Would love to hear you do an entire video on mixing friends with business and your tips/advice. I come from running my own auto repair shop, and I not only have friends asking me for help on their car repairs, but also employees who want to use the shop to work on their cars after hours. I've said to friends the shop rate is the same for everyone and I've had to tell employees that the shop is only for making the business money and not for personal projects. Personal projects can be done at home own time. Tough, but had to be that way.
If I lived closer and say send me those one off neighbor jobs. I have a much less expensive set of machines that work fine, but because there is virtually no overhead in them, I actually enjoy the msall jobs. Also, I am using my old machines as a launch pad so the small jobs make it easier to better ones self with.
Friends i find are the biggest drain of your time in business. Prior to the shop i have know, I had a shop years ago that i sold to a good customer in the end. Friday afternoons were the worse, friends finish work early want to drop by. In the end i had to tell them Saturday late morning early afternoon was ok. That dropped the numbers down. The other ones are the half price friends that want stuff made or repaired for half of what it was worth ?????? Ended that, by charging full price still got some work, but not the jobs i did not want. At the point when i had enough and started charging for everything, the first jobs i did were the best, the look on there faces when i told them the price. ( most were the Friday / Saturday friends so i killed two birds with one stone they stopped dropping by on there way home also ) I like to be helpful to anyone but when people start to sponge off you things need to change.
Would love to hear you do an entire video on mixing friends with business and your tips/advice. I come from running my own auto repair shop, and I not only have friends asking me for help on their car repairs, but also employees who want to use the shop to work on their cars after hours. I've said to friends the shop rate is the same for everyone and I've had to tell employees that the shop is only for making the business money and not for personal projects. Personal projects can be done at home own time. Tough, but had to be that way.
If I lived closer and say send me those one off neighbor jobs. I have a much less expensive set of machines that work fine, but because there is virtually no overhead in them, I actually enjoy the msall jobs. Also, I am using my old machines as a launch pad so the small jobs make it easier to better ones self with.
Friends i find are the biggest drain of your time in business.
Prior to the shop i have know, I had a shop years ago that i sold to a good customer in the end.
Friday afternoons were the worse, friends finish work early want to drop by.
In the end i had to tell them Saturday late morning early afternoon was ok.
That dropped the numbers down.
The other ones are the half price friends that want stuff made or repaired for half of what it was worth ??????
Ended that, by charging full price still got some work, but not the jobs i did not want.
At the point when i had enough and started charging for everything, the first jobs i did were the best, the look on there faces when i told them the price.
( most were the Friday / Saturday friends so i killed two birds with one stone they stopped dropping by on there way home also )
I like to be helpful to anyone but when people start to sponge off you things need to change.
As a good friend told me... in machining once you have seen something a certain way it is very hard to unsee it.
I have that problem all the time.
The golden goose drill chuck is call a Albrecht. Trust me on this. Flat out the best drill chuck on the planet.
Good advice Ian.
Steve
great video mate. Useful info when starting a machine shop like I do.
perfectly said. had the same problem with personal machining(people)
I need to show my boss / dad this video. He is the ultimate people pleaser and it destroys our productivity and his own well being.
Well said
Amen