With IPC Apex Expo 2019 coming up next week, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about some of my ideas for helping visitors who are not exhibiting, but are attending the show. Obviously, we have talked a great deal about how to get the most of your dollars when you exhibit […]
A Word From The Future: Some Notable Highlights From CES 2019
No, I didn’t go, sorry, I still have to spend my time earning a living and working with my favorite people, my customers. Many of my friends though, did get a chance to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week and here are some of the more impressive peeks into our […]
Turning Over A New Page
The excitement of a new year! Turning over a new page. One year ends, and another begins. Isn’t that refreshing? Isn’t that a great feeling of renewal? Throwing out all of those old calendars, and hanging those new ones up on the way. Or, opening up that brand new date book for a symbolic, as […]
Where Will We Be in Five Years? Or Maybe Three?
Recently, a good friend of mine, an owner of a PCB shop in the U.S. ,asked for my thoughts on what the North American Market would look like in five years. Good question isn’t it? With everything going on in the world , it is a good time so stop, and take stock. So, after […]
Customer Service Starts At The Top
All customer service starts at the top. It’s a cultural thing. To have great customer service you have to have respect for your customers, everyone in the company has to respect the customer not just the customer service people. Look, it’s pretty easy to pass everything along to the customer service people (by the way […]
What The Customer Really Means When She Says…
As a sales people, one of the things that we spend a great deal of time doing is trying to interpret what it is the customer is telling us. Oh, we all can hear the customer and what she is saying, but so often, we don’t really know what she means. There seems to be […]
Marketing: Who Needs It?
“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketers”…David Packard Yes, that’s right. Marketing is way too important to be left to just anyone. You don’t necessarily have to be a professional marketer…but you have to take marketing seriously, very seriously. Actually the worst thing that can happen is when people who think they are marketing […]
Listen To Your Customers, It’s Not Rocket Science
Walk with the customer. Care about him. Make sure that you know what she needs and give it to her. Make sure that he knows that you care about what will make his life easier and provide it. Look the hard sell is dead, if it ever was alive in the first place. Now we […]
Buying Cheap PCBs? Good Luck With That
This column is meant for those customers who need printed circuit boards but don’t want to communicate with the PCB shops directly. It’s meant for those customers who believe that a PCB is just a thin piece of green plastic that anyone can build. This is for those companies who feel that the board shops […]
The Best Companies Command The Best Prices
Being the best will get you the best prices. You have to be better than everyone else. You have to be better than everyone else to win the business; not only win it, but keep it. If you are good, very good, you can be good enough to get past the price issue. If your […]