Marketing, communications and industry development specialist AJ Sweatt speaks with IMT about the pressing challenges facing the manufacturing sector and the urgent need for implementing a national industrial policy.
“There are no clear leaders in manufacturing,” claims AJ Sweatt, principal of marketing, communications and industry development company AJ Sweatt Logic and Communications. As a professional who works with clients ranging from small and midsized manufacturers to industry associations, Sweatt has over 20 years of experience coaching businesses for success. He argues that the United States is in dire need of a comprehensive industrial policy to restore manufacturing.
Sweatt is highly concerned with the skilled labor shortage, education and training for the U.S. workforce and the overall reluctance of manufacturers and small businesses “to invest at the time we need those investments most.” In an exclusive interview with IMT, Sweatt explains why an industrial policy is crucial for revitalizing U.S. manufacturing, and offers advice for manufacturers trying to market their brand.
IMT: How do we handle today’s pressing manufacturing challenges, such as the skilled labor gap and economic uncertainty?
AJ Sweatt: We need a comprehensive, executable industrial manufacturing policy. Right now we’re disjointed and everyone with a blog, influence or a voice is throwing ideas around. It’s confusing, and we sound like a country that’s never had the greatest manufacturing and industrial sector the world’s ever seen. We sound like amateurs, each with their own agenda and priorities. There are no clear leaders, and little consensus upon which to build clarity and resolve to sustain that policy.
IMT: Why is it important for the U.S. to adopt a comprehensive industrial policy?
AJS: Today, manufacturing is being inundated with new initiatives, policies, studies, forums, roundtables, platforms and legislation – seemingly every week. Most of these initiatives are disjointed because many are contradictory or competitive. Worse, they often start with great fanfare but are soon abandoned in favor of a newer idea.
A comprehensive industrial policy that recognizes the value, worth and holistic influence of manufacturing on our economy, national defense and our ability to innovate does two things: First, it gives everyone – government, business, academia and financial institutions – a roadmap. It puts everyone on the same page and focuses individual and combined resources on the same goals.
It also defines what is valuable, what is important and what may not be abandoned. It enunciates consequences and ensures that we move forward without duplicating previous mistakes. We had a fine industrial policy in the U.S. that guided us from 1787 until the 1980s, which resulted in the creation of the greatest manufacturing and innovation engine in the history of the world. Getting away from that has led to the cacophony of unattached and divided ideas we see today.
Such a policy must cover trade, industries, immigration, economic support and the instruments used to enable them. It must also take into consideration that government is here to ensure the playing field is level and then get out of the way and let manufacturers and businesses do what they do – generate jobs, wealth and value for all stakeholders.
IMT: How do misconceptions about manufacturing play a part in the labor shortage?
AJS: In the case of the U.S. manufacturing labor shortage, it’s purely about “image” and what most people think of when they hear the words associated with manufacturing. The misconception is that manufacturing is dirty, hard, unprofitable work.
I believe the prominent image issue and an important but unrecognized challenge we have in this country today is that our parents watched their parents work in manufacturing, earn a decent wage and retire in unprecedented fashion.
Whereas many of us, and many of our children, watched our parents get pink slips in the pursuit of cheap overseas labor. They’re gun shy, and it’s going to be hard to convince those young people who’ve seen their country willingly abandon industry once that it won’t happen again. And we’re sure not going to do it with a “Manufacturing Is Cool” T-shirt or a few stories about small- or medium-sized manufacturers re-shoring a few dozen manufacturing jobs to the U.S.
IMT: What actions can the industry take as a whole to fill the skilled labor shortage? Is one type of solution (education and recruiting programs) more effective than others (such as onsite training)?
AJS: I’m encouraged by Cardinal Manufacturing. Everyone that wants to see an innovative, sustainable model for combining technical, business, supply chain and real-world acumen in tangible ways should check out these guys. What Craig, the “teacher” who built this program, has done is build a fully functioning machining business that’s run and managed by students.
The “students” run the whole enterprise. They order materials, keep up the books, market the business, purchase equipment, manage demand and regular maintenance and suppliers – the whole shebang. In my mind, what’s brilliant about Cardinal is that it bridges the gap that most traditional educational institutions create organically, in that they teach “how” to perform tightly narrowed functions but often can’t show the consequences.
At Cardinal, if a supplier sends the wrong material, they have to deal with the consequences. And they see the impact of miscues and mistakes on the entire business. It’s something that I think could energize our labor force, create life-long manufacturing learners and attract the talent we know is out there to the actual value, rewards and challenges of a manufacturing career. Their message needs to be spread loud and often, in my view.
IMT: You’re an integrated marketing expert and professional communicator. What is your advice for manufacturing leaders who want to effectively communicate and market their growing business?
AJS: The single greatest deficiency that I see consistently across U.S. manufacturing is the inability to create and sustain the channels that actually serve customers, prospects and partners. Instead of focusing on the behaviors of their customers and the buying cycles they follow to research and ultimately select a technology or service, manufacturers create innocuous websites, social media channels and other messaging that makes them look like everyone else.
The main purpose of an industrial marketing strategy is to differentiate a business within the special circumstances and unique requirements of one’s buyers or prospects.
Manufacturing is different from consumer markets, and it frustrates me to no end that most manufacturers merely mimic what they see their consumer contemporaries are doing and think they’re successful. So, the single best thing they can do is to ask their customers what they look for when researching sources behind the early-stage veil of anonymity in the industrial buying cycles, and assess whether what they’re doing is actual speaking to those behaviors or simply making the CEO or board happy.
Source Article from http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2012/10/04/qa-exclusive-with-manufacturing-marketing-expert-aj-sweatt/
