 because value is defined by the beholder. You know what they say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Depending on where you are in the channel, you're going to define value differently. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody. Welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, and my co-host, Beth Popnikalov is out today, but we have a great guest lined up for everybody. We've got Jeremiah Hershberger with Keylink. He is a product manager at their organization. Jeremiah, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. Jeremiah, you and I met, what, four, five, six months ago, right? Yeah, it was the Wizard's Summit that Mark Mitchell throws every year, and it was first time back after your break, and it was a great opportunity to be with you. Yeah, it was great. We were just talking about IBS, how, gosh, that exceeded expectations, right? Yeah, I was telling you that I typically consider myself a very optimistic individual. However, I was a pessimist going into day one, but I was impressed. It was nice. I heard by like day two, I know we did like an episode on this, but by day two, it was like a party. Like people were just like happy to see it. It's been like two years, you know, like just happy to see people. Yeah, it was really neat, because we were able to see some people we haven't seen for a little while, and it was like, hey, what's going on? How's it going? And then you come on into the booth and slapping some high fives and shaking some hands. It was great. Yeah, Beth told me. She was like, I could have cried because I just miss people so much. Yeah. It's cool. So tell the listeners what you do at Keylink. Yeah, so my role as product manager at Keylink, I work with our product development, including new product development as well as our current SKU rationalization, looking at product market fit, making sure we're delivering value to our customers. Because if we're not delivering value, we are not going to continue to be around as a company. And that's what we're focused on. So I think it's really interesting you say bringing value to your customers. We tend to think like product like, oh, my customer has a need, I need to fulfill that need and then capitalize on that as much as possible. And this is a really smart plan. We talk about this a lot, whether it's marketing or sales or product or any part of your business, it's how do you create more value for the customer? So I'd be really curious to get your take on like how you define value. Cause you've got a couple of different audiences, you know? Exactly. That's a really great point because value is defined by the beholder. You know what they say, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I like that. Depending on where you are in the channel, you're going to define value differently. So for instance, when we're looking at our product and our product design, we have targeted the installer as the key customer. So we gauge everything pass or fail against what's the installer think about this? Now, am I saying we ignore the perspective of the distributor or the dealer or the homeowner? No, we take those all into account, but it's almost like a weighted value feedback. Again, dealer, distributors, they're concerned about how is the product handled? How does it transport? How does it hold up during those handling interactions? How is the product contents communicated? But at the end of the day, if an installer doesn't love to install it, he's not going to request that product anymore. So when we talk about value, those are the things that we're considering and weighing against what our litmus test of pass-fail is. I love that. And just real quickly for listeners, what does KeyLink sell? KeyLink is a specialty railing manufacturer. We specialize in aluminum railing systems and we're known for our cable, both horizontal and vertical. So indoor and outdoor as well. Yeah, primarily focused on the exterior application. However, that we have started to see some uses of our railings on interior applications. It's really cool. So your main audience is the installer, one of the audiences that's most reluctant to change. If it's, it's almost like, you know, the installers are interesting because, you know, people say, oh, my product is better than my competition, but with contractor specifically, like unless that better, quote unquote, better is 10X, it's really hard for them to change, you know? Yeah. And I would say that to take that even one step further, because when the topic that you're going down right now, Zach, is one of the things we deal with regularly, like our system installs faster. Well, according to you, our system performs better. Exactly, according to me, I'm the guy trying to get you to buy it. So, but when we talk about product performance, there's a number of things we've got to be concerned about, because ultimately that's one of the value delivery methods that we can have as a manufacturer. We're looking at product performance in terms of quality, what's the long-term characteristics? Is the contractor going to have callbacks? Cause if they do, that's not valuable to them. And performance also then for the homeowner to get that word of mouth referral, like, hey, Johnny be good installed my railing system four years ago, I love it. And then he's going to get that referral word of mouth in the community. It's all about driving that value for the product itself, but then also flipping that around because it's great that we target the installer, but we also need to make sure we're devoting resources to how they are able to ease the burden of that transaction. We all want to follow the path of least resistance. So for instance, how can we make every transaction between us as the manufacturer and the installer easier? So that's why we have, again, a business development team that's tasked with educating down channel. So if we're not educating, then we're not going to ease that transaction throughout every point. What do you think is the most difficult part for let's say that contractor installer? Like, what do you think is the biggest friction point for them right now? And not just for key link, but maybe as a whole, if I can put you on the spot, because we talk a lot about friction. Like if you can reduce friction, you're like, you're going to get customers. It doesn't matter if your products, you know, frankly more expensive. Like friction, I think is the name of the game because we've been so spoiled by everything is easy for people today. And a lot of times manufacturers, I think make it too difficult to buy, you know, are too difficult to work with them. But what I love about what you're saying is like, is it's not just the product that brings value, it's everything a part of the process, you know, to buy. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly right. I would say one of the biggest friction points is two-fold. One, it's communication of accurate lead times. We all have heard that, that's huge. Okay, I don't want to be that guy on the bandwagon, but really what the root of that is, Zach, and why I say that is number one, is accurate communication of data and information in general. As a manufacturer, one of the most difficult things we have is the right information at the right time to the right person. So how we have to build that, how we have to communicate that is one of the things that we wrestle with all of the time. And one of those data points is lead times. Okay, but you have other data points as well, such as how to install a product, what's the warranty on this product, maybe what's the comparison of other like products. If you like this, you might want to consider this, this, or this. So it's just lead times is the one that pops up because over the last two years, that's been a nightmare, but it's just one of the data points and the root of that is data communication. How many different ways are you guys communicating that? And the reason I'm asking, I'm just going to preface that by saying like, people think like, oh, I put this on my site, and then you might put it on your site, but then your audience saw it somewhere else and maybe it wasn't correct or you didn't communicate to them in a way that they got it and they're upset. And so it almost feels like you've got to like, just beat that drum to excess in order for them to make sure 100% locked tight, get that information. Like how many different ways are you trying to communicate that? Not enough is the one thing I would love to say. So I mean, so anytime we have, for instance, the first thing that pops into my mind is going to be a product change. So we've got an inline product change, for instance, that we're making on a product. We send that out. First of all, there's an internal and external communication that we've got to think about. We're thinking about how do we have our internal team aware of it in advance of the customers being notified? Because once the customer's notified, we get peppered with questions and we need to make sure our entire team is armed with the information because if they're not armed, then it's going, wait, what are you talking about? I'm not aware of that. I'm gonna have to check in with the main office here. And that creates a very negative customer experience. So internal versus external. We do typed letters, believe it or not, some customers out there still prefer mail. I believe it. They're on a specified list. However, we also send email. We put it on our website as being available. And then we also put it out via social media times. That's one of the mediums we're attempting to reach down channel to educate. I think it's really good that you're talking about, talking to your team and communicating to your team. These changes too, because oftentimes there's excitement, like, oh, there's this product change. We have this new product here and people are excited about it. But if that isn't communicated across your entire team and not everyone's in the loop, then what is supposed to be an exciting new announcement becomes a pain point and a frustration point for your customer because they go, well, gosh, these guys don't have their act together. They might not say that to your face, but that's how they feel. You've taken what was supposed to be something that's good, like good news to them, whatever it might be, and you've turned it into another issue for them that they have to then solve. It's not always the case, but it's true. Oh, exactly. And you even know that even if you have a good news for a customer, that if it's a negative experience, it can quickly turn into just another pain point and another gripe about somebody. And then it may not be necessarily how large that issue was, but the compilation of a number of different issues that pop up. And then it's that negative customer experience that we're trying to eliminate because that causes more friction in the channel. It makes me think of this as completely out of building products, but like Instacart, do you use Instacart at all or anything like that? I have not, no. Okay, so I use Instacart and you could be on your phone and they're like, hey, they don't have this product, select a different one. And you're like, oh, what a cool feature. Like, okay, you don't have this brand of cereal. I'll take that one. And what's, this is a cool feature, but then the person who's buying the product in the store ends up not getting what you selected, ends up getting a variation. And you're like, it's over, it's ruined. Instacart is the worst. And what was supposed to be like this really great like part of their product, some of the person who wasn't maybe educated about whatever, you know, the products in the store ends up ruining that. Granted, that's an overreaction, but that's what we do because, you know, you have kids and you're like, if I don't have the right cereal, like my day is ruined, you know, or something like that. But I think it's cool what you're talking about in reference to product too. And this is, you know, I don't want to steal your thunder here, Jeremiah, because I think it's a really, you know, valuable point to make, but you know, can you talk to me a little bit about, and share with our audience about how you all select and even prune your products, your product line? Yeah, and so one of the things that you look at, the history of our company is we've evolved. We have some product in our line that we would call legacy SKUs. They've made us who we are today and they're great products. They've delivered value to the customer for years. However, is it the right product for today's environment? That's the question. And so what I mean by that is, you look at the big technical term is SKU rationalization. Why are we selling what we're selling? Because if we don't continue to update, not just launching new product, but also making sure the product we are making is meeting the need, then if we don't change and adapt, we're gonna die. And that's what we're talking about. If you have to adapt or die, and that takes not just one area, like new product development, that takes your entire product line to make sure you're continuing to deliver that value through the channel. So talk to me through like what that looks like for you all, like adapt or die, like definitely gets people's attention. You all gonna ruin your guys adapt or die here at Keylink and people, like you've gotten people's attention. Like what does that look like? How are you deciding what's pruning? How are you deciding how to grow your product line? Because we tend to think like, oh, more product and more revenue, but that's not necessarily the case. Yeah, so if I could give you an example. So for instance, in 2022, we are in the process of discontinuing 44% of our product line. 44%. Yeah, it's a major overhaul of our product line. There's not many easy conversations, but what I will say the last two years has allowed us to do as a manufacturer is slow down a little bit in terms of, for instance, my team and my resources and looking at what of our product is in demand and making sure we're continuing to deliver that to the market. So we were able to sit down and look at the numbers behind it. So we identified, we had nine or 10 different infill options. Only three of those infill options were accounting for 96% of all of our sales. So you had seven infill options and infill and railing is what goes between the top and the bottom rail just to fill everybody in. And so our concern was, okay, we have this much capacity being generated, devoted to only three or 4% of our sales. Where are these sales going? When you dive in even deeper, again, to this data, those 4% of sales were all being ordered in what we would call job lot. So they were customers who didn't want stock. They just said, hey, I love that. I want it, call us up, place an order for a job and ship it to, ship it down through the channel. So our concern, one, not just from an operations and efficiency standpoint, but our concern is if our partners in the channel are not willing to stock it, how much of a demand is that product really having in the marketplace? Wow, so can I kind of place devil's advocate on that for a second? Yes. Okay, so you have all these different products. Clearly you've got customers who are asking for a product. You're saying, I want that, so much where they're calling you up. How do you know it's not an issue with just there isn't demand, but rather there's an issue with marketing or sales to push that product? Well, you bring up a great point, Zach, because I would actually argue that that's part of it, that we're miss marketing our products. But when you look at product lifecycle management and you have anything that launches and goes through implementation, growth, hits maturity, and then it starts to decline, how do you move something from decline stage back into the growth stage? And you have two options. You can make a couple of tweaks to it and launch it back through, or you can discontinue it, take some time to twiddle with it, and then relaunch it through the entire cycle. So what we chose to do was to discontinue it to be quite frank. And maybe I can consider this the official announcement. Those 44% of products are coming back. I don't know. I better be careful here, but what I'm saying is that we are making a conscious decision because we know that we have, we need to market those products better. And we have a great marketing team, a great business development team that's gonna be able to educate down through the channel that once we have the ability to relaunch those products, we'll be able to position them properly in the market. How uncomfortable was it for you to make the decision to cut 44%? Like it's not like, oh, we cut 10% or 15%. Yeah, and so that's another thing that I'll point out here is from the manufacturer standpoint, it is very easy for us to sit in a board room for me to look at a computer screen in an Excel spreadsheet and I see all the data. I see the entire value stream from raw material and the challenges we're facing from raw aluminum, stainless steel, all of those components all the way through to our customers at the very end with our marketing team at the homeowner level. It's very easy for us to make what may feel like callous decisions and just go, check off the list, get it out of here, it's not for me to worry about. But the reality of it is, we have to stay in tune with those and so I can tell you it's a lot of very difficult conversations. It was very tough. My boss would tell you that I delayed on this decision by about five months and yes, he wanted it made sooner. However, we as a team were making sure we pre-positioned and pre-launched these changes because they're gonna cause some ripplings throughout the market but I will also say that a lot of this was necessitated because of the challenges we faced over the last two years. So we've had to consolidate resources as raw material supply chains have become constrained. We've had to devote resources to top moving product and so this is also a unique environment that we decided to take advantage of. I love it. I mean, I think it is interesting because the market conditions are, there's tremendous demand right now for building construction, building products but there's also tremendous squeeze from a supply chain standpoint and so it's probably forced manufacturers to across the board, not just in your industry but every category to really rethink things. I'm curious to get your perspective here, Jeremiah. Like if there's a manufacturer listening to this going, hey, we should really consider this, what advice would you give them? Yeah, I would give them the advice to start identifying one, if you don't have the data insights into your product line, start to look at what are your top movers? What are your categories that your customers are demanding? So when your customer speaks with you, and so really where we start is, how does the customer communicate about our product? Are they talking about square baluster sections or railing or are they talking about cable? Because then we can start to break down that our categories of data based on how they are communicating with us because that's what they value. How they communicate with us. So just starting to analyze that and our decision to ultimately come to that discontinuation of 44% of our product line was born out of about a year of data analysis and just starting to identify color mix, product mix in terms of infill options and rail designs and things like that to then begin to conceptualize here's the future, here's where we need to start moving and shifting our product lines to reposition them to deliver value. Love that. Jeremiah for our listeners, if they wanna connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that? Yeah, best way is gonna be either via email or LinkedIn. I do have a LinkedIn. I encourage you to reach out Jeremiah Hirschberger, product manager with Keylink and Superior. And aside from that, we can absolutely love to chat with you. I'm passionate about all things product. I'm very energetic and very excitable about it. So I'd love to have a conversation with anybody. That's so cool. Man, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your transparency and just willingness to share. I imagine there's a ton of manufacturers out there listening to this that are like, gosh, we, I mean, because sales are hot. This is the best time to really be thinking about it. There's so much demand. Like what's really the product that we should be or products that we should be pushing forward and really investing into as the market conditions continue to evolve, you know? Yeah, and I would say one thing, adapt or die, I've been criticized for being dramatic here at the company. No, it's awesome. It's awesome. But I will say it's an aggressive push and we have to have it because change is tough. But if we don't embrace that change, then we're ultimately going to fall turn fail. And we all need to continue to move forward to get to where we're going. Truth. Awesome, Jeremiah. Thanks so much again for coming to the show. This has been awesome. And for our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you go to vanview.com slash podcast to subscribe and get more. Until next time, thanks everybody.