The Curse of the CEO: Why the Most Profitable Work Is the Least Exciting

Matt is in a holding pattern on several large machine builds that are now waiting on board approvals, some after scoping since Automate 2025. He explains when Develop charges for proof-of-concept engineering, and why quoting nearly everything for a couple of years, even with a terrible conversion rate, is what eventually lifted their close rate about 4.5 times. Michael, meanwhile, is on pace for roughly 40 proposals a month when 15 to 20 would cover his goals, and the two dig into what both have noticed lately: founders love novelty, but profit comes from doing the same thing with flawless execution over and over. In sales and marketing, Matt previews Pack Expo and TLMI, and shares how an intense internal interview process produced Develop’s best e-book yet, written for label converters. He tells the story of a site visit where the real automation opportunity was hiding in the back corner of the plant. Michael breaks down what hurt his top of funnel this summer, rebuilding Meta lookalike audiences, building searchable answer documents for CoolantClear and TumbleBlast, and why moving upmarket means giving internal champions the case studies and materials they need to sell automation to their own leadership. The two also discuss why machine tool dealers may not be the right distribution partners for lower-ticket automation, CRM choices, website heat maps, and a friendly disagreement over how far UTM tracking should go. On engineering, Michael shares a dual AutoVise trunnion setup finally getting a real customer application, and walks through vertical bar feeding on a fourth axis, including how it compares to a Swiss. Matt explains why he pushed back on a customer who wanted a cobot with area scanners instead of a fenced industrial robot. In continuous improvement, Matt covers his crane quote, SOPs down to edge cases, and his strategy for NIST and CMMC: complete the audit now, but wait to get listed until a customer requires it.