Introduction
Finding a great welder has always been a challenge for everyone. There are just not that many welders out there anymore. Not to mention the simple fact that there are so many different welding processes and materials.
The companies that need welders all the time tend to horde all the best welders to themselves—paying fantastic salaries to their welders because they know how hard it is to find and retain the best welders. For everyone else, finding a highly experienced welder for a particular job is impossible.
Sure, finding someone to lay down a simple bead with an arc welder to fix a wrought iron chair should be easy and cheap, but it is not. Much less finding an experienced TIG welder to fix an aluminum structure is just about impossible.
When faced with a problem that should be welded, most handymen will typically do an ugly, non-kosher repair. Or recommend someone throw away a perfectly good chair over a minor broken weld that can be fixed in minutes with a guy and a portable 110v arc welder.
Approaching this market.
We have been dealing with this problem in our local market. We have seen all sorts of businesses that need good welders, from automotive to watercraft, agriculture, and construction.
The way we came into this segment was a local marine repair shop. On the west coast, Aluminum fishing boats are popular, especially the welded hull boats. These boats are subjected to much abuse in the rivers, at the ramp, or rough swells. Any repairs or modifications to marine-grade aluminum requires specialized knowledge and skill. It is not something that some guy with a cheap harbor freight welder can fix.
The particular shop we worked with was stuck between a rock and a hard place. They didn’t have anyone in-house with welding skills. Typically they would pull the boat halfway across the state to another shop, which was expensive for them and the customer. Clients didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars for repair. The other alternative was mechanically riveting or screwing a repair patch, which was downright ugly. Who wants to see a big huge patch on the side of their nice fishing boat?
Enrolling the shop was easy. The challenge was finding someone local to do the work, especially in our area where there isn’t much work for highly skilled marine TIG welding. Approaching the trade schools was a terrible idea. The kids there were more likely to blow holes into the side of the boat, causing more problems than they fixed. Until it finally dawned on us to approach the local welding supply stores. These shops knew qualified marine welders and were able to connect us. These shops had job boards that we posted information on as well.
Having welders on the platform has also enabled us to go back to the automotive and construction businesses to let them know that they had a new tool at their disposal. This enabled them to take or suggest new projects that they hadn’t thought about before. Recommending a rather expensive wrought iron gate instead of a more common wood gate is one example. Another one was building a patio cover out of steel instead of traditional wood. Projects that excited their clients, but previously was unimaginable because they didn’t have access to a professional welder and their equipment.
Summary
In the course of solving one problem for one customer, keep in the back of your mind on how you can leverage that work to the benefit of companies you already onboarded. This is working smarter and not harder.