59:19
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, industry, linkedin, talk, business, plastic, tools, big, stories, bit, sales, mold, showing, listening, day, automation, tooling, twitter, digital, makers
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Gail Robertson
Damon Pistulka 00:00
Come once again to the face of business. I am Damon Pistulka. I have Gail Robertson here. Today, we are going to be talking about manufacturing Mark marketing for moldmaking and automation sales. This is something Yeah, I don’t know that these words have ever been mixed together like this. And fun and fun. Yeah, of course, we’re gonna have fun, we’re gonna have fun. So if you’re listening out there on LinkedIn live, go ahead and share where you’re listening from. If you hear something that that you want to ask about, go ahead and ask questions. I’m looking at the comments. Gail might be looking down there too, but we’re ready to answer questions if you have some.
But first of all, just let us know where you’re coming in from, and we might even put you on the screen. So we’re gonna get going here, Gail. So first of all, I always like on the faces of business for someone to tell me and for people that that I’m interviewing to tell me, you know, a little bit about your background, because I’m looking at your background. And it’s, I wouldn’t necessarily think that you would be in moldmaking marketing and automation marketing, because you’ve done things like for the PGA, you’ve done things for different entities, municipalities, you’ve done consulting. So tell us a little bit about yourself?
Gail Robertson 01:25
Well, one of the things that I think is so important in life when it comes to work is transferable skills. So I started out actually going into journalism that was probably related to my voracious curiosity. And I loved you know, interviewing people. So it started out in journalism. Then after that, I took a little detour and career and and ran a bed and breakfast on an island, which that was just a, as I said, a little twist. And then I came back and got into fundraising. And I was a fundraiser for a culture recreation complex. And then I would someone was on the campaign cabinet.
So he hired me to be a manager of the marketing department there. And I stayed there for 11 years, loved it, and then decided to go out on my own after they sold, they were selling to a larger entity and decided I was going to go and hang out my own shingle, so to speak. And that’s where I am now doing marketing. And I did Yes, did some work with PGA golf, worked in a few different areas. Also, my background, I’ve worked in insurance. And it was really through networking, connecting, that I got into manufacturing, and specifically into mold making, and absolutely love it. I really enjoy. You know, the people who make things that make things.
Damon Pistulka 02:47
Yeah, that’s a good way said, that’s a good way to say it about moldmaking because it is they make things they are things that make other things that go into other things usually to make to make other stuff.
Gail Robertson 02:59
And you know, the other thing day when I think ever since I was young, I’ve always liked the bit of the underdog, you know, if there was an opportunity to my mom used to say I, you know, I would bring home, sometimes the stories. And I like a challenge. I think that’s something as I look back over my life, yep, different challenges that came up.
And I really feel that when it comes to filmmaking, automation, that these are people that are doing the work behind the scenes, and they’re not getting the attention they deserve, because we wouldn’t have so many of the items and products that we have now, if it wasn’t for, you know, the people making the tools and the cutting tools and you know, the robots that are putting this all together.
So that that’s also how I I find this as a great challenge. And there is plenty of opportunity from a marketing perspective. Because my background is in journalism and telling stories and meeting people. I’m coming into a group of people that at times may need a little bit of help when it comes to breaking out of their shell.
Damon Pistulka 04:05
Yes, yes. Well, I mean, it’s, it’s funny, because when we met and first of all, I guess, gotta say, Janine is someone that you know,
Gail Robertson 04:15
she’s our new president of Canadian Association of mold makers and automate Canada, chimneys and other fellow rocks, their fellow redhead I must say, and she is amazing and is just newly hired to take this industry by storm as well. Nice, nice. Well,
Damon Pistulka 04:33
she’s got some good comments there too. You know, it’s about your experiences, specifically bringing it into molding which is, which is I think important because your transferable skills come in there and it really does help to bring that outside perspective.
And the funny thing from when we started talking from the very first time you know, I many people don’t know us, but I actually started Drawing molds when I was still in college on paper on the big drafting tables, so I grew up in a tool room, basically, from the time I was about 19 years old for, I don’t know, I did that for four or five years, even after I was out of college, because I kept working for the same company for 10 years after I was in college. And, you know, I that’s it’s an amazing industry, it’s an amazing industry and toolmakers are amazing individuals to be able to build that stuff. Oh, my goodness. I mean, it’s cool.
Gail Robertson 05:36
One of the things that’s been an eye opener for me is I’ll see, you know, this small plastic part. And then when I see the tool that has to be made to make that part. It’s It’s amazing, these big pieces of steel, and well, that that is definitely of interest to bring these stories out. And I’ve been on I’m on the Canadian Association of mold makers board. And at the start of the pandemic, I actually came on as on the we had a taskforce we meet every morning at 7:30am. And that was the best education about the industry.
And as I was listening to what was going on, I realized that what they people thought was just that everybody knew I said, you know, people don’t know this, people don’t understand it. People don’t understand why manufacturing workers are also essential workers. And we’re in the midst of, you know, a lot of discussions right now about border and who has access to cross the border. And, you know, this is this is a big Miss in many areas in that understanding why these people need to cross the border, to do you know, try outs, because things would grind to a halt.
If some of these things stopped further down the line with the supply chain, we wouldn’t be able to get, you know, plastic parts for medical devices, hand sanitizer, sizes. So yeah, so it’s important that we have this discussion. And this is where when it comes to the sales, I mean, really encouraging more people in sales and manufacturing to start telling these stories to sharing their knowledge. I can do so much, but I am I don’t come from that specific grammar. And so I need to pull it out.
And literally, sometimes it’s like pulling information out. And it’s fascinating. People want to know, the stories we were talking about beforehand. And there’s a great person on LinkedIn. I think it’s a manufacturing millennial I’m going to get his name on. But he does these great videos. And I saw it the other day of how a glass bowl was made. It’s fascinating. What happens is people share these stories, people talk about them.
And people with an engineering mind that can talk about why things work, how things work. People want to know this, and especially clients, people future customers want to know that you are capable of explaining some of these things to them. One of the biggest areas in moldmaking, when it comes to sales is that, you know, it’s your knowledge of the industry is so key.
Damon Pistulka 08:03
Yeah, it is it and people that don’t understand, I mean, I grabbed a little a little lid here that I had on, I don’t know, it’s like an ibuprofen bottle. And if you knew the tool it took to make these, you would be absolutely amazed, this thing probably has a you know, 120 of these falling out every time it opens up and the intricacies of the mechanisms to make the threads on the backside the the neural on the outside to grab ahold of is, is pretty crazy.
And when you go into molding and injection molding like that, there’s a there’s a specialty in making bottlecaps there’s a specialty in making medical products. There’s even in the tool makers, not just the tool makers, but the molders in themselves, there’s a specialty to you have to be set up obviously the manufacturer, but also just understanding the requirements that you need in that type of tooling.
Because that’s a drastically different, that high speed, super high volume kind of thing is drastically different than a specialty, you know, automotive parts that you’re gonna make 10,000 a year, that’s millions and millions a year. And it really is a fascinating industry when you look at the tooling and the different kinds of tooling that are required. Especially when you look at some of the automotive things like you know, the inside of a door Yeah, a car door the plastic. What’s that
Gail Robertson 09:33
brake pads? Yeah, that’s like that all of those intricate parts like see Yeah, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 09:41
yeah, just so many different things are molded every single day and and tools have to be built for each one of those and robots a lot of times I mean, I’ve had the opportunity to tour a lot of factories where they different kinds of molding and I’ve seen you know the molding of a the inside. Have a dishwasher. That’s all in one shot, it comes out, the robot has to grab it and takes it up.
And this was in a plant in Tennessee where it comes out of this big machine, it goes on to a cooling conveyor, and it runs around for I don’t know how many hours up until it comes down and actually in the same building goes right into the assembly line. You know, and the tools that are made for that are like you put half of it on a semi. That’s how heavy they are and how bulky these things are. And then you know, it comes in like that. And the machines come in, in big pieces to like that. So it’s it’s really an interesting industry. fascinating to me.
Gail Robertson 10:37
And then there’s the cutting tools to make the tools right. So there’s streamline, and we’re now one of my, one of my main clients cuddler tool here in Windsor. Now they do the large, molder, we do more larger items, um, you know, everything from totes, you know, we those big plastic totes that people think.
11:00
Sorry about that.
Gail Robertson 11:02
The big totes, that’s, you know, one of the things that they make as well.
Damon Pistulka 11:06
Yeah, yeah, I gotta imagine those tools are pretty massive. And, and when you look at it, right, and you go, Okay, how do you use digital, digital transformation, you know, because because, again, we’re, and I don’t, I’m not saying this and bad at all. But I went to school for engineering, I know what it’s like to be an engineer, we typically don’t like to be out in the public eye, we don’t want to, you know, be doing this and that we like to be doing our thing going like that. So you know, to get someone that’s in the tooling industry, or the cutting tools industry, to embrace a digital sales method, or even being digital or selling socially at all has to be a bit of a challenge in the beginning.
Gail Robertson 11:53
It is. And that’s why, you know, we need companies that are showing leadership. And we see that and again, the one that I’m doing work with right now is Cavalier, which is showing leadership and a little shout out to them, they were just awarded large company of the year from the Business Excellence Awards here locally. So that’s an example of, you know, a company showing leadership in many areas. And yeah, it can be a challenge, though, at the next level in terms of getting some of the sales people involved and engaged and inspired by to do this. So, you know, an area that I’m working on right now is looking at the process of how to get sales seen as a process.
You know, sales isn’t something that a lot of times, you know, people think, oh, as long as you can build a relationship and have conversations with people, and that’s what they sometimes think I’m saying, but there’s a lot more to it. It is about First of all, you know, you have to do well, number one is you have to have the right mindset. Yeah, there’s the process I use is you have to sign up, you have to suit up and you have to show up. So the signup part is, you have to decide, what do you want to do? Do you want to have success? Do you want to have sales?
Do you want to increase sales, because in 2021, if you’re not on digital, and you’re not embracing digital in the virtual world, it is going to be very difficult to have success unless you have already built up you know, you may have long term relationships, and I’ve seen this happen with some they’d have those lunch, but when they call someone or email someone Guess what, that someone picks up that phone call or the takes the email, if you’re trying to do cold calling right now, email, like is so difficult to email, it’s, it’s probably not going to work.
Everybody has called us by like, you don’t just you just call someone or the blue, you better know them a bit. Maybe you might text them first. But social media, I have reached out to people on Twitter direct message, LinkedIn direct message, now, I don’t just connect with them. And then there’s a term called pitch slapping, do not I stress, do not pitch slap and pitch laughing is where you send a message to them.
And then you pitch them right away and say hi, just connected with you, hey, do you want to buy from me? So don’t do that. So after you have the right mindset to say, Okay, I want success I want to sell and I use the analogy whether you’re going to lose weight or you want to run a marathon, you don’t just say I want to do that and then sit back and wait for magic to happen. The next part is the suiting up, which is research asking questions, really digging into the industry and, and finding out okay, where are the opportunities and finding which platform you might want to use? I usually recommend LinkedIn because it’s the it’s the easiest one to start on.
Because you don’t have to like Twitter is a you got to feed Twitter like Twitter is is gauging and I love Twitter because, you know, I I move fast, right? So and I to me, it’s like breathing. It’s just I can I can tweet. So I usually recommend LinkedIn. And then the last part is the showing up and if you’ve done those first two steps showing up can become a lot easier. But as we talked about earlier, Damon, you may not always love it. And you have to make decisions in life. Do you want to have success? Do you want to move forward?
Do you want to increase your sales pipeline, then you need to also show up at networking events. And it’s it’s not always the Mimi, you have to also help other people. And this is something that how I met you was through, you know, Sam, Gu, Kurt Anderson, these are all people that also help others to they give back. They help with connecting. And when you do that, you can tell we’re like, because my cats knocking at the door when she says, Hey, what’s going on there? So, yeah, it’s it’s following that process. And once you have that process in place, you I would guarantee that if you do that, it’s not going to happen overnight, but you will be able to have some success.
Damon Pistulka 15:59
Well, it is it is. And now first of all, I say anger. Thanks for. Thanks for the comments. I can see you on LinkedIn, I can’t for some reason, it’s not coming through stream yard, right. But I can see that you’re on LinkedIn. Thanks for thanks for joining us today. And then Janine, again, the pitch slab I, that’s what I’m going to use, because, you know, we get them every day.
And it’s, I mean, it’s, I really, I always, sometimes I even have to give a little message back and go, does this really work? it because I’m not buying, you know, and the last time I bought, I needed someone to build me an app was like, never looked at my, if you looked at my profile, you’d think, yeah, he’s gonna build a lot of software apps. No, I’m not doing that. So it’s, it is bad.
Gail Robertson 16:49
You know, it’s like, I’ve done work in fundraising, too. And I’ve seen this happen in the fundraising world. Again, these are all these transferable skills. And you know, when I work at the bed and breakfast, it’s really also listening and deciding who your audience is, and creating, you know, content for in any type of business that your audience or your prospects are going to be interested in. And that’s a big part of selling is and fundraising. You know, don’t go in. And just also, I would say, don’t just sell what you’re trying to sell, sell what the person wants to buy, what is their problem? What is it that they are looking to get a resolution to?
And when you find that sweet spot, I was involved recently in something with fun, because I also do work in Canadian mental health. So my nonprofit work I do. And, you know, one of the people that we met with, I said to what, what’s important to you, what would you like in a package? And he sat back and he said, no one’s ever asked me that. Yeah. And I thought, Wow, that is very telling about how, too often we go in guns blazing, saying, This is what I have to sell, I’m going to tell you how great I am. And that’s not what I’m suggesting. When I’m talking about telling your story, sharing your insights, you can share how you’ve helped solve a problem.
And that’s not bragging. It’s not saying that, you know, you’re all that. But you also if you don’t believe in you, and you don’t think you have something great to offer, I’ll tell you no one else will if you don’t believe that you can help solve a problem. You know, you may not always be right. But most of the time, you will probably nail it after you’ve had enough experience. And I will tell you, most of the engineering people that I’ve come across, they know their stuff. They know how to explain what the problem is, and how they can help a customer.
And if you can look at all the questions that you get asked by your customers. And then if all you did on social media was answer those questions, people would come to you. Hmm. Because they’re going to want to say Hey, tell me more about that. Because you’re not selling them. You’re, you’re explaining how you solve a problem. you’re sharing. Maybe a success story you’ve had and and celebrating a success story is is a wonderful way to show other people that you know what you’re talking about.
Damon Pistulka 19:22
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you’re right. And that’s you touched on one thing though, that I think that most people don’t realize is that there are stories to tell even when you think there aren’t stories. Oh, yeah. Because you know, I honestly I’ve got pushed into into doing video and doing more social stuff because a friend of mine said he said you know, you’ve got all this experience.
You should you should tell people about I said what I experienced he said why I get on a phone call with you it because he was starting this business a time he said we talked for an hour and I I go away, you scratch In my head with a ton of notes and things I got to do, and he’s, and the and that’s the point that I know anything because I’m I’m full of it as much as anything but the we all have these stories inside of us because we’ve all had these experiences that we’ve gone through where we’ve had to solve problems where we’ve had to help explain how to do something to people, or with people and show people how to do something.
And engineers or technical people are the worst, at not the worst. I’m just generalizing here, sorry. But I think I think they have a hard time understanding how much they really can help people just by talking about what they talk about every day. Like it could be a tooling design engineer that, that tells somebody how to like on that, that cap how to how to make the thread tooling work really well or or solve some problem that they figured out how to solve in molding, you know,
those are the kinds of things that people are trying to figure out either at the at the customer level, or at the company level, where the molding level, you know, because I’ve got people that are in the plastics, design, the plastics, part of the materials, part of it that that spend all their time with engineers, just teaching them about this type of plastic and this application and how it works there. You know, because they need the people have those kind of questions in tooling, people can do the same thing. Yeah, just say there’s just a lot of a lot of opportunity for him.
Gail Robertson 21:31
There are and, you know, because I’m the outsider, oftentimes sitting at the table and listening. I’m like, that’s really interesting. They look at me like what like, and I’m like, Yes, because there’s there’s a great story here and I said, Listen, is as a reporter, I’m not blowing smoke. I will tell you, I have my instincts on when I think there’s a good story. Recently, we just did a blog on on the Cavalier page about the history of the toolmaking in the area. And that all came about from one Saturday morning, I was looking at a Canadian plastics magazine. Yes, that is my Saturday morning over coffee.
And I saw this little blurb talking about how these tools have been made for a Ford. And it was from like the archives, and at the bottom it had international toolmaking. So I asked one of my clients about this. And it turns out, this was a this is like the granddaddy of where all the tool shops started from. So that turned into a whole blog story that’s got so much attention because it told this history and I’m reading it going, I did not know that this industry has such deep roots. And there’s someone who, the owner of Cavalier, it’s his uncle, I’ll do a shadowed advantage because he had everything on it, like a jump drive this information.
And yeah, so there’s, there’s a history store that even if you aren’t really connected only to moldmaking and the industry, there’s a lot of history to learn and, and and I’m just saying like you said, from the caps on, you know, a pill bottle through to the plastic, you know, tubs we use to car parts in agriculture, in cotton commercial, all you think about everything that we have that’s made of plastic. Yeah, that’s it’s all necessary times during the pandemic. You know, hand sanitizer dispensers? Yeah, they were in short supply, and they needed to have some, you know, emergency help to get some of these made. And that was all thanks to it. Mold maker.
Damon Pistulka 23:34
Yeah, yeah, you know, I look at him even in my my early career, I mean, if you go into a grocery store in and you walk into the produce department and the misters turned on, I helped to develop some of the first ones that were completely molded in that industry because worked but that was one of our clients and we spent three years developing them to be very simple and very molded and repeatable.
And, and another example is I worked with a fire extinguisher manufacturer that’s their their big here now in the United States, to just the little when you see the little hose on the fire extinguisher and it clips into a little plastic thing we made the strap and the whole thing to pull together which was a metal before it goes you see all these common things I was lucky enough I I helped three medical develop surgical surgical applicators and they’re still they’re still in production.
I mean, look at all damned old I am and they’re still in the same product is still in production still in use and in in, in the operating rooms. It’s it’s crazy when you think about plastics and toolmaking and and the whole industry behind it and what we need to what what how big of a part it is and every day I mean grab, there’s a pen in my hand that the headphones on my head, you know, it just the computer is just everything. Everything has those types of components. unit
Gail Robertson 25:00
and ventilators look at with with code. Yeah, there’s so many life saving devices that come about plastic and, and I think the more that I mean, that’s one part of it right to celebrate this. And then, you know, in terms of back to, you know, you know what the struggles are for some of the salespeople, these are stories, just telling these stories, celebrating them talking about the value is one part of it. And the other, I give also another analogy, I love my analogies. But you know, when I go I get up in the morning, and you know, go cycling usually early, but I don’t love that that’s not something I love doing.
But I like, I like the results of it. And that’s what happens when you’re talking about digital, or you’re talking about social media, you don’t necessarily have to love it all the time. But the results that you will get from it are what’s important. And you know, it also gets easier. I think once people get, you know, dip their toe in the water come to some of the networking events come and whether it’s in person or digital, you know, find your own group of people that you can socialize with.
And, you know, if you come in with that open mind, like, as you know, I’m in that happy eirp never the first part, like I didn’t even know IR p What the heck ever The first time I talked to Sam like this, like, explain it. And but it’s opened up other doors for me. And that’s what’s really interesting. So sometimes I think people when it comes to sales, they’re only like, well, that wouldn’t, my customers wouldn’t be there. But often what happens is there might be someone in one of these groups that is connected to, you know, a customer or an outlet. And I think that’s where having that back to, you know, keeping an open mind is really important. Well, it’s
Damon Pistulka 26:49
showing up. I mean, and when you talk about digital, it’s, it’s it’s showing up on the right platform, it comes back to knowing your persona, who is who are the people that you want to be talking to? It’s not everybody. Now, it’s specific. It’s specific group, if I’m wanting to talk to design engineers, where to design engineers hang out, what do they talk about? What do they do?
I mean, you know, you might, you might find that design engineers are big off road bikers that in this certain industry, and maybe that’s what you should be doing, you should be hanging out off road biking, or tweeting about offer biking or, you know, blog, looking at the blog, it just depends where you need to go. But I think that the things that a lot of people that are my age, can forget is that most of the people in business are not my age anymore, they are actually they are actually a bit younger. And that by most of the decision makers now have grown up with Google and a cell phone in their hand.
And that means that they can search, they want to be able to search, they want to be able to find you, they want to be able to find out about your company, they want to know that the types of problems you solve, and they want to be able to find out about you. They want to know that your company is a good company, do you help in the community? Do you do you know? How do you treat your employees? Don’t let a crappy review go on? unresponded to on Glassdoor. Right.
And for those of you that don’t know, that’s an employee website, which if you haven’t checked it, and you’ve got more than a couple of employees, you probably want to because it happens, it happens a disgruntled employee or something will go on there. And it could be could be well founded by on the employees. Part Two, but you have to respond to these kind of things. Because people are looking at that people are looking at your Google reviews people are looking at, you know, how many do you have six followers on LinkedIn, and they’re all your family in? You got it. There’s just so much you got to do.
Gail Robertson 29:00
And you know, one other one YouTube, YouTube is and I’m learning so much because I have an eight year old son and oh my god, YouTube is? Well, it’s the second largest search like after Google. And it’s like, it’s phenomenal for search. And people don’t even know sometimes when they’re searching, something comes up. But that was through a YouTube search. And this is something that I’m doing a lot of work on for my own personal and professional development is to learn more about the inner workings of YouTube and it’s a fascinating place. And especially in this industry. YouTube is going to be definitely or it should be on the radar.
If you are a company or a salesperson, you know, you can have your own channel and it’s so easy to start your own YouTube channel. Yeah, and get some content out there. And again, now video right we also addressed that there is a real fear of doing video and yet, when you dip your toe in the water, then put your foot in. It gets easier. And I know someone I think watching right now has done, I am going to do a shout out to agar, who has done, she did a 10 day video childs. And I just I’m so impressed when people take on those things outside their comfort zone. And, and I know, in talking to her how much that has really helped her in so many other ways.
And it didn’t start as easy. But nothing that you know, will get you to that end goal. If you look at I mean, as we talk, whether cycling or whatever you want to do, you know, run a marathon, if you want to, you know, start up business, it’s going to be work and no longer will people just, you know, where you had the opportunity maybe to go to a trade show. Now, that’s another area Damon that I really see in this industry that it used to be, you know, companies would get a lot of their business from trade shows, and they rely on trade shows.
But I also say Guess what, remember what happened to blockbuster, there was a shift, and you all of a sudden, you know, oh, things have changed. And one of the things I’ve always prided myself on and I try to always be aware of is that I said, I always like to hear the train in the distance and get out of the way. I said he would get on the train, or you’re going to get run over by it. And right now, the train is no longer in the distance here. And it’s a really good idea to jump on.
And there’s so many people that can help, you know, even in my circle in marketing, you know, there’s people that can help even with you know, optimizing your LinkedIn profile, getting your profile, if you need help, there’s people there can help you with that. And fine, you don’t have to, you know, do everything and be on all platforms. In fact, I’ll pick one. Yeah, now if you like Tick tock, but go all in like Tick Tock is I mean, it can work.
But it’s, it’s a little more volatile. Right. LinkedIn, I would say is generally, probably for most people listening here, I’d say stick with LinkedIn. Now, Twitter is also a great place to network and anybody that wants to shift over there and want to ever talk to me and get any help to go on Twitter. It’s it’s a fascinating place. The Twitter chats, there’s USA faction, our web is rock.
So these are Twitter chats that are held that often, I’d recommend any sales people especially listening today, and I’ll try to after maybe one of us, we can go drop that in the comment section the but also, if anyone wants to just say, hey, I want to know more about that. Gail, let me know and I’ll connect you. I’ll help you I’ll take you over to the Twitter land. It’s come green us
Damon Pistulka 32:44
Yeah, well, I mean it there that it’s, it’s there’s there’s unique features about any social media. I mean, look at Tick tock, you can get something in what is it 30 seconds or less, something like that, that’s about what you got on a video, you’d look at Instagram, you’re gonna see pictures and short videos the whole time. You look at Twitter, it’s gonna roll as you got this billboard type of fact on Twitter that that’s, that’s pretty intoxicating. And you can you can see, you can see a lot of information if you’re following right people pretty fast. And then LinkedIn has some of the similar features about both but you know, with LinkedIn, you can, it is more business related.
As far as the people on there, they’re usually on there for for business reasons where some of the other platforms may not all be there and that’s totally fine. But but there are just there’s unique features about every one of them and it comes back again to your persona and who you want to be hanging out with. Because if if you don’t take the time to figure out when you’re when you’re thinking about digital, I always go back to who am I going after?
And where that Yeah, and I start there and that persona is so important and we are so sucky at figuring that out in the beginning and I still I still even when my company we have gone back and read on our persona and come back and look at our customers ask more questions to our customers and redo it again because we realize it’s not focused enough and you know if you if your crowd hangs out on Tick Tock that’s where you need to be Yeah, it really is dictated by that I think more than then me choosing where I want to go I should go where my my Kindred people are.
Gail Robertson 34:25
Yeah Now that’s a that is a really good point is really no you know where where people are that want to discuss with you and have have those those conversations. The other thing I add about on social because this is often a very big debate when it comes to people you know how much well I should only share business and never have anything personal and and I lean more towards showing your what you’re comfortable with. Right? Yeah. The example I have is Denise Sylvester who is with ram star which is a cutting tool company. She posted something talking about. She has Guess what’s on a farm as well.
So she talked to chicks, she has these baby chicks and did this post. And then she tied it back to a bit about the cutting tools. It was a really interesting post. I think that’s phenomenal. When someone can take something of their personal life like that, because in sales, what’s the first thing probably someone’s going to be talking about, including me, I’m like, so like, you get fresh eggs.
And it was this whole whole discussion. Now, you don’t want to necessarily do all posts like that. But yeah, know her, her personality is such that that is her, her posts show more about her. I think it’s good sometimes to pull back the curtain a little bit and show a little bit about your interests and who you are. Because people want to do business with a person, right? Not just if you’re only talking about your business and talking about selling. You know, what do you have what else you have to talk about? You want to share a little bit about?
Damon Pistulka 35:57
Yeah, what else is the know, like trust? I mean, you gotta hit the three if you don’t hit the three, it’s not gonna happen. And it is you’re right. And it is, and it’s hard for some people, you know, because because we’ve been programmed, quite honestly, to keep business and personal separate. I mean, it was, it was it was shouted from the rooftops. You know, and 2030 years ago,
Gail Robertson 36:24
and I think that’s where I see balance is always healthy in life, it because anything you go, you know, it’s true, this makes you sound like then you’re like, that’s not really agreed. And I’ve heard this, we don’t want it to be Facebook, right. And, and but you can have balance and and I just believe that balance is where you have the greatest health and also do yoga. So one of the things I really like about yoga is that it talks a lot about balance, and, and then it’s your it’s your practice. So you don’t have to necessarily compare yourself to others. And you know, it. Also when you’re posting something and you do something, maybe a little edgier, fun.
People may tease you or if you get out there post something. What I usually ask people I said, who’s doing the teasing, it’s usually a friend or a family member. And I was talking to him about this recently, I said, Be very careful about who you accept feedback from especially unsolicited feedback number one. Yeah, just be very careful my, at a previous company. I had started my, this was way back my Twitter profile, and I had to pick a name quickly. And I was like, Ah, so I said, well, Gail, I need something now. That’s how Gail now can was it. Okay, Gail, now I’ll pick it and then I’ll that I’ll change it later. Well, over time, I just left it.
And I remember going into meetings sometimes in this senior person would go to meetings, and he’d go, girl, no. And he always teased me about bail now. But I thought, aha, he seen me on Twitter. He’s remembered it and I would be out places and I hear people like called Hey, Gail now. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, what if and that was because more and more on Twitter, I do show a little more of, you know, my personal side, and I’ll post something you know about something else? Another part of my life.
Yeah. But people really like to talk to me about sometimes and it opens up discussions. And now I am someone who’s a little more on the a little more on the outgoing side. So I would say that it’s a it’s easier for me. But that’s what I say to people start small with something you have an interest in. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 38:33
yeah. Yeah, exactly. You can it is it starting small and if you look at there’s, I believe his name is Timothy Hughes from the UK. DLA Ignite. I mean, those guys they sell social and they taught write a lot about it, they know what they’re doing. And they talk about that and they talk about their you know, the mixture that you should have between personal and professional stuff, you know, not like 82% 28% or something like that.
But you know, you need you need to people want to know that you’re human, they, you know, that it’s, it’s fine and dandy, that you’re very talented at what you do. But at the end of the day, like you said, people want to be able to talk about stuff other than that as well and know that who they’re doing business with are good people.
Gail Robertson 39:22
Yeah. And as you said, we we we do engage with people like often you know, when you go into a room with someone when you usually don’t want to start out by saying, Hi, do you want to buy this product from me? Like Hi, I? Yeah, like if I walked in and said, Hey, do you want me to do marketing social media for you though, right, like, and I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I usually I mean, it’s sort of a joke as long as well. I people say what exactly do you do, including my son for the longest while now that he’s heard a few of these shows? He kind of he goes I think I know more of what you do. So
Damon Pistulka 39:58
yes. I think that’s familiar because we’ve we as we breathe again, we put the wall up between personal and business. We’ve done a lot between business and personal as well. And yeah, yeah, it’s it is. It is it is the lines are blurred. I’m telling you, this is a thing. I come back to it. Again, I talk about this, and I am I doing, I just did a presentation last week for Temple University, I think it was on. And part of what I talk about is digital transformation. And I spend time talking about the fact that, you know, we’ve had high speed internet now for over 30 years, or 30, whatever it was, it was in the 80s.
And we’ve had cell phones now for over 15 years, the iPhone came out, and I think it was 2007, I’d have to look at but but so we are just so used to have an information at our fingertips. And we’ve gotten so used to buying bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger ticket items online. without even seeing up who thought 15 years ago, we’d be buying cars online like we do now on carvanha. And other places. Yeah, the car just shows up. Oh, that’s cool. It’s like I thought, here we go. Boom, I just spent $45,000.
Online, I didn’t even think about it, right. It’s a known product. But now think about this, the people that are doing moldmaking they have buyers that are totally comfortable watching their videos, listening to customer testimonials, learning more about their, their, their facilities, what they can do with some examples, problems they’ve solved. They will buy and never step foot in their facility. Yeah. And it happens every single day now.
Gail Robertson 41:51
Yep. And the The other thing that comes with that, is that creating that a little bit of curiosity too for the salesperson, because when the sales people I mean for the client, when the salespeople are putting content out and talking about things, and then that’s where someone might come and ask a question, they’re gonna want more information. And, you know, that’s that’s what happens in terms of the, you know, the funnel, as they say, but I think if you can do it in a very natural way, where, you know, they’re put out some information, and then you step in, you know, I would say lean in, you have some more questions you want to know more? What is it that you do?
And that’s where the sales people that will do this will be ahead of the game? Because the market right now is there’s so few people doing this in manufacturing. So it is ripe for opportunity. If you’re in March about this statement, you want to what is it you want to be the red
Damon Pistulka 42:48
and want to be the red m&m? In the green m&m? Yes, I want people seeing me because I am different than the rest of the crowd. And that is what you have to do. You have to be comfortable with it. You have to, you have to wear it in you got to go I am. But you can stand out in your unique goodness.
And let people understand not that you’re you got a big ego, not that anything, you’re just you just be you and be the company that you are and show the way that you help help people solve problems, show your you know, that you care about making sure it’s job’s done, right. You know, and just those things of doing that is so critical now. And as you said, I don’t know, we could get online and try to search to see how many how many mold makers have videos on YouTube now about whatever the thing we’re trying to talk about, I bet we’re not going to get overrun by 10s of 1000s of them.
Gail Robertson 43:50
Now I’m doing some research on her and I can tell you there it is. There is an opportunity waiting and I was listening to actually one of your previous shows I forget who was on here but he was talking about doing you know using videos as part of an email so you’re sending me a live video and that I tell you if you do nothing else, but do that once in a while and send out that if you want to get noticed. Try video even like video usually it’s pretty easy to me but I don’t often you know, think do it right away. So that’s what I’m doing Twitter chats, but I often in the one USA manufacturing hour, especially if I’m really busy.
I’ll go I’ll just do a video instead of typing right? And I don’t care to answer those. I love your videos because I just say yeah, I’m here in Windsor. And I give a little you know, shout out and and i know what i click on people and get to see them talking. I love it like it again, if you want to show your personality and who you are, and also stand out in the crowd. This is what I don’t understand if you’re in sales and you don’t want to stand out in a crowd. I don’t know maybe. Maybe think. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don’t know how you could, like I’ve done fundraising, I have been out there, you know, doing that type of work.
And believe me, you got to, you know, step up, and you got to, you know, be in the limelight sometimes, because you also have to be prepared to maybe you know, at times, yeah, you may fall on your face, you may do something you know how to set but by far the number of times that I’ve ever And usually, if you do have a misstep, I mean, have some fun with it and roll with it.
And yeah, um, you know, and again, I think if we go back to that, that’s a really key point, Damon that you know, the red m&m, you want to be the red m&m, especially right now, because it’s in a bit that you, you’re going to eat everybody’s lunch, if you can do that, you’re going to just do business just by being different. And you’re going to have now not everybody, but you’re going to be if you will attract people, it’s that, you know, it’s
Damon Pistulka 45:57
the beacon, right, the in off in the distance. So again, it’s understanding your customer being there answering the questions are asking are the things they’re thinking about, you know, what keeps them up at night? What, what do they worry about? You know, and what gets them going? What are the topics that really they like, and like to talk about? Talk about that, it’s all you have to do is talk about that. And because, you know, people that need molds, or automation in manufacturing, they have the same kind of concerns that any other people in business do.
They may be a little more technical, but they’re thinking about the same thing. What’s the, what’s the way for me to get longer life out of my robot? Or my How do I design a tool that costs you know, 20% less or gets 25% more life? What are the new coatings, you know, all this kind of stuff, there’s so many things that it just boggles the mind at the amount of information you could be sharing that would help those people if you just got back and thought about it.
Gail Robertson 47:06
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I if you turn the tables from where I came from, so my background is in, you know, storytelling and marketing. I didn’t know, I didn’t know the difference, really, for the longest wall between a mold maker and a holder, I will fully admit that it took me a while to figure that out. Because I was like, Oh, wait a minute, right. Yeah, I didn’t understand all of the intricacies of and I still don’t I mean, there’s a bit of a nervousness, and that’s coming on, even to a show like this going like, okay, I don’t come from a moldmaking background. But here’s the thing, you you step in, and you, you know, ask other people to help you.
And the same thing, what I’m asking, you know, when I’m working with salespeople and trading is that, you know, trust me a little bit on the marketing, and then you help me with the moldmaking. And if you give me the content, if you give me the clay, I can help transform that into a story and even suggest whether, you know, should it be an article on LinkedIn? Should it be a blog?
Should it be a, you know, a thread on Twitter, and once I have that content, so the people that I can work with, when I get that, that golden content, that’s, that’s beautiful, because I figure out how to how to run with it and how to turn it into a blog or how to use you know, YouTube video. I mean, that there’s so much you can do now with, you know, repurposing content. So if you’re Yeah, if you create that article, and then break it up into pieces, share that in, in on on other platforms as well. And, and even just shoot, I mean, now, with these phones, you can you can do a video posted on your YouTube channel.
I see so many people on YouTube that are like knocking it out of the park, and doing the most basic videos. There’s two guys crack up because they’re physiotherapist. It’s like, low production. They’re in this room. And they’re kind of these like geeky guys. Anyway, they talk about physio therapy. So sometimes, like if I’m like at a sauna, and I, I’ve gone to their channel, they crack me up. And then I watch them. And they are phenomenally successful by being just two guys cutting it up in they do serious physio.
Yeah. And low, low production. Yeah. Yet, and they’re very engaging. And you know, I now sometimes just go sometimes I’ll just sit and listen to them, because they’re, they’re also funny. Yeah. And imagine in moldmaking, if you could be that sales person that did that, again, you would be that red m&m. And over time, you’re going to you’re going to draw attention. And that’s the sticking point. That’s where people are afraid to do that, because I think they don’t want to be the they don’t want to stand out too much.
Damon Pistulka 49:52
Yeah. Well, those that do, will will do that. And that’s, that’s the thing, and I think that As you know, we’re bombarded by stuff every day. And we all know this, we some of us don’t even realize how much we’re bombarded, bombarded by everything all day long now. That’s where the need to do that is, is real. And, you know, mold making and automation is no different than any other industry really.
When you go down to it, yes, technically there’s differences in the stuff but we’re still people doing business with people. And that that’s is the same for everything. And Janine just said, infotainment, she’s right. You got to have it. It’s got to be fun. It’s got to be educational. If you can make it educational, and fun, it’s even better. It because it’s just, I mean, hell we do. We work hard. We work all damn day long and put in long hours to do this. If we can have some fun at it. We might as well do it that way. Cuz it’s not worth it otherwise.
Gail Robertson 50:54
And great content. I often hear that people say, oh, people have no attention. They don’t have you know, they don’t have time, then. Oh, that’s it? Yeah, yeah, that’s what what was the last show you binge watch on Netflix, because people have time and people will sit for hours and watch something. And that’s where it’s the same thing on YouTube, I set a watch YouTube shows with my son now because he’s open up a storm like this. Serious. And we we do that. And we watch different, you know, shows on Netflix periodically, and, and you know what you have time, but you’re prioritizing your time. And that leads me to one other thing.
This is my little bit of my a bit of a pet peeve, I guess. Here we go. Here we go. This is Gail’s pet peeve when it comes to people saying they don’t have time right now. And when it sales with moldmaking. Yeah, used to be people would spend time at an airport spend time in their car driving to see clients, they went to a trade show. And you spend three, maybe three, four days there, but you had to get there and you’d spend time at the bar talking to people. So you had all that time you’re committing to building relationships, building, you’re networking, if you took even a portion of that time and put it into the virtual world, you would again, it would go back to yes, you do have time.
And so when I hear not, you don’t have time what you do, but you’re choosing to make other decisions or to prioritize. And again, in 2021, I come back to that. If you’re not on digital and you’re not using social, there’s probably a few jobs that you don’t need to be on social media. But most people and here’s an even if they’re not using a platform, they’re consuming. I was talking to someone recently with that. And they’re saying, oh, they’re not really involved in that. But then they’re going on and they’re telling me all these things they’re doing on on watching on YouTube, or they’re following you know, on on Twitter, and they’re getting their information there. Yep.
And a lot of people don’t really think about that in terms of how people are consuming on other platforms too. So whether Facebook and Instagram once in a while I’ll put some things related to manufacturing. I talked about this show on my Instagram because there might be somebody that’s you know, therefore, finding pleasure in Instagram, but they may know someone that goes hey, you know what, that would be a good show for they might pass it on to someone. Yeah. And that’s how I like to have a mix Instagrams my fun place that’s like my stories for fun.
Damon Pistulka 53:30
Yeah, good. Well, I think I think you know, you talk about that I so much good stuff we covered today. And and we’re running up on on about bout time here. So we’re just really cover a couple things, to rehash them a little bit and summarize, you know, moldmaking and automation I think as you agree there’s there’s a huge opportunity for people if you want to take the plunge and really try to connect with your customers a little differently through digital means with with YouTube with some social and other things. You can be that red nm and red m&m in the green m&m bowl that stands out and people will talk to you first.
And quite honestly, that industry, like many others, are just waiting for the first red m&m and they’re going to show up and they’re going to you’re not going to know who they are and you’re going to wonder why the hell are they getting all this business? And it’s not because they’re any better than you that they’ve got any longer history and probably even less history than you do.
It’s because they’ve laid it out there and they’ve let their let it there for the world to see and people connect with them. That is a great summary. I love I gotta go get some right yeah, yeah, yeah, this but anyway, it’s it’s just I think it’s so interesting. I’m so glad to be able to have you on here, Gail, because I think, first of all your background and media and then the other things that you’ve done is, is awesome.
And seeing how that is, as helped you in this role with moldmaking and automation and some of the stuff you’re doing with the Canadian Association, mold makers and other things. It’s just, it’s really cool to see how that that as you’ve been able to transfer those skills into this industry, and find an industry quite honestly, that is ripe, to come forward and really stand up and show, you know, to the world, what they what they can do, and because it’s just cool, it’s cool. And I
Gail Robertson 55:42
didn’t even talk about hockey, too. I got into hockey knew nothing about hockey and back in high school covered hockey. And then the one company I worked for, then they bought these hockey teams, and I actually did a whole we over saw a marketing campaign and branding campaign for a junior B hockey team. So yeah, what you don’t have to always know everything about something because there’s always people out there that know more, and that will be willing to help you. And probably that’s the best lesson I learned as a reporter. I don’t have to know everything, because I can find someone that I can reach out to that will help me and get me the answers.
And, you know, just like I reached out to you when I was doing the LinkedIn training, that I’m gonna pick your brain and you were a great asset in terms of showing how you can shift to digital. By having the right mindset though. And I think that’s a big kudos to you for and that’s why you’re having success with your business. Because you you’re willing to take some of those chances and step out on a limb and do video and do things that you know, who would have thought even you know, yeah, same thing when, I mean, cell phones and Google Yeah, yeah, the library looks through that. Yeah, like our catalog for that.
Damon Pistulka 56:58
Yeah. So this is I just, I was telling somebody the other day, someone told me I was doing video like I do now. I said, You’re crazy. There’s no way you know, and it is just you, you you have to roll with the times that things have changed. And when you look at the how they are changing, there’s there as much as you might want it to stay the same. It’s not. And it’ll pass you by. Yeah. And it’s, I find it exciting. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
Gail Robertson 57:28
when your engine one less remember, they there’s that joke that says, you know, remember used to be watching a show and say, Oh, I wonder who that how old that person is? Are they can you say you don’t know, and you just went on with life. Now it’s like, you know, I’m always looking on my phone is your show, right? So that interconnectedness to between? You know, what we see, um, you know, an email and a TV show and our phone and like, all of these things. Now, everything’s connected. And I always look and see if someone’s on Twitter. And when I’m watching a show. And then I’m like, Oh, this shows on Twitter. They get bonus for it.
Damon Pistulka 58:03
Oh, Oh, awesome. Well, Gail, it’s been it’s been incredible having you on today talking about mold making and marketing for mold making and automation sales. I just, I can’t get thank you enough. I hope we’ve reached some people that enjoyed it. And I just, I just say thank you so much.
Gail Robertson 58:28
And I love being on your show. Very exciting, because I was listening some of your previous guests. So I feel it’s extreme honor. So thank you.
Damon Pistulka 58:36
very welcome. Well, for everyone to listen, thank you for being here. Once again. I will be back after a break for the holidays. I’m not here on Thursday. I’m not here the next Tuesday, but I will be back next Thursday. And I believe I’ve got Sejal Thacker next week, and we’re going to talk about unconscious bias, which I think is this is cool. And and I think it’s and I will just go ahead and say it. When you look at somebody like me, you may not think that I will talk about unconscious bias, but I love I love talking about the subject. So good stuff. Thanks again, Gail. Thanks, everyone for listening. We’ll be back here again in a week.
