Monday Manufacturing Motivation with the Nebraska MEP

Curt Anderson  0:01

All right, here we go. So Happy Monday, September 13. That’s actually it’s my father’s birthday today. So happy. Happy birthday to dad. So, guys, big Monday today, Damon, how are things in Seattle?

Damon Pistulka  0:13

They’re awesome.

Curt Anderson  0:15

Awesome, great weekend beautiful weather and we are blessed. We are so fortunate to have our good buddy, the one and only Joe Roy from the Nebraska MEP. Joe. Good morning to you my friend. How

Joe Roy  0:25

are you? Good morning, Kurt. Good morning, Damon. Good to see well.

Curt Anderson  0:29

Hey, good to see you. So let’s just Joe let’s dig right in. So you have a fascinating fascinating background. You have amazing stories. We could be here all day with you have some great stories we might scratch on those a little bit. But you’re in New England guy grew up on East Coast, ended up at Boston College. Once you share a little bit about your journey, your background, Boston College and then we’ll drift into how you ended up in Nebraska.

Joe Roy  0:54

Sure. Yeah. So you’re right. I grew up in New England. I was born in Michigan, but moved when I was two to Connecticut. So I grew up in Connecticut, and an Irish Catholic family back there. Nice was always supposed to go to Notre Dame. Yep. When I decided not to go to Notre Dame, which I did get into, it kind of annoyed my brother who is 23 years older than I from the same mother and father and my and my father and annoy both of them. But my mother being her baby and being the last one. She wanted to be close to home she she played she played two mind games with me and got me to go to college, which turned out to be the best thing ever. Yeah, perspective, it allowed me to create my own path. So I got out of Boston College with a marketing and accounting degree. And I got a job with an insurance company went to was sent to New York, for training for about six months. And then I was sent on my way to Chicago, the big city of Chicago. So I grew up. I grew up a Yankee fan, you know, so let’s see what I’ve got for that here.

Curt Anderson  1:54

You You brought some props today, Joe, I believe right. I did. So I grew up. I grew up over there.

Joe Roy  2:03

Then I then I went to Boston College, you know, so then I had to follow the Red Sox. I’m one of the few that sec religious I know.

Curt Anderson  2:13

You can’t those two can’t touch each other. Again, they they cannot

Joe Roy  2:15

but actually the first baseball game I went to I went to a Yankee Red Sox doubleheader, I wore red sock after the first game, the Yankees won, I convinced my father to buy me a Yankee batting. I was five years old. So anyway, I got I was in the financial business, I sold corporate retirement plans for many years, I met my wife in Chicago, and we had a couple daughters. We talked about raising our kids in a smaller community. We weren’t sure where that would be or when that would happen. But 30 years ago, this month, we moved to Nebraska. And we’ve been here ever since in Nebraska. And I stayed in that, in that line of business basically until early in 2016, when I was kind of burned out and said I need to find something else to do. So. You know, it took a little while and six. That’s okay. But by by October 16, coming up on five years, I joined the MEP five years ago at that point.

Curt Anderson  3:14

It’s awesome, Joe. So let’s I want to hit a little bit on you know, looks like you know, insurance, I believe pension. So like, a long time, you know, phenomenal career in that space in that field, like you said, started on the East Coast have found your way to Chicago was, you know, talk a little bit like, what was that transition? Like? Was it a big leap of faith? When you say you’re burned out, you know, like, what, what was going on, you know, in what were the assets that were going on during that time to help carry you into, you know, your skill set into the MEP from from that insurance background.

Joe Roy  3:45

A lot of guys trying to figure out what I could do in life. I always thought I was I still sometimes like, gee, I’m so young, I got to figure out what I’m going to do when I grew and grew up. That’s right. Yeah, I still sometimes have that thought process. So I, I, I went into sales because I was a natural, I didn’t realize I was a natural. But when I go back to like, selling candy bars for my sister, and the first thing I ever sold was Christmas cards so I could earn a bicycle. You know, I mean, it was just something that naturally came to me. My father was a salesperson. So I learned from him, you know, I think just, and my brother was we call them a Wheeler Dealer. My brother was always always doing stuff. So he was an entrepreneur. So you know, I kind of had those as role models. So when so I went into this insurance business didn’t know what I was getting into. It’s really a retirement plan business. And I became pretty successful at that I was I sold, but I was also involved in our strategic planning teams over time. Right. And I liked some of that idea. But my natural talents were in sales. And I never realized until I’ve probably about 40 that that was really a skill. I’m sure people think sales people are just people that Oh, yeah, they get some training and they go out and sell but it’s really not. It’s skill that you learn. So it’s a skill that you learn about how to connect with people. That’s really what it comes down to. And, you know, I, I hate talking about myself in some ways, because that natural skill, because really good salespeople, in my opinion, listen more than they talk. Sure, yeah. Because we’re in there trying to build a relationship. And we’re trying to find out what it is that people need or want. So that’s kind of what carried me over. So the whole process was I had been burning out because I had been in sales, and had gotten to be very transactional. And I was making pretty good money doing it. I mean, I can’t complain about the money I was making. And I was traveling all through the country. And I was able to set my schedule so I could get around baseball. I mean, I would just if I was going to be like, if I was going to be here, Damon’s neck. Yeah. That’s old school, right there. Yeah, I would. I mean, I would just look at the baseball schedule for the Seattle, mariners and say, What weeks are they there? And I would see if I could build my trip to be done that week. So at night, I’d have something to do. I also buy a lot of baseball hats, which my wife said, was a great thing to do, if that’s all my husband wants to do when he’s on the road. If that’s what if that’s what he gets his children by and baseball hats. He can have as many baseball hats as he drinks.

Curt Anderson  6:20

that’s a that’s a that’s a harmless guilty pleasure, isn’t it? Yeah. That is awesome.

Joe Roy  6:26

So that’s how I kind of did that. But I was actually in Seattle, the night that it really hit me that I had to get out of the business. One of my best friends went out for a bike ride, and never returned home. He was hit by a drunk driver who was killed. It was it would have been in 2014. This month. 2014. So seven years ago, he said my car, I get a call from my wife. I’m in my hotel room in Seattle, I answer the phone kind of flipping, and she’s very upset at me. She says, Stop it. Your friend. Doug’s been killed, you know, and that was? So then I sat in my hotel room in Seattle. Yeah. Yeah, I decided I needed to get home, and the company can’t go home. You got it, you got to work the week, then you can go home, you know, whatever. So that kind of was like the last straw. I’m like, I’m done. I’m done with this. I gotta, I gotta transition. Luckily, we had the wherewithal from a monetary viewpoint to be able to get through that figure out what we’re going to do. And so I was looking for someplace where I could go where I could make a difference and help people. And that’s really what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be just transactionally focus going forward.

Curt Anderson  7:40

Right. And I absolutely loved that, that got a new place to hang your hat literally. Right. So that’s so let’s talk about that. So great. Insurance career, you know, and again, you know, people person building relationships, love to travel, love to see people successful. And again, you know, you could have continued on Joe, I’m sure, you know, you handle you’ve handled adversity through your life, you could have, you know, gone through that, but you took that leap of faith, you and your wife together, you know, what a courageous, admirable transition to say, you know, what, enough to not, you know, and I know, Damon, you’ve gone through something similar in your career, you know, we’re like, Hey, I’m just my, my values aren’t aligned. You know, a lot of people don’t have that courage, you know, whether financial obligations family, what have you. So again, joke, you know, credit hat’s off to you, pun intended, but, you know, round of applause for making that leap. So let’s talk about the MEP network. So anybody out there who’s not familiar with the MEP that’s a manufacturing extension partnership, share a little bit with the folks about what is the MEP, and then we’ll dig into like services that you provide that type of thing, but just for anybody that’s for manufacturers out there that aren’t familiar with MEP network, share a little bit about what is the MEP?

Joe Roy  8:53

Well, I didn’t know what the MEP was at all when I got the job. So. So as a matter of fact, in my old world, we had an MEP s stood for multiple employer plans. So my plan for multiple employers, right. Oh, when I got when I was told about this opportunity with the MEP, through the son of who happened to be the director of the Nebraska MEP at that time. He said, Have you ever heard of it? And I said, Nope, never happened. The only one I know is that multiple employers, right. So I looked into it, and I read about it, and the MEP is really a group. Every state in the union has a manufacturer’s partnership that came out of the federal government in the Department of Commerce, for its Hollins a man who ran for president, for those of us who are old enough to remember back in the 80s. I think he ran for president. He was the he was instrumental behind starting this. It’s actually called the Hollings manufacturing extension Partnership Program. Technically, so it’s one of the few programs that are out there that are it has bipartisan support because it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a red state or blue state or whatever. political leanings Are you want to have good economic use, you want to have your manufacturers Be strong. So as I read more about this and talk to the people there, they told me, you know, our job is to go out and find out what the manufacturers need, and be of service to them and try to help them find what they need. And I thought, gee, this is, this is great I can I can actually go out and do it. It’s also great, because I know absolutely nothing about manufacturing, except how to go into the plant sometimes when I was doing a 401k meeting, but I was like, this is going to be fun, because I can learn this is a new opportunity for me to learn a bunch of stuff. So I got the job. They were looking for my skill set, because we have a lot of smart people on our team. And, and, and in all the MEPs we have a lot of really smart technical people. Many of them, look at their own shoes, when they talk to you. You know, they’re very, very introverted. I look at other people’s shoes when I talk to them. Yeah, that’s, that’s the idea. So I said, Okay, that’s my skill set. So I just started asking questions. One of my associates here, you know, he came up with what keeps you up at night? That was the question, he said. So I started asking those questions. I’ve been told by some of our manufacturers has impressed me that when I first came out to see him, I thought, well, he’s okay. He seems like a good guy. But he has nothing. He’s an empty suit, so to speak. But I wasn’t a total empty seats, because I was at least opening like my coast to say, What do you want? What do you want? I mean, what can I? How can I help? So so you know, as we built it up, this is what’s been pretty exciting about this whole thing is being able to go out and find that. And that’s still really in many places where we are. The pandemic allowed us, like, the three of us to connect. Cuz I just kept trying to figure out what can I do here to keep to keep making myself smarter, better, more knowledgeable, a better resource for manufacturers? And I think that’s really one of the exciting things. And I think we’re just starting to hit hit the ground running again now. Pretty

Curt Anderson  12:10

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that’s and I love and guide anybody out there, please connect with Joe and Joe is matter of fact, I use your LinkedIn profile. daymond. I do a lot of link, as you know, webinars LinkedIn training just in loamy. Hold Damon, you happen to be doing a webinar tomorrow at the University of Nebraska MVP,

Unknown Speaker  12:27

do not.

Damon Pistulka  12:28

Yes, I am. Yes, I

Curt Anderson  12:29

1. And Joe, I use your I actually use your about section and you talk about, you know, being driven, passionately helping your clients. And you talk about, you know, if I don’t have the answer, you know, you take great pride and finding in surrounding yourself with folks that know the answer. And so and you know, your your skills of, you know, this wonderful career, you had insurance, just really translated and transitioned extremely well into the MEP network. And again, for any manufacturers out there catching this broadcast. This is Joseph, perfect example of you know, you just mentioned Joe, the wealth of enormous talent at the MEPs nationwide. You know, we have the honor and blessing of working with a number of MEPs around the country. And you know, the walks of life that folks like yourself come in to just bring tremendous value to the manufacturers. Let’s talk about your team for a second. Now. I’ve had the honor and privilege of meeting a number of folks in your team. I don’t want to leave anybody out. But of course your director Matt almond is just a rock star built up, you know, great manufacturing company and then transitioned into MEP john Molson Suzanne. Mike, I’ve met Brad, Sammy, Matthew, hopefully, I apologize if I leave anybody out. That’s the whole team. You’ve covered them all over again, I got every teammate. So talk a little bit about the the skill set in a talent, you know, right here at the Nebraska VP that you guys bring to your manufacturers.

Joe Roy  13:49

Right? Well, like you start we’ll start with Matt, Matt. Amen. Because you started with him. He was a third generation family member who owned their a manufacturing firm in central Nebraska. And he ended up selling it in 2014. He wasn’t in the market to sell it, but he got an offer that was too good to get generation and things start to splinter a little bit, you know, because you have a lot of people who are in there with ownership, you got to kind of do that. So he, he ended up selling that and then he did a few different things. And then he said, when he found this job open the directorship. He said, this is perfect. I like fixing broken manufacturers or helping helping the manufacturing world. So he brings, he brings that skill set. Mike and Brad have a wealth of knowledge in the engineering world. They both been engineers. They’ve been quality engineers. They’ve been manufacturing engineers. They’ve been engineers of different kinds. So they bring a lot of real technical knowledge. It’s very scary to go on on site visits with them because it turns into a four hour meeting because have a have a mega tour of the plant. I mean, that’s kind of I Manufacturers love to show off their plants. And Mike and Brad love to see every minute detail. As a matter of fact, when we were in, in Arizona for our recent MEP meeting, we went to guess what we went to a baseball game, we went to the Diamondbacks. And about the fifth inning, I hear the two of them talking about the pulley system that closes the stadium. I said, That’s time for me to go up and get a beer cuz I can’t add any. Right? Yeah. But I mean,

Curt Anderson  15:28

you get your priorities straight, get a hot dog in a beer and let them do their thing, right? I

Joe Roy  15:31

mean, they were very much into how does this all work, which is helpful for manufacturers, when they have an issue, they want somebody to look at it with f4 Nice. These guys are really good about looking at it with different eyes. Matthew Jorgensen is a process engineer by trade and ethanol guy, which is big out here in the Midwest. He laughed early on at our deal, because I said to him one time, early on, somebody said, Yeah, I might have something. So I’m going to have our expert call you Matthew Jorgensen. And Matt, Matthew found out I said, he goes, how am I an expert, I said, Well, you know, more than me, that makes you, you know, especially on that subject matter. So he brings a wealth of knowledge in process and process control. John’s an excellent marketer, I mean, he’s done a lot of our links, in our web pages and stuff like that. And Suzanne is our business manager that keeps us all in line. So you know, we have that team, we’re looking to build out the team, we think and we’ll be able to add three or four people in the next year on our team, which will be exciting. And so we’re trying to figure out who and how and where we want to build that out. But but but we also do a lot of delivery in the in the manufacturing extension partnership. And we find that out that the other ones do it too in the other states through third parties, we don’t have to be the new all and end all to deliver something. Right, you have to know where people are.

Curt Anderson  16:51

Exactly. And that’s a great thing is, you know, and what I found working with the MEP, different MEP is run the nation, you know, one of the common threads is just that deep, almost unapologetic just drive to help manufacturers, you know, it’s you go into the MEP network to help manufacturers is, you know, again, read on your LinkedIn profile, to be successful hit their goals in a schema. And the tough thing is all three of us know this, you know, as entrepreneurs, you feel like you’re in an island, you’re in a silo, you’re completely on your own. And, you know, a lot of folks like you just said yourself, Joe, and we’ve interviewed, you know, we interviewed quite a few MEPs on our little Monday program here, we’re trying to drive a little motivation, and for other folks from MEPs have been like, hey, before I started the MEP, I were I owned a manufacturing operation and had no idea what the MEP network was, man could I’ve used their services. Let’s talk about some of the services that you guys deliver. And again, what’s available nationwide, like cybersecurity, I know is a super hot topic. I interviewed Renee Stewart from Purdue University last week, we’re talking about cybersecurity, lean, continuous improvement. But sure. And I know you have a bunch of programs. And again for another plug, my dear buddy, my best friend, Damon is doing a little e commerce thing tomorrow at the University of Nebraska, but talk about some of the services that you guys provide to your manufacturers in Nebraska, right?

Joe Roy  18:10

Well, based on our background, and based on the fact that a third of the manufacturers in the state have food processors and have a big Food Processing Center. Yeah, when I first got to the VP, we were doing a lot with food processors helping them with different projects. We got people that will do HPP studies, we have shelf life studies, a lot, a lot of sustainability type things that Matthews background being in ethanol, we have been doing a lot of process control boot camps and safety management for ethanol plants and those kinds of things. Nice. That was traditionally what we were doing then, Matt, Mike and Brad’s background that I do a lot of engineering type projects. So during mappings, we’ve also developed some sizes, supervisor training, where we can go out and teach people that three legged stool of supervisor training, we have training for each of the three legs, so we can kind of do that. So we’ve been trying to do that. Then we found some third partner, Matt, all in like strategy, because he’s, he’s been in the driver’s seat of strategy. He does some very basic strategy planning if people want a very basic one. And then we’ve, we’ve found some different partners to partner with to do some more in depth, entrepreneurial operating system type strategy, or long term strategy where they might engage with a coach for a year, year and a half, two year journey throughout some of those things. And we were starting to ramp up, ramp up all of those and then the pandemic hit, right. And when the pandemic hit, we decided to start offering webinars, right? Because it was something we could do. Right? We really didn’t know what they were gonna be like. We began that in April of 2020. And we’ve now 30 webinars. Nice. So we’re getting a little feedback or Kurt is that from my end or your Under? I’m not sure. There we go. Maybe that helps. Yeah, better. Okay, good. So so we were. So we started doing these webinars which led to lots of different things, which then led to LinkedIn, which then led me to you. And then we connected. And then you led me to Damon, and you’ve led me to Jeffrey. And you’ve led me to Allison to Ford, you a lot of different people, throughout our industry, that have been really neat to talk to learn about and get a lot of good information from. We just came back from our national conference where we met with our other MEP centers, it’s called the center best practice conference, all the different centers talking about their best practices. So we found a vendor now that can come in and do customized video training. Yep, factors. And you guys, what you guys do, you know, we’ve gotten you involved in a couple of companies here. And I think it’s been very beneficial for those companies. It’s very hard for manufacturers to understand e commerce and to understand how all that works. Because it’s something new, it’s outside, they’re outside their comfort level, realize, besides their comfort level. But I think if they’re going to grow, that’s really a way they ought to do it. And another thing that we’re trying to figure out exactly how to do now gone forward is automation. Factory we go to every facility we go to, they’re looking to hire. Yep. If you can’t find people, why not find a robot? That’s right, right. And, and so people are scared about that, because they’re saying, there’s a cost to that it’s expensive, I got to make, I gotta make that leap of faith, I got to make that jump, I gotta put $40,000 out there $50,000 out there by a robot. But if you think about it, that’s a one time cost. Now, there’ll be some ancillary costs going up. But basically, that’s the one time costs, they don’t call in sick once in a while, but they don’t call instead, they don’t need to know days, you know, out here in the Midwest, they don’t need to know. Right? And if you want to work them 10 or 11 hours in a day, guess what? They don’t complain about it? Yeah. Yeah. No skin off their back. They welcome. They don’t have skin. That’s right. Yeah. So it’s actually something I think we need to figure out how to get that communicated to manufacturers that think outside their comfort box, which is different. And it’s not just picking on them. Everybody has difficulty thinking outside their comfort zone. Right?

Curt Anderson  22:23

Right. It’s, it’s very, you know, it’s very simple to say, hey, that’s how we’ve always done it, or, you know, we’re all three of us are digital immigrants, you know, like taking on that new technology, though, you know, those new practices, it’s very, it’s very easy to just keep doing what you’ve been doing for a long time. And a couple things I want to unpack, Joe, that you that you you hit on there, that’s very, really important. So again, from the MVP network standpoint, you know, again, you guys have a rock star All Star team at University of Nebraska MEP, very, you know, Matt built a wildly successful company, you know, as you mentioned, and so again, when he walks into a manufacturer, he’s not talking to talk, he’s walking the walk, he’s been there, done it, whatever, you know, you come in with a nice sales document, and so on and so forth. What you hit on is like, you have that third party network. So the nice thing is, you know, being mindful, like keeping your costs at a minimal, you have this Rockstar team, but then you can go much wider with a deep bench of bringing in other subject matter experts. What are you finding as far as like, you know, through COVID, and you just sit out yourself like when COVID hit, you had to make a pivot, you had to change the way you were doing your practices. And you guys are doing a great job with it. What are you finding has been successful, trying to help communicate with your manufacturers that got caught off guard with a goat COVID as far as I tried to acclimate to the this new world that read on whether it’s a marketing, communication, automation, any, like success stories, or real positive things that you’re starting to see with the manufacturers that you’re communicating with?

Joe Roy  23:50

Well, I think a general view, what what they’ve learned is, they don’t maybe they don’t have to do everything themselves. Maybe there’s ways to do something good. with other people. Maybe there’s something to do with like, like even what we’re doing right now. Yeah, this wasn’t done two, three years, two years ago. You know, you’re in upstate New York, Kurt, right. You know, I mean, if we were gonna have a meeting two years ago, it’s gonna be really complex. You’re gonna spend lots of money, and we’re gonna have to find a central location.

Damon Pistulka  24:25

Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, the place the travel the whole nine yards just to do it, the cost of doing business was so much higher. And that’s why you are so geographically limited where, you know, the last 14 whatever months has been or six, I have my brain slow, it’s longer Now. Now. It’s, you know, it’s really taught us that we have a much larger resource pool to draw from,

Joe Roy  24:49

well, even even in the sales world I have, when I talk to my friends in the other lines of business that I know and even even lines of business that I don’t know, it’s becoming much more collateral. The salespersons role is much more just just trying to get everybody in the room together and not try to be the subject matter expert. But you know, when I was first got into sales, I had to be the subject matter expert is the salesperson. Right now the salesperson is really more than the event coordinator, I’ll call it right, you know, get everybody together, make sure that I get the right people from my team on the call. Damon gets the right people from his team. And then you get the right people from your team on the call Kurt. And we have them and we let them talk. And you guys do this with your with your stuff, too. You put them in rooms, you can put them in virtual rooms, and it’s much more efficient. And some of those people actually have to get in the room. Or people that really don’t want to try to write, you know, they think I used to get this pushback all the time. Oh, you got such a great job. You get to go here, you get the car. Take care of this. And yeah, there were a lot of great stuff. A lot of good stuff happened on that. But I also missed a lot of home time. over the year. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then on Thursday night, at midnight, and I’d have to pack three days of work in the Friday and Saturday. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  26:10

yeah. Yeah. And then hit the road again on Sunday, your Monday, right,

Joe Roy  26:13

I made sure that I was spending time with my wife and daughters to you know, I mean, very important.

Curt Anderson  26:20

Right, finding that balance. And that’s, I think, kicking and screaming again, for speaking to us digital immigrants. You know, we have quickly discovered how efficient how powerful this is, Joe, when you and I connected again, I just want you know, for the value or power of LinkedIn for anybody that’s a little bit you know, I know we’re live on LinkedIn. But if you’re a little bit ad is LinkedIn really work. You know, if you go on Joe’s LinkedIn profile, again, like it’s just so captivating, driven, passionately helping, I find great satisfaction helping others, I believe is one of your lines. And right below it, here’s where you and I really bonded. I am traveling to every baseball stadium. I’ve been to 45 baseball stadiums, I believe is what you have on your you know, you go on and on and on. If you go on my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see right at the bottom, my daughter and I, I’ve been every stadium my daughter and I now are hitting every scene together we have we would have been done if it weren’t for this little COVID thing. We have five to go. So you and I bonded instantly. Damon you and I bonded as soon when we got on our first phone call, I saw the baseball over your shoulder on your LinkedIn profile. You have you know, you talked about being involved with your son at the Seattle baseball club. So again, you know, like if we were in person, these are those personal things that we would connect and build our relationships on. So it’s the same thing online as you do in person. So don’t let me I have to digress. Let’s go on to baseball for one second. So how many stadiums? Do you need to upgrade upgrade your LinkedIn profile? Is it so I

Joe Roy  27:45

did update it after I went to stadium? 44 and 45 this year? Okay, so 4044 was was this wild? I have

Curt Anderson  27:56

pictures on my phone of Joe from Baltimore. They were wonderful. So

Joe Roy  27:59

I had been a vendor, the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, but I’d never been in Camden Yards. Yep. was always bothering me because that was considered the first holy Cathedral of baseball. Exactly. Going there this year. It’s approximately 30 years old now. Camden? Yes. You believe that’s a little worn. But I tell you, it’s still pretty cool. It’s still got a lot of really deep features for a stadium. Yes. 30 years old, you know. So

Curt Anderson  28:25

in your other. Your other Stadium in the summer

Joe Roy  28:28

was Philadelphia I went to Citizens Bank and that was an interesting area because I was on a block in the in the in South Philly. You’ve got on one corner of the baseball stadium. Across the street, the football stadium. caddy corner on the third quarter, the hockey basketball arena. That fourth quarter was the old Veterans Memorial Stadium that they took down when they put up all these new stadiums.

Curt Anderson  28:50

Yep. And right in right around the corner from that is a brand new soccer stadium. I actually saw profesh I saw the New Zealand rugby team play. So I’ve been every I’ve seen every major sport in in Philadelphia, it’s a great area. You got to get a Philly cheesesteak when you’re there. So it’s a it’s a fantastic spot to go.

Joe Roy  29:08

So and that also allowed me that one. That trip was kind of fun because I saw my roommate from college who I hadn’t seen since 1983. Nice to connect with. Oh, wow. Awesome. So

Curt Anderson  29:19

the only stadium I might have you on this was a little COVID thing. So trying to Blue Jays actually had to play their season in Buffalo this year, which is you know, I’m south of Buffalo. So my family and I we went to we took my dad and for Father’s Day my daughter My sister was visiting. She lives in Connecticut, or in your old stomping grounds. And we got to see the blue jays play Seattle’s played Damon Seattle Mariners. So I might have one. I might have one stadium minute there. So that would be pretty cool. It was I was awesome. It was a good experience.

Joe Roy  29:50

So I did see a major league game in Cooperstown and we had a major league game in Omaha a couple years ago.

Curt Anderson  29:54

And there was one in Iowa this summer which my college roommate lives in Dubuque, Iowa, and was ready to from him, so that’s one

Damon Pistulka  30:01

I want to try to hit Yeah, really want to try to hit that I think that would be something that they’d be out there. But first of all, to you to just be in a group of whatever it is 10,000 people or something that they let in there really be something that was

Curt Anderson  30:13

that was awesome. So and so we’ll get back to MEP network. So Damon, let’s talk a little bit about you’re doing an e commerce program for Joe tomorrow, Joe, and we’ve had a great time connecting. And I’ve had the honor and privilege of meeting a wide number of your Nebraska manufacturers. We’re actually working with a couple right now as we speak. Damon, what are you going to be talking about tomorrow in your program? Yeah, I’ll

Damon Pistulka  30:35

be talking a bit about the history of e commerce and really starting and growing your e commerce channels. And when we talk about e commerce, too, it’s not just selling a product on Amazon, but we’ll talk about that. But we’ll talk about just the digital sales and why it is so prevalent. And why why it is the fact that this is something that’s been going on for an awful long time, and we just haven’t seen it. We haven’t realized I guess for better bear way, maybe a better way of explaining it. But that’s what I’m gonna be talking about tomorrow. And, and hopefully given some people takeaways where they can do a little bit of research here and there and and maybe get started if it’s right. Yeah, people are

Joe Roy  31:16

people are checking you out digitally. But you can engage with them, because otherwise they’re just checking out and getting your information and going somewhere else. Yeah, checking you out, you want to engage them, so that you can

Curt Anderson  31:29

write and like, enjoy, like, and you mentioned, Allison afford your mutual friend of ours. As a matter of fact, she’s in Nebraska today. She’s visiting her mom, and then I know she’s going to be visiting a client that that connected through you this week. And so you know, when she did her program, I’ve done a couple programs, what’s awesome is we’re hearing, you know, we’re hearing the positive feedback from the manufacturers that they want to learn how to do this, they want to get into the game. And we’re trying to break that barriers, those barriers of like, you know, it’s really not digital. It’s just like whatever you did in person, let’s just transition that and do it online. You know, it’s like, for some reason for us older folks that like it’s it’s overwhelming, it’s daunting, it’s like I have to act differently. No, if you were at like fab tech is going on today in Chicago, if you’re at fab tech, how would you be at you know, how would you act if you saw an ideal client walk, you know, at your booth, or down the hall? This is the same exact practices, you know, but again, like, Hey, I can’t type a blog. I don’t I’m not comfortable doing a video. So we’re trying to help those folks like break those barriers. But we’re hearing a lot, you’re hearing a lot more feedback of like, we want this, we want help, right? You’re hearing it now.

Joe Roy  32:37

If the manufacturer is open, and they say we need help, we want help, right? And they all want help with people. Yeah, that’s sure. But but it’s not only people. I mean, that’s really the thing. I’m trying to get that I’m trying to figure out how to craft that message to manufacturers. It’s more than just two people, right? Yes, you want good people. And you want to retain good people. But but they don’t leave, they don’t leave because of money. Most of the time they leave because they’re frustrated, we did a training last week, we did a training on JOB, JOB relations last week in a small in a smaller community, not Lincoln or Omaha. And there was a person on that, in that training. And we were going through their problem. And their biggest problem was that their mat owner manager told them to deal with this issue. When they dealt with the issue. They didn’t like the way they dealt with the issue. And now they push back and they took the size of the person they dealt with. And this person is very frustrated. You could sense it. And he said, I love what I do. I love the company I work for I love what we make. But I don’t like this. And we were trying to figure out what we could do to do it. And finally one of the other manufacturers in the room says, Well, we got lots of openings, we’d love to have you. And we’re not out there trying to steal people from companies. But the fact of the matter is, and this guy doesn’t want to leave, he does not want to leave. Right.

Curt Anderson  34:03

Right.

Joe Roy  34:04

Right. But he wants to make it better. And he wants to have the tools to do it. And his employer was good to send them to this training. Yeah, employer has to also give them the rope to let them do stuff. Right.

Curt Anderson  34:18

Right. Exactly. That’s a that’s a fantastic point. And in daymond if you don’t mind, let’s segue I feel this is a perfect segue into say, you know, a lot of manufacturers are at capacity. You know, they like man, I couldn’t I’m not looking to do marketing. I

Damon Pistulka  34:30

couldn’t take on another job if I if Yeah, if I had to I need people. I know you do an amazing job with it. You know, so we do weekly training and a bunch of manufacturers and you do a great job on hate. It’s not we’re not just trying to target and sell your company sell your culture to your customers or potential customers who all targeted recruiting that were recruiting employees. They check you out probably sometimes harder than your customers well Then when your website looks cold and dull, and there’s not any, you know, community, outside causes that your company supports, you know, that that just cuts down the number of people that you’re going to be able to hire, because they’re looking for, as Joe said, they’re looking for more than a job, they want to go someplace where they can contribute and feel a part of something bigger than themselves.

Curt Anderson  35:23

Right? It’s, it’s been hard for manufacturers were again, like, you know, like, say, Main Street, you know, like, the local plumber or florist on Main Street or whatever, you know, you know, they’ve had to be guerrilla marketers, you know, for their existence, they’re, you know, they’re supporting Little League teams or advertising, radio, local, you know, backhaus older guys phonebook ads, that type of thing. You know, so the manufacturers, they were the best kept secret they got by, hey, I’m gonna go to trade show, Hey, Joe, go hop in the car and drum up some sales. This is a totally different new mindset. They like being off the radar off the grid. And nobody, you know, hey, what goes on behind that, that building? Over there? Right. And so the manufacturer again, if they are digital immigrants are like, I’m not gonna post on Facebook, you know, like, I’m not gonna do this, I’m gonna do that. But Tim, and you’re hitting it right on the head. They are recruiting the millennials, the 20s, the 30s. And those, those the younger folks are checking out these companies, they’re looking at their LinkedIn or Twitter feed. Why? Are they having a good time? What type of culture do they have? Are they community meetings, like you said to causes in the community? That is so critical, and so important, I think and that I think that’s a new concept for manufacturers. Joe, are you? Do you find that in your space?

Joe Roy  36:37

Absolutely. We got Damon tomorrow. Yep. Next week, we’ve got the video training company. Yep, doing couple webinars with us. They go hand in hand with painting does is complemented by what is video training people do. And what they do is complemented by Damon’s strategy strategic looking at, I mean, I’m hearing that the video, you know, stories I’ve heard about the video training is, it helps you recruit people, it also helps you not make wrong hires, because you have some video, and you show me the video, this is what you’re going to be doing. And I look at that and go Yep, me, I’m out of here, but rather get me out of here now then spent a waste of few weeks training me and not being able to train me because I’m adverse to this and get out of there. You know, so so. So people don’t understand that it’s more than just training. And it also helps people retain I mean, they talk about having these videos so that they’re on your phones. So if I’m the new person, and you’ve you’ve gone through giving me a good job instruction training on how to do this job, but you’ve walked away and I forgot how to do it. Am I supposed to do this? Or am I supposed to do that? I can click on my phone, watch this video for five seconds. Get re re engaged. Yes, I’m doing it the right way. Get the reinforcement on how to do it the right way. And I’m a happier person. I haven’t had to go to mean old Damon and you know, he’s gonna get mad at me because he doesn’t remember it cuz I don’t remember.

Curt Anderson  38:10

Yeah. So I can’t I wish we had Jamie from the Missouri enterprise on our show. Was that back in August? Yeah, I think he was at the National Network talking about this, the videos strategic planning. And I couldn’t possibly love this strategy more. When you think about all the benefits, you bring in somebody new off the street, and say like, you know, wire harness manufacturing, I’m familiar. I always use that as an example. You know, hey, you need to crimp this, you need to cut that you need to strip this that it up. Good luck. I’ll be Oh, I’ve got to go help somebody else. They’re like, what did you just tell me, you know, but if it’s on a video, like you just said, Joe, and the thing is, if I’m rush for a moment, I’m in a hurry. Or maybe I had a bad weekend, my team loss or you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, you know, you do that video once, and I don’t have to do it again. You know, it’s more efficient for me as a manager, as a trainer as the owner of the company. It’s more consistent and concise for the new person. And it just I mean, they’re the benefits are just endless on offer

Joe Roy  39:11

about when you order something from Amazon and it comes in it’s got the picture directions. Yeah, you’re like, how does this actually work? What’s the first thing you do? Yeah, do a Google search and find a YouTube video that’s about two and a half three minutes you watch it and you go Oh, yeah, I got that. I can do that. Exactly.

Curt Anderson  39:30

Right work orders you know goes right down the list you use this tool use this you know that you know like everything can be right there. In what you know we always Allison our dear friend Allison since we’re ranting raving about her. She when she does her workshops, she talks about how can you make your customer the hero of the story. I think if owners and managers, supervisors if we could strive to make our employees our team, the heroes of our story, the more successful they are, the more successful the company is, and I think that More that we commit to that. So I love I love what you guys are doing, Joe and Joe, I know we could chat all day, I want to be mindful of your time. A couple of things I know like, again, so for folks that are brand new to the MEP network, we’ve talked about this is pretty much the marketing side is really brand new for the MEPs. Newer for many of MEPs. Great job, you know, offering LinkedIn training, ecommerce training, traditionally, you know, continuous improvement, innovation, you mentioned automation, that’s also relatively new. But you do like ISO lean, right? I forgot about ISIL. Yeah, yeah. So it’s just so just again, for somebody that’s just completely brand new to the MEP network, just share, like some of the things that are on your menu overall, that you guys offers, as far as services go?

Joe Roy  40:42

Well, you we’ve touched on most of them, I’ll touch on a couple of unique things. Okay, too. And this is the benefit of being part of the university we did. Translation projects for companies. Oh, wow. Awesome. We have one company that made chairs that were used in the airline industry, and they were selling them to an Italian manufacturer. Yep. And the Italians didn’t know quite how to use the chairs. So we were able to help translate some of their material into Italian. Oh, that’s awesome. At work, we did the same thing with a agricultural company that was going to use it in Mexico ended up using it in the United States, because a lot of it, where they were doing this wrong, the agricultural world where there’s a lot of Spanish speaking people, and we convert off the Spanish for them. So So those are a little bit of the off the wall. Yeah, projects. That is awesome. And, yeah, we’re always open to saying, What do you need? That’s me. I don’t want to sell you something. If I have something, yeah, that’s all right. We already have we can, we can get you connected with that. There’s no problem we’d like to do that. We know how to do it. We know how to do it if you know, efficiently and with a relatively low cost compared to what you’d have to do in the street. But but we’re also open to learning from the manufacturer, what what do they need? Right? And I mean, that’s what I’m sensing that they need people, and they need training. But they don’t want to embrace e commerce, and they don’t want to embrace these, these automated training things, because they’re not comfortable with it. They just haven’t been exposed enough. It’s no, no. Yeah, they have to do that, you know, this team, which is my hobbies, you know, I got a lot of this kind of stuff. This team, it took them 108 years. That’s right, getting into it, so that they could finally get one of these.

Curt Anderson  42:40

Hey, that was a magical year. That was a magical year.

Joe Roy  42:44

But if you if you know the history of them, a lot of that was when when they got the new management and there they did embrace a lot of new training methods. Yeah, they based a lot of video methods, and they’re still doing that video stuff.

Curt Anderson  42:55

I mean, gosh, we could talk all day about that, because you think about like, you know, they’re talking heavy. You know, we had the 20th anniversary this weekend, of course of 911 Mets and Yankees had a great series over the weekend. They were talking about 20 years ago, and Mike Piazza hit the famous homerun. And when the Mets came back on September 21, I just I get chills. Think about it. The Yankees had a nice run, you know, and they talked about how powerful baseball and at the time, the Yankees were sorry, daymond I think they might have beaten Seattle, and that was your 116 wins season, if I’m not mistaken, they did. But they beat the A’s and article I read last night they were talking about that was a famous Moneyball A’s team in 2001. And you look at, you know, you look at the cup, the A’s are your look at the cubs. And it really is a great case study of like how to build a winning culture, you know, you take like the Boston curse for you know, years and years and how they want so you don’t take into sports teams in applying that culture to find that resistant to change trying new strategies, whether e commerce or what have you, you know, sports a, you know, for us sports fanatics, you know, is our sports transition rate rate into business perfectly, you know, so

Joe Roy  44:04

it’s tough for us here in Nebraska, we had a winning culture, many years in the football team here. Because we got to rebuild it. And we probably can’t build it the exact same way. Right?

Curt Anderson  44:15

Yeah. Probably struggling with a little bit that’s you know, and we could go on and on I and I love that you brought that up. Because when we when you think about Tom Osborne, just what a class act a man of integrity, you know, you’re the dynasty in the 90s what 9495 97 or whatever, you know, national championships. Those are hard footprints to follow me. I just think of like who who wants to take the Alabama jab and Nick Saban finally retires? Right? Yeah, like oh, my goodness, Like who? Who could fill that job, you know, Scott for a year and then they can fire it out. On the retirement. It’s right. But you never you never want to follow that legend. It’s always you know, nine, you go nine, you know, Frank solace was nine and three, right. You ran a great clean program. And it wasn’t enough, you know, but I think you’d beat up on my buffalo bulls this weekend. So I think you guys had a good weekend. You know, so I don’t want to, I don’t want to hear about but no, I’m just teasing. So, but again, building that that successful culture is so important. And again, doing it the right way doing it with integrity, and and again, that you can’t stay. This is how we’ve always done it. You have to embrace change. We’ve got to get into the 21st century. So Joe, again, why don’t we wind down again, I know you’re a busy guy, you got lots of things to tackle. Please connect with Joe on LinkedIn. He does. He puts out a wonderful content. He’s become a dear close friend of ours. Joe, I want to give a huge, huge thank you for what you’ve done for myself. Damon, Jeffrey Graham, our team. Allison, we love working with you. I put on my extra set of eyes for that you put on your I’ve got my manufacturing Trailblazer t shirt on just for Allison, she bought us out of those t shirts. But they will ask Damon Can he named this team? Oh, I don’t know. So minor league team. Oh, you stumped me on our

Joe Roy  46:02

our, our our executive director of our food processing center can name it because he lived in this town for a long time. It’s the Chattanooga lookouts.

Curt Anderson  46:10

Okay. lookouts, man, well, you got me on, you got me on that one. So Joe, we’re the three of us, we’re gonna have to catch a baseball game here. happened this season sound looking good. But next season, we’ll make it a priority, whether it’s the field of dreams in Iowa, or we’ll come out to Omaha for the College World Series. But we’ll make that one guys check out Joe, go to the Nebraska MEP, whatever state you’re in, please check out the manufacturing extension partnership. As you mentioned, you contact them. And so Joe, why don’t we wrap up on this. I’m a manufacturer or some whatever state I’m in, you know, and I the obvious thing, just google manufacturing extension partnership in my state, what, what’s the first process they contact, you just kind of walk them through, like,

Joe Roy  46:54

contact us and say who they are? and say what they’re looking, you know, I’m doing this? Do you have any? I need help with this. I’m looking for help here. What can you What do you have here? You know, if they go to our website, as an example, they’ll see a lot of our offerings, they’ll see a lot of our webinars that we’ve done, you know, out there, actually, this, john will probably put this video out on our link to this video up to our website, at some point, too, you’ll be able to capture all of that. And reality is what is it that you need, we just start talking. I mean, that’s really, that’s really what we want to do? Well, you know, I mean, and that’s really my role in the MEP is to figure that out. And the last great thing about the MEP network is or if you’re a manufacturer in the state, and you’re saying I need somebody who can make this, but we can’t find anybody here in the state. Well, we have the ability to put it out on a national website that we have and ask other manufacturers extension partnerships, and they might send us to people, we did that in the pandemic, we connected a number of people that way, in the pandemic, and that’s where our E journey really started to take off for a little bit.

Curt Anderson  47:59

And I love that because we really didn’t even scratch the surface on supply chain, or the supply chain issues. And again, with a manufacturer extension partnerships, do such a great job of supporting us manufacturers as we’re trying to do reshoring bring manufacturing, you know, a lot of these parts and components, what have you that have gone overseas? How can we bring this back to eliminate these vulnerabilities, minimize these supply chain challenge challenges that we’ve been facing this past year, and the MEP network does such a great job of bridging those relationships, making those connections and again, Joe huge huge thank you to you Matt, the entire team, you know our manufacturers in the United States they are truly the heroes of our economy have been you know, they’ve for you know centuries decades you know, do great work you’re doing awesome work We appreciate all that you do. Thank you my friend appreciate you taking the time to join us hang out in one second we’re gonna wrap up Damon any any last thoughts we want to share before we wrap up?

Damon Pistulka  48:58

Now I’m just glad we could get on with Joe and talk a little bit about this you know me maybe in from Indiana South Dakota kid you know, at heart it’s it’s great to see these MVPs in Nebraska there and getting to meet Joe and seeing what they’re doing because there’s a lot of great manufacturers all over the country and it’s it’s awesome to meet them.

Curt Anderson  49:18

Yep, absolutely. So Alright guys, Happy Monday, everybody go out and absolutely crush it. Catch daymond tomorrow University of Nebraska MVP. Joe, thank you, my friend

Joe Roy  49:27

at o’clock central time, just like go to our website and e dot MEP, that URL and you

Curt Anderson  49:36

and I I think I dropped it into LinkedIn chat. So I think I had the registration right. Yeah, it was.

Damon Pistulka  49:41

It was

Curt Anderson  49:43

awesome. Everybody go out there and absolutely crush it this week. And we’ll see you soon. Thanks.