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Just wondering the average hours put in a day (?). It's really been crazy lately and I thought since Dave started here pt time it would get better. Wrong. I'm thrilled with this situation!! It's even lasting into the Summer. Maybe 5 years is the real mark (will be 5 in Dec.).
I am trying to work on distractions - such as the phone. That's been a biggie lately. What do you think about answering machines and maybe assigning a time for a return calls? I don't like my customers to feel put off. Unfortunately, I have to keep on schedule - it's critical. I worry when I'm not.
Seems like everyone wants everything yesterday. I'm hearing this is also true for my customer's businesses as well. Guess it's the world. I also find if I ask when the actually need this sign - especially from the get go it's better. Still have the daily Chinese Fire Drills - ha ha. That's just the name of the game I suppose.
I'm finding the negotiating is the key. At least I give a price first now before any designing comences. They can see the pictures. It saves me soooooo much time and moolah!
This turned into a long one. What's my post? Oh yea - Lately, I'm about 12 hours, Started at 5:30a.m. - had a meeting at 8 - back here around 10 and need about another 8 hours. This is the time to work. I have to work on getting in here early - what a nice time!
No complaints.
Diane
p.s. I'm sure this subject has been on here before - just curious.
------------------ Summit Signs Sellersville, PA summitsigns@erols.com
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I put in a 10 hour day typically, 5 days then paperwork on Sat. morning. There are days when the work just can't be finished or if there is only an hour or two to finish when I work through til it is done. I set the deadlines, not the customers so the rush is rarely on. Sometimes things don't come together with materials and site issues but after 45 years, I am usually able to forsee the problems and plan ahead. I work strictly on a calendar, everthing sheduled. Projects do get reschedlued and the entire calendar is adjusted weekly to reflect how things went with delays or if we get ahead. Just to make life easy I also schedule time off, babysitting the grandkids, trips, meets, time to write, on line time, etc. Not to be regimented but ensuring time to myself and family so as to not let the jobs dictate my time. Been doing this type of schedule since the early '70's and it is still working.
------------------ Kent Smith Smith Sign Studio Greeley, Colorado, USA kent@smithsignstudio.com
Posts: 1025 | From: Estes Park, CO | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Just 8 hours, but I start at 4:30am so I have 5 undisturbed hours, sorta.
------------------ St.Marie Graphics & Makin' Tracks Sound Studio Kalispell, Montana stmariegraphics@centurytel.net http://www.stmariegraphics.com 800 735-8026 We're chiseling every day of the week! :^)
posted
just some thoughts collected while wondering whatever happened to leo boivan....
we work from 7:00 am to 5ish monday through friday. we don't schedule work on weekends. i can cold on one hand how many saturdays we work a year. i never work on sundays. that's just a personal thing.
when i was working by myself, i used to work weeks on end without stopping, i was dang near gonna have a nervous breakdown! that crap stopped when i hooked up with tracy.
we figure that if you can't make enough money in 5 days of work, then you are never going to do it by working 6 or 7.
i truly value my weekends off and it has to be a dang good reason for me to give one up. besides, i have a honeydew list now. dana has claim on my freetime now. poopydoops! there goes golfing this weekend! lol!
have a great one!
------------------ Bruce Bowers DrCAS Signtech
"how great are His signs..." Daniel 4:3
i am a proud supporter of this website!
Posts: 6464 | From: Saint Cloud, Minnesota | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
All of you folks "work" too many hours a day. I might average "working" 1 to 2 hours a day.
That is called mowing the lawn in the summer or blowing snow out of the laneways in the winter. That is "work"
I spend about 3 or 4 hours a day "playing" at what earns me a living. Making signs or lettering vehicles or boats isn't work..it's fun!!!
I have never, in my 56+ years in this life, had so much enjoyment earning a living as I have had in the last 8 years! "Playing" at making signs is a GREAT way to get paid for "playing"!!!!!!(not as good as being a basketball player maybe, but still pretty good)
BUT..watch out.."playing" can become addictive!
------------------ Dave Grundy AKA "applicator" on mIRC "stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!" in Granton, Ontario, Canada 1-519-225-2634 dave.grundy@quadro.net www.quadro.net/~shirley
posted
Well said bruce. As a single guy, It was normal to work weekends lettering a race car or do a show card for a world of wheels show .
My customers even adjusted to me coming out Saturdays too. Those days are gone now that I'm married. I pick 3 10 hour days a week (tues. wed. thurs.) of solid production. No meetings appointments or drawings unless there's a gap.
I do all of that stuff from 11 am to 3 pm. on Mondays and Fridays. That way If I want a long weekend (2 a month), I don't have to sacrifice a delivery.
I'm slammed too. My next thing is to raise the prices. This a good way to thin the herd. Work less and make more.
------------------ Mike Duncan Lettercraft Signs Alexandria VA
From here on down, its all up hill.
Posts: 1328 | From: Centreville, VA | Registered: Oct 2000
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I'm with Dave honey on this one. "Work is a fine thing if it doesn't take up too much of your spare time" I love my work....but I love my kids and having fun more.
posted
I work 9-6, Mon - Fri, with Wednesdays off whenever possible.
I'm starting to juggle my hours now that I'm homebased. I swore I'd never do it, but to see my son more is so worth it! So I may work an hour or two in the evening when really busy, but that's only because I spent that hour or two with Cody during the day. I'm careful not to overbook myself. If I overbook myself, I'm sacrificing time with my family.
8 hrs a day, 4 days a week is earning me plenty of $, keeping me more than busy, and I have a life on the side. I'm likin' it at home.
posted
I agree with Dave Grundy in regards to Work vs Play. I've always put in around 1 or 2 hours a day when I work and start no earlier then 10am, though my craft may differ from yours I find myself making comfortable wages and I get to travel. Just today I added another account to my business which is 150 miles from home, but I get to see different scenary which can be a plus as this account is near the ocean. I have a five vehicle minimum striping for dealerships and the average price is around sixty-five dollars each plus eighty -five dollars travel fee. There is no negotiating as far as pricing plus I pick the colors and choose what exactly goes where, they trust I will do a perfect job and thats all that counts.
I work through a pager and always make appointments in advance, for body shops there is a days notice and a fifteen minute job nets an average of forty-five dollars. Its basically simple stuff repairing to pre-accident condition, mix the color and brush it on, no problem!
I try not to do any work for hard to handle cheap as- people with ugly vehicles, it does not do anything for me. I do not do same day service unless I can double the price or speed through it.
I once had a customer call me at 11pm and said he wanted his racecar striped, I said I'll be there in the morning and he said " if I wanted it in the morning I would have called in the morning " I laughed and he said Hey! this is serious, Ok I went to his place striped a triple line over the top and down the sides and charged him $450. He gave me a $300. tip and won Daytona with that car #72 Buddy Baker as the driver, I believe that was 1981....
------------------ HotLines Joey Madden,47 years in the Classic Art of Pinstriping Grants Pass, Oregon Learn something...... http://members.tripod.com/Inflite
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Well, being that I just started this gig full time after six years of part time, I still need to build my customer base. I need to make sure that I have at least a grocery check coming in each week. So my day starts at 1:00am making bagels at a local Deli. I get out of there at 6:30am then my sign day starts. If I'm busy which I have been, I will work until 5:00 or 6:00, eat dinner and in bed by 7:00. It's not a glamorous life but I want to make it so bad that I will do what I have to. Wednesday nights are the tough ones. After getting together with sign buddies and painting til 9:00 and a 40 minute ride home means not much sleep before Bagel time. Oh yeah, the bagel deal is 6 nights a week. Some day I will make it!!!
------------------ Rob Larkham RL Graphic D-Sign Chester, MA rldsigns@aol.com
Posts: 517 | From: Chester, MA | Registered: May 2001
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I'm with Grundy on this one... It's not work, this is playtime!!
I could play fer 18 hours a day but I dont have to.
Usually somewhere between 2pm and 5pm I call it a day regarding doing the *paying* playtime stuff, even if I dont actually get going til noon... gotta walk the dog and run to the post office, ya know.
Since I work at home and now do at least 98% of my sales online, I can shedule work whenever I feel like it.. or not schedule it, rather.. hehe.. It's nice to have such enjoyable "work" that I don't mind doing it in the evening when there's nothing on TV or before people start filing into the #letterville chat.
I look at it this way.. if I had some other "real" job, I'd use my freetime to work on my own artistic/graphic projects.. so basically I'm doing the same thing now, except I have the whole day free to play at it.. and get paid for it.
I was at one of the local t-shirt shops one day talking to the owner and I was watching over his shoulder as he's setting up some artwork in Illustrator. I asked him "Isnt it great to get paid for coloring?" He says "Yeah, too bad the customers come back to pick up their shirts, they make great wall decorations."
------------------ Mike Pipes Digital Illusion Custom Graphics Lake Havasu City, AZ http://www.stickerpimp.com
Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
i learned this sometime into the third year with the motorcycle shop i owned:
if you're working more than 40 hours in a week (average) then it is time to raise your prices by 5 or 10 percent.
you lose a few of the low end customers and you suddenly INCREASE PROFITS by 50 to 100 percent while also decreasing the work load by 10 - 15 percent. (you do less work on the low-end customers, and the same amount of work on high-end customers who are now paying a bit more).
now, if you are not making a profit AND you're working over 40 hours a week, then you MUST raise your prices. (the exception is when you're just starting out, so maybe you aren't working very efficiently. after two or three years you either know what you're doing or its time to try something else).
the only other reason to work that much is that you take off 3 months in the winter to go ice fishing, so you have to make it up in the remaining 9 months, or else you have problems at home and you're escaping them by working too much. that's what i've seen. this applies to all small businesses, not just signs.
------------------ :: Scooter Marriner :: :: Coyote Signs :: :: San Francisco :: :: don't blame me... i'm just a beginner ::
Posts: 1356 | From: Oakland (and San Francisco) | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
i have a sign on the door..open at 10 am....sometimes i sleep till 11....sometimes iam up at 9....i work mostly the 12-5pm...5 days a week..will do work in the evenings..if i have to...sat..i usually try to take out the mobile sign for a ride to car shows, boat shows, mud bog races... any kinda gatherings of a lot of people. i figure i get most days 6-7 hours...
------------------ joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-944-5060 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND
Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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