⚙For manufacturing businesses

Yes — but for a different reason than a business with a thousand customers.

Not because of the quantity, but because of the depth:

• One customer has five contact persons in three departments.
• A matter runs over months with many interim stages.
• The knowledge about it lies in people’s heads and in mailboxes.

What happens if it is not written down anywhere: the colleague who has looked after the customer for twelve years retires. With him goes the reason behind a particular decision three years ago, and his successor starts from scratch.

So what you need: less a contact management tool than a memory. Who said what and when, which requirements exist, what you offered last.

And the effort: manageable. With twenty customers, maintenance takes minutes per week — if it runs alongside the work.

As separate contacts, all assigned to the same company — not as one contact with many numbers.

Why separately:

• Each has their own role and their own interests.
• Purchasing wants a price, engineering wants a solution, management wants a commitment.
• You do not write to all of them in the same way.
• One leaves, the others stay.

Record:

• The role, not just the title. “Decides on budgets up to 50,000” says more than “Head of division”.
• Who talks to whom. In larger organisations, that is decisive.
• Who is your advocate — and who is not.

And the question people ask themselves too rarely: whom do we not know there who still has a say in the decision? If you only have one contact and they leave, the customer is gone.

With a reliable rhythm instead of memory.

What you should set up:

• A follow-up after every contact — with a specific date, not “some time”.
• At every contact, record what the next occasion is. A trade fair, a budget cycle, a competitor’s contract that is expiring.
• The status in one sentence that someone else can understand too.

What makes the difference in long cycles: not persistence but good reasons to get in touch. “Just checking in” every three months is annoying. Coming with something useful every three months is account management.

What you should remember: in long cycles, the people change on both sides. Check once a year whether your contact persons are still there.

And the realistic expectation: in long cycles, the winner is whoever is present when the need arises — not whoever calls most.

Differently from specialist departments, and both need something different from you.

The specialist department wants it to work. You convince them with the solution, references and technical understanding.

Purchasing wants comparable quotes, clear terms and little risk. It convinces itself with figures and formalities.

In everyday work, this means:

• Serve both sides. Anyone who only talks to engineering fails at purchasing. Anyone who only talks to purchasing turns into a question of price.
• Record who needs what — with several parties involved, that is the most important thing in the record.
• Have proof ready: certificates, insurance certificates, supplier declarations. In industry, these are requested routinely.

And a practical tip: record which proof which customer requested when, and when it expires. It comes round again every year.

With three details per quote that must always be up to date.

1. Status. Submitted, under review, renegotiated, decided.
2. Next date. When does something happen, and what?
3. What is still missing. From us or from the other side.

What you should also record:

• The validity period. A quote from a year ago no longer applies — and if it is accepted anyway, you have a problem.
• The calculation basis. If renegotiation happens after eight months, you need to know what the price was based on.
• Who checked it.

What happens over long periods: material prices change, and so do capacities. A quote you submit today can be a loss-making deal in a year.

Therefore: for long cycles, a price adjustment clause and a clear validity period, and note both in the record.

For three things, and sales is only one of them.

1. Recruiting staff. Anyone who applies to you looks at the website first. For many manufacturing businesses, that is the most important purpose today.

2. Legitimacy. A buyer reviewing your quote checks who you are. A site from 2011 without a legal notice (Impressum) raises questions you do not want to answer.

3. Technical enquiries. Not many, but the right ones. Someone who is looking for a special process and finds you is a valuable enquiry.

What follows for the content:

• Careers belongs up front, not in the footer.
• Show what it looks like at your business — real pictures, not stock photos.
• Describe what you can do, in technical language. People who search know the terms.

And what you can do without: a glossy site without substance.

It answers the questions applicants ask themselves before they get in touch.

What applicants want to know:

• What does the workplace look like?
• Who are the people?
• How do you get there, are there shifts, what are the hours?
• What is there besides the salary?
• How does the application process work, and how long does it take?

What you should show:

• Real photos from the business. People, machines, rooms. No bought images.
• A contact person with a name and a face.
• Specific job descriptions, not boilerplate text.
• A simple way to get in touch. A form with five fields, not an application portal with registration.

The last point matters more than you think: someone looking for a skilled worker position applies from their phone. Whatever is cumbersome there gets abandoned.

And one point that costs little: reply quickly. Anyone who waits two weeks has already accepted elsewhere.

In one place, with a fixed process and short deadlines.

The process that has proven itself:

1. Confirm receipt — on the same day; automatic is enough.
2. Decide within a week whether there will be an interview.
3. Give feedback, including for rejections.
4. Decide promptly after the interview.

Why speed is decisive here: in a tight labour market, the employer who makes the first offer often wins — not the one with the best offer.

What you should record: the status of each application, who has seen it, what was discussed.

What you must bear in mind:

• Only show documents to those involved.
• Delete after completion if there is no reason to keep them.
• Rejections without a contestable reason.

And if you want to use AI for pre-sorting: legally, that is a particularly sensitive area with increased requirements. Check this before you introduce it.

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In the week after — not the week after that.

The process:

1. While still at the fair: note two keywords for each conversation. What did you discuss, what did you agree? Without that, after three days all the cards look the same.
2. In the first days afterwards: record the contacts, with the keywords.
3. Within a week: get in touch — with reference to the conversation, not with a mail merge.
4. Set a follow-up for those where it will take longer.

What makes the difference: the reference. “You asked about the durability under continuous load — here are the values” has a completely different effect from “nice to have met you”.

What you should bear in mind legally: a conversation at the stand is not automatically consent to advertising. Record what you actually agreed.

And the honest conclusion: twenty well-followed-up contacts are worth more than two hundred collected business cards.

With the matter and with an expiry date — not in a drive folder sorted by year.

What typically accumulates:

• Drawings and specifications.
• Test reports and certificates.
• Insurance certificates.
• Supplier declarations and conformity statements.
• Framework agreements and price agreements.

What belongs in the note:

• Which customer and which matter a document belongs to.
• Which version is current. With drawings, that is the most common source of errors of all.
• When it expires and who takes care of it then.

What you should set up: a reminder for every document with an expiry date. Certificates expire, and it is always noticed when a customer asks for one.

And the rule for versions: one valid version, old ones clearly marked or gone. Two drawings with the same name are a production error waiting to happen.

By having it recorded as part of the work — not in a “knowledge preservation” project.

What works:

• Three lines after every customer conversation. Who, what, what follows.
• A note for every unusual solution on why that decision was made.
• A page for every customer with its particularities — delivery requirements, contact persons, quirks.

What has not proven itself:

• A manual that someone writes once and nobody ever reads again.
• A request to “document everything”.

The trigger many businesses miss: if someone retires in two years, start now — not in their last month. Have this person go through and complete their customer files.

And the acid test: take a customer and ask someone who does not look after them: could you go there tomorrow? What would you be missing?

What someone looks for who needs exactly your process — in technical language.

What belongs on the site:

• What you manufacture, specifically: processes, materials, tolerances, batch sizes.
• Which machines and capacities you have.
• Which certifications you hold.
• Which industries you work for.
• A contact person with a name.

What does not help:

• “Quality, reliability, innovation.” Everyone writes that.
• Stock photos of handshakes.
• A company history on the home page.

Why technical language is right here: anyone looking for what you offer knows the terms. Anyone who does not know them is not your customer. This is the rare case in which technical terms serve comprehensibility.

And the one sentence that is missing: what can you do that others cannot? If you cannot say that in one sentence, the website is not the problem.