Hi everyone,
Up here in Canada, the country has had a history of ups and down in the
economy the have had a real impact on my employment. This was before
the current problems that are facing the world in general.
Free trade kick the snot out of Canada and was 15 year recovering from that.
We had Branch plants here in Canada for all the USA companies because as
the law was before free trade, it was required if they were going to sell here.
Think of every item in a grocery store, they all had little factories of 50 people or so. After free trade, they all closed........... I was out of work again.
I didn't even work for a Branch plant. Demand was down.
The USA is now experiencing the same thing but on a Huge scale, and the jobs have left the country for off shore countries. Mostly China.
It's very difficult to compete with slave wages which is exactly what's happening there.
The President and the politicians would like industry to pull the country out
of this episode. They have some vague idea that technology will do this.
Let the Chinese have all those low tech jobs.
This is a huge mistake. Every job is important and keeping fingers crossed
whistling a merry tune, is just not going to make them appear.
No politician wants to do it, but it going to take some hefty duty laws
on imports to make an opportunity for business to be created.
That sort of sums up the way I seen it happen.
What I did to make myself recession proof.
I got tired of being laid off during every down turn.
I took a look at what I could do.
- 1. I could set diamonds.
2. I could make master of jewellery to be put into production.
3. I could do special order work.
I looked at what I needed to do.
I needed to learn engraving and not old way. So I started to ask for the tooling.
I bought the tooling for my home shop also. I took classes in engraving, I got
the shop where I worked to pay 80% of the cost.
I made sample plates, a lot of sample plates. I research what would sell and
what was a waste of time.
I learned how to make a web page and how to do the photography.
I quit working for just one shop. I went out and found many accounts.
If I could, I developed a personal rapport with the store owners. Some accounts
I've lost for one reason or another. Those I still have are extremely loyal to me.
I learned book keeping and got help from my wife who is a professional bookkeeper.
I have made myself a mini corporation without overhead that is now crushing
most of my competition. You will get the same quality if not higher than you can get form a 50 man shop in Montreal or Toronto. I quicker and more
versatile.
I advertise the company or myself in the trades. I advertise in small ads but for the whole year. It's the only way to get results.
I educate myself to make new products and then I educate the store owners
to sell them.
The Results.
I stupidly busy every week. I just finished off this bit of insanity and learned
a couple of things to boot.
People come to me because they can leave a project for me to do and it
will get done on target for price and time. I only call them up to give them
options they didn't even realize they had. I offer them solid solution in the
form of, you can choose A,B, or C. All will look good. They can offer them to
their customer and sound more knowledgeable than they might be.
No doubt this is bling. But I've also found that engraving is selling well also.
The combination of all three. Diamond setting in a great mount that is engraved. Is keeping me really busy.
What happening right now.
There are fewer orders but they are all rush. They also make more money per
order, because they are rush. The only trick is to keep the quality as high,
as if there was no rush at all.
That's the way I see it.
Talk to ya later,
Jim