Are your customers marketing for you? During a recent tour of an iron metalcasting facility, one of our editors fell into a discussion about casting facilities finding new business. This metalcaster’s business is growing, mostly due to efforts of their sales staff, but an unintentional avenue opened up through a couple of casting buyers who recently changed companies. These buyers had been satisfied customers for years at a previous company before they found themselves in a new position. The customers took stock of operations at their new companies and began asking, “Why isn’t this a casting?” Soon, they were bringing in business from the new companies to the metalcaster.

In a perfect world, all our customers would be asking, “Why isn’t this a casting?”  In our October issue, we are profiling Piad Cast Precision, Greensburg, Pa., a company that defines its business by that question. If its customers aren’t asking it, they ask it for them. As CEO Karl Schweisthal pointed out, when you focus on finding candidates for casting conversions, your market is almost limitless. You may know a part is best made as a casting. And your customer’s competitor may know. But that doesn’t mean your customer does. Someone will have to point it out to them. When you do, it’s your business to take.