Blog
Keep Your Options Open with Multiple Vendors
You’ve carefully selected parts for your products. Customers are placing orders. Life is good.
And then one day, during your busiest streak, you place a Purchase Order with a vendor for a key component and the dreaded response is “This part is Back Ordered.” Argh!! You need this part to ship your orders, what now?!?
Show Me the Money
Running any small business is a high-wire circus act of cash management. You can earn solid profits, but run out of cash and get forced into some nasty decisions.
As small manufacturer, with a necessary investment in raw goods inventory, this balancing act is even tougher than most other types of businesses. Too little inventory on-hand and your production process is hampered, too much inventory and all your cash is used up and sitting on the shelf as material.
Genesis
Way back in 2004, I started Creative Conners as a basement-sized manufacturing company making automation equipment. Our first product lineup consisted mostly of control electronics. So I spent my days soldering circuit boards and wiring up electrical panels. Well, to be more accurate, I spent a surprisingly small percentage of time building products when I wasn’t busy marketing, selling, purchasing, packing, and shipping.