Episode 18
Automation, Quality Products, and Great Service with Aaron Kuhls
In today's episode, Grace talks to Aaron Kuhls, the CEO and Co-founder of AL-INS Enterprises, a separation equipment company. Aaron and his business partner Eric Heiling started the company with a vision to pass it on to their kids. Their primary clientele are dairy farmers; however, they also provide services in the food waste industry by separating solids from water after process completion.
They now specialize in industrial automation such as welding, sheet metal fabrication machining, etc. In order to gain trust among customers prior to launching, they did extensive testing. To protect the industry's reputation, they focused on quality products and great service. Aaron highlights the biggest challenge was making sure that the product was reliable enough so farmers would not be hesitant about using it, which required building relationships with potential buyers with handshakes, trustworthiness, and confidence without ego.
Ready to learn more about how AL-INS Enterprises grew grown into a successful industry-leading farm equipment company? Tune in to hear how they've expanded their dealer network and extended their product offerings all around the country. Listen to Aaron share his story of transitioning from part-time to full-time with his prototype product and how he got his kids involved in taking care of their website and social media, which is invaluable as customers look online for products or services they need.
Episode Highlights
08:03 - Far more important than the actual, we have to have a good quality piece of equipment, but taking care of the customer afterwards is one of those top things that is lacking in some of our competitors.
11:47 - We've gotten to the point where the person who was doing the testing was happier with our prototype than their existing machine. So, that's where we said, "Okay, I think we might have something here."
16:56 - I think the biggest challenge was to make sure that the product was as good as we had hoped, to the point where it's making a different sort of thought. A farmer is not looking at it as a piece of equipment that's not going to work. We're still working on improving that. I think that's important to make it something that doesn't need to be tended to.
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