Exciting New Developments at K & E Sheet Metal LLC

Some exciting things have been happening over the last few months here at K & E Sheet Metal. First off, as always, none of this would be possible without all the great customers and partners we have done business with over the years and for the new business to come.

Early in the year I decided to build on our ability to fabricate straight duct quicker, which would help us keep a small inventory of trunk duct on hand, making it easier to get materials out for customer orders. To do this I needed to add a few new pieces of equipment to help speed the process. Therefore, we have added a hydraulic 5-head notcher, 52" pneumatic shear, 60" pneumatic duct former, pneumatic cleat bender and take-off notcher. These machines along with our plasma table, which we added last year, will help to speed the process of custom and stock orders for clients.

Because of the purchase we needed to add space, so a few weeks ago we made the decision on moving the shop to the building behind the one we currently occupy. Therefore, our physical address will change from 22 Hudson Falls Road, Door# 3 to 22 Hudson Falls Road, Unit# 22 with shop entry at door# 26. Because the numbering of the building can get confusing I have added the door# 26 portion to help with direction. Over time this will be tweaked after we get settled.

My father and I are very excited about the new developments and hope everyone else will be too. Please bear with us for the next month or so as we get settled in to the new space. There may be some lag in time frame of order completeion but as always we will complete all orders ASAP. I'm sure there will be questions and you can direct them to Kevin via email at main@kesheetmetal.com

Thanks for your patience, we appreciate all the business and hope to see you all soon at the new fabrication shop!! 

ISM Manufacturing September - Business Insider

ISM's monthly report on the American manufacturing sector is out. The headline index from the report unexpectedly rose to 56.2 from August's 55.7 reading. Economists predicted the index would fall to 55.0.

Any number above 50 indicates expansion while a sub-50 reading indicates contraction, so today's report suggests that the pace of expansion in American manufacturing accelerated last month...READ MORE

I try and keep an eye on how things are progressing in the manufacturing sector even though we are the tiniest of cogs in the wheel. Any information is good information in my opinion.  

The news also gave me a chance to try out the Squarespace "Post to Squarespace" button that can be used to post items such as the ISM manufacturing numbers to your blog quickly and easily. I don't hate it.

Source: American Manufacturing Is On A Roll (Business Insider)

Congress Still Gets Paid, Shutdown or Not

The government has shut down and much of that is just a symbol of how dysfunctional our leaders are. However, it also means many federal employees will go home without pay. Unless, that is, you are a member of the United States congress

From The Daily Beast

How Congress Will Still Get Paid in a Government Shutdown Shutdown or no shutdown, members of Congress aren’t worried about their own finances this week. Patricia Murphy on how the 27th Amendment protects the salaries of the House and Senate...Read More

Google's Search Changes, Adwords and How It Could Affect Business

One of my goals as co-owner of the business has been making sure our website is up to date, looks good and helps you, the customer, find what you need when searching out a custom duct fabricator.

Creating a quality website with good information and running a Google Adwords campaign are a few of the ways I accomplish this goal. This way, when you search for custom duct or anything related to what we do, you will find us in Google search results.

My time is extended and my expertise resides in the field of metal fabrication so naturally I have hired a quality business, Flourish Digital Strategy, to run our Google Adwords campaign. Since starting we have done very well and the website has brought in some great business along with new, quality contacts. However, any changes can have a major impact an how the campaign runs. Any differences in the way people search, Google's algorithm's or increase in prices is something that needs monitored when deciding how to progress with the campaign.

Because our website has become such an integral part of the business I find myself reading and researching more on SEO, web based properties and best practices. This is especially true when I see something regarding Google and how they process you, the customer's searches.

So this morning as I perused my daily RSS feed fix I came across an interesting article on Huffington Post outlining the new way in which Google processes your searches and how it may affect rankings of your business's website.

From Huffington Post

Google has quietly retooled the closely guarded formula running its Internet search engine to give better answers to the increasingly complex questions posed by Web surfers.

The overhaul came as part of an update called "Hummingbird" that Google Inc. has gradually rolled out in the past month without disclosing the modifications.

The changes could have a major impact on traffic to websites. Hummingbird represents the most dramatic alteration to Google's search engine since it revised the way it indexes websites three years ago as part of a redesign called "Caffeine," according to Amit Singhal, a senior vice president for the company. He estimates that the redesign will affect the analysis of about 90 percent of the search requests that Google gets......Read More

The company I use for creating and running the campaign is great, so this is something I don't feel is a major issue. However, it shows how much our business has changed over the years and how we go about finding new customers.

In the past I would have flown right past an article like this one, in fact I probably wouldn't even have it on my radar. But, the world changes and with that your business. This is only our 10th month of running the Google Adwords campaign and only our second year of any kind of advertising the company in general. 

I made a concerted effort to move the majority of our advertising online because I felt like you, the customer, is busy and usually on the move. The majority of your research for HVAC or duct fabrication will be done on your phone, tablet or late night/weekends on the web. Rarely, I feel anyway, do most people pick up the newspaper for research in regards to a service or trade.

Our business is still majority local and word of mouth. However, the world is moving online more and more everyday, so I must be diligent in making sure our customers can find us easily when searching the web.

Should We Start Accepting Bitcoin?

No, not yet anyway. But does the future hold a serious amount of business being done via Bitcoin? I'm no expert in the ways of Bitcoin by any means and I don't own any that I know of. However, as the internet and online business continue to grow you would have to assume something like Bitcoin is here to stay. Start-ups like Coinbase and others are gaining traction from the venture capital community as we speak.

Let's be honest, most of money is just numbers on a screen anyway. The tangible form of currency has been changing for centuries. Money used to be cattle or physical wheat, then coins and bills, now a transaction with a plastic card or your mobile phone. How much cash do you really deal with on a daily basis anyway? Bitcoin doesn't sound so crazy when you really think about it.

My father and I run a very local small business so cash does change hands much of the time. However, the amount of credit cards or PayPal transactions has increased over the last few years and we deal with a lot of internet challenged customers. The amount of young people who do everything on the web are increasing and they will soon be your customer base.

Accepting Bitcoin might not be a near future method of transaction but I wouldn't discount the way things are trending. 

Thank You to 'The Fabricator' For Featuring K & E Sheet Metal

I would like to thank Dan Davis and The Fabricator Magazine for asking us to contribute to one of their feature article's in this months issue titled "Developing Shop Employees For The Field". I was more than happy to give an interview to a publication that I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy. My father and I were thrilled with how the article came out, with much appreciation given to Dan Davis and his team. When I first started in the business, working for my father, I was an installer for our residential and light commercial jobs. I learned a lot about how and what was needed to be fabricated for many different kinds of jobs. That was the simplest part of my job installing and working in peoples homes each day. The hardest part was dealing with customers from a business and personal point of view.

Every customer is different, especially when you are working in their home. Their first inclination is to be skeptical about the stranger in their house. Their second is to wonder if this person will ultimately rip them off. Most of these issues are expected to be taken care of during the quoting process, but this doesn't always put the customer at ease.

These kinds of problems are something I explained during my interview with Dan Davis, The Editor-in-Chief and writer of the article. There is definite psychology to working in a persons home; the hardest part for me as an installer.

My father and I work alone now due to economic conditions, but if we bring on new installers, these are the types of things I would pass along to help and develop new employees for our company.

You can read the article below and be sure to subscribe to The Fabricator Magazine. It's FREE:

Click the link to read the full article

Developing Shop Employees For The Field - The Fabricator

Beginning The Exhaust Fan Installation

Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for their well deserved Super Bowl Championship. I cannot say the same for the team building our new transformer however, because their 15-day delivery has hit 21 days and counting. I am beginning to think the item does not exist at all. Nevertheless we push forward with what seems to be the never ending project ( can you sense the sarcasm dripping from my tongue? ). Over the weekend my father and I got started on the exhaust fan vent for the CNC plasma table. The exhaust fan showed up last week, giving us plenty of time to get things started before the possibly fictitious transformer is delivered ;)

I am currently fabricating the square trunk duct for the outlet of the fan, which will 90 degree upwards toward our vent hood to the outdoors. This will be the easiest part to date for this entire project.

The journey continues...