The Thomas Blog

The Top 9 Resources to Help You Find Your Next Engineering Job

You’re working hard and doing what you love, designing new parts and products, but you just can’t see any potential for career growth. You’ve searched through LinkedIn, Monster, and Indeed and have come up empty. If you can relate, it might be time to start trying some more focused job boards to uncover that new opportunity. 

Why Aren’t Your Site Visitors Submitting RFQs?

Wouldn’t it be frustrating if qualified visitors were coming to your website, but few, if any, of them were actually converting to leads? If you’re not providing the right information that buyers are looking for, you may be in that very situation without even knowing it — after all, no one’s sticking around to waste time telling you why they’re leaving.

How the Internet of Things Can Change Your Shop

Whatever you call it — the internet of things, the cloud, the “smart grid” — it’s all about connectivity, access, and efficiency. So what exactly is it? The internet of things, as we’ll refer to it, is a series of interconnected “smart devices.”

Have you heard of the Nest thermostat? That’s an example of a smart device: not only can you control it remotely, say, from your phone, but it also uses sensors to adjust the temperature based on whether you’re home or not, and from there it actually “learns” how to heat and cool your house optimally based on your schedule and other factors.

Pick-Six: Marketing Lessons From the Football Playbook

The first season of NCAA Football to end with a formal playoff system is just kicking into gear, and while we’re still settling in to see which teams look to be on top, one fact remains unchanged: NCAA Football is a marketing powerhouse. From deals with sponsors from ESPN to Coca-Cola, it’s clear that the organization has its playbook set when it comes to promotion. But what about you? If we take a look at the game itself, we can draw up a few marketing lessons that are useful to anyone — not just huge organizations:

HubSpot Announces New Free CRM Software

Psst! Hey! Yeah you. When was the last time the marketing department got a high five for saving the company money? Doesn’t happen, right?

Well that just changed.

Prepare yourself for a possible parade in your name put on by the accounting department and the VP of Sales, because you are about to deliver a brand new CRM system to them for free.

The 3 Facts You Need To Know About the Export-Import Bank and U.S. Manufacturing

The Export-Import Bank is up for reauthorization this month, and it may be in as much trouble as it’s ever been.

Not familiar with it? The ExIm, as it’s known, supports U.S. exports by providing credit, loans, guarantees, and/or financing to suppliers that wouldn’t be able to get it otherwise. It frequently acts as a lender or insurer to companies with a lot of foreign customers who may not have the on-hand capital to fulfill orders, or who can’t get financing from private lenders. Credit from the ExIm also lets suppliers sell to foreign buyers on favorable terms rather than requiring upfront payment.

How to Avoid “Missed Connections” in the Buying Cycle

Most people know about Craigslist “Missed Connections:” you’ve met someone interesting but didn’t follow up or exchange contact information, so you cast a line into the World Wide Web in the hopes of getting a second chance with that special someone.

The problem? The odds are largely against you, since it all depends on that other person actually finding your ad.

5 Reasons Industrial Buyers Search for “Made in the USA” Suppliers

Through thick and thin, from U.S. manufacturing’s heyday, past tough times, and into the present resurgence, the “Made in the USA” label has always held a distinctive connotation: strength, quality, pride, and a sense of resilience. It’s no secret, though, that up until recent times, it was something that OEMs and industrial buyers would say they wanted to pursue, but it simply wasn’t feasible. The domestic manufacturing landscape got so bad that the U.S. government even considered fudging the numbers to make manufacturing numbers look better . . . by classifying fast food as a manufacturing industry. Those cheeseburgers can make you think funny things.

What Procurement Managers Must Understand About Industrial Suppliers

Industrial suppliers are not mind readers. Shocking, I know!

Yet each day they are pressed into service to determine exactly what a buyer needs with sparingly little information. They do their best to provide specs of their parts, CAD files, dimensional data, performance curves, videos, comparison tables, machine lists, and capability descriptions but the procurement teams always have unanswered questions.

As an industrial buyer, it is your job to bring the clearest questions possible. Here are a few facts to have on hand before contacting a supplier: