Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Amanda Compton and Michelle Fossett

Curt Anderson 0:02
Hey, here we go guys. Happy Monday Damon, how are you, brother?

Damon Pistulka 0:06
I’m doing great Curt ready for a wonderful week before the Fourth of July weekend.

Curt Anderson 0:12
It’s just a great glorious week. You know, we’re talking we’re going to talk a little baseball today. You know, got a little testy out in Seattle yesterday, but we won’t get into that but, man, what a wonderful beautiful day Thank God it’s Monday here on manufacturing Monday motivation. Damon we have two amazing rockstars that we’re gonna be chatting with today. How about this lovely lady right here. Look at this Amanda Compton, owner of Sangamon Reclaimed woodworking, woodworking guru and in the great state of Illinois. And then I’m gonna go over here to this young lady over there look at Michelle Fossett, Lea, Michele, give a shout out. So guys, we have a manufacturer woman in manufacturing and we have one of the representatives from IMEC. IMEC is the manufacturing extension partnership in the great state of Illinois. Man, I’m going to start with you my friend. Good morning. You’re 11 o’clock central time here. How are you today?

Amanda Compton 1:04
Can’t complain?

Curt Anderson 1:05
What’s going on in your world? Oh, well, you

Amanda Compton 1:08
know, I’m running the woodshop and I’m selling fireworks and we’re all over the place.

Curt Anderson 1:13
You’re just your crazy entrepreneur, your educator heart and we’re going to dig into this. Michelle, how’s your world going today?

Michelle Fossett 1:20
My world’s gone well today quite busy making up from I took a day off on Friday. So you know Monday’s are even crazy as it is. So making up for all that great time and ready to hit it hard and and talk about us ladies and what we’ve done.

Curt Anderson 1:36
Wild women in manufacturing, I absolutely love it. And so Michelle, you’ve been my partner in crime What an absolute honor privilege has been working with you this past year. We’re going to dig into that. So man, I want to kick things off with you. Your background is a woman in manufacturing. However, guys, if you check out now a man is new to LinkedIn. She has her profile. I encourage welcome anybody start connecting with a man and we got to get that that those connections built up. But if you go on her profile, you take a look, educator, athletic director, coach, Amanda would talk to us like what’s going on in your background there?

Amanda Compton 2:10
Well, I’m a Matt, I have a mathematics education degree and a computer science degree. So that’s my trade. I was in the the education field for 12 years, taught middle school math, and taught some science to and then education. So you end up teaching all kinds of things like kindergarten PE and some health a little bit everything because education is kind of crazy right now. So that for 12 years, I coached sports from little kids all the way up to varsity. I coached varsity softball for eight, nine years. And then small school, I was the athletic director, I was the technology director. I did whatever they asked, that’s what you do in education. So then, two years ago, I had my son and so I decided to take some time off from school to raise him. I did not intend to fully leave school. But that’s kind of how life took me. This is in the middle of the pandemic. So we had all the chaos when I had a brand new baby. And we had this thing called COVID floating around. So yeah, I stayed in my house for a long time. COVID

Curt Anderson 3:14
disrupting all of our lives, right? Yeah,

Amanda Compton 3:16
yeah. And then so my husband makes fun of building our house right before the pandemic. And then middle pandemic, all the prices went insane, which I’m sure everyone knows that will happen. So I had to we had to build our house ourselves. And that’s how I kind of got into woodworking we both we love we’ve planted trees and cared for our land for years and years and years. That’s not new to us. But the building part was now and so we started building our house and then I was like this is cool. And he loved it. And so this opportunity segment reclaimed came along and we just felt like it was it’s a family run company, my sister, my dad are all involved. We just it was right it was the right time. It was the right company. It was the right place, right people. So there you go. There’s my five second spiel, and that

Curt Anderson 4:00
was that was juicy. What a great little spiel that was. Let’s take let’s take it another step further. Okay, so your educator at heart now I believe are you Mizzou grad, where did you go to college?

Amanda Compton 4:11
I actually went to school in Indiana Anderson, Indiana. Okay, you went to and then I went to I did get my masters at Mizzou. Yes, I did.

Curt Anderson 4:19
Get your masters at your masters at Mizzou and you know what, Anderson I think it was a might have been like my great great great great grandfather started getting

Unknown Speaker 4:30
bass was out there.

Curt Anderson 4:31
That’s right, you know, it’s all over the campus. So I mean, I hope now that’d be that’d be scary. So let’s dig into this. Let’s I just want to recap this educator, you know, steady paycheck maybe you know if you’re so my wife’s a teacher, you know, you have benefits, maybe a pension, you know, all sorts of stability as a teacher, right? This little thing COVID comes along causes a little bit of disruption, you plunge into entrepreneurship. How did like how take us through so if somebody’s out They’re like, man, Amanda, how did you do that? I find that so inspiring. How do you talk about that leap of faith of going from civil servant teacher educator into entrepreneurship?

Amanda Compton 5:10
Sure. So I did I do on a couple other companies, I ran my photography, because teachers, you have to have 17 jobs sometimes to support yourself. So I own my own photography business did that in the summer, my husband and I own fireworks stands. And so and then he owns his business. So we and my dad, longtime running has been an entrepreneur, I think he worked for someone else for like two days and got fired. And he started his own company. And so it’s not, I’m not new to it. But the I’m very risk averse. So to take that, like you said, that leap of faith from stability. Even when I was doing my photography, I still had stability, I had paychecks, I had health insurance, that was a big thing. And so to step out of that took a big leap of faith and a great support network. So my husband’s super supportive. My mom, my dad, my sister, very supportive. So I have this network of people that I was very blessed, that helped me take that leap of faith, whereas my dad didn’t have that he just leap and survived it. And so I think that, that helped me. I also I had something as a teacher, I’m not gonna lie, I had something to fall back on, too. We always need teachers. Yeah. So if I’m like, if this thing goes up in flames, I’m gonna have a job, you know. And so I feel like I’m very blessed in that sense that maybe not everyone has that same support network, but I definitely did. And it has taken a village to make this thing work properly. Yes.

Curt Anderson 6:32
I, you know, we use that line all the time. It takes a village to raise a business name. Yeah, about that on Friday. Yeah, I’m gonna give a couple of shout outs here. We got John McLean. Oh, he dropped a note. Happy Monday. Everybody’s coming from New Jersey. We’ve got Jessica so cool. Cheers from Denver. So guys, drop us a note, let us know that you’re coming here, you know, dropping by give a big hello to Amanda, connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, drop a hello to Michelle connect with Michelle on LinkedIn. So Michelle, let’s come your way for a second here. So let’s talk a little bit about your background. And you know, your superpowers, how did you find yourself in iMac, we’re gonna talk about the MVP in a minute. But talk a little bit about yourself and your background.

Michelle Fossett 7:10
Sure, I actually started out in manufacturing years ago is in the engineering department. And so well, actually, my first manufacturing job was on the manufacturing floor. And that was in college. So that was the way that I learned a lot more about manufacturing, I decided at that time, I wanted to take that next step and leap into the manufacturer or the engineering side of it. So I ended up in engineering, I worked in that for about 1213 years off and on, really enjoyed it, but wanted to have more of that people connection, and liked that that whole piece. So I had stepped away into more of a people connecting type piece worked as an independent contractor for a while and actually did worked with young people in the skilled trades, skilled trades, teaching them the importance of it talking to him about the importance of getting into those skilled trades. And I found iMac and the process, I’d actually gone through a training with IMEC on their lien one on one, and was first time exposed to them. And then I just happened to fall into this position where I actually took those main engineering skills, added the people skills, and really love the fact that I can help Illinois manufacturers make a difference and connect with them. So it’s been a it’s been quite a roller coaster. I’ve been with them almost three years now. So I’ve made it through a pandemic and had lots of new unique experiences that I know everyone has. But really, I’ve connected with lots of Illinois manufacturers because I work with all Illinois panion manufacturers. So I have no region, territory, anything. So it’s been very exciting to talk to people like Amanda in Springfield or way down south or in the Chicago suburban areas. So it’s been very exciting.

Curt Anderson 8:57
Well, I’d say it’s been an absolute honor blessing, we’ve become fast friends, and I just I just I’m in awe and admire your passion, your energy, your enthusiasm, your dedication of helping manufacturers, you know is just off the charts. You guys I met do a great job. Explain to folks okay, like IMEC What do you say an IMEC? What is IMEC? What is this Manufacturing Extension Partnership thing? So for anybody out there who is not familiar with the MEP network, could you just give every give everybody like the little spiel on what is the manufacturing extension partnership?

Michelle Fossett 9:29
So I’m first of all, we get asked that question all the time, I call and I leave a message and you’re like I who you know or whatever, if it because a lot of people don’t know who we are. And that’s one of our goals and missions. We need to let more manufacturers know who we are. But we are the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence center. So we’re the Illinois version of what’s part of every state in in the United States. So every state has it. We’re part of what’s called the manufacturing extension, or excuse me, Extension Partnership. And our job is to We drive growth, enterprise excellence through the state of Illinois and beyond, as well as the MEP, and we have over 50 specialists in house that work with all the Illinois manufacturers, we do leadership strategy, customer engagement, operations, technology, workforce, you name it, if we don’t know about it, we will get you connected with someone that does. So we enjoy the fact that we’re able to help the manufacturers in this state, and if they’re from another state, we get them connected with those MEPs in those other states that can help them with those resources, too. So definitely, we help over 700 companies last year alone, and we look at it a 19 to one ROI for them. So those are reported numbers that we have. Yeah. 19 to one now. Yes,

Curt Anderson 10:47
one. So for every dollar 19 One, God bless you that is absolutely phenomenal. Damon, we’ve had the honor privilege, we’ve done webinars, workshops at IMEC. We did that some last year, we have some coming up in the fall. So again, big fans big support of what you your director, Dr. David belay, and we’ll dig into your team in a minute because you have a rockstar team at IMEC. Amanda, let’s come back to you for a couple of questions here. So alright, so educator, athletic director, coach, new mom, COVID. Talk a little bit about Sagamore, and let’s talk about the the actual company, maybe they’ve a cool history, but talk about how did you come into play here? And what’s going on there now?

Amanda Compton 11:27
Yeah, so segment reclaimed, was founded in 2014, by a firefighter and a veteran, and then he was taken down barns was how you started. And then it grew into what it is today, which is a custom woodworking and furniture business, we don’t take down barns anymore, but we partner really closely with a couple of local people who do for lots of reasons. Number one, we, we want to keep everything as local as possible, because we don’t want to, we don’t want to travel. I mean, well, aside from gas prices, but we don’t want to travel these long distances with semi trucks, just putting pollution in the air, I think that that kind of goes against our values. So try to keep everything local, and all of the stuff that we do we work with local people. So our welder is local, our burn, contacts are local, all of our tree services are local, everybody we work with, we have engraving partners, everybody’s local, which is what we is the company that I became a part of. So our friend who was the founder, he I’ve supported him since he started, I actually bought one of his first things that he made. So small community, I mean Springfield, the capital, but it’s small enough, it’s like a Little Big Town, you know. And so I knew him and had been around I’ve been very involved in and not very involved. So a strong advocate for his mission, and what he was doing supporting him. And so I’ve always known about it. And then like I said earlier, when he was ready to sell the timing was just it was right for everybody in my circle. So my sister who is a part of a corporate world with Anheuser Busch, she knew that side of things, my dad, who was the entrepreneur who knew that side of things, my husband, who needed to support me and my children, and my mom to everyone, it was just it was the right time for everybody. And so when it came to us, you know, we we have a strong faith, and it was, it was the right time. So, so we purchased what the company is today, and we hope to grow it, which is where I met came in. Because when we bought it, it was a one man, one owner operation. And now there are three of us that are owners with big plans to expand and the right support system to expand.

Curt Anderson 13:28
Right, right. That is absolutely awesome. What an inspiration that you have there. When you talk a little bit about some of the products, you’re talking about reclaimed wood, which is absolutely phenomenal, right. So you have women business owned manufacturer Made in USA, you know, sustainability, you’re checking off a lot of exciting boxes out there, talking about some of the and we’re going to show them in a few minutes, but talk about some of the really exciting products that you guys make at segment.

Amanda Compton 13:53
Yeah, I feel like describing it, even pictures don’t do do do these things. So we work with reclaimed wood from barns. And what sets us apart there is when we get this wood, it’s full of nails, and like all kinds of metal. So our machinery is set up to handle this stuff. Which is is how we kind of built our way into the reclaimed side of things. And what our guys can do to stable. So this is you’re talking a tree that was 100 years old, then it got cut down then it was a barn for 100 years and now it’s coming to us. So this thing has seen a lot of history. You know, one of the cool barns we have is if you know Springfield, so we’re all we’re all Abraham Lincoln fans, I guess the whole nation probably is. So Lincoln’s law partner, Herndon, we have the Herndon family barn, so we took that down as a part of our company brought that lumber into our company. And so there’s a lot of history, you know, can you imagine what what was seen there, you know, so that the Springfield Visitors Bureau center, the whole desk is made out of the stairs from that barn and so they have a piece of the Lincoln history in, you know, Lincoln central right now. So that’s one half of our business the other half is fallen Trees are felled trees. So trees that were struck by lightning, or that got eaten. We have a lot of ambrosia beetles that a lot of places do but a lot of bugs in our air killing trees. And so we get those trees, we bring them into our shop. And then we can manufacture them into tables that can sit in your family home for years to come, which is my favorite pieces. Like, you know, my parents tree fell down, can we can we do something with it sort of burning it, you know? And yeah, they bring it to us and we create this fabulous table that their family is gonna pass down from generation to generation. Right?

Damon Pistulka 15:31
Yeah. Those are the live edge. The live edge. furnitures Yeah. ratable Yes. Incredible. I was just I was just at someone’s house over the weekend. And they had, they had integrated a really unique barn door style live edge door. I live in their house in their house. And this one was over the bathroom, but they did it with all the doors in their house. So it’s really interesting, you know what the nice, the nice roller assembly and then just the beautiful wood door, it was really something we’ve been

Amanda Compton 16:02
able to utilize epoxy to in a situation like that to really, you can enhance the tree but you also stabilize it with epoxy. So if there are cracks in it, or does all those bug holes and stuff, you just put some up we’ve perfected that, that magic of epoxy. And now you’re treasonous or your your tree, your door, whatever table is going to last forever, because we’ve had this great technology of epoxy to help us keep it. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 16:26
that’s awesome. So made it so some of the different types of products you do furniture mantle’s talk a little bit like some specific products and then we’ll pull your website I’ll take a look. I love Damon, you should see these flags that that Amanda and her seen him yeah, there’s me to talk a little bit about some of the products that you guys make.

Amanda Compton 16:46
Yeah, so our most popular ones we do custom designed bars. So typically you’re talking to basement bar or right now we’re doing a local they’re opening that cidery in town and so we’re doing their whole at 16 foot long bar table half epoxy half lumber Sycamore. So we do bar tops tables, the same thing both epoxy and reclaimed wood. So we do a little bit both we also have we’re doing all the firehouses in Springfield are getting new tables. So six foot by 12 foot long tables made of reclaimed white oak from barns in our area. So they’re bringing that history into their places. You know, we have local support and so we do tables bar, those are probably our most popular we do a lot of barn doors both the we just finished actually a door like you explained Damon, it was Sycamore also with epoxy in the middle. I don’t think I have pictures up on the website yet I need to get those up there. And barndoors like reclaimed wood barn doors as well. All kinds of designs you can put the x’s in and we get my craftsmen are amazing. They can do all kinds of things. And then we have mantel so you can actually get like these trees we talked about there were 100 years of the tree 100 years in the barn you can now bring them in your home is a mantel to our barn beings we have rough sawn, we also have hand hewn like back when they were using axes to cut to the level these things out. So we have those, and then down to small things like hand turned kitchen spatulas and spoons and bowls, and things like that as well. And then my flags for Heroes program is my favorite program. So we’ll talk about that when you’re ready.

Curt Anderson 18:13
Man. Damon, are you getting chills on this one? Yeah. Just alright. So again, I just want to recap if anybody’s just joining us again, drop a note. Say hello, connect with Amanda here on LinkedIn. Check out her website, you want to go to her social, I did add her website to the comment box here I want you to please connect with our dear friend Michelle IMEC. But what I absolutely love so again, women business owners, fearless entrepreneur, it takes a village she has her whole family involved and she’s like, you know, boy, you know, you know so many men, so many entrepreneurs we talk talk with you know, like they feel alone Daymond we’re just talking about this Friday, we had a manufacturer on and we had the New York MEP few sub was on the program. And you know, so many manufacturers feel like they’re in a silo on their own, not realizing that an organization like IMEC, like MEP, is there to help you walk through that process meant to talk a little bit about how did I met come on your radar and what are some of the services that they provide? You mentioned or they were early actively involved with you early with your process when you bought the company? Did you say that?

Amanda Compton 19:19
No. They came along afterwards. And it was it was just who contacted a friend of a friend of a friend was like hey you guys here because we want to build up our flags for Heroes program into you know, that’s kind of where our growth is coming from. And to do that we needed some help to grow in the manufacturing side. And so a friend of a friend a friend said hey, you need to hear about iMac and so they brought it back to us and they were like a godsend. So I’m so glad

Curt Anderson 19:44
What was that when your friend made that connection? What was the first thing that iMac help you with?

Amanda Compton 19:50
So this was actually our first project which was building a website that can take us national right now. You know what we were working with was Free and it was it were local. But in order to grow, and to really be able to get our services to people outside of our city, we needed help. And I didn’t have time to do that. And so I met came along and said, Hey, we have experts in this, we are going to support you in this. And they just came right alongside me. And now we have this beautiful website that you’ll see.

Curt Anderson 20:19
That is awesome. So Michelle, now we’re coming back to you, my friend. So you know, traditionally, so folks that are familiar with the MEP network, you know, they might be thinking like operational excellence, maybe ISO certification, workforce development, which they you guys are superstars, as you mentioned, you have 50 subject matter experts on the team, you have all sorts of third party resources. So if there’s a problem in manufacturing, somewhere within the network, and even at a national level, because you have NIST in your back pocket, and 50, you know, 50, other MEPs, you’re going to find a subject matter expert. So if you’re a manufacturer out there, you have a challenge, Michelle and her team, they’ll find somebody that’ll help you put that fire out. But you guys put together an amazing, incredible program called Grow Your Future. Can you just tell the folks a little bit about like, you know, again, because like, Man, I didn’t know that MEPs that help with marketing and social media and websites talk a little bit about how this program came about? Well, I

Michelle Fossett 21:15
would say it was a it was a combination of a lot of projects that we did. Last year, we did something called Move ahead faster, which was we were fortunate enough to have grant funds. And that was a variety of different programs. We couldn’t cybersecurity, we did have some different other programs that were part of that. But what happened is we conducted an interview of, I’m gonna probably say this wrong, but I’m gonna say over 1100 manufacturers. Last it was like right, coming out of COVID, the early on part, and asking them just general questions, operations, it was an operational needs assessment, and what were their needs, growth came to the top every single time as we looked at all the numbers that came out came out of it. So when approached that we were able to have these grant funds available to give to these Illinois manufacturers. growth was the first thing that was thought of. So then internally, we have a great, we have a great team. So leadership came together along with our third party Resource Manager, Melissa cerebral and they just develop these programs. And put together we worked with nine different third party resources that were different subject matter experts along the way. And so we were able to do ecommerce website design. We did social media, teaching and help them with their social media piece. We also had to make your pitch, we help them go out and get those sales and know how to talk to people. We had fill your pipeline along the way and as well as SEO booths that were taken care of. So we were fortunate enough in a very quick amount of time because we were tasked with we had to have this done very, very quickly. As you know current how fast we work, do you have a new Amanda, they just went to town. It was very quick turnaround. Four weeks were was the minimum but yet no more than six weeks more for the most part to get these clothes. And we were lucky, we were able to help 127 Different manufacturers out there with one of those. And there’s been a lot of follow on assistance that has been recognized the areas that have opportunity for these manufacturers to continue to grow. Because they that was their first step, first step at grow, go growing. So now we’re helping them along the way with these different subject matter experts we have in house, it could be they need help with workforce, and they don’t know where to go, their leadership might be looking to develop internally. You talked about operations, excellence that covers so much. And we will go in and help them just do a free assessment of their establishment. Let’s talk about where you’re at. The cool part is that’s what we do. We just talk about where they’re at. Our experts go in and report to them what they’ve found, and they talk through it. And this program has really helped so many, we only see it getting better. The opportunities out there that are going to happen for these Illinois manufacturers. And we hit all across the state, I can tell you, every piece of the state was able to take advantage of this of this grant. So we’re we’re happy about that. Yeah, that

Curt Anderson 24:22
is awesome. Our dear friend Nicole Donnelly is here. She’s worked with a number of I met clients and so 127 manufacturers. Are you kidding me? How cool is that? And she also dropped a little shout out to you. Hey, how about a big hack? Yes, for all of our women entrepreneurs. And so in the cold I were just talking earlier, you know, she she was on our program couple weeks ago. Damn Damon. She’s fourth generation entrepreneur, great, great grandfather, grandfather, father and now here she is helping manufacturers of marketing. And she talked about how she goes one of the biggest shocks for her getting an entrepreneurship. She didn’t realize how lonely it can get. Yeah, David, and I know you face that with your clients on a daily basis. You know, it’s hard talk, you know, man, do you have the privilege of like a lot of entrepreneurs in your family, but if you’re an entrepreneur out there and you feel alone, maybe your spouse or significant other spouse is a civil servant, or your friends don’t get it, and they’re just not quite grasping it. You can reach out to the iMac or your local MEP and they get it they get you they understand your challenges. Like, like Michelle just said, they’re going to meet you where you’re at. I absolutely love this. So man, let’s do we’ll take a little road trip and let’s take everybody this awesome new website. So I’m going to share my screen. And how about you know what, Michelle? I’m going to show our little little program. Can you guys see my screen? Sure can. Yep. Okay, so Damon, what we’ll do is here’s here’s what I’ll go slideshow. I’m going to back on it? Because that gets a little messy. I’m going to go to new seat, you can see that alright. Yeah. Does it look better? When I go slideshow,

Damon Pistulka 25:56
it looks better when you can see it better.

Curt Anderson 25:58
Okay. So Amanda, you inherited a legacy website. And I tell you, they did a great job. So you know, great history, like you said, it was founded by an entrepreneur, fireman, veteran, right, just talk a little bit about what the website was. And then we’ll slide into what it is now.

Amanda Compton 26:13
Sure. So it was a free version, this website, and they did a great job of collecting information, all the barns that we took down are the histories are on there. There’s stories of, of a lot of great things, it’s kind of hard to get to all of it. And the website, as it stood didn’t lead you into those things. And then the backside, the function of it. So to take online sales, I could take online sales, but it was very hands on like very high touch. So I had to go in and pull every single order and then go through and find their shipping address and then go through it, it was just it was very, very high touch process. And if we’re going to grow, I don’t have time for that. The backside of that was hard. And then it was also it wouldn’t connect with our point of sale. So we have a showroom in Springfield, we use, you know, one, one point of sale there, and it wouldn’t connect here. And so I will be showing four things in inventory online. And one thing in inventory the store and then I actually have nothing and so it was kind of like it was very high touch me con the shot. Hey, what do we have there? Okay, what I Oh, I’m out of that, oh, no, you know. So the back end of this for growth was was too high touch for where I was trying to go the front of it, I liked the look of it, you know, it was simple, it was easy to use. But it also didn’t lead our people into getting the information about the company that we found so valuable. And so cool to share that history and to share where these these projects, even if in the projects weren’t making it onto the website, because it’s so high touch to get them on the website. So that’s where we started that. And that’s why I that my when I when I met came out with the Grow Your Future program, I think we got the tail end of it, maybe I don’t really know, they had lots of great options, it had all their options, I mean, all the options they offered. And so I actually reached out, I think we might have talked to you, Michelle, I talked to my rep that I talked to here. And they kind of said, Okay, let’s let’s talk about your needs. And let’s find a starting point for you. And so among everybody at IMEC. And also Kurt and Jason, we’d got to a starting point, which was you need a website that functions. So I started there. And then you know, my next steps will be the rest of the six that you guys offer. So fill in my pipeline with customers now. And then hopefully on the back end, I’m going to need help on my manufacturing, pretty soon. So. So they really You really helped me walk through where I needed to start. And then we ended up with this beautiful product right here, which is like, no touch.

Curt Anderson 28:43
Yeah, this is awesome. And I know and I tell you, so first off, man, kudos to you for raising your hand that hey, I need some help. You know, so you know so many and especially I’m talking more to us guys out there. You know, it’s like they when we always kid around like, Hey, why do you guys hate asking for directions? Because we don’t want us to be vulnerable. We don’t want to ask for help, you know. So this was fantastic. You raise your hand and Michelle on the team they come in are like that. And what I love what you just said they diagnosed they didn’t tell you what they needed. They helped you understand they wanted to understand your situation. And then from there, move forward, man to talk about man, these pictures are just so awesome. What are some of the products on here?

Amanda Compton 29:23
Yeah, so on the far left there you see Blue Cross Blue Shield down in Texas. So we did that barndoor right there and then the engraving in a table there. The second picture over this is my favorite. It’s kind of I probably need to move that over just a smidge. But that is a maple table. That tree fell on that man’s property and he brought it to us and we made it’s a 16 foot table that he has in his house right now. And he this customer actually really helped me understand what I do. So it was I just I love that picture I love there’s a picture of everyone sitting around and it’s like it There’s room for more. Yeah, no, I love it. So yeah. So then our mantle’s are there and our wallboard is also there. On across those pictures.

Curt Anderson 30:08
Yeah, this so that mantle. And so again, let’s run our SEO hat for a second. Okay, somebody else out there looking for like real wood they type like reclaim mantle’s or like, what

Amanda Compton 30:19
are some of the mantle? Yeah,

Curt Anderson 30:21
I’m being mantle. Fantastic. And boy people love this like, what would you call like, oh Damon, what was a term that you use with a friend that you were at over the weekend? live edge, live edge. So like live edge reclaimed wood? This is fantastic. Let’s keep moving here. So you got different topics, different categories here, a little bit about this page, man.

Amanda Compton 30:42
Yeah, so this is just all of our different areas of expertise. And you can see each so we kind of sectioned everything off, I mean, to maybe have a customer would come in and what they’d be looking for and what they want to see there. And then we also have are we separate? So we’re very 5050 commercial and residential. And so I wanted to highlight my commercial clients. I also wanted to really partner with my commercial clients. So I wanted to support them, and they support us. So Kurt, we talked about backlinks not that I’m like, you know, a special page, but all of my commercial customers now have links to their pages from online. And so I want to support them like that. And then we also of course, posts on Facebook and Instagram and tag them and everything. So it was really important to me that we get them on here and then connect their what they are doing with what we’re doing in support them in that way.

Curt Anderson 31:28
That is fantastic. Well,

Damon Pistulka 31:30
that’s that’s a that’s a key point too, because a lot of these, these companies or organizations are doing good things by buying local doing that. And it doesn’t go very far that that voice or that that knowledge of what they’re doing really doesn’t go that far. And like when you’re talking earlier about the firehouses changing all to locally sourced the, the wood that you’re you’re reclaiming and putting on there, that’s really something and when you can help them promote that they’re doing good things for the local economy. That’s, that’s incredible. And the environment. That’s incredible.

Curt Anderson 32:04
And then, and then we do a bunch of household like kitchen items and stuff. Yeah. These are so fun. Like, what gift ideas these are and no, like, I think you have some, I think dry more. There’s more right here, right? Yeah.

Amanda Compton 32:18
So this is a great, I’m proud of these all these small products, we make some in house, but we also support other local entrepreneurs. So if you see the earrings on there, the girl that makes those her husband is in the military, and he’s deployed right now. And this is her way of supporting her family. So we get with her and we purchased from her and then we sell to our platform of people that we have. Everything’s handmade, it’s, it’s all sourced down to people with the same values and mission that we have. So well, we make a lot of these things in house also, obviously we have some some pickup to do on some of these products here, like titles and prices and stuff. But yeah, that’s it.

Curt Anderson 32:57
I’m sorry, I took a lot of these pictures before everything was done. So this is what I did is we did a presentation, I can jump into the website real quick.

Damon Pistulka 33:06
website, the website looks phenomenal. Yeah. And like

Curt Anderson 33:09
this man, I love this page more. Talk about the Christian heroes. And yeah, just talked about this, Amanda,

Amanda Compton 33:18
for sure. So this started under our founder, who was a veteran now we still employ mostly veterans and first responders, that’s very important to us. But this program started under him, someone said, hey, I want to flag and so he made a flag from the barn he’d taken down. So it started. And so you’ll see on here like the Chris Kyle Foundation, they he purchased Chris Kyle purchased one of one of our flags, we actually made a special one for him that has like a coin rail on it. So if you’re in the military, you collect coins, you know that. So our flags that make these flags where you the whole thing can hold your coins on it, and you can display those things in your home for everyone to see. And then you’re able to tell your story of where you’ve been, who you’ve met, you know that the history that you’ve seen unfold. And if our flags for Heroes program really comes back to our way to give back. And so every purchase of the flag, which there’s my cubby flag that we were talking

Curt Anderson 34:13
about. We got you covered Michelle, she got and we got it in the line I as well as they do so

Amanda Compton 34:23
that one was a new one that I implemented because we’re big aligned I fans in our family. But every single one of those flags is made from authentic American barn wood and most of that barn wood comes from right here in Sangamon. County, or if not in Sangamon County, it’s in surrounding county. So that’s all local barn wood that we use to create these items that are veterans at first Ron used to create these flags, right and then a portion of all of our flag sales goes back to nonprofits that also support veterans or first responders and this is a program that’s always expanding and growing. So I had someone call a couple weeks ago and they wanted to St. Louis Blues flag and so we created everything for the St. Louis Blues flag and then now we have a st was postbag. And so we we want to support everyone in what they want to create also. And that’s the thing I love about being a custom woodshop. They come to us and they say, I need this. I can’t find it anywhere. Can you make it? And we say yes. And now we’ve got the tools and resources to make those things. So

Curt Anderson 35:16
this is awesome. Let’s spill water. I love it. Don’t buy that. That’s how you rejuvenate your wood. Yeah, that’s right. So this is, this is fantastic. So I absolutely love you know, and so maybe talk a little bit about the process of like, you know, I know we were doing due diligence on like, hey, what shopping cart should you go on? And like, you know, and so Daymond Jason, you know, our buddy, Jason. We pulled him in did a he did a phenomenal job here. So talk a little bit about the process of like getting the website and like, making it come to life here.

Amanda Compton 35:46
For sure. So that was another part. No, I’m actually listened to me about what we needed and helped me find a solution. And then they brought me to you, Kurt and Jason and you guys also walked me through. Okay, now that we know what what our goal is, how do we get there? What’s the best bid? And there’s always options out there different websites, you can and shopping carts and all the things which is, you know, as an entrepreneur, I don’t have time to look into that, because I’m looking into 9000 other things. So if I have someone who can support me and say, Hey, here’s the pros, here’s the cons, what do you want to do? That was just I love it. It was streamlined. It was easy. And you guys brought me every option and said, Here’s why I would do this. Here’s why I would do this. What is your what do you want to do? And so you let me pick. But you also brought me you know, all of my options and even weight things to research. Like if I still was on the fence about something, say, hey, here, go look at these. Tell me what you think. And so we decided on a certain platform and shopping cart. And then from there, it was also super, super easy. I just got an email one day, it was like, Hey, here’s what it looks like, what do you think? And so I jumped on a call for five minutes that I like this, I like this. I don’t like that. I don’t like that. And they said, Okay, great. We’ll fix it. We’ll come back to you in a week. And I mean, it was like, snappy, snappy. Whereas if I was the one doing this, it would have taken me months, I guarantee I wouldn’t have a website by the end of the year that function like this. It was super easy. But I felt like I was listened to the whole time. And my goal was what state friends center. And that’s because you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re like, like, I know someone else can do it, but they can’t do it as good as me, you know, kind of we kind of had that mentality. So to have that support, where they I feel like I was listened to the whole time and my goals were top of line. No matter what, I don’t even know what you know, I never felt like Jason occurred or anyone’s goals. Were anything else besides me. That was great. Nice. That’s

Curt Anderson 37:30
fantastic. What I’ll do I know, man, we’re coming in at a time where I know, guys are super busy. We need to keep moving on Nicole drops a note here say beautiful furniture, I want a piece for my home. The call. So guys, you gotta check out Sagami unreclaimed. It’s absolutely a phenomenal product line, again, Made in USA sustainability, you’re hearing about the culture and the diet, the dynamic team in group that you’re building. You know, you’re you’ve got your whole family involved here. Amanda, that’s awesome.

Amanda Compton 38:01
Why don’t they want to be or not?

Curt Anderson 38:03
Yeah, you got the community involved. Just a little bit of history in Springfield, Illinois. So I just love like, you know, the story behind it is just so fantastic. Michelle, let’s talk a little bit as we’re winding down here, talking, you know, so manufacturers out there like, Man, are you kidding me? You guys did all that for, you know, just share a little bit of like, you know, your experience your process of like, how you help those manufacturers, you know, moving forward, that was a project that went on in the spring. So if somebody is interested now how do they reach out and connect with the amazing team at IMEC.

Michelle Fossett 38:36
Actually, the best way is probably just if you go through our website, but you can contact me direct, I actually can put you with the right connect you with the right person internally, we have regional managers all across the state of Illinois. So we have anyone probably right in your area that will be glad to come direct to us get to know more about you, your facilities sit down with you. Or if you would feel more comfortable about just having a virtual meeting. That’s what we’re about talking about what you’re looking for. And what are we going to do to help you get to that next step and where you’re at. And if you don’t know where you’re at, you just want to get an operational excellence, assessments just to know we’re happy to do that as well. It’s just, we’re here to help Illinois manufacturers contact myself or our our team via the website and connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to help you there.

Curt Anderson 39:27
Before we wrap up, Michelle, real quick, I know like I’d be I’d be disappointed myself. If I didn’t give a shout out to amazing folks on your team. Melissa Simone, Chris, Noah, I and I’m probably leaving out tonight. You know, Dr. David belay, my dear friend, Emily Lee, who’s moved on to, you know, a new career at Caterpillar. Talk a little bit about just some of the flow and I know we can’t cover everybody, but just talk a little bit about just the rockstars that

Michelle Fossett 39:55
oh my gosh, there’s so many of them. So yeah, there’s there’s a whole team that marketing team, you’re talking about Simone, and we have Simone and Megan and Christie and, and we brought on two new young people that are, that are fabulous, fresh out of college, fresh energy, it’s wonderful. And they really have the pulse on where we’re headed now with the growth and the social media and such. So it’s very exciting. And then we have that knowledge we’ve got, we did just recently had a team meeting together all together. And we did that whole stand up who’s been here over 25 years. And we do have those people with that longevity, we have those new people fresh out of college. So we have a wide range of experiences. People that have been actually plant managers have on their own businesses that are now here to help other Illinois, Illinois manufacturers take that next step. And then we we have all these tech specialists that work with direct in house on site with it could be your lien issues, it could be your just efficiency and operational excellence. It really is about what does that manufacturer need to take that next step. So we’re fortunate with the knowledge base that we have, that is here to help those Illinois manufacturers, like I said, it’s over 25 years, down to the fresh one right out of college. So we’re excited about that. And we couldn’t do it without that guidance. So you talk about Dave lay, he is he is fabulous. Amanda, he’s in your backyard. So he’s right there. So it’s awesome. But yes, it’s it’s fabulous to have that direction. And our business office is a support person and our support to us. So we couldn’t do it without this whole team of people out there to make it happen. So we’re excited that we’re able to help all the manufacturers that we do.

Curt Anderson 41:45
Well, that’s phenomenal. And again, just kind of recap, guys, if you’re just popping in or just you’re catching this, maybe on a replay, it’s just as an entrepreneur, it’s just so wonderful to have that trusted guide that resource. You know, if you go on the IMEC website, you’re gonna see they have all sorts of fun webinars. I know I’ve connected with Paula recently. So now your focus you on your diversity and inclusion direction. We’re, as a matter of fact, we’re laying it, we’re doing a really fun, we’ve lined up a great slew of speakers for a supply chain, in the speakers on diversity. And Damon, it’s like Sarah, Scotter and Snia. It’s DC, folks that have been on our program. We’ve lined up a whole marketing webinar series that’s going to be coming up at IMEC. In the fall. We’re starting at the end of this at the end of July, and it’s running all through through October, actually. And so guys, all sorts of great resources at IMEC. So guys, as we close down, Amanda, what your experience with IMEC? sounds super positive. Would you recommend friends, family, your dog? Would you recommend everybody all your loved ones? To iMac? What do you think there?

Amanda Compton 42:49
Oh, you got it for sure. And I don’t know how much. You know, you guys have touched on I met first, but they have trainings for like my operations manager. So he went to these trainings and he can, and it’s just like to have that resources in my hand, I don’t have to go pay to send him somewhere to get training. I mean, that’s huge, especially for, you know, a small business like mine. That’s huge that the amount of opportunities they offer are just

Michelle Fossett 43:14
it’s a good point because it could be the either single shingle type house that needs to help or that you know, up to 500 manufacturers or employees so it’s all mid small to mid size manufacturers is the main goal. But we were here we’re here for everyone.

Curt Anderson 43:30
Yeah, so man, you’re on your path. You’re going to be building a manufacturing giant and we are huge fans. We were to we’re just You’re such an inspiration such a such a thrill as we close out. So I’m going to ask you guys, you know if we were going to get into a baseball conversation, but I think we’re running out of time. Amanda, my last question for you, my friend who inspires you. Today you’ve gone from academia, athletic director, coach. Now your awesome mom, entrepreneur thrown on all sorts of different hats throughout the day. You’re selling fireworks to celebrate our country’s birthday coming up on July 4. What’s who inspires you today?

Amanda Compton 44:11
Gosh, I feel like I am blessed like I truly do. I know everyone comes from my situation. But my mom, my grandma, my aunt. They’re just like the hardest working people I have ever met. And they will work my grandma’s Ada and show she works harder than me. I don’t know how she does it. She just got a new hip last week and she’s like, let’s go play some flowers. My wife it’s hot outside. I mean, I just I have and they none of them are are entrepreneurs but they their work ethic is what got them where they are. And I feel like my work ethic is what got me where I’m going and I just I want to be like them someday. You know?

Curt Anderson 44:47
You’re you’re well on your way once grandma’s name,

Amanda Compton 44:50
Grandma Joanne dreht

Curt Anderson 44:53
send our we send our love and warmth. And we hope she has a quick recovery on that hip. Yeah. And so thank you for sharing that. Michelle, I’m gonna throw the same question. Oh, boy. Absolutely rockin it with manufacturers throughout the great state, like you said, if you’re a manufacturer, Chicago, all the way down to the southern tip and everybody in between. And guys, if you’re coming to us from outside of Illinois, reach out to your MEP, you’re just getting a small taste of just the passion, the enthusiasm, the dedication to helping manufacturers. Michelle, who’s your inspiration today?

Michelle Fossett 45:24
Wow, today, I have to pick this team that I work with, I really do think that they keep me level sets. And then coming back to these manufacturers and hearing these stories, just talking to Amanda is inspiring. Those these are the reasons this is the reason I do what I do. This is what I plan on. My plan is being with IMEC till retirement is where I want to be and believe me if anyone knew me, it was always was always unsettled. I never felt like I was really where I needed to be and, and it inspires me to hear these stories and to be with this team that is so passionate about helping Illinois manufacturers. And that’s what they do. They just they work and believe in the mission. And that’s what we need to do help these Illinois manufacturers thrive.

Curt Anderson 46:09
That’s right. That is awesome. Last question. Greatest shortstop in baseball history. Just I’m just asking just

Michelle Fossett 46:16
was talking about catchers. That’s a Yachty moment.

Curt Anderson 46:21
I was I was thinking as he was gonna go old school. Older guys, I’m like, I don’t care if you’re a Cardinals fan or not. Man, Ozzie Smith Damon back in the 80s. Was there anybody better than not, you know, I don’t care if you’re not a Cardinals fan. I was thinking about Ozzie Smith. Alright, we will wind down guys. Thank you. I’ll tell you both are such an inspiration to us and everybody out there. Thank you for taking the time to share your energy, your passion, your enthusiasm, man that we wish you just monster success. We want this just be an eat you’re gonna be an ecommerce giant. How does that feel?

Amanda Compton 46:55
Working on an organized and I’m gonna retire to the boondocks.

Curt Anderson 47:01
Find that reclaimed barn and you can just got it. Right. That’s right. So, guys, thank you have an amazing, incredible week. Damon, we’re back here on Friday. And guess what? We have another iMac client on? Yeah, we have APL engineered. We have another. We had a we had a guy how many manufacturers that have PhDs. We had one on Friday. And Dr. Gautam is going to be joining us this Friday. He’s from another manufacturer in the great state of Illinois. He’s written Urbana, right up the road from you, Amanda and he’s a big Illinois fan. So we’ll be talking about the fight in line I a little bit there. But we’re gonna be talking about iMac on Friday on our show. Damon, you’ve got faces of business on Tuesday and Thursday. And maybe you need to have this person down here on Facebook. Sometimes so certainly. Alright, so guys, have an awesome week. Thank you. And thanks so much. Oh man to hang out for one second, and we’ll catch you guys soon. God bless you. Thanks.