom, all sorts of different footprints. And I know Petra, when we had around last month, she was just talking about, you know, how cool it is having a front row seat, and all these great things going on. And all these technologies are coming into technology. So like our dear friend Mike Womack, he’s on a mission of like, let’s get rid of like that blue collar tagline. It’s not blue collar and white collar. There’s so many exciting things for young people to get into, you know, in a manufacturing on this technique. You side and again, you have a front row seat. Now I’m going to come back to your your background, your scope, I know you’ve had a fascinating path, you know, in your journey, just share, like, were there any like, major benchmark benchmarks like what really transformed your strategy as far as like, bridging those gaps for manufacturers on the communication side?

Matt Holjes  10:20

Well, listen, and it was It wasn’t even when I was working with manufacturers, it’s actually the greatest lesson I ever got was from my first boss and radio and Oh, nice. Yes, it was excellent. She She basically told me that, you know, a good salesperson or a good marketer is somebody that can, is a smooth talker, and can sell you anything they want. Yep, a great one is one that is a good listener, you can say exactly what you need. And to reinforce that she made us write our own commercials for our clients, what they call spec spots, and I write it down with a client, find out about their business, you had to ask enough questions to build either a both a 32nd, and a 62nd. Commercial. And if you want to an exercise, try writing a 32nd or 62nd commercial for somebody, and you’ll see the amount of notes that you need to take and the amount of important questions you have to ask, in order to do that. And that really taught me to be a good listener. And I think that’s the best thing that you can be if you’re in marketing, is to be a good listener, to listen to your clients to listen to the customers to listen to the market, and determine how you can best position the products and services that you work so hard to develop.

Curt Anderson  11:37

That is just so good. And you know, basically, it’s it’s human behavior, you know, it’s not even just marketing, it’s human behavior. And so again, what I absolutely love, you know, the, what you bring to the table, and again, we interview all sorts of different folks, and we hear different stories. And MEPs traditionally, you know, they’re known for operational excellence, lean, and all sorts of, you know, focusing on ISO certifications, that type of those types of aspects of manufacturing. What’s nice, is what you’re bringing to the table is really helping on the forefront. You know, COVID hit manufacturers really hard. So any of the manufacturers in the past, they’re like, you know, what, maybe you know, websites a second thought I don’t need to be super heavy on this. But what I wanted to get to now, Matt, so let’s so now we’ve we’ve gotten to current times we’ve talked Pittsburgh history, we’ve talked about your background, share a little bit what’s going on at catalyst connection, you know, again, I talked with a lot of different MEPs around the country, callus connection really sets the bar high, you guys have an incredible reputation as doing some cutting edge things. Sure. You know, what’s going on at catalyst catalyst connection for your manufacturers in southwest Pennsylvania?

Matt Holjes  12:40

Sure. I mean, you know, it’s funny, we work with clients over and over again, each and every year, we have about a 65% renewal rate on the on our client base, which is, which is a nice thing to have. But you can ask those same customers, after working with us for 20 years, what all we do, and they’re like, I didn’t realize you did all that stuff. Yeah. So it’s constantly an education process. Right, you know, which, which, you know, I, one of the things I was worked on was developing sort of an elevator pitch for who I who we are and what we do. And that kind of describes what we have going on. And I start by saying, you know, we’re, you know, imagine yourself on an elevator and somebody says, What does catalysts do? Right? Well, we’re an economic development organization that’s dedicated to serving manufacturers in our region. And we focus on on four primary areas, product process, people and technology products, do you have the right products for the market? Do you have the right markets for the products that you make? Process? Are you producing those products in the most efficient way manner in the most efficient manner, we use Toyota lean manufacturing principles, as well as Six Sigma services to support that. We also provide quality services under products to help people produce quality products, such as ISO certification and other certifications that a small manufacturer may need to position themselves in a supply chain technology, are you leveraging manufacturing technologies to also be efficient? And that’s everything from ERP to robotics to to digital transformation, which is really important to manufacturers now. And lastly, none of that stuff makes any sense unless you focus on the people. What are you doing to attract and retain people are you doing to create a culture of innovation and a culture that people want to work for? What are you doing actually to become an employer of choice, where the there are individuals that are out in the marketplace that are seeking you out instead of you burning all your time trying to find people to fill those positions? And lastly, you know, you know, what I try to leave the manufacturers with is before they make any investment, that they pick up the phone and they call catalysts and we have a conversation because we can tell you whether or not that might be the right time to do it. Or really do they have the right resources because aside from the the consultants that we have on staff, we have a network have vetted third party partners that we can bring to the table to support. Right,

Curt Anderson  15:04

right. Oh, man, that is so good. And Jason during Jobson note, good morning, or good afternoon, Jason, Happy Monday to you. And what? And let’s uncover that a little bit, Matt, because the great thing is again, so like folks that aren’t familiar with the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, wherever they’re, you know, wherever they’re coming, as Matt mentioned there, if you miss it, there’s a MEP in all 50 states, here in Pennsylvania, where Matt’s at, there are seven, seven different regions, if you will. And like you said, there’s there’s somebody nearby, all sorts of amazing tools, resources to help these manufacturers move the needle on their goal. And you know, and you know, this firsthand man, you know, manufacturers are just God bless them. They are just so amazing. They are relentless, relentless tenacity that we saw this past year through COVID. You know, and in almost every MEP that we that we interview, you know, what they talk about their manufacturers, you know, what their number one concern was this pasture, their employees, you know, the safety of their employees, can we keep them working? You know, what’s going on, and it was just such a selfless, just a humble approach that we’re seeing with these great entrepreneurs. What I love that the MEP offers is that objective advice, okay, you know, unite, we’re gonna dig into, you know, content marketing and strategies. But you know, you know, this, if I’m, if I’m an entrepreneur and I go to an SEO firm, well, guess what, I have an SEO problem, because that’s what they do. If I have a, you know, if I go to a website firm, I probably have a website problem. So whoever I go to, with their expertise, or what they sell, that’s the problem I’m going to have, or at least that’s what I’m going to hear, right. When you go to an MEP network. What’s awesome is you have an amazing all star team. And I’m going to when a manufacturer comes into your door, I’m going to have an objective opinion. So you’re not your mission focused, not that you’re not bottom line focus, but your mission focus, but just let’s take it a little bit deeper. So I’m a manufacturer out there a custom manufacturer, I have 20 employees, I’ve my nose is done in the grindstone, I’m like, full throttle. I hear about this MEP, talk about how does that engagement work? And what how do you how do you bridge that gap for

Matt Holjes  17:05

them? Sure. Usually, you know, it takes an SBA the way we’re set up, we have SBA senior business advisors that will go out and sit down with a client or prospect, identify where their challenges are, and then align those appropriate resources, whether it happens to be consultant that we have on staff, whether it’s as part of our network or third parties we bring to the table, then you’re probably wondering, why would somebody just reach out because they want to talk to a consulting firm? Yeah, right. categorize it. But oftentimes, it’s because they’re interested, they know that they have challenges. And they are, maybe they’re interested in leveraging some grants that may be available, one of the things that we’ve been very fortunate in developing was strong relationships with some grantors in the region. So oftentimes, when a manufacturer is ready to make an investment in either their product or process or their people, I can find reimbursement dollars that can help subsidize those investments. So those those projects that are the nice to have they have sitting on the shelf, well, we’ll get to that at some point. Yeah, now that they have access to Grant and incentivize them to act on it right away.

Curt Anderson  18:11

Right. Right. And that’s, it’s funny, because different folks that we have on the program, they’re like, you know, hey, we’re on a mission, we don’t want our manufacturers to have to pay for the service. And again, that’s your role. And that’s what the MEP comes in, is like, Where can we find those grant dollars, where these tech sellers are at work trying to help our manufacturers, again, whether it’s technology and energy, cybersecurity, and again, if you’ve got guys go to the catalyst connection website, and you guys have all sorts of events, resources. Let’s talk about your team. Well, I’ve

Matt Holjes  18:40

got nothing you brought that up, I do want to say there are emergency situations where people are reaching out to us and you mentioned cybersecurity. Yeah, I’ll give you an example of a local manufacturer that had reached out to us who would, who had been on a quote, for a defense contractor for 17 years straight. And basically every year, that was a quote that they could expect, and they were set and ready to go and they were on then they received this year that they were not going to be allowed to be on the quote, unless they were in the process of receiving their cmmc, which is a Cybersecurity Maturity Model certificate, which the DoD is requiring. And they were in panic mode, because this was a significant portion of their annual billing. And even though they had read about it, and we had been talking about it, yeah, it wasn’t until their customer said that you can’t you can’t be involved that they realized they had an issue. So they called us and we were able to jump in, provide some assistance in that area, and at the same time, identify a grant that would help subsidize their investment in that area. So at the end of the day, they were able to move towards the Cybersecurity Maturity Model. They were able to satisfy the requirements of the customer. And they were able to continue maintaining that relationship with a client that they dude,

Curt Anderson  19:57

not my cash, you know, standing over Man, guys, like, just unpack that right there, guys came and saved the day you save a significant contract big portion of their sales, just by being that trusted guide, that trusted resource for that manufacturer found grant dollars to help them proceed with this in made their life seamless. And what’s phenomenal. Again, that small manufacturer out there 20 employees, you know that business owners, you know, the management team, you know, one minute they’re their own HR director next minute, they’re doing operations, finance, maybe five minutes for marketing. You know, we always talk about that in a great thing with MEP network, you can be that fractional resource. I don’t have to be the expert in everything I can call my MVP. And you guys have such an abundance of talent, abundance of talent on your team. Man, I just want to scratch the surface on your team. I know I’m connected. You know, I know Petra and Anna’s a dear friend. I love Anna. You know, we have like Erica, Cindy Hannah. I know Nate, Connie, David, you guys have an awesome, awesome team just share a little bit of the talent and resources at can add catalyst connection that you guys offer your network.

Matt Holjes  21:02

Sure. So when it comes to product, we have Connie Palooka, who who heads, Business Growth services. So anything from how to generate leads to email marketing things along those lines, she can provide some consulting services to clients there. And around things like market research. For process we have on our staff, Eric McDonald, who is our Lean instructor, our Lean guru helping companies with kata and lean. We also have a quality partner, Craig Wilson, who’s an amazing consultant we have on staff, who helps companies not only from internal auditor training all the way up to helping them build their quality management systems. In fact, when we don’t have Craig helping our clients, we’re farming him out to another registrar. He goes around the globe, doing ISO as 9100 surveillance audits. So he’s a great resource that we have. And then David Ray heads up our organizational development or people services, and he has a whole team underneath him that focuses on everything from talent, attraction to diversity and inclusion, to performance management, to succession planning, everything that you need to kind of build that employer of choice model. Right. Right.

Curt Anderson  22:20

That’s fantastic. And I know

Matt Holjes  22:23

if I didn’t mention that, and around technologies, if you if you happen to see last night on 60 minutes, Michael Keaton was featured in the show, because he’s moving into our building with a new technology company that he is heading up. And we’re there also with arm, the arm Institute, advanced robotics in manufacturing, and Matt works with them. And he works with us and develops all of our technology service offerings, helping companies implement technology, right,

Curt Anderson  22:56

that I know and forgive us for anybody that we haven’t given a shout out to. But again, just an all star, amazing team at cattles connection. And again, this is a great great example of like what goes on nationwide. There’s so much talent, so many resources in what we discover week in and week out is a common thread throughout the MEP network. People are just so passionate about helping entrepreneurs and you know, that’s why you get involved with the MEP network to begin with. I know you do a phenomenal podcast, great topics again, like you’ve covered, I caught I’ve caught several excellent interviews on technology, AI, robotics, cybersecurity, just your little bit about you know, from a podcast endpoint are getting that communication. You know, I want to dig into content next, but just talk about your podcast for a little bit about topics for

Matt Holjes  23:43

Yeah, so we have a partnership still with the Pittsburgh Technology Council to this day. And it’s not just because I work there premium. Yeah, we just, you know, Pittsburgh’s unique in that economic development organizations have this cooperative attitude which is unique actually. And I found that very unique when I when I’ve gone to other regions, we got it right, you know, here that we work together to for the regional economy. So I work closely with Jonathan still on not only the magazines we we sponsor and underwrite something called Madan PA, which is a statewide publication that focuses on manufacturing and technology. And that kind of morphed into also a robotics. Another magazine called on ramp which is robotics, additive manufacturing, Pittsburg. And from there developed a a podcast where we bring in local technology companies that are developing new technologies and implementing them with manufacturers or manufacturers that are dealing with technology issues and how they they traverse those challenges. So it’s a unique opportunity for us to push the envelope and and to elevate the conversation as it relates to technology. Right, that

Curt Anderson  24:58

is and it’s the Digital Bridge. I believe that

Matt Holjes  25:01

title your digital brands podcast. Yep,

Curt Anderson  25:04

so again check out cattles connection check out their podcast. Now I want to change gears man I want to talk about so again, your advertising guy, you know, early days journalism, you know writing these, you know these great kudos to your boss for forcing you guys to write those content pieces. Listen to your customer these are great bombshells of advice that you’re dropping today. You and I’ve had multiple content conversations, you know, in you come in with your manufacturers and you’re super heavy on like, how do you help a manufacturer create that content strategy? I know like, you know, so cliche content kinds of content, main effects was like, Hey, man, I make stuff. I don’t have time to sit here. And I would have gone to journalism school if I wanted to type things. How do you help folks? And how do you help your clients with a content strategy?

Matt Holjes  25:48

Well, their appetite has changed a little bit. They used to feel that way. They didn’t want to be into the inbound marketing and that kind of stuff, you know, where they wanted to get all their leads was to continue to go into the trade shows. That’s right. Well, look what happened over the past 18 months as those trade shows were canceled. And they realized they needed to focus on different ways to generate leads. And it wasn’t just emailing service offering. So they had to become sort of a repository of content, where people would be seeking them out whether they were white papers or other things. And we use the same model here, right, that we wanted to make sure that we weren’t constantly just throwing emails at people to say, Oh, this is another service offering or a new product yet, have them seek you out. And I always go to the three C’s when it comes to content. And that’s, that’s curate, convert and create, right, like so. What I mean by curate is you can’t do it all yourself, you have to find the resources that are out there. McKinsey is a great for us, for me, and Deloitte and others take that content that they have and share it, you know, they have all the reports and information. You don’t have to worry about attribution, because you’re pushing people to those sites. That’s great. You’re engaging people. What happens then is the audience realizes that you are a trusted source, right? That you’re able to identify these these sources of information and content that are important to them. And then then you can move towards converting content, you know, what, what do you currently have? What are the white papers that you’ve developed, that need to be refreshed and redeveloped into something like an e book? What is the training that you currently have delivered? That would be useful if if repackaged and delivered in a different way. So focus on ways that you can address that. And then lastly, is create content. And if you have thought leaders on your team, identify where you have a unique perspective or unique positioning statement in the marketplace, and from there, seize on that and create the content that supports it. Yeah. Oh,

Curt Anderson  27:55

man, that is so good. Let’s just Let’s and I know, I want to be mindful of your time today. Again, I can’t thank you enough, guys, were the mat from the catalyst connection in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh MEP, let’s impact those three real quick again, so curate what I absolutely love. You know, like, you know, again, you’re that manufacturer, like, Dude, I’ve got 1000 things to do today. But you just sit it on the head, share an article from your trade association, you know, the, you know, NTMA, national tool, machining Association, you know, you’re molding manufacturers, whatever, you know, find an article could be from Forbes could be a sports thing, whatever is important to you just share that out, you know, whatever platform you feel that your clients are hanging out at, super easy take seconds to do, and I love what you’re saying they’re met building that trust, you know, next, you’re talking about converting, and then finally going into that creation. And I think as they build up that confidence, or you know, again, start small baby steps, you know, we don’t have to, you know, you know, achieve everything in a single day. But again, like, you know, it could be video, it could be us, you know, getting on a podcast, it could be going on an interview, there’s all sorts of opportunities that create that content, is you’re talking with your manufacturers, how do you guide them? Or coach them as far as like the measurement of the measurement of success? How do you measure whether this contents working or not?

Matt Holjes  29:14

Well, certainly, I mean, almost every platform that you look at from an inbound standpoint, whether you’re talking HubSpot or others gives you dashboards and metrics that you can see how you can track this. We’ve taken it a step further. And I often show people how we’ve done it a catalyst and that we actually have our campaigns all the way tied in through our CRM. So at any one point, I can look at a dashboard and I can see the efficacy of an actual marketing campaign because I can see actually the, how many people open that atom how many people open that how many people downloaded additional information, and was there a follow up conversation and out of that, how many of those people signed up for either a webinar and out of that, how many of those people ended up signing? onto a project agreement. So I actually have an ROI dashboard that I can say that 40% of the projects that we’ve inked this year can be directly attributed to our marketing campaigns. And not only that, I can also look at my marketing campaigns and determine which ones aren’t really working. Yeah, you’re tweaking them, or we’re taking them out behind the barn and shoot them.

Curt Anderson  30:25

Exactly. And what you know, what’s the famous scene? 50 cents of every dollar in marketing is wasted.

Matt Holjes  30:30

Yes, or No, actually, it’s John, John Wanamaker said it. He says, your marketing budget is working. I just don’t know what 50%

Curt Anderson  30:37

2006. Right. Thank John. Wow, that’s exactly right. Dude, I love that quote, I was by butchered every time, thank you, you’ve got my back for correcting me. So this is awesome. And what’s what’s fantastic is, you know, as an MEP, you’re not just talking to talk. And it’s not like, Hey, I heard that this is what you should do. Or, you know, I saw this one time I read an article, you’re actually implementing and instituting this yourself as an organization. And I love what you know, you know, again, we both love Petra, what she’s doing, you know, her leadership, and she’s been your director, I think, since 2006. Or if I’m not mistaken, 15 years of leading that from the top down like this, we’re not going to talk to talk, we’re walking the walk. So when we walk into our clients, we’re not just, you know, like you said, nice to have, these are things that we’re going to show you that we’re doing internally. And I think that brings a lot of value when you walk into your clients to help.

Matt Holjes  31:26

Yeah, and we’ve been, I think we’ve been on the cutting edge as an organization, in the way that and the tools and resources we’ve been building to, like, you know, anybody can build an ebook. And that’s great. And we’ve done I think, excellent job on that. And look at this. One of the things that we initiated this year, were web based assessments with instant ratings, for example, a COVID-19 readiness assessment where a company could go in and answer a series of about 15 questions, and they get an instant report. So they get a pay off for doing this. And it says, you’re at 80%, ready for readiness, and they can download that record, or when they download that report, I get a copy of it. And I can see where maybe some of their gaps are. And I can follow up and say, Hey, I saw that you have an gap or an area of support that you may need. Feel free to give me a call if you want, I have some grant dollars that may be able to support you. Right, right.

Curt Anderson  32:20

That’s again, just to just recap, cybersecurity, kata, like you guys are covering a lot of the cutting edge technologies. Robotics, you get in now, you also you’ve moved into a new facility. Do I have that? Correct?

Matt Holjes  32:33

Yeah, yet, we’re at Mill 19, which was an old J and L steelworks building down along the river. And actually, there’s an there’s the steel scaffolding that’s near the skeleton of an old industrial complex. And we are a unique building that’s, that’s built on the inside of that. So it’s really cool looking. And it’s basically an anecdote for what Pittsburgh is. It’s the rebirth, you know, with the the skeleton of the steel industry and others, we are still making things here. And we are making exciting new products. And catalyst connection is happy to be here to support the small to medium sized manufacturers in the region.

Curt Anderson  33:11

That is awesome. And I know you’re super busy. I want to I want to let you go quick question. Pittsburgh Technology Council how what what is it about Pittsburgh, you’re attracting? You know, again, we always think Silicon Valley for the cutting edge technology companies, you’re attracting all these companies, like we mentioned earlier, Google Amazon zoom. What is what’s going on there? How is Pittsburgh able to, you know, as a old steel town, Rust Belt, whatever you want to call it? How’s Pittsburgh able to stay on the cutting edge?

Matt Holjes  33:36

Well, I’ll tell you, there’s two reasons. And I think one of the biggest one is the fact that we are so closely connected to the universities here. Yeah. University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. We used to joke when we were at the tech Council, we produce T EQ magazine that the magazine was an alumni magazine for Carnegie Mellon University, because every technology company was there. But we also had the, the, the research and development centers for some of the major Fortune 500 companies still located here, US Steel, Alcoa and others. And they stayed here and connected and engage with universities. You know, when I when I would go to other regions, and I would see these economic development events. After I left Pittsburgh, they would say, Oh, wow, you’re from the Pittsburgh Technology Council, or you’re from Pittsburgh, and they’d say, You guys really figured it out. Yeah. And aside from from being able to connect the universities to these others, there is, as I mentioned before, this spirit of cooperation that many regions don’t have, and it’s funny, you would see at a large economic development event, the Pittsburgh technology or the Pittsburgh region, people working together in a room and then he would look over there’s North Carolina, and they’re like not talking to each other. So yeah, I don’t I’m using North Carolina as an example. But But we understand that it can’t be alone. And we’ve been successful in repositioning this region. Because there’s still a nod to our past in manufacturing, but there’s also a nod to the technology that’s making it possible.

Curt Anderson  35:10

Absolutely. And I’ll tell we’ll wind down on this, you know, the, there’s so many opportunities for young folks in manufacturing. And again, it’s just, it’s not our grandparents manufacturing anymore, you know, the tagline of like, you know, don’t go into manufacturing, or it’s dirty, so and so forth. I mean, you have a front row seat, again, with your podcast, you know, all the clients that you’re working with, you know, as you know, as a marketer for callus connection, you’re seeing all the cool cutting edge things going on. There’s so much opportunity for young young folks to get into. It’s just super exciting. It’s super exciting. What’s going on at catalyst connection, I’m going to close things out with a quote that I grabbed here. And this is from our dear friend Andrew Carnegie. How can I not quote Andrew Carnegie when I’m talking to you? So teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision, the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to obtain uncommon results. And I’ll tell you, that’s what I feel is going on with you with your team and catalysts connection. Matt, our hats off to you, dude, salute you. Thank you for everything that you’re doing for manufacturers in Pittsburgh and southwest Pennsylvania, throughout the MEP network. And man, I really appreciate your friendship. I appreciate you taking the time to join us today. This has been awesome. My pleasure, Chris. Thanks

Matt Holjes  36:29

for having me. Alright,

Curt Anderson  36:31

guys, we’re gonna close it out. So, man, we have an awesome awesome program on our manufacturing ecommerce success webinar this Friday we have Laurie Hi B and Wesleyan Greer, we’re going to talk about social strategies. Again, check out your local MEP, connect with Matt on LinkedIn here. Go to catalyst connection. If you’re coming outside of anywhere, Pennsylvania, if you’re in Pennsylvania, there are six other senators if you’re outside of outside of Southwest Pennsylvania, if you’re coming to us from another state boy contact your local MEP, and they are there to serve and help you guys. Happy Monday Have you got hope you guys have an awesome awesome week. Go out and crush it. Matt, thank you my friend. I appreciate you, dude.

Matt Holjes  37:08

See buddy. Hang on one.