Episode 004: Maximizing Manufacturing Capacity with Strategic Customer Relationships

🎙 Episode 4: Stay in Your Niche – The Smart Way to Grow Without Breaking What Works

In this episode of Find Your Source, Stephen dives into one of the most important (yet most ignored) growth strategies: staying in your lane.

When you're scaling a product line or maximizing your manufacturing capacity, it’s tempting to take on anything that comes your way. But saying “yes” to every opportunity can quickly lead to overextension, poor quality, and burned partnerships. Stephen explains why staying focused on your core niche—and finding compatible extensions—is the key to sustainable growth.

Using real-world examples (from windshield wiper blades to washer fluid to brake fluid), Stephen shows how knowing your niche helps you become a preferred customer to manufacturers—and how manufacturers can use their own excess capacity wisely.

💡 In This Episode:

• How to become the least painful customer your manufacturer has (and why that matters)

• Why manufacturers should avoid chasing every customer and stick to what they do best

• How businesses can expand wisely into adjacent niches that don’t derail operations

• What makes a customer valuable beyond order size

• Why "the riches are in the niches"—and how to identify yours

✅ PLUS: Stephen shares insights on how manufacturers can use downtime wisely, what buyers should ask before choosing a new production partner, and why diversification doesn't mean dilution.

📬 Want hands-on help? Check out the new “Work With Me” tab at findyoursource.pro. Whether you need a sourcing partner, a process audit, or someone to walk the trade show floor with your team and coach them on live vendor conversations—Stephen is here to help. And yes, he loves to talk.