Manufacturers are facing a problem that can’t be solved with hiring alone. Decades of skilled trades knowledge are retiring out of the workforce, and many companies still rely on training systems that were built for a different generation.
In this episode of Manufacturing Insiders, Nate sits down with Jennifer Rutz, JD, President of DCM Tech, Inc., to discuss how manufacturers are rethinking skilled trades learning and development in a rapidly changing industry. The conversation explores how companies can preserve tribal knowledge, accelerate workforce development, and modernize training without losing the craftsmanship that built the industry in the first place. It also covers topics surrounding The use of AI in this process, the changing marketing landscape as AI search becomes more prominent, and the use of robotics and automation on the shop floor.
For manufacturers trying to prepare the next generation of skilled workers, this episode offers practical insights into one of the industry’s biggest long-term challenges.
Our host, Nathan Wheeler is the owner of weCreate Web Design & Marketing, a nationally recognized marketing agency that helps manufacturers grow, save money, and become more efficient. Reach out to us below for a free SEO consultation.
Nate Wheeler (00:01)
Welcome to manufacturing insiders today I have Jen Rutt she is the president of DCM of long standing company and the rotary grinding space. They are up against the Kleenex of rotary grinding. Most people think of rotary grinding and they think Blanchard grinding. Well, that’s a brand. It’s not a process. And so Jen’s company DCM
Manufacturers of really, really high quality rotary surface grinders. today we’re going to talk a little bit about the competition space, how they’re kind of competing against that Kleenex of rotary grinding, and also how they’re dealing with some kind of big shakeups in their company with some of the long tenured employees, people that have been there 25 to 40 years, leaving, how they’re capturing some of that knowledge and how they’re kind of moving forward through that.
through that trial. So welcome to Manufacturing Insiders, Jen.
Jen Rutz (00:57)
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Nate Wheeler (01:00)
Absolutely. So you guys have lost, I don’t know, maybe about 180 years of experience in the past year.
Jen Rutz (01:10)
Close to that, yep. We’ve lost six employees to retirement in the last 14 months and they have all been here 30 or more years so I guess that’s about right.
Nate Wheeler (01:20)
Yeah. So that’s a lot. a lot of companies are going through a very similar situation these days. And really the name of the game is knowledge capture and transfer. And so I’m interested to hear how you’ve approached that.
Jen Rutz (01:41)
in ways not very well. And as we go along better, we have been doing what most people do in this space or in any space, they try and hire anticipating that somebody will be departing soon and have some cross training happening along the way before that, that individual leaves. So that’s the more common situation that we’ve certainly been doing.
But what we found really effective is utilizing everybody’s favorite buzzword right now, which is AI. So we have a tool where, whether we have hired someone new or not, if we know someone is departing for retirement to enjoy other things in life, we start them on a training regimen where we have a camera up with a training app and they’re actually recording what they’re doing for assembly
Nate Wheeler (02:32)
Yep.
Jen Rutz (02:33)
of a machine.
Nate Wheeler (02:34)
Yep.
Jen Rutz (02:34)
And
as they’re doing that, it’s time, it’s timestamping what they’re talking about, what tools they’re using. They’re verbalizing what they’re doing on the machine or the assembly. and then after the fact, it gets uploaded to a website. It converts it into a standard operating procedure with timestamps. And we have found that to be incredibly effective. Now.
Nate Wheeler (02:56)
That’s all.
Jen Rutz (02:57)
On our production floor some of the guys are pretty uncomfortable with that but they get used to it very quickly because they’ve all trained before like trained other employees or whatever so they forget the cameras there and They just kind of do their work and then AI does everything for them for us on the back end
Nate Wheeler (03:17)
That’s awesome. So that sounds a lot like a guy that I interviewed on the podcast a while back, a company called Ramon. That’s not what you’re using, is it?
Jen Rutz (03:26)
Nope, we’re using Loom AI. Probably, I haven’t heard of Ramon, but probably a very similar setup.
Nate Wheeler (03:33)
Yeah, yeah, it sounds very similar. Yeah, basically it’s the same kind of deal. They either wear a body camera or just a separate camera. They’re kind of dictating the work as they’re going. It’s going into a database that’s searchable. They call it like their digital Walter. You the new employee can ask Walter questions and
Jen Rutz (03:52)
Nice.
Nate Wheeler (03:54)
Yeah, it’s a pretty cool system. So no, it sounds like that’s a great solution. It’s cool to hear like somebody that’s actually using it because it’s all been kind of conceptual for me up to this point. So you call yourself.
Jen Rutz (04:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (04:07)
go ahead. Finish your thought.
Jen Rutz (04:09)
No, that’s okay. Go ahead.
Nate Wheeler (04:11)
I
was just going say you call yourself a recovering attorney, which I think is a very interesting plot twist here. So you were an attorney for quite a few years and sort of recently ended up coming into the family business. Tell me about that transition.
Jen Rutz (04:28)
Yeah, I came in in December of 2023 into the family business. My dad, Dave Arnold, started the company 51 years ago with a partner, a co-founder. And for the last 20 to 25 years, my oldest brother, Dan, has been running the business. And he, I mean, it requires a little bit of conversation because he’s 22 years older than me and he’s transitioning to retirement.
I’m the youngest of six children. So he’s the oldest and I’m the youngest.
Nate Wheeler (04:57)
Okay, yeah.
Jen Rutz (04:58)
And he was ready to transition into retirement and there wasn’t really any other succession plan in place. So at that time as an attorney, I was in practice, I was starting to feel burnt out and sort of looking for what else I could be doing outside of a law firm. And this opportunity came up. So I kind of grabbed it with both hands back in 2023.
Nate Wheeler (05:23)
That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I can see how that work would get tedious after a while, sort of repetitive. And now this is like a whole new world, which you did have some experience in the business growing up. So you had some familiarity with it. What
Jen Rutz (05:39)
Yes.
Nate Wheeler (05:39)
was kind of like the biggest surprise when you moved into this position?
Jen Rutz (05:46)
well, I had experience knowing what the business was about. I worked there a little bit as a teenager, not by choice. So I had exposure to it, but the ins and outs and the nuances of day-to-day manufacturing world, I knew nothing about. As an attorney, I don’t know anything about.
how to be more efficient in building the machines and what sort of sequencing we should have for our machinists and the parts they’re building on a given day. So it’s been a lot of trial by fire, specifically on the manufacturing side. It’s all been good though.
Nate Wheeler (06:21)
Right. And have you kind of like sought out outside resources for how to run efficient manufacturing operations? Tell me kind of like how you navigated that learning curve.
Jen Rutz (06:35)
The primary outside resources are my dad and my brother. They’re still very much active in the business. So that’s been huge. Also, we’ve got a very strong engineering manager who became general manager when I came on. He has led me along the way. And then on a higher level, we also hired a lean manufacturing consultant with some of the departure that we talked about earlier with a lot of institutional knowledge going into retirement.
It was clear that we needed a little extra outside help to get us back to where we have been with our manufacturing processes and becoming more efficient. So a selection of tools to bring me up to speed.
Nate Wheeler (07:18)
Yeah, absolutely. What is the biggest thing that you would say you brought to the table when you came to the company?
Jen Rutz (07:27)
Yeah, my undergraduate degree was in marketing. I did that for a couple of years before going into law school.
Nate Wheeler (07:34)
Okay.
Jen Rutz (07:34)
And that certainly has played a big role in what I’ve brought to DCM. Historically, we were in the automotive industry at the beginning of DCM’s tenure. And that worked really well. Automotive industry.
has been a huge industry in America, but everybody sort of knew each other and we built a strong reputation and we were able to make great sales based on word of mouth. And over time, as we’ve gotten into the industrial space and we’ve broadened how many different industries our machines can serve, some of that has gotten lost. And so with my coming in, we’ve really focused on what are
What are our strategic marketing goals and how do we reach them? that’s been where I’ve, sort of that’s the area that I’ve attacked first in all of this is broader brand awareness and communication of what our value is to customers.
Nate Wheeler (08:35)
Yep. Which I always make that argument as well that
sales
is probably the first thing most companies need to focus on because if you got the sales, you got the revenue, you can improve the processes. Obviously that has limitations if you just got a crappy business. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You guys are up against whatever one just refers to as Blanchard grinding. What’s the biggest challenge with that? When you’re talking to somebody at a trade show and they’re like,
you sell blanger grinders. you’re like, no, no, we sell DCM grinders.
Jen Rutz (09:18)
the biggest challenge is not correcting them and saying it’s not Blanchard grinding and being rude about it. we differentiate ourselves from the Blanchard machines because we, think we serve a lot of different customers that they don’t serve. They’re very much a heavy duty industrial grinder. You know, if, somebody has a grind shop, they’ve got 10 Blanchards and maybe they’re
They have 80 inch tables. they’re these giant heavy duty machines for hogging off a whole lot of material on a part. We have the same sort of machine setup. It provides the same finish on a part. It’s called a cross hatch finish when you do
Nate Wheeler (09:59)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Rutz (09:59)
that style of vertical or surface grinding. we’re a
We’re in a different area of precision manufacturing. And so we can serve a lot of different customers than a Blanchard grinder can. And just making that clear to people that, yes, our grinding style is similar, but we do a lot more is important.
Nate Wheeler (10:19)
Okay, so really the footprint of the part, it would be the biggest differentiator in the envelope size.
Jen Rutz (10:27)
Yeah, and the size of our machines, our machines are a lot lighter than many of the Blanchards. And then, you know, we’ve got value add with how we serve our customers with support and then automation.
I don’t have exact details, but from my understanding in my two and a half years tenure at DCM, a lot of the Blanchard machines that are still operating are machines that are 40, 50 years old. Maybe they’ve been sent into Blanchard to be rebuilt and have had more control systems put in versus our machines are easier to operate. They’re PLC controlled. They’re not CNC machines. So
Nate Wheeler (11:07)
Okay.
Jen Rutz (11:08)
we have advantage in what sort of operator
is needed to be trained to run the machines. Those are just some of the differences.
Nate Wheeler (11:17)
Got
it. OK. And so you guys are serving a pretty broad range of industries now, even some of the semiconductor, magnetics, some of the new kind of, I guess not new, but really up and coming or predominant industries right now.
Jen Rutz (11:34)
Yeah.
Yep. So the silicone bulls were able to grind those. It’s a very much a pre pre-processing phase. They’re not into the wafers yet for the semiconductor electronics industry. Rare earth magnets is very quickly growing for us. And then another really big one that we’re finding a good spot for is metal additive manufacturing. So when you have a build plate and a part is built onto it, and then they lock off the part,
Our machines do a really great job of resurfacing that build plate so they don’t have to throw it in the garbage. They don’t have to send it to a third party to get it ground and who knows when they’re going to get it back. They’ve got a machine in house that can do it in a few minutes and then they’ve got the
Nate Wheeler (12:17)
Yeah
Jen Rutz (12:18)
ready to rebuild.
Nate Wheeler (12:20)
Yeah, and it makes a lot of sense. I mean you’re not gonna load that build plate onto a you know, 80 inch Blanchard machine, right? Okay Yeah,
Jen Rutz (12:28)
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (12:30)
I mean it sounds like tons of market opportunity What’s what’s kind of your strategy? I mean you’re obviously generating some sales in the magnetics and some sales in the 3d printing etc What’s your strategy to get more of that?
Jen Rutz (12:47)
It’s multi-fold. A lot of it is we still do trade shows. I’m not sure how much you hear about that with manufacturers today, just with your podcast.
Nate Wheeler (12:55)
We have quite a few conversations
about it. And I’m like a little negative, right? Like I’m a digital marketer, you know, so I’m like, okay, so you’re going to take three salespeople there, you put them up in hotel rooms, they’re not going to be making, you know, they’re not going to be contacting customers and upselling over that time period. They’re going to be generating a list of contacts that maybe
10 % of them are actually going to respond when you follow up with them. And then there’s going to be a two-year lag time between that contact turning into a customer. And you spend $100,000 on the trade show. What could I have done with that money, right? Like, what could
Jen Rutz (13:33)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (13:34)
we have generated through an SEO campaign or through Google Ads? that, you know, no, it does work for people. There’s no doubt about it.
Jen Rutz (13:42)
Ours is a blended like strategy. So we do probably 10 or 12 trade shows a year and we’re targeting the shows. I mean, we go to the IMTS and the Fabtech of course, but we’re targeting, what are those smaller niche shows where it’s all just that industry’s executives
Nate Wheeler (14:01)
Okay.
Jen Rutz (14:02)
or that industry’s engineers. So a great example is a mug. It’s additive, additive manufacturing something conference. It’s a group.
And they have a conference every year and that has been a great resource for us to get exposure to exactly the people who we want to learn about our product. Yes, it’s still a long buying cycle. Yes, there are leads that come out of that that are poor, but we have improved also our nurturing of the leads after the show. So we’ve gotten a lot more. I don’t know a lot, a lot more
Nate Wheeler (14:35)
return on the assessment.
Jen Rutz (14:37)
quality leads. Yeah. Return on investment through that avenue.
Now
Nate Wheeler (14:40)
Yeah.
Jen Rutz (14:41)
we do still of course do Google advertising. We’re putting out blogs. We’re writing case studies from actual customers and trying our darndest to build up the ability for the chat GPT to find us if people are asking questions there.
Nate Wheeler (14:55)
mm-hmm Yep,
no, and that’s yeah, that’s the name of the game these days I mean every month I’m seeing the AI you know the LLM is taking traffic away from Google
Jen Rutz (15:07)
Mm-hmm.
Nate Wheeler (15:08)
and So it’s something that we’ve had to be very responsive to and we’ve been very successful and you know getting the right tools to kind of track
how much traffic we’re getting from LLMs and also what strategies are working for it, kind of reverse engineering inside of ChatGPT, for example. I’ll go in there and…
for a customer, you know, think about like what’s a long tail keywords that someone would search for. So like in your case, it’s, know, what’s the best blanchard grinding machine for, you know, smaller parts that are, you know, made of super alloys or whatever. And then you’re kind of seeing where is ChatGPD pulling that information from? Where do I need to be referenced in order to get in front of that search? What sort of information do I need to put on my website to get placed on that search?
So yeah, it’s a fun game, guess.
Jen Rutz (16:03)
Have you seen a lot
of decrease in Google Analytics and the successfulness of Google Ads? Just within the last six months, we’ve seen a decrease in our numbers. So we’re really trying to prioritize.
Nate Wheeler (16:14)
It’s accelerating, yeah, there’s no doubt
about it. You know, and we’re still seeing organic numbers for our customers go up in organic Google search, but it’s not as fast as we would like it to, but that’s being replaced by the success we’re having in AI search.
So yeah, you still definitely have to play both games, because I mean, I’d still say it’s 80-20. You’re still 80 % Google organic, 20 % LLM, if that. But it’s getting close. It all depends on how successful your AI strategy is, But yeah, and that’s kind of my mindset, too, is like, if you can hone in on
the exact thing that that market is looking for or a collection of them. Formulate that into a keyword set. Get that content on your website. You’re going to get more exposure from that than you’re ever going to get from a trade show. And those are people that are immediately looking for what you have to offer, too. It’s not something you have to fight for. So that’s kind of my mindset on it. But no, that’s good that you’re thinking about all those things.
That
digital strategy is probably what’s gonna drive you forward I’m interested to hear though about your You know kind of your follow-up process that you said you’re developing after trade shows and maybe your setup process Like what are you seeing work there?
Jen Rutz (17:45)
Yeah. setting up, well, anticipating a show, we’re reaching out to two different groups of people. We’re reaching out to any customers in the area that our technical specialists could go visit during that time. And then we’re reaching out also to who we think will be at the show based on our past history in our database. So we’re reaching out to them beforehand saying, Hey, we’re going to be at the show. Can we get together? Can we meet for dinner or whatever?
whatever, can we go see you at your facility and just check in? And then post show, we have a process where we’ve got an email campaign, it sends out three emails on a schedule. And then in between those emails being sent out over the course of a month or so, we’re also making calls to the leads that we have and then the people that we had emailed pre show even if we didn’t hear from them.
And it’s new content that we’re putting on the emails. It’s not like a generic, you heard the same email from us last year. It’s actually practical to what’s going on right now. What’s in their specific industry. And we, we’ve found some success with that. And this is, this is to say that previously, before I came on, there was no follow up.
to trade shows. was like we have these leads, they sit there, maybe they get called, maybe they don’t. There’s no timeline, you know, there’s no KPI of what happens after. So yeah.
Nate Wheeler (19:12)
Right. How
important do you feel the documentation process at the trade show when you’re having that conversation with the lead is and what is your process there? Yeah.
Jen Rutz (19:22)
It’s critical
because you talk to so many people otherwise if you don’t write it down and scan their badge you forget.
so we always invest in whatever that software is to be able to do badge scanning. And as usually there’s one technical specialist at the show and then a marketing person who’s set up and tear down and just sort of trying to bring people into the booth. And the marketing person tries to be a part of the conversation and they’re the ones maybe taking the notes. So the technical specialist doesn’t have to be looking at their phone while they’re talking. They’re actually having the conversation and listening to what the potential customer is, is talking about.
Nate Wheeler (20:00)
Yep, no, that’s a great point. Having someone kind of on the sidelines to take notes and make sure that it’s documented. Because yeah, because a lot of times you’re talking about something very specific, an application for your product with that customer. And that’s the kind of thing that you want to be able to reference in that follow-up email or phone call.
Jen Rutz (20:19)
Yep, exactly.
Nate Wheeler (20:21)
Definitely. So have you been able to, so I guess then you probably plug these into some sort of a CRM. What do you use for CRM?
Jen Rutz (20:30)
Well, we’re working on that. So we have used HubSpot previously combined with our overall ERP system, which has a CRM, but I use air quotes because it’s not much of one. But actually this month we’re going live with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. So
Nate Wheeler (20:46)
Okay. Okay.
Jen Rutz (20:48)
that’s, that I think is going to be another step up and game changer for us on how we nurture those leads through the funnel, through the, the cycle.
Nate Wheeler (20:56)
Yep, absolutely.
Yeah, and was curious about ROI too. Like, are you able to look back at a specific trade show and then a year later say, this is what we got out of that. That’s great.
Jen Rutz (21:10)
Yes, we’re doing that now.
Nate Wheeler (21:13)
Okay, good.
Jen Rutz (21:14)
And to your point about long sales cycles, frankly, to us, doesn’t, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect us too much if it’s a trade show lead or a lead through website, digital advertising, what have you.
It’s a long sales cycle generally for capital equipment at the price point that ours is at. It’s just a realistic part of the game. So we’ll often see sales cycles that are two years or more. It’s rare that we have one in less than four to six months.
Nate Wheeler (21:47)
Wow, okay.
Jen Rutz (21:47)
So
that we’re kind of always playing the long game, no matter where the lead comes from and having that track and knowing just last week we got a sale on a machine and we had first met them in 2015 at a show.
Nate Wheeler (22:02)
wow.
Jen Rutz (22:04)
It can be that long, which is painful, but that’s
Nate Wheeler (22:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Rutz (22:07)
just how it goes sometimes.
Nate Wheeler (22:09)
Right.
Jen Rutz (22:13)
I know, it’s wild.
Nate Wheeler (22:14)
So do you guys offer some sort of financing like to speed that along?
Jen Rutz (22:21)
Great question. This is another new shift that has been just pulled together in the last, probably this year. I think we started maybe in January. So I can’t say if it’s successful or not. There was a leasing arm 20 or 30 years ago that DCM had worked through for leasing machines. That didn’t really do us any good. So that was scrapped long ago, but we do have financing now.
It’s not we partner with Quail Financial Solutions and we’re having conversations with people, with customers who want the machine but maybe can’t afford the price tag right away. So those have facilitated more conversations, but I can’t say yet if it’s a success or not.
Nate Wheeler (23:06)
Gotcha.
Yeah, logically speaking, does stand to reason that that would speed up the sale. Because I mean, obviously, if somebody is inquiring in 2015, they had some need for it. So like what why didn’t they buy it? Maybe they lost the job that they were going to use it for or whatever. But I think 50 % of those people didn’t buy it because they weren’t sure they could justify the cost. But
Jen Rutz (23:29)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (23:29)
at least with the leasing, then they have the opportunity to start marketing that as a service to their customers and start to build up a, you
customer base for it. So makes sense. So rewinding like all the way back, what made your dad or your grandpa start this? Your grandpa? Okay, your dad. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.
Jen Rutz (23:53)
My dad. He’s 88, so he could be my grandpa, but he is my dad.
Nate Wheeler (23:59)
What
Why did he decide to come into this space? know, with such an… Because I think Blanchard started probably, what, 50 years or more, actually.
Jen Rutz (24:09)
Yeah, I think it’s about 100 years old. Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (24:12)
Yeah. So what was the decision there?
Jen Rutz (24:16)
So
My dad is a mechanical engineer and out of Iowa State, he went to the Chrysler program for a master’s in engineering. So he was in Detroit and he was heavy into automotive, obviously, at Chrysler. He also owned an auto parts business with his brother that was inherited from his dad before he passed away. So he knew the auto parts world. coming into, he moved to Winona, Minnesota with my mother and some older siblings, including Dan.
worked for a company for a while in the automotive industry and realized that that wasn’t where he wanted to be. And he knew flywheel grinders. And so that’s where the company started.
It’s a lot longer story because him and the co-founder, whose name is Dan Rukavina, started two businesses side by side. There was this proprietary machine tool manufacturer in DCM. And then there was also EMD and Associates, which was an electronics contract manufacturing company. And the idea was that they would be combined subsidiary. DCM would be a subsidiary of EMD for DCM to be able to equipment for
EMD, but that quickly was determined that that wasn’t a good path. So they split those companies early on, I think within the first year of founding them both. So EMD continued on in electronics, contract manufacturing, and DCM’s historically built flywheel grinders for the automotive industry. So that’s where it started. And it
Nate Wheeler (25:54)
Okay.
Jen Rutz (25:55)
evolved from there. In the 90s,
They recognized the changing landscape of the automotive industry. And so they started to build machines that were more industrial. And now fast forward another 40 years, that’s 30 years, that’s evolved into our primary sales are in the industry, industrial space and not as much in automotive. Although of course we do sell there as well.
Nate Wheeler (26:17)
Yeah, you know, which makes sense kind of looking at the transition of automotive manufacturing sort, you know, out of the U.S. starting in what like nineteen. Nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety five. mean, I think that was the biggest drop in automotive manufacturing here. I think when China was allowed to join NAFTA, is that right? Yeah, I was.
Jen Rutz (26:41)
I don’t have that history, so I’ll see if that sounds right.
My dad would, but unfortunately I don’t.
Nate Wheeler (26:45)
Yeah, and then all the stuff was all Detroit
shut down at that point. So beyond just the kind of the technical specifications, the size of the parts, things like that, your other big differentiator is not utilizing the distribution model.
so much as you know your factory directs you know selling directly to customers providing all the the sale you know the sales the service the support all that sort of stuff what’s the drive what was the driver of that decision do you still feel like that’s a good decision
Jen Rutz (27:23)
Yeah, we still work occasionally with distributors, but it’s not on any sort of exclusive basis. As you said, we’ve got an internal team of salespeople. We call them technical specialists. And we…
found that when we worked with distributors, we would work with them to educate them about our machine so that they can sell it. Once they made a contact with a potential customer, we’d really do all of the work to get the sale. And then we would be paying the distributor basically for the meet and greet with the customer. And because we have such a strong service process and support after the fact, we would be the one really with that customer relationship going forward in the
long term. So we just found that the distributor model didn’t work very well for us. We still work with them, like I said, but it’s few and far between. So we like having the internal sales team because of the model we’ve built with them as technical specialists. So coming into DCM in this role, their first three to six months on the job are in assembly. They’re learning how to build the machines. They’re learning how it works.
They’re learning how to troubleshoot and service the machines. So when they’re out in the field, they speak manufacturing to manufacturers, they don’t speak sales. They’re able to sell the machine and then they keep that long-term relationship with the customer by being their primary contact for service and support. And we value that very much. And we think our customers do too.
Nate Wheeler (29:00)
Sure.
makes a lot of sense. Because basically, what you’re paying the distributor for is lead generation in the end. And then you’re handling all the rest of it. So somebody like Blanchard, when they’re working through a distributor, what
What responsibilities are they handing off to that distributor? So like, I wonder this, if you could say to a distributor, I’m handling 90 % of everything, you’re basically selling my machine and getting a commission on it versus you’re gonna handle the sales process, you’re gonna keep track of that customer, you’re gonna follow up, you’re gonna provide the support. So the commission structure would be different there. So instead of 10 %…
on the machine, we’re going to give you 5 % on the machine. But you don’t have to do all the work. Because I just wonder what the tradeoff is in terms of marketing. essentially, you’re competing against, if Blanchard selling distributors, you’re competing against 1,000 companies out there. Whereas…
you if you did it the other way around, obviously you’re still sacrificing some of that commission, but you’re getting a lot more sales. I just wonder what the trade-off is there. Have you thought about that?
Jen Rutz (30:21)
I don’t know if I’ve thought about it exactly in those terms. have, like I had said, we do work with distributors once in a while and when one approaches us that we don’t know, we offer them what’s called a 5 % finders fee. Not always 5%, it’s negotiated, but we offer them a finders fee saying, hey,
Give us the contact that you’ve connected with. We’re so happy that you’ve talked to us and our machine seems like a fit. Here’s how we operate as we, if we don’t already have this contact, this lead in our CRM, then we will give you a 5 % finders fee if we sell the machine when we get that sale.
Nate Wheeler (30:58)
Yep. Yep.
Jen Rutz (31:01)
Distributors don’t really care about that. We found they, they, they aren’t really interested.
So that hasn’t been super effective for us. So the way we’ve been doing it has worked. And I don’t know what else to say beyond that.
Nate Wheeler (31:19)
Yeah, yeah, you just have to spend more, you you have to do more marketing yourself, which is, you know, it’s doable. You know, I’ve noticed too that OEMs that use distributors have a lot of…
SEO benefits to which is getting a little bit technical but basically one of the big core concepts in search engine optimization is something called backlinks. So essentially if you’re getting links from another website that point to your website, you know from a relevant and authoritative source that’s going to build up your authority. It’s going to make your content rank better. So if you’re selling your product through distributors a lot of times those distributors link back to you and say here’s the technical data sheet. It’s on you know the OEM website or we proudly represent this brand.
and they link back to you. It’s a lot easier to build those backlinks and those, you know, kind of boats of credibility when you’re working through the distributor model. And I have companies too that are OEMs that I work with that they don’t do that. And it’s like a lot more difficult to find those backlink opportunities and get them linked. And, you know, you have to spend money on them. But yeah, so there’s tradeoffs. But no, I mean, I think the model is obviously working for you. And I do like the aspect of
of you maintaining control over the relationship and making sure that your product is getting represented correctly. So that does make sense.
Jen Rutz (32:46)
The other piece of it is when…
And again, this is historical. So this is what I’m hearing third hand, because I haven’t dealt with it in my tenure so far. But when we’re training the distributors on our machines, sometimes what has happened is they’re not selling exclusively DCMs. They’re selling maybe other blanchards or other types of rotary surface grinders. And they’re saying, hey, competitor, this is what DCM is doing, and it works really well. So there’s also a little bit of concern that we’re
teaching our competitors what we’re doing that we do really well, which again
Nate Wheeler (33:23)
Right. Right.
Jen Rutz (33:24)
to your point is a trade-off because it would sure be great to have a lot more driving SEO to our website by being on different distributors websites, but it’s hard to see what it’s working for us as it is and we’re happy about that.
Nate Wheeler (33:41)
Yep,
yeah, and being part of the conversation versus not, you know,
Jen Rutz (33:45)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (33:45)
and that’s honestly, I’ve had a thousand of these conversations with manufacturers over the years, because you’re always kind of like riding that line between presenting.
the compelling information about your company on your website and then the risk of sharing that information with your competitors and a lot of the manufacturers I talk to are leaning against, we don’t want people to know what we’re doing, we don’t want people to know who our customers are. You’re always going to run that risk if you’re going to put yourself out there. But my argument is always the benefit of putting yourself out there is going to outweigh that risk. It’s kind of like that blue ocean strategy.
people try to copy what we’re doing because by the time they do we’re going to be 10 miles ahead of that.
Jen Rutz (34:34)
That’s a conversation
Nate Wheeler (34:35)
So.
Jen Rutz (34:36)
I have often with my dad, because he’s very much like, don’t tell
Nate Wheeler (34:38)
Yep. Yep.
Jen Rutz (34:40)
everybody what we’re doing, make them call us. And I think in this day and age, the reality is they are trying to get as much information as they possibly can by researching it themselves before they make that phone call. that’s it.
Nate Wheeler (34:52)
Yep, exactly. With
AI that much more as well. Yeah, so you really can’t afford to hold it close to your chest and certainly that older generation, that’s the way they think. It’s all very private, very, you know, they’ll call us, well, no, actually, you probably won’t get the call because they found the information on somebody else’s website.
So yeah, that’s definitely something I think that’s important for manufacturers to think about. And just continue to improve and improve so quickly that people can’t keep up with you. And that’s basically your strategy.
So
what do you see the company doing in the next five years? What would you like to see in terms of growth, employees, revenue, markets?
Jen Rutz (35:46)
Well, we on our previous conversation, I mentioned just continued steady 10 % growth. And you had said, well, that’s not too hard to achieve. And it’s not. But I want it to be an achievable goal for us. So that’s sort of what our growth trajectory is for the next five years. We are moving a lot in
to automation. we have a series of machines that are, you can plug, it’s got the capability to plug in any robot. It’s not a phanic robot. It’s not an, guess it’s, it’s any robot into our machine and it’ll talk with the programming of the robot to be able to work our machine. Our
Nate Wheeler (36:26)
Okay.
Jen Rutz (36:26)
machines are highly automated, which they’ve got, you know, like the automated door that opens and shuts, and that can all be controlled with the.
the process with the robot. So that’s a huge area of growth for us. I mean, we talked a little bit on our last conversation about labor constraints and where manufacturers are trying to go and automation is obviously another big buzzword along with AI is how can we do the same or more with fewer people because we don’t have the people.
Nate Wheeler (36:59)
Great.
Jen Rutz (36:59)
And
so that’s a piece that we’re continuing to grow. And with that, the other side of it is our machines are, as I mentioned, PLC controlled, not CNC. And that makes them a lot easier to train up and operate somebody who is not a skilled machinist. for those manufacturers that have…
We need our machines. They’re not having to hire a really skilled operator to run them. They can hire somebody who’s got minimal manufacturing experience and learn how to run our machines in a day or two, which we’re very proud of as well. So the continued conversation on that side of it is we need to make these machines sort of dummy proof. I don’t mean that negatively, but just the reality of it, they have to be easy to operate or automated so that we can keep.
manufacturing going and have America compete on a global market too.
Nate Wheeler (37:54)
I agree with that. Yeah, that’s definitely the direction of the future. What is the?
I
might sound dumb asking this. So with robotics, would the biggest thing be, you know, when that job finishes on the grinder, you know, the door opens, removing the part, placing it on the assembly line or wherever it goes next or packaging it or whatever, is that kind of the application of the robotics there?
Jen Rutz (38:24)
Yep. So the robot, we just finished up a robot project for a two machine automated work cell and the robot goes and it takes the part from its spot. The door opens automatically. puts it on, it closes, the machine grinds through three grind cycles automatically. The door
Nate Wheeler (38:42)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Rutz (38:43)
opens and then the robot knows to pick up the part and put it in a different spot. And then it repeats the process.
Nate Wheeler (38:47)
Okay. Okay. And then
would there be like, would it be moving it to maybe an inspection station or is there like in machine inspection capabilities?
Jen Rutz (39:00)
So that’s a great question. We don’t have inspection capabilities, but we do have some in-process gauging capabilities. So this gets a little bit into the technical world, which is not my area of expertise, but we have two.
Currently we have control gauging, is a aftermarket piece that we add into the machine when a customer wants it so that as the part is being ground, it’s measuring how much has been taken off the part. Not really related to the robot automation piece, but that is a…
something that customers are asking for more and more because then that further removes the need for an operator to say, have I met my tolerance? Am I at the flatness I need? And
Nate Wheeler (39:44)
Yep. Yep.
Jen Rutz (39:46)
we’re working right now on developing our own in-house tool, which is a probe.
that does the same thing. It measures the part as it’s grinding. So that’s
Nate Wheeler (39:52)
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Jen Rutz (39:57)
a really good question. And any sort of inspection, obviously that happens in a secondary step with another employee, but we are doing some of that in our machine as well.
Nate Wheeler (40:07)
Very cool. Yeah, I know that a lot of, like even Mastercam, I talked to the president of Mastercam a while back, they’re really trying to incorporate sensors and technology inside of a CNC machine to do dimensional inspection.
So yeah, don’t know how. I think they already have that capability in some machines, but it plays really well along with the software. yeah, so that’s really cool because that would take another step out of the process.
Jen Rutz (40:45)
Yep.
Nate Wheeler (40:46)
Very interesting.
Well,
it sounds like you guys are doing great. Really impressed with the company. Very cool to hear, you know, how you’re differentiating the market, how you’re kind of staying ahead of the curve, you know, how you’re performing at trade shows. And I think it’s an exciting new role for you. And it seems like you’re passionate about it and excited about what the future holds. So really enjoyed our conversation.
Jen Rutz (41:10)
Thank you so much. enjoyed it as well.
Nate Wheeler (41:13)
Absolutely. All right. Well, yeah, good job.
We will get this into production and usually a couple weeks we’ll have it done. The only thing I’m going to need from you is a good headshot. And we’ll use that for the thumbnail on the YouTube video. If you do have any pictures you want to share.
That would be cool. Sometimes you try to kind of sprinkle those in throughout the podcast for somebody that’s watching it on YouTube. And then we’ll probably use it for the kind of like a background image on the thumbnail as well. So if
Jen Rutz (41:51)
Okay.
Nate Wheeler (41:51)
you think of anything cool, we’d be happy to incorporate it.
Jen Rutz (41:56)
Okay.
Nate Wheeler (42:00)
And
then, you know, the only other thing too, this is obviously no pressure, just if you want help, I’m more than happy to do it. I took a little bit of a look to your website before we chatted today and kind of looked at some of your off-page SEO metrics and stuff like that. I think you guys have a lot of opportunity there. And there are some things that need cleaned up and things that need to be addressed. But…
There’s probably a lot of traffic you could gain and a lot of sales you could make if you get the kind of on-page SEO and the off-page SEO in order.
Jen Rutz (42:34)
Okay, what, how would that work if I wanted to talk further?
Nate Wheeler (42:43)
We would just get something on the calendar and I could just kind of give you a little bit more detail on what I was seeing and what I think you should do next. And yeah, just no pressure conversation. And after that, I can give you a quote if you’re interested and we can go from there.
Jen Rutz (42:58)
Okay, yeah, send me a follow up on that. I’d probably have my marketing person in too to listen and be able to talk the language a little bit more than I can.
Nate Wheeler (43:09)
Yeah, for sure. Tell me real quick.
So your marketing person, what is their sort of area of operation? Like, what are the tasks? Are they assigned? Just so I’m not like, I guess, trying to sell you on something that this person might feel threatened by.
Jen Rutz (43:29)
I mean,
they’re doing content in lead generation. So she is doing Google ads and looking at the analytics. She is, we only have her right now. had.
somebody in the trade show side of things and content building that left and we’re high, we’ve hired somebody starting next week. So she’s a little bit overwhelmed right now, but she does do a lot of what you’re saying. So it would be a good conversation to have. I can’t make any promises if we feel like that’s something we’d need to hire you for or whether it be a complimentary or what to what she’s doing. but yeah.
Content lead generation ads. She is doing a lot of that. And I, she is very receptive to feedback as am I. So there’s no, it’s hard to, to don’t worry about stepping on toes. She’s open to it.
Nate Wheeler (44:23)
Got it. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. And we also, you know, I’ve got a number of companies that we do consulting work for too, you know, especially if they have a robust internal marketing team that, you know, I’ve been doing search engine optimization for about 15 years. So honestly, there’s very few people out there that understand it like I do.
Jen Rutz (44:45)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (44:45)
But
Some companies use me as a resource to go through it once a month with them and say here’s what I think we should do next, here’s the keyword opportunities, here’s the backlinks you guys should be working on and just go do it kind of thing. So there’s a couple different ways we can look at it.
Jen Rutz (45:03)
Okay.
Nate Wheeler (45:04)
I actually have a huge company in that semiconductor space right now, McDermott Alpha. I know if you’ve heard of them before.
Jen Rutz (45:11)
I don’t know a lot of the names in that space specifically, so not that one.
Nate Wheeler (45:16)
Yeah, so they’re like turnkey materials for semiconductor manufacturing. they’ll, you all the paste and solders and all that sort of stuff that go into the boards.
Jen Rutz (45:31)
yeah. Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (45:33)
So anybody in electronics industry knows like what Alpha Paste is, but they’re a big global company that we’ve been doing consulting work for. But
OK, cool. Well, yeah, let me send you over a couple of times and we can see we can get that together. if nothing else, I’m sure you’ll get some tips and pointers that you’ll be able to utilize.
Jen Rutz (45:55)
I that. I look forward to another conversation and I hope that the podcast turns out okay.
Nate Wheeler (46:02)
No, it was
good. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, I mean, you could probably be a little more animated, but, you know, everything we talked about was good. And no one’s going to, you know, no one’s going to look at it and be like, oh, that’s just, I always like to give people feedback on performance, assuming that they want it, because I always want it. Like, if I could be better, I’d love to, you know, hear how I could be better.
Jen Rutz (46:27)
Yeah.
Nate Wheeler (46:29)
But…
Jen Rutz (46:30)
animated. Like I always talk with my hands and my husband makes fun of me for it so I was trying really hard not to. I was holding this pencil the whole time.
Nate Wheeler (46:38)
No, no, it’s fine. I don’t do that
either. Like I should do it more. Because like when you’re
Jen Rutz (46:43)
So.
Nate Wheeler (46:44)
watching a video, you really do have to make an effort to make it engaging, you know, and so we’re we use all kinds of techniques to do that through the video editing. But I have I’m not good at it either. Like I need to definitely use my hands and move around and whatever. But
Jen Rutz (47:06)
Alright, well, first one’s done, so maybe there’ll be more in my future, who knows.
Nate Wheeler (47:11)
Yeah, no, you did good. It was great. Cool, Jen.
Jen Rutz (47:14)
Appreciate it.
Nate Wheeler (47:15)
Yeah, nice meeting you, and we’ll chat soon. All right, see you.
Jen Rutz (47:19)
Okay, sounds good. Bye.