In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Tracy Enos, Founder and President of Enos Enterprise about “The Power of LinkedIn to Attract Clients, Gain Attention and Create More Opportunities”.  Get the answers to your “LinkedIn Marketing” questions along with Tracy's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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TRACY ENOS' CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyenos/

Book, LinkedIn Publishing to Profits: https://www.amazon.com/LinkedIn-Publishing-Profits-Attention-Engagements-ebook/dp/B076G8XQBZ

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

linkedin, company, people, profile, tracy, page, industrial, talk, book, website, employees, problem, strategies, enos, day, check, pandemic, industry, sections, big

00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. As always welcome to industrial talk, where we celebrate industry heroes such as yourself, you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly you innovate, you solve problems, you're changing lives, and you're changing the world. Thank you very much each and every day of what you do to make my life better. Thank you very much. All right, in the hot seat, we have a young lady by the name of Tracy Enos. And look at this, if you're out on video, I've got a book. Yep, she produced it. LinkedIn publishing to profits, it guess what we're gonna be talking about? LinkedIn, let's get cracking. Yep. So I have this book, it's well laid out. It asks the right questions, it is addressing the right issues. It is exactly and it's not overwhelming. She's got it laid out. And it is well written, very, very well done. And I'm very honored to be able to have that, behind me in my, I guess my hall of fame of books that are just right behind me. And we're gonna be talking about this book, as well as many other topics. Because given the pandemic, given the challenges that we are still trying to get through, I think this is a timely conversation. And you know, I always geek out when we start talking about ways of growing your business, surviving, right, rebuilding, prospering, what are the strategies that we can deploy, and I never, ever, ever, ever say no, to anyone who wants to help industry, and people succeed, and live their dreams. That is exactly what this particular podcast is all about. That's what it does. Israel talk media is all about, we just want to be able to celebrate, and help people succeed. And that's what this particular conversation with Tracy will be before we get going. So, you know, I've been a big write a big fan of what they're doing out at Neil. And once again, if you go out to an E o m.com, find out route around, look around that website and see the passion, read about the passion and see the individuals that are truly working to create a community of the future, leveraging. And I mean, leveraging all the technology that's out there that that innovation that we speak a lot about on this particular podcast. It's exciting. So here I am, let's just if you're out on video, here we go, we're going to go to the website real quick. Here is here is a slide on, I can't say slides, or whatever it's it's, it's a page on their website. And it's under line. But it's the the picture is powered by an innovative, invisible infrastructure. So if you're out there, and you're looking at this picture, and you're looking at you go Holy snakey. That's amazing stuff. They're gonna do it. They're gonna do it because they have the right people in place. They've got the it's, if I look at the timing of all this, if I look at everything about what they're doing at Neo, this is the right time. I think innovation is is there. I think the energy to be able to solve problems is there. And and I think we I think we can get it done. Or they can get it done. Oh, whatever adds exciting stuff. All right, back to the interview. Tracy Enos, that's e n o s. Enos enterprise, is the company the founder, you go out to her stat card, right. Let's see what it looks like. Yeah, look at that. A well done, because she is all about doing stuff on LinkedIn. She's got, she's got great stuff out there. And it's just right there.

04:27

Sometimes you just get excited about LinkedIn, you find a person out there, the person is willing to share insights, wisdom, knowledge, because we have to be about education. We have to be about collaborating. And boy, I talk about that all the time, because you don't have all the answers. And then of course, the the need to innovate. All right, they're all easily accessible. All right. Enjoy the conversation with Tracy. Tracy, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. I'm going to enjoy this conversation because we're gonna be talking about LinkedIn. Added us around LinkedIn. And and yes, if you're an industrial professional, you're not doing it right. Just FYI, I'll just lay it right on out there. LinkedIn is an asset. Let's do it. Right, Tracy, how you doing?

05:12

Great, Scott. Thank you. Glad to be here today.

05:14

Yeah, I like that book behind you LinkedIn publishing to profits. And and especially now My gosh, I like that. I like that. But let me just sort of check something out. FYI. Just when, if you're looking at on the video, and I'm turning around in my chair. No, I don't have one. on my bookshelf. I don't have one of those things that are on your bookshelf that's not on my bookshelf. How can we solve that problem? That means I need to send you one. All right. For the listeners out there. Give us a little background on who you are.

05:45

Yeah, yeah. So my name is Tracy Ennis. And I have been an expert, LinkedIn advisor for nine ish plus years, somewhere around there. And it kind of fell into it by accident. I got laid off twice in four years by corporate America, and

06:02

a common tale a common tale,

06:05

right. And single mom, too. And the second time around, I was couldn't find work. And this is back in November of 2012. And on the advice of my sister, she told me to start a marketing agency because the summer prior to that I had sat down with her, she was the graphic artist in the family, and had a very a very successful freelance business on our own and Hello, skill,

06:32

I'm telling you right now, skill,

06:36

e to corporate America did a big disservice to her as well. And so she went out on her own and made a hell of a lot more money than them, right. Anyway, so um, she told me just to take the dive and do it. And you know, as nervous as I was, I did, you know, and so what started out with what I'm doing today didn't start out that way. It started out as a digital marketing agency. So we're like building SEO, websites, or we're doing videos, we're doing business directories, getting companies in the Google Maps, which is very different back then that is today. I mean, it was, you know, it was fun selling it, it was not fun doing it, or

07:18

that's a that's a heck of a learning curve to, especially back then I think today is a little bit easier not to, I mean, there's cool tools out there. But back then, whoo. That's trench, baby. That's trench work.

07:30

At what, Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd be burning the midnight oil. Sometimes I get two hours of sleep, and the kids are getting ready for school.

07:40

Easily, easily. So let's let's start venturing into it. One of the things that of course, we got hit up the side of the head with is pandemic, people were scrambling, trying to figure out how to get their message out. Didn't have. I mean, I believe personally there, Tracy that we were we were lazy. We didn't bring our a game, we brought our B, maybe c game, possibly each and every day, no big deal. And then the pandemic hits, and then all of a sudden reality hits. And we're trying to get our message out and we have no clue. And the only place that everybody went within industry was LinkedIn. And that ban, that thing just blew up. But still in the strategies that that are around and let's talk a little bit about that. So give us a little problem that's associated with LinkedIn today. What do we need to do from an industrial perspective?

08:36

Well, I think their problem affects everybody, not just the industrial.

08:41

Well, no, no, my whole life was just industrial don't don't even go into other areas. I don't even know if there's anything else other than industrial.

08:48

I think what happened is like, you know, a lot of people heard about this LinkedIn thing, and then they get on it. And then they're like, now what? Right? And then like, there's so many bells and so many bells and whistles to LinkedIn, unlike any other social media platform, and they're like, I don't know how to navigate this thing. I don't know what to do first, what do I do second, and then they get overwhelmed, and then just quit forget, screw it, you know, they put a company page app and they expect people to go there organically and find us and then you know, hire us and it just doesn't work like that.

09:23

It does not? Yeah, it's interesting, because you're you're absolutely spot on. I was probably fell into that category. LinkedIn came out promoted as, hey, it's a professional location for socially engaging people and all that stuff. You you tip your toes in the water, it's okay. Then all of a sudden, you're getting people popping in and you're just like, I don't have time for this. I've got I've got a five alarm fire over here that I've got to deal with. So I agree with you 100% about it, but now it's I think it's strategic for your company. I think It's strategic for not just the company, but for an individual. Do you agree? 100%? Good answer, because you got a book back there that says that. No, Scott, no, not not one bad man. No, no. There's a disconnect there. So let's talk a little bit about it. Let's talk a little bit about why it's important, why it's strategic, and then sort of strategies, sort of these actionable strategies that we can put into place right now. So why is it important?

10:30

Well, I think, from a standpoint, we just mentioned SEO with my digital marketing agency, LinkedIn is considered an authority website with Google and the search engines. And so when somebody comes in contact with your company, whether you found them or whether somebody referred your company, what's the first thing somebody is going to do?

10:50

I go right out to, in fact, that's what I did with you, Tracy, right out to your LinkedIn profile, see what they

10:57

are, they're going to Google you, right? Oh, yeah. And, and oftentimes, unless you're dumping 1000s of dollars every month into search engine optimization for your website, your LinkedIn company page, and your LinkedIn profiles for the company are going to show up on page one before everybody everything else.

11:14

I'm gonna check that out right now. It's, it's funny, because you're spot on, because, but I still have a problem with a guy named Scott MacKenzie, but he died a number of years ago, and he was a singer. Gonna go ahead.

11:31

Anyway. So next thing that they're going to do is they're going to go do some due diligence, right? They're going to go check out your company page. And lo and behold, if they go directly to your company page, right there, it says, How many people are employed with your company, or at least say they're employed with your company, whether the current or past? And you're going to go click on that link that says all employees? And then what's that going to go to a list of all the employees and people are gonna start looking at the executives, they're gonna look at, for the owner of the company, they're gonna look at the executives at company, and they're looking at the employees. And I'm gonna tell you what, here's a big, big problem that a lot of companies have is a lot of times their employees profiles are better than the top key executives and the owners of the company. And that's a big No, no, I mean, honestly, I think so. But one of the biggest mistakes that you can mistake is, or one of the biggest mistakes that you can make as a company, even though maybe the CEO is too busy, or some of the key executives are too busy to actually use LinkedIn, for networking or whatnot. And they leave that to their sales and sales and marketing team, you still should be branded and look, the part, you know, this is how people make buying decisions. This is how people make decisions on whether or not to be employed with your company. And I think that is what a lot of folks are missing.

12:46

That's interesting, because you're I, what I hear you saying is that that executive, whoever it is, doesn't have a very good looking profile. But the employees have better looking profiles than the executives. Yeah, that's the disconnect. Yeah, it's interesting. Now I got it, I'm gonna look at that just because I, you're my actions. And I don't go to Google. I don't, I'll go right to LinkedIn. And then I'll look at the LinkedIn. And in LinkedIn, there's just pieces of information like connections like oh, okay, yeah, I can, I can have that conversation. It's chock full of great actionable information. But

13:28

I never also you have to keep in mind, your searches are only as good as what somebody puts in their company page or their profile. So a lot of times employees might be on LinkedIn, but the company doesn't have a company page so that the employees can attach themselves to that company.

13:45

I want to let you know, right now, industry people, that frustrates the hell out of me, when I can't, when I don't have a company page. If I go out to somebody, and I want to look at that stat card, that LinkedIn stat card, great stuff, and then I go to the company, and there's no company or it goes to the sort of a general, whatever that look at that. gray box. Yeah. Gosh, that bothers me. Don't do that. Don't do that. If anything outside of this whole dog God conversation, don't do that. Get a company profile out there. Okay.

14:22

Look, folks, we're not back in the 20th century, what do I do is such So look, I learned it this way, if you are not actively using LinkedIn, which by the way should be by all means you should at least have a presence there. And it should be done well, so that you know, with your link back to your website, so it gives people a chance to go and check you out. off of LinkedIn

14:49

stream. It's not that difficult. I mean, LinkedIn makes it. I mean, makes it easy. I mean, yeah, it's all free. And it's like, click here, dude. This Upload that. And it's like, you're just downright lazy. If you don't do it, you're just that's it. I'm laying that thing. You're lazy. Don't be lazy. Get that company thing out there. And then Okay, okay, so let's say, Tracy, I'm interested in sort of beefing up my my stat card on LinkedIn, because I always look at that. I mean, it's just, it's, it's natural, it stays up. 24 seven. I don't know if that is a good thing for me or a bad thing, but it stays up all the time. So from an individual perspective, what are you? What are you looking at? What do they need to look at? You mean, on your personal profile? Yep. Yeah, start there. And then let's pivot to the company.

15:44

Well, the way we do things is very different than everybody else, this thing. So I really think this is an opportunity for the owners of these companies and their employees to really capitalize on really, who are you wanting to work with? Who you work with? What is it that you do for them? How do you do it? How you're different than your competition? At the end of the day? What does somebody really want to know? What kind of results can they expect working with you? Right? And I think that's it. That's where people fall short is they don't you know, it's a client centric or client facing type profile. Not everything on there should be you should have the human side to you. But still linked has been around 18 years, and people are still using this, like, it's their resume, like, Oh, look at me, look at me look at me mean, yeah, yeah. And a lot of times people want to know, know, what is it that you can do for me, that's what I really want to know,

16:40

I have a problem solve my problem, give me some insights into solving my problem. I'll be more than happy to look at your stat card. I agree with you. 100%. But that requires effort on my part to try to ferret out that prospect. Right? That that requires a little effort, that what do we do with that I need to target my verbiage to go after that prospect, right?

17:06

Well, I mean, you're probably already doing it in your business, right? You probably already know who it is that you work with what it is that you do, how you do it, how you're different, and you better know what your competition is doing, right? how you're doing it different because people are going to come with you with objections like, well, this guy over here, they do this, why don't you do this? Or how do you do it better. And then the other day, you've, if you've been around for at least three years or more, I'm sure you have some results, right? show those results in your profile. I mean, share them. I mean, people want to see that. I mean, people are, when they're buying, they're emotionally mine, that you either are feeling some sort of, you know, you're solving a problem, or you're, you're squashing a fear or you're are, you know, feeling some sort of desire that they have, whether it's, you know, depending on your business personally or financially, right. And that's what you can do at the profile. And I don't think people understand that you have opportunities within the profile, and sections that most people don't even fill out. In order to do that, I got a big tip for you, I only share this Scott with my paying clients.

18:12

All right. big tip coming your way, take notes.

18:17

in the about section, you now it has LinkedIn as expanded it from 2000 characters to 2600 characters, you should now direct people to drive them to your projects section in LinkedIn, to showcase a few of your favorite clients and the results that you've gotten for them. But what that also does, it allows them to now scroll through the rest of your profile. So maybe they see the human side of you, like your organizations that you support and the volunteer work that you've done, and maybe some education because people like to connect with people that they went to the same college with or military experience or whatnot. Um, then you also have the the skill sections, which are your keywords, which people don't care about that, but LinkedIn does, because those are keywords that people are gonna be able to find you organically in LinkedIn. But then again, you also have your honors and your awards and things, things like that people want to to feel good about who they're potentially going to be working with and getting on the phone with, right, that's the human side of you. Trust me, everybody's forgetting about these sections and these new trainers, these new LinkedIn guru trainers, yeah. All those sections like where's the human? Where's the human to you? You know, and, and a

19:34

fan of the human side, I think, especially now, and I think that industry, we do a horrible job at highlighting that. And I'm on my I'm on my stat card, and I've got some gaps. Just when you're out there looking at industrial talk, just sort of notice that I got my nice header. Don't Don't go beyond just kidding. That's

19:58

that's another thing too. Why are people forgetting to put a branded background photo with action? They're leaving that dreaded blue background like, or they're putting in some crappy cityscape that they found on Google.

20:15

Says Drew, it's true. Just sort of throw out some coin out there and get a nice background. It's easy. Come on. Yeah,

20:27

go to Fiverr and get one done for 25 bucks Promise me down at like,

20:32

fiber. That's cool. I remember the first time I discovered fiber, I've gotten really? Are you kidding me? Really? Yeah. I thought that was an incredible, incredible

20:43

day. You know, I'm not the graphic artist. But you know, I know how to design things. But like, we would spend two to $300 just for one background banner. It's crazy.

20:55

Have Canva Canva that, that sort of mixes and matches the car combination? It doesn't look like a mess. Like if I had

21:06

to have some they've got some templates in there. But you really should have some design skills to understand

21:13

that Yeah, well, no, I pay for mine. I've got premium. Yeah, but but you're right. It's still I have come to just just love graphic designers, because they're just, you just know when something doesn't look right. You're looking at and you think, man, I'm proud of this, but something's not right. And then a graphic designer comes in, moves things around a little bit changes colors here. And it's like, wow, that feels much better. And it's a feeling it's like right in there, man. It's a feeling. Okay, so we've done that. We've taken your your advice. Now let's, let's shift to the company side. Okay, one, do not go away without updating and looking at your profile. And and don't be lazy, right? It doesn't take much effort. Don't Don't be lazy. Spend some time, you're not that busy. Okay, now on to the company. What are we doing that's wrong with company stuff?

22:11

I think well, the company actually company pages, added some additional features. Now, a little hack here is like your website's probably already well done. And instead of just writing some fluff about your company takes some aspects of art, what's already in your website, you get 2000 characters in that description about the company, and kind of do it a little bit again, like we just talked about in your about section on your profile, describe what it is what you do, who you do it for, what kind of results can they expect working with you. Secondly, LinkedIn still has what they call specialties in the company pages, which typically all that means is they're your keywords, you've already done the research and the brainstorming, it's already on your your personal profile, add 20 of those to your company page. That's how people are going to find your company page. These are keywords.

23:02

So if I want to look for somebody that has skill sets in graphic design, and be that that is apparently the word of the day for us, I can do a search, and then it would provide some results of people who have those keywords in their profile.

23:18

Yeah, so you can go to regular LinkedIn or free and you've got a few filters in there. And you can look for company pages, you can say graphic design is a keyword, right? And then you can pick your location, and you can find graphic design companies within the location based off of that, but if your profile your company page, I'm sorry, doesn't have that word at all in your description or in any of those specialties. No one's gonna find you.

23:44

Nobody. All right, yeah. So what I was trying to say is LinkedIn is a search engine at the end of the day it is, and it's I gotta tell you, I'm I'm bullish on LinkedIn, I think that there's a lot of great stuff that that is happening there. And and what you're talking about little tweaks here and there, you're now now they can they can procure your services, and he'll beef it up and hopefully bring in some opportunities in revenue associated with their better personal profile as well as company profile, right. That's gotta get what other things can companies do, specifically from a social, you know, human side?

24:29

Well, first of all, I mean, I know that we said at the bare minimum, have your profiles and your company page branded. But Wow, LinkedIn is a just a wealth. I mean, look, I've had clients that are making six and seven figures without advertising on LinkedIn, we've done it. I mean, it just takes a little bit of time and effort or have a team member do it for you. You don't need to use all of what LinkedIn has offered to make a very good income or increase your ROI. using LinkedIn, but you also don't need to be on it for 5678 hours a day, you know, 3045 minutes an hour a day, as long as you have like a strategy or a list like a daily task list. Yeah. And then you follow that list until it's second nature and then things. I mean, you're not spending that much time networking is this isn't like the old days was spending hours with the phone button cold calling?

25:24

Yeah. So right. No one likes to do that anyway. No, no, don't. Don't do that. Let's talk a little bit about the algorithms. Now, if you got a company, if you got employees, is it is it best practice or good practice to have employees saying, hey, pull them in, you know, get engaged with what's taking place in the company level, right?

25:49

100%. As a matter of fact, that's one of the new features that LinkedIn has for company pages is before you actually had to have a Sales Navigator business premium account to have these insights on the company pages to allow your employees to actually interact and also share and be their your biggest advocate or cheerleader for your company. But now it's free. So as long as you have a company page, you now can get your employees active engaged, because everybody, every one of your employees has a separate network, right. And that's how you start building a bigger network, a bigger company pays and getting more eyeballs on your business is through your employees. Okay, and so,

26:29

compounding

26:31

success company pages now even offer articles now you can put your company blogs and stuff on there before it was just for profiles. Now company pages can have that. So now your CEO can have his own personal blog. And you know, the kids can come in and engage with that and share it out. But your company page can also do that as well. So that's one of the strategies to is that companies they have the company page, but they're not putting up content.

26:58

So yeah, got it got to do. He got to put up content. It's great check mark, we got a company page, but no content that it's, here's the thing,

27:10

the company is like, Oh, I don't know what to do next. But what do you think about it? How long have you been in business? I bet you you have assets that you realize that you didn't already have. And you can repurpose those assets that started

27:22

with that. That's a whole nother conversation about repurposing I'll, I'm a big fan of resurrecting old blogs, because I think the if you can resurrect it, meaning put it on a podcast sticking out a video, I don't know and talk about it. You've just resurrected that asset that that content. And and I think that that's that's an important thing. Let me ask you a question about Sales Navigator. What's your thinking about that?

27:47

I love it. Why? I've been Sales Navigator user for like six years now. I won't do without it. I'll pay for it month after month after month. It is an amazing prospecting tool. And for companies that have like teams, there's three levels, there's professional, those are typically maybe for the solo entrepreneur or who have a very small team. Then you have the team's version that has 10 seats. And then you have the enterprise for the larger companies, which those to the teams and enterprise have additional features like that can sync with like your CRM. Yeah, it's got point drive, which I think is called team link now or point link point. I don't know they changed the name like last year, or sharelink. Right? It's sharelink. Yeah. And then enterprise even has additional features, if you know you want to pay for that. But it is especially if you've got teams that like work like different regionals. So nobody's Crossing Paths and stepping on each other's toes when they're prospecting. So it's it's easy to keep tabs on what your sales team is doing with those two, but if you're just getting started out, or you have a small company pro work just fine. It just got amazing, you got like 30 something filters, you can find people you can save lead lists. Their homepage is completely different than the LinkedIn newsfeed once you start saving accounts and saving people into lead lists. Now you can get updates on their activity and stay front of mind with them without even being connected to them. So amazing what this thing can do. Yeah,

29:20

it's it's a pretty powerful tool. I've I've come to appreciate one, the fact that you have email marketing strategies, right? And then email marketing strategies, okay, it's it, you can tell it's going in their email, and it can be captured, captured by whatever, you know, block, whatever it might be, and it won't go in there or go into spam or whatever it might be. The doc on LinkedIn, if you use LinkedIn, it goes right into their inbox. It is it's in their face, it goes right past whatever firewall they have.

29:58

What's even better is let's say that you found a search a perfect search. No one wants to remember the search that they did, right? They allow you to save your searches. And then LinkedIn will even email you to your primary email address any new searches that come up, and you tell them how often you want those emails. That's brilliant. Now, look for this every day, it's been sent to me automatically.

30:25

I think the the premise or the moral of this conversation is that there's so much more that can be done in LinkedIn that you're not doing that you're doing it, but everybody else was not doing it. I'm telling you right now, and it is available. And and for me, personally, I'm in the business of what I do. I discover things each and every day, then the power behind LinkedIn. And you just got to be engaged, you gotta, you can't get lazy.

30:54

Now you just have to be consistent. But then hours and hours and hours on on the platform. Speaking

30:59

of consistency, let's talk a little bit about some giveaways. I see a 23 point check list. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, we segwayed into that.

31:13

We developed the profile checklists, that's pretty comprehensive on your personal profile. And I'm going to tell you what, it's actually now up to 28 points. And we didn't even cover the new creator profiles now that LinkedIn just came out with a few months ago. But those are only for the people who are doing content. Anyway. So um, but right now, the 23 point checklist will work along with the book behind me, which I wrote in 2018 best selling book, talks about your content, but the whole first chapter talks about your profile, and the foundation work that you need to do. But the profile checklist will keep you in, you know, check 123 ABC from top to bottom and how to fill out these profile sections effectively and quickly. And then I think we can give them away what the book and the checklist and I tell you what if you guys get the book and the current checklist, when we get the new one out, which is we're finishing up some edits on it right now. We'll give you the new one for free. The 28 point checklist. You guys can go to LinkedIn or who linked into publishing. com.

32:24

All right, the website is LinkedIn two publishing.com. That's what is That's right. Yeah, put that triple, triple w the World Wide Web and get that. But fear not. It'll all be out there on industrial talk.com What is the best way, Tracy to get ahold of you? Tracy?

32:47

Hold on, guys, get out there and follow me and connect with me on LinkedIn. That's

32:54

Yeah, just email me. No. I like that.

33:00

Yeah, again, you I mean, connect with me on LinkedIn. Like that's, you're gonna get some you know, cool tips. And then when we start doing some more videos and stuff in the news, you can email me. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but like, I like LinkedIn. I think we can all agree on that. Right, man.

33:19

So don't even go don't know. I'm not even gonna give out an email. Nope. Nope. Tracy, Enos. That's e n. o. s. Sir. Another Tracy Enos out there.

33:31

There is what I was the very first one on LinkedIn. I think I'm still the only one with a photo.

33:36

There you go. So So you've got to reach out. It's simple. It's easy. Just do it. And I'm sure she's, she'll say, Okay, great. I'll have you a part of my network.

33:48

That you that you heard me on Scott's podcast. And I'll tell you what, I'll even do your your listeners. One more favor shot What? I will do a quick review over their profile and make my top three recommendations.

34:03

Bam. There it is. There it is. You Tracy. were wonderful. Thank you, you know, we just scratched the surface of it. Again, I'm just looking at my bookshelf. I've got I've got the VitaMix. I interviewed the CEO, VitaMix. There's her book right there. And then I got some other books back here. But I just having a hard time seeing that LinkedIn publishing to Prague.

34:28

I will get it sent to you. You have to send me your email your, your mailing address, and I'll get it sent to you. All right.

34:35

That'll be cool. And then I'll just, I'll talk about it all the time. How's that? Good. Well, version 2.0 is coming out this fall. Keep it never stops with you, Tracy. benefits, values, all of that good stuff. All right. Thank you, Tracy for being on the industrial talk podcast. My pleasure. All right, listeners. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. So if you're not we're going to have all the contact information really just go out. The LinkedIn you'll be able to reach out to her. All right. Stay tuned. You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

35:13

All right, once again, thank you, Tracy, Enos, for being on the industrial talk podcast, absolute wonderful, wonderful opportunity to really talk about this LinkedIn publishing to profits, as well as all your insights into how are you making that LinkedIn work? Excellent, and timely for you, industrial professionals. Anyway, get the book, it'll there'll be a link out there to get that book, I highly recommend it. Alright, again, check out Neil and e o m.com. Find out a little bit more. You can get engaged, you can do stuff. But I mean, it's it's wonderful to see an organization truly trying to put all this innovation into action and see how it really benefits us as a whole. All right, again, be bold, be brave. Dare greatly do that. But hang out. Have your team Be bold, brave and daring greatly. You know what you're going to do? Yeah, you're going to change the world. Thank you again, for joining industrial talk. We're going to have another great interview right around the corner. So stay tuned.

The post Ms. Tracy Enos with Enos Enterprise talks about the Power of LinkedIn in creating Industrial Opportunities appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Spencer Brooks, Founder and Principal of Brooks Digital about “Website redesigns don't have to be complicated, frustrating or messy – Welcome to Agile Website Redesign”.  Get the answers to your “Agile Website Redesign” questions along with Spencer's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerbrooks/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brooks-digital/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/spencerbrooks

Company Website: Brooks Digital | Web Design & Development Agency for Health Nonprofits

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Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

website, spencer, industrial, templates, agile, people, listeners, scott, business, prioritize, quadrant, brooks, build, wix, incremental approach, work, platforms, content, industry, big

00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go, Hey there, welcome to industrial talk, where we celebrate industrial heroes such as yourself, you are bold, you're brave, you dare greatly you solve problems, you're changing lives, and you're changing the world. As we speak this very moment. That's why we celebrate you on this podcast, we have a gentleman by the name of Spencer Brooks. And we're going to be talking a little bit about nimble, nimble or agile website redesign. And I think right now, that is a great topic to have. So let's get our car rack in.

00:59

So we're going through a homepage redesign as we speak. And that just begs the question of what you want to try to do, what do you want to go with your website? How do you want to engage individuals on the website? What do you want to do? And I mean, those are great questions to ask. And especially in this sort of post, new world that we live in, I think it's a great, great opportunity to be able to just ask specific questions. Now.

01:28

With that said, with that said,

01:33

I am going to talk a little bit and if you're out there on the video, if you just listen to the podcast, you listen to podcasts, that's fine. Picture, picture, what I've got an engagement quadrant, because I'm going to ask these questions. And this is what you have to start thinking about.

01:51

When you start developing content, and we've been doing that for the past, whatever contents everything right, you get it out there, you get that attention, you want to be able to engage people, and you want to be able to get their feedback, and you want to hopefully open up doors for opportunities. Now. I've put together this engagement quadrant and what it just does. So you have four areas quadrant, right? And to the right and to the top. The top is great content, right? So at the top great content, what is that it solves problems? It answers questions, right? It's short, it is relevant to today's challenges. To the right of that our max entertainment. Is it humanized? Is it fun. So if you combine something with great content that is also entertaining, then you have a greater opportunity to engage, right? It just makes sense. It's but but if you look at the quadrant to the left, if you have sort of a sort of a lazy type of entertainment, it's boring. sameness, doesn't set itself apart. And the poor content is like, hey, it's all about us. It's an infomercial, you're not helping anybody, you're not trying to solve problems, you're just saying, hey, it's us, then your engagement, the opportunity to engage the time that people are engaged on your content, right? is limited. If any, right? I'll be the first to admit, if I see something that is boring in the same and it's like an infomercial, I'm zipping right by, and I'm sure a lot of other people are doing the same. But if I see content that is truly relevant to today, solving problems, that is human and entertaining, then me my time to be able to learn increases. And within that's the bottom line, we want to help people learn because we're all about that education, collaboration and innovation. And you can't do that without that education and learning. So if you're out there on the video, you see the little quadrants, you see it if you're out there on podcast, you sort of get the picture but I'll have it at industrial talk comm you just sort of download it. Every time you create that particular you know your your content, think about those components. And I and and really, it'll improve now. Let's get on with the interview. So we're going through a industry, industrial talk to Dotto is happening. And we want to make it easier for you to get information, we want to make sure that it's easy for you to get it and it's entertaining, so that you consume it and that you know what are better and we're highlighting the best within industry. And we're able to do that because we're going through another redesign. It's and

04:51

with, with this one agile website redesign and what Spencer brings to the table is a really nice approach to be able to do

05:00

It's not overwhelming. It's not. It's not, you know, a big job. It's just an incremental approach to be able to

05:10

change and give you a little bit of fresh perspective on your website. Because sometimes we just get a little old we get a little lacks and right now is not the time. All right. He is the founder and CEO of Brooks digital. He brings a lot of street cred when it comes to this particular topic. We've got a lot of information out there and we're going to be talking about agile

05:34

redesign of your website. So enjoy. Spencer, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule, schedule. And to join the wonderful, absolutely wonderful listeners of industrial talk. How you doing? Hey, Scott, I'm doing awesome today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to share what I can with the listeners. I like it. I like your setup. You got I mean, you really sound good.

06:01

Thank you. Right That's that's always what I want to hear. You do? broadcast voice? I tried man you write on it. You got your your windsock you got everything happening. There you your five by five. All right, for the listeners out there. Spencer, give us a little background on who you are. Sure, yeah, well, I run a company called Brooks digital. We're a digital agency. So we build websites, mainly for nonprofits who focus on a particular disease or disorder like diabetes, cancer, things like that. And we do that by taking a particular approach an agile approach to doing that, which sort of prioritizes responding to change, and adapting to, especially in the healthcare industry, and things like that things change very rapidly. So we want to take an approach with online, the website and digital presence that can adapt to that changing environment. So that's, that's what we specialize in. Alright, listeners, you're saying to yourself, Scott, how come you have this gent on the industrial talk podcast, because you need to hear about agile websites, you have to understand that your website is well questionable. And there is a way of being able to take that questionable website and put it into a way that can definitely be an asset to your business. Because that's what's real important. You're in it. Don't come to me and say, Scott, that's not important. It is important. I'm just here to tell you. And when Spencer connected with me about agile website redesign, I just said, yeah, that's important. And industry needs to hear about it. Who I'm worn out by yelling at everybody. That's if they really care. No, you do you need to care. So let's, let's define a little bit about what agile website, what does that mean? What are we doing? Yeah, that's a good, it's a good question, Scott. So with that, I mean, without giving the entire history lesson, no one needs to take notes here. Right. But the idea with with agile website redesign is maybe back, I don't know, 20 years ago, there's a group of software developers and they noticed a problem that they would take years to develop some sort of digital product. And by the time all those years had passed, the product that they had developed, the piece of software was no longer relevant anymore, because the problem had changed. Or the industry had changed. And they said, you know, this isn't working, we can't, we can't spend 235 years trying to figure out and build something, and then launch it. And our assumptions are totally off. So the idea with agile came about because they said, and it's true with website development, with software development with product development, they said, We need a way to build something that's rather complicated in a way that we can actually change and adapt that on the fly to the market conditions to even our own knowledge about what it is that we need, and and adapt that so we can track a moving target. So that's in a nutshell, what agile is about is about prioritizing change and responsiveness during the process of developing a website, either. So just putting a pin in the ground. Yeah, so here I am. I'm an industrial guy. And I've got a company. And we've been in business for many years. And I've got that unfortunate problem called legacy thinking. And this is how we always do it. And this is what

09:33

the what I've seen in this pandemic is, of course, a situation where it would have been great to have a great website at this particular time to be able to facilitate hopefully some commerce or whatever it might be, is if I have a website and I'm My mind is like, I'm about 10 years behind.

09:51

Can you take us through a sort of a step by step approach to what that might look like? Her? Yeah. So if you're if you're already

10:00

behind the ball a little bit right now, I mean, first year, your, your sense of you said a little bit. I'm saying that there's a lot of people behind the ball quite a bit. All right. Yeah. So okay, so you're way behind the ball and you know, you're waiting on the ball. Don't stop pedal this right. Okay, there you go. Yeah, that's right. Okay, I'll be straight here. So yeah, I think the first thing that you need to realize is, number one, you don't have to do this whole thing at once you might have a big you might have, it could be a big project to think about, it could it's frankly, it's overwhelming to think about this, you could go Oh, man, like, I don't even want to open that can of worms and you shove it, you know, in a folder somewhere that you don't open for a year. Just remember, you don't have to do all this at once. The great thing about a website is that you're not it's it's not like you're constructing a building that you can't, it's very difficult to change this, you can, you can change your website every day or every second, it's it's flexible, it's malleable. And so you can launch a first version of it. And it doesn't have to be a complicated first version. And the next day, the next week, the next month, you can go and add something else to it. So if you're in that position, just First of all, no, you don't have to, you don't have to do it all at once. So once you commit to that mindset of saying, I don't have to launch the ultimate version of whatever I want my website to be right up front. And you can just focus on prioritizing your most the most important things that that the website should do for your business. And then after you launch it, then you can just work your way down the list and continue to add stuff and add more features that might be important or respond to changing market conditions and things like that. So I like that incremental approach. And it's sort of it really I mean,

11:52

it can be done. And I think that, from my perspective, listening to what you had to say, because I'm going through a redesign with my particular website, and of course, I'm sitting there going, well, it's got to be all or nothing. But you've just changed my view, I could get it. I get it to a warm and fuzzy position and boom, and then I could continue to add to it, I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong.

12:13

Strategically, you don't want to put yourself in a bind. So it's sort of incrementally you can just keep on adding, I like that. Absolutely. The thing about websites is it can be surprisingly complex. Once you actually get into the details, it seems like Oh, sure. It's simple. I want a homepage, right. And then you realize that every single thing that's on that homepage, you've got to decide how it's going to be displayed and how it's going to be managed on the back end and all the rules about it. And you just spiral into a black hole. And so in that complexity, just mushrooms, the more stuff you add. So the real the key to taming the madness there is to to get very disciplined about chopping out all the things that you say, you know what we're going to deal with that later, and prioritize in a small bucket of things. And knowing that by saying no, right now, it's not like you're saying no, forever, you're just saying you're saying yes to that later on. And that's a big deal, because you can get totally overwhelmed. That is huge. I'm just telling you, that's a that's a great way of approaching the situation. So when when you're in a when you're you're engaged, Spencer, and when you're engaged, how do you? Do you have that conversation with clients and saying, okay, there's your, here's your existing website, or we need a website, let's just say we're doing with an existing website, you look at it, and then you start to have that conversation correct with your clients? Absolutely. Yeah. And so usually, there's some combination of my existing website is terrible, and it doesn't work, it's broken, it looks bad. All these things, usually, it's a combination of things that need to be fixed. And then also some aspirational things like, you know, I want to I want to add all these, these new features to help you support my business and to help to help grow it. And so it's this hodgepodge big melting pot of all these different things. And so I think, honestly, the first step is, in order to prioritize, you got to know what your priorities are. And so sitting down and saying, All right, like, what's if your website had a job description, if it was a person that was employed, 24, seven that never ate, and that never slept? And it just worked for you? And what is the job description of that website? What is it supposed to do? What are the most important

14:32

responsibilities and functions, and then that I think it helps clarify the key outcomes that the website should be delivering on and then you can use those outcomes and that way of thinking to start structuring and making priority calls about what should be included in the website for the first version. And so you have to develop a framework around which to prioritize before you can start making those decisions. Okay, a couple of things, listeners.

15:00

Keep note of it could be done incrementally. So don't come to me and say, Scott, I've got a website, but I can't do it. Don't come to me. It can be done incrementally think through that. The other one I really like, is job description for your website. That to me is an interesting, I like that. I like the incremental approach. I like that job subscription. That to me brings it down to the level that I can understand. I don't have to sit there at chirp tech talk. I can say, No, I want my website to do this. That's the job description. I like it. Why for industrial? The listeners hear of industrial talk, why is it important to have a good website?

15:39

I think if you go just go out anywhere, right? Scott, if you go out here in line at Starbucks, look around at all of the people in line at Starbucks, you know it or outside and take a guess at what they're looking at their heads, their heads, yeah. And they're looking at a screen, they're looking at a screen. And so I think from a marketing perspective, it's very important to just even culturally pay attention to where people are paying attention, and they're all paying attention to their screens. I think the I don't have a hard stat on this, the average person is spending hours a day on their iPhone, it's like multiple hours, literally. Yeah. And if you look at your own phone, you know, you can enable screen time on your on your iPhone, if you have one. Just look at how much time you spend staring at a screen. And you want to be where people are directing their attention. And so that's the I think one of the the biggest compelling reasons why you need a good website is because frankly, people are spending hours a day in front of their screen for and to simplify it. What is a good website? What is what's, how do you? Like? You know, I've been on our websites, and I'm not sure if it's good or bad. I don't even know if mine is good or bad. What what what drives a good website? Yeah, that's I mean, that is a key question. I think, first and foremost, a good website is going to, it's going to generate a couple of key outcomes. First of all, it's going to generate awareness for for your organization. So it's going to get eyeballs on you. So people are going to come and visit it, I think that's the first function of a good website is that it's delivering people to it. And then it is converting them at some to some kind of further engagement with you. So that could be signing up for an email list. It could be filling out a contact form or some sort of interest, like I want to have a sales conversation, and things like that. And then it's providing the resources that facilitate that process. So if you want to get someone's attention, and you want them to reach out, you know about working with you, then you that website needs to have the right information to address common concerns, you address objections and to deliver a person to you that, that as a lot of that information already answered, so it makes your job easier. So I think a website really has to facilitate that process of taking a stranger, getting them to understand that your organization exists to get familiar with you, and get common questions and objections answered, and then ultimately have them take whatever action it is that you want them to take after they view the website. And so I think if you look at your website through that lens, and some of the actions and the details are going to be different, obviously. But if you look at it through that framework, I think that's what a good website does. He Yeah, it's interesting, it

18:41

I'm just telling you right now, I do judge a book by its cover, if I go out to website and I find that that website is just not

18:49

not appealing to my eyes. What is I, I'm, I'm shallow, I'm moving on, I'm moving on to the next thing. And and I'm trying to find a website, a portal, a place where I can find information and not be offended. Meaning, you know, the colors are good. Again, a good user feel with this. And it's like, yeah, that's cool stuff. I'm more apt to say yeah, give me some information if that website

19:18

looks and feels and flows. Right now. I think that's a it's a good point, Scott in that design. It simply removes a barrier, right? It's not a good design is not going to make a customer necessarily because I'm sure you've gone to websites that look beautiful, but you have no idea. It's the information there's not good you're like what do you do? I don't understand. Right? Right. But a good design is going to remove as you set out that barrier Scott of credibility. So someone comes and looks at the site and makes that subconscious judgment call. This is I'm going to stick around this is pleasing to my eye don't feel like this looks like it was designed by someone's nephew. And I'm not sure about it. You

20:00

And then that person can get into the information. But all that being said, is that, frankly, I think you can, if you're, if your website looks like doodoo, but it delivers a ton of customers, it's probably a good website, although most websites also looks really great. So I think the design just removes a barrier. And it does. I, you know, it's funny, I've gone to websites that do provide a lot of good content, and they do drive and it's like, but it doesn't look good. And it's like, okay, and I'm sitting there with this bad attitude, but I'm getting the information I want. But I'm not fond of this particular website.

20:40

You know, it's, it's a love hate type of thing. Now,

20:45

there are templates out there, there are templates that are out there that you can sit there, you don't have to be.

20:52

You don't have to understand the color palettes and everything, which I would just my head would explode, my ears would bleed, whatever. But there are templates out there that can be leveraged and expanded upon, right? Absolutely. There are tons of templates. And in fact, probably the larger problem is just how do you choose which ones do you use? And but I think that's a great, a great space to start with, is just literally like, I mean, you could go to any what Squarespace, Wix even if you want to do like with a WordPress site, there are some templates there. And you can just get up and going and they provide a lot of great structure. So I don't think it's a it's certainly not a matter of the the tools not being there. It just kind of depends on how quickly you want to get going and how complicated you want things to get. See, you mentioned a couple of things. First off, I like the fact that you can look at these templates, they're out there. And I I find it stimulates

21:49

proper business thinking it's like, yeah, that that feels right. That's what I'm trying to do. And you don't have to sit there from a blank slate saying, oh, oh, what do I do? Is the color red decent. Now you can see it in these templates. And it's always a beautiful thing to be able to do that. You mentioned Wix, Squarespace WordPress. Can you explain a little bit about that? Yeah, of course. So there are tons of different website platforms. And frankly, they're all just different types of tools for different needs. And some tools are, are more complex than others. But something like where Squarespace or I was gonna say, where where spacing slicks,

22:34

you can do that a product, somebody probably heard it and said, I need to do that. Another web platform. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's gonna be I'm gonna I'm gonna launch squeaks. That's my new. My new business idea. I think legally, I'm fine. I'm fine with that.

22:50

Right. But yeah, those are those are website platforms that are you just build it yourself. So it's literally you, you will sign up. And they have provided templates. And you don't need to know how to code you just drag and drop, but in your content. And they have some pretty full featured, full featured features, I guess, where you can do blogs, you can have contact forms, you can portfolios of different kinds of work and contact, contact form. Maybe I already said that, but there's just lots of different stuff. So there's that. And that's probably the easiest to do. The downside of that is once your website gets to a certain size, and when I say size, I mean mostly complexity in terms of what it's providing, then it tends to not be as customizable because you are locked into what those platforms provide from a functionality perspective, which is great when you're starting because you don't have to, you don't have to decide every little detail, you just go. But once you get to sort of a next tier of website, you get into platforms, like WordPress, or Drupal is another one. And those tend to be kind of like a Lego kits in a way where they provide you these different components that you can structure and customize. So instead of maybe like, something like Wix would be, you know, you would you would just get a buy something off the shelf, plunk it down, versus getting the Lego kit where you sit down and you really decide how do I want to assemble this and build this and customize it and I can take it apart and assemble it in a different way to suit suit different needs. And it takes a bit more time to set it up that way. But the result is you do get something that is more customized to your particular business. And it would seem to be scalable to Yeah, exactly. It earliest. I had some issues with some other other platforms. And and I realized that I couldn't scale and then I went to my website is WordPress. And then I got all these little things.

25:00

logins. And then I could sit there and I could play around with it. And they, they, it was just like, I like the Lego analogy. Yeah, it's just like, there'll be a built in such as Oh, okay. Great. Cool. And, and.

25:12

But

25:14

I think that

25:17

there is a, for me, this is just me speaking listeners, I didn't realize the level of functionality that can exist within a website that is truly valuable to your business. So, like truly valuable. I,

25:34

I mean, people can connect with me on my website. It's like, it's just, it's a beautiful thing. I'm just telling you, what are the roadblocks?

25:44

I think when you're talking about agile and things like this, where you're taking this the the more of an iterative mindset, right? It's it's cycles is quite honestly, there is most stakeholders within your organization, it's might be other executives, it could be managers board, but whatever. They're not going to intuitively think that way. And so if you are, if you've listened to this, and you said, you know, what, I'm savvy, I've got this, this is the way to do it. There is there's probably some other people involved in that decision that are gonna say, well, do we have a Are we going to build all this at once I want it strict, you know, it needs to be all scoped in entirely upfront. And they're going to want to do it the good old fashioned way, which is to build a big honkin website with all the bells and whistles. And, and, and there's going to be some there, there might be some conflict there. So I think really, the biggest roadblock is conceptually just getting everyone on board and bought into the process that you don't have to do it all at once. Break that mindset. No, I'm telling you, man, that is an aha moment for me. I like that. I like it a lot. And I think that

26:56

it's a great way of moving forward, creating a new website be agile, again, I guarantee you, you can benefit from a new website. It changes your perspective. Now we're gonna have to wrap this up. Spencer, how do people get ahold of you?

27:15

A couple ways. First of all, you can go to the Brooks digital website. It's just Brooks dot digital. It's not calm. It's one of the fancy ones. Wow. Yeah. So there you go. You can also send me an email Spencer at Brooks dot digital. Feel free to connect with me there as well. Like that. Again, it does. We'll talk we'll have all of the contact information for Spencer big time. I like that dotdigital that's new. Yeah, it's pretty cool, right? Like you get you don't have to fight with all the other dot coms. You just say oh, no, whatever. I don't. I can just do dot digital or dot. There's tons of

27:51

Yeah, there are tons. Alright, listeners. That is Spencer, thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast Spencer. You're pretty welcome, Scott. It's my pleasure. Excellent. Again, listeners do not go away. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. So stay tuned. You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

28:15

All right, his name is Spencer, Brooks, Brooks digital, is the company. Let's just be real here. Look at your website, see if there's ways to be able to improve it, and improve the experience of the clients that you serve as well as the future clients. Think about that. You can approach it from an agile perspective. It's all doable, and especially today, make it happen. We've got three events. I'm going to tell you just go out to industrial talk. COMM one is the IoT solutions World Congress brought to you by industrial internet consortium and fair Barcelona. And then we have the manufacturing and Technology Conference that's coming up in November. And it's out there on industrial talk.com. And we're going to put together a mastermind in utility. big topic, big conversation. All right, be bold, be brave, daring greatly. and hang out with people who are bold, brave and daring greatly, and you're going to change the world. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. We're gonna have another great interview right around the corner. So stay tuned.

The post Mr. Spencer Brooks with Brooks Digital talks about Agile Website Redesign appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Yoav Kutner, Founder and CEO of Oro, Inc. about “Change Management through Digital Transformation and the Role of B2B eCommerce”. Get the answers to your “eCommerce” questions along with Yoav's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

You can find out more about Yoav and the wonderful team at Oro, Inc. on leveraging Digital Transformation for your eCommerce business by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

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Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoavkutner/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oro-inc/

Company Website: https://oroinc.com/

Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/oro_inc

Free Oro Demo:  https://oroinc.com/b2b-ecommerce/demo/

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Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

companies, platform, b2b, magento, open source, people, business, conference, changing, industry, website, customer, product, big, world, talk, oro, b2c ecommerce, online, absolutely

00:03

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. All right. Welcome to the industrial talk podcast, a podcast that is dedicated to industry heroes such as yourself. But if you're looking out on video, I'm pointing at you right there. Yeah, that's you. You're bold, you're brave. You're daring greatly. you innovate like nobody's business. And you're changing lives, and you're changing the world as we speak. And that's why this podcast is here to celebrate you. Thank you very much for what you are doing. All right, we got another one. And you're saying to yourself, Scott, you always have great interviews? Yes, I do. Because industry is great. And people are great. So get used to it, because that's what we're all about. Yoav ever

00:59

could nurse. Okay, that's good. That's why Oh, a Kutner. And if you go out to his stat card, his LinkedIn stat card, you will quickly notice that he is smarter than I am. Alright, let's get cracking here. All right, we've got a couple of things that we've got to start to

01:19

do some business here. All right, I'm all about education, you know that that's what this platform is all about educating, and I'm all about collaborating, I'm all about innovation, you got to do that. If you want to survive, rebuild and prosper in this new world, you're gonna have to educate all the time. You can't come to me and say, Scott, I don't know how to educate. It's, it's a world wide web out there. There's a lot of great stuff in it. And the industrial talk podcast is dedicated to that education. Now I want to point out something that is just absolutely spectacular. This was brought to you by those wonderful people at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. It is the connected systems Institute. Now just go out to uw m.edu, forward slash CSI, get all that information and they're just educating the workforce of the future. So we talk about industry for Dotto digital transformation in everything underneath. And that organization is absolutely Dedicated To Your Success. How can you can't you can't argue against that either. This platform is just really just chock full of great stuff for you.

02:24

You'll have How are you doing? Oh, I'm doing fine. How you doing? I'm well, thank you very much. Thank you very much for being on the podcast. I'm excited about this conversation. As you can tell, I've got your to get your website up. I've got your stat card up. And I've got pretty much everything about you up even your form up. And

02:45

so we've got about about five days of information to cut into about 20 minutes of a conversation. We're not going to do that.

02:53

All right. For the listeners out there. Give us a little 411 on who you are and why you're such an incredible technology professional. Absolutely. Well, thank you for that. I I've never heard that I'm an incredible technological person. But we'll say we'll take it we'll take

03:11

your your your LinkedIn stat card is lying. Because it's it is

03:15

although your your

03:20

All right. So yeah, let me talk a bit about so again, like I mentioned when we were first contacted, I'm around for a while. We talked I talked with you. Yeah, it was around with mainframes, Vax computers. I've seen a lot of things taking over. I remember just to show you how not smart I am. When the first time somebody showed me the internet that was like that's a fad. Nobody's gonna look at these green screen withholdings data. And so, you know, that's the first time I saw

03:51

you

03:54

a big one. Yeah, there goes the smart compliment.

04:00

You know, I was listening to these private networks and stuff like that. That said, once it's started taking over

04:08

my claim to fame was co founding a company called Magento and 2004. Later we released a product called Magento. That was a b2c e commerce platform and open source one at that so we can talk about a bit the open source kind of approach and strategy as we call it. And that platform did very well. We got really good adoption I think at our height when I left it was about 35% market share of all online b2c e commerce stores. Yeah, that was great. With no number with no number two, No, nobody came second almost It was like very, very rare category. Maybe.

04:45

We were in some countries like Australia, we had 50% were number two was home grown. So we really took the market for the b2c market and that we can borrow some money. Yes, of course. It's my side business.

05:03

So we actually did pretty well with that we got really good

05:07

adoption, and learned a lot of what was happening in the world of e commerce at the time. We later in around 2011, finalized the sale to eBay and PayPal, actually, within eBay. And that went pretty well. I think the the product itself Magento is still around, it was bought by Adobe.

05:27

And now it's taking its own life form, it's ready in their version major version too. So great to see that the brand is still around. I mean, it's been, it's pretty caught 11 years already around. So that's Wow, that's right. That's right. Wow, that is a pretty cool. That's a cool, yeah. It's like, I refer to it as my estranged son, because we don't talk anymore. But I love kind of following up on the progression and success, you know, from the sidelines.

06:00

All right, so let's go down this road. And I want to make sure that the,

06:03

the listeners understand, can you just sort of level set, talk to us a little bit about what open source means?

06:11

Open Source, what does that mean? Well, open source is,

06:16

again, kind of a philosophy where you don't want to patent or close source, which is more the traditional term, but they they have code is that it used to be compiled. And it used to be used as a black box, you didn't see actually how things were written and done and implemented. And you would use the product, if you have to modify it or change it, you were limited to whatever configuration or API, or interface was allowed to you to use. But that was it. What happened.

06:44

I think it's already for many, many years. But definitely the 70 took a lot of momentum was developers that were not interested in copywriting if you want or licensing their software and actually provided the code that they wrote, alongside with their source code, with different licenses, which is actually the open source license, kind of story. But again, we won't get into that. But that license allows you to actually use the code and actually modify it with some limitations or not to your own use. So before all these modern Object Oriented Development and all that, that was like the best way for companies to take something that was very close to what they needed, but not 100%, modify it from the source code, without limitations and making actually sure that that works for everything they need to do. And with the biggest thing is no vendor lock in, because there was no necessarily relationship between the vendor the the actual producer of the software and the company using it, which was beautiful, right, because you would get somebody work and just build on that and use it for your own needs. That said, What happened usually around then open source is an ecosystem of a community of developers community of users, the actual software vendor. And that usually caused these open source tools to get developed so much faster, and adopted faster and get feedback faster, and move faster than the closed source solutions that were very limited. And that's why open source is something that's ongoing for the last 40 years in very high speed. I mean, a lot of people don't even realize and learn when I say people companies we talk to don't even realize that a lot of the tools that they're using are actually based or built on open source code, right that somebody was using. Now today, if we jump ahead a bit, though, this is as technical as we'll get, probably. But if I jumped ahead a few years now, today, the actual source code with older object oriented API's after I mean service oriented architecture and stuff like that maybe is a little bit less relevant, you will not necessarily go and modify the actual core code. But you'll build on top of it extended. But were open source is still very much important is like I said with the license. So what you're actually able to use it how you're able to use it, are you able to resell it, you're able to use it only internally, stuff like that. So it's all about the license today, and how you can actually use it for your own benefit. There's a big case right now going on, you know, with Google and big lawsuit there. So I think we are in a place where today open source is more about the license, the freedom to actually build on that use it commercially. Without again, the vendor lock in, which is the biggest part of so you, if you like the vendor, you work with them. If you don't like the vendor, you actually can invest in your own developers and make sure that technology works. And again, with no limitations, which is if we look at SAS platforms like Salesforce, we talked about Salesforce quickly, you are limited to whatever they expose to you. And you end up building a lot of these custom application living in third worlds around that application, not in exactly that hosting environment, not as efficient and as performance. But when we talk about open source, you can actually start

10:00

They'll modify source code if needed to get extensive use cases. See, and and from my perspective, again, correct me if I'm wrong, I like the speed. Right? Especially today. And when we start looking at, let's say, industry for Dido, all of that whole, it technology itself is just evolving at such a blistering pace. I mean, I just I don't see how you can not

10:24

get more into that open source type of mindset, and be able to deploy solutions that truly meet your business needs as fast as you possibly can. I don't see how you can ignore that. Which then brings us to this, the product that we're going to be talking a little bit about that, once again, listeners out there, it's Oro o. r. o, right, Inc is the.com is the website. The product is a series of Oro and so they got commerce and CRM and platforms and all that stuff. And I'm looking at the website, I didn't just sort of pull this off of my head. I'm just using their website. And I'm just sort of, and the the one that just sort of fascinates me is this Oro-commerce. Can you give us a little sort of background into that? And what is it? Absolutely. So Oro-commerce actually came from what, again, what we learned through the years of at Magento. So we like I said, develop the b2c e commerce platform. The problem was that we started seeing more and more companies that were contacting us that were not necessarily selling directly to consumers, there were more about selling to other companies, which makes them a b2b company.

11:32

We were much younger, and definitely have the ego to match that. And we were open source and flexible, etc. We said you know, we can do anything. So when we got approached, we said, Yeah, absolutely, we can serve your needs, we can build on top of what we we have already. But because we were so focused on the b2c side of the equation of this, yeah, we kind of left a lot of the basic kind of architectural features

11:58

out, right, we didn't focus on them. We didn't even know them about b2b at the time. So when we started working with b2b companies, we saw that fundamental features were missing in the platform. So fast forward, when I left the Magento. Eight months later, we created a new company called aura. And Oro, one of the products we kind of worked was on was the b2b e commerce platform, which is kind of our take on e commerce, but for companies selling to other companies. And so

12:30

yeah, so I got us a step in. So for the listeners out there, let's try to simplify it in a sense, it's like, Hey, I'm Acme, your beta, we can use this platform to engage in commerce Is that it? That's in a nutshell, that's it, we have three main use cases that we kind of talked about, and then we kind of start breaking out from but the first one is exactly what you said, which is the buyer seller interaction. Yeah. And that's the buyer doing some research finding a seller or manufacturer or brand or distributor that he wants to work with, they get in contact to get in touch, submit maybe a request for a quote, or CRISPR, pricing, get this pricing, and then put in an order, right. So taking all that world digitally. That's our main focus, basically, because this world is changing this world is, especially with COVID, we've seen that that conferences, trade shows were not even an option, right? That's where a lot of these b2b business and orders were actually done introductions, etc. So we're really trying to move this whole world digital, that's kind of so so I'm Acme. I'm a buyer and I'm looking for a seller, do I go through the Oro commerce platform to find buy sellers? So I can be in your platform and say, hey, check it out. That's, that's a company and whatever the details associated I can do that in your platform? No, I mean, unless you build the marketplace, which we'll get into that part. But when we're talking, we're just a software provider. We don't provide any services.

14:10

Right. So the best way to find you is where actually most researchers start today is on Google or on any other search engine. I won't get into that war. But let's say any search engine is where today, most researchers and buyers are starting their search today. And that's overtaking any kind of tradeshow, any kind of conference, anything like that. So if you build your site with a platform like ours, you'll be searchable and indexable and then people can actually find you. So you don't have to go through us nobody needs to know who or is we like to be in the in the shop. We like to make other people upfront and successful. So we're not like an eBay for b2b or,

14:53

or anything like that. We are not a marketplace on our own. We do provide a marketplace is one of our features or actual products.

15:00

But we are definitely about running your business, making your business so visible. And that's a big change and a big kind of attitude change, I guess, for b2b companies that they have to be visible online today. They're missing out on so many potential customers, so many potential orders, so many potential deals, because they're not searchable and indexable online.

15:22

So does your platform optimize that? Seo? Whatever, you know, dealio? Why? So I'm once again, I'm Acme. I'm interested in finding a seller of

15:35

I'll make it simple spoons. Yeah, go on my, my search engine. Right. And, and it's because of your platform, which is embedded in their site, whatever this spoon site,

15:48

you you give them a level of robustness that I'm able to find. It's like, hey, check it out, man.

15:55

spoony is right there. Yep. And that we will be actually running the website. Usually in most use cases, we are even running the front end the whole experience, customer experience, etc. We have Yes, we have other implementation, headless, pw a etc. But in a nutshell, we actually are the website that most people will hit either directly or through a CMS if it's a very big company, and they have this content management system in front of us. But we actually have the front end and the back end, you get everything in one. So let me start, let me maybe simplify our first

16:34

our first kind of steps that we usually do with a lot of very traditional b2b companies is just published or catalog online. So that means that they do have a way to get the catalog out of their eirp order management system where where we're not or a Pim, Product Information Management System, that where all the product information sits. But that information has to be published in in a e commerce style catalog style CMS, which is what we built. So we have a very good

17:04

platform to build your website that will actually make all your products visible online. Oh, no, of course, then SEO friendly and indexable and searchable, etc. So a lot of times, that's the first thing we do we come to a company, we say, look, if somebody searches for your products, they find nothing. Best case they find some, you know, this static website that somebody has a phone number on that's frequently goes to a

17:29

phone number to a sales rep that doesn't work there anymore. Right? And, and, and that's what we do we actually create, you know, I'll go all the way back for about 15 years, we create dynamic websites, right, that are actually not static, you can actually update them, you can like any CMS, like you would do for any kind of website, but focused and specializing in catalog publishing. Okay, I got I got it. I gotta interrupt real quick, because you know that that data is absolutely horrible. When you go to a customer and you say, Hey, hey, let's just get this thing online. Let's make it all robust in everything. Give us your catalog.

18:05

That's when it starts. Absolutely. With many we have manufacturers of nails. So when we told her to give us a picture, we say, well, and nails and nail, you know. So yeah, we just have to adjust to how we show the data. So yeah, images, maybe not the strongest suit for that industry. And that's acceptable. Again, you are dinged on Google and all that. But you know, it doesn't change the fact that your competitors will not have better pictures of nails. Right. So for that industry is so cool. Okay, continue man.

18:37

Asian By the way, I'm enjoying this conversation a lot. Thank you.

18:42

I sometimes Yeah, it's nice to meet people that find b2b e commerce. Interesting, because a lot of people would say, Yeah, when I say um, yeah, when I say I'm like in the b2b commerce business, everybody's like what Say again? What, what is that? It's like,

19:00

No, no, but we really love it. I mean, one of my passions and the reason I'm actually doing this, it's,

19:07

it's because I really like coming to companies and kind of automating digitizing a lot of what they do. It's really something I've been doing for many, many years since I, my first professional, out of the army was, like, career as a developer was on a salary program that I was we were developing way back then. And just like for HR and stuff like that, and we would come to companies and automate the whole, you know, HR salary kind of processing and stuff like that. So it was like, you know, who cared, but back then we were, you know, making people's lives so much easier. And it's something that we were, I really liked. I really like coming to a company and saying this, three months down the road, that how much we can help them how much we could have saved them time and, and made their life easier and more productive. And I think when we talk about e commerce, we're putting that on steroids. It's like we can today, really, this

20:00

digitize any process that your company does? automated? And the big question is, what our big problem is we do not replace the sales guys, we actually make them more efficient, more able to find new customers easier, right, which is a lot of the CRM pitch. But we are definitely helping the companies stay relevant, be able to survive pandemics and stuff that a lot of people didn't realize that might happen. But really the way the world works today, it's digital. Right. And, and we're seeing this throughout the sales process. Like I mentioned, most research will be started online today, even if

20:39

I have to go on a tangent here. What's your viewpoint on? Because I'm all into what you're talking about? What's your viewpoint on? conferences?

20:50

Well, conferences are great. I mean, especially we have we have a lot of business in Europe. And and they're shaking hands, having a cup of coffee is still a part of how you do business. I think the shock of the pandemic and and our European customers was a bit bigger. We actually had still salespeople traveled there, and we were like, what's happening today? Well, they will, they won't shake, you know, they won't sign the deal without shaking the hand. So it's something that it's still relevant, I don't think it will go away, I think, you know, people are still happy to meet each other. But like I said, you can come much more informed to the to conference, right? If you before you go to a conference, you can actually start searching online, some of these companies. Now, if you come in form, you can maybe already start requesting pricing before. So when you get there, you just don't waste your time on the whole cycle of the meeting of handshaking. And then you can come much more prepared. And, and not only that, let me let me give you another thing we're doing for a real customer of ours. And we went through their trade show, we saw how that happened. That works there in the animal, kind of their animal supply distributor, and they're like, pet food, pet supplies, stuff like that. Yeah. And that's a huge conferences. It's really a thing to see. Right. I went to Vegas, we saw that conference, that the thing that we're helping them accept everything that we're doing on the online strategy, and all that, with the conference in mind is that we are digitizing how the orders are taken in the conference itself, right? We added these booths with touchscreens that a sales rep can walk in with,

22:24

you know, a new customer or an existing customer, for that matter, pull all their data, pull the relevant catalog, pull all their special pricing in front of them. Before that they had these booklets right with this huge price books and stuff like that. And everybody had to remember, and there was constant screaming when I went there was constantly No, did you know the price for that guy, he's from Cleveland, you know, what's the best that we can give them? It was more like a meat market and actual like a sausage grinder Yeah, then then like a like a conference for you know about having a relationship with your customer. And once we did some pilot with that, we saw that one of the things that actually really helped was we decrease the number of errors in entering these orders the king in these are errors, the order sorry, later, right? Because you would write it on paper. All these papers, go back to the office, and then the sales reps used to start keying them in counting mistakes and not being able to read that. So just there, we were already improved. By the time the customer got back home from the conference, the order might have already been waiting for them there. Right. And it's something that we're really changing and improving. I think the customer experience, usability efficiency.

23:38

That's all connected to our system. This these kiosks are just another front end, basically, instead of a web based. It's just another front end of our application.

23:49

Okay, I mean, I'm all in. Why aren't people all in? Well, big deal. Yeah, that's that's where we started seeing the challenges. So I think one of the things and again, I'm looking at my previous life at Magento versus where I am today, in the b2c world, we really hit the wave on the right, I'm from California, sorry, I might have some surfing

24:11

analogies, but

24:13

but we hit the wave really, when it was peaking. And we really, you know, everybody was changing the way they're doing business. They understood that they have to sell direct to consumers, a lot of brands, we actually, when we released Magento a lot of brands that were not traditionally selling direct to consumers, even big brands decided because of the old kind of crash, that they have to start improving business and why not start selling directly to consumers. So we saw a lot of that happening. So there was really a perfect storm in terms of how people were changing their attitudes on selling directly to consumers. I think today with the b2b, we are on the cusp of the same kind of moment. A lot of businesses have to kind of update the way they're doing business. They have to maybe get out of their circle of customers and expanded International. I know

25:00

a bad word for many. But selling cross border, especially in Europe, we see this more and more taking over and and for a while in Europe, of course. But I think in the US, the US market will also have to kind of learn to deal with other countries. So definitely have to have b2b

25:19

kind of platforms that will allow these features to be implemented. So companies can actually modify the way they do business. That's it when we come to companies and we talk technology to sometimes a surprise how behind the curve they are when it comes to technology. We talked about mainframes and let me let me throw another term with you as 400. Still around europese, right. that are that are archaic, you cannot change anything. They're like, No, we asked him, can you change this API? and

25:50

Roger will pick up the phone, he's retired, you know, it's like, these are the answer is yes. It's expensive as Hell, yeah.

25:59

It is expensive. But we're really, really finding that they're really behind the curve and technology. Like I said, a lot of times where we start from is just

26:10

publishing their catalogue online, which seems trivial. But like you said, it's not at all because the product information is not there, the quality of the product information is not suitable. So that's not an easy, I talked about it like it's a trivial thing. It's not it's changing the culture of how you talk about your product, what content you have about your product. What if you, if you are a distributor, you need to get that content from your merchants that are selling through your manufacturers, to your manufacturer, you need to get it from your supply line, right, who's ever giving you those descriptions? So a lot of a lot of non trivial things on the culture of how the company is actually operating. And that's across the board. We're getting pushback from the marketing team. They don't know what to work with, necessarily with online marketing. They know more about print marketing. It's about the sales team doesn't want.

27:00

We're just telling you right now. All right, we're gonna have to wrap this up. I mean, come on. You guys have got to be in Hey, if you guys go out to orange ink, that's o r o inc.com. Click on orocommerce. There is a demo a demo of the platform that I think you need to take notice of listener. Don't come to me and say you don't have an idea or a solution. This is cool stuff. Dead sexy. Are you active out on LinkedIn there? Yup. Yep, absolutely. Okay, you're gonna have every gun link, no demand for this company, this individual and the value proposition that they bring to the table. b2b is the way to go. I like it a lot. Thank you for joining

27:46

it, this was great. We could talk for hours, I'm telling.

27:50

I'm just trying to spare the listeners of the the this. All right, we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you very much. We're gonna have another great interview just around the corner. So thank you.

28:01

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

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