VitaVygovska

hi Lisa,
thank you for your KPI’s. good job.
a few suggestions:
1. if you are closing 100% of your sales, consider increasing your pricing
2. any time a business services two different client groups (ie. design trade and consumer), it’s very challenging. you will continue to feel torn. i did. at one point, i had to draw a line in a sand and turn away one of those client groups. it was hard to say no to business in the short run, but very rewarding in the long run

thank you for sharing about your borrowing money. That’s very brave!!!!! good for you. i KNOW you will see a return on your investment.
LOVE that you are working on your COA! Money loves count – COA IS part of that counting process, making sure that you take good care of your money.

xoxo,
v.

PS. i’ll upload my COA

Amy,
i am SO sorry to hear that your design consultant gave notice.
i KNOW how it feels!
nothing you can do, but take it in stride and start looking for someone else.
having people to do your work is great…. until they quit 🙁
hang in there!!!
xoxo,
v.

hi Amy M. and Amy B.,
you guys are rock stars!!!
you are tracking so many KPI’s – that’s really great.

do you guys track YOUR OWN time – what do you spend it on? Where are your time sucks?

about tracking time in QBO for payroll – that’s a really great idea. It’s something I have not done – omg, always room for improvement! i use gusto for our payro

hi Elizabeth,
i LOVE your idea!!!!!
much better than mine of writing things down.
Lisa, yes, do that 🙂

btw, IF you ever decided to transcribe, do NOT do it yourself. Go on elance.com type site and hire someone to do it.
xoxo,
v.

hi Lisa,
so sorry for the delay. There are no notifications of a new message, unless that check-box is checked.
i’ve just gone into every week and checked it, so that i don’t miss any new messages.

to answer your questions:

1. when to create a standard SOP. it can go either way: before you hire someone or after you hire them. if I were you, i would find the person first. once she (or he) is on board, AS you explain how you fabricate the roman shade, have her write down every step.

2. how to create an SOP for a custom product. Refer back to my favorite 80/20 rule. i guarantee that most of the time you fabricate a treatment a certain way. That’s the way you write down. This is The Lisa Brock way. For the other 20% (or whatever minority), next time a variation comes in, you write it down and save it as The Lisa Brock Way – variation #1. Preferably spell out what the variation is. For example. Roman Shade fabrication process is your staple. Roman Shade with Blackout Lining – is your variation #1. Roman Shade with interlining – is your variation #2.

3. Balance of working IN the business vs. ON the business. When i started putting together my SOP doc (this was during my ruminating stage, if you refer to 1st module), every early Friday morning (like 7am), i went to a local Dunkin Donuts and sat there for three hours working on it. I blocked my calendar and didn’t let anything steer me off course – no persistent customer, no networking event, no ‘i don’t feel like it’, no installation crisis, no needy kid :-). I only picked up the phone if it was my kid’s school. i was vigilant with my time and ruthless with interruptions.

i can tell you whole lot more – too much to type.

This is when it would be great to hear from everyone else in the class.
guys, how are you dealing the balance of IN vs. ON?

hi Lisa,
i hear you about the leadtimes.
they can be frustrating.
we tell our clients upfront what to expect.
we try to pad.
with designers, stay strong! stick to what will protect you.
it’s always better to underpromise.
designers, more than anyone, should understand the leadtimes.
they sometimes wait for their stuff 9-12months!!!
stick to your guns!!!
xo, v

Hi Suzy,
thank you for your patience as i was trying to verify some info with Amber.

it’s been a couple of years since i tried to do the PMS in click-up, so i’m going by my best memory.
i seem to remember that one of the reasons we couldn’t go with it is b/c it couldn’t do the drop-down menu within each component.
so for example: for component hardware – we have several task options (place order, confirm order, receive order, etc). Then we had a status for each task (open or complete). Click up couldn’t provide that level of intuitive granular breakdown.

Amber remembers it a bit differently. She remembers that all of the functionality could have been replicated, but only with customization.
and since i already spent time and money on customizing AT, it didn’t make sense to scrap it and start doing the same work in Click up.

i guess bottom line is: anything is possible. Click-up is probably just as good as any other software out there. Everything needs customization to fit our industry and your process flows. it’s just picking one, doing the customization work, and sticking with it.

hope it helps!
Which platform are you leaning towards?
v.