Wednesday I sold a LICO LNT-42S CNC lathe to an old customer (assuming I’m not jinxing the deal by writing about it now). I confess, a month ago a European customer agreed to buy this same machine and its mate, but then 24 hours later he backed out! Wait, did I have a similar story in my last blog? But I digress. The story of this LICO goes back a bit. A few months ago, a different customer sent me an email out of the blue, telling me he was interested in buying this machine model. I suppose he contacted…
Author: Noah Graff
This season we’re talking about how your machine shop attracts new customers. Today, we wanted to share a podcast from our second season which we feel provides a useful solution to finding fresh business. Tune in to our interview with Greg and share your own experience with manufacturing networks in the comments below. Thanks for listening. Today’s podcast centers around a company that provides capacity for machining firms that lack resources to meet clients’ needs. Our guest is Greg Paulsen, Director of Application Engineering for Xometry. Xometry provides manufacturing on demand using an artificially intelligent quoting system and a manufacturing…
For the third episode of our season about how machining companies acquire new work, I interviewed Jay Sauder, owner of Sauder Machine in Plymouth, Ohio. Sauder makes a variety of precision components such as casings for mechanical pocket watches and wheel cylinders for horse drawn buggies driven by Amish people. Sauder Machine has no sales team nor a social media presence, yet it has a diversified, profitable customer base that continues to grow through great networking. Jay Sauder told me about how doing great work and establishing great relationships with customers has been the fuel to keep his business rapidly…
On today’s podcast we continue our season about how machining companies acquire new work. Our guest is Wes Szpondowski, plant manager of Wyandotte Industries, a multi-spindle job shop near Detroit that predominantly runs good old ACME-GRIDLEY screw machines. We interviewed him last week when he came to Graff-Pinkert to inspect an ACME 1-5/8” RB-8. Wes says one of the keys to Wyandotte’s success is that the company is constantly quoting new jobs. He says even if a machining company only lands a small percentage of work it attempts, persistent quoting gets the company’s name out, which leads to more work…
Disclaimer: Many employees face incredible pressure from a variety of angles, often juggling their work and personal responsibilities. It’s no wonder many feel the high levels of stress and low energy that indicate burnout. Unfortunately, many people don’t have the bandwidth to even begin to navigate it. To that end, HelpGuide.org created this resource, Burnout Prevention and Treatment, that covers: The difference between stress and burnout Why burnout happens and how to prevent it Key tips for handling burnout Today is the final episode of our series about mental health in the workplace. Our guest is Darcy Gruttadaro, Director of…
On today’s podcast we are continuing our season about mental health. Our guest is Dr. Ari Graff, a psychologist at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a nationally ranked rehabilitation research hospital based in Chicago. Patients come to Shirley Ryan to recover from severe illnesses and injuries. Dr. Graff’s job is to help patients mentally heal from the emotional trauma that comes along with being damaged physically. The opinions in this podcast episode are solely those of Dr. Graff. They are not on behalf of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with…
Today’s podcast is a “Best of Swarfcast” from Summer of 2019, a two-part interview we did with John Habe IV, President of Metal Seal Precision, a machining company based in Mentor, Ohio. Over the last several years, John has grown Metal Seal Precision both organically and through major acquisitions. According to John, growing through acquisitions can be financially rewarding but does not come easily. John discussed the difficulty in buying companies, which often have emotionally attached owners. He also talked about how he calculates the buy price of a company. He looks at cashflow, often called EBITDA in the acquisitions…
Back in February I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the MTD Podcast, an excellent podcast about machining in the UK. Hosts Joe Reynolds and Giovanni Albanese grilled me about a lot of our favorite topics featured on Swarfcast, like treasure hunting, reshoring, Trump, and Swiss CNCs, which my British counterparts often call “sliders.” Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast, or listen with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Main Points I explain the origin of “Pinkert” in “Graff-Pinkert,” our used machine tool company’s name. It comes from Aaron Pinkert, my grandfather Leonard…
Being a machinery dealer takes a lot of patience. I guess patience is key for selling most things, as well as pursuing a relationship or a career. The problem we all face is that other people just have different schedules and different priorities than we do. I tried to sell a CNC Swiss machine to a company in Europe over the last several weeks. The company acted like they really wanted it. They called me several mornings to discuss the deal. I could taste that deal. It was a medium sized deal—but a nice deal. My contact at the company…
We interviewed Brett May of BME Inc. Screw Machine Attachments for today’s podcast. Brett’s mission in business is to make old cam multi-spindle screw machines like National Acmes, Wickmans, and New Britains into productive money makers in today’s competitive machining environment. Scroll down to listen to the podcast with Brett May. Brett builds unique attachments which eliminate secondary operations that many people would put on a mill-turn CNC to finish, or run on an accurate but achingly slow Swiss-type machine. When he does his magic he turns supposed clunkers into enormously valuable machine tools. Brett sees an old Acme and…