49: The Art of Curiosity in Manufacturing- with Jeff Beyle

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[00:00:08] Whitney Koch: Thank you so much for having me.

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[00:00:23] Whitney Koch: Yeah, I've been with Keystone Click since May 2023. I'm a content writer and account manager. My niche is kind of manufacturing. I came from an in house marketing team at a family owned manufacturing company in the Houston area. And yeah, excited to be here and talk manufacturing, talk manufacturing software.

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[00:01:06] Kris Harrington: I'm very happy to have you as well, Whitney. It's wonderful to see you.

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Let's talk a little bit about Jeff. He began his career writing software before making a switch to law school. Influenced by the lawyers he met playing softball, he found their work intriguing. A stroke of luck landed him in a position at Coca Cola, offering him the opportunity to relocate to Hong Kong.

Very cool. Love to learn more about that. Jeff spent seven years immersed in the Chinese and Korean markets before moving to Seattle to join Getty Images. Love you, Getty Images. His career trajectory continued to rise, leading him to spearhead the establishment of Getty Images presence in Latin America.

Eventually, Jeff and his business partners sold their Latin American venture back to Getty Images. After that key success, his current partner persuaded him to join forces and co found S. C. Tech. Welcome so much to the show, Jeff, so happy to have you here.

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[00:02:55] Kris Harrington: Welcome, Jeff. That is some career story.

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[00:03:04] Kris Harrington: Isn't that true about life? You know, the older I get, and I look back, I just think, wow, these things just happened.

But if you would have asked me 30 years ago, if they were going to happen in this way, no way.

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[00:03:21] Erin Courtenay: A lot of advice giving depends on the premise that we can, in fact, decide our future.

So let's pretend like we're doing that for our listeners today. Yeah, actually, can you tell us more? Because, this happens with all of us. I mean, Kris has a wonderful story as well. You know, finding your way into manufacturing or even technology doesn't always mean starting with, you know, I played with an engineering set and then I did this and then it was obvious I need to go into manufacturers can be a little circuitous.

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I mean, the architects don't spend a lot of time on the presentation from the highway. But then you open the door and it's like opening a Christmas present because you never know what's going to be in there and you're just like, wow.

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[00:04:26] Jeff Beyle: You know, technology. I don't understand all the details. So I don't get mired in the tech love. It's like, oh, let's solve this problem in a way that just excites the engineers. It's much more of a user perspective because I just don't understand those details. And at this point, it's like, I'm not going to pretend like I'm going to get in there and figure it out, but you go into these buildings and you open it up and you're like, wow, this is, I don't know what I was expecting it. But typically, this is not what I was expecting. And it's just so interesting. And I have a lot of known unknowns to use a phrase that from 20 years ago or so, but I have to go in with curiosity.

I have to go in and ask the expansive questions and ask follow up questions because I don't understand. But that really helps me understand, you know, can we help this business solve some problems, some pain point that they have? And if so, how are we going to do that in a way that works for them? Because I understand their business from their perspective, as opposed to bringing a lot of preconceptions and, Oh, I did this, you know, 10 years ago, and this is the way it should work kind of perspective.

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[00:05:39] Jeff Beyle: Yeah, I keep doing that in my career is like keep switching and going this way and that way.

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So, it's interesting how many companies do think their problems are unique, and in fact they are not, and solutions can be used across. But then there are those unique solutions where things need to be modified or tweaked, and really coming with that, what problem are we trying to solve, I think is also a wonderful way to start asking those, take that curiosity approach.

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That's not us. Where you're a solution provider. We went in, a colleague and I went into a company Monday afternoon, they do thermal hardening of metal products. They superheat this stuff and then cool it and do it just like make knife blades and things like that. And we talked for about 55 minutes about their expansion plans. This is what we want to do. We moved into a new facility. We're buying new equipment, but we can't figure out the financing.

And by happenstance, I talked to some bankers and some of the people associated with some of the state and federal government grant programs and loan programs. So we spent most of the time talking about that.

And it was just really cool to listen to him talk about how excited he was about his business and their plans and how he wants to do this and be able to help him do that.

And we spent, you know, maybe two and a half minutes talking about how we might fit in that bigger picture. And I think they'll probably become a customer, but it was just a lot of fun to see somebody so engaged and so curious about their business. And that really makes it easier for you to have that attitude as well.

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[00:08:20] Jeff Beyle: Yeah, that's a lot of fun.

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Now you've got a friend in the business as well. And I think that's where all of our jobs just become so much more enjoyable when we get to have those moments. I'm curious, Jeff, what is energizing you today about small and midsize manufacturing specifically in the technology space?

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I mean, they're sucking a lot of oxygen out of the rooms these days. And probably too much. But I think it's an exciting time to be involved in that intersection between while we're trying to help these small mid sized manufacturers, how do they drive some deficiencies to their business and you launch new products or, you know, into new markets and that kind of stuff.

At the same time, they're looking at that stuff saying, I feel like this is a Noah's Ark kind of moment where the drawbridge is going to go up and I'm either on the boat or I'm dead. And that kind of fear of missing out can skew their business judgment about that's not the way you should look at technology.

You guys have talked on prior sessions, and also Lori has done it on LinkedIn posts and all that kind of stuff about how there are use cases. It's sort of like, how do you contact people and how do you modify your message to engage people better?

But you don't need to be like, I need to do something right now or else I'm done. And that fear of missing out can really skew your judgment in a way that's just not productive. And, it's really exciting to be in the mix of those conversations, talking to manufacturers who are like, I've got these pain points.

I hear about this technology. How do I make this all work? How does it fit together for me? That's pretty exciting.

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And that's where everybody with the resources and the knowledge and experience are going to have to come together to really help these companies leverage these new technologies in the right, safe and for good. And I think that's a challenge that all of us are thinking about right now. So I'm with you on that being energizing, but also you have to take these small steps. And knowledge is one of those first steps, at least for me.

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It's not technology. That's got the most, the latest and greatest features and all that kind of stuff. And so I think that that's a really good touchstone for people to, to use when they're assessing what technology should I adopt to help my business? You know, what are your pain points?

Not just from the top down, but from the bottom up as well. And I can tell you a quick story. I mean, we actually are working with the Air Force. We got a small business innovation research grant. We're working with the civil engineering squadron. And the Air Force, believe it or not, it's a little surprising to me, actually resembles a small midsize business in a lot of ways.

It's a big organization, but it's broken down to a lot of small units. And Kris, you were in the Navy. So you probably experienced this in some ways. And what we're doing is just solving some real basic pain points for the frontline airmen and lieutenants, the lowest ranking, the officers.

And it's pretty exciting to see how when we solve those pain points and give them more time to focus on higher value activities, they really rise to the occasion. We see these lieutenants come out of the Air Force Academy or ROTC, they have 50 people, most of whom are older than they are and been doing their jobs for 20 years.

And they're trying to figure out how do I manage these people who, you know, this is my dad, this is my uncle, my mother over here. And I'm trying to tell them what to do. And the first couple of months they're like deer in the headlight, and then you can see them turn that corner where they're like, Oh, I can do this.

I mean, they're empowered the challenge and they rise to the occasion. And there's one Lieutenant, great guy. There's the station in the UK, which is, you know, they're our customer there. And I walked in at lunchtime. And he had one of the guys reports to him, probably twice his age, at least, reading a story to the Lieutenant's sister's elementary school class in Oklahoma.

And the kids were just loving it because there's the accent, the different terms. He's, you know, schedule instead of schedule, all this kind of stuff. And some of the other guys came in and were like, what's going on? You know, I'm reading to his elementary, you know, sister's elementary school class.

And you could see how he had risen to the occasion. He had them at that point where they're like, Oh, this guy is a leader. We like him. We want him to succeed. And so you take away those pain points and you empower and challenge your people, you can get a lot out of that.

What are your pain points? Adopt the technology that addresses those and allows your people to do more interesting value added activities. That's a real win win type of approach.

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[00:13:40] Erin Courtenay: We hear some of those things in various terms and you just have such a beautiful way of putting it. It just goes back to like, what problem are you trying to solve?

But to thinking about it as pain points and think about technology as part of the toolkit and not as another pain point.

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[00:14:05] Erin Courtenay: It absolutely can. But You set that aside when you're considering what you want to solve when you introduce new technology.

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[00:14:22] Jeff Beyle: I think it's like I was talking about the guy that we went in on Monday where it's they're passionate about their business and you go in and say, Oh, it's thermal treatment of metal products.

I mean, you're not going to go to a party and people are going to say, Oh, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard of in my life. But There's so many ins and outs of each business, there's so many different products being manufactured, and there are different stages of how they build up these products from different suppliers. And each one is interesting in its own way.

If you're open to being interested in and curious about how this stuff works. And it's so much fun to talk to somebody who's passionate, whether it's a business that they just joined or they bought it or it's a family business or whatever. It's pretty exciting to go in and talk to people who really love what they're doing.

And I maybe one of the benefits of the pandemic and supply chain mess is a little bit more focused on how much fun and how interesting supply chain and manufacturing can be because there's a lot of press about how much fun it is to work at Google and you can play ping pong and all that stuff. But really so many people would get a lot more satisfaction of it.

I'm using my hands, I'm using my brain and I'm making something and it's not a trivial process. And a lot that goes into it. And I think we've ignored that for a while. Not everybody, but a big chunk of the population here. And hopefully that's turning a corner.

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[00:15:41] Jeff Beyle: Yeah.

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It's fun.

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[00:16:18] Kris Harrington: Awesome.

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[00:16:43] Kris Harrington: All right. I just learned that post COVID, there are fewer daycare centers for families than pre COVID. And so I was listening to a McKinsey podcast about a different topic, but they highlighted how it still hasn't come back to pre pandemic levels and we had a problem with child care before that. It's always hard for me to fully understand this or say that I'm an advisor in this because I don't have children, right? But it reminded me of some of the conversations, Erin, that you and Lori and I have had in the past about if the childcare problem could be solved by manufacturers, could you get additional workforce that is out there and willing and maybe wants to work, but because there is no available daycare in their area, they simply can only send one parent off to work? And I think about how much of a differentiator that could be potentially in the industry.

Now, I have no idea again, what it would take to exercise that and to create a benefit like that for employees, but I have to imagine this talent workforce constrained time that we're in, this could be an answer, especially in your community. You know, most manufacturers operate in communities where they rely on community to support their workforce.

This could be an area where you kind of tap into, is there something happening in this area? Could we potentially help solve it, which would lead more people to work with us. And I have to imagine that that would create a lot of loyal employees, assuming you're a great place to work for as well, which we know many manufacturers are.

So when I was listening to that in the McKinsey podcast, I was like, Hey, I gotta say something about this on our episode.

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That's part of the problem, right? It's something we all need to be engaged in. It is not just on parents. And I, I think that the manufacturing community not only has something to gain in terms of current opportunities to hire, creating future. Yeah. Kiddos that are excited and proud of manufacturing.

How great is that, right? Like, that's,

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[00:19:17] Erin Courtenay: That's a really good call to action. I appreciate you sharing that, Kris. Yeah.

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[00:19:24] Whitney Koch: Oh my gosh, well now I just want to talk about that because it's fascinating and also a topic that really hits home for me.

I think they did not reopen after COVID, but my sister's employer, she's not in manufacturing, they had an onsite daycare facility. And just thinking about really the burden that that alleviates on so many parents and caregivers. If you think about manufacturing companies offering that. And Erin, what you were saying just having that proximity to manufacturing growing up and being familiar with it and understanding how it's important to the entire economy.

I think, like you said, that could really grow some future workforce as well. So that's super interesting. For me, last week I was at the Industrial Marketing Summit in Austin, and we talked a lot about AI. It's really just fascinating to hear how other manufacturing marketers are using AI to make their lives a little bit easier and make their work better.

There was a study by I think from M. I. T. where they had two sets of professionals and they were given specific writing tasks. Half of them just had to go it on their own. The other half were able to use something like Chat GPT. And the results were that those who use Chat GPT spent more time editing, refining and producing higher quality work. So it was really fascinating just to see how some of those tools when used correctly can save time with creation and then end up producing better quality. Cause that's the point you're right. Quality. Not necessarily quantity.

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[00:21:06] Jeff Beyle: Well, I just learned what Whitney talked about. That was really interesting, as well as what Kris said. So, but something that keeps popping up more in my personal life than professional, but both a little bit, is just keep being reminded that just because something's easy for you to do, or say, easy for me to do, or most recently it was easy for my daughter to do, It doesn't mean it's easy.

So people don't recognize some of their strengths because what they're good at is easy for them. And so it's good to remember that and remind people that when you do a good job, that was not necessarily easy. It may have felt easy for you, but it's nice to remind them. No, that was, that was a hard task.

I would have done a poor job with it. You know, double kudos to you for having that strength. You know, you have to turn that around as well and say, just because it's easy for me, doesn't mean everybody else should be able to do what I can do or what I feel is easy. So that's a growth opportunity as a manager, as a partner, as a father, as a friend, all that stuff.

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[00:22:48] Kris Harrington: Yeah. A good book for that is StrengthsFinders. For anybody that's been through StrengthsFinders and putting your strengths to work. It's excellent as a reminder of all of that as well.

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[00:23:00] Erin Courtenay: Perfect. Thank you.

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[00:23:03] Erin Courtenay: Oh, You got me. I learned something and then I did the research and I unlearned it in a sense.

So what I had learned was that imports on a certain metric from Mexico to the U. S. have for the first time in 20 something years exceeded imports from China. So that was the headline that I saw and I was like, okay, I'll dig in. That'll be interesting for our audience.

And then it gets more complicated. As Lori loves to talk about the onion and the layers. Some of those facilities that exist in Mexico are in fact owned by organizations that are in China, which made the choice to place those facilities in Mexico because of laws and regulations and trade.

So maybe what I learned was headlines and I'm learning it again, just like the strengths. Headlines do not tell the full story. So trade is always an interesting and complex beast, and you do yourself a disfavor when you, in your knowledge, to a headline about it, so. That's what I...

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[00:24:15] Erin Courtenay: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's I'd love to do a show on it We don't have time today, but that is such an intriguing piece of the manufacturing picture that's happening right now. So Jeff before we depart today, we'd really love folks to know how they can get in touch with you how they can follow you, etc. What's the best way for them to do that?

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[00:24:50] Erin Courtenay: I'm sure you will get those, we all do, we can't avoid them.

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[00:25:07] Kris Harrington: Wonderful.

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[00:25:10] Kris Harrington: Thank you. Thank you so much.

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