Mainly asking those of you who are either working solo or with a very limited staff. How are you managing client expectations and keeping a steady backlog as a one man or small shop? I realize my scenario is slightly different than most doing this, as I started out just a couple years ago and went full time roughly 15months ago. Many clients and potential clients know I'm capable, but almost every one of them who has called me in the past couple months is doing so because their mainstay surveying or civil engineering firm can't keep up. Which is good for me but I'm starting to slowly build a back log myself.
At this point, I'm putting projects on several white boards around me in the home office - engineering projects on one white board & surveying on another. I'll log the project name & client, project needs, date called and roughly when they need something started by. Of course, everybody says "I needed this yesterday" but we all know how that goes and many don't want to pay that price (I will let those go too). I typically can deliver something within anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks once I get started, depending on the project type and needs. But I have a few questions for those of you who do it solo:
- Do you set aside hours only for work? My phone and emails go nonstop from 7am until around 7pm most days. This hurts production but you have to find a way to solidify business too. How best do you all manage this?
- Scheduling & Organization - how are you all registering incoming projects/work and tracking critical points or deadlines for each to either get started on the work or deliverables or notifying clients of potential delays, whether external like review agencies or internal setbacks such as equipment in the shop, IT issues, employee is off or sick days? None of us are immune from these issues so how best to deal with them?
- How do you prioritize your projects, especially from a cash flow perspective? Some may have significant invoices and the clients usually pay in a timely fashion. But they may take several weeks to finish. Do you dedicate 100% of time to that just to finish while others wait or try to tackle a little bit of each all at once, which may not result in invoicing for a while then a bunch hits at once? Do you handle them chronologically as they come in or re-prioritize for certain projects which might be "low-hanging fruit" for a quick turnaround/payment? Recently I've been trying to dedicate 100% focus to finishing whatever I'm on while building up the backlog for when I wrap that up.
- What is a safe backlog? 3-4 months of work? I know this varies upon the business size and cashflow needs but what's realistic? Are customers really going to be there still after waiting several months? Some just seem too impatient to be honest and throwing a random proposal together without some research into the project or a site visit just seems foolish.
- How do you convey hold ups to a client's schedule when they've teamed you up with another service provider, and that person lets you know they're not ready to do their part? Especially if you have to work with that individual on multiple things and yet the client is under the impression your part is the next to be done but that 3rd party isn't sharing with the client that they're the delay?