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.

wrote in message
...
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.

I have heard great things about http://www.mfgquote.com/ but have not used
them. Our product is somewhat incompatible... But a machine shop nearby
swears by them.

As for finding a sales rep... Do you have a web site? Literautre?

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

On Apr 22, 8:30 am, "Joe AutoDrill" wrote:
wrote in message

...

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.

I have heard great things abouthttp://www.mfgquote.com/but have not used
them. Our product is somewhat incompatible... But a machine shop nearby
swears by them.

As for finding a sales rep... Do you have a web site? Literautre?

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills:http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills:http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

Yes we have a simple web page. It is located in my profile. As for
http://www.mfgquote.com/ I have heard of it and looked it over. But
for a new small shop the $5,000.00 a year cost to join it is just out
of our reach.

Yes we have a simple web page. It is located in my profile. As for
http://www.mfgquote.com/ I have heard of it and looked it over. But
for a new small shop the $5,000.00 a year cost to join it is just out
of our reach.

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?
--


Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

On Apr 22, 8:44 am, "Joe AutoDrill" wrote:
Yes we have a simple web page. It is located in my profile. As for
http://www.mfgquote.com/I have heard of it and looked it over. But
for a new small shop the $5,000.00 a year cost to join it is just out
of our reach.

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?
--

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills:http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills:http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

I can just post th webpage here. http://www.jrfprecision.com/
You have to exscust it. I'm doing the page myself and it is some what
rough.

I can just post th webpage here. http://www.jrfprecision.com/
You have to exscust it. I'm doing the page myself and it is some what
rough.

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.

Much success to you.

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:25:00 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

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.
===============
long

First off -- good luck with your new business!

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
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/bus...anmarkplan.htm
Note 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
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/bus...ness_Plans.htm

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.
, ,
, 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]
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...77/ai_n6136525

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/0606bp1.html
http://www.sourceauthority.com/suppliers/how.cfm

samples
http://www.yellowbot.com/machine-sho...-hills-ca.html
http://www.hp-machine.com/
http://www.jrsmachineshop.com/
http://www.bizjournals.com/gen/compa...D073F4C558B 3
http://www.advancedspecialtyservices.com/


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).

"Joe AutoDrill" wrote in message
newsslPj.1978$Y81.1785@trndny09...
I can just post th webpage here. http://www.jrfprecision.com/
You have to exscust it. I'm doing the page myself and it is some what
rough.

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.

Much success to you.

Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R





Loose the black background too! For some reason my old eyes can hardly read
the print on the page!!
Greg

Loose the black background too! For some reason my old eyes can hardly
read the print on the page!!
Greg

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.
--


Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
01.908.542.0244
Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: http://www.AutoDrill.com
Multiple Spindle Drills: http://www.Multi-Drill.com

V8013-R

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’s, 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’t 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’s at
very short notice and will pay for quick delivery.

Get your business insurance sorted. I don’t 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’s 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.

Good luck.

John

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:00:52 -0700 (PDT), JRF Precision
wrote:
snip
I can just post th webpage here. http://www.jrfprecision.com/
You have to exscust it. I'm doing the page myself and it is some what
rough.
snip
==========
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
http://www.irfanview.com/

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
services 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

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).

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:28:44 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:00:52 -0700 (PDT), JRF Precision
wrote:
snip
I can just post th webpage here. http://www.jrfprecision.com/
You have to exscust it. I'm doing the page myself and it is some what
rough.
snip
==========
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.
snip
Follow-up to my own post.

You do indeed have good keywords selected.

From your main page:
meta name="keywords" content="machine, tool, die, mold, custom,
prototype, cnc, milling, turning, grinding, jigs, fixtures,
production, one of, machine shop, metal working, tool and die,
labeling equipment, machine part, conpreshion molds, injection
molds, spacers, custom cnc programming, solid works, fanuc
control, boring, drilling, tapping, contouring, 3D, cavity work,
2D, 2D work, profiling, threading, machine building, machine
assembly, machine design, machine engineering, solid works
drawing, solid works modeling, solid works design, solidworks
drawing, solidworks modeling, solidworks design, solidworks,
compreshion dies"
meta name="description" content="machine, tool, die, mold,
custom, prototype, cnc, milling, turning, grinding, jigs,
fixtures, production, one of, machine shop, metal working, tool
and die, labeling equipment, machine part, conpreshion molds,
injection molds, spacers, custom cnc programming, solid works,
fanuc control, boring, drilling, tapping, contouring, 3D, cavity
work, 2D, 2D work, profiling, threading, machine building,
machine assembly, machine design, machine engineering, solid
works drawing, solid works modeling, solid works design,
solidworks drawing, solidworks modeling, solidworks design,
solidworks, compreshion dies"

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).

On Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:40:44 -0700 (PDT), JRF Precision
wrote:
Snip
Yes we have a simple web page. It is located in my profile. As for
http://www.mfgquote.com/ I have heard of it and looked it over. But
for a new small shop the $5,000.00 a year cost to join it is just out
of our reach.

Re web pages.
Get others in your company to read and re-read what you have written.
You have a number of grammatical errors IMHO

Re areas under construction, personally I see no point in installing a
header until you have some content.

Do not let all of these points raised get you down. You have done a
great job so far. All the very best of luck for the future

--

Richard

Email address is valid but remove burrs before sending!