Custom IS NOT Complicated! It’s EASY!
Custom is not complicated! I know I’m completely and totally biased but making things custom is actually pretty easy, it’s more complicated than buying from a catalog but the results are infinitely more durable and valuable. Making something like a wooden big wheels is as straight forward as designing a corporate live edge plaque.
Putting myself in customer’s shoes
I’ve been in the custom game for more than two decades, to me, making something for a customer, design through production, is incredibly intuitive and straight forward. I do try very hard though to try to put myself in a customer’s shoes, who haven’t ever even thought it was possible to have something made for them!
For our industrial and manufacturing customers, that isn’t an issue, they have engineers who tell us EXACTLY what they want but for our other customer base of brides, teachers and other professionals – I fully realize it’s a leap into the unknown! For instance, to me, it’s faster and more cost-effective to make my own downdraft table than it is to go out and try to find something that would suit my needs.
If the shop needs a mirror, again, I just design and cut my own!
Right now, our house has lots of loose change so I’m in the process of designing a custom bank… here’s a rough sketch of what it will look like. It will look awesome and I can’t wait to finish-up the design to build it, it still has quite a bit of designing required to make it as neat as I envision!
It will most likely be a mix of acrylic and pine, both materials work so well together, similar approach to the F16 award sample I designed.
As you can see, when I’m not busy making custom stuff for customers, I’m making custom stuff for myself and those around me as well! I generally have half a dozen personal projects that I’m slowly working my way through here in the shop at any one time, some of which I make videos, others as gifts to customers or other people.
Creativity is like a waterfall, you can’t stop it and it flows in any direction it wants!
Ideas come from all sides!
Some of our customers see something online and have trouble deviating even slightly from what they see in the photo. I think this comes from an area of safety, they see something built before so building something similar is easy, they know it’s possible. We get a lot of this kind of thinking for weddings and corporate gifts.
What I try to do when I get hit with these kind of requests is suggest how we can make something better than what they see. Again, for some people, this is too much of a leap, but the creative options are endless and what you see online was made for a specific application for a date and time of that designer’s needs and wants. Things evolve, things change!
I realize it’s “safe” to go with that boring crystal award to the team with a timepiece but if you actually talk to employees, this not only has no value, it also has no meaning after it being given. Everybody knows how worthless this mass-produced junk really is, people just won’t admit it to themselves or others in the company tell purchasing as such.
There are so many options out there, from completely personalized awards – way beyond just sticking a logo on it – that I like to show clients that for the same price point of junk, we can make something that the employee or supplier will actually take notice of and KEEP!
Way beyond pens!
Going custom doesn’t mean we have to go full tilt either, for instance, you love your mass-produced personalized pens, you want to keep handing those out at trade shows, well, give CNCROi.com the opportunity to make a pen holder in the shape of your logo to hand them out from! At least you have a way to break the ice when customers visit your booth instead of just handing them a pen.
The pen becomes an afterthought but the custom holder, whether on a desk or a completely custom wall – is something they’ll attach and remember about your company long after the trade show as ended.
Application, Budget, Volume & Timeline
There is no escaping reality though with custom, regardless of what you want, what I really need to know from you are the following.
Application
I really need to know what you want, a sketch or full CAD document is fine but at least a starting point and the application it will be used for. It doesn’t need to be overly complex, here’s a sketch and we want this for XYZ application. Application is important as it will have a direct relationship to material possibilities, for instance, you wouldn’t use plastic laminate in a mine shaft for a control panel on an elevator, annealed stainless steel would be best.
Budget
What price point are you trying to achieve per unit and overall, for instance, if you have a thousand widgets, are they all the same or different? Are there some tiers involved, meaning 100 are sold or given of higher value than the next 500? What are the differentiators you want? Again, this doesn’t need to be overly complex, just 100 units at XYZ, 100 units at ABC and the other 300 with minimal value.
Volume & Timeline
I need to know how many you need produced and along what kind of timeline. If you want XYZ widgets created, when are they due?
As part of the above, I also need to get some sort of idea of your material preferences, if any. For instance, maybe you manufacture widgets and we can use those that aren’t good enough for resale to create your wall plaque or corporate award with. It’s surprising how many amazing materials we can make stuff with or incorporate into a design that cost your company nothing and can be put to work for a higher sentimental value almost immediately!
Contact CNCROi.com right now with your custom application and we’ll make something just for you!
