This week has been a whirlwind as we build up to the HUCX Summer Open Day this Saturday. We love our open days. So far, they’ve been our best marketing tool. A few times a year we invite people over and have a live demonstration of a section of building being put together using a crane truck.
The beauty of our open day is that they are obligation free. You can come and have a sticky beak, ask a few questions, look around and that could be enough. What tends to happen however, not just at our open days, but whenever anyone comes to visit the factory, is that understanding and seeing the potential of our prefab system sparks something bigger.
We often have builders who come to see the HUCX Panel system in regards to a particular job then a few weeks later we get a call asking if we’d be interested in quoting another few jobs they have in the pipeline. We very much believe in the value of showing and not telling, hence the regular open day.
This is also why we haven’t had a HUCX website before. We didn’t want people to decide the value of the product from a few graphics and photos on a web page - that and the fact I just don’t have time to make one (yet)! This delayed website however has caused us to really lean into the open days. Lean into the old school, 1950’s selling techniques.
Person to person, in real life, come see how it's done, open days. Our business has seen more growth in the last 12-18 months because if my relentless networking (and of course all the other stuff Matt and the team do!) and having the open days to invite people has been a great way to create that next step in the relationship. I strongly believe that (most) people are better in person. When you engage with someone in real life it's so much more powerful than talking to someone on the phone, and doesn’t even compare with sending an email.
The only thing about open days, especially with a live demonstration, is the fear that something might go wrong… not that anything would, and nothing has before but when you invite all of your clients over for a show, the last thing you want is something to break or fail. I worry about this way more than Matt - the relentless optimist.
Matt always takes the hard road. Sometimes it's a choice but most of the time it's the only way there. Standing in front of our customers and showing how easily the system goes together when we can’t control a lot of variables requires us to be brave. To choose the path of more risk, but ultimately, more reward in the long run.
I’m often reminded of the hard road versus the easy when I sit at my desk. Our factory is positioned next door to Ballarat Joinery Supplies (a timber wholesaler) and further up the street, maybe 300m away is a local cabinet marker. At least 2 or 3 times a day, in the reflection of my computer screen, I see a ute driving past very, very slowly... No more than 10 km per hour.
The guys at the cabinet marker take cut timber to BJS to get drilled or edged (I assume) but because they’re so close they don’t bother to tie down the timber and just drive super slowly back and forth so they don’t lose their load. It would probably take about 5 minutes to tie the boards down properly but they don’t. They balance the boards on the tray of the ute and just drive real slow…
I think I’ve seen them lose three loads when they took the corner too fast. Perhaps that loss is worth the 30 minutes a day they save from not tying the boards down properly. Whatever the reason, whenever I see the ute slowly creeping past work I’m reminded of the hard road versus the easy one.
There is a saying I like to butcher that goes something like ‘Do what is easy and your life will become hard. Do what is hard and your life will become easy.’ I often refer to this when I feel like we’ve been on the hard road for way too long. I know all of this hard work will eventually make life easier later on. We just need to keep moving forward. If you’re free this Saturday you should come to our open day and see where taking the hard road has led us.
