43:31
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
roadmap, damon, e commerce, great, manufacturers, people, bit, kurt, dog, dan, absolutely, jeffrey, seo, talk, called, alaska, linkedin, clients, fish, meps
SPEAKERS
Dan Bigger, Damon Pistulka, Gail Robertson, Curt Anderson, Jeffry Graham
Damon Pistulka 00:00
We are two minutes late right now and I got to pull Jeff up here. So
Curt Anderson 00:03
he gave us a tour that Dan Dan, I’m happy whatsoever. Happy Friday. Happy Friday.
Damon Pistulka 00:09
We are getting ready. We’re going to go live here on LinkedIn. I’ll get us going there. Hey, well, we were laughing backstage, but I’m going to get this live on LinkedIn. And we are going to be going here.
Jeffry Graham 00:22
Happy Friday. All right,
Damon Pistulka 00:28
well, welcome once again to the manufacturing ecommerce Success Series Friday event. I’m one of your co host, Damon Pistulka. And with me today, I’ve got Kurt Anderson and our and one of our guests today. We got Jeffrey Graham with us. We’re going to be talking about a topic and go ahead just take it away, Kurt. Guys, Happy
Curt Anderson 00:51
Friday. So Damon, hello, my friend. Thank you for another wonderful Friday and Jeffrey Graham. So guys, I just want to induce everybody to Jeffrey Graham. And lo behold, though he is a very special guest. He’s not our only special guest today. So we have another surprise for you, Dan gal Dan, so just you know, don’t go anywhere. You guys want to hang tight. So yeah, yeah. Hey, so we’re gonna let’s just jump right in. We got a lot to unpack. We have a really fun filled program for you today.
So, guys, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the e commerce roadmap. What do you think about that? So I’m a talking heads fan. We always do our song Damon remember our song? This ain’t no party. This ain’t. This ain’t no fooling around, right. That’s rockin head sign. Well, they have another they have another great song that ties in perfectly with our program today. It’s called on the road to nowhere does anybody remember the talking heads on the road to nowhere? So that’s exactly what we don’t want to have happened with your e commerce strategy. So let’s just jump right in. Damon, why do you need to have a full just a full plan on your roadmap for your e commerce strategy?
Damon Pistulka 01:59
Well, I think that the the first thing when we talk about a roadmap right, as you think about you getting whether you’re using it on your car, or your phone, like we all do now, or your your old school as somebody may still be, if you don’t have if you’re not taking the road, right? The roadmaps real important. And I think digital. And a sales growth roadmap is so important for the for the simple fact that business executives, managers, owners, on a daily basis, need to make sure they’re doing the right things.
And if you know where you’re going, and got a pretty good idea what it takes to get there, that roadmap will keep you on track. Because as all of us, we are attracted to the shiny objects, right? And some new technology, my wall, this technology is great. But does it really get us to where we want to go? And is it part of our overall roadmap and our strategy to get there? I think that’s really key, that it’s one, it’s one of the things why you need to have that vision of where you’re going and communicated. Right, I believe.
Curt Anderson 03:11
Exactly. And Geoffrey, so I’ll come back, come over to you now. So hot word with Bitcoin is about FOMO you know that it’s a common word now, you know, phrase fear of missing out. So let’s talk murse we encounter a lot of manufacturers are like, Hey, you know, I hear so and so’s doing Facebook ads, I need to do social media I need to do because I hear it on the street. So therefore I have FOMO I’m going to do it. Talk a little bit about like really getting into that roadmap on like, you know, we need a destination, you know, just that shotgun blast just is not effective.
Jeffry Graham 03:44
Yeah, absolutely. Kurt, you hit the nail on the head. There’s a lot of manufacturing companies out there that, you know, it’s the next best thing or, you know, it’s Tick Tock right now, or whatever right is popular. But I always say, you know, from the get, you got to put the train track down before the train gets there. And a lot of times people aren’t thinking of that strategy. They’re not thinking the long term, they’re not thinking about, hey, when I go from A to B, I haven’t really roadmap B. So I’m just at a and I’m throwing mud at the wall hoping something sticks.
Ecommerce is a very different beast. It’s very competitive. It’s changed a lot to win in this space, you have to be extremely strategic, you have to be extremely smart. And you have to make good decisions. And we all have been through the horror stories of bad decisions.
That’s how we all three of us got good at this thing called e commerce. But and you know, that’s why we lost some of our hair, at least for me. It’s why I lost most of mine. Kurt, you’re a little bit ahead of me, but you know, I’ll be there soon, buddy. So, you know, it’s it’s really important. You have to have a strategy you have to execute on that strategy, but you can’t bite off more than you can chew and a lot of couples I need to do that. And we’ll talk about that I’m sure during this conversation. Yeah, yeah.
Curt Anderson 05:04
I’m sorry, David, go ahead.
Damon Pistulka 05:06
No, no, I’m just gonna quick say, if you’re watching us on LinkedIn, go ahead and chime in there where you’re listening from questions, you got anything there as well. But yeah, I agree 100% I liked that out analogies, Jeff is you got to lay the tracks before the train gets there.
And that’s, I think, as an executive or a manager or a marketing and someone just responsible for the marketing. And and being able to report to somebody that that you know, is spent is authorizing the money, if you know where that track is going. And you know, what, what it should look like when you get there. You can explain to them, or if you’re that executive, you know, that we’re going to the right place, it’s so important.
Jeffry Graham 05:48
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, you know, you’re you know, if there’s a mountain in front of you, you can see it, and then you can build a tunnel, or you can go around it right, if we’re just using the train analogy. And a lot of times, that’s just not a part of the conversation. And in the e commerce world, it’s the long game you got to think the long game you can’t think the short game. It’s not putting it’s it’s the whole meal. So it’s everything from being good. It hitting off the tee all the way down to that last putt. So
Curt Anderson 06:20
yeah, absolutely. So Jeff, let’s I love when you talk about this analogy, if you go to that specialist, that expert, you’re going to have the problem that that expert knows. Right. So sure a little bit about, you know, I love when you get this analogy, I’ll just I’ll let you take it from there. Explain everybody what,
Jeffry Graham 06:37
everyone? I’m just gonna have everyone go to a car lot today. Yeah. You don’t need a new car. Go to a car lot. You need a new car. Right?
06:53
Yeah,
Jeffry Graham 06:55
exactly. So the issue is, is is there’s a bias attached to SEO person that does SEO in person that does websites person that does multi channel management person is grps, whatever it is, the the reality is there’s a bias attached to it. So when you come to me, if I’m a web site developer, I know you have a website problem, because I can always make something better and make a change. And so a lot of times we get sucked into the fact that we’re not thinking about our business, in e commerce or in general as a whole.
We’re thinking about it in an isolated, little bubble, right, which most CEOs live in and talk to themselves. Because who else are you going to talk to about where you’re going to go with your business other than your executive leadership team. So a lot of times people just, you know, you go to a SEO company, they’re like, all your SEO is all messed up, you need to get on first page of Google here, we’re gonna get you there, we’re gonna do all these things.
And next thing, you know, you pay 1020 3040 50,000. And you’re no better off than when you started. And that’s a lot of it’s low hanging fruit. It’s easy way to take advantage of people. And it’s happened in our industry, from any commerce for a long, long, long time. And, yeah, I mean, I think that that’s just just remember that bias situation that you’re gonna end up dealing with when you go to providers. And then what we’ll hopefully do is talk a little bit about what maybe to ask in order to avoid that.
Curt Anderson 08:28
Right, exactly. So finding that trusted guide that Sherpa somebody that’s going to help you navigate and speaking of Sherpa Damon, we have an amazing guest coming up next month. We have Allison Levine, she’s a New York Times bestselling author, she’s climbed the highest peak of of every continent. She is what a blessing that we have. She has a great TED talk that she does. So she’s speaking next week. So speaking of Sherpas, but let’s segue into like so folks out there, how do you find that trusted guide that trusted resource? So my dear friend, my beloved Jean Kraus is on the call with us today.
She’s with the Small Business Development Center here in New York. Love Jean dearly. So we do a lot of work with sbdcs. And then of course, we all know we love that. I mean PS the manufacturer extension partnerships is a matter of fact, our beloved Alissa, Dr. Lisa Rodriguez was supposed to be our guest today. her partner just had a baby recently and so she was unable he’s trying to catch up on sleep.
Next Friday. We have the MEP director from New York we have leyna group is going to be our guest next, next Friday. So Damon, talk a little bit for folks, I know Dan Biggers a big MEP fan but talk a little bit about the manufacturing extension partnerships and why manufacturers can turn like SBDC MVPs those trusted guides to help them get
Damon Pistulka 09:48
on that that roadmap. But you know, those there those places are a repository for for certain resources and and they they probably have guides They can, they can introduce you to that, that do this. And, and when when I think about guides, you’re the speaker we have coming up that climb mountains is is always I always think of Sherpas because you know that Sherpa has been up and down that mountain before.
Him, may me not that exact mountain, but they’ve been up the mountains, and they know what you need to do at a certain elevation, they know what has to happen that as the temperatures do this, they know what the weather needs to look like, you know, and you look at these sbdcs. And there’s MEPs, they’ve navigated a lot of this, and they have resources. And what they can usually do is get you into a place that, that or get you in touch with someone that can be that more.
I’m not talking to a technician, I’m talking to a generalist in that area. So if you talk about something like e commerce, we talk about it a lot. I’m not talking about the best web developer for my problem. Today, I’m talking about the best e commerce strategist, you know, roadmap person, whatever you want to call it, get in touch with that person that can give you the overall and talk with you and learn where you’re at. And as Jeff was saying, will prevent you from making that 10 2030 $50,000 mistake? I mean, and it’s not it’s not really a mistake on your part as a business owner, executive marketing person, right?
Because, listen, you everybody has improvement in every area of your digital game you do your website could be improved. Yes, you could use Pay Per Click Yes, your SEO is not good enough. Your socials not good enough, right? It’s all not good enough. But as it don’t take my word for it. Take Mike McHale awake, he writes books for this stuff about business. Vic’s this next you have to know what the next steps are and what you got to do. Because if if I get if I’m, I’m sitting here today and I need to go digital, we manufacturers are confronted with this that they need to go digital now.
And if you go digital, but I go all in because someone says you need to be using pay per click. And you ran into this situation earlier this year with a client current or they got they got into an expensive many 1000s of dollars several $1,000 plus every month in buy a paperclip company. They got sold on Pay Per Click right 40 plus $1,000 a year they’re spending, they got no results from it. And and someone came in and a good salesperson consoled them on Pay Per Click now. Yes, it costs money. But it also cost them time. And they were and if you have this roadmap, we would know that yes, pay per click is one of our things that we need to improve upon.
But I have to know who I’m selling to, I have to come up in search like I want to, I have to be be dominant in the search. And I want to and I have to have all my pieces in place before I’m ready to do this step. So that you’re not getting sold a new website, that yes, your website can look better. But I don’t get any traffic to it. Because my search isn’t right. Your store messaging, you know, it’s just all these pieces have come in and place like you don’t put the roof on a house before you build the rafters and the thunder. You got to put the foundation in and work your way up. And it’s that simple. The roadmap needs to be laid out like that.
Curt Anderson 13:29
Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve been, we’ve been very, very blessed. And our dear friend Don from Alaska is on the program today. So what we’ve been working relentlessly at and partnering with a lot of VPS is what we’re calling to do it with you concept. We’re we’re trying to teach the manufacturers how to fish. So Jeff, we we have we have a privilege of we’ve done some programming with Alaska impact Washington or Seattle, where Damon’s at, we have an exciting program coming up on Tuesday, the 29th at the New York MEP. Jeffrey, talk a little bit about that do it with you concept and how in Daniel love my analogy, how we’re trying to teach our manufacturers how to fish.
Jeffry Graham 14:10
Yeah, so the the, you know, one of the again, like Damon just said, you know, wasting money on PPC and you know, going through all these mistakes and having all these challenges. The reality of the reason that the MEPs and manufacturing companies want to be thinking about these things, is because when you look at your business from an e commerce perspective, if you do not build the plan, the strategy and then have an execution behind it.
That’s that’s it always dies on on, you know, essentially dies on the hill or whatever. And then and then you know, and then the other side other part of it is is is it’s you know, if you don’t execute you don’t win, first and foremost in e commerce. And then what was the other part of your question, Kurt, you had another part that you said? That you want me to answer?
Curt Anderson 15:00
Yeah, just kind of like going through that, that do it with you. And so I’ll just interject real quick. Yeah. So um, yesterday, I’m on a call with someone on our team, Allison Ford, who we love dearly. She did a webinar recently. And she connected me with this gentleman that was at her workshop. And this gentleman, you know, great manufacturer, incredible career, knows it inside and out. He’s president of a nice custom manufacturer all day long, probably, you know, nine o’clock, he’s the CFO. 10 o’clock.
He’s the HR director at 11 o’clock, he’s operational excellence. Oh, by the way, I need to throw in a little bit of marketing. So he hires an SEO person, because he’s supposed to. And you know, he’s just not happy with the results. Well, the SEO person is probably a little frustrated, because she can’t speak the language of the product that he makes. He’s a little frustrated, because he can’t speak the SEO language. He doesn’t, you know, keywords is what you know, what’s Google Keyword Planner, you know? So again, like, how talk about how you help those manufacturers bridge that gap?
Jeffry Graham 16:00
Yeah, I was, you lost my train of thought there. But basically, think of it like accountability. You know, the reason that you need someone to teach you to fish, the reason that you need someone that is going to teach you how to do this on your own is so that you know what to avoid in the future. It isn’t necessarily to Bill hours, it isn’t necessarily to get this or that it’s to know what you need in the future. And you have to know enough to know where you’re going to make a mistake, or where you’re not going to make a mistake, you don’t need to be an expert at SEO to know when someone tells you, I can get you on the first page of Google, that you should turn around and run the other direction.
Okay, I know a lot of people probably hear that. It’s baloney. It’s like the sales tactic of tactics. I’m gonna get you on the first as you go, it’s a lie back lie, Google decides who’s on the first page. So the reality is, is, is having it doing it with you. Allows, allows folks that have made the mistakes like me, and Kurt and Damon that have screwed up a lot, and have learned how to do it really well.
So we don’t screw up, right essentially saves a lot of time. And that accountability, that consistency that push, you know, it’s a it’s a push, you know, and Damon can attest to this. It’s just a it’s like an it’s like rolling a rock uphill hot Damon, I mean, it just really is that way. And then there’s so many different elements of e commerce and digital transformation. There’s, there’s platforms, there’s, you know, I mean, there’s hundreds of things you can do, and there’s 100 things you can do wrong.
Curt Anderson 17:30
Right, exactly. You gotta be smart about it. Well, with that, so got it. So I know everybody’s just burning all week, we have a special guest, Damon, I think I think that guest is coming up here in a minute. So I’ve one last question. And then we’ve got to bring that special guest up. Oh, yeah.
Damon Pistulka 17:45
Yeah, we’re getting close.
Curt Anderson 17:47
So I just so I’ll put this out to either one of you, Damon, I’ll start with you. You know, how do you encourage, you’re doing a great program, you just had a great meeting this morning, when you’re working with these manufacturers that again, that marketing, digital marketing has just never been under wheelhouse at any point in time. We’ve been in business for 2030 years, they just never needed it.
How do you help them to better communicate? What their strategies, you know, talking with that SEO expert, or the pay per click website, guy, woman? How do you help your clients? Or how do you help those folks? or What advice do you have the better communicate for that manufacturer with these marketing folks?
Damon Pistulka 18:25
It’s funny how it comes back to the basics. And as Jeff said, The knowing enough to be dangerous in what you’re doing, right. You don’t have to understand pay per click or SEO or website design. But if you have that roadmap, you know that a we know our our persona. And that persona, I can’t I can’t believe how as you do this more and more how important that is. Because if you’re sitting here today, and you’re talking about pay per click and keyword strategy, if you’re if you’re dangerous enough to know that, hey, we have to be smart about the keywords that we’re targeting and a pay per click strategy.
We have to have good they have to go to good landing pages, you know, a little bit like I’m not kidding, an hour or two worth of training, like you can get at the you know, many places the DD DWI we’re doing with MEPs just an hour training on it gets you enough knowledge so that, you know, this roadmap, you know, okay, it is time for us to do pay per click right. But we need to do it on on critical keywords.
So if if someone comes in and it is time for the pay per click, and you’re you’re sitting down with them, you know enough to go and ask a few intelligent questions to understand whether they’re giving you the right thing and Jeff Cohen got to test this a lot better than I on the technical stuff. But it’s as as at when I work with the executives and owners and companies. It’s really about getting that knowledge to be dangerous because and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, just so that you can the good danger. Yeah, yeah, my goodness. Yeah, make good decisions. There you go. Yeah.
Jeffry Graham 20:03
percent 100. Right.
Curt Anderson 20:04
So that so we’ll close out on this because we got to get that guests up. Yeah, on top of the hour. So but Jeffrey less, dude, I was blown away, I was on a call with you with a client and this is a company they sell product for dogs. And so Don our friend up in Alaska, I know you went through persona and you share to me boy, this was really eye opening, going through that process. And Jeffrey, you blew me away with a bombshell.
So this gentleman, you know, was challenged had had some challenges and frustrations like putting ads out. And he sold a product to dogs. So it’s very easy to say, hey, every dog owner on the planet is my persona man. You know, there’s what 1.8 billion people. And what you did was just brilliant.
It wasn’t you guys want to why not just focus on your customer? Who’s your customers customer. And I’ll just scratch the surface. And I’ll let you take it Jeffrey. So what Jeffrey determines is like, you know what, it wasn’t the owner, that’s the customer, it’s the dog, that’s the customer he goes, we need to be searching It was a dog wash product. He said, we need to look for dirty dogs. And not just small dogs, big dogs. And now all sudden take it from there. Jeffrey, I was just I was just thrilled. Watching you in action. It was just a thing of beauty.
Jeffry Graham 21:14
Yeah, I think he just it’s taking a different perspective of e commerce in what you’re doing. Right, like, so they’re thinking now dog, the whole document and he’s my customer, but they’re really focused on cleanliness or cleaning of dogs, let’s just say, right, and we’ll keep the vague, but their customer is the Labrador that gets muddy and gets in your car or gets in your house, or the St Bernard you have, or the Great Dane or whatever, that’s the customer.
And if you know dog lovers, and you know animal lovers, I’m an animal lover. They’re like our children, we care more about them, sometimes then even our children. The reality is, is that it is about the happiness of that pet. And so the focus of their effort needs to be about improving the happiness of that pet.
Dogs don’t like to have mud all over them for a period of time they do of course, because they rolling it but in general terms when they go into your house, you got to think about who and what you know. So clean breeds and easy breezy to keep simple are not even worth your time and effort to focus on go after the ones that get dirty, and love to play and love to be messy, and love to ruin your you know, floors and your couch. And, you know, everyone that’s a dog going to understand what I’m talking about. And then
Curt Anderson 22:35
and that team was just absolutely thrilled and like just they were so frustrated and now all sudden, you open their eyes were like instead of just like shotgun blasts of putting out you know, random Facebook ads or Google ads. Now they can specifically go after Facebook. You know, I love my retriever. You know, like us a great example of like, you know, anybody has that little I love my retriever or whatever breed a dog and stick bumper sticker on my car. That’s the persona that you’re going after in that bigger dog, not the little Chihuahua. But you know, absolutely. If
Jeffry Graham 23:07
you have a dog, you and your dog’s a certain breed, I guarantee you, you care and defend that breed. Right. So like if you have an Australian Shepherd, your Australian Shepherd lover. So everyone who has an Australian shepherds party, you’re like, you’re awesome, right? But if you don’t have an Australian Shepherd, you’re not quite as awesome because my dogs better than yours, right? It’s just the human nature of things. So you got to take advantage of that opportunity, right? I mean, right? So it’s very cliquey.
Curt Anderson 23:33
So with that guy, so again, so laser focus roadmap. Take that guy, we want to get off the road to nowhere get on the road to success, Damon. Guys, are you ready? Dan? Bigger gal Donner. JOHN, are you guys ready for our special guests of the week? Are you ready? Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 23:51
I’m ready. I’m ready.
Curt Anderson 23:53
This is it’s everyone. Welcome everybody on stage. I know Vale you’re a little bit on the shy side. I hope that you come up but guys, we want all you guys to come up on stage. I
Jeffry Graham 24:05
didn’t know this. Yeah, I want a dark.
Damon Pistulka 24:11
Yeah, we’re bringing people up. We want you to introduce yourself. So first Dan rigger on stage with us here. So Dan tears a little bit about yourself and and what’s going on with you today?
Dan Bigger 24:24
Oh, geez. There’s so much going on. What’s going on today? I would just say we’re almost near 10,000 on Twitter. That’s good for you. At short right now.
Curt Anderson 24:36
At short. While we will get our friends and family started clicking right. You got people working? We got people working on it. Here we go. Dan, tell everybody what you’ve got going on a little bit about yourself. I can’t major as anybody doesn’t know you or what you have going on, but just let’s pretend that they don’t.
Dan Bigger 24:52
I’m currently the Director of Sales and Marketing at Stanger Valley technologies and one of the co founders and co hosts and And organizers of USA manufacturing our
Curt Anderson 25:02
Yep. Nice and proud father of two sets of twins how I don’t know how often that happens and dude, your son crushed David. Oh, yeah, man that was just I’m so glad you posted that so congratulations, your kids their their great success with their sports and kudos to you what a great friend you are with an ad. You’re just the manufacturing ambassador. Yeah for for all of us. So we appreciate everything that you do my friend.
Dan Bigger 25:30
I love the community. I work and I love what I do. So it’s really easy. I mean, the people I work with on a daily basis are more than refreshing. Well, great. You make it, you make it. Look, my wife doesn’t believe me when I say that. She thinks I’m making it all up.
Curt Anderson 25:44
Absolutely. We got your back, let you know, we’ll we’ll throw in a good word for you. So these days. So Dan, thank you for all your support. Dude, you’re the best. We love you. So thank you for all the support that you get to us. So thank you have a great Father’s Day. It’s a big day.
Damon Pistulka 26:02
big weekend, right? Yeah, yeah, good. Awesome.
Dan Bigger 26:07
Tomorrow, too. It’s your anniversary. 17 years.
Jeffry Graham 26:12
Congratulations. Last. Last week, my parents had 41 I mean, grades, right? That’s 19 that’s congratulate my wife’s grandparents. 70. My parents live that long, they’ll probably hit.
Curt Anderson 26:30
My grandparents had 71 or 72 before they pass and they’d always ask my grandmother, you know, how did you How were you so successful in marriage. She’s like, we could never afford to get divorced. That was
Jeffry Graham 26:43
that’s my mom. That’s it. That’s what my mom said. She goes, she goes, you would be too expensive for him to
Curt Anderson 26:50
get out for 70 years old.
Dan Bigger 26:52
My grandfather told me the key to a successful marriage is yesteryear. So that’s what I do.
Jeffry Graham 26:56
Yes, yes. Yeah. You know,
26:59
yes. Well, let’s turn it over to our dear friend Gary. Man. Great, man. dang good.
Curt Anderson 27:09
Gell Mann, just another person has my heart. So gal, let’s hear a little bit about what you have gone on share with everybody. What? What’s going on in your world?
Gail Robertson 27:17
Well, it is busy. I’m working on a few things. Obviously, one of my main clients is kavaler tool. I know Jake was on here, but I think Jake may have had to go. Okay. Yeah, john, right. He did show up. So that’s the first step. So I am working a lot in the area of encouraging people to, to do just that show up, because that is a big part of how you’re going to have success. So I have a three step Procrit process, which is sign up, suit up and show up.
And so I’m working mostly in manufacturing, I love Damon’s line, which is you want to be the red m&m and the bowl of green m&ms, I use that line very often. The other line I use is when I’m training, as I said, Please do not pitch slap people, which is when you you know you connect from and then bam, I want to sell to them. And I often say when I’m working with, especially in people that have been very accustomed to doing great jobs at in live in person trade shows.
So they go to trade shows, and they connect and most people in manufacturing know how to do that really well work the floor, you know, and they don’t even call it work the floor, they would just say they’re out there connecting to people, and they go to the bar and talk. But then they go on social media sometimes, and they want to just all of a sudden start selling. So I’m really working on trying to make that transition of, you know, what would you do in real life? And how can you transition that over and build relationships and you don’t have to meet someone and then thrust your your sales pitch on them. So yeah. Yeah, so awesome.
Curt Anderson 28:51
And Gail, what you’re also great at, what do you do when your clients don’t listen to you or take your advice?
Gail Robertson 28:58
Well, I always tell people, my clients that you’re gonna love this about me or not, but I do stress that I’m going to either nudge push and encourage them to, to take action. So most of my clients that I work, I forget what did I used to say? I don’t know. I was I know I said something.
Curt Anderson 29:19
Well, well, you’re from Canada. So you’re big hockey fan. So I have an idea I called the sin bin right. So you’re, you’re in the penalty box. You’re the penalty box. Gail,
Jeffry Graham 29:30
I got an idea if they you know penalty box first time next time they get a fine. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. We get a fine. Yeah, hey, I’m here so I don’t get fine. Right. You know, is next thing you know, hey, you’re getting fined.
Gail Robertson 29:42
Yeah. I think it’s like picking the right clients too. And I like to think that absolutely.
Curt Anderson 29:48
You do amazing, amazing work. And one more time sign up, show up.
Damon Pistulka 29:52
Sign up. See. Show up. Soon. Go. Awesome, Gail.
Curt Anderson 29:58
I chewed it up today. Oh, man.
Damon Pistulka 30:03
I forgot to put my shirt I under that. Yeah, get your I had you know, right there went too fast man went to
Jeffry Graham 30:10
him they left me out.
Curt Anderson 30:12
Yeah, Tina Gail, you’re too young for this gal God bless you. Thank you for every gal.
Damon Pistulka 30:17
All right, we got Don.
Curt Anderson 30:20
Don, my friend, how are things?
30:22
Good? Is this the part where I was supposed to join it? I was invited to so I’m not sure now you’re you’re at the party.
Curt Anderson 30:29
You’re part of the party. So let’s Yeah. Let’s hear what’s going on in Juneau, let’s share a little bit about what you’ve got going on?
30:36
Well, you know, the first thing I want to say is that time is certainly valuable. and spending time always is a consideration of how you allocate that time to certain activity. And as I was thinking of my Friday mornings for me, and in investing in something that really has to dividend, adjust the time with you folks is worth that. And I just want to kind of say how valuable it is. And the very first thing I want you to know is that I consider you even though we’ve only met via camera, I consider you a great cohort, and absolutely worth the investment.
Curt Anderson 31:27
Well done. Thank you completely mutual. I have immense respect for you do I might have to get my Kleenex right now. Yeah, no, no, don’t do that. Don’t make me cry. After you turn 50 man, you can’t control Yeah, you’re great. Nice. Nice to hear. But Don, Don is amazing guy.
He has a great story in in Dan. Dan is not from Alaska. He is my senate right when he died and his wife went up to Alaska and just fell in love with it and never left. And so God bless you, man. So tell I tell everybody, you have a great you’ve had a wonderful career great product or inventor entrepreneur. Just tell everybody what you’ve got going on?
32:11
Well, very quickly, sure. What got me connected to Kurt and now all of you is came up with an idea why I was fishing. And what started that is when I was with the cruise industry, for Royal Caribbean, we had a long standing argument with commercial fishermen about the ability of fish to smell their prey.
And so when I kind of got downsized out of that industry, I went fishing, trying to spend some time on myself and started working with how to add scent to all of your baits, setups. And so look for a product couldn’t find one invented one and now trying to work with you all to start a new career. So manufacturing here in Alaska is my goal. selling product, essentially statewide and into the lower 48 is the other goals.
Curt Anderson 33:16
Awesome. Awesome. Well,
Jeffry Graham 33:18
I have a question. Yeah. Don Do you fish on the fly or
33:24
my favorite form of fishing is trolling saltwater. I love we know a lot about
Jeffry Graham 33:32
so we know a lot about target set downriggers and salmon fishing we love it kitten those kings can’t can’t, can’t go wrong. But I was curious if you if you fly fished.
33:44
You know, as a high schooler, I began tying my own flies and actually that experience started if you will up a notch fishing.
Curt Anderson 33:55
Nice, very cool, or God. First off, thank you for your kind words. We wish you an amazing, wonderful Father’s Day weekend. Thank you for all of your support. Now you do and we have immense respect and admire that you know this entrepreneurial spirit is just so inspiring to all of us and we just were right with your brother just fighting for success ecommerce success man. That’s what our our show is all about. So thank you for everything. Thanks for being here today. Awesome. Now we’re going to the other side of the planet daymond we’re heading we’re heading down to Jersey now.
Damon Pistulka 34:30
We have another theory we might have out what is it like 7000 miles there.
Curt Anderson 34:36
We went 7000 miles in about a blink. So now we have another baseball dad here. So john, welcome, dude. Thank you for all your support and share a little bit what you’ve got going on in your world.
34:48
Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate it. Guys. This has been a fantastic event. And I was sitting there like Dan like, what’s the big surprise? Like who’s the guest? Who’s the guest and then a curveball, so
Damon Pistulka 34:57
yeah, yeah. Tell me. Yeah, we didn’t know, either. So
Jeffry Graham 35:06
I had no idea.
Curt Anderson 35:07
Yeah, it was, it was a little surprise his offer Dan bigger. So anyway, yeah, we just we, john, we you know, we’ve gained a wonderful friendship this past year, you know, appreciate everything that you do. You are everywhere. You’re a fierce networker. tell everybody about Tessa and what you’ve got going on in your world.
35:25
Yeah, so I’m the director marketing word of Tessa. And we’ve been through a little bit more of a, not a brand, we’ve been trying to tweak our language a little bit to be more relatable to a broad audience. So what I’ve been working on, and what we’ve been trying to tell our prospects is that we try to pinpoint the what, where and when, in production, you know, so we want to make sure you get this stuff down the line as best as you can to save the most money as possible. Utilize your inventories, lean inventories, maximizing throughput.
So we’re designing a path to just get as many manufacturers using the software to really improve the day to day. I’ve had, you know, through you, Kurt and others, so many conversations, and I’m a big legal pendant Ed guy, which is fine, when I’m talking to a fortune 100.
And they say that’s how we do our planning. And it’s like, Yeah, that’s great. But now when you’re trying to Yeah, same I know, it’s good, but when but when you’re talking about like a major, you know, fortune 100 fortune 500 company, and they’re like, yo, let me show you my whiteboard and how we do things. And I’m like, Your what? Your whiteboard. Okay. Yeah, you know, so that’s, that’s where we’re trying to do, you know, we, we, we want to get you out of the spreadsheets, we want to get you into the next wave of what’s happening.
You know, everyone talks about like industry 4.0 and I’m telling you right now, sorry, no offense, Excel is not industry 4.0. You know, so it’s been around too long. And then, you know, there’s a lot there. So, you know, that’s just really what, you know, the path I’m on. And, you know, recently we’ve had some success in the electric vehicle space, you know, we just generated a new white paper. And it’s the same thing. It’s like, we’re sitting there, like, I cannot believe that these future advanced cars and minimize the amount of, you know, parts in these vehicles. They’re like, yeah, let me show you my Excel sheet. We’re like, oh,
Jeffry Graham 37:25
man, look at my look at my UPC
37:28
sheet. Exactly, you know, so it’s like instant saving ROI I don’t care what your ROI is. You want to save money you want to save inventory want to save people whatever it is like it’s it’s just incredible. So that’s what we’re really working on you know, having different conversations every day you know, I’m hoping to you know, add a lot more logos by end of year you guys have been terrific partners that have that help getting in front of everything USA manufacturing our has been tremendous now like Gail I needed better you know, I need better t shirt but you know, we got there Yeah, so yeah, but that’s you know, that’s what we got going on here.
You know, this weekend you know follows a you know, he follows everyone on you know, watching and on here. You know, my two my two boys gonna keep me busy, won’t want to play some baseball, things like that. But looking forward to you know, checking out resetting and you know, coming back on Monday.
Curt Anderson 38:27
Awesome. Awesome. I think what I’ve been seven is that your boys are five and seven. Yeah, absolutely. ballers. So a lot of baseball fans hear in the crowd today. So So john, thank you for everything. Thank you for showing up you guys. Gail. I love that. We’re gonna be using that. I know she does that hashtag. So Happy Father’s Day, john. Appreciate you my friend. came up, man.
Yeah. Awesome. Very. So, Damon. Man. This is this is a special one for me. So Val, we met a few years ago, actually, it was at a protocol ad put on a live event. And they they were desperate. So they had me speak at it set. sat next to poor Val the entire day. And we just bonded.
We had so much fun. And then I was at an event last week with all your co workers and you weren’t there available, are you? I was busy working. They were working on us. But Val so Val does an amazing job. She’s with a company called minor fracks. And values show up every Friday. We appreciate you we we cherish you sure everybody what you’ve got going on? What’s been going on in your career and what’s going on at mine? fracks
39:42
I’m actually we’re in the beginning steps of starting e commerce. I can’t imagine why.
Curt Anderson 39:51
gratulations
39:53
Yeah. So we’re planning on that for some of our standard items. We’re revamping our website so it will actually be someplace where people want to land and learn about more about us. Lots of stuff going on. We’re talking about developing a podcast. We’ve been filming videos. We’re just going full speed ahead.
Curt Anderson 40:16
Well, that’s absolutely awesome. So, appreciate everything. I know you went through the bootcamp with Alison daymond. I both went through that boot camp. So you went through that. And I have a funny story I’m going to share real quick. So one of your co workers was that I did this live event last week.
It was a Women’s Entrepreneur leadership retreat. And again, a I’m not sure you know, Groucho Marx always said I’m not going to join a club that that would invite me. So I probably they’ve invited me I probably shouldn’t have gone right. But I go to this thing. And Maggie, your co worker, so it was a LinkedIn workshop. And if you go on LinkedIn, you go on Maggie’s LinkedIn, she did her thesis on something like, you know, digging in hot and hot springs of what did she tell you about this? She has like this high level geology thing that she did for thesis.
I can’t I can’t even pronounce it, let alone say it. And so I hit her LinkedIn profile on the screen and I’m like, Maggie, I can’t even pronounce this. I’m like, I went to Ohio State 100 years ago. I did okay, I’m probably one of the best 2.3 students that ever went through Ohio State. And there was a class business classes I did a right there was a class called it was a geology class. They called it rocks for Jax.
That’s how bad and I was not a good jock. I was a horrible, horrible name. Yeah, rats for Jax. It was the only class my college career I had to drop was rocks for Jax because I just couldn’t get it. Maggie has like this thesis on something that I couldn’t even pronounce on Mike may get a mic and you work with Vail. I’m like, God bless you, man. So Maggie, Maggie, your friend from rocks from that pet that dropped out of racks for jack said hi. Rocks first. Yeah. I will do that. So anyway. So Val, thank you for everything. Thank you for always showing up. We appreciate you appreciate your support. And God bless you. Thank you. It’s been
42:03
great. This is how I meet all these people that I then go to LinkedIn and sort of follow and say, Hey, I just saw you in the e commerce. Don’t you want to connect with
Curt Anderson 42:15
your loyal, loyal follower? We appreciate you very much. So thank you for everything. We wish you an amazing weekend and enjoy and we’ve got beautiful weather here. So great. Great to have you in the crowd.
Damon Pistulka 42:28
All right. See ya. All right. Well, that’s
Curt Anderson 42:31
a wrap man. We’re at quarter after the hour. So that was our that was our guests. You know, I think Damon for having you know, God bless Alyssa. We missed her today. But he couldn’t be with us. I think we did. We did. Okay, you know,
Damon Pistulka 42:43
we handled ourselves we filled the time anyway. We
Curt Anderson 42:47
feel refilled so we did
Damon Pistulka 42:49
okay. It’s not for us to decide is for everybody that listened. Right.
Curt Anderson 42:54
But we we had fun. We had a great time. Jeffrey, appreciate you taking time we know you’re super busy. Thank you for joining us sharing your expertise. To you, all of you. I wish you guys an amazing, wonderful Father’s Day. Enjoy. Relax, take kick back a little bit. And we wish everybody a fantastic weekend.
Damon Pistulka 43:13
All right, thanks, everyone. We’re gonna shut down on LinkedIn live here so that we’re ready to come back to the tables for a moment if you want to keep talking. Otherwise, we will be out for the weekend. We’re going going dark on LinkedIn right now. Now we’re going back to the tables
