Podcast
The Manufacturers Network
Hosted by Lisa Ryan · EN
The Manufacturers’ Network is where manufacturing leaders, plant managers, and industry innovators come to talk straight about what’s working and what’s not, on the shop floor and beyond.
Each week, host Lisa Ryan sits down with people who live and breathe this business: operations executives, HR directors, engineers, and founders who are building stronger teams and smarter systems in the face of nonstop change.
Listeners gain real-world insights on:
• Employee retention and workforce engagement
• Automation, AI, and the future of skilled trades
• Supply chain and operations leadership
• Safety, sustainability, and company culture that lasts
If you’re tired of generic “leadership talk” and want practical conversations from people who get it, this podcast is for you.
New episodes drop every Monday and are short enough for your commute, sharp enough to shape your week.
Subscribe and be part of the conversation that’s connecting manufacturers across industries, one story at a time.
22episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
When the Expert Retires, Does the Answer Leave with Them? with Brian Kaufman
2d ago00:33:49Tap to summarizeBrian Kaufman is co-founder and chief product officer at Strudel, an AI startup that gives technical support teams real-time context when issues hit and detects error patterns before they become customer-facing problems. His background is in software product development and healthcare technology, but the problems he solves map directly onto what manufacturing companies face every day: institutional knowledge that lives in people's heads instead of in systems, and support teams solving the same problems over and over from scratch.Brian and Lisa dig into what it actually costs when undocumented knowledge walks out the door, how AI can serve as a partner to experienced technicians without replacing their judgment, and what a realistic starting point looks like for manufacturers considering AI-assisted support.Key Takeaways for Manufacturing LeadersThe information exists. It just isn't findable. Most organizations aren't starting from zero. The knowledge is in old tickets, emails, PDFs, and people's heads. The first step is figuring out where it lives, not waiting until it's gone to wish you'd captured it.Start before someone gives notice. The best time to document institutional knowledge is before retirement is on the horizon. If the person with 30 years of experience is leaving in two months, you're already behind. Build the habit now.Ask the question nobody's asked. One of the most powerful knowledge-capture prompts: "What do you know that nobody's ever asked you about?" Experienced technicians have built sensory libraries over decades, knowing what a machine sounds like, feels like, and smells like when something's about to go wrong. That knowledge doesn't survive a standard exit interview.AI should be an investigator, not an oracle. Strudel presents troubleshooting suggestions as hypotheses grounded in real historic tickets, not confident declarations. When a technician is standing at a machine, that distinction matters. Build trust by showing your work, not by pretending to be certain.Machine context cuts investigation time dramatically. Knowing the model, firmware version, and configuration immediately narrows the problem space. A known defect affecting machines shipped between two specific dates becomes a one-step fix rather than a multi-hour troubleshooting process.Don't use LLMs for everything. Strudel uses traditional statistical analysis and machine learning for the heavy lifting, reserving large language models for last-mile summarization. The result is fewer hallucinations and answers that are easier to monitor and evaluate for quality.Your most skeptical expert is your most important early win. Find the team member with deep expertise who doubts new tools and figure out what task they hate doing most. Solve that one problem well, and you've turned your biggest skeptic into your biggest advocate.Start small, find wins, then expand. Don't try to solve everything at once. Pick one product line, one process, one team. Get good at that before scaling. Build in an early checkpoint to evaluate and adjust.Involve your people before you buy anything. Coming back from a trade show with a shiny new system your team had no input on is a reliable way to end up with a system nobody uses. Ask what's causing the most pain. Start there.Working top of license matters on the shop floor too. When your most experienced technician is answering the same question for the fifth time, that's a waste. Free those people up for novel problems, mentoring, and process improvement.About StrudelStrudel embeds directly into existing support ticketing systems and generates troubleshooting steps within 15 to 20 seconds of a ticket coming in, drawing on historical tickets and documentation specific to the machine, software version, and configuration in question. As more tickets are resolved, that knowledge becomes part of the system, making new staff onboarding faster and institutional knowledge more durable.Connect with Brian KaufmanEmail: brian@strudel.io Website: www.strudel.ioThe Manufacturers Network Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders, practitioners, and experts across manufacturing, the skilled trades, and industrial sectors. Host Lisa Ryan, CSP, MBA, is a keynote speaker, author of 13 books, and founder of Grategy.
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Why Women Leave the Trades (And What Stops Them) with Samantha Kaye Harris
1w ago00:32:34Tap to summarizeSamantha Kaye Harris spent 27+ years in structural maintenance leadership at JFK Airport, managing teams of 100+ people in one of the most male-dominated environments in the trades. She started as a general maintainer, learned paving, roofing, sheet rock, and concrete work from the ground up, and earned her way into leadership one job at a time.Today she helps women in manufacturing, the trades, and industrial environments own their voice, stay in the room, and get paid for the value they bring.Lisa and Samantha dig into what it actually costs when women go silent on the shop floor, why psychological safety and physical safety are directly connected, and what plant managers and operations leaders can do right now to change the dynamic on their teams.Key Takeaways for Manufacturing LeadersRetention starts with safety, not perks. Women don't leave because the pay is bad. They leave because they don't feel safe speaking up, asking for what they need, or being heard without having their competence questioned. Fix the environment before you worry about the benefits package.The fear cycle is a real retention risk. Samantha describes a predictable pattern: a woman arrives, over-performs to prove herself, gets worn down by constant testing and second-guessing, goes silent, starts hiding, and eventually leaves. Recognizing where someone is in that cycle is the first step to stopping it."Are you sure?" is a red flag phrase. Asking a leader whether she's sure, or checking her answer with another supervisor, sends a clear message about whose judgment is trusted. Leaders need to monitor this in their own behavior and in their teams.PPE that doesn't fit is a safety and morale issue. One-size-fits-all gear made for male bodies signals that women weren't considered when the workplace was designed. Getting the right fit is a practical step that communicates respect.Psychological safety connects directly to physical safety. When a woman is spending mental energy calculating how to avoid being dismissed, she's not focused on the work. In an environment with heavy equipment and real hazards, that's not just a morale problem.Don't send the complaint back to the floor. When a woman raises a concern and leadership takes it straight back to the crew, her colleagues often figure out exactly who said what. That's when isolation and retaliation start. Handle issues with confidentiality and intention.One woman in a safety or HR-adjacent role changes things. Having someone on staff who has actually done the work, who gets the environment, gives women a place to raise issues without fear of being laughed off or ignored.Community is a retention strategy. Women's groups, networking events, and peer connections within associations are growing fast because they work. If your industry association doesn't have a women's group, it's worth asking why not.Training boxes don't change behavior. Computer-based compliance training may satisfy HR requirements, but it doesn't change what happens on the shop floor. Real culture change takes conversation, modeling, and accountability.When women stop hiding, companies win. Samantha is direct about this: when a woman feels safe enough to fully show up, use her voice, and go after advancement, productivity goes up, teams communicate better, and the company starts attracting more skilled talent. The ROI is real.Samantha's Truth MethodologySamantha works with women one-on-one and through 30-day intensives to help them understand the internal patterns holding them back, learn where those patterns came from, and build the self-trust to use their voice, ask for what they want, and step fully into their power.Connect with Samantha Kaye HarrisEmail: info@samanthakayeharris.com (Note: Kaye is spelled K-A-Y-E)The Manufacturers Network Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders, practitioners, and experts across manufacturing, the skilled trades, and industrial sectors. Host Lisa Ryan, CSP, MBA is a keynote speaker, author of 13 books, and founder of Grategy.
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Stop Competing on Price: How to Find and Tell Your Company's Story with Lauren Kwedar Cockerell
2w ago00:24:58Tap to summarizeIf your sales team keeps losing deals on price, the problem might not be your pricing. It might be your story. Lauren Kwedar Cockerell, founder and president of Kwedar & Co., a strategic communications firm based in Fort Worth, joins Lisa to talk about why so many manufacturers struggle to articulate what makes them genuinely different, and what to do about it.Lauren has spent 23 years in public relations working with B2B companies, with deep roots in manufacturing and industrial sectors. Her firm helps companies excavate what's already there, that unique thread hiding in plain sight, and turn it into messaging that resonates with customers, prospects, and the talent they're trying to attract.What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy "our people" and "our quality" aren't differentiators. Every competitor is saying the same thing. Lauren explains why surface-level answers won't cut it and how to dig multiple levels deeper to find what's actually distinctive about your operation.The "yeah, duh" trap. The things your team dismisses as obvious are often the most compelling to your buyers. The challenge is that it's hard to read the label from inside the bottle.The Thread: Lauren's four-stage methodologyExcavate. Deep discovery through conversations, competitive review, and a close look at everything you've builtSurface. Finding that through line, the offhand comment you almost threw away that turns out to be the whole thingArticulate. Translating the story into language that resonates across every channel and audienceActivate. Putting it out into the world on your website, in media, in sales conversations, and in internal communicationsWhere AI fits and where it falls short. AI can help you iterate content once you have a strong narrative, but it cannot create one for you. Without a distinctive source document, you are just replicating what already exists and creating volume no one is listening to.The new visibility equation. Trade journals, podcasts, and consistent digital content are not just good marketing. They are signals that AI-powered search uses to determine relevancy and authority. If your messaging is inconsistent or generic, the LLMs cannot distinguish you from a competitor either.Signs your messaging problem is costing you real money. You are losing deals on price alone, your salespeople are delivering inconsistent pitches, you are attracting candidates who do not fit, and the marketing firms you have hired just cannot seem to nail it.The first thing to do this week. Pull up your website headline, take away your logo, and ask: could this apply to any other industry? If the answer is yes, you have work to do.Connect with LaurenWebsite: KwedarCo.com LinkedIn: Lauren Kwedar CockerellThe Manufacturers Network Podcast is hosted by Lisa Ryan, CSP, founder of Grategy and Chief Appreciation Strategist. Lisa helps manufacturing and industrial organizations build cultures where people want to stay.
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How Manufacturing Leaders Can Build Resilient Supply Chains, Strong Culture, and Smarter Automation with JC Carr
Jun 2200:21:43Tap to summarizeIn this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan sits down with JC Carr, Territory Account Manager at World Emblem and founder of Whips Miami, to talk about the future of manufacturing leadership, supply chain resilience, automation, and workforce culture.JC shares his unconventional path from launching an exotic car brokerage during COVID to becoming a rising voice in manufacturing with a growing social media following focused on the human side of industry.The conversation explores what manufacturing leaders are getting right and wrong about automation, digital transformation, workforce engagement, and operational growth. JC also shares lessons learned from working inside large-scale supply chain environments, including Amazon, and why community involvement, leadership accountability, and employee connection still matter in highly automated operations.If you’re a manufacturing executive, plant manager, HR leader, or operations professional trying to balance technology with people, this episode offers practical insight grounded in real-world experience.In This Episode:How JC Carr built a business during COVID selling exotic car lease dealsWhat manufacturing can learn from Amazon’s supply chain systemsWhy automation should eliminate frustration, not human valueThe difference between digital transformation and culture transformationHow manufacturing leaders can improve workforce retention and engagementWhy simple tools often outperform expensive technology investmentsWhat manufacturers should consider during mergers, acquisitions, and consolidationThe hidden risks of fragmented supply chainsHow community involvement strengthens leadership and workforce loyaltyWhy younger workers want purpose, connection, and impact from employersAbout JC CarrJC Carr is a Territory Account Manager at World Emblem, one of North America’s largest emblem and embroidery manufacturers. Having worked across nearly every department in the company, he brings a full-spectrum understanding of manufacturing operations and customer experience.He is also the founder of Whips Miami, an exotic car brokerage launched during college, and has built a social media following of more than 120,000 people by highlighting the human side of manufacturing, leadership, and modern industry.Connect with JC CarrLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jc-carr/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jc.carr/Company: https://www.worldemblem.com/Key TakeawayTechnology can improve efficiency. But manufacturing still runs on people.The companies that win long-term will be the ones that use automation to support human judgment, strengthen culture, and create workplaces where employees feel valued and connected.
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How Great Leaders Create More Leaders with Scott Burgmeyer
Jun 800:35:36Tap to summarizeLeadership development is not about creating people who can follow instructions.It’s about creating people who can think.In this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with Scott Burgmeyer about leadership growth, succession planning, emotional intelligence, and why so many organizations struggle to develop future leaders before it’s too late.With more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing, operations, consulting, and organizational development, Scott shares practical lessons from working with companies ranging from small manufacturers to organizations like Google, Procter & Gamble, and Bridgestone.The conversation explores:Why leaders struggle to let go and delegateHow to transfer knowledge before experienced employees retireThe difference between managing people and developing leadersWhy employees need permission to think and make decisionsThe hidden cost of constantly answering every question yourselfHow emotional intelligence impacts operational performanceWhy strategic plans fail after the meeting endsThe danger of confusing activity with resultsSuccession planning mistakes that create tension and chaosHow personal growth directly affects company culture and retentionScott also explains why leadership teams must stop focusing only on technical performance and start investing in the growth of people at every level of the organization.One of the biggest takeaways from this episode:Organizations rarely outperform the growth level of their leaders.Actionable Ideas from This EpisodeAsk more questions instead of immediately giving answersCreate low-risk opportunities for employees to make decisionsFocus on outcomes, not just activityBuild leadership systems that continue beyond one generationEvaluate whether your strategic plan is actually moving key metricsDevelop future leaders before you urgently need themMake professional and personal growth part of your leadership expectationsUse feedback early instead of waiting until problems growScott’s “Growth Questions”When trying something new, ask:What worked?What didn’t work?What do I need to do differently?Connect with Scott BurgmeyerWebsite: Become More GroupLinkedIn: Scott Burgmeyer on LinkedInConnect with Lisa RyanWebsite: Lisa Ryan, CSP / GrategyIf you enjoyed this episode, share it with a manufacturing leader, operations executive, HR professional, or business owner working to strengthen culture, retention, and leadership development inside their organization.
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What Happens When Your Business Outgrows Your People with Mike Krupit
May 2500:25:13Tap to summarizeManufacturing companies don’t usually fail because of bad products. They fail because growth exposes leadership gaps nobody wanted to deal with.In this episode of the Manufacturers Network Podcast, Lisa Ryan talks with leadership advisor and Trajectify founder Mike Krupit about what really happens when organizations grow faster than their people, systems, and communication.Mike shares lessons from decades in Silicon Valley startups and explains why retention problems are often clarity problems, leadership problems, and culture problems disguised as “people issues.”The conversation covers:Why companies outgrow key employees and foundersHow poor communication quietly destroys trustThe difference between employees who “get it, want it, and are capable”Why psychological safety matters on the shop floorWhat leaders miss when they blame workers for disengagementHow to manage up when leadership refuses to changeWhy “this is how we’ve always done it” is dangerous in manufacturingThe connection between AI, workforce change, and leadership adaptabilityPractical ways manufacturers can rethink scheduling, culture, and retentionOne of the biggest takeaways from this episode:You cannot build a future-ready company with leadership habits designed for the past.Mike also shares actionable ideas leaders can use immediately to evaluate whether they truly have the right people in the right seats before growth turns into chaos.Actionable Questions from This EpisodeWhat assumptions are we making that may no longer be true?Are we measuring outputs clearly enough for people to succeed?Do employees feel safe trying new ideas or making mistakes?Are leaders communicating enough, especially across shifts and teams?Is the organization growing faster than the people leading it?What is one thing leadership could change tomorrow?Connect with Mike KrupitLinkedIn: Mike Krupit on LinkedInWebsite: TrajectifyConnect with Lisa RyanWebsite: Grategy / Lisa Ryan, CSPIf you enjoyed this episode, share it with a manufacturing leader, HR professional, or operations executive who’s trying to build a stronger workplace culture while navigating growth and change.
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What It Really Takes to Scale E-Commerce Without Breaking Your Operations with Ethan Giffin
May 1100:25:20Tap to summarizeE-commerce looks easy… right up until it isn’t. More orders. More customers. More growth. And then everything starts to crack.In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, I sit down with Ethan Giffin to talk about what really happens when e-commerce businesses try to scale. Not the highlight reel. The operational reality behind it.We get into fulfillment pressure, inventory accuracy, customer expectations, and why so many companies focus on growth before they’ve built the foundation to support it.Because here’s the truth…You don’t rise to the level of your marketing. You fall to the level of your operations.What You’ll LearnWhy scaling e-commerce creates operational challenges most teams underestimateThe pressure fulfillment puts on systems, people, and decision-makingWhere inventory accuracy becomes a make-or-break issueHow customer expectations are reshaping operationsWhy growth exposes weaknesses instead of fixing themThe role your team plays when systems fall shortWhat leaders need to get right before pushing for scaleThe ConversationEthan Giffin brings a practical lens to e-commerce. No hype. Just how things actually work when volume increases.What stood out in this conversation is how quickly things get complicated.At low volume, you can get away with inefficiencies. At scale, those same issues turn into daily problems.Orders increase. Returns increase. Customer expectations tighten.And suddenly, your operation isn’t just fulfilling orders… it’s reacting all day long.Even with automation in place, the reality doesn’t change. When something breaks, it’s your people stepping in to fix it.That’s where a lot of companies get surprised.They invest in systems… but forget to build the operational discipline behind them.Key TakeawaysE-commerce is an operations business Marketing brings the orders in. Operations decides whether customers come back.Speed raises the stakes The faster you promise delivery, the less room you have for error.Inventory accuracy drives everything If your numbers are off, every decision downstream gets harder.Growth magnifies what’s already broken What works at 100 orders a day rarely works at 1,000.People are still the safety net When systems fail, your team is the one holding it together.Moments Worth ReplayingThe realities of fulfillment as order volume increasesWhere inventory issues start and how they impact everything elseThe pressure created by faster delivery expectationsHow small operational gaps turn into major customer problemsAbout Ethan GiffinEthan Giffin works in the e-commerce space, focused on helping businesses navigate the operational side of growth, from fulfillment to inventory management to scaling systems that actually hold up under pressure.He brings a straightforward, practical perspective to challenges that are easy to underestimate and hard to fix once they show up.Final ThoughtSelling online is the easy part.Delivering on that promise… consistently… under pressure… is where most companies struggle.And when things go wrong, they don’t get fixed by software.They get fixed by people.Gratitude is a strategy.
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What Automation Gets Wrong About People, Culture, and Judgment with Rylan Pyciak
May 400:27:40Tap to summarizeHere’s what nobody says out loud. You can automate a facility, install the dashboards, optimize the flow… and still lose the people who make it all work.In this episode of The Manufacturers Network Podcast, I sit down with Rylan Pyciak to talk about what’s really happening inside modern supply chains. Not the polished version. The real one.We get into the tension between automation and human judgment, why most leaders are spending money in the wrong places, and how culture quietly becomes the difference between a system that scales and one that stalls.Because the truth is simple. If your people don’t feel ownership, your systems don’t matter.What You’ll LearnWhy “fully automated” operations still depend heavily on peopleThe difference between scale, speed, and true orchestrationHow to build accountability into your operation without micromanagingWhere most manufacturers waste money on technologyWhy culture is the #1 failure point in M&A activityHow community involvement impacts retention more than most leaders realizeWhat leaders miss when trying to modernize legacy industriesThe ConversationRylan’s background spans everything from large-scale fulfillment environments to third-party logistics and fragmented legacy industries. That perspective shows up fast.He breaks down what it actually takes to scale operations without losing control. And more importantly, without losing your people.One thing that stood out right away… Even in highly automated environments, you’re still managing thousands of employees across multiple shifts. That creates a different challenge. Not just operations. Consistency, communication, and culture across a 24/7 workforce.And that’s where most leaders underestimate the work.Key TakeawaysAccountability beats intelligence You don’t need a room full of geniuses. You need a team that owns results, learns from mistakes, and adjusts quickly.Start simple before you get fancy Some of the best operational insights still come from a whiteboard on the floor. Not a screen. Not a dashboard. Just people talking about what broke and why.Automation should remove frustration If you want buy-in, start with the work people hate doing. That’s where automation earns trust.Culture is not optional in M&A Too many leaders treat people integration like a detail. It’s not. It’s the difference between success and failure.Top-down vision. Bottom-up execution Leaders define where you’re going. The people closest to the work figure out how to get there. Skip that and everything slows down.Community drives retention When companies invest outside their walls, employees feel it. And they stay longer because of it.Moments Worth ReplayingThe reality behind large-scale automated facilities and workforce demandsWhy expensive tech often replaces simple, effective communication toolsThe mindset shift from “spend money” to “solve the right problem”What actually happens after an acquisition when culture is ignoredAbout Rylan PyciakRylan Pyciak is a supply chain and operations leader focused on building scalable, resilient systems across complex environments. His work spans automation, logistics networks, and integrating fragmented industries into high-performing operations.He brings a practical, no-nonsense approach to solving problems most leaders overcomplicate.Final ThoughtYou can build the smartest system in the world.But if you’ve designed it without your people in mind, it’s fragile. You just don’t see it yet.Gratitude is a strategy. And in a world that’s moving faster every day, it might be the one thing that keeps your people grounded enough to stay.
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The 401K Fees Every Manufacturer Is Paying But Never Sees with Paul Sippil
Apr 2700:26:44Tap to summarizeLisa Ryan welcomes Paul Sippil, forensic 401K consultant and self-described 401K vigilante. Over 17 years, Paul has analyzed thousands of public retirement plan filings and documented more than 1,300 cases of apparent excessive fees. His central argument is simple and uncomfortable: most American employers, including manufacturers, have never seen the true cost of their 401K plan, and the structure of the industry is specifically designed to keep it that way.From Recovering CPA to 401K VigilantePaul describes himself as a recovering CPA who knew from his very first day as an auditor that the path wasn't right for him. His career shifted into financial advising focused on estate and succession planning for business owners until a conversation with a colleague revealed that retirement plan tax forms were publicly available online. That discovery changed everything.When Paul began calling business owners to alert them to the fees he was seeing in their own public filings, he expected to be a hero. Instead, he got a response that told him everything he needed to know about the industry: I'm not paying anything and my friend handles that. The disconnect between what employers believed and reality was so profound that Paul realized he could build an entire career consulting in just this one area and he did.The Invisible Fee ProblemThe reason most employers have no idea what their 401K plan actually costs is simple: there is no invoice. Fees don't arrive as a bill. They flow silently through the structure of the plan itself: embedded in mutual fund management fees, deducted directly from participant accounts, or buried in arrangements between advisors and record keepers that employers never see or negotiate.The major fee categories Paul walks through include:Mutual fund fees: unavoidable, but can be minimized by choosing index or passively managed fundsRecord-keeping and administration fees: charged by providers like Principal, Voya, Fidelity, John Hancock, Paychex, and ADP, often as a percentage of total plan assetsFinancial advisory fees: either embedded as broker commissions within fund costs, or charged as a separate percentage of assets by registered investment advisorsCustodial fees: charged by institutions like Charles Schwab that hold the assetsThe compounding problem: because fees are typically percentage-based, they grow automatically as the plan grows — with no increase in services provided.The Case That Says It AllPaul shares a story that captures everything wrong with this industry in one example. A company with just three employees paid out over $49,000 in broker commissions between 2019 and 2024, to an advisor they didn't even know they had. When the HR director called to find out who the broker was, a quick Google search revealed the broker had been dead since 2014.When Paul raised this publicly, an industry administrator pushed back saying "everybody's gotta get paid." Paul's response: you first have to be living. The story isn't just an anomaly, it's a window into an industry structurally incentivized for advisors to do nothing, stay invisible, and hope clients never think to ask questions.What Manufacturers Are Leaving on the TableThe financial stakes for manufacturers are significant, particularly for business owners who often hold the largest account balances within their own plans. Paul walks through several practical opportunities most plan sponsors don't know they have:Negotiate record-keeping fees. Simply asking, no financial sophistication required, can reduce percentage-based fees that providers don't automatically lower as plan assets grow. On a $3 million plan, reducing the fee by 0.1% saves $3,000 every year, permanently.Negotiate or eliminate advisory fees. In many cases, advisors aren't performing active management; they're waiting for participant phone calls. Participants direct their own investments from a list of fund choices. The advisor isn't making buy-sell decisions for anyone.Demand dollar-denominated answers. Fee disclosures required since 2012 exist, but they're often expressed as percentages, buried in documents few people know to look for, and disconnected from any real-time cost experience. Asking "how much have you made off our plan in actual dollars, for each of the last three years?" is a question every plan sponsor should ask every provider.Consider paying fees at the employer level. Employers can choose to pay plan fees directly rather than passing them to participants. The benefit: employer-paid fees are tax-deductible business expenses, and the business owner, who typically holds the largest share of the plan balance, stops paying non-deductible fees out of a tax-advantaged account.The Department of Labor has published research showing that an extra 1% in annual fees costs a 35-year-old participant with a $25,000 balance approximately $64,000 over 30 years; roughly 28% of their ending balance. For participants with larger balances, the damage is proportionally greater.Why the Industry Doesn't Change on Its OwnPaul draws a sharp distinction between price transparency - being able to see fees - and price literacy, having enough context to know whether what you're seeing is reasonable. Even when fees are disclosed, there's no easy way to comparison-shop the way you would for a car or a cell phone. Providers don't make their pricing easy to compare. RFP processes often result in manufacturers switching from one expensive provider to another without meaningfully reducing costs.The root cause, as Paul frames it, echoes economist Milton Friedman's four ways to spend money: the people making purchasing decisions about the plan often hold a small fraction of the assets, while the people whose money is actually at stake — participants and business owners — have little or no say. That misalignment is what keeps the market from behaving like a competitive one.Paul is actively working with the Department of Labor to push for guidance — not mandates — that would require providers to send actual invoices reflecting fees in plain dollar terms. His view: if employers received invoices the way they receive bills from attorneys or accountants, the industry would change overnight.Actionable Takeaways for ListenersFind out the name of every provider involved in your plan. Record keeper, administrator, advisor, custodian — list them all. More people may be getting paid than you realize.Ask every provider the same question in plain English: How much money have you made from our plan, in dollars, for each of the last three years?Don't accept a percentage as an answer. Push for actual dollar amounts. Fee disclosure documents exist but are often deliberately opaque.Negotiate. You don't need a financial background to pick up the phone and ask your record keeper to reduce your percentage fee. The worst they can say is no.Ask your advisor how many hours they've spent servicing your account, who they spoke to, and what they discussed. If the answer is vague, the fee is worth questioning.Consider whether you need an advisor at all. In participant-directed plans, advisors often aren't making any investment decisions. If services aren't being provided, fees shouldn't be either.Look into flat-fee providers. Companies like Ascensus and Employee Fiduciary offer low-cost, transparent, flat-fee structures that are often comparable in service quality to far more expensive alternatives.Think about paying plan fees at the employer level. It creates cost sensitivity, generates a tax deduction, and protects the tax-advantaged growth inside participant accounts.Connect with Paul Sippil: paulsippil.com : resources, contact info, and more 📧 psippil@paulsippil.com
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Stop Hiring the Wrong People: A Manufacturer's Guide to Getting It Right with Friddy Hoegner
Apr 1300:28:28Tap to summarizeLisa Ryan welcomes Friddy Hoegner, founder of Scope Recruiting and a former procurement and supply chain leader. Friddy helps manufacturing and supply chain companies build the teams that actually keep operations moving and he does it from a perspective most recruiters simply don't have: he's lived the job himself.From Global Supply Chain to the Recruiting DeskFriddy's career began in Germany with ABB in a global rotational supply chain program, where he eventually became a global commodity manager following ABB's acquisition of Thomas & Betts. He later moved into a supply chain manager role with a furniture manufacturer in North Carolina before co-founding Scope Recruiting in 2017 with his wife, who had already identified a critical gap in the market: recruiting firms that specialized in supply chain were staffed almost entirely by people with HR backgrounds, not supply chain experience.That insight became Scope's founding principle. Rather than teaching supply chain professionals how to recruit, Friddy and his wife hired people with supply chain backgrounds and taught them the recruiting side of the business. The result is a firm that clients and candidates alike describe as refreshingly different, because the recruiters actually understand what the job requires.The Hiring Mistake That's Killing RetentionFriddy's most consistent finding across years of working with manufacturers is that retention problems almost always start with the hiring process; specifically, with a failure to define who you're actually looking for before you start looking.The pattern is predictable: a hiring manager submits a generic job description, different stakeholders have entirely different ideas about what the role should accomplish, and the organization moves forward without alignment. The hiring manager wants procurement expertise. The director of operations wants logistics. No one compared notes. The wrong person gets hired. And months later, the company wonders why they have a turnover problem.Friddy's solution is to work with all stakeholders upfront to build an ideal candidate profile; a detailed picture of the skills, experience, and behaviors the role actually requires, along with a clear definition of what success looks like at 6 months and 12 months. From that profile comes a scorecard, submitted with every candidate, that creates a consistent and less biased basis for evaluation.Why ChatGPT Can't Save a Bad Interview ProcessCandidates today can walk into any interview with a ChatGPT-prepared answer to every standard question. Friddy argues this makes the ideal candidate profile and structured interview process more important than ever, not less. When you know the job deeply, you can ask follow-up questions that no AI can prepare someone for. The first answer is rehearsed. The second and third follow-up questions reveal whether someone actually knows what they're talking about.This is precisely where Scope's supply chain background pays off. Generic recruiters can be fooled by a polished surface. Recruiters who've done the job can dig into the weeds and expose the gap between what someone says and what they actually know how to do.Hiring for an AI-Disrupted FutureAs automation and AI reshape manufacturing operations, Friddy cautions against hiring for narrow, specific skill sets that may be obsolete in two to three years. The manufacturers best positioned for the future aren't hiring for what they need today; they're hiring for adaptability, mental aptitude, and a demonstrated willingness to embrace change.Friddy points to a striking example from his time at ABB: a football field-sized factory in Germany producing miniature circuit breakers at the same cost as factories in Indonesia and Argentina, because there were almost no people on the floor. A handful of engineers and maintenance staff. That future, he argues, is closer than most manufacturers realize, which means the people you hire now need to be able to pivot as the environment shifts around them.Competing for Talent When You Can't Win on SalaryThe majority of Scope's clients are mid-market and family-owned manufacturers who will never outspend a Fortune 500 company on compensation or benefits. Friddy's advice: stop trying to compete on salary and start competing on impact.The candidates most valuable to smaller manufacturers are often the ones who've grown frustrated with corporate bureaucracy: the pace, the layers of approval, the distance from real decision-making. Smaller companies can offer something larger ones genuinely cannot: the ability to talk directly to the owner, change something meaningful in a day, and actually see the results of your work. That's a powerful draw for the right candidates, and it costs nothing to offer.Why the Best Candidates Aren't on Job BoardsFriddy is direct about the limits of posting and praying. The top 10% of talent in any field are rarely browsing job boards. Many have never applied for a job in their lives; they get recruited from one role to the next. Reaching them requires dedicated outreach to passive candidates: contacting 100, hearing back from 15 to 20, submitting 3 to 4. It's time-intensive, unglamorous work — but it's how you find the people who are genuinely performing in their current roles rather than actively looking to leave.Red Flags That Signal the Wrong HireTwo interview warning signs Friddy's team watches for consistently:The "my way or the highway" attitude. Candidates who are so confident in how they've done things before that they can't adapt to a new environment. You can hear it in interviews: an overconfidence that signals they'll push their previous playbook regardless of context, without the sensitivity required to build buy-in.The inability to get specific. Candidates who speak in broad strokes about what "we" accomplished but struggle to articulate their own role, the steps they took, or the details of how it actually worked. Behavior-based questions that require specifics will surface this every time.Friddy's Mic-Drop Closing TipWhen you've done the work of defining your ideal candidate profile and you find someone who checks every box, don't hesitate. Don't manufacture reasons to interview three more candidates. The right people are rare, and the hiring process itself can cost you them.Actionable Takeaways for ListenersAlign all stakeholders before you write a job description. Disconnected expectations between hiring managers and leadership are one of the most common and costly hiring mistakes in manufacturing.Build an ideal candidate profile, not just a job posting. Define what success looks like at 6 and 12 months before you evaluate a single resume.Use a scorecard for every candidate. Consistency reduces bias and helps you make better decisions — especially when interviews are spread over days or weeks.Ask behavior-based questions and follow up twice. The first answer is rehearsed. The follow-up questions reveal whether the knowledge is real.Hire for adaptability, not just current skills. In a rapidly automating environment, the ability to pivot matters more than a narrow set of technical expertise.Lead with impact, not salary, when competing against larger companies. Speed of decision-making, access to leadership, and the ability to drive real change are advantages small manufacturers genuinely have.When you find the right person — move.Connect with Friddy Hoegner: scoperecruiting.com: hiring resources, candidate scorecards, and contact info
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