The Thomas Blog

Opportunities For Business Growth During The Summer Slowdown

Every year, thousands of manufacturers around the country shut down their plants and facilities for a few weeks in the summer. They do so for a variety of reasons — to allow for vacation time, to take care of deferred maintenance, or to retool for the second half of the year.

While these activities are certainly important, too many manufacturing companies let the summer slowdown distract them from one of the most important activities of all — generating new business.

Priceless Advice: Buyers Weigh In On How You Can Win More Business

The internet is chock full of "experts" — marketing executives, consultants, sales people — with advice for boosting your industrial sales. But wouldn't it be better if you could hear from the real experts — the people who are actually buying your products — and get their advice?

4 Annoying Things Your Buyers Want You To Stop Doing

The industrial buying cycle can be a long and complicated process. As an industrial marketer, it’s your job to guide your prospective buyers at every step of their search.

Using Video Calling To Enhance Industrial Sales, Operations, & Hiring

Today, more people are working remotely than ever before. This means that collaboration, which once happened in a conference room, an office, or over lunch, must now occur over greater distances.

There are lots of tools and solutions designed to help bridge the gap and enhance communications in this new paradigm. But, by far, one of the best solutions to emerge has been video calling. That’s because people retain 95% of content they watch via video compared to only 10% of contact read by text.

However, video calling isn’t just a great tool for internal communications; it can be used to convert prospects, recruit new talent, and enhance efficiency on your shop floor.

How to Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the latest method for increasing online business exposure. But the more manufacturers we talk to, the more it becomes clear that that the term “inbound marketing” isn’t fully understood by many business owners.

Everyone seems to know that this is something they should be doing, but they’re not sure what exactly that “something” is.

Thomas WebTrax: How Industrial Suppliers Can Get More Leads

To the casual observer, today’s strong economy and booming manufacturing sector might give the impression that landing new customers in the industrial space is easy. As an industrial supplier, you know better.

4 Things Manufacturers Should Look for When Hiring New Employees

With the manufacturing sector on the upswing and reshoring initiatives continuing to add new jobs, unemployment within the industry is at a historic low. In fact, research shows that 2 million new manufacturing jobs will be created over the next decade.

The 5 Big Cybersecurity Risks Faced By Small Businesses

Over the past few years, some of the biggest brands in the world — Facebook, eBay, Target, Equifax, and many others — have become the victims of highly publicized, and extremely costly, cyberattacks. While these brazen attacks on big businesses garner a lot of media attention, the truth is that small- and medium-sized businesses are actually the biggest victims of cybercrimes and data breaches.

Can Disruptive Technologies Lead To Disruption For Your Business?

As new technologies emerge, new possibilities for disruption do as well. Smartphones and apps enabled Uber and Lyft to disrupt the staid taxi business, while the widespread availability of high-speed Internet allowed Netflix to bury Blockbuster and, ultimately, become one of the most profitable companies in the world. Even brick-and-mortar industries, like hotels and hospitality, aren’t immune to disruption, as evidenced the growing popularity of Airbnb.