The Manufacturing Executive

Traditionally, marketing teams in manufacturing have depended on CRM supply data to get a picture of their customers.However, there’s an untapped well of customer insights that many overlook: IoT data from manufacturing facilities. Using this data, marketers can target specific campaigns to specific customer bases and create messaging that truly resonates with customers.In this episode, I sit down with Jan Pingel , Product Leader of Digital Solutions at Ingersoll Rand , to talk about how IoT is opening up new opportunities to get a deeper view of customers and learn valuable things you don’t normally learn about them.Join us as we discuss:-Industry 4.0 Club -Using IoT data in marketing-Data privacy and data security concernsResources we mentioned during the podcast:- Industry 4.0 Club - SME.org - Arcweb.com - Isa.org - IEEE.org Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

If you think ecommerce isn’t for you, you’re wrong.You need to leverage ecommerce immediately (arguably with pricing, too) to increase your visibility and make it easy for your ideal buyer to make a buying decision on a Friday at midnight online. In this episode, I interview Curt Anderson , eCommerce Evangelist for Manufacturers at Ecommerce MGMT , about why ecommerce matters so much for manufacturers — today more than ever before.Join us as we discuss:-Why manufacturers should quit being “the best kept secret”-Curt’s 3-prong approach to ecommerce-SEO and keyword strategies for digital immigrants-An opinionated view of pricingSubscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

Only a tiny fraction of your total addressable market is ready to buy right today.Does that mean you ignore everyone else?Of course not. You need to get their attention, gain their trust and when it’s time to buy, they’ll turn to you…But only if you make it easy.There’s no guest today, just me, Joe Sullivan, your dutiful host and Thinker & Founder at Gorilla 76, and in this episode, I’ll be going over the 8 ways you can make it easier for your buyers to buy.Subscribe to The Manufacturing Executive on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.

There is no reason manufacturing needs to be dominated by men — even if it, historically, always was.Yet today, as other sectors become more representative, one look around most manufacturing sites and you’ll notice the lack of women immediately. Why are we lagging behind? And more importantly, what can we do about it?My guest today, Lesley Ledwell Dukelow , Company President at Ledwell, is a 4th-generation female leader of a family-owned manufacturing business and she has some ideas about how we can tackle the gender gap in manufacturing.In this episode, we discuss:-Supply chain issues in the wake of COVID-Why the labor shortage demands we hire from more underrepresented groups, including women-Why women are less represented in manufacturing and what we can do about itTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

If you’ve ever been curious how well management takes care of its employees at any given organization, there is one really simple way to find out: Check out the employee bathroom. That may seem funny, but… think about it — if management can’t take care of the bathrooms, how well can they really be taking care of its employees?That simple test is wisdom today’s guest, Mark Whitten , President & CEO at Spartanburg Steel Products , has learned over years of successful leadership in which he has lived by a maxim that seems to have fallen by the wayside: Lead by example. In this episode, we discuss:-Why leaders should work alongside their employees (and keep the bathrooms clean)-How to achieve 2.0 transformation as a leader-How leaders in manufacturing should respond to Gen Z’s entrance into the workforceTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

You hear people talk a lot about a labor shortage in manufacturing and automation and robotics are a great way to tackle it. Not just to replace jobs — but to find more workers. If only we could get over manufacturing’s technology hesitancy problem. Today’s guest, Erik Nieves, Founder at PlusOne Robotics, can help you do just that. That’s because, in his years of experience in robotics, he’s seen a solution to every excuse for why automation won’t work.In this episode, we discuss:-The problem of technology hesitancy (and how it hurts smaller manufacturers more)-How to build a strategy around automation-Whether there really is a labor shortage and why, if there is, robots can helpTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Without our dealers and distributors, who would sell our products? Without us, what would they sell? We need each other. Why then is the relationship so often strained? Today’s guest, Tom Paul, Founder & CEO at BAM!, says it doesn’t have to be. All it takes is a little work from both parties… and maybe reading at least one 25-year-old article. In this episode, we discuss:-Why the manufacturer-dealer relationship is so often fractured (and 3 steps to fixing it)-The solution BAM! has created that helps address these very issues-Why you shouldn’t pick your SaaS solutions based on Lord of the RingsTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify..Tom Paul can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-paul/ Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Executive in your favorite podcast player.

If your content strategy starts with whether there’s keyword search volume around your SEO terms, you’re starting at step five.Here’s step one: conduct customer interviews to learn what they value and prioritize.In this episode, I interview Gorilla 76’s own Grace Wright and Aaron Weekes, both Thinker and Strategist, about creating winning content that starts with customers, not keywords.In this episode we discuss:-Making your customer’s success the object of your content-Getting the right messages to the right people-Providing one of these three qualities: best, first, or different-Starting your content strategy with the right questions (lots and lots of them)-Forecasting the future of SEO tacticsGrace Wright can be reached at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-wright-76940312a/ Aaron Weekes can be reached at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmichaelweekes/ To ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Manufacturing Show in your favorite podcast player.

Data collection, automation, robotics — these are things reserved for the budgets of the biggest companies out there, right? Wrong. Anyone can do it with one simple trick:Just get started.That’s the simple advice shared by our latest guest, Aaron Prather, R&D Evangelist for FedEx Express, who is deeply passionate about both topics — and if you don’t believe me, just check out his LinkedIn. In this episode, we discuss:- The benefits of data collection, automation and robotics for your business- Why you don’t need to fear robots stealing your jobs- Why success in either involves getting started and employee inputTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.

You’ve probably heard about the infamous skills gap in manufacturing — a problem only made worse by the pandemic. It has the potential to affect our lives in profound ways; even our national security is at stake.And if we expect to solve it, we need to get creative — like, say, starting a nationally-televised Skills Draft?That’s one of the creative solutions today’s guest, Dr. Jason Scales, Business Manager, Education at Lincoln Electric, proposes to avoid the coming skills depression.In this episode, we discuss:- Why COVID widened the skills gap- What a Skills Draft is and why it could change the national culture around high-skilled employment- What manufacturers should be doing to help today’s youth get excited for —and see a viable future in — the industryTo ensure that you never miss an episode of The Manufacturing Executive, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or here.