I was looking over the objects on my desk this morning when the, “Welcome to the house of Huzzard,” sign caught my eye. It is an old sign, one I made many, many years ago. Back when I was learning how to run a CNC router.
I know how to program a machine to cut a piece of wood. Not just to cut it but to bevel it, put designs in it, and write words. I don’t know how much of that I still remember, but give me a few minutes with AlphaCam (if it is still around), and I am sure I could figure out some of it.
That was a time of mistakes. The biggest was choosing one software over another. It was my choice because I was going to be the one using it, but ultimately I should have gone with the more intuitive easier to use software than the one with the name.
How often do we make decisions like that? Going with a big well known name over a smaller, lesser known brand that might be delivering higher quality. A lot of the other mistakes of that time weren’t mine. The people that sold us the router over promised on its production and we bid future jobs with that level of production in mind.
Looking back the way to do it would have been to get the machine, and learn our capabilities with it, and then move up to the bigger and bigger jobs slowly. The problem was always digital. Digital cameras took a business making $10 million a year and turned it into one just struggling to get by. Getting back to that level with cabinetry was going to be difficult, and we should have treated ourselves like a start-up.
I might have lost the skills to program a machine to cut a piece of wood, but I have learned many business lessons since then. The biggest is that slow growth is the way to go. Scaling is the one of the biggest buzzwords around. How can you scale your business and take on more customers than you ever thought you’d have? Buy my seminar for $2000 and I will show you how. Then you get to the seminar and it is all buzzwords, mindset, and useless platitudes. Nothing of substance.
That was the best part of programming the router. You did your work, hit a button, and watched it all come to life.
David Huzzard Writes 