Kyle Milan
===

[00:00:00] We could talk about the ice storm in Texas, even though by the time this airs, that'll be long gone and they'll be back. If 

we talk about ice storm in Texas, there'll be, uh, price increase. . 

Well, yeah. The last ice storm was, that happened down there. It shut down a few of the, um, refinery plants, which then caused a whole backlog of supply and then jacked up prices and all the fun stuff that comes with that.

Exactly. 

Yeah. That we've had it every year. Now, last three years, February, we get it. Every year. There's some ice storm, although this time way better than one, two years ago. Global warming perhaps. Yeah, that. Yeah. I mean, if you believe that. Yeah.

All right. Well, um, I guess we'll get rolling straight into it. 

Go for it.[00:01:00] 

Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Industrials podcast. Thank you for joining us from wherever year podcast or if you happen to be on Thea YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. If you are there and you haven't hit the subscription button as your New Year's resolution, shame on you. It's absolutely free.

We'd appreciate you guys if you did. And hit that little notification bell so you can be alerted when new episodes drop. Like this one we're about to record. Uh, I'd like to introduce you guys to our guest today, Mr. Kyle Mylan. Kyle, welcome to the Industrious Podcast. Thanks 

guys. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Why don't, uh, you give yourself a little, or give our viewers, I should say a little introduction on yourself. 

Yeah. So, um, started out in manufacturing when I was 18, uh, left high school, a few credits. Was sick of learning and, and wanted to start making some money. So I got [00:02:00] into industrial doing some engineering technician stuff.

Um, went to school part-time while I was working full-time and started getting into engineering jobs. Uh, and then eventually went into the, the best part of, of a career, which is into sales. Uh, when I was in my mid twenties, uh, after spending a decade in sale, selling for, uh, custom injection molding, three different companies.

Massive growth. Made a name for myself. Um, I decided that I didn't wanna buy a manufacturing company anymore, which was my goal, uh, since I was a kid. Um, I said I want to, I, I realized that there was a niche of sales and marketing companies that understood industrial and, uh, started a company that serves them because there was nobody else really doing it well at the time.

So that's when I started, uh, manufacturing Tribe. Um, so going on our eighth. . Um, and then two years ago, actually no, coming on two and a half years ago during Covid, I started Technical Sales University because [00:03:00] so many sales engineers were, uh, stuck once. Everything was grounded, and so I, I created an online training platform to teach salespeople.

uh, specifically technical salespeople, how to sell better and close more deals. And right now we've got, uh, eight hours of course video content on there. And we're creating, uh, a few more courses in Q1 and continuing to expand that, um, and have a growing YouTube channel. We've got over 500 videos on it. Uh, we create content about 50 videos a month right now for my personal brand.

Uh, and then about 25 videos a month for the company brand. So a little busy. Yeah. To say the least. Well, that's good. 

Um, you mentioned, so let's go take a, take a step back for a minute. You, uh, you bolted high school early to start making stuff and then ultimately get into sales. What? , I'm sure that was, the reception of that at home was probably [00:04:00] interesting.

Um, but certainly not, you're not the first person that's done that. Um, yeah. And the first person not, no, I had done that, but done that and then also ultimately become very successful with, with what, what their passion is. Um, , I guess how, how was it making that decision? What really drove you to that? 

Yeah, so, so the decision was like, I grew up building muscle cars in Illinois with my dad when I was a kid, right?

Like, I was always mechanically inclined. Uh, my dad was a machinist. He retired after 32 years, so I grew up around this stuff and my dad said it to me one time. Um, the people that make the most money in the world are salespeople and business owners. . And so I was like, you know what? I was making probably 65, $70,000 a year as an engineer, non-degree, making the same as people from Purdue and, and, and colleges like that.

I said, I, I wanna make more. Um, so I decided to get into sales and apply my foundational technical skills, um, but focus more on the sales process than throwing up, [00:05:00] uh, spec sheets and, and information that most of the sales engineers out there that I was competing with were. . And so that's what really carved me out to where, uh, I, I realized that technical sales is 80% selling 20% technical.

Uh, having a support team of engineers and all that stuff behind you is great, but too often, uh, the, the guys that had master's degree in engineering were focusing too much on the tack and, and missing cues from the sales process, and they just weren't performing, uh, and closing enough deal. Yeah. 

Um, it's interesting that you decide to then shift into the marketing aspect of it because I mean, we're in an industrial environment and there's no question, and then you've seen this a thousand times, but some companies do a lot of marketing in the industrial space and some do virtually nothing.

Yep. Um, what this is be Pi, I think I know the answer already, but what drove you into this particular niche of marketing? It was just based on that engineering background [00:06:00] and maybe see it in an opening. Yeah, 

so it was, um, I was the VP of sales and marketing at, at three different companies, and traditionally marketing is the, is a, a title added on to the highest paid salesperson.

Um, and then they, they maybe outsource stuff to an agency that doesn't really know what they do. Um, but at the time, for a few years I had agencies working for me and I was spending too much time teaching them what to do, what it is that we do, how to say it, who our audience is. Um, and eventually I said, you know what?

This is a niche. Mm-hmm. , this is all the stuff I know. Um, and I've obviously have a successful track record proving. The way that I do it is different, but it creates results. So let me see. It was kind of a test. Let me see if I could do this at scale, uh, for a lot of companies. And that's what it was, that challenge the niche, being able to speak the language on anything industrial.

It doesn't matter what the vertical is. Um, I could understand it quickly. Um, and then develop a plan, sales and marketing together. [00:07:00] To kind of marry those two. If an industrial company does have a marketing department, traditionally they're like the redheaded stepchild. They're the people that just make things pretty and do trade show stuff, which is not the case anymore.

Um, they can drive massive results sometimes outpace salespeople. 

Yeah. So how do you, you know, when you, when you think of manufacturing as a, obviously 

a very broad term, 

in almost that, that being said, almost any industry you look at that fall under that umbrella, you know, it's not healthcare, it's not, it, it's not finance.

It, it's not sexy. So how do you create that sex appeal to take something that's generally going to be very b2b? Uh, and, and within that space of manufacturing, uh, how do you, how do you elevate that marketing concept to get beyond just well trade show booth design, you know, product slick. Something that people can't feel see and, and, and, uh, really conceptualize.

How do you [00:08:00] communicate that to that, 

to them? Yeah. So fortunately, um, it doesn't take much to make manufacturing sexy versus what it has been done. And then also who we're trying to make it sexy to, right? We're not going after a 22 year old. To make it sexy, right? We're going after, uh, people in their late twenties to sixties that have traditionally seen the same thing over and over again.

Um, the way to make it stand out is gonna be do things that others don't do. So three years ago we started going heavy into video. Uh, at this point in time, we make probably 600 videos a year for our clients. Um, some of 'em are basic overview videos, um, but even that, how do. industrial companies have been doing videos for decades, but.

they create one video, it's four minutes long and it lives on their website. We do it differently to where every time we shoot, which is typically once a quarter onsite at the client, we create 30 to 40 videos from that shoot. [00:09:00] So it's how do you shoot it? What is the, what is the look of the video? Even on articles and written word, what's the consistency?

Are you trying to dominate the space? Are you putting it in front of people that are everywhere, um, where you want them to be? Most people would just say, throw it on your website. And maybe you spend 3,500 bucks for a Trade magazine, full page ad, whereas I could take a video and put it in front of you everywhere you go.

on social, on the internet, through ads, going to trade shows. Um, so it's, it can be challenging for our video team to make it look sexy, um, but we don't really go after sexy. We try and say, how do we stand out against everybody else in this space? And sometimes it's just as simple as consistency and value, 

sort of, so beyond just content generation, but truly taking that content and figuring out how to create a multitude of delivery mechanisms.

Yep. Yeah, so it's like, you know, the, like for instance, your guys' video podcast. This is what, this is how we do it on our side. We, we do a live, we [00:10:00] do a video, whatever. Uh, a single 10 to 20 minute video creates six to eight short 62nd videos. Those go up on YouTube as re as shorts. Instagram is reels LinkedIn as upload directly to LinkedIn platform.

Um, you could take a 20 minute video and turn it into an article by having somebody transcribe. and then make it better. Um, so you could take one piece of content and chop it up, but it's all about who's the loudest person in the space with things that are relevant. And that's what you have to, to do to get the attention.

If you 

are going to give a single piece of advice to a, an old school manufacturing, uh, company that has really done very, either very little in the space of marketing or. , the same things they've been doing for the last 40 years. What, what is that single piece of advice you would give to them today? 

Um, besides follow my LinkedIn and, and, and just duplicate what I do.

I would say do everything that nobody else is [00:11:00] doing, which is pretty much the strategy that we lay out to people. It has to be heavy with video, consistent articles, heavy presence on LinkedIn, um, building out a YouTube channel, all that stuff. But it has to be, stop doing the things that don't. And do something that nobody else is doing, or maybe only 1% of your industry is doing it.

It still boggles me to the states. So typically industrial companies are about five years behind the curve. On anything that's trending now three to five years on anything that's trending now that works from a sales and marketing standpoint. Um, which is crazy because any industrial company will get the latest robotics and efficiency programs and, and SaaS systems, but won't change the way that they've been doing it.

Uh, cause I feel like it's, it's, they don't know what to do and they're a little bit scared to make a massive adjustment. Sure. 

So 

can you give us an example? and you have to say the company's name, that's up to you. But give us an example of a recent, um, project that, [00:12:00] uh, illustrates 

exactly that. Yeah, so we've got, um, two, two recent clients where we basically worked ourselves out of a job, um, because of the labor shortage.

We grew 'em too quick, uh, brought in too much business and they, each one of 'em needs 30 people for their machine shop, and the other one needs 40 people for their contract manufacturing. Um, worked us out of a job. We've lost us about, I don't know, $160,000 a year in revenue. Um, but if that's the problem we're gonna face, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Yeah. It's 

funny 

you say that. I'm, I sitting it here thinking I totally get it from both sides, like on one on your side. Well, that, that sucks. But then it's like, as you just said, that's a great problem to create, but also having labor shortages that we're experiencing ourselves, it's like, yeah, I get it. I can, I can see where they're like, oh my God, I gotta turn the funnel off cuz we can't keep up.

We're we're, we have an. . 

Yeah. Yeah. So for one of 'em, we then focused, uh, last year on changing it to the hiring side. [00:13:00] So, you know, what can we do that's different when you're trying to hire an operator, a fork truck driver, a project engineer? Right. Look at the landscape. Well, nobody's, everybody's creating job postings, but they're not doing anything with video.

Yeah. So we went in, we shot, I think it was 18 or 20 videos where we interviewed people doing the job. and then walked them through their day, asked them what do they like about doing this job? What's their background? Why do they like the company? And then attaching that to the job post. And even doing it from a social standpoint, running ads on things like Facebook, um, to make it different, to make it stand out.

That worked, but there just wasn't enough people that filled it quick enough for us to say, let's keep doing that. Right. That's a good approach. Yeah. We we're always just, I always just look at. , when everybody's going left, we go right, and then eventually everybody starts. You know, I've, I've seen that people are starting to do the stuff that we've been doing for the last three years.

Um, the difference is that that [00:14:00] could change in a month. And how fast you respond to that change dictates how well you're gonna perform. And we're, we're making tweaks all the time. Like on my LinkedIn, I just had an idea. , if we posted three times a day on my LinkedIn, what's gonna happen? Uh, is it gonna increase impressions of engagement or is it gonna decrease it?

Some of the teams said, you're gonna piss people off and they're gonna not follow you. And I was like, I don't know, man, let's try it. Um, so we're two months into doing that and our monthly impressions on my personal profile went from 27,000 impressions a month to now we're averaging around 62,000.

Impress. . So it works, right? But is it gonna work in a third month? Engagement's up two, 300%. If it doesn't work in the third month, you stop doing it. Yeah. 

Right. So going back to something you, you just commented on, you said industrial companies are five years behind the curve on, [00:15:00] you know, call it today's most effective.

Marketing strategies, video, social, et cetera. Why do you think that is? Is it a lack of direct contact to the general consumer? Uh, is it just some other, you know, just being sort of locked into this idea that it's industrial and it, and we don't have to do that? Or what, what, yeah. What have you learned? 

I think that, uh, if you just look at the size of the department versus the size of engineering department.

Yeah. Um, one of our, one of our clients, uh, has a, has a marketing department of six, and they're a couple hundred million a year in revenue. Another one of our clients has almost a billion in revenue, and they have a marketing department of two. So if you got two people or five people out of 500, 200 and that's the department, they're not really driving anything unless the owner says, I know that this digital marketing, doing videos, doing this stuff works.

I want to. $200,000 this year to do it. [00:16:00] Um, they just don't have the poll to be able to say, we should do this. And typically not the experience. Either they're worked in B2B marketing, not industrial. Um, they could say, Hey, we should do this. But the owner is most likely gonna be like, you don't know what you're talking about.

We're different. The industry is different. Um, it takes some, some credibility to convince somebody to, to do it. 

I think the keyword I heard there's different, right? People kind of shy away. . 

Yeah. Yeah. Especially in industrially shy. Like do trade shows work? Yes. Do they work like you used to 15 years ago?

No, they don't. So that's 

a great topic. I was gonna ask you about that. What is, what is your personal feeling on trade shows? I mean, we do a handful year and 

99% of the people at the trade show are exhibitors, not attendees. For, 

that's for Juan. And it's almost like you're, you do 'em because you feel like if you don't do it, that may do more damage than, than what you might gain by [00:17:00] actually being there.

If that makes sense. 

Yeah. I think that, um, for all industries there's probably at least one trade show. That's just the cost of doing business that you have to go to. Yeah. Right. Like realistically, there's one a year that makes sense to go to. Um, but you kind of gotta look at it and say, what's the, what's the ROI on this?

You know, if you drop 10 or $15,000 on a trade show and get two good leads that turn into a possible opportunity, um, maybe it's worth it depending on how much, uh, you're, you're selling stuff for. You gotta just stop doing it. I mean, that's just the only way to, like some trade shows worked very well. But then I, then I also would say, how are you doing the trade show?

Is it, um, I mean we were just, we supported a client at a trade show back in, in, uh, August of last year where we went to create a buzz around it. We had three people, uh, that were videoing the entire thing to create content. And they had the busiest booth at the trade show because, [00:18:00] All of the sales people were out in the aisle.

There was nobody sitting back, nobody looking at their phone. Like there were rules that we set to say, if you want to win at this trade show, you have to do it this way. Yeah, yeah. And it did, and it was beneficial to 'em. Um, but too often as I walk that trade show, people look at me, look at my name tag, see I'm not a fit for them.

Look back at their phone. Um, or they're sitting down in chairs like when I used to rock trade shows eight, nine years ago, I'd be in the middle of the aisle throwing stress balls at people. I just wanna talk to somebody. I don't care if you're a fit or not, I just want, I want people around the booth because if there's people around the booth, people think something's cool to see.

If they think something's cool to see, they're gonna stop. And then I'll just draw in the people that I really want to talk 

to. Yeah, I'm chuckling cuz he remind me of our father who, this of course pre-social media, pre a lot of the video, old school trade show. Like he had a rule. No freaking chairs in the trade in the booth.

Cause I don't want anybody sitting down. Yeah, he, that says cell phones were [00:19:00] around, but he was literally out, or he looks like a lot like us. Um, and yeah, maybe more me, but anyway, he, so people, he like tele Sava. Yeah. So they call him Kojack. So literally he would be in the aisle. It's of hanging, thrown out stress balls.

He's handing out suckers. Which sounds like, sounds a little creepy, but he got away with it back 

then. Yeah. 

But he was, you know, the, your, like he was the sales guy. , like ke a popsicle to a woman and white gloves, sales guy, . 

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, um, the, the first trade show I went to from a sales standpoint, the, uh, you know, before going there, I was fresh in sales.

I didn't know shit really. At the end of the day, I knew nothing. And the owner said who was, he was probably 60 something at the time. Um, I was in my mid twenties. He said, you don't sit down ever. And I said, how long is the trade show? He goes, eight hours a day for three days. I was like, all right, cool.

I'll rock that. Walked away. I mean, this is back in, in [00:20:00] 2008, 2009, so things were different, but I walked away with probably 40, 50 leads from that closed business. And ever since he said that and it worked, I never did anything different. It's amazing. 

Principal still apply today? 

Yeah. It's because it's just, it works, right.

If it didn't work, then I'd be like, don't do it. You can just do whatever works. But that works. 

Yeah. It, it finally hit me when I walked by some other random booth. There were two gentlemen in, in the booth. They were both sitting down. One was looking at his phone, the other one was doing something else, and there was nothing that drew you to wanna stop there at.

Well, because they were, they were emitting this vibe of, please don't bug me, basically. Right. And we, we talk about that with our sales team. You know, it, it starts with behavior and behavior leads to activity, and activity leads to results generally speaking in, in the sales process, uh, in, in, in terms of preparation to actually go out there and achieve the goals that, that are.

Well, you can boil that right down to a trade show or, or really any other [00:21:00] function within the, the grand scheme of things that if you're, if you're gonna be out in the aisle, as you mentioned, if you're gonna be working it, talk actually engaging people, you'll have results. If you're sitting there on, you know, on a chair on your phone or just acting like you don't wanna be bugged, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a also gonna be a result generally not the one you want.

Yeah. 

Yeah. Agree a hundred percent. And it it like so much, like you said, people that have that vibe. Don't bother me. Um, I was on a call with one of our sales guys this morning going over, uh, cold call scripts, listening to calls that were made, and I said, if you smile while you're talking, they can't see you, but if you practice smiling while you're talking, just that increased level of energy and the the uptick in your voice tone will make it a better conversation than if you're straight.

and he was like, okay, I'm gonna try that. So it's like just talking to people, even if just to have a conversation in the aisle, who cares if they're [00:22:00] a fit? Just talk to people. It's just gonna create a different type of energy around the entire booth. 

So I have to ask what, and I probably can guess, but what drove you to Austin from Chicago?

Strictly the wild , the ice storm. Yeah. Yeah, right. I brought, I brought that stuff down here four years ago, five years ago now. Uh, coming on five years. Yeah. It was a weather change. I lived in Chicago my whole life, uh, and at 36, 35, 36 said, let's move, let's move down to warmer climate. Um, and I love it. I love Texas.

Um, so I felt like I should have been born here. 

So, like socks, cubs, or have you like moved on to Astros or Some planted 

more successful. I won't support the, the teams here. I'm still, you know, unfortunately at the end of the day, a, a Bears fan, um, Sox versus Cubs. I was a Sox fan when I was a kid, cuz of my dad.

But then when I turned 21, it was a different vibe going to a socks game when you're 21 versus a [00:23:00] Cubs game. So you're like old style 

or something, is that what you're saying? Sitting in pictures on a sunny 

day? It, it's more, it's more the people around you in Wrigleyville versus the people around you on the south side.

Yeah, slightly different. After the game, going to Wrigleyville bars for, you know, six hours afterwards. I, I was a Cubs fan for about two years. Die hard, uh, just strictly because of the environment. 

Did you actually see any baseball when you were there? 

I did , I saw stuff. I was at a lot of games, especially when the Cubs were, you know, gonna win the World Series back in the 2001.

And, and Sosa was dominating stuff. Uh, never won when I was around bud. So, 

um, going back to the industrial marketing real quick. You ever done much in the chemicals or coating? 

Uh, yes. So, uh, we've worked with probably, we've touched every manufacturing vertical in the last seven, eight years. Um, we do have a client [00:24:00] actually just started with us that's in the coding space.

So, um, and we're about to go very aggressive with their stuff. So we're going to, we're gonna be digging deep into that industry the way I look at it. . If you make a product or sell a service and it's industrial, that's our niche. Whether you're making something that is too technical for most people to understand, um, or doing a service as like, um, simple.

Something simple like a machine shop. Mm-hmm. , um, everywhere. That's a world where you're selling to engineers, commodity managers, operations people. That's what I've done my whole life. I know them well. I was one at one point. Uh, we track all the data on what perform. and then just make adjustments to, to see what's best for that specific client in that specific industry.

What's, what's 

one thing that the average person doesn't know either about you or about your company, that you would want them to, to know or understand? 

One [00:25:00] thing. Um, , I would say most people don't know that I'm non-degree. Okay. Uh, but that doesn't really, that doesn't really help anything in the situation.

Like, hey, they're led by a non-degree person. Um, but I would say one thing would be the importance of video. Like I cannot stress that enough. The importance of consistent video content and not something where it's like once a month type of thing. That's it. It's just really consistency and quantity of everything that you.

Um, you're going after like what? We always try and go after the phrase omni presence, which is being everywhere all at the same time. Right? How can you do that? You can do it digitally, but you can't do it if you don't have content. And so it's less of a here's my line card, here's what I do, type of sale.

It's more of a bring awareness around it to where when you do call them, they've already seen your stuff [00:26:00] somewhere. I've heard of it. And the only way to do that is to create content consistently. Yeah. So 

you're your one thing about you being non-degree, I guess my question is, has it ever actually come up where it, it did matter.

I mean, I can see where it would, would not matter in almost all cases, but have you ever run into a situation where you had to work through 

that? Um, I have run into a situation where in the past where people were like, no, we're looking for a company that's got more credentials and people that, and I. , you know, choice words back to them and, and walk away.

Or at least you knew right away it wasn't a fit. Yeah, yeah. And that's the, that's the thing is like, I'm not trying to sell people that can't be sold. And, and if, if I have, if we have any resistance in the initial conversations, I know that when I throw it over the fence to the operations team, , uh, which I've done before, they come back and say, why did you bring on this client?

That's a huge pain in my ass, . They're really not nice to us. And then I just fire 'em eventually. Yeah, yeah. Uh, [00:27:00] so, so, yeah. It's never come up in a, in a, in a bad way. Uh, except for a couple of times. Yeah. Well, I, 

reading before the, uh, before this episode didn't, didn't phase me whatsoever. I mean, it comes back to the content and the credentials and the things that you guys are doing that you're obviously being successful at.

That's all that matters to, to me anyway. Well, Kyle, we appreciate your time, uh, today. We appreciate you sharing your story. Uh, look forward to having some conversations with you here, uh, in the future and, um, see if we can't connect on some. . 

Yeah, absolutely guys. And, uh, tell your subscribers head over to my YouTube channel.

I, I basically leave everything on the line, all of my content. We don't, you know, pay block anything. It's all out there. Cause I know that 99% of people will do nothing with it. Um, so we just put it out there and say, Hey, here's some tips, some tricks, some things to, to make you think, make adjustments, and, uh, and just give away all the secrets.

Well throw it out. What's the YouTube channel you want them to? It's under my name, Kyle Myland. Okay. So if you just go to, you can search [00:28:00] me or uh, follow me on LinkedIn. All the stuff goes back and. Awesome. Cool. 

All right guys. You heard that from Kyle himself. So give him a follow check out his YouTube channel.

We'll put links in descriptions of, of all our stuff that we put up on this episode. Uh, and thank you again for joining us on this episode of the Industrialist Podcast. So, again, from wherever you're listening, or if you're tuning in on the As not a YouTube channel, Thank you for doing so, and we'll see you guys the next episode.

And don't forget, be industrious.