Thanks to the slump of oil and gas prices, my company's biggest clients are no longer exploring, which means they aren't sending us samples for testing, and that means we aren't getting paid, which means if I don't find a way to generate income I will need to start applying elsewhere, which is sort of a huge problem because my kids and court orders are legally keeping me in the Abilene, TX area.
Some background: I work for a
very small laboratory in west Texas. Right now our two biggest potential money-making tools are
a Rigaku Nex CG XRF spectrometer and an
AGI Supersting Earth Resistivity meter.
We would very much like to find a way of reaching out to people who need analytical work done cheaply, accurately and quickly. Back in February I was sent to a convention in Denver, but there was little to no real interest. I mean, I had mostly students come up and talk to me but they don't have a budget. I also had a couple of other good leads from this but they did not end up panning out. So, that ended up being a huge waste of time and money.
Another idea I had was to get involved with the
EPA Superfund Contract Laboratory Program but I don't know the ins or outs of government contracting work.
I know that it's possible to make a living by providing these services, but our location in shitty west Texas means it's impossible to just drive around and shake hands with people until you find who you need. I have a chemistry degree, not a business degree, and I'm having a whole lot of trouble doing cold calls to random companies, being an introvert.
If someone has experience in this field or can help point me in the right direction to start, I would greatly appreciate it!
BTW, I am not advertising for my business here, I just need help figuring out where to go to do that. Please don't take this post as an advertisement!
Posts
Walk me through it, I'm a new client:
2. You are hiring me to run a quantitative or semi-quantitative analysis of samples that you send us, and to provide you with the results of that analysis along with (potentially) an interpretation.
3. I also use resistivity equipment to make an electrical picture of the near subsurface environment, I can do simple laboratory tests like magnetic susceptibility, pH/conductivity, loss on ignition, etc.
4. I'm honestly not sure how you found out about me. That's the point of this thread; I don't have a budget for a website and after wasting a lot of money at a convention that didn't attract any attention, because it was largely populated by students and lab professionals with their own equipment, I can't see us going to another one.
I hope that answers your questions satisfactorily!
We could absolutely do those things. If I had any idea how to approach the police about that.
We used to have a website but it was an expense that gained us virtually zero attention. But perhaps that needs to be reevaluated?
Then find anything that matches those categories working out in distance from where you are and just start calling/emailing/faxing/sending letters telling them what you can do for them and that you offer competitive pricing.
Most of them are going to ignore you, but if you can get a few interested they might love your services and start to tell friends.
If waiting for people to find you doesn't seem to be working then get out and find the people who need you instead.
I would combine that with Foomy's advice and send people to your page, which should have something to give them a good inclination of the services you provide.
Although that might jeopardize your business with the extractive industries.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Honestly? I don't think they care what other work we get up to as long as we tell them what is in the soil they send us.
Thanks for the suggestions, everybody. More are welcome.
edit: like in a they can send to you/you results back, not in a move there way
Government contracts are longer term; They probably have fairly strict guidelines, may require things you can't test for, have bid processes etcet. Your best bet is probably getting attached to a project of some sort.
When I think of atomic soil samples I immediately think of soil pollution. I know my own government did extensive research into lead in soil around places where gas stations, refineries, and leather tanneries used to be, to see if there are any problems rezoning the land.
You could perhaps even market to individuals, in an 'Are you concerned about the land you're buying / living on' kind of way, but that does rely on a bit of distrust in the government/EPA etcet.
He's in Texas - shouldn't be a problem to find that demographic :rotate:
On a more serious note: if you can easily buy a list of companies that fit your target market, email blitzes (combined with an informative website) and telemarketing can be a good source of lead generation. I can understand the distaste for cold calling, but I do it every day, and if you go into it with the right attitude it doesn't have to be a terrible chore. You'd probably need to do some calls to check the data is up to date regarding emails and correct contacts in any case.
It could even be worth paying a telemarketing firm to try a pilot scheme for you for a couple of days, to give you an idea of whether there would be any return on investment.
If students were interested, would it be worth reaching out to educational establishments who might be interested in hiring your expertise to demonstrate techniques or provide resources for student projects? I guess the issue there is educational establishments having their own kit.
This is a problem. If you don't know (and you work there), how do you expect customers to find you? I'd say, first and foremost, a website is absolutely critical. It doesn't need to drive traffic to your doorstep 24/7, but people looking for your specific business type will likely search online, you only need one client a year to cover the cost of the web hosting.
If I were in your position, I would start by identifying a successful competitor and making a note of what kind of advertising they use and who it's targeted at. I'd call them and ask for a quote/time frame/and try to figure out who their client base is (this is called 'mystery shopping'). If you don't have a successful local competitor, look nationwide and note what successful labs are doing.
I'm an alumnus of one of the local universities, and I've done some work for them, but it was back when I was a research assistant and we didn't get paid for it.
This is definitely one area I can push, though.
It sounds to me like you need someone working on these cold calls and drumming up sales for your company, but if it's just you that may not be an expense you can front.
Have you looked into their employment situation?
If they are thriving and your company is dropping, you may want to look into what about their strategy is working and, if you can't emulate it, try to merge or jump over to them.
Can your lab branch out? Law enforcement might be a good field to link up with if you can do any of that sort of work. Maybe not directly for the feds, but maybe you can piggy back off budgets and do work for forestry or the EPA? I'm not really sure how that all works.
To me it seems like you need to get a sales person in, pay like $10-15 an hour and give a commission on job prospects. If it doesn't work out after a month or two, then drop them.
Steam Me
I had a paper published this year that's basically materials science R&D for polymers. We used XRF as a tool to support our conclusions. But again, I was personally involved with this research and it didn't make us any money because of that.
Yeah you need someone to do sales. If you're bad at it you need to hire someone.
You can also contract sales out. Get a call centre to get appointments for you.
You could look up rankings to try and get a feel for which colleges/universities are 2nd and 3rd tier, or you could probably look at things like the number of graduating masters and phd students for any given department.
No idea how you would reach out to them though.
What EPA schedules? Take a look at one of the big boys like Test America or Montgomery Watson and what analysis do they do that you can do cheaper? I realize you are a very small lab, but you should have at least one person who has some background/experience in marketing. Is this "your" lab, or a lab you happen to work for?
NM reread the OP: "which means if I don't find a way to generate income I will need to start applying elsewhere, which is sort of a huge problem because my kids and court orders are legally keeping me in the Abilene, TX area." Without knowing anything about the "court orders" is there a possibility for an exemption if your (new) job requires you to relocate?
It sounds like you are working for a lab that is doing a craptastic job at marketing themselves and was able to get away with a "the work will come to us" attitude for awhile. If at all possible I would look at other labs.
GIS is evil
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has their approved methods here.
And you will almost never beat Test America, etc. on price. They do a lot of bulk testing 24/7. Like a lot of samples, to keep the price of individual tests down. A smaller company will generally win out on expertise- explaining things to the customers and suggesting tests that can help pinpoint issues.
And government contracting work is hard. You could do it, but it requires very fast turn-around-times. And a lot of paperwork. And high throughput. I used to do data review of contract labs, and some of the labs were small business/ women/ minority/ and/or veteran owned. You almost have to know somebody on the inside so you can navigate the maze.
I would look more at partnerships with large engineering firms first, though.
Thanks for this post!
When you say they won't be beaten on price, do you mean they will undercut, say, $30/sample? XRF is very, very inexpensive for us to do and we are willing to eat a lot of the profit to get a foot in the door.
I've done plenty of submissions with CROs (Contract Research Organizations) and third party laboratories in regards to the testing of chemical compounds and the standard information we would want from a potential lab or CRO would be:
1) Price estimate on the services
2) Timing estimate from receipt of shipment to draft report
3) When the invoice needs to be paid (30/60/90 days?)
We have a list of labs and CROs we use for pricing, some for timing and some for expertise. As mentioned above, we also get some bulk discounts for what we do and those folks usually also provide good timing. There are times they get backed up and if timing is a concern, we'll move on to someone who can do something faster for us, even if it results in an elevated cost.
This may be a personal preference, but I'm much more open to receiving an email than I am to a phone call in regards to someone wanting to do business with me in this capacity. Not having a website would not really make me an interested party, either.
If you're also considering drumming up business from another workshop or meeting, you might consider regional meetings where you can talk to those in the industry. For example, I'm a toxicologist. If I was the target audience for your services, you would probably want to find me in a local capacity. Regional Society of Toxicology (SOT) meetings represent a chance for some local businesses to meet clients on the spot and discuss or even present on their capabilities. We will see toxicology testing labs and other similar businesses show up. This is much cheaper than the National SOT meeting and also only represents the area around you. Maybe American Chemical Society (ACS) meetings for you?
I hope this helps.
That's all good advice though, I'll look and see about local meetings!