Honesty: Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

An honest man is believed without an oath, for his reputation swears for him.

– Eliza Cook

Reputation means so much. But if everyone was honest, what would all the lawyers do?

Just kidding. Stuff happens. But she makes a good point. You don’t need a lawyer when everyone just gives it to you straight and you do the same.

And immediately, I think of Tim LuMaye and his team at Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge, in Kalama Washington. These people give it to you straight. And that’s exactly why they’re doing so well.

When our customers come to us, we give it to them straight. We don’t tell them what they want to hear. It’s not our job to show them how to pay us more. We tell them how to be successful, and we help them with that task.

Cook reminds us to always be honest in our dealings. Consistent honesty builds a solid reputation.

Honesty: An Interfanatic Quality

Whenever we begin a new relationship with an individual or company, we start by giving them three alternatives. Perhaps it’s because I’m part Irish, but there’s something about three choices to me.

If they know their budget, we give them three proposals: one as far below their budget as we can realistically go while still achieving the most important objectives, one pretty close to bang on budget, getting the most for their money, and one way over budget, showing them all the things we can do.

From there, they tell us where they’re comfortable. We don’t ever expect them to choose proposal three, but sometimes they do. But by giving them choices, we allow them to work within their comfort zones and we give them honest alternatives. Our three-pronged proposal is a lot of work – hours of labor go into each one. And often, we get feedback from our new clients and revise to a further three. (We recently did three batches of three proposals for an existing client for a total of 9 proposals, each one less than the first, as his ideas evolved.) So this is a labor-intensive process.

But it works for them.

And then we have an honest starting point from which to work. This way, in our experience, everything goes so much better.

Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge – Honesty is their Policy

I’ve known Tim LuMaye for over a decade now. He and his team are the best because they give it to their competitors straight. They outwork their competitors and they tell the truth. So many salespeople say what they need to get the sale. Tim and co are not like that. They tell the truth.

And it’s critical that they do because their product quality has massive implications. They forge alloy steels, titaniums, aluminums and other alloys. They work with Aerospace, Energy, Automotive, and Medical sector producers. So if their alloy was wrong, or it didn’t get done in time, the results would be disastrous.

So they don’t fool around.

Over a decade ago, Tim LuMaye got wind of our work. We built a website for him. I’m pleased to say we did a good job. A few months ago, Tim did us the greatest honor of all. He contacted us again, and after reviewing our proposals, he said, “Go with the last one. I know anything you do will be great.”

Gosh, that’s a good feeling. And it’s well-founded – not to brag, but this is one of those real success stories I don’t often get to share. A decade ago, we built a really solid website for him – really solid. It has a great foundation for SEO.

Our chief task with the new site was to not lose any of that great organic traffic Tim and his team had worked so hard to build.

“The first week of Tim’s new website, traffic was UP by nearly 15%.”

Anybody who knows anything about SEO knows that when you launch a new website, there’s almost nothing you can do to not lose at least a little traffic. We typically tell our customers to expect a 20-30% drop in organic for a week or two, then things rebound and often meet or slightly exceed legacy.

Not this time. We really rolled up our sleeves for Tim’s project. And it took longer than expected, to be sure. Frustratingly so. But it was worth it. The first week of Tim’s new website, traffic was UP by nearly 15%. That’s astonishing.

His competitors hate it, I’m sure. Too bad.

As a result, his site now sees the same amount of traffic as it did before COVID-19. All the while, his competitors have seen a substantial drop-off.

This is our goal in every project we do. It takes great work to do a fantastic job like that. Not everyone is up for such a task. And those that are often charge an arm and a leg. We try to be as fair as we can be, to provide excellent ROI.

The Bedrock of Each Great Site:
Interfanatic The Works Business Site Production

It all starts with our Business Site Production service. Unlike our Basic Site, the absolute budget version of a website, our Business Sites have a solid SEO foundation built-in to them. This ensures the best chance for solid organic traffic out of the box, and even better SEO results when paired with Search Ads, Social Media, Email Marketing, or other digital marketing initiatives.

Doing things right is hard work. It takes experience. There are many little tricks to doing things the right way. We know them. We do them.

So many of our clients come to us initially, “I really want just a basic website.” Well, that’s fine – we can do that. And what we produce for you will be great. But when you empower us to do our job by investing, the results come.

How seriously do you take your business?

In 2020, a solid business website requires a proper foundation. Let somebody who knows what they’re doing help you. We work with budgets of all sizes. We like to take a small investment and increase that as the results pay off.

Interfanatic and Honesty

The cornerstone of our service is honesty. We give you our best, and we give it to you straight.


This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Honesty, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of attending an airshow with my nephew. I’ve been to lots of airshows, but this one was special in that it featured a P-38, one of my favorite aircraft, flying in formation with an F-15 (pictured above). The F-15 is special to our family as my uncle flew one for many years. I remember climbing into his when I was four, scared to death I’d hit the wrong button and take off. Seeing and hearing this bird in full afterburner (after the formation flying – not during!) was a special treat for us. Seems fitting as we talk about Tim LuMaye and Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge with his connection to the aerospace industry.

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