How to Collaborate Effectively with Former CompetitorsHow to Collaborate Effectively with Former Competitors

How to Collaborate Effectively with Former Competitors 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. My name is Jeff White. Joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing today?

Carman Pirie: I’m fantastic, Jeff. And you?

Jeff White: I’m doing really well, really well.

Carman Pirie: So, great to be chatting today. And yeah, I think today’s guests are really going to shine a light on a topic of conversation that we’ve chatted quite a bit about at The Kula Ring. The dynamic of mergers and acquisitions within the manufacturing space is something we’ve talked about before. I recall a great conversation with Trish at BW Papersystems about their track record of M&A activity and how it was a big part of their growth path.

But I think today’s Kula Ring episode might be the first one where we can dub in a boxing ring kind of bell, because we have two people on the line today who used to be competitors, but now are collaborators in this new organization. And I don’t know, like, before we got you guys on the line, I don’t know if there was any kind of arm wrestling or anything of the sort.

But anyway, I’m gonna let Jeff, I guess, introduce our guests before I suggest that you guys are arm wrestling on the side.

Jeff White: Yeah, we don’t necessarily want to make assumptions. But yeah, joining us today, we have Cori Walsh who is the Marketing Specialist with Vermeer MV Solutions, and Jake Jeffords, who is the Director of Marketing and Global Accounts.

Now, Cori was formerly, or the company that Cori was with before they became Vermeer was Vac-Tron. And Jake was with McLaughlin Underground. So welcome to you both. Thank you for joining us in The Kula Ring.

Cori Walsh: Thank you for having us. We’re excited to be on.

Jake Jeffords: Thanks guys, and she’s pretty scrappy. So I might have the height advantage, but she can hold her own with the arm wrestling.

Carman Pirie: There was no question in our mind, Jake, of who won the arm wrestling.

Jeff White: Yeah, no, pre-supposed. Saying that, Cori, why don’t you kick us off and tell us a little about yourself.

Cori Walsh: Sure. Well, like you said, I was the marketing director at Vac-Tron Equipment. And just a little history on Vac-Tron, we were over 20 years old. We manufacture industrial vacuum equipment and vacuum excavation equipment, so that is our specialty. That is what we do in Okahumpka, Florida. And most people when you say Okahumpka, they’re like, “Where?”

So Okahumpka, Florida, just about the only thing there is Vac-Tron Equipment. It’s about 40 miles north of Orlando, Florida, so that kind of gives you a little bit of an area there where you can kind of see where we are located. But I was the Marketing Director. And so, my position there basically, was to develop marketing strategies and different digital marketing campaigns through social media or our website with different targeted audiences. You know, created lead generation, so on and so forth.

So that was my role there. And I have been with Vac-Tron for five years now.

Carman Pirie: Fantastic.

Cori Walsh: Bit of history about myself and Vac-Tron.

Carman Pirie: Nice. Jake, why don’t you give us a tale from the other side of the cooler.

Jake Jeffords: Yeah, so it’s like Cori said, we’re a small manufacturing space out of Greenville, South Carolina, McLaughlin Underground. I’ve been in the Underground industry for right at 15 years. I’ve worked with a Vermeer dealership in the past. My background in college and school was TV/radio broadcasting with digital editing as my focus.

I got into the equipment business, and I guess once I got the yellow iron in my blood, I couldn’t get it out. I really enjoyed selling the construction equipment through the Vermeer dealer network. Became a contractor for a bit, and then jumped into the manufacturing space in Atlanta with a couple other manufacturers, both of excavator style equipment, hydraulic excavators.

So it really lended well with my background being in sales and marketing where I came onto McLaughlin about two and a half years ago and took over a regional position. So I was over a sales territory, but also helping with a marketing facet of our company, slowly gaining that ground, and took over sales and marketing. And now doing a little bit of global accounts on the marketing side too. So we are another small underground company. Before Vermeer bought us, we were specializing in auger boring, almost a hundred years old.

Auger boring, of course, sells piercing tools, locators, and vacuum excavation, which is the bulk of our volume every year. But we were really an accessory piece to a lot of the underground contractors that were buying Vermeer Equipment anyway. So that’s kind of a bit of a background.

Carman Pirie: Very cool. Well look, it’s good to know that if our editing capabilities go completely sideways here at Kula and we can’t get this podcast to air, we can always tap you for your broadcast and digital editing expertise.

Jake Jeffords: It’s very small. I was a night time radio DJ out of college in Chattanooga, Tennessee for a very short time. So it was pretty interesting.

Carman Pirie: That seems like a short time, but it seems like it also could be a good sitcom. I mean, to have like, late-night radio in Chattanooga. I don’t know, it just seemed like it…

Jake Jeffords: Right, right.

Carman Pirie: But we digress. Guys, I wanted to dive in and just chat through some, because this transition, I mean, you’re kind of just living through it now. So I guess, let’s start there. When did this land on your laps? Because the marketers, they’re not the last to know, but they’re not the first to know about these things, usually.

Jake Jeffords: I think the… Cori, correct me if I’m wrong. I think the beginning of November is where it really started to become real news, and for us to start putting things together for the launch and the announcement.

Cori Walsh: Yes, that’s correct.

Carman Pirie: Did you know each other beforehand? I mean, obviously, you were in the same space sitting and competing, and cross selling there. But were you aware of each other more or so?

Jake Jeffords: Yeah, I knew Cori.

Cori Walsh: Yes.

Jake Jeffords: And I knew a lot of the employees with Vac-Tron. We competed against each other, like you said. But we also, when we were at trade shows or we were at different training schools, we definitely crossed paths a lot, because we sold into the same dealership network. So Vermeer dealers across the U.S., actually the world, would sell our product, McLaughlin products, and they would sell Vac-Tron products. So they had a choice between the two.

So, we were right in line with each other. We had a lot of the same products. And we also spoke a lot.

Carman Pirie: So, it’s kind of hard to know where to start here. I kind of, my inclination is to go as close to the customer as we can and talk about what’s happening, I guess, on that dealer network side, and the dynamics there. I mean, it must have been one of the first places to grab your attention. It was just, you know, the fact that you’re selling competing products by the same distribution channel.

So what were the, I guess, some of the early considerations on your plate as you turned your attention to that.

Jake Jeffords: You are right on, Carman. And that was extremely important for the dealers and the customers to understand that we are bringing two products together, and two innovative companies that were in from the ground up, from the vacuum excavation side. That was the core of both of our businesses. And we needed them to know that we had their back, and that we wanted to be the easy one.

We wanted to make sure that we were easy to do business with as a whole, together, just like we were separate. So, really gaining that. And we really wanted that fire from our guys, from our field team, from everybody in the front offices and the plants, to know that we were together as one, and really feel like that we were one big team trying to grab one goal and go after our competition together, instead of fighting against each other.

Carman Pirie: So far, I guess I’m always curious, sometimes I find that the market is easy—it’s easier sometimes for them to get their head around a change like this than it is for people inside of the organization. Or sometimes for the folks that are closer to it. So I guess I’ll put that question back to you. What has been your experience since those early days of November? Have you noticed a lot of challenges with getting people on the same team? Or conversely, have there been challenges on the customer side? How have you experienced that?

Jake Jeffords: I think the “we” and “us” conversation happens a lot. You slip up and say, “Well, what products do you have available?” And it’s not “you” anymore, it’s a team. So just getting that conversation going and making sure that everyone knows we are together, that was one of the difficult pieces. And we’re still going through that. Just little things, like put out some tee shirts and making sure all the factory guys have the tee shirts with the new logo, the new brand, just something really simple like that, and making sure that they understand that they can come to us with questions.

Customer wise, I think we’re right on. We’ve got the same products. We’re not delaying. We’re not changing anything right away. We’re making sure that we’ve got the same things that got us to both at the point we’re at now to where we’re the market share leader of vacuum excavation together. And we know that we’re gonna be able to attack the market too.

Carman Pirie: Yeah, it’s always interesting that the… It seems like sometimes in a weird way, the customer side is easier. Yeah, I don’t know whether it’s just because internally, we’re just so close to it, you know, or maybe bought into it more, and so therefore, the change becomes harder.

Jake Jeffords: Yeah, it’s… I mean, when I was at Vermeer Southeast, I was at the dealership level in Atlanta. And I sold equipment every day, hauling the machines behind my truck. Our Director of Sales, Brian Scholey, was my Regional Manager for Vac-Tron. So, I sold Vac-Tron equipment to customers every day. And it was great to have him in the truck. He taught me how to use this machine. You know, fast forward 12, 13 years later, we’re competing against each other, and now we spend more time with each other than… I say sometimes I spend more time with Brian and talk to him more than I talk to my wife. Because it is a constant making sure that we are definitely, the market knows we’re here, and that we’re doing it together.

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Carman Pirie: All right, cool. Well guys, let’s break this up a little bit. I want to talk about some of the practicalities about merging the marketing together of these two organizations. I like to kind of step one level up above that in some way and talk about the coming together of the brands to help power that marketing, and maybe one step even above that, the coming together of these cultures.

So, let’s start at the culture side. What are some of the early initiatives that you’re undertaking to ensure that the cultures, I guess, have a joint view of what the future looks like?

Jake Jeffords: I think really, the early initiatives have really been supported from the Vermeer side. So, coming from Iowa, we have dealer year end meetings. We have different training sessions that come through, that they’ve allowed us to have a voice where before, maybe we didn’t have as large of a voice there. We’re able to have a voice and make sure that all of the dealerships know what our direction is. So that’s kind of an outward-facing thing.

Inside, for example at our Christmas party, we had our former CEO, Jason Andringa, coming down for a book signing, just getting everyone together, it really has been a full force of how Vermeer can help bring the two companies together. And that really leans on the marketing, too. Cori and I worked with the Vermeer marketing team for the launch, for the big announcement. So we wanted to make sure that everything was right on point with what their standards were, and how we can make sure that that data, that voice for our first announcement together was the right move.

Jeff White: How have you seen that inside of the former Vac-Tron company, Cori?

Cori Walsh: Yeah, I mean, I agree with what Jake just said, You know, we did when we were preparing for the launch, it was amazing to see the team from Vermeer Corporate in Iowa just come right alongside us and supply us with their team. And everyone from their video to their communications and the CEO and so on and so forth, I mean, everyone, it was just… They came right along with us and help us in that transition and getting that, you know, the message out there so that every single employee, whether it was at Vac-Tron or whether it was at McLaughlin, or even Vermeer Corporate, you know, everyone had the same message and everyone could feel like that they were now going to be a part of this bigger family.

You know, the Vermeer family, and bringing all the cultures together. And the companies together as one, you know, just, I think that it’s been a tremendous ride so far. And we’re just beginning. But I do feel like the transition so far culturally, and just bringing us all together has been great.

Carman Pirie: Let’s talk about those dynamics a little bit, because it’s clear that Vermeer is quite a bit larger. I don’t know if our listeners would have an appreciation of the scale, however. So perhaps you can fill us in. How big is Vermeer from an employee count, et cetera, versus both McLaughlin and Vac-Tron?

Jake Jeffords: I believe Vermeer’s employee count is in the upper 2,000 range, 2,600 to 2,800. I could be off a few people here or there, but McLaughlin’s right around 120 employees, and Vac-Tron is around the same also.

Carman Pirie: So it’s really a transition from a company that can feel probably, a lot like a family to something that inevitably, has to feel a bit more corporate.

Jake Jeffords: I kind of equate it to where you’re… And this is talking from experience, where you’re at a small high school, and then you’re going to a big college. There is going to be a change. There’s gonna be an adjustment, but any way you go, you go to any college, you go to any school from a university from a smaller high school, you still find your pocket of that family atmosphere. And Vermeer does a great job of the entire company makes you feel welcome.

There’s always been, it’s been that push, and it’s been a pull from us from needing information. So, if we need something from Vermeer, we ask and they help us. And they’ve got way more resources than we do, so that’s been a great help. And I don’t think there’s a big corporation feel. I think there’s a “Man, this is gonna help us get better,” feel. That’s where I think we step back and look at it. And we did a great job, both of us did. Both Vac-Tron and McLaughlin, in getting to the points where we were for a large company to come and buy us and merge us together.

Jake Jeffords: But at the end of the day, we did something right, and we want to make sure that we still keep that small school feel, and then we’re gonna get up into the large company.

Carman Pirie: I think that analogy is pretty spot on for anybody that’s lived it… I guess I’ve been there as well, growing up in a small town. So that resonated with me, I appreciate that. I’m curious, Vac-Tron versus McLaughlin, when you were competing, what were the differences? I mean, I’m sure both companies put out quality product and things of that sort. But what would you have called upon as the competitive differences between the companies in a past life?

Jake Jeffords: You know, it’s kind of an interesting story, because I think there weren’t a ton of differences. I know that sounds very politically correct of myself now, because now we’re one. But I think that the main thing that we did at McLaughlin that was a little different is, we had three or four more products than Vac-Tron did, so we specialized in a full suite of underground equipment, where Vac-Tron solely focused on vacs. And both, if you looked at both of the business practices, you could say, “Man, that’s great to have a breadth of equipment and a breadth of options where if your vacuum excavators are taking a down a bit one year, you can focus on your utility locators or your piercing tools or your auger boring or your core saws. But then, there’s also a good look at Vac-Tron of having just being focused directly on vacs so they know the inside and outside of that market.

So there’s a good look at both of the differences in the companies. And I’m sure there’s features and product benefits that we really focused on when we were competing head to head that we would try to separate ourselves. But we both were great at customer support, and great at servicing the dealers. And we made both quality machines. So I think that’s what Vermeer liked about both of us.

Carman Pirie: It’s interesting to me because were I chatting with either of you before the merger, I would have been probably, as a marketer, urging you to be more different from the competitor that you’re now working with, right? But in some weird way, the somewhat lack of differentiation between the two firms probably assists in making the transition to this new world easier.

Jake Jeffords: You know, what’s cool about the differences too, and Cori can talk about this, but Vac-Tron really focused on a different style of marketing than we did. So I’ve learned from Cori and how she brought more and more SEO, more and more of the ad side to driving those leads to the website and to social media, and really helping create and cultivating leads for our dealers, for their dealers at the time. It was ours too, and we did too. We just did a different, more of a traditional setting. Ours was more print and digital ads through publications. So we’ve really kind of been able to take those two pieces and merge them together.

So we’re gonna take the same amount of resources that we had before from McLaughlin and the same from Vac-Tron, and we’ve merged them together into these solutions, Vermeer Solutions. So it’s been pretty neat. I’ve learned from Cori from that side, too.

Carman Pirie: Cori, take us through that. It sounds like you were ahead of the game here on the digital side of things pre-merger. So I guess, how has that been, trying to bring the other folks up to snuff?

Cori Walsh: Well, like Jake said, I mean, we both have learned from each other in different aspects. And we at Vac-Tron, we did try to focus a little more on what we call in-house marketing and kind of keeping it where we were doing more of the digital and the social media. We were trying to focus on SEO and our AdWords campaigns, and our social media. And mainly through Facebook, when I say social media. And we were using those resources there that you have on the back end to target your audiences and your markets. And so, we had been doing that for probably two, two and a half years when we really started to kind of shy away from print, and just move it more into this area.

And for us, it was working really well. I mean, we were having great success with it, especially with the lead generation, like Jake mentioned. You know, I think I just did a little report the other day where we basically had pulled about 176 leads just in the last two and a half months. And that’s huge for a company, you know, especially of Vac-Tron size.

So, we were and still are doing a great job at that. And like Jake said, on their side, they were still kind of focused more on the print and digital marketing through their publications. So we’ve been able to take those resources and kind of work together. So we’re still doing both. You know, we’re still using their efforts that they were doing, and we’re still using our efforts that we are doing so that we really don’t lose anything in this transition period too.

You know, we’re still receiving the leads and still focusing on those in-house and getting those out to our sales reps out there. But it has been a little different, you know. And we’re just fortunate now that we kind of are working together as one and like he said, coming together with both of us and having the different backgrounds and being a competitor, it really has been amazing to see that we have come together. That we can work together. And we now can focus on our outside competitors, whereas before, I was trying to beat McLaughlin there and make sure that we were ahead of the game in every area. Whereas now, we can focus together and be one, and now go after the outside market, which is really where we should have been in the first place.

So, Vermeer has done an amazing job at what they have accomplished by purchasing two and making us one, and now we move forward. And now we can go on and really hit the market and do some amazing things. So it has, that was one of the major differences. But we both are learning and we both are still doing an amazing job, I feel like, in the market.

Jeff White: I think one of the things that will be telling and interesting for you as well, you know, you’re basically moving from… You know, if you want to compare it in nationalities, you know, it’s like Canada to the U.S. Like, many many times the size. So it’ll be interesting to see how the marketing initiatives are driven by the larger corporate mandate, you know, and how they do things as you merge websites and bring the brands together. I think it’ll be really interesting to see how you can kind of bring those unique skill sets and previous strengths to the market as a new whole entity.

Carman Pirie: Yeah, I’m curious too, Jake, if you’ve found… As I listen to Cori speak of that, I think a lot of folks may listen to her and say, “Jeez, you know, it seemed like maybe Vac-Tron was getting pretty in touch with how buyers are discovering their buying options these days and beginning that buying journey.”

So I guess, have you, do you feel like this is maybe helping you accelerate the learning on that side of things as coming from, I guess, an environment that was a little bit more, perhaps, prone to traditional marketing methods?

Jake Jeffords: You know, it was cool the first time I went down to Okahumpka and walked in the factory and Vac-Tron, I felt like I was kind of spying. I didn’t feel like I should be there, because it’s been so long and we’ve competed. And I feel like we kind of opened up each other’s playbooks and we said, “Look, this is what we’ve been doing for this many years. And this is what’s worked really well for us.”

Then you come to South Carolina and you do the same thing. This is what’s worked really well for us for the past few years. We spent more money in a trade show environment. Maybe our booth would be bigger, or we’d put more equipment there. We would shift our budget to a different focus, so like Cori said, where her focus was website, driving leads to that website and doing digital, we did take a more traditional approach.

And that’s from a 98 year old company that was just getting to where we could slowly turn our ways. And now, we’re right on pace with the rest of the market. So the playbooks were opened, and we learned a lot. And I’ll be the first one to say, I’m always willing to learn. And there are some things that when we laid out the budget and we sat down for the first time and said, “Look, what’s the money look like? Where are we gonna put our dollars and our spend for our marketing efforts? What’s gonna drive the best return?” Because we all know, and I’m a sales guy too, so I know that my bosses and any management look at marketing as, we’ve got to spend that money to make it as a percentage, but I need some proof, I need some results. And that’s where we want to get.

We want to get our best bang for the best amount of money, and make sure that we’re driving those leads and driving that too, and making… really creating a great brand awareness. Especially right now, we gotta make sure we do honor to Vac-Tron and McLaughlin. But we also need to help spur the new Vermeer MV Solutions brand too.

Carman Pirie: Yeah, navigating that brand transition over the next while will obviously be a big focus for you all as I’m sure the retention of equity, the brand equity in that 98 year old company, and twenty year old company. Vac-Tron should not be dismissed either. Twenty only seems like a small number when it’s next to 98. But a company being around for twenty years is no small feat either. And I really look forward to seeing how that continues to come to life under the Vermeer brand.

Jake Jeffords: Vermeer has done an awesome job for us. They really haven’t put, and I know one of the questions was, or one of the comments was about how the corporation could change how we do our marketing. They’ve done amazing for letting us do things we do and what we’ve done well. And we’ve actually, hopefully taught them some things, how we’ve done a little bit on a smaller scale. You know, be a little bit more agile. Be a little bit more nimble. Do some things a little different. And we are constantly talking about how we can use their resources and hopefully, we want to prove to them that we were a small company, but both of us brought value in that space too.

Carman Pirie: Yeah, and I would really think that for folks that have been marketers in a 120 person company, the amount of time that you would have spent being customer facing or working shoulder to shoulder with sales folks or what have you, it would just be a more intense level of experience in doing that than what you might get in a more corporate marketing environment such as what might be happening at Vermeer.

Not to say that they’re out of touch in any way, shape or form, but they may just not be as scrappy and as inclined to get their hands dirty, as you guys had to be.

Jake Jeffords: That’s for sure.

Carman Pirie: And my gut would tell me that that would come… there would be a lot of learnings that would come with that, that you would be able to lend to the Vermeer team.

Jake Jeffords: Yeah, levels of employees, just with a larger company, you have more resources. So, where they might have a team of people, Cori was buying the media, doing social media, doing everything herself for the marketing side. Same very similar for me. We had an agency that would help, but we were also doing a lot of our own media and marketing. So now, we can get that done ourselves, but now we’re able to use their resources too. So we’ve leaned on them a pretty good amount to help us figure out how to be more efficient in their processes, too.

Jeff White: I think, and the biggest question of all is, all three companies use yellow for the trucks, but is it the same yellow? You know, like, is the pantone color going to be the same?

Carman Pirie: This is the designer asking a question.

Jeff White: Or who wins in this battle?

Jake Jeffords: It is, it is. It is everything is Vermeer yellow. There is a specific yellow for sure, so we abide by the brand guidelines. And we have, the cool part about it is, we’ve done that for years. Both of us have. So, right now, our vacs are both branded, and our equipment is branded Vermeer by the specific company. So we’ve actually have got a leg up where we’ve already built that equity in our vacuum excavators where it’s got a Vermeer logo on it. Now we’re just slowly building those machines together.

Jeff White: That’s fantastic.

Carman Pirie: Well, aside of getting the color lined in advance, as we reach the end of our time together today, I wonder if each of you would share, maybe, just one parting piece of advice. I guess I’m just putting myself in the shoes of a marketer who is sitting at their desk on a Tuesday morning, and then all of a sudden, they find out that the company’s being bought and they need to start working with their competitor or what have you on forging a new direction, a new way forward. Any bits of advice you might give to somebody in that situation, having just been there?

Cori Walsh: I would say, embrace it, and go with it. Because I feel, like I said earlier, being able now to really, truly focus, where Vermeer was both of our dealer, you know. And so now, we come together as one. And we’re able to actually accomplish so much more. And we’re able to really focus on the market that’s there. And being able to again, some other competitors that are out there, and build our brand and work together as a family and as a larger family.

So for me, I think, just, you know, and if you’re like, “Okay, so now, instead of focusing all your attention and efforts in a sense towards beating McLaughlin, now you’re going to partner with McLaughlin and we’re going to become one.”

So for me truly, it was like… And we knew, and just like Jake said, you know, earlier also, we saw each other quite a bit throughout the years. And we would see each other. And there was no animosity. Even though, you know, they truly were our biggest competitor, there was no animosity there. Because McLaughlin had a great team. They had great guys. And so, we knew them on a personal level like that. And so even though they were our competitor, and even though at the end of the day, we really wanted to beat them out, per se, it was a sigh of relief in a sense for us.

I mean, it really was. We were able to take a deep breath and say, “Oh, now we can go do what we’re really supposed to do, and focus our efforts where they need to be, and that’s out there.” So, just embrace that. And there’s so many new things that come along with that. And like he said, you know, we’re able to learn from each other. We’re able to take the good and the bad, you know. And now, move forward and make some changes. Make some adjustments, and go out there and just do what we’re here to do.

Carman Pirie: Cori, I think that’s some great advice. I think a lot of people in that situation sometimes may be focused, or find themselves focusing on what they’re losing or what have you, or what they feel they might be losing now that the company’s changing hands or what have you. But, I think that was solid advice to more stay focused on what you’re gaining. Jake, any parting thoughts?

Jake Jeffords: Learn and listen, along with what Cori said about embracing. I mean, really be willing to learn, because there’s going to be things that you thought that you’d done the right way. It’s a great opportunity to step back and really look at an assessment of what you’ve done as a person, but also what you’ve done as a marketing team. You know, how can you be like someone else? Or how can you be different, completely different from someone else? So there’s just a lot to learn, and going through Vermeer, I think that that’s been a good piece for us too. Because they do things really, really well that we’ve never done.

So, I would stress and urge anyone to never be complete. Always turn the learning on as much as possible.

Carman Pirie: Very cool. Thanks so much for sharing your insights today. I know that it’s probably hard to even find the time to pull away from the work right now to take the time for this podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. It’s been great insight into the trials and tribulations of such a merger. And I wish you all the best with that.

Jake Jeffords: Yeah, thank you guys.

Cori Walsh: Thank you so much, thank you for having us.

Carman Pirie: Absolute pleasure.

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