CEO Mike Franz discusses how ManufacturingPower has been addressing common difficulties faced by manufacturers, like pricing inequality and labor shortages.
Danny:
Okay. So, today we have another IndustrialSage Executive Series interview. I have ManufacturingPower. I have the founder and CEO, Mr. Mike Franz here joining us. Thank you, Mike, so much for joining me today.

Mike:
Great to be here, Danny. Thanks for having me.

Danny:
All right. So, before we completely jump into this, let's just kind of set things a little bit... If you could give me just a quick little synopsis on ManufacturingPower, who you guys are and what you do.

Mike:
Absolutely. So, ManufacturingPower, we're a SAAS software developed specifically for small to midsize manufacturing companies to help them with their challenges around MRO and industrial supply purchasing. We know it can be a pain to really tackle these objectives, for the most part. And what we've developed is a very easy to use online tool that helps organize and really gives our customers the benefit of being able to see market pricing. So, we collect data, we show transparency in the market, and give them the best opportunities to make the best buying decision.

Danny:
Interesting. Okay, great. I like it. So, we'll get into that here in a little bit more, but before we do that, I want to get to know Mike. I want to get to know you a little bit more and for our audience to get to know you a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your journey, your career journey before ManufacturingPower.

Mike:
Yeah. Unbeknownst to me, after school, after college, I had no intentions of getting involved in industrial supply. I have a sales background and came out of school with a marketing degree and thought, "What the heck am I going to do?" as most do, and fell into industrial supply and have been in multiple roles over the years, pretty much 20 years of experience being in the manufacturer's side, being on the purchasing side, being in the sales side. So, I always say it's kind of the triple threat position. I've seen the industry from all different sides and kind of understand that. But yeah, my experience is really in manufacturing and trying to understand the needs of manufacturers, and that's what's brought me here today. I saw a definite need and a problem that needed to be solved that continuously gets overlooked, and that's industrial supply managing and maintaining those accounts and partnerships with distributors and how to buy better, how to organize better. Those types of issues were something I consistently saw over the years.

Danny:
Yeah. All right. So, throughout your journey, is there somebody or either milestone moments or somebody that really helped influence, whether that was a coworker, a mentor, whether it was a leader, do you have one or two of those that really made a big impact on you?

Mike:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, 20 years, there's a lot that has contributed to that, a lot of people can relate to that. But specifically thinking off the top of my head here, as far as people specifically, there's been a lot, but I'll give you a couple of scenarios that really impacted my career. And one of the last ones I worked for a manufacturing company, we made components for, I'll just say the power sports industry, and what happened was I had really an experience that changed the way I thought about all kinds of business. It was more or less the fact that I learned what not to do. There was some customer interaction that really, really got under my skin, and that I wanted really never to do ever again. And how not to handle customer interactions and situations and being very respectful and putting the customer first in whatever I ...