Hey all, I work for my own firm now, solo, but have another 2 man crew, draftsman and office personnel (secretary and accountant). Going to down size in a few years to nothing but me. I get the field stuff, but what I don't have a grasp on is managing the office when in the field. How do you guys do it? I've seen where you can hire secretarial services, voice mail and call forwarding to your cell phone, but I see a potential for down time and lost productivity here. The same would go in the office too. Nothing is worse than being halfway through writing a legal description or checking a closure on a traverse and get a phone call. Plus I can easily see dealing with the billing being a damper on your production time too. Just trying to wrap my head around what my business will look like if I make this move. Any suggestions would be great!
You have to work your ass off until you either retire or realize its not worth it!
Done it twice...
I use a google voice number, which transcribes the voicemails and emails them to me. They come out a little messed up, but you can usually get the gist of what's up. While I partially hate the fact that everything is going to text/email communication rather than a phone call, I also like it in other ways. It would be impossible to work while walking around talking on the phone on the phone all day. The being able to glance down and see a quick message is easier. It will also help you prioritize and see if it is something that requires an immediate response. All of this still requires the "work your ass off" part though.
hlbennettpls, post: 323178, member: 10049 wrote: Hey all, I work for my own firm now, solo, but have another 2 man crew, draftsman and office personnel (secretary and accountant). Going to down size in a few years to nothing but me. I get the field stuff, but what I don't have a grasp on is managing the office when in the field. How do you guys do it? I've seen where you can hire secretarial services, voice mail and call forwarding to your cell phone, but I see a potential for down time and lost productivity here. The same would go in the office too. Nothing is worse than being halfway through writing a legal description or checking a closure on a traverse and get a phone call. Plus I can easily see dealing with the billing being a damper on your production time too. Just trying to wrap my head around what my business will look like if I make this move. Any suggestions would be great!
IPHONE. Let the phone calls goto voice mail when too busy to take them in that moment.
Formerly solo here.
- You have to set your fees based on a realistic estimate of how your billable/non-billable time will break down. I assumed I was going to have a 60% +/- utilization rate at best, so that left plenty of times for proposals, billing, marketing, client handholding, fishing, naps, etc..
- Think about what kind of clients and jobs you take on. If you're going to deal with four or five different Harry Homeowner clients a week doing small lot surveys for fences you're going to run yourself ragged with billing, phone calls, and estimates. If you can develop a few clients that feed you work in $5,000 chunks like ALTAs, boundary & topo for site design, support of excavation & adjacent structure monitoring (okay that's closer to $50,000 chunks around here) then your office management time per invoiced dollar becomes more reasonable. Freeing up more time for the aforementioned fishing and naps.
It's a tough balance. I have my office phone forwarded to my cell phone. I almost always answer it when it rings, unless it is a safety issue. You will be surprised how much work I get because I answer the phone when it rings. I get clients telling me all the time I called surveyor X and surveyor Y, and they never called me back.
I work on average 12 hours a day. It's tough ot find that balance, but I enjoy it for the most part. I make my own schedule, and if I don't want a job, I don't take it. (I don't take jobs along busy interstates, super rough terrain, bad parts of town, or in swamps, etc.) The office part is the slow down for me. The drafting I generally do in the evenings in the house in my recliner on the laptop. The billing, I try to do that once a week.
You just have to find out what works best for you.
James Fleming, post: 323194, member: 136 wrote: Formerly solo here.
- You have to set your fees based on a realistic estimate of how your billable/non-billable time will break down. I assumed I was going to have a 60% +/- utilization rate at best, so that left plenty of times for proposals, billing, marketing, client handholding, fishing, naps, etc..
- Think about what kind of clients and jobs you take on. If you're going to deal with four or five different Harry Homeowner clients a week doing small lot surveys for fences you're going to run yourself ragged with billing, phone calls, and estimates. If you can develop a few clients that feed you work in $5,000 chunks like ALTAs, boundary & topo for site design, support of excavation & adjacent structure monitoring (okay that's closer to $50,000 chunks around here) then your office management time per invoiced dollar becomes more reasonable. Freeing up more time for the aforementioned fishing and naps.
naps, yes.
Brad Ott, post: 323187, member: 197 wrote: IPHONE. Let the phone calls goto voice mail when too busy to take them in that moment.
Exactly. That is what voice mail is for. If you are not immediately available, sure you might miss out on a possible project.
Sounds like you have a good client base already. When you go fully solo, just let them know that their call is important, but you do not want to make a mistake. So sometimes, you will not be able to take their calls when they come in.
I have no problem putting the phone on silent and letting all calls go to voice mail. If I have 20 calls from a potential client in as many minutes - that is a heads up as to how that client will be to work with.
Jon, I never looked at it that way (about the number of calls). That's interesting and SO TRUE!
(another) Thanks to all on this board for continually sharing your wisdom, knowledge and personal/ business experience.
for me:
voicemail, emails, text (similar to earlier posters). Although my smartphone generates a Pavlovian response, I do my best to let it sit if I'm truly cranking on a job (field OR cad). What I've largely found, the clients that go for my services (small, 1-man) understand that it's just me. They know I understand the processes involved in this work (planning boards, submittal deadlines, plat content, whatever) and I'll get back to them.
Probably the same skills that led you to your current success will naturally guide you when solo. You know where your jobs are 'at' and when that client 'needs' to talk to you.
Aside from billing (for some reason sending the bill is pretty easy) the business ledger is a constant challenge. There is always a different facet of my work (field, cad, phone-log, nose-hairs) that is more critical when it's time to do the ledger. For me, I have to take/ make a 1/2 day every week (or two) and log all receipts, track invoices and keep the beast updated. I use an accountant for quarterly taxes and, if I don't, quarter deadlines are a PITA!
Strong lesson to me in my first couple of years: have a good, easy to read ledger (spreadsheet) and keep it up to date. A lot of business insight from that document.
Good luck with it.
hlbennettpls, post: 323178, member: 10049 wrote: Hey all, I work for my own firm now, solo, but have another 2 man crew, draftsman and office personnel (secretary and accountant). Going to down size in a few years to nothing but me. I get the field stuff, but what I don't have a grasp on is managing the office when in the field. How do you guys do it? I've seen where you can hire secretarial services, voice mail and call forwarding to your cell phone, but I see a potential for down time and lost productivity here. The same would go in the office too. Nothing is worse than being halfway through writing a legal description or checking a closure on a traverse and get a phone call. Plus I can easily see dealing with the billing being a damper on your production time too. Just trying to wrap my head around what my business will look like if I make this move. Any suggestions would be great!
its called an answering machine when in the field and a answering machine with caller ID/mute button while in the office. Has worked very well for 15 years now.
Jim
some good advice here for sure. When you start, set up a service to take credit cards. You lose a bit on the total, but you will MORE than make up for it by not haviing to 1) wait 30-60-90 days to get paid 2) not having to track down slow payers 3) Not having to monitor, print and mail out invoices.
It also helps to weed out price shoppers. If a potential client wants to get on my schedule, we need CC data or a deposit check in the mail. I don't generally run the CC until the work is ready to be picked up. (make that very clear to the client) If it's a fairly big job in $$ or TIME, I will tell them that I will run half of the total as their deposit.
Andy J, post: 326179, member: 44 wrote: When you start, set up a service to take credit cards.
This might make sense if your client base mostly comprises individuals, but credit cards are irrelevant to most commercial, institutional and government clients. In 22 years on my own, I've been asked about credit cards twice. I directed those clients to PayPal, which worked for both of us.
Jim Frame, post: 326203, member: 10 wrote: This might make sense if your client base mostly comprises individuals, but credit cards are irrelevant to most commercial, institutional and government clients. In 22 years on my own, I've been asked about credit cards twice. I directed those clients to PayPal, which worked for both of us.
Sure, but I would guess that most solo surveyors focus on smaller markets and clients. OP didn't say what kind of work he was going to focus on.
It would be both, so having a CC service wouldn't hurt, but then again neither would PayPal.