From Garage to Greatness: The Pulse of B&B Manufacturing’s Customer-Driven SuccessFrom Garage to Greatness: The Pulse of B&B Manufacturing’s Customer-Driven Success

From Garage to Greatness: The Pulse of B&B Manufacturing’s Customer-Driven Success Transcript:

Announcer: You’re listening to the Kula Ring, a podcast made for manufacturing marketers. Here are Carman Pirie and Jeff White. 

Jeff White: Welcome to the Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula partners. My name is Jeff White and joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing, sir?

Carman Pirie: I’m doing well. And you know, it’s really great to be talking. One thing I like about the diversity of manufacturing, Jeff, is that there’s just you know there’s a, sometimes there’s a bit of a more authentic nature. To some of the manufacturing enterprises across North America, I don’t know, some seem, sometimes a little bit more of salt of the earth in some ways to me or something than the I don’t know, like an accounting practice or something.

Jeff White: Not that we’re saying anything bad about accountants, but there just is something very tangible about it. And I think it enables a more hands-on approach. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah. Yeah. So I’m kind of interested to kind of dig into that today. Kind of this notion of staying closer to customers, staying close to customers as you foster growth. I think today’s guest is going to have a lot of insight there. 

Jeff White: Yeah, for sure. So joining us today is Todd Carroll. Todd is the vice president of sales and marketing at B&B Manufacturing. Welcome to The Kula Ring, Todd. 

Todd Carroll: Hey guys, appreciate it. Welcome. Thanks for joining me or thanks for allowing me to join you. Let’s get that straight. So Looking forward to the conversation. 

Carman Pirie: Todd. It’s it’s awesome to have you with us. How did First things first tell us about the company?

Todd Carroll: So I head up the sales and marketing efforts for B&B in the U.S. and Canada, our Canadian division up there is called Toronto Gear Works TGW But in a nutshell, B&B, we’re a privately owned company We’ve got four North American locations.

One in LaPorte, Indiana, Rochester, Indiana Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then Toronto, Canada. Like I said, we’re privately owned. Bob Hamilton is our owner and CEO and a very active and present in the business every day. And he started this business in his parents garage. And today, you know, B&B is a North America’s largest synchronous drive pulley manufacturer. So we do synchronous drives, pulleys that have teeth in it. Synchronous belts. We also get into some other power transmission components which would be like shivs and bushings and roller chain sprockets and idlers and different things like that. But we’re kind of part of the hidden industry that keeps things moving.

Carman Pirie: And Todd, how long have you been there? 

Todd Carroll: So I’ve known the owner for about 20-plus years and I joined the company in 2018. And we’ve been having a lot of fun ever since. I mean, we, we’ve really taken a B&B from let’s call a small to medium-sized company to a large company. And it’s it’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears, a lot of work, but we’ve still got a long way to go, but we feel like we’ve gained some good traction. The last couple of years and we’ve got a good good sightline ahead of us. We’ve got good, good positive things gonna happen. We’re getting ready to expand our facility in La Porte. Currently La Porte, that’s our corporate headquarters. It’s 100,000 square foot that sits on 55 acres. And we’re getting ready to expand that 50,000 square feet, but we’re gonna expand it where we can actually put up another a hundred thousand after that. So 150 total thousand square feet can be added to it. So once it’s all done with the different additions, we’ll be sitting at about 250,000 square feet in LaPorte. And then we currently sit today on about 20 million of finished goods inventory. And we’ve got some expansions that are going to happen in 2025. That’ll really round out our product offering and allow us to you know, really focus on being a belt to drive experts. So after about the first, second quarter of next year, we’ll be sitting about 30 million of finished goods inventory that can really be utilized to help service, you know,, the market with distributors and OEMs. And we’ve got a couple of product expansions that’ll be helpful too. 

Jeff White: I gotta think too. I mean, this, you know, having, having product in stock, when you came on in 2018, I think you said there were only two facilities and now you’ve doubled that and now you’re looking to, you know, more than double the size of that facility, one of these facilities again. And, you know, Kind of, I don’t know that everybody necessarily makes the connection from, from marketing to, you know, sales to customer service in the way that you are doing. But a big part of your ability to be successful with your customers is having products available. Isn’t it? 

Todd Carroll: Yeah, it has definitely helped. I mean if you look back at, at Pre COVID I think most manufacturers in our space, we’re just kind of conducting business as, as same old way they used to. And then through the COVID challenge that we had we really needed to figure out a couple of things. I mean, we typically are, are inventory heavy.

That’s nice. One of the nice things about being privately owned. I mean, our owner, Bob knows that you can’t sell from an empty wagon. So we’ve been able, and he’s a salesman through and through at heart. So we’ve had a lot of inventory, but. You know, people found us because of that inventory during you know, COVID and then after that.

You know, during working through that, we had to figure out how to make inventory quicker. We couldn’t just go on our old ways of the traditional manufacturing of getting raw material in the plant, going through primaries, going through secondaries, going through hob. We had to figure out that we needed to put in some different options, whether it be a flow line or cellular manufacturing, because if a customer would come in and grab a lot of that inventory, We couldn’t wait 18 weeks to make it again.

We needed to make it quicker so that we had that inventory on the shelf. So it has definitely helped. But even though we have a lot of that inventory. A lot of times people, OEMs are looking for custom stuff and 60 percent of our business is custom made orders. And that’s really what people know us for.

They don’t know us that we have all that inventory sitting there. So that’s where the marketing efforts, you know, come in as well to really get that awareness up in the marketplace. 

Carman Pirie: Todd, I’m in some ways, it sounds weird to say this, happy that you brought up COVID, only that when you were talking about the when you started with the company, the thing that jumped into my mind was we’re having a podcast about being close to customers. And about a year after you joined, you couldn’t get close to customers for a while. 

Todd Carroll: You’re right. And you know, one of the things we really try to work On during that period of you know, the challenge was to just stay relevant, you know, bring solutions and you hear that a lot. Hey, we were a solutions provider, but really, I mean, when you look at B&B manufacturing, I mean, we are the belt and drive experts. And then we laser focus on that. And when you have that value proposition in the marketplace and people need it. It does make it easier for people to want to talk to you and want to make time and invite you in. And so we, while it was different that, you know, the welcome receptions weren’t always as personal, but we still were able to see people.

And even afterwards, you know, after we’re post COVID, let’s call it, you know, people still kind of fall back and now we’re not seeing anybody or hey, you gotta really have a purpose to come in and see us. We, we tend to, you know, when people are looking for our stuff and need that expertise from an engineering standpoint we tend to get those face to face meetings.

I mean, what we’re doing right now you know, let’s call it zoom or teams or whatever, you know, this podcast this has worked. It’s a nice tool, but I think at the end of the day, when let’s call it the. You know, situations come up or the proverbial SHIT hits the fan. I mean, people are going to want to deal with.

People eye to eyeball, you know, eyeball to eyeball and across the table because they’re gonna buy from people they trust and they’re gonna call people, you know, that can help them get out of a situation. 

Jeff White: That no question is an incredibly important strategy when you’re working with the accounts that you already have.

How do you, how are you getting the word out to folks who aren’t necessarily aware of you yet or, or that, aren’t currently customers? 

Carman Pirie: I think that’s a great question, Jeff, because Todd, you were mentioning about the driving awareness and kind of the, the new capacity that’s been brought on stream and man, you can’t just sell all that new capacity to current customers.

My guess is there’s gotta be a few new ones. So I’m curious about this awareness question too, Jeff. 

Todd Carroll: Yeah, I really think it’s a, it’s a two prong approach. I mean, we’ve always been, I would just say present on some of the social media channels, you know, whether it be, you know linked in or, you know, from a culture standpoint, maybe Facebook, but we’ve really ramped it up.

Recently, I mean, we hired two new marketing team members for B&B back in August, and we’ve really become more present and visible and even started to put things out on TikTok. So that social media, the social media channel has really we’ve, accepted it. We’ve really, you know, put a lot of effort into it.

We’re putting out, we call it Todd Talks. And it’s, you know, from a situation or an opportunity to, you know, walk them through the plan, how we make something, or, you know, we’ve got some series that are coming up talking about, you know, the belts, synchronous belts and the different profiles and the families and how they get confusing in the marketplace.

So just adding value to make some clarity. So that customers understand that if they’ve got questions, man, we’re the ones to go to. And then I would also say that you know, we do a lot with PPCs, pay per clicks and SEO. So we drive a lot of customers to our website. You know, let’s face it, you know, the old way of buying, you know, has changed. I mean, when you’ve got the millennials and different folks coming through the, you know, employment channel today, whether they’re in purchasing or maintenance. They want to jump on their computer and they want to go through their phone and they want to put in a part number and where, where can I find it?

They don’t necessarily always want to meet somebody, but so that’s helped us quite a bit as well as the PPC, the paper clicks and the SEO. And I think when you look at, you know,  the technology and just being basic blocking and tackling from, awareness out in the channel. And focusing, you know, we focus on different industries that are doing well.

I mean, when you look at warehouse logistics today, whether you’re an Amazon or you’re a Walmart or you’re a Target, everybody wants to move. Things faster, product faster, and they’re using robots and Kiva is a different thing. So we’ve had a lot of success there through distribution, through some OEMs. So we’re spending a lot of time in these, I don’t want to call it emerging markets, but these new channels that are bringing opportunity to us.

So it’s, it’s a three prong approach with social media awareness. Now you talk about you know, the other, industries and the SEO and technology that’s, that’s really been kind of a, a three pronged approach getting out there in the marketplace. And, you know, we become personally more visible, I’ve been getting involved with different associations so that we’re more visible with networking and connecting.

So it’s, it’s helped quite a bit. 

Carman Pirie: Todd, how much do you try to how much does the organization really try to connect the dots directly if you will, between those activities and sales flow, deal flow, et cetera, or are you happier or happy to, I should say be a little bit more relaxed on that front in terms of how you think about attribution and just kind of letting a lot of awareness fires instead. Kind of curious what your approach is. 

Todd Carroll: So when you say attribution. I mean, are you talking like attributes of products or are you just talking 

Carman Pirie: No, no, being able to being able to say, hey, this sale that just came in came from a post that we posted on Facebook. This over here came from PPC. Are you tying revenue attribution basically to the channel or are you being a little looser in terms of how you think about driving awareness?

Todd Carroll: From that data standpoint Carman, we would love to be able to really, you know, nail down exactly where each and every one comes from. Do we do a great job at that today? No. Could we do a better job at that? Sure. But I will tell you when we go to like different industry functions, let’s call it one of our biggest industry functions is called PTDA, the Power Transmission Distributors Association. And we go there with all other manufacturers and distributors. You know, when we’re having casual conversation from networking standpoint, and they’re saying, Hey, we’re seeing a lot of Todd Talks or B&B out on social media. What are you guys going to do next? So there’s some awareness that we can specifically attribute to those efforts. And I’ll be honest, two days ago, I got a call from one of our distributors here in the United States and they said, hey, can you make these synchronous pulleys? And I was like, yeah, we can do that. And he goes, I never would have thought about you for the never thought about B&B for these pulleys. But, you know, I was having a conversation at a Christmas party with one of my colleagues.

And they had just recently saw you on LinkedIn doing something. And then she had mentioned, hey, did you check B&B and Todd for these, these, you know, pulleys? So there’s, you were starting to see more of that connection. But it’s, it’s not something that we are, you know, spot on all the time. We, we could do a better job at that.

Jeff White: Todd, to say you, you’ve embraced in your Todd talks, a bit of humor would be underselling it a bit. I think. I was watching one of your videos on LinkedIn, which I assume probably also got distributed on TikTok and other media around the tinsel and and other holiday elements within the factory. How has that, like, do you think that kind of utilizing a bit of campy humor is enabling you to get talked about beyond just kind of putting those videos out. Cause I think so often people do things like that and they just fall flat, but clearly you’re, you’re getting some resonance from that.

Todd Carroll: Yeah. And Jeff, I think at the, at the end of the day, we’re just trying to be, you know, real we’re, B&B has a team of over a hundred employees. And we get up every day and we put our pants on and we go do a job and we do a job because for many different reasons, one to provide for our families to, you know, help move the business forward, you know, to take care of customers, those type of things.

So those kind of things, whether, you know, I think it was Santa’s workshop is the one that you saw it on TikTok, but yeah, we were just, you know, myself and Jordan Cole. She’s one of our marketing team members that we added along with Horace. We were just kind of spitballing and like, hey, we got to get some content. What do you want to do? And she had the idea of Santa’s workshop. So we started thinking about things and we were actually filming something else at the time. And I’m like, hey, I’ve got some ideas. We can do, you know, the metal shavings that come out of the CNC machines. We could say, Hey, we do tinsel as you caught it. And then we have the black oxide tanks. You know, our hot cocoa, you know, machines now, and, you know, the pellets for our injection plastic molded machines are coal. So just, just trying to be fun. I mean, you could get out there and you could always put out this content of, hey, here’s a drive. Here’s a ratio. Here’s horsepower. Here’s what we do. And sometimes that gets stale. So I think, you know, changing it up a little bit and some humor to it, being real and human. And there’s also one that’s a bloopers out there that you can see behind the scenes. Where I screw up a lot, so it’s just, I don’t know, I just, we try to just be normal people that have a job that we’re trying to take care of customers.

And while we’re doing it, we work hard, we play hard, we have fun. 

Carman Pirie: And how do you find that compares against the others in your space be it competitors or just other peers? It’s interesting to me that you’re taking this approach while you’re the leader in the category, most people, I think that tend to take these approaches, tend to maybe be a a more scrappier competitor.

Todd Carroll: Yeah. I mean, we’ve got a lot of tier one competitors out there that are very well known legacy brands with a lot of our customers. I mean, B&B is not traditionally looked at as, you know, from the, hey, let’s, let’s go to these guys first out of the gate. So we’re raising that level of awareness through our inventory and those different types of things. Our competitors aren’t doing this and you know, we’re, we’re just, you know, I don’t want to say we’re rolling the dice, but we feel that, you know, we’re taking a shot at doing something different. It appears right now that it’s being received positively. You know, we can see from all the different impressions that we get you know, on the different posts and things that we put out there and just the general comment and feedback. I mean, I think customers like to deal. With similar types of people they’ve got a job to do. They’re trying to solve things on their end. We can help them through the situation or whatever their challenges they have. So just being real and being different. And it’s okay to be different because sometimes when you’re different, you stand out in the crowd.

You know, sometimes that’s positive. Sometimes they, you know, frown a little bit, but. We’re okay to be a little bit different. We’re comfortable. 

Carman Pirie: I wonder what your biggest surprise has been along this path so far since joining a B&B and bringing a bit more of a modern approach to their marketing endeavours, what surprised you the most?

Todd Carroll: you know Just the amount of time that you’ve got to spend out telling your story or your, you know, your proposition, your story, who you are over and over, because there’s so many in our space.

There are so many competitors out there. And like I just mentioned a minute ago, there are a lot of legacy brands that don’t have to do what we do. I mean, Carman, I get the question a lot is, hey, Todd, how do you differentiate yourself from the legacy brands that are out there? And it’s, it’s real simple. I said, you know what?

We don’t have their name, so we have to work harder than they do. And you know, some of those brands are very big. And you get sometimes too big and you get disconnected from the customers. And maybe it comes off a little bit as you, as you don’t care. So we don’t have the name. We have to work harder. B&B has to work harder and we care. And that’s, you know, I think, you know, we’re getting back to maybe some traditional blocking and tackling of just, you know, sales 101 connecting with the customer, taking care of them. And when we try internally with our customer experience team to give folks when they call us customers, the wow factor. And what is that? What we look at as the wow factor is when they hang up that phone, excuse me, that customer says, wow, I got everything I needed. I got a price. I got an availability. I got a positive attitude. I was able to get things done and man, I can move on now. I get this piece of paper off my desk. My customers are taken care of and now I can move on to the next challenge. So they don’t have to call anybody else. That’s what we’re trying to get them. And when you call B&B, okay. You know, a lot of times when a customer, not customers, but companies or manufacturers call today. The first thing you hear when you connect with them is, hey, please listen for the prompts because they’ve recently changed. Press one for sales, press two for whatever. When you call B&B, you don’t have to listen to the prompts. You don’t have to worry about changes because we don’t have any. When you call us, somebody live is going to answer that phone. And on that, you know, when they answer that phone. They can direct you to wherever you need to go. And if they can’t answer what you’re looking for, somebody in the building can, so we, we have that connectivity with them.

Jeff White: man. It’s the it’s the Avis strategy. We’re number two. So we have to try harder. Yeah. 

Carman Pirie: I mean, I’m reminded of the old interior architecture manufacturer in Calgary, actually SMED that when you called SMED they, I don’t know how they did this, but they either, and I think I may have mentioned this on the show in probably our first year, so if I’m repeating myself and somebody actually notices it, my apologies, but they had some, something set up with their phone system, basically it never rang when you phone them, you, it would just be like a dead air for a brief, like, millisecond, and then somebody would pick up. And, it left you with this, like, the impression that you almost just had, like, the bat phone connected to them. Like, there, no ringing was necessary. It was a really strange thing. Very progressive, environmentally progressive manufacturer. Dealing with some of the world’s biggest brands. They, ended up being purchased by Hayworth. But man, that phone strategy was central to communicating their closeness to customers and why customers are important to them. And to really, it was a proof point that it just really stood out. 

Todd Carroll: It’s funny Carman, that you mentioned the Bat Phone, because I was sitting down with a customer not too long ago and basically, this is a senior leader at a very large distributor, and I was saying, hey, You know, it’s funny they were asking me, Hey, how much are we doing with you, Todd? We’re doing X amount. I’m like, you know, I wish we were doing that much amount, but really we’re, we’re like a bar tab for you. And even though you’re growing, we’re still, still small potatoes for you. I said, but you know, when you need to get something out of those legacy brands, do you have the bat phone that you can call somebody to get it out of the plant?

And they’re like, no, I don’t know who to call. And I said, great, well, if you need something out of B&B, you know who to call. You can call me, you can call Bob, you can call Dave, everybody’s there to help you. So you have a bat phone with us. So it was just interesting when you mentioned that, I’m like, ah, I recently had this conversation.

Carman Pirie: It’s a, I think it’s easy to overlook some of those traditional communication channels and customer service channels, like frankly, the telephone especially in man, we’re 2024, 2025 is a digital world. Right. 

Jeff White: Man. That whole idea, it’s 2024 and all of a sudden a winning strategy is to staff your phones appropriately. How is that a thing? Come on. 

Carman Pirie: Well, service I guess it’s because humans and our sense of service and what good service is changes a lot more slowly than the technology does. 

Todd Carroll: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, hey, let’s, let’s call a spade a spade. I mean, when you look at some of the things that we’re doing I think we’re getting better at it.

I mean, we didn’t do some of these things when I first came on board and, you know, we were really trying to, you know, get better, you know, at the end of the day, we want to make sure we take care of customers. We want to make sure that we win the day. And we want to make sure that we’re, you know, improving, we’re getting better.

I mean, we’ve got you know, just some simple core principles that we believe in at B&B and we follow. And, you know, it’s just really five simple ones that we follow. It’s one is prompt. We want to be fast. And we realize at B&B that those who respond first or an RFQ or whatever usually get the order. So we try to take care of customers when those RFQs are coming in quickly. We want to be professional, which means, you know, be helpful, be responsive, you know, be friendly. You know, that’s that’s the way that’s part of that. Wow. You know, it’s part of wrapped into there and then, you know, we want to be accurate, you know, I’m going to be reliable, consistent and deliver on what we say we’re going to do not just give you, you know, word of mouth, but they actually action follow up with it. And then when I give them one of the most important ones is to be anticipative. You know, let’s listen to the customer’s needs and anticipate what the next thing that we need to do to take care of them. And the last one is to be knowledgeable, and that goes back to our belt and drive experts philosophy and, you know, know our products, our capabilities, what our customer applications are and then under promise and over-deliver.

I mean, I recently was invited or not invited, and it ended up being an invite. We had an opportunity where one of our competitors in the marketplace eliminated one of their product lines, one of their products in their family. And this customer didn’t have an alternative. So they came to us and said, Hey, here’s our, here’s the, here’s the situation. What can you do? And we, we presented an alternative. They liked it. We came down, we measured up the drive and it’s a big drive. It’s a 14-millimeter pitch, you know, big wide drive, wider than standard to carry the horsepower torque. And those are the things that they didn’t have an option. They came to us, we were able to give them an option, and now it’s, you know, heck, the drive alone is just one of them, and they’ve got five more at this plant, and they’ve got fourteen more at another plant.

It’s just this one drive, it’s north of 25,000, so, it’s big stuff, and we were able to help them, so it was good. 

Jeff White: Upsell ability across plants or, or within existing plants. How big of a strategy is that for, your team? Are they constantly, are you training them on looking for those? And like you say, listening and trying to anticipate those needs, like, is that something you do with your team?

Todd Carroll: We pride ourselves at B&B and trying to be very good at, you know, listening. But when somebody orders something about asking for the fries, meaning, you know, if they order a synchronous pulley from us, we’re like, hey, what about the belt? Hey, what about the bushing? So trying to get that one-stop shop. But, you know, at the end of the day, There’s a, there’s a reason why we have two ears and one mouth, you know, listen twice as much as you speak. So we try to listen with the intent to understand versus with the intent to respond so that we can take in the information, make sure we’re understanding what the situation is, and then say, hey, So here’s what I heard. Here’s what I think you’re looking for. Here’s what we can offer. That’s really how we approach all the different options and opportunities that come up. 

Carman Pirie: Todd. I wonder as we bring this show to a close, what if you could give us any hints around what we ought to be anticipating from a B&B in 2025, how are we what kind of new awareness initiatives do you have up your sleeve? What do you think? What are you thinking of trying? What’s out there that has you interested? 

Todd Carroll: Well, we’ve talked about being the belted drive experts and on a synchronous standpoint, we can do that because we can give you two synchronous pulleys, the two bushings and the belt to go along with that from a, from a V belt drive. We can give you the two V belt shivs, the two bushings, but we’re missing the belt. So we’re going to complete that in 2025. So we’re going to be able to give you that entire package on V belts. So that’s going to be something that’s going to be an expansion for us. And then we’re looking at other complimentary you know, power transmission products in the marketplace. We dabble today with roller chain sprockets, the carbon steel version. We do pretty well on the stainless steel roller chain sprockets, but we’re going to have a complete focus on roller chain sprockets all the way through 25 through two 40 single strands, double strand, triple strand through, you know, one 60 that’s really going to be a new, endeavour for us that we like, again, we just, we were dipping our toe into it. Now we’re jumping in the water because we feel that there’s an opportunity in the marketplace to really give customers a great availability, great service on stock, and then the ability to also have. Custom made order quickly. 

Carman Pirie: You know, and I think this is really the fruition of that closer to the customer strategy, isn’t it? Because when I ask you what you’re doing next year to drive growth, every ounce of your response was around kind of how you’re filling out product ranges, introducing new products, et cetera, in order to respond to a customer need that’s been identified because you’re actually out there paying attention to them.

Todd Carroll: We try!

Carman Pirie: There were no gimmicks there. There’s no, I got this little thing up my sleeve. I’m going to try. It’s like, no, no, no. This is what we’re hearing. This is the gap that we’re seeing. This is how, where our capabilities fit. I just think it’s it’s a nice reminder, I think, to those listening that, there are lots of new digital tools out there and lots of ways that we can market to our prospects and drive awareness. But a lot of it has come down, comes down to a bit of the attitude we take when we do it. And paying attention along the way and listening along the way. 

Todd Carroll: Yeah. I mean, that’s a good, good segue and wrap-up. I mean, from a standpoint we’re listening to what the customer needs are and trying to execute based on the feedback we get.

And, you know, I guess one thing I’ll also add to. You know, the surprises or things for 2025, our footprint is going to expand even more. So we’ve gotten, I want to say footprint, I’m talking physical footprint. We’re going to have another location that’s going to be added first quarter of next year. It’s an acquisition that we’re in the process of, and that’ll be another good thing for the market. 

Carman Pirie: Very exciting. Well, Todd, for sharing your experience with us. It’s been lovely to have you on the show. 

Todd Carroll: Guys, I appreciate it. Thanks for allowing me to come join you for a little bit you know, in mid-December before the holidays. Much appreciated. 

Jeff White: Yeah, it’s been our pleasure. Thanks, Todd. 

Announcer: Thanks for listening to The Kula Ring with Carman Pirie and Jeff White. Don’t miss a single manufacturing marketing insight. Subscribe now at Kulapartners.com/thekularing. That’s K U L A partners dot com slash The Kula Ring.