hello my name is Gary shot and I’m here in Beijing China just a little bit out of town at the Great Wall of China amazing story amazing information and can see just a little bit about the wall back here part that’s restored some 3,000 miles of wall that was took a thousand years to build certainly one of the seven wonders over the world and a great honor to be here our main purpose for being here is to be with our Chinese Christian friends we’re visiting such things as the mercedes-benz plant and several other manufacturing companies a laser company a robotic welding company and just machine shops similar to my business and you know part of this whole visit is to for me to learn and for my team the team I’m with to learn and we’re constantly nur’s I’m a learner I want to know where I’m at in relation to two things that are happening in other parts of the world because it’s truly a global market now so if we’re not able to understand what’s happening and where we fit in that we can find ourselves a little bit disappointed and maybe out of work in fact in the last year my company has lost some work number one we were operating in 2014 at about a million dollars a month that’s about $50,000 a day going out in sales we’re about six hundred thousand dollars a month now which is only about $30,000 a day going out in sales and so we’ve got to watch what we’re doing and where is this business going well we had one oil company that’s a larger oil company that’s not buying anything it’s just their downslide it’s one of their their peaks and valleys and they’re on a valley side of things right now and so we have another customer that we had a family of parts based on last year’s sales of 750,000 dollars that we lost that due to our price wow that hurts I mean of my total business for the year say hopefully for a 1012 levan million dollars I lose 750,000 that’s oh that’s a dent that hurts especially with the rest of the economy happening and so it was a price issue and that’s what I’m going to talk about today because I’m here with my friends in China and they asked us to talk about this because right here in China the market continues to move on them there there’s different parts of China the more muscle Paulette an area the wages are higher the rules are higher there’s more expensive to do work and so my friends are being outsourced to a deeper part deeper into China and they’re saying what do we do well good luck I mean I’m in the same boat that I hope to share some things that would help in this regard number one I had to really know where my real finances are whether I’m making a profit on certain groups of parts and I’m kind of of the opinion that the way I did business maybe 20 years ago I was kind of hoping I was making a profit on certain individual job costing of an individual part I didn’t really know and I’m doing a lot better okay because I need to know what my cost is so that I’m not contributing to my failure by underpricing my business I need to know what my costs are and once I know that I had to come to a deep study to look at everything we could do and you have to do the same thing to see how you can reduce expenses I’m a strong proponent of systems and operations unless we have always improving our operations we have the entire team improving our operations we have everyone bought into to making things better making things go faster Safety’s number one but after we know that we’re safe and we operate safely how can we make the part faster in my case we have machines that cost us a lot of money and we have to pay for those machines and their upkeep and so we build our machines out at a specific rate per hour just like you would have a a plumber or electrician come out each one of my machines has an hourly rate and that’s how we determine whether or not we would bid on this part based on the amount of time it takes us to do the job so basically I need to know my numbers now one of the things on my the customer I’m dealing with on this loss of business is that I have to be sure that I know my numbers I know where I’m at but there was a place in at the point that I couldn’t drop my price anymore I had to hold at that price I had to be confident enough in the future in the God’s blessing on me as a company that I’m not going to beg for that business and that meant that I’m out looking for other business I’m looking for niche business I’m looking for businesses that fits me and I also know that that I’ve got a I’ve got to be like I said before efficient and what I’m doing is so that drives me to be very on going looking for the good fits for our company and I want to be sure that I don’t just have work in my company I want to know that it’s business and parts and and something that fits us well not I’m not desperate I’m not desperate I have a tendency and this will come up amongst all of us is that we somehow have a tendency maybe to lower our quality maybe you’re in a pizza business or maybe you’re in some kind of a different business where where it’s food-related related or something in a service business and you start thinking about well lowering your quality I don’t want to do that I’m not doing that I don’t suggest that because at the end of the day that’s the thing that’s going to take us through the thick and the thin we’re going to be a safe company for employees we’re going to treat our employees right and we’re going to put out a product that’s a high quality now I had a chance here a very enjoyable chance to look at and and be involved with someone that works at at middle management and fairly high level of middle management at the mercedes-benz plant it’s amazing what they have in operation as far as efficiency the world’s largest automotive plant we toured both on Sunday afternoon and we’re going to do it tomorrow well how interesting and they’re all about quality they’re all about making things better they’re all about making things work better and it’s part of our process of continual improvement making sure things are better but you know are we being dedicated and diligent enough in our businesses we have to ask that ourselves are we loafing through this are we making excuses are we are we accepting less than best because if we’re not diligent if we’re not passionate if we’re not digging into the process well I’m telling you we’re probably just treading water we’re just gonna fall behind I kind of wonder about some businesses and and of course I I can’t say that I was perfect in everything that that that I did by any means I made a lot of mistakes and frankly that’s where I learned I learned a lot from my mistakes but I was never afraid to dig in and be diligent I’ve been a worker I’m not bragging I don’t want to be a workaholic I don’t want to affect negatively my family or my kids and my wife but you know I’m thinking about business pretty well most of the time I’m a lot of times I’ll wake in the morning and I’ll have a new idea and I better write it down because I’m liable to forget it if I don’t write it down and so basically it’s on my mind in a positive way because I’m diligent at business and if I’m not diligent of business why am I in it because I want to be successful I want to know that that every day I wake up and I can accomplish something new frankly for me it’s it’s it’s enjoyment in life I want to have an enjoyable life and it’s enjoyable to me to be diligent at my work now I’m not the cleanest guy my wife will tell you that I’m not the neatest guy I’m not the most organized guy I didn’t say any of that I’m just saying I am diligent in the fact that hi my wife knows that those that around me I’m always working at something I’m always moving forward even if I’m playing I’m playing right now but I’m videoing this video on top of the Great Wall of China because I want to be diligent I want to capture this moment I want to Korean courage you I want you to know that God has a plan for your life and if you will dig in with diligence that alone will will can can override a lot of in a fit of downfalls that you might might have well I hope these videos are helpful to you I hope this has given you some tips on how to retain some of your business how to how to do business at a down-cycle and I asked if you might consider sharing these videos or someone else if you see them interesting thank you very much Up next