There are certain things in life that generally interest you and once you find something you are passionate about you should try and specialize in that area. Nearly 20 years ago I was thrown in the deep end helping my brother in law with his business and soon realized how much they were being ripped off by suppliers.
Over the coming years I learned a thing or two by working hands on with certain products and by doing that reduced the monthly spend. Pallet wrap may seem like nothing yet it is a logistic warehouse company biggest cost besides fuel, rent and labor. As mad as this sounds the passion I have is not the product, but the savings I can generate through the knowledge I have learned over the years and for most I can guarantee a 20% saving up to as high as 40%. This is mainly through checking they are being supplied the correct specifications and not being ripped off. This is actually really good fun and seeing the customers reactions on the savings is the rewarding part.
Yesterday we drove into the sticks which is a term used locally for a rural area with not much else around. This was not quite the sticks, but the journey was a 4 hour there and back so it was not local. This was a proper Afrikaans town where time has stood still and not much has changed since the 1960"s.
One of the only businesses there is a textile business which is the last independent family owned textile company in South Africa. There are a few other companies dotted around and one can see why this is a one horse type of town as there is very little work available.
The above photograph is a sample of what this company currently uses for packaging and they use quite a few hundred of these each month. This has been an ongoing project since last year and shows you some clients take a little more work than others when trying to land their business.
I have already packed this into a box with bubble wrap and this will be couriered down to the factory arriving wither Monday or Tuesday next week. This will then be placed onto one of our machines and unwound reading the micron/thickness of the plastic wrap. This will give us the exact meterage and micron they are currently being supplied and then we will rewind this back again and weigh the roll. This process is videoed and recorded so the customer knows what they are being supplied and then we can match the exact specifications and compete by supplying a quote.
Unfortunately the plastic packaging industry is very crooked and what you are being sold is not necessarily what you might think. We supplied this company samples at the beginning of this year and one of the samples tore on demonstration so we need to understand why as we think the rolls they are currently being supplied are a higher micron than specified meaning the roll is a lot less in meterage.
The trip yesterday was not a wasted 4 hours even though a courier could have collected this instead. The important part for myself was there was contact with the client and myself and we had a good conversation. He understands we are prepared to go the extra mile and we will get this right and land their business in the process. This is not something that should be done over the phone and why personal contact is and can never be replaced when it comes to providing a bespoke service.
The courier from Johannesburg to Durban cost myself R380 this afternoon which is rather pricey but one can not worry about these values knowing what the account is worth once they start purchasing. Once the orders flow this should be an easy $2K monthly which starts to accumulate and add up quickly when you are landing these types of customers monthly.
The other clients we visited last week being have all been quoted and one other we are revisiting having more samples made up as their volume was blue and black rolls. They were not a huge customer using around 1200 rolls per month, but they are very local and is what I would call easy money with no hassles. The smaller accounts help pay the bills and are just as important as the big clients. In packaging the rewards are often big paydays with one client easily offering $10K+ and you only need half a dozen to be firmly on your feet and we have 3 of those lined up who are far bigger. The target is to have only 12 clients by December and 40 by April so we shall see how well we do.
This time around having restarted this business from scratch again we will include the smaller clients which we ignored last time around. We are after volume so we can justify investing in a new factory situated in Johannesburg which will make things far easier. This is an enjoyable time in any business getting things started as the opportunity and potential is rather obvious. Hard work does pay off with so much still to do with the important part we have at least started the journey.
