Leveraging Our Local Business Web Presence to Grow Customers

I may be a little crazy. Well, maybe not crazy, just stupid. I have been working on our local business web presence and company website for some time now and positive as the experience has been, there are days when it seems like an insurmountable task, relegating me to suffer through for the rest of my life. I'm not a cheapskate when it comes to investing in the business, but I do try not to waste where I can. The company website and our local business web presence is one of these not waste kind of investments due to my love of technology and interest in the internet as a business and marketing tool. I'll be honest, I've had my stint in the make money quick affiliate marketing scene once before, which came to an abrupt, money burning ending. However, I did receive an education on some good practices when it comes to building and running a successful website. By no means am I an expert, but a little SEO, HTML and CSS goes a long way when trying to save money with creation and promotion of a website.

Products_Page_Screenshot

Today I began creating the pages for products we fabricate here at K & E Sheet Metal. Nothing too major, mostly pages with our more common sheet metal fabrication to start. Things like:

• Supply Air Plenums
• Return Air Plenums
• Cold Air Boot
• Flat Sheet Metal
• and much more

The hope is that these new pages will give the customer more of a detailed view of what we are capable of fabricating and also giving the engines like Google and Bing the fuel they need to pop us up when a potential customer searches for, as an example "cold air boot".

One thing I am trying to accomplish as a business owner is figuring out how we can leverage the internet and our website to help be a better functioning local business web presence on a budget. Our overhead is costly, so anywhere we can save is a major benefit.

Even though I wear many hats for this company, they are all important and must be cared for individually. Our main products and company revenue are custom sheet metal boxes and fittings, but there are other ways to find streams of income and having a quality website, where customers can find you easily and become more informed on your products is paramount (imho). This is why I am more focused more than ever on creating a higher quality web space.

Obviously, this comes at a time cost, which is valuable, but will ultimately bring solid growth to our local business web presence and customer base. So I trudge through the dashboard of Wordpress and tap away on the keys trying to find the best wording and content for each page, hoping to bring our new and old customers closer to us on the internet.

The challenge continues...

Understanding Our Custom Sheet Metal Business

The custom sheet metal business has many facets and can be thought of as many different things. Because of this, we receive emails and calls for many different types of fabrication that we, as a sheet metal shop, may or may not be able to accommodate. However, this does not mean every job is something that is right for our fabrication shop or business in general.

With that in mind, I did something earlier this week that I hate doing. Especially in the business environment that we and many others find ourselves confronting daily.

For the first time in a long while I gave up a project that I would have given my left arm for just two years ago. However, the project had one major flaw that, up until now, I had never payed attention to and it drove me to stressful, anxiety filled places where I never want to be again. The kind of place that made me question whether or not trying to keep the doors open was even worth it in the end. The kind of job that, honestly, was too big for our tiny custom sheet metal shop to handle. A job that would have payed well, but stretched our time frames and kept the stress throttle to the maximum it could handle. Like I said, a place I never want to go back and visit.

K & E Sheet Metal is a niche custom sheet metal business that focuses on the residential HVAC markets. We are a job shop that caters to customers that need something in a pinch or small HVAC contractors requiring custom transitions or plenums when replacing a customers dwindling or broken forced air furnace.

My father and I knows this.

The problems arise when the big projects come down the pike, the rose colored glasses move down off the brow and dollar signs fall from the skies like showers in April. The lead times seem perfect and the voice on the other end of the telephone, in reassuring tones, makes everything seem like nothing will be a problem. We have plenty of time. Nevertheless,time passes quickly and small items are slowly finished. We are a one man operation pretending to be the robotic armed assembly line of the Ford Motor Company.

I take care of a few old, returning customers and before you know it the phone is ringing, the time window is closing fast, I'm working late now and on the weekend. The stress builds and nothing seems to satisfy the beast of time because there's none of it, never enough time in the day to accomplish what you need to. Why did I take this job? This is too big for our shop. I can't do this all by myself and we don't have the resources to hire any help! Get me the fuck outta here!!

In my drinking days, these kind of scenarios ended at the local pub. However, I am older now and understand this is not the way to run a business. Something needed to change and it started with me understanding what we were all about.

There is a market for the kind of custom sheet metal work we provide. K & E has been providing this service in the Greater Glens Falls area for over twenty years and we continue today. The things that I, as partner and chief fabricator, never focused on was understanding what we do. I didn't pinpoint my efforts toward the strengths we possess. K & E Sheet Metal provides a necessary service for the little guy and we--and I-- need to be proud of that fact. Not shy away from it, but embrace it. The stress of trying to be something we are not made me lose interest in the business as a whole, leaving gaps where we may have been able to grow. Instead I tried to find easy ways out, looking for ways to expand where we didn't have expertise or the money to make the proper impact. Sometimes breaking it down and starting from scratch is the best way to find your identity as a business and as human beings. Getting rid of the clutter and focusing on yourself, what you do and how you can focus your skills to help others is the best avenue. Personally and in business.

My father and I have learned the hard way that trying to be something you're not isn't the best way to find business success. Bringing a positive attitude, focusing on your strengths and producing quality custom sheet metal fabrication is what will ultimately make us successful. We may not be millionaires, but we will run a quality, well functioning business in our local community of Glens Falls, NY.

When it Rains, it Pours

After what seemed like an endless summer of dry, scorching heat. September and early October have brought the chilled, damp rains leading to the brilliant colors of a northeast autumn. For the last week there has been a steady dose of sprinkles and short, driving rainstorms. Leaving most of us miserable and wishing for the drought like conditions of June and July. For every deluge of precipitation there is an equal part of humid stillness that resides under a ceiling of clouds. The rains are lingering daily, but not consistent in any real way. You know it's there, it just may not be as heavy as you originally thought. Today I felt as if these conditions were a metaphor for what has been going on in my business for the last few months to a year. The work is there, right in front of us, but for some reason the phone stays silent, mocking me with it's shaded digital screen. And sometimes, just sometimes, there is a cascade of work for a solid week, maybe two, bringing in work from regular and new customers, only to be snatched away for the next two or so weeks. Trying to plan ahead or invest in something that may help grow our micro business becomes difficult. Pulling the trigger is a scary proposition that usually ends up tumbling to the floor like a notched sheet metal scrap.

This particular week, for example, has been stellar with quality orders, good flow of work and some decent quality leads. But will the party last? Can I expect this will continue through the winter or are we destined to be searching for work in the near future. Like anything in this world, only time will tell and we will continue to fabricate the best bespoke sheet metal that local money can buy. But can we count on a bountiful winter? We shall see.

The rains are here now, making up for lost summer watering. However, will the torrent of work and income continue or will Murphy's Law take the reigns of a few years ago. At this point, things are good and my positive mantra's will ring true for the time being. Busy is good.

Let's just hope it continues.

To Market or Not To Market?

That is the question. What do you do when your budget is consistently prefaced with the same moniker as your category of business...micro.

For 20 years our company has been void of any kind of marketing with the exception of the age old, word of mouth. Where satisfied customers roar from the hilltops of the family barbecue, regaling their guests with stories of how great an experience they had with K & E Sheet Metal.

O.k...enough with the melodrama. However, word of mouth can be that powerful if your work ethic and quality of product can back it up.

Sometimes though, like the last few years has taught us, things can slow down very fast and like African Elephants in drought, we search the desolate lands to quench our growing thirst. That's when smaller companies like ours can suffer a slow and painful death, lacking the working capital to increase things like a marketing budget to help us find those stingy springs of profitable water.

So today when I received a call from a nice, well spoken young gentlemen I withdrew from my usual speech of no thank you and listened. He was looking for the marketing department of our little company and with a chuckle I remarked that he must have found them because I'm the only one here; the other possible choice was on a job site. He got to the point, explaining his general company function, words meandering through very professional--but unnecessary--sounding lines of this and that. All he really needed to say was niche SEO.

Not surprisingly, these are the majority of sales calls that get thrown our way recently. The days of trying to sell me the commodity or equipment I use to make a living seems to have gone by the wayside, online is king. That doesn't mean I don't receive calls from the former, they're just the minority in the monthly phone log.

My problem and dilemma is focused on the immense scope of online marketing, when K & E Sheet Metal can only realistically serve a 50 mile radius. This doesn't mean we don't understand the importance of a web presence, but is it the best choice for us. We love technology and the ease it brings to everyday life and business, but can our micro business thrive by focusing marketing dollars on the web.

In regards to this blog and getting the word out about what we do, the answer would probably be yes. Who doesn't love traffic to their website? However, this isn't exactly saucy women in thongs, posing erotically with sheet metal tools--although maybe it should be--so clicks will be at a premium.

When it comes to gaining and keeping new local customers, I'm not exactly sure which would be the best avenue. Newspapers, especially in this town, have drastically declined in readership, putting a big dent into who's eyeballs will see what services we can provide. Young people read the web, searching for what they need when renovating a house or office building, not the newspaper. Hence my dilemma. For now, I'm not sure how many of these iPhone wielding youngsters are searching in the Glens Falls, NY area for HVAC sheet metal fabricators. This is where I start to lean toward no when thinking of an online marketing budget.

Nevertheless, I will meet with this particular marketing company and see what they have to offer. They are local and willing to make the trip up this way to visit the fabrication shop. That says something and is a giant step up from most of the cold calls we receive on a weekly basis. Can they convince me that slapping down cash for online SEO marketing is the way to go? That is the ultimate question.

A Work in Progress

For maybe the 200th time since I started running a website/blog for the company I have gone ahead and changed the entire setup. Moving the site from a scratch coded monstrosity, to a smooth running Wordpress version that's effortless to update and supremely easier to read and navigate. The biggest problem is the amount of work I created for myself in the process of these undertakings. Seeing that we are a two person company and a single computer literate, the odds are stacked that I, the younger fabricator, will be the one running anything with the words, online or website.

So the new kesheetmetal.com is easier to navigate with everything finally residing inside the same site. No more venturing into the outer reaches of the internet to find our blog or photos page. Thanks to the wonders of Wordpress themes, I have found a way to keep everything in house. This however takes time. A lot of time. Therefore the current website is a work in progress with daily changes and updates to many of the existing pages and ones that will follow. We thank you for your patience and please visit the website and blog often to see what's new.

The web is a great place to find a new and growing customer base no matter what industry you work in or how local you are. With everyone carrying a computer in their pocket these days, finding companies on the internet is easier than it ever was. Having a quality presence online is a must have asset in the business environment we work in today. Even for a couple solitary tin knockers, tucked away in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of Glens Falls, NY.

The Lenny Harris of Sheet Metal Fabricators

I am the Lenny Harris of sheet metal fabricators. Lenny Harris was one of the best, if not thee best, pinch hitters in baseball during his career. He had the most pinch hit at-bats (804) and the most hits (212) in pinch hitting situations.

Since the beginning of the year and over the course of the last few years I have filled in as a fabricator for a larger, past customer. They decided years ago that housing their own fabrication shop was best for them and no longer needed my services. However, I kept up good relations and when their main fabricator has been ill or out of work, I have been on the list to come off the bench and pinch hit.

The money we generate from this company is and was much larger than most customers I fabricate for, creating a nice stimulus. For this reason, burning the bridge and creating a rival competitor was something I was not willing to do. With any micro business, if you provide a service and do your best job possible, someone will always need what you are selling. Without the trickle down business these companies provide, micro businesses like ours would have trouble surviving.

I could have been very caddy and hurt that a solid customer of ours was moving on, leaving us to find other revenue sources. However, business is business and I don't control what others do with theirs. I knew that we might be needed again in the future and I didn't see the point of making them out to be a villain, trying to hurt the little guy. Sometimes it pays to be patient and realize that things come and go in any business. Only diamonds are forever.

Sadly, yesterday was the last day of my pinch hitting duties, but I will be swinging a bat in the tunnel getting ready for my next assignment. Always be prepared, you never know when your number may be called.

Great Prices on Sheet Metal Hand Tools. Visit kesheetmetal.com/toolshop for Snips, Notchers, Benders and More!

Wednesday Fabrication and Knowing Your Shop Limitations

We don't do much commercial work at our shop due to lack of man power and equipment. The shop is geared toward a lower volume, residential market with the ability to fabricate for bigger jobs if the lead time is extended. This week we have been fabricating some larger transitions and duct for a smaller commercial job that had a week or so of lead time. Perfect for my father and I. Both transitions needed to be insulated and fabricated with 24 gauge sheet metal.

These types of orders pay well, but aren't a regular thing around the shop because it takes me the majority of the day to fabricate and insulate this size order. Years ago we thought about financing a plasma table, but then the economy went into the toilet. Since then, like everyone, we've been doing our best to solidify consistent work.

My father and I learned a long time ago to know what you can handle at any one time. We used to take everything that came along and were extended beyond our means hence creating more negative word of mouth than anything else. When we figured out what we could accommodate, our days became much more productive and customers were happier.

Below is a photo of the transitions I worked on today. There is still some straight duct and flexible connectors to fabricate.

Looking for a new set of sheet metal snips? Check out our online tool shop at kesheetmetal.com/toolshop