REVENUE DRIVEN FOR OUR CLIENTS
$500 million and countingIn this Wytpod episode, Harshit Gupta interviews Michael Corrales, Director of Sales and Marketing at 1Factory. They dive into complex supply chain challenges, the evolution of fragmented quality management systems, and how automation is redefining manufacturing processes. Michael shares strategies for integrating real-time data sharing with suppliers, enhancing quality control, and driving 10X ROI through scalable solutions. For digital marketers and SEO leaders, he highlights the critical role of strategic SEO, maintaining a strong digital presence, and building authentic relationships to optimize lead generation and customer retention.
1Factory specializes in manufacturing quality control software, streamlining supply chain processes with real-time data integration and automation solutions.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of wytpod. My name is Harshit Gupta and I’m the Director of Business Alliances at wytlabs. We’re a digital agency specializing in SaaS and e-commerce SEO. I’ve got Michael with me today. He’s the Director of Sales Operation and Marketing at 1Factory, an easy to use and powerful manufacturing and supply chain quality control software.
A big welcome to you, Michael. So happy to have you with me today.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Definitely appreciate it. Now,
Michael, can you share your journey in manufacturing and how it led you to your current role at 1Factory, please?
Yeah. When I was very young, I was in the family business.
So probably when I was about 10, 11 years old I came from a family of manufacturers. My grandpa owned a manufacturing company and that led me to learn about the processes. Just from doing small menial tasks driving and packaging parts to eventually engineering and quality supply chain operations Travelling Asia, running logistics, they’re working with different businesses.
So that definitely gave me a big leg up and yeah, that’s and I met 1factory actually through my grandpa’s company. We, bought their software, use their software. And I thought for me, I wanted to help more companies. So I really loved them, the supply chain side. So that’s why I transitioned to working with 1factory.
Any formal degrees that you took around because quite, quite a lot and consumes a lot of your time as well around supply chain. It’s a very big field altogether.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It’s so formal degrees, I just have a, just a BA from San Jose state university where, you know, where I went there went to school for four years and, thought I would end up going to.
Japan and teaching English there. And, yeah, life has other plans for you. So for me, manufacturing was always, something that it was in my blood and my strong suit. I didn’t have to study it. I lived it every day since I was, 10, 10 or 12 years old.
All right. What motivated you to focus on quality control and supply chain management and studying these specific fields.
Yeah, it’s a good question. So for me when I had got like deeper into manufacturing I really enjoyed the supply chain piece because I saw that manufacturing is very difficult if to control your margins, you have to find good people. You have to make quality parts. And if you don’t, then the business suffers.
And I felt like with supply chain, it was mostly revolving around the relationships. And, as we know, as professionals, there’s many. people out there that can things that can do things better than us. So I realized we don’t need to have all the answers. We just need to find the right people that can manage those things and do those things better than we could.
And that got into learning a lot about different manufacturing processes and companies. And a lot of supply chain management really does revolve around quality control because at the end of the day, You’re buying some component or some good that your company is consuming or pushing out to their customers.
So it was just a natural evolution of things. And yeah, I really just loved working with people in companies and getting to go to their operations. So for me, that was the best part.
Brilliant man. Now you’re I would love to understand how exactly your past experiences shaped your approach To sales as well as marketing at 1factory
Yeah, so joining this job I thought I probably wouldn’t be very good at it because i’m like I don’t know anything about sales.
I have no Formal sales background. No, no formal sales training I learned that was actually probably one of the best gifts You Because I didn’t come in with, any kind of bad habits and, having this kind of, engineering mind, mechanical mind the goal has always been to help solve problems.
So I realized that a big approach to selling is really in marketing itself is not necessarily, what do I want and what am I trying to achieve? It’s how can I provide value? How can I give value to our customers? How can I. Position ourselves in a way, whether they’re marketing or SEO as an expert or a leader in the field to provide value.
And I think once folks can understand that you’re coming from a position of trying to help rather than take I think that’s when the barriers start to come down and it’s much more easier to have these interactions. So that’s what I learned in my experience about, what sales and marketing is and how to apply that to, to organizations and companies that you work with.
Gotcha. And any specific challenges that you would love to highlight when it comes to the manufacturers what exactly they face in quality control when it comes to the challenges, how does, your software helps address them?
Yeah good question. So, manufacturing has obviously been around for a very long time and roles.
Regulations, customers, customer requirements. They continue to increase over time. So the natural evolution of quality management has been to solve one problem or one need, and then solve the next and solve the next and solve the next. So what you end up with this kind of this Frankenstein, you have a quality management system.
You have one piece here, you have one piece there, you have one piece there. They don’t talk to each other very well. It’s almost going to instead of going to a lot to buy a car, you order the engine and you order a transmission and you buy the body. And then you expect your team to integrate it.
No one would ever do that, but that’s how quality has evolved. So I think one of the biggest challenges is explaining. That to people and getting them to understand that there are actually tools out there, like 1factory that can help them take all these, siloed elements, this kind of Frankenstein system that they have make this into one much easier to use system and solve many problems eliminate lots of errors along the way because of being able to collectively manage things in a more holistic way.
Gotcha. Very well put. Now, how do you see basically automation transforming the manufacturing landscape in the next couple of years?
Yeah, it’s a good question. We’ve, manufacturers have done a lot already in terms of robotics and working with cobots and other types of automation.
And they’ve, machinery has. Progress the long way. It can do many things in a single run or a single operation as before it took many steps to get there. And I think we’ll continue to automate and streamline there, but on the quality space in particular, there’s still lots of gaps and room for improvement.
So I think after manufacturers tend to spend on capital equipment, you can only buy so many machines. You can only buy so many companies. You can only buy so many things. At some point you have to stop. And you have to start automating and fixing your processes because that’s where the next big value block to unlock is.
And any specific trends specifically in manufacturing and supply chain management they’re particularly excited about right now.
I think for me in particular I’m very excited about the ability to collaborate with suppliers especially that are maybe very far away. So in the old manufacturing world, you buy a product it’s made somewhere overseas.
Or even some nearby country. And you order it and it gets checked at the supplier and they ship it to you. It gets received in, you have to unpackage it, look at the parts, inspect them, make sure they’re good. Most cases, that’s no problem. Sometimes defects happen. There’s issues.
And the cost to ship everything, get it to your facility, find out there’s a problem, and then go through all of the, Process to, write up an issue, send it back to the supplier. It’s very expensive and time consuming for everybody. So I think one of the big trends is having this ability to share data from supplier to customer in real time.
And then, having the customer be able to see the quality of the product in a, just one, one simple screen, and they can see all of the data Have all the information there and know whether or not they want to receive those parts into their facility. That’s the first big piece of stopping waste.
And that has the ability to transform organizations and make them much more profitable because they’re not having to one inspect the parts at their facility in some cases. And two they’re catching a lot of issues before the products even getting into the door.
Gotcha. All right let’s be a little biased here and I would love to understand how exactly digital marketing is helping you out with your marketing efforts, any specific strategies that have been really fruitful for you for your lead generation and demand generation, basically.
Yeah good question. Yeah, obviously we’re a big proponent of SEO. We manage the website and we love the, the organic kind of growth that comes with the digital marketing piece. There’s also another element there too, which is, just doing good business and being doing right to the customers they’ll Give you referrals, give you word of mouth, you’ll find yourself in circles with people and introductions happening.
So I think, having a good. clean space digitally a presence where, people know you exist and you’re in your real company and you can provide real value. And then obviously committing to your promises, doing good business and having those connections. I think that’s a kind of a perfect circle.
if I talk about Your top channels and could be like, online, offline, whatever works for you. And you have to rank them, from one to three. What are those?
Yeah, I think we’ll for sure on the digital side, right? We have SEO there. That’s a that’s a no brainer, so to speak.
And then I think the other channels are really like, in, in person as much as possible. So connecting with people, going to their factories or their companies, visiting with them we’ll do some events and trade shows and webinars and things like that. Again, really just trying to provide value whenever possible and getting in front of people.
So I think it’s a combination of both of that, the digital presence, making the SEO optimization and things like that. Valuable so people can find you and then the second piece is, you have to be there for those people that Don’t always find that or that they may need something in that moment.
And that’s where some In person presence is helpful
Michael you have been in organization for a long now. I would love to understand what are some of the biggest challenges that you have encountered, you know in marketing 1factory solution?
Yeah. That’s a good question. So yeah, I think for most companies, finding a good path is hard, right?
What is the right path forward? How do you do that? We’ve experimented with, different types of marketing and unfortunately most don’t work out right. There’s lots of folks out there that claim to have some magic solution or they can get you X meetings per day or X channels, but what does that cost sometimes?
What does it. Cost the brand or the reputation, maybe these folks, they don’t even understand your market and you may alienate some part of your customers or potential customers. So I think, again it’s all about build, building these relationships having, having ways to connect with them.
And I think again, SEO is a really good path to having. good quality folks that, that fit your ICP that you’ve identified that exactly who you want and gives you the opportunity now to move forward on your best foot because they’ve found something that, from you that you think maybe that you can help offer them.
To the manufacturers looking to adapt and a new software solution what would be that?
So I think in manufacturing, the culture has always been repeatability means doing things the same way over and over. Which works very well for making products. But does not work very well for facilitating change.
So I think the first thing that manufacturers need to realize is that When we’re talking about products and, things that we do when we’re manufacturing, we want to keep that standardized, but when we talk about business improvement, we need to realize that, we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
We need to, be brave and learn. And we need to question. Are there better ways? Are there different solutions out there? Because at the end of the day the most riskiest element is the cost of inaction. It’s not doing something. Your competitor may be, or you may eventually be walking down a path that you, it’s hard to come out from because everyone’s already embraced these trends or technology.
And it’s in your, and their customers have noticed that. And now you’re Behind the curve, so to speak. So yeah, I think Having that ability to know that maybe there’s other solutions or ways, out there that can help us I think that’s the biggest piece that the manufacturer should be focusing on.
Okay Now michael, I would love to understand any specific strategies that you have in place When it comes to your customer retention side of things you know Keeping your the manufacturers are already on board with your software engaged and yeah, just generally building that relationship and having that long lifetime cycle with them.
Yeah really good question. So I think the most important thing is you mentioned it, but it’s building a good relationship. And that only stems from trust. So they must know and trust that you are a good person. They want to do business with you first. And that you’re willing to help them.
That your goal is not to make this some type of a transactional deal or sale that you have their best interest at mind, and the reason why you’re there in front of them is because you’re trying to work with them almost as an extension of their company to help provide value and solve problems. And I think once the customer is.
Become comfortable that you are this type of person, then that you are this type of company, I think the next part’s really organic and comes very easy because your job is to just meet with them, make sure they’re happy provide value, provide new solutions as the, as this, the platform is updated and organically, a lot of the business and growth just happens from there.
Okay. How are the typical monthly spent of an average spent of companies with your software? Yeah, that’s a,
yeah, that’s a really good question. It ranges. So we work with all different sized companies, companies that may be just, five or six person machine shop, all the way to, billion dollar companies.
So the range can be, quite right wide but I’d say on average, the solution is very scalable depending on the type of company, big company scales more smaller company, they get lots of immediate.
Basically value up front. So yeah, the, this, and there’s different types of solutions, you have medical and then you have aerospace and their supply chain, and we have many different offerings.
So it’s hard to pinpoint exactly like what the average costs are, cause they vary so much.
But general, our customers see about a 10 X return and whatever they spend.
Right now, what are the specific goals that you’re focusing on when it comes to marketing in the next 12 months?
Yeah. So we are in the process of, Oh we’ve released a new product line, a new quality system, a quality management system, a QMS product line. So our next immediate need is to continue to do good marketing and start to market this product. learn more from different folks in the industry about how we can continue to help them.
And then over time, continue to double down and invest in being able to market our new QMS solution.
What’s your go to stop when it comes to, just excuse me, just staying updated on industry trends on and innovation. Basically.
Yeah it’s interesting because I don’t find myself.
Reading a whole lot about what’s out there, but we get bits and pieces from our customers or from shows. I find the best way to be really informed with what’s happening is to be as boots on the ground as possible. I can read stuff all day or I can look at stuff in a magazine, but when I’m working with customers or potential customers, And I’m learning about their operations and how they do and why they do.
And the companies that are coming in and providing solutions. And you take this big puzzle of different types of manufacturers and different types of companies, all using your product in different ways. And you’re on site and at trade shows and events. You’re learning so much and you gain so much information.
And I really think the best way to know what’s happening in the industry is to visit companies that are doing stuff in your type of target market. And every time you go, whether it’s the same type of company, they’re a machine shop or they’re a, some sheet metal fabricator, whatever that is, you’re going to learn something new at every single company, even if the processes and the operations and what they make are the same or almost similar.
All right, Michael, we’re coming to an end now, and I would love to have a quick rapid fire round with you. Are you ready for that?
Perfect, let’s do it.
Okay, if you could create a Superbowl ad, what would it be about?
A Superbowl ad?
Yep.
All right. Yeah. We would have a definitely be a 1factory type of quality control Superbowl ad.
I think that would be killer. What would it be about? That’s a really good question. Need to think more about what that looks like. But it’s actually a funny idea and something that we’ve thought about or talked about before.
Okay. What’s one marketing cliche you wish would disappear?
What’s one marketing? That wish would disappear. Yeah. Sometimes, you get a lot of emails, email traffic that comes in that’s, they can’t even get basic things, hello, first name. I wish there was lots of ways to, to better vet out some of these things, to stop them from happening or to have a little bit better ways to filter through that.
We’re all getting bombarded by so many things in life. So that’d be one, one good thing for me is to stop. Some of the noise if there’s a way to do that better.
You got any favorite marketer to follow on social media?
Any favorite marketer from social media that I follow?
For me, I’ve again, haven’t been like very deep in the marketing space for very long, but I think a lot of the. Traditional marketers, the Seth Godin’s, the Simon Sinex, a lot of these guys are focused on very good. I think holistic marketing, which is focus on value, focus on providing good customer experience.
Marketing shouldn’t be solicited. And from that, good organic traffic will come.
Now are you a traditional Google search fan for your research purposes or. Do you prefer Gen AI?
I’m particularly fond of still using Google. I will be much more fond of Gen AI when it can plan my three year old’s birthday and I don’t have to order the cake and make all the invitations and do all the things.
Obviously it has its merits when you need to look up things real quick or if you’re doing IT stuff, it’s great for troubleshooting, problem solving. So I think it really depends on the niche or the need. But definitely AI for sure has has some strong suits.
My last Google shirt search. We have to look at this. So let’s take a look here. Yeah nothing very sexy, unfortunately, but failure modes and analysis training. So how companies structure risk and how they try to prevent themselves from making bad products.
Everybody, thank you so much, Michael.
This was fun and thank you for taking time out and sharing your Wonderful experiences and about 1factory. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you so much for reaching out and hoping to give us a voice too. So we appreciate that as well.
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