This week, the Metal Construction Association held its Annual Meeting in Clearwater Beach, Florida. I attended the meeting and needed to arrive a day early for the Board of Directors meeting. I took the opportunity to drive to Florida from Atlanta so that I could visit several of our projects and photograph them.

This reminded me of the early years of our company and the introduction of aluminum composite material to the design community. Many weeks I would leave on Sunday afternoon and travel all over the state of Florida doing promotional calls on architects. Back then, aluminum composite material panels were not very well known by architects, so it was essential that many face to face meetings took place to get the story out.

The travel by car for so many miles could be exhausting, but it could also be interesting. I was able to get to know many people this way and made some life long friends along the way. Back then I was truly a road warrior and found it invigorating to travel to sunny and warm Florida in the winter when it was cold, damp, and gray back home in Georgia.

Back then it was unusual to have completed projects to see and photograph. That is not the case today. Metal Composite Material panels have become widely accepted and even become the “go-to” product for challenging geometry on institutional buildings. And, a new product, Trespa, is becoming a very popular product for highly engineered walls also.

Outlined below are photos of several projects that I was able to photograph in just two days in central Florida. It was good to be back “on the road again.” And, it was even better to be able to see completed projects rather than trying to just drum up interest in a new product.

Tool of the Week, Day, etc. – For those of you who travel extensively by air, there is an App that provides a great deal of information about flights that you may want to check out. It is Flight Aware and can be found at: http://flightaware.com/.
That is it for today. Post your comments on the Blog and let us stimulate the discussion.

Thanks,

Ted S. Miller

One of our valued suppliers, from whom we had purchased a great deal of material in the past but not very much lately, was asked for their 2012 pricing. We first got a response from their rep that said he “did not have time for that.” Later, we received a one line response that included a significant price increase.

When we questioned this great service to the sales manager, he offered this equally great response, “Yeah, I can see where that might be frustrating to you, but the salesman is also frustrated because you only buy based upon price.”

Are you kidding me?

Talk about a company with their head in the sand. The market is tough right now. Those of us that compete in the subcontracting business are almost always required to be low, plus provide payment and performance bonds, plus have the best schedule, plus agree to onerous subcontract provisions, plus be able to finance the material purchases and labor until the material is on the wall.

That adds up to a lot of pluses on top of having a low price.

My suggestion to the valued supplier is to give us a reason to buy from you on something other than price.

Is your product better in a meaningful way?

Is your service better?

How long has it been since you visited and brought to us a lead on a project?

Has your tech service developed any new fabrication techniques for your product that would make our work more efficient?

And finally, how long since you offered a thank you for the business we have given you in the past?

I know the challenges of the current market conditions are making all of us a bit testy, but if price is the only differentiator in your offering, then you have got to be low. Let me assure you that your customers (subcontractors and fabricators) have to be low and offer all of the pluses outlined above.

Tool of the Week, Day, etc. – For those of you who participate in the construction industry and have a focus in metal, you may want to attend the Metal Construction Association 2012 Annual Meeting in Clearwater Beach, Florida later this month. You can learn all about the meeting at: http://www.metalconstruction.org/meet/index.cfm?pg=meet_annual.htm.

That is it for today. Post your comments on the Blog and let us stimulate the discussion.

Thanks,

Ted S. Miller