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MSc Mechanical Engineering, ETH Zurich
I read the machine before I read the marketing report. It is why the technical conversation with your engineering team is a short one.
About
I rebuilt the commercial side of a machinery manufacturer. Now I install that system for others.
Ten years running the commercial side of a Canadian machinery manufacturer. Trade shows, installations and customer plants in more than 30 countries. What worked there is now PINAVOX.
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Stefan Badertscher
Founder · PINAVOX
The story
How the Production Visibility OS™ came to exist.
01
The IMPACK Decade
I trained as a mechanical engineer, MSc from ETH Zurich, and then spent ten years at Impack Packaging, a Canadian machinery manufacturer. Sales and marketing first, Director of Revenue from 2017. I rebuilt the commercial side from the ground up, replacing reactive sales with a system the whole team could run. I was inside the company, not advising it from outside.
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Thirty Countries, One Pattern
Those ten years took me to more than 30 countries. Trade shows, installations, and the plants of the packaging converters who ran our equipment. The thing I kept noticing was at the trade shows: hall after hall of machinery manufacturers building genuinely excellent equipment, companies I had never heard of and could find almost nothing about online. Their machines were not the problem. Finding out they existed was. That is a strange thing to walk past when you build machines yourself, and it is the gap PINAVOX exists to close.
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The Numbers, Honestly
Over the last 2–3 years of that period, applying the methodology that became the Production Visibility OS™ produced: 600% organic traffic growth, from 6 paid leads per year to 8 free inbound leads per month, sales cycles cut by ~50%, $245K from a single article, and $2.2M in revenue influenced by educational content.
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Why I Started PINAVOX
I kept seeing other machine manufacturers, good companies with great machines and trustworthy people, struggle with the same problems we'd solved. Long sales cycles. Wasted proposals. No production visibility. They didn't need another marketing agency. They needed a system. So I built one.
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What I Actually Believe
Machine manufacturers get sold marketing when what they need is a system that helps sales. Those are different jobs. Marketing that wins awards and marketing that shortens a sales cycle rarely look the same, and in this industry only one of them matters. I do not think your problem is that not enough people have heard of you. I think your problem is that revenue depends on two or three people, and nobody has written down how it works.
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Has It Worked Since IMPACK?
Fair question, and I would ask it too. The IMPACK numbers cover 2013 to 2023, in a company where I had ten years of relationships and the president backing me. The honest answer is that the PINAVOX-era proof is younger. The clearest published case so far is an architecture practice that closed a $1.2M project entirely inbound with the sales conversation cut in half, and there are machine manufacturers in the programme now whose results are not mine to publish yet. I would rather tell you that than dress up a number.
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Where the OS Came From
The Production Visibility OS™ is the codified version of what worked at IMPACK, turned into an installable system. The principles are not new. The integration into a complete commercial operating system for machine manufacturers, that part is new.
What IMPACK leadership says
On Stefan's decade at IMPACK, in their own words.
"Stefan joined IMPACK when our annual revenue was around $800,000. Over ten years he built our international sales presence across more than twenty countries. In his final three years he rebuilt the commercial side of the business, the inbound system that still brings educated buyers to our sales team today. One single deal that closed directly off a published article paid back two full years of our entire marketing and sales investment. That alone made it a no-brainer. When he told me he wanted to help other manufacturers do the same, I supported him to leave and start PINAVOX."
Dominic TheriaultPresident & Founder, IMPACK
"Engineering has been IMPACK's heart since day one. What Stefan built on the commercial side, the way buyers now arrive informed before they ever speak to sales, let that engineering reach a global market. The content engine he installed still works for us today."
Mathieu TremblayManaging Director, IMPACK
In the room
Workshops, keynotes, and coaching, with leaders who run real factories.
Vistage and TEC Canada peer groups. Industrial CEO retreats. Manufacturing association events. Cohort workshops with the current PINAVOX clients.
The conversations are direct, technical, and grounded in the operational reality of machine manufacturing. No theory. No slideware that doesn't survive the production floor. Delivered in English, French or German.
Stefan with Marcus Sheridan after the French co-authored edition went to print.
A note from Marcus Sheridan
From reader to co-author in four years.
"Stefan was leading the marketing team at IMPACK (a Canadian niche B2B manufacturer) and read They Ask, You Answer, quickly falling in love with its teachings. After watching it have an incredible effect on IMPACK's growth and success, he reached out one day and asked if he could translate the book for French-speaking readers.
One day he's reading the book. Four years later, his name is on it. How impressive is that? Well done Stefan." Marcus Sheridan, author of "They Ask, You Answer" · from his November 2024 LinkedIn post
Credentials
Where the methodology comes from.
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Published co-author, French edition of "They Ask, You Answer"
Approached Marcus Sheridan in 2020 and proposed translating the book into French. Found a French publisher, co-authored the edition, and the French version of a book Forbes named in its list of 11 marketing books every CMO should read is now in print with my name alongside Marcus's.
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Featured success story, German edition of "They Ask, You Answer"
IMPACK is the success story in the foreword of the German edition, pages 14 to 17, under a heading about how a small Canadian company gained a foothold in 27 markets. Named there as Head of Marketing and Sales.
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Certified "They Ask, You Answer" coach
One of a select group worldwide, certified directly by Marcus Sheridan.
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Vistage / TEC Canada expert speaker
Coaches industrial leaders across North America and Europe on commercial systems for manufacturers.
If you want the detail rather than the biography: the Production Visibility OS explains what actually gets installed, the Belt System shows how progress is measured, the first 60 days covers what happens immediately, and the comparison page is honest about when a sales hire, an agency or a coach is the better choice. The numbers live in case studies.
Elsewhere
In print, and on the record.
- Co-author, French edition of "They Ask, You Answer"
ISBN 9782897997182. Published with Marcus Sheridan, 400 pages.
Éditions JFD · 2024 - Catalogue record, French edition
National library catalogue entry for the French edition.
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec · 2024 - German edition, IMPACK success story in the foreword (pp. 14–17)
ISBN 9783800673315. IMPACK's results, in the foreword.
Vahlen / Amazon · 2023 - Success story: IMPACK Packaging
Director of revenue. Revenue doubled in two years, traffic up 5x.
IMPACT / Endless Customers · 2023 - Speaker profile
Listed speaker for the TEC Canada and Vistage peer-group network.
TEC Canada · 2025 - "Effective ways to boost folder gluer productivity and speed"
On folder gluer productivity, bylined Stefan Badertscher, IMPACK.
Converter (Italian trade magazine) · 2022
About Stefan
Questions people ask before booking
Who is Stefan Badertscher?
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Stefan Badertscher is the founder of PINAVOX. He trained as a mechanical engineer (MSc, ETH Zurich) and spent ten years at Impack Packaging, a Canadian machinery manufacturer, as Director of Revenue from 2017 to 2023. He co-authored the French edition of Marcus Sheridan's They Ask, You Answer and now installs the Production Visibility OS inside machine manufacturing companies.
What did he actually do at IMPACK?
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He rebuilt the commercial side of the business. Over the final two to three years that produced 600% organic traffic growth, a move from six paid leads a year to eight free inbound leads a month, sales cycles cut by roughly half, a $245K machine sale attributed to a single article, and $2.2M in revenue influenced by educational content. IMPACK's president and managing director have both gone on record about it.
Is PINAVOX a marketing agency?
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No. An agency produces content for you and keeps the capability when the retainer ends. PINAVOX installs a commercial system inside your company, run by your own team, and the engagement is designed to end with your people running it without us in the room. If an agency is the better fit for your situation, our comparison page says so plainly.
Does he work in languages other than English?
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Yes. Workshops, coaching sessions and audits are delivered fluently in English, French and German. He is the sole French-language certified coach for the They Ask, You Answer framework, and co-authored its French edition.
Has the method worked outside Impack Packaging?
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Yes, and the published proof so far is younger than the IMPACK record. An architecture practice closed a $1.2M PassivHouse project entirely through inbound with the sales conversation roughly half its previous length. Machine manufacturers currently in the programme have results that are not yet public.
What size company is this built for?
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Machine manufacturers between roughly $10M and $50M in revenue, usually with at least one internal marketing resource, and often led by a successor generation. Below that size there is rarely enough team to run the system; well above it, the constraint is usually different.
Ready to find out?
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A focused conversation about your pipeline, deal flow, and commercial system. No pitch. No pressure. A real conversation about your situation.
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