Sitting here today on this pallet of mold steel ordered by my client, I’d like to share a few thoughts.
This client from Weihai, Shandong, has been buying my mold steel for 10 years now, and we’ve still never met in person. Whenever he places an order, he’s very brief—just two sentences: “Please process the order,” and “The payment will be transferred shortly.” He works in plastic mold manufacturing. He buys pallet after pallet every time, and has been doing so consistently for 10 years—I’m truly moved by that.
Comparing him to those who don’t buy, it made me realize that customers who buy in large quantities are the ones who don’t make a fuss, whereas those who buy only a little tend to create a lot of trouble. In any case, I’ve noticed that the ones who call frequently—especially those who call in the dead of night—are the ones who don’t end up buying.
Take the case from the day before yesterday, for example: a client I hadn’t been in touch with for years. He was using V8 mold steel purchased in Zhejiang for his stainless steel hot-forging dies. Although the hardness had reached 60–61 HRC, the dies would collapse after only 1,000 products. Other mold steels wouldn’t work either because their service life was too short to produce the required output, so he reached out to me. However, that night he called me four times in a row, and in the end, no deal was made.
Also, on Saturday afternoon two days ago, an online contact from Fujian—who had reached out many times before—wanted to buy a small piece of 8566 die steel. He called me four times in a row, but in the end, we didn’t close the deal.
There was also someone who had inquired in early August and reached out to me again yesterday. He bends 1mm-thick A3 bright bar stock and is currently using M2 steel, but after producing 200–300 products, the material sticks to the die and the products get scratched. He has to polish it to make it usable again, and this back-and-forth process is very frustrating.
When he consulted me in August, I recommended 8503 die steel because it has twice the toughness of DC53 and a hardness of 55–61 HRC. Compared to DC53, its performance is twice as good without the price doubling, and it also has the added benefit of preventing material sticking
We have a customer who is deep-drawing 1.1-mm-thick Q195 casters with a draw depth of 50–60 mm. He said that Cr12MoV simply wouldn’t work without a coating—after producing just a few dozen to a hundred parts, the material would stick to the mold and cause wire drawing. However, with the non-stick 8503 die steel, it takes 30,000 parts before any minor wire drawing occurs, and after a quick polish, the mold is ready for use again. He felt that the non-stick 8503 performed much better than Cr12MoV for drawing dies, He’s very satisfied and has reordered many times.
Yesterday, this customer who does bending called me three times, but still didn’t place an order. I’ve noticed that customers who are going to buy don’t beat around the bush and rarely call, while those who aren’t going to buy tend to be very talkative and call frequently.
It’s just as Kazuo Inamori of Kyocera said: in business, the first priority is to earn the customer’s trust.
When I see how this client in Weihai buys a whole pallet every time without any fuss, while some clients are very talkative yet never buy, I realize that clients who don’t trust you will have many problems and concerns. There’s a huge difference between trust and distrust, so I’d like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts.
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Wu Dejian’s tool steel, the chief of staff of the user, bought everything he had used.