Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Luke.
Christopher, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
The company started in January of 1987, originally it was just myself a service tech and my brother David, We worked primarily out of our house and out of our cars. We actually kept our inventory in an unused bathroom at a friend of mine’s metal cutting shop, And our first building was a small portable building that we put a welder we bought at an auction in and ran an extension cord too to a friend of mine shop. Over the years the company has transformed itself from a local band saw blade distributor buying other people’s product and reselling it in the Houston market to a web company that manufacturers its own band saw blade and sells worldwide. https://vimeo.com/262320611
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I honestly don’t think any business has a smooth Rd. I always think there are plenty of bumps and challenges along the way. We have had numerous challenges and many of them have been self-inflicted by decisions that I made, Frankly speaking if I were to recount all the mistakes that I made I think I could write a 600 page book. But I think that we have to accept that we make mistakes and try to make the best of them and learn from them. Some of the mistakes I made was in the early days we would over promise and under deliver and that simply erodes credibility with your customer, i tried to expand too aggressively by taking on other product lines and not having a clear plan on how to follow up with the sales. Another big mistake would be having multiple lines of bandsaw blades, this may sound like a good idea because you can deliver what your customer wants but you will ultimately always run into quality differences and that will reflect on. but most importantly I think I realized the financial struggles that you have. We don’t have any bank loans nor do we have any accounts payable we pay everything on a cash basis and to be able to do that you simply have to make enough profit and your product that you sell to the customer, and that’s difficult because there’s always downward pressure in the pricing industry so the best way to increase profit margins is to limit the costs. And that would include laser focus on efficiencies putting in matrixes such as how many dollars are sold for each man hour worked investing in equipment that costs more but is more reliable and produces a better product limiting returns. Ironically the most catastrophic bump or hurdle we suffered turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us; we were the importer of a bandsaw blade out of Germany, and we were doing pretty well with the blade, But because of a personal difference we were terminated as their US importer and that left us with no bandsaw blade line to sell and a website coming online that we thought would revolutionize the industry. I realized at that moment that I can’t count on any single supplier and the only way to truly deliver a quality product at a stable price to the customer was to make our own bandsaw blade. Within two weeks we had a joint venture with a company that we still enjoy collaboration with today and from that point on our company has been 100% vertically integrated. And that has allowed us to control the quality, the price, and the overall customer experience. Essentially the company that terminated our contract tried to put us out of business and it resulted in us being who we are today kind. of a weird turn of events.
Additionally There have also been numerous business cycles that have been very challenging for example the 2007 2008 financial crisis was very difficult to navigate through because people just weren’t spending money, but we were able to keep the business running with no layoffs and keeping the company intact so when we came out of that. We were 100% effective.
COVID was also a huge challenge for us, we were an essential workforce so we didn’t have to shut down but we still had to make sure the employees were safe and we had to change the way we did business entirely.
Most recently a big obstacle has been tariffs and the inflation, you have to be able to pass this on to the customer and the customers are already I’m tired of high prices so piling on more is somewhat difficult. So you have to be able to offer the customer more
As you know, we’re big fans of Metal Sawing Technology/Sawblade.com. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I’m the managing partner here at metal sawing technology and sawblade com, I oversee the day-to-day operations but I primarily leave the daily decisions to those in charge of the departments. I focus mostly on our products, costs, oversee the marketing and most importantly I oversee the constant transformation to a more efficient company. I also look for other businesses to acquire to leverage our efficiencies. But the truth of the matter is if you ask me what I did for work I would tell you that I’ve never worked a day in my life, I enjoy what I do so much I would pay the company to do this job
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Out of all the questions you’ve asked this is probably the most interesting and it’s probably the most important, we like collaboration from all employees we listen to all of their ideas some are not very good others are just simply outstanding. We have an open door policy at the company where anybody can come in and voice their opinion with me at any time in private. Our most important asset here is our employees, and they are the people that we collaborate with and give us the most support because without them there would be no company
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sawblade.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sawblade.com_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=sawblade.com
- Twitter: https://x.com/SawBladecom
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Sawblade
- Other: https://vimeo.com/262320611
