Why a Custom Business Doesn’t Need Advertising!
CNCROi.com has a unique business model in several ways but something that comes-up repeatedly is that our customers find us more than we find them.
15+ Years Ago
Over 15 years ago, I ran i3DS International Corporation which provided mostly industrial 3D animation services to companies around the world. How did we get that business? Phone, fax and limited email (it wasn’t big back then)
It was a hard slog, but the vast majority of our business came from the yellow pages, telemarketing and other outreach my marketing and sales teams did.
And it worked… until it stopped working.
What changed 10-15 years ago?
Say what you will, but CNCROi.com couldn’t physically advertise anywhere near as wide a path as my old company did, which is still active, as the parent corporation of this one.
The costs to do this now would be tremendous and the return on investment not very good. Why? Because there are so many specialized services that we offer.
For instance, we are downtown and don’t even have a store front nor a sign indicating our location! I couldn’t ever imagine running a business like this back then!
Our customer base is wide and far as well, for instance, last week I mailed packages as far as Hawaii, Florida, California, New York and even Vancouver… and that doesn’t even count our “local” clients from Buffalo through Toronto.
Any form of advertising to hit all these geographical locations just wouldn’t be possible. As a result, my focus when I started CNCROi.com was to start from the ground up and digitally.
Ground and Digital
I ran and continue to run CNCKing.com, which taught me a lot about online promotions. The most important lesson? Stick your head in the sand and become an expert and share your knowledge. Sales through education is what I call it.
I wrote books, continue to sell digital models around the world and it got me some fantastic opportunities in this world including a job working for Evright.com in Australia for over two years before returning to North America with my own laser.
As such, our growth comes from people and companies trusting we can do the work, and working diligently to do things that other companies simply will not humor, much less touch. This not only builds-up respect by my peers across a host of industries but also leads to word of mouth.
When a company finds an enthusiastic partner to help them with projects, who’s eager to try to demo things that neither party even knows is possible and meets budget and timelines, word spreads!
Lots of work!
It takes a lot of work to build-up a business, ask any entrepreneur how their first years were and they’d probably sum it up in this way if they succeeded, “I got lucky a few times, unlucky most of the time but things worked out”. CNCROi.com is no different! Our first year in business, we got very lucky getting a very big account and lucky again the second year with another big account and then luck starts to build on luck. Our streak can continue like it can stop anytime. This is the fate of any business.
During the ups and downs, one constant is the work involved with continually investing in the future. If you stay “comfortable” with any one client, any one revenue stream or any one method of production to bring a project to completion, you aren’t doing yourself or your business any favors.
The problems with streams is that they can sometimes overflow but most of the time, they tend to dry up when you need them most! The trick is to continually keep your eye on the ball, when the stream is overflowing, appreciating what is happening and making little off-shoots to make sure you can use as much of the resource as possible for when the eventual drought comes.
Regardless, you must enjoy the business during the good and challenging times. It’s the journey that’s most important!
It’s about outreach
There are so many wonderful projects I get the honor to help my customers with, it’s truly amazing how for one client, we are helping them brand medical devices that will help somebody improve their life one minute and the other, helping a branding company with unique personalizations to increase their sales. It’s a wide gamut of businesses we work with, from military contractors to mom and pops and literally everything in-between.
For instance, for one of our clients, we were making foam tool inserts (customized to each drawer in the factory!) and we applied this exact same material but for custom table number stands. One customer’s metal business cards is another’s custom machine information plates.
Outreach is important but also showing new ideas gathered from experience to help another company improve their looks, such as transforming awful visitor badges into solid anodized aluminium ones that will last pretty much forever! Yep, one client’s luggage tags is another’s visitors badges!
If you are looking for a passionate company that will work hard to find that custom solution you need for business, contact CNCROi.com right now!
