• 43:03
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Industrial Marketing Summit, Luke Wittenbraker, sales and marketing alignment, generational gaps, field machining, marketing strategy, customer relationships, LinkedIn engagement, industrial equipment, sales team, content creation, business growth, public speaking, trade shows, customer interaction.
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Luke Wittenbraker, Curt Anderson
Damon Pistulka 00:02
All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means. It is time for stop being the best kept secret. And today we are rolling out our industrial markets marketing summit 2026 preview. Today we’re going to be talking with Luke wittenbrocker, thanks so much for being here today. Luke, absolutely. Yes. I am one of the CO hosts, Damon Pistulka, and that gentleman right over there, I should say pretty gentleman over there. Kurt Anderson, is going to take it away so we can talk with Luke and learn a little bit more about what he does and the industrial marketing Summit.
Curt Anderson 00:40
2026 Hey, thanks. Damon, Luke, Happy Friday to you, dude. How
Luke Wittenbraker 00:44
are you, man, as the as my kids school says, Friday, Friday, Friday. Good old Friday. I am doing good. I’m doing great.
Curt Anderson 00:54
It’s a great day to have a great day. So hey, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. We are going to do a deep dive, dude, you’re one of the speakers at the industrial marketing summit for 2026 What do you
Luke Wittenbraker 01:04
think of that? I don’t know what they’re thinking.
Curt Anderson 01:08
Well, hey, you know what they they, you know, I spoke last year. So they raised the bar quite a you know, Damon, look that great head of Harry’s guy, you know, like, they don’t want bald guys on stage anymore, so they’re going with Luke. Luke, we’re gonna dive right in. Dude, you get a good night’s sleep last night. You ready? Rock and roll? Rock and
Luke Wittenbraker 01:23
roll, I did get a good night’s sleep. I got, I got three young kids, and they’re all sleeping Great. I’m doing something
Curt Anderson 01:28
right? Oh, you’re doing something, man. I got a puppy, and he was up all night, so I got no sleep whatsoever. So Luke, let’s go here. Man, we’ve got a ton to cover on the industrial marketing Summit. We got a ton to cover on your company, your background, maybe you talk a little TCU, but before we do all these things, hey, when you’re a little guy growing up, I have a question for you, little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to, who just showered you with unconditional love? Who was your uncle? Who was your hero when you’re a kid growing up?
Luke Wittenbraker 01:59
Oh gosh, that’s got, that’s got, that’s an easy answer. It’s got to be my dad.
Curt Anderson 02:04
Nice, awesome. What’s dad’s name? Joel. Joel, and what was so special? Why was Joel your hero? It’s
Luke Wittenbraker 02:10
just always there to support me through the best and worst of times. We didn’t, we didn’t really have the worst of times. But you know, you’re a you’re a kid, you screw up. And he he had screwed up plenty of times in his life, and always told me the only way to learn, learn something and do better is screwing up. So yeah, yeah, he was always there to push me back in the right direction and figure it out. My mom was a huge role model as well. I cannot take anything away from her. They were both just excellent parents and taught me to work hard and do what I do best and figure it out.
Curt Anderson 02:48
Awesome. Well, hey, God bless you, man. Big shout out to mom and dad. Joel, and what’s your mom’s
Luke Wittenbraker 02:53
name? It was either that or weird. Al yankovich, so hey, you know what,
Curt Anderson 02:56
dude, I’m right there with you. Brother, I’m right. Why more? Big weirdo guy that was, that was, that was awesome. What’s mom’s name? Trisha, Tricia. So big shout out to Joel and Tricia for doing such an amazing job raising this fine young man, Luke. Luke, let’s go here. So I understand you went to TCU. Do I have that correct? That’s right. Big the frogs, right? Do we have what’s that they spit blood out of their eyes? That’s right, right? So hey, God bless the frogs. So you go to TCU, what brought you? And we’re going to talk about the company and but I want to dive in first, what led you to a career in manufacturing? Why? Why industrial? What? What attracted you there?
Luke Wittenbraker 03:37
Well, I was sort of, sort of, I say, sort of born into it. I was a marketing major at TCU, and I went out to find my own course, and ended up working in the pharmaceutical industry, in the advertising agency industry, and the oil and gas industry as a Landman, which now is made popular by Billy Bob Thornton. So yeah, did I was only a Landman for a short while, though. I’ve got plenty of friends that are still in it. So
Curt Anderson 04:11
now, now it isn’t Billy Bob’s character after you. I haven’t even watched
Luke Wittenbraker 04:15
the show. I need to
Curt Anderson 04:17
same here, but I
Luke Wittenbraker 04:20
hear he drinks a lot, so you could be after me. I enjoy a beer beverage every once in a while, and I went out to sort of pave my own way, and worked at startups and worked at a dining room table to start up a marketing agency and with a with a fat with the founder, and ended up I already talked about my role model being my dad. Ended up looking at Mac tech, which my dad’s the president of, and 12 years ago, said he was a client of ours at the marketing agency I was working for, because who’s easier to sell to than your dad? Uh, we just, we just said, Hey, we had a two year kind of client customer relationship where I was, you know, separate companies, but we were working together. And at one point we just kind of looked at each other and was like, Hey, I like working with you. And it’s like, Hey, I like working with you too. It’s like, well, maybe we should, maybe we should put a ring on it and make this official. There you go. Kind of never looked back, you know, I don’t think I ever said I want to be in the industrial marketing space. So the industrial sales space, it just sort of happened. And he would tell you the same thing, because he was an investment banker and just ended up taking on a client as a industrial, big industrial client, and said, Alright, that was fun. Let me see if I can do something else. And a guy called him and said, Hey, come help me rescue my business a little bit. And he moved up to Minnesota and said, Alright. And then he’s been there for 30 plus years now, so
Curt Anderson 06:02
that what a great story. So, alright, so
Luke Wittenbraker 06:04
I guess the answer for anybody that’s interested in industrial the industrial spaces, you just kind of fall into it.
Curt Anderson 06:11
Yeah, everybody’s an accidental industrial market, right? So, what a great story, man. So your dad comes into the company 30 years later here, Joel is crushing it. You guys start working together on a marketing side, as a third party resource, and also you’re like, hey, let’s throw a ring on this. And now, forever, ever happy, ever after, right? Is how that goes.
Luke Wittenbraker 06:32
That’s how it goes so far. Happily Ever, I don’t know about ever after, but happy so far. So if
Curt Anderson 06:39
you don’t mind, I’m going to pull up the website before I do, can you share with folks? Tell everybody about the company, and how do you guys make the world a better place?
Luke Wittenbraker 06:48
We are industrial. Everybody’s an industrial person here, for the most part, but we are a field machining organization. So there’s probably, I don’t know how many people are on this stream, but there’s people that know what a machine shop does they take metal and maketh things out of that metal. They make a big chunk of something into a smaller chunk of something to make it useful parts that make the world spin, make the world go round. It’s fun to see if you if you really think about a machinist that you know they’ve made parts in your computer, parts in your car, parts in an airplane, parts in your refrigerator, things that we use every day, that we all take for granted. The door to my office that’s closed right now doesn’t open unless the machinist machines the handle and the lock and the knob and everything. Yeah. So in our world, in the in the machine shop world, you take a piece of metal, you put it on a lathe or a platform, and you turn that piece of metal, and you put a lathe on it, and you spin it, and you you take it metal away and make something useful out of it. In our field, machining world, we are working on things that are too big to bring into a shop or like a ship or an oil platform or a refinery or a power plant. I say too big. My other sort of adjective, I guess, is or just stuck in the ground. You can’t move it. You can’t you can’t bring your refinery to the refinery. Fix it shop like you can and say, hey, please fix this pipe in here for me. So in a sense, I my wife still doesn’t know what we do, but I tend to tell her to make it easy for some people, in layman’s terms that we are, we’re kind of the big industrial glorified plumbers of the world. We bring the tools to your house, to your shop, to your facility to fix what you need fixed or create what you need created.
Curt Anderson 08:58
Well, that’s a great expression explanation, and so for folks at home, he’s a glorified plumber. I absolutely so I think, I think you’re being very humble, very modest. Can you guys see my screen?
Luke Wittenbraker 09:09
Yeah, Super Mario is a glorified plumber, too. So that’s
Curt Anderson 09:13
Hey and look at he did. He did.
Damon Pistulka 09:14
Okay, done. Okay.
Curt Anderson 09:16
So, alright. So let’s, I want to take a little navigation through the website. So you guys do some really exciting things. So point out a few things here that you guys have going on.
Luke Wittenbraker 09:28
So pipe cutting, we make portable pipe cutting machines that clamp around a pipe. Call it a clam shell a lot of places, or a split frame cutter. Yep, it can. It can sever a pipe. It can put a bevel on an end of a pipe. Because when welders come in and weld two pipes together, they have a certain certification. They need to make sure that pressurized liquids or gasses or whatever that’s going through an industrial pipe aren’t going to. To blow out and explode and hurt someone or whatnot. We make big industrial drills. You see that on the right one of our that bottom left picture, that’s a really cool machine. That’s a our ldfm. It’s a large diameter flange facing machine. Oh yeah, that thing is about it can go out to what’s it say they’re 229 or 220 inches, and it sits on the internal diameter of a pipe and faces a big face on
Damon Pistulka 10:33
it, the end of it, the end, so it makes the end of the pipe square or angled, whatever they want. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Luke Wittenbraker 10:41
That’s an internal cutting machine you just clicked on that actually drops inside a pipe, so a lot of piers, and that’s, that’s actually out like doing bridge construction. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll dig a big trench and drop, drop a big pipe down into the trench and cement it. And you gotta go in and cut it from the inside.
Damon Pistulka 11:04
Gosh, wow. You think there’s so much stuff like this that you never know happens or how it’s done, right, right, right?
Curt Anderson 11:13
Just this is absolutely phenomenal. So alright, so tell us a little bit of on the background. Your dad got in the company. He said, you said, 30 years ago?
Luke Wittenbraker 11:21
Is that right? 3030? Plus now we did a little 30 years we we’ve been around for 50 plus years. I think 74 was the official Wow inauguration of tech group. Mac. Tech started out as a heat treating company, a portable heat treating company that went out and wrapped pipes and got them prepped to get Weldon, and just kind of quickly figured out that those pipes needed to be machined and whatnot as well, and went down the development path of creating machining gear that’s portable and send it out to Do work.
Curt Anderson 12:00
Yeah, this is awesome, dude. And I think now you mentioned Minnesota. Now you guys have I noticed here you have many locations, right?
Luke Wittenbraker 12:08
We are in Minnesota. We have a true operational facility in Paducah, Kentucky, Broussard, which is basically Lafayette, Louisiana. We’ve got some kind of sales hubs in Michigan and Marinette Wisconsin, sales hub in and distributors in Australia and Europe and kind of all over the world, right?
Damon Pistulka 12:35
Wow, very cool. So you guys are actually making some of the equipment to machine.
Luke Wittenbraker 12:41
We make it all, ah, made in the USA. See right behind me,
Damon Pistulka 12:48
yeah, but that’s kind of, that’s kind of unique. When you’re, we’re talking about, you’re out there doing the machining, but you’re also making the equipment. I mean, you you really get to a whole different level of debug, R and D, all the kind of stuff that a lot of these machining companies making machines would really love to have correct.
Luke Wittenbraker 13:09
That’s awesome that you say that because I actually have our trade show brochure, whatever. I’ve got a PDF of it somewhere too, but it’s really, it’s almost kind of the, what’s the guy’s name from Shark Tank, the FUBU For Us, By Us, Oh, yeah. I mean, like, we have a, we have a brochure that’s made by field machinists, feedback provided field machinists engineering, you know, worked on by field machinists. We do rental equipment too, and all the equipment’s maintained and cleaned up and put ready to go by guys that are out there working in the field and know how to use it. Yeah. So it’s a big, powerful tool for us. Yeah, it can be a crutch a little bit too. You can. You can have your your competition, tell you that you shouldn’t be doing contract work and selling equipment to compete against whoever. But we’ve, we’ve made it for 50 years doing it the way we’ve done it, and it’s, it’s worked so far, and we get it, and we do, we get into, we sell equipment to customers that will say, Hey, we’re, we’re quoting this job, and we’re be like, alright, it’s all you know. All is love and fair and warm. Yeah, you go for it, and we’ll go find another patch to sniff in.
Curt Anderson 14:29
Nice Alright, guys. So hey, Happy Friday, everybody. You’re out there. Drop us a note. Let us know you’re there. Yeah, do yourself a big favor. Connect with Luke on LinkedIn. He’s a wonderful, amazing young man. He’s putting out all sorts of great content. So and then, Luke, what we’re here to talk about the industrial marketing Summit, yeah. And before I go there, you’ve got a really fun topic, man like this. I cannot wait to catch you live at the industrial marketing summit in Austin this year, before we go there for friends out there that are marketers. At manufacturing, or maybe talk to that manufacturer that they haven’t started their marketing journey yet. How have you come into I mean, like you guys have such a great online presence, I’m assuming, before you got there, what does it look like
Luke Wittenbraker 15:13
before you got there, before we got I just, I had this conversation last week with another person, and before we got there, it was just, it really was just a website, yeah, and we that, and this is a decade ago, when I came on board, and I was fortunate enough to come from sort of the agency life, where I had worked with all sorts of different clients, so I got a good view of like real estate and Thomas repro graphics, who did vehicle wraps, and magianos Little Italy was a client of mine that that I wasn’t necessarily selling pasta dishes, but selling banquets to people that wanted to host their weddings and rehearsal dinners and stuff and all of it. All of it really boiled down to just, where are the leads, right? The classic like Glengarry, Glen Ross Yeah, leads. Where are the leads? And so my mindset when I came to MEC Tech was just like, Well, where are, where are leads coming from right now? And it’s like, well, we don’t know the sales, the sales guys that are driving around knocking on doors. So we had an old, old, crotchety website, and, you know, we really just jumped into crafting newsletters and blog posts and revamping the website. And I continue to call it pay per click marketing, because I think it’s probably called something else now, but, you know, really paying to get your name out there and finding the finding, not only just like the terms that people are searching for, but like what they what, really the value is they’re searching for, and get it in front of them. And that’s what we I mean, everything in marketing changes every month. I was about to say every day, which is probably true too, but I don’t have enough time to keep up with how quickly it seems to be changing now. But you can really just, I think you can play with the basics and still get exponential value out of your marketing. You know, people are, people are AI is such a huge buzzword if you’re even on LinkedIn or anything at any point in time. But you could start by curating a newsletter and updating some product pages and talking to some customers and figuring out what their why they found you in the first place, and try to reproduce that with more customers. Excellent.
Curt Anderson 17:50
Okay, so you came in, and so now, with dad being president, very much embraced. And so like, did you have like, kind of free reign? Like, hey, this is what we’re going to do. Was a lot of experimenting. Like, how did you really figure out what was going to work for you? Work for You?
Luke Wittenbraker 18:03
I had free reign, and I was also, I was also to be fun to people out there listening. I was also assigned to be the sales manager at same time. So we, I got to wear many hats and help organize and maintain the sales team and charge them with what needed to be done and focus on the marketing as well. So we came in sort of guns a blazing and ready to sort ready to shake things up and add more structure and add more metrics and scorecards and making sure we’re headed in the right direction.
Damon Pistulka 18:44
So this, it’s a great it’s awesome because, you know, Mac tech, great company, old school, probably sales and marketing process, like you said, the website was probably just a placeholder. You had sales people out there. They’re doing the marketing and sales and everything. So you’ve been there a while now and you’re working through this stuff. Have the sales people started to really embrace how the marketing helps people get to know you before they talk to them?
Luke Wittenbraker 19:15
Yeah, absolutely. And so we, we try to involve the sales team whenever we can in in the marketing side of things as well. We’re the the most important thing anybody listening to this call can do, and it’s probably been beaten to death by the experts out there, but is to like go and talk to customers to figure out where their pain is and try to present a solution to solve it. And I think if you treat your sales, if you’re a marketer, and you treat your sales team as a customer, in a way, I mean, I we talk about internal customers in our organization, and it’s not just between sales and marketing. You know, the. Logistics guy is your customers as or your customer as well. He, he’s going to get your equipment out to your customer quicker if you deliver the right paperwork the way he wants it. And yeah, yada yada yada from department to department. So, yeah, we, we, I try to present what, really, what we’re doing and how we’re doing it quarterly, and what’s working and what’s not, and it’s, it’s usually welcome, and it’s open to feedback, and I’m open to trying new ideas and whatnot. But, yeah, we, we all work to get together pretty well, but we’re also a smaller organization. We have 11 or 1212, people on our sales team and, like, one and a half, one and a half people in our internal marketing department. Yeah, it’s not this giant web of like, all right, set up a pitch to 300 employees, or whatever I can. I can pick up the phone and talk to salesperson right now, if I want to, and just do it. So maybe that’s, maybe that’s the lesson that everybody is want. Something that Joel always hammers home is pick up the phone and talk to people. You don’t have to set a meeting or set a time. You can just sales. People are trained to go cold call people. Why don’t you go cold call your internal customer as well? Right?
21:33
Yeah, good point. Great.
Curt Anderson 21:35
Great point here. And I think this is a perfect segue. So Luke, let’s talk about we’re going to, let’s dive into your session at the industrial marketing
Luke Wittenbraker 21:42
Summit. I gotta, I still gotta practice my session. Hey,
Curt Anderson 21:46
that’s what we’re here for. We’re gonna give a little So, hey, let’s take a little peek here. So I love the title. I love the description here. So Luke manages Al, 65 year old who types with two fingers, calls LinkedIn, Facebook for work and is a top performing sales rep. Discover how real sales marketing alignment happens without buzzwords or AI platforms just trust, transparency, practical tactics that bridge generational gaps and drive results in traditional industrial companies. So how did this come about? And who? Who’s Al,
Luke Wittenbraker 22:22
the I saw this the other day. They ruined my surprise, because you see my headline, how al changed the way sales and marketing work together. Some might read that as how AI changed the way sales and marketing work together, because I always see I make the joke that I always see AI on LinkedIn and think that I’m reading about Al.
Curt Anderson 22:45
Hey, there’s a great song. Was it? Don’t call me Al, right. Don’t call me AI, yeah, don’t call me AI. So, alright, teaching a new trick. Well, you got two old dogs right here. Luke.
Luke Wittenbraker 22:56
Al is Al’s actually retired now. Great sales guy, very old school, dropping collages off to customers and bringing Sonic chili dogs to customers. And, yeah, you know a young buck salesperson that’s whizzing around on LinkedIn and AI and Apollo and whatnot would probably laugh at him, and he’d probably laugh at them. Yeah, two very different generations, but he’s he was all about relationships and working hard and keeping working hard to keep those relationships alive. I say working hard, because some, if you were part of my organization, some might laugh, because he was also viewed as a little bit slower at times to get things done or type things in, or get the CRM updated, or the things that others might deem important, right. But Al is the guy too, that kind of the old dog’s new tricks mentality was just like, I showed him, I showed him the light. And this is just like showing someone how something works. I showed him the light one day on LinkedIn, and just said, like, look at these. Like, look at these posts. And he works for our offshore division, so he’s kind of, look at this without getting too far into it. Look at these posts and like, look at these people commenting and liking this. This post on Mac tech offshore, like, these are your customers, and they’re like, they’re asking questions and doing things. Why don’t you go answer it? And he was like, Okay. And then it was like, he saw the saw the light. Because all sudden he started posting on LinkedIn, like once or twice a week to my Mac tech offshore page. And he just, he’d go find. Pictures that we had say, yeah, got from a job, and he’d write up a little egg. He’d he’s not, he’s not going to win a Pulitzer Prize or anything for his writing. But he was just creating content, yeah, and then it transformed in this thing where he’s, he said, I love my job. So every post he put was, I love my job, and it was just, it was like a cool project that, yeah, that came back and a successful job. But it wasn’t about wasn’t even about Mac tech. It was about him. And I just thought it was this cool story where he just, he got it, and it’s not over complicated to just create one piece of content every week, and he did it, and he I never asked him to do it, he never asked me if he could do it. He just did it. And then he retired, and now I have to do it again. Yeah, darn it. I gotta keep it
Curt Anderson 25:58
- Yeah. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong
Damon Pistulka 26:00
well, the cool part about that is a lot of people think that it’s creating content is about, Oh, I gotta, I gotta put all this into it. And people just want to see what’s going like a company like Mac deck. People just want to see the cool stuff you’re doing. And you’re out there every day in it, and you being in it every day, you don’t think that’s cool, but somebody the outside looks at and go, Holy heck, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah, just looking at your your LinkedIn, and it was showing your diamond wire saws going into the water. I’m like, holy cow, that’s gotta be fun, yeah?
Luke Wittenbraker 26:36
And that that post, I posted that yesterday, and then today, one of our, one of the like, head honchos, that one of our biggest accounts, great customer, great company, huge company, like, not, not the guy running the solid guy, like, writing checks and, yeah, decisions commented on there. You know, Mac tech makes great equipment. And it’s like, that’s great to see. That’s just because, just because you literally in our business, and maybe it’s not everywhere else. You just post a picture and you make a clever comment, and you tell someone what you’re doing, and boom, you’re done. Yeah, I’ve gotten I’ve gotten down, gone down the lanes of trying to get real graphical and, oh, add logos here and flare here, or think about it too hard, but it’s when you just kind of shoot from when I this is my story. When I shoot from the hip is when I get a post that gets in our in my business, like 100 or 200 likes and interaction is a pretty big post for us. They’re they’re in the 20s or 30s or 40s. But when, when you get those hundreds, or two hundreds, I look at it and I’m like, Well, what did I do different? It’s like, I don’t know. I just just kind of let it fly, let it rip.
Curt Anderson 27:57
Yeah, yeah, good. And I think one big takeaway, what you’re describing with yourself and Al, I mean, you’re just, you’re describing al as just such an endearing, wonderful gentleman. He was just authentic being himself and just kind of put him out. And, you know, like you said, like, you know, showing up with the sonic chili dogs or whatever, just, you know, the old school, very genuine, very kind hearted and, most importantly, caring salesperson, right? And it wasn’t like it wasn’t about the sales. It was like his dedication to the success of his customers is what I’m hearing, or what you’re you’re describing absolutely,
Luke Wittenbraker 28:33
absolutely when that, when that shines through, through pictures or words or whatever it is it, it goes a long
Curt Anderson 28:39
way. Yep. So Luke, let’s go here. So and hey Damon, let’s put a shout out. So anybody interested in going to the industrial marketing summit 2026 it’s right around the corner. It’s going to be here before you know it. If you sign up and you type the words B to B TAIL, you’re going to get a little discounts, a coupon code for you out there. So we love for you. If you want to catch Luke, live strongly encourage you, welcome, you, invite you. Go to the industrial marketing Summit. Sign up today. Type in B to B tail, and you’re going to get a little coupon code, little discount for you guys, just a little added bonus. There
Damon Pistulka 29:11
you go. Awesome. Go ahead. Damon, well, and that’s the industrial marketing Summit, 2026, so people don’t know that the full title to it because, yeah, it is, it is an awesome lineup. Every year, the people, they get there and, and just what you can learn from the from the group, really,
Curt Anderson 29:30
yeah, so Luke, let’s go here. Do you, I do do a lot of public speaking. How did you? How did this come about? Like, how did you, how’d you get on the lineup here? And, like, why should people come see you speak?
Luke Wittenbraker 29:40
I talk too much. If you give me an open platform, I’m sure there’s times today when you guys are just like, okay, like, let’s go get your point out. No, I don’t do a lot of public speaking. I have participated in some. Podcasts, and just, I say, just for kind of like Al, just to be authentic. And this, this feels like a chance for me to be authentic. I’m not. I’m not promoting anything. I just, it’s a chance for me to share a decade of decade plus of knowledge that I’ve learned, and I think there’s a lot of people, so I went two years ago, and a lot of topics are based on AI and the technology and the tech stack. And I’m not saying everything’s based on that, but I think I’m I’m trying to bring that authentic like this is industrial sales and marketing have to work together and industrial sales people a lot of the time. I’m not saying every time our older blue collar gentlemen that don’t always get that side of the tech stack, so you have to figure out how to make the synergy between the two work together. And you know, that’s that’s not always the case. There’s a bunch of depending on what business you’re in, there’s young whippersnappers, there’s males and females out there killing it. But in my experience, I’ve always just, like, managed a bunch of people that are older in me and sharp as a whip when it comes to, you know, getting their hands dirty and moving things and building relationships and talking to people. But you gotta be able to balance the marketing side of it with them as well.
Curt Anderson 31:38
So Luke, let’s, let’s set this so in particular this topic. And Damon, we come across a lot of folks who are millennials, Gen Zers, you know, college and you know, God bless them, they’re stuck dealing with like us, Gen Xers, or, you know, baby boomers. We have a client who’s 24 working with a 77 year old, you know, several generations in between. Luke, what recommendation, what advice do you have? Let’s say for that young person just coming out of college, that millennial the Gen Z. Er, I guess be more Gen Z. What would you recommend, advice to, like, deal with we’ll say more experienced, more seasoned folks, my mine and Damon’s generation. Like, how do you deal with us old us old dogs?
Luke Wittenbraker 32:17
How do we deal with you? No, I’m just kidding. I’m probably put up with us if we did the state fair thing. I’m probably older than you think, too. I just turned 40. Nobody ever believes that. It believes me. But I did it. I’m, I’m, I’m there. Yeah, look at that.
Curt Anderson 32:33
Hey, can you? Can you we need to see some ID. Can you hold up the hair? Damon, look that great. Yeah, all about the hair
Luke Wittenbraker 32:41
you show up to the industrial marketing summit, I will show you my identification.
Curt Anderson 32:46
That’s right. I’ll card you when we
Luke Wittenbraker 32:50
my it’s hard because I work remote, and all my sales guys are in different places, but yeah, you have to my if I was going to boil it down to just, how does that Gen Z person really jump in is you gotta take that person to lunch or coffee or happy hour, whatever it is, outside of, outside of the business of the day you really want to get to know it doesn’t mean You gotta be friends, and doesn’t mean you got to go to their kids sports games or whatever, but you really want to get that personal, authentic relationship, that we’re coming full circle again to authentic relationships. But yeah, you know you want. You want to know the person you’re working with and not just be on a teams call once a week with them or whatever it is trying to hash through, to do’s or action items or reports or whatever it is. I think that really goes a long way. I spent I spent the first not going to lunch. I spent the first half of my career going to every single trade show we went to to not even sell anything, but spend time with my sales people, who I was responsible for managing, and that that ended of itself. The time, the time between customers where people aren’t walking by or people are in the conference, the time between selling where you actually got to sit and talk to someone and learn about them, was probably 10 times more valuable than the leads that came from the show or whatnot.
Damon Pistulka 34:24
Yeah, yep, yeah. I was fortunate enough in the past to be able to do that as well. And, you know, out traveling at the shows, out traveling with them too. If there’s a, you know, you’re going to go to an account that they wanted you to come along with, or something like that, that car time, that the time around that is so valuable, right?
Curt Anderson 34:46
Absolutely, breaking bread with somebody, just getting in person, especially like, you know, covid, just getting out there and again, shameless plug. Go to the industrial marketing Summit, you know, for our solo marketer friends, and you just feel like you’re in a silo. You feel like you’re on your. Own man, I’ll tell you, you’re going to be with hundreds and hundreds of your new best friends at the industrial marketing Summit, because everybody’s kind of in the same boat, right? Luke, what did you the first time
Luke Wittenbraker 35:11
in Austin, Texas? Right, yes, where they have great barbecue and great tacos and beer and great music and great activities to do,
Curt Anderson 35:21
right, right? What? Why would you not consider going so, Luke, I know we can keep you all day. We’ll start winding down. What are you excited about? As far as your what are people going to walk away from when they go to your session at the industrial marketing Summit? What’s one takeaway that
Luke Wittenbraker 35:37
they’re going to I want them to have? I get really out there and creative at times, and sometimes my ideas work and sometimes they don’t. I plan on bringing the ones that worked, maybe a few that didn’t, but I want to people to walk away with an idea to sort of bridge the gap between sales and marketing for their organization, very cool. And I think, I think it’s something that a lot of people get frustrated with. It sounds cliche, but things that when, when things sound cliche, it usually means they’re sort of true. I say that about cliches and stereotypes, like, sometimes it’s because it’s true. No, there’s, there’s a lot of tension between sales and marketing at times. Yeah, and there, there doesn’t have to be. And I think just boiling it down to authenticity and having a little fun and getting a little loose and not creating some rigid, structured thing is important. So I hope to bring some of that to the table and have someone walk away and say, I’m going to try that. I’m going to try what Luke told me to do. And then I’ll, I’ll, I’ll witch and moan it when I get fired or something.
Curt Anderson 36:54
I’m sure that’s not going to happen. Well, yeah, we’ve got to, I hear we have a good reference from Joel. So I know, I know you must be doing something, right? So as we start winding down, one question that I’d love to ask you, you’ve been at this you’ve been on the block for quite a while, much longer than I anticipated. Did you say 40?
Luke Wittenbraker 37:11
4040? In October 23 just 1040 god, dude, you don’t we got another full circle. You know, his birthday is October 23 weird. Al,
Curt Anderson 37:23
you and murdered. Al, so Luke, let’s go here. Best business advice. What is the best business advice that you’ve ever received that you would love to pass along? Best business advice.
Luke Wittenbraker 37:34
Man, I had best business advice comes from school, which probably, probably doesn’t, you know, everybody learned something after school, but I had a, I had a marketing professor that pounded into us if, and this is about business and personal life, if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And it was mainly about business, but I took that into account for, you know, personal, professional learning, whatever it is, you always kind of got to be reaching out for something more. And if you’re sitting in a marketing or a sales seat, you’re probably rolling your eyes because someone like me has told you, well, your your quota last year was this, and now it’s growing, because we gotta grow. But, you know, everybody’s, everybody’s chasing inflation, but you kind of gotta chase the inflation of life as well. And wow, if you’re not, if you’re not growing as a person or a family or a professional, you’re maybe you’re not dying, but you’re not, you’re not moving yourself onward and upward. Yep, yep. Great
Curt Anderson 38:41
advice, my friend, yeah. Inflation, I haven’t heard that one before. Damon takeaways thoughts from our conversation with our dear friend, Luke. What are your thoughts?
Damon Pistulka 38:50
Yeah, just first of all, Luke, thanks for stopping by today. Stuff you guys are doing is cool. I love how you’re mixing old new school together with your with your marketing and seeing people embrace it. Just thanks for stopping by and sharing. Yeah,
Curt Anderson 39:04
absolutely, yeah, doing some amazing work. So best place to find you, LinkedIn, stop by the website, go to the industrial marketing Summit. Anything, anywhere else that we can find you can give your address, your phone number, anything, 817-771-0420,
Luke Wittenbraker 39:19
pick up the phone. Call me.
Curt Anderson 39:20
Text him, call him. He’s going to take you to Sonic get a little chili dog. Yeah, guys, can hang out chili dog. Luke, are you before we wrap up and let you go? Are you? You a baseball fan? By any chance I am. I’m looking at like those collage of all the pictures I know. If there’s any baseball out there, I see
Luke Wittenbraker 39:41
Santa Claus. There’s my there’s my daughter playing softball last, last season, and sadly, sadly, last night, they lost in the championship game 14 to 13, oh, on a controversial play at the plate on the last outs. Them. Oh, are you serious? Yeah, we’re, we’re still, we’re still rolling over that one.
Curt Anderson 40:05
We won’t, we won’t. Man, I apologize. I brought that one up. So, yeah, let’s go. Alright, so if you’re, if you’re, are you a Texas Ranger? Guy, like, who’s your team? Minnesota Twins? Oh, your twins. Guy, alright, the twins, right now, the twins. Who’s the dreaded like, who’s the Tigers? Like, who’s your arch enemy?
Luke Wittenbraker 40:24
I was always, for me personally, it’s been the Yankees, just because they knocked us out of the playoffs about seven or eight times in a row.
Curt Anderson 40:34
Alright, so Luke, we’re going to close you out on this. You ready? You sitting down. You got a good night’s sleep. You said? You ready? Okay, the twins are playing the dreaded, hated Yankees. Bottom of the ninth, there’s a guy on second base. Two outs, tight. Score. Okay. You with me? Yep. Manager looks down the bench and says, Hey, Luke, grab your helmet, grab your back, get to the plate. Hit in the winning run. We got to get out of here, right? I got dinner reservations. We gotta end this game now. You go grab your helmet, you grab your bat. You’re walking up to the plate. On the way to the plate. What’s your walk up song?
Luke Wittenbraker 41:12
What’s my walk up song? It would have to be zombie by the cranberries.
Curt Anderson 41:18
Zombie by the cranberry. Song, dude, I five, yeah, we’ve never had that one. Damon, oh, we have not. That’s awesome, dude, I thought you’re gonna break out of weird, weird al song, for sure.
Luke Wittenbraker 41:31
I gotta get some, I gotta get their little alternative rock, but I gotta get it in there.
Curt Anderson 41:36
Huge zombies. I can tell
Luke Wittenbraker 41:40
I really wanted to get pumped up, though it’d be kickstart your heart by Motley Crue. So that would be
Curt Anderson 41:47
a good hunt. Boy, alright, two great answers, man. Zombie. That was a good you know what? I think we’re picking out the comment to jam some zombies. So thank you for joining us today, dude. We appreciate you. We applaud you for everything that you’re doing. Big shout out to mom and dad. Joel and Trish, I believe you said, yeah. So what wonderful job that they did with you guys. Stop by. Luke’s LinkedIn profile, connect with him. Stop by, go to Austin in March of 2026 the industrial marketing Summit, and you get to hear our dear friend Luke on stage live in person. Yeah, we’re going to wrap up. And so Hey, Damon, what do we like to say? Just go out and be someone’s inspiration. Yep, just like this handsome devil. And how about a big round of applause for Luke, Mr. 40, who looks 30. Yes, Luke, thank you, brother. Damon, why don’t you take it away,
Damon Pistulka 42:36
dude? All right. Well, thanks Luke for being here. Thanks for all you listeners out there, we can see you’re out here listening. If you got in late and didn’t hear it all, Luke, get back to the beginning, because you’re going to enjoy it and learning about Luke, what he’s doing out there, helping bridge the generation, sales, marketing. So thanks everyone. We’ll be back again next week. We’re out for now.
