'Can I just...' is killing me!

[Lucan Unlordly]

This is a post that I could have made at anytime in the last couple of years. I've been busy, very busy, both in and outside of work and have become so time poor that my list of 'to do's' including things that would help the situation aren't getting done.

A big issue is late orders, particularly from long standing customers who, for reasons I mostly understand, leave things to the last minute and call with the 'Can I just' get these in for Friday request. Next week we lose the Monday, have sufficient orders on the board and tonight have had 3 'Can I just' orders placed that will once again stretch me to breaking point, or rather to a point where the invoices I need to sort will have to wait, the web prices review, the stock level adjustments, the washing up, the tidy up.....

I'm seriously thinking about closing down for a fortnight or longer if needs be and am balancing the absolute need to do something with the commercial 'suicide' of stopping all orders. What would you do?



PS: I'm already putting in as many hours as I can at weekends more for piece of mind as I cannot unduly affect the logistics of late orders.

 

[Shopclicks]

What would you do?

Hire and train some help.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Hire and train some help.

I don't have the time to, and no singular task is big enough to warrant bringing in eg., a book keeper, artist etc., Something I probably should have done long before reaching this stage though .

 

[Shopclicks]

I don't have the time to, and no singular task is big enough to warrant bringing in eg., a book keeper, artist etc., Something I probably should have done long before reaching this stage though .

Well I definitely agree with the last bit.

What about outsourcing rather than employing. There's plenty of bookkeepers and cleaners around.

I've no idea what you do. But you could use an artist?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Well I definitely agree with the last bit.

What about outsourcing rather than employing. There's plenty of bookkeepers and cleaners around.

I've no idea what you do. But you could use an artist?

The problem is that a book keeper could probably do what's needed in an hour a week, a cleaner 15 mins a day. Not worth it for them

I do trophies, awards, t-shirts where attention to detail, some artistic flair etc., is required so I use the word artist loosely. I'm quite adept at doing this myself but I'm not quick. Again it's part of a process that doesn't warrant 'employable' hours.

 

[Porky]

Can you increase prices to a level where you take less orders but what you do is more profitable for less man hours?

Obviously I dont know your industry but I recently ditched some high demand clients to focus on less demand more profitable orders and felt a whole lot better for it.

Your time is a finite resource and not all business is good business. Just wanting to cover off here that you dont fall into the trap of being a busy fool, its easily done especially where you clients know you and think, oh just call x, sure he will slot you in.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I'm in the same position here. It was only recently that I put my life outside of this game first and starting turning my phone off on holiday
I just shut it down now when I go on holiday I let the contract work run and stop everything else
"closed due to staff holidays"
I dont have enough funds in the business to employ a full time manager
Most of you here will be able to guess my income bracket and you like me will conclude that its not worth giving your whole life up for

Your Lordship sometimes you have to say "f££K it" and disappear for a while When you return you will be a better Lord and your business will be a better business

 

[Shopclicks]

I do trophies, awards, t-shirts where attention to detail, some artistic flair etc., is required so I use the word artist loosely. I'm quite adept at doing this myself but I'm not quick. Again it's part of a process that doesn't warrant 'employable' hours.

There are worse problems than being a victim of your own success

There are a few ways to improve your productivity. You start by 'chunking' your day. Break your day into blocks of time. For example: One hour for bookkeeping each day. You stick to that one hour and prioritise the urgent work. Half an hour for cleaning, and so on. Put a chart on the wall if you like so you have your day mapped out.

Have you ever worked on a production line? Or seen the production line principle? Are there processes that can be grouped? Like preparation, assembly, artwork and finishing? The idea of a production line is that you would do each of the steps in one block of time and then move on to the next step.

It doesn't matter what you do, there will be a more efficient method. But it takes breaking old habits.

 

[Frank the Insurance guy]

tonight have had 3 'Can I just' orders placed that will once again stretch me to breaking point

What are the repercussions of saying "thanks for the order, we are processing orders as quickly as possible. Please be aware that your order may not be processed until next week...." Will you lose the orders? If these are regularly customers and you can push back on this now, next time, they may give you more notice!

 

[Carol Learmouth]

I have just started saying no to one client in particular. He pushes the boundaries every week and it has taken several years but now I just say, ‘I will be back in the office at such and such and I will deal with this then.’

What about a VA for your accounting?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Can you increase prices to a level where you take less orders but what you do is more profitable for less man hours?

I've built the business on fair prices and whilst an increase may frighten off a few, we would remain their best option and they'd likely downsize their choice as opposed to going anywhere else

Your Lordship sometimes you have to say "f££K it" and disappear for a while When you return you will be a better Lord and your business will be a better business

That's the thrust of the question I'm asking. I have been unable to work my way out of this so may shut down and bounce back in better all round shape.

There are a few ways to improve your productivity. You start by 'chunking' your day. Break your day into blocks of time.

In theory that would work in practice but today I take a call just as a customer walks through the door. It's 9.45, he's due at 12. so it's inconvenient but he's a regular. DPD have refused to leave a delivery with neighbour as they have done for how ever many years so I'm juggling to get through to DPD and my supplier to sort. 2 hours later nothing is resolved. I now have work to do to sort out the ensuing mess. I've not even had a cup of tea yet.

What are the repercussions of saying "thanks for the order, we are processing orders as quickly as possible. Please be aware that your order may not be processed until next week...." Will you lose the orders? If these are regularly customers and you can push back on this now, next time, they may give you more notice!

Yes, we mainly deal with events that are time sensitive, customers leave it late as orders depend on competitor numbers, which can change significantly. We've been able to cope for many years but the increase in business and 'new blood' event organisers who think we can offer McDonalds type service have cloth ears. We have many good customers who order well in advance. The one's that cause the issues have a lot more events and place a lot more orders. It's a double edged sword.

What about a VA for your accounting?

I don't have the time to put the processes in place to change. If I take the 4 week shutdown option I'll put it in the mix as I review where we are.

 

[cjd]

Wouldn't a four week shut down could lose you a lot of customers? And wouldn't you be in the same mess 6 month's later if they stuck with you?

 

[tony84]

Couldnt you just say "no"?
I mean butter it up a bit, im really sorry but we actually cant because ....

It might help people to start ordering on time?

Can you get someone to help out with multiple tasks? It doesnt have to be one person per job, but one person for a few of the jobs. I am sure you are suprerman, but if you can do all these things then someone else can.

Failing that, can you find ways to speed things up? We brought in a new crm last month as an example. I can now do invoicing off the back of that rather than doing them seperately in word. It takes me 15 seconds to send out an invoice now rather than 5 minutes.

 

[Paul Carmen]

We had this problem as we grew, and we always treat people's business as if it was our own, helping where we can with late decisions and problems when they crop up. However, you come to understand that certain customers do this as a matter of course, making their poor planning and last minute decision making your problem.

As we grew we implemented proper planning and ticketing tools, so we are able to run leaner and fill the time for our team. This makes having more people and outsourcing work much more profitable. It does not lend itself to "can you do this when you've got a spare minute", or regular "it's an emergency type work".

Our work is a little different to yours in timescales, but there are similarities. We implemented a combination of what @Porky and @Frank the Insurance guy suggested.

We now make it very clear what the timescales are on all projects. Plus, have clauses that lay out what delays on the client side means; e.g.

• if they take 10 days to sign something off, that 10 days or more will be added to the overall timescale, as other work will move ahead in the queue
• If they change their mind on something agreed, we charge for the changes and any incremental work on top of the original scope
• If they have emergency or urgent work that needs to be done Friday night, on weekends etc, then this is classed as 'out of hours' work, and at our discretion will be carried out, but an overage hourly rate will be charged, as we are paying someone extra to do this work

What has happened is - most customers are fine with this, as it's set out upfront, emergency last minute work has almost completely disappeared too. A couple of persistent offender customers who didn't like this have gone, but they caused most of the problems and were too needy, so it's a win all round.

It wont help with buying you time to sort things out now, but I'd suggest going forward you say no to people more often, or at least this wont be ready for (insert reasonable time frame for you to do it on top of other work).

If it really is an emergency and the customer needs it quicker, fine, but charge 50% more for the late notice work. They'll then either wait, pay 50% more, or start managing their own business process better.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Wouldn't a four week shut down could lose you a lot of customers? And wouldn't you be in the same mess 6 month's later if they stuck with you?

That's the dilemma but something has to give.

Couldnt you just say "no"?
I mean butter it up a bit, im really sorry but we actually cant because ....

It might help people to start ordering on time?

I have done but it's difficult when your most frequent customers are in the mix, and I'm guilty of understanding many of the reasons for late orders. Although I may start drawing up a chart to see who's doing it all the time.

Can you get someone to help out with multiple tasks?

I have a freelancer who's not local who helps on the admin for my other business but needs notice to come in and do the donkey work.

We brought in a new crm last month as an example.

One for the list

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

We had this problem as we grew, and we always treat people's business as if it was our own, helping where we can with late decisions and problems when they crop up. However, you come to understand that certain customers do this as a matter of course, making their poor planning and last minute decision making your problem.

As we grew we implemented proper planning and ticketing tools, so we are able to run leaner and fill the time for our team. This makes having more people and outsourcing work much more profitable. It does not lend itself to "can you do this when you've got a spare minute", or regular "it's an emergency type work".

Our work is a little different to yours in timescales, but there are similarities. We implemented a combination of what @Porky and @Frank the Insurance guy suggested.

We now make it very clear what the timescales are on all projects. Plus, have clauses that lay out what delays on the client side means; e.g.

• if they take 10 days to sign something off, that 10 days or more will be added to the overall timescale, as other work will move ahead in the queue
• If they change their mind on something agreed, we charge for the changes and any incremental work on top of the original scope
• If they have emergency or urgent work that needs to be done Friday night, on weekends etc, then this is classed as 'out of hours' work, and at our discretion will be carried out, but an overage hourly rate will be charged, as we are paying someone extra to do this work

What has happened is - most customers are fine with this, as it's set out upfront, emergency last minute work has almost completely disappeared too. A couple of persistent offender customers who didn't like this have gone, but they caused most of the problems and were too needy, so it's a win all round.

It wont help with buying you time to sort things out now, but I'd suggest going forward you say no to people more often, or at least this wont be ready for (insert reasonable time frame for you to do it on top of other work).

If it really is an emergency and the customer needs it quicker, fine, but charge 50% more for the late notice work. They'll then either wait, pay 50% more, or start managing their own business process better.

We are talking about volunteers who have full time jobs that in many cases don't require any understanding of running a business. I can't blame customers for everything that's not running well and I need to cull a few and make things simple for them.

 

[Shopclicks]

In theory that would work in practice but today I take a call just as a customer walks through the door. It's 9.45, he's due at 12. so it's inconvenient but he's a regular. DPD have refused to leave a delivery with neighbour as they have done for how ever many years so I'm juggling to get through to DPD and my supplier to sort. 2 hours later nothing is resolved. I now have work to do to sort out the ensuing mess. I've not even had a cup of tea yet.

If that's the start of your day, you need to take control and manage expectations.

Have you considered changing your opening times. If you open at 9, change it to 11 and bring your closing time an hour forward. Or close for a day a week to catch up. This may be temporary or if you train your walk-ins, it may be permanent. This would need to be communicated effectively to your regular client database and signage.

And never spend any more than 5 minutes on a phone call.

 

[tony84]

I have done but it's difficult when your most frequent customers are in the mix, and I'm guilty of understanding many of the reasons for late orders. Although I may start drawing up a chart to see who's doing it all the time.

Not a bad shout that, maybe just say whilst you understand its making life difficult for you and there could be a time you have to let them down so if they could try to get the orders in on time etc.

Im not saying always mess up their order, just maybe do it as a bit of a passive aggressive action. At the moment, they keep doing it probably because you keep saying ok. Which I understand business is business and hard to say no to. But they might not realise how much of a PITA they are being.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

If that's the start of your day, you need to take control and manage expectations.

Have you considered changing your opening times. If you open at 9, change it to 11 and bring your closing time an hour forward. Or close for a day a week to catch up. This may be temporary or if you train your walk-ins, it may be permanent. This would need to be communicated effectively to your regular client database and signage.

And never spend any more than 5 minutes on a phone call.

We don't have walk-ins or set hours but I'm always in by 10-10.30am, earlier if deliveries are expected. We send goods to England, Scotland Wales and occasionally Ireland. Local clubs will collect at an agreed time.

I take your point about the 5 minute call, it needs addressing, but the other business I run has a 'political' element that influences our profile on social media so it can be difficult.

 

[pentel]

Have you considered introducing pricing based on lead time?

For example, standard lead time ( 5 days?) £10 each. 48 hour lead time £15 each, 24 hour lead time £20 each?

This usually concentrates the mind of the customer to either get their act together OR give you extra funds to hire in some help.

 

[fisicx]

The more urgent the job the higher the price. It works for a printer friend. Regular customers have now got their act together and don’t leave it to the last minute.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Have you considered introducing pricing based on lead time?

This usually concentrates the mind of the customer to either get their act together OR give you extra funds to hire in some help.

Regular customers have now got their act together and don’t leave it to the last minute.

I appreciate all the suggestions and on reflection it's a decision that only I can make, but the issue is finding time to implement such changes when mad busy at work and plenty to do outside.

'Taming' my customers is nigh on impossible and no better highlighted than the call I got at 9am this morning from a club that needs 20 trophies for tonight! I've known the guy since he was 8 years old, bags of energy, zero concentration, more of a friend than a customer which many are. I'm 5 minutes from my unit, throw some stuff in a box, collected half hour later, £100 in my bin but worth it? An extreme example but not untypical of a large percentage of my customer base, albeit from across the UK.

My opening question was about shutting down for a couple of weeks to implement some changes. What I aim to do is make contact with customers who've placed orders during our quieter summer period over the last couple of years to forewarn them of our intention to shut for up to a month for 'refurbishment'.

 

[cjd]

But what are you going to do to prevent collapsing back into the same pattern?

 

[ctrlbrk]

no better highlighted than the call I got at 9am this morning from a club that needs 20 trophies for tonight! I've known the guy since he was 8 years old, bags of energy, zero concentration, more of a friend than a customer which many are.

Is your overlap between friends who are your customers and last-minute-callers customers significant, or is the example you mentioned a one-off?

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

But what are you going to do to prevent collapsing back into the same pattern?

There's a lot of my own doing that would level things up considerably.
Website needs renewing/updating, new products, stock levels etc., so I'm taking more direct orders over the phone, a conversation that usually starts with 'what have you got' and a lengthy back and forth process sending images, invoices etc.,

There are other things to sort as well so that's just an example...

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Is your overlap between friends who are your customers and last-minute-callers customers significant, or is the example you mentioned a one-off?

Today's a one off in respect of the notice given (other times we might get 2 days ) or 2 weeks from the same customer.
When I say friends I say that loosely. These are customers I may have had conversations with about sport or event related issues in much the same way as forums like this debate stuff. It's a crossover from my time doing what they do now, social media, knowing what they've done, how they think most of which stems from my other business.

 

[Daybooks]

The problem is that a book keeper could probably do what's needed in an hour a week, a cleaner 15 mins a day. Not worth it for them

That is an hour a week saved for you and possibly a convenient task for a bookkeeper. Sometimes it is best you only do what only you can do.

 

[yogibear0810]

Anywhere software automation of any kind would help? In my day job, we've made a huge difference for a number of small business owners. Let me know if you want to over anything, not a sale pitch.

 

[Craig3141]

I would have a deadline. If I order is not in by x time it goes into tommorow/next week whatever is appropriate for your business and tell the customers that's the rule going forward. If they want it urgently they either need to submit earlier go elsewhere or maybe pay a rush fee(make sure it is high enough to make it worth your while)

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Say yes and charge a premium/surcharge!

 

[Craig3141]

Just telling them their is a rush fee surcharge would probably make a few say it's ok I will wait. Fees have a way of sorting out what is really urgent and what is just fake urgency

 

[Paul Carmen]

I appreciate all the suggestions and on reflection it's a decision that only I can make, but the issue is finding time to implement such changes when mad busy at work and plenty to do outside.

'Taming' my customers is nigh on impossible and no better highlighted than the call I got at 9am this morning from a club that needs 20 trophies for tonight! I've known the guy since he was 8 years old, bags of energy, zero concentration, more of a friend than a customer which many are. I'm 5 minutes from my unit, throw some stuff in a box, collected half hour later, £100 in my bin but worth it? An extreme example but not untypical of a large percentage of my customer base, albeit from across the UK.

'Taming' my customers is nigh on impossible - It really isn't, we thought this, but unless you take this in hand and start addressing the biggest issues step by step your situation won't change. Even if you stop and buy yourself some time, allowing customers to entirely dictate your diary will result in the problems reoccurring.

 

[ctrlbrk]

the issue is finding time to implement such changes when mad busy at work and plenty to do outside.

That reminds me of that guy who was too busy driving to stop for petrol!

 

[Pish_Pash]

"...stretch me to breaking point, or rather to a point where the invoices I need to sort will have to wait, the web prices review, the stock level adjustments, the washing up, the tidy up"

As a one man business myself, I'm all too aware of the amount of hats needed, but believe me....AI is your friend....having coded up my own 'automation' for repetitive tasks over the past 10yrs, it was an eye opener just what AI can do....I'm relatively late to the AI party (I've only been using it the past couple of months, but it's just amazing at taking out the grind...and quickly)...it's literally akin to having one hyper efficient unpaid employee! (possibly more!)

Seriously step back...analyse where your biggest wins would be (i.e. those tasks that are repetitive & time intensive) & start chatting with AI about how to remedy...this will rescue you back some time to focus & get busy with your products.

 

[Craig3141]

As a one man business myself, I'm all too aware of the amount of hats needed, but believe me....AI is your friend....having coded up my own 'automation' for repetitive tasks over the past 10yrs, it was an eye opener just what AI can do....I'm relatively late to the AI party (I've only been using it the past couple of months, but it's just amazing at taking out the grind...and quickly)...it's literally akin to having one hyper efficient unpaid employee! (possibly more!)

Seriously step back...analyse where your biggest wins would be (i.e. those tasks that are repetitive & time intensive) & start chatting with AI about how to remedy...this will rescue you back some time to focus & get busy with your products.

I would love to hear what kind of workflows you automated with AI. What sector are you in?

 

[Pish_Pash]

while these particular workflows won't save the OP anytime, in the past week, I've used AI to...

Create an Amazon Advertising database (so I can better track my campaigns)....AI then analysed how the campaigns were doing and gave me specific recommendations (it's not just the end result, but the knowledge it imparts during the process)
Got AI to Review all my amazon listings .... suggesting better backend keywords (it then saved me time coding up an API ...& simply provided me with the VBA code needed)
Walked me through getting my google merchant dashboard back into full shape
Provided me with an API to make my website listing titles optimised for Google Shopping (it provided me with the optimised titles...and then the API to quickly modify the tiles on BigCommerce)

Aside from that it's given me (good) advice on mundane stuff (for example an office guillotine I purchased wasn't performing that well on thin cardboard, it told my why, gave me some suggestions...and recommended a better option...all time saving, because prior to AI, I would have used Google & that takes you down a rabbit hole)

My point being ...each of those first group of tasks (what I deem day to day admin...which sumps time) would have taking me a long time, which - if I was making products - would have robbed me of time making products.

I would say that now AI has matured to the point of being useful....every one-man/woman business should have AI as their co-worker!

(without knowing the OP's mode of operation, it's difficult to recommend which parts can be tackled with AI...my input was more conceptual - AI is now there a a mature-ish business tool to save everyone repetition, a shame not to use it)

 

[martin_shl]

Yes, we mainly deal with events that are time sensitive, customers leave it late as orders depend on competitor numbers, which can change significantly.

From what you've said about what you do, it sounds like for these orders, you could ask for the design work in advance and then just make the right number at short notice.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

(without knowing the OP's mode of operation, it's difficult to recommend which parts can be tackled with AI...my input was more conceptual - AI is now there a a mature-ish business tool to save everyone repetition, a shame not to use it)

I take on board your suggestion to use AI, which I've started doing for cleaning up graphics but I'ma long way from transferring my daily routine to an AI friendly model.

From what you've said about what you do, it sounds like for these orders, you could ask for the design work in advance and then just make the right number at short notice.

I do the design work. Most of it is fairly simple but requires an understanding of the various printing methods used. When I can, I'll do the artwork early and get it signed off in advance but of late I'm not getting 'early' time.

 

[Aegis]

Longstanding doesn't equate to good for us. Amid many metrics we use to judge customer value, last minuting on a regular basis puts you in clear danger of me forwarding you to a comparably s**t competitor so you learn (and often return) understanding why we can't and won't accommodate leaving 'til last second.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Longstanding doesn't equate to good for us. Amid many metrics we use to judge customer value, last minuting on a regular basis puts you in clear danger of me forwarding you to a comparably s**t competitor so you learn (and often return) understanding why we can't and won't accommodate leaving 'til last second.

I take your point but if only it were that easy......

Today I've finished 2 late orders and had a late request to cancel an order which was delivered whilst on the phone. The late orders were for events cancelled 2 weeks ago, new venue found - all systems go. The 3rd order came in 3 weeks ago, for reasons beyond their control - event cancelled. All 3 are longstanding loyal customers who are reacting to the circumstances they find themselves in. Our problem has been to happily accommodate and work with them, which, as numbers have grown, has caused the difficulties.