Your Work Hours

[Rich]

Sounds like a good pro-active business practice to me. I assume you can find a group of these owners in one place so you don't have to rack up time and miles seeing each one in a different location.
Rich

[Mike]

I have a number of job quotes I my notebook that they don't say go ahead at the time and ill call back a later and see what they decided sometimes I get " oh we went with a lower price" or " oh ya I want to do it now" chris have you had many call from your free inspetions say a year later after a canvas failed?

[Mojo]

Rich:  The only time I offer free inspections is at coach rallys. I have them all there in one central location ( typically inside a fairgrounds or RV resort ). I no longer do outside quotes or inspections. I do not have the time to leave the shop and most of my customers can get the measurements themselves. I have included instructions on how to measure on my website so if they do not know they can view the instructions and learn how. It is not very hard. One guy who wasn't physically able to climb up on his coach had his wife get them once. :)

I do very little local work. I just got a local job the other day and that was the first in a long time. Most come from out of the area and the majority out of State.

Mike:  I get a decent return on the inspections. I do not know percentages but I convert several inspections into sales down the road. They save me ( and the owner ) alot of headaches because I can get exact measurements and more importantly the fabric color. That seems to be my biggest issue, getting the fabric colors right. I have some customers who cannot distinquish between a beige and a beige tweed and in one case last week I had to mail out a sample of each piece of fabric. Then I have to figure out if some are faded so bad that they appear to be a different color. I did a large patio awning in a dark tan tweed because the customer said it was a dark tan tweed. Turned out it was older sunbrella that faded and was actually charcoal tweed that turned a brown color.

Most customers do not care in regards to toppers as they are not seen but the majority are very anal with window and patio awnings. They want them to be exact and match.

Chris

[Mike]

the majority are very anal with window and patio awnings. They want them to be exact and match.

Chris

ya you want the right color sometime customers ask me what color I think ill advise but its what ever they like I say.

did you get that job from the guy in PC ?

[Mojo]

I am not sure Mike. I have completely lost track of orders. It seems like I did an order for someone down your way...lol......I dropped off five shipments yesterday to UPS and this morning cannot tell you who the hell they went to without going back through my invoices. I know they all went out of State though. My eyes have been glued to the order board and just been busy sewing and not paying much attention to anything else. :)

I called June a couple weeks ago because I have a customer who needs a bra made for the front of his bus. He lives in her area and I really do not want to do the job. June has forgot more about vinyl then I will ever learn and felt it would be better if she did it. But I never heard back from her. I haven't seen her on here either so am a little worried about her. I will drop her an e-mail today to make sure she is OK. Hopefully she hasn't been sick or anything.

Chris

[JuneC]

I called June a couple weeks ago because I have a customer who needs a bra made for the front of his bus. He lives in her area and I really do not want to do the job. June has forgot more about vinyl then I will ever learn and felt it would be better if she did it. But I never heard back from her. I haven't seen her on here either so am a little worried about her. I will drop her an e-mail today to make sure she is OK. Hopefully she hasn't been sick or anything.

Chris

You did?  Your call must have gotten lost in my phone transition.  I switched from iPhone to Samsung and a new plan but still AT&T, and for whatever reason, all my old voicemails and my phone call log went into the bit bucket.  Your timing must have been spot on.  BTW, the Samsung is a dream compared to the iPhone.

I've been reading here on occasion, but posting little.  Busy.  In any case, I'm not really looking to "expand my horizons" into RV's.  In fact, I'm trying to narrow my focus so I can be better and more profitable.  I'm out of the canvas business pretty much, focusing on upholstery.  I might do a very small canvas job here and there, but nothing big.  Just turned down a full cover for a 29 footer and full enclosure on a 42' Bertram flybridge.  It's hard to turn down work that comes my way, but I am learning to say "no - call someone else".  I have had a bad habit of trying to be all things to all people.  

June

[byhammerandhand]

Ha, as someone who spent a good deal of his life dealing with 360/370 assembler, I know that term.

my phone call log went into the bit bucket.  
June

[Mike]

good to see you June ,
doing too much can spread you too thin. did you ever get the
Baja wet yet?  its been awhile sence you were doing the upholstery in her

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

I'm another "one-man" shop though hubby does help answer the phones, lifts and totes heavy stuff, etc for me. 

I'm trying to be downstairs and productive by 8:30.  Usually break about 11:30 and go outside and weed flower bed for 30 minutes before lunch.  Hubby is cooking while I'm weeding.  After I get the kitchen clean, we go for a 30-45 minute walk and then I head back downstairs again.  I usually go back upstairs about 5:30.  We eat supper, I clean the kitchen up again, watch a show with our after dinner coffee and then I head downstairs for 30-45 minutes.

I've been working similar hours on Saturday and probably 4 hours on Sundays as I'm trying to catch up.  I had a wedding dress that needed alterations on a short time line.  I knew it was going to be good money so I accepted it.  Now, I'm trying to get caught up on everything that slid while I worked on it.  Also, discovered that I had to go online to order the zippers I needed for cushions.  That was why I could get by with doing the wedding dress.  I was in a holding pattern on 3 jobs waiting for zippers.  They came in yesterday so now all three of those jobs are "hot" as well as the six dining room chairs.

The owner of the DR chairs is a piece of work.  I told him 3 weeks before I could even start them.  Fortunately, I got started on one right before the wedding dress got moved up the food chain.  Any way, 2 weeks to the day, he called to see where I was at with his chairs.  I made an appointment to show him the first one.  The fabric has to be fussy cut as there is a floral pattern that has to be just so and he wanted to see the first chair before I went into mass production.  When I took that chair over to him, he was pleased with my work but wanted to make sure that there wouldn't be a long delay in receiving the other 5.  GRRRRR.   Not sure why I bother to give out time lines.    I knew it wouldn't help matters any to remind him of my earlier time frame and just smiled and told him that he had made it to the top of the food chain.  Will do three this week, while juggling some other jobs, and then finish up with the other two next week.  It's been a fun job other than that and I've gotten a lot of practice with welting.  I'd only done a bit with the repair  job on the JD back rest.  I feel pretty comfortable with welting now so it's all good.

Gotta go and keep the wolves at bay.

TTYL

Virg

[JuneC]

Ha, as someone who spent a good deal of his life dealing with 360/370 assembler, I know that term.

my phone call log went into the bit bucket.  
June

VM370 on a 3278 was the very first computer I ever touched.  ;-))  I used to do the docs for various mainframe apps in SCRIPT (VM/CMS) in my early years.  But then, I digress... BYTE8406

good to see you June ,
doing too much can spread you too thin. did you ever get the
Baja wet yet?  its been awhile sence you were doing the upholstery in her

Yeah, but it ain't over yet.  I still need to redo the McLeod seats.  I'm gonna need you guys' help in figuring out how to fix them up.  The lower portion of the seats are vacuum formed foam/vinyl that shrunk over the years, leaving gaps on the front edge.  I'll get pics in the next few days so you can see what I mean.  It's a fun boat, though.  She burns less fuel at 35 knots with twins than a 25 foot single I/O with gas.  Soon as it's done though, on the market she goes....

As for the hours (gotta get back on topic sometime).  I'm working always - at least it seems so.  No set hours.  When I get too tired I nap - it's less expensive.  I also frequently remind myself of how unproductive it is to punch holes in index fingers (as y'all know I tend to do) so tired just doesn't work.  And, if I wanted to keep set hours, I should have stayed at my corporate job where the benefits were good.

June

[Mojo]

June:

I was more worried that something may have happened to you ( health, accident, etc. ). Glad to hear your doing OK and that everything is fine. I will call of the Marine Corp recon patrol I sent out looking for you. :)

I am going to pass on the bus bar myself. I seen a couple and while they look nice and really save the paint on those big flat front ends I have lost all desire to drill dozens of holes into a 1/4 million dollar bus. Especially considering he just paid to have the front end re-painted. :)

The pattern and sewing would be a piece of cake since the nose on all these buses are flat but the mounting scares me. There were also a few whop-dee-do's around the mirror arms and bottom nose piece that had me wondering but I figured it would be a piece of cake for you with your experience with vinyl.

Glad to see your doing well. Amazing how we get older and start picking and choosing our jobs/orders carefully. I don't blame you for running from the canvas jobs. I dropped solar screens and patio awnings myself. :)

Chris

[Mike]

quote author=Mojo link=topic=12441.msg100421#msg100421 date=137052224

I am going to pass on the bus bar myself.

Chris

  is this what you been doing with yout bus at the rallys realy ?
Chris
[/quote]

[Mojo]

LOL

I meant bra........:)

Chris

[Mike]

bras and bars bolth things of interest

[Darren Henry]

And so often conveniently co-located for one stop shopping ...toolman grunt