We are a Small and new Machine shop in Central Virginia. I would like help on two things. First, How do you go about getting work from companies? It seems that they have their shops they work with and are content with them. Second, How you go about finding a good sales rep for a small shop with 3 people in it? We have some nice equipment; Two Fanuc Wire machines; Hansvedt Ram EDM, Two ProtoTracks and a new 14 tool CNC. We have the talent but finding the work is the problem. Andy suggestions or even work would be helpful.
Oh... $5k is a lot.... Hmm.... I can 100% tell you that the paper advertising methods don't work for us. Neither do trade shows... But to each business a different model may work.
As for your profile... Can you point me to this profile so io may view it?
Looks like a good start. Build on it and it will probably bring you more business than anything else right now.
Tips you didn't ask for or pay for but I'm gonna give anyway:
Use standard text, not that fancy stuff. It's hard to read.
Add some descriptive sentences telling about specific products you've made. Other companies making similar or the same product will find you in a Google search.
Add an "e-mail us" form for quotes and answer your e-mail daily.
Add some photos.
Loose the "fade in" on the main page. People who click on the site prefer fast over fancy.
Add a page mentioning that you are looking for sales reps. Help wanted, etc. Note that 95% of those responding will promise the world and deliver only their promises, not orders.
Sales/Marketing is one of the most critical elements for any new business. The Canadian SBA [Small Business Administration] has some good although general information at
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that a business plan is no guarantee of success, but can form the basis for a useful check/punch list, and can help keep you focused on your core business. For information on the basic process click on
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Can you be more specific about your targeted market segment? For example, prototyping, special machine construction w/ some engineering, reproduction of unobtainable replacement parts for obsolete machinery, low volume production of specialty items, medical/aerospace, i.e. small volume production of high value parts [special record keeping/retention will be required], etc.
One of the least expensive general suggestions is to get your own domain name [e.g. MyMachineShop.com], and a business email address and quit using hot mail. Domain name registration is around 10$ per year. You will then need an email server and web site host. These should cost about 30$ per month and will include 10-25 email accounts for your domain name, e.g. snipped-for-privacy@MyMachineShop.com, snipped-for-privacy@MyMachineShop.com, snipped-for-privacy@MymachineShop.com, etc.
Get a *SIMPLE* web site up showing your capabilities *AND* location. Include lots of pictures, but at low resolution to minimize download time, possibly with the option to view a larger high-res image. Be sure you have your phone/fax numbers and emails, possibly with webmail, prominently displayed. MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO CONTACT YOU AND YOUR COMPANY. *AT MOST* this should be in the low hundreds of dollars. It should be simple enough that you can make minor changes yourself such as contact names and phone numbers using any of a large number of "free" HTML editors, and in many cases WORD or a WORD clone.
Make sure that the appropriate "keywords" such as location, capabilities, specialties, services are included in the HTTP system variable "keyword" so the search engines can correctly locate and identify your site for retrieval. Also submit your site to the search engines. Most likely you will have to develop the keywords list yourself (can be a big help to check and see what the machine shops at the top of the search engine [google] rankings are using for keywords), but you can outsource the search engine submission. Again in the low hundreds of dollars AT MOST. [Lots of rip-off artists and con-men in this field...]
Specific [useful] suggestions/techniques for soliciting business tend to be highly specific for both your trade region and market segment.
Without knowing your targeted market niche, one thing you can do is go through the yellow pages, note the companies that are likely to need your niche services, and contact them, either by regular mail or by email. If by regular mail, be sure and include a business card, as these are what typically get filed, and a short one or two page brochure, which will have much of the same information/material as your web site. With desktop publishing and digital cameras, very presentable brochures can be assembled, and printed only as needed.
Another useful way to make contacts with major firms in your area is to serve on the advisory board or committee for the manufacturing/machining programs at your local community college or vo-tech, as most of the major manufacturing operations will have representatives on these.
Also try to get articles about your business into your local papers. Frequent short news releases, again with digital pictures can help, for example about interesting products, people, foreign sales, etc. Frequently you can get lucky and hit a "slow newsday," although there may be an expectation of advertising space purchase.
One of the most difficult, but important, things that you must do is turn down some customers. The reasons can range from slow/no pay, to having their head "up where the sun don't shine." This class of "customer" is highly toxic, and is frequently fatal to new small businesses.
A second major item is to have an "order acceptance form" to acknowledge and confirm order acceptance. The reason for this is that you can incorporate the legal boilerplate in your form that will offset the legal boilerplate in their form. Remember that unless you specify otherwise, all the conditions printed in light gray in 2 point type on the back of their PO become legally binding. This is an area where you need expert advice from a attorney specializing in purchase orders and contracts. More than likely they will have an "order acceptance form" ready to go. Payment terms are especially critical in this time of contracting credit. In [too] many cases, the major corporations expect their vendors to make them zero interest loans. I suggest
2% 10 days, net 30 days, with interest to be charged at your state's max legal rate of interest past 30 days on a per diem basis. This is very much a case of "pay me [a little] now or pay me [a lot more] later."
One useful technique is to open a merchant (seller) credit card account, and require all orders less than say $2,500 to be either charged to a credit card or paid in cash prior to pick-up or shipping, eliminating your loan operation and simplifying your book keeping. A business credit card can also be a useful way for you to minimize internal paperwork while maintaining control and records of your purchases.
some other sites that may be of interest include [I have had no dealings with any of these and these are in no particular order]
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samples
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Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
As a bit of trivia... Alternately, change the text color to make it easier to read. A black background is the international sign that your site is actually put up by someone with a techical background in some circles... Someone who knows what 2600 has to do with computers.
As others have said, you need to give some thought to your target market. You can't be all things to all men. Give some examples of what you've done. Are you aiming for one-off=92s, short batch runs or longer production? Are you into small or large items?
Is there any local industry to support? I used to be Chief Engineer in a production plant and one thing that guaranteed a company a place in my records was the ability to deliver a 24/7 service. That means home phone numbers that we could call when things went wrong at 3 a.m. and folks who would get out of bed and help.
A friend of mine has recently started up machining parts for custom bikes, mainly Harleys. That looks profitable and interesting. Your customers become your advertising hording as well if your hallmark is on the goods. Aim at the high end market so your bits don=92t end up on rubbish machines. Besides these owners have more $ to spend so your profit is bigger. That market may be flooded in US of course but there are similar outlets for your services. Race teams want one-off=92s at very short notice and will pay for quick delivery.
Get your business insurance sorted. I don=92t know the US legal system but think what would happen if you made a part for a bike and it broke, killing someone. Could your company loose everything? Can you form another holding company that owns all your machines and assets and then rents/sells them to the manufacturing company? That way the manufacturing company owns nothing. It just pays rent for the machines. It has no cash or assets so goes bust if it=92s sued while you hold onto all the goods.
Getting a sales rep can be a double edged sword. A good one will bring you business but make sure your customers are YOUR customers not his in case he leaves and they all follow.
Yowsa! 422K for a tiny thumbnail graphic of your sign? Extremely bad for dialup. You should manipulate the graphic to the size you want it first, then display it at that size. HTML height and width tags are supposed to be descriptive, not active. Using them to resize the display of the graphic is completely different than resizing the graphic itself.
Basically you're having people download the full
3040x2600 image of the sign only to have their browsers resize the display to 200x164.
Actually, now that I look, I see you're using some kind of M$ tool to write the page. Worst thing you can do. See the results of the valididator:
here instead:
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Whatever you're using isn't a web page editor. Maybe Office, saved as HTML? That really doesn't work well at all. You might want to try something that adheres to standards, like nvu or amaya. Both are available for multiple platforms.
========== I will second the advice on the oversize graphic as too slow to download over dial-up, and there are a *LOT* of people with dial-up.
You can use Iview32 to resize your graphics. Download for free at
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One tip is to provide small, low res pictures as a guide/preview/teaser and then have the high res graphic as a download option.
Be sure to include your email address on the contact page in addition to your phone number. If possible inclue as a mailto html link. Make it as easy as possible to contact you.
put an under construction notice on the unfinished pages such as so people don't wait and wait for it to load.
On your equipment page use a table so you can get 2 or threee columns across the page so the reader doesn't have to scroll down. Pictures would be nice (but keep them small with links to highres/large pictures.
Roster -- again an "under construction" sign -- also use a table and include pictures of your people. Should have their shop aprons on and a micrometer or such in their hands.
On your contact page include a description but not a specific name for functions such as customerservice, info, rfq, orderstatus with email addresses such as snipped-for-privacy@jrfprecision.com
This will allow easy reasignment of the particular task w/o having to redo your web page, for example when someone goes on vacation.
Consider adding Live Messenger capability to allow personal contact on the cheap. Live Messenger is free and a 40$ webcam and microphone/soundcard is all you need.
On all the pages use larger type -- there are a lot of old farts with bad eyesight [like me] that have to use the zoom add-in for firefox.
Be sure to create and add your keyword list and submit your website to the major search engines so people can find you.
Pictures of sample jobs/products are always interesting.
You most likely should also include a webmail contact form -- again make it easy to contact you. Be sure to include an FTP area so people can send you large cad/cam files. Many ISP providers limit email attachments to 8 meg total [or less].
All in all a good start, and this will tend to be a work in progress. Apply the KISS principal and don't let the webpage tail start to wag the machineshop dog.
Good luck!
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
I am posting here for any suggestions the group may have for additions. Be reminded you can use different keywords on different pages. [Also spell check -- e.g. I think you meant "compression" for "compreshion"]
Also it can be helpful to have counters on each page so you can track what people are viewing. This can be at the bottom in smaller type on the sub pages to avoid distraction, although a "Welcome -- you are visitor number ######" heading on the main page can be welcoming. If your server supports the extensions, you should be able to track addresses, times/dates, browsers used, etc. in addition to simple hit counters.
What sort of materials and products was your company doing? phenolic/epoxy? Automotive such as distributor caps, rotors and coil tops? Brass/aluminum inserts?
Good luck!!
Unka' George [George McDuffee]
------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).
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