42:38
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
john, people, dan, company, marketing, seton hall, conversation, big, led, week, absolutely, damon, role, problem, talk, software, kurt, business, customers, joined
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Curt Anderson, John Buglino
Curt Anderson 00:00
like big bromance big love fest on the stage today
Damon Pistulka 00:05
wow we’re having fun we’re having fun We actually lost track of time almost missed this about got going late Dan would have given us a heck and we would have been in trouble so we’re gonna get going live here on LinkedIn and get rolling get this party started man let’s get it going we’re gonna go live on LinkedIn doo doo doo doo let the video play
Curt Anderson 00:25
I think you know what we’re just gonna start calling this the Dan bigger connection show I think that’s the new name of our Friday program is for sure Joe like program is from Dan bigger
Damon Pistulka 00:35
so yeah welcome once again to the Dan bigger connections Joe or, or otherwise known as the manufacturing ecommerce success. I’m one of your co host Damon Pistulka I have my friend, my brother from another mother. Kurt Anderson down there with me. We are practicing today with us today. I’m gonna let her take it over from there. I was just saying. We got we actually got lost in conversation almost our time.
Curt Anderson 01:07
This is so good. We got to puke Chris That’s right. We got a huge bromance going on. So guys, happy Friday. Welcome to November are ready November 5. What an absolute privilege we’re gonna just let’s just plow right into this guy’s Jon Burge lino from New Jersey is on the program today, John we I’ve been looking forward to this for months dude. Welcome to the show brother. Thank you guys
John Buglino 01:29
both for having me.
Curt Anderson 01:30
This is this is awesome. So again, as we you know our shout out to our friend Dan bigger. Let’s give a warm welcome we got Chris Harrington Dan Christian in gore. Thank you for joining us in gore. Careful, dear friend Val. My sister. We’ve got done up in Alaska as Alex and of course man and my sister from another mister I don’t know can you say that we’ve got gal up in Canada right so gal welcome Happy Friday.
John let’s let’s just jump right in. So your jersey guy you know I’m I’m just gonna take a wild stab maybe Italian Catholic. I’m not sure my close on that. Yeah. Oh, no, no, a good Italian Catholic boy. When you grew up in New Jersey. Where do you go to college? Seton Hall Seton Hall go pirates. Right? So, hey, we got Tandberg lino from New Jersey. Go pirates. You know, we went to Seton Hall. You know who’s the most famous alumni other than John, who’s the most famous alumni from Siena? Do we know this is John didn’t I tell the dick fight from Seton Hall that when I went to see in hall they
John Buglino 02:32
were awful a basketball so they were
Curt Anderson 02:36
even a little rough. But hey, you know, so I figured you know, I have to fight TELUS hair. So you know, he always says awesome, baby. So a little awesome baby today for John. So John, let’s just again, a little bit of your background. So after you graduate from Seton Hall, you’ve chosen a whole path and marketing fits your personality perfectly. Let’s let’s go back to young John, we’re talking about your five and eight year old just not going to ball baseball. Talk about like what’s led you to this this career path in marketing?
John Buglino 03:04
Yeah, yeah, no, it was, um, definitely earned my earn my way up, you know, so I graduate Seton Hall, you know, started in the finance area working for a bank, doing you know, marketing assisting and really didn’t know anything, it just wide eyed, like, I can do whatever you want me to do. You know, it started doing graphic design, promotional items, creative traveling to bank branches and looking at positioning and you know, making sure the bank branches look great. The products and services are front and center when you go into you know, cash, your checks and things like that. And just been building and growing.
As I went into different roles, you know, now I’m blessed to be director of a marketing team and department and they put their whole trust in the lowly assistant from you know, a couple years ago. But you know, you you take everything in you, you building you grow, you know, you take the relationships, the people, the skills, the learnings, and you just keep moving them forward. And I still go back to things that I learned when I was assistant from the CMO and things like that, we still keep in contact, you know, that’s the other big thing is that I don’t burn any bridges, which I don’t think I do.
You know, when I have these like long standing relationships, I have a bunch of people, I’ve been helping them with new roles. I’ve been coaching them I’ve been training, I just been trying to implement this, you know, influence as much as I can. So yeah, it’s been it’s been a journey where I am now I’m blessed where I am now this is fantastic. The role I’m in with Tessa and no complaints.
Curt Anderson 04:35
Awesome. And I tell you, it’s a big testament to you, you know, you’re in banking. If you look on your LinkedIn profile rate during the Great Recession, man, the world was collapsing. And you survived and did an amazing job.
And you’ve had a number of different transitions, different roles from marketing automation, like you said, director of marketing and attesa you know, what about what talk about your background what led you to, you know, why marketing you know, and for everybody on here knows you, you know, most of us know you through the Twitter chat crowd. You know, we’ve collaborated whenever you talk to John, it’s just man, dude, you just exude just a high level of integrity, just such a positive, you’re positive force. Talk a little bit like what brought you here? How do you bring that level of integrity into your work every day?
John Buglino 05:18
Yeah, I think it’s, I think, like we mentioned, like, pre show, like, I just, I trust first. And I make sure that people know that I trust them from the get go, like, I don’t you don’t earn trust me, like, you get it, you lose it, when may, you know, do something and you lose it. Right? And that’s your, like, on my teams, and just coming into the business, you know, I just been blessed to be around those types of people. You know, some have burned bridges, things like that.
But at the same time, you know, you have to be trusting you have to put your faith in people, you know, I come into, like, a Tesla company’s been around for 20 years. And you know, they take it as a leap with me as their marketing director, they put their trust in me, so I put my trust back to them, you know, and it’s just been growing and nurturing that, you know, like I said, building teams in the past the same thing.
You know, I tell people up front, like, I’m a very trusting person, you can call that a weakness, I think is a strength because right from the get go, it’s, you’re basically on my good side, from the start, like you don’t earn respect for me, you get it, you have to lose it.
And you’re gonna be tough to lose as well. You know, like I said, I’m very open, transparent as you get from me being, you know, Italian Catholic guy, you know, very loud. I talk my hands, you know, that’s so yeah, I think that’s just what it is. Like, that’s how I operate day in day out, you know, even in my role, like, I’m very open and transparent. What’s going on with the company, the business how I feel about the opportunities, so yeah, that’s just how I go about it.
Curt Anderson 06:45
Man, I honestly got I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that line before. That is absolutely phenomenal. You are you get trust, you get respect, you have to lose it. And so with that being said, our dear friend dine in Alaska, says John, cool. Could I borrow $100,000? So you, dude, you got to connect with Don, he’s absolutely what?
Damon Pistulka 07:06
He has got his videos. They’re so funny.
Curt Anderson 07:09
But what I absolutely love. So just in the thing is, you know, some testaments that have been shared about you, John, best manager I’ve had to date, you can’t ask for a better leader than John, more importantly, than his work ethic, his ability to inspire others establish and establish a level of trust that is unmatched. I mean, that is just so powerful.
One more to say his presence has made the life of everyone in the sales department a bit easier, is a gross understatement. John is a pillar to our company’s success do drop the mic, man, that, you know, again, like where does you know family mentors, coaches? How did you know that didn’t come naturally? How have you how have you gained such incredible leadership skills, and just this magnetic personality that’s led you to this part in your career?
John Buglino 07:59
Yeah, I definitely think it’s got to be my family. And it’s got to be, you know, support system I have outside the office, it’s just unmatched from my parents. And now my wife and you know, even the little kids, you know, support me what I’m doing, you know, and it’s just also just the relationships that I’ve built over the years. Like I said, I still keep in contact with all my former bosses and all the people I’ve worked with individuals you just stated, you know, we keep in contact all the time.
You know, on holidays, we reach out when they need stop thing. So it’s just something that’s you just constantly have to work at it, you know, it’s not something you just, you know, shy away from, you have to keep nurturing those relationships and growing and building and moving forward.
Curt Anderson 08:40
Right? Absolutely. That was, you know, and again, our first meeting this past year, you know, just right off the bat, you just again, you hit you you you have a natural ability of making folks feel like you’ve known them forever, and that you’ve carried that right into your marketing into your networking and it’s just you’re such a go giver. That’s why you and Dan bigger get along so well.
So let’s start let’s let’s segue a little bit. So you know, banking, you had a phenomenal career led you up to up Tessa. Okay. So for folks that aren’t familiar with uptet. So let’s dig in. Now my understand. So we’re here to talk about e commerce, our dear friend Chris Harrington. When someone engages with Chris Herrington, her bit, their business is just blowing up with explosive growth. Do they need to call our dear friend John, what’s going on here with up Tessa?
John Buglino 09:22
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we have tested we’re in the advanced planning, scheduling space. So we are a software provider to global manufacturers and we look to help streamline your operations and pinpoint the what where and when to make your goods. So there’s no one better than us with this software and these capabilities a lot of others in the space think they can do it better than we can but they can’t you know, there’s like the title of the of this segment like true optimization. We’re the only ones that can say you know, I’m not you know, we can beat our chest and say we offer but we’re the only ones that hold the patent.
Everyone else is just playing for second place at this Point, dollars, the dollars, you know, we we’ve gotten up against the largest in the space, and we beat him out, our solution has been top over every single one of them. And when I say that the solution has been top it’s there’s no manual intervention needed after our software works where your production materials or your production environment, there’s nothing more you can do. There’s absolutely nothing about Mike Trout, there’s absolutely nothing more that can be done, you can put 100 bodies against it, you’re never gonna find a better solution than we’re able to turn out.
And we pride ourselves on that, you know, we guarantee it, we say it on our website, we say in our in our marketing are mathematically guaranteed. There’s no company that can say it all in the weekend, everyone else’s. Like I said, they’re playing for second second place at this point. And we’ve been doing it for over 20 years. We’ve been doing over 20 years, we’ve had clients for that long, we’ve had all the clients for 15 plus years. And the other piece is in those 20 years, our leadership is there.
The people I’m with the company, not even two years on the least tenured by like five years. Everyone’s like, oh, you’re a new guy. You know, like, Wow, and so how long have you been able to celebrate your anniversary? Oh, 18 years? Only? 18 years? Okay. No problem. Yeah. Okay. co founders, okay, all the co founders, so okay, you know, so there’s this, that stability goes with it. Um, and we operate as you know, as that small business, that startup business. I mean, we’re 58 people, you know, you get white glove service. But based on our clients, you wouldn’t know it at that point. Yeah, that’s
Damon Pistulka 11:40
one of the things is, you’re in a software company that has a tenure. Now as I read this, people understand the software Steve, go, what? Right there it doesn’t happen like that much. Right. Right.
Curt Anderson 11:53
about it. And you guys have a tagline solve the unsolvable problem. So let’s, how did how did? How did Tesla come on your radar? How did this career path take a turn for you?
John Buglino 12:04
Yeah, so when I was at my previous job, there was a couple of changes in leadership and changing where the company was going and company was head and just wasn’t for me. It took me away from like, my, my core support my family, and, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s a no go for me. I’m sorry. You know, again, I bought more respect to, you know, my previous co workers and things like that, and previous companies still doing really well. I think I set them up for success, but that’s okay.
You know, but it just the opportunity presented itself when I came into attesa and you know, when I interviewed for the role, you know, they mentioned to me they’re like, we haven’t had a stable or a marketing person in quite some time. And I said, Okay, it’s no problem you know, I’m always you know, you’re you’re always on aim you always wanna like yes then that that that said, I can do that no problem. I can scale that wall no big deal. But then when I got into the role, I was like, Oh, wow, this is really this is like five years old like everything was like five years old and not a lot was documented sales process website was old.
Digital Footprint wasn’t there. Social media, forget it, watch Twitter, you know, things like that. So it’s kind of like where do you start? Right? So I just started the beginning you got to lay your foundation you got to lay the foundation down. I’ve great support within the organization. My counterpart, Product Market Manager, Alex Koval instrumental in my success with the company and the role have we just been blocking and tackling for almost the last two years and it’s been phenomenal. It’s an absolute nice,
Curt Anderson 13:33
that I that is awesome. And why I wanted to get into like, you know, you know, in our conversations, how you know, you are extremely intentional on networking. And it was almost like perfect timing because I just looked on the screen. Damon, did you see who popped into the room? We have a celebrity in the room right now. Sam came into the room here. All right, am Gupta Are you kidding me? Sam is here. You know what, John, and this is a testament to you because Jack and Sam only comes for you, dude. You know, like big times, like big time when we have a stage celebrity shows up in the room.
But you’re extremely intentional with your networking and just share like say, say folks that are like, you know, net networking doesn’t come as naturally to them as it does for you. Talk about you know, how you’ve plowed into different networks. I know you’re super supportive with us. Damon, I can’t express our thanks and gratitude to you, man, our man, the manufacturer and Twitter group every Thursday, talk about like, how are you intentional with your marketing with your networking and how that’s helped build your career?
John Buglino 14:37
Yeah, I think it all started I think we you and Iker we had a conversation about and you turned me on to the you know, USA manufacturing hour and then you know, as soon as I joined that for a couple of weeks, you know I got in and saw Kirsten and Dan and stuff like that and I just started being intentional. I literally asked for phone calls for pretty much everyone. You know, I’ve spoken to Dan, I’ve spoken to Kirsten, I speak to Kirsten, a lot You know, we connect and do different things. And I think I’ve spoken to almost every single person in the USA manufacturing our it to some capacity.
You have to be intentional. You have to ask questions, you have to be curious. And my goal is to just really understand, right, like, I can talk to Dan, I know Dan and I will never do business together. For right now. You know, it just, but I think Dan’s doing a phenomenal job on LinkedIn. I think Dan’s doing phenomenal job with this company. It’s just admiration, right? It’s the the end goal for me is not the sale. You know, my end goal is to build that network. You know, same way with Gail, I know, Gail’s here and even Sam’s here like, yeah, we can cross paths the world’s not as big as we think it is.
There might be things that I say today that strike a nerve. I’m open to it. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s figure out what needs to be done and what needs you know how we can get things done. So stop stop hunting for the sale and hunt for the relationship because I think that’s where it comes out.
You know, like, I think Kurt I think I said before every time you say you need to connect with someone I’m like damn it Kurt stop spending my money you know, and it’s just and you have like because you mentioned someone or you you you tell me to connect with someone I do we get on a phone call. There’s a trial there’s, you know, things happen and conversations happen behind closed doors. It’s like it’s exactly what I’m here for. This is it.
Damon Pistulka 16:25
Alright, wrote it down moment of silence. I wrote it down. Right.
Curt Anderson 16:29
Savor it. Savor it. Don’t hunt for the sale. Hunt for the relationship. Chris, we’re gonna get hot for the relationship T shirts. Are you kidding me? Yeah, was so good, dude. And this is really powerful. Again, like my dear friend, Val, you know, she, we can round she calls herself an introvert and she’s become super active with the Twitter group on Thursday. She joins us on Friday, she is such an inspiration.
And taking a page out of your book on you know, being that go giver. Let’s dig into attesa. Let’s take a step further. So we have Sam ERP expert, we have Chris ecommerce and president of Gen Alpha. Some amazing folks here, talk a little bit what problem do I have? If I had hair? What would I be ripping it out? What’s happening right now where I need to call John and I need up tested to save my
John Buglino 17:18
day? Yeah, I think there’s, that’s it’s a loaded question. But I’ll do my best to kind of, you know, drill it down a little bit. So we really pride ourselves with manufacturers that are struggling with their production, that they’re struggling to either get deliveries or get product out the door in a timely fashion, or what lower costs. We see. Customers that are just throwing bodies on lines are workstations to get things done because they think they have to meet these delivery dates or things or, you know, there’s just problems.
You know, you hear a lot about supply chain resiliency and the like, well, if I if I get enough raw material, and if I put enough workers on I add more chefs and I do more, I’ll get more. You could buy at the same time. Like there’s a smarter way to do these things. Um, you know, we had Alex and I had a lot of calls over the last like two weeks what prospects and there was a common thread throughout. And there was actually there was two one was, let me show you my spreadsheet. And Yolande was what we hired a whole bunch of people, but we still can’t figure it out. Yeah. And there’s just something to it.
And we like this spreadsheet for like, the whiteboards or like the spreadsheets. And I think a lot of people, you know, on the on this today think that the larger companies have it all figured out. They don’t know, absolutely don’t. Um, in fact, it’s almost like a shocker. Like, I can’t believe we’re actually having this conversation, like you run your entire operation on a whiteboard, really? The whole thing? And like, yeah, you want to say, I don’t know. But we’re gonna have to at some point, you know, I think there’s a lot that people think they’re doing a good job, and they are. But there’s so much there’s this such a smarter way to do things.
And again, we would have tested, we were very, we have our box, right? We’re not in the Europay. We’re not an MRP. We’re not an mes we’re not we are an advanced planning, scheduling software that sits on top of alongside all your existing systems to power to make it better. I’m not looking to become the new SAP. No, thank you, I’m not looking to replace Oracle. We’re just here to make it all better, and make you work better and smarter. When you’re when you’re looking at your production. And when we’re looking at the different things that are happening. You know, I go back to, you know, we hired a whole bunch of people, it’s not getting better.
It’s like, well, you’re hiring a whole bunch of people, but you’re not giving them the right things to do or tell them the right things to do or be in the right areas. You know, it’s a matter of you have 25 people, but they’re only working with for three workstations. Why do you have 25 people on three workstations that’s not smart. You’re wasting A whole lot of money. But we got the order out. That’s fantastic. But you also spend how much money in HR? Another one we’ve had is, you know, people are doing favors, like all my best customer called me up and they said, Can you slot me in today?
Can you get me these 100 widgets? And you’re like, absolutely no problem. And then your plan is going away. Would you do? What happened now? That 100 I got the 100 widgets out? Yeah, but you delayed 50 other orders? And now it’s gonna take me a week to untangle this mess site. Yeah, had our system. It would be minutes, you’d be able to figure out the the long term you tell the customer, thank you, but we can’t do it today. We’ll do it tomorrow. No problem, you know, kind of thing. So Right. Yeah.
Curt Anderson 20:43
Okay, so tons of tons of pack here, you know. So I know you have a tagline optimize planning and scheduling solutions to manufacturers, so they can work smarter, you know. And so like you just described, you work. So who is your ideal target within the company that you’re communicating with? Is that operational excellence folks, production managers? You know, talk a little bit about who’s that ideal client that you’re seeking?
John Buglino 21:08
Yes, definitely operations managers, the production teams, usually we get in with the planner scheduler that’s experiencing the pain, like they just can’t figure it out. They’re the ones that are manning that spreadsheet, or working off that whiteboard. And they’re just like, I can’t figure this out. I can’t, there’s nothing more I can do. It’s taken me a week, and then something didn’t come from Europe.
And now I got to go back and redo this, or I’ve missed five deliveries, I can’t have this happen again, you know, so we usually hit lower, and then it ultimately gets to the operations managers and those that are actually in charge of the production facility or rooftop, if you will, you know, so that’s what we’re really targeting, you know, and it’s any manufacturer, I don’t care the size.
That’s another misconception we get on we’re not big enough for you. It’s like no, no, you probably aren’t. Let’s go over the operations. And we’ve had that conversation a lot. They’re like, well, we have you know, 25 workstations, three clean rooms, we have 100 workers data, and it’s like, you guys are massive, like this is a massive organization. But they don’t see it that way. They see it as oh, we’re not a fortune 100 No matter me, why did my salsa myself, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter the software, right? Give me the complexity, give me your inputs, and let us give you the best possible output for you guys to do your thing.
Curt Anderson 22:29
That’s awesome. So John, let’s talk let’s not change gears, but I want to talk about culture, the culture. And Damon, did you have something
Damon Pistulka 22:36
right? I’m just like, I mean, if someone’s ever tried scheduling, complex, multi supplier, global supply chain, multi step manufacturing processes, man, there’s just literally no way to mentally spread he, I don’t care what you got, it is not going to be easy. And you know, even on something as simple as when I was back in the aerospace age, and we were making complex aerospace parts, it has 27 processes on it, right.
And you’ve got a long lead time coming from this, that and each one is just like something that simple. Is is crazy. So you roll that up into I’m trying to create an automobile. I’m trying to create a street sweeper or something like that. The the spreadsheet and the whiteboard stuff, and it was 100% some of the biggest fortune 5010 Maybe even clients are doing it that way. And if you can get something that’s that’s a software solution, it’s gonna do it way better than you can.
John Buglino 23:46
I heard I heard a stat from Gartner. That said 90% of global manufacturers utilize Excel for their production planning. Yeah. 90%. And you know what, they all need to go talk to not only my company, they just need to just figure out that there’s a better way to do this something. Yeah, right. Oh,
Curt Anderson 24:06
my God. So yet you have to connect with Chris Harrington from Gen Alpha. Chris, you and John will totally headed off. Yeah. John, I want to plow I want to plow in So with all this because you have a fascinating background from the company, the founding of the company.
And culture in you know, earlier in your conversation, we talked about your previous gig, you know, things change wasn’t a good fit, and what we absolutely love and why we admire you so much as you’re like this is not a good fit for me personally, my family and again goes back to your high level of integrity. What was it about attesa on that culture integrity that just really sunk you are good Seton Hall Catholic boy from New Jersey, what was about attesa that just pulled you in like Man, this is for me.
John Buglino 24:51
It’s It’s everything you like you mentioned it’s kind of like the polar opposite of our previous company like it’s you don’t find companies where Literally there in the company longer than I’ve been a professional, right, like, yeah, that the co founders are still there to say that the, you know, people are celebrating 15 1819 years in a company. That’s something that’s unprecedented, right? Like, that’s that that’s rare. You know, so their company meetings that we have, it’s always stated, like, we don’t lose employees, like you stay with the company, there is no, there’s very little turnover.
The whole goal is like, if you have an issue, please come to us and talk to us about it. They understand the level of empathy is through the roof. It’s unbelievable. You know, so when I say like, Oh, I think my, okay, whatever you need, no problem, you leave No, early, that’s fine. Whatever, it’s, it’s not an issue. You know. So that’s, that’s what’s needed, you know, take COVID out of it, you know, just yeah, just how everyone should be operating, like, laser level empathy, and stick to your, you know, stick to your mole stick to your guns, and I think you’ll be better off for it.
Curt Anderson 25:59
Man, this is like, this is music, the gals ears, right, you’re hitting all those buzz, you know, curiosity, you know, integrity, we’re talking, you know, this is just awesome. And, you know, obviously, that empathy part, and you’ve done an amazing job again, so you bring in that empathy, whether you know, your leadership roles throughout your career, with your customers with your network and ability.
Again, let’s take let’s, let’s go a little bit deeper there, you know, an empathy side, what, you know, what, instill that who instilled that again, you know, put this route a name, parents, coach, mentor, family member, you know what, let’s, let’s some more drops more bombs on us, for you. For us today.
John Buglino 26:37
I don’t know, it, just, you know, I spoken about it, you know, leading with empathy or empathetic leadership. And I think it’s something that a lot of people strive for, but a lot of fail at, I think it’s something that you can say you want to be a nice person. But at the end of the day, like, if you put the business before you people you fail, you know, I think I did a, I did a talk a little while back. And I said, if you’re an employer, or you’re, you know, owner of a company, and if you don’t know that your employees put you number three on their pecking order day after day, you’re failing, you just know that, you know, you’re number three, at best.
And if you have a pet, then number four, right, you’re always going to prioritize your yourself, your family. Before your, your your stuff. Yeah, just think about anybody, you know, in the day, like, if something were to happen for this cold, sorry, guys, I wouldn’t be on it, you know, just, you just have to lead that way. You know, it just, you got to leave early, fine, you know, you you have a thing coming up, whatever, you know, there shouldn’t be, there’s no reason to put that friction there.
Because that friction leads to people go well, I can’t I can’t get an appointment during the week because they’re gonna be, you know, they’re gonna be very upset with me, I got to do on the weekend, and then they can’t get on the weekend. So you know, it’s just, it just creates an unnecessary friction, where you just go, Sure, no problem. Just just cut it right there and just be done with it.
And that’s how I lead my teams. That’s how I go about my day. Right? You know, my m&d gets a little thin when I talk to my kids, but at the same time, like it’s there, but that’s, that’s really it. And like I said, I’m, I have the leaders here that just same way, like whatever you need, it’s fine, because they know if you’re satisfied, your outputs gonna be at its highest, and there’s gonna be no friction. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 28:25
I like that. I like Dan’s comment here. Cuz I’m a Dan. I’m number eight, my house behind the kids and the cats. And I know I’m way behind everybody else. Yeah,
Curt Anderson 28:35
exactly. Well, with you know, Dan, when you have two sets of twins, that’s what happens. Yeah. Oh, gentlemen, let’s dig in. Alright, let’s get back. We’re going to dig into business now. That’s that curiosity, networking, empathy. How you know, in your extremely competitive driven, athlete dry, you know, our kids are great athletes. Talk a little bit about you know, when you say I’m new to sales, I’m new to marketing, Jad give me some tidbits how helped me be successful how what what could drive my success, from your background, from your experience with sales and marketing,
John Buglino 29:07
it’s, it’s a long game. If you think you’re gonna get it done sooner than you think it’s like, you just can’t, it’s a long process. You know, multiple steps, multiple nurture points, multiple things have to happen, play, these can happen in your favor, just as much as plenty of things gonna happen to hurt you. Um, you know, it’s just, you’ve got to play the long game. There might be some quick wins in there, here and there. But ultimately, like, you’re gonna have to put a lot of work into into, you know, maybe very little return or you’re gonna have to wait a long time to get that return.
In our company, the return, the sales cycles are six plus months, so we can’t really celebrate a lead coming in. Now. Maybe next summer, we’re talking about a success, you know, everything goes well. And that’s if it came in today and everything’s working and nothing happened. and things like that. So, I mean, from a marketing a sales standpoint, you know, myself and Alex, we’re sitting right in a, we don’t have a formal sales team. You know, so I’m generating the leads looking for leads, I’m also qualifying them what Alex and he does a much better job than I do. And I’ve learned a lot from him.
But we see it firsthand. Like you have to put in a lot of work. You have to, nothing’s gonna be handed to you. That’s the end of the day. Nothing’s gonna be handed. Yeah, right. Um, you know, the other piece, like doing things like this, like, I can’t sit there, you know, the curse of knowledge. Like nobody knows. Who doesn’t know about Does everyone know about advance planning scheduling?
Probably not? I hope not. But if you do, I want to, you know, have another conversation where if you don’t happen to educate you on it, you know, it’s, you have to start somewhere, then educating you have to over give to get the return in the end. And like I said, it’s a long game. It’s a very long game, not only in my in my role, but others probably sitting watching and attending this like, it’s a long game. Yeah, game.
Damon Pistulka 31:03
I absolutely love manufacturing game in general, as long I mean, I don’t because you know, you’re not looking to find 100 new clients in manufacturing, as raised the gauntlet says, you’re trying to find a few. And that’s probably plenty, right? Yep.
John Buglino 31:17
Yeah, that’s what it is like, when when I’m vetting like new vendors, or different partners are like, what would you leave? I am, I’m like, 10. And they’re like, 10?
Curt Anderson 31:27
Yeah,
John Buglino 31:27
I was like, that’s it? I was like, I’m happy with that, you know? Yeah. And they’re like, Well, what do you I’m like, that’s all we need. I was like, that’s all we need. I was like, is that’s gonna take us about three to six months to actually work these leads, right? And get this going, like, you don’t have hundreds and 1000s. I was like, No, I was like, we don’t know, do we want that, you know, like, that’s, that’s not, that’s not the nature of the beast.
You know, when we, you know, career going back to the company and the culture, like, we take a lead, and we take a contact that enters in a conversation, and we’re ready to have two months worth of conversations, before we even get to any kind of contract, or any kind of pitch, you know, we have to understand everything, you know, we’re talking 234 demos, and variations and proof of concepts and data sharing, and NDAs how many more acronyms gonna throw you, you know, just, there’s just so much that goes into these, you know, and it’s just like, 10, I’m good, you know, 1000 Okay, maybe I will take 1000.
But at the same time, there’s just not enough time to do all this stuff. I mean, there’s just such a convoluted cycle, and things happen and everything has to work together. And, you know, it just everything needs to work together. Yeah,
Curt Anderson 32:36
sure, if one comes to mind, by their, you know, previous life, previous career, or now since subtasks, a share, like a success story. And again, you know, we love your humility, and, you know, probably not even, you know, I’m sure, you know, you’re such a humble dude, you know, not even so much like your success.
But you know, like you, Dan bigger, you know, thing that we preach, you’re constantly is trying to drive success to our customers, our clients, our loved ones, right? Talk a little bit like, what’s the success that’s happened to you since, uh, since starting up Tessa. And then if you have another one in your previous career sure, like what’s been a homerun that you’d love to share with us?
John Buglino 33:11
I think it’s just in my, in my current role in previous roles, just joining an organization that didn’t have a formal marketing department, and just building it from the ground up. Yeah, and just starting at the bottom, just just getting it to a well oiled machine or machine that’s actually functioning, right. You know, from from attesa, when I joined, my first order of business was to get a new website, the website was at least five years old. And myself and team, we rolled the new website out in 100 days and, and then helped us we hit all milestones, you know, all the vanity metrics, whatever, that’s fine, right?
But actually getting a website rolled out. Now I joined in February 2020. It was a month, and then everyone went home, literally, three weeks. So three, I think I was in, like the fifth week, I was sitting in the conference room, and it’s like, okay, team meeting, and it says like, Okay, we’re gonna take two weeks off, it’s like, that was the end of that. So to get a website done with being the new guy, the first foray into marketing after so many years, that was huge. That was a huge accomplishment for myself and the team.
We just rolled out a new one, you know, because, you know, Google and everything else changed their mind as much as I, you know, changed my pants here, you know, so it just, you have to celebrate those like little wins, like each day, there’s got to be something, you know, we had an excellent demo the other day, like, that’s a huge accomplishment. You know, we you know, the user conference, was another huge one. That was like 10 months of everyone in the company working at it, every single person, and we hit a tremendous, tremendous bump, where one of our directors of business development actually passed away suddenly in the midst of all of it.
Wow, and you He was, and we spoke about it our CTO spoke about in one of his sessions. And it was like the beginning of October or middle October. And that was it. I was just like, oh, okay, what do we do now guys? Like, he was the brains behind the software, he was architecting. So much. He had two sessions in the User Conference, and how what do we do? You know, so it really crippled us?
At first, you know, but everyone had to just go all in on it. But those are the things were, you know, through the darkest times, like everyone just kind of rally together, and we got it done. You know, there was a lot of late meetings, and there’s a lot of long meetings they got on the stand, what that the impacts are, but those are the things you guys don’t say.
And those are the things you know, when people say like, oh, you’re not around, like, I got a couple things going on. Don’t worry. Um, you know, and we had to deal with that, you know, so that’s another huge win to get that user conference done, and to have our customers show up, have our customers attend in force. And now we’re swimming in content, which is great. And, you know, great case studies and stories. But there’s so much that happens in and out of the office that you can prepare for it. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 36:17
Well, I think this is you, as I was sitting here listening to you talk, I was thinking about, it’s so easy for people to look at the end and go, Oh, man, it must be nice. There’s no word before those when those words come out. You just want to about and you wanted to make that person be quiet, because because what they don’t realize is how much work that was put in to make it like it is today.
Whether it’s Yeah, building a business, whether it’s putting on a conference like this or anything, and I think you’re just show the example of you had some through super, super tough time right there, right, like key to what you’re doing, first of all, the emotional part of it. But then they have to pick that up and replace what they’re doing in something like A User’s Conference in the in the matter of a couple of weeks. That’s that’s a huge undertaking.
John Buglino 37:08
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was not, you know, and then the funniest thing was, you know, we ordered items, head of the conference, we’re shipping to our customers. And it was like, I think it was sitting in like, May, and I was I was talking to one of the vendors, and she’s like, You need to order these, like now. I’m like, Why? Why are we doing this? She goes, there’s a lot of problems. And then we’re sitting there and we literally couldn’t get lids. It was like, Where are the lids? You know, and then it was like, you know, those boats city off a long beach. And even like, I was like, Don’t even don’t even say it?
And she’s like, Yeah, they’re kind of sitting out there somewhere. I’m like, Oh, yeah. You know, that’s, you know, store for a different day. But there’s, like I said, there’s so much that was in the way, you know, and that’s why I said like, 10 months, like, the conversation happened around February, like my my year marks like we’re gonna have a user conference this year. I’m like, Oh, great. I can’t wait. You know, and then, you know, it happened. You know, last weekend, it’s been been fantastic with it so much happened over those 10. Right. Yeah. Nicholas,
Damon Pistulka 38:08
we did have a question from from Christian landcare. He asked, Is the sales team looking at the AP tests or dashboard? I don’t know if that’s too specific and different in other clients. But he was wondering if the sales team is looking at the attesa dashboard when they’re great question. Yeah, it is. It is really?
Curt Anderson 38:28
Yeah, cuz everybody’s involved, right? It impacts everybody. Oh, yeah,
John Buglino 38:33
absolutely. Absolutely. Everyone’s it’s, everyone’s all in, right, like everyone’s looking. And, you know, a cheerleader everyone is, is, is working towards the same goal. So yeah, the test the dashboard and the dashboards, like, Absolutely, like everyone’s trying to make the software better. Everyone’s trying to land the next customer, you know, and also trying to nurture the system relationships that we do have. Yeah, we’re all in. Like I said, we’re a smaller company. But we operate big. Fantastic.
Curt Anderson 39:05
Awesome, above your weight, man. So, John, I know we could chat all day, dude, we’re coming in time. I’m going to give everybody a chance to chat with you at the tables. I’ve dropped John’s LinkedIn profile. And John, you have some swag. I understand. Is that correct? We have a little link in the chat box for everybody to click that link.
John Buglino 39:21
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, was coming off of the user conference. You know, we did get some swag in so you know, I worked with Kurt and Damon to kind of make the offer. So it’s a simple landing page. But you know, it basically shoots an email to me and we’ll coordinate delivery of some test items for everyone in attendance. You know, it doesn’t matter where you are, you know, a couple of you’ve already taken advantage of it. But yeah, absolutely. Happy to do it and share it. So, yeah, click the link and I’ll be happy to send you guys all the swag.
Curt Anderson 39:56
Awesome. Awesome. So, John, we’re gonna wind down and parting thoughts, any last words? Any words of wisdom that you want to share with our folks that take into the weekend? Yeah, I
John Buglino 40:05
think it’s just like you mentioned to be intentional with your, your networking. don’t hunt for the sale hunt for the hunt for the relationship. You have to it’s everything’s built on relationships, you know, and the other thing is, like, you know, being engaging where you are, you know, like I said, I’ve taken a little bit of time away from the Twitter chat and other things like that.
But now I’m back in full force. You know, so looking forward to continuing the conversations and the connections and yeah, I’m easily found on LinkedIn. I know you dropped it here, but you know, like gal, you’ll find me on Twitter as well. So yeah, happy to connect. And you know, let’s have that conversation.
Curt Anderson 40:43
Absolutely, guys. Well, John, dude, God bless you. Thank you. You’re such a gift. You’re a joy to be friends with. Thank you for all the passion, energy, the excitement that you bring to us. Everybody on Thursdays with Twitter, what you do you know, our support here, Damon Nye again, we can’t thank you enough. Yeah, guys, thank each and every one of you for joining us today. We wish you an amazing, incredible weekend. We are Damon we have an awesome interview on Monday with how he’s a Toyota kata guru.
Damon Pistulka 41:13
Yeah,
Curt Anderson 41:14
yeah, wait for Monday. So guys, go and then Oh, you guys sit down for this everybody sit down for this. You know what knows that next one next Friday, Jeff Long. And here’s the thing. It’s called Video value with video value bombs. Yeah, real value bombs and how you can have explosive growth with your business by detonating video value bombs. You don’t want to miss that next Friday. So yeah, guys, thank you have an awesome, awesome weekend and we will see you guys Monday. Daymond Take it away, brother.
Damon Pistulka 41:45
All right, Kurt. Thanks, John. It was awesome talking to ya. Great times. And I want to thank everyone on Twitter. We got Margot Janine, Gary, Alex drop, David dropping stuff out there. Hey Margo, nice. Thanks so much. Love it that you guys are interacting over there.
And if you’re on LinkedIn, you want to join us on Remo Hey, just check out Kurt nice posts every week. We got the remote link there it stays the same. Save it in your browser. It’s a rebrand Lee link so you can drop right in every week. We’re going to go off the LinkedIn live Yep, got the romance shirts on this week are rolling. So we’re going to drop off LinkedIn live go back to email a table so people can talk with John Have a good one. Peace. All right, there we go.
