Chris Luecke of Rockwell Automation shares some of the first steps to take – and obstacles to overcome – when building a brand with online content. Danny: All right, hey, so for today's episode listen, I've got a really awesome guest. I've got Chris Luecke here from Rockwell Automation and he's going to talk to us about building your personal brand. Chris, thanks so much for coming on IndustrialSage. Chris: No problem, thanks for having me, Danny. Danny: Yeah, so I've been wanting to have you on here for a while because I came across you over the summer. It's like July, this was like July. Funny story. It was like July or June, sometime in there. Chris: Okay. Danny: I was here at the studio super late, and I was, I was drinking a beer or two and I came across you on I think you were on a podcast. My gosh, I can't remember the name of it. It was maybe CSIA organization with Tony… Chris: Yeah, yeah, Tony Verhoeven, he does… Danny: Tony Verhoeven, that's it, yeah. Chris: Yeah, he does an industrial automation show out of Madison, I think, is where he's based. Danny: That's it, yes, and I totally came running out and I was like "wow This is awesome!" And I was just totally, I loved the whole episode. It basically talked about, what I want to talk about here is kind of like this whole thing you're doing: this Manufacturing Happy Hour, which I think is really awesome. So before I get too far down the weeds maybe you can just explain, like, tell us a little bit about your background, and then what is this whole Manufacturing Happy Hour thing that you're doing? Chris: Sure, so I'll give you a background, because at the end of the day, I'm just your average account manager, I work for Rockwell Automation. I serve equipment manufacturers out here in the Bay Area, where I'm based. I'm an engineer by degree, I got an engineering degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and once I got that I knew I wanted to do something that was a bit more people-facing. I'm an extrovert at the end of the day, and I stumbled upon sales engineering and account management as a career with Rockwell right out of school and just seemed something that allowed me to utilize my technical background and also get creative with how I would go about driving new business, building relationships with my customers, and after doing... It was probably the six-year mark where I'd been doing account management for a while and I'd recently moved to the Bay Area and a couple of things were going through my mind. The first thing was, I love my job having a lot of fun, but I feel like something's missing. I feel like I'm not necessarily taking advantage of my total skill set. I used to play in cover bands, and I've always enjoyed being on stage so there is that little personal creative element to it. At the same time, and maybe more importantly was, when looking at the market that I serve out here in the Bay Area, as you can imagine, you look at all the tech companies out there, it's a lot of young folks in their 20s, early 30s that are these, they're the decision makers at these businesses. And I was thinking to myself "How can I reach this audience more effectively?" because I had been working in Houston for four years prior to being out here, where you kind of had the opposite end of the spectrum. A lot of tried,