In this episode of B2B Marketing Methods, host Terri Hoffman is joined by Beth Dickson, Regional Director of Western Colorado for Manufacturer’s Edge. Their discussion centers around Manufacturer’s Edge’s role as the designated Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) for Colorado, providing insights into the support and services offered to manufacturers.
Beth explains the process of conducting business health assessments to identify pain points and prioritize solutions, emphasizing the importance of operations, people, data, technology, and leadership. The episode also highlights common challenges such as workforce development, lean training, and marketing. Beth shares her strategies for building relationships with manufacturers, offering resources, and connecting them with experts to foster growth and success in the region.
Topics Discussed:
- Role of Manufacturer’s Edge in supporting manufacturers.
- Common challenges faced by manufacturers in Colorado.
- Importance of business health assessments.
- Identifying and prioritizing pain points in manufacturing businesses.
- Impact of manufacturing on local economies and job creation.
To learn more about Beth Dickson connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-dickson-11942987/
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24]
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing Methods. My guest today is Beth Dixon. Beth is the Regional Director of Western Colorado for an organization called Manufacturers Edge. Who is Manufacturers Edge? You might be wondering. I’m going to let her go into that in just a few minutes and explain who they are, what their priorities are as an organization, but she is going to be able to share a lot of information today with us about the field of manufacturing. Not just from a revenue generation standpoint, but just talking about some of the common things that her clients as manufacturers are running into, some of their challenges. We’re going to start with just having Beth introduce herself and tell us a little bit about her background and explain who Manufacturers Edge is.
[00:01:07] Terri Hoffman: So welcome, Beth. Thank you for joining me today.
[00:01:11] Beth Dickson: Thanks, Terri. Yeah. So, Beth Dixon, a regional director, for Manufacturers Edge, and my territory covers the west half of the state of Colorado. I live in Grand Junction. A lot of people are surprised to hear that, in 19 counties that I cover
[00:01:28] Beth Dickson: there are almost a thousand manufacturers in those counties. There are over 7000 manufacturers in the state of Colorado. So that’s really just a little tiny portion of that, I have four colleagues on the front range that cover all those other manufacturers.
[00:01:45] Terri Hoffman: Tell us who Manufacturers Edge is, explain who your organization is.
[00:01:49] Beth Dickson: So Manufacturers Edge is the designated manufacturing extension partnership, so we call it the MEP, for the state of Colorado. And there’s an MEP in every state as well as Puerto Rico.
[00:02:03] Beth Dickson: So, we’re this network of MEPs fully focused on manufacturers in every state.
[00:02:10] Terri Hoffman: That is, that’s awesome. And my sense is that even a lot of manufacturers don’t know that the whole kind of organization of MEPs and the network across the country exists.
[00:02:19] Beth Dickson: 100%. So, I think a lot of people are out of touch with that resource until we go in and introduce ourselves and start to engage. Although there are some that really do know about us and use our resources. I can say, well in my opinion, I feel like if you’re a manufacturer in any state your MEP for that state is going to be your best resource, for anything that you need to accomplish in your company.
[00:02:44] Terri Hoffman: So what are some of the main, ways that you support and help the manufacturing industry and your clients?
[00:02:51] Beth Dickson: This is like, the 1st question that a lot of our manufacturers, when we introduce ourselves ask too, but, let me back it up a little bit.
[00:02:58] Beth Dickson: The 1st thing we do is go in, introduce ourselves, get to know the business, tour the facility, find out a little bit more about what they’re manufacturing on site and then we propose a no-cost assessment called a business health assessment, and that’s a survey monkey. I mean, we just have, the employer
[00:03:20] Beth Dickson: send that out to the management team, the folks that make the decisions in the company. So sometimes that’s like three people and sometimes it’s 15 or 20 and then we get those results back. It’s all anonymous, which makes it a little interesting, but you do get some real feedback from the management team that might not come to the surface unless we did this assessment.
[00:03:43] Terri Hoffman: Okay.
[00:03:43] Beth Dickson: And what we do with that is we have a roundtable conversation and all it does is identify where their pain points are and gives us a baseline as to where we need to start. And typically, I like to start with like the top two priorities, maybe three, just because it can be overwhelming after that conversation with their team and a couple of people from my team and we all start, pushing this around and the conversation gets pretty in-depth sometimes but, Sometimes they’re really aware of what they need and some of the trainings or consulting that they’re looking to bring in.
[00:04:18] Beth Dickson: But sometimes it’s a surprise to them, too. So we shift and go in that other direction with them and really leave it up to them and let them guide us where those priorities are and where they want to start.
[00:04:29] Terri Hoffman: Something that I think might be helpful is if you’re able to talk about just maybe the different categories of the business operation that you guys are looking at with that assessment.
[00:04:38] Terri Hoffman: Like what kinds of areas of the company do you cover?
[00:04:40] Beth Dickson: So, some of the things that we do with that assessment, it’s going to identify operations, your people, data and technology, success planning, leadership. It’s really going to cover everything around all aspects of your business.
[00:04:54] Terri Hoffman: Okay.
[00:04:55] Terri Hoffman: So I’m assuming it covers sales and marketing too.
[00:04:58] Beth Dickson: It absolutely does.
[00:04:59] Terri Hoffman: Well, all of it’s important, right? Like if any one of those parts of a business isn’t kind of hitting, on all cylinders. That can be the one stool piece that makes everything tip over.
[00:05:10] Terri Hoffman: I just totally messed up that analogy, but I think the audience knows what I’m talking about. So you’re kind of making sure all of those pillars are strong in the organization and then helping them assess which priorities are the most important or the biggest challenges that they need to take on right away.
[00:05:24] Terri Hoffman: So you’re sitting back down and you’re kind of involving that same group of stakeholders who helped answer the questions.
[00:05:31] Beth Dickson: Absolutely. So they’re all a part of the conversation. We kind of leave it up to whoever the plant manager is, maybe the technical trainer or even a CEO, COO, whoever’s leading that company is typically who’s, sending that
[00:05:46] Beth Dickson: survey out and identifying which responses they want, who they want to have respond and what feedback they need. Like I said, it can be anywhere from two people, three people, up to 20. And so the conversations really vary. It just depends on the size of the manufacturer. But I always bring someone in from my team.
[00:06:05] Beth Dickson: So we have a second set of eyes, ears, thoughts. And then once we have that conversation, we bounce around through the survey. It’s not like, oh, we just read it out and read out answers. It’s an anonymous survey, so we don’t know which employee answered what, but we can see if there’s a gap.
[00:06:23] Beth Dickson: So if someone answers one, they don’t really agree with what we’re asking, and then someone else answers a five, we know there might be something, a conversation we need to have there. So we’ll call that out and then we try to get a conversation going, not necessarily on our side so much.
[00:06:41] Beth Dickson: We do a lot of listening or encouraging with conversation and then we just listen to the client and see where those conversations go, ask them if they’re surprised by the answers that they’re getting or by those gaps between a one and a five answer.
[00:06:58] Terri Hoffman: Oh, man, I bet. I bet it leads to a lot of probably healthy conversations that have been hiding under the surface that are just kind of like giving them the forum for going over it together. What are some of the top challenges, that you’re seeing surface?
[00:07:16] Beth Dickson: So I’ve been with the company for three years and I can say they’ve changed a lot in the last three years. I would say in the first year I was here, there was a lot of conversation around supply chain. There’s a lot of conversation around HR. If you think about, for example, a smaller company, maybe only has like five employees or less. You probably don’t have an employee handbook or, the things that you really need to have if you’re going to scale
[00:07:45] Beth Dickson: and if they’re bringing more employees on. And they have to have those things in place. Right. So we have solutions to those. And we don’t necessarily talk about solutions right away. I mean, like I said, we want to identify those top priorities. my team and I get back together and we talk about what we heard.
[00:08:03] Beth Dickson: And we brainstorm like, Hey, this is what I heard. This is what they heard. This is what they’re telling us they need and want. And we kind of mesh it all together. We marry it. So it makes sense. And then I go back to them after that conversation and say. Hey, is this kind of what you’re thinking?
[00:08:17] Beth Dickson: Is this, this makes sense after this conversation. So then we start to move forward. So if it’s HR related, if it’s marketing related, Terry, so you know, if somebody says, Hey, I need, I need some help with my website or I need some help with, graphic design or, leveraging LinkedIn for my business, then we have resources that we go to.
[00:08:40] Beth Dickson: And I, to move into that a little bit too. So, we have a combination of in-house experts as well as a network of specialists. Which includes you, that are, we vet them, we vet those experts, so that they don’t have to. So, again, we’re a great resource. They don’t have to take the time out of their very busy days, to go and make phone calls and try to find the right, the right fit for them.
[00:09:05] Beth Dickson: We already have those resources. So, I like to call myself a matchmaker. So if I have three marketing people, three marketing consultants, in our group of specialists, then I kind of identify which one I think is going to be the best fit for that company. Whether they’re a company of five people or a company of 200 people and what their needs are specifically.
[00:09:29] Beth Dickson: And what I know to be each specialist, expertise.
[00:09:33] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I mean, that’s, really a huge value. Not just saying this because we’re in the program and our company has been vetted, but it’s a pretty extensive vetting process. As you know, what our company went through in order to be qualified to be one of your suppliers and one of your partners.
[00:09:49] Terri Hoffman: If you’ve put, everyone in the group through that, I can definitely see how that provides value because as a manufacturer, you’re just constantly being sold to everyone trying to get in and give you lean training or help you set up HR functions or help you with your sales and marketing process
[00:10:05] Terri Hoffman: And if you guys have already vetted that team and have taken the time to learn their business and you know your suppliers, you’re really in a much better consultative position to make those matches for them.
[00:10:16] Beth Dickson: Absolutely.
[00:10:18] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:10:19] Beth Dickson: So, some of the things that we do kind of move into another piece of it.
[00:10:24] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:10:25] Beth Dickson: So some of the things we do, we offer coaching, consulting, training, education, supply chain development, events, sponsorships. We do legislative outreach, volunteer boards, committees, task force,
[00:10:41] Beth Dickson: So really, we have our hands in everything and like I said, when I first came on, I was like, yeah, this is a, it’s going to be great. It’s a sales job. I get to go talk to manufacturers and see if they need some training and consulting. And it’s really so much more than that. Three years later, it’s like you’re working with, and getting to know all of your community partners, chambers of commerce, your economic development partners, all of your, regional resources were partnered with a World Trade Center of Denver, also CAMA and, OEDIT.
[00:11:15] Beth Dickson: We have all of these resources, but then all these partners that we work together with to make sure that the manufacturers are successful and thriving and do everything we can to support them. That’s really our only job. We don’t, we don’t go in just to go sell them something really.
[00:11:31] Beth Dickson: Sometimes it’s just to make a connection with someone they don’t already have a connection with. So if, they’re going to start international business and they aren’t connected with the World Trade Center. The first thing I do is make an intro email introduction and say, Hey, this is who we use over at World Trade Center of Denver.
[00:11:49] Beth Dickson: And then he takes it from there and it’s so easy for them because they might not have even thought about that or might not know where to start with that. Because again, if they’re a smaller company, they don’t have the time. They’re like, Oh, this is just going to be, just being more time off my plate, but hoping to kind of lift some of that, off of their shoulders so that they have more time to just focus on manufacturing.
[00:12:11] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, that again, it moves so quickly. Well, because I’m a business owner, like one of the hardest things that you deal with every day is just people management. And it’s not because you necessarily have people who are hard to manage. It’s just that people have lives outside of work.
[00:12:27] Terri Hoffman: And the same happens in a manufacturing environment, especially if you’ve got multiple shifts running, or if you’re wearing multiple hats in a smaller organization that leaves you with less time to not only identify your problems, but also work on finding answers or solutions to those problems.
[00:12:45] Terri Hoffman: So, I mean, I’m really hoping that this episode helps raise awareness for the NEP program across the whole country, but specifically in Western Colorado where you and I both live. Like, there are so many resources available to manufacturers locally that I want them to become more aware of.
[00:13:02] Beth Dickson: I think that’s just it, is, I have a program where I can go and see how many manufacturers are in each county.
[00:13:08] Beth Dickson: So I spend most of my time in counties where there are the majority of manufacturers there, like Durango and Montrose and Grand Junction. But I do reach out to some of those counties where there might only be two because I don’t want to leave anybody out. Really. I just want them to know who I am.
[00:13:25] Beth Dickson: So, and that doesn’t always just start with an email. I can’t tell you how many times I email somebody and there’s no response just because they’re like, who is this lady? What does she want from me? What is she trying to sell me? And really, that’s not what it’s about. Sometimes I’ll drive to Craig or Steamboat and spend some time there and just walk in and introduce myself and let them know, like, Hey, I’m not, I’m not here to sell you anything.
[00:13:48] Beth Dickson: I’m just here to let you know, I’m a resource and if you need anything, here I am, here’s my number. And, that’s typically how I go in and start meeting people, but over the last three years, I think it started with supply chain was just such a priority for everybody
[00:14:05] Beth Dickson: and now that that’s smoothed itself out a little bit, we found a lot of solutions to that. We have a great platform that manufacturers can utilize, it’s called Sustainment. And getting them on board with, a network, it’s called the Colorado Manufacturing Network, which is, a combination of, all of our partners.
[00:14:23] Beth Dickson: Again, just resources for all of these manufacturers across Colorado. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t cost them anything to be a part of it. All they have to do is say they want to be a part of it and then they have access to everything, but that, that Sustainment platform is huge. We do supplier scouting, which also takes a lot of time off everybody’s plate.
[00:14:46] Beth Dickson: Terri, I would say that’s something I hear every day. I think my colleagues hear about it every day. Everybody’s very focused on workforce right now. Machinists are kind of, the really good ones are starting to age out, and it isn’t something that’s really prominent in schools
[00:15:02] Beth Dickson: now. I don’t think high schools, I think there are some communities like Montrose and Grand Junction that are really focused on it. It’s great. There’s some task forces and committees, around workforce, which is great to see and hoping to see some solutions to that in the future and near future. Just because I think people are,
[00:15:22] Beth Dickson: or wondering, like, where are we going to find a machinist if we only have four of them out of the high school that are interested in this. But we have great resources like CMU Tech and, connecting with them and saying, Hey, what do we need to do to get some of these students into your programs or even adults into your programs that are looking for really solid work with some of the manufacturers in our community.
[00:15:45] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, well, see, and that, like, just having you describe that, that’s crazy. That is not you trying to go in and sell lean training, right? That’s really helping, at a developmental level. To improve how a manufacturer is able to hire and kind of fill their pipeline of the next generation of people who are going to be on the front lines building product and being on the manufacturing line. So people who aren’t familiar with Western Colorado.
[00:16:12] Terri Hoffman: This is not the heavily populated part of the state. Whenever I tell someone I live in Colorado, they’re like, Oh, I’ve been to Denver before. And I’m like, that’s cool. But that’s four and a half hours away from where I live. Right. We don’t live there. I mean, I love Denver, but that is, we’re in a different galaxy almost.
[00:16:28] Terri Hoffman: And it’s not a heavily populated part of the state. And so workforce development is really important. And I’m sure having those relationships with, the high schools and school systems and the districts and the college levels, like that’s, that’s so important just because even in bigger cities, just making kids aware and young adults aware that those career paths are available is really important in developing that pipeline of workers who can be part of the process.
[00:17:01] Terri Hoffman: So it sounds like more recently it’s kind of shifted from the post COVID, we can’t, we can’t get the supplies to, continue our manufacturing process and now it’s shifted more to workforce.
[00:17:13] Terri Hoffman: What are some of the other kind of big challenges that you hear about pretty commonly? Even if they’re fundamental, like what are, what are just like the common things?
[00:17:20] Beth Dickson: Lean training is really at the top of mind, and that’s really what we are kind of based off of too, is continuous improvement.
[00:17:29] Beth Dickson: So that’s going to be like a lean course, Six Sigma, Five S, any of these trainings are pretty common. Month to month, I usually am lining up some kind of training, in those areas. At some of the other ones, I would say marketing is pretty high up there.
[00:17:48] Beth Dickson: Just because people are really starting to develop their websites now. And they’re like, how do I get more customers? Like, well, I, we know exactly how you can get more customers, but it’s just a matter of them wanting to make that investment too. And not everybody is to that level yet, but you know, we try to tell them like, Hey, we, there are some grant opportunities out there.
[00:18:09] Beth Dickson: Some of them are with us. Some of them are with, OEDIT but we can, we can guide them to wherever those opportunities are to. When somebody asks me about a grant, I, I probably do more research than I need to or I’m supposed to, but really my, again, their success. means that I’m succeeding my role.
[00:18:30] Beth Dickson: So, I try to do as much as I can for them in those areas. it’s been kind of fun too just to get to know some of these manufacturers. As a side note, I see some pretty cool stuff made in Western Colorado. I mean, you wouldn’t even believe some of the things. I mean, I signed an NDA, so I really can’t talk about a lot of them.
[00:18:47] Beth Dickson: Yeah. But if you do your research and look up manufacturers in Western Colorado, you see anything from aerospace, to craft brewing. If you’re taking one thing and turning it into something else that is considered a manufacturer.
[00:19:02] Beth Dickson: So you do get to spend some time in some wineries. I just had to throw that in there. But, we build these relationships with these manufacturers and it’s great because, someone who’s in, in craft brewing in Montrose and they’re just starting out and they’re like, what are we doing wrong?
[00:19:21] Beth Dickson: I can get them connected with a brewery that has been extremely successful over the years, the last 10, 15 years and have scaled into something really huge that everybody knows the name and, I can connect them and say, call them and say, Hey, are you okay? These guys are, they’re up and coming.
[00:19:41] Beth Dickson: Would you be okay with mentoring? Yeah. Give me their name and their number and, do an email introduction. Again, I get to be a matchmaker and find mentors for them so that they can succeed in their business.
[00:19:53] Terri Hoffman: That’s huge. I think that it’s like very hard sometimes to describe the value of a network because it’s only as good as the people involved in it.
[00:20:01] Terri Hoffman: But. You’re just because I’ve gotten to know you over the last year, you’re really good at curating those relationships and building them and like really learning what someone’s value is so that when you do your matchmaking, you’re, you’re kind of filling that pain point. Anybody who’s listening, like you should be able to spend some time with Beth because Beth knows everyone.
[00:20:22] Terri Hoffman: She’s just, one of those people who ends up knowing everybody and finding out about them. Even if she just is sitting three tables away at a winery, she’ll know them before the night is over.
[00:20:32] Beth Dickson: It does happen. Doesn’t it?
[00:20:37] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, it does. I mean that as a compliment and in the nicest way, not because you’re being out of control socially. It’s because you genuinely like to know people and like to understand them and then you use that skill to help your clients improve.
[00:20:50] Terri Hoffman: Like that’s, that’s just how you function, which is really cool.
[00:20:54] Beth Dickson: Well, I enjoy it. It’s my favorite part of my job is getting to know people. And it’s funny that you said that too, about the being at a winery. I mean, that’s actually how I met one of my biggest clients was an employee at a wine tasting.
[00:21:09] Beth Dickson: His wife and I shared a bottle of wine at a tasting or the three of us did, and we just started talking about what we do. And I said, who do you work for? And he told me and it’s a big manufacturer in Western Colorado. And I told him what I do. And we exchanged business cards and talked a little bit more.
[00:21:26] Beth Dickson: And I was like, well, I’m not going to bug you anymore. We’re just going to go ahead and drink this wine. But then it was a great introduction to that company. The relationship has really grown a lot since then and, they’ve done some projects with us. I think we’ve supported them a lot and a couple of different, priorities of theirs.
[00:21:46] Beth Dickson: So, that’s the fun part of doing all of this too, and being in this role.
[00:21:51] Terri Hoffman: Seeing the difference that you really helped someone overcome that challenge or the pain point that’s holding their business back at that point.
[00:21:58] Beth Dickson: Right. The hardest times are when everything is a pain point on that assessment.
[00:22:03] Beth Dickson: It’s so challenging because you don’t want to discourage a manufacturer, but you have to encourage them. Like, Hey, let’s pick the top two main priorities on this list. I understand we need to correct a lot of things. Maybe we need to find some, some solutions for you and different, all of these areas, but.
[00:22:20] Beth Dickson: Let’s start with, and, and make it make sense for them too, because sometimes they just so confused themselves, they’re just like, we need help. So, it’s really fun to watch.
[00:22:30] Terri Hoffman: That’s why having like an outside perspective is really important . I used to, um, have a client that used this saying he was a consultant and he’d say, it’s like very hard to fix your own teeth, right?
[00:22:41] Terri Hoffman: Like, how do you look inside of your own mouth and try to fix your own teeth? You can’t, that’s why you have a dentist. Like these things make sense. And so you have to, sometimes step back from your business and be willing to let an outsider or an outside group come in, who are experts in that area and take a look at it and figure out how to help you map out that path
[00:23:01] Terri Hoffman: to getting things back on track or on track for the first time so that you can overcome that problem. It’s just, it’s hard to face up to it. I mean, I’ve had to do that as a business owner and it’s not fun. Usually means you have to grow up and mature and no one likes doing that. But it’s important, especially when you think about the people who work for you and how you’re helping them develop and how you’re helping to kind of either leave that legacy or figure out how to maximize the value of your company so you can sell it. Or figure out how you’re just going to make payroll the next time, right?
[00:23:34] Terri Hoffman: Like, how are you just going to get over those basics, right?
[00:23:37] Beth Dickson: Yeah, that really, I think that really is. They’ll look at me and say, well, who are you? What are you going to do, you don’t even know anything about my business. I think that’s why, it’s so important to take it slow with some of these newer manufacturers.
[00:23:50] Beth Dickson: They have no idea who the MEP is. They have, don’t have any idea what we, what we do. I usually will bring some information to them like, Hey, here’s some testimonials from some of the, we, we do get the thumbs up to talk about a few things. A few of the companies that we work with just, we have some of them on our website and you can see testimonials on there.
[00:24:10] Beth Dickson: Our marketing director writes up a success story, quarterly, we turn in the names of manufacturers that we feel like we’ve really done a lot of work in there and there’s been a huge impact by the work that we’ve done. So, she turns those into a success story and a lot of those around our website as well.
[00:24:29] Beth Dickson: Some of the other things that, that I should mention too, is that, at the end of a project, let’s say, Terri, I bring you into a manufacturer to work on their website or to help them with some of their digital marketing and then 6 months later, at the end of the project,
[00:24:45] Beth Dickson: we’re graded on the work that we did in there. So they’ll get a survey from a third party. It’ll have specific questions on there. Like, how did it impact you, fiscally, but then also how did it impact you, like, did you hire more people? Did it retain jobs? Did it create jobs?
[00:25:05] Beth Dickson: Was there a cost savings? Did you gain more customers around this? we really dig in deep. we usually have that conversation with them before they get that survey and say, Hey, you’re going to get the survey. It’s going to have all these questions. That way they’re prepared to do it.
[00:25:19] Beth Dickson: They go through that. You can also look on our website and see what those impacts look like as far as dollar amounts and jobs created and retained. And really that’s our goal in the state of Colorado to create jobs to retain jobs to see the success in the manufacturers here.
[00:25:37]
[00:25:37] Terri Hoffman: Well, you just hit on one of the reasons I love working with manufacturing companies, because these are, you know, just from a personal standpoint, these are the people that you’re married to, or your brother or sister with, or that’s your uncle.
[00:25:51] Terri Hoffman: We love helping this industry, because it’s like, you can directly see how that’s related to us as people, right? Like it helps create jobs, helps the economy thrive locally, where you live and I don’t know how you don’t get rewarded by that. We’re not saving people’s lives in the marketing field, but, maybe if we’re able to help someone. Someone’s able to like give raises to their staff or hire more people or go on that vacation
[00:26:18] Terri Hoffman: they’ve been dreaming of going on because they just increased their revenue and like, that’s gratifying. That’s really fun to see those differences and how it helps the business improve.
[00:26:27] Beth Dickson: I mean, I’ve been here since, 1989.
[00:26:29] Beth Dickson: I went to Mesa State College, which is now CMU. Even walking into a new company, a new manufacturer that I haven’t been in before and then it’s somebody I went to college with or it’s somebody that I met 20 years ago and they’re the owners. So then it makes it that much more important to me too.
[00:26:47] Beth Dickson: I’m like, this is my community. These are my people. These are people I’ve known most of my life. And so I want to see them succeed in their business and to help them and support them. and honestly,
[00:26:59] Beth Dickson: watching our economy really thrive, manufacturers are really at the base of that. I mean, when you start to really look at some of the manufacturers in our community, like, wow, that’s, they’re employing 250 people right now. That’s huge for Grand Junction, right?
[00:27:17] Beth Dickson: Or, in Montrose, I go down there for a manufacturing association that they’ve developed. I was there last night and there are usually about 15 on the average that show up 10 to 15 manufacturers and they’re the bulk of that community. I mean, they’re employing a lot of people in that community.
[00:27:37] Beth Dickson: It’s, it’s probably healthcare and then manufacturers.
[00:27:41] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, that’s really cool.
[00:27:43] Beth Dickson: That’s kind of how I see it. So yeah, it is important.
[00:27:46] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Hugely important. Well, so if, there is a local manufacturer who wants to start talking to you, what is your typical starting point?
[00:27:55] Terri Hoffman: Is it that assessment?
[00:27:56] Beth Dickson: Yeah, well, it’s really just a meeting to introduce and get to know each other a little bit. I try to get 30 minutes with someone just to say, Hey, tell me more about your business. So then I can start working on some resources and different things.
[00:28:13] Beth Dickson: I asked a lot of questions in that first meeting and then, it’s like, Hey, tell me not just about your business, but then show me around and take me for a tour also because I geek out on that. But I do, it’s so much fun. So I go in usually ready to take a tour, with some closed-toed shoes and, I’m ready to go in.
[00:28:32] Beth Dickson: I mean, just depending on where you’re at, but you just have to be prepared for anything. And, if they’re willing to give me a tour, I’ll take a tour. And then, I asked him like, Hey, can I come see you again?
[00:28:42] Beth Dickson: What do you need right now? Can I send you some information on this and connect you with so and so and start giving them some ideas. And then, I’ll let them know about that assessment. And if they’re open to an assessment, I can set that up within seconds with, one of my colleagues that can put that together and send it right over to me and I get them set up with that.
[00:29:01] Beth Dickson: And then that’s the direction we go. It’s our starting point.
[00:29:04] Terri Hoffman: So somebody here wants to have that first conversation with you. What’s the best way for them to get in touch with you.
[00:29:09] Beth Dickson: They can call me or email me.
[00:29:11] Beth Dickson: Okay. So, I’m, I’m happy to take a phone call at any time. I work really strange hours. So it’s never a bad time to call. especially if it means you’re going to let me come into your manufacturing facility tomorrow. So, if the time works for them, the time works for me, they can text me, with their information and say, Hey, can you
[00:29:32] Beth Dickson: swing by, can we set up a time? If that’s the easiest for them, I’m open to any communicatio,n email too, but I know a lot of manufacturers out on the floor and attach to their phones and it’s not always an email
[00:29:44] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, that’s awesome.
[00:29:46] Terri Hoffman: I’ll make sure I include all the best contact information and I’ll have her LinkedIn profiling too, in case you’re a LinkedIn person, if you’re not a LinkedIn person, become a LinkedIn person. Also, so, Beth, I don’t know if there’s anything else you wanted to go over, otherwise, I feel like
[00:30:02] Terri Hoffman: that was great. Just in educating everybody about who Manufacturers Edge is, what the MEP program is all about, and how you can help manufacturers. Thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:30:13] Beth Dickson: Absolutely. Thanks for the invite. I appreciate it.
[00:30:17] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, you’re welcome.
[00:30:20] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
