Business & Tech

Industrial Manufacturers Embrace Internet Marketing, Social Trends

Sharn Enterprises, Inc. in Frankfort stays profitable by keeping on top of expenses and knowing when to make capital investments.

The blueprint for profitability at Sharn Enterprises, Inc., a display manufacturer in Frankfort, is moving ahead with current marketing trends and strategic capital improvements.    

Roger Wandersee, president of Sharn, said a matter of months before the economy took a nose dive in 2008, the manufacturer of custom plastic, wood and sheet metal displays used mostly in retail stores, opened a new 26,000-square-foot facility in Frankfort Industrial Park at Laraway and Center Roads.  What could have turned out to be a mistake, considering the state of the economy, instead became an opportunity for Wandersee to expand his business and his philosophical outlook by embracing Internet marketing.

While other companies sliced their budgets for marketing and communications, Wandersee doubled his. An advocate of the Illinois Small Business Development Center, headquartered at Governors State University in University Park, Wandersee regularly gathered at the school with like-minded professionals to trade tips and develop strategies to overcome the economic drought that has lingered for several years.

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"Snail mail" had worked for years, but that wasn't the wave of the future, he said. "Maybe six years ago, I was bringing in sales people to do cold calling. I quit doing that because frankly it was bugging people."

Today all business transactions are done through email, he said. And Instagrams have taken the place of costly sales brochures. The company continues to produce advertising brochures and the like, but they're largely used as handouts at vendor conventions.

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Doing business today, no matter what product is being manufactured, means paying attention to social trends, he said. Retail stores require creative displays to sell lines of clothing or shoes. For one particular client looking to evoke the beachcomber feel, Sharn came up with a bamboo display. "It was the first time we used bamboo," he added. That project posed its own set of obstacles.  Unlike wire or plastic tubing, "real bamboo lacks consistency."

Bob Rankstang, interim director at GSU's Illinois Small Business Development Center, stressed that the key to staying profitable in today's economy is logistics. Despite the fact that neighboring states, including Indiana and Michigan have been beckoning Illinois-based manufacturers with tax breaks, south suburban organizations in particular have a distinct advantage. The proximity to interstates, railroads and airports is an advantage.

"I see a benefit for being in Illinois for access to any form of transportation. I don't just mean locally but globally," Rankstang said.

He further suggests that manufacturers actively seek ways to establish some type of diversity within their product lines. That can be as simple as finding ways to recycle and reuse what was once considered waste. 

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