S1E39 How to Build Trust (& Win New Business) With Your Customers | Jeff Wells

After working for several years designing airplane components Jeff grew weary of the similar designs we was asked to create over and over, and jumped at the chance to move into a project management role where he was able to interface more closely with customers. His easygoing manner with customers proved valuable, and soon he was being aske to evaluate new projects and develop new business lines altogether. 25 years later Jeff has built a robust career in engineering sales and business development. Joins us as he shares his insights and strategies for developing new business relationships and selling engineering services. 

Here is a link to the “Designing Your Life” book Jeff mentioned during the show.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com 

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Transcript

Aaron Moncur: 0:14

Hello, and welcome to the Being An Engineer Podcast. Our guest today is Jeff Wells, who is the business development manager at Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies, otherwise known as PADT. Jeff graduated with a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, and quickly found his way into the world of engineering sales and business development where he has been working for the past 25 years, mainly in the area of contract manufacturing. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Jeff Wells: 0:43

Hey, well, thanks. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to say hello. And to know, tell tell the world a little bit about what we're doing as engineers. That's

Aaron Moncur: 0:50

Excellent, excellent. I'm looking forward awesome. to this. So you you went to school to become an engineer,

Jeff Wells: 0:56

Well, from a how I got there, I had, as a young and most of your career has been centered on sales and business evelopment. What made you initi lly decide to go to school to become an engineer, and then hat changed your mind? Maybe not changed your mind, but what what motivated you to leave the trad tional engineering role nd go into the sales business de elopment side? man, I had some really bright cousins that were studying engineering. And as I remember being back in like eighth grade, the freshman year in high school, talking with them, because they were about six or seven years older than me about what they were doing and, and how it worked for them. And, and they were, I saw very successful path for them. And they jumped right out of college into a well paying job. And in talking with them about what they were doing and what they like to do school wise, they both said, 'Hey, we know we like math, we like science.' They were actually said the one engineer that we really, stuck out of my brain is my my cousin who was studying chemical engineering, and he went to work for Chevron right out of school. And actually, he's about to retire from Chevron, I think after 36 years or something, same company, one shot.

Aaron Moncur: 2:10

Wow, that's rare.

Jeff Wells: 2:13

Yeah, very rare. But, but in talking with him, I really was interested in what he was doing. I really liked the sciences. So I thought this could be something that I think I could do. And I would be interested in doing because I did like math and science. And I felt like it was a good place for me to be from the background. And from what I saw him doing so that that really what interested me, as I got into school at ASU, studying aerospace engineering, my father was a pilot. So that made me think about that path. And I was always interested in aircraft and what made them work and and how they performed. And so that was that's how I chose the path I also had done in high school had done drafting and mechanical design, at that point, still working on the board, because PCs weren't in existence. While they were they were in existence, but they weren't being used for for all the drafting stuff. So I had had time on the board and, and, and drawing machines and equipment. And so it was it was a good transition for me right into that. And I really enjoyed my time at ASU. And then my job my first job out of school was for a company called roar industries, which I think is now a BF Goodrich Company. But I was designing aircraft components for the A-320, A-321, and A-340 aircraft. And I really enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun. And I fortunately had a really good boss that not only showed me the engineering side of things, but also showed me the project development side of things got me into talking with a lot of different people, I was able to spend some time in Toulouse, France on the production line, doing some troubleshooting, working with people from another country doing other things. And so I think that whole thing transitioned me into the, into the engineering world quite well. And then I transitioned over in the 90s. Over that was that first job was in San Diego, but I transitioned back to Phoenix. And on my transition back to Phoenix actually took a job as a teacher doing teaching computer aided design some of the first AutoCAD free dimensional AutoCAD stuff. And I think being in front of people, honing my communication skills, teaching, for about 18 months before I got back into engineering kept me really interested in in the communication aspect of how do you communicate your ideas and your thoughts to other people and direct them. So with that, I came back into engineering did project management for and I did design work first. And then as the owner of the company that I was with saw that I was willing to go out and talk to people and had that skill set of that communication skill set. He said, 'Well, I'd like you to be doing more project management stuff.' So I did more of that. And then, again, as he had opportunities that were coming up that he didn't really want to go out and talk to somebody about it. He said, Jeff, you can, you can do that you can go out and talk to him, you do that well, so why don't you go and scope that opportunity and see if that really makes sense. And then I will backfill, some engineers that are working on the CAD stations, because those are easier to find, than people that want to go out and talk to customers. And so that's really the way I transitioned out from hardcore engineering design work, to project management to having more customer interface, and then really sliding over to being a project development type person. And but but it's always been in in lockstep with with working with engineers. So it's always been bringing a project back and saying, okay, here's what I, here's what I saw from the customer, here's the scope of work that the customer laid out, here's how I think it applies to what we're doing and how we can help them. And here's the way I would approach this, and then work with the engineer at whatever company I was at at that time, then to bring that idea to the company and see how we could add value back then to our customers, and be able to take whatever project they had, or whatever need they had with respect to an engineering need, and help them resolve that and end up with a product or a value that they that they didn't necessarily have in house, but that I could bring to them through my company.

Aaron Moncur: 6:29

That's an interesting statement that your former boss made, that it's easier to find a person who's willing to sit in front of a CAD box than it is to find someone who's willing to go out and talk with customers. Have, have you found that to be the case with most engineers that you've worked with?

Jeff Wells: 6:44

I think that a lot of engineers are very comfortable in the engineering space, I will say, in their own space and working on the computers. And there's, I find that it says a general statement, more of them, I think are more comfortable doing that then going out and, and, and expressing things or working with people and communicating. I think that's true, that it is a that extroverts, people that want to go out and talk and, and communicate those things, I think is a little bit. I think it tends not to be the engineer type.

Aaron Moncur: 7:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Wells: 7:28

Personally, that's not a scientific study by any means. But that's, this is what I found in my, in my, in my past experience.

Aaron Moncur: 7:36

Can you think of an experience you had as a young, as you're starting to get into this sales business development role? Can you think of an experience you had back then? Where you thought to yourself, 'Wow, yeah, this, this is really what I want to keep doing for the rest of my career. I like this role.'

Jeff Wells: 7:55

I think what I like most about it was seeing the new new things all the time, when I started out in the aerospace industry, working on those the Airbus aircraft, I was designing a lot of the same bracket over and over again

Aaron Moncur: 8:13

Okay

Jeff Wells: 8:14

For the first few years, and that really struck me is that it's interesting, but after you've designed four or five fuel support brackets for fuel tube, I'm like, I want to do something else. And, and moving forward to when I was when I was at this contract manufacturing company, and I was working on a machine maybe that I'd worked on for 8 or 12 months, or 8 or 12 weeks, maybe even 6 months or something. And then given the opportunity,'Hey, this guy wants to talk to you about this new project.' I was like, 'Oh, that's interesting. Let me go and do that.' And then bringing it back and being able to, to have the boss say to me, 'Oh, wait, I had this other guy that called me while you were gone. And he wants me to look at this. Could you go take a look at that and see if we could do that?' And that really kept things really fresh for me. And I think that's what I really enjoyed. So there was a couple different projects. At that time. The first company I went to work for where I was doing business development stuff was a machine shop that had had evolved into a contract manufacturer that was doing equipment within the semiconductor industry. And and that allowed me to go to I at that point I had gone to, I was talking to Tokyo Electron about some of their equipment. I was talking with TRW about their equipment in the airbag industry. And then I was also talking with with, like, Speedfit, what was Speedfit my pack at the time? And they're, of course a branch of the semiconductor industry but in the CMP area. So I was seeing all different kinds of things, which is really what interested me. I'm like, 'Oh, there's a lot of different stuff that that my company could contribute to that interested me and I think that we could add value to as a, as a contract manufacturer.

Aaron Moncur: 10:04

Got it. So it was really the variety of that role that piqued your interest.

Jeff Wells: 10:08

Yeah, the variety and, and in some sense getting out of the office and not necessarily just sitting in the same cubicle at the time. When I started with that company, that contract manufacturing company, when I came back to the Phoenix area I was doing, I was probably doing 10 hour days, just sitting behind a computer, working CAD, at that point, it was AutoCAD, 2D AutoCAD. And I, after about four or five years of that, I was just like, I'm ready to do something different. And it was nice to be able to get out and meet with customers and see different projects.

Aaron Moncur: 10:45

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. As a business owner, myself, I've spent a lot of time focusing on sales and business development. And I've learned that it's really hard. It's, it's not like mechanical design, where you know how a product will perform if you use this task and that material and this shape sales, I think, is much more nebulous. If, if I do X, Y, and Z behaviors, maybe I'll get a sale. But but then again, maybe not. It feels much less predictable to me, because instead of working with physics, which never changes, you're working with human behavior, which changes all the time. Have you found that to be the case as well?

Jeff Wells: 11:30

Yeah, I mean, one of the very interesting conversations that I had with Eric Miller, one of the principles of PDT when I was coming on board, was the fact that we wanted to look at, he wanted to know my my sales philosophy. And my sales philosophy is selling engineering as a service is so different than selling a widget, or selling a pencil or selling a device. And it really is a matter of, you have to build up trust with your customers that they trust you. And they know that you can provide that service. And you can do it well. So you have to be able to show them that. But then it's almost a waiting game, that you just have to be there when they are ready. Because if they're not, it's not like everyone needs a pencil, everyone needs a pencil to write or whatever. And there's a ton of pencils to choose from. But the engineering side of things, finding an engineer to offer that service to you to walk you through that whole process. They want to, they want to know that, that they can trust you to get the job done, that you get done. But it's not. Even though engineering, you said goes back to the physics and the science and the math. They it's selling the service of developing an engineering product for somebody is different than selling a product that you can really specify exactly what you want for that thing. Although that may sound a little weird, because you do, do a scope of work for an engineering project. But they're all different. And they're all the scope is not the same. Whereas if you get if you're comparing yourself to all the different pencil manufacturers out there, you can find a common core, that this is what everyone wants us to do. That's exactly

Aaron Moncur: 13:20

Yeah, it does. That's a great way to think about it. I mean, if you're selling a widget, it's just like what I was saying about doing engineering, right? You're dealing with physics, you're dealing with a widget, it's unchanging, you have this thing that you know how it's going to perform, you know how it's going to behave. But selling engineering as a service? Yeah, in theory, we know what's going to happen. But you know as well as I do that new product development projects always have their own unique twists and turns and things happen that you didn't expect. So I get what you're saying. Absolutely. I also like what you said about selling engineering as a service is all about building trust with your customer, and then waiting until they're ready. Because there's, there's really no way to speed up the process of developing trust is there?

Jeff Wells: 14:06

No, I really don't. I really don't think there is. For me, I found it's a lot about reaching out to customers, making sure they understand what you offer, what you can do, potentially, if you if you're lucky, and you have something that you've done before that similar, you can show them the value that you've offered somebody else. But but no, it takes, it just takes time. And and some of it's just that. As simple as you've called them back when you told them you're going to call them back, even if even if you're not going to, even if they have nothing to offer, but you say 'Hey, I'm gonna follow up with you in six weeks, and just see where you're at and see if you've made a decision on that.' And I think just the fact that you call them back in six weeks, like you told them you were going to, I think is that small little step and building that trust so that,'Hey, he, he made a promise to me even though it had, he wasn't making any money. It wasn't, it wasn't really part of what he does. But he gave me his word on this. And then he followed up. And he came through on that. And, hey, I can trust him to get back to me.' You know, and that's really an important communication aspect and important trust building step in the process.

Aaron Moncur: 15:18

That's a great point. Small steps lead to big steps, don't they?

Jeff Wells: 15:22

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Aaron Moncur: 15:23

Yeah. So if you're a general salesperson, there are all kinds of products that one could sell all kinds of widgets out there. Within the context of engineering, though, it seems like the options might be more limited. But maybe I'm wrong about that. As a business development professional within the world of engineering, how varied are the opportunities one might encounter?

Jeff Wells: 15:48

Um, I think it depends a lot on the on the company you're working for and what you do for the previous company I was at, we specialize a lot in gas and chemical delivery equipment. So even though we were offering engineering as a service, we kept it to gas and chemical delivery systems for the most part, we adventure out of it a little bit. But that's where kind of where expertise is. The interesting thing at PADT, is that because we're an ANSYS reseller, and we have that answer sweetened, we're experts in that ANSYS software. That's a huge spectrum. So we've got guys that can do computational fluid dynamics and can understand that and gas flow. And then we've got guys to do finite element analysis, and understand the structural aspect of things and stresses and strains and how that applies. And all that stuff can be applied across multiple fields. And that's one of the things I really love about the job that I'm doing right now is that from one day to the next, I will talk to someone that is maybe making a pool pump one day, and the next day, I'm talking to someone that's designing aircraft, and then the next day, I've got someone that wants to do a medical device. And because all of them lean back often on the simulation, and that I offer the simulation services, I can reach back into our toolbox, which is got a broad breadth of things that we do. And I can offer them the,'Hey, yeah, we can analyze that for the fluid flow flowing through that syringe.' Or the airflow going over that airfoil, or the structural strength of that beam that's going to be used to support that second story. So it really is a huge spectrum of stuff, which is really I find really interesting.

Aaron Moncur: 17:50

Very cool. Are there any books that you've read or classes that you've taken that have been really helpful for you in developing your your sales and business development skills?

Jeff Wells: 18:04

Yes, but I'm really bad, that names and titles, I can tell you what, and this is going to be maybe a little off the direct question. But actually one of the things that I just did, that actually made my decision to move over to PADT was a book called Designing Your Life. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Aaron Moncur: 18:25

Oh, no.

Jeff Wells: 18:25

And it actually is. And so it's not necessarily directly about sales and, and business development. But it's about taking a look at what what makes your life meaningful. And yeah, and and how does that apply? And it was, it's actually the book is written by and I don't know the exact name of the authors, but I know the name of the title, the title of the book is Design Your Life, but it was actually developed a class at Stanford, for the engineering students at Stanford. And then this is the book spin off and workbooks spin off that they spun off of that, that class, and it talks about approaching your life's goals. As a designer, not necessarily an engineer, as a designer, and how are you going to go through and look at the different different ways of the first steps of engineering maybe that brainstorming that that putting together a, 'Hey, this is a problem, how are we going to tackle it?' And in stepping through that book was part of what brought me to the conclusion that I really wanted to change what I was doing, but not so much like changing it from, 'Hey, I want to be an engineer to I want to be a novelist.' But just, 'I'm an engineer with this skill set of business development, how am I doing it at the company that I'm doing it now? And how do I want to make it change and be different? And how do I want to take it into the next to the next stage of my life?' So that was really an interesting book. And if, if I would recommend it to anyone that's taking, it's taking a step back and said,'Well, why am I going down this happen and where do I want to go with it?' I think it was an interesting, an interesting read and interesting actually, they said exercises that you walk through to determine how you want to move forward.

Aaron Moncur: 20:10

So that's fantastic. I love what you said there. It, it's really all about being intentional for your life, right? Not not just reacting, not letting circumstances around, you dictate how your life goes. But being intentional about what do I want from my life. I was on someone else's podcast as a guest a little while back, and they asked me, what advice do you have for younger engineers out there who are just starting their career. And my response really didn't have much at all to do with engineering. But what I said was figure out what you want for your life. And then reverse engineer that into what kind of career is going to help you achieve those life goals. So I'm, I love the philosophy of being intentional about what what it is you really want to achieve in life and then designing a set of circumstances and an environment in which you can achieve those goals. Well, this is probably a good place to take a quick pause and share with our listeners that the Being An Engineer Podcast is powered by Pipeline Design & Engineering. You can find us at testfixture.design.com to learn more about how we help medical device engineering teams who need turnkey custom test fixtures or automated equipment to assemble, inspect, characterize or perform verification or validation testing on their devices. We're speaking with Jeff Wells today, who is the business development manager at Phoenix Analysis and Design Technologies, often referred to as PADT. So Jeff, you've worked at several companies over the years, you were at Pinnacle Manufacturing, Advanced Integration Technologies, which was then acquired by Ultra Clean Technology for site processing, semi collaborative tech solutions and now PADT, and we'll get to PADT in a moment. But before, can you share a little about maybe just one or two of these previous companies pick whichever you think was the most interesting to work at and tell us what you did for them and why you felt the work was so interesting.

Jeff Wells: 22:21

I think probably the, the company I was at the longest, which was advanced, advanced integration technologies and the AI t that was really a great company to work at. And really an interesting story started by two brothers, that were sheetmetal guys and framework guys. And they started a company, there's two guys basically in their garage doing sheet metal and framework, and took that company from the two guys in a garage to a $600 million in sales international company before they sold it to UCT. So the beauty and what I really enjoyed about that was actually I was hired by one of the founding brothers back in the 2000s. Right after the 2000 recession kind of a thing, I had gone over to there, to actually bring them some work that might the company I was with at the time didn't do, because it was sheetmetal on the company, I was at the contract manufacturer, Pinnacle just did machining. And I was bringing them over some, some sheet metal work, and talking with the the owner about it and asked him, 'What are you doing to get through this recession?' And he said, 'Well, here's what I'm doing. I'm getting ISO certified, I'm getting, I'm bringing in equipment and buying equipment from some of these companies that are failing, I'm adding, I'm going to be adding more machining capabilities. And I need someone to help me grow that can you? Are you interested?' And I said, 'Yeah, I'm interested to make that shift. And to help you grow the company into these areas that you're you're looking to grow it into.' And what I really enjoyed about working there was that they, he came, because I built up trust with him over the years I've done work with him back and forth between Pinnacle Manufacturing had done, as I said, was a machine shop. He was doing more sheetmetal and framework we had worked together for for six or seven years. And we had built up that trust. And he said, I'd like you to come over and work for me, I know what you do, and I will just let you do it. And so that was that was a great experience for me to be able to go and work for someone that really gave me, knew of my background and gave me free rein to pursue growing the business for him. And and I had a lot of I would have meetings with him, but they weren't. I wasn't like seeing him every day. And I would be seeing him once every two weeks or he would say, 'Hey, I need some work in this area. Can you go out and pursue that?' And I would do that and bring that work in. And so we grew that company from I think at the time that I joined them, in 2002, they were doing about 18 million in sales. And we grew that to, as I said, about 600 million in sales before they sold it to UCT. But, but it was, it was really me going out and working with the, their, their machine shop to bring in machine shop stuff as they grew their machine shop me going out and finding things for them to do on the sheetmetal side. And then they brought in an engineering group. And that was really the opportunity for me to really bring in engineering projects that would allow them to grow their engineering, that would feed the sheet metal and the machining. So one of the big projects we brought in, and something that maybe a lot of the listeners would put their hands on was the laser dog tag machine that's in every PetSmart was a project that we brought in or that I brought in for them to help them get that machine and every PetSmart across the country. And and we designed that whole product for them and then built it up to the point where they could put in the the laser and the touchscreen and all that stuff. So it was really an interesting transition from helping them grow their sheetmetal and machining, then to having the engineering group be added to the company, then to growing the engineering aspect of what the company could do and working with the the Vice President of Engineering to grow that. And then and then bringing that all together in a big contract manufacturing world. So

Aaron Moncur: 26:32

By having, having done this myself, I know how hard that is. And that's super impressive. And I wonder if you could walk me through the process that you go through to execute your role. That role as a business development professional. So like starting from no leads, no prospects, how do you go from that, to having a new customer that you bring in?

Jeff Wells: 26:56

There's a number of ways to do it, I found I give a plug, I guess to the Arizona Technology Council, I think they do a great job with bringing people into that technology community everywhere from big companies like Benchmark, or, or Raytheon to little startups, and it's a space where you can go and meet all those people and understand what they're doing all in one space. So I really believe in that networking space to be able to take a look around and just see what's happening and see what's there. So I think it's really important to be engaged in your community, whether it's a, makes it the Arizona Technology Council, or even I was on the board of directors or board of, not board of directors, I was on the Arizona steering committee for semi. And that also gave me visibility on what was happening in the semiconductor world within the Arizona community. So being on those type of within those groups, and those communities, I think exposes you to what's happening, and gives you introductions to people that are looking for ways to grow their business or and, and those are places where people in some sense, metaphorically raise their hand for help, 'Hey, I'm looking for someone that can help me with this.' And oftentimes having those communications and discussions within those communities lead you to someone that has a need for engineering services, and then being able to have that discussion with them or being willing to go up and have the discussion with them, 'I hear I hear you have this as a problem, let me tell you how my company might be able to help.' And then you often have that discussion with them. And sometimes you find out that you can't help and sometimes you find out you can't help. And if you can't help, it's always good to be able to point them to someone that maybe can help. I know you and I have had discussions like this, hey, I couldn't help this guy out. Maybe you guys can can help them out, or it's a better fit for your company than it is for my company. And, and I think those discussions help build the trust that I was talking about earlier. And once people feel that they can trust you and that you're leading them in the right direction, whether you're helping them with what your company can offer what someone else can offer, they are willing to continue that discussion and then hopefully you find a space where you can help them. And for us on the engineering side it may be PADT, we might be helping them with a simulation that they need done because they want to check out a design to make sure that it's structurally sound. Or it might be, 'Hey, we need to take a look at a product. So we get this idea for product and we want you to help us flesh it out. And you guys have 3D printing capabilities and can help us print up this prototype quickly and take a look at it and hold it in our hands and show it to potential customers. And maybe we can help you with that.' So there's all different different ways to build that but I think that kind of process for me, in a general scope is what I do from, from the engineering standpoint.

Aaron Moncur: 30:08

So to summarize that it sounds like the more people you know who trust you, the more your chances of success grow. And in order to meet those people and start building these relationships with trust, it's really helpful to be part of these organizations that include people within your industry. Is that, is that a fair summary?

Jeff Wells: 30:29

Yeah, I think it's a fair summary. And then the only thing i would i guess add to that is, I think part of the building the trust also goes to performing on jobs you do have, because if you, if you get a job in, and you've built that trust up, and then you don't perform the way you said you're going to perform on a job, that information will get out to the public and into the, into your network. And, and that will erode the trust that you've built. So there's a part that I needed to do on the front end, as far as the business development guy, but then there's also a part the company has to do in maintaining that trust and performing to the level that I promised.

Aaron Moncur: 31:13

Yeah, yeah. Any other tools or best practices that you can think of that have helped you develop your your skills in that area? And they can be really granular tactical things like there's this piece of software I love to use or anything like that.

Jeff Wells: 31:31

I think a lot of the software that has developed around the CRM software's, there's a number of them that I've, I've worked with everything from a small online CRM, like one that's called Pipe Drive 2. I'm working with salesforce right now. And I think if you really embrace them, to the extent that they do a very good job about laying out future plans, so that you don't have to try and memorize everything.

Aaron Moncur: 32:10

Yeah

Jeff Wells: 32:10

But but but you have to, you have to put the work in to, to document the things that you're doing. So that when you when you when something does pop up, like I had stuff today that popped up that said, 'Oh, you've got a call,Bob Jones about this.' And if you if you haven't put in the details to say what am I calling him about, or if it doesn't have a way to link it all together, a lot of them do and, and better ones do, where you can link emails into it, you can go back and review what you're supposed to be talking to Bob Jones about. But I think those tools can be very effective, and very useful. And it goes back to what I said before about building trust, where you said, 'Hey, I'm going to call you back in six weeks.' Sometimes it's hard to remember all the people you've told them to call back in six weeks, if you haven't written it down and scheduled it out, and and put it in that piece of software. And then I guess the other advantage those things bring, if used properly, is that other people can look into it and see what you're doing also, for example, because PADT has really three legs that it stands on to one of which I work with. So simulation, and product development is one group, which is the engineering services group. But we also have a 3D printing group. And then we also have a software sales group. But oftentimes, our customers blend across all three of those spectrums. So it's good to be able within that CRM package to be able to see that, oh, the 3D person is talking to him about 3D printing, how is that going? How are those communications going, I can go in and read some of that stuff, and see how that's going and understand how the conversation might might go. If we're doing a great job on 3d printing, it's a nice way to transition. Hey, you trust us with 3D printing. Let me show you how we can help you with simulation. But also, if I can go on there and say, 'Hey, we fell down on 3D printing for one reason or another.' If we did, I can go in and said see that and say, 'Oh, well, I'm gonna have to rebuild that trust.' I shouldn't just jump in there and saying, 'Hey, I see you're working with us. You're doing, we're doing a great job.' I should know that ahead of time. So I think those those software packages, if used properly, offer that additional insight into the companies you're working with, and can help you navigate through that building the trust in the sales sales process.

Aaron Moncur: 34:44

Yeah, I agree. We use similar piece of software and it takes a lot of the mental load off of your your shoulders, right? I no longer need to think about who was I supposed to call back on this day? Because it's all right there and you just log in and there's a list of call this person, you don't even have to think about it. You talked a little bit about PADT just now. And that's a great segue. Can you tell us maybe a little bit more about? What is it that PADT does? What what is your role there? How are you helping them? And what kind of customers should be reaching out to you for help that PADT can provide?

Jeff Wells: 35:19

Well, certainly I appreciate that that segue. So, PADT is an engineering services company, solutions company. And we really have, as I said, we have three legs that were that have been developed are the three legs to our stool, that know keep us balanced, and keep us stable. So to, to step back just a little bit on that. So it was actually started by four engineers, aerospace engineers coming out of Honeywell Aerospace. And this is back in the 90s, they had seen the tools that Honeywell or they that they were using at Honeywell, which was some 3D printing tools and the simulation tools, and of course, Honeywell at that time. And it's still a huge company. And they in using those tools, they said, 'Wouldn't this be great if we could bring these tools to smaller companies that really could use that, that resource and get value from that. But maybe, maybe they don't have the capital or the ability to buy the software. If we can get out there and buy the software by the 3D printers, we could offer that as a service to these companies. And it would make sense.' So that's really how it started. And, and then the services they offered was 3D printing and ANSYS simulations, and our simulation services. And then as they grew, they not only saw that it was valuable to offer it as a service. But as the price point of those particular tools came down so that more people can afford them, computers get better, so that you could run them on your PC and didn't have to have a mainframe to run them. They not only saw the vantage of selling it as a service, but then also selling the software or actually selling the 3D printers. So those are really, I said two of the legs, and then as they continue to grow PADT saw that it also, they had customers asking them while you're already doing 3D printing for us, you're already helping us with the simulation, we really just need more help designing the whole product. So they developed a product development team. And, and so that was the third leg of the stool, so to speak, you've got software sales, you've got 3D printing, and 3D print printer sales, and then you've got this product development and simulation services. And that's really where I fit in is the simulation services and the product development. But of course, I, I, my tentacles go out and you have cross conversations with all the other groups that so that's really what a PADT is all about is offering these high-end engineering services, from simulation to 3D printing to product development. And helping customers solve their problems that they run into engineering problems and, and bringing those tools to bear to help them solve those and continue on is really what what we're about is a company.

Aaron Moncur: 38:11

Great, great, I can attest to the fact that PADT is full of really intelligent engineers and good people, and a great place for anyone to go that needs that kind of service. Jeff, what are some of the the biggest challenges that you encounter in your job?

Jeff Wells: 38:34

I think one of the biggest challenges goes back to waiting on customers to to figure out what when they're ready to move forward. As we talked about, you build the trust step. But oftentimes, even, they've got something they want to do, but they're, they're not ready to move forward with it yet they can't find the budget for it. And they don't. And explaining how best to move forward with the maybe a little chunk of things is sometimes hard to get them to, to move forward on. So I think maybe explaining the value is hard sometimes for someone that hasn't used the simulation software, or someone that's bringing out a new product that is oftentimes on the product development side, part of what I do is you've got someone that's got a great idea and they want to bring it to the market. But not being an engineer or not having gone through the process. Don't understand the rigor and the depth that's really required to bring some of these products online.

Aaron Moncur: 39:44

Yeah.

Jeff Wells: 39:45

So and I think that's always a challenge to really get them to understand that you, there's a lot of rigor that needs to be done to bring a product online.

Aaron Moncur: 39:57

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I happen to people that this, we're developing something that's never been built before. It's it's not like, actually we had a customer recently, who would, would tell us that, 'This is just like building a house, what? Why can't you just tell me exactly how much it's going to cost and exactly how long it's going to take. I mean, you guys have done product development before, it's just like building a house, right?' And our response was, it's not really like building a house, it's like being the architect develop being an innovative, innovative brand new house that no one else has built before, right, that this exact thing has never been done before. So we're gonna have to fall down a few times and fail a few times until we find the right path, that that actually works for the project that you're trying to put together. And I get it, if I was, if I was not familiar with this space with this industry, it would be hard for me to understand, why does it take so long to develop a new product? Why can't you do this, like a month and a few thousand dollars and be done with it. But we're defining every point every surface or the edge of this product in doing so in a way that that has to work eventually to be to be functional. So it's, it's a lot of work. And it's hard to communicate the sheer amount of effort and hours that need to go into the development of a new product. Let's see. Maybe just one more question for you, Jeff. What what would today's Jeff tell recent college graduate Jeff, of 30 years ago that that you wish you had known back then?

Jeff Wells: 41:38

I guess for me, one of the things that I look back on with respect to my well, maybe more than one thing, but, but maybe to the two quick things that I would that I would bring in is I think that one of the things that was missing a little bit out of my education for aerospace engineering, was understanding the actual manufacturing, I think it's really important that engineers come out. And they really understand how it is things are made. Because in the computer, you can design a ball inside a ball really easy, but trying to make it not so easy, kind of a thing. So that would be one thing that I would that I would say, 'Make sure you understand the manufacturing process for the area that you want to go into.' The more you understand, the better, I think. And and I think that was something that was a little missing that I came to learn over the years, by going to work for companies like Pinnacle Manufacturing, that was a machine shop and advanced integration technology were started by two guys that were doing framework and sheet metal. So that was one thing. And then the other thing is, for me, especially because I transitioned over into the business development side of things, was the the communication aspect of things, how important communication skills are, how important it is to be able to write well. And I don't think that some engineers appreciate that as much as they should that yeah, math and science is important. But boy, if you can't communicate what you're what the idea that's in your head, either through paper or PowerPoint or through your communication skills, it stays with you and doesn't go anywhere.

Aaron Moncur: 43:24

Excellent points. Really, really great points. Jeff, how can people get ahold of you?

Jeff Wells: 43:30

So you can reach me at jeffwells@padtinc.com so that's, that's my email. I can also be reached via cell phone, because that's the way we all communicate today. 6025415230 and PADT's website is always a good place to go and look and see what we're doing. And understanding that and that's a www.padtinc.com.

Aaron Moncur: 44:03

Excellent. All right. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for spending some time today. I really appreciate your participation and sharing these these bits of wisdom with us. So thank you again for being on the show.

Jeff Wells: 44:14

Well, I appreciate your time and thanks for inviting me it was a pleasure chatting with you and learn a little more and be able to share some of my past experience.

Aaron Moncur: 44:26

I'm Aaron Moncure, Founder of Pipeline Design and Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at testfixturedesign.com. Thanks for listening.