Coronavirus: Is Industrial Sales and Marketing Dead?

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What does the unexpected onslaught of the coronavirus mean for industrial sales & marketing– which has always relied heavily on methods like trade shows?

Danny:

Well, hey, what’s up, IndustrialSage nation. We’re live.

David:

We’re live.

Danny:

We are live

David:

This is exciting.

Danny:

This is very exciting. Very exciting, what are we doing?

David:

Well, right now we’re making sure that the audio levels are coming through okay.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

So if something sounds goofy or funny, put a comment there whether on YouTube or you’re on Facebook. That’s what we’re testing out here at the beginning.

Danny:

Awesome, make sure everyone can hear us. All right, so part of what we’re wanting to do is– Well, we’ve actually been wanting to go live and that was kind of in the roadmap for a little bit. And I guess it’s a little bit more expedited now because of the different circumstances. So part of what we want to do here today is discuss and have a live format on this is really addressing what is going on right now. There is obviously… it’s crazy, everybody knows that. And a lot of the questions that we’re getting flooded with questions. We have some of the same questions as well as just understanding, what do we do right now?

So we wanted to kind of try to facilitate a little bit to have a live discussion about what is going on, what is an appropriate answer? And we’re looking at that question, is sales and marketing as we know it, is it dead because of this stupid virus thing that’s going on? I mean, it’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy. So that’s kind of what we want to talk about today. Feel free to join us. We are live streaming on Facebook and not LinkedIn, YouTube YouTube, and I think the link– I don’t know if you’ve got the link in on YouTube So that’s put in LinkedIn or whatever, okay.

David:

Yeah, it’s on LinkedIn and shared everywhere

Danny:

All right. Well, let’s jump into it a little bit. Obviously, things have dramatically shifted over the last– I mean, every day it’s changing. But certainly, over the last week it’s been nuts. We were at Mode X, this time last week I guess, the show was wrapping?

David:

It’s wrapping, yeah.

Danny:

And it was a very clear signal that things are changing dramatically. The attendance at this trade show– If you’re not familiar with MODEX. MODEX it’s a large show material handling and it’s supply chains with a lot of industrial automation and robotics, a lot of software companies for warehouse management systems and the like. Normally, it’s a massive show, it’s put on by the Material Handling Institute, MHI. They do this show MODEX every year. Well, it’s every other year and then alternates with their sister show called, ProMat which happens in Chicago. And typically, I want to say when they do this in 2018, Don’t quote me on that, somebody maybe is watching from MHI. Can give me the right– the real numbers, but I want to say was around 3,0000 attendees.

David:

Something like that I’ve seen.

Danny:

And a lot of exhibitors– This year the amount of exhibitors grew thin, it was over 930 exhibitors, there was a pretty big show. Attendance was dead. I think–

David:

I wouldn’t go so far as dead.

Danny:

Not completely dead, but comparatively speaking.

David:

Well, I wasn’t there two years ago.

Danny:

Okay.

David:

But from just overall, hearing what the exhibitors say they could tell it was significantly lower. Even Monday when we’re there. Really, okay, people are here not you know, towards the outskirts definitely fewer people but down the main aisles were definitely.

Danny:

Monday was rough. Everybody was like, you could just see on everyone’s face a little bit like, what is going on? Luckily Tuesday, Tuesday was definitely I mean– which typically historically is going to be–

David:

Better day.

Danny:

Busiest day.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

So is a lot better. Actually, to be honest with you… Based on Monday, I was really worried about Tuesday. Tuesday it was definitely a lot better but then Wednesday was significantly lower and then Thursday which– I mean, goes down. which is kind of normal, kind of typical for that show–

David:

But also, if you think about it, the night before President Trump just closed the border to Europe what.

Danny:

That was on. Well, it wasn’t closed, it was closing.

David:

It was going to close on Friday but he made that announcement on Wednesday night.

Danny:

Right, Wednesday.

David:

If they were planning on leaving, they were definitely leaving. I’m actually still getting emails from a handful of exhibitors that aren’t back to Europe yet.

Danny:

Really?

David:

Yeah, they’re working their way back.

Danny:

They’re stuck here?

David:

They’re stuck here.

Danny:

Oh, Jeez! That’s pretty–

David:

Well, it’s a challenge. Okay, and I think when we’re looking at it like, all right, sales and marketing, what are we going to do now?

Danny:

Right.

David:

We have this virus, It’s going to be with us for the foreseeable future here not forever, maybe some remnants of it, but the next couple of months we’ve talked about it being a delay. Is it going to be a massive and complete shutdown versus just delaying the revenue or delaying the sales a couple months?

Danny:

That’s I think, that’s the big it’s anybody’s guess, nobody’s got a crystal ball. Who knows what the heck is going to happen? I mean, is it? It feels like we’re just hitting the pause button a little bit. All right, you know what? At least, certainly for this week, is everyone’s just doing a lot of conversations. We’ve talked to a lot of different companies and some are like, let’s move forward on stuff, we need to do this. But the vast majority are like, whoa! Shut the front door, put the brakes on, let’s figure this out because there’s a question– I mean, this is unprecedented. really it’s unprecedented. It kind of reminds me of an expedited 2008 but I feel like it’s a lot more hopeful than–

David:

Well, I think with 2008, there was a lot of after the fact, “Oh, now that this has happened, what are we going to do to fix it?” Whereas, at least, for kind of seeing some activity out of the administration, where they’re trying to catch it before the complete collapse.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

So, which is interesting. You know, I don’t want to get into politics but it’s very interesting what’s being done. But I think, if we’re going to poll everyone, if you’re in sales, has your boss told you, “Oh, yeah, your quota? Yeah, Don’t worry about it anymore.” Probably not.

Danny:

Yeah, I know, right?

David:

Okay, probably not happening. So with businesses, they still need to make money, we’re seeing a shift to gig economy is massive now. Amazon just said, “Hey, we put the kibosh on anything it’s nonessential. Governors and mayors, and everything, are saying restaurants close.” But what is that doing? Well, that need from that– You know, we use example, Amazon as an example.

Danny:

That’s a good example.

David:

From the efficiency of the demand has skyrocketed.

Danny:

Yeah, that’s really interesting. We saw it, yeah.

David:

No, no, it’s okay. Like Amazon demand is skyrocketing, they’re saying, we can’t process incoming inventory because of the outgoing sales that we have for non-essentials related to the virus. Well, what does that say? Well, it says, we need more systems in place that allow us to be more efficient and faster.

Danny:

Yeah, which I think that’s actually a fascinating story specifically, we’re just coming out of MODEX Home Material Handling and Supply Chain Show. The story has been, for the last several years, better, faster, cheaper, we have to get– We have to move things. You look at the whole Amazon effect? We are all now. You know, we talk about it a lot from a sales and marketing standpoint. Certainly, from a consumer behavior standpoint is that we are now preconditioned to, I press a button and something shows up at my door tomorrow.

So already in the space, has been under this intense pressure cooker to say, we need to innovate, we need to create solutions that we can make that better. I remember, was it last year, this year? I mean, we’re talking– One of the companies that was there, Siemens logistics, they were, they had this really cool, it was like a conveyor belt that was able to unload trucks particularly in like mail and packages and stuff. And they said they could basically unload a truck that was full in like an hour, I remember it was–

David:

It was less than, it was 10 minutes

Danny:

It was 10 minutes, okay, yeah. 10 minutes and it normally would take a couple hours to go to unload–

David:

It’s like four hours. By hand.

Danny:

Ridiculous, and that is crazy. You’re seeing all kinds of innovation like that. That’s I think like the MODEX show, ProMat all that was showing all that and you know, companies are trying to figure out the impact. Obviously, we can look at to see the impact of that is, Okay, well, that means if I can reduce my unloading time of inbound bringing in goods or whatever it is that now, as a result, I can on the flip side, go to my customers and say, “Look we can now reduce or increase the time– the drop off time for like overnight or what have you. because now we can scale things faster

David:

We can expand things.

Danny:

More bandwidth. So you’re obviously seeing a lot of solutions like that and I think that like now, it’s even more heightened. I think it’s super interesting. Didn’t Amazon– are they hiring like 100000 people right now?

David:

I’m not sure the exact numbers, but that’s exactly. I’ve seen the ads. Losing your job or may lose your job, you know, industry, we’re hiring, we need more people. You know, for as much as it’s a little scary, it’s also, there’s going to be some winners and there’s going to be some losers.

Danny:

Absolutely, yeah.

David:

So there’s going to be some companies that are going to have to close their doors because of just the situation. But there’s going to be some that are going to pull through it. And the way I like to think of this and I want to get to, is Wayne Gretzky don’t skate to where the puck is, skate to where the puck is going.

Danny:

The puck is going to be.

David:

So let’s think through, we’re in sales, we’re in marketing, when we’re faced with a challenge, what do we do? Well, it forces us to get creative, think outside the box. You know, everyone thought Zoom was amazing before the coronavirus. Now, Wall Street thinks it’s amazing. Okay, “Oh wow! We have this technology that can do what?” So where is the puck going? Excuse me!

Danny:

No, it’s all good. Yeah, exactly. I think it’s just the idea, like you mentioned is just, Okay, well, where are things? Where are they going to be? How can we pivot? How can we adjust? You don’t have the virus, do you?

David:

No virus.

Danny:

Are we six feet apart? I don’t know. Sorry, we’re all good.

David:

Keep your distance!

Danny:

It’s all good. Okay, I mean, it’s a good question. If you guess that was something that at the show a lot of people were asking, they were trying to figure out. I think honestly, a big thing is and you’re seeing it across the board is digital, right? Okay, what is it for us? Let’s look at it. We’re live right now. Are we planning on doing this for a while? I don’t know why we haven’t done this before, but whatever. But we’re doing it now, it’s forcing us to be able to say, we need to be out to get a message out there. And I think a lot of other companies, you’re seeing the exact same thing. You’re seeing a lot of virtual events.

David:

Yeah, they’re spending their time, where? Online.

Danny:

Right, because everyone’s at home locked up, looking at Facebook and–

David:

They’re either wearing sweatpants.

Danny:

Yeah, it’s true.

David:

I’m sure– Excuse me, handful of them. Are, you know, adjusting their typical schedule for the day. Because if you have that “Convenience,” to be able to, “Well, I need to get X projects done or things done, I can do this at midnight or can I go…?” You know this, but– Are we seeing that? Get that, it’s tickle.

Danny:

Yeah, right there.

David:

Yeah, I’ll be okay,

Danny:

Well, part of what we’ve got going on is, I don’t– I mean, today is beautiful outside. It’s like we’re in Atlanta and it’s 80 degrees outside the pollen count is super high. I mean, it’s like we’re dealing with all kinds of things here. But I definitely had a lot of that. I was walking around on the phone earlier. I think, to your point it’s really like looking at those different areas and see, how can we do things differently? How do we get that message out there? The biggest thing is what you’re looking at a lot of these digital solutions and that, I had more than one company. Well, we talked to over 150 companies, I didn’t personally talk, we had the teams and stuff out there. The big, a lot of conversations that I was having with companies they were saying, “We are now need to be forced to think a little bit differently and really embrace digital technologies and we might actually not really know what that means or how that has been. Gosh, we needed to do it before, but now, okay.” If anyone is listening on any of stuff on IndustrialSage over the last two years–

David:

It’s forcing a lot of organizations’ hands.

Danny:

Yeah, exactly.

David:

And I think a lot of the senior executives are being forced to innovate.

Danny:

Right.

David:

Okay, so if you’re a sales leader, you’re boss, who do you report to, you know, V.P, Biz Dev, report straight to the CEO, whoever you report to, if they haven’t said, “Hey, we need to use these digital tools.” You know, I’m watching people on LinkedIn share some really funny videos about that experience of working remote. And the pain and frustration that the executive or the manager has of like, what is my team doing? What are they doing all day? Like Salesforce is a ghost town. You see like the… whatever?

Danny:

Tumbleweeds.

David:

Tumbleweeds going by! Before, they could walk around the office and see the team on the phone, they’re executing, this is getting done, collaboration is happening. You’re not seeing that in the background or from the remote, work from home situation.

Danny:

Yeah, certainly.

David:

You’re going to see things that people weren’t using before. You know, the video that I watched, it was about SalesLoft. And it was listing out all these different challenges that this manager was having and then he’s like, “Oh, yep, yep.” And then he hangs up and then it shows like, “Oh yeah. Well, SalesLoft can do that.” So you’re like, “Okay, so here are tools that have existed for quite a while.” But people didn’t know they needed it. Now, they need it.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

And so, what is everybody using to be able to do that? We have a handful of tools that we leverage like– our other organizations, what do they know? If they’ve never had to do anything like this before.

Danny:

Yeah. Well, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think a couple of things that they kind of jump out to me. Look, the thing is every situa– every company and every situation obviously, seem to be very different. Obviously, there’s different companies here to be impacted this way more. For example, you know, there’s a story coming out of, if you’re an automobile manufacturer or versus a distributor versus you know, you’re in services or what have you, it’s all a completely, completely different experience. A set of challenges for a lot of people. But I think one of the things that I noticed right away is people– All right, we’ve got to, let’s email. Email marketing is a big thing. Obviously, everyone’s running to what their Covid responses, which you know. I mean, I’m hearing from companies that I– I think– I might have had like– I bought a sandwich from them or something once and now it’s like, “Here’s our response.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, all right.” That’s great. But I don’t know that–

David:

Well, here’s the thing, that’s a great response to at least be able to put a statement out there, “Okay, you’re doing something good.” If I was concerned about it, I now have something to reference.

Danny:

Right.

David:

That is not a sales strategy.

Danny:

Well, no.

David:

That is not a marketing strategy.

Danny:

Yeah I think, yeah, I know, I guess I’m just– You know, there’s so many– I guess there’s so many different ways of different things you can do it. I guess that maybe at the short list, some of the things that I think you’re going to start seeing is definitely an uptake in email marketing. But I think that’s going to be quickly flooded. I mean, we’re seeing it now. It was already flooded before, right?

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

So I think that’s one piece. I think a really big thing is paid ads. I think you’re going to start seeing a lot of activity on social, so LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram depending on where your audience is. I think that is an area that I would be exploring. And you know, I think there’s going to be a lot of people that are going to– You know, there’s good and bad ways of being able to do it. I think a lot of times you see people there are a lot of pushback with paid media. I hear back, I hear this all the time, “Oh, well, we did a PPC campaign, we did a LinkedIn an ad campaign, we did whatever and it didn’t work.”

David:

Didn’t work, yeah.

Danny:

Okay, well, why didn’t it work? Well, because you’re not– you’re not really doing it right. You’re going to take that or you good?

David:

No, we’re good.

Danny:

Okay.

David:

It’s cool, we won’t take the call live. It’ll be a very one sided conversation.

Danny:

Okay, all right. So it’s just, you know, the realities of life.

David:

I think you’re going to see a lot more text messaging.

Danny:

That’s interesting. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

David:

Because here’s here’s the deal. You still need to communicate.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

And for the people that traditionally, their primary mode of communication was, “Well, I’m going to go visit them. I want to go visit Press the Flesh. You know, have that type of interaction in person and we’re not seeing that.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Like organizations. I mean, you’re seeing the statements, “Employees only.” “On site visits, off limit.” It’s not happening. Okay, Well, you have the video calls, you a video chat, you have email marketing, paid media. I think this, you’re connecting with somebody because they have this with them.

Danny:

It’s true.

David:

Everywhere they are.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

And it’s also, it’s convenient. It’s very convenient.

Danny:

Yeah, it makes sense.

David:

So, if you’re trying to connect with someone, you can communicate with them and they can ignore it. And be like, “Hey, let’s talk later.” And then you can set up the phone call.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

I think that’s great.

Danny:

I think that’s intuit–

David:

A lot of leverage.

Danny:

Yeah, I think so. You know there’s something else I think you’re going to see and I’ve noticed an uptake too is actually using LinkedIn, just LinkedIn as a whole. While they’re just connect– reaching out and connecting with people obviously, through messenger. I’ve definitely seen an uptake on that. You know, I think the biggest differentiator is, I think there is a tendency right now to have a couple of different reactions. Okay, forget the medium and how you’re connecting with people, whether it’s using text messaging, or email, or LinkedIn message, or what have you. Let’s talk specifically from a sales, anything from a marketing standpoint. I think that there is a huge tendency to be super transactional and like, let’s try to make a buck or let’s try to sell or whatever.

And I think really that right now from maybe just certainly from a messaging standpoint is like, “You know what? maybe the appropriate response is just reach out, connect with our customers and maybe in the prospects and just reach out say, Hey how are you doing? What’s going on?” Maybe instead of trying to sell your thing, or even figure out like, if what I have to sell is going to be something that’s going to help to solve their critical problem right now. I think there’s a lot of empathy we need to have instead of saying, “I’ve got a quota to fill.” “Yeah, you do but does your product or service you’re trying to sell actually going to provide real value?” like, the value that you brought a week ago to whatever company, probably isn’t the same value anymore and that is now dropped eight levels, you know?

David:

Yeah, especially in there, in terms of their priority list of what they’re trying to do or vice versa, where it’s the exact opposite.

Danny:

Flip, right, exactly.

David:

They’re like, “I need this now!”

Danny:

Right. Well, I’m thinking from an empathy standpoint you know, if you’ve got a product or service you’re selling and that it was valuable before but now because of everything that it’s probably lesser on the food chain, maybe you know, back off a little bit. Maybe they’ll be able to see how to help and maybe there’s a way you’ll be able to help that’s not even directly related to your product. You know, just be helpful. But on the flip side, obviously, for those that have said, “Hey oh my gosh! We got something.” I can legitimately– we can legitimately help you solve this problem. And I think there’s typically that– you know, you get that greasy, slick oil salesman like you know what? No, we don’t have time for that.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

But I’ve got something of value, asking you to help solve your challenge of X, “Hey, have you thought about filling the blank?”

David:

Helping people partner.

Danny:

Yeah, that’s a good one.

David:

Just brokering a relationship knowing, hey, you have a problem, these guys over here they can solve it for you, or they can at least help. You guys need to talk. Can you broker that relationship?

Danny:

Well, that’s really the value of LinkedIn. I mean, that’s really the power of networking. So if we can actually do that and say, “Hey, listen, I saw that you made a post about how you’re struggling with short term labor. Gosh, and this is because I have people that keep calling out. Well, I’ve got a great relationship with this company over here, that’s what they do, maybe they can help you guys out. I’m just going to make that intro, if you guys work, if you do something great if not, no. But that’s the kind of stuff I think people– That’s the selling, I think that we should be doing is looking at how can I help you?

David:

Yeah, exactly.

Danny:

I think that’s really a core tenet of that anyways. But I think especially like sales in general, it should be but I think especially right now, it’s even more heightened.

David:

Yeah, and you know, it’s also something where if your organization might just straight up the sales team is really on hold. What you’re, the sales process, what you guys are offering really is not appropriate to be going through that selling right now. This is a great time for your organization to create resources. You know, if the sales team is either pounding the pavement and making the phone calls or they’re at home setting up their phone you know, stack and their phone on a hand full of books.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Okay, on the dresser, get some good lighting and recording those sales videos.

Danny:

Yeah, Absolutely.

David:

The question, the top 10 questions your sales team gets asked and you know it’s like, “Well, I just don’t have time for it!”

Danny:

Well, you have some time now.

David:

You’ve got time now. I feel that this is the best time for organizations that can’t, okay, not everyone. But if you’re in an organization and in a position to be able to think strategically now is the time. Build that content library, build those resources, people are online, they’re on social, they’re spending time there, they’re way more accessible than they ever have been I would say.

Danny:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think we’re definitely indebted, we’re definitely seeing that for sure. A lot of people have connected with me over LinkedIn that I didn’t– and actually messaged me and we’ve had some conversations and I was actually a little surprised by that, I thought, Okay, I didn’t think that you know, but I guess, we are.

David:

I mean, we have some it’s into a couple organizations that are headquartered in Europe and they’re telling their people, “Look, it’s a vacation right now guys, it’s time for you to go on vacation, do that.”

Danny:

Yeah, well, you’re seeing that sort of I think a lot of that across the board as well. It’s just super interesting time, I don’t, you know,

David:

We’re not going on vacation. I think this, for us, we’re like, now is the time to double down and really figure out how can we help organizations get their message out?

Danny:

Yeah, and I think what I predicted over the next obviously, the next several weeks. I think now I think, give it this week, everyone’s, “Ahhh!” You know, I think next week it’s going to be probably that maybe a little bit more as– I’m sure that the situation’s fluid, things are going to continue to change and to evolve. I’ve been on a lot of calls with a lot of manufacturers. You’ve got a large workforce. You look at GM and Ford, and Fiat, Chrysler they announced we’re shutting down. I think they said they were laying off, doing… 150,000 people they’re laying off. I suspect this so they could go through like unemployment and do that. That’s pretty significant. And you’re seeing a lot of other, let’s say like a Procter & Gamble, or Georgia Pacific, for example, I hope with a great runs on toilet paper they’re great toilet paper in 2020. They’re really manufacturing a lot of critical products and supplies that quite frankly, those lines need to stay up, they can’t go down.

Obviously, the whole medical devices space all these manufacturers are– So, anyways, they’re trying to– But then you’ve got other manufacturers that are maybe– you know, was on a couple of calls earlier this week we have 2 or 3000 employees and we are evaluating. You know, we’re not necessarily manufacturing critical infrastructure for… it’s a product, good, or a medical device, or medical supply. Everyone’s sitting there kind of waiting, well, is everyone going to like– are we going to shut down? Is the factory getting a shutdown? Do we need to be making that call? Is the government going to come in and do that? So my point being that over the next two weeks, I suspect that it’s going to be very much like everyone kind of sit and wait, we’re going to move forward where we can. There’s going to be a lot of trepidation. And then I think after that, that it’s going to be a lot of, Okay, I don’t know.

David:

What is the new normal?

Danny:

Like, what’s the new normal? So either we’re going to be sitting at home, working from home or trying to work from home or you’ll be back at the office. I’m betting you’re going to be likely working from home and the dust is going to kind of settle a little bit and say, to your point, here’s the new normal. Okay, all right, people are hopefully calming down a little bit, now what? Okay, well, gosh, to your point, we still haven’t quota, we still need to get out there. And I think a big thing is you know, this obviously has already had a huge ripple effect. And this is probably the number one thing that came up at MODEX was, all the shit, we do a lot of trade shows and they’re all canceling or postponing. I was looking today at a list from a company that do a lot of trade show booth stuff. I mean, the list was huge and it was canceled or postponed. And a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton. And mostly the manufacturer, I’ve talked to a lot of people, I’ve talked to MODEX in particular they were like, “Hey, this is where we do not just MODEX.” I said, “What’s going on? “We just do MODEX fillers and that’s it, that’s what we generate our leads and we go from there or we have a significant presence at trade shows in the future.” and now they’re gone.

David:

What are we going to do to generate leads?

Danny:

What are we going to do to generate leads? What do we do? Yep, there you’ve got the golden–

David:

You don’t have the–? I’ve got the list.

Danny:

I’ve got the playbook right here.

David:

You’ve got the list?

Danny:

I have a list here. Honest, I really think that you’re going– Well, first of all, we’re going to do a webinar on this. So we’re going to do a little bit more of a deeper dive, we’re going to have some more commissary are going to be joining on, you’re asking some questions that we can go over some specific procedures and some ideas, and things that you can apply towards your organization.

David:

This is the skate to where the puck is going.

Danny:

Exactly.

David:

Okay. The trends have been industry-wide for trade shows, they’re significantly dropping.

Danny:

It’s been dropping.

David:

It’s been the writing on the wall. What has happened is instead of it taking five more years for it to drop off, we’re seeing it happen, what? This year.

Danny:

What’s happening this year. It’s going to come back for sure, but–

David:

Yeah it could or people are going to realize like, “Wow, this whole digital marketing thing is interesting.”

Danny:

Oh, totally, yeah.

David:

It’s like we’re generating the same amount or more than we did at these shows. Oh, and by the way, the millions that we had to spend to spin up our booth.

Danny:

That’s a good point, yeah.

David:

And how all these different things, like we don’t have to do that anymore. So which you may still have the trade show but instead of having 30,000 or 50,000 people in attendance, you’re going to have 10,000.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

And it’s going to be instead of it being, Well, I sure hope these organizations show up and visit my stuff, It’s going to be, we have these 50 appointments scheduled for people to be able to come and see the demo set up like that.

Danny:

Right, yeah.

David:

It’s going to be much more of a meet and greet, and demo, and see the actual stuff in action in that kind of setting where that prospect is going to go meet with a dozen different organizations.

Danny:

Well, I think to that point, you know, one of the things that came out of MODEX was that even though the attendance was a lot lower than it normally is, almost everybody that we talked to said the quality, actually of leads and the people of the conversation, you know what we had? It was very high. So part of it is, a lot of people didn’t come because they were worried about, you know, “Oh, we might get, we don’t want to travel.” And whatever, totally valid 100%.

David:

Company’s policy is what I just said.

Danny:

Company policy, yeah.

David:

We’re not traveling right now.

Danny:

Exactly. But the people that I think, the people that did show up are like, “I have a real need and I need to be out to see this.” And I think, particularly in this space, sometimes you know, it can be very challenging to see some of these, like we say, an industrial automation solution where you’ve got conveyors and robotics and all this stuff. Like seeing it actually function in a live environment. You can’t bring in all of your prospective clients to a customer facility. Maybe you’ve got an innovation center–

David:

Right, because maybe they’re competitors where you have your trade secrets.

Danny:

Exactly.

David:

They don’t or the aspect of it is just a very small segment like, “We do this we have the printers.”

Danny:

But I think to that point, the idea is, okay, this is where you need– everyone you start thinking, how do you replicate that experience? That experience that we have on a trade show for? Okay, well, what are the challenges? We’re like, “Well, we would love to show a prospective customer our solution in full, in inaction, how do we do that?” “Okay, well, if we can’t bring them to a customer site, all right, well, we need to show them we have a demonstration area at our trade show.” Or maybe we have an innovation center, there’s a lot of companies that have innovation centers but the challenge there and that– Well, certainly, now, but the challenge–

David:

Yup, still have to travel there.

Danny:

The challenge was there before, is to get your customer like that engaged. They say, “Once you fly down over here, come check it out.” That’s a huge commitment on their part. Whereas, maybe now with, okay, what if we were able to take that experience and replicate it digitally? What if we were able to go into a virtual tour of, you know, maybe you go to your customer facility and do a virtual tour there or from your innovation center, or an embryo to create this experience with some–?

David:

I guess some maybe even augmented reality?

Danny:

Yeah, exactly.

David:

Okay, where they can hold up their iPad in their warehouse floor and see what the conveyor belt system might look like–

Danny:

Might look like inside there, yeah.

David:

But the A.G.V’s like, “Where are the docking stations? How would this all work and they go from one place to the other? Think about that?” “Sure” Heavy investment up front from the A.R Technology or Augmented Reality Technology. But even those tools are much more cost effective than they were five years ago.

Danny:

Oh, yeah.

David:

So you have that. Is that where you’re going to transition your investment? But even I think of like, a lot of organizations spend a significant amount of money being a sponsor for the shows.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Their organization might do it for a variety of reasons, one, sure lead generation, getting some attention. But even from just what, you know, maybe a little bit of ego.

Danny:

Yeah, certainly a lot of that.

David:

You know, just brand positioning, like Bose were great enough of an organization to be able to be a top tier sponsor for that trade show. So are they? What are they going to do to be able to have that same type of recognition?

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

But I think these are challenges because before you’d be like, “Yeah, we’re the Premier sponsor at X, Y, Z trade show.” “Oh wow! Okay, you guys know what you’re doing.” Like, “You guys have been around the block a few times.” Now, they can’t flaunt that. Now, what is the next premier sponsorship position?

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

I don’t know, I don’t know what it is.

Danny:

I might, I have a few ideas.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

No, I think, and which is interesting. I mean, just the whole, our vision and what we’re doing here the IndustrialSage is– You know, I felt like it was really addressing a need that we had before. Now, I feel like that need is huge. And I think probably you’re starting to see a lot of companies starting to kind of wake up a little bit, look and say, “Okay, there’s different ways and we thought, we didn’t understand this over before but now, we kind of get it because we’re forced to.”

David:

Right.

Danny:

And so, I think, yeah. You’re going to start seeing a lot of that.

David:

Well, I think you know, we think through like, how do we help marketers?

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

Well, a lot of it’s discovery. Where are people going to discover the product or service I’m trying to market? And that’s where IndustrialSage is a platform for discovery, it’s that ecosystem.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

I mean, that’s really what IndustrialSage is all about. We have, we are an open contributor platform, so sales and marketers are able to publish content.

Danny:

Exactly, yeah.

David:

We help with the distribution.

Danny:

Right.

David:

So right now, people can when they write an article and submit it to our site, we distribute it to our entire audience and that’s at no cost.

Danny:

Right.

David:

Imagine that. Okay, so organizations that are trying to get their feet wet and try and do something, what do they need? Well, we help with the content creation, you guys publish it and then we help distribute it. It’s having that ecosystem available to really help the– you know, what is it? All boats right, you know, little rising tides.

Danny:

Tides, right. Rising tides–

David:

Rising tide lifts all boats.

Danny:

Something like that.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

Totally probably butchered that.

David:

Something like that.

Danny:

You get the concept?

David:

That is the concept. It’s like we’re trying to do our part to help sales and marketers. These are challenges we’re seeing. You know, there’s a lot of tools that are out there, there’s a lot of question marks right now and– It’s like, what is next week going to look like? Well, I don’t know, but to me I’m pretty excited about it because this is uncharted territory. So, I remember the Internet going on with the Spanish Flu or whatever else. Okay, so like we’re in unchartered territory, the world is your oyster, now is the time to experiment and test things out because nobody, there is, the status quo just got thrown out the window.

Danny:

Well, actually, you know, something to that point. I was on a podcast, I was on the Supply Chain Now– Supply Chain Now Radio, or Supply Chain Now Podcast with Scott Luton and Greg White, this was a couple months ago. And so they started reposting, they retweeted something yesterday, about something that I apparently said, and I don’t remember what it was. But it’s basically about the– He was asking like, what’s the worst thing somebody could do from a sales and marketing standpoint, particularly from a marketing standpoint? I said, “Well, back then the worst thing to do is nothing.”

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

Whether it’s the wrong thing or the right thing or whatever actually you know, really, the worst thing you could do is nothing. And I think that’s more important now than it was when I said that. However, how many months ago.

David:

Two to three months ago.

Danny:

And I think you know, this reminds me of the whole horrible 2008 time. Anyone who had a business or went through that or any– I mean, most, everybody except maybe the much younger generation doesn’t remember that from a business standpoint. I certainly remember it. You know, the companies, there’s a lot of fear and you’re seeing that right now with the market and where it’s going. Again, no crystal ball on what’s going to happen there. There is a big tendency. and rightfully so to say, we have to pull back on everything that’s what we’re seeing right now. We’re pulling the reins from–

David:

From the stock market perspective.

Danny:

From stock market economics. Well, I’m telling you, just even from a business standpoint because it creates a lot of confusion and a lot of, we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow so it’s easier just to say no, no to everything let’s look at that. Okay, and that’s a fine answer for a little bit. Because you’ve got to do due diligence, you’ve got to figure out the damage, right?

David:

Assess the situation and moving forward–

Danny:

Somebody had a thing, a little Tweet or something, it was from like Star Trek, like next generation or whatever, it was like Picard, it was like, “Damage report.” you know, coming out it’s like, that’s what it’s like every morning, I feel like, all right, well, what the heck happened now? Where are we? We’re going through that. We’re going to get through that. Okay, but the next thing is, if things are you know– The economy is going to come back, it’s going to take some time and that could be really fast, it could be really long. I don’t know.

But what I do know is I remember very distinctly in 2008, the companies that sat and didn’t do anything there’s a big opportunity for a land grab. Typically, companies will come here and say, “We’re going to go into a maintenance phase versus a growth phase.” And right now, obviously, the answer is we’re going to, we need to maintain, we need to make sure everything’s good, figure out all this stuff. But the real ones who really want to innovate and be able to get a jump, what is happening and what will happen is that there’s going to be a land grab. There’s going to be an opportunity to be able to say, Okay, a lot of companies are going to not respond and they’re going to wait. So you have a first mover advantage to be able to say, let’s move into these new areas.

David:

It’s leveled the playing field in a lot of ways.

Danny:

Exactly, we hit the reset button. We hit the reset button and everyone’s kind of starting back– Everyone’s going to be starting back from the starting line at the same point. And now, okay, those who are going to innovate and those are going to say, you know what? It’s time to do something we really do need to do something different and we need to– you know, we probably need to have an accelerated path towards that. Those are the companies that are going to win.

David:

Yup.

Danny:

And you need to experiment, you need to start doing stuff. And you know what? You’re probably going to fail. Fine, fail, fail, fast, do it again, keep going and don’t say, “Oh we did paid media and that doesn’t work.” Okay, well maybe you didn’t do it right because that’s honestly, what’s– And you know that’s a lot of– there’s a lot of fear and a lot of trepidation of people said, “Well, yeah, we did this and it just didn’t work.” Okay, well, if it failed, how come when you look at the stats on ad on dollars on where it’s going and digital ads it’s a huge growing area. I predicted, it’s going to be even bigger. You’re going to see it. You’re going to see that.

David:

And the more people use it, the more expensive it’s going to be.

Danny:

More expensive it’s going to get. Right now, it’s very cheap right now.

David:

The opportunity even in terms of the organic availability on– not just search but from all our different social channels. So LinkedIn, Facebook, even discovered on Instagram, YouTube. The massive amount of content that’s created on each one of these social platforms. you know, what is going to happen? Well, more people are going to try and do it.

Danny:

What’s going to happen? It’s going to flood it, which means it’s going to keep–

David:

Charges go up, so take advantage of it now.

Danny:

Exactly, so you go back like five years ago or longer. When we talk about SEO, for example, Search Engine Optimization. It’s the magical thing when you go to Google, you do a search and boom your website pops up, that’s not an ad. That’s SEO, right. You know, it used to be a big driver. I mean, it’s changed over the last several years, over the last 10 years, it’s dramatically changed. All the black hat, keyword-stuffing all that fun stuff.

David:

Good times!

Danny:

Good times, right? It would have largely been over the last several years and it has actually, it was still very true back then, content, blogs. Content, having on your website. Well, what has happened now is that in the last several years, instead of saying, it used to be like, “Hey, look if we write an article once a week like we’re awesome and we’re going to rank up there and people are going to find us and it’s going to be amazing.” Well, that’s not the case anymore. Now, you’ve got to– you’re going to, like– Even if you did a darn article every single day, I mean, you need to probably start there if you want to have a real big impact quickly. If you try to go and release one blog article a week, it’s going to take you forever to actually gain–

David:

Sure, and not a scary anybody, but that’s from the organic perspective. But how you leverage that article that you’re writing once a week, is very different.

Danny:

Absolutely.

David:

So that’s where you know, marketers take note, Yes, you’ve got to get started somewhere, write that article, maybe you can only get 500 words out of it. Okay, We’ll start with 500, get into the hands of your sales team. How many of them are spending time answering the same question?

Danny:

Over and over again.

David:

Over and over again or copy and pasting their other, you know, no incentive so and so. You know, it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of effort that’s wasted, it’s not scalable. Now’s the time, implement these scalable systems like yesterday.

Danny:

Right.

David:

You get started.

Danny:

So it’s not just like, “Oh we’re just going to take an article and throw it out there and it’s whatever. Hey, let’s talk to your sales team and that’s where that core of that content should come up.

David:

Yeah, If you want it once a week, it’s 52 articles. 52 articles. Let’s think through it. All right, maybe you can only think of 10 of them today. That’s fine, write those ten.

Danny:

That’s better than nothing, yeah.

David:

You have two months and change of weekly content. Well, six weeks from now, sit down with your sales team, I need three questions from you, three from you, three from you, or five from depending on how big your organization is, draw on them. Get those questions, have them feed you that information then get it from the, you know, sales engineer Okay, and the ones that come in and know the science behind the technology you guys are doing. Get– sit them down, so you have even more in-depth content. Like now is the time because there’s one thing that’s for certain is that digital is not going away. the content that you create is going to exist, Britannica, Encyclopedia, Britannica, maybe the sales position of door to door sales to sell the Encyclopedias vanished but where is that content, it’s online.

Danny:

Yeah.

David:

It’s in the form of Wikipedia and it’s in the form of valuable blog articles. And you know, we’ve talked to a lot of different organizations, a lot of marketing agencies. We have the agency success podcast, where we talk with agencies, I talk with them about what they’re doing with their industrial clients that’s successful. And they’re showing the content that they are writing because nobody else is writing it, the content they’re writing and publishing, and distributing out there, is generating results. First to market now, get out there, leverage these digital tools. Like you said before, don’t do nothing. Doing nothing is worse than going backwards and pulling back. You’ve got to have some forward momentum, you’ve got to have some forward motion even if that forward motion is you setting up your strategy.

Danny:

Yeah, you’ve got to do something, got to do something. All right, so it is– Oh, gosh, we’ve been on here for probably 40 minutes or so.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

The stream has been on for an hour.

David:

47.

Danny:

We started, we’ve been 47, Donavan?

Donavan:

Yeah!

Danny:

Okay.

David:

So we’ve been rocking it out, everybody.

Danny:

We’ve been chatting for a little bit. All right, I think we’re to go ahead and kind of like wrap it up for today. So the next thing that we’re going to start, we’re going to be doing a little bit more of this over the next several days. Well, you know, we’ll be hopefully doing this from the studio as much as we can.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

And we can all go to my basement or something.

David:

Well, yeah maybe your basement, we remote some people in. But really I think, it’d be great to be able to hear from our audience. Okay, If you want to be on the show essentially being an expert in your industry and share your resources, share what you guys are doing, from all perspectives, whether it’s finance, human resources.

Danny:

Yup, yup.

David:

I guess taxes is with that. You know, anything that’s involved within the industry, we want to hear from you. We want to understand really what’s going on from a thought leadership perspective and there’s a lot. You know, the White House, CDC, IRS, Federal reserve, all these different administration elements are doing a lot of different things that are impacting the industrial and manufacturing space.

Danny:

Oh, yeah.

David:

And we want to hear from you. You guys know what’s going on, you hear this update. What was it? The manufacturing Defense Act. What’s the?

Danny:

Oh yeah. Yeah, the production Defense Act that was enacted yesterday I think by Trump which basically gives him the powers to be able to mandate to a manufacturer, Hey, we need you to take this contract, we need you to produce toilet paper or whatever.

David:

Yeah.

Danny:

And now you know, we’re nationalized.

David:

Yeah. We’d love for someone to come on the show and explain that, what that means. So and maybe you know a topic that we haven’t thought about yet, we want that one too.

Danny:

Anything to be able to help really just kind of get just responses and even just understanding what you’re doing as an organization and companies I think you’re sharing those best practices and those thoughts. I think a lot of companies legitimately don’t know and it’s okay that everyone doesn’t have all the answers but I think maybe sharing that information and saying, here’s some thoughts and here’s some ideas and different things, that’s really really what’s going to help and that’s ultimately why we said, Hey let’s go out and start pushing some content out and some things live you know, share some insights that we have in this space about to help kind of weather, the situation.

David:

Yeah, exactly.

Danny:

All right. So next week, we’re going to have a– We’re going to have a webinar, I believe that’s set on Thursday. I’m not sure, we’ll send out some emails and there’ll be some information about we’re not going to do that, it’s going to be a little bit more. nuts and bolts, as far as responding from a sales and marketing standpoint. Trade shows, gone for it now, what do we do? How do we generate leads? How do we get prospective customers? How do we navigate all this? We’re going to have a conversation, where I’m hopefully, we’ll wrap this up with ADP, all the way to come in and kind of share some best practices and just learning some things from an H.R standpoint from insights. I mean, they were sharing with me some real case studies, some real things that are going on right now: questions that companies are asking, if they’re getting asked over and over and over again. Looking at different things like the Family Medical Leave Act which was just updated earlier this year, earlier this week. And I think there wasn’t even an addition, an addendum to that got passed earlier today that I think it amended, so Monday already?

David:

There’s a lot of stuff moving.

Danny:

Full situation, a lot of things going on we want to be out to help provide that and bring that information as best we can’t. So that’s it, it’s all we’ve got for you.

David:

This is great!

Danny:

We’re good, right now, we’re signing off, thanks so much.

David:

Thanks everybody!

Danny:

Thanks.

 

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