Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1080843
FEBRUARY 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 19 the latest techniques as opposed to the general practitioner who's been doing it for 30 years who hasn't kept up. It's the same thing because when you have someone who's been plating for 30 years, what we find is as we deal with older companies, that plater knows that one company and hasn't experienced any other organization. I'd much rather hire a person who has worked for five companies in the last 15 years than one who's been at the same company for 30. I say this be- cause the person who has been at five different companies has learned much more about the overall technology than the one who has been in the same house and learned the technology lore of that house. Matties: When it comes to selling your servic- es, there's a process—a checklist of things— that you have to have to make sure you sell it properly. First, you see if all of the light bulbs are working. Second, you have to understand what your story is. Third, you have to craft that into a story and have alignment in your orga- nization on that message—this is the value, this is how we want to present it—and bring continuity to that. Lastly, you have to look at the delivery methods. When you look at story- telling, you have to start looking at it in differ- ent ways. People throw out the term social me- dia—which we need to be on such as posting on Facebook or having a blog—but after you have the story, you must have the discipline to implement it. Beaulieu: You absolutely need the discipline. Everything you said is correct. When I work Matties: We often build it and hire salespeo- ple to go sell it, but we're not out marketing it because marketing is one of the areas that many companies struggle with. They may have a sales strategy, like hiring a rep or build- ing a list, but they don't have a marketing strategy. Beaulieu: Yes, because the things you men- tioned aren't strategies, they're tactics. If you're going to describe it, marketing encom- passes pretty much everything, and along the way, salespeople are the face and messengers of your company. Another thing that happens is if you have a strong engineer and they're working in your manufacturing or PCB company, you might decide that you're going to send them out on the road as a salesperson. Unfortunately, when the title of "sales" goes on their business card, they lose credibility immediately. They'll walk into a company, and when it says "sales" on their card when they used to advise people on technology, they don't quite believe them any- more because the customer might think they are spinning the solutions to fit your compa- ny's shop. I've seen that happen where you're much better to have sales engineers than reg- ular salespeople—especially as technology grows. Matties: Circling back to where we started, ed- ucation leads to sales. Content strategies are being implemented more and more because so many people are losing business to competi- tors who use them, so they're starting to adopt them. However, the problem now becomes that you then have to qualify the level of edu- cation that you're getting from that source. It's easy to say someone has been in plating for three years and is an expert versus a chemical engineer who's been doing it for 30 years. We now have to start validating the source of that knowledge. Beaulieu: That's correct, and it's the same in medicine. My brother had a career in medicine and always told us to get the doctor who's just out of medical school because they know all I'd much rather hire a person who has worked for five companies in the last 15 years than one who's been at the same company for 30.