My name is Marc, I have been in the upholstery business since I was born. I'm 3rd generation in the business. I have a shop in Lubbock Tx. Ive been in the same location 20 yrs and have 10 employees. We do any kind of upholstery. Cars, boats, airplanes, furniture, resturants, medical exam bed, dentist chairs, waiting room chairs etc....... I love my business! it has blessed me tremendously all of my life. My shop is mentioned in several magazines for the restoration work we have done on cars. I personally like the hospital upholstery business. it is definatly the most profitable part of my business. I joined this forum to see if I can learn something. lol
Welcome Marc. If you can't learn, feel free to teach ;D.
Glad you dropped in Marc, your business sounds impressive, working 10 people.
Question: What specific part of the hospital work do you enjoy the most? Examining tables?
Doyle
I like all of it. I especially like waiting room furniture. There are usually 30 or so chairs that are excatly the same. One hospital we do has the same waiting room chairs in all thier waiting rooms. They even bring them to us by the trailor load. The most amazing thing is they usually pick out the highest priced material I show them. IMHO one of the most important things to remember is this: When a doctoor or dentist office calls, go right over there and give the bid. I cant tell you how many time I have gone to give an estimate and they would say they are waiting on 2 other guys to come give quotes. They call me the next day and say " Them other guys didnt even show up, so you got the job. I think a lot of shops owners are out in the shop working and dont have time to go give quotes sometimes. Thats all I do.
Man, you have WAY better luck with hospitals than I do.
They call me. I rush right out. I wait in some manager's office for 20-30 minutes. Eventually, the person in charge comes casually strolling into the office. Then, they page some maintainence man, who shows up 30 minutes later with a trail of cigarette smoke still fresh behind him. He leads me on an obstacle course down several long corridors until we wind up back close to where we started from. The furniture is in a locked storeroom. He pulls out a wad of keys the size of an NBA basketball, and tries them one by one, to no avail. Luckily, a cleaning lady passes by with ONE KEY ON THE END OF A COAT HANGER, and unlocks the door. The furniture is buried alive under a bunch of old file boxes, and leaky plasma. I give them the estimate. Once it's approved, I can return and repeat the above procedure.
When I deliver the furniture back to the hospital, I give them an invoice. If I have dotted ALL my i's and crossed ALL my t's, I'll get my money in 45-60 days.
I have given my local hospital quotes on big jobs before. They always tell me that they can simply replace the furniture for less than half of my quote.
The only business I get from them is little single jobs, such as an occasional exam table, or therapy equipment.
Poppy> Whatever you're doing, keep doing it!!