Busy Couple Weeks

[Tim Bateson]

The last few weeks I've been swamped with sign plate orders, unfortunately they are all small orders.
My hat is off to those who have been doing this for years. Some days I don't know which end is up. Between my day-job, 2 hours commuting, satisfying customers who change their minds endlessly, ordering stock, re-ordering stock, designing, re-designing, setup, cleanup, billing, mailing, trying to keep from mixing up the orders, etc..:eek:..... :rolleyes: I'm just grateful I have this extra income doing something I'm really enjoying.:cool:

[Joe Pelonio]

As you figured out, a few big orders is a lot easier than many small ones. Take what you can get these days, though, nice to be busy.

[Mike Null]

Just be sure you have a minimum price that you are happy with.

[Tim Bateson]

That "Busy Couple Weeks" has spilled over to the summer. Still doing Name Plates, but have been in overdrive with Trophies. This is a part of the business I didn't want anything to do with. Last month, as a favor to a good client I made a few, then a few more, then a few more.. Now I hire help a couple days a week to met the weekly Tournament demands (raised my prices by $.50 each to offset that expense).
I was worried about having such a variety of stock. Here is how I resolved that issue: I only offered ONE trophy design. Several hundred trophies later, I'm now offering a 2nd design. This may not work for everyone, but it's keeping me really busy.

[Terry Swift]

Tim - understand your dilema. Although I'm semi-retired and trying to get my engraving business going - small orders is what comes along. I had an order from hell that took 3 months to complete. I was not real happy and the customer in the end was not happy with everything concerned (even what others did on project too) as too many hands got involved and issues happened.

Stock and individual items are a concern; but I usually only try to order what will fill an order plus a gap (oops). If one customer orders one kind of trophy / award - I may have a sample left over - but no excess stock and expense. You did good by adding an increase and maybe helping someone earn a little extra on the side too. Sometimes subbing works best if you can get a profit out of it and everything "works" as it should.

I'm trying to get into my school systems here; but bidding is required to even get your foot in the door and it's still kind of "old boy" networking going on too. Can't get on preferred list until you have won a bid, can't win a bid unless you watch every single day for news. etc.

Like Joe, you, and others who work full-time, do engraving projects all the time - spend time here on the Creek to help us newcomers - you're time management seems to be working well.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I think you'd have a stroke in our shop. I think what would shock you the most is our figure inventory. We have 100 different figures in stock which each figure having probably 10+ pcs. In major sports we probably stock 500-1500. The insanity of it all is we pickup daily from Marco, PDU, and/or JDS so we can get whatever we need within 24 hours....The second most shocking would be the call on Monday saying they need trophies for Friday and not getting the final numbers or names until Thursday.

[Tim Bateson]

A lot of that does apply. I work a day job and try to manage that Monday order with Tuesday changes and assembly on Thursday & Friday nights.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

My hats off to people who make trophies one of their top products. I did trophies for one person 3 yrs in a row (about 200 trophies per yr). That was enough for me. Wayyyy too time consuming, esp cutting the columns & having to vacuum up the crumbs left behind. It's best if you have preassembled trophies but this particular customer wanted ones with marble bases & a specific column. So glad I'm not doing those now. It's good to hear that you are busy now Tim.