Libsyn Directory

The ROI Math Most Shop Owners Get Wrong | Ep 254

Release Date: 07/01/2026

New vs. Used: Understanding Where the Real Value Is | Ep 257

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

Should you buy a used CNC machine or buy new? The price tag says one thing. The next five years of ownership say something completely different. In Episode 257 of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters take on the question every shop owner eventually has to answer. Not just about CNC machines either. Your next truck, your next piece of equipment, your next major investment. Same trap, every time. Here is the part nobody tells you. Price is what you pay today. Value is what you actually receive over the life of what you own. Those are two...

Is Avoiding Risk Hurting Your CNC Shop? | Ep 256

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

Think playing it safe protects your CNC shop? It might be the most expensive decision you never made. In this episode of Talkin' Shop, Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters break down how real business owners weigh risk against reward, and why the shops that grow are the ones willing to move before every question has an answer. You will hear the questions every owner wrestles with. Should you finance or pay cash for that next machine? How do you know when it is time to add a second CNC? Is the "safe" choice to wait actually leaving work and profit on the table? Brandon and Nick answer real...

What Does an Employee Really Cost You? | Ep 255

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

How much does an employee really cost a small business beyond their hourly wage? In Episode 255 of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, hosts Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters answer that question directly for shop owners and small manufacturers. The short answer: an employee's true cost runs well past base pay. Once you add payroll taxes, workers' compensation, health and dental benefits, a 401(k) match, paid time off, training time, onboarding, tools, and software, a worker's real cost can land about 25 percent above their wage, and in extreme cases up to 50 percent higher. A $25-per-hour...

The ROI Math Most Shop Owners Get Wrong | Ep 254

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

When does buying a CNC machine make more sense than hiring another employee or outsourcing the work? On this episode of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, hosts Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters answer that question for shop owners weighing automation against labor. The conversation breaks down how to calculate the real return on investment (ROI) of CNC automation — and why most shop owners get the math wrong. Brandon explains the difference between calculating ROI literally (only the time a task takes) and "paralysis by analysis," then reframes the core question every owner asks. It isn't "how...

When Is It Time to Automate Your Shop? | Ep 253

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

You already know the answer. You're just waiting for someone to say it out loud. If you've ever stared at a job you turned away, a backlog you can't beat, or a stack of repetitive work eating your week alive, this episode is the gut check you've been avoiding. Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters get real about the single most expensive decision growing shops keep putting off: when to stop doing things the manual way and start investing in automation. They break down the exact warning signs that you've outgrown your process, why "we'll just work harder" quietly kills your margins, and the...

Stop Making Excuses & Build Momentum | Ep 252

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

What is the difference between a challenge and an excuse in business? On Episode 252 of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, hosts Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters explain why challenges require a response while excuses only require justification — and why that distinction determines whether a manufacturing business grows or stalls. Brandon outlines the concept of business momentum and why it functions like a machine: once it's running, it stays efficient, but once it stops, restarting requires significantly more energy. He argues that momentum in business is built through daily decisions,...

Why Wasting Time Costs Your Business Big | Ep 251

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

Why is wasted time the most expensive cost in business? In Episode 251 of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, hosts Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters explain why time — not broken machines, material costs, or competition — is the single resource a business can never recover once it's spent. This episode covers the real-world cost of poor follow-through in manufacturing and the trades: unanswered quote requests, ignored emails, missed meetings, and delayed decisions. ShopSabre is an American CNC manufacturer based in Lakeville, Minnesota that builds CNC routers, plasma tables, and fiber...

Stop Competing on Price (Do This Instead) | Ep 250

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

Every customer wants the best quality, delivered yesterday, at the lowest possible price. So why does chasing all three destroy businesses from the inside out? This episode of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre breaks open the truth behind the "good, fast, cheap" triangle — and it might change how you price, produce, and position everything in your shop. Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters get real about the trade-offs that every CNC shop owner, cabinet maker, sign builder, and fabricator faces daily. Whether you are quoting custom jobs, managing lead times, or fielding price objections from customers...

Private Label CNC Machines: What They Won't Tell You | Ep 249

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

What happens when you strip the covers off two "completely different" CNC machines and find the exact same frame, the same gantry, and the same components from the same overseas factory — just with different stickers? In this episode of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters break down the private label import CNC machine cycle — how one Chinese factory builds a single CNC router or plasma table design, distributes it to dozens of companies worldwide, and each one slaps on their own logo, picks a paint color, and markets it as their own proprietary product. If you've...

The Customer Is NOT Always Right | Ep 248

Talkin Shop with ShopSabre

What if the most famous phrase in business is actually destroying your shop from the inside out? In this episode of Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre, Brandon Bombardo and Nick Peters tear apart the myth that the customer is always right and rebuild it into something that actually works for real business owners. If you run a CNC shop, a fabrication business, or any kind of service operation, you already know the truth: not every customer is right, and bending to every demand is a fast track to burnout, quality issues, and losing your best employees. Brandon witnessed an explosive customer meltdown...

More Episodes

The conversation breaks down how to calculate the real return on investment (ROI) of CNC automation — and why most shop owners get the math wrong. Brandon explains the difference between calculating ROI literally (only the time a task takes) and "paralysis by analysis," then reframes the core question every owner asks. It isn't "how many people does this replace?" — it's "how much inefficiency, does this eliminate?"

Using a cabinet shop example, Brandon contrasts a CNC machine cutting a full base cabinet — dados, shelf holes, hinge pockets and all — in roughly 4 to 8 minutes against an employee doing the same work by hand in 60 minutes or more, with far more room for error. He also walks through a $100,000 job to show that automation doesn't change the price a customer pays; it changes the profit and the lead time the shop keeps.

They cover the hidden costs of labor that spreadsheets ignore — recruiting, training, turnover, benefits, payroll taxes and absences — and why a $75,000 employee actually costs far more every year, while a machine is a one-time investment that compounds. Brandon and Nick also explain how ShopSabre customers regularly discover entirely new revenue streams after adding equipment they originally bought for a single task.

This episode is for cabinet makers, woodworkers, metal fabricators and manufacturing business owners deciding whether to scale with automation or more labor.

ShopSabre is an American CNC manufacturer based in Lakeville, Minnesota, building CNC routers, plasma tables and fiber lasers.

Watch the full episode for Brandon's formula for sustainable growth — great people, great processes and great equipment — and why nothing changes if nothing changes. Subscribe to Talkin' Shop with ShopSabre for new episodes every week.

00:00 - Intro & Cold Open

01:03 - Today's Topic: Automation vs. Labor

04:14 - Listener Q&A: Vacuum Noise, Dust Doc & Feedback

09:30 - The Right Way to Calculate Automation ROI

13:09 - The Hidden Costs of Labor

16:24 - How Automation Creates Leverage

19:09 - Saving Money vs. Making Money

23:28 - Cabinet Build: Machine vs. By Hand

26:28 - The $100K Job That Changes Everything

28:44 - Don't Wait for the Bottleneck

33:26 - The True Cost of a $75K Employee

36:46 - Work Smarter, Not Harder

40:10 - Wrap-Up & What's Next

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