Sales Isn't Dead. But the Old Way Is — with Scott Grimes (Donaldson Filtration)
In This Episode
Scott Grimes doesn't call himself a salesman — and that may be exactly why he has kept customers for decades. Grimes has been in industrial filtration and process sales since 1990, and today handles sanitary and high-purity filtration for pharmaceutical and food manufacturing customers at Donaldson Company. His resume runs from New Jersey refineries and coal-fired power plants to Chobani yogurt plants and craft breweries, and his method has never changed: put on the boots and the hard hat, walk the plant, and understand the process before you talk about the product.
In episode 3 of the Fully Open Podcast, recorded at the Valve Manufacturers Association in Alexandria, Virginia, host Gilbert Welsford Jr. — third-generation owner of ValveMan.com — sits down with Grimes to dig into what actually still works in industrial B2B sales. The two have known each other for roughly 15 years, and it shows: this is a candid conversation between two people who sell technical products into the same plants.
If you run a facility, manage a sales team, or are trying to bring young people into the trades, this episode is a masterclass in why the old high-pressure playbook is dead — and what replaced it.
Key Takeaways
- Sell the process, not the product. Grimes says learning what the customer makes and how they make it is the single most important skill in industrial sales, whether you sell filters or valves.
- You are your customer's customer. Every salesperson in food and beverage is also a consumer — look in your own refrigerator and think about what it takes to make those products safe, fresh, and shelf-stable.
- Read the value chain right to left. Start with the consumer's needs, then the producer's, and only then decide how to approach them as a supplier.
- Commoditization is inevitable — differentiation is a choice. Simple products will always be price-driven, but high-CapEx projects and critical control points still demand a human, empathetic sales approach.
- A botched sales call isn't a failure if you learn from it. Grimes compares sales to ice climbing: backing off a route — or losing a deal — is retraining for the next attempt.
- Retail and restaurants are elite sales training. A year in either teaches you more about people, and yourself, than most formal programs.
- The knowledge gap is now bigger than the skills gap. Young talent is entering the trades again, but decades of application knowledge is retiring faster than it's being transferred.
You Are Your Customer's Customer
The idea Welsford wrote down mid-episode — the one he took straight back to his own team — is deceptively simple. When Grimes trains newcomers in food and beverage filtration, he starts by reminding them that they already buy the products their customers make.
"First and foremost, you are one of your customer's customers. You're a consumer."
From there, Grimes teaches people to trace the chain backward: what does the end consumer care about, what does that force the producer to care about, and what does that mean for the vendor standing in the lobby? Welsford brings it home with a story about selling sanitary valves to a co-packer that makes the spaghetti sauce his own family eats — the same red sauce that will flow through the valves he just sold them. When consumers demand cleaner labels and more natural ingredients, that pressure travels all the way upstream to the valves, pumps, and filters and strainers in the line.
Breaking the Chains of Commoditization
Welsford and Grimes both see the same forces flattening industrial relationships: e-commerce, consolidation, and private equity rolling up small companies with short-horizon return expectations. Grimes doesn't fight the economics — cash is king, he concedes — but he draws a sharp line around where the human element still wins.
"I feel such a need to break away, to break those chains of commoditization, because I think it devalues me, and that bothers me."
A $10 melt-blown cartridge from a big-box store doesn't need an enriching buying experience. But an automated three-way hygienic valve with position indicators, sitting at a critical control point in a pharmaceutical or food process? That still requires engineers, suppliers, and salespeople evaluating the application together — and as batch runs grow from 50,000 to 200,000 gallons, Grimes argues the need for that kind of consultative selling is actually increasing. His competitive bar has never moved:
"I was told a long time ago that I only needed to be 10% better than the guy that was in last. And I took that to heart, and I always wanted to be like 110% better."
Closing the Knowledge Gap Before It Retires
The most urgent stretch of the conversation is about people, not products. Grimes describes what he calls the "Frankenstein effect": plants bolting new technology onto 1960s-era equipment, then relying on the veteran operators who know how to nurse the machines to life — right up until those operators retire without transferring what's in their heads. Welsford sees the same clock ticking on his own legacy sales team, veterans with 40 years of application knowledge, and explains how ValveMan is leaning into deliberate apprenticeship and hands-on training to move that knowledge before it's gone. Grimes, a longtime mentor himself, applauds the approach and adds the mindset that underpins it all:
"We have to position ourselves with a mindset that we are lifelong learners, and you just can never, ever stop."
Be curious. Don't think you're ever done. As the saying around the ValveMan office goes — you learn something new about valves every day.
About Scott Grimes
Scott Grimes began his sales career in 1987 in high-end specialty retail outside Philadelphia, then sold luxury automobiles before moving into industrial process instrumentation and filtration in 1990. At Donaldson Company, he focuses on sanitary and high-purity filtration for the pharmaceutical and food manufacturing industries, supporting process improvements in plants across the country. An avid rock climber, ice climber, and cyclist, Grimes is known for his hands-on plant-floor approach and for mentoring the next generation of technical salespeople.
Watch the full conversation above, subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode, and browse every conversation at the Fully Open Podcast hub.
Read the Full Transcript
Transcript is auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. Tap a timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
I'd rather be in steel-tipped boots, Carhartt pants, and a hard hat, working hand in hand with people in production, operations, quality. I learned that was probably the best way for me to understand my customer's challenges, how to differentiate myself in that sales process. I was told a long time ago that I only needed to be 10% better than the guy that was in last. I took that to heart, and I always wanted to be like 110% better. Learning what the customer makes and how they make it is extremely important in industrial sales. Welcome to the show. I'm Gil Welsford, third-generation valve entrepreneur and founder of ValveMan.com. Join me as I hear stories, learn wisdom, and get industry insights. This is more than valves. It's business, legacy, and resilience. Let's get into it. Hey guys, welcome to the Fully Open Podcast by ValveMan.
I am here at the Valve Manufacturers Association in Alexandria, Virginia, and I am very excited to have Scott Grimes on the line today. Scott and I have known each other for, geez, maybe 20 years now. No, maybe 15 years. We've had some great times hanging out together, drinking beer, which I'm sure we're going to get into, Scott. But happy to have you on the show. I'm excited to be here, and I appreciate the invitation. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. So I would love to just start out. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your career? And I'd love to start all the way back from — I know there were some car sales days, so I'd love to go all the way back to where you were going. Yeah, we're going to go that deep. Let's go that deep.
Let's go that deep. So sales started for me back in 1987, when I got involved in specialty retail, and I was always drawn to really the more high-end market segment. So back in those days, the really high-end audio and video equipment was really accelerating. So I worked for one of the most renowned retailers on the East Coast. I was based out of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. And really in a short time, I became like the number two salesperson in the entire company, which really didn't matter that much to me, because I was having way too much fun selling the first CD players to hit the Philly market. And that lasted for about two years. And then I went to work for a high-end automobile dealer, basically in the same area. And that really did help broaden my understanding of how to communicate and talk with people. But it also was taking a toll on my personal life, because especially retail is really a seven-day-a-week job.
And so an opportunity came up to get into industrial sales. And the thought there is, I was starting a family that I would actually have my weekends for. And little did I know I was going to get exposed to industrial process instrumentation and filtration. And it was really the filtration side of the business, because there was, and still is, a very strong annuity model tied to filtration. And I've been in it ever since 1990. And it's been a very interesting experience, to say the least. You know, it's interesting that you came from the car market, because we have quite a few members of our team at Welsford Company and at ValveMan that did come from the auto world in sales. And I think one of the reasons that happens a lot is, first, lifestyle — it is really easy to say to a guy, hey, do you not like working on Saturdays?
And would you like to be able to spend time at home with your family on the weekend? Right? But secondly, you need to be fairly technically oriented — you have to have a technical mind to sell cars at, I think, a high level. So you also have to have that same type of mindset and understanding of mechanical equipment when you're selling in the industrial markets. So it's actually a really great feeder industry for ours, I believe. Yeah. I always would tell people that if you want to work with people, there's a couple of things that you can do. You can go and work in the restaurant industry for a year and a half, or go and work in retail sales. And you will learn so much about yourself and, of course, your customer. And I did the restaurant thing when I was a kid. I loved it.
I loved it, man. I thought it was such a fun job. So, you are pretty active on LinkedIn. I've noticed — I know sometimes you're active, and then other months it might go a little bit more stagnant, and then you'll get a little bit more active. Tell me a little bit about that. I'd love to dive in on that and sort of why you do it. Well, yeah, I learned many, many years ago that the digital world and social platforms are going to be a key part in doing business. And so I worked very hard increasing my online profile by trying to put out meaningful content that was relatable to whoever was following. And of course, I had no instruction, had no idea what I was doing, but I learned how to tag things, or appropriate certain meaningful points, or how to be inclusive and drag other people into the conversation.
And that has led to a pretty decent online profile. And I think LinkedIn — even though I swear they changed their algorithms probably five, six years ago — but who doesn't? I mean, LinkedIn has to make money to keep the lights turned on too. So I saw a post the other day about the Chobani plant. You had posted a TED Talk with the CEO of Chobani. And you had said that you had been in that plant. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing now — why were you in the Chobani plant, with what your job is now? Yeah, so my approach to industrial sales, filtration sales, has always been hands-on. I'd rather be in steel-tipped boots, Carhartt pants, and a hard hat, working hand-in-hand with people in production, operations, quality, maintenance. And I learned that was probably the best way for me to understand my customers' challenges and how to differentiate myself in that sales process.
From the person who was just in to see the client before me. You know, I was told a long time ago that I only needed to be 10% better than the guy that was in last. And I took that to heart, and I always wanted to be like 110% better. And learning what the customer makes and how they make it, I think, is extremely important in industrial sales, whether it be filtration or selling valves. And I've really appreciated some of the recent things that you have been posting. I've taken a keen interest in that, because it seems that we're somewhat cut from the same cloth in that respect. So what I was doing up in that upstate New York Chobani plant was just working with them on some process applications, process improvements. And that led to several visits, and of course then being involved in their Idaho plant as well. But that's just right now.
So right now you're selling mostly sanitary and high-purity filtration in the pharmaceutical and food manufacturing industries. Absolutely, yeah. It's probably the cleanest environment that I've ever worked in. You know, when you have to put on a gown and a smock and constantly wash your hands when you go from room to room — then working in some of the refineries in New Jersey and Philadelphia, or even some of the coal-fired power plants that I'd spent time in. So yeah, as I move towards the tail end of my career, it's nice to be, I guess, in a cleaner environment. But to me, it's always been the same, whether it's a coal-fired power plant or a yogurt plant: understanding what it is my client does, how they do it, what their needs are, and how I can help them. It's always been the focus.
So I think one thing that I've learned from you, Scott, in the years that I've known you, is really understanding exactly what the customer does. Like, how do they actually work? Because I think without knowing how they do what they do, you're not able to really add that much value. Because if you want to add value, you need to actually understand their process, because it's the entire stream of a process. The issue might have happened way upstream, but you're actually seeing it downstream. And you really understand that. And something that we talk about with our team, and I love to do, is I love to ask people, so tell me about this really cool thing. Like, we're working with a company — I can't disclose too much — but a company that's overseas that's building these vessels that are going to be submerged under the ocean for very, very long periods of time. And we were talking about that.
We were. We're under NDA, so I can't talk too much about it, but it is an amazing process. Like, I love it. It's so cool. And it's doing stuff that is going to change the world. And one thing that you and I have connected over is beer — the brewing, the brewery industry. We've gone to events together. We've toured brewery plants together. So you really live it. You don't just talk about it. You truly live this, understand the process. You're so passionate about beer. Yeah. Well, it's not just beer. Working in the food and beverage industry, when I'm teaching and training, I try to tell people, first and foremost, you are one of your customer's customers. You're a consumer. And I always encourage them to go home and look in their refrigerator, look in their pantry, and think about what it takes to make that product shelf-stable, or to have the freshness or the flavor profile that it has. And especially in today's market, where the consumer is really pushing manufacturers for cleaner and greener labels and more natural ingredients, functional ingredients — that's a challenge, and it requires changes in process.
And if I can get a newcomer into the industry to understand that simple principle, I think it sets them up for greater success. And I kind of had the same teaching back in the early nineties, when I was part of the American Filtration Society. And I sat in with many lessons from Will Shoemaker, who was one of the forefathers of the American Filtration Society. And even though he was speaking Greek to me, I could tell his passion. And I always felt that if you're passionate and if you truly believe in what you do, you're going to be successful. And I have to tell you, I saw that with your dad when I met him 30 years ago. And I see it in you and Jason as well. So, I don't know, I think it's a testament to that kind of personality, you know?
Well, I've said this before, and it will not be the last time I say it: Dad always has told me valves make the world go round — and filtration as well. And it's true. And it literally just makes our job so much fun. I don't look at what we do as selling. I actually don't like the word selling, because at the end of the day, we build relationships, we understand process, and we work with our customers. Our goal is not to just — I don't want our business to ever be, like, salesy, hard-pressed sales. Like, no, we're just there to help you. And if our product is not the best product, we'll tell you, and that's okay. We just want to be that long-term partner with our customer. And I do think that's like a paradigm shift that sets a lot of really great — I'm putting this in quotations — salesmen apart from some of the guys that might just flash in this industry for three years and then burn out. Because there's really longstanding relationships with a guy like Scott Grimes at Chobani, right?
Or at Victory Brewing, or a myriad of different places. You're not going to upend that relationship that Scott has with those people just by calling and being salesy and all that. And it's also just more fun to understand your customer, understand their process, work with them, try to figure out how to make their business better. Absolutely. And I've seen it over the 30-plus years I've been doing this: there's a commoditization effect, and it's inevitable. You can't really fight it. You see it in the physical products that I've sold over the years. But you also see it in some of the businesses, in their approach to business. And I always believe in differentiation. And the only way that you can achieve that is through excellence, through quality — not just in your products, but your approach to people. And people talk about emotional EQ and stuff like that.
I think there's no one special ingredient. It's a combination of things. I think, first and foremost, you have to have the DNA for it. If you don't, as you just pointed out, you're going to burn out. And when I think about what drew me to the craft beer industry, other than the product itself, it was how open they were. I remember I was attending an event in Pittsburgh, and I'm standing patiently in line waiting to sample some beers, and there's two brewers standing behind me from different companies, but they were talking about how a fermenter had stalled and they needed help with a certain yeast strain. And the one guy said, yeah, just come on by my place, pick some up, and take it to your place. And I was like, but who does that? Who does that?
But I remember when I was talking with one of the founders from Victory, they said early on that if one succeeds, we all succeed. Or if we all succeed, then it helps the industry as a whole. Now, granted, the craft beer industry has been through numerous market adjustments, and it's kind of going through one now, but it's here to stay. I mean, when you look at the data, it's incredible what they've been able to do. And what I really appreciate is that small-business, almost altruistic approach to how they conduct their business and compete — or don't compete — with one another. So that's, I think, one of the reasons, outside of the fact that the product tastes so good. I love that. I never have heard the concept of you are your customer's customer. And that's something — I wrote that down.
That's something I'm going to chat with our team about, because I think it is a really good point. And just the other day, we were selling some valves to a very, very popular co-packer that makes red sauce — spaghetti sauce — that we use at home. And it's very, very good. And we actually sold them some sanitary valves and ended up hopping on the phone with the guy I was talking with, along with one of our other sales team, Cleon. And it brings it home so much. Like, I am going to put that red sauce on my kid's pasta tonight, and I just sold them valves. So that red sauce is going to go through the valves that we sold them. I just think that's so cool, and it brings it home.
When I was a kid, I remember my dad saying, oh, we filter all of Hershey's chocolate, or, oh yeah, every single bottle of Yuengling goes through our valves, and so many different things. And that's what is so cool about this industry. There aren't too many young people coming into it, but the young people that do normally find it really cool, because it's cool stuff, you know? Being able to take ownership is incredibly important. It's sometimes hard to do today, just because things shift so rapidly. But if you can pause for a second and look at that customer relationship from the consumer, to the producer, to the vendors then who support the producer — it's a really interesting concept. And I try to get people, when they do this, that they don't read from left to right,
but they read from right to left. And what's on the right side is the consumer. What are their care-abouts? And then you go to the producer: what are their care-abouts? And once you have that somewhat figured out, as a valve supply company, you have a better idea on how to approach them. That's really, really interesting. I don't think like that. So I'm really, really glad. None of us do. Well, you do, you do — it just took some time, right? Right, right. Yeah, there's a little more gray here. So I'd love to take a little bit of a step back. You mentioned something about the commoditization of relationships. And it's something that Bruce Broxterman and I talked about the other day on episode two of the podcast — the importance of a relationship. And as an e-commerce brand, ValveMan has actually shifted a lot into: we don't just want to sell valves online.
We want to build relationships with our customers and just be the easiest place for them to buy valves when they need them. But even though they're buying valves online, they still know that they can call Josh or Amr or Cleon or Len, or whoever their rep is, right? So I feel like one of the reasons that there's been such a commoditization of the relationships is partly because of the digital, online thing. But I think one of the other things is that there has been a lot of consolidation in our industry. There's been a lot of private equity gobbling up a bunch of little companies. And I don't know if they necessarily had that long-term look at wanting to create an amazing customer experience and long-term relationships and have that really long outlook. But, Scott, you work for Donaldson Filtration — a huge company.
And you have always had a really, really long outlook in your approach to business. So how does that work for you? I mean, again, you work in this big company. I'm sure there's always quarterly benchmark pressures, right? But you always are focused on the long term of the relationship — not just with a customer, but with a supplier like us. We sell your products. So tell me a little bit about that. Well, the commoditization in the business approach, I think, is driven by the need for rapid returns. And I get that. It's almost unavoidable these days. Whether you're privately held or publicly traded, you need strong ROI. Your cost of service needs to be held in check — because cash is king.
And so there is some of that. And I do appreciate digitization and the way we gather data and analyze data and use it to make decisions. However, in larger projects, higher CapEx projects, there still is that human element. And as long as that human element remains in the process, I still feel that there's a need for this almost empathic approach as a salesperson to the customer — to break some of that commoditization, to build some differentiation, to make the customer feel valued through this process. I think that's important. Now, if we're talking about a 10-inch melt-blown cartridge that you can buy at Home Depot for $10, I'm not looking to make that buying experience mindful or enriching.
But just as you're mentioning about hygienic valves: you automate that valve, now it's a three-way valve, it's got position indicators on it. And there's a lot more to it, because it's tied to — in the food and beverage industry, pharmaceutical industry, we call them critical control points. Sure. And so if we're active in that space, I think it still requires the human touch. Analytical, of course. And because of that, I still see that there's actually an ever-increasing need for this kind of sales behavior, because of the way processes are changing: automation, tolerances, speed, batch runs — instead of 50,000 gallons, now I'm going to do 200,000 gallons before I shut down and clean. The material, the equipment, the filters, the valves, the pumps — everything has to be built up to that standard.
And I still believe that it takes people like you and I, and our customers, the engineers, to be able to make that evaluation that this is going to be appropriate for the application, for the process, what have you. And so I really try to push people to — as you were talking earlier, or hinting at it — look upstream and downstream of the pump, of the valve, or in my case, the filter, and take the blinders off and really understand what the customer is needing to do here. And educate yourself. If you don't know anything about pumps, go educate yourself. I didn't know anything about valves 20 years ago, but I think I do okay with them now. Certainly not as well as the Welsford company does. But my point is that I feel such a need to break away, to break those chains of commoditization, because I think — maybe this is just me, maybe it's a personal thing — but I think it devalues me, and that bothers me.
And that's a really interesting point. It's a really interesting point. Right, right. Well, I think a lot of it comes down to trust, right? Like, how do I trust you? And it comes down to credibility — it's asking the right questions, and you build rapport. And as a result, you end up building trust with a customer. And when you do have the backing, like you do, of being in this industry for a long time, you just walk in with some trust. But if you were a jerk, people aren't going to want to work with you anyway. So I'd love to take this conversation — I'm going to take the conversation a completely different way. All right, Scott, I don't know if anyone's called you this, but you're a pretty intense guy. I know you love to do rock climbing. I think you've talked to me about ice climbing, maybe. I know you love to do
cycling, all that kind of stuff. But you also are a really hard worker. I mean, you're in the Chobani plant — in, I think it's Vermont, Indiana — you're touring breweries, you're in the pharmaceutical processing. You have teams that you have led in the past in a really, really strong way. So I feel like, when I think of Scott Grimes — man, you just do everything in a really intense way. How do you do work-life balance? Let's talk about work-life balance. So how do you work really, really hard but also play really, really hard, like some of the stuff that you've told me about? And for our listeners, maybe you can tell them a little bit about some of the stuff that you love to do. Yeah, work-life balance. I'm not the person to answer that question. So, okay — some really basic principles.
So earlier on, when I had aspirations of being the world's greatest rock climber or whatever, I used to say, I play, therefore I work. And I think that's why I connected with your dad so many, many years ago, because I would tell stories, and he would tell stories. I'm like, yeah, we get it. But when you step back and take a look at it, I think it comes down to self-discovery. I am not the kind of person that is going to go to an all-inclusive resort, or like a cruise or something like that, because I really appreciate self-discovery. And my activities, whether it be rock climbing or ice climbing, kind of feed that — maybe a little bit to the extreme. But then when I look at sales: the first time you go in to see a customer, you have no idea what to expect. Well, back in the day you did.
Now we've got LinkedIn, and you can do a lot of pre-qualification and stuff like that. But there's a certain level of excitement and anticipation of not knowing, and then just plunging ahead and doing it. Appreciating your failures and your mistakes. When it comes to climbing, I've backed away from more frozen waterfalls or steep granite walls than I can remember. But they're not necessarily failures. A botched sales call is not necessarily a failure per se, as long as you're learning — retraining your brain or your body for the next time you do it, and maybe you will be successful that time around. So are you saying that really sales is just another way to get that adrenaline rush, like you get when you're ice climbing? Oh my God, yeah.
To hear somebody say yes — like, you did your damn job. I was told a long time ago that you're not a salesperson until you hear no. Up until you hear the word no, you're just an order taker. True. So when you hear the yes, or you get the purchase order faxed over or emailed over late on a Friday, and it's a six-figure purchase order — that's good. I mean, that's real good. I'm going to go have a craft beer. That's great. And then on Saturday, I go climbing with my buddies, and we get to the top of the climb, and it's beautiful scenery, and it's kind of the same. It's feeding that need for self-discovery, for excitement. I love that. And so, work-life balance — I don't know. I think it's an overused term, to be honest with you. You're always chasing the adrenaline.
That's what you're doing. And if you play hard, you work hard — live, you know? One of my life mantras, and I've had this for a very long time, is: work extremely hard, play even harder. And I wouldn't say that's not work-life balance, by the way. That's just — a lot of good sales guys, or people that end up in management, are pretty intense people, and it is what it is. So my wife and I joke — we call it extreme parenting. Oh my gosh, earlier this summer, I had my four-year-old daughter and we were snorkeling, and it was like 60 feet deep, and I love to free dive. So she's floating there — it's like 60 feet — and I let her go, and I'm diving down, and she's watching daddy hanging out with the fish. She is, like, calling me a mermaid, and
we just call it extreme parenting. And it doesn't mean I wasn't there on Monday working very, very hard, but we just play extremely hard also. No, there's too much to be enjoyed — whether it's with your kids now, with my grandchildren, with my customers, or with my climbing and biking buddies. I don't know any other way, to be honest with you. Sure. I guess there's a childhood psychologist out there who will figure this all out for me. So let's talk about this. We touched on it a little bit earlier, but there just aren't that many young people coming into this industry, and there's a knowledge gap in this industry. And you are so gracious with your time to train people.
I know Brett is a perfect instance of that. Brett and you worked together for a long time. I don't know if technically you guys still work for Donaldson Filtration — I don't know if you're still on the same team with Brett. Absolutely, yeah. Okay, okay. But I know you've been a mentor for him. So you've helped him bridge that knowledge gap, and he's grown so much. He and I were chatting a couple of weeks ago, and he was telling me how much he feels like he's grown in the industry, and he attributes a lot of it to some of the things you've taught him. How do you think we do that? I mean, as a young organization, we're trying to bring up people from the car industry and bring them into the valve industry. So what do you think is the best way to do that, Scott? Good question. And if you and I can figure it out in the next 15 minutes, I think we're going to be really rich. Well, you said you had the gray hair, so I'm just looking to your wisdom. So I think there's some really unique challenges with the younger generation.
And maybe we need to kind of work harder on level-setting expectations for entry-level positions, so that we can get them in and get them excited about the industry and start filling that knowledge gap. I was in a cold mill many years ago — a cold rolling mill — and they were talking about the skills gap. And that's been tip of tongue, somewhat popularized nowadays through social media, to go into the trades. That's been in discussion for 10, 15 years. And from what I've seen, there's been a shift. When I go into the maintenance shop and I look at the age of the electricians or the people who are doing hot work — welding — I'm definitely seeing a shift. But what I'm not seeing — what? Do you mean the shift?
Like, what kind of shift are you saying? That there's more people present. More young people? So, yeah — more young people, I apologize. More young people present, and these large production facilities don't have to hire out. They can now hire people internally and have better control over the quality of the work. So I've definitely seen a shift there. I don't think it's like it was back in the early 90s, when I first got into the industry, but I've definitely seen that bridge on the skill side start to shrink a little bit. The gap on the knowledge side — I think that's a bigger challenge nowadays. And I'll give you an example. So I was working at this cold rolling mill, and they had just brought in these two relics — Cincinnati Milacron rolling mills that were built back in the 60s. And they were making all kinds of changes to them.
So I call this the Frankenstein effect. And they're documenting — there's drawings and all that stuff — but now you have to figure out how to marry that kind of older infrastructure with the newer technology on top of it. And I'm just being arbitrary here, I'm sorry — this cold rolling mill was doing, let's say, I don't know, 10 feet per second or something like that. And now they want to triple that — they want to triple the output. So they've made the changes to all the fluid power side of things, the bearings, and everything. Well, now, who's going to operate it on a day-to-day basis? You've kind of Frankensteined this thing together to meet production demands and speed and quality and all that stuff. Who's going to operate it? Well, it's going to be the older guys who had been operating that mill before the improvement. And it's that knowledge in the head on how to nurse this thing to life and get it to do what you want it to do.
And now the workforce is retiring, and the young people coming in get incredibly frustrated, because that knowledge transfer wasn't there. And they're just looking at some documents, trying to replicate what had happened prior to the previous team retiring. And so, I don't know. Yeah, it's all good when everything works perfectly to plan, but when something deviates a little bit and they didn't learn that, it's tough. I do feel like one of the things — at least in the United States, we used to have very strong apprenticeship models, and I feel like apprenticeship is just going away so much. Now, maybe we just call it mentorship, but mentorship to me is not formal. It's a less formal type of relationship. So what we are trying to do at Welsford Company and at ValveMan — because we have what we call our legacy sales team, right?
They've literally been selling valves with us for — that's a polite way of calling them old. But they've literally been selling valves for 40 years, right? So when they see an application, they're like, oh yeah, I dealt with that like 25 years ago, and this is how you handle it. Or, go to this vendor — they have this really obscure product, or what have you. And the younger folks — we can teach them the basics, right? Like, we can teach them what a Cv is, and how to size a control valve, and all that kind of stuff. That's the easy stuff. But that mentorship or that apprenticeship takes so long. That's one of the things that we're trying to do at ValveMan, at Welsford Company: have some of that knowledge transfer and skills knowledge, because it takes a really, really long time. And we're trying to almost stack the deck as quickly as possible, because these guys are going to retire, right? I mean, we just had a guy yesterday tell us that he was like, I'm going to work until I die — which we were like, don't recommend that, but that's what he wanted to do.
And now he's saying, hey, I want to come up with a retirement plan, which I'm super happy for him about. But he's going to be retiring in a few years. And we have a few other people that are going to be rolling off the team into retirement. And we just want to do as much of that apprenticeship and mentorship — whatever you want to call it — as possible. Yeah, thank you for saying that, because that's a word that I probably haven't used in a long time: apprenticeship. And I applaud you guys for taking that approach, because I think that it's vital for a small business entity such as yours to continue to be successful on and on and on. So kudos to you and your brother and the rest of your leadership team for taking that on, because I think that's incredibly important. Application knowledge is just so vital, and that needs to be passed on. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think what we have discovered in being a growth-oriented business in this type of industry is that training is paramount to our success. And training isn't just sitting down and reading a book or watching a video. It's real hands-on, on-the-job training — sitting down with these folks. And we have some formal processes to do that, and we have some informal processes to do that, but we could probably even do a better job at it. And there's just also some hands-on: you've just got to get your hands dirty to learn. Yeah, right. Absolutely. And never give up on it. When you think you're done, you're not. We have to position ourselves with a mindset that we are lifelong learners, and you just can never, ever stop. And that goes back to the comment that I made earlier about self-discovery.
Be curious. Don't think you're ever done. There's a saying that goes around our office — more, believe it or not, with the legacy guys than the newer guys: you learn something new about valves every day. And it's true. There's so much about filtration and valves and this entire industry that you can learn every single day. And it doesn't stop, because there's new innovations too. I mean, the world of AI and automation — there's so much on the software side of things in our business right now. I think you and I right now are just talking about the mechanical side. We haven't even gotten into software yet, right? So, yeah, and I think that's why it's a fun industry. It's a fun business. No, there's always something new, that's for sure. Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Well, Scott, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I always love hanging out with you over a beer and talking about our business. We would love to continue to work together. I know we have a couple projects in the hopper right now with some pretty awesome pharma stuff. The pharmaceutical world is just, like, changing so much right now, I think, with some of these cultured meats and that kind of stuff. So we'd love to chat more about that. That's a whole 'nother — that's a whole 'nother podcast, right? But I would love to chat more about that over a beer. So thank you again. Really appreciate you, and looking forward to chatting again soon. Oh, thank you very much. This was fun, and I really appreciate you reaching out in the first place. So thank you. Absolutely.
Absolutely. All right, man. Have a great day. See you. You too. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Fully Open. If something stood out or sparked a thought, I would love to hear it. See you on the next one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Scott Grimes of Donaldson?
What does "you are your customer's customer" mean in industrial sales?
How do you sell complex technical products like filters and valves?
Is relationship selling dead in the age of e-commerce and consolidation?
How can industrial companies close the knowledge gap as veterans retire?
Your Host
Gil Welsford
Founder and CEO of ValveMan, a B2B industrial valve distributor, and a third-generation leader of a family business founded in 1965. Gil is also the host of the Fully Open Valve Podcast. A valve nerd from around 4 years old, he's spent his career helping engineers, contractors, and facility teams source the right valves for the job.
About the Guest
Scott Grimes
Scott Grimes has worked in industrial filtration and process sales since 1990, following early sales careers in high-end specialty retail and automobiles. At Donaldson, he now focuses on sanitary and high-purity filtration for the pharmaceutical and food manufacturing industries, working hands-on in plants from upstate New York to Idaho. He is also a longtime mentor and trainer known for his boots-on-the-plant-floor approach to technical selling.
