Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Sami Birch

Curt Anderson  00:01

Hey Damon Happy Monday dude, how are you man?

Damon Pistulka  00:04

I am awesome Curt. Do you have a good weekend?

Curt Anderson  00:07

Oh my goodness gracious if it was any better dude you would add to call 911 It was just so amazing did he did your Seahawks win?

Damon Pistulka  00:15

They did I was just gonna check to see if the Buffalo Bills won 437

Curt Anderson  00:18

and three Thank you very much so oh nice big big football weekend just it’s far best time of the year and hey, how about Mad people already? We got Karen Rivera is in the house she’s looking forward to this one we’ve got John Buck Leno. Dan bigger says one minute the time is killing me and he’s so proud of us because we started on time so as everybody’s sitting down for this one because like this is such a long overdue game and are you sitting down for this one do you did you get it? Did you get a good I did.

Damon Pistulka  00:48

I got a good night’s sleep. So I’m ready to go. I got plenty of coffee to full.

Curt Anderson  00:52

Let’s do Sammy birches in the house. Sami. Happy Monday, my friend. How are you? Welcome to the show.

Sami Birch  00:58

Hi, Happy Monday to you both. I’m doing well. How are you? Oh

Curt Anderson  01:02

my goodness gracious. Once again. Damon you might have to call Hey, look who’s here is the dealers. One Steelers one. So I think they’re two and one and so hey, check out this friend this little fellow Michigan or

Sami Birch  01:16

Michigan bestie.

Curt Anderson  01:17

Are you if you’re if you’re from Michigan, are you a Michigan Michigan or Michigan

Sami Birch  01:21

Michigander Mr. Gander,

Curt Anderson  01:22

thank you very much.

Damon Pistulka  01:24

Oh, okay.

Curt Anderson  01:25

Sami, let’s go here. We have a ton of Pat tons of talk about we are on a mission today. See what I did. Okay, we’re gonna talk about mission. Right. So Sami, when? Damon let’s just go there, right? We’re just gonna go. Are you ready? Sami, when you were a little girl growing up. When you were a little girl growing up? Who was your hero? Who’s your hero little girl growing up Sami?

Sami Birch  01:51

My grandma. Oh, great answer. My Grandma Rose.

Curt Anderson  01:54

Nice. Grandma Rose.

Sami Birch  01:57

Yeah, that’s her name. She’s still with us. 99 years young.

Curt Anderson  02:02

It’s your 991 God block. Eight. Let’s hear about I want to hear all about rose. Why was rose, Grandma Rose? Why was she your, your hero as a little girl growing up.

Sami Birch  02:13

Um, she just always kind of took care of business and was always a person that inspired me to do anything I wanted to do always kind of was in my corner and encouraging me to try new things. And she also was like, a very tenacious lady. So like, she just showed me to stand up for myself. And she’s the kind of person who would like I think she like went to a march on Washington when she was younger. And she was in picket lines and stuff. She was just the kind of person who stood up for what she believed in and she still does to this day, even though sometimes that’s difficult to navigate at this time, but she’s just such an awesome lady and and she was actually manufacturing herself. Back she worked at an airline kind of online at an airline component supplier in our town. So yeah, she just is the kind of person who’s kind of done everything. She worked doing taxes in her retirement until just a few years ago and she decided to stop doing that but and after she left she went to h&r block. And after she left there, she started volunteering with United Way to help people with their taxes. So she’s just this kind of person who, you know, takes the reins gets involved and helps others when she can so

Curt Anderson  03:39

well, I love it. And how about about this comment here? Emily says Rosie the Riveter means that’s her was that was Gration and see me. Thank you for sharing that. So hey, Nick, when you see Grandma Rose, you let her know that we’re sending her tons of love and for her tenacity, her drive would an inspiration, you know, active in the community active with manufacturing. And so that team and you get chills on that one. Just think about just like

Damon Pistulka  04:05

writing stuff down, man.

Curt Anderson  04:07

Everybody’s fired up for grammar roles. Let’s take it to the next step. Okay. So I believe Grande Valley State. Do I have that correct? Are you so the Lakers so you go off to college and you you pursue a path that Grande Valley and now you’ve brought your talents, your skill set your superpowers into the world of manufacturing. And guys, we’re here with Sammy Burch, we encourage you We invite you connect with Sammy if you’re not already, gosh, what are you waiting for? Connect with her on LinkedIn. You want to see all the exciting things going on. But see me what after college, let’s go there. What was your degree college and talk about post college? How did you bring your talents to manufacturing?

Sami Birch  04:45

Yeah, thanks for asking. I’m in school I studied writing as my major. That’s the place that I feel. And my professors felt like I was skilled. I kind of was like floating in outer space. Not really sure what I wanted to do. To my minors in Business, I wanted to do international business, I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but really, where I excelled was in writing. And at some point, I was like, Okay, I just need to finish something. So let’s go and be writer. Once I graduated, the I think the Department had connected me with a gal named Robin Gordon, now, Robin shoop, who worked at a company, an automation company here in West Michigan, they were looking for technical writers, and I needed a job. So I tried it out. And I’ll tell you what, on my first day, or for my first interview was the first time I’d ever seen a Fanuc robot or any robot arm for that matter. And I felt like I am in way over my head. But I’ve got to have this job. So I’m going to try my best. And even if it’s only six months, and I can get a writing job elsewhere, I’m going to try it. But I ended up really loving it. I love the relationships that I built, the mentorship, I had the kind of learning how things were made. And I had some opportunity to grow there. So I was in tech writing for a couple of years. And there wasn’t really an official marketing department. But the company that I worked for, then seen some growth, too, and needed to form a marketing department. So I had an opportunity to join that. Because up until then, we had just been helped, like, the documentation team was helping with marketing related things. So I got to kind of dip my toe in there. So yeah, that’s kind of the beginning of the journey into marketing for manufacturing automation. Job and keep going more.

Curt Anderson  06:49

What’s so Alright, let’s let’s unpack that for a second. Damon? Yeah, yeah, the short answer is yes. But Damon, what would you?

Damon Pistulka  06:56

Well, I mean, it because I’m just trying to put myself in your shoes, Sammy coming into that not knowing much about it. But the cool part, if you’re a curious, curious person, like I think you would be being a writer. It had to be amazing. The learning and then being able to write about these things. Because there’s just so much to learn so many things you were said, learning how things are made. Oh my goodness, that had to just be like a mind blower for you on some of these things.

Sami Birch  07:26

Absolutely. 100% the only thing I had to like even relate it to is the show that I used to watch. I think it was on Food Network called unwrapped. And you’d see like how candies got manufactured? Yeah, I work there now basically. Yeah. And it was, you know, just exciting. Just like you said, I’m, I’m pretty curious in general. So being able to, like learn from other experts on how things are done and be exposed to entire, like, components of the world that I had never learned about. Yeah, it was really amazing. And you know, it still is I still learn stuff every day here. And it’s been fun at mission to do so many like problem solving projects, trade show machines, things like that, where we get to dream up ideas and figure it out. With a team together, like literally on a whiteboard. How are we going to do this? That’s really awesome. Hey, in

Curt Anderson  08:22

your fellow Western Michigan nerd says, you know, hey, my career path was very similar. And she goes, I was a tech writer, as well. And he just dropped it. I love this. I remember watching manufacturing processes like that. And Mr. Rogers, man, man, Emily, I didn’t think you’re old enough to remember Mr. Rogers. So Damon, that was I grew up at Mr. Rogers. So anyway, alright, Sami, let’s take it another step further. So you know, you go to college, you know, like our college kids, we’re, you know, we’re gonna go conquer the world and change the world and all that fun stuff. You start bringing your talents into manufacturing, and you stayed, you just loved it. Just let’s let’s lead up into your career submission. And then we’re going to take a deep dive game, we’ve got something really juicy. We got a little surprise for you, Sammy, and I do but see me let’s lead up to your journey to when you got the mission. What was your career looking like that?

Sami Birch  09:10

Yeah, so for the I guess, about three years before I joined mission in 2020, I had been managing the global CRM for the company I was working for. And so I got an awesome opportunity to travel a lot. I traveled all around the US to different facilities. I also had a wonderful opportunity to go to Singapore, France, and Romania. And all of these different companies have different ways of managing their data. And we had to get them all aligned on the same, I guess, for lack of a better way of saying it, but speaking all the same language so we could make meaning out of the data. And so I’m just learning that entire side of that process. And wow, like, yeah, there’s a whole other area of business that I had no idea existed and I’m so grateful. I got the opportunity to explore that and learn from that. And then in 2020, my life changed a bit, I had a baby. My little daughter joined her life. And I was kind of at a point in my career where I needed to kind of take a step back a little bit, maybe slow down a little and focus on family and and I was feeling that way. And then I almost as if I like manifested it, I got a call from a former colleague, Scott Lindemann, who is the CEO of mission, who I got to talking to about, you know, where I was at, and they were looking for somebody to come do writing related work here at Mission and yeah, I took the jump, and it’s been awesome, ever since. It’s been a lot of learning and growing and relationship building, and it’s been so fun.

Curt Anderson  10:58

Well, this is yeah, man, this is Sammy. Here now. Is your daughter. Cece, is that who? Cece? Yes,

Sami Birch  11:05

she is. Oh, she loves Emily and Emily have met each other. We have a beach day out here.

Curt Anderson  11:13

Who doesn’t love me? You know what I might see Emily, next week in person, Emily, we got to make that happen. And so I’m gonna hit this and so little surprise for you. We’re going to take a dive into it. But Dan bigger as a phenomenal question, Dan, bigger. Thank you, brother. I’d like to know your biggest challenge. What has been your biggest challenge? Being a woman in manufacturing? How do you address that question?

Sami Birch  11:37

Um, I guess I want to preface by saying I’ve been really fortunate to have a lot of awesome people in my life and in my corner, career wise, but something that I have experienced many times is, like, I’ll be standing next to obviously other men, I’m almost always the only woman in the room. And so often, when I’m talking to new people, they almost don’t look at me for the answer. Or like, sometimes when conversations are happening, it’s like, I’m just there to help. Yeah, yeah. As if I’m not the expert, or it’s just one of those things that we learn to. I mean, we’re working actively to, I guess, end the stereotype, or I don’t know how else to say it. But I feel like women have to work harder to prove they know what they’re talking about in manufacturing. And, but I haven’t really experienced this admission. In even before in my, in my former, you know, at my former employers, people have really, really been supportive and encouraging and helpful and so that’s been Yeah, just like what Emily saying it’s the worst or like, you’re not even there. Like that happens a lot of times. Like, you’re just there to get to know just rotters for people. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  13:05

it’s just wrong. Yep. Just wrong.

Curt Anderson  13:07

Hey, you know what, Damon does that to me all the time, Sami, so don’t feel bad. Amen. I’m just kidding. Damon. So just so fantastic question. And we’ll, we’ll take a deeper dive into this. And again, you know, for your, you know, Grandma Rose, yourself, Emily of our friends that are watching just we salute you. We applaud you. We commend you guys, for being the pioneers and just your tenacity, your relentlessness of putting up with us goofy guys, you know, we’re not the sharpest tools in the shed. Right? I’m speaking for all of us, guys. But anyway, we welcome you know, the new dynamic of women in manufacturing. Such a powerful shift is going to create such a great competitive it is creating such a powerful competitive advantage for us manufacturing. So how about David, let’s give a little round of applause for all of our women in manufacturing. And so we just thank you for putting up with us guys. So thank you for that. See me. Let’s hear go. David, do you have a comment? Well, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  14:06

I mean, I just feel I feel very fortunate that from I mean, when I was heck when I was in my late 20s yet and then my first leadership position running a facility. I had women alongside of me that they were awesome. I could not do it without them. They were leaders in our in our facility. And for me, what you talk about I’ve seen it happen but I’ve not been in organization where that’s that’s real and it It’s doesn’t need to be when it’s not like that. It’s so much better. It’s so much better.

Sami Birch  14:43

Yeah. And it takes people like you Damon and people that like Scott Ryan and mark here that prioritize when like hearing women’s voices and, and make sure that there’s opportunity when given a chance to hear from somebody that you know It’s like, we need support, I think. Because without that, then getting treated. But there’s so many awesome women making noise in our space too. Like, Emily, of course Magens Yamba, Nikki and ally who run automation ladies. And you know, you know, all in Halle, or Hey, is it Haley? Yeah. There’s so many people that are just yeah out here saying like, No, we’re here and we know what we’re talking about. Yep. Yep,

Damon Pistulka  15:37

absolutely. And you look at some of the people, like a friend of mine, Bridget Brewer runs a massive manufacturing company. And she she taught me more in my career than any one person. And you talk about empathetic leader gets things done, does the right stuff. I mean, and I mean, the right stuff when the doors are closed. It’s these these kinds of people are there and we’ve interviewed several of them to Kurt, you know, from, I don’t remember all the names, but so many, and I just, it floors me to hear that this is still happening, because it just can’t anymore. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  16:16

Anyway, we’ve had, you know, right, we could go on and on.

Damon Pistulka  16:20

I know, I just I just want to start.

Curt Anderson  16:23

The funny thing is before like, pre COVID, you know, when I, when I started doing my whole, like, e commerce thing, helping manufacturers, I’m gonna say like, I don’t know if it was a majority, but I bet you it was 5050. Half of my clients were women CEOs, are women business owned, and manufacture that demon, you know, well, that I’ve worked with closely. I’m, you know, a majority of the folks on the floor and in the office were women. So the thing is, like, I feel like, you know, maybe we’re getting past that over it. But again, so without belaboring belaboring that point, Sammy, thank you for what you do, you know. And so with that, Damon, here’s the little surprise that I have for you. I’m going to share my screen. And we’re so guys, we’re here today for just joining us. We’re here with Sammy Burch and she’s with a company and man, they are on a mission. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Because I have a little video that I’m going to play. Can you guys see my screen? And let’s go here and let’s go here. Is it going to make it big time? Siemens did it there we go. There we go. You guys ready? Let’s do this. Alright, Damon, you’re ready. You’re.

Sami Birch  17:42

On, mission continues to grow and learn the latest technologies. And through this, we get to work with some really cool smart people across the US. It’s so important for us to marry technology and people together to build solutions that make the world a better place.

17:57

I think the role that we play to make our customers successful is being curious and inquisitive, asking the right questions, and getting to the root of what’s necessary what they need. Right. And that takes a lot of perspective. So we need to be talking to maintenance and quality and what are the production metrics and and what do you stay up at night with all those kinds of questions help us build that statement around what’s needed. From the get go.

18:23

Our team really focuses on the fact that we actually collaborate with our customers throughout the entire duration of the relationship and each specific project. We want to make them feel involved. So one of the things that we have the most fun with is the process of whiteboarding.

18:41

So we have everybody from mom and pop shops to large companies, they’re looking to automate anything that they can. When that labor shortage hit, a lot of these companies almost went under, so their only option was to turn to automation. So it’s just very exciting to see everybody getting into the industry these days.

18:59

Michigan is a place that people are striving to work with, because of their integrity. And because of the way that our team has brought their experience of many years to solve the problems of today.

19:13

Working at mission design is a great experience. It’s fun every day to come into work, be around passionate people who care about what they’re doing, and care about who they’re doing it with and care about our customers and what their needs are.

19:26

Mission exists to deliver a great experience and solutions through a culture of innovation and teamwork.

19:34

Mission exist to make people’s lives better on a daily basis, learning and understanding customer needs, being able to partner with them solve the problems implement it for a better outcome with confidence and expertise mix integrator, we’ve been taking

19:51

on more and more interesting projects. And each new project that I’m on I’m learning new things. My mentors are teaching me a bunch and I’m always excited for new challenges. So I’m just excited to see what we tackle next. I’ve been in the automation industry for one year, 12 years. 26 years.

20:10

27 years. 24 years. 20 years. 34 years, six years. 31 years. Nine years.

20:17

15 years.

20:18

Not long enough. There’s so much to learn. 17 years

20:23

33 years in counting

Damon Pistulka  20:31

that’s incredible. How, how fun.

Curt Anderson  20:37

Oscar winning performance there. How a

Damon Pistulka  20:40

great job, Sammy. So

Curt Anderson  20:42

we have a lot. So hey,

Damon Pistulka  20:44

oh my goodness. Emily hasn’t

Curt Anderson  20:46

even seen it yet. So. Okay, I have a few things in pack right there. 20 20k Manana. What is it? Something happened in 2020. I can’t remember was there’s like, did an event occur that I shouldn’t have that saved me? I think it’s something I don’t remember. Right.

Sami Birch  21:01

Little things are available pandemic where maybe a horrible

Curt Anderson  21:05

pandemic so you 20 die of that correct.

Sami Birch  21:10

That was in 2020. Yep. So alright,

Curt Anderson  21:12

so you had a COVID? Baby, if I’m not the kind of right we’re, well,

Sami Birch  21:15

yeah, she was born right before. So she was born November and then everything shut down in March. So barely just started even going back to work. And then everyone got sent home and such an interesting thing to navigate a scary time to have a newborn.

Curt Anderson  21:33

That’s right. So alright, so not only did you have a child during COVID, you became a COVID. Baby yourself at mission design, right? Like we just started a new gig, and just trying to navigate this thing as a new mom, and new, you know, new challenges that mission, they call you up and say, Hey, we need some help here. And so you have a dynamic team admission. I love to talk about I want to get into your transition. But I want to unpack you know what, what’s different. Everybody’s got that video fresh. Let’s talk about Yeah. And look at what everybody’s saying and how inspiration or John McLean Oh, happy Monday, brother says that was great. Emily, give us a round of applause. Let’s dig into that video real quick. Okay, things that you guys talked about integrity, collaboration, it just it was so much fun, you guys, nation nation. And I love the one person that mentioned you know, how you guys that mission, make the world a better place on a daily basis? Share? How do you guys make the world a better place, I’m doing things

Sami Birch  22:30

in a few different ways. You know, starting with automation, making jobs safer, easier to do better for the physical body and human spirit. Some jobs just are better suited for robots than for humans to be doing them. Literal backbreaking labor. So starting there get, you know, upgrading people’s position. So eliminating dole dangerous, dirty, degrading to the human spirit, how you know, all the DS, that we used to describe some of those hard jobs in manufacturing. That to begin with, secondly, something we talk about is, you know, we’re working with people every day, and they’ve got their own goals, and what can we do to help them solve the hard challenges that they have so that they can reach their goals? What are we going to do to help get our customer promoted, like, if it’s his or her, like job to get this manufacturing line going? How can we ensure that they are successful, we become an extension of their team. And we think that by creating this culture of collaboration, we can do that working together with people, we really see ourselves as the extension of our customers team. And we don’t like when things are just transactional, we build relationships with people. Some of my greatest friends I’ve met through, like customer transactions, but we really get to know each other and you know, you go out to lunch or to dinner and you learn about each other’s families. And I think having that trust there really helps just create this environment where you can count on people and it’s good for business, and it’s good for the world if you’re creating, inventing new ways to do hard things that haven’t been done before.

Curt Anderson  24:28

Absolutely love it. I love all the comments, you know, so you get your management team like Scott and Ryan, Mark. I love Ryan’s comment when you know, how long have you been in this industry? Not long enough. You know, so you’re just like, you’re just it’s just you’re just feeling woozy as I’m from the team of how passionate they are. I wanted to take that I want to go back to 2020. So you come into mission and just talk about like, what were what were your goals? What was your objective as the new marketer on the team, this whole process the company was new to you. You’re new mom, walk us through that process. And then let’s lead up to like the video, you’re killing it on LinkedIn. But how was the early days at Michigan?

Sami Birch  25:08

I’ll be honest, I was kind of like, relying a lot on trust when I came here because it was, while it was a company who was doing well, it was very small compared to what I was used to. And I just wasn’t sure almost where to begin. There was a lot of stuff that the mission was doing well, and there was a lot of room for growth in terms of marketing documentation systems in place to help make things efficient. Shortly after I joined, we cleared the area of land that I’m sitting in now. And we built our new building, navigating how do we communicate with our customers that we are skilled enough to handle their big problems. While some of the floor space we had was so small at the time. And we just like we’ve just kind of talked about, you know, we build these relationships, we talk to people, we work with our suppliers, some of our large suppliers who know us and trust that we know what we’re able to do, and it has continued to grow. I was able to bring another person onto my team, her name is Mandy, she heads up. Now she heads up all training and development. Overseas, recruiting that type of stuff and, and also works with documentation. She’s an amazing, amazing addition to our team, just to help kind of point things out that maybe we didn’t see before in terms of training that has really helped through some of these growing pains that we talked to you before we started recording. You know, when you grow as fast as we have grown, you run into some, you know, challenging things, you have to navigate in terms of making sure your employees are taken care of first and foremost. But when you’ve got small departments who are, you know, trying to figure it out, it is a lot of learning on the fly. And I think like having the trust that we have here, has maintained this environment where we’ve been able to continue to grow well, serving our employees and our customers. And then, yeah, I there’s a gentleman that we work with for video, his name is Connor Ray, who he also is kind of he’s from West Michigan, he comes in and helps us with our videos. And I, we had this idea like how do we talk about, some of us have only been at Mission for a few years, but we we have a lot of experience in the field. So how do we showcase some of the cool stuff we do here and still talk about? We’ve been doing this for a long time, actually. And that’s where we trumped up the video that we just watched.

Curt Anderson  27:56

That was in when that was so awesome. And when you add up all those years, I mean, you’re talking hundreds of years of experience in automation. And so first off, where are we at timewise. All right, we’re just coming to the top of the hour. Guys, if you’re just joining us, we’re here with Sammy Burch and we were talking automation. We’re talking marketing for manufacturers, women and manufacturers. All sorts of fun, juicy stuff. If you missed it. You want to go back and hit the rewind button because you want to catch we just showed a wonderful video. Now see me You said growing pains and growth. Could you please curious minds would love to know how many people were at Michigan when you started? I don’t remember that number. What?

Sami Birch  28:34

What was that? 4848

Curt Anderson  28:37

Samy Burch question for you pop quiz. How many employees work for mission today?

Sami Birch  28:42

I think we are just a 141 39 or 140

Curt Anderson  28:48

CME. I’m no math major. You but that dude, that sounds like a really. So in a three year period, you just went from 48. Team teammates to over to 140 that is a sum that that is? How about a round of applause? Have you guys Scott’s mind all 140 of you. Right? How, how’d you do it? How do you grow 200 300% In a matter of three years.

Sami Birch  29:19

I think creating an environment where people want to work. And our recruiting style is I would say almost casual in a way we bring people in for tours. We talk about what we do. You know I keep saying it. I feel like maybe I’ve said it so many times but just creating like being people that people can trust and creating an environment where people feel safe is a way to it’s good for business and just life in general, I think to be a good human and create this environment where people want to work. We’ve also obviously logistically had to scale up Darce space, we have an awesome facility, if you’re ever in West Michigan would love to bring you here on a tour. It’s really it’s state of the art, everything is modern, and it’s beautiful. It’s a place where people want to work. In fact, sometimes our customers will, even if they’re just down the road, but they come here to see a machine or work through some type of thing, they’ll they’ll want to camp out here for the day. And because we’ve got some nice working spaces, and little pocket meeting rooms, and we just have a collaborative environment that I think people want to be in. We also are mostly all in the office, which I’m not. That’s not to say that I don’t think remote work should be remote when it makes sense. But I think we have the opportunity when we’re here to really, like, collaborate and talk about how was your weekend, you know, we’ve got work to do. But also we get to know each other. And I think having that sense of community is something that people want, especially after spending two, three years in a global pandemic, like, I’ll be honest, when I came to work, I was so thankful to be back in the office, and I’m creating when I’m talking with other people. And so it’s just you have so many more more touch points and opportunities to do that when you’re when you’re here. And I think with recruiting people feel that when they come here.

Curt Anderson  31:25

Awesome. So you know, sense of camaraderie, sense of team sense of family, sense of advancement in life, people want to be on that winning team, and you guys are just growing exponentially super aggressive state of the art facility, and you’re in such a great growth area, you know, so many exciting things going on, say me, I want to slide into you are just a brilliant marketer. I know you’re super humble. So I’ll say it for you. You’re absolutely crushing it your take you’re you’re a big contributor to the growth, if you just came in, we just talked about how admission they’ve gone from 48 employees up to 140. In three short years. See, we talked a little bit about like any advice tips for either solo marketers out there at a small manufacturer, and they’re like, see me, how are you doing it? What’s happening? You know, let’s go there. Let’s talk about your marketing expertise for manufacturers.

Sami Birch  32:19

I have a hard time talking about myself. But what I will say is, I couldn’t do it alone. And in my advice would be to lean on your team and take risks. You know, it’s something that I was afraid to do in the beginning. And I think it slowed me down early on, because I was afraid to try new things. And I gotta tell you, Ryan Lillibridge has been such an advocate for just trying new things and seeing what happens and, and Scott as well. But Ryan, and I do most of like the marketing brainstorming. And he’s been so supportive of just, you know, getting connected with people networking. And I was a little afraid at first I had such bad impostor syndrome about owning this department that I was just almost not sure where to start. But like, I needed a little bit of support. I have an awesome team. Like I said, Mandy has been such an amazing person on my team, Melissa, and Virginia too, if they’re listening, you know, Sarah, who is our newest person on our team, everyone kind of works together to make sure things happen. And then we have such an open collaborative sense for what we should work on. Also getting involved in I think there was such a debate in 2020 and 2021. On like, is, is it the death of the trade show? Should we be doing trade shows, shouldn’t we and for a while we didn’t. But I think there’s something special about not just showing, showcasing what your technology at the show, but also the ability to connect with other people to walk the show and talk about things. I think the sense of community you don’t get elsewhere. And so I’d recommend even just going to shows if there’s a new marketer who’s listening, or somebody who’s trying to kind of do everything, you don’t have to do it all at once. But if there are opportunities to like, try a little here and see how it goes. And if it like it has to be experimental. I mean, there’s no one answer to marketing for this industry. But I do think that trying things out and seeing how it goes and then correcting or improving depending on what your results are. Also, like there are so many smart marketers on LinkedIn that are giving advice every day. Tuning in there and just learning what you can.

Curt Anderson  34:48

Well, alright, that slides in perfect to my next question, Damon, what do you got?

Damon Pistulka  34:52

Well, I was just thinking how how, you know, being away from the trade shows and COVID You know, made a lot companies step up their digital game set up their, you know, their social presence or their their own presence on their websites and things like that. Do you think that that actually helped you going into the trade shows with the fact that now, we may have better outreach, we may know who’s going there, all those kinds of things that you really didn’t have keyed in before?

Sami Birch  35:21

100%? Absolutely. I think you need both. But I would, I would argue digital, first and foremost. But it is it yeah, if you can tell people where you’re at why it’s important to come see you. Let’s meet up. I mean, something as simple as that. I mean, I’ve met you both through LinkedIn. And I bet if you’re at a show recently, you’d want to go see mission. And so it’s just one of those things that you just start this momentum and it keeps going digitally. But then if you’ve got, yeah, just like you said, it helps your traction in like, real life.

Curt Anderson  36:00

So see me, let’s go here. You’ve mentioned LinkedIn. That was that perfect, man. It’s like we planned this teed up my next question, what has LinkedIn done for you? Personally? I know like you have amazing friendships. I love following your posts. I love the camaraderie that I see with you. What is LinkedIn done for you personally? And what is it done for professionally? admission?

Sami Birch  36:24

Yeah, you you said it, Kurt, my new bestie Emily, I met her through LinkedIn, Emily Wilkins of marketing, metal shout out to marketing metal. Not just her though all the manufacturing kind of group, I’ve made so many awesome friends that literally we text like regularly. And it’s we’ve got a group of women in manufacturing that, you know, we’ll just talk about our kids or what’s going on. And it’s just awesome to have this community that I didn’t have before and would not have had had it not been for LinkedIn. professionally. It’s helped us grow missions brand and myself to get to know people like you both. As well as just boosting kind of awareness about mission. We’ve grown a lot in the last couple of years. And I don’t think it would have been I don’t want to say it would have been impossible, but the brand awareness around mission definitely wouldn’t be what it is without LinkedIn.

Curt Anderson  37:26

Yeah. And in, it’s mind blowing, you have five, just you’re just under 5000. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  37:33

I was just looking at that. Yeah, I checked it out. That’s crazy. Cool.

Curt Anderson  37:36

Yeah. Well, a lot of companies were like, Oh, the LinkedIn company page just doesn’t really work, or I just can’t get see me, what’s your do? Do you have a silver bullet? Like, what’s been your secret like and talk about? Like, how has it helped you, you know, like, you have to align yourself with with the sales team. But like, what’s been some of your success for the mission design LinkedIn page,

Sami Birch  37:58

a little bit of kind of what you said, so I’ll encourage the sales team to get on there. When I started, we didn’t, I don’t think we had 500, or even 400 followers. But we just like started posting talking about our people. First and foremost, if you can’t tell, that’s our like, the number one thing we care about is as people and so we started just putting content out there about our team and talking about who we are. And I think people want to work with people. And so if you can just tell them transparently who you are and what you’re doing, then they’ll want to engage in your content. I also, you know, we put out some campaigns, we had a construction automation focus campaign that we put some, like LinkedIn ad spend towards and that helped a bit as well. And then we talk, I talked to our sales team about inviting their people because I can invite everybody I know, but who I know isn’t who you know. And so if we’re all working together, it helps. And if you know, there’s other marketers out here who are trying to like, or kind of in it, where you’re like, there’s so many things that fall under the marketing umbrella, I don’t know where to start, like leaning on your team to help with some of those things. Really, really is helpful, as well as, yeah, just consistent content. That one’s hard. I will be the first to admit that that one is, you know, it’s hard when you’re a small team to even know what to write about or like, I guess I kind of circling back to what I said earlier, like, I didn’t know where to start or like sometimes I felt like I had impostor syndrome or I did definitely have impostor syndrome about what to talk about. But the thing is, people probably are looking to you to be the voice and if you would just get out of your own way to do it, then you could do it. And so keeping myself in check for some of those things and just putting, putting content out there that I think really exemplifies who we are, as a company has helped.

Damon Pistulka  40:09

Yeah. And you can see it in your posts on your company page, I’m flipping through them here, you know, you’re showing people some of the same people, you’ve seen the video say, talking about things there you see, at the shows, how you’re helping customers, and and just, you know, a couple of them the golf outing, so things like that. I mean, it’s just so great to be able to see your company engaging with the world that way and showing how you are human because you said before, we’re trying to be good humans, and people want to do business with good people. I mean, that’s the way it is. And, yeah,

Curt Anderson  40:40

it’s cool. It’s exciting when you see success for good people, you know, yeah, it’s just so admirable. We are doing admission design and automation, check out their website, it is absolutely phenomenal. So you may want to be mindful of your time. I know you are super busy. I’ve got less questions for you. Damon, what do you got?

Damon Pistulka  40:58

Well, and we haven’t even talked about I mean, I still am blown away at the solutions you guys are producing. Because if people haven’t been around, I mean, I started out my career I engineering degree in automation. That’s what I did for the first five, six years of my career. The stuff you guys are doing this absolutely fantastic. It is the coolest stuff you’re gonna see anywhere. Yeah, so we didn’t talk about that. And we don’t need to, but I just want to make sure go check out their stuff,

Curt Anderson  41:22

check out their stuff. It’s good stuff, right saying yeah, that’s right.

Sami Birch  41:26

Our YouTube channel has a lot of like, the machine videos on it that you can actually see in action. And, you know, we everything we do is custom. So it’s, the floor looks different every month, it’s very, very cool.

Damon Pistulka  41:41

I will give you a content and idea for your company page. You never need to worry about content, just share some of those videos. Videos. Oh, my goodness, people

Curt Anderson  41:49

just are gonna Oh, yeah, there are so so let’s go here. You know, I might, I might keep it for a couple more questions. But I see like, I only have two questions less than like five questions later, I’ll be like, same Yeah. So first off, checkout, you guys want to connect with me on LinkedIn, please do so you will thank us later, check out their website. Incredible videos, as you just mentioned, go to their YouTube channel. If you miss it earlier, we’ve showed their company video, just the passion, the enthusiasm coming out of your company, the technology, the advancements, just off the charts. See me if you had any advice for that solo marketer, like you said, like the over I thank you for sharing that impostor syndrome, right? That takes a lot of courage. We’re on a live show. And you’re like, Man, I’m struggling with you know, impostor syndrome, but like, it feels like you’ve really kind of gotten to your own, you’re in the zone. And now like, you’ve created that camaraderie with your team, that now you have that direction for a new marketer in manufacturing out there, or a company that’s smaller. Any advice? Like where should they start? Like, what would be like a good baby step? If they’re feeling overwhelmed? How could you help that new marketer for manufacture?

Sami Birch  42:56

Yeah, I think the best place to start is probably digitally on LinkedIn. That’s where you can you can both kind of practice creating content. And I think it was, yeah, practice, it’s putting it into practice. But even if it’s, even if you’re publishing it, that’s a good place to start. And then you can also learn so much there. But I guess I one of like, one of our, as a leadership team here at Mission, one of our kind of agreed upon guidelines is if we’re going to fail, we’re going to fail forward. And I feel like if you’re a new marketer, and you’re afraid to try something, don’t be trust that it’s okay to make mistakes, because that’s the only way one you learn. And two, you just don’t know sometimes what you don’t know until you until you try it. And so, some things work. Some things don’t most things do. So just not being you know, not being afraid to try new things. But definitely getting on LinkedIn, because not only does it give you the platform to practice, and then engage with other people, but also you can learn from others and take inspiration from how things are working for other companies follow companies that you like, and just see what they do. What what is it about that that you like, and then you know, maybe you can put your own type of twist on it or try something new and see how it goes. Oh,

Curt Anderson  44:23

that was a drop the mic moment right there again, and so that brilliant, brilliant advice. I absolutely love that Sammy tape, you know, if you’re a small marketer, you know, marketers small company, whatever the case is, checkout folks, companies that you’d like that you admire, boy, let me give you some advice, Sammy, super humble foul, what’s Amy’s doing and just take a page out of her book. And she has a great playbook on how to really spice things up. And Damon as we’d love to say that stopped being the best kept secret sent me one more question. Dave and I are proud girl dads or young women out there who heist through college age, they’re thinking about a career. Why are all the cool kids pursuing a career in manufacturing?

Sami Birch  45:09

There’s so many different avenues in manufacturing, I think the old idea of manufacturing is like, you’re gonna go put, like screws in a car panel in a shop. And that’s just so not what it is at all. You know, I love that my job. I’m kind of was always like a weird art kid. I never saw myself in manufacturing. And, you know, I feel like my job is where art meets tech. And it’s very fun to be able to do that. And I think, you know, for young ladies who are kind of it’s a little it can be a little intimidating because most of the time what you see is men in manufacturing, but they’re no, that’s not the case we’re here to and there’s so many cool jobs, not only in engineering, which are fabulous jobs and awesome career pathways. And if you’re somebody that’s into that type of thing, then I would recommend doing it and connecting with people, like people at Michigan or in your community. If there’s other manufacturers, I’m sure they would love to like, have you for a tour and talk about I mean, everybody manufacturing’s experiencing a labor shortage. And so I think if, like one thing that we do is we bring in high school students, or we connect with our local tech center, and just try to be mentors to students and let them know like, hey, there’s careers here. Even if you’re not an engineer, or a machine builder, I’m certainly not. But I’ve been able to build a really good career and so have other people here that aren’t doing necessarily engineering things, but there’s so many jobs and so many good opportunities in the industry. Yeah. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  46:46

What was that Mike chop number one team and

Damon Pistulka  46:48

that’s a lot.

Curt Anderson  46:50

So okay. Hashtag Art Meets tech manufacturing is Art Meets tech savvy. That was like that was a total drop them like right there. For that one. Alright, so let’s let’s do let’s unpack. Let’s do a little recap. Damon. We’re gonna wind things down. First off, Sammy, man, thank you. I had really high expectations. I hate to tell you, but you just far exceeded them. So wonderful conversation. You are an incredible inspiration to everybody out there. Please follow Sammy, check out what’s going on admission. See me i i do have one last question for you. Are you sitting down for this last question?

Sami Birch  47:30

Yes. Let’s hear it. Are you?

Curt Anderson  47:32

Are you a baseball fan by any chance? Baseball.

Sami Birch  47:37

I mean, I liked the Detroit Tigers, but I’m kind of a poser, honestly.

Curt Anderson  47:41

Okay. So that’s, that’s all right. You know, be base you get it? Right. Right. Well, yeah.

Sami Birch  47:47

And my husband, my husband loves baseball.

Damon Pistulka  47:49

So Whoa. So you gotta be careful now. Because if he hears this, he’s gonna hear your answer. Okay.

Curt Anderson  47:57

Yeah. So are you alright, so you’re definitely she’s sitting down. Ready? All right. So Sammy, let’s just say a hypothetical. I’m asking for a friend. Let’s say that the Detroit Tigers are playing a game. It’s a bottom of the ninth inning, and it’s a tie score gates tie score Detroit, Detroit Tigers are playing. There’s a person on second base person on second base. And if that person scores the game’s over, okay, there’s two outs. Bottom of the ninth. The manager of the two Detroit Tigers turns on the bench and yells Hey, Birch, get up to the plate in hitting the winning run. I’ve got dinner reservations. We need this game to end and I need you to go up and hit the winning hit. To score that run. You with me? As you walk up to the plate Sammy to hit that winning run. What is your walk up song? What song is on the loudspeaker to have Sammy Burch that the winning run to get this game over with? What is your walk up song?

Sami Birch  48:58

Um, I have to initially all walk in. All I do is win by DJ Khaled. All I do is Oh, that would be such a hype song. The other one would be fly by Rihanna, but that’s a little bit more. Those are both good. Like get you pumped up. I can do this inspirational. I mean, this one’s a little self serving, but whatever. It’s a fun song.

Curt Anderson  49:23

But that was like my job number 10 says sunshine lollipops rainbows. So Dan thank you. Sammy. Thank you for the answer. Pass that one on to your husband right that is you know ask him tonight say Hey honey, if you know give him that scenario say hey, what would be your walk up song it just little conversation piece. So I guess we’re gonna wind down Damon your takeaways from this dynamic, amazing, wonderful conversation with our friend Sammy Burch. What are your takeaways today? Are you on mute?

Damon Pistulka  49:53

Sorry, I was I was I was looking up the DJ Khaled song and I always put it up sometimes. I’m gonna play it after this because I gotta hear it. Been there and Damon? Yeah, but thanks so much just for sharing I mean you guys are doing some really cool stuff there and your story coming in learning and being able to be and how they’ve really embraced brought you in and now you’re this part of this team doing great thing is so cool. Just so cool. Thanks for being here today.

Curt Anderson  50:17

nutured looks super bright Sam Yeah, once again, we you are an inspiration, any parting words last thoughts that you want to share with Sammy as we close out?

Sami Birch  50:25

Just thanks for having me today. It’s been a great conversation. I love talking with you both and yeah, if there’s anyone out there that you know has questions about marketing or manufacturing or feels loss, don’t be afraid to send a message inboxes open so

Curt Anderson  50:41

absolutely in care. Hey, Karen Happy Monday. She’s at lunchtime treat. And so guys, thank you for your cut caught this live thank you for spending your lunchtime your this opportunity with us here to talk chat with Sammy. If you’re catching this on replay please connect with Sammy on LinkedIn. Check out the amazing work that’s going on at Mission. Sammy hang out with us for one second. Guys. We’re gonna close out we thank you. We appreciate you. We wish you an amazing incredible week. Go out and absolutely crush it. Damon this I got a heavy week of we got workshops jam sessions. I’m doing a gig for Ali Baba this week. We’re doing a big gig with the Illinois MEP iMac. We have another great guest we have another Michigan, Michigan or Jim who Varanasi Leander Michigan. Man I put so good.

Damon Pistulka  51:32

You were really close. I was

Curt Anderson  51:35

another gentleman from Michigan who, who writes for manufacturing for Forbes and that’s gonna be on Friday. So all sorts of exciting things going on this week. And so thank you guys be an inspiration. Just like our friend Sammy, and you’re just going to go out keep crushing it. God bless you guys. Hang on, hang out with me. Thank you. We’ll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you, Damon.