08: How E-Commerce Helps Manufacturers Attract More of Their Dream Customers - with Curt Anderson

Lori Highby: 00:00:00

Hey Chris, you little red hot face there what's going on?

Kris: 00:00:07

Oh, yeah, you know, I just completed my morning routine. Every morning, you know it's first coffee, then it's reading, then it's a little email work and then you know I gotta get my workout in before I start the day. So this is pretty much what I end up with this red hot face for about at

Lori Highby: 00:00:32

that's just reality. Video Recording calls immediately after working out smart. Aaron, you got a morning routine?

Erin: 00:00:42

I do. It's not mine. It's my kids. Make the coffee yell at your children for 20 to 30 minutes to get their shoes on etcetera. And get their cute little bits out the door. That's my morning routine.

Lori Highby: 00:00:57

I have this is what I want my morning routine to be and then what the reality is Oh, Africa. When I when I do follow through, I do a little bike ride in the morning meditation. Trying to do some reading and little brain stimulation with Wordle I'm on the word Oh, I love Well, let's

Erin: 00:01:55

yeah,

Curt: 00:01:56

I'm on dude. I like you know, I have to call my mother real quick because I made it. Broadcast. My mother is gonna be so proud. Yeah, it's all good. All right, before we get started, I do have one caveat. So this between us so maybe the listeners on the listen to this. I'm not a young man

Lori Highby: 00:02:34

We all love you and you've been a great advocate for all of us on different levels and, most importantly, a huge advocate for manufacturing. And that's why we want we want to hear your story and, and help you share some of your expertise. So let's dive into it. I know one of

Lori Highby: 00:02:49

Well, Lori Highby Thank you very much. I appreciate it. So you know what, guys, you know, I know this might be coming out a little bit later. You know what Lori did for me this week? God bless her soul. She spoke at Temple University for me this week. So how did that go? I know I'm supposed to you're

Lori Highby: 00:03:24

Oh, yeah. No, it was great. It was fantastic. There was a probably about 40 or so people on the webinar had some amazing questions. And you know, when, when people want to connect with you on LinkedIn after you give a presentation, that's always like a very big, you know, I appreciate it. It

Curt: 00:03:45

I knew you're going to absolutely rock it. So I so we'll tie this in with niching down so niching down. So you know, I don't know if you guys knew if you're aware, like two years ago or so this little thing kind of came over the world is like this pandemic type thing? I don't guarantee

Erin: 00:04:02

at all did you know it came across my newsfeed.

Curt: 00:04:04

Okay, so just in case you missed it, there's like this little pandemic thing that happened. And so I'm sitting here like, man, what am I gonna do? So I went on, I went on, you guys use Google Slides. I'm like, I might write a book, like, hey, how to make a living on Google Slides. So I'm

Kris: 00:04:28

till it hurts baby. hurts

Curt: 00:04:30

man. down till it hurts, because you know what? Who wants a niche down? Who wants to tell that customer, no, I'm not a good fit? I've had two clients this week where I'm just not a good fit for them and it's not going to work out. You have to niche down, and you have to understand your

Erin: 00:05:27

my God, I could go on with that one, you don't want to get me started.

Curt: 00:05:35

We are all in this manufacturing space, and all three of you probably will attest this, they tried to be a little bit of everything to everybody so my answer to your question, we want to really laser focus on that ideal client, focus on what your absolute best at, stay in your strike zone and

Lori Highby: 00:06:12

Can you talk about how it ties in a little bit deeper for manufacturers in the global marketing strategy? I mean, especially in in that in the digital space with regards to showing up even on lab

Curt: 00:06:25

salutely I would be honored to so let's all right niche down till it hurts guys made. I love that line. How does it hurt? It hurts when you tell a customer? No, it hurts when you, man, there's revenue on the table, right? But we're struggling, we're floundering so on so forth. So I'm going to

Curt: 00:07:29

and sophisticated on SEO, I'm almost not a good fit for them. You know who my book called my soulmate. And we'll get into that in a second. You know who my soulmate is? My soulmate is. that brilliant manufacturer of 40 employees and they say this, "What is SEO?" That's my ideal client. So Laurie,

Lori Highby: 00:08:31

I love the connection, the analogy you kind of answered in the first time, but the soulmate is a fantastic way to illustrate this. But when you're on that first date, and you're saying if they're a smoker, it's a no go. I mean, like literally right away, you're checking the boxes are

Curt: 00:08:54

Go go here, and we won't get to your so how do you get that second date, and I just, I had I had an email last night. So I do a lot of work with the MEPs. We know those manufacturing center partnerships. And I was connected with a couple folks or sometimes they're almost dipping their toe in

Curt: 00:10:01

county fair, and you're having a great weekend and you're falling in love with your soulmate. So that's, that's outside. I'll stop at that.

Kris: 00:10:09

And it's good for everybody. Right? It's good for the manufacturer and for their customer, because now they've got that perfect match. I just love that. So let's build on. I know you love working with custom manufacturer. How can they get into that E commerce party that we're all talking

Curt: 00:10:28

So I put out a post on LinkedIn which asked, "How big is the b2b e commerce market going to be in 2028?"

Lori Highby: 00:10:53

huge. Anybody have a number?

Kris: 00:10:57

To one? 13 trillion or 1

Curt: 00:10:59

billion maybe a couple trillion? What? 25 trillion.

Lori Highby: 00:11:04

Wow.

Curt: 00:11:06

Dude, that's guys. That's what the T trillion you remember. are awesome powers. When Dr. Evil it was like $1 million. Guys 25. Let's say together and one, one ready, trillion,

Kris: 00:11:23

trillion, trillion 25 trillion. True, true. True.

Curt: 00:11:28

which forecasts for 18% growth year after year! What I found when I had my E commerce business years ago, I didn't have to be the smartest guy in the room, just being in E commerce I was almost guaranteed 20% growth year over year just by being in E commerce and some of those years were

Lori Highby: 00:11:57

it. This had explosion emoji popping up right now.

Curt: 00:12:05

Let's talk Custom manufacturers, we love our custom manufacturers, but I hear all the time, "Ecommerce isn't for us," but back to our niche down till it hurts so good. How do you niche down no hurts so good? Well, if somebody comes to me, they want like a high level Magento project, for example

Curt: 00:13:44

driving 80% of their sales? Does that ever happen? All the time? All the time, right? down till it hurts. So instead of thinking man, I'm a CNC shop, I could CNC for anybody I could 3d print for anybody. If they would laser focus on what they're absolutely bust that focus on that top 20% There are

Erin: 00:14:43

but it's current it's a little risky, isn't it? You kind of put yourself out there you're what what, what, why is it risky? What's what are what are people afraid of? Can we get into that? What's what's hard about doing that?

Curt: 00:14:56

You know, I okay. I don't know about you guys. So If we were talking about like the morning routine I don't like just anybody so scared of like the boogeyman under the bed or is that just me? Or? I don't know. That's not really me. I was asking for a friend but Oh, sure, what are people afraid

Curt: 00:16:09

now this whole ecommerce thing is they're afraid of the unknown. You and I know all four or four of us would attest Chris, you would attest with your gen Alpha technology. Once that cash register rings once. Once that email hits their phone with a sale, man, they just can't get it's like a drug Am I

Curt: 00:17:29

tell my daughter always never turned on a food. Try your because you never know your next favorite food just tasted that's ever know your next favorite food. Ecommerce could be your next greatest e income in revenue source income source. Yes, try it, man. And if it's a $5,000 mistake, move

Erin: 00:17:53

One of the things that I've heard you speak about is the fear of the unknown and I know you're a big fan of configurators, and I think they are interesting, because they kind of help mitigate that unknown. To some degree, they help like the buyer understand and visualize what it is that

Curt: 00:18:51

If you are a manufacturer, and you're wondering what this configurator thing that she's talking about, it's just this little tool to put on your website, for your ideal buyer, that soulmate to engage with you as quickly as humanly possible.

Erin: 00:19:15

you go easy. Yes. The configurator

Curt: 00:19:17

The configurator, what it does is Lori, you remember we'd love to preach at our little DWI workshops, "How can I help that ideal buyer, that soulmate make a buying decision on a Friday night without having to wait for us to open up our doors on a Monday morning?" That's exactly what that

Erin: 00:19:41

do we've we've made them we love them. How

Curt: 00:19:44

does it go? How does it go?

Erin: 00:19:47

How does it go?

Curt: 00:19:48

Well, let me ask you this. So let's say let's let's do a little roleplay Oh, sure. Yeah, let's just say that there's a manufacturer out there and you're like hey, you know you kind of piqued my curiosity but I'm a little bit resistant to change. I'm not sure the investment and like so we're

Erin: 00:20:14

Find out what's working now. And usually it's a trade show or somebody visiting or, you know, some physical experience with the product. Okay, okay. So especially during pandemic, that's not possible, we can't do that. It's really important to your customer, I'm hearing from you that they get

Curt: 00:21:21

Absolutely. So Lori Highby Let's throw on our SEO hat. Right. So let's just say hypothetical roleplay. Let's say that a manufacturer lands on somebody's website and there's little configurator is time on site. Are there any benefits to time on site?

Lori Highby: 00:21:37

Oh, absolutely. time on site is extremely powerful. And that is one of the many gazillion factors that Google looks at when they consider who are they going to put at the top of the search results when someone types in a specific query. So time on site is telling Google that this is

Curt: 00:22:12

and when you're talking when you're engaging with that soulmate what else is doing it's avoiding that soulmate checking out the competitors website so engaged in Laura, you're gonna love that we had to like a little epiphany. And I know it sounds like you know, Mr. Captain Obvious where

Erin: 00:22:57

We got to tell the audience we got to tell people. So I Okay, I'll do it. It's hilarious. You kind of have to see it. You should take care of it and put it in the show notes. There you go. Is that it? Okay, you gotta you gotta come to the show.

Lori Highby: 00:23:19

Again, one more time.

Erin: 00:23:21

Oh my gosh. Okay, that's awesome. You're gonna get a real tickle out of this one. Never saw that before. All right. Were you gonna tell him?

Lori Highby: 00:23:34

Oh, okay.

Erin: 00:23:35

Yes. Lobster

Lori Highby: 00:23:38

in a pot. Say no to pot. Boiling bottled water. Yeah.

Curt: 00:23:45

Check back in the show notes. So

Kris: 00:23:49

in the show notes. Hey,

Curt: 00:23:52

Chris, were we talking about some? Alright, let's get back to the Configurator Right. And, alright, this is a very serious show. This is a very serious topic, right? Okay, let's talk configurator So Lori Highby You're going to absolutely love this. It's basically like creating a t shirt. So

Kris: 00:24:27

Agree.

Erin: 00:24:28

Standard. I was like you're saying with T shirts. I think this is where you're going. I go I on my phone. I got on my phone. I had a funny idea for a T shirt. 10 minutes later, I was looking at the t shirt that I wanted. That was me and I wanted it and I think that's what you can offer for

Curt: 00:24:52

in Chris. You know my I want to be a manufacturer when I grew up t shirt. That's exactly what I did. I found a t shirt shop that It's a baseball, I picked up my baseball shirt, got my colors on. I did the whole thing. It was like a seven step configurator. I was so ecstatic. I had the

Curt: 00:26:00

down the hall. And now by the buyer, Bob, can you send us that link, and it's a live page? Well guess what our customers doing, every time they click, they create that configurator product for creating a web page. So now what we've done is we've optimized when I say optimized, that's code for aka

Lori Highby: 00:26:51

I Oh, man, I want to I know I want to keep talking about this too, because I love that that's actually the best way to do powerful, it's extremely time intensive. But one, I'm always a fan of doing something your future self was gonna thank you for so putting the time that, you know, if

Lori Highby: 00:27:58

510 years ago, this was a novelty to some extent, but now we are in the know that this is going to happen. So this transition into the the b2b space, it's going to be an expectation very, very soon. And it is it is very much coming into that. So the art to everyone's point in the conversation today,

Kris: 00:28:30

customer experience. The bar is getting raised every day. Every time we have an experienced in our personal lives. We have new expectations in our professional lives, and it's just happening day after day after day.

Erin: 00:28:42

Mm. Yeah, customer experience customer satisfaction. There is never been so high the expectations but that's great. Because that's how you find your soulmate. Like if you're out there, you know, if it's an arranged marriage, that's fine. It's you know, relatively sustainable, I guess. But when

Lori Highby: 00:29:30

Oh, wow. Okay, this is super heavy conversation, but I love it lots of Brain exploding emojis happening. But we got to transition the conversation to what I absolutely love, which is what did we learn so Chris, I'm gonna ask you what is something that you learned recently?

Kris: 00:29:49

All right, you guys might know this one but it was new for me. I was recently at a conference and we had this amazing speaker his name I don't want to get it wrong. Jeremy Utley and He is at Stanford University, he runs the Institute of Design, okay. And he's coming out with a new book called

Erin: 00:30:22

again, the what? That

Kris: 00:30:25

is still long effect. So it's almost like Einstein, that's the first part of it. But at the end, it's kind of cut off. And it's Einstellung effect. And it's pretty much the opposite of Albert Einstein. And, you know, I'm a huge fan of Albert Einstein, as I have my big picture behind me

Kris: 00:31:48

you can now when when you are trying to solve a big problem, and you come to that first solution, yes, it might really just be an easy out, it might not be the best solution. So you can become aware that, oh, there might be a better solution. If I can just give myself some time to think about it.

Lori Highby: 00:32:35

what is that collagen over time?

Kris: 00:32:37

Okay, I'm gonna spell it. e i n, S, T E, L l, u n g Einstellung effect

Lori Highby: 00:32:46

so long. It's interesting, because one of the things I always tell my team whenever they're stuck on something, is to come up with three solutions. Yeah, that's me, which one they think is the right one? Uh huh. So that's just something that I tried to practice. But I can see how the

Kris: 00:33:10

it. Yeah. And we all naturally do it. It's a cognitive bias. We don't think about it that much.

Erin: 00:33:16

Yeah, yeah, that's a great one. And, you know, technology demands that of us all the time. And that's what makes it kind of hard, because you're like, I don't have my go to solution and you get a little bit stuck. So if you just give yourself some grace and say, You know what, what I think is

Lori Highby: 00:33:41

right? Yeah. What did you learn recently? Well, I

Erin: 00:33:45

was, I was gonna go in different direction. But I'm all about these new vocabulary words already. Now. I inst. Along said it really tripped me up. And then another one that I learned this week from my colleague, Becky, who's she's just a delight and brilliant. She gave me this word

Lori Highby: 00:34:34

which young kids don't understand. That's exactly

Erin: 00:34:38

what and what well, what it means to them now is it literally means that's what you click that's the Save indicator, but they don't have the reference to the physical object that the we do for example, is date ourselves a bit. So using our when you know the funny little picture you have for

Lori Highby: 00:35:24

Cool. I like it. Nice. That's a fun one.

Kris: 00:35:27

Yeah. Interesting. Cool word.

Lori Highby: 00:35:30

Yeah. I don't I don't have a new word to analyze like that.

Erin: 00:35:40

It's enough for one day, both of those words aren't.

Lori Highby: 00:35:43

Yeah, I mean, my mind's I guess it's, it's something I learned recently. But it's also going to be a little dated when when this actually publishes, but it's going to be relevant information, because I think not a lot of people are aware that the Universal Analytics, which is what Google

Kris: 00:36:57

Yeah. So thanks for that.

Erin: 00:36:59

That's a really important one. And it's, it's, it's complicated. I just want to add something for our listeners. And maybe you covered this, I didn't quite catch it. But another benefit of enrolling GA for right now is you start your data collection, while you're simultaneously running a

Lori Highby: 00:37:34

cool. Yeah. So Kurt, Have you learned anything fascinating or not fascinating recently,

Curt: 00:37:41

I just learned two words that I can't spell or pronounce. I

Erin: 00:37:47

learned a lot of balderdash.

Curt: 00:37:49

I learned a lot about GA four. I'm learning a lot about myself this week. I learned I'm 53 years old. You know what I learned recently, I learned I finally figured out what I'm really good at. You guys know what I'm really good at. I finally figured out what I'm really good at. I'm good

Lori Highby: 00:38:44

we have to now but

Curt: 00:38:48

every I'm sure everybody out there who's had just you know this whole COVID thing we you know now it's time because shades like tons of silver linings have come out of COVID and a three four of us kicked around a lot but I just I can't express my respect, my admiration and my professional

Curt: 00:40:08

tell you guys how much respect and you guys are doing just such great work for manufacturers, all three of you, thank you for your friendship. And again, I'm a girl dad. You guys are an inspiration to me. And I love Tom, my daughter about you guys. And I'll close out on this on my sweetie thing.

Curt: 00:41:23

Overwhelmed by Laurie, I'm like Laurie, you are so awesome. And I paused and I'm like,

Curt: 00:41:29

You're such a sweetie. And I'm like, I can't wait. I just as soon as it came out of my mouth, I'm like, Oh my God. I've

Curt: 00:41:39

never seen Laurie on the ice. And like she's like, but Laurie. Like, the toughest thing is so anyway, I'll stop on that. That's okay. What a blessing you are. Oh, we love her.

Kris: 00:41:56

We love you.

Erin: 00:41:57

We ever Yeah, yeah.

Kris: 00:41:58

Thank you.

Lori Highby: 00:41:59

Before we wrap it up, Kurt. If anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they can reach you?

Curt: 00:42:05

Chris? Friday show, right? Yeah, like how about last Friday with Dr. Yuri Heroux. Williams dude,

Kris: 00:42:12

what a amazing gentleman wealth of knowledge. Inspiration. They love bringing the history and yep,

Curt: 00:42:19

my co Damon was in tears. We got I got notes from people telling me that they were in tears. It was totally so niching down. You know how we're niching down and we'll close out on this. So yeah, LinkedIn, I would love to connect with anybody on LinkedIn. That's where we all live. I have this

Erin: 00:42:49

Cool. Awesome. That's great. To kind of step up and

Curt: 00:42:53

attract in you know, we're interviewing niching down. I speak to manufacturers about e commerce. We're focusing on inclusion, we're focusing on diversity. So women in manufacturing, diversity manufacturing, so I'm niching down even further. So anyway, that's my speech. That's my preach. God

Erin: 00:43:16

yes, Kurt, the guardian angel.

Curt: 00:43:20

coming in. I'm, I'm coming to Wisconsin. Yes.

Erin: 00:43:24

Yes, waiting got your cheese and your old fashioned

Curt: 00:43:29

brewers game and we're gonna have a good time. We're coming up to visit you guys. So Alright, hey,

Lori Highby: 00:43:36

this is gonna wrap up our shows fantastic conversation with Kurt Anderson. Thank you so much for listening. Chris, Aaron Laurie myself here. We all thank you. For the listeners. Please reach out if you have any questions and I hope you have a fabulous day.