Will Sampson, editor of FDMC and Woodworking Network, talks about how many woodworking businesses hurt themselves by not taking advantage of a wealth of information resources. His guest on the program is Amanda Conger, executive director of the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA), talking about the CMA Benchmark Survey results and the profile they paint about small to medium size woodworking shops.
This episode of the Woodworking Network Podcast was sponsored by Stiles Machinery: Stiles Machinery is your solution for any manufacturing challenge.
Woodworking Network is a home for professional woodworkers, presenting technology, supplies, education, inspiration, and community, from small business entrepreneurs to corporate managers at large automated plants.
The Cabinet Makers Association was formed in 1998 by a group of custom cabinetmakers who saw a need for a professional organization to serve small- to mid-size woodworking shops in the United States and Canada.
Intro music courtesy of Anthony Monson.
WWN01: Working in the Dark (2020)
Hello, I’m Will Sampson and welcome to the Woodworking Network Podcast where we explore the business of woodworking and what it takes to succeed. This episode is sponsored by Colossal Cabinet Components. Today, my guest is Amanda Conger from the Cabinet Makers Association with some very interesting survey information on small to medium size woodshops. But before we get to Amanda, I want to start off talking about “Working in the dark.”
It’s kind of like this. You get up in the middle of the night to head to the bathroom. No need to turn on the light. You know the way. You’ve done it a thousand times before. But this time something is different. You take a slightly different angle than you should and slam your toe into the corner of a dresser. Ouch!
Too often that’s the way businesses are run, especially ones that have been going enough years that the owners are convinced they know what they are doing. They could run their business with their eyes closed. And so they do.
These are the owners who never do any marketing. “All my business is word of mouth.” So, they aren’t targeting specific, profitable markets. They just take whatever comes in the front door, resigned to the fact that some jobs are better than others.
These are the owners who don’t really plan for the future. They seldom research new markets or study alternative ways of production or management. When it comes time to replace a machine, they don’t have a budget set aside for it, so they just figure the profit on the next job will give them the down payment. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul when your name is both Peter and Paul.
These are the owners who complain about the lack of good employees, but they don’t invest any time in recruiting. They don’t have relationships with regional trade schools or vocational programs. They don’t support industry education initiatives. When they do find someone to hire, they don’t invest time into training or encourage the new employee to contribute new ideas to the business. “You just can’t expect much from those darn Millennials these days,” they say.
These are the same owners who are surprised by a downturn in the business. They’ve done little to study trends or anticipate changes in the economy. “I’ve got no control over that, so why bother,” they say. They’ve also not done anything to plan and manage for possible ups and downs, so the only strategy is to lay people off and wait for things to get better. Or in the worst case, they have to shut the whole operation down.
These are the owners who don’t network with other shops and don’t keep up on changes in the industry. They keep re-inventing the same wheels that shops all across the country have already perfected.
And these are also the owners who come to the end of a career with no plan to exit the business. They haven’t groomed a replacement owner or management team in house. They haven’t consulted with anyone about enhancing the value of their business for sale. They figure they’ll just close the doors, auction the equipment and sell the real estate. They don’t realize that a business can be worth so much more than just its physical assets.
Of course, there are a few folks who do turn on the lights. They study trends, learn about efficient production and new machinery. They network with other shops to have a better understanding of how they fit in the industry and to learn new ways of doing things. They study existing customers and learn about potential new ones. They invest in their employees and find how much value those employees can contribute to the business. And they do plan for the future.
The question is are you going to turn the lights on?