If they pay well and pay fast, I'd lean towards courting them then. Sounds like you know what you're doing and understand what I'm saying about diversification from your degree of business from HKU (Hard Knocks University).
The big boys, who pay the invoices, no questions asked, get preferential treatment. i.e. people get bumped.
However, my big O&G clients understand what we do and a day to ramp up and prep or two is okay with them. 10 days would be a bit much. Something has to suffer and, for us, it's simple economics. If I am going to get 100k, or more, of gross receipts from one client, why would I risk that over a $500 lot job or 2k boundary?
It gets REALLY interesting when you work for multiple big boys, and they all crank off at once. Each one wants preferential treatment. For us, each one gets it too, but man oh man, we are tired.
The way we beat the animal many times, is set up the crews coming in staggered. This keeps the office from being overloaded and bottle necked.
I try to treat everybody equal. It is hard to do so.
I have done the $3k survey and never got paid.
I have done the $300 survey and got paid right away.
I don't. My MSA's basically say I don't.
> In my experience, your personal relationship with the Project Manager and the Superintendent will determine how well things go (from change orders, to reasonable scheduling, to timely payment).
Completely agree.
Get personable with them, get to know how they operate. If they become your 'colleagues' and they understand what YOU need in terms of lead time etc it will be better all round.
They need to understand that you will do your absolute best to assist, but that you cant always just drop everything and jump at a moment's notice.
Remind them of the Four P's of project management - Proper Planning Prevents Problems
I would not hesitate to drop them if their expectations continue to be both unrealistic and unreasonable. And you should run, not walk, away if payments ever become a problem.
As being the owner of a company this deals almost 90% strictly with Fortune 500 clients (mainly 1-4 of the 2013 list) my advice is that 10 days is way too long and they will find someone else, its not just a threat.
I can tell you that most of our clients expect next day service if we aren't already working on one of their projects. It's just the way it works.
> As being the owner of a company this deals almost 90% strictly with Fortune 500 clients (mainly 1-4 of the 2013 list) my advice is that 10 days is way too long and they will find someone else, its not just a threat.
>
> I can tell you that most of our clients expect next day service if we aren't already working on one of their projects. It's just the way it works.
Dang - I hate to hear that. It would be one thing if we just were doing local work for them on a regular basis but these are special projects hundreds of miles from here. The previous one they planned out for weeks and scheduled a date. When we finished it they told us it would be 45 days until we did the next one. 10 days later they are like be here now.
I can deal with short fuses if I know that is the way it is going to be but this caught us off guard.
> The big boys, who pay the invoices, no questions asked, get preferential treatment. i.e. people get bumped.
>
> However, my big O&G clients understand what we do and a day to ramp up and prep or two is okay with them. 10 days would be a bit much. Something has to suffer and, for us, it's simple economics. If I am going to get 100k, or more, of gross receipts from one client, why would I risk that over a $500 lot job or 2k boundary?
>
> It gets REALLY interesting when you work for multiple big boys, and they all crank off at once. Each one wants preferential treatment. For us, each one gets it too, but man oh man, we are tired.
>
> The way we beat the animal many times, is set up the crews coming in staggered. This keeps the office from being overloaded and bottle necked.
:good: :good: :good:
Dang - I hate to hear that. It would be one thing if we just were doing local work for them on a regular basis but these are special projects hundreds of miles from here.
One called me Friday before the super bowl (needed a site staked by Monday), my party chief had worked long hours that week so I agreed to go do the staking myself and was out there on super bowl Sunday, 220 miles from the office, staked the site drove back as Seattle was kicking Denver around the first half. Just the way it is:-)
I usually find the super bowl unwatchable anyway so I really didn't care all that much, I can tell you this however, there were LOTS of people working that day in the oil patch.
For a client that has several days worth of work, and especially one that has a high likelihood of being a repeat client, I would go with a 48 hour notice policy, regardless of whatever else is on your schedule.
Putting them off 10 days allows you to keep a nice steady flow of the work you have, but it understandably seems excessive to a client for whom you are already under contract. Two days is reasonable pretty much whichever way you look at it.
If you have that volume of work, it is up to you to provide service in a reasonably timely manner to all your clients. You had originally planned on much of the work, so placing it back into your near term schedule should not be an unreasonable burden. You may not complete all of the work any earlier than if you didn't start it for 10 days, but as long as your clients see you working on their project, it will usually satisfy them that progress is being made and will consider you to be responsive, whereas if you put them off, they get antsy and see you as unresponsive and uncooperative.
This difference in perception, regardless of whether starting now or later will change the completion date, could be the difference between them regularly sending work your way or dumping you at the first opportunity in favor of trying someone else.
Matt,
You are right. For many big corporations 10 days (depending on the job) is too long. Without an existing relationship, an expectation for next day service is extreme in my opinion though.