Managing a business thats overloaded with work

[Zambookajoe]

Ive been in business for over 16 years now and for the last 5 years we've been running at 150% capacity, doing the smallest jobs to the bigger ones, we are a husband and wife shop

its taken its toll on us we are burnt out, the wife and I have discussed closing the store front and dealing only by email, mostly B2B and keeping our regulars, we don't want to hire new

staff except the odd helper for certain jobs.

In another word we'd like to have a personal life.

Has anyone experience a similar situation, and what were your solution

I know every situation is different, but Im looking for direction.

Its to a point where its affecting my wife's health and my health as well

 

[Techman]

raise the prices.

 

[Rick]

raise the prices.

 

[FatCat]

Your situation sounds so similar to mine and also a close friend who owns a print/sign shop in Cleveland. Both of us for the past 2-3 years have been swamped with work, while trying to stay lean and mean and not trying to hire too much help. It's a struggle, and a lot of responsibility and risk to hire an employee. I have one full timer, he has 2 part timers, though like you, he also works with his wife. Business is good, but we're both in smallish towns/cities. Most everyone knows everyone else through some means or another. It's hard to tell someone "no" when they bring in a silly little project that you'd rather not deal with. I dunno' I'm old fashioned I guess - try to please everyone - and I think that is the issue. I've been making small changes this year and I "think" it's helping. If we're absolutely swamped and a customer needs something done ASAP I add 20-30% to the quote. If I get it, I make the extra money worth putting in extra hours and stress to get it done. If I don't, I'm already busy enough...before I wouldn't do that.

Unfortunately, you have to become a little more cold and calloused and actually mold your business so you're getting what you want, just like your customers expect. I'm sure you take good care of your customers and do good work, which is the reason you're so busy. However, taking a step back, instituting a shop minimum and trying to set firm hours I think would go a long way in helping alleviate a little of the overflow. Also, take time off. I know it's hard - I just took my son fishing in Wisconsin last week which is the first time off I've had all year. He's 16 and the last 5 years of running this business I haven't spent as much time with him as I should have. Trying to make up for it now, a little at a time, but again, running a business is hard. Especially a small one where you are the chief, cook and bottle washer...

But somehow you have to strive for balance. It's not all about money, it's not all about being successful - but if you can find a way to also be happy...

Good luck to you.

 

[Gene@mpls]

Techman and Cat have good ideas. I have been telling customers for years- don't put every service you can
do on your signs/trailers... put on there what you like doing, what you make money at, and what you want to do.
You must turn away little jobs that are not worth your time- people understand ' saving you money/bother cannot
cost me money. Business cannot work that way.

 

[SignManiac]

raise the prices.

I've been there and done the same thing several times over my career. It really does work.

 

[ddarlak]

You have fallen into the trap of "get while the gettin's good" syndrome...

your world is not going to fall apart if you raise your prices and actually turn away work that is not worth it...

 

[Marlene]

what kind of signs do you make? you have a store front so that could be just about anything. do you spend all your time making coroplast yard sale signs and happy birthday banners or do you make signs for companies? are you making a ton of money or just getting by with a ton of work? working all the time on $2 projects vs working all the time on $2,000 is a big difference

 

[gnemmas]

Raise price by 30%, if you lose 20% of jobs, you are still making 4% more income, with 20% less work.

 

[Gino]

Raise price by 30%, if you lose 20% of jobs, you are still making 4% more income, with 20% less work.

83% of all percentages are wrong or made up. I don't believe in them.



Honestly though, to the OP...... raising yur prices is the easiest way in your predicament if you don't want to grow.

Not knowing numbers of pricing, man-hours, supplies, overhead, investments and whatnot..... if you don't want to hire the right people for the job, then either just take off, cause most of those people will just be there at 9o'clock tomorrow morning or raise your prices to a point you scare some of them away. Now, if they continue on, then you'll hafta look into hiring people anyway.

 

[TimToad]

Been there, done all of that. I spent many years as a one person shop while being a "pleaser" and finally woke up to the fact that the gold leaf jobs, really custom jobs, etc. were the ones I enjoyed doing the most. They also commanded the most money and attracted a more sophisticated clientele who knew the value of quality work. Giving up some of the tiny, loser, headache jobs is a tough nut to crack but folks just need to know that its not fair to the customers paying full freight for us to get bogged down with some of those type jobs.


My wife and I bought an established company a little over a year ago that was in a price race to the bottom of its own making due to feelings of security about competition. We're quietly ( and not abruptly as in a 30% rise in prices ) lifting our prices with existing clients, started trimming the chronically troublesome customers and all new customers get charged what the work is worth in 2015 dollars. Our predecessor hadn't raised his hourly rate in seven years.

Now that we have over a year's worth of their books and our books to compare, we matched one of their best revenue years in our first year, but the big difference was in legitimate profitability, not creative CPA/Bookeping profitability. That was with a rookie signmaker in my wife as a full timer, and a four month spell of no other employee but myself after cutting the unproductive inherited employee loose.

Good luck, and try to take care of yourselves, you only have one life to live on this earth.

 

[rjssigns]

If you have a great reputation people are willing to wait. They will also pay more for the privilege of not being lied too, having things done on time with quality products, and being charged exactly what was quoted.

 

[SignManiac]

Professional presentation/attitude/integrity are worth a premium....

 

[Gene@mpls]

Someone disliked my response... 'You poked my heart!'

Funniest video of little kids ever:

[video=youtube;3sKdDyyanGk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sKdDyyanGk[/video]

 

[Zambookajoe]

Thanks for all the feedback, It's appreciated

we have raised our prices quite a bit in the last 3 years, because of growing overhead and getting some more equipment to boost production, which In one way might of brought more
to us then we expected, I have been refusing a lot more of the corporate installs that are subbed out to us, because most of of them are not in our town.
but even while we are refusing quite a bit we are still at a point where its too much.

were doing a lot less of the small jobs except for the customers that are regulars or friends or loyal customers

were not known for being the cheapest sign shop around, were known for being the most reliable,honest and most expensive.

evidently we are doing something good.

we are trying a few new things, we're going to deal by email only on fridays, we tested last week, At least I could sit at my desk and do something productive without interruptions.

If we think its working and not affecting our numbers too much,we might consider doing the email only for additional day during the summer time

were going to add setup fees and design fees, to encourage the customers to come in with proper artwork.

lets see what happens

 

[Z SIGNS]

I run the business.
The business dose not run me.

Get a number 3 lettering quill and some black poster paint.

Paint the above phrase in 2" flood stroke 150 x on the wall of your shop
and call me in the morning

 

[ddarlak]

except for the customers that are regulars or friends or loyal customers

the exceptions are whats killing you, there are no friends in business, either they are a customer or a PITA customer.

your choosing to work when you could be off because of "friends"....

 

[gnemmas]

There is also the long term, i.e. retirement or catastrophic preparations to consider.

I recall last week a member, one man shop, had a serious back injury and wife was posting for help here.

If you consider yours a "business" or a "job".

As a business, we pursue the growth and expand, embrace. We want the business to operate by itself, has a system, has employees to operate, to not "owner dependent". At the end of day, this business has a marketable value you can harvest upon retirement.

As a job, we work, and work, and work until we can't........., and at the end of day, we can't really sell our "Job" for much value upon retirement.

 

[TimToad]

Thanks for all the feedback, It's appreciated

we have raised our prices quite a bit in the last 3 years, because of growing overhead and getting some more equipment to boost production, which In one way might of brought more
to us then we expected, I have been refusing a lot more of the corporate installs that are subbed out to us, because most of of them are not in our town.
but even while we are refusing quite a bit we are still at a point where its too much.

were doing a lot less of the small jobs except for the customers that are regulars or friends or loyal customers

were not known for being the cheapest sign shop around, were known for being the most reliable,honest and most expensive.

evidently we are doing something good.

we are trying a few new things, we're going to deal by email only on fridays, we tested last week, At least I could sit at my desk and do something productive without interruptions.

If we think its working and not affecting our numbers too much,we might consider doing the email only for additional day during the summer time

were going to add setup fees and design fees, to encourage the customers to come in with proper artwork.

lets see what happens

With all this being said, its obvious that your business has grown and evolved into something bigger than the two of you or current staff can handle. Hiring help is the next logical progression to both maintaining and stabilizing your business. All the factors going into the hiring of help will keep you up at night until you realize how much better you will sleep in the future if your decisions are well researched and on solid business grounds.

We recently hired a young man with some sign shop experience and a degree in graphic design. He already knew his way around our equipment for the most part, has a great eye, is punctual, attentive, proactive, eager to learn more, well versed on dealing with customers, works hard all day, and quickly absorbs whatever we teach him. We view his hiring as importantly as any equipment purchase we might make.

In other words, he has been an asset from day one and has helped ease my load on especially the little, day to day, run of the mill jobs that just need a good eye and quick solution applied in order to knock it out and keep a customer. We don't consider any customer too small to handle, so we make sure we're not spending two hours on a $75 job. These non-critical, but equally important in our eyes jobs are now handled more quickly and efficiently and many have already turned into repeat customers with bigger subsequent orders.

In the long term, that is what keeps feeding the business and helps spread the word about our above average approach to customer service. That adds real lasting value to a business and its reputation. We have a competitor down the road who turns their nose down at smaller jobs and those insulted potential customers come down the street and have turned into our repeat customers.

 

[Zambookajoe]

I intend to hire, when I find a good fit for us, look weve been approached by many people to come and work for us but none fit our criteria,we've even been approached
by one of our past competitors (he went bankrupt) He's trained but his work was awfull, his pricing was terrible, he had terrible habits of sniffing his profits.

the people we have to choose from are terrible, we're in a small town, theres just not
much people to draw from, and competing against big industry salaries, is hard