Raw Material

AI is coming for manufacturing, but I'm not interested in another piece of software that promises to replace machinists with the push of a button. I want technology that actually understands what happens on the shop floor and helps good people get more done.

That's why I was excited to sit down with David Priev from Limitless Labs during IMTS 2026. His team is building an AI-powered CAM programming assistant that works alongside machinists, helping them program parts faster, troubleshoot problems, and cut through the tedious work that slows down production.

We get into how Limitless Labs is teaching AI to understand the physics of machining, why the next generation of manufacturing software needs domain experts, and what happens when you connect programming, machine data, and inspection results. We also tackle the questions every shop owner should be asking about AI, including ITAR compliance, data privacy, and whether your programs are being used to train someone else's model.

For me, the opportunity isn't replacing our most experienced people. It's giving them better tools, bringing new talent up to speed faster, and improving the one thing that ultimately drives profitability: throughput.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:00) Why AI could change the future of software engineering and manufacturing
• (0:52) Dave's engineering background and introduction to CNC machining
• (5:52) Addressing the CNC programming bottleneck with AI
• (6:25) Work ahead of your machines with the Hennig WorkFlow Automation system
• (7:17) The Limitless Labs founding team and rapid company growth
• (10:41) Why Limitless Labs shifted its focus from quoting to CAM programming
• (13:56) Using AI to accelerate employee training and improve throughput
• (15:16) Kennametal tooling helps manufacturer cut faster and run longer 
• (16:04) The vision for an AI machinist that connects programming, inspection, and machine data
• (18:01) Simplifying CMM reports and reducing manufacturing iterations
• (19:52) Jamie's firsthand experience with the Limitless Labs software
• (21:10) Raising venture capital and educating investors about CNC manufacturing
• (23:18) Why domain expertise is becoming increasingly valuable in the AI era
• (24:17) Building reliable industrial AI software and teaching AI to understand CAD models
• (26:28) Capturing the tribal knowledge of experienced machinists
• (28:32) ITAR, CMMC, data privacy, and protecting proprietary CAM programs
• (31:08) Why improving throughput is essential to competing and winning business

Resources Mentioned

• Mastercam
• Siemens
• ProShop ERP
• Machine Shop Mastery Podcast
• IMTS
• Hennig Workflow Automation System
• Kennametal
• MakingChips

How to Connect with David Priev

• Connect with David Priev on LinkedIn
• Limitless Labs

I used to think core values were nonsense. White collar guys in stuffed shirts telling each other how great their culture is, and then you pull up their Glassdoor page and the place is a hellhole. So I skipped that part for fifteen years. I was dead wrong, and I'm fine saying it. That's where the growth is.

We hung a QR code on the conference room wall and asked every single person here, not just the leadership team, to name three values they admire in a coworker. The words that came back got dumped into ChatGPT and came out as GRIT 3D. Growth, respect, integrity, teamwork, and then dedication, dependability, and detail in place of dark, dirty, and dangerous. Grit is the whole company. It felt like it was meant to be.

Then it got uncomfortable. Cutting 28% of the company. Finding out that when somebody lives your values and still can't produce, that one is on me and not on them. Fifteen years in, I finally feel like a president at this company instead of an employee, and I owe it to a book.

What's Covered in this Episode

• (0:42) The second half of my review of Paul Van Metre's Precision Manufacturing, Precision Business
• (2:01) Why I wrote off core values as corporate nonsense for years (and why I was dead wrong)
• (4:27) Running through a word cloud exercise with our entire team and what it showed us
• (6:25) What GRIT 3D stands for, and redefining dark, dirty, dangerous
• (7:20) Why we downsized 28% at the start of the year (and how things improved)
• (8:27) Hiring for skill instead of character, and why it always ends the same way
• (10:07) Why we love SMW Autoblok workholding 
• (10:48) A few examples of the ‘Peter Principle’ in play at Marzilli Machine
• (13:18) Swapping our shipping manager and our office manager—and both throughputs took off
• (14:11) The easiest way to make the Traction framework work for your shop
• (16:47) The personal win and business win I wanted to cut and why I never will 
• (18:56) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders and why you should use it
• (19:26) Rating the meetings one to ten (and what the meetings brought to light)
• (21:46) What’s working at Marzilli Machine and what needs improvement
• (26:00) What’s next for Marzilli Machine? 

Resources Mentioned

• Precision Manufacturing, Precision Business by Paul Van Metre
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
• Traction and the EOS system
• SMW Autoblok
• Hire MFG Leaders
• ProShop ERP
• IMTS

Connect with Jamie Marzilli

• Connect on LinkedIn
• [email protected]
• MakingChips

Paul Van Metre's book isn't a general business book with a machining chapter bolted onto it. It's built for this industry, and one sentence in it has been digging in my ribs for three weeks: "If precision matters on the shop floor, it has to matter in the business too."

Reading it back made me realize something that I didn't want to admit. What got me here isn't going to take me there.

This one isn't comfortable. It's me admitting I'm not as good at this as I thought I was, and then doing something about it. Stick around for part 2.

• (0:45) Why I'm doing my first book review, and how Paul Van Metre's manuscript blew my mind
• (3:58) Five or six evolutions since my wife dared me to start this company at 31
• (4:29) The harsh review I gave Paul, and wondering later if I was the hard reader
• (5:11) The six levels of machine shop managers, and why that early pain never leaves you
• (5:56) The one sentence in the book that's been digging in my ribs for three weeks
• (6:59) Investing ProShop ERP is an investment in your business
• (8:38) The myth of heroics, and why being a great machinist doesn't make you a good owner
• (11:30) Which shop am I? Admitting out loud that I'm not holding those margins
• (13:13) Why you're better off doing nothing than doing something for a loss
• (15:00) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders (and why you should use it)
• (15:29) The Goal, the theory of constraints, and why your biggest bottleneck defines your throughput
• (16:38) Six new spindles, a 13,000 square foot building, and the same output as before
• (19:41) Quality control should be staffed like an emergency room, and the hire that erased that bottleneck
• (20:42) The bottleneck moved to the front of the shop—and it turned out to be me
• (21:41) Why we’ve begun implementing the EOS system at Marzilli machine

• “Precision Manufacturing, Precision Business” by Paul Van Metre
• ProShop ERP
• Hire MFG Leaders
• The Machine Shop Mastery Podcast
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
• Traction and the EOS system

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Raw Material on Spotify
• Raw Material on Apple
• MakingChips

It's been a rough couple of months in the shop. This isn't a blame session, it's a post mortem. Two things went wrong at the same time. One of them was on us. One of them wasn't. Both are worth understanding, because I'd bet at least one of them is sitting inside your company right now, just waiting.

The first one was an ownership gap. A handful of staffing decisions that each made sense on their own stacked up and left a hole nobody was standing in, and a daily quality check quietly stopped happening. We knew what needed to be done. We knew how to do it. We never said how often, or who owned it. That's the whole failure.

The second one wasn't about how we made the part at all. We've got parts that pass every spec on the print, the customer agrees they pass, and the customer still can't use them. That's the conversation nobody wants to have out loud, so I'm having it here. I walk through both failures, what they cost us, and the three changes we made so neither one can happen the same way twice.

• (0:00) Whose fault is it when engineers tighten tolerances instead of doing the functional design work
• (0:45) Two long term jobs, two failures at once, and only one of them was on us
• (2:14) The staffing moves that left our quality department fragile, and the five whys that found what actually broke
• (4:34) Part A: a failure with time-blocked accountability and in-process checks
• (5:40) Part B: A customer rejecting parts against a revision they never sent us
• (7:42) Sign up for the machine giveaway sponsored by DN Solutions and Kennametal
• (8:27) Two shades of turquoise (parts may pass every spec and the customer still rejects it)
• (12:16) Work on a solution with your customer that is mutually beneficial
• (13:58) What we learned from part A and part B
• (14:40) An investment in ProShop ERP is an investment in your business
• (16:16) What we changed: Better systems and time blocking based on roles
• (17:49) What we’re still working on: quarterly system reviews
• (18:37) We're not qualified because of titles, we're qualified because we have scars

• MakingChips Machine Giveaway
• IMTS
• Hennig
• ProShop ERP
• DN Solutions
• Kennametal

• Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
• Marzilli Machine
• MakingChips

Tom Brown came back for round two, and this time we tackled the question that could change everything: Should he buy a machine shop now, or go work in one first?

He has his eye on a highly certified, 40-person shop serving prime customers, but buying it means taking on serious financial and operational risk. We break down what actually matters before signing: quality systems, tribal knowledge, employee retention, training, customer health, and whether the business can survive losing key people.

I also challenged Tom on his lack of technical experience and shared a cautionary story about a shop that unraveled after one critical employee left.

I wasn't trying to talk him out of buying a shop. I wanted to see if he could be talked out of it.

He didn't budge. That's why I think he's got a shot.

• (1:08) Why Tom sees trade shows as his fastest way to add value
• (2:15) Cobots versus caged robots
• (3:53) Manufacturers reps, veteran owned status, and the ISO 9001 and AS9100 wall to climb
• (6:01) Quality management versus quality control (and why customers care about your systems)
• (7:40) Why you need to check out the Hennig Workflow Automation System
• (8:31) How much capital you can raise decides everything about the deal you get
• (10:38) Family culture, and why I’m considering slowing our growth rate
• (11:15) The SBA caps manufacturing loans (and where to cap your spend)
• (15:53) Why I would rather make parts than run the business
• (18:24) What happens to guys who retire and stop
• (19:49) Why the shop runs on teaching, not on yelling
• (21:42) Can you succeed in this without coming up as a machinist?
• (22:48) Head to the IMTS Industrial AI Conference, Wednesday, September 16
• (23:38) The reshoring debate: tariffs, raw material, and the supply chain we never built
• (26:50) Local labor rates, global competition, and why no other trade has to do this
• (28:23) Venture capital is all over manufacturing: here's why
• (29:40) My job is to make you wonder if you’re doing the right thing 
• (33:36) Create inspection plans without manual data entry with Ground Control
• (34:16) Tribal knowledge, why we haven't been back to the moon, and going paperless
• (35:55) The indicators that actually matter: turnover, training, days to pay, bankable customers
• (37:45) The stamping shop that lost one key employee and went out of business
• (39:10) De-risking the buy, building redundancy, and being first in and last out

• Hennig Workflow Automation System
• IMTS Industrial AI Conference
• Ground Control
• ProShop ERP
• MakingChips Machine Shop MBA
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

• Connect with Tom Brown on LinkedIn

Everybody wants to own a machine shop until they find out what it actually costs them. This time I sat down with Tom Brown, a guy who just walked out of Harvard with an MBA and seven years in the Marine Corps behind him, and he wants to buy a shop. Good for him. But I gave him the version nobody else will.

You might work harder than anyone you've ever met for less money than you've ever made in your life. That's not me being negative. That's the truth about this business, and it's a truth just about every owner I know has lived through.

We got into the whole thing. SBA 7A loans, seller financing, and why so many shops sit at break even on paper because they've quietly turned into lifestyle businesses. How a bank reads the books. What to check before you sign: how old the equipment is, how stable the customer list is, and how old the people on the floor are.

Because here's the part that matters most. Owning a shop is like running a baseball team where every day is the playoffs. There's no triple-A farm club feeding you talent. Interview a hundred people and maybe one is a real class 3 machinist. The silver tsunami is real, a whole generation got pushed away from the trades, and if you lose your people you don't just lose the shop, you go bankrupt.

So we talked about the real path in. Get a job at a shop first. Find a mentor. Maybe partner with somebody who already knows how to cut metal. Write the business plan, because you haven't started anything until you have. And understand cashflow like you know yourself, because payroll doesn't care about your bad month. If you've ever thought about owning a shop, start here.

• (0:00) You might work harder than anyone you've ever met for less money than you've ever made
• (0:46) Meet Tom Brown: Seven years in the Marine Corps, then Harvard for an MBA
• (5:56) Buying a shop from a retiring owner vs a safe corporate career
• (9:07) Why buy a shop instead of starting one from scratch
• (11:40) Check out the IMTS Job Shops Workshop and Networking Reception
• (12:32) Owning a shop is like running a baseball team where every day is the playoffs
• (14:00) Why Massachusetts wins: MassMEP, MIT, WPI, and strong grant support
• (15:41) Why Tom chose manufacturing and land on machining
• (17:05) What size shop, SBA 7A loans, and seller financing
• (18:35) How banks read the books and the due diligence process
• (20:13) Workforce development issues (and what I do to combat that)
• (23:16) The machine mix at the show Tom is looking at
• (25:17) Investing in ProShop is an investment in your business 
• (26:52) Get a job at a shop first (and the 70 year old owner with no successor)
• (30:11) Days to pay, net terms, and how big customers finance on your back
• (33:15) Payroll could be 35,000 dollars a week—and a bad month can bury you fast
• (35:41) You haven't started buying a shop until you've written the business plan
• (37:05) Cashflow as the one universal truth, and why the show is called Raw Material

• IMTS Job Shops Workshop and Networking Reception
• ProShop ERP
• SBA 7(a) Loan Program
• MassMEP, the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership

• Connect with Tom Brown on LinkedIn

Everybody in this industry is getting sold the same scary story right now: AI is coming for your shop, and if you're small, you're finished. Chris Stevens, the MFG coach, and I think that's backwards.

The little guys, the owner operators and the shops under 30 people, might be holding the strongest hand in the whole game. They're fast. They're nimble. They can move on this stuff over a weekend while the big primes are still stuck in a committee meeting and an Excel spreadsheet.

We also get into the trap, because it's real. It's way too easy to burn six months building some AI tool to solve a 90 second problem. Feels like progress. Zero return. If you own the place, every hour you spend has to point back at one thing, and that's cash.

And no, AI isn't taking your machinists' jobs. What it's actually doing is ripping out the admin that drags your best people off the floor. Clean data still wins. Relationships still win. DFM still wins. And the shops that treat their people like the IP they are are the ones that come out ahead.

This one runs the whole gauntlet: the 50 billion dollar fear machine, why the best shops in the country stay invisible while the hellholes go viral, the dying apprenticeship, and whether these AI brains eventually end up driving robots on your floor. Let's get into it.

• (0:00) The trap: burning six months to automate a 90 second problem
• (1:01) Chris Stevens: From the floor to the front office to consulting
• (3:43) A client who killed paid ads, leaned into LinkedIn, and filled his pipeline
• (6:48) The downside of AI: It can pull you off your core focus for weeks
• (7:31) The CRIT framework: context, role, interview, task
• (8:50) The one rule for entrepreneurs: is this going to produce cash?
• (10:39) Any investment in ProShop is an investment in your business
• (12:15) How 6 years of Industry 4.0 data became a company brain named Dex
• (16:32) Why clean, structured data is so undervalued (too many people use Excel) 
• (18:07) The 50 billion dollar narrative: fear sells, and layoffs weren't really about AI
• (19:35) The money goes to those who push AI to the edge, not those who build it
• (22:25) AI won't take jobs, it removes the barriers that stop good shops from competing
• (25:29) The five year vision: same price, twice the quality and tolerance
• (26:35) Role duplication and the knowledge crisis in our industry
• (30:41) Why Marzilli does DFM for free: sales through giving
• (31:27) Why you need to head to theIMTS Industrial AI Conference
• (34:08) Private equity and venture capital moving into manufacturing
• (36:14) Why manufacturing roll-ups fall apart: it's a bottom-up talent business
• (37:16) Culture matters: what happens after the owner or key manager leaves
• (41:19) Getting out of your bubble with NTMA, AMT, and community groups
• (47:10) Multimodal AI: cameras for eyes, mics for ears, sensors for touch
• (49:35) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders (and why you should use it)
• (50:04) Where humanoids win, and where one-off parts stop them cold
• (55:27) Why small to midsize shops are in the prime seat right now

• ProShop ERP
• IMTS Industrial AI Conference
• Hire MFG Leaders
• HighQA Inspection Manager
• NTMA 
• AMT
• Hadrian

• The Home of MFG
• Connect with Chris on LinkedIn

Everybody wants the highlight reel. The 13,000 square foot shop, the wall of CNC machines, the certifications on the wall. Nobody wants to hear about the two toilets, the seven parking spots for 26 people, or the rigger who sliced a neighbor's Tahoe clean in half. That's exactly the part we're telling you today.

This is the first episode Lee and I have done together, so we figured we'd start where it all started. We met on match.com back in 2010. A few months in, she told me to go get a job. I did, hated it, and then she dared me to start my own shop. That dare turned into Marzilli Machine.

We walk through the stuff the how-to-start-a-business books skip right over. Writing a real business plan with the SBA. Convincing a bank to bet on you. Zoning, remediation, and finding a building nobody could ever find. Starting with one 1997 Haas and a surface grinder in a garage wedged between apartment buildings in Fall River.

We also get into the grind nobody brags about. Eighty to a hundred hour weeks. Sleeping on a pullout couch at the shop. Doing payroll from a hospital bed and again before the honeymoon. Moving 22 machines in three days with 35 Gaylords and a spreadsheet. And the certifications that decide what work you're even allowed to quote, from ISO to AS9100 to a CMMC bill that's pushing good owners into retirement.

If you're working for somebody right now and wondering what it takes to go out on your own, this one's for you. No fluff, no filters. Just how it actually happened.

• (0:00) A rigger forgets to pull the truck wheels in and slices a neighbor's Tahoe in half
• (1:09) How Lee and I met on match.com (and why she thought I was a jobless bum)
• (2:30) Quitting a boss who didn't get the shop floor, and the dare to start my own
• (3:07) Writing the first business plan, plus Lee's MBA and machining family
• (5:01) The SBA and MSBDC, and pinning down rent, power, payroll, and equipment
• (7:07) What the bank really wants, plus zoning, remediation, and a grandfathered shop
• (10:18) ProShop ERP: why I invested in myself first and saw ROI in weeks
• (11:54) One 1997 Haas, bad electrical, 7 parking spots, and moving 22 machines in 3 days
• (14:47) Lee joining the business and achieving significant growth
• (15:38) Why UPS and DHL wreck your parts, and how to package aerospace work
• (17:04) Lee back at work days after giving birth to make a client meeting
• (18:55) The grit nobody brags about: 80 to 100 hour weeks and sleeping at the shop
• (20:12) The certs that unlock better work, and what ISO, AS9100, and CMMC really cost
• (21:57) Owners aging out, shops closing, and private equity consolidating the industry
• (22:38) Elevate at IMTS 2026: leadership and community with AMT and Women in Manufacturing
• (23:30) Lee's side of the shop: HR, books, financials, and financing the move
• (24:38) My road from machinist at 15 to shop owner, and learning to lead
• (27:30) Turning tribal knowledge into work orders, and splitting online from offline work
• (29:17) What's next: solo deep-dives, Lee's interviews, and guests

• ProShop ERP
• Elevate at IMTS 2026
• Titans of CNC Academy
• U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
• Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (MSBDC)

• Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
• Connect with Lee on LinkedIn
• Marzilli Machine

Every shop owner I know is fighting the same war: where do the next machinists come from, and who is going to pay to train them? On this one I sat down with my own congressman, Jake Auchincloss, who came down to the shop with a plan that actually puts money behind the problem. 

Why not make big tech build a thousand trade schools across the country, surge one-on-one tutoring to every K-12 student, and make the social media corporations foot the bill? It is bold, it is specific, and it is the freshest idea on workforce I have heard in a long time.

Jake does not pull punches, and neither do I. He calls the social media platforms what he thinks they are: not content companies, but pharmaceutical companies selling dopamine to kids whose brains cannot fight back. Digital fentanyl. We get into how they lobby Congress, the three lines they run every time, and why he thinks the states, not Washington, are going to be the ones to tax their ad revenue and put it back into education.

But this is a shop floor show, so we did not stay in policy land. I told him the truth about what training really costs, the 300 percent you eat on a new hire, the forty grand it takes to fix a spindle after a crash, and why the small shops doing two to fifteen million in revenue are the ones who need to be protected and paid to bring young people in. We argued lottery versus merit for getting kids into trade schools, why we are failing young men, and why the best machinists in their sixties and seventies should be treated like the celebrities they are.

Then we went wide. The new space race and what it is doing to aerospace demand. Drones, defense, and why we should be learning from Ukraine. The K-shaped economy. Tariffs that Jake never even got to vote on. Local banks as the backbone of small manufacturing. Energy costs and the case for nuclear. And a real conversation about AI, where I make the case that it grows shops instead of gutting them, the same way Industry 4.0 did.

This is a long one because it earned it. Two builders, one machinist and one congressman, trying to figure out how we actually fix the workforce instead of just complaining about it. Pour a coffee and dig in.

• (1:00) Rep. Jake Auchincloss: 1,000 trade schools, K-12 tutoring, paid for by social media corporations
• (2:01) Why the 2020 school closures were a catastrophe kids haven't recovered from
• (3:07) Taxing the attention-frackers, and the three pillars of a real trade school
• (5:05) Jamie's shop-floor truth: training costs, crashes, paying machinists, protecting small shops
• (9:23) The problem with trade schools (and what we think you should do to to fix it) 
• (13:37) How we fail young men, and why purpose, teams, and rules matter
• (15:52) Why social media companies are dopamine dealers—not content platforms
• (17:36) The temperance argument, and how Big Tech lobbies Congress to dodge it
• (19:12) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders (and why you should use it)
• (19:40) Where the bill lands: why the states will lead with ad-revenue levies
• (21:12) Accreditation red tape, and the free Titans of CNC curriculum
• (23:16) A small-group training model, and why a case of parts beats a credential
• (26:17) The manufacturing Renaissance: aerospace, space, defense, and drones
• (30:04) The K-shaped economy and why certs like AS9100 draw the line
• (31:15) Precision tiers: how medical work compares to aerospace
• (32:27) Massachusetts' edge in high-mix precision (and the grant red tape that holds it back)
• (36:04) How ProShop ERP can help your shop achieve on-time delivery
• (37:38) Which trade-school model works, plus discipline and keeping a job
• (40:54) How to help more shops start and why tax credits miss the unprofitable
• (42:54) Shoutout: Local banks are the backbone of small manufacturing
• (45:02) Locally priced and globally sold: the squeeze on American shops
• (46:00) Energy costs, solar rules, and the case for building nuclear
• (48:24) Why you should register for the IMTS Job Shops Workshop
• (49:18) Tariffs: no vote, all uncertainty, and the run-on-gas effect
• (51:47) Tariff outputs or subsidize inputs? The post-war order and how China cheated
• (54:40) AI in Congress and why it disrupts and creates jobs like Industry 4.0
• (58:02) WarpCore, edge agents, and growing a shop 5x instead of cutting it 80%
• (1:02:22) Why ingenuity is the wall AI keeps hitting, from CAD/CAM to AI poetry
• (1:03:57) Why this goes the way of the internet (and staying optimistic with guardrails)

• Hire MFG Leaders
• ProShop ERP
• IMTS Job Shops Workshop
• Titans of CNC Academy
• Marzilli Machine
• WarpCore AI

• Jake Auchincloss (U.S. House website)
• Rep. Jake Auchincloss on Facebook

In Part 2 of my conversation with Mark Manuel, we move beyond marketing tactics and start talking about something much bigger: the future of manufacturing itself.

Everybody is talking about AI right now. Most of them have no idea what they're talking about. Mark has spent his career sitting at the intersection of technology, manufacturing, and sales, and he brings a refreshingly practical perspective to the conversation. We discuss what AI can actually do today, where it's already creating value, and why blindly trusting it is a mistake. More importantly, we talk about how manufacturers can use technology to become more competitive without losing sight of the human relationships that still drive this industry.

The conversation also takes an unexpected turn into workforce development, trade schools, and the challenges of attracting the next generation into manufacturing. As someone who regularly works with vocational schools and young machinists, this is a topic I care deeply about. We get into the stigma manufacturing still carries, whether trade schools are selecting the right students, and what it will take to rebuild America's industrial base over the next decade.

What I appreciate most about Mark is that he never gets distracted by shiny objects. Whether he's talking about AI, automation, websites, or sales, everything comes back to solving real problems for real people. That's what this episode is about. Not technology for technology's sake. Not marketing buzzwords. Just practical ideas for building stronger manufacturing businesses and a stronger manufacturing workforce.

If you're interested in where manufacturing is headed, how AI will impact our industry, and what shop owners should be focusing on right now, this conversation is worth your time.

• (0:00) Jamie recaps Part 1 and introduces a discussion on AI, automation, and the future of manufacturing
• (0:53) Mark explains how technology and customer intent data can help manufacturers uncover hidden opportunities
• (5:24) The origins of SiteSonar and why understanding demand matters more than having a beautiful website
• (6:37) Using data to identify high-intent buyers and focus limited sales resources where they matter most
• (8:46) Jamie shares lessons on networking, referrals, and building trust through relationships
• (11:17) How AI transformed content creation and why Mark embraced tools like ChatGPT early
• (13:13) Using technology and data to uncover new markets and growth opportunities
• (15:13) Your buyers have technical questions. Navu delivers reliable, accurate answers. Learn more at Navu.co/MakingChips
• (16:27) Trade shows, manufacturing associations, and the power of telling your story
• (17:51) Jamie and Mark discuss workforce development, trade schools, and attracting young people to manufacturing
• (22:09) Why manufacturing still carries an outdated stigma and how the industry can change that perception
• (23:43) The debate around aptitude, education, and who should have access to trade school opportunities
• (28:56) Mark's advice for manufacturers: understand your market, communicate your capabilities, and focus on page-level marketing
• (30:08) Why you need to listen to the Lights Out podcast
• (30:32) Mark shares his vision for the future of manufacturing, automation, robotics, and connected factories
• (32:39) How AI, APIs, and digital systems will change the way manufacturers discover suppliers and customers
• (34:14) Mark's three-step blueprint for growing a manufacturing company from the ground up

• Massachusetts Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC)
• Missouri Association of Manufacturing
• TITANS OF CNC
• Skills USA
• Why you need to listen to the Lights Out podcast
• Industrial Marketing
• Mark Manuel on LinkedIn

• MakingChips.com
• Connect on LinkedIn