Podcast
The Kula Ring
Hosted by Kula Partners · EN
The Kula Ring is a podcast for manufacturing marketers who want to drive real growth inside complex B2B organizations. Hosted by Jeff White and Carman Pirie (Kula Partners), each episode features candid conversations with industry leaders centred on practical, field-tested ideas you can actually use. Expect smart takes on account-based marketing (ABM), sales + marketing alignment, demand generation, positioning, content and website strategy, and the realities of modern industrial buying. If you market to engineers, plant managers, procurement teams, or multi-stakeholder buying groups, this show is built for you. New episodes released weekly, subscribe to stay in the loop.
39episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Keeping Your Brand Voice Authentic When AI Makes Everyone Sound the Same
2d ago00:31:09Tap to summarizeAuthenticity was a Web 2.0 buzzword — and Luke Wittenbraker, Marketing and Sales Director at Mactech On-Site, argues it matters more than ever now that AI can make every brand sound the same. In this episode, Luke explains why blue-collar buyers see straight through corporate jargon, how he turned ten years of CRM data into short, punchy “job stories” that actually generate leads, and why figuring out what not to work on became his biggest marketing unlock. Along the way he shares a hard-won warning: lean on AI too heavily and you’ll be coached into a groupthink that sounds nothing like you.
Transcribe →Marketing on the Clock: In Private Equity, Everybody Has an Expiration Date
1w ago00:25:44Tap to summarizeWhen private equity owns the company, the clock is always running — and as Paul Olesh, CEO of Magneto Movement, puts it, everybody has an expiration date. Paul joins Jeff and Carman to explain how that urgency reshapes marketing inside a PE-backed platform: why a long 18-to-30-month sales cycle demands relentless funnel-building, how he holds his acquired brands together under a single Procter & Gamble–style promise, and why he insists marketing isn’t truly effective until the purchase order lands. It’s a candid CEO’s-eye view of building a marketing machine when both time and resources are scarce.
Transcribe →When Buyers Can’t Touch the Machine, Video Has to Sell the Quality
2w ago00:31:04Tap to summarizeFor Impack, a Quebec maker of folder-gluer packaging equipment, video does something a spec sheet can’t: it sells machines prospects often won’t see in person until late in the deal. Brand Creative Lead Dmytro Zhurov explains how a well-produced video becomes proof of a six-figure machine’s quality—when the production matches the price tag, buyers trust that the product does too. He digs into using video to explain complex, sometimes competitor-less machines, why his team flies crews to client sites for documentary-grade footage, and how he prioritizes production around the deals already in flight. The throughline: quality video doesn’t just inform the sale, it justifies it.
Transcribe →Why Uniting With Your Competitors Can Be the Smartest Way to Grow a Market
3w ago00:28:51Tap to summarizeMilford built its business on relationships in oil and gas. But breaking HDPE pipe into the municipal water market meant playing an entirely different game — one of competitive bids, regulatory hurdles, and contractors set in their ways. Tyler Fowler, Director of Marketing at Milford, explains why relationships rarely cross verticals even when the product does, and why he and his competitors put their differences aside to grow the category together. Along the way he shares how he treats organic social as a test bed for paid, why he resists vanity metrics, and why winning a new industrial market is a five-to-ten-year grind with no easy button.
Transcribe →Long Sales Cycle, Short Buying Window: How Manufacturers Win at ABM
Jun 1600:33:28Tap to summarizeAccount-based marketing isn’t new to manufacturers, but the way they have to run it is unlike anyone else’s. In this episode, Demandbase’s Nick Cholakis unpacks the defining tension of industrial ABM: a sales cycle that can stretch past two years, punctuated by a buying window that slams open and shut in weeks. With most research now happening anonymously and offline — increasingly inside LLMs — Nick explains how signal aggregation helps manufacturers spot in-market accounts, why behaviour should override firmographics when tiering, and how to arm distributors and channel partners with the context they need to act before the window closes.
Transcribe →Making LinkedIn Work for Niche Manufacturing: A Solo Marketer’s Playbook
Jun 900:24:47Tap to summarizeAs a solo marketer in a 30-person engineering firm, Reshmee Bissundyal has built something most industrial companies struggle to achieve: a LinkedIn presence that actually drives inbound leads. In this episode, Reshmee walks us through how she dramatically grew Mechanical Solutions’ LinkedIn following. Reshmee shares her approach to content planning and why she often leads with emotion rather than promotions. And how she has navigated the tricky task of getting engineers to participate in marketing.
Transcribe →Person-to-Person in the Digital Age
Jun 200:28:31Tap to summarizeManufacturing marketing often suffers when salespeople don’t have confidence in what’s being created. In this episode, Jeff and Carman talk with Tom Van Doorn, Director of Marketing and Sales at MP Equipment, about bridging the gap between digital presence and face-to-face sales. Tom brings 42 years of industry experience and explains how websites, video content, and digital tools should serve as the backbone of the sales process. We explore the critical role of effective marketing in priming prospects, how websites serve both outreach and sales-presentation functions, and why the traditional person-to-person sales model remains paramount in the industrial food-processing equipment industry.
Transcribe →The Outsider Advantage: A Non-Traditional Marketer Inside a Highly Technical Niche
May 2600:24:51Tap to summarizeHelene Tessier didn't plan a career in marketing. She started at the French consulate in China and taught English abroad. When COVID brought her home, she stumbled into TPAC as an interpreter. Soon after, leadership asked her to run marketing. In this conversation with Jeff and Carman, she explains why TPAC's PhD-heavy, flat organizational culture wanted someone willing to learn. She also shares how she rebuilt the company's go-to-market strategy. Her approach centered on trade shows, application-driven web content, and a bold brand presence at the World Conference on NDT (non-destructive testing) that the industry still talks about. Helene also digs into why technical, engineering-led firms struggle with brand rollout. She explains how regulatory and certification changes act as buying triggers in NDT, and what a five-person buying committee means for content strategy. To close, she offers a refreshingly grounded take on AI for marketers entering the field today.
Transcribe →Beyond the Brochure: How to Structure a Sales Narrative Around Total Cost of Ownership
May 1900:30:29Tap to summarizeTeikoku USA makes the canned motor pumps that the chemical, hydrocarbon, and nuclear industries reach for when leaking is not an option. For years, growing public awareness of dangerous chemicals quietly expanded the company's addressable market for them. Then, leadership asked the sales and marketing team to grow faster anyway. Chaitanya Sakhalkar joins The Kula Ring to share what came next: modularizing a product that had always been engineer-to-order, building decision trees so the sales team and channel partners could tell the right story to the right buyer.
Transcribe →Be the Guide, Not the Hero: A Fractional CMO’s Playbook for Manufacturers
May 1200:33:35Tap to summarizeMost small-to-mid manufacturers know they’ve under-invested in marketing, but where do you even begin? Javier Lozano, Founder of Bolder Media and a fractional CMO, joins Carman and Jeff to lay the foundation. He explains why your founder's origin story falls flat, how to mine real differentiation from customer interviews, and why your brand should be more Yoda, the guide, than Luke, the hero. Plus: how to find a wedge in a “red ocean” without making yourself unfindable, and what a fractional CMO actually does that a consultant or full-time hire can't.
Transcribe →