14: Conversations with Manufacturers - with Darrin Mitchell

Unknown: 00:00:13

Lori Highby Chris Harrington and Aaron Courtney, three broads, bringing you stories and strategies exploring manufacturing topics that

Lori Highby: 00:00:48

I gotta say for all of our listeners out there, you're really missing something because every time this intro is happening, Eric is

Erin: 00:01:00

To those it is I love it.

Kris: 00:01:05

I can't help it.

Lori Highby: 00:01:07

Bring in the energy that show right from the get go. Yeah, yeah, maybe one time I'll snip the video clip and just share.

Unknown: 00:01:17

I think we should all be some outtakes. For sure.

Kris: 00:01:21

It's definitely part of it.

Erin: 00:01:22

Don't tell me ahead of time, I'll get stage fright.

Lori Highby: 00:01:25

Oh. I'll just put a hodgepodge of all of the intro.

Erin: 00:01:30

Alright, I like it. That's good.

Kris: 00:01:32

Yeah, any faces we've made overtime. After a year like we need a really fun episode that just feels Yeah. Oh, those

Erin: 00:01:41

like the outtakes. I love outtakes. Man. I can watch bloopers, like for days. So I'm sure

Kris: 00:01:47

it really shows personality. So yeah, get to know somebody better. Yeah. All right, are we ready to kick the show off today our show? Ready.

Kris: 00:02:20

system with partners in six continents. Patented intellectual property, a global supply chain and had profits 10 times the industry average. That's

Kris: 00:03:06

industry best practices. Their first platform manufacturing masters has over 2500 global users and they just kicked it off this year. So it's very,

Unknown: 00:03:27

Glad to be here.

Unknown: 00:03:28

Yeah,

Erin: 00:03:30

yeah.

Kris: 00:03:30

Yeah. It's a privilege to talk to you. I remember the first time that I had a chance to speak with you, Darren, he's like, Yeah, we're thinking

Unknown: 00:04:02

Thank you for the question. And thanks for the very kind introduction. So in 25 years, again, grew up global manufacturing business

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products. And only after I stumbled through it and hundreds of 1000s of dollars later, the government actually came to me and said, Could you teach

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world's best information in bite size form, so they can access it, where, when and how they need it, meeting them where they're at. And I'm very,

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manufacturing, to employee engagement, to operations, how to get the best out of your engineering team, you know, 20, some years, somebody, you know,

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available to the leadership team of those small to medium businesses, that again, they have the right information, like we're usually talking five to

Unknown: 00:07:15

career, and I was just getting frustrated going, why does this keep happening? And then I watched this one five minute video, Oh, holy hell, I

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put the wrong person in the wrong position because I thought I was doing the right thing. So again, right now we have over 500, video library and

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leading the business, not the technical person. And it's the thing that most of us who came up, I'm showing my hands right now, because they're

Unknown: 00:08:54

Oh, it's a big stressor and a great opportunity to add value again to that leadership team to those small to medium businesses. And I I'll be careful

Unknown: 00:09:31

that actually could have been the best solution for us. But I was not equipped to even ask the right questions because the person who is posing

Erin: 00:10:01

that. Congratulations, going global.

Unknown: 00:10:08

I rant, but I'm, I'm very passionate about it. And I appreciate the question because I, you know, the flip side is that it isn't always

Unknown: 00:10:37

fair here staff. So yeah, I'm pretty passionate about getting the right experts in touch with the right businesses, so they can get real help

Erin: 00:10:53

Darren, I, I have a sense that you tend towards the humbles, so you might deflect on my question, but I think you have been exposed to enough

Unknown: 00:11:29

So for all your listeners out there, I actually suppose sometimes I like to riff quite a bit. And then I have to be careful because I go off

Unknown: 00:11:59

So I travel around, you know, a lot of us associations and quite a bit in Canada as well. And I also have the luxury of sometimes people who are

Erin: 00:12:30

Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.

Unknown: 00:12:33

Thank you the one that that hopefully makes me look smart is strategic, diversifying or like come on, man, like

Unknown: 00:12:41

those are big words.

Unknown: 00:12:44

The things that I said companies doing that are thinking about the future and where they're at. And again, I'm coming at this not from, you know, a

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$600,000 in new equipment because they took on this massive nationwide customer and I've asked them one simple question as it made you any more

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companies, some of the more strategic companies that who are thinking about, you know, not just get it out the door, get it out the door and get

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starting to take a look at those low margin items and saying, you know, maybe we're just we shouldn't be doing that anymore. Good example, a

Unknown: 00:14:58

are thinking about those things because Again, you know, the ride that we're on, like anything may not last forever. So you don't want to look

Unknown: 00:15:29

we were this we manufacture this thing we are, but realistically, we went out to the marketplace and said, Is there anything else that you need? And

Unknown: 00:16:05

were actually supplying not only our competitors, customers, but our actual competitors. And we were making 48 to 52% margins.

Erin: 00:16:15

Wow. Yeah, you can't argue with that. I mean, that's just gold are good, go fix

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the problem.

Kris: 00:16:24

For the customer and fix the problem,

Erin: 00:16:25

listen to the customer fix the problem. I like

Unknown: 00:16:27

this, you're awesome. And I want everyone to go on to manufacturing masters and watch her videos, or just call you and ask you

Unknown: 00:17:00

of the day, that's what we all want as customers. Yeah. You know, we have some proof is that like I said, we're making 48 to 52% margin, and I had

Kris: 00:17:22

Well, thank you for that. Darren, appreciate it.

Unknown: 00:17:24

That would be the first thing I would think about if I was a manufacturer today, which I still believe I am, is thinking about how do

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things are happening. You need to prepare for that today. So that would be the first thing I would suggest that they start doing is you know what I'm

Kris: 00:18:12

Yeah. That's great advice. It

Erin: 00:18:16

really they call that true talk. Real talk, real talk. Yeah, yeah.

Kris: 00:18:21

I don't know anybody today in manufacturing, who's not trying to increase their profitability. But sometimes it's a difficult choice to sit

Erin: 00:18:37

Darren, use the word courage, have the courage to know what to stop doing. And I think that's the, that's almost trickier than the profit

Kris: 00:19:08

Yeah. Is there anything Darren that you can think of right now and all your conversations with manufacturers that manufacturers are worried

Unknown: 00:19:34

So, people I don't want to repeat what you've probably heard 1000 times in the last week about people. I have two things that I would want

Unknown: 00:20:12

stressed, which you've got through it. Congratulations, what you miss something, you have a team of people who haven't recovered yet. And they're

Unknown: 00:20:51

of resources that are out there, you just have to recognize that just being busy and getting through things has taken a human toll. Now, here's the

Unknown: 00:21:29

honestly, actively headhunting. Certain people and other companies realize that I really want this person and will never ever get them. Just they're

Unknown: 00:22:03

company culture and really back it up, like not just the BS stuff, if you can really back it up, now is the time to head hunt those certain people

Kris: 00:22:30

preach it. So I think there are a lot of people that needed to hear that. That's great.

Erin: 00:22:38

That's sage, that is sage. Thank you.

Lori Highby: 00:22:41

That's a big words today.

Erin: 00:22:45

It's vocabulary Friday.

Lori Highby: 00:22:48

All right. So Darren, I think what you're doing manufacturing Masters is just fantastic. And so many different levels I know is a lot of

Lori Highby: 00:23:16

down that path. So it's great that you've got these bite sized nuggets of amazing information to help them be the best that they can be. That being

Unknown: 00:23:34

So we continue to develop our depth of experts. So I think we have 15 new ones just coming out in the next few weeks. So everywhere from

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that your customer calls and asks you for the first, you know the list of documentation. And I went, I'm sorry, I'm listening. Again, we want to keep

Unknown: 00:24:43

making sure that there's products and services available for that group of people as well. But where my heart is, again, is in that leadership team of

Kris: 00:25:03

Yeah. And for those that are looking at Darren right now we can see all the Masters behind him up on the screen. So it's really awesome how

Kris: 00:25:36

were you gonna say something? Go ahead,

Unknown: 00:25:38

I have a, I have one last thing. And I would be remiss if I didn't say it, and then we can just cut this off, and everybody can go.

Erin: 00:25:45

Don't worry, you're not gonna have

Kris: 00:25:47

to do we have to do what we learned. So

Unknown: 00:25:51

I'm thinking to all of our listeners right now, because you're always bombarded with information. And you're always wondering, who do I

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it today, that's great. If you don't want to recognize it, it's still already happening. So you can take the attitude today of, hey, how do I

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of our brain power. And they started building our products there. And we did the same with Australia and New Zealand and South Korea, and many other

Unknown: 00:27:26

conferences and all hear the keynote speaker saying you just need to be more efficient. Like, man, I'm going to throw a chair on stage and then

Unknown: 00:27:58

what you're awesome at, you're allowed to tell a lot of people. And again, doing some of the stuff we did you know, we're at $60 million in the middle

Unknown: 00:28:35

Again, well, it's an emotional moment. Alibaba, why can't you just flip it on its head and use that for your supply chain or your sales structure

Unknown: 00:29:11

that's not a fun company to work for.

Kris: 00:29:15

Well, you heard it from the manufacturing master himself.

Unknown: 00:29:19

That's right.

Kris: 00:29:20

That's great. Good advice. All right, we're gonna shift into our other segment of every episode. And that is finished the sentence. I just

Unknown: 00:29:33

Oh, yay.

Erin: 00:29:36

Hi, just learned. So I had heard of this concept of Cobots. And I was like, well, that's neat, because then you need people and you have robots

Erin: 00:30:09

they cage off the robot, keep the co worker away from them, and just use it as a robot. I think that's, that's something that is important for our

Lori Highby: 00:30:25

Interesting.

Kris: 00:30:26

Oh, thanks for the lesson. All right, Laurie, what did you just learn so

Lori Highby: 00:30:32

my husband shared this with me. And I was really fascinated by it. But there was an eight year old girl that was able to chat with the

Lori Highby: 00:31:05

but I figured it's a fun tech communication. And I just found that fascinating and that people still even use ham radios. Apparently, there's

Erin: 00:31:21

it is it's vibrant. They have their big towers. And that's on

Lori Highby: 00:31:25

the space station.

Kris: 00:31:29

Cool. That's cool. Very cool.

Lori Highby: 00:31:32

Chris, what about you? What if What did you just learn?

Kris: 00:31:34

Well, I just learned that mine is gonna be very different than your ladies. today. I just learned that Sue bird has 3234 assists. I don't know

Kris: 00:32:15

that it is today. So I thought I would just announce that yeah, recording all of the she's in the playoffs right now with with her team, where I'm

Kris: 00:32:49

that's what I learned.

Unknown: 00:32:51

Nobody wants a suicide pass. Sadly enough, it's very humbling for me, because every day is one of those aha learning experiences that are

Unknown: 00:33:28

like, I've never met someone so passionate about freight. And he's currently I think he has a list of 300 manufacturers he's working with, and

Unknown: 00:34:03

like you, we'll settle on eight. And I went, Oh, yeah, that sounds like you're good. We just weren't prepared to do it. And so that's something

Kris: 00:34:19

Oh, I'm sure a lot of people want to hear that right now. Oh, what's his name again? Can you repeat it for us

Unknown: 00:34:23

now from North Carolina, and his company name? That's hover sack.

Erin: 00:34:28

Is that one of your guests? Is that on online? Can we can we watch that episode?

Unknown: 00:34:34

Absolutely. He's experts. He gave us five short videos and he filmed them all on a loading dock. Because where I'm at home.

Kris: 00:34:44

Wow. Fantastic. All right. So Darren, before we let you go today, how can people find you? Where would you like to guide people to?

Unknown: 00:34:55

anywhere they want? They can find us on the internet under Mitchell industries. They can find me on LinkedIn. They can find me on

Kris: 00:35:11

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being here with us. was a real pleasure to have you. And we'll, we'll take it from here. All right. Thank

Unknown: 00:35:33

this wraps up today's broadcast. If you're looking to shake up the status quo at your organization, or just want to connect with these broads,