Grace Clark:

To start us out, what is the CSIA and why was it created?

Lisa Richter:

Sure. Well, as an acronym, it’s Control System Integrators Association, and it was started in 1994 by a group of people, men, let’s face it, it was men who were doing the same kind of work. So they were competitors, but they were also a little bit alone, right? It’s a niche market. They were just starting out as entrepreneurs. They were young people, fairly young people, and they realized that they were stronger together. ‘If we can band together and set aside any competitiveness and just really focus on how we can help each other, exchanging experiences, exchanging ideas…’ There was a model that got developed around that time by somebody that was, ‘put one idea in and get 10 out.’ That mantra, that ethos, has continued to this day and you will still see it very much baked into the association. I have been in the association space for my whole career.

I’m not going to say how long because I don’t want you to know how old I am, but a long time, let’s just put it that way. I’ve worked for a lot of associations, and this is a very unique association, this fact that they are basically businesses in competition with each other, whether adjacently or what have you, willing to get together and really open their kimonos, to be honest. We’ll have people being pretty frank with maybe how they messed up and how they recovered from that and the mistakes they made and willing to share that knowledge with each other to help everybody. It’s saying something like a higher tide, lifts all boats or I’m mangling that, but that’s sort of the idea that we can all help each other be better business people and grow our businesses and it’s good for everybody.

Grace Clark:

That’s really awesome. Just curious what drew you personally to the CSIA? Because you mentioned you’d been a part of other organizations. What was it about the CSIA for you?

Lisa Richter:

So associations are my jam. I fell into it. Everybody sort of fell into this career. I started out, I have a journalism major and I started out wanting to be Carrie from Sex in the City. I was going to be this glamorous New York City girl writing feature articles for women’s magazines, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And as it turned out, I did work for some magazines, but they’ve tended to be more consumer facing. And also then I’ve stumbled into the trade press. And from the trade press I started working for associations and association management firms in communications and eventually that kind of morphed into marketing, which I think we’re in this weird space where we still want to keep those two things separate, communications and marketing, but they’re really so blended now. So if you have a publication, you’re still using social media and it’s basically content marketing and it’s very core.

So it just sort of morphed more into marketing. But I still consider myself at my heart of hearts, I’m a writer and this is the sort of talent that can be applied in so many different instances. And with the CSA, again, I love mission-based work. So anytime I can help people do what they want to do, it’s a great profession in that I get to live vicariously. So if I’m working for a medical association, I get to understand what those people are dealing with. If I work for engineers, I get to understand what they’re dealing with, so I really get to experience all these different careers kind of vicariously. So that’s been a super thing. And then what’s really unique about CSIA is because it is a small but mighty organization, I can really affect change. When you work in a bigger organization, you’re affecting change in your small little space and you have a ripple effect for sure.

But for me, being able to… when the pandemic hit and we’re like, ‘oh my goodness, we need to cancel our conference, what are we going to do?’ And it’s literally like me and Jose [Rivera] like, ‘okay, what do you want to do? Let’s try this, let’s try that.’ Or if I come across a new platform or a new project management software that I want to try, nobody is stopping me. I just try it. I just do it. It’s awesome. I love that. I mean, that comes with responsibility too. Sometimes I have heart palpitations at night worrying about making sure that the association’s going to be okay. But overall, I like working with the entrepreneurs here. I enjoy exploring the engineer side of the world. It’s a completely different field for me and getting to know, and it’s all sweeping generalizations, but getting to know the engineers, what makes them tick, understanding how to communicate best with them as a communicator, that’s always your superpower is adjusting your communication to your audience.

And with the engineers, there’s a sense of relief to be honest, because they appreciate, just tell them directly how it is. They’re probably not going to get offended, and if they are, they brush that aside with the idea that this is, they want to know, just tell me, just tell what you want me to do or what you want, I’ll do it. So from that perspective, it’s been a little bit of an eyeopener and a relief and a challenge too. Sometimes I get a little taken aback by how real they are and that takes a minute, but ultimately I really appreciate it. So that’s kind of what it is, entrepreneurial side of things for the system integrators, but also this engineering aspect is just super interesting to me. Like I said, I just never really worried about it before. You just get on the elevator and know it’s going to work, you know what I mean? But now I think, oh my gosh, somebody had to worry about whether this was going to work or not work. I’m grateful for that.

Grace Clark:

Same here. I am very grateful for the elevator doing its job.

Lisa Richter:

When the pandemic hit, there was all this talk about people were worried about everything. They were worried about their water supply. We were washing our groceries, whatever. And I remember talking to one system integrator who was in the water and wastewater field, and I’m like, ‘just tell me we’re going to be okay. There’s no poison in our water.’ And he’s like, ‘we’re fine. We’re absolutely fine. Stop worrying about this aspect of the things.’ It’s just very soothing.

Grace Clark:

I can understand that engineers straightforwardness and these are the facts. Absolutely. Can understand that. Back to the CSIA little bit, what are some of the stories that you hear about what system integrators find the most valuable about the CSIA?

Lisa Richter:

Well, as I mentioned at the heart, really baked into the DNA is this sharing aspect of it. It takes a while for some people to get there though because they’re so used to keeping everything close to the vest. And I will hear every now and again from a system integrator, ‘I don’t need those guys. I’m doing fine over here. I’ve been in business 30 years. I don’t need anybody to tell me my business.’ And I just go, ‘well, have you thought of just approaching it more in a different angle?’ So I think just the sharing, because it can be a little bit lonely in this niche market, nobody really understands you. That sometimes draws people, sometimes they have a very practical need. ‘I need insurance, and the guy down the street doesn’t really understand what I do and I can’t get good rates, so I need to go someplace where people know my business. And the CSIA has this insurance program and they’re used to working with system integrators, so that solves that pain point.’ So sometimes people come to us, they’ve got a pain point, sometimes they get referred to us. In fact, our number one way of getting new members is by referrals. And so that word of mouth thing really is strong for us, and so they just get turned on by somebody else singing our praises. So there’s different reasons why people end up here at the CSIA.

Grace Clark:

And I know that the CSIA also hosts a number of peer groups. What value do people tend to find from those peer groups?

Lisa Richter:

There are different peer groups for different types of work, right? The CEOs and the presidents have various peer groups where they’re signing NDAs and closing the door and being mindful of antitrust issues because that’s a big thing that we all have to worry about when we come to the peer groups is making sure they’re not violating any laws. They’ll just really, again, with that sharing, maybe it’s somebody who’s a little bit more growing in their career. We’ve got an emerging leaders special interest group, we call them special interest groups, that people will get together on a regular basis and a quarterly they get together via Zoom. And there’s just real value of being with your peers who are going through some of the same things. You’re going through the growing pains or the frustrations, or maybe you want to share some joys that you go home and tell your significant other about this great thing happened at work. And they’re like, ‘that’s nice honey.’ But somebody who’s also doing that work might be like, ‘oh yeah, I could see why. That’s super!’ So the peer groups are just a powerful way for people to be amongst the leopards are amongst the leopards, I guess. Feels good to be amongst the people who understand and know what you’re going through.

Grace Clark:

Absolutely. And I know that the CSIA conference is coming up here pretty soon. What is the theme this year for 2024?

Lisa Richter:

So the theme is ‘Leading into the Future,’ and we have done a very deliberate pivot in adjusting the name of the event from the CSIA Executive Conference to the CSIA Conference and dropping that word ‘executive.’ Not that we want to drop our executives, no way we want to do that, but we want to expand the tent and encourage our system integrator companies to bring more than just their C-suite, more than just their leaders, bring their emerging talent because this is good for everybody. It’s good for the system integrator to be able to offer this professional development to their people and also build out their talent. And it’s good for the partner members because they’re meeting more people from the system integration companies, and it’s good for CSIA to build some resilience that we’re building a relationship and stickiness with people deeper into the organization. It’s just better for everybody.

It just makes the whole thing a little bit more enmeshed and a lot more ingredients going into the pot and lots of good things coming out of that mixture and potpourri of people. So we’re being very deliberate and we’ve got content that we are hoping to draw those emerging leaders. We’ve got a whole track for emerging leaders, and then we also have three workshops, which we had the values workshop last year. Best practices workshop, we’ve had pretty year over year. It’s a two-day workshop where people were interested in learning more about the best practices manual or considering getting certified. They can come to this two-day workshop and just get started on that. It can be a little bit overwhelming that, I mean, the best practice is manual is ginormous. I don’t know, it’s hundreds of pages. It’s got different sections for every section of the business.

It can be a little bit overwhelming. So this is a way to start to tackle that elephant one bite at a time. And the values workshop is this is the second year for that one, and that’s really focused on those key KPIs and drivers that you can monitor and leverage to really understand the value your business has. Whether you’re looking to exit now or looking to exit in 30 years, now is the time to start thinking about the KPIs and the ways that you need to position yourself and ways you need to understand your business that you’re positioning yourself for success now and in the future. And at any point, if you do want to exit or have some sort of succession plan in place, you’re positioned to do that in a super strong way. We also have tracks, so we’ve got the Emerging Leader track, we have the Partners in Success track, and we have Stronger Together, I believe. So there’s going to be plenty of information about emerging technologies running your business and a ton of networking.

Grace Clark:

What would you say integrators find the most valuable about this type of conference?

Lisa Richter:

Again, that networking and talking with each other and exchanging war stories, all that kind of stuff, they find that super valuable. This year we have four keynote speakers that are really designed to attract the system integrator executive team. One is a drummer. He was a drummer for some nineties bands or 80 bands. His name is Sandy Genarro and his talk is called ‘Beat the Odds in Business and Life.’ The idea here is that he will be a keynote speaker and help us learn networking skills because he had to transition from being a rock star into regular everyday life. And how he did that and started his own business and just learned how networking could help him succeed beyond the rock world. And he’ll give us a little drumming demonstration. We think it’ll be super high energy, everybody’s stoked. And then we go into the speed networking event.

And then we’ve also got a keynote speaker called Mike Michalowitz. He’s the author of a book called ‘Profit First,’ and this came at the recommendation of one of our board members, I believe, who has read the book, seen the work, and can really highly recommend that. We’ve also got Alex Chaosovsky, he’s a perennial favorite. He’s there year over year, twice a year, usually once in person, once virtual, really data-driven insights on the economy and what to expect, and more importantly, how to use that information. So he might say something like, ‘yes, we’re heading into maybe a soft market in the first part of the year, but don’t let go of your talent. Good bounce back and you’re going to regret it as you have to try and hire those people back because it’s so tight, the market. Here’s what I think you should give in terms of raises because the labor market is so tight,’ or whatever the data’s telling him.

Super popular with our folks who are trying to plan for their businesses. And then the other one is happening on the Friday on her name is Jill Young and she is head coach and expert EOS implementer at EOS Worldwide. I think this is sort of a philosophy or a business approach that’s come from this book named Traction. I need to dig into it a little bit more, but again, it came at the recommendation of the board and who have used this information in their own lives and found it to be super helpful and helped them succeed. So we think those keynote speakers are going to be super popular and really speak to the audience.

Grace Clark:

That’s really exciting. I’m looking forward to it, for sure. But besides these wonderful keynote speakers that you’ve highlighted, is there anything else that you want to mention that integrators could be looking forward to this year at the conference?

Lisa Richter:

We’ve got an optional tour Exploring Cowtown, as I understand it. We take a bus to an auction house because it’s in Dallas, so we wanted to do something super Texas-y, and so I believe it’s a tour of an auction house, so that could be something exciting that’s happening on Friday April 19 if people are staying for that last day. But really I think just the general sharing of information and all the educational stuff, and there’s just too much good stuff to be able to say, this is the one nugget. There’s just too much.

Grace Clark:

There are so many things that happen at the conference every year, and I’ve only been to the conference two times and still it’ll be like, ‘oh, and then that year that happened, and then this year this happened and then I met this person.’ I really enjoy attending the conference. So, the conference also has an expo component. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Lisa Richter:

Sure. So the expo isn’t like your traditional expo, it’s not like PackExpo or some big giant trade show experience. It’s more like a cocktail reception with kiosks. So we will set up, we usually have 50 or 60, we call them ‘exhibitors.’ They’ll have a kiosk where they can put their laptop and maybe a cute little tchotchke or some handouts or whatever. But the experience is really meant to be, again, another networking experience. So people can wander through the expo floor, stop by and visit people they may have met before or meet new people. Just talk about whatever the exhibitors got going on there, have a beverage, have a little snack. It’s very much just a networking opportunity with kiosks more than some sort of big huge expo. But it’s still a great way for system integrators to meet new vendors, see anything new that’s in the marketplace, and make sure that they’re up to date on all the newest technologies and services that are out there.

Grace Clark:

Since this is a marketing podcast, I have to ask about marketing. How does CSIA go about marketing the conference?

Lisa Richter:

Sure. Well, I mean obviously any event that you’re putting on or any product that you’re putting on, you want to use that multi-channel approach, and that just means that anything, any way you’ve got, whether you’ve got a LinkedIn group, you’ve got a company page, you want to do your socials, you want to do your email marketing, you want to do, I mean… Sometimes I have my own podcast talking industrial automation and sometimes I’ll put house ads in that podcast. We have other listservs that we want to send out information. We will do some digital advertising, but usually on our own platform, although we’re going to be experimenting with some LinkedIn advertising for this event this year, it’s always worth experimenting and trying new things. And so we’ll be doing that on LinkedIn and just kind of the usual, all the channels, making sure that we’re being consistent, making sure that we’re being regular with the communications.

Even when you think something’s perfectly clear, you should really rethink. There’s so much miscommunication that can happen so easily. Just really refining our messaging as we go. A lot of deadline drivers. So part of my experience is prior to this job, I worked at another association where it was really all about their trade show and they would bring 16,000 people every year to this trade show, and every year it had to be rebuilt because it wasn’t the same 16,000. It was always maybe half of the people who were coming to that trade show were brand new because this trade show moved from city to city and it would draw from that regional whatever, and you could just never do enough to tell people how to get there. The deadline drivers are always a big huge piece of that. Talking about the benefits and not necessarily the features.

I see people do this all the time where they just want to basically talk about themselves. ‘We have this great blah.’ Well, it’s so much better to say, ‘this great blah will help you,’ or ‘Do you have this problem? This solution will solve it.’ Or, just focusing more on the benefits versus the features. Always a good idea no matter what you’re marketing. The other thing I would say is if you’re using imagery, don’t use empty exhibit halls. Don’t use a booth if nobody’s at the booth. I mean, it seems solely obvious when I say it, but I will see it in other places where maybe the person was too shy to take pictures where it was a full or they didn’t want to go into this meeting that was happening and get in front of the room and try and get the faces of people, so they just take pictures of the backs of people. So they’re facing this. You just have to get over it and just go. And so you’re getting images of people who are engaged, looking, engaged and not looking at their phones. I see that happen all the time, or you’re putting pictures up where people don’t look like they’re having a good time. Just make sure that your images are putting your event in the best light for sure. For an expo, you want to make sure that you are prepping your audience to come see you at your kiosk or your booth. And so if you’re exhibiting at like a Rockwell Automation Fair, send some information out. Do some social postings. ‘Hey, see me at this.’ We should talk about swag too. Swag can draw people to your booth, but where you want to hit that sweet spot is swag.

That’s going to draw the right kind of people to your booth. So I have an example here where two years ago at the Rockwell Automation Fair, I brought my microphone and I thought, I’m going to do a podcast right on the show floor where I’m capturing attendees, have them come over to the microphone record, answer three questions. What are you seeing? That’s great here, tell me a little bit about yourself really quick. One minute: person after person after person. It was an amazing booth draw. It didn’t cost me any money, and I mean I had to haul my equipment, but other than that, it was such a low entry level way to draw lot of people to the booth. I got some content out of it. It was a whole episode that I could use for there. But in terms of really capturing people who are going to be members of CSIA, maybe not so much.

Maybe they just came over, they were curious about the microphone. Maybe they came over because they want to practice their public speaking skills. Maybe they came over for, who knows whatever reason – they’re lonely. I don’t know. So that’s what I mean. If you’re going to have a booth drop, make sure that it’s something that’s drawing the people that you want to draw. This would be, if I was selling microphones, this would be a great way because people are interested in the microphone. So then I’m kind of getting that thing. The other one time I saw some gal was handing out potato peelers, and I’m like, ‘I’ve got to see this. Why is she handing out potato peelers?’ And as it turned out, her machine, whatever it was she was demoing, was peeling potatoes. And it wasn’t about peeling potatoes, it was about how the machine could do a bunch of different things. But what was successful about that was it was very eye-catching. You had to know why there was a potato peeler there. You were happy to take that swag. I mean, who doesn’t want an extra potato peel around the house?

It really tied into her product. I think in that instance it worked, but just generic pens and just generic… I am at war with koozies. I don’t care if I ever see another kooozy in my life. Nobody needs them. They end up in the hotel trash can. So the other tip I would have for people marketing a trade show is ask your speakers to do a video invite. You’d be surprised how many would be willing to do it. Literally, they just take out their phone. They’re not shy about speaking in front of people because they are keynote speakers or they are speakers, whatever, and just ask them, tape yourself introducing yourself and inviting people to your talk. Fifteen seconds, something like that. Everybody’s got a cell phone that can take decent footage right now. I mean all those technology barriers have come down so it’s so easy.

And then you’ve got a piece of content that you put on the socials, you put on your website, super, super easy way. You’re leveraging that keynote, I don’t know, notoriety or fame or resonance with the audience. My other tip is when you are having your event and your onsite, get testimonials, which everybody does, but what they don’t do is get attributions. And so because they’re shy, again, maybe they’re shy or maybe they don’t want to ask, but you should definitely get a photo of the person and get their details, their title, their name, and make sure you’re spelling the name correctly, where they work, get their permission to use it. It’s so much more powerful when you see a testimonial with a real person with a real job title versus anonymous really takes the oomph out of those testimonials. If you’re going to take the time to get the testimonials, take the time to get the attribution.

Grace Clark:

Kind of a follow-up to that, because I think you touched on it a little bit, but what advice would you have for marketers who are promoting their own events, maybe a in-person event, like an open house or something like that, or a virtual event or say maybe a that they’re hosting? What would you recommend to them?

Lisa Richter:

So consistency is the big key for me. And also people want you to say, ‘I’m definitely going to have X number of people at this webinar. I’m going to have X number of people at this, whatever.’ Particularly if it’s a sponsored thing though, they want you to give them the guarantee that you’re going to have butts in seats. And I’m here to tell you that we can do everything right. It can do everything right. Hit every social post at exactly the right time where everybody’s online, all that good stuff. If the content isn’t there, if basically it’s the product. If the product is a dog, the product is a dog, but being just really super consistent about sometimes you feel like you’re just repeating yourself over and over and over again. But the thing is, people aren’t opening every single email that you sent. People aren’t seeing every single post that you put on LinkedIn. So over communicate about your event, again, focus on the benefits of the event. Use that multi-channel approach. Make sure you’re thinking of all your little hidey holes for ways to reach folks, get that message out there.

Grace Clark:

Circling back to the conference, what are you personally most excited for at this year’s conference

Lisa Richter:

At CSIA? We talked about having a marketing workshop in conjunction with the conference in 2024, and Jose asked me to work on that. So I got together a team of some amazing women, many of whom are Rivergate Marketing people and a couple other system integrator marketers and other people. And we got together and we have made the marketing workshop that I would want for myself, right? I’ve totally thought about how are we going to make it fun? Let’s have music, let’s have theme music. Let’s have topics that really address our pain points. I don’t want fluff. I don’t want to go in there and talk about theory, forget theory, tell me I have KPIs I have to meet if I’m going to take the time out of my day, I want to make sure that I’m using that time and I come away with solid advice and worksheets and checklists, and I want all that practical advice.

So when we talked about building this workshop, that was a part of what we wanted to ensure that our attendees were going to literally walk away with custom reports. I think Rivergate is going to supply a custom SEO report for all the companies, assuming the companies are sending in their information. But we’re really just determined that our attendees are going to walk away with super practical insights. We’ve tried to address all some of the pain points like content. I mean, content is constantly an issue in this technically-driven atmosphere in our marketplace. Always a challenge. Engineers don’t want to write. Engineers barely want to talk half the time. And so we all know that’s a super challenge. Then we’re going to try and help people solve for that. So we’ve got all kinds of different sessions lined up. And again, thanks to Rivergate Marketing, we have secured an amazing keynote speaker, Jay Schwedelson, who is a B2B email marketing specialist, although he does do some B2C stuff.

His company sends out 40,000 emails a year or something crazy like that, and he mines all the data from that, all those emails. And he pretty regularly speaks at Inbound and some of the big-name marketing conferences. And he also will do webinars. So he’s going to be joining us via video conference, and I’m just super excited about the whole thing. The content’s going to be great. I think we’re going to draw, I mean, just based on what I’ve dealt with the presenters and the planning committee, super smart, super talented people who really understand this market, I’m totally stoked about it.

Grace Clark:

I think that this is going to be something that when I first came into this industry, I wish had existed for me to be able to attend more than just, I came from a background, I had a marketing degree. Obviously you need experience on top of that degree, but this industry is so much more than just understanding marketing. There’s so much more to it, and I think this is going to be a really cool resource for people who are interested in doing marketing in the system integration and engineering world. 

I’m really excited to, for one, just see it come to life. Everybody is so passionate about what they’re talking about. I think it’s going to be a really, really fun event. Our keynote speaker, he is pretty fantastic. He has a great podcast that you can actually listen to. And just seeing everyone every year, it’s so nice to see and meet new people. I look forward to it every year. I get to see people who are my clients there at the conference. It’s a really wonderful time.

Lisa Richter:

Super excited about it.

Grace Clark:

Absolutely. As my final question, where can people go to find more information about the conference?

Lisa Richter:

You can go to controlsys.org/events/2024conference.