After the blog about Today’s Machining World’s Real Deal (“The Groupon For the Machining World”) appeared Tuesday, I had a call from Cathy Bothe of Signature Needle Arts which Today’s Machining World did a cover story on a year ago.
Cathy was ebullient about the knitting needle business, which she says is growing more than 100 percent per month.
She feels the Groupon/Real Deal approach is a viable concept for the machining world, but with a twist. One of her ideas is that a machine setup could be discounted, the other idea is that the first 100 hours of runtime on a job could be sold for 50 percent off, which could facilitate new customer acquisition. She also commented that their family machine shop in Kenosha, Wis., has done a “machinist’s boot camp” for clients and potential clients to acquaint them with processes which can make the contracting of machine parts more user friendly.
I think this is the kind of service machining firms can offer gratis or heavily discounted to put their companies on the radar for component buying firms.
Over the years I have watched brilliant technical companies languish because they could not figure out a way to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace. The Real Deal is a vehicle that with the right tweaking can take a company from commodity making oblivion to being seen as a wave-making leader in the parts making world.
Question: Do you think promotional pricing can work in the machining world?
1 Comment
Ya know, a few years back we had a thought of a similar nature. As a visual means of seeing all of the little steps of continuous improvement we build towers out of legos. One tower shows each of the things we got done & the other represents what we hoped to accomplish. When customers visit they seem to like it. So the thought was any customer that takes a tour gets a lego. When they place an order & return the lego we give X% off that order. The idea sort of faded away but now that you mention it it makes me consider re-introducing the idea. Why not do something that gives folks a reason to remember you by.