Swarfcast

Today’s podcast is the fourth episode of our season interviewing people involved in CNC Swiss machining. Our guest is Mike Reader, owner and president of Precision Plus, a CNC turning company in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. Mike came into the machining business at 31 years old following a career in the fast paced finance industry. When he first arrived, the company was using old school Tornos cam Swiss machines and running a lot of commodity-type parts. Over the years Mike has built a world-class machining company, diversifying the company’s product lines with the help of newer technology. All the while, his original cam Swiss machines still keep spitting out parts. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Main Points Mike gives an overview of Precision Plus. The company has 30 CNC Swiss machines, 40 older Tornos Cam Swiss machines, and some Miyano CNC lathes (single, double and triple turret). Mike says he has diversified the company’s clientele over the years. Precision Plus focuses on medical/dental, aerospace, and a variety of products in the industrial sectors. He says he has purposefully stayed away from doing automotive work because in his past experiences those clients were not looking for “a win for both sides.” (3:15) Mike talks about being interested mechanical stuff when he was growing up in Delavan, Wisconsin. He says he was always the kid in the garage trying to make the go-cart go faster—the adrenaline guy. In high school he did well in technical classes as well as the standard curriculum. (4:45) With encouragement from his guidance counselors he went to University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he majored in Economics with an emphasis in finance. After graduating he went to Chicago to get into the commodity futures world, starting out as a runner at the Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade. Eventually he moved up to working in clearing operations and then got a job at Bank of America running their clearing operations. He says that world was intense and competitive—a lot of “work hard play hard” 80-hour weeks. (6:00) Mike talks about using the Predictive Index Personality Assessment to organize his workforce at Precision Plus. He gives the assessment to employees in order find the correct spot to put people in to be successful. He also talks about the importance of pushing his people on the shop floor to keep stretching themselves. He likes to make his people strive to figure out how to do things better, faster, and smarter. He says if he ever gets to a point when he is no longer doing that, it will mean the business is in decline. (8:00) Mike says when he first started managing he wanted to hire people who reminded him of himself. He says we all think instinctively that others should think the same way we do, but he learned from the Predictive Index tool that people don’t all think the same and they don’t all hear the same. His says the first time he looked for employees his instinct was to look for the pedigree of the “best and the brightest,” but that was difficult because college graduates often don’t want to start their careers working in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. They want to go off and see the world like he did. Later, Mike changed his criteria for new employees. He started looking for smart, driven people who wanted to get to work right out of high school, in addition to graduates of technical colleges and 4-year universities. (9:50) Mike says Precision Plus often likes employees who are trained in-house, so they learn to to things the way company prefers. It also helps create a good company culture. (11:15) Mike tells the story of moving his family to London to work for Bank of America and then coming back home to Wisconsin only 10 months later when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. His father had bought Precision Plus only seven years before but had to go care for Mike’s mom. All of a sudden at 31 years old Mike was thrust into running a machine shop, which at the time was still pretty rough around the edges. It was a dark oily screw machine house in 1995—no CNC lathes, only Tornos mechanical Swiss machines and secondary equipment. (12:15) Mike says when he first got started at Precision Plus he looked at the customer portfolio and could see that the company had a lot of opportunities to grow. At the time the company was doing a lot of brass connector pins on Tornos cam Swiss machines. (15:40) Mike says that he really enjoyed working in the commodity futures arena in the first chapter of his life. He says the last 25 years in manufacturing have been meaningful for him. He talks about how in the early 2000s a lot of companies sold out American manufacturing to make greater margins by making parts overseas. At that point he realized that the had to move up market. He saw that the company needed to get into more highly engineered products than simple connector pins. He said it gave him purpose to keep manufacturing in the United States and create rewarding, good careers for Americans. (17:00) Mike talks about the parts that go into musical instruments which Precision Plus produces. He says the company has been making parts for that customer since before he arrived at the company. They make screws and arbors that go into oboes, bassoons, and piccolos. (19:00) Noah asks Mike what he thinks of when he hears the word “happiness.” Mike says it means being successful and being in control of your destiny. He says its important to him that Precision Plus is a private company where he has the freedom to make the decisions that are best for the company. (20:30) Mike says the key to future growth for Precision Plus is continuing to increase the complexity of the parts it produces, setting it apart from other companies making more commodity-type parts. He says the way to accomplish this is by investing in better machines and pushing his people to keep upping their game. (21:20) Mike talks about the roles of his various machines. He says there are no bad machine tools, just bad applications of machine tools. He says the Tornos cam Swiss machines are still a good solution for lower complexity parts with tight tolerances. For more complex parts Precision Plus uses Miyano CNC lathes. He holds up an aerospace parts the company makes complete on a triple turret machine, which he says had 98 different features on the print. (See video below). He says the shop also features many Tsugami and Star CNC Swiss machines that produce great parts and have great support. (22:15) Mike says Precision Plus is interested in acquiring another machining company if he can find the right fit. He would prefer to buy a turning company not doing automotive work located in the Midwest because he likes the work ethic that the Midwest is known for. Also it would be best if the company can also add to Precision Plus’s current capabilities. (25:40) Mike says the thing that bothers him the most running a machining company is that not everyone sees the world as he does, and he can’t stand missed opportunities. He says the most important thing is for people to work to the best their abilities, with a positive attitude, no matter what they are tasked with. (26:35) Question: What do you think of when you hear the word “happiness?”

I love this classic episode because it emphasizes how having fun with your product (or service) and feeling free to experiment with it can lead to success and happiness. Mike Taylor inquired on a Tornos GT26 Swiss lathe Graff-Pinkert had for sale. He told me that for him the machine would be like buying a new motorcycle. If he bought it, he would spend months learning how to use it himself before expecting to make any money with it, and it would be a lot of fun. If Mike buys the machine it will be used to make screws that go into a KeyBar, the product he has been selling since 2013. A KeyBar is an organizer for keys and other tools that fold out in a style similar to that of a Swiss Army knife. Some of the tools available include a screw driver, blade, bottle opener, or even a comb. They’re often made of titanium, featuring distinct textures and colorful designs. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app.   Before he started KeyBar, Mike had been a chief engineer for several hotels in Georgia. He had a decent sized staff working under him and had to carry around a lot of keys that constantly jangled wherever he walked. The loud keys tipped off his slacking staff as he approached, so he always found them working diligently. His noisy key problem had be solved. Mike is a knife guy. He won a pumpkin carving contest by carving a pumpkin under water. He was awarded a prize of $6,000 worth of knives and a trip to BLADE Show, the largest knife show in the world. At the show he was exposed to new machines, processes, materials and tools. When he got home he was inspired to create the first KeyBar—a stealth weapon to solve the problem of his slacking staff. Mike started making KeyBars by hand for friends, but eventually they became so popular he started a business selling them. For several years, all of his components were outsourced, but gradually he brought the production process in-house, purchasing equipment such as a laser engraver, waterjet, and Haas VF4. Throughout our interview, Mike kept telling me how much he was constantly learning and how learning fueled his business. That day alone, he had experimented with machining carbon fiber composites and learned to use a new printer for making labels. Mike has a small but excellent staff at his company, who he trusts to handle most of the production and busy work. This frees him up to learn about new processes and play with the shop’s equipment. Often he enjoys making things other than KeyBars. He showed me a skateboard he fabricated out of a 3/8” thick titanium billet plate. The skateboard has a honeycombed design made with a waterjet. It features knurled and milled textures. It’s laser engraved, flame anodized and electro anodized. Mike plans to bring it trade shows to start conversations with skateboarding enthusiasts. He said producing the skateboard pushed the limits of the machine tools in his shop, which gave him important insight into their strengths and limitations.  In my first conversation with Mike I asked him if a letter opener tool was available in a KeyBar—there wasn’t one. He told me that after our conversation he was going create one that day. One week later, on the day of our interview, the KeyBar website was offering a 100% titanium letter opener dubbed “The Noah.” It has a fleur de lis thumb tab and is available in Polished Titanium, Anodized Bronze and Radiant Teal.  I wonder what fun stuff he will make when he finally gets to take a new Swiss machine for a spin. Question: What would you make if you had free time to play with the machines in your shop?

This podcast has been going for five years now, and those people who listen to it frequently might be tired of the Graff-Pinkert ad at the beginning of the show. I was tired of it, so I finally created a new ad. For people who are listening to this show for the first time, I’m a used machine tool dealer with a family business called Graff-Pinkert. We specialize in selling equipment for the precision machining industry. Recently, Graff-Pinkert started a new service, Graff-Pinkert Acquisitions and Sales, in which we consult precision machining companies who want to buy or sell their businesses. This seemed like a great topic for a new ad. One reason I’m very excited about the new ad is that I created it using persuasion strategies from one of the world’s greatest marketing gurus, Robert Cialdini.  If you mention Cialdini to my dad or my wife, Stephanie, they will tell you that I talk about him all the time. And I do, because he’s a genius. On today’s show I’m going to explain how I used Cialdini’s principles of persuasion when I wrote the new ad and how you can apply them to your business and personal life as well. Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link, or:                                                                                                    View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h ************* Who is Robert Cialdini, and what are these brilliant principles of persuasion I just mentioned in my introduction? Cialdini is a social psychologist and was a professor at Arizona State University. Some people call him the “Godfather of Marketing.” Back in 1984 he wrote a book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, which is considered a bible among marketers. To write the book he went undercover for three years working at used car dealerships, fundraising organizations and telemarketing firms to learn from experts about the science of persuasion.  In the original book, he scientifically breaks down his concepts into six principles of persuasion. Last year, he wrote an updated version of Influence and introduced a seventh one. Cialdini’s Seven Principles of Persuasion are: Reciprocity, Commitment/Consistency, Proof of Authority, Social Proof, Scarcity, Liking, and the new one is Unity. Before I break down how I used several of Cialdini’s principles, it is important to read the transcript of the new ad (see below). As listeners of this podcast know, my family company, Graff-Pinkert, has been buying and selling used machine tools all over the world for the last 80 years. Every day, while selling machinery, we talk to owners of machining companies who tell us they want to expand their businesses through acquisition. We also encounter a lot of owners of companies who are ready to exit but don’t have successors.  This inspired us to start a new business service, Graff-Pinkert Acquisitions and Sales, in which we serve as consultants for precision machining companies who want to buy or sell their businesses.  There are a lot of business brokers out there who can list your company, but for the most part, those people are GENERALISTS. They may not have even heard of precision machining. Another unique thing about working with Graff-Pinkert is that we often have a personal relationship with both the potential buyer and seller, putting us in a rare position to evaluate if the two parties are a good fit for each other. Go to graffpinkert.com to contact us for a consultation to see if your sales or acquisitions needs are a good fit for our services. Mention this podcast and we will give you a free table top valuation of your company’s equipment. Just to review, Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion are: Reciprocity, Commitment/Consistency, Proof of Authority, Social Proof, Scarcity, Liking, and Unity. I was able to fit in five of them into my 90-second ad. In the first sentence of the ad I got off to a good start by using two principles—Proof of Authority and Liking.  The Liking principle is that customers want to work with people with whom they share things in common. I made sure to mention that Graff-Pinkert is a family business because a lot of precision machining businesses are family businesses. Then I worked in Proof of Authority. The Proof of Authority principle is that people follow those they believe are credible, knowledgable experts. Examples could be the chef’s recommendation on a menu, the drug most doctors recommend, or a Consumer Reports review. In our case, I say that Graff-Pinkert has been buying and selling used precision machine tools all over the world for the last 80 years. This means that our company has extensive experience in our precision machining industry niche. We are experts in this arena. Another one of Cialdini’s persuasion principles I used is Social Proof. Think of Social Proof as a movie rating on Rotten Tomatoes giving the preference of the audience, as opposed to the ratings from movie critics. The rationale is that people want to buy products from companies they know already have satisfied customers. For many people, that is just as or more important than what some critic or “expert” says, who may not even be a client. In the ad, I talk about how Graff-Pinkert has relationships with both the buyers and sellers of companies. That point tells listeners that we have a lot of customers who have been working with us for a long time. We’re a known quantity out there, not just some random company asking for your trust. Also, on our website’s page for the Sales and Acquisitions service, we feature video testimonials from satisfied clients who’ve sold their businesses. This is a really powerful example of Social Proof. Because you’re not just telling the world that lots of people like you, you’re putting the people who like you on display. The next Cialdini principle of persuasion I used is Scarcity. Scarcity often signifies there is a low supply of an item or a limited time that something is available. It’s a really powerful technique because it creates a fear of loss, which studies have shown actually has a more powerful influence on human behavior than the opportunity to gain something.  But Scarcity can also can mean something is exclusive. Maybe it’s an expensive luxury brand item or a college that’s really hard to get into. A lot of people out there want things just because other people don’t have them. It makes us feel special or superior to other people. In the ad, I argue that Graff-Pinkert’s specialization in precision machining is unique because typical business brokers are generalists. Thus, you don’t find other people like us who are offering our service. We’re rare. We’re in a category of one. Then I push the exclusivity principle even further. I say that people can contact us for a consultation to see if they are a good fit for our services. This statement means that we won’t work with just anyone. Your company has to be in our specialty of precision machining, and you have to be serious about actually selling or buying a business. This has power because people want to work with people who don’t have to work with them.  Finally, we end with Reciprocity. It’s the old adage that you’ve “gotta give to get.” That’s why when you go into a candy store it’s typical to be offered samples. In one of Cialdini’s studies, customers were 42% more likely to buy something if they received a free piece of chocolate when they entered a candy store. In the very last sentence of the ad we offer a gift, a free table top valuation of your company’s equipment. The gift offer works because it’s a demonstration of our generosity, but more importantly by giving something to people without them asking, they feel compelled to give in return. Maybe in this case, it could be granting us a follow up conversation about working together, or telling us about someone else they know who could be interested in our services. Now you have some powerful tools to persuade others like the Godfather of Marketing. I suggest you experiment with all the principles. Be conscious of them when you’re copyrighting, creating a website, or social media post.  Think about using Reciprocity or Scarcity when you’re attempting to convince your children to eat their vegetables.  I have a feeling you will be surprised by what you can achieve when applying Cialdini’s principles.

Editor’s Note: This podcast was recorded in Spring of 2022. Tyler has now been retired for over 2 years, and Noah is the proud father of a 1 year old. In early 2022, Tyler Jarosz sent me an email to ask if Graff-Pinkert would be interested in a used little parts washer he no longer needed in his machine shop. He found out about Graff-Pinkert from listening to Swarfcast, which I’m proud to say is the only podcast he has ever listened to. At 40 years young, Tyler retired, closing Twenty6Products, his 1-employee shop, which had been lucrative enough over the last decade and a half that he can now spend his time doing whatever he wants. For the most part, that’s going mountain biking and snowboarding near his home in Bozeman, Montana. I knew Tyler had an interesting story. How does a someone start a 1-person machining company and make enough money to retire at 40? What kind of person would take that path?                                                                                                  View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Tyler grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. He was diagnosed with learning disabilities when he was young. In high school, the kids in the school’s learning disability program were taken on a tour of the local technical college where Tyler was exposed to machining. He immediately fell in love with the trade. After graduating from tech school in three years, he headed straight to Bozeman, Montana, where he could enjoy the outdoor hobbies he loves, mainly mountain biking and snowboarding.  He got a job in a machine shop right away, starting at the bottom, loading parts into a CNC machine. On weekends, he rented the shop’s Haas mills to make break levers for mountain bikes, which he then sold to local bike shops. Later he designed and sold his own bicycle pedals machined from anodized titanium.  Tyler Jarosz, Former Owner of Twenty6Products At age 26, after four years working at two shops, there was enough demand for Tyler’s products for him to start his own machining company. He had gained such a great reputation from the consistent quality of his bike parts, that a more diverse customer base started seeking him out. He says it was scary to go off on his own, but he had confidence in himself, which he attributes somewhat to competing in snowboarding and mountain biking events when he was younger.  During his 15 years in business, Tyler never employed any more than one person in his shop, and that person was more or less a button pusher. His business philosophy was simple. He trusted his own quality and commitment, and by having virtually no employees it cut out overhead and a lot of management burden. After a few years, he at least had the sense to farm out managing the company’s book keeping. Tyler has never taken a business class and never read a business book. He sums up good business as having common sense. He hired a financial advisor, who laid out a plan to reach a fast retirement, though Tyler says he didn’t necessarily expect to do it as soon as age 40. One of Tyler’s secrets to his success was his commitment and laser focus on his work. He always put in 10-hour days, five days a week. He says he held himself accountable to be “a good employee,” meaning if he took off two hours out of his day to go to the doctor, he would make up that time later. Tyler says he is passionate about machining, so of course I asked him why he would stop doing it for a living. He replied that he hasn’t stopped machining, but now machining is a hobby. He does it because he wants to, not because he has to. Retirement has finally given him the time to do his other passions whenever he wants—mountain biking and snowboarding. When I spoke to him the first time, he was outside digging his own bike trail. Sometimes he likes to listen to Swarfcast while digging. He had never listened to any podcast prior to retiring. Another thing he really enjoys in retirement that he says he used to not have time for is sharing a cup of coffee with his wife in the morning. She is a therapist who works 20 hours a week, which enables she and Tyler to spend a lot of time together. Tyler’s new relaxed yet active life sounds lovely, and he comes across as very at peace and content. But I begged the question, is this existence enough? Is merely getting to do the simple things that give him pleasure whenever he wants enough to make him happy? What about effecting other people other than himself? What was his purpose? Tyler responded that being outdoors doing what he loves is his purpose right now. He also added that in the past he has enjoyed going to speak to high school students about careers in machining and he even gave a student the opportunity to work in his shop. He also was conscious enough to recognize that he can’t predict the future. Right now this is where his life’s journey feels right. I feel like he really means that when he says it. That I really appreciate. He goes for what feels right, despite that path being different from what the majority of us would likely do. Tyler is unusual, not just because he was successful enough to retire at 40. Lots of people could retire at 40, but just don’t. So many people say they just need to finish this one last thing and then they will have time to rest and “enjoy doing all the things they’ve always wanted to do.” They say they need their kids to graduate, or they need to make just a little bit more money to feel secure. They need to pull off just one more bank heist. Tyler said the same thing. He put his life on hold. He sacrificed 15 years of working non-stop to reach the point where he could stop working. But unlike so many others he actually meant it when he said he would retire. He didn’t have ambitions to get richer or accomplish more goals. He reached the moment he could stop working so he could enjoy his passions and spend time with his wife. Then he cashed in his chips. Personally, I think the ideal career path is to work in a job where you enjoy what you are doing every day and are not waiting for something else. Those gigs are rare I think, but they do exist. In any case, what I really admire about Tyler is the confidence with which he seems to approach his life’s path. He was interested in machining, so he learned to do it. He wanted to move to Montana, so he went as soon as he could. He started his own company alone, despite having no experience or formal education about running a business. He took a chance on himself that if he worked hard enough and smart enough that the time and sacrifice would pay off.  He is all in in what he does. He believes in himself. He believes he is doing what he should be doing at that moment. I think that is a key to happiness. Question: What would you do if you could retire right now?

Seems like right now every podcast is doing an interview centered around artificial intelligence.  But I waited until I found the right story, one that was truly relevant to our audience in the machining world. Today’s guest on the podcast, George Konidaris, is the cofounder of the startup, Realtime Robotics. He is also a professor of Computer Science and the director of the Intelligent Robot Lab at Brown University. Right now, programming a robot arm to perform a repetitive task typically requires a robot integrator to program where every joint of a robot should go. It’s a ridiculous and tedious process. But with Realtime Robotics’ AI technology, you can instruct a robot to do a task and you don’t have to tell it a zillion steps explaining HOW to do the task.                                                                                                  View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Interview Highlights Noah Graff: Explain your company, Realtime Robotics. George Konidaris: Realtime Robotics is a company that does real-time robot motion planning. We focus on how a robot can automatically generate its own motion. Typically a robot integrator programs every aspect of a robot’s motion in order to accomplish a repetitive task. This means deciding where every joint of a robot arm should go. With our system, you can tell the robot where it needs to put its business end. This is where I would like you to weld, or I would like you to pick up the object over there. We compute the rest of the motion for you.  Graff: How do you control the robots? Konidaris: The majority of our installations are programmed using a PLC. It used to be that you would have to set every joint on the robot to a specific value. Now instead, you can send much higher level commands to the PLC. Graff: So it takes less training than using a typical robot controller? It takes less training and less effort. We can reduce PLC programs that are often hundreds of statements long to single digit statements in many cases. You get out better efficiency, and we make sure there are no collisions. You don’t have to run what you’ve programmed and eyeball it to make sure it doesn’t collide. Graff: This can integrate with all different brands?  Konidaris: Yes, we think of robot arms the way most people think of printers, which is that they’re all peripherals. Our job is to provide drivers for those peripherals. To you, they should look just the same because they have similar functionality. You don’t have to go learn the programming language associated with one robot brand. You just plug it in. Graff: It sounds a little like ChatGPT in that it does a lot of the tedious work for you. Konidaris:  I think the analogy is very apt. One way that I would think about the difference though is that ChatGPT is a top down of intelligence to start with language, which is very high level, and symbolic and abstract.  But what’s interesting about robots and what’s interesting specifically about robots and AI is that is not yet where the challenges are. The challenges are much lower level. Just moving through space, just doing perception, just generating motion. We’ve automated so much stuff because we’ve had to deal with the fact that robots are so physically stupid. Graff: It seems like this technology might take away value from cobots a little bit. Konidaris: One way to think about cobots is they have two distinguishing features. One is that they’re very easy for a person to program by manipulating the robot. The other one is that cobots are safe to have around people. One way to think about how that’s been done is they’re light and weak and compliant. By “weak” I mean it’s not going to knock your head off if it hits you. (Cobots) are not as fast, they’re not as precise. In many industries where you really need throughput, you can’t apply a cobot because it just doesn’t have the performance that you need. What we’re hoping to do is to substitute a different technical solution. The robot is not going to hit stuff because it knows how to not hit stuff. Graff: These robots, even with their intelligence, still require a professional integrator? Konidaris: (Yes), the integrator is doing a couple things. They’re designing your work cell for a performance characteristic or a meter specification. That’s a mechanical engineering skill that requires a professional. Also, they’re choosing components like the end of arm toolkit, the particular conveyor belt, and the PLC. They are integrating those into the work cell and writing the logic that controls them. But then the third thing that (integrators) often have to do is spend a lot of time hand designing the robot motion. In particular, if there are multiple robots in the work cell, they need to try and coordinate the multi-robot motion ahead of time so that nothing ever collides.  And that’s where the real talent comes. We’ve looked at use cases where it takes 13 weeks of engineering just to get the multi-robot coordination right. We can drop it to one (week) because in our case, that last part, you just plug the robots into the same box and they never hit each other. Graff: Mostly your product is used in automotive plants? Konidaris: Yes, that’s right. They have severe throughput constraints. In many cases, the cost of a single robot isn’t anywhere near the cost of extra cycle time, so they’re happy to pay to add extra robots. I think a typical statistic we saw is adding a single robot only gets you an extra 25% of throughput speed up—as opposed to the 100% theoretical, which no one ever gets. But with our system you can see more like 75%.  So you can get much more of the win using the extra robot because they can pass pretty close to each other and they’re mutually cognizant of that. Question: How have you used robots in your machine shop? Or, how would you like to use them?

On today’s podcast we continue our season talking to successful companies who produce their own products. Today’s guest is Joel Trusty, co-owner and President of Trusty-Cook, a company that manufactures a diverse group of industrial polyurethane products such as dead blow hammers and spindle liners for bar loaders. Joel says one of the keys to the company’s success has been talking to customers about what they need. Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or at your favorite podcast app.                                                                                                View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Main Points Joel talks about the origins of Trusty-Cook. His father designed ship-to-shore missiles for the military. When he tired of that, he moved on and started a company making custom electronics. He hired a man named Cook, who went to Chrysler and came back with a purchase order for 3,000 polyurethane wear pads for an assembly line, something that the company did not make. In response, Joel’s father bought a used pizza oven, bought a book on polyurethane and figured out how to hand-batch the order. Two years later, he invented the dead blow hammer, one of the main products Trusty-Cook manufactures to this day. (2:55) Joel explains the company’s polyurethane dead blow hammer. It is constructed to have good power when striking, but it avoids damaging the target or sending a lot of vibration through the user’s elbow. (3:40) Joel says it was difficult to get into the market at first. The products were expensive to make, but the company landed deals with Matco Tools, Cornwell Tools, and Snap-On. Originally Stanley Tools wanted a private label as well but instead decided to buy out the company in 1982. In the mid-1980s a recession hit, and Stanley wanted to move the company under the same roof as a screwdriver plant in South Carolina. Joel’s father and brother agreed to assist the move in return for commercial ground and two product lines Stanley Tools was no longer interested in. They moved the plant and founded Trusty-Cook. The non-compete for the hammer ran out in the mid-1990s, so they created the Trusty-Cook brand. They also landed a private brand called Estwing out of Rockford, IL. Matco and Cornwell came back on board, and Trusty-Cook continues to make sledgehammers for Snap-on. The company also makes a line for NAPA. (4:00)   Joel explains that Trusty-Cook’s polyurethane hammer is made to replace hammers made of lead or brass. It is constructed so that it will not spark and not damage the material it is hitting. The durability of polyurethane is what inspired Joel’s father to create the hammer. Joel also talks about his father’s other inventions, including a machine to cook hamburgers in 6 seconds and the first blood machine to analyze kidneys, which is still in use today. The hamburgers tasted terrible, so that invention was not taken to market. He says inventing new products comes naturally to him and other members of his family. (6:30) Joel says Trusty-Cook now makes 29 different hammers, which Joel calls a “rock on a stick.” The price to make them has not changed much since the ‘70s. Joel says the average retail price of a Trusty-Cook hammer is in the $50 range. The hammers are made in Indianapolis in-house. The company produces the steel components and the polyurethane for the hammers’ exterior. Each hammer is handmade using no automation. (listen for more a detailed description) (9:55) Joel discusses other Trusty-Cook products, including polyurathane spindle liners for bar loaders for CNC machines. He talks about how the company got the idea for the product when a customer called up wanting to reduce a diameter in his bar loader he was using with a Mazak CNC lathe. Now the company makes spindle liners for running bar stock with irregular shapes such as hex and rectangle. It also makes spindle liners to enable running bars less than a millimeter in diameter. The OEMs selling machine tools refer customers to Trusty-Cook, rather than bundling them in a sale. (11:30) Joel says that listening to customers is the number one reason why his company is successful. He describes feedback he received on forum for garage mechanics. The mechanic wanted a ball peen hammer for use in tight work spaces. In response, Trusty-Cook developed a large-headed ball peen hammer with a short handle. On the same forum, another mechanic asked if a similar product could be built with a flat end on both sides, so Trusty-Cook started making this design of hammer as well. (19:10) Joel talks about why the company was monitoring the forums. At the time there appeared to be a lot of confusion about who was making various products because of all of the different brands distributing for Trusty-Cook. Joel says Trusty-Cook doesn’t participate often on online forums, but the company does post when it develops something new and asks for feedback. It has developed relationships over time with some of the users on the forum. Joel says Trusty-Cook will sell limited editions of various products at a low price to some users to get them to try them. (23:00) Joel talks about building relationships with customers like custom bike builder Eddie Trotta star of the TV show Thunder Cycle. Joel says Trotta was having difficulty holding tolerances on his Mazak and put in an order to Trusty-Cook for spindle liners for his machines. Eddie was so happy with the results he gave a free testimonial. Eddie later called and asked if the company could make a dead blow bossing mallet to shape metal. Joel says he didn’t know what one was at the time. With Eddie’s feedback Trusty-Cook created three different polyurethane bossing mallets for him free of charge. Eddie said the hammers cut the work time in half. Today Trusty-Cook ships them all over the world. (25:55) Joel describes the company’s relationship with bar feeder companies, LNS and IEMCA. He told the companies that if they came to him with an idea for a polyurethane product, he would work with them free of charge. He describes a split block Trusty-Cook designed for Edge bar feeders. (see video) He says LNS also called them with a predicament, in which some bar feeder channels were filling with lubricant and swelling over time. Trusty-Cook now makes all the channel sets for LNS. (28:10)   Joel says feedback from both endusers and OEMs is Trusty-Cook’s lifeblood.(29:40) Joel shares advice for new companies who want to bring a product to market. He says that too many creators spend time perfecting something because they are afraid to test their product on the market. He says a company needs to test the sales end of things so it knows if a product has the potential to be successful. He suggests sending new products at no charge to friends or trusted contacts in an industry and letting them try it out to get feedback. It might cost money to produce the product, but so does doing nothing while you perfect it. (30:05) Joel reflects on something new he has learned recently. He says the week before was the first time he could recall that he started feeling stressed about all of the negative stuff going around the world—the election, the pandemic etc. He says he had to take a step back to reexamine what he does, stay focused, make sure he is doing what he likes, and make sure he his doing things for the right reasons. (31:45) Question: What is the most important tool you have in your shop?

Today’s guest on the podcast is Jayme Rahz, CEO of Midway Swiss Turn, a small precision machining job shop in Wooster, Ohio. Around a quarter of Midway Swiss Turn’s business is supplying the U.S. Department of Defense. While supplying the DoD can be a lucrative opportunity for a manufacturer, the work comes with some hurdles to overcome, including acquiring a Cyber Security Maturity Model Certification, commonly referred to as CMMC. On today’s show, Jayme discusses how a small manufacturing company gets CMMC certified, how that has affected her company, and what it’s like to be a small machining business supplying the DoD. Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or at your favorite podcast app.                                                                                                  View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Interview Highlights Noah Graff: Is China one of the larger threats to cybersecurity for American manufacturers?  Jayme Rahz: Yes. The F-35 (fighter jet). It came to light in 2015, with the release of some of the Edward Snowden type documents that China had stolen a lot of that information from us. It’s estimated they were stealing it as far back as 2006. Primarily using the spear phishing technique through emails. It wasn’t the big companies like Raytheon or Boeing. It was small to mid-size companies that were very naive, and it was very easy to get that information from them. Graff: Getting CMMC Certification seems like quite a process. Rahz: It is a lengthy and detailed journey, and it never is going to end.  We probably did six to nine months of research before we decided to bite the bullet and implement this program. We’re real small. We have six full-time employees. We have 11 on staff total. We had at the time, zero IT people.  Early on, we connected with our local Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) in Ohio. Their job is to help us become a stronger manufacturing base. The local one that we hooked up with is called Magnet. They were able to secure grants for us to work on this program because we were early adopters. They helped us walk through the steps choosing a vendor. We opted to get a consultant to help us. Magnet was able to help us find one that suited our (small-sized) business, called Vestige. Graff: Explain how the consultant helps you. Rahz: When we’re implementing (the CMMC), Vestige comes in and asks us, how are you meeting this specific requirement? Are you protecting your firewall settings and your proxy servers? How are you protecting your databases?  It’s much more geared towards how you’re actually protecting that information with technology. And if we’re not, they’re the ones that say, okay, here’s the technology you can implement to help meet that requirement. Things like password protection and multi-factor authentication. Graff: Can you give us an estimate of what it might cost for your company to become CMMC Certified and the maintenance it requires? Rahz: When we first started down this path, the government was estimating it was going to be about $60,000 for the average mid-size company to implement.  Smaller sometimes can mean less to protect and maybe less money. But really what it means is we have less resources readily available to us. So we usually end up spending more and a larger percentage of our sales compared to a mid-size, or even a large company. They already have IT staff, and they already have some of these practices in place. We were able to secure a couple of grants, but I do think that it’s probably going to exceed the $60,000 for implementation. Graff: Do you predict most manufacturing companies in all sectors will be implementing CMMC in the future? Rahz:  There are a lot of ways to implement cybersecurity. CMMC is being told to us by the government. That’s going be the gold standard. The reality is that not everybody has to do (CMMC) this year, but you look 2, 3, 5, 10 years from now, and we’re all going to have to have some kind of a comprehensive program just to stay in business. Whether it’s sensitive stuff for our military or a product for other customers, we have a responsibility to protect that data. If you get a ransomware attack, it can shut down an entire business. Questions: Has your company ever been a victim of a cyber attack? What measures are you taking to have better cybersecurity?    

In November of 2015, our used machine tool company, Graff-Pinkert, bought a Schütte S32PC, mfd. 2002, in Cologne, Germany, from a dealer we didn’t know. It was a nice looking machine. A big 32mm CNC Multi-Spindle, painted red and cream because it came out of a Mercedes factory. We were excited to bring the machine to the US until the seller allowed it to get wet when he put it outside in a rainstorm. But this debacle eventually had a happy ending. Someone we had never met before helped us get out of this jam, and that would lead to some great future serendipity. Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or with your favorite podcast app.                                                                                                            View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h We sat in our office in Oak Forest, Illinois, dumbstruck, looking at photos of a wet multi-spindle screw machine that we had paid around 40,000 Euros for. The dealer who sold it to us hardly spoke English, but we understood the part where he said he wasn’t going to compensate us for the water damage to machine. He already had our money, so we were stuck with it. We asked a German dealer in the area, who specialized in Schüttes to go see the machine. He told us he was afraid that the electrics were fried and offered us 10,000 Euros to take it off our hands. We were in a tough situation. Bringing the machine back to the US would cost at least $10,000. Then we would have a 13-year-old machine that we knew would cost a crazy amount of money to fix. But then an Italian dealer, who specialized in refurbishing this model of machine, found its advertisement on the internet. Suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope. Maybe he would be our savior and take it off our hands. Who knows, maybe we could even still make a little money on the machine if we were lucky. We negotiated a price of 50,000 Euros, pending inspection. I flew to Cologne to check out the machine with the Italian. After inspecting the machine he was interested. He didn’t want to pay 50,000 Euros, but he was willing to pay enough to cut our losses significantly. However, even though we had found a buyer for the machine, we had a new problem. To sell a machine within the European Union, both the buyer and seller must have an EU VAT number, which Graff-Pinkert doesn’t have. Normally when we buy and sell a machine from one company in Europe to another, we work with a European dealer who buys and sells the machine instead of us. Then they send Graff-Pinkert the bulk of the profit and keep a small commission for doing the paperwork. The complication in this case, however, was that Graff-Pinkert had already purchased the machine. So our little workaround that we normally used wouldn’t work this time. We were stuck with this machine until we figured out a different way to sell it within the EU.  After the inspection of the Schütte, I decided to pay an impromptu visit to a big machinery dealer in the area, Stiens Werkzeugmaschinen Handelsgesellschaft mbH. We always like to do that kind of thing when we’re traveling. If you’re already across the ocean, it’s important to visit as many people in the business as you can. You learn about each other, you check out their inventory, and often you encounter serendipity. The owner, Martin Stiens, was happy to host me on the spur of the moment. He gave me a tour of his showroom. I remember seeing some Doosans that looked like new and a lot of fancy German CNC equipment. They really did have nice stuff. After the tour, we sat in the conference room to get to know each other more. I told Martin about the Schütte saga and my problem selling the machine in Europe after already taking ownership of it. I hadn’t gone to visit Martin to tell him about our problem with the machine, but since I was there, I figured why not ask him for his opinion. Then, unsolicited, he said he thought he could help us complete our sale. Martin didn’t have to help us. I’m not sure he had even heard of us before I called him. He didn’t need the money. Maybe he did it purely because it felt good to help another dealer in need, but I think at least in the back of his mind, he knew that helping us and establishing a relationship had the possibility to lead to more interesting things down the line. I don’t know how he navigated the deal, but in the following weeks, he figured out how to broker the machine for us. We paid him a small fee for doing the paperwork, and with his help we probably lost about $10,000 on the deal, rather than the $50,000 we would lose when we scrapped the machine after it sat in our warehouse for a decade.  And in the end, we didn’t lose money on the deal at all. About one year later, the Italian who bought the Schütte contacted us because one of his Schütte customers had a Gildemeister GM35 multi-spindle screw machine for sale. He specialized in Schüttes, so he preferred to broker the machine to us. It turned out to be a great deal, and I got to take a nice a trip to Italy. Man, I hope to do some more fun business trips again soon! It’s been a long time.  We also kept in touch with Martin, and four years later, he and his head salesman were in Chicago on business. We met for a steak dinner downtown, where I told them about a customer of ours in the Chicagoland area who was trying to sell some older INDEX G200s and Traub TNL12s. Great German CNC machines. If anybody listening to this has some they want to sell, please give Graff-Pinkert a call.  The next day, Martin decided to go have a look at the machines. I think we sold him about 10 machines right there on the spot. We would have never sold him those machines if he had not helped us with our Schütte problem. I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying. Help people in business, even if you don’t know how it’s going to benefit you in the future. If you give often in business—intelligent giving, not “getting taken advantage of giving”—serendipity will find you. Because when you help someone, it creates a special bond between you and the person you helped. It’s a deeper bond than just meeting someone at a conference and having a great conversation. You’ve gone through something together, and that creates a powerful connection. Before I wrap this up, I just want to clarify something. I don’t just help people in business out of self-interest. Helping people makes me feel alive. It gives my days purpose. I believe it’s one of the things we’re put on this earth to do. But that’s a topic for another blog. Question: When did someone give your business unexpected help? Did it lead to other important things going forward?

As a machinery dealer, very often I hear customers lament that they can’t find good people to work in their machine shops. To this I say, perhaps they need to be more creative in hiring practices. Maybe they could offer better pay, more flexible hours, or some other benefits that competitors don’t provide. Or, maybe it’s time to have a more open mind to hiring groups who society often overlooks. On today’s podcast I interviewed Kathryn Shibelski. Kathryn is a second chance hiring advocate. Her firm, KES HR Consulting, works with companies who are considering hiring incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people. The job candidates have often been convicted for drug offenses, white collar crimes, sex crimes, and even murder.  Obviously, the idea of hiring people with criminal records could seem quite risky for a number of reasons, but according to Kathryn, second chance hires can thrive in the right work environment and even surpass the performance of employees with no criminal background. Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or at your favorite podcast app. Main Points Strengths of Formerly Incarcerated People In various areas around the United States there are programs in prisons that train inmates in trades such as machining.  Kathryn says formerly incarcerated people are often the most devoted, loyal employees. One reason for this is their gratitude for the opportunity just to have a job. Many ex-felons have few options for employment, so its extra important for them to hold onto their jobs, both for supporting themselves and to fulfill parole obligations.  Also, formerly incarcerated people often come into jobs with a unique set of skills. In prison people are forced to be resourceful. They have to solve daily practical problems using limited resources that people on the outside take for granted.   Other Reasons for Second Chance Hiring Companies who employ second chance hires can receive tax breaks through the work opportunity tax credit. Also, Federal bonding programs protect employers against losses caused by the fraudulent or dishonest acts of at-risk bonded employees. Finally, Kathryn encourages companies to hire second chance employees because it helps communities end a cycle of repeat offenses that often occur when people are released from prison.   Second Chance Hiring Obstacles One of Kathryn’s main services is helping companies with on-boarding second chance hires. Often formerly incarcerated people lack resources that many of us take for granted, such as a bank account, transportation to get to work, and a decent place to live. Companies who hire them have to be ready to help their new employees cope with these challenges. One of the greatest challenges for companies to successfully hire second chance employees is getting their current workforce to buy in. Kathryn is a proponent of employers keeping an open mind to people with all types of criminal backgrounds, but she says that every company needs to choose for themselves which candidates they feel comfortable working with. Everyone at a company has to be on board for second chance hiring, not just the top managers. Often at least one individual at a company has had a bad past experience with a certain type of offender, and this may cause it to rule out many candidates immediately. Another criterion companies need to consider is how long a candidate was incarcerated. People incarcerated for a decade or more often become institutionalized, making them prone to emotional issues. Kathryn admitted to me that even she has her own personal difficulties regarding certain types of offenders, but she still firmly believes that everyone deserves a second chance to turn their lives around.  When reasoning with people who are resistant to second chance hiring, Kathryn suggests to them to think about their own friends or relatives who have made past mistakes or had poor luck navigating the U.S. criminal system. Have they made it back successfully? To get in touch with Kathryn and learn more about her services, the best way is to go to her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrynshibelski/. Question: Would you consider hiring an ex-felon?

Recently, I’ve talked to a few Swarfcast listeners who are considering starting their own podcast shows, so I thought it made sense to make an episode discussing the merits of hosting a podcast as well as some advice if you want to build one successfully. I’m really excited about my guest today because he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about how to grow and monetize a podcast, my podcast coach, Kevin Chemidlin, host of the podcast Grow the Show. Even if you don’t want to start podcast, I think a lot of listeners/readers will enjoy this episode. We talk about entrepreneurship, marketing, and creating a business that is in a category of one. . Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or at your favorite podcast app.                                                                                                  View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h   Interview Highlights Noah Graff: Would creating a podcast help small- to medium-sized manufacturers listening to this show? Kevin Chemidlin: It can absolutely help all of them. I am not going to say that they all should (start a show) because I don’t believe in absolutes like that. The biggest benefit that a business owner gets from a podcast is using it as a lead nurturing mechanism. It serves to deepen your relationship with your customers and your prospects. It doesn’t really become a lead generation mechanism until a little bit further down the line when you have a larger audience. Graff: Is it possible that it could bring leads sooner than that? Chemidlin: It’s not a law, but I would put my money on it taking a while because a podcast is not inherently a medium that goes viral. You could launch a TikTok account and potentially get leads right away. You could do it with YouTube. You could do it with some of the social media platforms that should have viral reach. But podcasts do not go viral for the most part. They’re a longer game. It’s more of a depth play. Listeners are much harder fought, but they are a hundred times more valuable than a TikTok follower. If your episode is 45 minutes, that’s the equivalent to 45 TikToks, and that’s just if they listen to one episode. That’s why for business owners, it can serve as a fantastic differentiator and relationship deepener for your clients and your prospects.  Graff: On your show, you talk about how a podcast needs to integrate with social media, email lists, and blogs. Chemidlin: Exactly. I recommend that if you are going to get into podcasts, you think about it as a content ecosystem.  You don’t have to (promote it with social media), but I do recommend at least showing up. And at the very least, it serves as an incredible networking tool to get you connected with guests and listeners. Graff: On your show you talk about a “listener funnel.” Explain what that is. Chemidlin: When I talk about the listener funnel, what I intend to do is have podcasters design the journey that someone will go through when they go from being a stranger to a listener to a customer. You want to actually answer the question, “What am I going to do so people who currently don’t know this show exists discover that it does, and do so in a way that makes it highly likely for them to actually press play and listen to one episode?” Then, after that, rather than doing what a lot of podcasters do, just putting episodes out there and fingers crossed, hope these people click on my website and buy my thing, you actually intentionally design.  What am I going to tell them to do? What is the next thing that they click on? After that, what page do they go to? How do they actually set up a call with me or go to the buying page or whatever your sales process is? Graff: Your podcast promotes a podcast coaching program that seems to produce an easily quantifiable measurement for new customers. This is a much different scenario than a podcast hosted by the owner of a high volume machining company.  Chemidlin: I would say to any business owner that is listening, if you are considering launching a podcast, think about your customer base as a whole, and then from there, think about what type of podcast do those people want to listen to? You don’t have to make a podcast about screws. You could tell stories in manufacturing history. It’s a longer term play. It’s not a direct response. It’s a branding play. It’s a differentiation play.  Graff: Any quick advice for podcasters out there? Chemidlin: You can always improve your craft. I make a living explaining the tactics of growth to people. It takes a month to understand how targeted podcast pitching works. It takes a month to really understand how social media works. The craft of the show is something that is worth constantly honing forever. It’s like saying to business owners you should work on your product. You’re competing with Netflix. You’re competing with Tim Ferriss. You’re competing with Joe Rogan. One of the ways that you can mitigate that is to have a truly unique show.  You have a really unique show here, which is good, but at the same time, your listeners chose to listen to this over the other five to eight podcasts that they listen to on a regular basis. And those are massive shows that have $40,000 per month budgets.  Graff: So you better be good at your craft. Chemidlin: You’ve got to be good. Questions: If you started a podcast, what would it be about? What are your favorite podcasts? (Besides Swarfcast)