Manufacturing Talk Radio- The Podcast that Stands the Test of Time with Lew Weiss and Tim Grady

Manufacturing thought leaders are flocking to the podcast medium, but are these shows built to last? Podcast pioneers Lew Weiss and Tim Grady of the Manufacturing Talk Radio podcast tell the story of manufacturing’s longest-running podcast.

Articles and resources referenced in this episode:

• Manufacturing Talk Radio Podcast
• Connect with the Lew Weiss on LinkedIn
• Jacket Media Co.

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Transcript

Tim Grady: 0:00

I would encourage manufacturers to tell their story get with you, James, get with us get on the air and tell your story because there's more you can do with the story. It goes up on YouTube, it goes up, ours goes up on C suite, TV C suite radio, they can put a link in their website to the show, let the show tell their story for them. So there's lots of interesting stuff that they can do and I hope they get more proactive in them.

James Soto: 0:33

Welcome to the industrial strength Marketing Show the show that focuses on helping you to be a better marketer and seller of your industrial products and services. Hi, my name is James Soto on the entrepreneur and industrial marketer, best known for founding industrial, a leading global agency trusted by brands around the world. Here we are going to speak with great leaders, innovators people before their time, and today we're going to be speaking with Tim Grady and Lew Weiss from manufacturing, talk radio. These guys were podcasting for pretty much anybody in podcasting was podcasting in the manufacturing segment. And they're going to tell you their story of their past how this all started these two unlikely gentlemen, literally podcasting, and then really what that past led to where we are today and how it's affected them, their businesses. And where do they see things going in the future. So if you're a manufacturer, and you're interested in learning more about podcasting, learning more about creating a multi media channel, and really creating an amazing opportunity to reach audiences around the world, you're going to want to check out this show. Here we go. I want to welcome my good friends, Lew and Tim, welcome to the show.

Tim Grady: 1:47

Thanks for having me.

James Soto: 1:48

Oh, it is a big moment for me. I should take a selfie right here with us. On the line I am I'm a big fan. I'm working hard every if Hey, if you're listening on audio, I am working hard to earn my yellow jacket. So we go. So Hey guys, today we're going to talk a little bit about your journey. And really, let's start to like how this whole thing got started. Where did it begin?

Lew Weiss: 2:12

So let me ask you, how much time do we have? How much time with our audience? Listen, because this is a long story.

James Soto: 2:21

Yeah, I think let me just tell you, everybody, listen. And this is a great story that's in progress that you really need to listen to. So I'll leave it to you, Lew.

Lew Weiss: 2:32

All right. I'll take the first shot at it. Tim and you can jump in wherever you feel comfortable.

Tim Grady: 2:40

There's Reader Digest version.

Lew Weiss: 2:41

Yeah, all right. I'm gonna do the fate episode. Ongoing. The Elliott story. I've been in the metals industry 50 some odd years. And I've always done the marketing for my metal company. Tim has been with me for now. 26 years acting and operating as a consultant to what I do. He tells me where I'm going wrong. And he tells me sometimes where I'm going, right? That said, back in 2013, I had an idea about what can we do about marketing, to my audience, my clients in the manufacturing sector, because that's who I've been dealing with for those multiple, multiple decades. And it sort of came to me in the middle of the night, and I was about a radio show. And I've always been a radio fan. I'm a product of the 40s. I was only eight years old when television was invented. I like radio, I love radio, and so on. So we came up with this. And I said to Tim Lynch, sure. Let's do a show about manufacturing and have people come to manufacturing talk radio, which was the ultimate name and kind of cross market back and forth between our manufacturing entity and our manufacturing, radio show radio. That said, Tim, I'll never forget what Tim said. Tim said, you're ready, Tim? Tim. It's such a narrow focus. There's not much to talk about. So there it is, eight years later, 500 and some odd shows later. And we've got about seven or eight shows in the can and we just keep on coming up with stuff to talk about. So that's what kind of evolved was that I wanted to present ourselves to two markets, those interested in manufacturing those who are in manufacturing, and then what we found out as we went along, and I'll let you talk in a minute or two or three Tim we found out Going along is that people who are in manufacturing, they know how to make stuff. They know how to run their company, they not make stuff. They know how there's a lot of things they know how to do. And they don't know how to market. And that became very self evident to us. And we felt as though that we wanted to communicate to them about how to market the world is changing, not even dimension COVID. But that's that's a later end of the story. The point being that we felt as though that we can gather people from the manufacturing sector, put together a story put together the successes, put together the failures, and submitted to the manufacturing sector. Yes. And that's it. I'm done. Yep.

James Soto: 5:49

So so big idea, said, let's start a show. Let's get the band together. Let's do a radio show, looked at the faculty who wants to hear about manufacturing, right? And lo and behold, here you are 500 plus episodes later. And you know, what's interesting is we're at a phase now where there's such massive adoption, people are flocking to manufacturing. And sometimes when you when everybody's doing it, it's kind of too late. So, kudos to you. So Tim, what, how did you hook up to this train? How did you? What was your How were you dragged along?

Tim Grady: 6:24

Well, one of the things that's creative about Lew, and he's been doing marketing, as he said, all of the years, he's been in business. As he said, he's really a leading edge marketer. And James, you're familiar with the Thomas register those big green books that sit in the purchasing manager's office, and Lew innovated a lot of things working with a great gentleman by the name of the break Sullivan. In terms of what went in those books, he was one of the first to put an insert in the book with a tab that stuck out so that people would know right where it was in that. That portion of the book, he took spine, he took covers, he put in holograms. In every case, Thomas said, Oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. And then the next year offered it as an additional product for sale. So I'm used to coming up with wild ideas. And he he's called me one morning 835 I remember the time and he said, What do you think about radio, I said, for what he said for marketing marketing as differently than our competitor. I said sounds like a great idea. I'll check it out. He said good. Be glad I didn't call you when I had the idea at 213 in the morning. And then two weeks later, I found somebody who could get us on the air. And I have to give you the genesis of the yellow jackets we were all sitting around a conference room table.

James Soto: 7:58

So if you're listening in yellow jacket media manufacture you know manufacturing talk radio. One of the things these gentlemen are known for everywhere they go is their yellow jackets. So so so if you're listening in I have to correct them once they have yellow jackets on right now.

Lew Weiss: 8:18

Well, jacket media co Yes. with yellow jacket. Yeah, there's a little yellow jacket on the logo.

James Soto: 8:24

Yes, I got it. You got it. Yep. Yellow Jacket media co

Tim Grady: 8:29

Listen how we gonna market this thing in our engineer said, you need something like I don't know what screaming Yellow Jacket. And I looked at them both and said, I can make that happen. I happen to know a haberdasher in Hollywood. Oh boy. I ordered the yellow jackets and the company designed the logo and now that when we showed up to events and James, you have been at industry events, pre COVID. When we walk in, any number of things can happen. They think we're part of the singing group that performs at night. They asked us where the bathrooms are because we look like the floor concierge. It's been kind of a fun experience.

Lew Weiss: 9:17

Don't forget about the valet service.

Tim Grady: 9:20

Valet service. I got a nice Ferrari out of it for about an hour and a half. is

Lew Weiss: 9:30

Not even to the mention about the women that would come up to us, asking us all kinds of stuff.

James Soto: 9:37

Oh no.

Tim Grady: 9:40

The yellow jackets been a wild ride. Fortunately, it's created a an image that has stuck in the marketplace and it's a takes a bit of courage because the only jacket near this color was a green chartreuse kind of jacket they wore In the Olympics, the Olympic broadcast in 1972, I think so. That's how the yellow jackets came to be.

James Soto: 10:09

So this is like, Here, you have like a radio show and you're wearing yellow jackets. It's yellow, it's yellow. And there's gonna have to be a little bit of trust here. So So I think it's a it's an interesting story. So, Lew, innovating, how do we break through how do we get attention. So just a little backstory here, I ran one of the largest geographic territories for Thomas publishing, they were sunsetting, the, you know, green books, read, you know, Thomas register of a man, American manufacturers. And I remember when I came on board, I was brought on board because my digital DNA and being in manufacturing, and I remember when they were saying, hey, you can sell in one of these things, but you can sell in an insert. And there's this famous story about this hologram insert, and they were charging, I was like, 18 $20,000, were like an insert here. So any wrap of their entire tire rep agency was like wanting to sell like the, the blue ice inspired insert. So, so that's a very famous story. But I think I hear two themes here, guys, as you've really gone on to do this is you found an opportunity to really create a voice, you know, to you, you've really, you know, built a brand, you know, while while you're at it, and and in doing that, you know, you you've been able to really grow and build trust and build an audience, you know, and, and, you know, there's things where in life, like, you know, you have your New Year's resolution, right, and this is what I think about you guys, is that, you know, hey, this is my resolution and, and, you know, you'll you'll always have some level of excitement and motivation. But when those moments aren't happening, that's when the discipline kicks in. So you're running manufacturing businesses. Let me ask you this. So along that journey, Tim, you're a consultant, you really help companies solve problems manufacturers grow? Lew, you're running a manufacturing business. So as you think of those formative years that you know, you know, start to the 500th episode, where did you start to see real business impact? So so you're, you know, you're have the radio, show your podcasting? What are some of those first moments where you're saying, Hey, this is not just good marketing, this is not good value in content, right? You're a publisher in a sense, but where were those where were those business impacts that you felt, because that's a big reason why a lot of organizations want a podcast, they want to they want to drive interest opportunity, build their brands, and make money.

Lew Weiss: 12:39

The impact is that there are people on both sides on the manufacturing side and the manufacturing audience, that just to point out to us that we now are not only audio, but we also are video. So we have two markets, we got the radio and we got television, so people will buy into the things that we're talking about. They talk they buy into the stories that our guests are talking about. And just to give you an idea of some of the types of guests that we've had, we've had the director of XM bank, who supplies loans to manufacturing companies so they can export their goods. We had the Federal Reserve director, I forgot her first name Yellen. Somebody out, somebody helped me out. We've had people from them on we've had, we have regular shows with, for example, the Institute of supply management. Every month, actually, they were our first show, if you recall, Jim, and we've been doing a show with them every month since 2013, where they talk about manufacturing, they talk about the stats, they analyze, for the audience, things that they will not pick up on ABC News, NBC News, CNN, Fox, so we won't talk about them. But the point is that we're trying to get the message out.

James Soto: 14:22

And that's so important, you know, how do you otherwise get access to the Institute for supply management or, you know, the head of ExIm Bank? That's one of the ultimate things you know, as part of authority strategies that if you have an audience now, because you now have leverage, right, you're leveraged like I have a real audience. And I think that was a I think anyone listening needs to understand this. Because if you're not in the publishing business, you know, you do think like, okay, we haven't heard from you yet, Tim. Right. But there's that there's that side of it, where you have the audience you have to understand is also part of the market. And then there's the advertisers. promoters and guests. And so if you don't really think with that publisher mindset, you're completely missing the value in the audience part. Because, you know, if you're in it to make money and get sponsors, you're going to be in big trouble, if you don't think about that audience as a key stakeholder. But that said, though, Tim, this has got to be a great hack to get into some of those manufacturing businesses, because they get to know you like you. trust you. They hear your insights. So how did you feel that that business impact in terms of something that maybe brought you in for a consult or relationship?

Tim Grady: 15:33

Well, it's interesting, James, Lew has, as I said, it's been very innovative in a lot of areas. And one of the places or one of the methods to have a conversation with someone is to invite them onto your podcast. Now, if you try to get the sales guy in the door chance, it's gonna be a difficult road to hoe. But if you bring them on your podcast, and just have a informational conversation, yeah, well, nice establish some kind of relationships. And our mission, really, from day one. And Lewis done this from when he established his forging company. He just didn't want to be a forging company. He wanted to be an information provider to the industry. So there was always all kinds of helpful information built into a website that I actually built back in 1994 for him called steel forge.com. Metal melting rages. machinability reading is Elliott, information reports. All of that Luke kind of built back in the very early days. So when we went to the podcast route, it's okay, what information helpful, useful, actionable information can we get out to manufacturers and in your world, James, a big piece of that is marketing. Louis has always been a leader in marketing. You've experienced that through Thomas firsthand. Yep. Most manufacturers are so busy making things. They don't tell their story to anybody. Yeah, they've got great stories. Some of the innovations mean, young kids want to go into something excited. Oh, if you want to go to something exciting, where r&d takes place where stuff gets invented that ends up on Mars? That would be manufacturing.

James Soto: 17:17

Yep. No, absolutely. And so there's there's that part of it to where it gets you access, right to folks. And then there's a part where you you have maybe done your work, like Lew is a manufacturer, and you have really special relationships. So you mentioned NAMM, we co produced Manufacturing Day, we built the brand with them. We were like oz behind the curtain, creating a movement that became MFG day. And so now you can say so then we brought we brought Carolyn Lee onto the show, we talked about the story of Manufacturing Day. And we brought on the Department of Commerce and got a letter from Penny Pritzker, the Secretary of Commerce and work with NIST and the MEP national network. So if you're a manufacturer, like Lew, right, like, you also have this asset that you can bring into your show, which are those relations you have, it's not just getting the new relationships, it's the ones you have. So Lew, as you kind of think about the present. So you've gone through this evolution, you've created this property, you really thought about yourselves as marketer and business strategists. You know, Tim and Lew, you've now been building these relationships, your your publishing. Now today, as you look at people you can help so now we're talking about the president of manufacturing talk radio, and Yellow Jacket media company, right? Like, where are you guys now? How are you helping manufacturers, audiences, folks that want to tie in with you people who may or may not want to get into this space? You know, what would you have to offer or advise them?

Lew Weiss: 18:51

Well, first of all, not to correct you, but it's Jacket Media Co.

James Soto: 18:56

Oh, I can't get the yellow out. I know. No, I can't I can't get it out.

Lew Weiss: 19:02

Maybe we should have done Yellow Jacket media couldn't Yeah, it's

James Soto: 19:07

Guys. Like, it's not like I'm a newbie to these guys. I'm a big fan. You know,

Lew Weiss: 19:13

To answer your question. When we started this, one of the things that we knew, and even to the extent even now manufacturing, as small of a business sector than it is in relation to our whole economy, the there's only 12 million employees, but they represent a significant portion of our economy, number one, number two, you never and or rarely ever hear mainstream media, talk about manufacturing, even today, with regard to the fact that we're still in the COVID issue. Companies are closed people are young, unfortunately people are dying. The The birth rate in this country is not growing. I mean, there's, we have lots and lots of issues that affect manufacturing. No one's talking about, we tend to do that we get emails and phone calls and so on from manufacturers. Oh, we didn't know that. Oh, yeah, I'm glad we heard that, that's great. So we know that there's a message going out. And there are people that are intrigued by it, and also then want to be on our show, because they have a contributing story that they can add to our, the breadth of our market. So that being said, I think that we are continuing to bring to the marketplace, a lot of information that those who are in manufacturing, as Tim pointed out, they know how to make things they don't know necessarily how to market it on a grander scale. You know, it's easy to sell horse shoes, the horse throws a shoe, you put on a new shoe, today, there's no horse shoe manufacturer, but there are manufacturers that are making lots of things. And they need to be able to get into a broader market, even if that includes the export market, the going to Canada, go to South America expanding, go to XM bank, go to the US Department of Commerce and get information, get help. The government has lots of information available to them, unfortunately, and forgive me, US government, but they don't know how to market themselves, either. It's a very limited exposure that they give themselves. Sure. So we have a lot of those people on our show. And we talked about all the stuff I just spoke about.

James Soto: 21:47

Yeah. So like you say, you're mentioning one, there's a gap in coverage, right? There's a gap in coverage in you know, as you see it, like there's, you're filling, you know, so like when you when you have a business, right, and it's gonna be viable. Often, one of the best businesses or properties or shows is when there's a gap in the market that no one is addressing. So how do you really keep that long form long running conversation about manufacturing. So that's what manufacturing talk radio is doing. That's pretty clear. And then there's the Okay, part of this thread is, you're also looking at your property as an example, quite frankly, of how you can market yourself. And one of the ways because they're so focused, you also can give these folks a voice, another channel by which to get out their message. And then, you know, ultimately, I think from that standpoint, when you do see folks doing that, they started thinking, well, should I do something like this myself? You know, it's tough, you don't get from zero to 500, right, like, but the barriers to entry are, are very low.

Tim Grady: 22:59

The cost barriers are very low. We're using a very simple technology that took off 15 months ago called zoo. Yeah. Was around for seven years prior to COVID. It was growing, but it became an industry tool would COVID hit? How do we communicate? And so that's really what manufacturing can use today. James, you bring up an interesting question on what can manufacturer doing? and Lew says good luck. It's a low entry point. But you have to think of the long term content. What are you going to talk about? An example Lew and I talk a lot about when we're doing the Institute for supply, management's Purchasing Managers index report, the numbers really high. And all these sub indices are really up. There's not much to talk about, because it's all good news.

James Soto: 23:56

Everything's great. Everybody loves good news. Now they know. They want to hear that.

Tim Grady: 24:01

We struggle with that. But I would encourage manufacturers to tell their story. Get with you, James, get with us get on the air and tell your story. Because there's more you can do with the story. It goes up on YouTube, it goes up ours goes up on C suite, TV C suite radio, they can put a link in their website to the show, let the show tell their story for them. So there's lots of interesting stuff that they can do. And I hope they get more proactive in that

Lew Weiss: 24:33

In 1988. I started a four page self mailer fourth class mail newsletter called metals watch, and that evolved from 1988 to about two years ago, ultimately into a 50 page. Easy called metal outlook that comes out every month and every every segment within the magazine easing is about the app, manufacturing, aerospace outlook, oil and Energy Outlook, and so on and so forth. And we do get guest writers who are sometimes people who are on our show, or some manufacturer who one of our more recent contributors is heartland RV. You know they are. And, you know, they did a, did an article with us. So we're telling the story, getting a story out, whether you're a big company or a little company, the message is the same. get your message out, understand your message under and don't forget about the manufacturing side. But you got to tell your story.

James Soto: 25:57

So so as someone's thinking about the future, they can literally come to you and say, Hey, I need help getting my story out, you know, is this is this? Is this something worth doing? Is that an area you're really helping folks with now? And if so, how?

Tim Grady: 26:10

Yeah, I think it is, we would love to hear from and I'll tell you why. We'd love to hear from the C suite. Folks, we'd love to have the CEO or the CFO on the show, because they have had a longer range perspective of the business. They like you, you know, when we ask questions like you did, how did you get started with the company? How is the company doing and growing? Where have you been, or to see yourself going, which really is product. One of the things that we love to talk about is new technology. I mentioned, manufacturing is the place to be if you want to make something that ends up on Mars, this space story of NASA figuring out how to miniaturize computer stuff to land us. Don't take us into space to land, the sun, the moon is a manufacturing store. Yep. And they reached out to somebody and said, Look, we have to have a computer onboard this capsule that can fit in a six by four inch space that has as much processing power as you can throw at us. Sure. And somebody has some engineers sat down with whom I always tell Lew this story. When you and I were growing up, we watched a television show called Star Trek. And we thought, oh, cool show live, you know, they got a tricorder in there and they got phasers in there. And to us, it was science fiction to this generation. It's science fiction has gone away. There are three companies right now developing tricorders. Yep, where you take the little device and hold it up to somebody. And you read their vitals. So what we saw is science fiction, this manufacturing generation sees a science, that's really cool stuff.

James Soto: 28:00

So we're in a world right to your point where there is a surplus of content, even in manufacturing, and even arguably an abundance of good content, you used to get a surplus of just content and noise and everything, right. And there's an abundance of good stuff. But then there's the opportunity to create your own voice to your point, your own channel, your own point of view. And I think that's going to be super valid. So as you look at the C suite, they actually have something to say they are forming the future. And I personally believe that you got to make your way of living your life and doing business obsolete before generational technology, market forces with the competition does manufacturing is evolving, we are going to Mars. And and as we look at, you know the ability to think about how you extend your voice. One, there's folks like jacket Miyako that can help you and give you advice, even if it's friendly advice, right to I think when you look at the fact that when it comes to creating content and your show, or any show, it has to be something that is entertaining, right, and educational. So it's like edutainment, right and so you have a changing world, you have to break through the noise. And you have to really grab and keep people's attention. And for me, I think we're you guys have a luxury where you've put in the hours you've put in the work and you can have a general much broader conversation about manufacturing. And I thought, Well, folks like me, will get lost. So what I'm looking at is where are there gaps in coverage? And I'm looking solely on how do you make marketing the strength of your business? And that's, that's the challenge because you if you can't find a niche, it's hard to go up against some of the companies that are having the greater story, quite frankly, I don't want to and I think but who's the person who's in the automation, you know, podcast, who's in the additive broadcast, you know, you've got Gardner business media and you've got the additive report, and you've got, you've got those you start, you're starting to see that out there. And for me, it's addressing a problem in when it comes to how businesses are going to have to sell and market is to your point, you're right. Marketing is either missing, mismanaged or misunderstood. And it's constantly evolving. And it sounds like what your guys are telling everybody is you got to get your story out there. Do the simple things, but it's not the way you used to do it. How much do you agree with that? Or not?

Tim Grady: 30:37

In a minute cuz he sent he has put here he has left, because he hasn't taught it out yet. It's not the same it when you look at digital marketing, and you know, there's James, you do a lot of this with your show we do with ours. First, it was a website in your head that SEO your pages should make them search engine optimized for page results. Well, now you want to be on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, in all of those are different platform for the slightly different message. And so now you almost need your inside marketing person to polish up their skills in understanding your story, getting your story out and getting it out for and on all those different platforms, none of what's happened to print, as it was 20 years ago. Lew?

Lew Weiss: 31:35

Yeah. 100%. And, you know, we, we talked to manufacturers, and they're like babes in the woods. And, and, and I'm talking more about to small to medium sized companies, which represent 85% of our manufacturing world. So they're, they're the ones that need a lot of help. And there is a lot of help out there available. You know, there's a million consultants out there now. But we're out there, we're telling the story. we're suggesting that manufacturing, and by the way, if you don't mind, I'm going to give my URL of jacket, media co.com to come and listen to not only manufacturing, talk radio, but we have three other podcasts of different slices of manufacturing women in manufacturing,

Tim Grady: 32:31

Hazard Girls, girls,

Lew Weiss: 32:33

Which is about women in unusual industries. And then we have

Tim Grady: 32:39

On the road again, with Where's Willie?

Lew Weiss: 32:44

Where's Willie? We even have Willie Nelson doing our intro to that. I mean, we got to spice it up, get people excited about the things that they could do. And there are people out there, other than Tim and I, to help get your message out. Yep.

James Soto: 33:02

And so for me, let's talk about the leverage you have you built this audience, you have real properties that you know, speak to very important audiences, women in manufacturing. I think right now in my audience, a lot of light bulbs are going on. If I'm a marketer, I'm just gonna be like, straight out on his 1000 manufacturing's like, Okay, how do I leverage? How do I get access to your audience? you're probably saying, How do you deliver value to my audience, right. And while I think about building it myself, I can also get with these folks if not be a guest, but also maybe invest in a stream of content, a theme that's valuable to a lot of folks that they are very well suited to deliver that message, like, you know, I ESM used to for supply management. So that's what's really intrigued me a bit a big fan of you guys for a long time, you've built something that has extreme value. People can leverage it in different ways, from education, to looking at properties to saying, hey, I want to be affiliated with a woman in manufacturing show. So as you now like, we've talked about the past, we've talked about the president, we've talked about the market opportunity, and as we kind of wrap up, and I am absolutely going to give you an opportunity to let people know how folks can find you. But one last thing like where do you see the future? You know, if you have to imagine a future for for jacket, media company, you know, go in, you have to really look at manufacturing, talk radio, what are some things you hope for in that future?

Lew Weiss: 34:25

I'm going to give you a short background, when the internet was developed and then converted over from a government property to private enterprise to private industry. I actually went to Washington DC, to witness the conversion from government to private. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was there for two days. I had no idea what they're talking about. I came back and I said Tim, I don't know what I just went and saw it. I read about it in a magazine. And this is going to be huge. That was in 1991, 2 3.

Tim Grady: 35:08

93

Lew Weiss: 35:09

Okay, we were number 2734. website to be registered. So we were early adopters, now they're claiming is 2 million podcasts. What is the future hold? He who has the best content, the best values, the best story, the best humor the best, the best of everything to tell the story, and to be able to reach out to the mass mass of audience that we are involved with the Institute of supply management. We're involved with de Geer Association. We're involved, we're involved in lots of associations where they have lots of members. So the point with Nam national institute, national American manufacturers and so on, that where the future is going, it's exploding. Yeah, it's exploding and what I feel and then, you know, you can ask Tim, his thoughts on it. They were I think it's going is it's just boom, exploded.

Tim Grady: 36:16

This, James, I think, is what the industry sees happening. Television, because of its fixed location in your living room. Yeah, unless you're watching it on a device is stated, even cable TV is struggling, whether it's a cable news show or something else, what you're seeing now come to the forefront of streaming services. And so we all get locked into the episodic shows that are in Netflix, and YouTube is putting them out and Amazon has got them. And I think that's where podcasting is going to intersect with the audience is in an episodic or another avenue of information. And we all know that people are listening to podcasts more than they ever have before. Yeah, they're listening longer than they ever have before. It's becoming for the moment, kind of the fair haired boy favorite medium. Today, I don't know what it's gonna be in 10 years, something new may come along like a pair of sunglasses, and you just watch it. They're like they tried with the Google Glass. But for the moment, podcasting is a hot property. It just doesn't know how to monetize itself yet.

James Soto: 37:37

Yeah. So I think that's the masterstroke statement, because I think what you're, you're sensing and again, I think we have a multi generational audience, right? We are multi generational, even, you know, I'm a Gen X, or in my team, I have y's and now getting some Z's, you know, our millennials and getting some, you know, generations Z's in the organization. And, you know, the way we consume information was through the six o'clock news, and then things change through the internet. And those those things are happening, the way we consume content is changing, and AI is coming into play there. Because if you have Netflix, if you have Spotify, if you have Apple Music, if you have whatever podcast platform you're on, so much of what we get is thankfully prescriptively predictively, and print a personalized way delivered to you. You're you go in and log in, you're seeing songs you like you sing songs, you may like you're seeing the latest episode, oh, yep, you're gonna want to see the next manufacturing talk radio show on YouTube, wherever it may be. And that's where the future is, to your point. It's no longer this static thing. And it's going to be predictive, prescriptive and personalized. So I think to the point of why I am so excited about your opportunity, the ground that you've laid, if you have an interest in manufacturing, and across all the threads that you've had, and you do have themes across the years, the technology will be feeding you. And because you're known you're light, you're trusted, and you have the audience to back it up. And so it's also an opera. So it's not just podcasting. Yes, there is a blog for one in every seven person people on the planet, but it but it's across audio, it's cost video, it's across written. And that is the opportunity window we're looking at, because not everyone's going to be able to be a manufacturing talk radio. They're not because of the ground you've laid and you know, obviously got to keep on it. So So I see a great future. I'm a big fan of your story. I'm amazed by what you've been doing and growing your network and helping folks market and get out your message for our audience guys. What's the best? What's uh, what are you up to now? How do people find you? Where do they go? Where do they connect? Is there anything exciting you'd like them to check out but like, how can our odd Let's get dialed in to what y'all are doing,

Tim Grady: 40:02

There's probably a half a dozen ways, certainly go to m f, g talk radio.com there's always a Contact Us page or an email where you can send us a request to be a guest. The same is true for women in manufacturing. Where's Willie as our girls, we have two other podcasts that are monthly manufacturing partnerships, making ways that john kennedy, which comes out of NIST, the manufacturing extension partnership, and he's one of the partner programs in New Jersey, they're leading the country, by the way in their results. And manufacturing matters with Cliff Waldman is another show that, or we have a host who introduced it is we're always looking for people to interview. This is not a we may look simple, James, you know, it's not that, oh, we're on the air, and we've got a guest and we do an interview. Yeah, okay. But we've got a gal by the name of Linda hoffler, who is our producer who would savagely disagree with anyway, who says, Oh, that's easy.

James Soto: 41:06

It's just dealing with you guys. That's why

Tim Grady: 41:10

it takes a lot of work. And so in terms of a manufacturer doing this on their own, not necessarily what I would recommend, because the one offs that I mean, they just recently did a study on how many podcasts are out there, that's in the 10s of millions. But when you take the one offs out of it, it drops by about 60%. And then if you take the two and three and four off, we did it for a month, and then we got tired, and we quit, it drops again. And you really have about 15% of that mass podcast universe that's really actively out there producing every week trying to get information out. So it's not something I'd say to a manufacturer, oh, you ought to jump in and do it yourself. No, I would get connected with you, James, I get connected with us go to jacket, media co.com. And you can find any of our podcasts and go through them. You could go through the library, scroll through the list. See, if you find something of interest there. We'd love to have advertisers with us, typically, and then this is not a pay to play. But quite frequently, when we're doing an interview with somebody if they want to have an ad on the show. I have no reservations about taking an advertiser and interviewing them on the show. I'm just leveraging their information for it. Yeah, that's, that's what we've been doing loop since we invented this thing is how do we help the manufacturer to get their information out there? And it's not just my ad, we're doing this, you're clear on that?

James Soto: 42:48

Yeah. Hey, there's nothing wrong with education in a sales wrapper, because I think what we're finding is people want solutions. And you know, to the extent they're gonna if they're if you're bringing something valuable, concurrent with that, I think that's gonna be really important. Now,

Lew Weiss: 43:03

To your point that they're looking for solutions. There are many that don't know they have a problem. Yeah. So first, listen to other people's stories and say, Hey, I got that same situation. This is not just an issue has been an issue with them. How not? I have a problem. I have an issue that needs to be resolved. How am I going? How am I going to do that? Yeah, good advice.

James Soto: 43:28

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the lessons that maybe this, we can end on this note, you know how like, when your manufacturer or in your business, you're doing your show, and you're trying something new, you got two ways you can do it. You can try to figure everything out and make all the mistakes along the way. But then you could go to somebody who's figured out this crapola. I mean, so when I think about you guys, I think, man, and I know you're busy. And I know you're producing content like crazy, but I got to encourage anyone interested in getting their voice out. People are generally nice and accessible. And if they can't help you, and you guys can't help somebody, you'll try to at least point them in the direction of someone who can. So I really encourage everyone to like, if you're trying to figure out how do you market your business, you know, I will defer to these two gentlemen, you need to reach out to them because they, you know, I'm looking to them for advice. And I would really reach out to them in really just try to get exposed to communicating in this new way. And if you want to accelerate this, and if you're going to do this, and I think you guys know this, it's long tail, you have to have not just the motivation, but the discipline, when those times are happening to keep up that content, because you're going to lose them. And you're going to have wasted your time and ultimately let down an audience because one way or the other, you're building a brand and you're saying something about are you finishing what you started. And in this game, it's an infinite game, as long as we're going and kicking in business right?

Lew Weiss: 45:00

I think that was really well said and Brad you should be in radio, TV and so on.

James Soto: 45:07

I just want a yellow I want to earn a yellow jacket. That's this this. I can't make this any clearer gentlemen.

Lew Weiss: 45:14

You're gonna have to start their different levels. Start with a yellow t shirt.

James Soto: 45:20

I will take Hey, I will I will do our hat a T shirt a button. I will use you Tell me sir, what I have to do. grasshopper says I will. I will do it. So hey, guys, I appreciate your time. I'm big fans. I think we've met twice now. So we're officially friends. So on that note, Lew, Tim, I just want to thank you and our audience so much for taking time to listening to the industrial strength marketing. So I hope you've just heard just one thing that inspires you to communicate to to look at new ways of reaching people be heard be seen, and ultimately it makes marketing even more of a strength of your business. And for more insights from industrial marketers from business and manufacturing and consulting leaders like Lew and Tim, if you'd like to reach out to us you can reach us at industrial strength marketing comm you will have a boatload of links and connections from the good folks here at that jacket media CO and manufacturing talk radio. We'll catch you next week.