Roundtable Advice
One of the secrets of Sheehan's success is an informal networking roundtable that came about quite by happenstance. The way he tells it, he ran into a couple of guys at a trade show looking at a profile-sanding booth. He kept running into them again. "It was the same guys looking at the same stuff I was," he says.

After talking to them some more and finding out they were all in similar situations but in different parts of the country, they all agreed to try to help each other out. That networking has evolved to two or three sessions a year plus individual calls in between to address specific problems.

Sheehan says it has proved to be a very valuable interchange. "I can't call my competition, but I can call these guys," he says.

Targeted Sales
Sheehan has a clear idea of his market, focusing on smaller shops with only a few employees. "We have lots of onesy-twosy types," he says. "We're still educating." He adds that for many of the smaller shops, the concept of out sourcing doors and drawers rather than building everything themselves is still new. He works with the shops as someone who has been in their shoes as a cabinetmaker himself and finds that he's often asked for advice. To keep up that level of credibility and understanding of the product, other sales staff at Columbia, including his wife, takes a turn in the shop. That way they have a better feeling for the manufacturing process and what goes into producing the product, he says. And apparently all of the education effort and targeted marketing is paying off as more and more small shops join the out sourcing fold. "Lots of shops are finally finding out that it doesn't behoove them to make their own doors and drawers," Sheehan says. And he has positioned Columbia Wood Products to meet that demand.