How I Rid My Desk of Paper Mountains

I am a note taker, heartbreaker, dream maker.....you know the rest.

I scribble everything on whatever I can find. Fabrication orders, notes, thoughts, you name it for work and life. The office at the fabrication shop littered with scraps of paper listed with measurements, stuffed in folders or drawers for reference and invoicing ect. I would have notes from previous months just stacked up for no reason.

The whole disorganized situation and process became a metaphor for my brain in general. I needed something to get rid of the clutter and still keep me on task. My file system was stupid and broken.

Then I downloaded Evernote.

Wow! What a product and I am now kicking myself for not heeding the warning of others I had read or heard about who praised the service months before. Paper? What paper?

My desk and mind have been transformed into a cornucopia of organization. I can transfer from email, my iPad notebook app, take pictures of paper notes and drawings. Yes I still take good old fashion notes, difference being I immediately recycle the paper after. Nothing is stored in a folder, cluttering a cabinet.

The bottom line being, Evernote has made my daily life simpler in regards to organizing and getting things done at the fabrication shop. Errands are easier to remember and get done. Believe me, I have tried many calenders, task apps, the whole lot of them are mostly terrible. Evernote and a Chrome app I use, Workflowy, are the creme de la creme and have helped me get and stay organized.

Then today I read an interesting little tid bit. Evernote has made a deal with 3m company's Post-it note where you can take a picture of your post-its and Evernote's software can recognize and organize your sticky notes. No more sea of Post-it notes littering your desk and office.

From Wall Street Journal Digits Blog

Evernote’s software will be able to recognize the sticky notes’ distinctive colors and help organize them within the app. In other words, Evernote’s 75 million users may soon say goodbye to the legions of Post-its hanging from bathroom mirrors, car dashboards and computer screens in favor of thumbnail photos of their scribbling.

3M says the app partnership is a natural evolution for people who prefer to jot things down — but are looking for more efficient ways to organize all those ideas. “Paper really is still the easiest way to write a thought down and remember it,” said Jesse Singh, vice president of 3M’s stationery and office supplies division. “This partnership seemed an obvious choice for us for the brand.”

I had read Evernote and Moleskine notebooks had struck a deal as well, which I use and love, with this same technology. I have not yet tried either the Moleskine or the Post-its, but it won't be long until I do.

If you're a note taker like me, run a small business where jotting things down is a must, then Evernote will be your best friend.

I love when technology and the real world make nice and come up with great and innovative things. People will always take notes with paper and pen. Evernote just helps to organize those musings in a simple and easy to use web based service.

I'm Not a Yankee Fan, but....

I know class when I see it and Mariano Rivera personifies everything about what it means to be a class act. Whether in life, business or sports, striving to be the best is what we should all aspire towards.

Finding The Time...

Once again I have neglected the company blog for an extended period of time. Not because of laziness, but more in finding the time to give proper attention to the written word. As the work day progresses, time fades away, before you know it exhaustion takes over and the last thing I want to do is type out something interesting and insightful.

These are of course excuses. I should be finding the time to get something down each and every day, whether it makes it to the blog or not. Something is changing with the company on a daily basis, so finding items to write about should not be something so difficult to find. 

The problem for me seems to be finding the best time to actually do the writing, not so much the content. I'm up at 5am to get ready so I can be at the shop by 7am to get the day going. As much as I would love to write in the morning, my body just hates those before dawn hours and my mind is usually flooded with what needs to be done at the fabrication shop.

Not the best recipe for quality writing. 

So you would think during the day or in the evening would be perfect. Unfortunately, the strain of the day keeps me away from the keys and all I want to do is relax. 

However, I do like writing the blog and will continue searching out the best time for writing and getting my thoughts down. Especially since the company is and will be changing for the better over the next few years.

As with anything in a small business, finding the time to do anything can be a challenge. All of us know there is only one way to run a successful company and that is to work your butt off day in and day out.

So I guess finding the time to blog will just have to go on my goals sheet as something I want to accomplish from week to week. I'm just gonna have to find the time.

Know The Tendencies of Your Customers

Many of our customers have done business with us for years and we appreciate every order they place here at the shop. Part of the reason they come back, besides stellar work, is the fact that I do my best to learn the tendencies and little idiosyncrasies of each. This does not mean I am at everybody's beck and call 24/7, but I do make an effort to give each and every customer the best service possible. 

Everyone is different, so doing the little things is a big part of why we keep clients coming back year after year. Obviously, it's difficult to learn the tendencies of newer customers, so I would have to say this is more of a retaining tactic than anything.  

Here are a few things I do to learn the tendencies of my customers.

Learning Their Ordering Style

All of our customers have learned the fabrication trade in all kinds of places, from all kinds of people. Some have been unionized, others have taught themselves and many have learned from installers on the job. This means we all posses a varied language when it comes to ordering custom sheet metal fittings. Naturally, I do my best to get them on my page, but with change comes complication, so keeping with their dialect can make things go a bit easier.

Learning different styles of how people see things in their mind has helped me become a better fabricator in the end, along with keeping a good diary of notes for each customer with specific needs. All of these things help to make sure orders are correct because mistakes slow up the job and ultimately lose the shop money.

When They Like to Pick Up Finished Orders

We don't deliver here at the shop so our customers are forced to pick their orders up and all of them work their day differently.  Some like to grab things early in the morning, some late in the day. In order to keep up good relations I will leave an order outside the door for someone who may arrive before I get in for the day or after I have left. This keeps from forcing people to live on my schedule, especially the clients we have good standing accounts with. Leaving an order out would not be something I'd do for a newer customer unless they paid me first.

My father and I have done this for years and it has been helpful to many of our clients over that time. We do a lot of work for HVAC service techs whose schedule is all over the place so providing this service can help to bring future good will and business.

Specific Customization to Customer Orders

We aren't a custom sheet metal shop for nothing. The main goal of our shop is to give each customer the quality, custom work they need to get the job done right. However, there are many small things needed for each and every customer who comes through the door. Some may like a 1/2" flange on their plenums and others may not. Different kinds of connections for different kinds of trunk duct and fittings is something we try to provide for everyone. We aren't a standardized fabrication shop so making sure you know what the customer wants is key to making sure they come back in the future.  

Learning the different tendencies of each customer may seem daunting at first but will payoff in the end. You want to give everyone the best experience possible whether your running a fancy boutique or a sheet metal fabrication shop like us.

Your product should speak for itself, but it doesn't hurt to make sure the person buying that product feels special as well.

Business or Personal?

I have a couple blogs, one for myself (which I have not updated in a while) and the one you are currently reading.

Why?

When I originally set up the accounts I felt separation was warranted because why would I want people on the business side having to deal with anything from my personal life and vice versa. Plus, keeping personal and business life separate seems logical.

However, after looking at my accounts recently I realized that except for a few profanity ridden tirades in regards to my favorite sporting franchises, the majority of my comments pertain to business or something in the ballpark, minus some personal friend tweets. Then I thought, my life is this business, it's all I think about or do on a daily basis. I'm the K for goodness sake, so shouldn't this blog reflect what the K does day in and day out regarding business and how it affects myself or the family? I feel like I try to do just that, but maybe it's not interesting enough for a casual reader.

So should I consolidate everything onto this site? Make an effort to bring more personality of my own to the blog instead of trying to keep it as PC as possible? Do people only want to know about your business when they come to your company blog or are they looking for something real, warts and all? As a reader, I feel like as long as what I'm reading is interesting it doesn't really matter. Obviously the core of this blog is what goes on in and around our family business, the HVAC metal industry and our customers. But as humans, there is more to me and us as a family.

Yes, I am the only one who actually writes the blog, but does that mean I should only post things having to do with business, personal views and the metal industry or can I throw a little flavor in now and then? The goal is to find readers and ultimately customers who we retain as a growing business. And yes, ultimately I am going to post what I want, but asking the masses is always an option, which I choose to enact in this case.

So what do you think? Should I only post business related topics or should I open the borders up a bit?

Leave your answers in the comments section. Thanks for your help!

Should We Start Accepting Bitcoin?

No, not yet anyway. But does the future hold a serious amount of business being done via Bitcoin? I'm no expert in the ways of Bitcoin by any means and I don't own any that I know of. However, as the internet and online business continue to grow you would have to assume something like Bitcoin is here to stay. Start-ups like Coinbase and others are gaining traction from the venture capital community as we speak.

Let's be honest, most of money is just numbers on a screen anyway. The tangible form of currency has been changing for centuries. Money used to be cattle or physical wheat, then coins and bills, now a transaction with a plastic card or your mobile phone. How much cash do you really deal with on a daily basis anyway? Bitcoin doesn't sound so crazy when you really think about it.

My father and I run a very local small business so cash does change hands much of the time. However, the amount of credit cards or PayPal transactions has increased over the last few years and we deal with a lot of internet challenged customers. The amount of young people who do everything on the web are increasing and they will soon be your customer base.

Accepting Bitcoin might not be a near future method of transaction but I wouldn't discount the way things are trending. 

When The Business Tells You Help is Needed

Finally a minute to reflect after a dizzying few weeks of fabrication.

The company is busy, I am happy and the goal still remains to bust ass into the future. However, when things are crazy and your spinning like a drugged hippie at a Phish concert, you realize help may be needed to keep this torrid pace going forward. Our new technology has been fabulous, cutting fabrication time in half, but sometimes a few warm bodies around to pick up the slack is what you need to get the job done in necessary time. This is the place we find ourselves as a company and it is scary.

The easy part. Recognizing you have a problem.

Now the hard part.

We have been a two man operation for over 20 years, only hiring temp workers here and there. Having a staff of any kind is completely foreign to my father and I, leaving us with many questions moving forward and a tight feeling in our guts. More people means more money, leadership etc.

Payroll tax, health benefits, the interview process, you name it, we need to prepare for it. Figuring out our best path is still something we are mulling over and have been for weeks now. The process will be daunting and scary but I feel like the family is up for the challenge. 

Honestly, we have to be. We need the help if we are going to grow this business past what it has been for the last 20 years and that is something I am striving for. 

Personally, I am not the type to jump into unknown waters, preferring to learn a few things about what may be lurking. I need some data. However, the process will be quickened if the amount of work coming through the doors continues through the rest of the summer and fall. I fully expect it will, so time is of the essence. 

BTW, these are good problems to have as a company in my opinion and they are a far cry from the problems we contended with a few short years ago.